[b]Redana![/b]

"The shapeshifter?" said Epistia, too loud, voice heard over live music and life's motions. "What's the rush in finding her? Why do we need to stop the party? If she's here I'll call her out for you -"

She's standing up, taking a deep breath, lungs filling so that she can bellow over the noise of the party. If only there was some way to stop a pretty girl from making sounds when she was not supposed to.

[b]Bella![/b]

A coil of light flashes down those crystalline circuit-board scales, golden light running through those complex nodes and then up along to the wingtips. Scribe the dragon lowers his head and spreads his wings and a glittering letter written in silver glyphs forms in front of you.

From: Beljani
To: Bella

If I didn't say anything then things would very probably have continued as they always have. You'd know that I had no choice, and I'd know that you'd had no choice, and everything about our fucked up lives would have continued without acknowledgement. Whatever level we function on runs deeper than betrayal, murder, terror. Those are just part of the trade so why even bother talking about them?

Well, because, I don't want it to be that way. I know that we don't need to be close. I know that I don't owe you anything. I know that you've got your own life and stuff going on and I'm just a shitty co-worker or a distant sister. But that's not right. It's not right! I hate hurting you! I hate fighting you! Seeing you in the armour made me sick and made me terrified and made my stomach curl up with guilt even though I could argue a hundred ways that it wasn't really my fault! I tried my best to just pass you by like any of the others but trying to do that fucked me up so badly I almost killed myself writing the Master's name on your armour and...

I don't know how you feel. You've always seemed like a cool, mysterious, unstoppable badass to me. But this isn't your confession, it's mine, and mine is: I really care about you. You're the closest I have to family. I've always had a lot to lose - that was the point. But I hate being weak. I hate being so easily controlled and manipulated, I hate how nobody respects me, I hate how nobody even [i]likes [/i]me. It's a small step from there to hating myself, and maybe that was the real leash? I don't know. But the end result is that I was stuck in a torpor for years, hating it and hating myself, and the only thing that shook me out of it was seeing that you needed help. Giving you that help was the best I've felt about myself ever, maybe. I don't know what you want from me, Bella, but I do want you to know that you can rely on me. Not because of anything you did or because of anything I'm trying to pay back or anything transactional like that. But because it helps [i]me [/i]to have a sister I'd do anything for. 

With love,
- Beljani

At the end the glyphs roll together and solidify into one of Scribe's cheek scales. The hatchling pulls it from its face with dexterous talons and places it in your hand, a little shard of crystal. Stroke it and the message displays again, glittering like a treasure.

Behind him Beljani is now standing, looking at you sidelong with the confidence only the profoundly nervous can fake.

[b]Alexa![/b]

"Hm," said Iskarot. "Change is impossible without destruction. I used my own destruction to reflect on many things." He shook his head. "Nevertheless. I have said my piece and you do not owe me time or courtesy. Hermes guide your travels, voyager," he said, hefting his D-Scythe and walking past you down towards the radiance of the Engine.

[b]Dolce![/b]

"Why are you the captain, though?" said Jil. She raised a finger, cutting you off. "Different question. Why is there a captain at all? That's an Imperial rank. That's an Imperial [i]job[/i]. And we just left the Empire's finest terror soldiers dead on the sands of Sahar. We have definitively broken with the Empire. The Clans are organizing to turn the Anemoi into a parliamentary democracy, so what [i]I[/i] want to know is what the fuck's going on with [i]this [/i]ship that's just sleepwalking into maintaining autocratic institutions despite having murdered the shit out of autocracy's finest."

As she's been speaking, she's been wheeling you down towards the kitchen. At this she hops up onto the back of the wheelchair as it continues to roll so that she can look at you upside-down, the skull-beads from her hat jingling as they hang down below her.

"Especially because I've never seen a sadder autocrat than you," she said. "Say what you will about the Kaeri, they fucking [i]loved [/i]being in charge. If you met one in a dark corridor then she'd fucking murder you and it'd make her [i]day[/i]. She'd be whistling about it afterwards. She'd be so stoked that she'd make your bones into furniture so she could remember the moment. And then here's you, some sort of servant caste, very obviously having a mental breakdown trying to do a job that was designed for human beings or their pet monsters, so what the fuck?"