[b]Mirror and Isabelle[/b]

The room dances and people swirl, and the singer sings of the rain bathing her face. Below you and above you is the shifting of people, the glinting of crystal in impossible angles, gravity that spirals around you.

It’s Kiriala who sidles closer, keeping her distance from Adriana but coming to join the dance next to you.

She offers her own answer, unasked for. “Are you a goddess then?” She cocks her head, looks at Mirror like she’s wondering it seriously before looking back at Isabelle. “If you’re not, you can’t know everyone perfectly, and if you can’t do that, you can’t always avoid hurting people. You can try really hard to know people as well as you can, but if you don’t let anybody know you then they won’t work around you either.”

She tosses down the rest of her drink and stands close, deeply intrigued by the topic. 

***

[b]Dolly[/b]

Valynia doesn’t let you go, but she’s not hurting you either. She’s just firm. Her grip strong. There’s a sound of distant jazz, but in this side room, the door is shut, the crystals darkened, and only the depths of space bear you witness from beyond this room. 

“Did you only want me because you thought she wanted me?”

She’s talking to you, Dolly. Only to you. Her hand closes over yours, her fingers brushing the glove. And in that moment you feel: [i]anger, pain, rejection, jealousy, humiliation[/i], and beneath it all, so small and so deep [i]hope[/i].

What do you say to her?

***

[b]Solarel[/b]

It’s so close. Memories of the Aeteline flicker within you. It’s not like the Kathresis at all. Not cold, not the vision of angry ghosts. The Aeteline is the polar opposite: it’s a nuclear furnace. It’s young and it’s powerful and the Aeteline knows its own power. It bathes in it. It revels in it. The great god seeks to be wielded. It seeks to move! To run! To fly! It makes you ask what it means to fly, to truly feel the very space around you bend to your power as you flex your wings. The Aeteline is agitation, it is unbridled, and yet it has sat inert for so long, unwilling to accept another pilot that fails to deserve it.

You could touch it. You could connect to that god. It’s so close. Everything is so close.

But an inch may as well be a thousand light years. Because you weren’t fast enough. You didn’t win the race. 

No, the winner of this race is Angela. Angela who you fought before, Angela who dances in the circle of that young Hybrasilian, so different from Mirror, with her new goddess. 

Her hand is upon you, and as she slows you, so too is Voctine who demands her own birthright, her silver blade aimed for your throat. More are coming, and more besides. 

Beside you, a vague part of your senses feels the floor shake as Akaithon leaps down to lend her own aid, the impact of the jump sending energy coursing through her legs. But it’s hard to focus, hard to concentrate on anything that you need to do when everything you want is so close and yet so out of reach.

[b]Stagger[/b] and then tell us how you reach beyond the possible.