Phoe

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Hey, so... has anyone ever told you you're really pretty? Because goshies. You really, really are!"

As soon as I ask her, I know the answer is no. Not like I can soul read a girl I've just met, but Saber is not a super subtle individual. If that's not too rude to say? It's in that sharp jerk of her head and the sudden suspicious narrowing of her eyes and the way her shoulders suddenly lock all tense so that her arms stop swinging in that wild way she uses to run faster. Like, most of the way so far she's had kind of an animal gait to her, dropping onto three "legs" every few steps to push off of the ground and scrabble over terrain, now that we're kissing open air again, but as soon as I open my mouth she's running like any normal person.

Well. Any normal person if they were taller than a car is long. But you know what I mean. I'm not a super sleuth or a sword saint or a buddha or anything like that, but I'm darned sure I know what it looks like when a girl's just got told she's pretty for the first time in two lives.

"No? Oh well dang," I say as I float awkwardly next to her, maybe to break the tension, "But I'm betting you've been called 'handsome' a lot huh? And tall and strong and other things like that, too."

"...What is the point of this conversation? I am a warrior, child, and a King. Not some besotted maiden weeping to be compared with the treasures brought home from war. You have promised to explain both your presence and your plan, and you have managed neither."

"Well, true. But this is important too, I think. Like, I've heard you say a lot of stuff about being a Valkyrie too and I'm not an expert on ancient world stuff but they were all women, right?"

She nods with a scowl so dark I think it might have blotted out the sun? Oh yikes. But I dig in my- uh well no I guess I don't dig in much of anything in the air but metaphorically I stand my ground even in the face of Saber's terrifying glowering.

"That means you conduct yourself as one too. I mean, gender stuff is super duper messy and I don't mean to oversimplify your position, but I'm certain of this much: you're a girl just as much as you are a warrior. Maybe even more so."

Saber doesn't answer. That's ok, even in the gloom of night I can see the color rising in her cheeks. And this really is every bit as important as finding magic swords to fight an emperor/pizza restaurateur with. I promise. You're just going to have to trust me. I flash her one of my very best smiles and stretch my hands behind my head. Oh whoops, there's the hill that means we need to bank right!

"It's not mutually exclusive, y'know. If anything, pretty warriors get the most done so far as I've seen. Like, you know Princess isn't a hereditary title, right? The only girls involved in that game are there by choice, and nobody sticks with it for very long without either being or getting really gosh darned good at a bunch of different things. And I know you've met Princess Jezara so you get what I'm talking about. Anyway. A pretty girl never getting to hear how pretty she is... it's actually a crime, in my opinion."

"Child, make your point and be done with it. If you prattle for much longer we will be out of time for the important things."

"No, this is important! What I'm trying to tell you is, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you got summoned by someone who couldn't see you were a person. I'm sorry you had to give up on your wish, and I'm sorry so many people have tried to mess with the story of who you are. Most of all I'm sorry nobody's taken the time to say it all out loud. Or leastwise that they've squeaked instead of using the words. You're journey's too short to let it go the way it has."

Saber's got nothing to say to that, so I just stop talking and let her think it over. We're really close to where I want to take her, actually, so I lead her in a small loop around a hill instead of going over it to give her the extra bit of time to figure everything out. Pretty is a state of mind, y'know? So is inner peace. And when you can bring someone into that world, that's when your blade and theirs shines the clearest.

The shrine isn't anything special, once we come to it. It's not a grand temple and it doesn't have any impressive statues hanging around it. No waterfalls or lanterns or music or sand gardens or anything like that. It's hardly anything more than a- I mean gosh, it is a tiny little well with a little roof over top of it where someone left their old bamboo practice sword. I like this place a lot. The air here is clean in this extra wholesome sort of way and hardly anyone ever comes by so if I want a quiet little place to go through katas it's always worth the hike.

But today I'm here with someone. And today I'm here to rob it. I bend down and pick up the training sword and offer it to Saber with a bow. Without even looking up I can see her scoffing, maybe even contemplating cutting it in half just to punish me. Before she can, I snap out of my pose and strike out at her with an overhead slash aimed somewhere at her chest. She blocks it easily of course, but that's not the point.

I duck down and come at her from beneath her feet with a rising thrust. She steps out of the way so I grab her opening and launch up into the air through it, and come crashing back down on her head like a waterfall! You like my first finisher, Saber? She lifts her gleaming Underworld blade and catches the bamboo sword with it, thrusting me away from her as easily as if I weighed nothing. Before I can even land, she rushes at me with that same terrifying lunge as she introduced herself to me with, but this time I don't topple over. The slats of bamboo make a loud thwappy noise when they smack into each other, but the sword holds. I hold. Secretly it took most of everything I had, but I've managed to slap her strike aside and hold it at bay by lifting this training sword up across my shoulder. She nicked my skin before I could manage so there's a small gash in my sleeve. That's fine, honestly.

Because Saber is watching me with renewed interest. She stands up straight and reaches out her hand. I bow once more, and place the handle in her grip.

"There, you see? This won't lose, and neither will you."

"What on earth? What is this feeling? Child, no, Yue: what did you do?"

"Hahaha, nah I didn't do anything. Someone else loved this sword, that's why it is the way it is. I wonder how long they practiced with it? Must've been a long time, even after they got so good that most people would've said they'd outgrown it. Things like this are really precious, and I just figured, like, if the old world's so keen on stepping up to fight for everybody's futures, why not let the new world join in? Dual wielding's not a forbidden technique where you're from, is it?"

"A shield is more customary. But there is no reason I could not use a second blade in that capacity. Hmph, you people are such a curious lot. I wondered how such soft hearts could hold enough strength to withstand my rage. I begin to understand."

"Well, I think you're just as special as anyone here. In fact I, oh actually could you sit down for me? If it's all right with you I'd like to braid your hair. It must be getting in your way at this point."

Saber watches me in silence for a moment, with the kind of expression that says she'd really like to blow me off again. She'd had her hair braided up before, but it was real simple stuff clamped in a bunch of heavy iron bands. Practically another weapon in and of itself. I'm talking about doing something a lot softer and prettier to it, and she knows it. But she flashes a smile at me before she turns around and drops onto the ground in a cross-legged position.

"Yes. I will accept all of the power you are able to gift."

She's such an interesting person. I wish I had a day or seven to just chat with her over tea. She must have so many cool adventure stories from back when she was alive! Unfortunately, she's got a job to do. And so do I. I pull a brush out of my bag and set to work soothing out her tangles before winding all her hair up and around and through, and over, and under (and over and under and over and under and over and wowies yeesh there's so much of it how does she stand?!)

"So. The thing is, and I think you'll agree, we have to be the ones to stop Lancer. Waiting for her to de-power after Kat gets done won't be enough."

"No, it will not. It is in her nature to rationalize away her losses. And having been so close, she will probably grasp desperately at a way to continue forward with her plan for victory. She has only to kill the remaining Servants to take her wish, and most of us are weakened at this point. Even still, I'd hoped..."

"You wanted to take her on when she wasn't in Final Boss Mode, yeah. Sucks, but there you are. But you can't die in the process either, ok? Everybody's gotta stay alive to hold off this ritual. I don't know what it wants to accomplish but the air around all of you is so icky I can't imagine it's anything as cute as granting a wish. Right?"

"...Hm."

"I mean, I dunno. Anyway I just, I wish I could do more but this is your story, and Kat's. If it really comes down to sitting back or watching the world end I'll do my job but... honestly, I believe in you? You don't need me to beat Lancer. You just need a way to reach her heart, y'know? And that's... phew, there! Ok, how do you feel?"

Saber stands up, and swings each of her badly mismatched swords around a bit. Testing their weight, feeling the balance and the length and the speed of each. While she's at it, I sneak back over to the shrine and place my old practice sword where the other one used to be. You know, the one Hyra enchanted to weigh the same as a metal sword. That enchantment still holds to this day! It might be a poor replacement for such a beloved weapon, but I just feel like the shrine deserves to always have something here to love.

I turn again to look at Saber, who has stopped and just watches the lake from the edge of the crater we're near to. The wind blows her thick, beautiful braid around behind her back when she turns to me and smiles. For once, it's not a smile full of sharp and evil teeth.

"...Pretty." she says, and then howls with laughter.

Breathless Dead

There are no smiling faces waiting for her. No light to sustain her but the dim flickering of evercandles in the far corridors beyond her resting place. The air is cool and stale in a way that makes it easy not to care about anything. Impossible means impossible, doesn't it? Just let her rest.

And they do.

It would be a simple thing to sit here forever, waiting quietly for the end of everything. Her body does not itch with excess energy; even the idea of tapping her foot seems bothersome and exhausting. She has no real desire to move around, to explore, to speak, even to open her eyes and find out where she is. Her neck lolls without interest and her head bounces off of her shoulder in a brief sting of burning pain, but that soon settles into a dull ache. That's good. She can ignore that. She slumps further to one side and sleeps with her wrist jammed backwards against something smooth and round and cold.

And this is everything. Forever.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

She moans her annoyance. The girl can feel her ear twitching to catch each little plip of liquid as it splashes down from somewhere into a puddle of something else. Not quite rhythmic enough to fade into background noise, and just on the edge of too constant to fade in between splashes. She grits her teeth. Every time she hears it she twitches. The sound makes her feel dirty, like the sensation of it was somehow covering her in wet, disgusting slime and layers of grungy, melting something or other. She does not know, and does not wish to know.

But her eyes open. She has to see what's doing it, has to stop it if she can. If she stops it, she can sleep again. Just one more time, and then impossible will finally be over. As dim as the light is, it still blinds her. She hisses and wrenches her eyes close to shut again, but now that she is paying attention the light shining through her eyelids is a pale substitute for darkness. It hurts as much to ward it off as to just deal with it. Her hiss becomes a sigh, and she moves as if to stand.

Her world fills with the sound of clinking glass as dozens upon dozens of empty wine bottles scatter and roll from her position like a lotus of dominoes, just before her nose crunches against the hard metal floor of the ship. She sputters and chokes on a cry of pain, but all she has the strength to do is roll onto her back. At least like this the light is less blinding. She can look around.

She sees shattered vacuum tubes. Broken consoles and banks of whirring machinery that will never move again. On the far wall, a dent and a trailing bloodstain that fills her heart with fantastic terror.

Hello? She has no voice.

Hello? She can't even work her jaw correctly.

Hello? Is anybody there?

But she is alone.

The ship tilts violently, and the floor shifts underneath her. With an almost silent cry she tumbles helplessly out of the room and into the hallway beneath her. Her head impacts the wall and she falls limply into the pool that had been making that terrible noise. All at once she is aware of the sensation of crawling, terrible wetness and it fills her with disgust. She tears at her body and thrashes about, this desperate, clumsy, and violent attempt to get clean, to get to safety, to feel anything but... this. She feels the weight and the muck fall away and she does not know if it is clothing or flesh that she discards.

She does not care.

The girl does not understand how she managed to gain her feet. All she knows is that they are bare and they are pressed flat against the cool floor as they support her weight. She feels at once too heavy and too light, all weakness at war with the idea that some essential part of her is missing. But what could that be? She coughs, and feels something moving in her throat. Vile. It takes minutes for her retching to end. There is nothing left but a desperate desire to be somewhere other than here, and in this more than anything she finds the strength to move. Clutching at the wall for balance, the girl stumbles away in search of answers.

What greets her at the end of her journey is an old and ruined kitchen. Once upon a time, this had been a place of ruthless creativity and competition. She can tell from the arrangement of the cooking stations, which are too individually well equipped and spaced too far apart to have been part of a unified, professional setup. This had also been the site of an incredible bounty and a harvest, once, enough for even an amateur chef to prepare a feast that could delight the very gods.

But now there is only ruin. The girl breathes in the air and the wilted grasses bring only the smells of desiccation and neglect: a muted symphony of too-old spices under layers and layers and layers of dust and dryness that bring her halfway to sneezing and all the way to gagging. Vegetables in every conceivable size and shape lie ruined on the floor, long since shriveled beyond the point of edibility. There is no color here but grey, possibly with vague bits of brown mixed in somewhere if she could be bothered to scan for it.

There's a clatter to her right as a table overladen with ancient, half eaten food collapses under its own weight. She feels her ears crush flat against her skull to shield her from the terror of it, but even then the overwhelming sensations pull a stinging wetness from her eyes and choke her breath until she gags as badly under the strain as she had in the horrible pool she'd come here to escape from.

She flees in terror, and finds only ghosts.

Everywhere she wanders there are signs of haunting. Room after room in rusted out disrepair still host a smattering of poorly thought out hobbies and useless crafts attempted by someone who was the farthest thing possible from a master artisan. Musty old paintings with the colors too faded to be able to tell how well they'd captured their subjects, implying but not showing clearly various stages of inspiration, clumsiness, frustration, and completion. These give way to rows and rows of makeshift mannequins draped in ugly dresses still clinging by the meanest of dried out and fraying threads. Benches dedicated to hideous metalwork and clumsy children's jewelry. All of it pitted, all of it tarnished, all of it ugly. Much of it surrounded by shattered furniture now little more than rotting splinters or piles of claw-torn metal where the craftsperson had broken down in frustration and despair at their own lack of ability.

The girl glides through the mausoleum without a sound. Her wet hair and fur falls away from her in chunks as she passes memory after memory after memory. Aha, she thinks, I must be dead. This must be my punishment.

What a disappointment this had turned out to be. To have come so far only not to be able to see it through to the end. To have suffered so much and never come close to balancing the scales. Had she really been so terrible a person, so horrible a friend and sister and leader that she couldn't even find out how the journey was meant to end? This was worse than just falling short: this was getting sent back almost to the start.

Her arms have begun to itch. She rubs at them with claws that flake away when they make contact, and it only spreads the itch up to her fingers. Her grunt of frustration is trembling, but filled with the real hints of her voice she's heard since she first woke up. She throws herself against the wall and rubs against the corners of the hallway and the bolts securing various braces and doorways, but there's no relief in any of it. She is burning up. She is crumbling to ashes. She is going to claw her own fucking nerves out if they don't leave her alone!

She finds a nest of blankets tucked into the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the detritus of a hundred different snacks nobody had ever bothered to clean up long after they'd been reduced to crumbs and sugar scraps and crumpled packaging. More bottles of wine, all of them empty, roll around underneath her feet and fill her world with sad, hollow clinks. The girl feels a brief pang of temptation to fling herself inside this place, which at least feels haunted by some more soothing memory, but there is nothing here to soothe her body. She'd robbed this place of everything it was worth long, long ago. She slinks away in search of something more.

The hangar is empty when she arrives. No ships to carry her away, not even so much as an escape pod to shoot herself off in and take her chances on a planet below. Not that there are any of those to be seen either, in all the vast technicolor emptiness of space that stretches past her vision from the bay she stares out from. There are a great many welding tools and signs of work having once been done, but all of these have decayed into the same rusty uselessness as the rest of the ship.

There is no music here to distract her. There is no hint of perfect, comforting cinema other than the now-collapsed projector that had come unscrewed from its tripod and shattered where some force or other had knocked it over. The girl turns her head sharply all of a sudden. There is a vague rumbling noise coming from somewhere above her. She cannot place it. She cannot understand it. She waits in terror, she waits in desperation, she waits in increasing impatience for it to explain itself, but the rumbling just repeats.

She turns away, and feels something crunch underfoot. The girl swallows: a sharp and uncomfortable motion that wrenches her jaw tight and burns every muscle in her throat as if she'd been force fed a stone. Her eyes are consumed by the maw of space, which for the moment at least feels less terrifying than the prospect of looking down and seeing what she's standing on. She turns away from everything, instead. Away from the stars and the nebulae that are making her stomach churn, away from the still crunching object that is making her heart pound staccato against her ribs. Everything hurts, everything burns, every part of her feels destroyed and brand new at the exact same time. Enough. She's had enough. She'll take the blankets after all.

But the door is gone.

There is nothing but the hangar now, nothing but space and a broken projector and herself. Still shifting restlessly on top of the source of her terror. Alone but for the horrible noise, now peaking in her ears like thunder. She clamps her hands on top of her head and screams. When her legs collapse from underneath her, that is when she sees. The reel of film bleeds where her toe claws have punctured it.

She! But..!

Tears fall in earnest from her eyes. Her lungs squeeze as if in a vice with real and actual effort to find the air to give a voice to her emotions. Her wail is tiny and shaky to begin with, but it rolls across the room like a wave. And like a wave it soon swallows everything. She tastes salt and snot and blood and all of it only brings louder cries, as if to drown out the hideous noise that's only growing more insistent at her screams.

"Bella. Bella? Bella!"

Bella sniffles, and she blinks. Behind her, the hangar begins to rust. With terrifying rapidity, her resting place is falling to pieces. Not giving way to the cold freedom of space, but to crushing infinite blackness. To nothing whatsoever. She clutches at the broken, bleeding film reel and holds it to her breast. As if it were some precious piece of her she cannot lose or replace.

"Bella? Bella?!"

She turns. The voice is coming from the stars.

What else can she do? That'll kill her for sure, but it's the only real thing left. The only way to go, if she's going to get anywhere before she dies. She's so sorry. She's so sorry for everything. Is it enough, at least, to want to save this broken little piece of her? Is it enough to pray for that at least she can preserve it somewhere that won't disappear, somewhere somebody else might find it and fix it and love it in a way she'd never deserved for herself?

It has to be. Her legs seem to have shattered, so she has to drag herself. Inch by painful inch across an infinite hangar, barely faster than the encroaching darkness. No, slower than that. She is being swallowed. She is too late. Her left arm won't move anymore, so she tucks the reel against the locked elbow and pulls with just the right instead. She can't see anything. She can't tell if she's moving in the right direction anymore, or if there's even a right direction to go. But the only thing she has left is this little prayer. Her arm lifts. Her claws dig into the floor. She bends, and tears muscles open, and drags her heavy, limp body across blood slicked, disgusting wetness.

"Bella? Come on, Bella! Don't you dare give up!"

It takes more than everything she has to lunge just one final time. And then suddenly, she is falling.

The light is so bright it blinds her.

It's so warm...

Return to Thellamie

What does it matter how there came to be soap in the water? Obvious on the face of things there would need to be. Fire does not burn anything completely. Perhaps one day long ago it did as part of some long defeated scheme of the Dark Dragon but today a fire merely burns out the combustible portions of various materials and leaves behind waste product. Ash, soot, mineral deposits, these manner of things. In short, impurities. The smell of smoke would be everywhere and the blackened deposits would cover and cling and obscure all manner of architecture and debris that might otherwise be sorted, repaired or else identified as salvageable. To say nothing of how much more instantly re-habitable Vespergift will become if it is washed instead of merely doused.

Create whatever extenuating circumstances you will. Lock a door, throw away the key, seal the cracks and pour mercury in the keyhole. Create a perfect Locked Room Mystery if you must, a Maid-Knight of the Aurora will find a way to clean properly regardless of circumstances. Say that the water was 'compelled by Eclair Espoir's argument', if that satisfies you. Say that she stole supplies from four dozen homes and seven different businesses. Say the magic of her Say that she killed a man and rendered his fat down to lye. Consider yourself as clever or as foolish as you like, as undeniably correct or as impossibly stymied as satisfies your heart. For all that it matters.

Eclair Espoir has stored away her skateboard. This is because it is not enough to simply unleash the waterways: they must be guided where they are needed. Force must be applied in the problem spots and avoided where it would cause collapse. Fortunately where fire is temperamental and beyond her skill to tame, water is an incredible conduit for her Heartblade and its magics. Water loves to dance and it loves to flow where it is guided, and so it is that Eclair can be seen at the crest of the wave washing over the city standing goofy foot on her polearm, holding a mop in each hand.

One one street she cuts the wave in half to avoid flooding a kitchen. In another she climbs the wall with her great surge to hold the shop inventory where it lies. Here and there she twirls, leaps, and demonstrates her mastery over two-sword style in the name of scrubbing the streets and walls of the city until they sparkle. She is as methodical as she is fast, though this is rather too much concentration on saving everything she can for the sake of those who will return that she has hardly any attention leftover for those who have remained. The consequence of directing water away from something is that it will spray one someone, and probably a fair few someones at that. Certainly many among the Civil ranks will find themselves sputtering and briefly losing themselves to invectives thrown in the direction of a maiden moving too fast to catch.

Through it all, she fights a yawn. Through it all she fights fatigue that threatens to sink so deep into her muscles that it infects her very bones. When she comes to a halt at last Eclair does not dismiss her Heartblade so much as it sputters out and vanishes. She does not land gracefully on her feet amidst the gently dispersing water (now that someone has realized what is happening and turned off the taps): she collapses onto her knees and is immediately knocked onto her side by a random gush of water, which sends her rolling on her side through a marketplace until she smashes her back against a stall heavy enough to arrest her.

She does at least push herself to a seated position. Here in her one time home she closes the book on her story with some semblance of her dignity intact. But nevertheless, Eclair Espoir sits in a puddle with her legs tucked under her and her body dripping from head to toe as though she'd just jumped into (and out of) the shower with all her clothes still on. And she closes her eyes while she waits for the world to stop spinning.

Her head squeezes underneath her ears with the pounding force that only nine consecutive cups of sake can muster. Quizzically, her stomach growls with hunger. It is here, under these dual assaults that Eclair Espoir finally relents. 'Pace yourself', her commanders so often told her. 'That is unnecessary', she would chirp in reply.

She can hear their disappointed tsking ringing in her head. It hurts. She wishes they would stop.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Oh wow, temptation piled atop temptation.

With this much to work with, with so much firepower at her fingertips, it was suddenly real tough to think about things in terms of stalling for someone else anymore. Why should she bother? With her Fylgja (or a recreation of it at any rate) restored she could easily crush Lancer where she stood. Even in the event that her opponent was strong, determined, and clever enough to pierce the inner chamber and turn the fight back into a swords-and-spears brawl, she would have such an arsenal stockpiled that it would be like having her shadow army returned to her as well. All of it of the new world, with every manner of conceptual advantage she could hope to think of. And all for free! Why should she bother holding back? Why shouldn't she solve this whole stupid problem according to her original plan?

...Because it would break a promise she'd made. That's why. Five whole entire wasted minutes of longing stares at the most powerful arsenal of weapons she'd ever laid eyes on just to remember this simple little fact about herself. And once she did remember, everything shifted all at once. Promises were important to her no matter the age she lived in but just now they were literally all that was holding her manifestation together. If she broke the spirit of a single one, not only would she not be able to bring her full power to bear when it mattered, she'd probably just vanish into golden sparkles on the spot. And the plan couldn't afford another-- right, right. That meant it couldn't afford Lancer's death either.

She hated relying on Kat. She grimaced and glowered and wished on the dozen superweapons she'd already broken or discarded that the situation were reversed, and it was the little fox depending on her and her own way of doing things to make it all happen. But in the end, she'd lost her fight against this world already, hadn't she? With a shrug, she lets all of it go. When she reaches forward, her hand closes around the hilt of a single sword.

And what a beauty of a blade it was! A simple handle wrapped in textured rubber composite material that was warm and durable and stuck perfectly in her grip no matter how she held it. The massive sword a match for her stature and forged from unbreakable diamond-like metals set long and straight and perfect as you like it, arranged with a honeycomb sort of hexagon pattern along the blade, possibly for effect but possibly also marking where pieces of it had been arranged to form a stronger, lighter whole. In the exact center of the blade there was a small four point diamond shape carved out of the material, a perfect spot for capturing and shattering an arrow or a spear tip, if the sword's wielder was skilled and brave enough to try that sort of maneuver.

"Oh wow, that's a nice one!"

I am not ready for the speed or the viciousness of the charge. They just don't make this kind of killing intent where I'm from! I can't sidestep in time, or gracefully tumble out of the way. Only thing that stops me from turning into kabob is that I tripped and fell onto my butt with a squeak as soon as she made a motion for me. We can call it battle instinct, if you'd like to me a favor. From down here the height disparity is such that she can only swing straight down if she wants to hit me, and from there I can at least get my bow in the way.

"Gyuh?! Woah woah woah woah woahwoahwoahwoah w-wait! Truce, truce! Uh, surrender? Whatever, I'm on your side just stop stop stop!!"

Saber glares at me. But the pressure eases up enough that I can sit straight, and lower my weapon a touch. Dang it, she did a number on this thing. I'm gonna have to lacquer the whole thing, probably restring it too before it'll shoot again. Bummer.

"You have ten seconds to explain yourself, little girl. After that I shall kill you." she snaps at me.

"What, even if I explain myself?"

She gives me A Look, and for a second I feel like I've disappointed my mom. But she does take a step back, and lowers that terrifying weapon of hers. I take a deep breath and dust myself off as I get back to my feet. Next to her I kind of can't help stretching as tall as I can, just to close the gap a little. It's pointless; even hunched over in the tunnel like this she dwarfs me to the point where it doesn't even look like I'm standing straight. I guess that's why she's always calling everybody 'Little This' and 'Little That'. Yeah, makes sense now.

"R-right. Uh, thanks. So! My name's Yue, and..."

"You?" Saber snorts, "Are Princess Yue?"

Pfffffft ahahahahahahaha oh my goshies! Have you ever heard anything so funny in your entire life? Me, a Princess! As if I could, ahaha!

"No no, just Yue." I smile my brightest and push my floofy mess of brown hair back behind my shoulders.

Saber raises an eyebrow in my direction.

"I mean, uh, if it makes you feel any better you could. Erm. Call me the, ehehe," and then I mutter the rest into my shoulder.

"Speak up, child."

"The... Demon Swordswoman."

Now her eyebrow's arching so aggressively I'm pretty sure it's about to leave her face. Aish. This isn't going any kind've way I pictured in my head when I decided to step out of the shadows.

"Listen, just! Never mind all that I'm just trying to help here! Like, yeesh."

"What help do you profess to offer, little sword maiden? Do you intend to join the fight as well?"

"Well uh," I turn my eyes toward the ground for a moment, "Matter of fact I don't. Not that I don't wanna! But this isn't my story, see? I don't want Kat knowing I got involved."

Saber clenches her fist and makes some kind of frustrated growl. I think her love of the world is at war with her understanding of it. I don't blame her honestly, it stinks to not feel like you belong.

"Then what?" she snarls, "Perhaps you come bearing some warning instead. Allow me a guess: this sword is cursed, and if I bring it to the surface I will become corrupted by evil spirits."

"Eh? Nah nothing like that. I said as much at the start, didn't I? It's a super duper nice weapon, you couldn't have picked a better one down here if you'd tried. Plus it really does want to help, y'know? I think you should let it. I just also think you're gonna want something to... balance it out?"

But she's already got her back turned to me. Those long, rock hard muscles and the turn of steel colored hair (oh goshies she's pretty up close) are dancing as they recede down the tunnel.

"I have no more time for games, girl. There is work to be done and risks that must be taken if this final alliance is to triumph. If I am truly underequipped I shall simply have to give up my body to make up the difference."

Ok that's really the problem with these hero types, isn't it? Rose was just the same way for the longest time, before her heart finally uncoiled. That urge to sacrifice is part of what makes 'em beautiful, but isn't the whole point from here that nobody's allowed to die? Not every problem can be solved by throwing your body in front of it. Sometimes, you need to trust in a helping hand. Or a sword, in this case.

I still remember when I thought I'd never get this technique worked out. All the practice and all the messing up, and if Chen hadn't finally drawn a diagram in a way that clicked for me I'd probably still be bobbling it. But now my hands slip fluidly through the positions and when I breathe out I feel my body lifting off the ground, lighter than a feather. I push away on the air and fly my way in front of Saber to look her directly at eye level.

"Look, Miss Ivar the Boneless. If that is your real name. You've gotta get out of this tunnel before you can do anything, right? The place I want to show you is barely a kilometer from where you came in, it'll take no time at all to get there, fast as you are. I'll explain more on the way, yeah? And if I can't convince you by then, I'll... just have to risk it, I guess."

Saber doesn't break stride, but she does give me her full attention again. There's one, maybe two horrible moments where I think she's going to start yelling at me, but seeing me gliding backwards through the air is a joke and a half too far or something, because out of nowhere she starts just howling with laughter. Really sharp, edgelordy sort of laughter, the kind that makes her need to clutch her hand over her eye and push her bangs back out of her face.

"What is this? What is this?! You people never cease to surprise me. Demon Swordswoman indeed! Very well then, little bird. You may show me the path. But if you cost me my window to act, your punishment will be swift and brutal."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Wha? But I? Y'know, Actia told me Servants aren't even supposed to need food! And yet! What'm I supposed to do? We just had soup, I've gone through all my favorite cereals, every pastry in Cy's secret snack cabine- uh, please don't tell on me, that's confidential, I told her we had a rabbit infestation. Anyway I'm not normally the one who does the cooking! It's hard!"

Katherine grabbed Berserker by the wrist and ran with her. It was her turn to be the one who dragged somebody along, or to die trying.

"I did!" she shouts with pure-hearted sniffly defiance, "My besht!"

She'd slow down once she remembered Caster probably couldn't keep up with her. But in the meantime embarrassment told her to run.

And speaking of running! Oh man oh man, here comes a lil' narrative flourish! I think this is called a segue? Hehehe, nice. Check it out:

Yeah so speaking of running, Saber sprinted like her life depended on it. That wasn't true, strictly speaking? In fact you could make a pretty strong case that her life depended on her taking it easy and not burning through her last reserves of magical energy for no reason. And you could make another, different but equally strong case that her life didn't depend on anything at all since she was already the ghost of a long dead warrior only running along the surface of the earth on a very temporary contract. But if you were inclined to make either of those arguments, you couldn't say anything to the fact that she really ran because her promises depended on it.

She also ran because all of her plans were on fire, so to speak.

As soon as she'd gone a ways down the tunnel it became rapidly apparent to Saber that there was no way to steal the sunshard without having the kind of tools that would make doing so unnecessary in the first place. Besides, as a spirit all by her lonesome, having it did nothing for her. She needed somebody it could attune to, ideally even the Princess it belonged to in the first place, and she had no idea who that was. Without a Fluffybiscuits she was helpless. Berserker of course was the opposite of helpful: she was English.

That left her in the awkward position of needing to pick a different moment to accomplish a different objective. At first she thought to ambush and kill Caster (trivial, even in her condition) but then even just basic glances around at what things were like underground told her that Rider had gone and managed to get herself killed in the meanwhile, which meant that killing Caster as well put the ritual dangerously close to completion. An impatient hand might even detonate the ritual it was prepared for early and count on whatever world-ending power it was meant to unleash being strong enough as is to be worth doing. No, everyone had to stay alive now.

So the next hope was that Kat would manage what she'd already done with Saber herself and squeak and stab her way through a Servant's defenses to make an ally out of an enemy. But though she'd squeaked, she hadn't stabbed. In fact she'd done a whole lot worse than just not stabbing and managed to lose an argument all by herself. Why hadn't she?

Saber felt the sword sitting on her hip. She stared at it in the near-dark and sighed. Well. These were the dangers in assuming you were the smartest one in a gathering. All clever minds betrayed themselves eventually, wasn't that how you wound up with foxgirls? So yeah. Kat was skipping off in a promising direction but it would take her a long time to sweetie her way through danger. Time that nobody had right now.

Because Rider was dead. Da-, uh, no sorry I'm not comfortable doing this voice. Dang her. Sorry. Sorry! All right move it along we're still trying not to get caught her remember?

So now it fell to Saber to be the one to buy time. Had she still been an Avenger in the peak of that particular transformation she would not have feared Lancer's power whatsoever, but that was all behind her now. Truth be told she was still half an Avenger, just stuck in this awkward space in between spirit origins without full access to any of the skills or powers derived from her legend that might've been helpful. If she had her king's sword, for example, that'd be real helpful. But no. If she fought she'd lose, and yet she was the only one who could do the fighting anymore.

Luckily, Ivar still had a single edge. Nobody in all the sunshard war was better at running away than her. And now, that doesn't sound like much? But she was actually very proud of that. From her point of view, living meant winning. Being on the next battlefield was a chance to wrap herself in glory that she'd be denied if she went down like a punk too soon. So she'd always had a keen sense for when to cut and run, and it was a skill she'd honed practically all the way to the level of a secret sword.

But even so, it was going to be hard. She needed weapons. Things of this material earth that Lancer couldn't just deny, and powerful ones at that. Something strong and sharp enough that it wouldn't just shatter when she threw it at Lancer's head, and yet light enough that when she cut and run she'd be able to lead her ally turned hated rival turned hopefully eventually ally again maybe who knows this was complicated.

Anyway, weapons. Weapons with stories. That's what had her running. Luckily for Saber, she was in a world full of stories. Just begging to be told. <3

Breathless Dead

"Yeah," says Bella, "Me too."

There is at best one last lunge left in Bella's body. When she leaps up into the air again her leg buckles under her and she needs to compensate by pressing against the floor with her palms to get the lift she needs. Spurts of hot, disgusting blood leak from each limb as they are strained, but she flies. It is fortunate that Vesper cannot avoid her. It is enough to wrap both arms around her sister as best as she is able, and then to fall.

Her legs shatter on the landing. Bone tears through muscles that no longer hold their shape and shear every which way like plates on a fault line. Her tail droops limply on he floor, twitches once, and then stills entirely. Her spine bends forward to support the weight her lower body cannot, and the heat and the compression and the pressure all push a hiss through her teeth. Jump again? Stand? She can't even let go of this bonfire of a sister she's clinging to.

And now she burns on top of everything. Fur singes away to nothing, skin cracks and flays as the flesh underneath dries and blackens. The pain should be enough to kill her all on its own. It might have, if she hadn't gone through the terrible ordeal of Apollo's wrath dealing with the Portuguese. It might kill her still; her throat seizes as the water in her body boils at Vesper's touch. There is nothing beautiful about her now. Her hair is a corona, and her world is smoke and misery.

"But you still don't get it, Nn, Why I keep winding up, On the other side of, fffhhk... your plans."

It is not possible to smile, now. Bella does not have control over her own face, nor her eyes, which keep wrenching shut to shield themselves from the worst of this terrible sensation. Her voice is hoarse and ugly the way an ancient raven's might be. Her arms shudder with the effort of holding up the weight of another person, though they stay locked so tight that even as they tear themselves to charred and messy shreds they do not let go.

"I don't need, A golden future."

This is the position she will die in. On one ruined knee, with her other leg splayed awkwardly to her right, two arms clutched crushingly tight around Vesper's back and waist and her chin resting on that fragile shoulder because her neck just can't support itself anymore. This is the position she will die in, this grim parody of a hug.

"I don't need, Your fire."

Every breath is pitiful and desperate. Bella makes this terrible wheezing sound every time she forces it, as her lungs crumble and holes open up in her breathing tube that she has to devote all of her remaining energy into rapidly regenerating. Nothing else matters. Nothing at all. In the heat of this new and awful sun all she needs is her ability to speak. If the rest of her melts or crumbles to ash then let it. Just let her finish.

"I only, Need, You."

Blackened, bony fingers paw clumsily at the back of Vesper's head.

"I'm not, Going, Anywhere. I'm only, HAaaaAaaaaaaaaa..."

"Only gonna, Hff, HFFFF. Burn, if. If. IiffffFFff, You, Do."

Something in her jaw twists. Bella's teeth glint in the light.

"Hold on, To, Me, Ves. If you, Can't, Pull yoursElf, Free, I'll do, The lifting."

"Put, Your faith, In me, FfFFfor once. Let me, Lead you, In. Inst, Stead."

Her voice quiets down to a small, low hiss. Bella's body uncoils at last. All her promises and all her power have failed her. Time passes.

Her voice ceases. The only sounds are the smoldering of her body. The ash of her clothes and hair falling away. The sizzle of sweat and tears spilling on what's left of her.

Time passes. Elsewhere a flower wilts.

Time passes. A harsh splash of water echoes through a place where no one listens.

Time passes. Without a sound, a doorway shuts tight.

Bella's finger twitches. Her Auspex gleams in baleful red light and her mouth falls open. She coughs, violent retching that loses fluids she should have lost a long time ago that make a disgusting mess down Vesper's back. Somehow, her neck rolls back and Bella watches the shadows.

In the very same spot. In the very same part. Of this very same ship. Where Vesper once helped her pull another sister back from the brink.

"Hey, Mynx? We never finished playing," Bella's voice is clear now, free of smoke and fire, "So let's have that twentieth poison."

She falls over onto the floor, dragging Vesper down with her.

"What does it mean to be a family?"

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Oh, um, it's, uh."

Kat's hands are still shaking, just a little bit. Her eyes are still watery, more than just a little bit. Her sniffles are still sniffly, though at the least they're very brave sniffles now. Beautiful too, just like a princess. She turns the paper around to show Caster, glances down, and smooths the poor scrunched-up thing out against her tummy real quick before holding it up a second time.

"You... ever hear of the Dumping Festival?"

"Surely you mean the D--"

"Nuh uh, I mean the Dumping Festival. Though funny enough they do have dumplings there? Kind of a little joke. But um, yeah. See it's this thing they do at the Terraced Lake, or what my mo-- I mean my sis-- I mean my owne-- I mean my, uh, my roommate? C-c-c-can I just call her Yue? Please? A-a-anyway she 'n I just call it The City 'cause we live in a little cottage up the way and till just a little while ago there wasn't much cause to go adventurin' or whatever so all we really had was just the one city. Y'know? Like obviously there's other ones but for someone who only ever really hiked between the high hills to farm sunlight and pluck tea leaves and harvest berries and whatnot it's about as much City as you can really picture in the world. Right? Right??"

She clears her throat, feeling a blush coming on. On the plus side, she's not sniffling anymore!

"Right, um. Yeah. So they do this thing, just a bit before the changing of the lunar calendar, right? It's a big long affair so everyone's got time to walk on down and take a look around and stuff, and what everyone does is, they bring everything with them they can't handle any more, see? Or stuff they don't wanna deal with, or even just stuff they thought they did wanna deal with but for whatever reason it turns out they can't? So yeah they come into town and they leave it behind, right? And then for the rest of the week anyone who sees it and wants it can just pick it up and carry it home. Which is when you get your dumpling, by the way. If that's what you wanted to know about. But yeah. Yeah! And then everything that's leftover, like, stuff that got dumped and nobody picked it back up again all gets tossed into a big bonfire, and up it goes! Fwoosh, nobody's problem anymore!"

Kat's only been a girl long enough to see a single Dumping Festival so far, matter of fact. But she loved it a lot and was making plans all year to do more at this one until the whole world ending thing made her forget about calendars and dates and all that good stuff. But now that she's built up a good head of descriptive steam and she can picture it again in her head her face is lit up like fireworks and she's lifted up onto her tippy toes to stick her ears a little bit farther in the air, since fully sticky-uppy doesn't quite seem to cover the level of anticipation.

Her pair of tails swish and cross over and under one another, and her smile turns just a touch wistful. There's still one tear she couldn't quite handle that rolls down her cheek and splashes against the ground.

"Would you, uh? Like to go check it out? The City's a bit of a walk from all the way out here but every night there's fireworks and... well I mean. I-if... if the world's endin' and all, I'd kinda? Doesn't really matter where I meet it, right? And I feel like, maybe you and, and definitely Miss Berserker would really get a lot out of it. Miss Saber'd love it too, but I guess she's busy so. I. Uh. Yeah. Wanna come?"

As far as the whereabouts of Saber, you should know that-

Oh wait. Oh, dang it. Ohhhhhhhh shoot. Shoot, heck, and goshies! If they go see the festival they're gonna come back this way, right? Oh dang it dang it dang it, beans! I didn't think of that! Look I'll break it down on the way ok? I've gotta get out of here, like, ten minutes ago!

Aaaaaaaaaaa!

Return to Thellamie

In spite of everything, Eclair takes a moment to smile. Her fingers caress the words on the tablet, curling over 'Eclairette' as if to capture the diminutive of her name inside her fist and lift it into her heart. A precious gift, this attention. Strength itself. She would not waste it.

It was no good responding to Evening with words. It was little good responding at all, but sometimes love overwhelms practicality. A flourish of a sword, a stiff nod, salute, and curtsy, a flustered smile and flush of the cheeks, the twist of a shy foot against the ground. They all meant the same thing. Even from here she would be seen, no matter the gesture.

Eclair picks up her tablet and climbs back out the window she slipped in from. Farewell, first home. Thank you, though it comes far too late to help. She stands with her back to the street, holding the tablet in front of her and waiting on the precipice. Watching the bats in all their glittering mystery as they swirl and circle across the city. Back and forth, back and forth, they carry the fire of Vespergift and the dreams of the Avels with equal ease. Do they flee the city and the smoke? Or do they dance above it all?

The fires above, and the fires below. Eclair Espoir, lit in soft red from the tips of her ears to the end of her tail. The shadows paint her face in pure determination. Does she smile, does she burn, does she chill the air around her with cool perfection? The truth is in the eye of the beholder. This is the image she sends to Evening, along with a violet heart reaction.

She tucks her tablet away. She straightens her hair. She draws the iridescent curved sword that is the first section of her heartblade. She closes her eyes. She leans backwards.

And Eclair Espoir falls. Her knees bend to match the curve of her spine as she turns through the air until her position is inverted. Face first, she hurtles toward the lower streets in silence and serenity. The city is burning: what could that possibly be considered but the greatest mess anywhere? It has been long enough to clear the streets to the point where her face should no longer cause panic and confusion. Now is the time to finish washing away the Rot Star's grime and ensure that this last and least of homes does not crumble on top of its injuries.

She thrusts her sword toward the ground, a simple vertical strike with the blade held flat against her opposite hand. Not a codified technique, hardly even a particular skill worth mentioning, but Light and physical force enough to halt her fall and give her something to do other than dig a well with her skull. Once she feels the edge bite into the cobblestone she lets her body turn limp and melts over the side of the hilt until she brushes against the ground. A simple shoulder roll, with particular care taken to not flip her skirts overmuch and she is back on her feet with just enough time to dust herself off before her skateboard hits the streets and sends her rushing through the city.

She does not, of course, know the secret of cutting fire. That is the sort of miracle that requires a true hero like Princess Heron to manage. But as she is otherwise engaged in... well. That thought deserved unpacking later. For the moment it is enough that she is not coming. Luckily, years of playing detective and charting the imagined escape of her and Mayzie's many 'culprits' has left Eclair with an intuitive understanding of the waterways of Vespergift. And it is a far simpler thing to guide a river than to fight an inferno.

"I have of course heard of the Yukisearth combat technique called 'surfing'. I am excited to see how different it is in practice from skateboarding."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Well to be fair-"

"No I mean Princesses don't-"

"That's not the point of-"

"Wh-what's so bad about-"

"The fluff is a genie koi fish?"

"Ok hold on just a se-"

"Property values?!"

"My phone literally just two hours ago tried to-!"

"I dunno if technomancers are really-"

"Well like what kinda good would it-"

"Could I please just?"

"Why won't you let me?"

"I just!"

"I!!!"

This is painful. This is worse than painful, honestly, it's outright cruel. This whole evil stream spoken so matter of factly, so authoritative and statistical and fancy, when all she had in her head was funny stories about stuff she saw on a few fun trips she took. She didn't think she was wrong but, she'd already said a bunch of those and all Caster had done was invoke his robo-lawyer. Which was now burying her in the indisputable facts and logic of a civilization that frankly most people did kinda assume was smarter than ours. I mean, they did build all that neat looking stuff you see lying around everywhere. But then again they didn't shoot down the suns, didn't even think to try. Plus they all shot off into space and, y'know, died. So how smart could they really be?

But Kat's not really in a spot to think about it like that. In fact, she's lost this battle outright because instead of coming up with a clever counterargument she's just sniffling and holding an arm up to cover her eyes. No matter how obvious she might be about it, she doesn't want Berserker to see her cry. But just, dang it! Dang it! It didn't even let her get a turn! Cutie Law at least is real clear that it's not fair to just make all your arguments at once.

"I don't agree! I, I object! You're sayin' all this stuff but it's just... it isn't right! How is it a bad thing to share food when you've got extra? You're actin' like that hurts somebody! And you didn't answer my question about headpats. You just, you can't, you aren't... serious, are you? Princesses are bad? But they, but they! And, and! You're not... th-there's naps on sunny afternoons and, and, pretty girls' smiles reflected in a teacup and and and and, and! And! Singin' to the moon with a cup of juice, and foxgirl schemes, and swordfights and dragons and magic castles in the sky! A-are you?

"Y-you can't mean... n-n-n-n-nobody actually likes those things? I-i-it's just. Just. J-just. Just 'cause? Just 'cause we're too dumb and poor and bad?"

Kat curls her toes inside her shoes. I know this 'cause that's her trick for not sobbing like a little kit when something's really upsetting her. Actia'd have some horrible and awe inspiring trick here that'd reprogram Adam to say what she needed and use that to manipulate Caster. Cyanis'd see the angles, if nothing else, and set to work immediately running scams off the back of what she'd just heard. Whether either of them would succeed doesn't really enter the equation here. The point is, other "better" foxgirls would know how to grasp. They wouldn't cry like this. Or if they did it would be part of a master heist plan.

Kat does not have a master heist plan. She doesn't know to turn any of this machine's words to her benefit. She just knows she loves the place she lives, loves the people she lives with, and loves the world that gave her the adventure that made her biggest secret dream come true. And even though she loves them so much, everything she can think to say is just empty, stupid fluff. Those blinking lights don't even care. She is losing.

All that she's got left to cling to is that little promise she made herself inside her fluffy little heart when Berserker pulled her helmet off for her sake. That she'd be a princess worthy of her knight's devotion. And it's not that princesses never bawl their eyes out, but I've had it on good authority from somewhere that 'a princess must always be beautiful'. She wants to be brave and strong. She wants to save the world. She wants so, so badly to at least save face here that instead of giving into her tears she's just constantly rubbing at her eyes with her forearm and making these heartbreaking choking noises.

And I for one can't stand it.

Kat's brave and desperate struggle turns into an undignified 'yeep!' when an arrow suddenly clatters off of the ceiling and jabs itself into the ground a little bit in front of her. Mercifully, not quite all the way to the fire. With a mighty hiccup, she looks up from her arm to see something fluttering from the end of it, beckoning her hand. She pulls it loose, unfurls it, and gasps.

It's a flyer for the Dumping Festival being held at the Terraced Lake. All week, didja know? She sniffles bravely, and clutches that beautiful piece of paper to her chest. In those big wet eyes of hers, a little spark is igniting once more.

"Um?" she ums, not sure how else to get the attention back onto her.

...What? Oh please, like you'd do any better than me listening to your precious girl make a sound like that. It's just a tiny nudge, all right? She's got the rest.

Breathless Dead

One more jump. One more lunge. One more horrible, heavy blow. It doesn't matter that her form is so terrible now. It doesn't matter that she can't aim for shit. What matters is that her speed hasn't decreased. What matters is that the spear is still heavy enough to hurt. Because as long as she can keep that up, she can force retreat.

She comes from the right, with no consideration for what might come from her at that angle. The voice in her ear drives her forward; as the unicorn steps back she presses, controlling space with the threat of her horrible arm. Her prey shrinks back, and she rises into the air where her spine twists at what should be an impossible angle as she whips around 180 degrees in the air to level a heavy, spiked bone foot at her fellow Diodekoi's head.

She watches the arm rise to block it. The kind of mistake only makes in fear. Bella twists her hip and shoves off that raised arm to push Sanalessa all the way into the pool. She lands heavily on her knees, braced by her one semi-functional arm, and gasps for air while she watches the trap swing shut. Light clamps around the legs channel just enough electricity into the water to freeze a body's muscles in place. A determined assassin could fight through this. A broken one might as well, but not before the final blow could be dealt. Bella gags in the iron, blood choked air and leaps into the air one last time, spear arm raised high to finish this.

She descends like a bolt of lightning. She buries the bone spear deep into the floor of the ship. A single pace away from the water's edge. She turns her exhausted eye to the trembling woman who had not been able to make a move in either defense or escape. And she spits.

"Hey little sister," she coughs out, "Got something to show you."

Bella plants her feet and hisses. For a moment all she can do is tremble. She squeezes her eyes shut in anticipation of the worst pain she'll have felt all day. Her breath comes in increasingly frantic, shallow, and terrified gasps until with one final snarl she begins to pull.

It is a difficult thing that she needs to do, but her foot is planted firmly atop her buried arm. There is only one way that this can go. The air fills with small cracks and pops, and then louder sounds. Wetter sounds. Bella roars, because the alternative is screaming. Or worse: stopping. Bit by bit she tears her arm free from the prison of bone and claw she'd wrapped it in. Blood drips freely from the horrible wounded wreck that slips loose.

No fur remains. No skin. Muscle and bone and fire are all she has left of her once proud right arm, and even that is mangled and bent at wrong angles in several places. Her fingers are twisted around each other and tangled so badly her arm seems to end in a single primitive claw, or maybe just a stump instead of anything resembling a proper hand. The smell of blood is everywhere. The pain is beyond description. She would rather be filled with Sagakhan's venoms again. Or filled with knives and set on fire. Anything. Anything but this. Though her teeth clench shut it's too much for her to handle, and before long her gagging and moaning is cut off by a wave of nausea she can't do anything to stop.

Her breathing in the aftermath is ragged. She stumbles backwards several steps before she finally manages to master herself and stand up straight. Even then, pinkish sparkles of spit dribble from her lips. She moves to wipe her face clean, but all that does is smudge more disgusting grime all over her. She gurgles with amusement, and waits for it to stop sounding like coughing.

"It hurts." she manages after a moment. Stupid fuck thing to say.

"But you're... in there. Inside that shell. Don't know... your name. Don't, don't, fuck. Don't know your face. But you. The real you. Is inside there. Not out. And it hurts but. If you can endure that, you can... break free. Sorry you got caught up in this. Sorry for... ghhk. Hhhffffst. Sorry for putting you through all that. I couldn't think of. A better way."

Bella turns away from Sanalessa and heaves a sigh that's sadder and more exhausted than any noise she's ever made in her life. It turned out this was the actual impossible part. Every other time she'd thrown herself at a horrible enemy that was ten times or more her match she'd at least had the freedom to sink into unconsciousness afterwards. No such luck here. The way things were going she'd probably even have to hold it together long enough to slap Gemini. Why not make a full set?

She stops. Turns her head just enough to cast her voice over her shoulder.

"One more push, sister. Just like I showed you. Hurts less coming out of full armor then this improvised piece of shit. And then after that it's all over. I promise. Whoever you are. I'd like to meet you when we're done. You do tea? Coffee? Wine? Let's go find out."

Bella's shoulders lift proudly into place and she continues away. She does not look back to see how Sanalessa responds. If she doesn't give her full focus to scrabbling back up and out of the wreckage of their fight, she'll never make it back to Vesper.

[Bella rolls Finish with Wisdom: 5 + 4 + 1 = 10]