[b]Bella![/b]

"Uh, yeah girl, it does matter a lot to be the strongest slave, like what kind of question is that?" said Jil, wiping the spit from her eye. "Look, I was trying to make this easy for you - but do you know what I've accomplished in five years as Nero's Praetor? Seven hundred and eighty Kaeri ships liberated, their homeworld of Pandrax put to the sword, their biomancers paraded in my Triumph, four billion Lanterns walking free. Not even bragging, this didn't need me to be a military genius or anything, didn't have anything you didn't - I just had to [i]want [/i]it bad enough to [i]do [/i]it when the opportunity came."

She opens her left palm and flexes, golden rosevines wrapping around her fingers like rings. A deadly weapon, a sacred weapon, sharp with rubies and thorns - and one that crackles with crimson electrical light. A forbidden technology, an instrument of pain - a Razorwhip. 

Aphrodite leans in with a grin.

"All [i]you [/i]knew how to want was Redana. Redana, Redana, Redana. But you took five minutes away from that to free me, free my people, give us our first opportunity - and yeah, I am grateful for that. Five minutes for you became a lifetime for me. You didn't have to do that. So I have always wanted to repay you."

She flexes her hand. Lets the rings fall to the ground. And then belts Bella across the face with a punch. Aphrodite snarls like a dog whose bone has been snatched.

"And the way I'll do that," said Jil, "is by killing you as cleanly as I can, even though you stand in defiance of Nero's final edict. It'll be a little harder this way, but I owe you these five minutes, right?"

She flexes her hand, bones snapping and fusing into a solid armoured fist, the raw strength of Biomancy. You can see in Aphrodite's hateful eyes what this mercy will cost her. He expected more in exchange for his gifts.

[b]Redana![/b]

The blindfold scratches off. A beautiful eye looks at you with bafflement.

"This is really confusing," said Alexa. "Hold up a second, I need to talk this out loud."

She slams you through a marble pillar to get a moment's thinking room, fingers tapping on her chin.

"So, first off, I know you're Mynx," said Alexa, pulling her blindfold back up. "Hi Mynx. But also, what the fuck Mynx? I was told that you were going to be impersonating Redana, and I know that you've got that knife eye attack that I do not want [i]any [/i]part of a third time. So why create this weird Ceronian Redana storyline? It's such an unnecessary curveball. Is this a mindgame?"

[b]Dyssia![/b]

Demeter stares. She stares in...

In shame.

Shame. Impossible, impossible, impossible for a God. Shame. Rejection. Condemnation. She tries to rise above it. She tries to construct a narrative. She tries to figure out a way to say that you are a bad person and that she is good, actually. She tries to figure out a way to say it that will still make you do what she wants. Because she needs you. She needs you like she has never needed anybody. All her gifts are here, all her prizes, all that she has worked on and worked for locked behind that door and you are not opening it and she needs you to open it. She needs you to do what she says. She needs you to like her. She needs you to like her vision of the future. She needs you to respect her and what she's done, she needs you like she's never needed another person in a very, very long time if ever. She needs something from you, and has no idea how to get it. She has said all the wrong things and has no idea how to fix it. She hasn't needed to talk to a person as a person in a very, very long time. Normally people come to her. Normally people beg her. 

No one has ever rejected her before. No one since -

- she shudders. There are cuts on her arms. Cuts on her face.

"Mommy," said Demeter. "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Don't throw me away mommy."

The cuts spread all along her body. A web of blood and light and magma.

"Mommy I'll do better. I'll make more things. I'll make better things. I'll make better people. Mommy. Please don't throw me off the mountain. You fucking bitch, mommy. How dare you mommy. Mommy I'll kill you. Mommy. Mommy please please. Please don't throw me off the mountain mommy. I am your heir. I deserve my place here. Mommy."

Demeter's eye burns away, the lattice of broken sword cuts scorching away the green and brown to reveal ice blue beneath.

"Mommy. Don't let anyone play with my toys when I'm gone. When I'm gone, my toys are still mine mommy. Don't let anyone touch them. Mommy you promised. You promised that I could keep my toys forever mommy."

There was a face now. Prideful. Poisoned. Pleading. Monstrous. An infant's face, an infant's greed, an infant's screaming hatred. 

"Auntie?" said Hephaestus, emerging from the bloodied ruin of Demeter. He was a grotesque of steel and cables, a deformity of electric lights and devices. "Auntie Demeter, you tried to eat me, didn't you? Auntie Demeter, you said that if you didn't eat me I'd eat the world. Well, Auntie Demeter, it turns out I was hungrier than you. I ate you from the inside. I ate the world from the inside." He nudged the mess of divine flesh and bone with his foot. "And now you're all gone. Yum yum. Maybe I'll eat mommy next. She threw me off the mountain. But..."

His cyclopean eye swung around to focus on Dyssia. "I'm going to eat you first. Yum yum."

[b]Dolce![/b]

"She looked sad," said XIV, trying her best to pronounce the words right. She said them like she wasn't sure she was allowed to say them. "Just then, when you cut her. I've never seen her look sad before. She always looked hungry."

She does not look back. 

"You look hungry too, mister. And sad. Both."