[b]Bella![/b]

It's a hot day. Was their planet always this hot? 

You feel sweat on your brow. You smell the thick, smokey sent of leather curing under the sun. You see the crisp angles of bones beneath flesh that moves and shifts independently. You remember warmth and family, a sister as bright as the sun and trapped within a cage of sweets. Was it always this hot? Breathing is harder. You feel the sun beating down like a fever. Like a fever. Was the sun always this angry?

Their weapons are... clubs. Just hunks of wood and stone. Why do they look so dangerous?

"We appreciate your authority to negotiate," their uncrowned king was saying in the distance. Focus. Focus as a praetor should, as a maid must. "In order to permit an exchange of embassies, we would like the stellar co-ordinates of your home system."

Holding that banner feels heavy. They have refreshments. They smile invitingly. It is so hot. It would be easy to tell them.

[b]Ember![/b]

"Now now," said the alpha of the Star Kings, waving you down as she approaches, trailing neon gold in a bridal train. A legacy of ribbons and translucent silks terminates in savage fishnets, armoured brassier and head crowned in golden antlers. "All of my stuff is in this city."

She is civilized and civilization; she reeks of a new kind of violence: civilian violence. Where she can brutalize you here in front of everyone and no one will raise their hand in your defense. This is her way of war; to strip every defense and ally away, and with it, every choice.

"So I won't deny you have leverage," said the antlered wolf, fingers spinning her cigarette holder. "But only some. Your pack trespassed on my territory, and if I bring them back then they could do far more damage than you alone might. That would make you happy and leave me in peril; why should I make such a bargain?"

[b]Dyssia![/b]

The Generous Knight laughs. "Oh, that takes me back. Did you know I was there when we killed the knights?" Her eye blackens. A hiss of fluid pumps; it is carried away. "I was a prototype biomantic pilot, riding an experimental mecha suit integrated with living metal technology. Against me was an endless empire of mad tyrants. I fought them as their equal, different but similar. Perhaps the High King should be a little less mad. Perhaps the knights should have their battles further away from civilians. Our political demands seemed so [i]reasonable[/i]."

She looked out at the advancing Portuguese fleet. The name felt hollow now. Soon they would carve their true name in the stars in blood.

Their ships are not beautiful. The warships of the Skies are elegant orrerys; solar systems in miniature, gravity and grace. These things look diseased; each ship surrounded in swarming, alien locust clouds. When they draw closer to the Generous Knight's ships these swarms flock across the void, gnawing and chewing metal, stripping crystal buttresses and digesting stained glass windows. 

The Fleet retreated.

"But it wasn't us Azura Knights that won the war," said the Generous Knight. "It was the Tides. A tsunami of seawater and silk. In the beginning they were useful, interesting tools - extensions of knightly combat, innovations around the edges. Before long I was watching Archdukes being dragged down by thousands of crabs as I stood quietly in the back. It came to horrify me so much that I betrayed the Skies, stood with the Knights, tried to save them. The Tides weren't even mad. I stood in my warmech, hip deep in corpses, killing and killing to stop them - they didn't care. Killing them was my right. So they just flowed around me, killed the human Knights as they had been programmed to do, and kept going."

She turned to look at you, half her face melting off, blood cascading onto the deck as her regeneration warred with the damage to her fleet. "At the end of the war, we surviving Knights of the Skies understood one thing: Biomancy could never be unleashed. We built the Atlas Cultural Sphere on that understanding: a cybernetic implant in every skull, a stopper in the bottle of evolution. You think that servitors are inhumane? Servitors are beautiful. Servitors have empathy. Servitors speak our language, share our values, value our art and feel our emotions. We killed a lot of Biomancers fighting for those things. And now, without the advantages of cybernetic thought control, the only thing keeping them in check is the fact that they're still brainwashing themselves to obey us out of habit."

She turned to look out the window, hands folding behind her back. "And then come you fools in the Publica. You come to us speaking of the rights of smallpox, placing the ideal of bodily autonomy above the necessity of herd immunity. This is why I elevated these savages: to remind the Skies of what monstrosities a culture unbound by our hard-won lessons might produce."

[b]Dolce![/b]

It's a hot day.

It's a hot day. The sun beats down. The alchemy of divine fire that the ancients foolishly attributed to hydrogen intensifies over a void that seems shorter and shorter every day. See the Summerkind taking off their armour as they work at loading their war machines aboard the fleet of spaceships that land upon the planet's surface. See Liquid Bronze call out for ice to cool his drink - the liquefied brains of his clones, by which he will gain the knowledge of his other selves. See the golden ram standing sure-footed atop the distant hill. He is not smiling. All three of his golden eyes are open.

It's a hot day - and hotter every day.

Apollo Phoebus they call him. The brightest. Was he always so bright? Was his attention always so direct? In the temples he is painted with his eyes closed and a smile on his face, and now those things seem like they are related. See the way servitors squint and shield their eyes against the sun. See the tall and brutal warrior standing above the sun. He carries a club of stone, wears a cape of flesh and fur, and holds a bow of silver. Is he shooting you now? Is that from whence this brilliance comes? Was the sun always this bright?

Was the sun... a gift? It was a gift, wasn't it?

You are not free from this judgement. Sweat pours from your back, it curdles in your fur as it does in 20022's. If there is mercy to be had you have not earned it. No one in this civilization has. You do what you can. You get through the day. You move in the shadows as the machinery of extermination swings to bear. You make yourself useful and make yourself kind, you gain access and avert disaster and in your little way do your bit. But day by day it gets hotter. Day by day Apollo glows brighter. Little by little the Skies begin to boil. 

Be discreet. There was an old story about a servitor who went mad trying to beat the heat. It's time to lie low, cool and dark. There's a lot that needs administering in the movement of a Quality Assurance armada. This is 20022's dream - to volunteer to do critical work, establishing himself as an invaluable aspect of this organization so that Liquid Bronze will petition for his permanent reassignment. The brighter the sun burns the deeper Artemis' shadows grow - so where do you hide yourself?