[i]"Like all sorts of heroes, no one saw what she was when she was a baby. They just saw how valuable she could be,"[/i] 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. [i]"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."[/i]

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.

[i]"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."[/i]

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.

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

[hr]
[i]"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,"[/i] 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.

[i]"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."[/i] 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.

[i]"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."[/i]

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

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

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.

[hr]
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.

[i]Devotion, laced with Wanton Adoration. Forgetfulness, tinged with Melancholy. Devotion, intermingled with Worshipful Desire.[/i] 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.

[i]The Camaraderie that promises that you are never alone.[/i]