[b]Mosaic and Ember![/b]

There are two hunts.

The cat seeks the crab. Artemis must not be denied. It is a cunning thing, adapted to its environment, a dozen jellyfish attached to its head as a defensive shield. Poison tentacles gesture limply all along its shell. It clacks its claws and does not know mercy. In shadows it scuttles sideways alongside the shore, illuminated by double moonlight, seeking prey. It will take a person if it can, catch a wild deer, steal a child's pet, anything it can catch. Sometimes it reaches its claws to the skies and clacks them together, just testing to see if it can finally reach and crack and eat the moons. If it could it would do so even if it knew the consequences. Clack clack clack.

Then there is the hunter of the huntress; the wolf in the dark, secret ally to the crab though it would crush you too in its pincers if it could. The sea rises and crashes and those are the times to walk, the ocean's salt hangs heavy in your fur and muffles your scent, though the wind might yet betray you if it turns. Young muscle yearns to be used and the young night yearns too. A night of romance, and of crabs.

[b]Dolce![/b]

"Today we are going to meet the Princess," said 20022.

The Crystal Knight is not the only Azura around, though you could hardly be faulted for forgetting Triden. Her mountaintop monastery is an isolated retreat designed to maintain her seclusion that she might contemplate the deepest mysteries of her Path. The long and winding approach is guarded by dozens of servitors manning heavy anti-void ELF installations, huge and wicked spikes carved from wood and stone, surrounded by the thrum of electricity. Here and there like sentinels are Stoneguard, a modern and elite warrior servitor species who can stand on plinths like statues, daydreaming of endless battle, until the moment comes to step down and go to war. 

The hike is going to involve camping overnight, halfway up the vast spiral staircase that wraps the mountain. The trip up is steady and brisk, you and 20022 scrambling up the steps like goats, and him politely waiting as you offer the odd treat from your heavy bag of packed lunches to the Stoneguard who probably don't get many friends or visitors. It's exciting, this ascent. It's not just a barrier, it's an art project - at different elevations the plantlife lining the road changes - delicious treasures, obscure medicinal plants, beautiful flowers, hearty tubers, Demeter's blessings in hanging herb gardens. The view surrounding is magnificent, strange decisions regarding the placement of towns made clear when you see how they're viewed from up here. The climb is hard work, too - there is snow in places, icy frost making the carved stone slippery, and strange zones of scorching heat that seem designed to punish those who have come geared for winter.

20022 talks sometimes as you climb, but he's just as caught up with the beauty of the ascent as you. For a while he talks about stairs - they are uncomfortable for snake-bodied Azura, and so having so many makes this trip twice as hard. He admits how delighted he is that his work sometimes lets him enter these hidden parts of the world, to oversee these works of beauty from the shadows. He explains the situation over a hookah of wonderful smoke - a human Princess from a kingdom thought lost has come here, announced herself, and the only person of rank to host her was unfortunately Lady Triden. The Crystal Knight does not maintain a permanent residence on the planet, you see, and in the interest of the Skies they had to impose, even if Lady Triden strongly resented it.

And here was an interesting lesson that 20022 was laying out for you. He, a humble Synnefo, had told an Azura what to do. He had in fact forced her to do something that she specifically did not want to do, without needing to get the direct authorization of the Crystal Knight. In those fluffy little hands was real power even over the supposed dominant species of the galaxy. That was certainly a revelation.

[b]Dyssia![/b]

Howl.

The siren is hand-cranked. As the wheel turns the howl rises, the warning of wolves. Abandon ship. Abandon ship.

Lights. Broken metal. Slashing dust and hurricane winds. You see a landscape from a dream - a twisting network of vast canyons. Layered red stone, orange, brown, white, cream, grey, down and down and down. Unnatural, carved into the planet from orbit by colossal plasma vents. From up here it looks beautiful, a stone forest in hurricane winds. 

You're being carried. The shellshocked and the walking wounded are pouring out of the ship, well trained enough to be weighted down under prepared supply packs, the full panopoly of an army on the march even as they struggle free from this blessed disaster. It's raining. It's raining. It shouldn't be raining on this planet, this desolate masterpiece, this world that in ten thousand years will become a jewel in the Endless Azure Skies, but you have made shipwreck upon its shore and Poseidon's sea is coming with you. Even now you spot a crab emerge from underneath the sand as though it had been waiting for this day.

The banners are going up. Pix are rallying to their unit flags and their evacuation formations. Orderly phalanxes, glorious though everyone would suspect that the Wolves would do better in that same situation. You are being taken towards the head, to the command phalanx and the Captain, away from the howling. Abandon ship. The ship is still dangerous.