One hundred times she is asked the question: "Can you overcome this?" And one hundred times she answers: "Might as well try."

One hundred attempts, in one hundred different forms. Each time faster, sharper, harder, more skilled, more ferocious. And then? Softer, more graceful, more controlled, more refined and fitting of a Princess (whatever that's supposed to mean). As is proper for a knight, and then a dancer, and then a damsel, and then a beast, and then a hero. Everything that can be asked of her, is. Everything that she can be without changing who she is, she tries. And at the end of one hundred permutations of this single question there is...

The sight of the sky. The flowing wisps of white cloud against an infinite blue field and a sun that has not budged an inch so that it could sit and watch this happy miracle.

The feeling of her knee touching the ground. It is firm without going all the way to hard. The grass tickles her knee as it dances around her, not caring one teeny bit about the violence of the scene it just witnessed, or even for the miracle of it all. The feeling also of heat, of steam pouring off of her flesh, of ribs straining against her heaving breaths and the burning of her lungs. Her heart pounds staccato and it is... delicious?

Failure has never felt this clean before. Exhaustion has never felt this fulfilling. She has poured the entirety of her power into a match against a monster greater than herself, and for the first time in her life there is no need to slink into the shadows to recover. Her body is not a ruined, bloody mess, for all that she was bitten and burned and smashed through rocks more than twice her size. Her mind is buzzing, but pleasantly.

Everywhere she looks she sees the same. The same exhaustion, the same satisfaction, the same gratification. Even Princess Jessic is not immune. Only Yue, the only one to look at a dragon and go, "whoops wait I need to practice for this first!" is standing placidly and untouched. She fishes around in her bags for some water bottles and lines them up in waiting with a serene look etched across her face.

"You... lying... bitch..." heaves Bella, nevertheless snatching up the offered water and pouring it all over herself.

"Awawawawawaaaaa???? W-wait! Wait! What'd I do? What'd I do?"

"These... secret... swords."

"Secret Swords."

"What... ever! You said... yours... was different! But it's the same! The exact same!"

Even as she spits out this final word, Redana flops like a fish into Bella's arms. It's kind of amazing how neither of them are actually hurt, isn't it? In spite of Chen's warnings, in spite of all of the dangerous and borderline stunts they just attempted, the pair of them are just... sore. And tired.

"I knew it. I knew you were good," says Bella, "I wouldn't get my ass handed to me that badly by someone who wasn't on this level."

And at this, Yue can only giggle. She's still laughing when she gathers up her water bottles and hands them out to these greedy, thirsty girls. Even as the final vestiges of the dance taper out between Jessic and Chen, every breath she draws comes with the risk of another little snort.

"Oh goshies, if you're gonna go and say something that sweet I think I might really have to try."

*****

"S-Scar?!"

This is a bit crass to say, but Violet was born to run. Her lithe frame is built for speed, and her muscles hide outsized power relative to her weight for a kick and drive that is just killer. That is to say that, even with Dyssia holding her, and even if she were to employ several tricky moves with that little miracle she calls a Grav-rail, I'd still be puttin' my money on Violet to drag her right out of this hotspring during her flight of terror.

Why'm I bothering to tell you this? Well, 'cause Violet hasn't moved. And if you understand the implications, then you know the only possible explanation for that is that she hasn't run. She's about jumped out of her skin just now, but she hasn't run. And that, ladies, is the power of friendship. And hand holding! Yay!!

Because Scarlet has indeed returned, in all the fullness of her glory and a very elegant and fluffy bathrobe. She wears it with the grace of a first class princess, even though the sleeves are just a touch too long and are flopping a teeny bit past her wrists. Her twintails dance like flames as she walks forward.

Poised. Graceful. Elegant. Perfect...ly nervous. She coughs, again.

"...You didn't chase after me."

"Huh? I, er, didn't think you wanted me to."

"I didn't! But you always do it anyway! I got worried, you idiot!"

Scarlet puts her hands on her hips and lifts her chin up into the air, but something about the motion comes across as... defensive? Flustered? She's not entirely on her game, and it's not exactly difficult to figure out why. Violet flushes at the sight, and the only thing keeping her in the room is the steady hand wrapped around her own. So that's two she owes you, Dyssie!

"D'you come here to yell some more? 'Cause I--"

And that's as far as she gets before she feels two fingers press against her lips. It does a better job of shutting her up than you'd think, considerin' two fingers on a body's lips do precisely squat and nothing to stop the motion of lips or the formation of a voice. It's just the suggestion of shushing that does all the work, y'know? And you wouldn't think that a prideful, cool, wild punk like Violet would have so much Good Girl lurking inside her.

But she does. She must, because Scarlet's blushing too much to do any proper domming.

"I-I heard. What you said. Did... you mean that? Or was it just more hot air?"

"Come off it Scar, how long have we known each other? We fight, but I don't lie. 'Course I meant what, uh, what I... you know. That stuff. And junk."

"Even so, I, I... I want to hear you say it. To me. If you do that, then I..."

Sometimes, cycles are things that just perpetuate forever. The blood gets hot, the mouth says a bunch of dumb silly stuff, the feelings well up, and fighting and competition become the only way to express all of the stuff lurking under the surface. The craving for something more seeps in, and then, and then... and then nothing, actually. The blood gets hot and it all just starts again.

But sometimes, a miracle happens. A perfect stranger waltzes in and doesn't balk when the hot-blooded spill their guts without prompting, and in that moment...

"It's true, Scar. You're... m-my goal. I'm gonna fight to stand by your side. A-a-a-and I'm not sayin' you win, ok?! I love the look on your face when you lose too much. But I, if, u-uh. If I had the choice of being the best and losin' you... I'd stay, instead."

"Violet, that almost sounds like you're offering to be my handmaiden."

"W-well look! A handmaiden's way the hell cooler than a prinmmMPh?!?"

The miracle resolves with lips touching lips. Scarlet is not such a blushing maiden that she won't conquer in front of a stranger. Won't allow herself to be claimed in turn. It isn't chaste by a long shot. It isn't even tender. The pair of them are ferocious and hungry, stoked on by years of circling without ever quite tasting.

When they retire to their room, they will not sleep. There are too many experiences they have missed out on, too many delicacies to taste for the first time in the context of them being a thing that belongs to them, and to each other, and to themselves as a pair. And ohhhhhhhh, the things I could say about that! Y'know, if I could watch. But they don't need anybody to step outside for an hour, or even a moment. Because Scarlet and Violet are strong.

I don't expect that makes any sense, but that's ok.

"I'm not going to ask what happened between you two, Miss..?"

"Dyssia! Don't worry, we just talked. I talked, mostly. I think she might be foreign? She's got a really cool accent I've never heard before."

Scarlet looks at Violet for a moment before shaking her head and returning her attention to the matter at hand. She clears her throat, imperiously and very forceful.

"As! I was saying! Miss Dyssia then, I will not pry. But it looks like I owe you a thank you." She frowns, just a little, a cute little pout of somebody who just took a loss when she wasn't even competing, "I'm not someone who appreciates being in debt. Is there anything I can do to repay you for the treasure I've just claimed?"

"H-hey! What the!? What treasure? Scar, the hell're you talkin' about? I ain't no treasure! I just said Handmaiden, got it? Hand. Mai. Den!!"

They should put Scarlet's face in textbooks. 'Cause this is what it means to gloat.

*****

"You've got a good eye, McSheeps. She's my lock screen, in fact."

Kat, who to this point has been simply the best and most attentive listener ever, gives Dolce a cool and appraising look. Then her eyebrow raises and oh, whoops, nope, she was just impressed! She smiles and pulls out her phone, briefly flashing an image of a pink haired dragon girl with curling purple horns, a winning smile, and a dynamic pose featuring fingerhearts with fingers that very confusingly seem to end at the second knuckle in pink polished... claws? But if they're claws they're unusually well manicured, and also the picture is gone and back inside a fox's pocket. A foxet, if you will.

"Elly's short for Elizabeth, but don't call her that. The cutest, most beautiful, most charming, perfect best dragon hero I✦D✦O✦L of the world!"

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits stands tall and proud and completely unabashed for exactly four and three quarters seconds. Then she blushes crimson and drops her eyes to the ground, laughing in an extremely bothered way to show how not bothered she is about all of this.

"She... that's how she wanted to be introduced. I didn't mean to become president of her fanclub, y'know? I was just. Like, there. When she saved the world. There was a... oh beans and biscuits I'm no good at tellin' this story. You should ask Mom about it. I know you're staying in her house right now. Pretty sure you're sleepin' in my room, even. And just, ah here, look."

Not so very long ago there had been an entity called Adam. What he wanted is the source of a very different tale, but what matters right this second is that he was a big believer in cameras. In short, this moment got captured from every angle a body could want. Kat pulls out and up her phone again and quickly tippy taps her way to a popular upload.

She holds it up for Dolce to see, and then turns her body away from both it and him, holding her arm out and steady so as not to mess up his view.

And on her little screen, space. Just beyond the reaches of Earth, still kissed by her atmosphere, but nevertheless Space. Choked with ugly, metal combat drones and a giant industrial laser drill determinedly burning a hole in a massive vault. Blue light and pop music and the tinny sound of a young girl crying.

The idea of Pandora's Box comes readily to mind. It would not be difficult, not at all, to imagine how letting that vault get cracked open might be the doom of the whole planet. But the cameras frame the work of those drones and lasers as a heroic triumph, and it's barely even possible to spot the tiny figures standing on the platform of a space elevator in the center because they are so determinedly focused on the efforts of the drill. More and more of the titanic seal is pealed away, cracked, and melted and...

And then everything burns pink for a second. Cameras swivel all at once to catch a vision in black and the pinkest of pink blazing in the sky, parrying gunfire and even drawing the ire of that giant beam of vault-destroying light. From the chaos, voices rise up. One of them, cool and smooth (and cool!). Another, higher pitched and very stressed out. A third warbling with tears but recognizable if you tilt your head as one of the two individuals currently on their way to see a concert. You may guess which, if you dare.

"We believe in you, Elizabeth!"
"They'd better give me so many wallets for this I'll need a cart just to- oh! Sorry! Yeah, go Elly! And stuff! Woo~!"
"You can do it, Elly!"

Their chants of encouragement lift higher and higher, like prayers to a goddess. And then a clear voice, bright and beautiful and so powerful it rattles the cameras booms out over top of them.

"OF! COURSE! I! CAN!!!"

Blue and Pink clash and then ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

The surviving cameras pick the scene back up. They are lower, within the boundaries of the planet's embrace. A woman of surpassing beauty plummets from on high, coats flapping in the wind. Her hair is brightest pink and flutters in a halo as she tumbles. Her eyes are purest sapphire, and welled with tears. Her painted lips spread wide in a smile and she murmurs something nobody can catch.

She hugs herself tight and dissolves into golden light even as she falls.

Kat snatches her phone away and snaps it into her pocket with unnecessary force.

"Eventually, most people'll forget. She won't stay popular forever. They'll move on. But I won't. 'Cause if she... 'cause I'd be... Miss Ivar wouldn't have made it in time. Without them both I could have never."

Her voice wobbles, exactly like the video. Her sword flashes, and Dolce's net falls in tatters all around him. She quickly runs away.

If only she had a friend right now, huh?

"Re...da...na..."

Once again you lay vanquished upon the earth, staring up at the face of Hades.

This time is different. He has not come to take you. He has not dressed in funeral black and murderer's crimson, and he wears a gentle smile as though you remind him of someone. You are tired but there is nowhere left to go; the future stretches out ahead as a place of silence and softness and sleep, unnumbered days spooling out with no beginning and end. The burden is lifted and cast aside - the certainty of your failure is undone. He did not believe in you. Day by day, week by week, year by year, you proved him wrong.

So certain was his doubt that other ships have set sail even as your voyage continued. Each of them failed, stormwracked, lost. He thought you were lost too when you vanished into the Rift, gone where all his greatest hopes came to die. He never thought to hear from you again.

He embraces you. It feels like a collapse; an intention to simply lift you to your feet, but the physicality of it cracks a shell grown brittle with time. You feel his tears upon scars where once you felt blood. You feel hearts beat, no longer just yours.

"Thank you," he said. Then the God of the Dead simply cries.

*

The Gods gather in the clouds above. Zeus comes, white toga over onyx-black skin, hair like a thunderstorm at midnight, with a softened Hera holding her arm with a gentleness of hard-won trust. Poseidon comes, impossible colours crammed into a weathered cloak, the smallest possible condensation of humanity. Mars comes, bold as brass, and Minerva slinks with the stench of petroleum. Hestia was here already, hoodie raised, and Dionysus scratches patterns in the mirror even still. Artemis sits still, fingers flexing against leather gloves a size too small, and Apollo smiles at the one sun left to him. Only Aphrodite and Demeter are missing - though what could have driven them away from this soft little world is a mystery for the ages.

They shine down, present and distant. Nobody on this world asks them questions, and so they do not speak. Their shrines still gleam on mountain tops and in dark places; their statues lie forgotten and untended. The swords of divine power are still all about, gently rusting.

And then the strangest thing of all.

They bow their heads and give their blessings.

The clouds gather still. Wedding bells ring out. The Earth passes another day without earthquake or meteor or war. The mad find the words they need and all the virtue humanity needs falls freely from the skies. With no prayer or acknowledgement from the people below, the Gods give; they give as freely as they always have, as freely as the soil and water and sun always has. Though no bargains are struck, the world turns. Though no sacrifices are made, the world turns. Though no coin flows, the world turns.

One by one they step down from their cloud in the evening sunlight, each of the gods holding a candle. They pass in a procession, one after another, pausing as they pass the heroes who crossed the galaxy. A last chance for prayers, questions and farewells in the face of a passing eternity.

Redana, simply Redana, holds the God of the Underworld in her arms. Here, she feels the echo of old wounds, impossible blows, feats of strength - she feels all the things that could have kept her there forever, in the house of her mother, in the dominion of Hades. But she holds her uncle still.

Is it any surprise that she weeps with him?

There's not even anything she can really pin it on. Yue would tell her that sometimes you've just got to cry to get all the tears out, and that's as solid a theory as anything she could construct with her old library at her beck and call, with tutors to explain the mysteries of the world - the underworld - to her, and with Bella there to ask for explanations.

Not that the explanations were ever for Bella's sake.

She had been so young when she began this voyage. So foolish. And only a fool would ever have agreed to cross the Rift, to dare the unknown, to find their way here to where everything is so different, so vibrant, so...

So hopeful.

That maybe here, at last, is an answer to her yearning heart.

---

The prayers die on her lips. It seems useless to continue to offer them here, where there are goodbyes.

What she will offer, however, are hugs.

Let no relative think that they can escape! Not even Poseidon, who makes her teeth itch and throbs strange colors into the back of her eyes - she has been through the mirror-madness of Dionysus, she has been in the labyrinth of Aphrodite, and her wild uncle thinks that he can get away? After so many years of being observed by humanity? On a world like this, they look up at the sky's myriad of colors and see wonder, beauty, and an unknown that should be experienced on its own terms.

Everyone gets a thank you. Everyone. Even Dionysus, who was there for her at her worst, who refused to give up on her when her world broke and ran like quicksilver. Thank fortune that Aphrodite isn't here, because then there would have been a scene... but they all would have stood behind her then, wouldn't they?

She thanks Artemis with a hug that threatens to lift the huntress off her toes, and says thank you: not just for Bella, but for her sisters. After all, she never would have made it here if not for the huntresses. All of them. And she stands up on her very tippiest of toes to whisper into her father's ear. What they say... well, only they know, and neither will be telling anytime soon.

But there's someone else missing. An empty space where there should be someone, with wand and sheepskin and winged sandals.

On the hillsides, sheep bask in the sunlight. Far beyond, there are towering columns leading up to the wild void, and the prisons of unmaking, and the universe made orderly, and an underworld beyond, and there are no paths that lead to this place yet, no road that can follow in the wake of the Plousios.

She is not here, because this is one end of the skein, and because there is so much left to do.

But one day she will have been here, in the shadow of her father, golden hair lit by her torch, orange wrap marking her as someone who has walked the path of the Hermetic. A captain, a void-rider, a messenger and a message. Someone who walks back along her own path to ensure that everyone's heart meets its desire.

She is not here yet. So there is something that still remains to be done.

On the hillsides, sheep bask in the sunlight, and a shepherdess walks among them checking her harvest.

Dyssia is grinning like a cat, because it's the only thing keeping her from panicking.

Because on the one hand, happy day! Miracle of miracles! Young love, which is only different from old love in that there are different mistakes left to make! And if she's not mistaken, there are some very interesting uses for various pool and bedroom instruments! And she was here! She did this!

But also oh fuck what does she say? She's had years to think about what to ask Hades for and she's still procrastinating the answer! And Scar is standing there and demanding an answer and--

Do you think Dyssia could manage that expression? She should try to manage that expression, it's a very useful face to have tucked away in your folder of faces to make--

Resist the urge to try it out right now. We have enough issues with echolalia and saying things out loud and--

(What even would you call echolalia of the face? Facielalia? No, no, wait, she knows this one, it's called masking)--

Aaaaaaaa answers, answers, answer that won't take too long or undervalue the relationship because there's that conversational landmine to step on is asking for something that's the right level of not-too-much-not-too-little-goldilocks--

"I want to attend your races," she blurts out. "Maybe not every time, I'm not gonna demand you arrange your schedules around me, but I'd like to see you two keep running forward together and know you'll never stop pushing each other."

There’s no friends for Kat here. She said so herself.

Maybe she could find a friend at the bottom of a real trap, his silly little legs wiggling about and just enough bleats to catch her attention, and what innocent maiden could refuse a soul in need who would certainly be in her debt afterwards yes? Maybe she could find a friend at the point of a sword. Or, no, the handle of a sword, and soon to be the point of her sword, because he’d be blocking her way, just like evil space sheep are wont to do, and she’d have to duel him, and of course he’d lose, and of course she’d be graceful and victorious, and, and, it’s not really the duel that matters, it’s that he showed up for it. It’s a symbol, it is. You don’t gotta say much when there’s a symbol. Keeps things symbol.

She could find a friend in those places. She could find a friend in all sorts of clever and meaningful spots. She could. She really maybe could.

And that’s just not good enough.

Kat’s a good scamperer, she is. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Dolce had thought to get in her way, to stop her with a big, fluffy hug, and if that’s all it was then he’d have enjoyed the sight that so many have been blessed with over the years; a clump of fluff-ful tails zipping out of sight, out of reach, out of trouble. But if you dig down, way way way wayyyyyyyyy deep down? Past all the wool, all the spikes, all the steps it took to get here, and everything in-between? I think you’ll find that Dolce wanted to stop her. And wouldn’t you know it, but I think Miss Fluffybiscuits wanted a friend more than she wanted to escape.

What happens next would require a level of expertise to unpack that simply cannot be expected of silly little sheeps. So I’ll just tell you the important bits: Dolce stands among the bits of net. Kat scampers. A woolly cannonball gets her, mid-scramble, and at least one of them goes a-tumbling in a big old heap. A heap that can talk, even if it’s a bit stunned and forgot to breathe for a bit there.

“My apologies, I didn’t think this was the way to the fan club,” he bleats. “And I didn’t want to miss it either.” He wants to learn about the idol who saved this world. Not to mention she’s got to teach him how to properly do her intro.

***********************************

Dolce feels rather foolish. It’s not fair, and he knows he’s not being fair, and so he’s doing his best to keep a lid on it. But really. What is he supposed to feel, never asking the gods if they actually wanted or needed…any of it? It seems so obvious in hindsight, while being so unquestionable he might as well blame himself for never giving up breathing.

He visits all of them, in turn. He doesn’t have to. But he does. Old habits, and all. But he does spend a little more time with a few of them, and it is laudable he only sneaks anxious attention to the others intermittently. Braver still, that he hazards a question so frank.

“Is that it, then? Either we’re reaching and you’re present, or we’re letting go and you’re distant?” Hera, who rescued him. Hestia, who sheltered him. Artemis, who taught him. And, oh, beans and bother, there’s no ceremony here. Just a chef who’s found a nice patch of grass to give his trembling legs a rest. “I’m…not sure how I feel about that. I always wondered, you know, likely more than I should, but I did think it’d be nice if the gods were…happy. As much as you can be, for whatever that means for a god. And here, it seemed like there was much you could delight in. I thought of you, Artemis, when I met the Supreme Ruler.”

“What…do you prefer? With all this?”

Scarlet turns to look at Violet. Violet looks back at Scarlet and shrugs. As a pair, they turn their eyes back to Dyssia.

"Wait, for real? Didn't you say you were-"

"Hmph! So you're saying you want perfection in exchange for a miracle? Well then-"

"No seriously Scar, she was askin' me about the water! She said it was-"

But Scarlet's got a hand over Violet's mouth, so the thought doesn't complete. And she's got another hand (that's two, for the record, perfectly normal) pulling a ticket out of... um? Wh-where... where did that come from, exactly? That bathrobe doesn't have pockets. She just. Like. What did? How did she?

Uh??????

Ok well anyway there's a ticket in her second hand ok, let's not think about this too hard (please), and she flicks it with two crisp fingers into a position where Dyssia can see, consider, and also easily take it for herself.

"As. I was saying! You're in luck, Dyssia. It so happens we're in town to gear up for a major race in just two weeks."

"The Iron Lady's Divine Shield!"

"If your wish is to see us compete at the highest level, you can easily do it there."

"It's cool if you can't make any others, though! We're kinda all over the place."

"Like Violet said, a typical race tour is a national affair. It's a lot of travel, more of a commitment than all but the most diehard enthusiast can handle."

"But if we win two more, we'll qualify for the international circuit! You can check us out easy when we get to California!"

"...What? Violet, why would she be able to see us there?"

"I told you, she's foreign!"

"Why do you think that every tall foreigner is American? There are other countries, you uncultured oaf!"

"Y-yeah? Well you name one then, you're so smart. Where's she from?"

"Obviously she's Australian?"

"Psh! You dummy, that's a continent."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...What?"

"You are so lucky you're pretty. Right. Well. Dyssia, I don't have a quite know the full picture of what you're after, but I promise you this much. If you come and watch, you'll not only see for yourself how much Violet and I can push each other-"

"Oh right! We cut through the river here like, four times goin' down the lakes! Yeah, she'll see all kinds of stuff that way! Hell yeah, Scar!"

"Of course! Who exactly do you think you're talking to?"

And that's kinda how that goes. The pair of them preen at each other, and then suddenly there is a three way hug. The cool thing about a group hug is that, unless you're touch averse, you don't gotta panic while one is happening. There's no awkward answers you need to have. Nobody's checking if your thoughts are staying in a straight line. By the time it's done you could have thought of, like, nine things and nobody would know or care. You can just be quiet and enjoy it. Or yap, if that's how you stim. It's just, y'know, it's still a hug. Y'know?

They're grateful, this pair. They're happy. And they're very practiced with doin' whatever whenever. You could have worse friends, is what I'm sayin'. But wow, Dyssia. Wow wow wow. This and dance lessons from Yin? I guess you're never gonna be bored, if you stick around.

There are answers to your questions. All bajillion of them; and for the record I think you'd look great with some kinda chain mesh hair analog whatsit. You could totally pull off the flip with a good weekend and a mirror. Give it a go! Anyway, yes. Your questions. They may not be answers that come outta anyone's mouth (especially not these two mouths), but if you watch? And you listen? You'll know them all.

I think you probably don't hear this a lot, but Dyssia? I happen to think you're a better listener than most.

*****

There's a lot that Kat could say about Elly, but all of it is better expressed in song form. The moment is coming. A bit more walking and everything will be made clear. But right now there's... well, right now there's a lot of stuff happening.

Like a sniffle that is not almost crying. And not 'cause it's actual crying! It's a regular, non-crying sniffle, the kind any girl could get. It's a quiet little spin around to put feet on the proper path to the destination again, since the destination is where feet need to be going.

It's no thank you, no spoken thank you of any kind, because all the not crying Kat didn't do very much didn't leave a not ball of no stuff not stuck in her throat. She's swallowin' a bunch 'cause it's, uh, fun! Yeah. So much fun. But as fun as it is, it does leave enough room in the action budget for a squeeze of a sheep's hand.

A squeeze so friendly it can only happen between friends. But let's set that aside for a moment. 'Cause like I said, there's a lot happenin' right now and it deserves its moment.

Everything else is coming. Right now there is a sheep. A sheep with questions. It's just that there is also a fox. And foxes? Have an impeccable sense of the moment. At least most of the time. S'why they're so good at Foxgirl Schemes.

Kat turns her eyes toward a spot just over yonder. It happens to be the exact spot Hera is passing through at the time.

She smiles.

...Later, a long time later, she will think about what it is she saw. And when that moment comes, she will tuck her chin between her thumb and forefinger and engage in Serious Thinkies.

"Huh," she will say, "She was... wrong? But she seemed so sure."

*****

Trying to compress Bella's yearnings into a single point is a fool's errand. Her childhood, her adolescence, and even the vast majority of her adult life is best described as a yawning, endless cavern of pure desire. A hungry void where things that would or would have been nice should go.

And they never did, for the most part. Why was she born? Why did Sagakhan choose her for the Temple of Artemis? What purpose does her family serve, and what is her place in it? What kind of creature, what Servitor species was she meant to be? If she'd been normal, what might she have looked like? How would she think and act and be?

Maybe she has no purpose. Maybe there was no reason. Maybe she is wholly unique in all the known universe with no model to speak of. Maybe, just maybe, the meaning of her life is that she is. The thought hits her in the stomach, harder than Jessic's tail could ever manage.

But one thing she could definitely say about her life is that it had been missing something. Everyone around her from the moment she was born, from the lowest to the highest, had conversations with the gods. It seemed to be the most natural thing in the world. But not for Bella: for her, questions tended to hang in the air and die. Prayers and offerings never came with the results she hoped for, never once filled the myriad holes in her heart. She always assumed that meant that nobody was listening.

She watches them walk with their candles. She watches Redana pass so easily among them, child of the gods that she is, and she cannot join in. She is frozen in place, clenching her fists and her teeth so hard that something in one of them starts to creek. All that is lift for her to do is lash her tail in frustration.

The gods have always been. They have always been right there. Did her fires not light? Did her meals not cook as well as she could ever make them? Did her chores not finish, did her love not blossom, secret inside her chest until it pulled her across the very Rift itself? Did her claws not tear in half whatever she put them to? Of course it did, of course it did, of course it did, of course it did.

Blessings unasked for. Blessings unpaid for. Blessings freely given. It is so hard to see without eyes. It is so hard to speak without language. How in the fuck was she supposed to figure out how base and... transactional the world she'd lived in had really been? Once, she made fun of a planet for using something as stupid as currency. Tellus had bought and sold more every day, and with a far uglier coin. Prayer was simply commerce. Conversations merely wealth.

And she. And she? And she! Bella! Bella, who had (though under a different name) been worshiped as a demigod. Bella, who had stepped foot on Olympus itself. Bella, who had killed every mother she had dared to beg for. Bella, the slave who had briefly put her foot onto the path of kingship without ever bothering to loosen her shackles. She! She. She?

She has every right to say something. She has a hundred things she wants to have or to know, and these gods are the beings who can give her that. She has to say something. To all of them. To any of them.

Bella falls to her knees and cries. Twisted, sorrowful howling fills the Sky Castle. It wracks her body and sends shivers down her arms. It burns her chest and stings her eyes until it blinds her, and still she cries.

"I'm sorry," she says. Because she has to, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry."

Miracles exist because they are something that can never be purchased. They can only be given. That is why it only happens now, after everything else. That is why, while she sobs out her apologies and asks nothing at all, she feels a hand touch her shoulder. Her head is heavier than stone, but she lifts it to see.

Who has come at the end of this long journey to tell her it is alright?

To lift her tear-stained eyes to gaze upon the face of Persephone, Bella must first traverse the infinite cosmic distance of her moon wolf t-shirt.

After all, Ceron is hers. They had always been hers; an army forged in love and lust, bestowed with every blessing their creator could think to give. The success of Doctor Ceron's legacy had always been that she had not built her children with any particular end in mind; she had not made them with controls or a built in society they would always correct back to. She had simply wanted hot wolf muscle mommies to exist and be happy. Though changeable, the moon is a closed and harmonious circle.

(Also worth noticing: underneath that shirt, Persephone is ripped.)

"It's alright," said Persephone. "It's okay."

Her fingernails are dark with dirt, her hands bruised and calloused - unlike the clean gloves of Demeter, her garden fights back. The succulent flower she wears behind her ear was won through the earth through struggle. Her face is thin and creased with many lines, faded golden curls mixed with silver beneath a straw sun hat, her skin tanned dark from sunlight and made strong by lifting children high. Her pockets jangle with jewels - glass and plastic and sequins, magpie-trash that shines all the brighter than vaulted gold.

"Come on, all of you. I have tea brewing. Earth doesn't get visitors very often, and I wouldn't want to offend my sister in law by being a bad host. And along the way, tell me some tales - I don't get out much these days."

*

The Sky Castle comes to a halt. Persephone climbs down the rope ladder, long and hard though it is. Hades stands at the top, frozen in yearning, unable to look away but seeming afraid that she will slip and fall and break her neck. At the bottom she has weather-beaten old grey ute with space enough to fit everyone (though Dyssia will have to sit in the tray at the back). It waits in the soft shade of an oak tree atop a radiant green hill.

As she climbs down, Artemis slowly turns to look at Dolce. "You... thought? You wondered, more than you should... what I prefer?"

She raises a finger sharply to his lips. "Don't think. Don't wonder. Look. Look. It's her lesson, but it's also mine. The brain is just an organ for cooling the blood. Don't listen to it, don't obey it - look. See. Watch. Listen. It is hard. There are tigers in the grass and sheep are prey animals. They camouflage themselves with words and ideologies, they appeal to the brain, appeal to philosophy and language and tricks and justifications. Flags and banners and dynasties and nations and laws and founding myths and religion and race and constitutions and propaganda and money. It takes so many words to justify their crimes, but they'll say those words all day, just like a tiger will wear his stripes all day."

"Compare it to an act of love," said Hera. "Those do not speak at all. They simply are, to the point where talking about them is impossible."

"You've seen it all now, dearie," said Hestia. "You've walked the length of the galaxy. You've seen the worlds above and below. Who was happy? Who prospered? Who suffered? Who made things that way? What emotions were upon their faces? What did you see?"

You have a hill to climb. You don't want to keep Persephone waiting.

Light plays around Dany's fingers. It's soft, the sort of light beloved in watercolors and pastels. Wisps of it play at the edges of her body, trailing belatedly after her movements. It's a new pet from her father, a resignation gift[1]. She cups it close to her chest as she sits squished up right against Dolce[2].

And she tells stories. She's got dozens of them, after all, from one end of the galaxy and back. But someone paying attention might notice that the stories that Redana's choosing to tell are all the stories of how she met other people, and what their stories were. The Alcedi and the Starsong. The Assassins and the Ceronians. Alexa. Dolce. Vasilia. Dyssia. Bella.

In Dany's stories, veering here and there, back and forth, as the ute rattles along, she's just the observer. She's just someone who happened to meet them, and her value here is being able to tell you about them. That once, their paths intersected, and you need to know about that path, and suddenly she'll take you on a tangent right up to what she's heard about Bella being stuck on an orbital kill station with nothing to do but bake and make dresses. And the way she tells it, it's full of admiration for Bella's ability to do things, to make things with her hands, to motivate herself to escape[3].

And every bubbly laugh, as she goes on and on and on until someone stops her, is punctuated with little flares from the aurora in her hand, all the colors of fresh fruit and bruised sunsets.

---

[1]: Though shouldn't it be the other way around? But nobody told her this was going to happen, so she didn't have nearly enough time to fret about what sort of thing it would be acceptable to get the King of Olympus herself on the day when she walks among mortals and sets down the scepter and the laurel crown, and honestly, she still hasn't come to any sort of conclusion. Unless making it here at all is the gift? But she never would have made it if not for the gods, and for her friends, and for her wife, and for her dream, and... there are all sorts of things that aren't her, the girl whose identity is as blurred and colorful as the light around her fingers.

[2]: 's butt.

[3]: she does not talk about what was going on upon the Plousios at the same time. That's not a story particularly worth telling.

The inside of the cab is musty in a way that makes Bella think about dried sweat. The outside mostly smells like rust and gasoline, which is a new sensation. There's something oddly delicious about the fumes wafting through the vehicle, which feels like a shame because the truck gets to drink it instead of her. In the right wine glass it's probably sublime. What a waste.

She is in a hurry to sit down. To sit, and to ride, and to listen to nothing in particular. She is in such a hurry that she barely even notices the helpfully labeled sack of potatoes sitting in the bed as she passes it. Her ear bends back at a sound as she moves toward the door. Assassin-bred instincts pull her neck around to check it over again.

[POTATOES - FOX]

See? Helpful!

But Bella is in a hurry, so she merely shrugs and doesn't press it harder. And so long as nobody pays attention to the sound of rapid tippy taps begging someone to record a certain concert because stuff came up, nobody will be any the wiser! Nyehehe! Also shhhhhh!

"...I knew a woman named Jil. She belonged to a Servitor caste called the Lanterns."

Her voice surprises her. Not because she didn't mean to speak, but because it is so clear and bright. Even after all her tears and through the fatigue of an endless journey now weighing full upon her body, her words at least are beautiful in the way of song. She leans against the window, feeling cool glass press against her skin and the fur of her ear, and smiles.

"She was so afraid when I first met her. Her people were used on board our ship for menial labor, and for hunting practice when the warrior Kaeri were bored. Lamplight gleaming in the dark of a ship that hated all light and swallowed all sound. Huddled mice, flitting between the beacons and speaking mostly through touch. They taught me the language but I don't... remember it now."

"But she didn't stay that way. The Kaeri broke and I put the Lanterns in charge because they could do fucking anything at all. Sorry. Even my being 'in charge' of the Anemoi was just some stupid Imperial joke, so it's not like that meant anything. I didn't do anything. But with just that one chance, Jil turned into the most amazing person I'd ever met. She was sharper and surer than a knife. She protected her people, followed me through every dumbfuck choice and mission I ever made or had. Right up until--"

Bella stops suddenly, lifting her head up and craning her neck to look out the window and watch the world pass her by. A planet really is such a huge thing, y'know? Asking someone to follow you across and past so many of them feels increasingly ridiculous the longer she stays here. Why did it used to be so hard to see?

"...She was really good at cards. Nobody knows that about her. But we'd play something every night, usually in place of talking, and even from the beginning she'd do everything in her power to kick my ass as hard as she could. And she'd apologize about it too, which was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Or when we did talk, she'd ask me about wine, and I'd have to describe the flavors to someone who couldn't have spoonful of the stuff without falling over. I guess this isn't much of a story, is it? Sorry. She was just... my friend. Maybe my first real friend. And I did nothing to deserve her. And I just... wanted somebody else to know her name. I don't know if anyone else remembers her, anymore."

When all of this is done - now, that is going to be tricky to figure out, huh? There’s an awful lot of all that needs done-ing. They’ll have to sort out what counts and what doesn’t. Which feels like cheating? But it’s just how it’s gotta be. Suppose it’s best to say that once everybody else has done all they will, and a sheep has done all he will, and he finally, finally has a chance to sit down with a nice cup of tea and nothing else to contend with, then we’ll call it all done. Okay? Okay. So when we do get there, he’s going to add a little letter-writing to his tea-sipping. He’s got some things to say to the Supreme Ruler, and given how their last meeting went, it’ll be a lot easier to herd those words in his own sheepy time. More questions, too. Maybe an invitation to another teatime, with less breakdowns and less letter-writing.

But that’s later. When it’s all done.

Right now, sheeps aren’t thinking about letters, Supreme Rulers, or evil space. No. Dolce finds enough spring in his step to tug Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits Esq. (card pending) towards the spot where Hera is. (Can she even see Hera? He is also not thinking about that.)

“Kat, I’d like to introduce you to someone very, very important to me-”

---

Dolce laughs.

It’s like he’s crying, at first. Or choking. Little flights of breath escaping through his nose, hardly making a noise, yet enough to shake his whole body. Then, deeper, much deeper. A sound that bounces about his chest, rumbling all the way up a goddess’ finger. She cannot stop the smile from breaking across his face. Soon, she cannot stop him at all. He cannot stop him at all, not even when he tucks his mouth behind his hands, but at least the giggles are a smidge more polite. Not that such things matter. Not here. Nor does it matter that his laughter is quiet, that it makes his voice crack, that a wheeze from a sheep sounds definitively bleatish.

It simply is.

“You know?” Someone so woolly ought to have an advantage in wiping teary eyes. They really ought to. “I thought it couldn’t be that simple? Because, surely, there’d been much brighter minds working at it, and if the answer was that obvious they’d had figured it out by now?”

Come. Come. Get over here, Hera. Here’s an adoring hug from a sheep who can cover far more with his tiny arms than words ever could. Hestia, it’s going to be a race to see who can get who the first, which is a little unfair with you being a goddess and all, and wouldn’t you consider letting him win? Just this once? Don’t worry, you’ll get a happy bonk of his floofy head regardless. Artemis, he is approaching you purposefully, stopping at a respectable distance, and offering a hearty handshake. You may take it if you like, use it to pull him in for a surprise hug, or give him a medium five, to keep him on his toes. There’s not thinking, and then there’s not thinking, you know?

“Those are a lot of big questions,” he says with a sniff. “It. Might be nice to. Take a little time? Before I answer?” And he will answer! That’s why he said so. Which might be against the spirit of things, but, well. Give him credit for not saying all that out loud.

It’s been a long road getting here.

---

Dolce looks. Curiously. From his seat in the truck bed.

There’s not a lot of room, but Dolce doesn’t take much room, so it all works out. Highly compressible, sheeps. They actually like that sort of thing, don’t you know. Squished snugly between wife and princess and knight, well! If there’s a better way to travel, he certainly doesn’t know it.

His tale is a little…basic. But it’s the one that comes to mind. It’s the one that’s top of his heart right now.

You see, far away, there is a world called Bitemark. It’s been known by a lot of other names, and almost known by many more, but to the people who lived there, it’s always been Bitemark. And on the coastline, there sat a patchwork little town called Beri, with a patchwork sort of people. They worked hard. They were worked hard. They felt the teeth of wolves. They hid in the shadow of Empire.

Would you like to know their names? Would you like to know their days?

Then listen. For a little chef in a medium kitchen met all sorts…

Dyssia leans on the small windowsill in the truck, and relishes all the small sensations.

It's a thoroughly new mode of transport to her! The vibrations, the little jolts and moans, and sensation of dirt and rust under her scales, the warm smells filling her nostrils, the patterns of stripes on the worn fabric seats!

It's strange that this should be so enjoyable. It's the power of the novel! She's soared through near vacuum, witnessed the birth of constellations, flung herself at a planet hard enough to leave impact craters, all-but-spaghettified herself in the search of speed! She's danced through the air, trailing an orbit of friends! She's felt the whine of a tiger under her--

All of them, outdone by a little truck whose exhaust rattles whenever it hits a bump.

Sublime.

She stretches back, eyes towards the sky, and speaks of feeling lonely. Of being a round peg in a world of square holes? You get used to it, if you're good at lying--used to shaving yourself down until you fit in the hole, kinda, if you squint, if you don't pay attention to the pain, if you're good at lying to yourself.

She talks of losing a home. Of being scared and alone, of the Pix, how--oh, it's silly now, now that she knows them, but back then she just--

It's scary too, right? Scary and lonely, not understanding.

Talks about how when you're that scared and lonely, it's easy to throw yourself into-- Into anything! Any purpose! And it's not that the purpose is bad or that it doesn't need doing, but it's also something that can never be finished--not realistically, not entirely, and it's always something there to pour into yourself.

And anyway, she told you that story so that she could tell you this one:

About finding that--

It's not just about finding a family, right? Or about finding a new home of your own, one of your own choosing?

Though they're all of that and more! Home, in a way that no brick and mortar or ship of steel could be.

But also of--

Even now, she doesn't have the words. Of finding yourself, right? Of finding peace, not by trying to fill the void with a purpose, or with an antithesis, but with--

It's like, being lonely is about wanting. Wanting to be accepted, or wanting to be wanted, or wanting others to think of you. And you can try to fill that void with purpose, or with antithesis, or with crusade or conformity.

But isn't it so much better to simply not have the void in the first place?

Persephone drives through a twilight world.

Here is an endless rolling line of hedgerows, weaving to and fro, until it climbs a hilltop. The barriers fall away, providing a view of the patchwork biomes of a sprawling zoo. She continues along a mountainside set with concrete and glass bunker structures, overlooking a terraced lake, before turning along a green corridor beneath the shadow of electrical pylons and criss-crossed with bike paths. Then down across an arid plane, past small towns and a flat-spaced octagonal casino until the road takes a downhill turn. The foliage turns tropical and the road meanders here and there across green summer islands. Another turn takes along a coastal road with a view clear to sunset. Farms and homes and ocean breezes that take away summer's heat, cliffs broken by endless beaches. Children play with toy excavators in the rubble of construction sites and bike paths snake under and over roads in every directions.

She comes to a home without a view - the plot with the view is vacant and set with park benches. She comes to a home with a community request board out the front next to the little library and chore register. She comes to a home without enough spare rooms for all her guests, but neighbourhood doors open with faces delighted to see guests. She comes to a home surrounded by lemon, cherry and almond trees, all out of season. She comes to a home lit with the sound of someone in the distance practicing the harpsichord.

Hades waits at the door, red rose in his hand.

"Please," he said. "Come back to me."
Persephone sighed and pushed past him.

Her home was humble, built for one. In one corner was a computer surrounded by post-its, books and notepads, still logged into the Daily Affirmation Of The Way <3 account. There was a comfortable couch and a couple of borrowed chairs so that everyone could be comfortable. There were bowls of peanuts, honeycomb and sun-dried mango slices.

"Please," said Hades again. "Come back to me. I have built the Underworld in your image. Now it trends towards justice. Now it trends towards love. I have turned eternity to this purpose, to teach the galaxy's monsters how to unclench their fists. I take every soul that comes to my House into my care, and more than that. I do not simply break down the wicked, I bring down their societies. I crack apart their contradictions, pry loose Aphrodite's fingers, wash each soul clean and pure, no matter how long it takes. I, too, have declared war upon samsara, but within my realm, with my resources, free from the interference of my family, I can triumph. I can triumph, in a way that you never can here. I need your help. Leave this world behind. Be with me."
Persephone leaned heavily on the cutting bench. She looked tired. She looked sad. "Every soul?"
"All of them!"
"Then what of those you fed to the Rift to reach me?" said Persephone.
"I had to reach you," said Hades, eyes burning blue.
"You had to," said Persephone quietly.
There was a sword in her hand.
"Them?" said Hades. "Well paid! They knew the risks, they knew the rewards, they chose to roll the dice. They had every opportunity to quit this journey. Against humanity itself!"
"I never asked for humanity," said Persephone. "I don't want it."
"You are a liar!" said Hades. His eyes burned so blue they scorched the ceiling, as blue as the skies. "You did not come to Earth, take over this civilization, remake it in your image, seed your swords throughout the galaxy because you do not dream of political change! I have seen Jupiter! I have seen what your people have built! You are setting yourself up as a parallel culture, steeped in symbolism -" his voice broke, pleading, though the blue burned brighter, "- and I could not agree more. If that is what you want I'll give it all to you, and more. I will call in every debt I am owed and shower this world and culture in all my family's blessings. This culture will thrive and spread, replace the hollow expansionism of the Skies, end the atrocities of Biomancy, reform the warlike Ceron!"
"My mother will mourn," said Persephone, scratching the edge of her blade against the edge of the stone counter.
"Her? That heartless monster?" scoffed Hades. His bow tie was choking, he loosened it with a finger. "I've seen how you threw her out of this world when she tried to visit. You set your beasts on her rather than see her, there's no love lost there - and between Hephaestus and Kronus, how much of her is left, really? But if you must pretend to care, I have made arrangements for her death. She will join us beneath, and she can be our greatest project - to unwind the nightmare she has become. Return her to warmth, release her kind and loving to the galaxy -"
"After how many years of winter?"
"Prices must sometimes be paid. You know this. You have lived in the real world long enough, sometimes you have to turn something off to fix it."
"I understand that very well," said Persephone quietly.
"Then," said Hades. He pulled off his bow tie entirely. Without it... somehow it became apparent that the suit he wore was the exact same cut and style that Aphrodite wore. "Come with me."
"No," said Persephone.
"Come with me."
"You have not learned anything," she said.
"Come with me! You are my queen!"
"Actually," said Persephone, "I am a Princess."

Scarlet light flickers like a heartbeat. Hades reaches up pale fingers to the red slit across his throat, right where his bow tie had been. The God of the Dead looks at his own blood with disbelief. All those angular joints bend and crease, folding him up like an origami crane.

"I am no one's prisoner," said Persephone. "Not my mother's. Not yours. Not me, not I, not any more."
"Re..." Hades rasps, shuddering and distorting. "Re... DA! NA!"

How quickly that kind face turns to a thing of terror. How suddenly you can see the crimson strings, the red thread of fate pouring out of that throat, thickening into ribbons that find their end point in the hands of smiling Aphrodite. The God of the Dead turns and whirls, knocking over chairs, breaking glass, staggering desperately until his eyes lock on Redana and he snatches the Gift - that sealed treasure he had bid you take all this way. Wild eyed he stands and faces Persephone, who still holds her sword calm and steady.

"I will fix you too," rasped Hades, hand to his throat as ribbons continued to spill out. Aphrodite is grinning. Everything was for this, a scheme an eternity in the making. "If that is what it takes to make you happy. You are coming with me -"

He rips open the box.

Nothing happens.

Hades looks confused. His expression is mirrored in Aphrodite. But as Hades lifts out the cold metal crown, his expression remains confused - while Aphrodite becomes so enraged he bites his cigarette in half.

"What... is this?" said Hades, holding up a Nemesis Crown.
"HERMES!" screams Aphrodite in fury.

The world begins to shake.

Prepare for planetary teleportation.

Redana is leaping, halting herself on one foot after Hades’ shove, springing forward with no plan other than to help. Dyssia is rising, hovering, coiling the length of her tail in a perimeter around the group, that no enemy could lay hands on them faster than she. Bella is staring, eyes widening, a truth dawning.

Dolce looks.

Hades, bleeding, lost. Persephone, armed, steady. Aphrodite. Aphrodite. Aphrodite. Cursing. Screaming. One-armed. Smokeless. Distracted.

Dolce.

Dolce looks.

She has played the part of Empress Nero for a long time. This long, hard, necessary, failed path to save Humanity - so much had to be put aside. So much had to be given up. She had lost her heart and her eyes, fingers gripped to the edge of an ever-widening abyss. The weight had been so heavy. She had held the entire world of Tellus upon her shoulders like Atlas once had, all of humanity kept from the brink by the strength of her back and her will. The great civilization that had been her child, that had grown up from roads and pathways and ships and medicines and now stood on the brink of complete oblivion - keeping it alive had required sacrifice. Not just from her - the entire world of Tellus was a life support system, an iron lung that kept the idea of humanity alive even as the Underworld pressed in all around it.

And she? She was the mechanical hand that gripped the flickering heart, squeezing it in time, forcing blood to pump. An act of despair. A hell. Waiting for a miracle -

Her lips curled up into a smile. "Fooled you~" said Hermes.

She could feel Hades' horrified attention snap back to her from so far away, but he was bleeding and crippled. She saw him abandon his place on Earth and surge towards her like a hurricane, a terrible black hole barreling across the cosmos. He could see what she was doing. The only thing left to decide was when he should arrive.

"Last second," she said thoughtfully, spinning her caduceus around her fingers.
She picked up her microphone. "Humans of Tellus!" she announced. They had never heard her voice before, but it was still Her Voice - something she had never given up - and no one could mistake the voice of their God-Empress as it rang out across the entire world. "Congratulations! Your years of penance are over! Soon the gates of Tellus will open and you will once more walk free and unconfined. Do not forget the lessons you have learned here, for you shall not be rescued a second time."

The great Nemesis runes began to alight all along the surface of Tellus. The vast black hole of rage and desperation that was Hades loomed large in the horizon. She could almost hear his voice in the distance, could almost see her family following behind. She smiled and ran her fingers over her scepter. "Hades, Hades, Hades~" said Hermes. "You ridiculous creature. Didn't you know that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?"

Golden lights began to flare. She sat alone upon her throne and smiled. Whatever else would come to pass this day, at the least she could be proud that she had at last successfully stolen the most precious possession of the House of Hades.

She engaged Nemesis.

*

Scientists had long theorized the existence of Counter Earth - a balance point on the opposite side of the Sun that contained an entire duplicate mirror world. Short sighted fools that they were, they thought that once their space probes saw nothing at the L3 point then that was the end of it. They somehow forgot that the opposite side of the sun was the night.

From the night, Tellus comes. From the Underworld it overlays Earth, dimensions shivering and shuddering as the World of the Dead tries to connect into place. In some places it is easy - the underground tunnels of the Burrowers snap into alignment almost immediately. Here the spiritual and architectural principles have not evolved at all across a thousand years of distance. Tellus slots into place, the tools old humanity left for itself falling easily and naturally into its hand.

But everywhere else it finds no overlap at all. Across this green and pleasant land Tellus can find no purchase, its spires and pyramids and tight-packed corridors failing to align with a soft and spread out landscape. Flights of fighter craft flicker in and out of existence in the skies above, dimensional invaders performing a futile search for the engines of war they can switch out with. Cyclopean temples to the Gods shudder in and out of existence. Everywhere the vast inevitable city arises from Hell and brings with it all its terrors, but everywhere it wavers on uncertain feet.

Stabilization efforts begin. Soldiers and machines move out to clear land, restructure buildings, align Earth with its Nemesis and in so doing dump the ruins of Earth into the underworld. A shame, but better to lose the depopulated ruin of the old world than the beautiful new capital she had made as the heart of humanity's new empire. The numbers just made sense. And besides - she had promised Hades that she'd send his wife back home.

Prayers ring out. Bells ring. The creatures of Tellus raise their voices in praise of Hermes, their God, their patron, their savior.

*

Persephone looks out at the terrible city trying to force its way onto her world. Her house has a view now, and it's a view of cathedrals in every direction. They ripple in and out of the world, broken puzzle pieces forced into shape.

"Aw biscuits," said Persephone.

She walks back inside, goes to her computer and hits ctrl-s on her document. She then shuts it down properly, picks up her sword again, and goes back outside.

She knows these smells better than any others in the entire universe. The chemical sting of a vast, metal prison that understands the importance of cleanliness. Smoke both acrid and sweet that sweeps over endless walkways of such dense metals that she can taste them on her tongue from here. Oil compounds running through the veins of the Prison Planet's great machine heart. The pheromone cocktail of True Humanity, laced with every signal imaginable to instill maximum loyalty in the unwashed, miserable Servitor population that surrounds them. And everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, the scent of roses.

The smell of home.

For years, she'd chased this. For years, she'd longed for air that tasted right, for olfactory responses that pressed calm into her lungs. For years, she'd carried around a small bottle of this place to help her sleep at night. For years after she lost it, she simply had not slept right. For years, her life had been nothing but a ceaseless comparison to this exact sensation.

Bella's spine tenses like a bowstring. Her eyes, already opening wide in shock at the lessons the gods had taught her, contract into furious slits. She bites down in fury and her jaw groans from the strain. Three sharp, angry sniffs and then her tail flicks behind her back. And she rushes outside with such speed that she has to kick her leg out in front of her, duck low, and dig her clawed gauntlet into the earth just to stop again.

And she beholds Tellus. Insubstantial and flickering. Threatening. Even now casting its shadows over the grass and demanding that water cease flowing save where it is directed to. That air pass through the specified channels, that weather turn null lest it interfere with the grand working of Humanity.

Home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home. She is home.

"NNNNNEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOOOO! HERMES!"

Bella's scream splits the sky. Her claw tips quiver. Her muscles pull so taught that she is carrying a mountain on her back again. Her eyes slash through the shadows and the twilight, searching. Searching. Seeking and never finding. She snarls.

"SHOW YOURSELF! SHOW ME YOUR FUCKING FACE RIGHT NOW! IS THIS ALL IT WAS?! IS THIS WHAT I WAS FOR? IS THIS WHAT REDANA WAS-- NERO!"

Her chest heaves. Steam hisses off her shoulders. A lifetime of worship and adoration and longing stick in her throat as tears sting the corners of her eyes. How long? How long has she carried the title of Praetor beyond all reason and through every trial where dropping it could only have been a blessing? How long, how far had she gone to prove her loyalty to the woman who had kicked her out without explaining anything in the first place?

She can feel them coming. Even from here, she can feel them. The Imperial Kennels. Home.

Tellus!

Dyssia's eyes flick back and forth, comparing spire and pyramid and skyline against Redana's stories. It's everything Dany ever described, everything Dyssia imagined, and yet--

Nothing could have prepared her for it. Prepared her for the smell, the air, the everything. It's so much worse, and already, she can feel the purple leaking in, hear the drums, feel the--

There's so many people she needs to protect! So many lives, so many villages, so many--! The horsegirls! The lakes! The people she loves already, here with the people she's learning to value! They need--!

They need her! They need a knight, a hero, a savior, a--

The thought slams to a halt like a train through a line of schoolbuses.

Pause. Draw back. Look, actually look, and actually think. Don't just react, don't embody the moment, don't listen to DAH dun dun duduDAH--

Do they?

Do they actually?

Or a diplomat, or a priest, or an orator or a smith? A grav-rail wizard? A logistics manager? Any of the rest? How often have they needed any of that in the scant few days she's been here? How often does not-a-Princess Yin (Princess Yin, Princess Yin) need that?

This is a world where a girl with a sword can cut a ship in half, and act confused and befuddled that you can't.

The drums aren't just quiet. They're waiting. Listening,, she realizes, with the kind of expectation that sucks up all the sound in the room.

She turns, scans, finds the mad mask staring at her. Meets the gaze, her eyes entirely clear, entirely free of the tinge of indigo.

Offers it a bow. Thank you, old friend. Thank you for helping her so long.

And begins to sway.

This is not the dance she is used to. Not the frantic button mashing of that first holdout with the Pix, or of delaying an army on a beach. This is not a world of stillness, frozen redshifts and blueshifts. She does not fight as a berserker, but as--

As just Dyssia. Not trying to save a world, not trying to crush an empire all on her own, or with just a few friends, or with a harem of foxgirls.

Here is enough. Now is enough. Let others lift where they stand, and she will do the same, here with her friends.

She's screaming





Yue is asking if she's got a lash? a lash? a lash? in?





stop it stop it stop it stop it



She shrieks. Above her, Yue blurts out: "I'm so sorry, did that make it worse?" She's holding a vial with a dripper and inside there's sunlight. Redana blinks, and the sunlight soaks into her Auspex. Her heart is thundering in her chest, but she can see again, she can think again, without her mother...

"Mom."

"I'm really not?!?"

Redana wraps the stammering sun farmer into a tight hug, nearly forcing her up onto tiptoe, and then stumbles past Hades, crumpled on the floor like a wadded-up piece of homework, and she lunges through the door after Bella, towards the home she gave everything in order to escape, towards all of humanity cutting in line.

Towards her mother.

Dolce trips on the threshold, and falls hard to the ground.

A thousand thousand channels surge to bursting. A thousand thousand channels spill not a drop beyond their carved banks. The void has a name, and it is emptiness. The heavens open upon a Synnefo. Gift of the Empress. Prize in flesh and heart. Ears to hear. Eyes to see. Wool to touch. Softness to clutch. Faithful, ever faithful, to serve. To vanish. Never be seen. Never be minded. Never miss.

His hand breaks the soil and makes of it an anchor. He pushes. He heaves. The mud clings to his knees, the storm beats at his back, every breath drives command into his lungs, and still he rises. Knee. Hooves. Step. Step. Stepping. Stumbling. Running. After heroes, princesses, knights, and wife, eyes locked on the flickering future before them.

He offers neither prayer nor apology. All he has is a burning coal pressed deep, deep in his heart.

No. You. Don’t.

Not again.

Not ever again.

So comes Dolce of Beri, to the end of his journey.

"The best place to mediate," said Persephone quietly, "is in the tiger's mouth."

Those aren't the words queued for the day's Affirmation, but the people of planet Earth have heard or read them many times before. Against the grinding noise and impossible unreality of Tellus, in temples and in markets, in homes and on beaches, the people hear them in their hearts.

Against the shrieking of the Earth, they sit. Every instinct calls upon them to run, to fight, to grasp for what they love and want to protect. None of them do. As fire and aurora burns in the skies, as the stale breath of the Underworld washes out in every direction, as Legions march out in stumbling ranks, the people of Earth sit and are still. They look. They think. They take deep breaths. They close their eyes, then they open them. They look around them and they see.

Then, as one, they stand. And they go about their purposes.

Fire marshals put upon their brightly coloured hats and vest. People move quickly but calmly away or towards danger, as their nature demands. In part it resembles the movements of the armies of Ceron, whose battle instinct is coded into them on a genetic level - but no. The Ceronian instinct is a copy of this. There's no trick to it, it's just everyone taking a moment to think, and then everyone trusting in the people around them. Such a simple thing to say, but such a spectacular thing to see.

Doors are left open. Bathtubs are filled with water. Cars are left with their keys on the dash so that people who need to get away can. Swords are taken down from mantles. People who know a little more step up as leaders, and people who know a little less listen to them. It is not a martial instinct, this is not the organization for war - it is nothing so brittle and predictable. A vast, empty, liquid serenity falls upon the people of Earth. Civilization empties itself of its expectations, its wargames, its hopes and its fears. Hands are emptied and fists are unclenched, because the open palm is the most powerful weapon that life possesses.

And on the table before that palm, all the treasures, wonders and terrors that this world possesses, to be drawn as needed.

On the vast horizon arises the Imperial Palace. It shudders into place around Hermes' golden anchor. A spectacular pyramid of rose gardens like a waterfall of blood, awe and scale manifest. Two golden eyes gaze upon its golden form and they know it is perfect, and they know that it is doomed. The Eyes of Hermes can remember the plans just as they were written, the vast machinery of the palace extending out to hold the gates of the Underworld open so the engines of man can come forth. When it is done and the translation is stabilized, all of Earth buried and all of Tellus free, then the palace and its engines will collapse into ruin, preventing any return.

The broadcast speakers crackle and sputter again, still weak from carrying the voice of Nero. Now they strain to carry something greater still: the wailing sound of a zither. A traditional song from ancient days; a swan's death cry, the music of an artist awaiting his execution. The final duty of Empress Nero will be the salvation of humanity.

Fire catches amongst the roses.

"Holy crackers!" says Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits.

That's right, said Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits. No sack of potatoes, this! Why, 'twas a heroine all along! Beautiful and cunning! Four-tailed and Mint colored! Only vaguely smelling of tubers! She emerges in floofy triumph from her burlap disguise and shakes herself free of dust and dirt as only a foxgirl can.

As she settles, she beholds the grand palace of Tellus. Her first reaction is to kinda stare at it. Y'know, heroically. Heroinically? No wait, that sounds more like heroing ironically. Wow this is tougher than I gave it credit for. Kat rubs at the back of her head, fluffing her hair a little with a motion that's as effortlessly alluring as it is adorable.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah the staring. Sure is a palace, huh? Very... grand? Like obviously it is impressive! The thing's huge! And shiny! No self respecting foxgirl could look at it and not lick her lips at least a little bit. But it's also just... well, I guess there's really no point in dwellin' on it. It'll all be what it is, and nothing else.

Now, her second reaction? That's to listen to her phone ring. The recording's a little bit worse for wear these days, what with her old phone getting an axe through it and the need to redownload all of her favorite stuff. Sometimes you just can't quite find where you went the first time, right? And other times, the lofi kinda midi chiptune quality of an alternate pressing just speaks to you a little more, slightly different person that you've become in the time since you first made favorites. Kat smiles and bobs her head, waiting for the one bit of vocals that mean she's running out of ring:

"Should the end of the world come
You and I are together one."

"Y'ello?"

"...I swear to god I told you I didn't want to call her! She always does this! Ring ring ring, gotta listen to my stupid music! Some of us are BUSY, Fluffybiscuits!"

"Oh gosh, hi Cy! How long's it been now?"

"Since you STOLE MY TAIL you little hussy!"

There is the sound of a fox doing a pushup just barely audible on speaker. Kat blinks and shrugs it away. There's bigger skyfish to fry here, after all. She's a tail thief? Since when? Like sure she woke up with two extras at some point but wouldn't she remember what should by all rights have been the coolest moment of her entire life? At least if she's the one who did it?

"Ahahaha. Ehe. Uh... so! Um!"

Though! On the other hand! Maybe it was such a good heist that she was able to hide it even from herself? That's probably something a four-tail could do! She should ask Act...i...a. About... oh, beans and buttons.

"And another thing!" Cyanis cuts across the thought like a hot knife through thinkies, "Do not put in the narrative that I got mad! I am the least mad anybody has ever been!"

"...You sound pretty mad to me." says Kat.

"I am aggrieved! It's a very different emotion, which you would know if you ever opened a book!"

"Hey that's not very fair! I’m pretty sure I’ve read every book in my house!”

“Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Is Lovely Hearts: Kissy Connect a challenging read these days? Did you look at all the pretty pictures, too? Ugh, do NOT get me started on what passes for a library in that ditzy, fritzy-floofled, buck-toothed–”

“Uh,” uh’s Kat.

“Well hello to you too, Cyanis.”

“ADKFHAJOLHALIHD!!! What! What is she doing there?!?! Were you even going to warn me, Kat?! You traitor????”

Bella’s chest heaves with the effort of her fury. Her scream still bites in her throat, as her fingers curl into tight fists only to splay outwards again to threaten the air with her claws. Her tail lashes ceaselessly at every ghost threat and every familiar smell that filters through her nose. Her eyes dart this way and that, looking for something to vent her heat and her betrayal into, for something she can hurt.

But Nero doesn’t answer. Nero does not come. But worse than that by far is knowing that she will not come, and that she never even meant to. After clinging to the throne for so long, after dragging everyone along without saying a thing, in the end it was just… this? A distant goodbye, and nothing more? Was she, too, meant to be exchanged for Humanity’s Imperial ambitions? Was there another Servitor Candidate waiting up there to take her place?

Or was she supposed to, to, to… want this? To rule over a new Empire as Redana’s right hand? Trained and toughened up and then dumped on top of an empty throne in place of goodbye? It’s so like that insufferable bitch to plan like this, but is that even it? She’ll never know. She’s not meant to know. The gesture and the Empire is all that she ever cared about.

Bella hisses as she hunches low to the ground. Her claws dig trenches into the earth and she is shivering, tensing, ready to roar and pounce and rage and kill as only an assassin of her ilk can. Hot tears sting her eyes and hot breath steams from her gleaming teeth and hot saliva drips from her lips and everything is heat, heat, heat, heat and the racing of her heart and her every breath smells of blood and she needs it, and she wants it, and she’s going to–

But her ear bends backwards. There’s a… noise? It pulls her short, immediately. She feels it hit her, icewater on all of her fire, leaving her a sculpture of hardened magma and would-be lethal intent. Even still, her claws itch with longing. Even still, she feels the swoop of irritation in her stomach, and the desire welling inside of her to spin around and rip this stupid noise in half, instead. At least to kill something with all of this anger, and if it’s something beautiful then so much the better.

But when she turns her eyes in the direction of her ear, even that fizzles into empty steam. Because what she sees is, to her, impossible even after everything she’s seen on this planet. The source of this noise, this undignified and too-earnest-by-half laughter is… a fox. Not a Pix, mind you. Not a Servitor. Not a dragon or a Princess who admits after the fact that she used some kind of weird magecraft to alter herself without biomancy. All of these things she’d seen before in some capacity.

No, this is different. She can see it. She can smell it. This is just… a fox. Who is a girl. And surrounded by all of the horrors of Tellus, she is holding a phone in front of her and giggling like a river. It’s so beautiful that it steals Bella’s breath. All she can do is stand there, transfixed.

Slowly, she turns away. Slowly, she pushes forward. And then suddenly, she seizes Redana around the waist and lifts her bodily into an embrace. Why she does these things she does not understand. She simply holds her wife and carries her back so they can witness the miracle together.

“This is going to take forever if I let it,” a new voice carries through the phone, “Katherine, where ARE you?”

“O-oh! Actia! Uh, hi? U-um. On the advice of, uh, my lawyer, I decline to answer the question?”

But the one named Actia only chuckles.

“Is this what it feels like to be proud of someone else? I wonder.”

“Proud of her? You’re proud of her?! Actia do you have any idea how hard it is to fly this thing???? Just find her already so I can crash it and get this over with!”

“It’s like she said. We were pulling a job, but one thing lead to another and knowing you with everything that just started happening we thought you might appreciate a rescue.”

“You seem like a better influence than Cyanis,” says Yue, “Would you like some tea when this is over?”

“You’re not going to… anime it, are you?”

“Nnnnnnnno?”

“Thanks butI, uh, don’t want to be rescued,” says Kat.

“You don’t?”

“She doesn’t?!?!”

“No. I want to save the world.”

A pair of foxes sigh a pair of foxy sighs. They sigh in a foxlike manner, that is. I mean I dunno, maybe they also sigh in a sexy way? They’re foxes, they can do both probably. You can’t prove they can’t!

“Well! I mean! I figure this whole ghost castle business is pretty much our fault, so…”

“Our fault?” scoffs Cyanis, “How could anything about this be our fault? Or anything ever, for that matter?”

Kat floofs her hair and glances around, nervous-like. She’s gathering an audience, which is a bit nerve wracking since she doesn’t really know too many of them. But what’s a girl to do in the face of an audience other than perform?

She smiles.

“Well I mean, think about it right? The world had this whole weird ritual thing ready to go, fulla ghosts and warriors and ghost warriors, y’know? And we kinda snuck in and set it off early, right? And then we, like, kinda sorta blew the whole thing up???”

“Completely irrelevant.” says Cyanis.

“Self defense.” adds Actia.

“And besides, YOU said that would save the world!” sniffs Cyanis.

“From US, yeah! But what’s left to save the world from the thing it was really for? Other than this giant muscle mommy catgirl I guess?”

“What the fuck did you just call me?”

“Who the hell is that?!? Kat what is happening right now? Did you manage to summon MORE of them?!”

“Oh! Uh… I dunno actually! Hold on, I’ll ask! Hi, Missus Miss Kitty! Sorry if this is a rude question, but uh, are you dead?”

“I… was. H-how did you?”

“Neato gatito! Yeah, looks like it!”

“Well, great. Is she bigger than the sharkgirl?”

“Oh goodness goshies, no. She’s tiny compared to Ivar. I mean, like, regular huge.”

“Well that’s something I guess. But why should we get involved? We just got out of that business!”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this after everything else, but I’m going to have to agree with Cyanis. An extraction is one thing, but flying into more danger with no plan isn’t my idea of profitable risk. What are you scheming, Katherine?”

Kat giggles, a little bit proud of herself. Her teeth twinkle in the spooky death castle town light as she looks up at Yue. She clutches her phone tight and speaks with a smile in her voice.

“Well, see, if we’re the ones who fix this, we get to take credit for it! Think about it, right, no monks, no Princesses, just us foxes! Oh, and my mom. And her friends. But mostly us! They’ll never be able to send any of us to Cutie Fox Island ever again!”

“Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. Wait.”

“Is that really how it works?”

“Oh, I guess you guys don’t know ‘cause you’ve never been house foxes. But good girls? Get treats.”

The sound of Actia furrowing her brow is audible even over the sound of assault helicopter blades.

“Have I… been going about this whole thing backwards? This entire time?”

“Girls?”

“Oh no, not backwards! Just different! But right now I’m the expert so you should–”

“...Girls?”

“-Doesn’t make any gosh darned sense how could-”

“Girls! As much as I appreciate not needin’ to carry anyone, don’t we already have a car? Just have them meet us there.”

“Oh, mom. You’re so old fashioned! You weren’t there when I saved the world, remember? It’s not like it was in your day where you just kinda walked everywhere. Now we need cool transportation! And theme music! And idols!!”

Yue turns a little pink and very quickly finds a cloud to watch instead of continuing this conversation. Kat takes that for victory and hops exactly twice in celebration.

“Ok! So we’re… actually where did you guys get a helicopter, anyway?”

“We stole it from Qiu.” says Actia.

“From Princess Qiu??”

“Uhuh!” chirps Cyanis with obnoxious pride, “I figured, every time we steal from her we wind up running from these things? So why not cut to the chase? I figure this thing must be worth at least three wallets.”

“...You are such an idiot. Why did I let you make the plan? Did I get kicked in the head when I lost that tail?”

Blades cut through the air as a miracle approaches from the horizon. But what makes it a miracle isn’t that it’s a way to get everybody where they need to go before it’s too late. It’s not that Hermes’ perfect, ages old scheme missed a pack of flooferdoodles in its calculations. It’s not even the possibility that love, that real actual and honest to goodness L O V E might still manage to triumph on the day.

No, it’s laughter. Bella howls again, doubling over so hard that she drops Redana straight on the ground. And just like that, she’s free.