"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 [i]is[/i] it then I've screwed the whole thing pretty royally. But nah, like... nah. Coolness' supposed to come [i]from[/i] 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 [i]does[/i] 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 [i]real hard[/i] 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 [i]me![/i] 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 [i]is[/i] 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 [i]en[/i]grossed, 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... [i]some[/i] 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 [i]or[/i] 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 [i]give[/i] 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 [i]fuck[/i] 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' [i]dragons?[/i] 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 [i]watch...[/i]

"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 IIIIIIIIiiiii[i]iiiii[/i] 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 [i]you[/i] 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 [i]did[/i] 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 [i]be[/i] hit in turn. Desire, desire, [i]desire![/i] 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 [i]flies[/i]. 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.