The lights are on, as they should be. The halls are empty, as they so often were. A skeleton crew kept the Princess’s Palace running, all the better to keep her safe. But now there is no one. No one except for her and the monster.

She scrambles down the slick stairs, and behind her is the sound of tearing paintings, shattering vases, overturning statues. She doesn’t turn around, but she still knows what’s underneath everything that the Nemean destroys: fur, matted and bloody, shuddering with each breath. The whole edifice, rotting, built on top of [i]her.[/i]

Outside the windows, there’s a storm wracking Tellus, ELF flashes tearing through the bloody clouds, and beyond them all, a hand vast enough to kill a planet. Like that’s special. Poseidon could do worse than that with one of his cast-offs, and—

She turns a corner and stumbles into the clothes, which stick patchwork to her, burning on her skin like lashes: white silk gloves, sensible mary janes, a stained apron. Behind her, the bull-roar of the advancing fury, here to show her what’s down in the basement, a sight that will kill her and leave only the killer. With a desperate cry, she throws herself through a door, locks it behind her, feels it wince beneath her hands.

Then the strength leaves her and she crumples to the ground with a cry. It’s over. She’s failed. She failed Mynx. She failed Dolce and Vasilia and Alexa. And she failed—

“Bella!”

She doesn’t expect the hug. The heartbeat, so strong through the oversized nightshirt. The bubbly giggle. The arms, already strong, holding her so close that all she can do is cling in her misery. The smell of the perfume Mommy gave her for her birthday. Small hands doing their very best to be gentle and kind, stroking her hair, fingers sending streams of cool water down her throbbing spine.

“Did you have a bad dream again?” Redana asks. Her eyes are emeralds in the dark, where the stormlight catches them. “Come on. No bad dreams are allowed in Fort Hypnos!”

“I can’t,” she croaks. “I deserve this.”

“No, silly,” Redana says, and she meant it. She really meant it. “Nobody deserves bad dreams, [i]especially[/i] not my best friend.” Redana reaches out and taps the bell, which rings once, and it makes her breathing slow and the pain go mute for a moment, listening to the sound. “I’ll always be here for you, I [i]promise.[/i]”

The door splinters apart. The Nemean pulls Redana out of her arms and shakes the princess until she goes limp, then tosses her aside, and it’s just the two of them left. A window shatters, and the sound of battle exultant roars outside. And the Nemean reaches for her, to bring her to the rotten heart, and there to consume her, heart and hope and soul—

[i]Don’t touch my daughter.[/i]

The eye opens, and then opens again.

Bella, fallen while playing tag in the cramped garden, stocking rolled down from her bloodied knee, and her Dany getting all fluttery inside when she kisses it better.

Bella, her eyes wide, barely maintaining her composure when she sees Princess Redana step out in her Hymn To Nike dress, the laurel wreath and the slit thigh.

Bella, drooling, asleep with her head on Dany’s shoulder, and Dany holding as still as she can so that she doesn’t wake her up, her face warm as she feels Bella’s weight slumped against her, embroidery forgotten in their laps.

Redana, practicing her speech as she modulates her clothes into the outfit of a daring space heroine: [i]We’ll go see the stars. The stars, Bella![/i]

Redana, laughing, without cruelty, just joy, as she scoops Cutie Princess Bellaphonika up in her arms, juggling her and her wooden sword as she kisses her warm cheek and feels her heart explode with the happiness of being the hero.

The hero takes the Nemean by the wrist and turns, and she draws the wand as she does, and with a flick of her wrist it is a could-have-been sword.

When she runs it through the Nemean’s heart, it becomes real, her blood dripping down the serpent-damascened blade, red on gold. The Nemean leans heavy on her, knees buckling, and with her own weight pushes herself onto the sword, down to the serpents wrapped about the hilt.

“I will never leave you,” the Nemean says, hands on the hero’s throat, slippery with gore. “Never. You can’t kill me. Weak, decadent, useless—“

“[i]I dreamed you were a shepherdess, and I a forest nymph,[/i]” the hero sings, and the fingers tighten on her throat. The weight of the Nemean is incredible. She crumples to one knee, both hands on the hilt. “[i]I dreamed myself a jeweler, and you my model dear. I dreamed… you were… a sailor…[/i]”

The Nemean’s threats become slurred, even as the lullaby falters. Lights dance in the back of the hero’s skull, but her eye won’t let her pass out, showing her everything: the ooze of thick blood down her wand’s blade, the sprays of blood raining down onto Tellus as Bella fights an army, the crumpled body of Princess Redana Claudius and all her innocence, the aplopexy of Dionysus’s daughter.

Then they crumple to the floor together.

But it’s not the Nemean who gets back up.

The Shepherdess scoops Redana off the floor and shushes her when she stirs. “It’s all right,” she says, and kisses Redana on the forehead. The princess smiles and nuzzles closer. “There’s nothing here you can’t defeat, dear heart. We’ve got so much to do tomorrow, but for now, sleep, dream. Then wake, act justly, love. When you’re ready to be me again— oh! How beautiful it’s going to be!”

She tucks the princess in. Redana snuggles up close to the snoring kitty and is out like a light before you can count to three.

And the Shepherdess, already fading like dreams under dawnlight, steps over the rotten mass of nihilistic violence bubbling on the carpet so she can watch her Bella fighting again in the skies of Tellus.

“[i]I dreamed of us both, together and free.[/i]”