Errant has to close her eyes to keep from doing something stupid. She takes the deepest breath of her life, and takes her time with letting it go.
"...When I accepted a position here, the thing that everybody sold me on was that AEGIS maintained its own operational control. Public Security wasn't supposed to be a market with enough action for an invested ownership interest. That's what the Commander told me while I was in surgery. We control our own future. Maybe Atlas would start footing the bill instead of Athena or something, and... honestly? If that was happening right now? Fine. Maybe we shake down some assets, cut Animation, take a few higher profile defense contracts or something around the city, I get that. I don't like it, but I get it. I'd get over it. But we just ceded day-to-day control over to a woman who was just last week at #2 on our threat board. I think she's actually still there on the spreadsheet. That really doesn't... seem off to you?"
Blank stares. Probably. Maybe? It's hard to tell through those stupid sunglasses. It's moments like these that the rumors that PR doesn't have eyes start to feel unnervingly literal. In any case, there's no stirring of hearts and a change in the conversation. They lean. And they insist.
Errant's halfway to bringing the coffee to her lips again when she stops herself. She stares into the shiny black liquid and sees her wobbly reflection staring back at her. Damn, she looks tired. She should probably make a better effort to sleep tonight instead of reviewing corporate memos and security footage. Her coffee-reflection glares back up at her, like it's mad at her for taking so long to do the right thing.
"I don't know where Victor is. How the fuck would I? I was literally off-world when he went to ground, and Command hasn't let me outside since I got back! And frankly, you're a lot dumber than he says you are if you think he'd ever tell me about this kind of thing!"
...That one stings. He's said all of those things to her, both nasty and nice, but at the end of the day she'd always believed they were on the same side. And he didn't even leave a hint for her to follow. What a team. What a leader she turned out to be, huh?
She stands abruptly, sending her hair over-dramatically tumbling like a black and silver waterfall. It did that a lot these days. She glances down at her coffee, and makes for the door.
Alina's voice hitches. The air in her mouth tastes bitter. It steals down her throat and fills her lungs like smoke, swirling and twisting and seeping deeper and deeper inside of her as it fills her insides with a sick and awful sensation of being full of something prickly and cold. She can feel her stomach drop, then turn. Then after that, her skin comes alive with a burning sensation that she knows without being told is called shame. She can't get the words out. And what's more, she won't.
"I know." she finishes instead, because she has to say something. Because the alternative is looking scared and needing Mommy and that's the opposite of what has to happen right now. Be strong, Alina.
She reaches up and takes her mother's hand. Her hand, but not her burdens. Not her worries. Certainly not her crown. It should be such a simple thing, the duty of a daughter and especially of a Princess-Promised. But just thinking about saying the words makes her skin crawl, makes her feel like vomiting. She can't. She can't! And she won't!
Alina sits up, which is difficult under all the blankets and sisters and her mother trying gently to keep cradling her head, but she rises with perfect grace anyway. Like this, the pair of them are nearly equal. Alina's lips are pressed together tightly. Her face is strained. She stares into her mother's deep green eyes with an intensity that reaches through to her core, and for the moment doesn't care how much her Mommy stares back and sees the crystals she views the world through now. It's better for her to know. It's better she ask the questions here and now. And if she says nothing, then... Alina needs to know. If that's still really Mommy she's looking at.
Her long and tumbling lavender hair is just the same. Her perfect brow, her nose, her daughter-kissing lips, the way she keeps her head raised high even when she's obviously tired, it's all the Halcyon that Alina remembers. The woman she idolizes. But the eyes. The eyes are... they're, they're... she doesn't know how to shape the thought. Mommy's eyes are carrying something extra that they should never ever have. There is love in there, and kindness, laughter, and the deep wisdom of someone you'd trust to carry a kingdom on her graceful shoulders, but there's something else besides. Unnatural fatigue, and... and a, a shock even bordering on terror. And a hope that makes Alina sick to see.
She knows that hope. That's the ugly, nasty, childish hope that turned Alina's entire body to crystal, almost forever. 'I hope that someone else will do this thing. I hope she'll take my place, and let me rest. I just want to rest. Didn't I do enough? Didn't I?'
Alina's face softens. She smiles at her mother, and turns to look out the window.
"The... the sun's really pretty this morning, isn't it Mom? I bet it'll be much warmer today."
There are tears beading up against her eyes. Alina blinks them away, and watches through the window with a determination she doesn't understand. It's early in the day, hardly even time for breakfast, but already she can see dozens of Illuminans out and working, trying to clean snow off of the glass roads, or picking up pieces of broken tools and treasures, or diligently counting heads and trying to figure out who is missing. Alina knows, the answer is too many.
The tears stream down her face without caring how often she moves to wipe them away. She stops trying after only a moment. She knows. Without being told, she knows. This is her last big adventure. She's going to have to apologize to Kazelia: there's not going to be a Great Jedadi Heist. Work restoring the castle alone would take months, maybe even years, and there's an entire country just as broken beyond that. More, even. It's got nothing to do with being a Queen or a Princess, this is her home. These are her people. This is her place. If Oberon and Eska weren't still lurking in the shadows with Adila and Dandy in their clutches and the threat of the Caduceus hanging over the world, she might not even be willing to leave this time.
Her mind drifts back to Feloria and the company who had so fiercely defended her from herself before that night in the lashing rains. Their silly little circus and the delight they brought to children's faces simply by believing their Princess still shined for them. The word would be out soon. Would they hear it? Would they learn that Illumina was calling out to them again? And if they did, would they come? Would they bring their brave smiles and invincible hopes back to their struggling homeland, or would they choose to stay among the flowers and plenty they'd already run to? Did they want to rest? Like Mommy did?
No. They would rush straight back. And if Alina wasn't there to welcome them, then... she'd die of shame right immediately, wherever she happened to be at the time. On the windowsill, Alina finds a little guest. The first starling she's seen in years hops on its little bird feet and trills the first few hopeful notes of Spring.
"Look, Mom!" She's not keeping her voice down anymore. There's an irritated grunt from Jessamine, and Freesia is running fingers through her hair with a worried look on her face, but Alina carries on without acknowledging either of them, "I love starlings, don't you? Y-you know... their song saved Jessamine. They brought her back to us from an awful spell, just them and the sun. You have to make sure to tell them thank you, ok?"
Jess isn't glowering anymore. She's sitting up on the bed and listening so intently you'd think her life depended on it. If it weren't for that lullaby, and Ourania's miracle, could they still be a family today? Brave, stupid Jess ran right back into the most dangerous place on earth because someone had to save Mommy. Alina hadn't done it. She'd run. She'd run just like she was told, and...
There are hugs and tears enough to fill this little room this morning. Alina squeezes tighter and sobs harder than anyone. Mommy could have fought him. She could have arrayed her precious daughters against the evil king and made him claw and scrap for every inch of Illuminan soil. She had Gold, she had her daughters and her knights and all of Alina's rainbow sisters, and her own adjutants besides. If they'd fought, really, honestly fought... maybe they would even have won. Maybe they could have matched Oberon's monstrous daughters and his armies and his treasures and stopped him from ever getting a foothold in Hyperborea.
Maybe...
But then, maybe not. Mommy made the braver play by far. She tried to take all of the risk onto herself, without putting a single precious treasure in harm's way. She trusted her daughters to find themselves and be the biggest, strongest, bravest girls and fix whatever she couldn't stop from breaking. That's why she hid Gold. She... Mommy was so brave. She was so strong. The greatest Queen Illumina's ever had, better than Marina or even Aurora who tamed the Roc. If she gave up now, it'd...
Alina's tears burn hot on her cheeks. No! NO! She can't say the words! And she won't say the words! Even with a heart full of ice, that's still her Mommy! Taking her burden right now won't make her happy! It won't make her better! So she... so she... she... she can't, ok? That's why the words won't come out. Because her Mommy is the bravest and most beautiful woman Illumina has ever had on its throne, and she deserves a happier ending than for her daughter to help the ice inside her freeze forever.
Her hand brushes against her mother's soft, pale cheek. She lifts herself up to plant the warmest of kisses on Mommy's forehead, where he crown and her Gold should be shining right this second.
"Don't worry, Mommy. I'm going to fix it, ok? I'm going to fix everything..."
Errant drums her fingers on table while she waits for her chance to say more than two words. She's still not entirely used to the sensation of, y'know, actual touch with each little tap, as opposed to the complex web of simulations and guesses the little computers used to try feeding into her brain. Granted they're still doing that, but now she can tell for herself what that means and whether it's wrong. Are they still going? God, they're still going.
To her credit, she hasn't messed with her hair once yet during this entire Buddy/Bargain session. And she still hasn't quite gotten used to it being so long, especially not when she's wearing it untied like she is today, so it's actually a minor miracle that she's been so controlled. Actually, she'd just been coming out of a meeting with Production when she'd been ambushed. They'd wanted concessions for her new look. If she wasn't going to present herself the way people expected her to, that side went, it was going to be impossible to sell her anymore. And that was already getting too hard with all the extra @SARAHPHIM...s going around, so if she insisted on keeping the 'princess hair' she had to agree to stay in uniform, with no concessions for formal or casual events, for at least the next two months. And it's not like she minded having it on or anything, but it was a bit rich telling her she couldn't wear her running gear when she was working out when regulations clearly indicated she was required to--
Oh, they're looking at her like they're expecting something now. Errant frowns.
"We're just calling her the chairwoman now? You guys aren't, like, at all concerned about the conflict of interests she represents? And we're a hundred percent sure her acquisition is legal?"
She's been asking these questions a lot since she got back. How the fuck could Victoria god damn Messermitt get the investment capital to buy out AEGIS? And then why the fuck would she? And why the fuck was everybody so calm about it, anyway? There were already little tweaks and policy adjustments getting called out every half day by Perseus, and pretty much all of them sounded to her like AEGIS was shifting from a public safety and security corps to more of a BlackSun style CorpSec goon squad. But the closest she got to acknowledgment was a crack by one of the newbies saying she was mad she'd have to cram a new set of rules up her ass. Which, hey, come on. Rude. And Sasha wasn't even taking her calls anymore, which either meant she was undercover somewhere, or their friendship was good and dead.
"In any case like I keep telling you, Victor couldn't have 'betrayed' us. In the first place he's not an employee, he's not on payroll, and citizens doing volunteer service work aren't subject to company loyalty regulations. It's Section 12, Paragraph C. Come on, guys. And... and even if he was, he's not... you know, a murderer. This whole case is opening backwards. We're better than this."
She frowns again, and picks up her coffee. Her eyes glance at the open door. Speaking of regulations, it was highly unusual for an informal interrogation to take place down here to begin with. Even with the door open, bringing her down to the underground levels was a clear indicator they thought of her as a hostile witness. Which just didn't make any sense, no matter how much she thought about it. This was her home, these people were her family. Did they really think that she, that Errant would want to handle things any way but by the book? God damn it, Victor, what did you do? And why did you have to go an do it while she was away? Why couldn't you have said anything?
She takes a sip of the coffee. It'd be rude not to.
Blech. Ugh. Three sugars, she'd said! He'd even asked! Three sugars! Three! Not... none sugars! Three!
...Nobody trusts her anymore. It sucks. Errant frowns again, and probably not for the last time today.
Thump, thump, thump, thump. Mommy's softer than any pillow. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Her heartbeat is sweeter than any song. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Alina squeezes her eyes shut and snuggles closer. Thump, thump, she feels the beat drumming through her body. Through her eyelids, her world is orange and pink. Mmmm, the gentle sleepy moan escapes her lips to mingle with the sounds of soft breathing. Her head rises with her Mommy's chest, then they sink again in time. Up, and down, and up again, with fingers massaging through her floofy purple hair. Her world is blankets so heavy they feel like a hug from some wonderfully downy animal. Her world is a tangle of sisters pinning her in place. Her world is the softest of kisses from Mommy and her words that make her trust herself enough to open her eyes again because this is real, this is real, this is real.
Her world is a room too small and too simple to be so perfect. But that's exactly what it is. Down by her feet, Jessamine snores as she rolls and flops onto her belly across the bed and all its occupants. Typical Jess, how'd she even get out from under all the blankets? Like this, her pastel pink camisole and matching shorts feel even more like a brazen defiance of the cold still lingering over the kingdom than they did when she insisted on putting them on last night. She never gives an inch, silly Jess. She reaches behind her to scratch her thigh and then immediately drops back into a deep sleep. Like this, it's easier to see the lean, sharp muscles cut across every inch of Jessamine's slinky body. All that training, all that effort, bearing fruit. She's so beautiful, thinks Alina, the most beautiful thing in the world.
On the other side of the bed, Freesia is so deeply asleep that Alina wonders whether she'd even move if fireworks went off in the room. Her lanky, maybe not so awkward as Alina remembers it after all, body is half curled into a ball, and her face is buried in a combination of Mommy's side and a tangled mess of her own hair, which has gone every which way during the night and apparently decided it was going to stay that way. Somehow, her prim and prissy nightgown is absolutely immaculate. It's a good look for her, like a ballgown that's been optimized for sleep and snuggles, but poor thing, however long she's had it she's never found the time to treat the silks like you're supposed to. The star burst patterns that run all up and down the material are just exploding with too-sharp colors in every shade an Illuminan princess could possibly imagine. Freesia... Sunless no longer. The colors she'd sworn off of wearing until this moment seem overeager to make up for missed time. And she's so beautiful, thinks Alina, the most beautiful thing in the world.
Alina stretches, but just a bit. She has to be careful not to disturb Mommy. Not that she's asleep, but since she... got better, she's been flinching at any sort of too big or too fast motion. So she has to content herself with just sitting up a teeny little bit to roll her shoulders back while she wills her legs to stretch themselves while still trapped under Jessamine. And she's sure to settle right back down where she was, so that Mommy won't think she's trying to leave. She couldn't, right now, even if she wanted to. Even though she'll have to. Soon. But not yet. She suppresses a yawn. No more sleeping, no more wasting this precious time. She sneaks one sea green sleeve out from under the blankets and lifts it up to her face to rub the sleep from her eyes. And then stops when she feels the crystal there. Oh, right. She makes a show of doing it anyway, then wraps her arm around Mommy.
"Good morning, Mom."
Her voice feels too quiet, but it's a morning just for the pair of them right now. Eventually her sisters will wake and then there will be an absolutely perfect moment full of life and love and light... but then that moment will end and Alina will have to leave again. Not yet. Not yet. Right now is just the two of them, because that will last longer. Her eyes drink in her mother, who despite so many years still looks to Alina like a bigger and more perfect her. If only she could be that beautiful. If only she could move like...
She tilts her head up to watch a little more. She's careful to keep a smile on her face, keep a light in her eyes, but... but Queen Halcyon doesn't move with grace this morning. The fingers keep stroking her hair, it never stops feeling wonderful, but underneath it is a current of energy that Alina is too familiar with. There's a, a, a coldness to all her little motions, like her beautiful, perfect mother is fighting with every part of herself not to shiver in the blankets of this soft, warm bed. The happy little fire in the fireplace won't help her. The girls around her will help more, but still.
Alina knows what fear looks like. Alina knows what having ice inside you feels like.
"Does it still hurt too much? Would you like me to do another treatment before I... I mean, today?"
I went ahead and added the immediate context for my opening scene as a spoiler at the top of my post. If you forgot what was happening just before everything exploded and we started drifting across space, time, and the internet, there you go. Does feel good to be writing for this game again
"Momma... oh, Momma! I missed you so much! Why did you? Where did you? Oh, it doesn't matter, there's so much I want to tell you! I'm so glad I found y--"
Alina clings to her Momma and holds her tight, like she's afraid that if she lets go she'll lose her all over again. There's so many things to say, so many questions to ask, so much hugging that needs catching up on. Years and years and years of it! But that chiming is so loud and so awful that it rattles her soul and cuts off her words even with Gold softening the impact of the bells.
She wants to cry. Why is it always like this? Why is it always like this? Don't they understand how hard this has been? With Jessamine she barely got a moment before everything tried to crumble on her and she had to fight and claw just to stop from losing her twice in the same day, and then the hurt ran so deep it got them both kidnapped. Freesia had been so cold to her at first, and then there had been so much stuff that needed doing that they never got to sit together and just try being sisters by themselves again. She barely got a day with Mommy after they'd worked so hard to save her! There was always something, something, something, some emergency or desperate mission Hyperborea never asked for or deserved and she knows it's for her and she knows she needs to fix it and she'd never leave her friends to fend for themselves with Oberon still looming over everything but couldn't she just once, just once, just once could she please find someone special and then be given the kind of time she needs to have a proper reunion?
Momma still has those same long arms that are even better for hugging than Mommy's are. She still feels so firm and solid, like she doesn't need a magic like Gold to be your shield at night, like you could always cling to her in a storm and everything would turn out ok. She still smells... warm, and safe, like a willow tree on a sunny day. And the way that she's holding Alina is life itself. But the bells are shaking them apart. This is just another moment Alina doesn't get to have. She turns her head and looks to the sky. She doesn't let go.
Be brave, Alina. This is the job Ourania gave you. But when she opens her mouth to speak, she can't keep her voice from shaking:
I'll mark it when I can... y'know, mark stuff, but for posterity's sake I'll be burning Alina's Flash spell as the price for activating Golden Warrior, which I forgot to do when I wrote all that stuff. Sure would be nice to have my character sheet, but I don't trust myself to recreate it from memory
Ride, slide, hop, flip... twirl! Euna is the picture of fluidity and only vaguely aware of her surroundings as she dismounts her impromptu ride, flicks a pair of restraining cuffs out of her bag, and clicks them on her perp in a single, impossibly smooth motion. It takes her dress an extra couple of seconds to settle back into place, and her hair another second after that.
"Oh," she squeaks as her eyes go wide, "Uh... yeah. Hey."
She waves. This is awkward. And even in the dim lighting of a mostly-empty warehouse, she sparkles. This is even more awkward. Euna makes it halfway to frowning, pauses, and stops at simply pursing her lips, instead. And she stares at Sara.
The disheveled Sara. The bruised and battered Sara. The "matted hair and even I can't pull off this look I've been crying so much" Sara. Everything here smells like rain and cheap beer mixed with sweat. And there's a million things she could say about any of this, but for a long and terrible moment she doesn't say any of them. She stares and she shimmers in her dress like a dew kissed flower in some idyllic painting. Underneath her feet, Mr. Lucie's head is circled by a bunch of stars and princess-themed cuckoo clocks. It's louder than it has any right to be. Euna coughs.
"Well, I uh... a-are you... like, are you o-- hm. I don't know if you got, uh. Well. Anyway. I'm... do you, I mean, I need to get this thing process ASAP but after do you need, like, a lift home? Cause I could..."
But that, I think, is as long as she'll be allowed to stammer.
POTENTIAL 2
“Euna, that is the sickest thing I have ever seen you do, and that is saying a lot.”
Euna is very, very good at looking cool, but she falls apart when the time comes to sell the performance unless she’s quoting something. But Sara? Even a bedraggled gutter trash disaster Sara knows how to say a line with conviction. And now she’s advancing, diving through that opened conversational door, acting confident knowing she’s got an audience of two and a critic of one.
“I screwed up. I get it. But you shouldn’t go.” Rip the band-aid off. “I mean, sure. Go get this cartoon pervert behind bars. But don’t go. You think I can be a role model to Ferra? You think I can stop Victor from blowing himself up in his lab? You think I can keep fighting without you?”
Whoop. There it is. Out in the open.
“...I’m not going on my knee this time. Like, clearly, you don’t like that. That’s okay. But this is me, asking nicely. I’ll fill out a form if that’s what you want: Reasons Euna Kim Should Not Be Reassigned, with Apologies Subform 3A attached. Just don’t go. I’ll be better. And I’m sorry. And, yes, I would really like a ride home. Locker wouldn’t let me drive over here to find you.”
Deep breath. Shoulders square. Look Euna in the eye and try not to melt because she looks like a fluffy frou-frou goddess and you’re a pathetic little orphan who wants someone to stay for once.
“Just don’t go. Please.”
"You saw it?"
Euna's face is strained. Her lips are pressed thin, and those typically soft honey-brown eyes have an unusual glint in them that's got nothing to do with crappy warehouse lighting. Her dress glitters, her hair makes little chiming sounds with every little motion in her neck from the chains worked into the ponytail. That's how you can tell how much she's shaking. She licks her lip in a quick darting motion, but the inside of her mouth is as dry as they are. She doesn't speak.
It's agony, waiting. It's agony, not having the words for this. It's agony, the feeling in her heart that says to fix this pulling her in half with the feeling telling her to get out, get out, get out now before it happens again. It's agony, this staring contest.
Euna closes her eyes, and the spell breaks. She has to bend down to fish something out of her mission bag, because all of her usual pockets are sitting in there uselessly. There's an odd look on her face when her fingers touch the canvas, and again when she pulls out the last of her spare tablets. Tap tap, tappa tap. She hands it over to Sara without a word.
AEGIS Official Form 776-D: Requisition of Civilian Resources For Benefit Of AEGIS Personnel (Non-Military Application) Beneficiary - Agent Errant Resources Requested - The services of one Sara Jiminez, alias @SARAHPHIM To Enter Into Effect As Of - 0700 Hours Reason - Help unpacking personal effects
Signed,
___________________ Euna Kim
******
Athena Macrotechnology is proud to present the following segment with limited commercial interruption thanks to our partners at SynthFox Pictures.
"The power of love was enough to overcome the machinations of the evil Lady Rapier, but the ancient curse still hangs heavy on the shoulders of Eternal Maiden Elvia. The Vampire-Dryad blood coursing through her veins now burns with the pain of acid whenever she tries to leave the confines of the Forest of the Ultra Darkness, cutting her off from her well won rewards and the life she hoped to live with Princess Diana.
Now she faces her most difficult challenge yet, and she'll have to face it alone. Can Elvia triumph without the power of love to see her through the deepest darkness? Will she be able to discover source of the mysterious power binding her to the forest and defeat it for good, or is she doomed to live the rest of her immortal life sweeping the empty halls of the Wode Hall and snacking on overbrave squirrels? Will Princess Diana really forget about her best friend?? Only the enchanted sword Lilyblossom knows for sure!
From the studio that brought you Duelist in the Mirror Castle and Duelist in the Rose Garden comes the hotly anticipated finale of the Elvia Trilogy: A Duel Must End At Dawn. Available for public screening on 14/2 and for streaming in all supported browsers on 28/2. Don't miss it!"
And now, the return of...
EUNA'S FITNESS CORNER
It's the first (and possibly the last) official appearance of Princess Errant I of AEGIS. The room is hardly any different from its usual self; a hanging punching bag in the middle of the room has replaced the usual chair. Otherwise it's as bright and sterile as ever. And for a moment, that's all that's there. It's troubling, just half a breath long enough to make you wonder if she's no-showing again, if the studio was so irresponsible to schedule the time slot without securing the host's promise first. But then, a fluttering of silks! Errant walks into the fame and stands next to the punching bag in all of her Hyperborean Makeover splendor.
Or, almost all of it. She's still wearing her full gown with its huge, trailing half sleeves, multilayered skirts, and all her assorted glass jewelry. Her hair's still more than twice as long as it was at the time of her last known appearance, and her silver dye still blends into the natural black where it was inexplicably (magically) grown out. But she's got it pulled into a much tighter, simpler ponytail than Princess Alina had shown her, and she's done away with the elaborate jewel-centric makeup for a very bare, basic studio look. I mean, she's here to work out, she can't completely throw away concessions to practicality. But she'd be damned if she was gonna waste an opportunity like this. When she waves, it's regal. When she smiles, it's radiant.
"Hey guys, what's up! Welcome back to the fitness corner, sorry it's been so long! Last time I promised you some cardio tips and then some... mission stuff made me have to cancel. I'm really sorry about that! But as you can see I'm back, we're back, and you've been waiting more than long enough so let's just get this show on the road!"
Errant bounces up and down from foot to foot and grins broadly. She's so excited to be back, you guys!
"So anyway I've been thinking about this pretty hard and I mean, honestly, you don't need me to tell you that if you wanna get your heart in good condition then you ought to be running. But that's not really practical advice, right? We don't all live in buildings with good, long staircases, and for those of us who don't qualify for the personal rain shield, heading out can be... uh, dangerous. There's equipment to mitigate some of that, but space or cost can still kind of hold some people back from that. And I don't wanna be that person telling you to do stuff that's out of your reach, no matter what. So! What can we do to fix that?"
Her grin is actually sparkling as much as her jewelry now. Errant gestures at the punching bag!
"Kickboxing! Martial arts to the rescue! You might already know this, but ten minutes of mid-to-high intensity combat exercises can burn off more than one hundred calories, and it spikes your heart rate like nothing else. You don't even need the bag, just enough room to move around a little bit. Now, the most important part of this is that you can't just flail around like a dork, haha" snort "You need to have control. Full follow through on every hit, controlled combos. Anything less and you're not going to engage your body if you're using any sort of cybernetic limb. It'll just wind up taking the strain, which is kinda pointless. Your servos don't care how much you work them, so get your muscles involved! Ok here, let me give you some fun combinations to get you started! When you've mastered these, feel free to make your own! Remember: follow through, full combo!"
With a tiny wave, Errant hops back into a basic boxing stance, which only looks a tiny bit out of place with her all princess-ed up the way she is. She moves around the bag like quicksilver, but her skirt is obscuring the finery of her footwork. Then she strikes, and calls every hit out loud to make it easier to follow. Jab, jab, cross! Jab, cross, hook! Hook, hook, uppercut! Jab jab cross, jab jab hook! Jab, cross, jab jab hook, uppercut cross, backspin, backfist, knee! Jab, cross, knee! Jab, cross, knee, knee! Knee, knee, jump, kick! And, lift! Roll hip, side-kick! High kick, mid kick, low kick, step forward, stomp!
She pauses to look at the camera with a mischievous smirk. Big, red text scrolls across the bottom of the screen: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME! And she starts showing off a little bit. She jumps from floor to ceiling, making her skirts flutter dramatically when she plunges back down with a diving kick that drops into a low rolling crouch transitioning perfectly into a full backflip snap kick. Her combos get faster and faster, showier and showier, and then with one final haymaker she hits the punching bag so hard that, rather than flying off its chain it just splits in half and dumps sand all over the floor. She's slow to pull her arm back. Then she stands up straight. Turns to face the camera. Folds her hands placidly in front of her waist, and sparkles. Slowly, the smile slides off of her face.
"So, uh... you're probably wondering why the..." she waves her hand up and down her body, "all this. Right? Well, it's, uh... how do I wanna put this? I think a lot of people have a very specific impression of me. I'm a Corporate Champion, I'm an AEGIS officer, I'm always pounding this fitness angle pretty hard, so a lot of people think I'm some sort of tomboy. That's, uh, not really true. I like this sort of thing, too. I like it a lot, actually. And my point is... you don't... you're not just one thing, you know? You can be an athlete and a... a fashion designer at the same time, I guess, or...
Man. I'm sorry, I wrote a whole speech that's supposed to go here but I'm not following it at all. What I'm really trying to say is, you're beautiful. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. No matter how far down life's pushed you, no matter how much of you is augmented or how much of it is what you were born with, you're beautiful. And you deserve to feel like a princess or a prince or... whatever's special to you. Live healthy. Get the most out of life. Your body is wonderful. You deserve to love it. And... that's, you know, how I feel. See you."
The camera catches the wet shimmer in her eyes as she flashes her stupid dork "idol" v-hand sign. She quickly turns and walks away, looking every bit the princess that Alina and all of her new friends thought she was.
They were probably going to blame this on her, too. Alina Cascade, come back to Jedad in full war gear, and then all of a sudden a weird sandstorm kicks up and a bunch of even weirder mechanical bug-newts start filling the streets with bolts or darts or whatever they are? Yeah, they're probably already saying this has her written all over it.
Not that she particularly cares right now. She'd have a whole lifetime of chances to make up for the troubles she's caused (well, the ones she didn't mean to, at least). She'd have plenty of time later to catch up with Adila and help her get her head on straight again, or to deal with the fact that she'd just sort of left her friends standing there without having said so much as a word. They would understand. She only had this one chance to save her Momma, and she had to take it.
Warm golden light spreads across her entire body as she dives into the streets with Rita no more than half a step behind her. It's like being wrapped in a blanket that smells just like her mother. It's like getting a hug from all of her sisters and Rita and Kazelia and Adila all at once. It's like... being Ourania. And just like any of those things, it promises Alina that she'll be safe, no matter what. Nothing bad can happen with Gold here to help her.
In the sand and wind it's almost impossible to see more than a couple feet in front of her, but it's plenty enough to go by. She runs full out with her leaping deer gait, and not so much as a grain of sand touches a single hair on her head. Bolts come raining down on her from rooftops and stalls only to splash off of her like water rolling down feathers. When she twists or leaps or flips across the winding alleyways of the Bazaar, it's not for her own safety but so that she can keep Rita's path every bit as clear. Together they cut through Eska's defenses as if they weren't there.
Alina's own Orange snaps to her wrist and latches onto a nearby rooftop as she grabs Rita by the waist. Silver flickers sparkle by her legs and when she leaps, it's with the strength of a dragon. Together, invincible kiss buddies go sailing high into the air. They could hardly do better if they had wings of their own. There's just enough time to savor the look of surprise on Eska's face before they reach the crest of the swing and start falling toward the Clocktower. Alina curves backwards like a bow. For a moment, she seems frozen in time. Then she snaps back while Rita leaps out of her arm, and she unleashes an enormous burst of light in all five colors on her crown that she truly feels are hers. There's an audible crack in the air as the light hurtles at Eska like a spiraling lance...
That crashes against the side of the tower maybe four or five feet to the right of where the clever sniper is standing. Eska's face twists into a sneer, despite the sweat beading on her forehead.
The boot goes down onto the knife. The knife cuts through the rope. Isolde, Momma, falls.
It's at this moment that a couple of things happen almost all at once. Firstly, Alina pulls into a swan dive and dips back down into the swirling sands after Isolde with her golden halo still wrapped around her. Secondly, Adila of the Watch comes flying up to the tower, projecting her thought-warnings and being the best friend-dragon any princess could ask for. She's so lucky, that Eska.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, all parties concerned will now notice that Alina did not, in fact, miss those few moments earlier. Rather, what she'd done is make a rainbow light-bridge, which is now anchored solidly to the ledge of the Clocktower's roof and is carrying the lovely Princess Rita von Catabas toward them with all of the grace and agility you could ask for from the princess of Askaia.
When she leaps, it's joyful. When she spins through the air, it's like watching an Illuminan ballet. When she whips her foot straight into Eska's chest, it's with the extremest of prejudices and near abouts heedless of the fact that Adila is right there watching it happen. This is the part that Lina would've messed up, by the way. Her head's not on quite straight just now. But Rita?
Well, she bounces from foot to foot with glee and flashes Adila a sharp toothed and shameless little grin the way that only a cat (or a cat/girl, one supposes) can.
"Hey Adila!" she chirps, "Don't worry about this, Lina and I are expert counter-hypnotists."
[Alina uses the power of the Golden Warrior and rolls to Finish Eska with Grace: 7. Paying her Bridge spell as the price for acting against a Threat, and damaging Courage as the cost of rolling while armored by Gold]
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