[b]Dany![/b]

Bella doesn't laugh. Her lips part, as if to smile, and warm red spills out and runs down her chin instead. She wheezes and does not dare to shut her eyes, in case this is the last time she gets to open them. 

She reaches one trembling hand up and manages to brush a finger underneath your jaw. Where her delicate little fingers pass, she paints your skin in her color. 

"Sil... ly," her voice is nothing more than breath now, "Wh-wh-when. Did... I say? It... w-w-was... y-your fault?"

Bella Meowmeow has promises to keep. Her fingertips strain but she can't reach the tears in your eyes without your help. Even then she might not make it. Every motion she makes causes her slick, ruined body to slip against your desperate clutches and spill more of her insides into the garden. She is growing colder, despite the warmth in her little golden eyes. 

She wants to laugh. She wants to laugh so badly. But the closest she can come is a wet hiss.

You feel the ground shudder. Behind you, XIII crashes to the ground in a heap of mangled and crushed armor. Her claw tips curl toward each other with an awful tearing sound, and in a blink she disappears. Her howl shakes the entire garden before it is suddenly cut off. Bella Aurelia, her dress hacked and dirtied, her body battered and her hair in disarray, snarls and wrenches her terrible blade free from the Diodekoi's neck.

She kicks XIII back to the ground and plants her foot on the chest plate of the massive exoskeleton. Her heel grinds against it until the bone plating cracks. XIII snarls, but with her body broken the power is stolen from her voice too. 

In this moment she seems less like a monster and more like a wounded animal. The lion of the forest roaring because of the thorn embedded in her paw. But Bella Aurelia does not bend down to pluck it out. Instead she stomps, again and again, grunting in equal parts effort and frustration, until the creature beneath her stops twitching. Until her arms are twisted and broken at odd angles by her sides and her spine is by all appearances shattered. Until the spikes of her armor are growing from her lungs.

"Insolent hound! Useless beast! After everything I've done to preserve you, how dare you bare your fangs at [i]me![/i] This is not the role I gave you to play. But I forgive you. Yes, even you. Regrow your body, vile creature. Pull yourself together and hunt to your hearts content. Howl and drool and fight until you finally turn to Rampancy. When you deliver Artemis to me, all will be well."

And with a final kick to the head, XIII stills. She has done nothing but hunt you, Dany. Nothing but slaughter every incarnation of Bella that has crossed her path, without regard for whether they were there to help or hurt you. But now that she looks like this, do you finally see it? Can you see that she is something to be pitied?

Can you see that this is not your fault? What is the heart of one little girl against the gears of Empire? What can a friendly smile or a stupid and childish argument amount to when set on the scales alongside the will of Olympus?

Do you see, Dany? Are your eyes open at long last? Can you see your little Bella struggle as her older, perfected self walks closer and closer?

It costs the younger Bella everything she has to throw herself on top of you. You hit the ground and know immediately from the feeling of warmth that covers you that there's no saving her. But she smiles at you. Do you see? Do you see the way her young face lights up at yours? There is no room there for pain or fear.

"Together, Dany. Forever [i]and[/i] ever."

She collapses on top of you. And there is something of magic in that motion, because you are the one that falls. Your arms close around her and hold nothing except for a worn out old blanket, and the hand that reaches after you clutches only empty air. You tumble through darkness, and you are not alone.

Bella Aurelia pulls her arm free from the muck and stares at her empty palm. She sniffs dismissively and pats the dust off her glorious body. Desire gleams wickedly from its resting place atop her shoulder.

"You realize this changes nothing, of course. Soon I will have everything I want."

[b]Redana?[/b]

Your hands are around her throat. You can feel fingers that are not yours crushing her windpipe. And you know that your instincts were right. That she was right. This [i]is[/i] less cruel. 

No more words to taunt you. No more mocking, no more torture. Just her surprised face, filling your vision. 

Oh. But it is [i]your[/i] vision, isn't it? You still own that. You can kill her but you'll still see everything, and this body won't be able to do a thing to protect you from that. You'll have to keep on being Redana. And that's the cruelest thing that anybody could ask of you, isn't it?

That's why it's a relief when she smiles. When her twisted grin is everything you can see, you know you've been a good girl. Not cruel at all. No more cruelty at all. You do not release her. She does not release you. You feel the hot lances of her thumb claws on your face, and your entire world turns Imperial Red.

There is a crunching sound, somewhere. You cannot tell where because there is no 'you' anymore. You are not Redana, you are only the stubborn threads of that identity that are stuck to the surface of your perfected body. The collar that clicks around 'your' neck is pleasant and cool, and not painful at all. The tug on the leash is soothing.

There is warm water at 'your' feet. 'You' bend down to lap at it, and it is the most delicious and refreshing thing that 'you' have ever tasted. Sweeter than any wine, more perfect than ambrosia. But there is no time to savor it before 'you' are tugged away.

'You' obey. 'You' follow out of the crumbling dance hall and into the darkness. As far as 'you' are aware, there is no difference at all.

[b]Ember[/b]

Arm by arm. Heavier and heavier. Hotter and hotter. Lonelier and lonelier. But though every millimeter you drag yourself costs more than the one before it, on and on across their countless lengths you go.

There are no voices anymore. Only the dark. Only the heat. Only...

Only moonlight. Only a single hand underneath your jaw. Only the brilliant glint of teeth and the heavy smell of crab flesh and the soaking wet skin of Mosaic, who has come wearing her suit pants but otherwise no more than you.

"Do you know, little Ember? The other one told me I was wasting my time coming here. She was so certain you would quit. But she does not know my puppy like I do, does she? Does she?"

She plucks you off the ground as though you weigh less than a feather. When she laughs, you can feel the sea breeze blowing through this oppressive corridor. And then she leans down and punches a hole through what must be the ground, if anything here can be said to exist in the first place.

"I'm going to pay for that one, I think. Ha! Then this is as far as I go, my heart. But you? A little further for you. Do not worry, there will be others there to compliment your choice of outfit. Won't that be fun?"

The darkness seems to howl in response. Already it is clawing at her, but she turns her back and puts herself between you and it. You do not even see her bleed. She flashes you one more silver lit grin and tosses you into the hole she dug, and just like that you're in darkness again.

But this time you get to rest. You're going to roll the rest of the way there. Any bruises you accumulate will be a small price to pay, won't they? Damage your Grace, and enjoy the ride.

[b]Dolce![/b]

Your body serves you well. The only rustling in the roses across the whole of nap time comes from the stalking of the assassins as they prowl about in search of you. But their button eyes do not see as well as yours. Their stitched on noses cannot catch your scent. Four times you hear the snuffling of wolves, but every time they catch one of their fellows moving in another direction, and it distracts them before they can mark your location.

One time you see the owl. She is only a little ways away from you, but her back is turned. You keep your path, slow and steady. Almost as though the hand still clutching at that can of coffee is pulling you to the only path out of here there is. But you are traveling slowly, so there is time enough to see the tiny assassin pull free her little rapier: a needle still attached to some thread. She shakes her head and sticks it into the ground before she walks away.

You are silent. You are steady. You have already made your choice. There will be no asking what the intent behind that gesture was. And you are certain this is true because no sooner do you reach the edges of the garden than you hear the girl waking from her nap.

"Nnngh, where?" she asks, in the delirious tone of someone still wrestling with the Oneiroi.

"Where is he, darling?"

"M-Mommy?!"

"Where. [i]Is.[/i] He?"

"H-he was here! He was he was he was! I zappeded him, Mommy! I did, I promise I did, I zappeded him just like you showed me an he wasn't movin'! He, he, he wouldn't stop! I saida stop and he didn' so I! S'not my fault! I'mma good girl, I am I am I am!"

"I will tell you what I see, ░░░░. I see an empty spot where I should have a guest waiting for me."

"But I!"

"DON'T INTERRUPT!"

She quails. But you are on the edge of the garden. Just a few more scoots and you cross the threshold of what you realize must be a door. To your no doubt intense surprise, it is already open. You slip past it, and the lecture that Bella Aurelia gives to her daughter fades into so much longwinded nothing. 

You have made it, Dolce.

But.

You have not gone far. And you have not gone fast. And that's why you can still hear it. The panicked screaming of that little girl.

"Mommy! Mommy, please! I'mma good girl, Mommy! I'll be good! I'll be good, Mommy! I'll be!"

You hear one final note of shrill, unfiltered terror. And then you hear loud, wet crunching. And then you hear nothing. And then suddenly the floor gives way beneath you, and you are falling.

Damage your Courage, Dolce.

***

The interior hallways of the golden theater are empty. There are no staff selling snacks, though the presence of many different stands and the ghostly wisp of the smells of various foods hint that they must have been there once, and recently. All the lights are dimmed so as not to disturb the movie playing in the theater proper. 

And into this scene falls a sheep with a shattered leg. He bounces when he hits the floor, like a metaphor for the stock market on primitive worlds where that sort of concept carries any water at all. He has only enough time to groan before he's slammed into by a naked Ceronian scout who's so soaked with sweat she might die without a drink in the next thirty seconds.

One moment after and the sheep is knocked to the ground again when he becomes the cushion for a frightened Princess, soaked in the blood of a best friend and wrapped tight in a blanket that is so threadbare it might be three hundred years old to look at it.

What a lovely reunion. Minus two.

The doors to the theater are shut tight, so whatever film is playing tonight is not a thing any of the three of you can tell. But even through the protection of those barricades you can still hear the shrill, peaking laughter of a girl who has just seen the funniest thing that has ever happened to anyone. A comedy then, one would guess.

In any case, you are together again. And you are alone. At just this moment, nobody and nothing has managed to follow you down the pits and back to the beginning, or the center or... however things work here. Isn't it enough to know that you're alive?