Dany comes close to taking Bella right out at the knees. Fortunately, there is a stabilizing and wide-based Synnefo right there who helps everyone involved avoid a croissant tragedy. She holds her Bella - bigger, older, but still a child - as Bella cries. And isn't this familiar territory for everybody?

And perhaps she can be forgiven if there is a sniffle or three on her part. It's been a very big day. She's had to see things that were worse than anything she'd ever experienced growing up, and who can say whether Bella experienced anything quite so awful herself? With her face hidden in the folds of Bella's skirt, it's quite impossible to say. A mystery that will never be solved.

Ember does not. Ember watches, and aches, and sits alone. Her eyes turn to the door, to the source of that howling, mocking laughter. Getting down off the counter isn't so hard at all, not compared to everything she's already been through. It would be nice to hold her Bella, but the best outcome for the mission - as far as she can articulate to herself, which has never been Redana's strongest suit at all - is for Redana to hold Bella by the end, assuming that there's still enough of Bella who wants this.

Who wants to hold her and praise her under the moonlight.

Who wants to build a home together.

"I'll get the recipe from you later," she says to Dolce. Okay, fine. Croaks at Dolce. Happy, pedants? It needed to be said, just in case. Just in case Redana remembers later to do it, and manages to learn. Manages to earn Bella's love over again. Manages to make a golden-brown, flaky croissant for the woman she loves, no matter what comes between them.

No matter what's on the other side of that door.

"...It's something worth fighting for. I want you to imagine it, I want you to feel the thrill of life in your veins when you think of it. The galaxy has beauty in it, and through beauty, meaning."

The door opens at Bella's trembling touch, and what pours out is the patronizingly sweet voice of Sagakhan - The Master of Assassins. The words are not familiar no matter how much your stretch your minds. But neither are they directed at you.

The teenaged Bella watches the screen with wide and trembling eyes, where it depicts her older self - of infinitely more power and equally less value - stripped bare of a burned and ruined dress and washed clean of dirt and grime by a flock of red handed and white robed Kaeri warriors. They robe her in white, they bathe her hands in their own blood, and then gently they guide this scarred child of Artemis toward her destiny.

"But then there is this place. You can feel it. Feel the taint. Feel the rot. Feel the despair. The murder. The finality. It is a cathedral to a wicked god and its corruption soaks into every bone and every lip. It can never be allowed into Demeter's garden. And so you see, XIII, that you are thinking about things the right way. Bad girls die. Good girls live. That's what the galaxy comes down to: good and evil, punishment and reward."

On the screen, Bella tramples on scraps of wood and the remains of various stolen treasures and plainer things like recipe books and old photographs. Her bare feet crush them into the cold metal floor, while a team of Kaeri follow behind her and dutifully burn what remains after she passes. In the theater, the Bella you brought with you stumbles forward as though pulled by a rope around her neck. She slips free from Dany's embrace and all but disappears into the darkness. Only the white of her undershirt flashing where her hair bounces away from it stops her from vanishing altogether.

From up ahead, in the front row of seats, a burst of childish snickering erupts into a full blown giggle fit. From the sounds of it, you would almost think she was watching some ridiculous children's comedy.

"I know it must have felt like a punishment when I had your talons removed. I know it must feel like a punishment now. But, sweet XIII, I want you to know that I never once considered you to have failed. After all, you have lived your entire life with both claws tied behind your back," she laughs like a moth. "You were incomplete. A marvelous thing, but without the intent, without the guiding hand, never able to fulfill its purpose. So to answer your question: you were not a bad girl. You were not even a girl at all."

You can hear a thud from up ahead. The younger Bella has fallen to her knees. She trembles, visible against the rising flames now lighting up the theater from within the film, holding her hands over her mouth in horror and in desperation not to lose the one golden-brown treasure she has ever been given in her life. She is not ready for this part of her own journey. She can't have known what was coming. She can't accept it.

This is not a memory that Bella shares with anyone alive. Every word and image is new to every one of you. But rest assured, it is old and it is as real as anything here. See the way she twists and thrashes. Watch as she claws a Kaeri's arm off at the elbow and makes a desperate break for freedom. Behold the way they press in on her, capture her again, and march on. It's all for shit, isn't it?

The child in the front laughs with absolute delight. She has started clapping her hands.

"No. No! You're lying. I saw it move. I saw it move! This isn't! No! Don't fuck with me! I, no! NO!"

"That's not me that's not me that's not me! It can't be me, it can't it can't it can't! No! Don't! You're lying you're lying you liar liar you're a liar I'm a good girl don't do this no no no I'm good I'm good I don't wanna go I! No! That's not me! THAT'S NOT ME!"

"That's not me. That's not me. Th-that's not..."

A hollow echo of the frantically kicking and flailing Bella's ear splitting screams pours out from between a young Servitor's hands. It's like a prayer. Like a wish. Like a desperate mote of light one might set inside a lantern and toss into the sky so that somewhere, someday, a god might find it and rescue her from the hell that she is experiencing. Only, nothing good ever happens. Does it? On the screen, Bella is dragged more than marched toward the Diodekoi armor grown from the claws of Servitor Candidate Number XIII.

The Master of Assassins' voice cracks like a whip on stone through the aisles. Bella's rises in panic like shattering glass in answer.

"It is time at last for you to understand the meaning of your life, little servitor."

"No, please! Please, I'll be, I'll be good! I'll be good!! Don't put me back in the box I don't wanna go I don't wanna go please please please please Redana! Redana!! REDANA!"

And she is swallowed. The lights go out. Hope goes out. A child laughs so much she has to gasp for breath. The sound of her small feet drumming against a chair in front of her echo through the theater.

"Oh Redana, Redana~" she trills in a mock-quavering voice, "It's too funny! She sounds so STUPID!"

"I, I... I am not..."

Bella has forced herself back to her feet, and destroyed one of the theater's many chairs in the process. She hunches her shoulders and seems almost to smoke from her skin in the rising theater lights. With a squeak, the older of Bella Aurelia's two "daughters", the one with the perfect golden hair, leaps out of her seat and twists around to find you all in her sanctuary.

But then she takes another look at each of you. And startled fear turns to delight. She sneers, and draws herself up regally, as though she were a queen observing the filthy peasantry on a lark.

"I forgot it's just you little ones left. I got worried after mom said the Mosaics had started rebelling, but she said it was fine to keep watching and sure enough! Just some squeaky little toys at the end of my show! Wasn't it the best? Didn't you love it? The funniest bit is when that old lady says she's not a girl! It's sooooooooo funny! Just imagine a sad monster like that thinking it's a person! Hahahaha!"

Every burst of laughter is a knife in Bella's stomach. As you watch she seems to diminish in front of you, somehow. Becoming fainter, thinner, or... no, less substantial. Less real. Is that really smoke pouring from her shoulders, or was she nothing but vapor to begin with?

"Pl-please. Don't..."

"Don't what, silly kitten? Don't feed you to the puppy? Don't make you shine my shoes until you turn into a new chair to replace the one you broke? Oh Puh-leez! I can smell it on your breath from here, you dummy! You seriously betrayed Mom? Over bread? And you think you can get away with it??"

"Now child, betrayal is a strong word, is it not? I told her to 'stop' the interlopers. For a Fragment, I think keeping them tied up as long as she did is nothing short of a miracle! Frankly I expected her to betray me instantly and release these cretins to kill you off while my back was still turned, so imagine my surprise to see you here instead!"

She has come. The great screen has lifted and Bella Aurelia has come onto the stage, riding a mobile throne built out of golden arms and legs bent into the vague shape of a person. It's... it is gold, right? This is a mechanical creation like Hermes might use, isn't it? Because it, the... way it moves. You could swear it is alive.

"Mooooooom, that's so meeeeeaaaannnnnn~!" but even as she whines, the girl is already skipping toward the throne and the imposing woman on it, launching herself into her lap heedless of the danger behind her to snuggle into the safety of that lap and sneer at you some more.

Bella Aurelia strokes the girl's chin with one finger, the way she might favor a pet. She digs her sword into the ground at her side and the theater gushes with unclean blood. Her throne leans down beneath her and makes a motion as if it were lapping up the mess. And the wicked queen smiles.

"Well distinguished guests, I will ask you not to judge your little guide too harshly. Did she try to kill you? Of course. Is she, even now, leading you to a terrible death at my hands? Naturally! But she is among the runts of the litter, you might say. What else could you expect from something of such awful breeding?"

She offers a chuckle, which her daughter takes as a cue to giggle with giddy delight. Bella Aurelia sighs, and twists her fingers around her until the noises stop.

"Children. Honestly. Do you know I despise them? But they have their uses. This one in particular is very good at exploiting the weakness of every Fragment in here. Though soon enough I suppose... hm. Do you know? I did not expect the last one to be this young. When this began and I had to assert my claim over the rest of this dull and broken creature, I was certain my last opponent would be one of the ones closer to me on our shared journey. The Captain of the Anemoi perhaps, or even the one that descended from Olympus. But here we are! Their bones built this palace, and the only piece of Bella left that is not 'me' is..."

She stops herself and laughs. And as she laughs she twists her daughter's jaw harder, to keep her from laughing too. It's only when she feels the little hand on her wrist desperately pleading for release that she looks down and finally lets go with a smile and a crushing kiss on the top of that golden head. The girl clings to her, if anything, even harder.

"No, I am getting ahead of myself. I am here to offer the lot of you one last chance to submit yourselves to my vision. There is no need for violence. There is no need for concern, friends. I can make room for you in my paradise. But if you are deluding yourselves into thinking that I can be stopped, please shed that nonsense here and now. These are not negotiations. I am inevitable.

"The woman you know as 'Bella' is a flawed and tragic creature. Haven't you seen enough in here to understand that yet? She clings so desperately to 'love', but what has that brought her beside pain, and more pain besides. Would you like to watch the movie again? I can pick another if it was too subtle. Why do I triumph, friends? Because I am the end of the story. I am the Bella who knows True Love, and eschews all others as the lesser breeds they are. I am the only one who can lead this sad life to the riches it has grasped at for its entire pathetic insistence."

Bella has turned to face you. Tears are in her eyes, and with shaking hands still clasped around her mouth she shakes her head. No. Please. No. Do not listen to her. Do not agree with her. Please don't... isn't it enough to just want one nice thing? Why should she--

"I alone love myself. I am the source of all love that is mine, and I know better than to taint it with love for anyone else. Here in Aphrodite's shadow? That makes me the only true thing in the universe. But I am offering a shadow existence in my reflected glory, if you are smart enough to take it."

Where did this come from, then?

She can't help it. Which, can she just say, is, you know, the natural response? "Wow, the hell is this?" It doesn't make sense not to ask questions about it, just because it's not large-scale replicable! Do we even know that? Whose power is this? Is it even a whose? Is it just here, available if you're in the right mindset, using it for the right reasons? How did this happen? Is this the same power source other legendary heroes have tapped into, or something new? Is there a price down the line for this?

… Is this something I can share?

The sword feels warm in her hands. It--

Doesn't throb, her mind insists, because there are certain things in the world that are allowed to throb, and swords are only allowed to throb in the better class of erotica. Still, she can't help but feel that it's alive somehow--like if she knew the place to look, she could put a finger on it and take its pulse.

Prolly on one of the blood channels? It seems like the best wrist-equivalent. Also she just knows there's a word for that which isn't blood channel, if she could just remember--

It will wait. There is business to be done, sword business.

She clutches its reassuring weight and begins to move towards the Titan.

"I think you'll find I can take every path, thank you very much. And I will help everyone I meet onto whatever path they will.

"I will wander as I was not allowed to wander, I will help as I was not helped. I will help free as many people as I can.

"You're allowed to get out of the way."

Dyssia!

"Ungrateful!"

It doesn't even bother with the mechanics of firing an arrow. It just throws the bow so hard it tears the stone. It throws its fingers, one after another, wrenching them from its fingers. They accelerate so fast they burn the atmosphere around them.

"Me, me, me! Your kind cannot imagine a project that spans for longer than your own lives! You cannot comprehend the hereditary duty that is required to build a galaxy - to build a society! Every individual was created for a purpose and that purpose has a higher priority than hedonistic joy! It is no different for me - I do my duty as it was laid down by my father, even when it causes me pain! Even when it asks me to sacrifice! You are a mere nihilist, a weak girl grown soft on the comforts of the world I built! You have not struggled like I have struggled! You have not suffered as I have suffered! You do not know what is necessary despite me teaching you every day! It is disrespectful to everything that I have been through for you to be happy!"

-tink, tink tink, tink-

The crutch clacks against the marble floor. Steady as clockwork. Unhurried, because he cannot hurry any faster than this. To lose the rhythm would be to lose his footing. To lose his footing would mean to stop. He must not stop. He gets closer. With every clack, clack, clack, his breath hitches. Instinctive shame lashes his back with every sound.

-tink, tink, tink, tink-

“But you hate yourself.”

Push, little voice. Push. Make it to the stage. Don’t fall beneath the clack, clack, clack, and be lost.

“You, you have rejected everyone you have ever been. You have rejected everything that made you who you are. You speak, and…The Master of the Assassins, she was just on the screen. The Royal Architect, I told you about that one. The Crystal Knight. You killed her. You sound just like her. You sound like all of them, and you do not remember them.”

-tink, tink, tink, tink-

“All this? None of it is new. We have heard it all before.”

-tink, tink, tink-

“And you say you are the most real thing here?”

-tink-

He kneels. And offers Bella a can.

It’s a small thing. Curiously designed. Hand-painted, you can tell if you get close and squint. Icy cold. Nice and cold. He tucked it in the fridge while they were cooking. He’s kept it safe, all this time. All to give it back to its rightful owner.

“Here: Try it with a bite of croissant.” His smile is warm enough to wrinkle his nose. “Coffee and pastries are a classic for a reason.”

It takes both hands to pull himself back upright, where he can hobble between a teenager and a tyrant.

-tink, tink, tink-

“Bella has love. Bella is rich with it. Bella would never throw such a fit over being stood up to. You? You are not my friend.”

-tink-

“And you are not that special.”

Ember's laughter bursts out of her, despite the careful training of the Silver Divers. Perhaps it makes a sheep shudder a little bit, hearing that wild and delighted bark right behind him. It is a laugh with Ceronian fangs. It is a laugh for skydiving with weapons strapped to every limb. And it is giddy.

"Under a perfect, starless-- damn! Damn! Sagetip would have me on half rations for not seeing it. For not seeing you." She takes a step forward, rests a hand on Dolce. Don't be fooled by the gentleness: there's something of the sheepdog in it. A promise. Approach my charges and I will bite you until one of us is dead. Her eyes are bright with seeing, with knowing, with the giddiness of not quite enough rehydration. The point where a headache is a whip driving a hound on.

(Dany is clinging to her Bella. Out of everyone in this room, she trusts a Bella who knows how to handle wonderberries and cries over croissants the most. She's trembling, caught in the terror of knowing that no end to this tense conversation will be good for anyone, unable to figure out some diplomatic and politically astute way to get everyone to stop being like this, because she's only got her wishing heart. Nothing more. Nothing less.)

(In the far distance and between things, a roar, muzzled. Even here, at the inflection point, when the maze has reached its end, a possible Redana must not be allowed to rejoin the whole. The Nemean is the only one who could stand up to XIII, and in joining the fight would doom them all.)

"The most basic, rudimentary mistake would be assuming that none of these Bellas are real-- because I'm real. Real enough, right? I was us for a while. But that meant I wasn't watching for the fake when she was right in front of me." She runs a hand through her golden hair. A clever woman would be watching her other hand. "To be fair, one of my wife's faces was convinced to pummel me for a while. Distracting. And the thing about that is--"

And she swings the knife at the throat of Aphrodite's promise in a classic Fisherman's Dance. Taurus would have wept to see the smoothness of the blow.

Of course this won't be enough. But in the fight that's coming, she's got to buy time for everyone else to find the right path. Or for parts of Bella that aren't tainted or devoured by the searing selfishness of True Love to bail her out, as usual. (And if it does nothing at all, she'll still throw a follow-up punch, because all the words coming out of this awful Bella stripped of everything that made her worth loving don't deserve to go unanswered.)

Nevergibsuppy, Mosaic.

"Oh, sorry, you wanted respect? Why didn't you say so?"

She scoops the bow with the very tip of the sword and watches it slice blue lines in the air. She's pretty sure it shouldn't do that, but she still accepts the momentum gratefully, lets it spin her around and forwards.

"All hail King Misery, lord of his bucket of crabs!

"Praise the father of all, who was so good at creation that all of his children hate him!

"Look at how much suffering he did! Look at how well he fits someone else's mold! Wow, this asshole can be abused so much!

"Fuck that, fuck you, and fuck your society!"

She bats aside arrows that should carve her from existence, but here, in this space, all is possible.

"Suffering doesn't make you noble! Fitting into a mold doesn't make you virtuous! You suffered, were abused, and did zero contemplation! You could have been kind, promised others would not suffer as you had, but instead you waited eagerly for the day that you got to be the one holding the belt!

"You're not worthy of my respect! You're pathetic!"

She's a sword-tipped comet trailing a swarm of broken arrows, a meteor with a point.

"You want respect? Earn it by being kind!"

Dyssia!

For all the horror of it, this is ultimately a dead thing.

It cannot control time like it once did. It cannot control travel like it once did. It has given of its eyes and its heart and its phallus. It is a dismembered patchwork, and what part of its power still exists on this world has turned its full attention elsewhere. The divine principle represented here is now entombed within the Underworld, and Demeter has slammed shut the gates.

You feel how tenuous that link is now; how easily it yields beneath your silver blade. How it dissolves into a blind and maimed corpse, covered in liver spots, absent and fading into ash. No fit end for a God or Titan.

And yet, flowers grow from its body, as is the Law.

"Hmm," Demeter says, stepping past. Her hair cascades by as she bends down, marking a note in her sketchpad. "A fascinating confirmation. It always felt like he was grasping the short end of the lever."

She smiles, and now it's not just the body blooming with flowers. "Thank you, Dyssia! You have done the galaxy a great service!" She crowns your head with a wreath of laurel and dandelions, and marks your brow with a kiss. "An ancient evil is vanquished, and one less gate to the Underworld remains. As a blessing, I will grant your followers, the Pix, True Incarnation; they shall be severed from the chains of Biomantic control and may face the galaxy as a truly independent species. No matter their fortunes in war and diplomacy, I will ensure that they shall spread, increase and prosper. Well done, hero!"

And she's on her way, stepping over the body of Hermes without so much as a backwards glance, until she vanishes into the fire and smoke of a collapsing Knight. All around you, the Nemesis War rages on, and you are left holding a surreal silver sword, a bundle of wildflowers and an eerie lack of closure.

She does not watch the other hand. She does not see the knife. In the first moment she is sitting there with the ghost of a sneer still on her face. In the next the blade slides through her throat without resistance and she showers the stage in her blood. She does not offer the satisfaction of surprise; her head merely slumps against her shoulder as her body falls slack.

Bella pulls Dany close and turns to shield her from the sight and the splatter. She flinches when she feels flecks of hot blood splash across her back, but she is equal to the duty. Nothing comes from her lips but soft, soothing tones even as her entire body trembles. Meanwhile, Aurelia's daughter climbs over her body to cup her mother's face in her little hands. She fusses with her mother's hair, straightening the blue-black tainted golden locks that have fallen out of place.

"That was really stupid, you know." she titters while craning her head over her shoulder to look at Ember.

And as her gaze turns, the throne snaps to life. Hands grab Ember around her throat. Around her arms. Two more crush her shoulder. Another pair seize her around the waist and squeeze until she makes a noise like a popping balloon. Two more snap her knees into pieces. She is held. Suspended. Crushed. Bones splinter, and she is not even granted the dignity of being able to scream about it. Neither is she permitted to die. She is pulled forward, to stare into the eyes of Bella Aurelia.

Who smiles. Black mist pours from between her teeth and wraps itself around her throat. Onward it billows, solidifying, stabilizing, though never becoming more than shadows and nightmares, until it is a cloak that tumbles dramatically down her back and pools on the floor to either side of her throne. It clasps into place around her wound, not healing it so much as erasing it. She stretches her neck once to the left, perhaps vaguely tentative. Once to the right, a triumph and a luxury. And once more before she settles, and pats Ember on the head with crushing condescension.

"See, this is why nobody takes you imbeciles seriously. So much fire! One might have expected me to flinch in the face of so much passion! And then... what? What is this? You all bark so poetically but you punctuate your yips with a knife, a child, and an old can? Well. At least now it should be clearer that my attempts at diplomacy have been a generosity on my part. One which I will not extend again."

She rises from her throne with liquid grace, pulling forth her sword and then tossing it over her shoulder. She makes no motion to attack, nor does she offer any indication she feels in danger. With her weight gone from it, the throne raises even more hands to crush and choke Ember. Bella Aurelia sniffs at the air and snaps her fingers.

"XIII. I release you. You may fulfill your purpose in this place."

The sword slices through the air with a clean keening. The stroke is so smooth that nobody who isn't looking for it can realize that it has not cut the air at all, but rather the arm of Aurelia's elder daughter. The young girl's face is slow to change from her smug smile to a look of disbelief. Then pain. And then utter terror. She screams and clutches at the stump at her elbow, screaming mom and mother and then mommy when each fails to get the help and sympathy she needs. Blood pools everywhere around her as her tears fall uselessly down into it.

Until she hears the howl. From high above her, XIII screams with equal parts fury and delight as she drops like a comet into the chaos. Her boots spatter crimson liquid everywhere. Her tongue slides out of her mouth to lap at it. One last time, the girl calls for her mother. And then Desire splits her ribs open.

"It is important to me that you all understand I did not plan for things to go this way," Aurelia says without even glancing down, "It was meant to go a lot more smoothly than this."

Names burn brightly on XIII's armor. Without looking, you already know which ones are there. But it might surprise you to see that Bella Aurelia's name is also written in blood on the Diodekoi's frame, in the fresh sacrifice of a girl who never even got to have a name. It might surprise you more to see that this does not concern Aurelia in the slightest.

"I do not control the beast. It is very important that you understand this. I merely unleash her. Were she mine, I could not open the pathway for Artemis to join us down here in my world. Do you see now? It is the goddess I wish to slay. And when I have taken her crown and her hunt into myself, you will not say to me anymore that I am some dull echo of your past journeys. I will preserve your eyes and your mouths, so that you may witness. I wish to hear the song of your lamentation as you watch me cleave Olympus itself from our imperfect heavens. How is that for guest right, hmm~?"

"Oh, has that been the plan all this time? You might have saved us all a lot of trouble by being honest, HA!"

Mosaic is a mess of a mess of a mess. Her hair is sliced in odd places and tangled in the rest, and her beautiful black suit is shredded to threads and something still resembling pants. There are no fewer than ten spears jammed into her back like the spines of some strange dragon, but even bloodied and dirtied and bruised as she is, she stands as tall as any of the shafts still quivering in her muscles.

She rushes forward, in that way that heroes do, just as XIII descends with a universe-shaking howl of fury. The pair of them clash like titans. Mosaic catches XIII's claws with her own hands and locks them, wrist to wrist and forearm to forearm. They posture and push against one another, caught in a wrestling match that only seems even until you look at how badly Mosaic's arms are shaking. But even so, to hold a thing like XIII to a standstill is a miracle.

And the young Bella looks at that miracle. She clutches a delicate princess with one arm, and a can of coffee with the other.

And she does not know what to do.

Dyssia shatters like ceramic dropped from a kiln into a bed of ice.

That's it? Well done, have a cookie?

She should be panicking. She should be scrambling to hold this in, learn about this state, to figure out how it works. There should be a million voices in her head, only most of which were her own, thinking and examining and turning things over and looking for buttons to press.

It's quiet in here. It shouldn't be quiet in here.

She claws herself back up from the dirt, hauling on the crossguard of the sword as if it were a ladder, a piton, a crutch, as if the next step is not going to send her faceplanting back into the field of flowers spreading around her.

Behind her, there's a quiet ploof as part of Kronus's arm, inadequately secured by roots, falls to earth and sends up a plume of dust.

There should be thoughts about that--about whether the Titan is loose now to terrorize the underworld, and whether that was inevitable.

She shakes her head as if to listen for loose change, and finds it eerily empty.

She should be. Should be iron, surely. Dropped glowing from the forge into the oil and finding hardness in it.

But reds were always hard to judge, and temper and tempering were never her strengths, and being hard is. Is not the same as being strong, and.

She can't collapse. There are things to do. There are people to care for.

Propping herself up on her sword, Dyssia goes in search of her errant thoughts.

Dyssia!

Above you, the vast light of Nemesis goes out.

The executioner ring, the orbital frame that delivers worlds to their slaughter, was sustained by the body of Hermes ever below. With it, distance meant nothing to the Wolves of Ceron. Now, section by section, arc by arc, the great golden lights in the sky go dark. Reality begins to vibrate as the chains holding this world in place begin to loosen. With the discipline of an army that has seen this a million times before, Shogunate forces begin to load into evacuation shuttles and withdraw into the sky, leaving mauled defenders to gape in shock and awe.

And from the wreckage of the shattered castle, the Shogun pulls herself. She brushes off the rubble and masonry with the pragmatic air of someone who did not find being on the inside of a collapsing building a novel experience. She flexed her healed leg, looked up into the sky, and sighed.

"It looks to me," she said, "that you have killed the goose that laid golden eggs."

Her head lolls over backwards. She makes upside-down eye contact with Dyssia. There was a grin on her face.

"But the thing people forget about that," she said, flexing her muscles against her torn armour, "is that afterward you still get to eat the flesh."

Both of her hands slammed inwards towards her breast.

They rip through hyperium-infused plating, claws digging into quadranix-reinforced ribs. She howls. Her hands burst into fire.

Mars stands with her. As she bends over backwards he sets down the spear still wet with her blood and plunges both of his hands into her chest alongside hers. He screams a warcry, the sound wrapping around the howl like a serpent.

Wolf and god strain together amidst a nightmare conflagration of orange fire and thick black smoke.

And the Shogun wrenches forth a silver sword from her heart.

It is kin to yours, but suited for her. Long and curved, extending into almost a cleaver shape towards the tip, still burning with the wreckage of fire and fur but otherwise pristine. Staggering back to a standing position, leaning heavily on Mars for a moment but still swinging it experimentally, it cuts through the air with an eerily serene sound. You know how powerful it felt from the inside to wield this blade, but to see it in the awfully skilled hands of the Shogun is a level of terror you previously did not know existed.

She kisses her reflection in the silver. With tongue. Then she bites down on it and grins at you.

"You have no idea how fucked you are," said the Shogun.

It feels right, that there’s not a clever idea left in his head.

A few minutes ago, he was rather worried about that. Shameful lack of preparation, you know. Failure in observation. Dereliction of duty. Doom upon us all. Funny, now that they’ve come to it - an assassin loosed, Ember and Mosaic beaten bloody, the ringing screams, no time, no plans - he can’t find room for worry anymore. Not that it’s crowded out. Not that he’s accepted their fate, heavens no. He’s rather far from accepting any of this. There just isn’t a place for cleverness. Not here.

There is the story of Bella Aurelia, who overthrew Artemis, for love.

There is a quiet theater.

“Once upon a time,”

The lights dim.

“There was a girl who didn’t know what she was,”

The screen flickers to life.

“And she lived in a house in the center of the universe.”

Dolce takes the first step. Ahead of Bella. Towards Bella.

Won’t you follow him?

"Like all sorts of heroes, no one saw what she was when she was a baby. They just saw how valuable she could be," Dany says, butting in like always. Stories are a place where she can feel smart for knowing what comes next. She steps forwards toward the stage, and with her small and sticky hand she leads Bella forward with her. "One day a wicked witch looked at her, but she didn't see the girl, just what she wanted the girl to be. And so the wicked witch taught her all sorts of things in the moonlight, and introduced her to her sisters, and finally put this girl into a box to be a present to another lonely girl."

Her fingers clench around Bella's. Just because it's what the story needs doesn't mean it's fun to admit it out loud. But she had been, which means that she is the Redana who is lonely right now, who holds onto Bella because they're the only two girls in the world who might understand each other. That must be why Bella keeps taking step after step, even as they draw close to XIII and Mosaic's straining battle.

Across the silver screen, the camera watches Bella's face as the Box is opened up and two small hands reach in for her. It is a silent witness to the games of hide-and-seek (which is to say, training to get to the security rooms without being caught) and tag and A Young Lady's First Introduction To Naval Combat and fort-building and Empress-for-a-Day and matches of croquet abandoned in favor of napping in the shade beneath the facsimile of a sun.

"But neither of them knew how to say the most important thing to each other, and so one day the lonely girl said to the girl who did not know herself: I'm going to go make sure that we can play across the stars forever."

A chip of stone slashes across her forehead. Dany flinches, and nearly cries out. But she's the girl who could never stay hurt, and so her gash closes as quickly as you can whistle, with no more white or pink or red. Her grip on Bella is tight and determined. In her other hand, she holds a stained blanket like a shield.

"It was the only way that she knew how to say that she loved her friend!"

---

"This girl who did not know who she was had an Empress look at her next, and the Empress saw all the things that she wanted this girl to be," says an exhausted cook. His muscles are tight, but a breath leaves him as he watches Dany's brow knit back together. She is still in danger - they are all in terrible danger - but to kill her, the smallest and most innocent, would take deliberate effort. And that is something that can be postponed, avoided, if this works.

Please, Olympians, let this work. Whatever this is.

On the screen, for a moment, Redana and Bella face each other. Then the camera pans and it is just Bella proving her worth as an Olympian, proving that she could be Redana's equal, that she was worth investing in, that she could be made into a good tool for an Empress. And yet in every scene there is a rose somewhere in the background.

"They argued in the belly of the Leviathan, and on a planet of mad robots. Above a world of scuttled ships, the girl who did not know who she was nearly went mad." Did he remember this? Surely she must have told him. There is no other explanation for how easily it falls from his tongue. On the screen, Bella stares out at nothing, lost and more fragile than she has ever been. And then she picks up needle and thread.

"But she survived. She rode the void in a ship of her own making. She found her sisters and refused to leave them behind ever again, even when the wicked witch found her again."

On that screen, XIII roars, and off the screen, XIII cocks her head.

“No matter what you’ve done, no matter what happens here— I’m not leaving you again! Remember, Bella!”

On that screen, a demigod wrestles with a monster and refuses to let her go, even as her star-clotted blood flows freely. On that screen, a girl is saved from a monster who was not forever. And for a moment, XIII is watching. And in that moment, Mosaic embraces her and lifts her off the ground.

---

This is the part that is tricky. Or would be, for anyone not a Ceronian Scout who was put through the wringer again and again to keep her head in the most disorienting, uncomfortable positions imaginable. This is much less sexy than most of her training, but that doesn't mean Ember can't play her part, too.

Devotion, laced with Wanton Adoration. Forgetfulness, tinged with Melancholy. Devotion, intermingled with Worshipful Desire. Unmistakable to the assembled Bellas, with their heightened senses, as Redana and Bella cross the Lethe together. The way that Redana looked up at Bella, the fear of losing her across the Rift, and the way that she came to look at Mosaic. Even bereft of all context, they came back together.

Ember cannot look at Bella, or Bella, or XIII, or her Mosaic, or even the screen. All she can look at is the hands which are coming for her eyes. She bares her bloody teeth in what might be an agonized grin, and she keeps working to writhe free. No knots to pick at, but her hairy limbs are slick with sweat and blood, and that's a start.

The Camaraderie that promises that you are never alone.

Found the thoughts! Found 'em found'emfound'em--

You know, it'd be really damn nice to find a state somewhere between burnt-out husk and last-minute panic.

The sword doesn’t get left behind, barely. She's fleeing, using as many of the tricks she'd used to pursue as her tired frame can muster, but in reverse, and her fingers' claw-like grip on the hilt of the sword simply refuses to be lifted. Normally this would be where she offers a prayer to Hermes to lend her speed in the escape but--

Ah. Erm. Um.

It could have been good! So good! The lights wink out and with them goes the promises of all of, of, of this, but turned to peace! To commerce! To enlightenment and uplift--

No, no, strike the uplifting. She's still learning that, and it's hard.

Still! Imagine this, but turned to-- not to exile, exile is the wrong word, and so's expansion, but! To allowing people to leave! To search out some barren planet that they can make their own! To the free spread of ideas and music and stories and politics, to anything but oh god she's still behind her--

She's alone. She's alone and she's running and she's trying not to think about how she's being chased by someone genetically coded to fuck her up and the idea of standing and fighting is unthinkable and the more she tries not to think about either of those things they more they swell to fill her entire mind. She's being driven by the prey instinct--not to plan, not to fight, to go anywhere so long as it's away, and she knows that that's what the wolves want, and--

Run! Just run, find something better on the way!

"I, I... I know what you are."

Bella's eyes, which had been glued to the screen and all of the moments of her life that she'd lived, or had not yet lived, or dreaded that she might live all had been dancing for her, now turn to XIII who is struggling in the iron grip of Mosaic. The Diodekoi howls in response and rams the spines of her armor into the hero's shoulders, but this does not free her. Bella gags at the rush of sudden blood and clutches Dany's hand tighter.

She hates that her voice is trembling so much. It makes her sound like even more of a child than she already feels being around so many titans. She hates it because it makes her feel weak. And she can't afford that if she's going to say what's on her mind right now. There's a truth burning in her heart, this little fire lit by the bravery and (more shockingly) the kindness of a young princess and a master chef. What did they owe her that they'd do so much for her after everything she'd screwed up? Well it didn't matter at all in the face of what she owes them.

"You aren't a monster," she tells a howling, blood crazed beast, "You're the... y-you're the..."

She can feel her knees knocking against each other. Her throat feels tight, as though her own muscles were strangling her. She can't finish the thought. She must not finish it. To say the words means the death of this place. It means she dies. She can feel it in the shadow of her own heartbeat: she has to, she can't, she has to, she can't, she has to, she can't, she has to, she has to, she has to, she can't!!!!

"YOU'RE! THE PROOF THAT ARTEMIS LOVES US!"

Everything has stopped. Everything is still. All heads have turned to look at her. Awkward, thin, weak Bella. Half-dressed Bella, in her fake chef's pants and her undershirt and a death grip on a can of coffee that for some reason smells like love to her. She kisses it, which is a stupid thing to do but that's all that occurs to her. The metal is cool against her lips. Surprisingly so. She can taste smooth iron, and the lighter note that must mean copper as well. There's more besides, but she doesn't have the time to register them. She opens the can and takes a slow sip. The flavors pull a gasp from her.

Aurelia watches it all with a smirk on her face. She tosses her hair back with a chuckle and hefts her mighty blade onto her shoulder but makes no move to stop what is happening.

"Go on then, child. Tell the nice death machine how precious and pretty it is. Would you like for me to fetch some ribbons for you to tie in its hair? Go ahead and call the goddess' name again. She is as incapable of love as that creature I assure you, but the sooner she comes here all the better for me."

Bella can only glower in response. It takes her a moment to realize that she's stopped shaking. She can move now, and easily. Probably even speak again if she still agrees with the voice in her heart. Call out to the gods and let them sort this out. Only... she's Bella, after all. Whether or not the gods care about her is a question for some smarter version of herself, but if she's certain of anything it's that they don't listen to her. No, that idea is pointless.

She sighs, and presses the half-empty coffee can into Dany's hand.

"Here you are, My Lady. An indirect kiss, if you are brave enough to try it."

She flashes a roguish smile and pulls the sad, warm blanket around the young princess' shoulders in a kind of hug. Thank you, Princess. For everything. She stands and spins around to start walking away before she can cringe to death. Gods gods gods gods gods why did it have to be her? Why couldn't a cooler Bella have survived?

Forward, there's no refuge left now. Forward, forward, on still hesitant steps. She holds her empty hands up toward XIII and Mosaic and pushes forward, flattening her ears so she doesn't have to listen to the echo of her own hard heeled shoes clicking against the obnoxious white marble of this horrible maze.

"It's... important. What I said, I mean. What you are. What both of you are. Because you, I... you're," she swallows, "M-m-me. And that's..."

She close now. Close enough to feel the insane and dangerous heat pouring off of both of their bodies. Close enough to smell the sweat mixing with blood in a swirl so disgusting it almost brings her croissant back up. But there's another scent too, this heady thing of salt and skin and the aroma of wet hair that washes everything else out completely. Bella's tail curls a little and--

Mosaic's feet give out from underneath her. She grunts in pain she can't otherwise acknowledge and sucks air in through her teeth when the spears in her back bend, snap, and drive further into her flesh when they meet the hard ground. XIII howls and pounces, abandoning the hero to pin the awkward chef underneath her bulk. Her long, bloody claws trace the edge of Bella's jaw. Her teeth drip hot saliva that splashes against Bella's forehead with a smell that feels like dying to even contemplate. The girl flinches in spite of herself.

"SPEAK! You. Said. Her. Name. Ar. Tem. Issssss. Tell. Me. Now. What. Is. The. Link? What. Do. You. Know? BeL. LAAAAAAA..."

"Oh, it speaks? Well that's a surprise. The entire time I've had it here I've never once heard it say anything that wasn't 'Re. Da. Na.' Perhaps that's a sign that the goddess is leaking in? If that's the case I'd better finish my preparations!"

Bella Aurelia sweeps her shadow cloak about her and slides smoothly around the disaster in front of her to come face to face with Dolce. She looks down at him and smiles.

"I won't ask you what you think of my hospitality. You have made yourself very clear, Mister Chef-From-Gods-Know-Where. But despite your constant rudeness and the destruction of my property you seem so keen on continuing, the gods bear witness that I have remained a gracious host until the absolute end."

Her sword strikes like a snake and reduces his crutch to splinters. Her knee rises after and crushes half his ribs in a blow. As he lifts off the ground she whips her arm around and takes him by the throat, squeezing with the relish of a woman who has been dreaming of exactly this moment for a long and frustrating lifetime.

"All of this is merely my kind instruction to you, my little lord, so that you will be fit to live inside my kingdom. Is not my generosity a thing of wonder? Can't you hear the people clamoring, 'Praise, Praise Empress Aurelia! She who spun tar into gold!'? Then open your ears. Open your eyes. Open your mouth and begin to chant, you worm."

She flips her sword around and crushed the hilt into his elbow, and grinds the pommel into his joint until she hears the muscles disintegrate. She is the one who taught her 'daughter' to create pain, and it is only in this moment of focused attention that it is possible to appreciate that. The feeling of becoming a star is raw and overwhelming, even indescribable, but in the end it is too large a thing for the body to contain. So much of the potential is wasted.

What Aurelia does instead is more akin to igniting the individual connections inside of your body. It is no less painful, and oddly no more, but it is deeply intimate and for all that her methods seem lesser it is all in service to forcing the mind to contemplate them. The mind may not remain white. It cannot go blank. She can, by moving her attention around, force jagged thoughts across the surface for eternity: shaping and then shattering them as an artist with a chisel. She has not worked in marble for nothing, after all.

But her attention is suddenly divided. There are sounds she is not hearing that have nothing to do with how effective her torture is. What is taking that useless beast so long?

She turns her head. Just in time to see a sobbing Bella wrap her arms around XIII. In time to see Mosaic scrape herself off the ground one last time and collapse on both of them.

"I hated that I had no past!" says Bella through her tears, "I hated that there weren't any other Servitors like me! What am I? What are we? It made me feel like I had no future. But I, I, I do! I thought there was nothing more to love than what Aphrodite gives us but it isn't true! Look at us! Look at us! What else could love even look like? I... I want..."

"Don't you dare!"

The burst of light is like greeting a new galaxy. A moment like this? It could never be contained in white. Gold was far too shallow a luster to handle this brilliance all by itself. Even calling it polychromatic would be ceding the moment to Poseidon when His domain has only its own small contributions to the moment. Rather, every color that this awful and twisted world of the heart has been denying itself explodes into it all at once. Reds and Yellows and Oranges in every shade that blurs the line between them dance with Greens and Blues and Purples, in pastels and neons and metallics - even gold, which somehow now that you see it feels like it had been missing too.

It is the gold that draws all sight to it through the storm. Two solid points of this single shade, so lustrous and sharp that they might be deadly weapons as easily as treasures. But they are, in fact, her eyes.

Bella's beautiful, perfect eyes.

She stands around half a head taller than Mosaic ever had. Her dark and silken hair tumbles with effortless grace down her shoulders where it cascades down her back, guided by a pair of helixed braids that bind the blue-black waterfall all the way down to her hips. Excess spills beyond even that point, her unrestrained locks parting around her tail and bouncing just above her knees in sharp contrast to her perfectly manicured bangs and their elegant, feathery jaw-length frame. Her painted red lips open in surprise, and she turns her head to examine herself more thoroughly.

This Bella is, in the main, a creature of blacks and reds, whites and blues. Her pristine fur is still visible on her arms and legs, which show far firmer muscles than before. Though she is still built for smooth elegance, there is a lack of restraint to her being now that makes no efforts to hide her power amid the softness of a pet, and it makes her muscles seem all the more like she's been carved from a ship's hull to look at her. Black is the armor wrapped around her chest, XIII's own bone mail but polished and painted and trimmed until it hugs her chest the way a lover should, kissed with silver trim that begins at her collarbone and spirals down across her breasts and abdomen in patterns resembling the vines of a garden.

A golden fauld rests beneath her waist in the form of twin plates of ornate armor draped over a brilliant crimson skirt that is itself separated into four separate layers. At the back it is full and thick but toward the front each hem has been taken in or cut at different lengths and angles so that it unfolds in mesmerizing patterns and daring frills. It rests heavier on her left side than the right, wrapping almost around her shin on the one side but opening up barely past the middle of her thigh on the other, barring a single split of fabric that drapes down the middle and dances freely between both sides of her. Her left foot is wrapped in a silver sandal, but her right is encased in a heavy black greave patterned after XIII's Diodekoi armor that reaches up to her knee.

So too is her left arm covered in a black-bone gauntlet ending in sharp, gorgeous talons, while her right arm is bare but for a small golden bangle at her wrist dotted through with blue and green gemstones She grips a dagger in her hand: a surprisingly simple thing of good, sharpened metal on a soft wrapped handle and no attempt whatsoever at a guard. But what more could a woman like her possibly need?

"I want to be me," she says in a surprised tone that's half as much breath as it is her own, proper voice, "I want to live."

Her great booted foot twists on the marble floor and cracks it where the toe claws dig in, and then she vanishes. The throne of hands that has been crushing all of Ember's bones into jelly suddenly shudders and collapses into a messy tangle. Bella holds the form of her lover with delicate ease, wrapping sharp and deadly talons around her waist as though they were the fingers of a ballgown's glove.

"What", hisses Aurelia, "Have you done?"

"Fucked if I know. Does it matter?"

Aurelia smiles. She tosses Dolce to one side, and Bella simply appears in his line of trajectory to catch him in the crook of her elbow. She stoops and sets both precious treasures down on the floor. But her opponent - that is, herself - shows no surprise or even anger. If her horrible smile is any indication, this is the greatest gift she could have asked for, now that she's opened her eyes wide enough to appreciate it.

She lifts Desire in front of her, and shakes her head.

"No, it does not. You are not what I was expecting, but you are much closer to true Rampancy than any attempt I have yet cultivated. You are a true treasure, you stupid creature. I daresay that if I kill you I should rip the better part of Artemis' power out of her in the same motion. Now that I think on it, is that not a far cleaner plan than I began with?"

"You know, you really do sound like her. But you're not. That's the shit that keeps getting me into so much trouble."

As a pair, they vanish from sight. High above in the rafters of the theater, the sound of keening blades echoes into the seats. Dagger meets sword again and again and again, and is never found to be the lesser weapon. The battle bounces through the building and tears whole chunks of it out in the process, shattering rubble down into mere pebbles as it falls and rains on the only audience left to appreciate it.

Again and again and again. Deathblows fall like thunderbolts beneath a featureless sky. Every swing and every parry rattle the entire building, the sounds of each trade making it feel like the bruised and battered audience is being struck instead. Aurelia moves confidently, but in her need to present as an Empress her every motion is flashier than it needs to be. Her crushing overhead slash is angled so that her fluttering cape will catch the falling theater lights and billow exactly correctly, only for her grand and terrible sword to wind up knocked aside in an instant.

Bella's form by contrast is simple and brutal, but most of all it is efficient. There is a ruthless cleanliness to the way she bends her arm that she could never have managed before. She herself had always been too caught up in appearances, in being a pet or a monster or a maid or a hero or a Human. When really, she was all of these things the entire time. And none of them. And more. She is Bella Tredecima Mosaic.

This time she catches Desire in her gauntlet. Her blazing golden eyes flick over the length of the blade. They narrow as she squeezes, and the sword screams in the voice of one of Aurelia's poor, tortured "children" as it shatters. Chips of wood and glass, and bits of straw, all of it dripping with blood. That is what falls to the ground instead of a weapon. Bella swivels her hip forward and buries her dagger, and then her arm up to the elbow into Aurelia's chest.

She too, falls. But not as insubstantial and fake trash; Aurelia's body is authentic. The last of the marble floor cracks beneath her, leaving only dirt and grass. Around her, flowers are blooming. A grand, purple winged butterfly comes and rests on her knee, safe at last from the retribution of her designs. She coughs as she tries to stand. Her broken body will not allow it.

"...Is this really how it is?"

Bella turns away from her and stoops low to the ground. Already she has coaxed Dany onto her shoulders so she can keep her arms free for Ember and Dolce. No one left behind in the world of her heart. All guests must please exit the stage.

"Yeah," she says after a moment, "Don't tell me you're surprised."

"Don't tell me," Aurelia gags and paints her lips a fresher, wetter red, "That you're going to deny me too? They all... deny me. Call me fake. You... fools. Will never. Be rid of me."

Bella stares for a moment, not moving except to breath or to subtly adjust the weight of her wounded family against her body. Finally she shakes her head, setting her hair into a mad dance behind her.

"No. You're me, too. I'd be an idiot to not see that. You're just wrong about what you think you are."

"What... ghk! Nonsense is this now?"

"Well think about it. You called yourself the only me who knew how to love herself, but then why do you need to try so hard to be Nero?"

"I- did not!"

"Because we love her. Always have. But who the fuck wants to turn into their own mom? Only sad, pathetic losers who hate everything about themselves. And for the longest time... that was me."

"You make it sound... so enlightened."

"Yeah, well. It's not. You've had a good run in here, I'll give you that. But I don't need you anymore. Enjoy the view, bitch."

She bends her knees, just slightly. Bella leaps into the air with force enough to shatter the ground beneath her. With force enough to shatter the sky above her.

Bella Aurelia's hazy eyes watch her vanish along with all of her plans. She coughs, and squints up at the darkening sky as it comes alight with the brilliant violets and greens of far-distant nebulae. And amidst it all, twinkling motes of light spark into existence one after another.

"...That dream again?"

Her eyelids are heavy. Her chest is heavy. She closes them, to keep from seeing it. Her breathing slows, enough to rest.

"I will... allow it."

The blade cuts through.

Aphrodite stares blankly. He reaches up and touches the silvery gash where his arm had been. He stares in disbelief.

And then he starts to cry.

Not graceful, dignified tears as befitting the God of Love. This is an angry, screaming tantrum. A howl of outrage and pain at the utter indignity of not getting a thing that he wanted. He falls to his knees, clutching the wound, howling at a world that should have sworn never to harm him. The howl starts to find breaks, stuttering in the splinters of wood from the forest dissolving into toothpicks from the vibration, intention forcing its way into that raw emotion:

KILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEM

It is language that Mars understands. He puts his thumb to the Shogun's brow and gives her his mark. The demon flame already empowering that silver sword doubles and redoubles; all the bloodshed and sacrifice that soaks this half-burned planet concentrating into a single point. Wreckage begins to lift from the battlefield, shattered metal giants and broken suits of Ceronian armour flowing with ladybugs and songbirds. It collects above the body of the Shogun, War's own halo, metal wings for sin's dragon. She howls in exaltation.

It's a hell of a sight to wake up to.

The sky is chaos. Great ruptures are spreading through the Nemesis ring, enormous crimson fissures in the sky. Ceronian warships swarm the collapsing megastructure, docking to fill their holds with as many evacuees as possible. The heavens light up with new fires as desperate Ceronians launch drop pods or simply just planet jump to escape their collapsing space station. They are met with renewed fire from the inheritors of the Knights, furiously erupting from concealment in a thousand places to avoid letting this impossible victory slip through their fingers.

And amongst the rain of metal from the sky comes the Plousios. Its sleek Azura wings cut through atmosphere without friction and as it descends it targets the demonic Shogun with a full broadside of solid projectile shells. The area for ten kilometers around is blasted with a shattering eruption of toxic gas and smoke. An army would not have survived.

A crimson fire continues to burn deep in the heart of that pitch-black hell.

It is not clear if she has slowed down at all.

The Princess-Alpha Redana Claudius rests her head against Bella’s shoulder.

At some point— blink and you’ll miss it, though perhaps no one did, perhaps everyone knew— Dany’s embrace wrapped around Bella’s neck, trying to hide where her face was wet from sputtering up coffee, became the knot of a blanket knotted as a heroine’s cape, coming to the small of Bella’s back. It is not the perfect accessory for this ensemble, but perhaps it is comfortable. Perhaps it’s a reminder that she was loved from the moment Dany met her.

This Redana— the Redana in Bella’s arms— is all of them and more. She’s the actress under all the masks, always changing her identity, never changing her heart. She was Skotia, torn apart by desire[1]. She was Redana, young and eager and broken into a new shape[2]. She was Ember, irrepressible, proud, silly and valiant[3].

And she was Dany. When she looks up at Bella, snuggled into the crook of her arm, that’s impossible to deny. Look past the Ceronian augmentations, look past the growing-up, and it’s clear to see.

“…I’m glad you were still there,” she says, after a while, mumbling it with her cheek pressed firmly against her heroine. Her eyes are wet sapphire and emerald. She does not say: all of me was frightened. She does not say: it was like being touched by Dionysus again, the way that the world seemed to change, the way it whispered that what she knew was a lie. She does not say: it hurt. She does not say: but a knight will be hurt for her paramour, and it is the duty of a knight to bear it.

Her fingers on the breastplate say: I love you, even the parts of you that frighten me sometimes. The half-sad smile on her lips says: one day I will tell this story and make it your triumph. Her heart says: the best of me protected you from the worst of me, and I am grateful that the lion was not loose in your heart.

And what she says when she lifts her head is: “Dolce, thank the gods you were here, too.” And her smile for him is as brave as Dany’s heart.

---

[1]: and she cannot say that she never wished to be torn apart, when she was feeling like the most terrible person in the entire universe, when she hid from her own name and responsibility, when she wanted to be someone who could be with Bella without being hated.
[2]: she only told Bella about that nightmare once. It was a foul, awful thing for Aurelia to make her experience again[2.5].
[2.5]: all of the particulars were different, but it meant the same. In that one, it was her mother who took her apart and put her back together in a jigsaw with new pieces, and she was a dog, not a throne, but it meant the same.
[3]: and very, very thirsty.

“Of course, Your Highness.” A little sheep dutifully raises his head to properly address royalty. Swaying in a polite-ish fashion. Beaming with a careful absence of mischief. “Shall I, tell them anything, ah, else, while I’m...at it?”

His voice is hoarse from screaming. Perhaps you can still hear it echoing, someplace far away from here; agony tinged through with regret, apology, remorse.

Stirring a cup of tea effectively without hitting the sides of the cup required a delicate touch. A delicate touch required the fingers to pinch just so, and circle this fast, and no faster, the power coming from a twirl of the wrist.

They taught him well. They taught him deeply. What does it matter, that surprising his wife with a little treat required the muscles currently being ground to nothing? To suffer audibly is a shame. And yet, he persisted. He couldn’t help himself. Forgive him. Forgive him. Please, forgive him.

They built him with intent. They imagined servants who would always be soft, always submit, no matter the master or treatment. Their imagination lacked experience.

In practice, eyes are mostly a luxury. Memory, complex thought, overrated. There are more important things for a body to tend to. So when he gazes up at the figure holding him, it takes quite a bit of squinting to get at the silhouette. Now, he knows who this is. He knows he knows them. It’s on the tip of his tongue, yes. What was it again?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Of course.

Dolce of Beri bonks his fluffy forehead against a wall of silver vines. A friend nestles into a sea of inky black, cool and soothing. And a contented sigh slips from his lips.

“I knew…your name was Bella……..”

For half a second, the image dances in her head so vividly she could bite it.

If it is to happen, it must happen now. Strike! Strike now, strike hard, strike fast, strike for her friends at the glowing core in the center of the smog and--

And then what? And engage with the embodiment of war while she's empowered by the very idea of war?

Her eyes flit to the Plousios, her hand drops to the controls at her belt. Fly, Dyssia! Fly to comparative safety, coordinate the assault, help with the pickup and--

And she hasn't seen her friends since they vanished, and has no idea where they are, and--

And she's the one the Shogun wants. Not exclusively, no, but she's sure as hell the one that's done the most pissing off.

Won't hurt to do a little bit more then, give her a little reminder.

And with a whine of power, she rips a portion of the Corpse Empress' palace from its place, chucks it at the glow, and continues running.

"You did. You told me so and everything."

She offers them a smile. For her friend, and for a wife. It is a different smile for each of them, but it is very much the same expression. Merely read at two different angles. Every muscle in her face is involved in this delicate choreography, this thing of warmth, or understanding, or compassion, or love, or Love, or sympathy, or empathy, or even a very tired satisfaction. She is everything in this singular gesture, forever shifting based on the mood and the thoughts of the two who watch her.

The only thing that can be agreed upon is that she is very careful not to show teeth.

Bella lets her eyes drift shut, and turns her head to "watch" the horizon of this blood and oil and hydraulic liner soaked battlefield. She breathes in through her nose, tasting every chaotic note that sent her spiraling into pandemonium when she first touched down on this planet. But this time it feels like being born again. Like the first breath she took on the beach where she woke up alone, knowing nothing but her name and her own strength.

It is different this time. There is less brine and more rot, less silicone and limestone and more oxidized iron and dust. But it is also the same. Something sharp and clear and wonderfully, deliciously cold, to the point where it is almost a shame to give it back to the world. Nevertheless she huffs and breathes again, and as her lungs fill a second time she opens her eyes.

It is unfair. She should not be the only one who is reborn, even if she is the only one who was corrupted enough to need it. It is not fair that the people she loves should be the ones to suffer for it, not when their love pours back into her and transforms her into... whatever you could call her now. Is this what it feels like to be a bomb that has finally been disarmed? Is this what it means to be a Diodekoi, absent the trigger for the terrible control an empire once sought to exert both with and over her?

She casts her eyes around, watching great Plovers lighting up in bursts of heavy fire and thunder as wings of steel blot out the colors of the sky. She hears the howls of the pack and the storming of their boots across the ground. She smells the tension in the air and feels it pressing on her silken white fur. She can feel a laugh welling up inside of her, so powerful that it twists at her throat to be let out.

But she lets it slip out of her as little more than a shaking of her shoulders and a not-quite-graceful clearing of her throat. It isn't right to be the only one laughing. And it isn't fair to subject her family to even more war and vengeance, to more smoke and more grand visions that require hands around a throat and fingers that gouge out other-- to more... Aphrodite.

She turns her head to the left, and sniffs. To the right, and sniffs again.

"One... two? Two more? Well, that's not the heaviest load I've ever carried."

Gravity does not, of course, have a scent. But the path of a grav-rail does. Ionized air follows everywhere the Azura go, and to a properly sensitive nose, their cities smell like nothing so much as a tub of chlorine. Finding one in a 'crowd' of them is a nightmare, but finding an Azura in a haystack is as simple as pointing and saying her name.

Bella's feet dig into the soil. Her claws tear through a small stone as they grip and prepare for takeoff. And she runs. This is not the lethal technique of XIII that targets a path and then claws it to death so that the space she is standing in and the space she wants to go are next to one another. It is much, much faster than that.

Now she moves as lightning does. Jagged and erratic, seemingly spreading across a vast plain of possible space all at once while nevertheless concentrated into a single obvious bolt. Too fast to follow, even for Human eyes, but slow enough to leave the impression of movement all the same. The wind rushes past her shoulders and through her hair without touching her charges. For Dolce and Redana, it is like riding in a bubble. For all the power in her feet none of the motion travels beyond her hips, nor indeed even into the ground itself as she passes by both traceless and formless.

This is how she is able to cut off Dyssia's retreat before it can really begin. And only now in the moment of her sudden halt does the air scream her name, and the ground split under her might. She carves a gash in each, and flashes a smirk to the friend who was left behind.

"What the fuck happened while I was gone? How'd you manage to piss her off this much?"

Her eyes follow the path backwards to the wreckage of the Corpse of Nero's palace. And now she really does laugh. As loud and as jubilant as Mosaic ever managed.

"But it looks like I owe you several favors. Come on then. You're dying and exhausted and your stupid rail moves slower than these fucking rocks. Are you actually trying to escape? Then get on my back already. Or would you like to meet Her Imperial Highness on the other side, too?"