“I thought you [i]liked[/i] them,” Redana accuses, but what little fire is in the accusation comes solely from what it means. What they mean. What this means.

The rumble of the Engine is soothing. She knows it now, knows that tremor in her bones, is familiar with the power of the trapped star. She’s carried scythes that sing with a fraction of its power; she’s sung work-songs with its contribution being the deepest bass. It’s more real to her than the role it is playing. Like seeing an actor first as the actor, the way she used to back home. Which brings her back around to this. Her head rests on Bella’s lap, and she has quite the view looking up.

Looking up. Did she never notice? Maybe because Bella was always trying to make herself smaller back home, to fit inside of the shape that a Servitor should. But she’s so big, here. Like a titan standing vigil. And that’s, in its own way, a relief. Pick her up again, Bella. Hold her tight like you did on Salib.

“How am I supposed to know anything about [i]you[/i] if you didn’t even tell me you didn’t like [i]Batrachomyomachia[/i]?” Above Bella, branches shift; light dapples; the trees bend over the two of them. Dany’s fingers stroke down scales, warm and almost purring beneath her fingertips.

“I thought I trusted a maid who appreciated those small, brave hearts. Who understood that it was about the mettle, not the size. Who sacrificed themselves for each other.” Ignore the fact that the sacrifices never stuck, not even the ones that involved explosives. It was the willingness, over and over, to declare the lives of your brothers and sisters in arms dearer than your own.

“…and if you didn’t like them, we always could have watched something else,” she adds, and means it. Her legs are asleep beneath Beljani, who has found her spot and will not move from it, who breathes sweet contented summer out that licks their chins.

Here, briefly, is paradise. Here, briefly, is truth. Here, the windows clatter, but faintly, never startling. Here the world is broken into light and shadow and both are kind. Here there is a vast and terrible power capable of destroying it all in an instant, but it will not, it will not. Here there is peace beneath Olympus.

The princess demands it, after all. So let it be.