[b]Dany[/b]

There is no escape. There is no finding Bella again. You cleverly double back around on your path, through things already smashed into tiny broken bits and all that is left at the beginning is a fragile girl's broken body. Her eye is dull gold and unseeing. Her ribs are covered in red where they have been pulled out of her chest. Her limbs bend at terrible and broken angles and she makes not even the slightest protest. The hole in her stomach does nothing but drip, drip, drip onto the floor where she lies still.

You can still hear the monster behind you. Breathing, hissing, snarling, crunching your name in its mouth like so many bones. Re. Da. Na. Re. Da. Na. Re. Da. Na. Over and over, punctuated by stomping boots and slavering, heavy breaths that bring a shudder to the very air itself. 

"Re. Da. Naaaaaa..."

You spin around with a start. XIII is hunching in the shadow of the door she tore open in this place just a moment ago. She shivers, claws twitching in anticipation of the kill, and she pounces over your shrill shrieking for help, in spite of all your need for bravery.

"You can't have her, beast. We need this one, remember?"

A Princess' rapier looks out of place in the hands of Stellabrande, who had always stubbornly clung to the role of the damsel to be rescued. But desperate times. Her lanky, clumsy body is still wrapped in all of the embarrassing pink lace and ribbons of her special dress made even more ridiculous by the onset of her teen years and the uneven growth it had caused in her body. Her legs too long for her torso, her arms too short for her legs. Her hips still boyish but her chest blossoming like under-ripe fruit and the first hints of her womanhood. It is perhaps the short moment of her life where Bella could not have been called beautiful; stuck between the engineered radiance of childhood and the queenly perfection of her adult life. A shadow of two selves at play in a world she no longer fit inside of. 

Her arm trembles violently as she tries to hold off the claws of a monster almost three times her size. Stellabrande releases the weapon and uses the sudden shift in weight to slip inside of XIII's grasp and punch her on the underside of her unprotected jaw. Her delicate braids (still nestled in the lace of her borrowed bridal gown and the paper prisoner's chains wrapped around her shoulders) dance when she turns to look at you. She does not offer a smile.

Another pair of heroes come flashing out of nowhere: a Bella in the full blossom of teenage maturity in a party dress freshly ruined by painted starlight and an even more adult version with a bare and bloodied back and a crown of laurels in her hair both match the monster claw for claw and hiss for hiss. The air around you crashes like thunder without lightning. They are none of them strong enough to hold off a Diodekoi in the fullness of her power. But together, and for you, they...

"Princess!" the same voice calls to you three times, "Run! I will be along to collect you shortly. I simply have to deal with this--"

"Dis. A. Gree."

Heroes don't beat monsters, Dany. And even if they did, Bella could never be one. XIII vanishes, only to reappear above the Olympian Bella and crush her skull with a spiked heel and so much force that her torso contorts around her hips entirely before she falls to the ground with a red, wet thud. As though she were nothing more than a sack of unwanted meat thrown out a window. The would-be painter Bella drops to her knees. Her head rolls off her shoulders a moment later.

But Stellabrande holds firm. She flies between you and XIII and, bereft of her sword (it has wound up at your feet), she throws her hands wide to make herself into a wall through which no violence may pass. It cannot reach you. Not you. Not the one who pulled her free from the Box. 

"Princess," says the awkward damsel in a voice that's all her own, "I, I love, ghhhhhk!"

Stellabrande's eyes flutter closed, open, closed, open. Her head turns shakily down to look at the twisting gauntlet buried up to the elbow in her petite chest. Pink ribbons stain bright red. She shudders, she pulls, she beats a fist against the wicked bone of that monster's arm even as her fingers break against it. And then with a final, horrible crunch she falls limp.

XIII holds the dripping heart of Stellabrande above her mouth. She opens her jaw wide, so wide that it unhinges. Wide enough to show rows of extra fangs, more shark than cat. She closes her eyes tight and squeezes so that blood falls messily onto her waiting tongue. She wrings Stellabrande's hot love dry, not caring what splashes her or where, only stopping when the delicious stream finally slows to a trickle so she can stomp the ruined organ flat underneath her sole and twist.

Her ears twitch in pleasure. Bella is not supposed to enjoy blood. Even the smallest trickle makes her ill. But XIII sucks on her fingers with obvious relish, pausing her own hunt for the pleasure of the smell and the taste of violence.

There is a sword at your feet. But from the shadows, you can feel a pull against your wrist. And the chime of a single bell. 

The sword, Dany? Or the hand?

[b]Dolce![/b]

This isn't the first time you've asked her a question like this. It's not even the second or the third. And every time a topic this intimate has been breached, some question about her loyalty or her trust, or whether she deserves to continue living or who might want her dead, her response has always been the same.

Bella always laughs. More than laughs, in fact. She doubles over and barks until she's hoarse from sheer, unrestrained mirth. She's never explained why it's so funny to her, and maybe she can't. Maybe it's a result of living a life full of assassination plots and backstabbing on a world where none of these questions could even afford an answer. Maybe it's the contrast of seeing politeness and courtesy used as something other than weapons or shields, or maybe it's the ridiculousness of seeing someone so soft and fluffy lift himself up to try and stand at her height. Maybe it's just because it reminds her of something, something worth laughing like that about. Or maybe it really is because she's spent so much time thinking her life is worthless that there's no other way for her to respond.

Whatever it might be, this Bella holds no answers. Because she is not laughing.

She tilts her head to one side, considering the question with a placid expression on her face.

"Of course, Dolce."

//[color=9e0b0f]Wrong. This is wrong. It isn't supposed to be this way.[/color]

She smiles, and gestures at the drink again.

//[color=9e0b0f]Do not. Do not. Do not. Do not. Do not.[/color]

"But I think my questions are rather more relevant than yours. Mmmhmhm, don't we all?"

Don't we all, whisper the shadows.

[b]Redana![/b]

"Well. I appreciate the attempt in any case."

You are on your knees. The only reason you do not bleed is because the heat lances have been cauterizing every wound as Bella's Praetorian Guard have wrenched them free. Even now a pair of them take turns working their weapons through your wrists. It's agony that you don't need to describe. 

But there are fewer of these guards than there were when you began. Thirty or so, maybe a little more. If you could only stand again the fight might be a bit easier this time. Another chance and you might be able to reach her. And then? You don't know. What you know is twisting. What you know is needles made of molten fire. What you know is panting, and the tearing of fabric, and a moan that you don't recognize as yours until you realize you've been making it for the last several minutes.

Bella calmly sips a flute of champagne and watches her guard work their magic on you. She holds up her hand, and then it all stops. Click, her heel on the dance floor. Tak, the ball of her foot pushing her forward. Click, tak. Click, tak. Swish, the rustling of her dress. Fwip, the twitching of her tail.

Bella stands in front of you, watches the butts of twin crossed heat lances holding up your chin so you can see her face as she watches you with the dispassionate gaze of a critic browsing an art museum. She unfolds her palm, and reveals a small black pill.

"Do I need to force them down your throat this time? Will you show me that look on your face again, I wonder?"

She pinches it between a thumb and a forefinger, and brings it to your lips. What do you do?

[b]Skotia![/b]

Bella Aurelia does not make the choice. She does not need to. 

Your mask does not fall to the floor cleanly split in two, but morphs into the same black tar sludge this whole place is made of before each shattered piece grasps your neck with crushing alabaster fingers. Two long arms stick out grotesquely from the floor and hold you in place. Squeezing your throat shut. Wrenching your head toward Aurelia's light so that you have nowhere to hide the truth of your face from her. 

She grins at you, and brushes your chin with her fingertips. It feels like being painted by oils.

"No, I did not mean it then either. It was a passing fancy brought on by temporary madness. Nothing more. Disappoint me any further and I will be happy to show you the speed with which I can abandon you, little hero."

She laughs, and stamps the tip of Desire into your boot. Already you can feel the material melting off and pooling around you like disgusting, boiling slime. Already you feel another hand crushing a new part of your body. Already you feel the tip of that unclean blood slicing its way up the leg of your trousers, its next victim. 

"Oh, but I am in haste once again!" she laughs at a volume designed for someone sitting in a balcony at the other end of a theater, "No, silly shadow. You were not enough. You have always been a disappointment, flashing from one unfulfilling moment to another."

Desire clips the buttons of your coat now, and they come flying off with little clinks of brass and hope. Bella Aurelia runs her palm up the length of your stomach and over your chest.

"But I forgive you. Even now, I forgive you. As many times as you need. As many times as you like, I forgive you. It is necessary, to craft the Redana I deserve."

She stomps the sword into your other boot.

"Aren't you excited? Things can finally be even between us."

[b]Ember![/b]

She kicks you in the stomach as you reel, hard enough that you can feel something inside of you try to twist where it does not belong. The horrible sensation doesn't last, but the heat that follows after it is no more pleasant. Her claws rake through your dress and draw long trails of oozing red where the fabric no longer covers you. Soon it's little more than a slip, less protection for your modesty than even her own worn down and comically large shirt. 

When you get up, she is there to knock you down again. With violence sharp enough to bring your entire pack down around you, though never enough to break you completely. You always get up. So she always knocks you down. That's the dance she has selected in this little hallway. It's not a place for being clever. It's not a place for being free. Even she is constricted by the smallness of this place. Even she bumps her shoulders into the walls, even she stumbles, even she hisses at how bright and plain and white everything is.

Maybe that is why she hasn't killed you yet.

"It is important to me that you understand the truth. I am not a villager on some rock half a galaxy away that you can fool with batted eyelashes or... breast inserts."

She sniffs and glowers. Her hand clenches into a fist, and a fresh Plover head obligingly appears between her fingers to crush with a satisfying squelch of metal and piping.

"All of me is me. And all of you is you. If I can't tell the difference at a glance, then we must be the same person. Not that that doesn't sound just utterly romantic. You becoming me. But you're not ready. You do not understand. Where do you think we are, exactly? Even this place, these walls, this cute little maze... is [i]me[/i], Redana. Here, would you like to see?"

She rakes her claws through the wall to her left, and the hallway fills with a skull splitting scream. The ground beneath you trembles so violently that it smashes your face into first the near wall, and then the far one.

And then Down becomes Up. And White becomes Black.

"I think I'll just leave you there," Bella says through the impenetrable murk, "Feel free to rest, if you'd like. Rest forever, in fact. It's better if you just give up, Redana."