The Princess Redana Claudius And A Whole Bunch Of Other Things runs through her prison-home-memories, leaving behind a bunch of foxgirls ("see if you can find some other Alexas, they're big strong women with four arms!").

The funny thing, part of her keeps remembering, is that she's done this before. It was in her own heart, admittedly, and she was running from herself at the time, or, no, the person she could have been, if she'd given up on Bella and on the quest and been some sort of awesome and terrible void pirate. But that got most of the trauma of seeing her home destroyed out of the way already and she's [i]certainly[/i] not half-expecting the Nemean to break through a wall and reach for Bella with one massive hand. Not in the least. She's staying close to Bella because that's tactically sound, especially in a place which is so chaotic and cloyingly sweet-smelling. Through the fire and the flames they carry on.

The other funny thing is that she is both indignant that Mom would tell the people of Tellus that they had just been on the journey from Tellus to Gaia together, when really they were just taking a shortcut on the route of the [i]Plousios[/i] which had been the hardest and biggest thing she had ever done in her [i]life[/i], to the point that come to think of it it [i]has[/i] been her life, and she is also ashamed of being that indignant. Every time she's ready to start complaining to Bella through her trendy sailor's gasmask that it's [i]stolen valor[/i], is what it is, which is the way that those funny foxgirls would say it, she remembers her mother's opening salvo in the coming fight:

Showing her the people of Tellus.

So many of them. Lonely, boxed-in, afraid. The people who don't look up because there's no sky. Ghosts repeating their obsessions, just in smaller worlds than they once did. It's wrong to punch them down just because they didn't have the opportunity that she did. (There's something that the Nemean would have done, happily.) And if this succeeds, if Mommy brings the world of man back to the stagnant Azure Skies, then...

Then they'll have avoided the whole thing.

The journey. The places. The [i]people.[/i]

She's never going to lock herself back up in her rooms but what are the odds that everyone on Tellus just looks at the sky and then [i]closes the curtains?[/i]

Too high.

A wardrobe crashes down through a weakened floor, spilling the contents out. Bella leaps over it easily, but Dany hesitates, watches the fires start to lick at the dresses which she wore [i]once[/i] before getting bored of them.

She pulls out a very familiar scarf, wraps it around her neck, and keeps going, regardless of the fire risk. Some things are important. The memories from the far side of Lethe are among them, and so is going to meet one's destiny.

When she races down a hallway, past a blazing garden full of the smoke which is death,  for just a moment it's like her feet have wings.