[b]Alexa![/b]

"Oh, Alexa," said Mynx, and in that moment you're not holding her any longer. She's holding you - coiling around you, serpent coils thick and muscular. Around your neck like a noose. Around your chest like a corset. Around your hips like a lover. "It's a tempting mistake to make, isn't it? But don't listen to Aphrodite's lies. His maps lead to ruins. His gifts turn to ashes. And then when it's done he has everything end in violence again, and again, and again. He did not choose Ares for his lover as a flight of fancy."

The way the coils move is hypnotic. The way the fangs brush against your marble is intimate. Here and there they go, searching for the nick or flaw in your marble body where they might penetrate the deepest. They trace the edges of each gold-patterned scar looking for the places where the repairs were less than perfect.

"You open your mouth and you will find a fist around your throat," she hummed. "You open your heart and you will find a fist inside your ribcage. Hephaestus knew. The only way to bind love... is with a [i]rope[/i]."

And just as her mouth opens wide - to bite, to swallow you whole - you hear banging and shouting as Redana comes rushing down through the corridors, inaudible footsteps moments behind. You feel a shiver of tension through those serpent coils, so powerful it feels like it might snap you like a porcelain doll. 

And then she's gone, in a rush, into the ventilation shafts, flowing away like liquid along the secret paths built by Magi to impede the progress of humans.

Response Level 3: [b]Corridors of the Magi[/b]
The Plousios is riddled with secret tunnels and access pathways, and only the Wise might navigate them.

*

[b]Dolce![/b]

Everything has a place. Everything in its place.

That was the mantra of the Manor. It was the call and response of the staff, the first words children were taught to read in the picture books. The world is inherently organized. It is designed for softness and comfort. Where there are hard edges there are specialists for that. Entropy is exported, only stability may remain. You never know when the Master might get home and want dinner.

There was no need for leadership in the manor. Such matters as scarcity and resource allotment were decided... informally. Through the mysterious alchemy of gossip over mahjong games things just seemed to work themselves out. It could hardly be said to be a government if there weren't so much decisions as... new rules. New events. Oh, it looks like we're repairing the west barn tonight. Oh it seemed like that new hound guard was a bad fit and decided to move along. Oh, it seems like those two are getting married soon, such a cute couple, somebody should let them know...

What a lovely way to make decisions that would be. It wouldn't be anyone's... idea, or responsibility. Nobody would have to make big choices and be held accountable for them. Things could just happen in a frictionless, soft kind of way. You could just worry about waking up and going to bed and all those decisions could just sort themselves out without the call for any sort of decision [i]makers[/i]. Nobody would have to wear any big hats or have any big chairs. Nobody would have to be anything other than who they were.

You're so deep in contemplation that you only gradually realize that a hungry mousegirl, wearing an gothic hanfu and a mian opulent with skull-shaped beads, has snuck into your room and is eating the dinner you were too despondent to touch. Jil of the Lanterns freezes when you move - your stillness having completely concealed your presence. One hand holds a large slice of pizza toast and she is clearly fighting with an instinct to either drop it and run, or drop it to go for the pistol on her belt. 

You think the pistol is winning so you might want to defuse the situation.

*

[b]Redana and Bella![/b]

One of the blessings of this galaxy is that there is absolutely no reason to stop for the wounded. If they live then they shall recover fully, no matter how grievous their injuries might seem in that moment. If Apollo would teach them a lesson in sickness it shall not be one that medical care will assist with. Despite there being over 50,000 souls aboard this ship you would not find among them one who considered themselves a medical doctor. One might as well spin dresses for the clouds.

So there is nothing in the slightest bit callous about patting Alexa hurriedly on the shoulder and continuing to rush after Mynx. Only one of those things is dangerous.

And then... you're running. Foot past foot. Hand past hand. The two of you racing like practicing for the Olympics. There are the flips and twists and coil turns of tight passages, the blind turns of lower depths, the shanty markets where the strange species of this starship barter coinlessly. There are wagons filled with tomatoes and apricots and entire coral reefs. Kingfishers haggle with crabs, and the crabs aren't having it. The fires are warm and the ship is lit with hundreds of lamps dedicated to Apollo and the sprint just goes on and on. 

Long enough for the adrenaline to fade. Long enough for the panic to fade. Long enough to settle into the steady, chest-heaving drumbeat of running. One cannot think and maintain this speed, and so the two of you race through the ship, the world passing you by in flashing lights and colours. Deck by deck you run, breaking one hundred and thirty kilometers on the straights, and all the world becomes a blur.

Your feet fall in rhythm, Bella. You have felt this rhythm before. On the Azura planet Salib, beneath endless azure skies and in the shadow of space elevators. You have felt this rhythm before. In the depths of the void, in a perfect trance of sunlight and starlight and speed enough to escape yourself. On the track and field of Tellus where you bought dishonour to the Olympic Games, where every step was ended with a glance over your shoulder, wondering when the time would come to turn the race into a blood sport. A sprint where you were predator and prey. A sprint as a prelude to violence. This feels like that Olympic race, a night time shadow gallery of Artemis that held no matter how many lights were put up. You can't drown her out. Your quarry could turn at any moment, and then...

But also... you are running alongside someone. Not a fellow hunter. Not... anyone at all, it seemed. Not a princess, in this moment. Not someone you... [i]have [/i]to follow. The first time in a long time you were just... running. Alongside a girl. And there was nothing else to bind or twist that simple fact into something it shouldn't be.