Chen gives Yue a warm smile, of the kind only available to close friends who can understand each other, quickly. It says that she might well have done the same, if Yue hadn’t effectively given her advance notice. “I gathered something was weird from how your duel appeared.” She widens that smile into an almost impish grin. “But that just makes this something new and exciting, right? We’ll figure it out!”

Then, she gathers her dress and carefully waddles her way over to Bella, whom she stares up at for a moment from her shoulder level height. There is not much in this dainty movement that would scream world’s top duelist at you. But then, if you are looking closely, she still has that control over her body that comes only from the muscle memory built over years of training. You can see that, Bella, as it mirrors many of your own movements.

Chen looks Bella up and down. Glances at her arms, lingers on her legs and the set of her feet. “Bella, it’s a pleasure to really meet you.” She curtsies. “I say really because you just asked an Important question to you, right? I can tell that much, and so I’m really meeting you now. But I’m not sure why it’s so important to you. And I need to know to answer you right.”

She thinks for a moment, puts one finger on her chin, then digs down into her bag and pulls out a small canvas, a brush, and some ink, which she sets up next to Bella, plopping down onto her knees to work on it.

“Like, okay. Let me kind of set this up. In terms of training and skill with a sword, I don’t think I’m bragging when I say I’m top three on this continent, and Yue’s like…I dunno, maybe in the top one-fifty. She’s got a lot of flash and she’s been practicing really really hard, but she’s like a decade behind some of the people that have trained since they were little kids. You can’t just make that up overnight with a big heart.” Chen dips her brush and draws a small diagram of something like a little bracket with the character for sword next to it, putting her name and Yue’s name on it with Chen’s near the top and Yue’s further down.

“But like…Yue’d beat a lot of the folks ranked higher than her because she puts her whole heart into every duel she does. Dueling is a lot about heart and lots of people don’t always put their whole heart into it when they’re fighting.” She makes a few marks on the bracket showing Yue advancing up a couple rows, despite being the underdog in each matchup.

“And then, I might lose to someone if the duel isn’t just about who’s the best trained. If they’ve got a style or a secret sword that’s really good against me, or if my heart isn’t in it, then I’m in trouble.” Chen stops and considers for a moment, she doesn’t paint herself falling down the bracket, but instead takes a separate sheet of paper and makes a little sketch of herself running up a halberd. You can see from the stance that she’s losing her balance at the key moment. “You’re new here, but I famously lost a huge duel to someone ranked way lower than me a while ago because my heart was extremely not in it at the time. And what you should know about me is that my secret swords aren’t really about fighting. My Princess domain is making a kingdom where you can safely and freely have your body and your clothes reflect your heart and that’s how I use my sunshard.” She gestures to herself and her outfit, and caresses her own thick fluffy tail, even giving it a little nibble before lowering it. “I didn’t look like a snow leopard until I got my sunshard, and I didn’t dress like this until I got really comfy with my girlfriend and my other friends. Now I defend a little domain where everybody who lives there gets to run through the same self-expression, and I have some powers to make your heart express itself, especially if it’s repressed.” She turns and gives Yue a special little smile.

“So, if I were defending my domain, or if there’s some prize I really want and I set my whole heart and will to getting it, I’ve got good odds of beating just about everybody.” She smiles and paints herself moving to the top of the bracket that she labels with the character for heart above the one for sword.

Then she stands up and gestures at Bella with her brush, up and down again. “You have the body and carriage of someone who has trained her poise and balance for her entire life. By every right you ought to be one of the greatest duelists I’ve ever met. But for some reason, you have no qi that I can sense at all and you’re holding every muscle in your body with extreme tension and more than a few tells that you’re compensating for major injuries.” She comes right up to Bella and for just an instant there’s a glow from her forehead like a star come down between you. “And despite all that, you already wear exactly the form your heart desires. It almost feels to me like you don’t believe you’re allowed to want anything more than what you have. Is that it maybe?”

Chen paints a little outline of Bella beside the brackets with a question mark. Then she stands and picks up her paintbrush, with just a bit of ink at the tip. “No, but then this question mattered to you, so you want something, even if it's about keeping what you already have. Here, it might be faster if I give you a lesson. I’ll duel you with this.”

Chen holds up the paintbrush with a smile. Unlike Yue, she doesn’t magically teleport away from where she’s supposed to be or anything of that sort. Chen has taught the sword to Yue and to several princesses at this point, so she’s a bit better at gauging her opponent and determining what they need to learn. She runs up, quickly but still flouncing in her dress, and swipes the paintbrush at Bella, who nimbly leaps out of the way. And then Chen lightly steps to where Bella is landing and draws a little line of ink across the fur at her chest with a whisk of her brush. It is eminently visible, and indeed Bella might feel like she could have dodged it, only she did not.

“The ink is water soluble, by the by, so it will wash off, in case you’re worried.” Chen offers another small curtsy. “That dodge was way faster than me, but you committed to the motion in a way that offered you no ability to adjust anything you were doing once you’d done it, and with a very stiff body too. So when I wanted to hit you with a follow up hit, I could.”

Chen comes up from her curtsy into Bella’s charging follow up and takes one step back with her long tail waving behind her, causing her dress to twirl up and offering the onlookers a glimpse of pastel beneath before it slides back down with Bella’s claws. With the hit, there’s no more than a rustle of fabric. “And there too. At the moment that you pounce, you commit completely to the blow. So if I don’t want to get hit, I adjust and I don’t get hit.”

The next blow is parried by the paintbrush with the lightest of movement, sailing over Chen’s head and leaving a dot of ink on Bella’s forearm. “The way you fight is entirely about reaction time. You want to move faster than me so that you can hit me, but that’s relying on injured, tense muscles. Qi is about will. You need the will to hit me more than I want to avoid being hit, not just the muscle strength to strike quickly.”

Chen pivots on her foot, using her tail as balance to follow as Bella sails past and rushes straight at Bella’s exposed back. Bella dodges of course, and Chen corrects for the dodge without moving her feet at all, though slowly enough that Redana and Bella can see it. It looks sort of like Chen floats a bit to the side so that as Bella moves to avoid, the paintbrush moves with her and connects in the small of her back for another dot of ink.

“That’s dueling with qi. You’ve seen me fly on a sword, so why shouldn’t I be able to move in the air to adjust my attack? Now, just to be clear, this doesn’t get rid of the need for good footwork. Fundamentals are crucial so you’re not wasting time, energy, and focus. But adding qi on top of that means that I can move to dodge you. And, since this is about will and intention, I will dodge you because I don’t want to be hit more effectively than you want to hit me.”

Chen gives her impish little grin suddenly. “You’ll forgive me for showing off, but I do want you to understand what this looks like when it’s done faster than Yue can do it, maybe make sure you believe me about how good I am with a sword.” Bella, there is now a line of ink across your neck. Chen is next to you, her puffy clothes flaring in a sudden cold wind that blows across both of you. Her brush is held in a follow through motion with her arm extended behind her, perfectly still. There was no flash or blink, she was just there. Yue, this one was a little fast even for you, like Chen trying for real to hit someone as fast as she could, which she does only very rarely in training.

But also, here’s the thing. Chen intentionally left herself completely open. This is the kind of quickdraw attack that’s supposed to utterly defeat an opponent in one blow (primarily meant for demons or for an opposing princess you knew was good enough that you wouldn’t actually hurt them by accident if you used a sword instead of a brush). Yue can see clearly that Chen could easily be hit right now. And indeed, Bella, you can just barely see it too. That glimpse as she recovers her stance as the momentum wears off. You’re too stiff to do anything decisive, but you’re able to at least hip check her so that she falls and goes rolling and tumbling in all her ruffles and frills.

And…she’s giggling as she curls her tail around herself and rights herself out of the roll and onto her feet. “There, there, that’s it! Whatever you’ve got going on, you clearly want to learn, at least. That’s something, that’s a beautiful spark of qi in your heart. That’s what you need if you want to be a good duelist here. I had my most embarrassing defeats after I got very good at the sword because I didn’t want to duel anymore. I hated how people only saw me for my skill at the sword. I could have given it up entirely to be a painter, but I also didn’t want to stop playing with my friends or doing something I was really good at. I had to relearn why I should love it, why it was fun so I could make it something that didn’t make me feel sick. I was able to make the sword something I was skilled at and that I wanted to do.”

She stops giggling, puts her paintbrush away and signals the end of the duel, brushing off her petticoats and immediately wetting a cloth and beginning to clean the ink off Bella like a good maid. “You’re fighting like your life depends on it, like you have to push through every pain and injury and you hate every second of it. But you also want to learn something better and you’ve got some of the best poise and reflexes I’ve ever seen. I’d rate you as a novice with tremendous potential. I’d offer you more lessons, but I also don’t think you should ever try to fight again until you’ve found a path to heal first.”

"I have never met anyone who can fight like you can," Redana says, plopping down right on the stone in a tangle of limbs, watching as this Princess-like-a-cake cleans off every place where she had Bella dead to rights. "And we have been fighting for a very long time." In that sentence she bears the weight of the Eater-of-Worlds, of mad robots and marooned fleets, of assassins and their Mistress. Of being run through, poisoned, torn apart like Dionysus. Only the good fortune of her birth has stopped her from being a patchwork woman of scars and old wounds, and Bella...

Bella put herself through all that and more.

To get here.

Under this vast and beautiful sky.

Under these stars, diamond pinpricks in a thousand necklaces across the throat of Night. Under these shining clouds which dance on the hilltops. Under the shadow of these vast towers leading up into the docks, the prison of becoming, the mines, and beyond them, an empire of the living, and beyond them, an empire of the dead. All running from here, a place they could have stayed. A place we could have stayed.

In her heart, suddenly, she can see it. She can see a home shaped to run along a hillside, and everything in the house is beautiful for the sake of being beautiful. She can see paths and forests and fields to run through. She can see meeting a girl who still has her fur across her body and still has her claws. She can see what the two of them could have been if they had been born here, free to be themselves. Free to want in the mysterious way that Yue and Chen can, not in the broken way of Aphrodite.

And that Redana would have had all! the! feelings! She would have gotten herself into scrapes, and dragged a complaining Bella -- or whatever her name would have been, if she could have been given a true and good one by her parents, not a number -- halfway across this world. Maybe even further, if it wouldn't have made them both late for dinner.

But how do you scale that? How do you make that true of everyone? How do you take a world like Gaia and spread it across the stars without something being lost, something breaking, something coming undone? That's the work of a lifetime. And once you know how, how do you keep that desire while learning the ways of this desire?

(There's someone who knows. Who learned.)

She pushes herself up and off her palms, bounding up with a swish of her tail, and she offers her hands to Bella, and her blue eye shines like a star. "I think I understand, a little. May I show... you, and them, and the stars?" She reaches out, offering, not demanding, an invitation for the woman she loves.

Because this isn't even really a place to fight.

This is a place to dance.

There's no music except the song in their hearts and the song under the stars and the sunshards. Maybe it's instinct that causes Bella to follow, at least at first, as Redana interlaces their fingers and guides her into the center of that ring of swords. But by the time that she's guiding Bella's hands around her waist for the lift, it's not just instinct.

It's love.

Even here, no, perhaps especially here, it is not hard to see how Bella has made her body a knot of old wounds. Where she must step carefully, where she struggles to extend to her fullest but does so anyway, where Redana pulls her back and avoids causing her further harm. But there's something in the steps which Redana chooses which hint at where she might be able to build, in time, the strength to move like that again.

Eventually, the dance (at least the first one) comes to an end with Redana resting her head on Bella, in the sort of way that might drive helpless lesbians mad with envy at the softness of her resting place. And she listens as hard as she's ever done anything for the beat of her wife's heart.

What does it taste like? What does it taste like?!

What does garlic taste like? What does ginger taste like? What does broth taste like? What do bean sprouts taste like? What do noodles taste like? What does beef taste like? What does bean sprouts and broth taste like? What does noodles and garlic and beef taste like? What does noodles and spinach and broth and bean sprouts and radishes and beef taste like?

And the egg!

The egg!!!!!

Mmmgghhh! The egg!!!!!!!

The, hrm. The egg? The egg does fit on a spoon, but that can’t possibly be right. Have you ever seen anyone eat half an egg in one bite? Of course not, nobody has the time to get that fancy when you’re getting eggs to-go. And nobody has room for anything on a spoon except half an egg, and if that was the point of it, then why not give you the egg on a whole other dish? Why not have a few eggs on a dish? Why not a bowl of ramen with a little bonus bowl of eggs for your Best Customer, huh???? Think about it. And while you’re thinking about it, cut this egg with chopsticks, it’s soft enough, wait, oh no, it’s a slippery little thing, it’s going everywhere, how do you track down bits of egg white when they’re hiding in the noodles? Well, there’s a bit of egg white, a bit of yolk, and noodles, and broth, and radish, and beef, and that’ll have to do, and what does that taste like?!

Point is, you’ve got to really take your time with a vengeance. Somebody put a lot of work into that revenge, and it’d be rude not to properly savor it.

Do you want to know what it looks like too? Yes? No? Perhaps? Because these cuts of beef are immaculate. Hard to believe they all came from a single slice.

Mmm? Oh, right, yes, how it tastes, of course, of course. How does it taste?

Well he can’t tell you that, not while he’s eating. He may be an Evil Space Sheep but he does have some manners, you know. And. Besides. There’s a lot of vengeance to be had. Which he will bumble his way through, at a sheeply pace, and the only thing you’ll hear from him is the soft “mmm”-ing of someone enjoying a good meal, and the gentle brush of a fluffy little tail as it flicks against the stool he’s been perched on, and he won’t look Shanna’s way, not even once, as he gives a brilliant audition for the role of Best Customer. (He didn’t even look when he snapped the chopsticks perfectly in half, splinter-free, on the first attempt.)

"Ah jeez, how lame can I get?? Not only did I mess things up with Scarlet but now I'm hitting up a stranger's first hot springs visit and she goes and tells me that! Ahhhhhhhhh, this is so far away from cool it's not even funny!"

Spikes clutches her head in her hands and messes with her hair in an act of raw frustration. Amazingly, this technique is so practiced that despite the erratic motions of her fingers she only manages to mess up her hair in a 'cool' way - that is to say, the messy sort of 'yeah I woke up like this' mop that you very very definitely use a wet brush in the morning to make happen on purpose. But carefully, carefully! S'gotta look like an accident. But she's just done it here, possibly by actual accident.

She is trembling in her disgust with herself.

"I'm real sorry, lady. You've clearly been through it and here I am dragging you into my nonsense. I'll be fine, don't worry about it. Me 'n Scar go through spats like this all the time, I'll owe her dinner, we'll get past it. Though maybe I need a break. Feel like I'm losing sight of... argh, stop it, she doesn't need your backstory, man!"

Spikes takes a breath before going in for a friendly fistbump. She changes her mind and the gesture turns into an invitation for a high five before Dyssia can do anything about it, then a very timid handshake, before finally melting into a sad and sorry excuse for a thumbs up. She covers it up with a cheesy grin that does not hide the flush of her cheeks at all. She is not, uh, doing well at the moment. But it's not your problem Dyssie, don't worry about it~

"My name's, uh, well you can call me Violet. S'not my real name but what mom and dad thought was a cool thing to call their daughter's between me and them, so like, yeah. Anyway I know I'm butting in but you sound like you're really in the middle of it with something and, uh, yeah. Maybe I can help? Or I can just... get out of your way. If talking to the wall'd be more helpful and all."

Violet is already standing, half out of the water but turned in your direction with a hopeful look in her eyes. It could be a chance encounter with nobody, or you might have met a new friend. But it's not like Violet's the only person with an opinion on water, so you do you Dyssie.

*****

Kat grins a little fox grin and deftly lifts her own egg out of her bowl with her spoon. She blows on it once. And then twice. And then if you can believe this she blows on it a third time! Like phewwww, phewww, phewie! So amazing!!

She brings the spoon up to her lips, mouth opening wide to show off her darling foxy teeth, and pops the whole thing in her mouth in one go. Her attempt at a smug look is immediately thwarted when her eyes flutter shut in ecstasy. She has (of course!) already finished her vegetables and noodles! There's an order to this stuff and it just doesn't do to ignore it. With a final flourish, she picks up her bowl and drains the broth in a series of long but equally dainty gulps. If a gulp can in fact be dainty, which it can! It can if you believe, ok?

She sets down her finished meal, first finished as she is first cutie'd, and leans on one elbow against the bar to watch Dolce work his way through his own.

"Y'know Shana, I think--"

"Yes, I prefer this new one as well. He is quiet, which suits the temperament of my current position better than my current customer. You may leave, Katherine. It is not necessary for you to darken my doorstep any longer."

"Suits your," sputters Kat (ignoring the jab), "Shana you're thinking about killing him! You're imagining all the ways to explode him right now!"

Shana cocks her head to one side, possibly trying to peer a the pair of them from underneath her blindfold. She picks up her knife and very serenely wipes it clean before placing it on a hook behind her with a clean toss that she does not bother to turn around for. Or aim. She smiles. Which is to say her lips make the shape of a smile. It's maybe more accurate to say she doesn't frown.

"Hm. And if I am? What then, fox?"

"Shana, Shana, Shana we've been over this! If people come here to eat you can't just duel them unless they ask you to! You're never gonna get any repeat customers if you keep tryin'a slice 'em in half!"

"Ramen is its own reward, Katherine. It merely requires a sharp enough blade that I do not fall behind the demands of my craft. What use have I for patrons that cannot serve as my whetstone?"

"She's, uh, kidding buddy. Ok? Don't worry about it. That Shana, always tellin' jokes hahahaha... ha."

Kat's hand drops down to the sword at her hip. And this is perhaps the best proof that Shana cannot see anything through her bindings, because if the woman who had made this revengeoriffic ramen had put eyes to that kind of gesture she would surely have pounced over her own bar counter and started brawling. It would be madness and chaos and deep, edgy laughter. Just an endless string of teleporting behind someone with a quick 'heh' and a 'nothing personnel'. And Kat would counter, and there would be counter-counters, and maybe counter-counter-counters on top of that, to say nothing of the counter, which would of course still be there holding a mysterious space sheep's lunch across the whole thing.

But none of that happens at all. Shana does not even tense in response, but merely shrugs her shoulders and chuckles like a proud aunt.

"I was in fact quite famous for my sense of humor, once upon a time. But those days are behind me. If it is given to me to assist in a young woman's revenge then however much or little she deserves it I will of course lend my full assistance. I trust you are not satisfied with just this, Katherine? Be certain to carry out the thing to the end, lest the flames consume you instead, mmhmhmhm."

"Oh natch! Don't you worry about a thing, I've got him dancing in the palm of my hand! Isn't that right, buddy?"

Heh. Heh heh heh! Heh, even! You can pretend we're dueling as equals all you want, Dolce. But after this? After this we're going to the arcade! The arcade, Dolce! You're gonna get revenged so hard there won't be anything left of the spiky mess masquerading as a cloud who betrayed me so in front of the Supreme Ruler.

Not after... video games! Nyehehehehe~!

*****

Bella's heartbeat is strong and steady, even after several duels and a series of increasingly passionate dances where she gave herself wholly over to love. Her body is firm and solid to the point where it is once again possible to believe the myth of her invincibility. But she is also soft, especially where Redana rests her head.

Her fingers tease their way through her wife's hair, and deadly claws that can gouge quadronix plates here pick their way precisely through golden tangles without severing a single thread. Up, down, and through. Up, down, and through. Her whole being relaxes into this soothing gesture, for once without pretending to do it in the name of making her princess presentable, or for any other reason other than that she is with the woman that she loves, and it is a good thing to touch someone that special in this way.

Yue watches the whole thing with undisguised awe. She is constantly tapping Chen on the shoulder and pointing to the pair of them with little nods like, "look, look, look, look at this! Look at this! Isn't it the most precious and beautiful thing you've ever seen!?!?"

When Bella wraps her arms around Redana and leans in to breathe in her wife's scent, it sends Yue over the edge. Her hands cup her mouth to muffle (poorly) her squeaks and her goshies.

And it is a very long moment before anything else happens. And this is just fine, isn't it? There's no reason to rush at all.

"I had been planning on leaving this place as soon as I could. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that I don't belong here. Even if my ship's unfixable I figured fuck it, there's a space elevator not too far from here. And I know there's an old shipyard just a few planets down. If I held my breath I'd make it that far, and from there... it's not like it's my first time putting one together myself. I'm sure Dany would like another adventure. Just as long as it wasn't here."

She looks at her wife and smiles, fresh as dew and softer than sunrise. And then she lifts her arm and flashes her claws at Chen and Yue, mouth twisting into a horrible, toothy smile.

"But after meeting you two little cretins, I've changed my mind. I am going to stay right here. And I'm going to find myself a teacher and learn this qi-whatever-the-fuck for myself, and I'm not going to stop until I beat both of your asses senseless. You don't mind, do you Redana? It sounds kind of nice to me: having some place to come back to."

Chen is full of smiles, suppressed giggles, and enthusiastic nods every time that Yue taps her. They are great dancers and such a cute couple. It makes her feel giddy and joyful and the spark that sits with these two is real. Which makes it even weirder that none of them have developed proper qi before this. Like...what's the rest of the universe got going on that it can produce lovers like this who still feel so empty?

It's not a question she asks anybody, especially since she already asked it to Bella anyway. But it's the question still with her when the lovers have finished their waltzes and their tangos, and Bella stands before her yet again with her commitment. Chen smiles at first, but then she furrows her brow very seriously and looks at Redana first. "You're full of hope and joy and you're both one of the cutest couples I've ever seen, seriously! I think you'll have a wonderful time exploring here, but your girlfriend doesn't have everything she needs to make the promise she just made me. She's too hurt."

"Will you both come with me and Yue? I'd like to take you to the Sky Castle so you can meet Princess Jessic. We can all have tea and cookies, it will be lovely. She's the one who counseled me when I was at a low point and I have a lot of faith in her as a trainer and a wise ear to share your troubles. Also there's a Sky Castle and you can't miss that while you're here. Like...it's a castle in the sky, that's just cool, y'know?"

Then she turns and looks over at Bella, her chin tilted up and tail back for balance so she can look right into Bella's eyes despite the height difference. "I meant what I said before, okay Bella? I fought you, I felt how you were feeling. Do not try another fight until you find a path to heal. Like...physically and mentally, you know? Being motivated to fight so you can give me all the spankings I deserve is great" her mouth twitches up in a hint of a smile at that thought. "But you have stuff you need to let go of too, I'm sure of it. Whatever's in your heart that makes you feel so tense that you have to be ready to fight every second of every day combined with every injury stacked up on you. You gotta let that go before I'll pick up a sword against you again."

She gives Bella the most earnest eyes. But then when she's done, she gestures to Yue to get out one of her bigger swords so that Yue can fly Bella (who's a bit big to fit on a longsword with Chen) and Chen can fly Redana up to the Sky Castle.

“…and they had to be connected to the ship with cables,” Redana says, cheerfully. Around her, her clothes ripple with more than wind, accommodating for chill with the power of temperature-sensitive materials. Her silken sash ripples in the breeze, a trail for Chen’s sword. “Without that harnessed sun, they would be powerless. So half the trick was just getting behind someone to get them, you know?”

Dawn is turning the far horizon all the pastels that a Princess-of-Tellus-not-the-Earth-kind could imagine: pinks, purples, delicate blues. Rosy-fingered, they call her. But there’s just something more to it here, especially with how these colors fail to paint the elevators at all.

“So to have anything like this, we’d have to attach a separate cable onto the sword! Can you imagine anything like that?” She laughs, and the wind snatches it away. Her ears are low against her skull. But her tail can’t stop wagging as she clings to layers of the sorts of dresses that stayed in her closets forever, no matter how often Nero had them sent as presents.

Now there’s a thought. What if, working together, Gaia and Tellus could figure out how to make reprogrammable clothing? You’d need some way to interact with it, but instead of closets and closets and closets full of outfits to maintain, most of which were never even worn, Bella could have just maintained a library of outfits to navigate around and decide on. Like her spacer outfits, but even more radically capable of changing!

Why stop at the clothes? What if she could do the same with herself? No, down that road lies the nightmares about being lost inside Bella’s heart again. But would it be so bad for her to be able to decide, every now and again, to be the size of Bella? But then again, she wouldn’t get to bury herself in Bella anymore. A quandary.

Maybe that sort of back-and-forth fretting was really what blocked qi. Except, no, Bella hardly ever frets like this, and she can’t— well, no, she still does worry. She does fret. That’s a thought worth sinking her perfect princess teeth into.

“I used to be— I’m good at that. Plovers. I enjoyed the feeling of freedom. The body all around me, metal and fire. And always keeping my enemy away from my cable.”

A cable of sorts stretches from her finger, right now, to Yue’s sword. It’s just that it’s both invisible and red at the same time.

Dyssia is already half out of the water too, water splashing as she scrambles to take the girl's hand and lead her back into the pool.

But, you know! Gently! As gently as twenty feet of snakegirl surging at you while trying to get every word possible out of her mouth can be because, you see, you're amazing, and she thinks you're amazing, and your problems are important too and you're not butting in at all and how did you do that thing with your hair, she doesn't have hair like that, do you think if she had a wi--no, no, she's babbling and sit your pretty perky rear back in the water, and--

Fistbumb, handshake, high-five, and thumbs up, with a wink thrown on top, because, you see, you're worth it, and Violet is an amazing name, and Dyssia is going to see that smile reach your eyes if it's the last thing she does, and also if Violet's not your real name then what's your real name, because--

"See this hot spring? This is a private hot spring, just for now, just for the next few minutes, because we're friends now, and yeah, I'll take you up on that offer of help and advice, but first, you also sound like you're in the middle of something and, you know, maybe I can help? Or at least be a listening ear, if all you wanna do is talk? And then we can talk about the water being weird after?"

Wanna know a secret?

Dolce has never played a video game in his entire life.

Okay he doesn’t actually tell you this. Cunning little cotton clouds are notoriously tight-lipped. It’s true. But what else can it mean, the way he looks at these arcade cabinets? Once, twice, many muches, he circle-hops as you play, and doesn’t find anything of what he’s looking for, if that furrowed brow and tilty noggin mean anything. Then what does the sillyhead do when you give him a turn? Tapataptaps at the buttons. Wigglewagglewoggle the stick. Gets his ear reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall close to the controls as he fiddles with them until his ship inevitably gets kidnapped by the aliens. No self-preservation instincts at all. Maybe that’s why he fell for the decoy trap?

Though. Hrm. Is it really much of a secret? If everyone can see him hopping through the arcade like he’s hopping through a dream? Because, you know, you only get to walk into an arcade for the first time once. Though, you get a free first walk-in at every arcade you go to, but you’re only gonna walk into an arcade for the first time for the first time once! It’s special, y’know? You never really forget, unless you do, but then that’s usually because it gets mixed up with all the other happy arcade memories in a big, warm stew, and stew’s pretty good too. Especially on chilly nights, with freshly-baked rolls, and someone to curl up with…

Um! Point is! Everyone here knows the look of someone drinking in their first arcade. And you’re an everyone, so you know it too. The way the rows are set up juuuuuuust so to guide you towards easier fare at first, instead of tossing you right in the deep end or getting yourself so lost you’ll be trapped there forever. The choices of which cabinets go next to what, how bright are these lights, which ones gets modded with prettyful lights, as you browse this garden of video gamey delights. Volumes carefully tweaked so as not to be overwhelming. Though you do graciously wrap one of your fluffy and beautiful tails around his silly ears, just to be safe. Can’t have anyone forgetting who’s the revenger here.

So what if he keeps losing? So what if he’s content to perch on a stool beside you, as you win duel after noble duel on the cabinets except for the ones where you must have had something in your eye and also your buttons wouldn’t listen to you? Let your victim drink in his first arcade. He’ll only ever get the one.

…oh! Your prisoner’s brushing at your tail, looking like a Clearly Lost Space Sheep. He must have wandered over to the rhythm games while you were defending your title as Best Fluffybiscuits. You’d better go and save him from his triple S?!?!?!

“What does that mean, exactly? I thought I was doing better, but that is much lower than A. Am I missing something?” He frowns, most villainously, as he inspects touchpad, motion sensors, the lot, hunting for their secrets.

So, here's a fun and funny fact! Yue? Doesn't know Chen's sword flight technique! The ancient scroll she bought at market one fine afternoon taught her a personal flight spell, one that did not use a conduit. Another fun fact is that Yue is famously terrible at extrapolation! Yaaaaay! She knows what she knows and does not know what she does not know, and the basic principles from the first thing simply do not carry over to the second no matter how similar they may or may not be. Double yaaaaay!

Want a third fun and funny fact? Ok! Since you insist! Bella? Ok, shh shh shh, don't tell anybody this, but Bella? Incredibly heavy. You wouldn't think it to look at her but she must seriously be denser than Dense-ium (the densest mineral known to fox kind!) because, like, wowies meowies. It is a shame the only path to the Sky Castle involves Yue carrying her there the whole way!

I'd tell you another fun fact about this but you are out of freebies. If you want to hear it, pay a fun fine. I offer very reasonable deals to first timers!

"How did she know I was hurt? Nobody's said a word about it since it happened, not even Vesper. She wasn't even fighting me seriously, so what gave it away?"

"Nnnnnnnf." says Yue, trying as hard as she can not to breathe more than she needs to or drop the cool cat lady she's holding several hundred meters above the ground.

"...I should have known better. Every time I've ever thought I was at the pinnacle something came along and knocked me off of it. But I didn't even think people lived here!"

"Ynn?"

"No. I'm not explaining it twice. You'll get your answer after I see this Jessic person."

"......."

And that is the story of how Yue just barely landed on the grounds of the Sky Castle, and why she immediately crumpled into a sweaty, breathless heap upon doing so. But hey, who wants another fun fact? It turns out, Princess Jessic is actually...

Ha! You thought I was gonna say it, didn't you? Nerds. Ask someone else~

*****

"Oh wow, you got Snake Time! That's when the game hisses at you because you did so good! Congratulations, buddy! You must be a musician or somethin' 'cause I swear you're feelin' the notes."

Kat beams hearts and sunshine at Dolce, wagging several tails at what is genuinely the highest score she's ever seen at that cabinet. Everyone's got a talent or six up their sleeves, right? Even if they don't know it yet. There is something about the combination of sights on display in this quietly buzzing little arcade, the sheep uncertainly poking every little button without an understanding as to how it works but also commanding them with such supremacy as to nearly set a track record with... what? Five attempts? Or so? That's just kind of... adorable. Y'know?

"You're way better than the last guy I took videogaming. Though right now?"

Her tail twitches, and through a shimmery haze she produces a small box of candy. Ridiculous, indulgent little things: a small cluster of hard sugar clumps around a soft gummy core. She pops one in her mouth and crunchy-chews with a delighted grin before offering the box to Dolce with a tempting little rattle and shake.

"You're reminding me a lot of him."

It is true that a body only gets one first arcade experience. There's no going back and redoing it, and no accounting for lost magic once that same body knows what to expect, even if just a little. That's all the more reason to try and make it as special as possible, right?

Luckily there are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see.

The Skee Ball skees. It also balls, not that it matters. Its the sort of challenge you can't really brute force, a sort of becoming oneness with the little ball roll up the hard packed little slope and leap! into the air on its way to one of several cute little rings. It takes some getting used to, especially for a girl like Kat who has never been very keen on grinding past failure (unless there is a timer running), but with her good luck sheep in tow she very quickly completes the team up to heist enough tickets and foxgirl scheme her way into a Hatsune Miku noodle topper and a soft, huggable deer plush to ward away bad luck and evil spirits.

She gives both to Dolce with a wink and a kiss of his hand.

The fighting games are games in which you fight. This particular arcade is very fond of them and has a whole row in the back wall dedicated to all manner of styles and specialties. A long time can be spent on pure, 3D simulation battle games where the most important tech to master is something called a Korean Back Dash, though exactly where and how this little double tappy wonder got its name nobody is quite sure. There are Princess Simulators, which instead of being tense struggles for positioning (until the timer runs out) are much more realistic rushdowns of Perfect Super Ultimate Death Shots that chain and counter off of each other into infinity (until the timer runs out). There are glitchy, ancient messes where everything moves at one quarter speed and pressing two buttons at the same time causes the cabinet to reboot. And everything in between.

Kat is very gracious in her explanations for each game and character, keeping it concise enough not to overwhelm but never skipping past a question and only one time chooses a character in any of them she could describe as a "favorite" (a purple haired girl with a beret who fights with a combination of razor wire and a handgun).

"Heh. That was all within my calculations." she preens.

And then hands Dolce a very pretty, cold can of matcha latte.

Being gifted with lots of open space and an obsessive manager, there are a great many kinds of games and things to do here. All at one's own pace, of course. The air hockey table with the warped surface is pretty cool, of course, or the pinball wing and the defunct gacha game arcade pods which haven't worked in hundreds of years but will still print out stickers of your favorite characters if you ask it to. Assuming you have a favorite character, of course.

All around, there are people. Not so many that it makes a huge scene, but enough that the place doesn't feel like the ghost town that Shana's ramen bar is. Some are old, and some are very young. Some seem like absurd talents who belong in some kind of professional league, and others have only a passing interest in the claw machine full of cute girl figurines.

Games aren't like duels, you see. Especially taken as a whole, there's no real way to say what being the best at them really means. Unlike sword fighting, which has a clear and obvious hierarchy with Yue at the top because everybody who has ever beaten her is a dirty stupid cheater and I hate them. Except the ones I don't, cheaters though they are.

Anyway, it is possible to lose a very long time here, under the gentle guidance of friendly fluffy tails. I say 'lose' but it's really more 'misplace'. Certainly it cannot be wasted, not when it's all this fun. Some people seem to live here, others merely pass through. It could be everything, or it could be nothing.

But it's enough to say that it is. Y'know?

*****

Violet laughs.

Well only, that doesn't really tell the story does it?

Let's say rather that she guffaws. She has a rich, not really so much melodious but all the same kinda sort musical, deep laugh that comes directly from her belly and never lets up. It shakes her chest and all the way to her shoulders until she's forced (forced I say!) to sit down again just to stay stable enough to not fall over and learn how well she can laugh in the water.

Probably... not very well. Good thing we don't get to find out!

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Man. That's a good line! I've gotta remember that one. Private hot spring. Dang."

She looks half ready to lose herself in laughter again, but manages to just shake her head and grin.

"Friends, then? Yeah. Hell yeah! Your name's... Dyssia? Sick, I'll remember it. Haha! All right then, you said you wanna talk about the... water? Ok, we'll..."

All of a sudden and seemingly at random, the fight drains out of Violet all at once. She slides down into the water, past her neck, until she has to tilt her chin up to keep her mouth above water. She sighs as she floats there, and then switches from floating to slowly paddling around on her back, even though this really isn't the kinda place where people should be doing that.

"We're friends, right? You said that, right? You're not gonna take that back?" She heaves a long sigh even as she surges a full 7 meters on one kick of her powerful legs, splashing the rocks in a profoundly petulant manner, "Alright well I'm holdin' you to that."

She lifts herself up out of the water again to look at this very large, foreign snake-woman directly in the eyes. There's a fierceness in hers now that wasn't there before. It breaks again when she glances toward the exit and doesn't see a certain silhouette waiting for her.

"...What does it mean to be 'cool', d'you think? I'm, like, all my life that's all I've really wanted to be. You know? Not the strongest or the fastest or the smartest, not even the bravest. The coolest! That's why I've always thrown myself at every challenge that catches my eye. I don't care if it's not in my skill set or whatever, or if my opponents are more experienced or even what it is I'm doing. Racing, fighting, hot dog eating, ghost stories around a campfire... I'm down, right? And I'm gonna be cool as hell!"

She shakes her head. She is not, in fact, cool as hell. She is moping, Dyssia. The least cool thing anyone can do.

"I really envy Scar. She's so... uh, what's the word? Driven? Yeah. Like her whole thing is bein' number one, and she works real hard at it. She runs every day to keep in shape, she takes me on motorcycle rides to keep her cornering sharp, and it's just always, like, aim for the top right? And I've always figured that ain't me! If you're cool then you should be able to be cool no matter how things go down in the end, shouldn't you? But then, like, I kinda just run my mouth and then when I eat shit after I look like the biggest dork of all time. That ain't cool at all! I don't, like... know what I'm chasing, any more. You don't usually get that long in this game to make it all fit together and I'm just kinda spinnin' my wheels not goin' anywhere. What the hell is cool, anyway? What'm I after here, if it's not that? Like I know I just said I'd fix things with Scar, but like honestly? I dunno if I deserve a girl like her."

She laughs again, a little less pretty this time.

"Ah, well. It'll work out one way or the other. Maybe I want to be cool because I'm just that lame. That'd figure, right?"

You have seen castles in the sky before.

It would be a mistake for this world to imagine it could impress eyes that had seen the Endless Azure Skies with beauty alone. There is no trick of masonry that can make this place stand above an empire that has built Olympus itself.

And yet, not one of those magnificent structures of the Endless Azure Skies was the Sky Castle. It is arguable that they were even a sky castle. They were mansions, or resorts, or garrisons, or art projects that happened to be in the sky. The Sky Castle of Princess Jessic exists on the frontier of possibility that nothing in the Endless Azure Skies ever has.

Firstly, it is not kept in place with the flawless and frictionless antigravity of the Rail. It is, instead, held aloft by the power of a Sunshard - right on the limit of its endurance. You feel it as you land - this enormous, haphazard structure drops a few inches from your body weight. A creak runs through stone and timber, windmills whirl and groan, enormous turbine engines beat, clusters of sandbags dangle on easily cuttable ropes in case ballast needs to be dropped. This place is a contraption, more kin to an oversized hot air balloon than a spaceship. It runs on the limit of its endurance and compromise is woven all throughout the design.

Ceilings are short. Corridors are narrow. Sandstone has been used in place of granite and wood has been used in place of sandstone. Decorations are not made in gold and sculpture but in paper and fabric. Fish-kites fill the air in red and gold, bare walls are covered by sails and carpets. Some buildings have been stolen entire from the ground, some with their occupants still inside. Rope ladders and bridges criss-cross the castle like the rigging of a ship. And for all that, it flies. It should not fly, and it flies. There are no artfully hidden rings or spheres acting as levitation anchor point; its brutal right angle towers shiver in the wind in defiance of gravity and aerodynamics both.[1]

A single rope ladder dangles down from the bottom, brushing against the tops of trees and hills as the wind carries the castle across the landscape. Entrance is free, for the brave.

From above comes the flash of painted fabric and painted wings. A dragon is the natural conclusion of the concept of the Knight, and the greatest glory of the knight is the banner they hold aloft. Jessic descends in a whirl of heraldry, scales checked black and yellow with fleur-de-lis, ribbons in white with red stripes for strength, and a long and silver lance couched against the shoulder. You all have shields now - a little extra strain on the Sky Castle has made it so, and the altitude drops another inch - emblazoned with heraldry you never knew you had. You know without words that these shields will catch any blow that comes your way, and that when they shatter so too do your hopes of victory.

Princess Jessic has been very restrained for a very long time. She is a good dragon, after all - she has resisted the urge to burninate the countryside in order to draw out vengeful questing knights. Asking her to further restrain herself from pouncing on and vanquishing interlopers into her domain is simply too much to expect from any dragon or Princess.

[1] The Sky Castle is also noticeably bigger than the last time Chen or Yue have visited. Princess Jessic is the only Princess who believes in giving her Sunshard workouts - and somehow she seems to be building up its carrying capacity over time.

Redana is not very good with shields, no matter who she happens to be.

Swords? Swords she can do. Wrestling? You'd best believe it. Sprinting, lunging, throwing? She's as much an Olympian athlete as her wife. She's trained in dueling, operations behind enemy lines, escaping the most dreadful of predicaments, and everyone here would be quite surprised how well she could keep up with Bella if she really, really tried.

But a shield? Eugh. Like, with a rim and a burnished face and all. Just your typical real shield. Yeesh.

At least this one's the kind the Princess of Tellus would carry. The Ceronians don't really "do" shields, you see - they're all about offense, hitting them hard, rendering the opponent unable to retaliate. But the gladiatorial games of Tellus would sport shields like this: an aspis worked around with prayers to the gods for victory, or at the very least for safety. One edge all the way around; a face emblazoned with the faces of serpent-maned Kerberos; a grip that fits just so in her hand.

As the great dragon surges forward, Redana lifts the shield high and lets the point of the lance race from one side of the rim to another; she keeps going, brings it in to smash against the knee of one of those powerful legs, and promptly gets her knees swept out from underneath her by that lashing tail. Across tiles worn in such interesting patterns by the click-clack of talons she rolls, keeps rolling, gets her legs under her in time to match her shield against that lance. Up! Up! She goes for the chin now, with a jump and a grunt that forces all the air of her lungs.

That's right, o Princess of the Sky Castle! She's trained in CQC[1]!

But with a sword she could flourish! With a sword she could command some small space between her and the lance! And with the shield, all she can do is get bodychecked across the tiles again, clinging to her shield, bouncing her way into a kneeling crouch, grinning with all the enthusiasm of a woman who will not learn her lesson until she's physically incapable of getting up again.

But shields? Come on!

---

[1]: Cutie-Queen Combat. Goldie would not lie to her.

Chen lets Redana surge forward and make the first move while she inspects her heraldry. A snow leopard in gray emblazoned on a powder blue background with a black maid's outfit styled around it. Though the proportions aren't quite right for a full leopard, too short and tiny limbs. A kitten maid then. She can't help but giggle at the concept. Jessic always was good for the soul, after all!

Her first move when the tail lashes past Redana is to block for Bella, which she does in a rolling motion that sends her flying through the air in a whirl of skirts, floof, and aprons. She course corrects as she flies and retains the momentum in an arc to come skidding back around onto the sky castle.

And here, there really is only one option available to a maid who has been handed a pretty new shield. Chen tucks it under her and raises her knees, floof poof and all as she comes flying back.

She skates along the surface of the sky castle before she kicks herself up onto one of the nearest sandbags and then shield bounces from that to grind upwards onto a copper pipe and then kickflip from there onto a vertical grind straight along Jessic's back to her head, which she promptly kicks down on in greeting and flares her skirts blocking Jessic's vision.

"Hi Jessic, this is super cool!" She says with a huge goofy grin on her face as she goes sailing past the dragon towards a windmill blade.

Dyssia is cool. So cool. So very cool, she's even totally looking at Violet's eyes when she turns around, and not checking out those legs at all! Despite the way she is so very normal about the way the muscles bunch and extend and send her shooting across the pool!

So normal. So cool. And not slightly panicking at all, either, because oh no oh no she's sad aaaaaaaaa--

"In fairness, being number one has a much simpler benchmark, right?"

She hauls herself partly out of the water, and endeavors to make it clear by her body language that while Violet isn't required to take her hand, the hand is nevertheless there and boy, it sure looks lonely, like it could use a hand, maybe you could take the hand? This hand right here next to yours?

"Ahem. Did you win, yes slash no? If yes, congrats, you did good, let's train more. If no, I'm sorry, let's train more and get 'em next time. But coolness?

"For coolness, we gotta get metaphysical, right? Like goodness, right? Is something cool because it matches some hypothetical proto-ideal of cool, and the cool people are merely revealing it to be so? Or are your actions cool because you do them--that is to say, you are the ultimate arbiter of cool, because something cannot be cool except by your action?"

Wait. No. She's losing her, moping increased! Quick! Change tack!

"I guess what I'm really trying to ask is, why do you want to be cool?"

"Like, for real! I'm not trying to make fun of you or mock you, it's a genuine question! What do you get outta being cool? And I'm also not asking like, why is being cool desirable! What do you, Violet, specifically, hope to gain from being cool?

"Is it the confidence? The ability to declare to the world that actually, you're invincible? You're on top of things, you're coolsville and the world can follow or be left behind?

"Is it about people treating you like you're cool? About the adulation of people around you?

"Like, what is cool is a good question, but I wanna know why is cool!"

Woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah wait and woah and time out

No, nobody needs to go into time out. Honest to goodness, the most polite vengeful kidnapping he’s ever been a part of. Nothing but good girls as far as the eye can see, except when there’s good boys, and a lot of other folks that’re good, and he’d not have a clear answer on the goodness of sheep which leaves him in perilous legal standing with the case that Miss Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits Esquire is presenting against him. But! He’s not in time out, and nobody else should be, except for time itself, because he needs a minute.

He gets Skee Ball. He gets air hockey. He gets pinball. He gets that the claw machine is very, very tricky. He gets combos, and divekicks, and tags, and meter, and health bars, and timers, and he’s not quite got a main in anything but he’s told that’s totally fine and normal. He gets a noodle topper. He gets a plush deer. He gets a precious Foxgirl Kiss from a Beautiful Fluffy Foxgirl. He gets one of those with a gracious bow. He gets two of those tucked away in his wool, where they can watch the proceedings from a good vantage point. He gets Snake Time. He gets Snake Time many times. He enjoys Snake Time. He gets there are people. He gets there are people coming, and going, and staying. He gets a seat deep in the winding paths of the arcade, a little alcove where two folks can sit and catch their breath and soak in the atmosphere.

He does not get the can.

He peers through the net at it, holding it up up up so close to his face. Turn. Turn. Turn. Sniff. Turn. Click! Crisp and clean. Sniff. Lick.

Sip?

Sip.

Savor.

“Where,” and he’s too busy staring to look anywhere else. “Did you get this?”

"What do I... get out've it?"

Violet gets a look on her face like she's just heard the stupidest question of her life. But when she opens her mouth to say so (well, say the polite version of it anyway), she winds up shutting it again without any noise. She tries three times, and gets as far as 'ah', before she realizes she's been defeated.

"I, uh, I dunno."

She doesn't take that offered hand. Not 'cause it wouldn't be nice! She just needs both hands for folding her arms across her chest and tilting her head up toward the ceiling: long known as the single coolest way a person (be they horse, snake, fox, or otherwise) can engage in the act of thinkies.

"Kinda hard to say it's confidence, ain't it? Or if that is it then I've screwed the whole thing pretty royally. But nah, like... nah. Coolness' supposed to come from confidence. If you're chasin' it to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and smile you're runnin' the whole race backwards. Though that does sound kinda fun. Maybe I should... ah forget it."

Violet flashes Dyssia a little grin before she looks down and notices there's a hand flopped there. Just... on offer. Sorry, I guess she didn't notice it earlier. That's my bad! Ok well she notices it now. And she blushes and looks real hard at the water. But she does take it. She takes it and squeezes, and when her hand goes slack after that she's a bit surprised to see she isn't free again.

She clears her throat.

"And, uh, if I... I mean no. It doesn't make any sense that I should care what other people think. Like, I don't, but then like, I kinda don't want them to be mad at me? If that makes any sense? But I don't want a cool they can just take away from me! If that's what I've got then I don't got anything, if you follow. I wouldn't be me! I'd just be some lame blob of trends, morphing all the time whenever anybody new looked my way. Like a... uh, shit. There's a type of demon that does this, least I'm pretty sure it's a demon. It's got a super cool name but I just can't, mm. Nah, s'not coming to me. But you know what I mean, right?"

There's a moment of silence. That moment stretches into a minute. Into five. It's enough for an entire storm of errant thoughts and tangents to live and die and live again inside of either head presently engaged in, erm, conversation? Is is still conversation if nobody's talking? I guess so. The quiet only lives on because in every second of it Violet looks like she's on the verge of making a new point. Her lips are moving without ever stopping, it's just that no words pass through them.

Until she flips up her bangs, as if to clear her head. This is Dyssia's first good luck at Violet's eyes, which are of course not violet at all, but a deep, dirty honey color and sharper than swords to boot. Then her hair flops back down and that white shock covers all of her mysteries again.

"Actually, I take it back. It is for someone, for... Scarlet. S'like, it's all well and good to say she's got the easier path to follow, but from where I'm looking she's just a miracle. Don't tell her I said this ok, but she's perfect.. How hard she works, the way she moves, how she never settles, not when she's on the top and sure as hell when she gets knocked down off it. I wanna be cool for her. I wanna be so god damn cool that nobody will ever bat an eye when I stand next to her. 'Cause I'm gonna chase her no matter what, til both of us are dead. And I gotta be someone worthy of doin' that."

And from the door, a small cough.

*****

"Um," ums Kat. She also 'er's as a follow up, but you don't need that written out as such according to a style guide.

So. There's a look people get on their faces when they detect the presence of an in-joke but can't find the doorway through it. That is, ever so briefly, the expression that passes across the face of one Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits as she watches Dolce marvel at this can of matcha latte.

There's the shape of a Fox Trick to it, right? 'Cause he's very diligently no sold more or less everything he's seen on their little tour with this veil of very forced politeness, but this tiny little wonderless wonder has stumped him? Is this a genuine reaction? Is he engrossed, or just regular grossed? She doesn't know! And there's a whole lot've mischief you can fit into a 'don't know', I'll have you know.

"The vending machine? It's, like, right over there. Sorry, didja want a coke instead? I can go grab a bottle if you'd rather somethin' fizzy while you're checking if there's any more serpentum in yonder machina. I just, y'know, people say... some people say," she corrects herself, "That a matcha latte is a sin against tea and coffee at the same time but I just figure when you want a little treat it oughta be creamy? Especially chasin' crunchy. Y'know?"

She flashes Dolce a little grin and hops down out of her chair to scamper gracefully on over to the machine and demonstrate the arcane art of pushing a button to make a little elevator rise up out of a glass case and slide a bottle of brown, bubbly liquid into a little hand slot thingy so she can grab it and bite off the cap with her teeth (rawr!) and reach out in offering.

When he just kinda stares, she shrugs and takes a long swig. And flashes a big, knowing smile.

"Good. In another life, perhaps we would have been friends. Oh well! Come along then, my lovely pet, if you're good to go. I've got one more stop today and it's a bit of a walk. If you've got anything to say you can tell me on the way."

Kat takes three steps toward the exit. Just three dainty, foxy little steps. And somehow they've transformed her. Her back looks straight and proud, her tails fan out gloriously behind her. For the first time, the sword at her hip doesn't feel invisible or tacked on. It's an essential part of her, here in this moment. She turns her head to look over her shoulder, and her eyes sparkle like the foxiest sort of jewels.

"They're doing a tribute show for Elly. I'm the president of her fanclub, so it'd be downright rude of me to miss it, y'know?"

*****

A field of stars on a sea of purest black. Though, not stars so much as the eye would see them, not the night sky of this here Earth or the busy, colorful kaleidoscope of (I'm told) Poseidon's wrath and wonder, but simple hand painted orbs of radiating light as placed there by a girl that had never been permitted to gaze at anything other than a ceiling even once in her life. Swirling, overlarge orbs of yellow and white hanging, almost floating in the stillness.

Here and there, little specks of dappled paint attempting to convey the farness and the otherness of the sky, something beautiful but also very very scary at the same time. No ground, no heraldry, nothing but the inky sea for these clumsy motes to swim in and no sense of perspective anywhere to be seen.

It's a painting she's tried to recreate in many forms since. None of which have ever quite matched the wonder of that first doomed attempt. Once upon a time she had destroyed it rather than risk letting it be seen by the only eyes it had been painted for. Something clumsy and naive made suddenly vindicated by the slow, steady drip of new information.

Her ignorance made manifest. All that she could ever want. Bella holds her old painting once again, in the form of a shield. It was the very first time she'd tried to make a promise. Not to do what was expected of her but to stand with Redana as an equal and give her something that could not be taken. The stars, Bella, the stars. For love. And for ever.

Is it any wonder that this is what her heart would call to when it needed a defender?

Bella looks at it with quiet that is deeply unfitting for a duel with a dragon decked in all her knightly panoply. Redana leaps into action and Chen follows with acrobatics that should be as impossible as the castle they're all standing on, and Bella can't muster any reaction than to take the thing in her hands and turn it over to look at it.

How many times? How many times was a revelation going to come to her? How many times would she be made to look at her perspective and learn how wrong she'd been about everything there ever was? How many times could she survive having her world upended? How many times could she take being told how soft and fragile she was before she just... shattered?

"Oh! I love the colors on that."

"Gyah?! What the fuck are you doing there? Shouldn't you be secret swording this castle to pieces?"

"Uh, 'Secret Sword'ing. And hahaha, no! Are you kidding? You think I've got any practice fightin' dragons? Last time I came up this way I spent the whole time in a dungeon. With four pawsies! But isn't it pretty? Your shield, I mean? Like look, up there!"

And sure enough at the top of the field, the motes are not like the stars at all. There are no details other than color and a different brush stroke to tell them apart, but these feel like something other than celestial bodies. The green and blue, next to two golden circles. And next to those, purest violet. And more besides. And more besides! Some are brighter and some are duller, some are larger and some are smaller, some are clearer and some are dimmer, but the way they gather, the way they watch...

"Psst! Hey Bella? You feelin' a little naughty right now?"

"Why do you phrase everything in the weirdest way possible?"

"Well, Chen told you not to fight, right? But IIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiii think it'd be a shame to miss a big brawl with a dragon-princess when she's been so nice and invited you. Y'know? So, whaddya say? Wanna have a go?"

Bella says nothing, but stretches her neck in response. She rolls her shoulders, slowly, as if testing the joints. She tenses her fingers, stretches her core, and brushes one hand down the length of her shield before she finally takes her grip along the handles, looking for all the world like a perfect knight before she hunches low for the pounce. Her tail twitches once, twice...

"Woah woah woah, not like that! We've gotta be smart about this, Bella! We're gonna get in so much trouble if we don't!"

"Oh for," Bella grumbles and straightens herself back up again, "Then what do you propose, you sword addled maniac?"

"Ooh, I like that one. I'm gonna add it to my resume!"

"..."

Yue grins and pats her own shield. With a teeny and very unnecessary hop, she takes one knee and braces herself underneath it with her shoulder.

"Kay, hop on! I'll launch you, and then you just... well, remember what we taught you. Easy, right?"

What'd be easy is arguin' the point. But Bella simply shakes her head. If there's a window to regain her pride, she's going to lose it arguing over decorum. That's no way for a Diodekoi to be, now is it? When it comes right down to it, aren't pride and shame just separated by the width of a single blade? I think so, anyway.

Bella leaps with none of her usual ferocity and lands on Yue's shield just as light as she can. Yue puffs her cheeks and shudders a bit as she takes this big, cat shaped burden onto herself one more time. But she doesn't tremble. She plants her foot and turns her hip.

"Let's! Go! Time! To! FLY!"

Bella flies on wings of Qi. Up and up and up she goes, high enough to kiss a cloud. High enough even to make the Sky Castle seem like a small thing as she crests onto the apex of her ascent. High enough to become half a dragon herself, at least in metaphor. And she laughs. She tucks her weight behind her dark and beautiful shield and she laughs in place of a war cry.

Remember what she learned, Yue said. Well what did she learn? She learned that she was empty, I guess. Then how come she feels so full right now? How come she can't bring herself to scream? How come?

A brilliant, kitty eared comet descends upon the Sky Castle. Gravity and bravery are her allies in this fight. Yue is her cheerleader ("Go, go, go!"). The desire to hit something. The desire to not be hit in turn. Desire, desire, desire! Her old enemy, the warden of her jail cell. But even though she's high enough to smell ozone, it isn't scary.

There's no cigarettes up here.

Bella falls. That is to say she flies. Just toward the ground. And with a bark of laughter that'd've done Mosaic proud, she slams her shield forward with all her might, thinking only about Princess Jessic's lance and how she might shatter it.

Daily Affirmation Of The Way <3: Stop me if you have heard this one before -

What is the word for someone who wants to be able to control someone's thoughts, but who does not want mind control?
For someone who wants unstoppable strength, but not guaranteed victory?
Who wants to be loved, but demands that love be earned?
Who wants to be the center of the world, so they might be its sun?
Who wants everything so they can give everything?
Who wants to crush without breaking?
To be everything to everyone.

One word for this is, of course, author. It is a truly transcendent greed to want to remake the world in a way more total than can be done with politics and labour. To place one's sword 'neath the chin of reality and make her bend towards justice. Consideration must also be given to the most deranged apex of the author breed, whose greed is so total that they must accumulate a pack of other authors and compel them into harmony with their own utopian vision. But an author takes the long view; they sit and consider and plan and take long walks and late nights as they turn over their ideas slowly. Authorship is slow, and hard, an artificial path towards totality. Princess Qiu, for all her prowess, is unfortunately a mere author.

Imagine being that in real time. To create a world and narrative and quest with the strength and speed of your limbs. To be beautiful enough to enchant without searching for words, to stand astride the border of invincibility without conjuring hopelessness, to be able to make people feel loved and safe and in incredible danger in the same way as an affectionate nuzzle from a tiger. To have that control, effortless, as a thing you do with your body and not with your words.

... That's what I think what it must be like to be a dragon.

*

The attack might have worked against a dragon. A team attack, hearts and souls aligned - there is nothing better for slaying monsters.

Princess Jessic, though, is a dragon Princess - and no Princess loses a fight without getting the opportunity to show off her Secret Sword.

Princess Redana diverts the lance, smashes Jessic's knee, rolls and recovers into a defensive stance that opens Jessic to response from her allies/
Jessic changes her angle in mid flow, shoulder-checking Redana, and catching her with a swat of her tail as she falls, turning a stumble into a ring-out -

Princess Chen grinds along Jessic's back, kicking off her head, sending her blinded and crashing into a wall/
Wings clap together, pinning Chen in place, and Jessic flips upside down and releases her to crash down into the streets below -

Bella's blow strikes true. The lance shatters. The battle resolves/
A serpentine neck twists up. Jaws open. A whirlwind pours from bladed teeth, hurling her back into the sky.

Both memories happen simultaneously. Both realities exist in parallel, jumbling together, the truth of them impossible to judge. Every set, every blow, every exchange with Princess Jessic brings a vision of victory and a vision of defeat. One is true and one is a lie but there is no way to tell which is which - at least, until you sit and count the bruises.

Princess Jessic, you see, had an advantage. Humans practice against other humans every day, but how often did they practice against dragons? When do you get to learn what a dragon's tells or attack patterns are? And even if you have studied dragons in general, what do you do when this dragon pulls out a sword and parries your dragon-slaying Black Arrow? It's not that she's too good, it's that she's too weird - all the powers of dragon and girl - and there's no time to learn her moves before the fight is over.

So she invented a Secret Sword to show people what victory against her looked like. To give them hope. To give them a map, a demonstration of what they needed to practice to have a chance against her. A video tutorial of what a correct dodge looks like, an encouragement for those who wish to swear vengeance and hone their craft and then come and try again -

- but Princess Jessic ain't running no charity, and her Secret Sword does not turn off just because you've done the homework. Even if you execute your technique correctly and land a solid hit on her you still get the vision of having done better - or at least having done different. It makes it impossible to judge where you are up to in a fight, what hits you've landed, what hits you've taken, if you're winning or losing, what strategy you're using, what style she's using. The longer the battle rages the more jumbled and chaotic memories become, victory and defeat melding into the same eternal moment - until suddenly it's over. This is her technique: Ever-Present Mystery: the feeling of walking into an unknown raid boss for the first time, every time. It is a blade that gives hope that she can be solved while simultaneously denying the solving.

It is not that Redana is stubborn, per se. Not in the way that Bella is. Or, rather, not in the specific way that Bella is. She just gets lost in the runs, looking for the way through. What is memory? That's been jumbled enough for her: lost and exploited and found again and leading back to Bella each time.

The body knows better. The body learns the bruises. The body learns what victory feels like.

This isn't the body she left Tellus in, after all. Even before she was initiated into the Silver Divers, given her silks and silvers, her body had changed. The body remembers fighting in the Eater of Worlds as vividly as it does battling the embodiment of Bella's desire, no matter what goes on in the silly head of the princess-alpha. And the body is electric with the need to match herself to Jessic.

Someone else, like one of the Pix, might grow frustrated, might walk away, might throw in the towel and sulk and require treats. But Redana isn't one of those charming little creatures. She's a puppy and she knows how to play. And eventually, she's even better with the shield than she would have guessed going in - this is the arena, this is the Olympics, this is the thrill of pushing herself which she's been missing.

Her laughter is bright as sunlight as she gets swatted halfway across the arena again, and her smile won't fade even when Bella has to pick her up off the floor by the end.

Silence is tricky. Let it stretch too long and it becomes uncomfortable, but too short a silence before a response can be just as damaging.

Unless, of course, you find one of those friends, you know the kind. The kind of friend where silence isn't demanding or questioning or nervous, but is as natural as breathing because they're the one you're breathing with. Entire afternoons spent with hardly a word--walking, looking at the world, enjoying being alive, coming home to do entirely different things, just so long as you're able to do those things in the same room as them.

… And when they leave, doesn't that silence just feel so much more empty than before?

Her tutors kept acting surprised both that she understood it perfectly, and that she still kept ignoring the things she knew. Because silence is also painful, isn't it, when you have a million whirlwind thoughts that are all waiting for someone else to finish their thought so you can respond to what they said a minute ago like a detective saying "one more thing."

A hundred times, she feels the urge to speak. And a hundred times, she clamps down on it. She's asked a question, she's getting an answer, this is the perfect time to shut the fuck up and let Violet mouth out the words and show that you care for the actual answer by listening for once in your life.

… do you think she could emulate that flip of her hair? She doesn't have bangs to flip, but surely the right series of silver links--possibly embedded with rubies--could mimic that--

The cough makes the hand in hers feel like fire, and she resists the urge to pull back as if burned. Or, now that she thinks of it, to run her other hand through those bangs, and expose those eyes again, just for her own pleasure.

Instead, she makes as if to stand, still holding that hand, still holding her, less a dog on a leash and more pspspsing a kitty that might bolt away if startled. Come, come, there's someone you need to say all this to, you know. And if, say, you might need Dyssia to leave the hot springs for, oh, about an hour to, aha, sort out some feelings and feelings up, that's also an option.

It's been a while since Chen has visited the Sky Castle. She has been back since her first visit, but it's still a trek and not that frequent absent a tournament or special gathering, and Jessic has never done quite this sort of group greeting before, so this one is new for her as well.

As a fellow princess and Sunshard holder though, this is something of a joyous workout for her. She's never matched powers with Jessic after all, and even if she's not trying to steal a sunshard or anything, this is a chance to see how it would all go at at least two levels.

First, there's the workout. Chen flashes back and forth through several sword sets. Moves where she summons the wind with her blade and sends Jessic tumbling out of balance or where the dragon princess correct just in time and rips Chen out of the sky with a coiled tail that squeezes her so tightly that it's only the thickness of her skirts keeping her from popping! Moves where she swirls around and ties Jessic into knots with her speed, or where the dragon catches her at just the right moment and uses her own speed against her with a rebound strike so powerful that she ends up crash landing in a lake in a neighboring domain. In some moves, her flowing outfit blinds the dragon and she delivers a decisive strike that sends her to the ground of the sky castle, while in others Chen's skirts get used against her and she winds up flashing her underwear at the whole sky castle as everything else gets pulled over her head before she lands on the castle green to recompose herself with blushing cheeks.

It is, on the whole entirely enjoyable, both the winning and the losing. There's so much to learn and so many things to feel, and Chen's no foreigner to a few bruises and tired muscles. Done right, they just make the tea and cake taste better later!

But then, there's also the secret sword. Now, it should be said, Chen is outside of her domain and this isn't just her duel, so her particular secret sword won't be at its maximum power here. But even so, as she runs through her sets, her tail rises and the wind blows stronger as the star on her forehead glows. And as her sword crosses over and over with Jessic's scales, lance, and shield, it asks a question of a dragon: What do you want to be?

This is a different question from Jessic's secret sword. She may well dream of being in an eternal duel against an opponent who strives to be the greatest possible version of themselves. But there is still more to it than that. She is a dragon after all, and dragons are greedy. Greedy enough to dream of always being more, to imagine how she could be more beautiful, more elegant, more wealthy, and more charming. To dream of all the different shapes she could have and the hoards she could hoard. Chen's secret sword is very simple. It will just shift Jessic towards the answer to this question, in whatever ways it can. For those who dream in their heart of being snow leopards and are not already, it can be quite a bit more drastic. But even for a dragon, it will show something of her ideals and some of her scenarios will collapse towards repeating those ideals.

That is Chen's secret sword: The Shape of Your Heart.

What a horrible thing to say. What a horrible thing to hear. Imagine spending hours with someone, wrapping them in your softest ropes, taking them to your favorite lunch spot where you're their best customer, leading them through the wonders of the arcade, kissing their hand, putting a plushie on their head, and at the end of it all, you're not at least friends?

Well, it's even worse when it's true. And it's even worster when you know it's almost certainly your own, silly fault.

It's hard, y'know? Going a long time without meeting a new friend. Waking up every day in a place where there are no new friends to meet. Carrying the safety of many much people, and yourself, and you're only a little sheep, and you've already dropped them all once, and they'll surely shatter if it happens again. Flashing your fangs without fumbling your floof.

Evil Space Sheepin' ain't easy.

Well, Miss Fluffybiscuits, your lovely pet hops to it, and you, and your side, and the moment. There's a lot of ground between you and the show, and it's not gonna be filled with silence.

He tells you about cans. He tells you about hand-painted designs. He tells you about the many ways to brew coffee. He tells you about wishes he's been made to forget. He tells you about the bells in his wool.

He speaks of vending machines. He speaks of eight rows of twelve cans nestled ten deep. He speaks of no less than twenty two unique designs. He speaks of long roads and boxes carefully packed. He speaks of a thirsty passerby who will never meet an artist.

Begging your pardon. He doesn't say it, because saying it would mean losing some of it, and that's not worth it. But you might not be the most beautiful thing he has seen today.

"...who was Elly?" Was. Was Elly. It's possible someone told him so. Possibly. "That's her on your phone, isn't it?"

How many hours has it been since you last used it? Since he last had a chance to see?