Phoe

Breathless Dead

The world exists in smears and splotches. Messy, muddy colors that run together at the edges of what might be shapes, but might also just be the shape of the new broken reality where one plane of color fights another for dominance. She would call herself blind if the rising and sinking of her exhausted breathing didn't cause the patches to move with her. Her head lolls onto her chest and the world briefly explodes into a kaleidoscope of sharp edges and sharper pain. She groans, a sound so weak and wet it makes her skin crawl with revulsion.

No, Bella is not blind. But it might be kinder if she were.

She means to lift her head, defiant. She tries to set her jaw and arrange her facial features into something proud and strong. But she can feel the slump of her shoulders and the parting of her lips that mean she's failed in spite of everything. There is a war happening inside of her blood, some sort of fever-bringing disease of a sort that never came to the Imperial Palace on Tellus, and the greatest triumph of her form is that she has it in her to look pathetic. Drained of life, but still breathing. She snorts with frustration; wet snot clings to her chin. That... that must be a new low, even for her. Isn't it?

Every breath is filled with information that she did not ask for. The whining of her ribs is proof against the question of her memories. She was not always broken. Could not have been, because these white hot knives inside her skin are proof that sometime recently, she burned brighter than a sun and fought a war for something. For... someone? Her jaw clenches. This too is pain. But she breathes, because there's nothing else for her to do. Her mouth tastes dust and dryness and rust: this is a place of death which long ago gave up on keeping any sort of proper caretaker. Nobody has loved this place in lifetimes. The air smells of brine, barnacles, and rot: this a tomb that was swallowed by the sea. A thousand thousand troubles have crushed and haunted it for hundreds of years. No wonder the Master brought her here. This place must be Hades' garden. It is a crumbling temple that knows only death.

Her own body is adapted to this new home. Impossible to tell how much of her is left. She flexes her fingers, and in so doing discovers they still exist. Prickling fires spark up and down her knuckles and into her palms. She must have held them like this for a long time, then. Her mutilated fingers feel heavier than the rest, and don't bend like they're supposed to. Somebody has covered up her shame. But they have not given her fresh talons, a sign of trust. Her deadliest claws have been capped.

Her head is too heavy for her neck, and sags forward except with great effort on her part. She makes it anyway: the Master always told her good posture was important. Which Master that was escapes her just. It doesn't really matter anyway, does it? She is seated, is sitting. Her body is heavy in ways that do not account for simply being tired and broken. Her legs are folded under her and pushed crossed apart into a lotus position. Uncomfortable weight and a rough itching tells her that her knees are tied into position with a great deal of rope, and that her wrists have been looped into it. The fur on her wrists is sweaty, cold, clammy. She has been gifted bracelets to hold her still and gentle, a deeper wish than simple ropes can grant alone. She rolls her hips and pushes her feet to the fullest extent her bindings will allow. Her ankles scrape the ground with a sound of heavy chains. Behind her back, her tail writhes like a pinned serpent. Its many joints flow like mercury until it reaches the ribbon tied to something heavy around the tip. Even this expression has been held in place.

This is not a punishment. This is a lesson. A hand touches her shoulder, and Bella's world dissolves in a wave of heat and acid burning. It is wet. It is crushing. It is melting her from the inside out. A disease, a virus, a, a, a, aaaaaaahhhhhhhh! She means to scream, but when her ears bend to scrape up the sound all they catch is a gurgling, inhuman moan. It dies into a whine held over infinite seconds, and then it melts into an even stranger sound she can't recall being able to make. A thrumming, breathy, rolling sort of... ah. But. How? How could that slimy, noxious touch make her purr?

"You, you're... talking..."

Her voice is soft. It chimes like music inside her ears, which seems wrong. But the Master always said to greet the morning's lessons with all the grace and sweetness she could hold inside her miserable, unworthy body? He... she... they said that. Didn't she?

"About Artemis? Mynx said... nnnf, precepts. She said. She said. Ah. What did she say? That... an assassin. It's her, your, the job to, to, only remove the disease, and leave the body."

Bella manages a frown, and tilts her head in spite of what it costs her. Her hazy, unfocused eyes stay stubbornly open, seeking a comforting face amidst the jagged world of endless colors. Her shivers send needles prickling all across her body. Her bindings are so heavy.

"But why are you telling me this? I have served the Crown faithfully. I never questioned your order, or your authority. I treated your pupils as well as I could manage. Did I, was I bad? Am I... going to die?"

*********

Redana!

The room you step into looks like a collage from several splintered points of time. There are broken scraps of unidentifiable trinkets thrown haphazardly about the carpet about the otherwise almost empty shelves that make this cramped room feel cavernous. The bed is pressed and made as neatly as you can ever remember the one you grew up with being back at home. Above the pillows on the ceiling, an outcropping of crystals bathes the room in calming orange light. But everything else is dented, broken, or torn apart. In the air, even your nose can pick up a faint smell of roses, mixed with something else.

Everything except the films set about the room with no clear pattern. The ancient, dusty projector pointed at the barest, flattest wall where the light is more than good enough for a screen. And at the corner of the bed, where your feet finally stop leading you, a single reel of film that feels unnaturally heavy when you lift it. You turn it over in your hands, and you can almost make out the line where once upon a time it had been cut, and where someone or something very deliberately sealed it back together.

A note tumbles like a baby bird out of your hands and onto the blankets. There in dark, expensive ink across the creamy paper a message swirls its way across in immaculate script:

'To Her Royal Highness, The Princess Redana Claudius'

The gentle currents of the air that always blow inside this room to keep the atmosphere adjusted for the activities of its guests catches the slip of paper and flips it over. On the other side, in shaky and spidery plain letters is a single word tucked inside a storm of other scratched out attempts. If you squint you can still make it out.

'please'

It takes several tries to fit the reel inside the projector. You have to turn it over three times to make sure it slots in, and whack it harder than you probably should for such a fragile looking thing. But eventually it takes it, and wobbles on its table as it rumbles to life. There's just enough time to find a seat on the bed by the note before the show begins.

The screen wobbles as it flickers to life. At first the image is nothing but a bright off-white smudge, until it gradually starts fading into a blurry and indistinct grayscale picture of a very dark room. Slowly, details start to pop out: a bed with neatly pressed sheets and an immaculate and warm looking blanket folded into a perfect rectangle at the foot. The side of an ornate, whitish tin sitting on top of the blanket. The dark and spotless floor, and in the very bottom right corner of the frame, the sharp pointed heel of a shoe. The screen stutters, and the shoe disappears.

It must be a very old model to be having this much trouble. It must have known a lot of use to be running this quietly. Even by the oppressive standards of the Anemoi, the image is stifling, still, and silent. The shot sits perfectly still, without stimulus of any kind, when suddenly after a minute the sound of a mechanical clicking comes over what may as well have been a photograph. And then, just behind it, the soft flutter flutter of film feeding through a processor slot. It must be a very special model to remember what colors are after so many years of quietly waiting to be wanted again.

The room itself is no less black for all the triumph of the camera. But the bedsheets are vibrant ocean blue, and the blanket the deepest emerald green. The tin, it turns out, is platinum and covered with gold trim in pattern of crawling vines and roses. The lighting in the room is soft but sufficient, the kind of soothing yellow that begs a body to curl up underneath it with a story or to nap as though it were a sunbeam in a perfect garden, full of--

A single golden cat's eye suddenly fills the entire frame. The pupil grows wide as it flits from side to side, hunting, searching, puzzling. And then with equally little fanfare it retreats, and the cat it's attached to furrows her brow in concentration. The frown covering her face conveys nothing of hatred or aggression, but only a quiet kind of focus. She could easily be fighting a particularly stubborn stain right now, or building herself up to lecturing you about your bad habits, Redana.

"...Is it? Aha!"

Her delight ripples through the room in waves of bright laughter as beautiful as song. The smile it brings to her face transforms her, taking away years of stress and trauma and transforming her from a Praetor to a Best Friend. This is the height of her beauty: her lips painted cherry red and her cheeks stretched wide with mirth. Her teeth are dazzling, and for once their sharpness is cute instead of predatory. Her golden eyes are sparkling as she finally steps back and fully into the frame.

"In the old stories, the great heroes would create records before attempting difficult tasks and challenges. I thought, since my own adventure is about to come to an end I'd maybe try my hand at it. But I didn't know what to talk about, so I..."

Bella glances off frame at the door several times before continuing, suddenly looking very nervous. She takes a deep breath before suddenly breaking into a twirl that lifts her skirts in a wide circle of giddy pleasure. Her outfit is simple, pure black and white, and very deeply frilly. Her skirts are layered waves of lacy black fabric lined at each new descending line with white trim. When they settle, they come to rest just below her knees, covering up the little ribbons tied at the tops of her socks, which are every bit as snowy white as the fur they're covering.

She poses by lifting her arms to either side and jutting out her left leg to show off her shining black lacquered dancing shoes and their 3 inch heels that lift her calves into the most perfect and enticing shape they're capable of. As she gestures with her arms, the wide and open white lace of her sleeves flutters and dances around her hands like falling leaves caught in a swirling breeze. They wind and wrap three full times around her wrists and cover her smooth black sleeves before her dancing pulls them open again. They hang long enough on her wrists to reach the middle of her skirts when she finally brings her hands to rest at her stomach.

When her back arches, it pushes her chest forward enough to strain the oversized black buttons on her blouse, but only just enough to show off the ruffles layered atop the otherwise smooth and patternless design. She is elegant. She is prim, she is proper. If she had her paw print patterned apron with her she would be ready for almost a normal day of working in the palace, albeit perhaps on a particularly festive occasion. She turns to show her back and the many gold laces tying her shirt together, as well as her dazzling and intricate braid. She must have spent hours on it: more than thirty plaits wind their way down her neck and the top of her back in a fishtail pattern complex enough that even a weaver would hesitate before trying to replicate it in their work. Even with its broken chain, her collar manages to look stately and impressive underneath it.

Bella turns and smiles for the camera again before disappearing out of frame for a moment with a series of loud-clicking steps. She comes back with something clasped gingerly in her hands, which she hides from the camera with her sleeves. She hesitates for a long moment, twice lifting her arms up toward her head before bringing them down again before she finally makes the decision and places the ornament where it belongs. The sheen of the golden laurel wreath is almost blinding, even in the low and comfy lighting of her bedroom, as it rests upon her hair like a crown. She tilts her head this way and that, showing how by its own power it stays where it should without ever actually quite touching her. Imperial Regalia... at last a reminder of her station. Of the full degree of trust the Empress has placed in her.

"So!" she chirps, "What do you think? The Princess will love it! Right? She will, won't she? There's no way she won't, I picked it out especially for her!"

Giddy bouncing flutters her sleeves and skirts and bounces her hair, though every piece falls perfectly into place again without a hint of disarray. Her fingers are as clever as they've ever been, apparently. She laughs again, and it's as wonderful as music.

"I really wasn't sure at first, but Mynx said I needed to remind her who I am and... she was right! It's perfect. Absolutely perfect. Oh, I never knew how much fun it was having my own wardrobe! When I get home I should ask the Empress if... oh! I can't believe it! This is finally over! I'm going home! I'll make her understand and she'll come on board my ship, and then... that's it! Just one last trip and we won't have to deal with all this space and danger ever again! I could sing, honestly! I guess I'll have to, actually."

Bella heaves a playful little sigh and sits like a proper lady on the bed. She opens up the tin and tilts it to show the camera: it's full of all sorts of sweets, all classic favorites of Redana. There's candied rose petals and crystallized honey of course, but the star of the show are the variety of colored and snow-covered cubes that are the Princess' absolute favorite: Ilium Delight! Bella reaches in for one, but hesitates before she touches it, and grabs a petal instead. It crunches between her teeth and she squeezes her eyes shut while her ears flutter in absolute delight.

"The Anemoi is no fit place for a princess, but I'm ready for the challenge! I've got her favorite foods and a bunch of her old holos here with me, so I'll just... oh, what's it matter? She's going to love it here! We'll be together, Dany! Aren't you excited? We're going home!"

******

The picture flares to life more confidently this time. There’s a burst of white that flickers and warps unsteadily at the edges for a moment or two, but even though the picture bubbles occasionally it fades straight into color. The whirring and flapping that accompanied filmmaking was quieter this time too, even though the sound needed less time before it popped on. Such a proud machine, to have recovered it’s full form so quickly like this.

The room is just the same as it was the last time. The sheets still neatly pressed and tucked, the blanket still folded and a perfectly perfect untouched rectangle. The tin of snacks is even sitting on top of it again with its lid firmly reclosed, making it difficult to place the shot in time. It couldn’t be more than a few minutes after the shooting of the diary. If it hadn’t been for how smoothly the camera came to life this time it would even have been possible to believe this came before.

The only real difference is Bella. Even she looks basically unchanged: the same frilly, prissy dress. The same elaborate and impractical braid. The same makeup, the same pointed shoes, the same contented swishing of her tail. If she’s left this bedroom since the last filming, there’s no sign of it. She sits on the floor in front of the bed with her knees daintily folded under her and picks her way through a small and somewhat crumpled box that manages to smell of dust even as a projection. To either side of her are small piles of meticulously stacked film reels, the right of which is much larger than the left. She lifts another one out of the box and stares at it in silence with a look on her face that makes her seem like she’s trying to destroy it with her eyes.

“Batrachomyomachia Untold,” she mutters, “She likes that one. Maybe it should stay?”

Just hearing the name is enough to bring back the memories, isn’t it Redana? To the bright and intricately crafted world of an empire populated not by humans and servitors but by tiny adorable little mice and moles and bunnies. A world of adventure! A world of tiny little phalanxes, gritty adventurers, and Evil Cats.

And best of all, the cast of characters is so rich! Literally dozens of protagonists span the full series, each with their own fully realized motivations and goals that don’t always align with the other heroes’! Of course Bella would have wanted to keep this! Together you must have watched at least seventeen of these, each one at least twice. This is a movie filled with fun memories, so… why is she hesitating?

“Which one of these is this, again?” Bella sniffs.

“Ugh. They made too many of these stupid things, if you ask me. How is anybody supposed to keep track of who’s related to who and what’s actually happening? Ha, leave it to Dany. Only she could go white as a sheet if you ask her to name the Seven Hills and then turn around in the same breath to explain who Whisker-shaker is and why it’s important he just took a spear defending Fratley the Iron Tail.”

She laughs, but it’s oddly free of scorn. After a moment, she shakes her head and places the reel on the larger pile to her right. That must be the Accepted Pile, then.

“No thank you. She’s just going to ask where the other ones are, and I’m gonna have to tell her they were lost in a fire and there’s no way she’ll buy that. Again. Let’s just not remind her.”

Oh. Bella reaches for the box again to continue her sorting, but her arm freezes in mid-motion. She huffs a dramatic sigh to nobody, to herself maybe, and plucks Batrachomyomachia from the discard pile.

“...You owe me, Dany.”

After that, she finds Leona Marshall’s Eurydice, a certified masterpiece of filmmaking based on the ancient myth. Every shot is painstakingly crafted, and everybody knows the joke about how Ms Marshall must’ve slept with Hades to get the lighting as perfect as it is. But it was also filled to bursting with catchy songs, all of which Bella knew by heart and could sing to you in her angelic voice before you even finished asking her.

“...Can’t think of anything worse to bring than this. Oh sure, let’s wave the impossible journey to the far end of the universe in her face, why don’t we? She’ll think I’m doing it to taunt her. Pass.”

And off it goes to the reject pile. From the look on her face, it’s not even the best film she’s thrown out today.

“Zahar and the Seven Galax… ies.”
Bella’s face turns scarlet and she clings tightly enough to the film that the sound of the reel cracking starts picking up on her own little movie. Does she know she’s making it? Her arms start trembling as her tail stiffens and bushes to comedic proportions.

“No. No! Absolutely not! Nuh uh!”

And she doesn’t so much set the movie on the reject pile so much as she flings the jaunty tale of Azura Pirates and the slave girls who can’t help falling in love with them on their adventures straight to the other side of the room. She trembles and pulls her arms against her chest for several minutes before she can compose herself enough to continue.

When she does, she stops cold. The film is Around Cloudcuckooland In a Fortnight, which you distinctly remember being a silly cartoon adventure. Even by the standards of relaxing media that you set for yourself, Redana, this one is childish in the extreme. The colors are bright (some are even pastel), the songs are silly except for That One you remember giving you feelings, but you wouldn’t dare go back to it, at least where anyone could see you watch. The ammunition you’d be handing Mynx alone!

But, do you remember? It was your first movie together. You were so excited. It was just after you’d managed passing marks on an important examination, and your mother was in a good enough mood to ask you what you’d like for a reward. You asked her to let you take your new pet into the Big Theater to watch the silly movie you’d heard the Attendants whispering about.

And so all of the benches were empty that night. It was you and your Bella sitting in the front row, in front of a screen so big it felt even grander than the night sky. You sat there, vibrating with excitement, huddled in your soft blankets, and the two of you snuck your little hands out of your cocoons to grab at chocolates and toasted bits of breads and all kinds of other delicious snacks.

You fell asleep before the end. It was so late, wasn’t it? Your Bella had to wake you up after the credits had ended. You’d forgotten until just now, but she had the strangest look on her face back then. You’re sure of it, because she’s got the same one on now, looking at the movie in her hands. Her golden eyes are misty and distant and mouth is hanging just slightly open in an expression of longing she seems afraid to let all the way out.

The funny thing is, you’d never actually gone back and seen it all the way through. The two of you had made such a mess that night that Mom wound up banning you from her theater for a good long while. And by the time you could watch movies again, there were others that excited you, so you never went back.

But in her room on board the Anemoi, Bella swallows a sniffle. She hiccups, and places the reel gently on the top of the left pile. The screen blinks several times before it goes out entirely.

*******

Now you see the hand of an old master at work. The screen bursts to life with a smooth flourish that doesn’t need any warm up. This gives plenty of extra time to notice that it’s been moved since the last time it was turned on. The screen pans around in the edges of a batch of shadows that are stretching toward a circle of quiet yellow-orange light.

It’s a dingy light by any reasonable standard. It’s dull and difficult to see by; there are broken down sections of the Plousios that are brighter than this by accident. But there’s something about the darkness the camera’s swimming in (and as you watch the way the screen sways and flops as it moves, it’s obvious that it’s being carried by someone) that makes that pale light look like the softest and most beautiful thing in the universe.

The camera moves closer to the light on awkward, fearful steps. It peers around the back of something massive, and now you can finally see the shape of the room. The circle of altars shaped in the likeness of the Gods is lit by candles on this ship, but even still every Pantheon is built exactly the same.

"It isn't right..." Bella’s voice is soft and painted with regret.

You can’t see her. The cameraperson doesn’t have the angle. They lean around a corner and suddenly the screen plunges several feet toward the ground. It bobbles in a pair of unsteady hands with sickening vertigo before it’s caught. You can feel them cringe as they pull it steady again, and… there! A sudden motion on the strange, soft looking floor helps you identify a shadow with a distinctive pair of ears atop its head.

"This ship doesn't believe in spices. I wanted to recreate... if I were back on Tellus, I would have made it better. But still. For you."

The shadow dips on the ground suddenly in a posture of kneeling. She stays there, and you can see the telltale flicker at the base of it that means her tail is flicking about in pleasure. Which god is she praying to? From the camera’s position it seems to be lurking behind Artemis, but Bella’s shade is large and indistinct enough that it could be anywhere. Her ears are pointed at Apollo, if that means anything.

"The reorganization of the ship is going well, by the way. Lorventi's gonna be pissed if she ever drags her ass off that infirmary bed, but that doesn't matter anymore. The lanterns are free and productivity's up across the board. I've got this place running smoother than the Kaeri could even hope to... ahem."

This is Bella, but it’s a voice you’ve never heard before. She’s warm and reverent, but also casual in a way she’s never been with anybody you can remember. Certainly not you. She wouldn’t dare be this familiar on Tellus, and since then she’s been… tense, but here she sounds almost like she’s talking to her mother instead of a god.

Is this what she’s like when she’s praying? You’ve never seen her do that, either. Bella has always quietly retreated into the background during every religious ceremony, and was never seen around the palace making her own sacrifices or invocations. But here she is so comfortable and at ease it’s like she’s walked with the gods her entire life. Her laughter ripples like chiming bells, drawing a tiny ‘aww’ from the cameraperson that doesn’t quite last long enough to identify the voice.

"For as much as she was a moron, that pirate woman had her ass parked on an incredible wardrobe. Surprised any of it fits. Do I have you to thank? Never worn pants before. It's... I like it. This whole time I've been running around chasing old memories that weren't worth three floggings. But now, thanks to you, I understand what I'm supposed to be. Watch over me, Protector. I'll make you proud of me, I promise."

The camera nods to itself in satisfaction, and swings toward the darkness. You can still hear the slight sounds of breathing and the rustling of fabric that might mean Bella is bowing or standing or moving in some way you can’t be sure of anymore. Despite the blackness, there’s a sense of motion, of slooowwww creeping into the shadows and the safety of a hallway that feels the length of the universe away, though it must be just a few steps more.

Beneath the camera, there is a sound like an incense stick snapping under a foot. Again, you feel it cringe. Everything freezes. Bella’s voice drips with annoyance.

"Whatever it is you're up to, Mynx, keep it to yourself."

*********

“Praetor, a moment?”

The voice belongs to a small mouse servitor in an oversized leather longcoat that’s hanging off of her badly enough to undermine any semblance of authority she’s supposed to have. She shifts nervously from foot to foot in the dark, making the gaudy collar wrapped around her throat clack and chime as all the assorted knicknacks clipped onto it. She cranes her neck to look up at what can only be Bella.

The girl darts nimbly about a bulky desk and busies herself with setting all sorts of charts and documents across the length of it. Most of the pages are written in the kind of tiny scrawl that a camera of this quality can’t possibly make out, at least not from the angle it’s shuffling about the shadows from and in this low light, but when she lights the candle you can definitely see a star chart that’s absolutely scarred with angry red lines criss crossing from system to system like an angry net.

Two more candles get lit and set in braces on the walls, revealing what must be the most claustrophobic room in the entire ship, which from what you’ve managed to see of it is saying something. The tangled nest of communication tubes juts from one wall next to a cramped table only a few paces away from the one the girl is setting up. Individual stations practically bump into each other where the walls seem to lean in toward the center of the room. Is this the bridge, or a torture chamber? It couldn’t possibly hold more than five or six people at a time, unless they were all as small as the collared mouse. She trembles as she pulls out a chair and stands in front of it with her hands folded in front of her legs. Bella does not sit.

“...Speak.” she growls.

Bella has her back turned to the camera, and she is a study in contrasts. Her entire outfit is either blacker than the void or such blinding bright white you’d be forgiven for thinking she wove it out of starlight. A tight fitting black dress shirt hides none of her back muscles until a waist-length white half cloak covers it and her right arm in its billowing folds. Her left sleeve cuts off at the elbow, showing her silken white fur bound in an ornate leather armguard covered from end to end in markings made of raised little bumps.

Her tail flicks under a long white skirt that wraps around her left leg. Her right is encased, or maybe more trapped, in tight black leather that runs down to the mismatched boots on her feet. Her legs shift with a swishing of fabric; a wide and confident stance. Her shoulders roll inward and she pulls her arms across her chest in front of her.

“Quit wasting my time, Jil. You’re not a mop girl anymore, or whatever the fuck it is you did before. The Kaeri aren’t in charge. Lorventi doesn’t control anything anymore: I do. And I just told my first officer to speak.”

“R-right! Yes, Praetor. I, uh…”

Bella’s hair is wild and free flowing in a way that seems wrong on her. When she lowers her head to sigh into her palm pressed against her nose, it bounces and cascades across her back and slips over her shoulders to her front. She rises again and tosses it behind her with a careless flick of her neck. The single small braid she’s tied into the side of this loose main bounces against her neck and settles last of all.

“...D-damage,” the mouse girl squeaks, “From the Diodekoi’s escape. N-needs fixing. Engine Clan’s worried about their safety. And, uh, everyone else’s.”

“Hrn. Do we have the materials?”

“Not without using your treasury, Praetor.” the mouse girl swallows quietly and makes very careful note of Bella’s feet.

“My tr-- feh. The fuck do I care about that crap? We plucked it off a dumbassed rube’s sorry excuse for a pirate ship. Besides which, I beat one idiot in a plover. You won the fight. Just get it fixed and quit bothering me.”

“Um. Y-yes, Praetor. By your will. But there’s also… ah!”

Bella turns and pounces on her subordinate. She grabs Jil’s arm so suddenly and fiercely that the mouse girl almost passes out on the spot. You watch helplessly from your prison called the future as what will no doubt be a murder starts to play out in front of you. Only, not? What’s going on?

Jil sighs softly, so softly the sound doesn’t even make it all the way to the camera and you have to infer the breath from the way her mouth moves. Her eyes flutter shut as she melts into Bella’s touch. Bella’s fingers expertly roll up the sleeve of her longcoat and massage the skin underneath it with her palm with a series of precise squeezes and strokes that almost look like language. With her face turned like this you can clearly see her golden eye shining with a ferocity that makes the candlelight in the room seem like the brightest chandelier in the Imperial Palace.

The mouse servitor responds in kind. She grasps at Bella’s arm guard and feels every ridge and pattern with her fingertips, first from one direction and then backwards before tracing new ones from different angles. Then with a sudden ferocity of her own she twists the bracer sharply so that she can paw at the soft white fur where the straps leave a long stripe of it instead of closing completely.

And Bella lets it happen. They dance like this for several minutes, a delicate ballet of touches, squeezes, and strokes. Song without sound. Grasping in the dark and whispering truth into what they find there. Bella’s touch is visibly less elegant than her partner’s, but you watch her mask it with overflowing confidence. She is holding Jil’s heart in her palm, and every tiny twist and touch seems to soothe it. They say more in these few minutes than either might have been capable of with hours of conversation between them. Bella finally breaks away and takes the offered seat at last. She plucks a report off of the desk and glances at it casually.

“Omn should be installed by now in the war room,” she says with a wave of her hand, “Run the numbers you need through it and then point the right people at wherever it directs you. That thing was meant to be a gift for Her Highness, you can trust it fine.”

Jil nods for a moment before remembering she has a voice and adds a, “Yes, Praetor.”

“I’ll assign Lorventi and her phalanx to getting the Adepts back under control. They can’t handle Beljani, but she’s still stimmed to hell anyway so that doesn’t matter. The Kaeri need a redemption project anyway, so I don’t have to murder the lot of them for mutiny.”

“...Y-yes, Praetor.”

“I told you not to worry about it, Jil. Hera is with us. Which reminds me, order a new augury starting ten minutes ago. We’re overdue a course correction if we don’t want to lose the Princess’ scent.”

“Yes, Praetor.” Jil bows deeply and moves to leave.

Bella seizes her by the wrist again. This time she does nothing with her hand but squeeze.

“Not yet, dumbass.” Bella snarls.

“Yes, Praetor?” the poor girl can’t keep her voice from quavering.

“When you’re done with all this, go work on your speaking. You’re mine, understand? It’s time to start acting like that means something.

Jil pauses at the door, just in front of the camera, which swings suddenly away from her to avoid being caught. The girl’s face has a look of odd intensity to it as she puzzles through the meaning of Bella’s words, until suddenly her eyes light up and she lifts herself to her full diminutive height. She even rises up onto tiptoes for a second to match the energy of the moment.

“Yes, Praetor!”

*********

The only sight the camera can detect as it flutters to life again is a single blearly golden eye. Its pupil is a small, angry slit that glares hatefully into the screen. A messy lock of blue-black hair flops over it, and the sound of Bella’s frustrated groan follows her as she retreats backwards.

You’re back in her bedroom aboard the Anemoi again. Back on the same shelf she preferred to film from. The crystals overhead bathe the room in the same soft yellow glow as ever. Only, it seems emptier here than it used to. There was a chair, just over there near the closet. There was a set of dainty little figurines on the shelf behind the bed. There was a silver tin, once, filled with all kinds of snacks and memories of home. There was a box of painstakingly selected films meant for a journey you wanted no part in.

All of it is gone.

The bed is the same, but she’s stopped making the sheets. The blankets are in a crumpled pile to the side of the mattress and her pillows are scattered and misshapen lumps. Nothing speaks of care or cleanliness here anymore, not even Bella.

Once upon a time, her hair had always been done in all manner of elaborate styles as befit a maid whose first purpose was always being shown off. Somewhere on this journey she’d switched to a very artfully arranged wildness, but this isn’t that. Bella looks more like she hasn’t been in the same room as a hairbrush in days. It juts from the top and back of her head in lazy tufts that seem more dishevelled than her genes should even allow for.

In all the time you knew her, she wore the most elaborate and beautiful dresses your mother’s vast wealth could buy someone of her station. Every day was new frills and lace, new ribbons and cheerfully chiming bells with the same beautiful collar on her neck and her usual paw print apron keeping it all clean. Somewhere along the line she learned to wear more daring fashions that showed off more and more of her perfect body, or expressed new sides to her personality she’d buried deep inside her for the sake of her job. This, again, is not that. She sits down heavily on the foot of the bed, wearing nothing at all except an over-large and stretched out, moth-eaten t-shirt that drapes around her thighs in a vaguely dress-like fashion. It might have been pink, once. Or yellow? It might have had a pattern on it, but everything has faded into such a brownish gray that all you know for sure is that it used to look better than it does. It droops off her left shoulder far enough to expose the top of her breast. She makes no effort to fix it.

Bella glares daggers at the camera with an expression on her face caught somewhere between the borders of anger, frustration, and exhaustion. As your friend she had the most beautiful golden eyes in the entire galaxy. She must have learned to hate them as she travelled the seas. Her one good eye is hazy with fatigue, and to its right is something out of a nightmare. Her other eye looks like a wound: the iris is a featureless red gash in a sea of milky white. But even as tired as she looks, that eye bores through the camera with so much power it feels like she’s staring straight into you through the past. An Auspex. Did you know your mother’s creation could look so evil?

But then she blinks. She opens her mouth to say something and it turns into a yawn. It’s a gesture full of teeth, but it’s too sudden and vulnerable a gesture to make her seem more threatening. She looks a mess. She looks… tired. How long has it been since she slept? Is it the Auspex? Is she working herself too hard? Or is it something else?

With a huff, she falls backward onto the bed. Her arms sprawl to either side of her body. She pulls her knees together. And for the next several minutes, that’s it. Her tail lazily curls and uncurls around her leg, but to all appearances she might have passed out just like this.

“Fuck,” she observes.

She pulls herself further onto the bed and rolls over onto her side. She pulls a pillow close, and stops moving for a while. It’s another moment you could be forgiven for thinking her body had finally pulled her into the waiting hands of the Oneroi, but then you hear it. A hum so soft that even Bella might not be aware she’s doing it. She certainly doesn’t stir as she sings.

She doesn’t put words to the tune, but now that you’re listening for it, it’s all you can hear. And you don’t need her to sing the words to know them, do you Dany? You’ve heard it so many times before. Her favorite lullaby to sing, because it was your favorite to fall asleep to. The first one she made up all by herself, and the one she turned to to soothe you when your own special eye still bothered you every single night. You know every word by heart:

Hush-a-bye, princess, I’ll give you a moon
all strung with pearls
a bouquet of worlds
and morning will be here soon

Hush, little princess, your Bella is here
all through the night
til morning light
shows you there’s nothing to fear

Sleep, o my princess, and please do not cry
one day you will see
a silly kitten like me
will always wipe the tears from your eyes.

Counting the verses, you can hear her loop through the song three times. With each new verse she grows a little bit quieter, as her body sinks a little bit deeper into her bed. By the time she reaches the last ‘silly kitten’, her song is replaced by something even sweeter. The only sounds left in the room are the gentle whirs of the camera, and the soft and steady rhythm of her breathing as she falls asleep at last.

There’s something magical about this moment. Something tender and vulnerable that might make you want to watch it forever. She’s so still. She’s so quiet. Maybe if you watched her like this for long enough, you’d be able to think of her as your Bella again, as if none of the hurt that’s passed between you mattered at all.

But an unseen hand shuts the recording off before you can find out. The image blinks several times before it finally flickers out.

*********

The image shudders as it comes to life and flares repeatedly with bizarre bursts of static and flickers of motes of light like the after images you see after staring too long at a star. The film rushes in spurts of jagged motion: so still for several seconds that you can’t be sure if it’s frozen or if there’s just nothing to be seen, and then in the blink of an eye every intervening frame seems to happen at the same time and you catch up to the “present” with a sickening leap.

You’re in the bedroom again, staring up at Bella’s shocked face. There’s something more complicated playing across her features, but the jittery footage makes it impossible to discern what that might be. More to the point, you’re falling away from her, rolling sideways, and tumbling ever closer to the ground. She makes the tiniest of flinches toward the camera, toward you, as it and you fall, but she freezes before she can take a single step. Her neck pivots toward the bed, and the emotions you feel pouring out from that little lens are so powerful they almost steal the words out from inside your lips, “Goodbye, Bella.”

It could only have been a miracle that turned this ancient machine on in the circumstances you’re watching now. It is certainly the will of one god, or even several that keeps the picture running for you now. The impact is hard enough that you swear you feel it in your ribs. The lens fractures in several lines branching like a tiny tree through the middle. Some slivers of the picture are missing a color or two, a few others are entirely in grayscale. The sound cuts out instantly and entirely. But the film rolls on.

There is just enough time to catch your bearings down here before everything explodes again. Standing over there is Bella in a fancy suit decked out in golden jewelry and bells tied into a brilliant red (beige? mauve?) sash she’s wearing as a skirt. In front of her on the bed is another cat dressed for the exact same ball, though her chains come attached to manacles on her wrists and ankles. She’s lying helplessly on the bed and trying to gather herself up to do something, but whatever it is she’s running out of time to do it. Even with as difficult as the cracks and static are making it, you’re certain it’s Vasilia you’re seeing.

And if you felt a sense of dread creeping up your throat when you made that connection, it is nothing compared to the horror that shambles into frame now. It moves like… no, start from the most important part. It’s human. Or rather, it was. This thing wears the dark robes of a priest of Hades, which is almost as horrible to think about in light of the rest of what you see as the thing itself is. Its limbs lunge with dreadful power through the air to drag the body along behind them, and every step sheds more leaves onto the ground. Swirls of vines poke out from the sleeves.

Worst of all is the head. It had a face, once. It was human after all. But the green and golden bonsai bursting from its skull has obliterated any sense of what that person might have looked like in life. Its neck lolls hideously to one side, not caring about the pressure it must be putting on its spine. It moves in a way that reminds you of the camera watching it. Stillness into an explosion of sudden motion, an inexorability and a callousness that only a plant could have. The knife in its hand glints in the light of Bella’s crystals.

It lifts the knife’s hand to strike. Vasilia has pushed herself valiantly onto her elbows, but every angle you can read points to the uselessness of even attempting to defend herself. That’s when Bella explodes into the shot again, curving a powerful kick into the trunk of the Bonsai. It staggers, but only slightly. The knife plunges into the bed instead of Vasilia’s ribs by the space of a single knuckle.

Everything is happening in slow motion now. The smoothness of each motion feels just as alien as the prior stutters, the death throes of the camera valiantly struggling to capture everything in front of it as best as it can before whatever borrowed life it has runs out. And this is what it sees: the Bonsai wrenches its elbow out of the socket to twist the knife and slash through the mattress at Vasilia. Bella’s claws meet it at the joint. She slices through the Bonsai’s arm as though the flesh and bones were nothing but dried leaves. Vines tumble free where there should be veins. There is no blood, none at all.

It turns its face to look at her. It does not smile. It has no lips to smile with. A milky white eye stares hollowly in her direction while its free arm bends unnaturally at the shoulder to reach for its prey again. The knife was a courtesy. It never needed a weapon to squeeze the breath from Vasilia’s body. Fingers crush her fragile-seeming throat and lift her up off of the bed.

And for some reason, Bella hesitates. Her back is turned, so you can’t read her face, but she is turned to watch the Bonsai and not Vasilia. You can see the tension play out in her back muscles and in the coiling of her legs. She is contemplating it, contemplating… him? And when she finally moves, it feels twenty seconds too late. But when she moves, it’s over in an instant. Her right arm is death. She cuts the Bonsai down in a single swing that crushes through its skull and tears the body almost in half. There is sap and there are leaves. There is no blood.

Two cats are left alone in a room together. They contemplate one another. Bella retches and looks like she might drop to her knees. She finds a coin instead, and tosses it on top of the dead priest’s corpse. Maybe he was one of hers. Before he was the Bonsai, anyway. Impossible to tell if he was human or servitor before the end. But it’d be just like her to bring a priest along who belonged to a god she didn’t worship, wouldn’t it? Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just her and Vasilia.

Bella watches the other cat. Your other friend. The screen seems frozen again, and only the unbearable tension of the moment makes you think (or hope, maybe) that this isn’t all there is. And it isn’t. Bella reaches out with her left hand, the clean one, palm upturned to do… something. Vasilia reaches for the knife, and plucks it up from the mattress like a flower.

The way Bella’s tail flinches almost makes you think she’d been stabbed. She stiffly rises to her full height and holds her spot for just long enough that she might be saying something now.

Her body shakes with laughter that even in this silent void manages to seem ugly.

She turns sharply on her heels and leaves Vasilia behind.

Aphrodite bends down to inspect the camera, and puts his cigarette out on the lens.

The picture bursts in half as though cut by a sword. And then, darkness..

*********

...But that is not all there is to see. Divine hands had crushed this poor and loyal camera, and that’s as obvious as can be. And it’s mortal hands that put it back together again, which as it turns out doesn’t make this last and latest vision any less of a miracle.

The picture is blurry, especially around the edges of the frame. It’s also badly splintered: one third in color, one third in grayscale, and one third in sepia of all things, each of which bleeds uncomfortably into its neighbors at random seeming angles. It’s a labor of love, not skill, that gives you this last window into the Anemoi. Whose is a mystery, and the camera gives no clues.

Very little has changed about the bedroom since the battle that happened here, even though a great deal of time must have passed since you last saw it. Every fallen or broken ornament is scattered across the ground exactly as they had been, except for what might be a thin layer of dust coating the lot. A closet door is half opened at the same angle you might have noticed it last if you’d been paying attention to it and not the chaos of before. Only the camera has returned to its typical perch, and someone had evidently changed the sheets on the bed, because there is nothing of sap or blood or gashes visible on them.

You watch the room in stillness and silence for thirty seconds, maybe a minute, before a brief flick of tail enters the frame. The rest of Bella follows shortly after, and suddenly you can feel the weight of time crushing the little picture.

She looks nothing like you’ve seen her before. Her legs are strangely shaped with hard and irregularly packed muscles that don’t feel like they belong on her. Her fur looks matted and uncharacteristically unkempt, as if she hasn’t tended to it in weeks. She’s got pearls strung together in a sort of cap pulled over her hair, which is wild and uncombed on one side and cut ludicrously short on the other.

Bella turns and less faces the camera so much as she happens to present her front to it. The camera blurs for a moment trying to capture all the movement of her dress, which is made from hundreds of tassels covered in thousands of individual beads. Noiselessly they settle on her body again, and while she turns her head this way and that to look around her you have a moment to watch the pattern the dressmaker has woven across her. The colors are, of course, impossible to make out except by contrast but even through the grainy and indistinct footage you’re sure you understand it. After all, how many times did you talk about it? How many nights did you spend on Tellus wondering aloud to Bella about the shape of the night sky? Well here those wonderings are now, patterned across her clothes.

Her lips are moving now, but there’s no sound and it’s too difficult to make out the shapes her lips are making. Still, you’re certain the word ‘fuck’ is in there somewhere. Her expression is hard to get a read on; not angry or happy or sad, not relieved or tense or even a very careful neutral. Not at peace and yet not conflicted either. It’s a private look for her private room that she never thought that she would see again.

She walks closer to the camera, and the whole split-colored mess turns into a blur as her quietly clattering beads overwhelm the poor film. And then a minute later she turns and passes by, and what passes for focus anymore settles on her fingers, softly tracing the edges of the wood behind her as she passes. She flits here and there, sometimes stooping low to touch a bit of broken something or a piece of furniture like she can’t believe it’s real.

She spends a long time staring at the bed. Every now and again her tail twitches, and you can see her shoulders rise, tense, and fall in time with her soft breathing, but otherwise she doesn’t move at all. Then all at once she sits on the edge and leans back with her hands stretched wide behind her to either side. Her neck tilts so she can watch the crystal lights on the ceiling above her. She doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t scowl either.

Bella lifts her legs off the floor and crosses them underneath her body. She folds her hands in the middle of her lap and closes her eyes. Her chest rises with a single deep breath, which she holds for an uncomfortably long time. Her lips part and she lets it go.

For several long minutes, there is nothing to watch but the subtle motions of Bella’s slow breathing and her meditation. Maybe in this moment she reminds you of a statue of Apollo, fashioned into the shape of a Servitor. Maybe that’s blasphemy, maybe it’s not, but nothing disturbs her in any case. You are permitted to watch her for a while, until the image wobbles.

The room fills with the sound of a reel fluttering to its end. The screen flickers once, twice, and then the precious extra moments bought by somebody’s love come to a close. The screen turns dark for the last time. And that is really all there is to see.

Sunshards

Here, deep in the land of Ys, a cold wind blows. It pulls at the billowing skirts and sleeves of a young maiden until it teases a shiver out of her spine. It whips her braided hair one way and another and another again. It stings her eyes with bits of grit and dust until tears well up in them whether she's trying to be brave or no. In front of her, a savage tigress prowls. Jaws slavering, teeth glinting in the moonlight.

Of course there is moonlight, whatever the time of day. Of course there is a cold wind, no matter the true heart of the land. Of course there are sharp teeth to glisten, as surely as there are beautiful knights to form ranks and circle beast and maiden both. A princess commanded these things to be true. The moon, the wind, the beasts and the knights, they all know better than to disappoint a woman who brought a sun to heel. If she asked the land and the sky to change places, they would. At least for as long as she was paying attention.

The tigress snarls. The maiden draws back a step on trembling feet attached to slender, dainty ankles unfit to run away. The dance repeats, a step and retreat. The maiden shivers, even sniffles. The tiger pulls her sword with a grand swipe that summons sparks and clouds of fresh dust even as it leaves fresh scars to mark her passing. The maiden retreats until she feels the ungiving metal of a shield press into her back. A Radiant Knight thrusts her strong arm forward, and flings the maiden toward the tigress.

She catches herself with the hilt of her sword just in the nick of time. Above her, two knights in glittering mail cross through the sky and land with a flurry of blows worthy of a documentary on choreography. The knights and the beast are a whirlwind of blades and fangs and claw, always seeming to swing with power enough to crack the earth in half but never quite committing. Where they part the tigress pounces on the trembling maiden again, and all that she can do to keep her head is drop to the ground and scramble wildly away.

Each moment precise. Each beat matched perfectly to the music carried in the wind. Of course there would be music. A princess commanded this to be true. If she asked a story to be written in whole cloth then the words and steps and moves would pull themselves from a thousand hearts just to roll for her pleasure. At least for as long as she was paying attention.

The maiden wipes the sweat from her brow with a trembling hand. Her fingers come away grimy with slick dirt and blood. She closes her eyes and pulls in a long slow breath as she might water from a deep well. She holds it with the patience of a monk as she pulls her sword free. It flashes in the moonlight in her flourish, drifting like a fan in a slow half circle from knee up to her forehead. She opens her eyes, flips the blade to show the sharpness to the tigress and her own face both at once. She lets the air go with one sharp puff.

And she smiles. She can do this. She has to do this. She has things she must accomplish, but these beautiful people deserve nothing less from her than her best. So they'll get it. She lifts her sword and twirls it as easily as if it were a prop. Her feet lift her in steps that turn into hops, hops that turn into leaps, and leaps that turn into beautiful circles that call to mind the moon's reflection resting on a mirror lake. Four knights and a tigress... no, sorry. Five knights, one of whom happens to be a tigress at the moment, stop as one and hide their mouths before they fall agape. The maiden parts her lips, and confronts her deepest held fear.

...She sings. In front of a crowd!

"The pitch black night The lone cry of the moon
Will I blossom and wither following that light
Moving backwards in time
Like those birds, flying as high as I can
The beautiful moment when my heart trembled"

Yue's voice is high and thin, and it warbles when she reaches for high notes. It's not something even I could really call pretty, though I'd like you to know that the secret bits of crooning she does alone in her room when she thinks there's no one around to hear her are sweeter and more lovely than a fresh spring rain.

But here, her little heart is fluttering about inside of her and her stomach is twisting itself in knots at the thought of baring herself like this in front of so many (beautiful) strangers. Of reaching into the corners of her memory to pull out one of Sis' songs and give it as a gift. It's a pretty vulnberable thing to do, y'know?

"Flow with the rhythm of time
Flow with the wind, an emptiness remains where you left
You are like a lonely blossoming flower
Wishing the black clouds to cover the moonlight"

She botches so many of the notes because she's sucking down air while she sings, too. Because of course she's not just singing. I said she owed them her best, didn't I? So she sings, for these knights, and she duels them at the same time. Her fighting style becomes a thing of wheels and ribbon twirls, with her shimmering sleeves taking the place of the dancer's gear she doesn't have, not even tucked inside that magic bag of hers. I mean, I've heard her say it's not really magic, but if that's true then explain to me how it's always filled with treats? Checkmate. Anyway, Yue.

Her sword flashes as she moves, blade cuts quicker than lightning that clash with a tigress like a knight and with a bunch of knights like they're tigresses. She ducks and dives and steps inside of openings just so she can smile and wave before she dodges back out of the closing noose just in the nick of time. She stabs her blade with the sureness of a sparrow just to get a shield scrambling in front of her so she can plant her foot on the smooth metal. She kickflips off of it and nudges her tigress foe into the now-stumbling knight and grins at the chaos as she flies overhead. Her hands flit from form to form with smoothness she's never managed without the pressure of performance on her and she takes to the sky to kiss the moon before she dives down with a hammer blow. Can you fight a waterfall, dear knights?

"Just like the blinding light that blossomed at the darkest of the night
Like the flower that blossomed to show its love to the moonlight
Like a one night’s dream that disappeared all of a sudden
I won’t go far following the stars."

You didn't really think it was the vicious animal form part that was scaring her, did you? Surely not, after all of that stuff we said to Rosie. There's not a single thing this brave lady could have turned out to be that she would have found more perfect than a wild tiger. If claw marks and a trip to the hospital and a month with her arm in a fresh sling were the price of getting such a pretty new dance partner, then by goshies that's a sacrifice she'd make twelve times outta ten.

"Just like the blinding light that blossomed at the darkest of the night
Like the flower that blossomed to show its love to the moonlight
Like a one night’s dream that disappeared all of a sudden."

She doesn't twist the story to suit herself. If she did, she'd be the only one who came out feelin' happy, and that'd mean she didn't wind up happy either. A river flows in one direction, and it carries everyone and everything with it for as long as they want to ride. So she doesn't tell the story of a maiden wreathed in victory and sunset who batters about knights and banishes monsters to show the foolishness of both. Who wants to hear about that?

Yue dances and she sings for people she's only just met, and whose only action has been standin' in her way keepin' her from the things and the person she's really after right now. Which is why she can't give them what they told her they want, not in the way they want it. But this is who she is: you become a sun farmer in the first place because deep down some part of you wants to share the light with everyone. So she goes the extra mile. She dances and smiles, and she nudges by her positioning and her swordplay to tell the world why animals are beautiful and why knights are beautiful to want to test themselves against them.

The six of them duel in a tangle of thread, bodies, and ideas. The are a wheel, pushing down and pulling up and reflecting all of their most beautiful pieces up to the moon, who's here anyway so she might as well enjoy the show. Six swords cross at once, and the clash lifts Yue up into the air, where she flips once, then twice. Yue can't move like this for herself. Skills like this only unlock in service to somebody else's dream.

She lands with a sweeping crescent slash. Five bodies tumble to the earth. Yue totters on her tiptoes for a second when she doesn't quiiiiiite stick the landing, and she hops backward one, two, three steps before stopping. She beams brightly enough to recall a sky full of too many suns, before she dips into a bow. She closes her eyes gently, and pretends she's in her room with no one around to hear her. Her voice is sweeter and more lovely than a fresh spring rain.

"You are so beautiful under the moonlight."

[Defy Disaster with Heart is a 9. Yue will spend her fresh String to bump it to a 10. At the GM's discretion, stuff happens idk. maybe new strings? who knows!]

Sunshards

Have you ever had a moment in your life when you wish you had a little bit less than what you did? Like... I dunno, maybe your friends found a miniature golf course in some old ruins, and you show up with a putter your parents gave you when you were six? And a yellow ball you found a while back and kept because it was pretty? But you haven't, like... like... played in half a decade, but everyone's looking at you like wow, she didn't have to scavenge or borrow anything, she must be really good? And then when you miss every shot, they all make fun of you for a month? Two months? It comes up for basically the rest of your life any time anybody's reminded of it even a little bit? Like, even if you go back later and crush the whole stupid thing, they just spin it back to how you fell on your silly little butt before?

Just a... random example.

It's not like that's a perfect analogy, exactly. But if Yue's here thinkin' about putters and laughter and wonderin' if maybe it wouldn't have been better for her if she'd discovered the Demon Swordswoman's shrine at the end of this here story instead of way at the beginning? Like, yeah, she wouldn't have gotten this far without Her lessons carrying her through all the trials and tribblamations, but at the same time doesn't this flowing sunset robe and these astonishing glass sandals and this glittering silver sword and, heck, even the fact that her first instructor was a dead woman out of super legend imply she's... a lot more ready than she feels right now? These nice knights were so polite to line up for her just like she asked, and here's silly ol' Yue about to disappoint 'em.

The polite, sweet little smile on Yue's face freezes into diamond hard determination. She lifts her sword above her shoulder with the blade held parallel to the ground. She plants her feet for the length of a single tiny breath. She jumps forward with the speed of a poumcing fox, blade tilted in front of her like deadly blade and invincible shield at the same time, with full intent to end this first fight in a single stroke. She has four more to go, and a lot to say and do when they're done, after all.

And... maybe she'll manage that after all? 'Cause her blow never falls. When she leans in to start her big finisher swing, that's the same moment she takes a shield slam to the face and goes scrambling, spinning, tumble-flipping end over end until she has to plant her sword in the ground just to keep from flopping on her knees straight away. A little trickle of weirdly sexy-looking blood trickles from her lip. She shakes her head like a bell, whipping all that floofy milk-tea hair into a frenzy so that it flops over her eyes and makes pause to reach into her bag and grab a tie so she can braid it real super quick, hold on a moment.

"Owie. That was, nnnf, ok, ow. Ow ow ow. You're, eesh, pretty good! I'm, uh, mmmm. This is, uh, my... first time fighting someone with a shield. Believe it or not."

She tries to laugh as she picks up her sword, but even a complete dummy could see how rattled she is. Her next lunge is slower, more cautious, and 40% more battered by the slam that she at least pivots into taking to the ribs. Her third is slower still, and the gasp she makes when her attempt to pivot into a leg sweep gets countered with a leap that darn near turns her into a pancake is... oh, sweetie.

And. Look. I'm gonna zoom out here for a minute, if you don't mind. Don't underestimate my Yue. Don't you dare. Just because she's fallin' apart in the face of her first time fightin' a Guard doesn't mean you get to laugh at her! Don't you dare make her regret dressin' her best and tryin' to treat herself seriously for once! Don't you dare.

It isn't that her form is suddenly bad, or like she's forgotten everything she's been taught. Not her lessons from the Demon Swordswoman, not from Tianic, not from Keron, not from Hyra. Certainly not from Chen. And it's not that these knights and their extremely attractive, face obscuring helmets have her so thrown that she can't read their emotions and fit into the flow of their story the way she's used to. Well, it's not just that. It's not even that she's historically always been awful beyond reason whenever she tries anything new, no matter how similar it might be to something she got good at in the past.

No, she's gettin' knocked about right now because this means more to her than anything in her entire life. It's the first time, ever, she's let something that she wants be on the other side of a duel. She's fought plenty of times by now where she's wanted to win, but this is the first time where losin's not okay. So don't you dare laugh. Don't even snigger, less you want the chormping of a lifetime, pal. You can't know what that kinda pressure does to someone less you've lived it, and if you have you wouldn't laugh for a second. Besides, my girl always starts out slow.

See, look? Now she's giving up on the single-strike strategy! High slash, low thrust, bait and leap! Get 'em, girlie! And you can tell, you can tell, you can tell that Yue's got greatness in her, because the longer she goes? The more this drags out, while four Radiant Knights stand politely but aggressively in a series of power stances waiting for their turn to fight, the more Yue's face lights up. The more she grins, the more she laughs, the more she tries silly stuff like kick-flipping off of her opponent's shield so her braid will do that mermaid-flick thing like she's breaching out of the water with her back arched rainbow smooth before she snaps straight and falls to earth blade first like the world's prettiest arrow. Hey! Hey! Stop laughing! That was a perfectly fine turn of... whaddya mean she's "shaped like an arrow too"?! Rrrrrrgh!

The Radiant Knights are gorgeous, elegant, and extremely well trained. You can give some credit to Yue for bein' enough of those things herself to keep on her feet the entire time she's warmed into herself, but I think it's the chivalry of knights that really saves the day here. I'm pretty sure there's an ancient law that says she owes 'em each a kiss now? I'm not sure. Judges? Hey, judges! Anyway, they don't fight to injure or disarm. No, these knights have a hard, powerful style that's all about dazzling, about humiliation and capture of the target before they try to accomplish anything else. If it takes two of 'em to beat someone who asked for one then that's a crime, and if they can't take her and bend her over their knees for spankies with her sword still glued to her hand then they're failing their mistress. The path of the knight is to make her yield that sword in submission, and the way they try? Well, Yue can laugh and blush and squeak at the same time, ok? She's skilled!

"Oh hey, I know that move! I bet I know who taught you, that's so fun!!"

It's dangerous to let Yue figure you out. If you give her enough time, she'll find an opening. Most of her life that wouldn't've mattered for beans, because she'd've been too timid or slow or any number of other things to actually take that opening, or make it to the weak point if she did. How unlucky, to have met her now! We clash, blade on blade! Shield to shoulder, step then step then step then step! We move! Like this! Then like this! And then this! Finishing like...

For the briefest of instants, Yue moves like Chen might. The blade comes thrusting at her in a way that is not remotely suggestive, please and thank you, and Yue smiles. It reaches her, at last. Only she isn't there. A helmeted head turns up in confusion, and a sword arm dips with effort when they realize there is a girl in glass sandals standing on their sword. Yue grins, half-bobbles, almost tumbles face-first straight into the dirt, and recovers by reaching forward and snatching a knight's helmet straight off of their head with a poke of her sword, releasing a vision of loveliness that should never have been hidden for all the world to see, which is exactly what she meant to do the whole time.

Yue hops to the ground and tosses the helmet behind her with a casual giggle. She smirks as she straightens up, tapping her legendary sword off her shoulder as she reaches forward with uncharacteristic boldness to brush her fingers under her opponent's chin. Call this her Shadow Sword: Visions of a Rose.

"Hey there, cutie," Yue, goshies, where did you learn how to purr like that? "Are you gonna be good for me, or do I have to peel the rest off of you, too?"

They say a swordwoman's words are as important in a duel as her sword. And Yue's might have slayed five knights in a stroke. But if it hasn't, her sword is swift and confident, and her teachers have all been far too talented for there to be any doubt left who the winner will be. Besides, s'far as I know? She's never lost a strip duel in her life.

[Fight: 7. Yue flirts with her opponents to gain a String, and seizes their helmets (and possibly their armor, if they're a bunch of good girls). She takes a move in response]

Breathless Dead

One by one, the stars detonate inside her body. The flare of pain spreading wider than a galaxy and yet shrunk to the size of a pinprick at the same time. Screaming agony of infinite length that passes the moment it registers inside of her. The reaping of the universe, Molech's great sin and Nero's great failure is recreated in miniature inside of Bella's body. This is the only way she can be taught.

The pain of uncountable millions tears across her in a line. Each burst reaches inside of her to pull a tortured wail from her lips and steals the air she needs to make it in the same motion. Bella cries silently as she suffers through her lesson. The stars are in her feet, until one by one and all at once, they vanish into dust and beg to be remembered. The sensation races up her calves and into her thighs. Bella weeps for every person who was meant to grow up, to love, to fashion wonders cradled inside her universe. No longer.

The pain ebbs, and leaves behind it nothing. Not the sensation of numbness, but a total lack of feeling. Bella floats on limbs that don't exist anymore; she sinks to the ground without resistance as she disappears. Her stomach clenches before it too is torn into oblivion. Her arms tremble under their burden. Not them! Not them, too! She has work to do! She has...

But Beautiful and Beljani tumble to the floor with heavy thuds. Bella's arms fall limp and useless to her sides. Or at least, they must because they are no longer strong enough to keep held above her shoulders. They feel like nothing, just a memory of blinding heat and sadness. Only her head and heart remain. Because they must. Because something must remember how the universe was before it was wiped away, and something must weep for it. Something must remember, so that it can never happen again. This is the only way she can be taught.

There is a sound. Something pointless and dull, just a cracking of metal or whatever when it strikes a hard surface too heavy and haphazard for whatever it was made for. The soft plink of pieces falling away from something follows after. Bella grieves for it, too, whatever it happens to be. Had been. Will never be again.

The Auspex cries as easily as if it were simple flesh and blood. Nero's hand is upon her. Hermes' hand is upon her. It hurts a thousand times more, having the understanding of a god compressed back into her skull for a second time. She is not a universe. She is a Servitor. She is Tredecima, and she is Bella. She is deeply wounded almost everywhere that can be moved, and so emptiness ripples slowly back into a sense of weakness and exhaustion, and stabbing pains swimming with a serpent's grace underneath those.

Her legs begin to cramp, through which she discovers she is sitting up in spite of everything. Her arms twitch wildly when she tries to move them, but she grits her teeth and does it anyway. She strains, and finds exactly none of her awful, terrible strength. Her arms fall away again, without managing more than to brush the fingers of Beautiful and Beljani. Her talons have slipped off her fingers without her realizing it. Her shame, her weakness sits in her lap for anyone to notice. How ugly, these scarred and mutilated stumps. How shameful to have dared to try and grab a family with them. How evil of her to have begged for a mother to love them.

Both of her eyes sting with hot tears. She cries for a god, fragile and distant and beautiful. She cries for her family, sleeping and sobbing beside her. She cries until her heart must crumble to ashes, and then she pulls it back together so that she can cry some more. She cries, knowing this time there will be no Apollo to come and sit with her.

Death at last. And now that it's here, she finds she does not wish for it at all.

Breathless Dead

The gods were cruel when they created Bella, to have turned the scent of blood into poison for her body and then gifted her with such sharp claws and a prodigious talent for violence. She's lost count of how many places just this evening where the air has turned to red mist in her lungs. It's passed beyond the realm of nausea, beyond even simple misery. It dampens her fur and runs down her arms, her chest, and across her thighs. It drips noisily from her claws and her talons in a mockery of song. Everywhere it touches, it burns her skin straight down to the core of her muscles. It squeezes her chest until breathing feels like torture.

Is this punishment for bringing so much death to Her Majesty's world, where none is allowed? Her vision blurs. Tired. So tired. She should rest. Needs to rest. She's fought. So much. Already. She should. Close. Her eyes. And. Just.

Fresh pain explodes across her cheek following the trail of her talon as she drags it across her face. Bella snarls as she rises to full height again and pounces with animal fury on the remains of what passes for Beljani's army. The air rings out with the sound of crunching bone on cracking stone, snap pop rip. A dagger hides among two reeds. Bella's knees grind in protest as she circles around her ally with all the seeming of a starving tiger.

"You moron," hisses Beljani, "I always knew you were too stupid to live. Just give up! Why do you insist on doing everything the hard way?!"

"...It wouldn't be the hard way if you just fucking let me through!"

"Idiot! You've got brawn and tits enough to fill a ship with, but when it comes time to actually follow orders you... just look at you! I'd rather we just brought a bomb! At least that would only blow up in my face if I screwed up!"

They clash. If they'd done it sooner, everything would be over in an eyeblink. But Bella's arms have filled with lead in the face of her war with a planet. She bleeds from a hundred cuts, and her shoulders sag with a weight that has nothing to do with Oratus magic. Her fingers close around the knife instead of Beljani's throat, so when she tears it's only her palm that's sliced open before the steel cracks into splinters under her death grip.

A spear whistles through the air toward her head. Bella ducks low, and flips backwards over top of the follow up strike. She springs and slips off her bloody hand and finds herself sliding and spinning away again. Too far to end things. She reaches up and squeezes her head to make the spinning stop. Everything tastes like blood. She gags, a wretched noise that's half mucus and half bile. Her stomach does another flip without the rest of her.

"Bella, this doesn't... we don't have to do this. We're so close. Just finish the plan, and we'll be ok. Just finish the plan. That's our way out."

"You dipshit, look at her! Look at her! Just fucking... I can save her! Let me save her! Get the fuck out of my way you useless fucking songbird!"

Beljani's face registers hurt for just a second. Her eyes widen in surprise and her mouth falls open without her meaning for it to. She pulls her arms across her chest, feet sliding backwards against Bella's latest charge. Bella lunges, and Beljani becomes diamond hard in an instant. Bella's vision explodes with stars as a fist collides with her jaw from out of nowhere, sending her sprawling to the ground.

A lone Kaeri warrior stands above her with a spear. She drops to one knee and plunges the shaft deep into Bella's shoulder. Her arm screams. Her heart screams. She screams, like the dying. Like the damned. With a wet, gurgling snarl she kicks the owl servitor in the stomach and pushes herself back off the ground to the sound of a chorus of fabric and muscle tearing. She spins on the balls of her feet, wrenching the spear free and plunging it halfway up the shaft into the Kaeri's stomach.

The look of betrayal turns Bella's blood to ice. She sucks in a breath as she takes a step forward. And then another. She drops to one knee. In front of her, tainted red, Beljani hangs her head.

"...There's no way out, Bella. No way out but this. I'm... I'm sorry."

"Shut up! SHUT! UP!!!! You're a liar, I hate you! You fucking traitor, come here so I can kill you!"

Across the din of battle, a shotgun blast roars overtop of everything. A lone, brave mouse levels the barrels at a pair of monsters, and calmly pauses to reload. The shining of her eyes in her beautiful lantern's light are sharp enough to cut entire worlds in half. It was useless buying a djinn after all, if they'd had this all along.

There's no telling who her target is, what she means to happen. Jil aims her gun again, and plants her tiny feet against the recoil, but the next shot never comes. Beljani flinches. Bella screams. Her claws bite flesh, and when Beljani falls she clutches at a line of bloody gashes trailing across her stomach. She curls up around her wound, shrinking into the pain. Small. Weak. Pathetic. Her breathing is shallow, so timid and afraid to be heard.

Bella towers over her with her good arm poised to strike. She lifts her hand to shoulder height, points her claws at her prey, and tenses for the killing blow. Her wet, hot, heaving breath beats down on Beljani's secret, tiny gasps with the force and fury of a nightmare. She hangs there for eternity. An inevitability. Every second is a year, and the blow does not fall. In just a second more, it will. No more tricks. No more lies. Nothing to stop her.

Bella's ear bends to catch a noise behind her. She turns her head in time to follow the Master's gaze all the way across the roof to Beautiful. And she snarls and falls down on Beljani like a comet. There's a shriek and an explosion of debris. Bella shuffles to her feet again on unsteady legs, with a look of raw intensity permanently stuck across her face.

Her injured arm is trembling under the weight of Beljani's writhing body. Her tail flicks like a whip, and then in the space of an eyeblink she disappears.

The syringe is in her empty hand. She needs steady aim for the work she has to do. There's chaos on the roof, too much too fast, and nothing marks her. She crosses the distance between herself and Beautiful, without stopping even to watch Redana struggle.

She plunges the syringe into Beautiful's shoulder right at the base of the neck, just where she'd been told to aim an entire week ago. Follow the plan. Yes, thank you, she's doing that. She pushes the plunger, and injects the lethe into her last remaining friend. Those gorgeous violet eyes flash with surprise just before they start to glaze over.

"But... why?" she asks through an inhuman smile.

"I'm sorry."

Bella's voice is thick and hoarse. She has to stoop to catch Beautiful, and her legs tremble visibly under the burden of two fallen Assassins.

"I can't lose you. Not you too. You're... all I have left."

Bella's eyes are wet as she turns to glare down all the witnesses gathered here before her. She drops, almost to her knees, once. Then twice. Three times before she manages a step to the edge of the roof. Her stare passes over Jil. Over the sheep who came with her, watching her like he would a child-snatching creature in the night. Over Redana, herself doubled over with the effort of not crying. She watches the Master of Assassins.

Above, the hand of a djinn collapses into sparkling dust that sprays down across the city. Bella stands there, frozen in the rain.

Sunshards

She's been thinking about this moment for a long time, actually. Not a lot at first, there's been a lot of stuff on her mind if you can imagine that. But at least a little every day, ever since that helicopter chase. And a little bit more every day, until by the middle of her little road trip to Ys it was the first thing she thought about in every non-distracted moment of the day.

Guess she should've thought about it more than that. This isn't anything like what she imagined.

This worse than the night with the river demons. At least that was all pointed directly at her, y'know? And this is... not. Everywhere she looks there's something awful going on. Knights and soldiers climbing walls or just plain charging through the gates that were supposed to be stuck shut. She could hear the shouting from all the way over here, and the eerie light hangin' over everything so it was impossible not to think Yin was involved? Not... not great.

There's smoke and chaos and so many swords flashing in so many directions it's hard to tell what's what. And, bein' honest? Yue's a little bit short on stories where, like... war happens. There's a lot of stuff that could be goin' on down there that she just can't picture. And sister, if you want me to fill the gaps in for her you are arfin' up the wrong tree. It doesn't matter anyway. She doesn't need to know, and neither do I, and neither do you.

'Cause she can tell, can't she? What's really goin' on is that there's something what got put here that somebody... honestly really, lots of somebodies loved so much they decided to put it in the world in the first place. And even if it's old and a little weird and hard to make proper sense of, it's still... I mean, do outsiders really feel any different when they stumble across the upper villages at the Terraced Lake? Probably not. But all the same. If somebody came and just decided to... get rid of them, Yue would be in tears. It's her home. Her story started there. And this is Chen's home. Her story might not have started here, but it runs in and out and through it so many times that it hardly matters.

And now someone's got a whole army just to knock it down and take it away. They're gonna erase it and paint somethin' new here and not even care what came through before. Not carin' how anybody else feels about it, just, just... stepping in and saying in a big loud voice that they're the only opinion in the whole world that matters worth a darn! And it's not even just 'someone', that's the thing! It's not even Yin! If it was, that'd be... not ok, not by a long shot, but sorta understandable? But it's Qiu!

Qiu, who did conquer the Terraced Lake and knew better enough not to flip it upside down and turn it into a, like, dragon waterpark or whatever. Qiu, who was grand and terrifying but in a weirdly beautiful and approachable kind of way? Qiu, who understood instantly what it meant to not be offered the first cookie. That Qiu. This was all her fault and how could she, how could she, how could she?

Yue's hands ball into fists, and then they squeeze so tight they seem to turn pale enough to become little moons. She sniffs and snorts and no matter how many times she takes a breath she finds she doesn't have a word for any of it anywhere that she can reach. Nobody ever taught her words nasty enough for the ugly feelings brewing inside her just now. Which is just as well, if she knew what to say she'd only make herself feel bad, and it's super important that she focus.

"I'm..."

She opens her hands again and finds her fingers are trembling. Her sword rattles in her bag, longing for action she can't give it. She's learned so many things and grown so much in this short time, but none of it helps at all in a moment like this. Her heart is born for dueling, and that's where all of her practice went. Someone amazing like Chen is born for one-on-many battles, someone like Rose could spank a mountain if it was being naughty enough, and Hyra... Hyra could do anything she decided needed doing. Not Yue. Just the thought of zipping down among all those bodies and those radiant knights and being surrounded like that makes her heart skip beats and hide somewhere unpleasantly high up her throat.

She's shaking, poor girl. Poor, lovely flower in the breeze, my Yue. Little sliver of moonlight on a choppy lake. And she's burning with shame to feel this way, 'cause this is Chen's home. Her home! And how dare she go and make friends and then turn out to not be any help when the important stuff came down on 'em? She's got one single solitary thing she's good for and she can't even do that 'cause it's Qiu she's gotta do it to! But that's hardly an excuse, y'know?

She sniffles like the bravest of brave girls. Can't be brave if you're not scared. That's just doin' normal stuff. She wipes a tear away from her eye. Can't be strong if you can't cry. 'Cause bein' strong means opening your heart, that it does. And she turns and, outta nowhere, throws her arms around her besties and squeezes 'em together in a hug so tight it makes her bag start yipping for completely unrelated reasons.

"I'm going... gonna go down there and, and um. S-see Qiu. Ok? I. She. I just... there's stuff I've gotta do. Gotta, erm. Please. Um... don't... don't be mad ok? I, I'll see you in a, I mean. I still wanna have the tour and, and the tea and... I, see, see you. Later."

And she's so flustered, our Yue, that it takes her three shaky tries before her hands cooperate enough to get her flight spell working well enough to get her off the ground. Alone, right? She's supposed to do this alone. She floats there for a second, just starin' at her best friends and her girlfriend there beside 'em, with her watery blue eyes shimmering with what I refuse to call anything other than love. That's love, ok? The deep deep deep kind of love that burns forever for the people who showed her that magic was a thing she deserved to get to welcome into her life.

She gives them a smile, and a little wave, and it's... look. Don't laugh at me for sayin' this, but it's the single bravest thing you're gonna see from anybody all day, ok? 'Cause it's the kind of smile an ordinary sillyhead who's maybe halfway through her trainin', who's yet to beat a single one of her friends in a full-on duel, who's the first one to admit she's the least actual talent of any of 'em, who's got no chance in a real fight with the strongest princess in the world but who can't do what she's gotta do without drawing blades, probably maybe I'd bet you, who's clinging to anger that makes her feel icky to get past fear that'd paralyze her if she didn't, the kind of smile only a girl like that can make. And only when she's about to take all've that stuff and throw it out a window, at that. She's got a pretty smile, my Yue, but this one is... makes me wish I was a proper poet. But of course, I studied Cutie Law. So I just, I don't know how to make you see how bright and beautiful it is except by pointin' up at all that other stuff.

I wish I could tell you that Yue zips across the battlefield like a comet and dazzles everyone she speeds past on her way to a destined meeting. But really she floats kinda awkwardly like a dandelion in a breeze, or maybe a speck of foam bouncin' around the edge of a waterfall. She's still shaking, poor girl, and it's not good enough to make it as far as she needs to get safely. Which... actually, hm.

Yue lands, and plants her feet in a wide enough stance that her knees don't have room to knock together. She pulls her sword out of her bag (with just a lil' bit of help) and flourishes maybe a half-twirl too showy before she points it at the sky. But the breeze is warm and kind, and it flutters her gorgeous battle dress about her legs and arms like she was some kind of hero steppin' out of myth.

"My name's Yue!" she cries like very squeaky thunder, "And I'm here to see Princess Qiu and give her a piece of my goshing mind!"

Her heart surges bravely in her adorable chest. At last, she finds her footing, and plants them proudly. No more shaking like a leaf, Yue of the Terraced Lake slides into a battle stance far more terrifying than anything a person who uses a word like 'goshing' should be capable of. Atta girl!

"So if... if anyone's gotta problem with that! Then, then um. G-get in line! 'Cause I haven't learned how to fight more than one person at a time yet!"

Sunshards

Oh. Uh. Hm. W-well then. Not, erm... yeah not gonna lie, I thought, well, y'know, haha, it was gonna be a little closer than that. Ha. Ehe. Hoho. Ah. Oh dear.

Oh, but don't worry about it, you did everything exactly right, Rosie! It's just, well, goshies I don't even know how to put this. Imagine, me at a loss for words! That's almost, no scratch that, that's ten times more impressive than beating Yue so soundly! But gosh, what to do? I thought this was gonna be a bit of a project for... oh nevermind! Like I said, don't worry about it!

You see it in her eyes, right? Or at least, the eyes she had before you picked her up and clamped your pretty, sweet smelling hand over her face and reduced her to muffled squeaking. Yue's the kind of girl who celebrates every little milestone like it's a victory by itself. If she ever duels you again and coaxes a single extra move in your little finisher combo she'll celebrate like she just won a superb owl. Which I don't... see what's so great about those, but that's the expression right? Oh well. Just saying, a cute fox would be better.

And anyway, she totally... well, I guess it doesn't matter, does it? She's in your hands now, wriggling like a little fishie and just blushing more and more and more the longer she tries to suck air through her fingers. She's so cute when her eyelids start doing that little flutter-flutter thingy, don't you think? I also like the way she squeezes those dainty thighs of hers so tight together when she squirms, as if that'll help her break free any faster. Sorry sweetie, you are s-t-u-c-k! Hey, hey! Can you get her fingers over... yeah, get her behind the ears! Give her a lil' scritchie and see how she likes it! For me? Awww, whoosa good girl, Yue? Whoosa good, good girl! You are, yes it's you~! Heeeeeeeeeeeee, this is the best! How about we get you caught more often, sweetie?

...O-oh, I'm sorry, you had a question didn't you? I dunno, it's a silly question. When did Yue stop being scared of you? I mean it's like... Rosie you goof, when was the last time you looked in a mirror? Were you not paying attention? Yes, you're big and strong and old, but so what? So're the suns. So's a mountain. So's a river. Are those some kinda horrible whatsits that nobody's ever managed to love before? C'mon, sillyhead.

Oh what, you're more like a giant, vicious demon serpent or something? Pssssh, whatever. Yue's got me, but do you think that means all her friends before now were adorable little forest creatures? My girl's hung out with wild dogs the size of hills, she even helped one birth a litter of puppies once! She once had tea with a 350 year old boar. She's been bit and scratched and trampled by deer who didn't care for her jokes, lemme tell you. Some sneaky jerks of berries have poisoned her and turned her insides almost out for like a week. One time she almost lost her arm to a monster fish, and she spent a whole month in bed recovering from broken bones (and a long time after that too I promise you, just... not in bed) when she wound up in a bad disagreement with that thing she'll only call "the Forest God". Is a muscle-girl gonna be a monster too far for her to handle? Puh-leaze.

Here, lemme be less mean about it. You bein' a person does make a lil' more difficult sometimes, after all. But... it's like this, see? Y'know how you did the spooky thing when she tried to share sunlight with you and she got a bit rattled? Well that was your big moment. And ever since then you've been... well, you've been a lotta things, haven't you? You've been protective and teasing, you've been small and clumsy and sweet, you've been big and bashful and beautiful. Graceful and, yeah don't we know it, in looooove~. The most I can say about your scary cred is that you clearly know some sorta secret about my girl that for whatever reason you're keepin' tucked inside your sports bra. As if you need the padding.

So let's compare you to your old partner, howsabout? Sorry to drag history into this, but it's important. Yi...er... princess... oh heck it. Yinny. Now she knows how to be a monster, get me? After sendin' out her own handmaiden to scoop up poor Yue in a whole silly storm of demons, she goes and shows up in Maximum Spook Mode and decides for herself that actually the perfect capture of her target's not good enough 'cause Hyra's maybe a little sweeter on ya girl than on Yinny. Imagine that! So she turns a beautiful, brave, special girl into a wolf just to punish her, tries to turn Yue into a mouse for complainin' about it, and at the end of all of it she's even got the audacity to turn to little Chen and act like she's supposed to be totally on board with the whole thing! Like it's normal! Like oh, your mom said we're working together so obviously everything I'm doing is fine, clearly, look at me and how pretty and strong and spooky I am oh ho ho ho ho.

See the difference? It's not about how strong you are, Rosie. If it was, then Yue'd be hitchhiking back to her tiny little house and locking the door forever at the idea of standing up to Qiu. It's about how you carry all that strength. It's about how you choose to wear it. And you, you brave wonderful amazingly amazeful sweetiebiscuit, turned yourself into a Monk so that princesses'd feel safe around you while you tried to do the stuff that made you feel good. And like, I don't mean to talk smack about The Way or anythin', but when that wasn't cuttin' it either you opened up your heart and let yourself grow until you were soft enough to be somebody's... heeeeeee, "petal". How's Yue, my precious little splash of moonlight, supposed to be afraid of a monster who voluntarily wraps herself in ribbons? No. You don't deserve to have people be scared of you, and we both know it's not what you want. So it's ok, be strong. Be as strong as you want, whenever you want. And be a silly little klutz when that suits you better, too. Around your friends, even if nowhere else, you don't have to worry about hiding who you are. Yue knows: you're a good person.

And you... uh, hey? Hold on, I missed something. Oh I missed something big, why's Yue turning so pink? What'd Chen say, what'd I miss, tell meeeeeeeeeee- oh! Ooh! Where are we going, Rosie? Where are we... oh. Oh gosh. Oh gosh gosh goshies.

S-so. Um. CH-changing the subject a little, s'funny. Um. O-ooh, speaking of changes, you uh... y-yeah. Eeep. Mrrrrp! Y-y-y-you'd think with the bath and all this wouldn't be such a big deal and all, r-right? L-l-like she's, um, sh-shown you everything already right? So why would, why should, wh-why's it suddenly so hard to sit still when you're getting all those clothes out f-for her? Why can't she stop squeaking even through the gag you've packed her mouth with while you get everything ready?

Is it... 'cause she's never had someone else dress her before? Is it 'cause... 'cause she sees how much fun you're havin'? M-maybe it's relief? 'C-cause when you were talkin' bout giving her all gift-like to Chen's moms she was really super squirmy and back-archy wiggly squeak squeak, y'know? Just 'cause she started picturin' Hyra in a matchin' outfit doesn't mean she was... y'know, looking forward to it or anythin', 'cause she... w-w-well. Um.

It's just. Actually it's not a relief at all, is it? 'Cause it's a lot easier. Meeeeeep. A... a lot lot easier to imagine bein' a gift for Hyra. She can't, oohh gosh goshies goshers, she can't stop thinkin' about it. Even before you start sliding 'em up her legs she can't keep her brain from thinking about Hyra's eyes on her flowing, translucent trousers that don't really cover her for beans, do they? And it's like, oh wow she's really never thought about this stuff before has she? How putting her body on display like this but with... l-like, the idea of covering it up makes her look and feel like she's supposed to be looked at? A-a-a-and that's... um. Well. She understands why you're enjoying it so much, Rosie.

She's... oh. Oh she's feeling so warm right now. Flushed and... and... eep! Th-that's a tiny top, she's never worn anything so, mmmf, how are you so gentle? And if you're so gentle how come all the squirming she's doing isn't making her any more free to run away? She's not even, I mean, the ropes are just... draped across her right now to so it's easier to get her ready, she could get out any time she wanted so h-h-h-how come she can't... do more than stretch without your permission? Did you put a spell oh her, Rosie?! I-is that a thing you can do? Or is it, is it, is it is it is it is it... meep!! Oh no no no, does she, is she excited about this? I-is that why she's so, so, why she can't stop thinking about t-tongues and lips and, erm, h-hey where is that tail gooIIIIInnnnggg~~

One present, ready for delivering. Yue, Just Yue, the dancing wolf girl in Ysian silks fit for fluttering while she shows off her hips and letting everyone see her skinny little tummy and her tiny, silly chest and her cute little shoulders and her hair all done up in pigtails and the... wow, Keron taught you a lot about makeup, didn't she? Yue is a treasure. She's a treasure. A darling little jewel. She's a prize that's been won, and presented and... gifted, with silly, fluffy ears on a pretty little handband and a cutie little tail that wags when she wiggles her butt and oh no, oh no, oh no she feels beautiful. What if she never, what if she can't be a swordsmaiden anymore 'cause she can't stop feeling like...

Meep! What are you?! D-don't tie those ropes around th-aaaaahhh! I-i-if you d-d-don't st-stop that she's not gonna, y-you... mmmmf, y-you'll have to carry her to Hyra now, 'cause she can only... um. Rosie? Wh-where'd you get a collar? And a, a, a, a, l-leash?! You're not. You wouldn't. You don't mean to bring her like... on...

W... walkies?!?

Breathless Dead

The sound of snapping fingers tears holes in the sky. Now it's Bella's turn to throw her hands over her ears, whimpering inaudibly from the pain. One, two, three times the booming echoes rattle against her bones and threaten to drive her to her knees. By the fourth, she feels a tiny trickle of warm fluid leak out from between her fingers. And still, she doesn't close her nerves in defense and dull her hearing. It's too important that she not miss a word.

It stops. She lifts her hands cautiously off her head, and for the umpteenth time today forces herself to swallow the acrid burn of her own fear mixed in with the day's meals. Her entire body is trembling, every muscle overwhelmed to the point of uselessness. Her eye flickers toward Beljani, still dressed perfectly for any ball she could wish for in her blood speckled dress. Her vision trembles, too. What is the expression on that face? Animals can't read people. There is only fear.

She turns her head to look at Redana, instead. Redana with her long shadow. Redana with her legs that will not stand. Redana with her beautiful eyes. Redana, the little girl who lifted her out of the Box. Redana, lying in bed with a fever that couldn't be treated any of the gentle, stupid skills of a silly kitten or even a fancy Imperial physician. Redana, who can only get better through the power of her own determination. Redana, who makes Bella watch her arch that tiny spine in agony while tears stream endlessly from that one pretty eye she's still got left. Redana, who can only be soothed by one power in the entire universe, which are lullabies sung soft and sweet for hours without stopping.

But the songs are all forgotten. Little girls, good girls know lullabies. Monsters only know one verse, and it's not fit for company. Bella's feet slide forward, away from the edge of the roof at last. Her heels bite into the hard stone. She is balanced on a knife's edge, moments away from exploding with the power of a star or collapsing into a trembling heap forever with equal likelihood. In slow, unsteady waves they come. Bella squeezes her eyes shut, as if her trembling lids were enough to keep them safe from the perfect plans of Beautiful.

The first to touch her is a Kaeri warrior. Bella's body turns into a blur before the fingers finish closing. Even violet eyes might strain to see what produces the cloud of dust and the sickening crunch that precedes it. But when it clears, she is hunched over the Kaeri's limp body with her fingers clamped tight about her skull, squeezing tight enough to crack it. She snarls with wet, naked animosity and whirls herself back to standing like a tornado, heaving the body into a crowd that topples and scatters depending on her luck. She doesn't care which. ELF lightning bursts across her back and churns the new arena with shards of deadly masonry.

Lantern, Kaeri, Azura all. If they approach, she crushes them. Cuts them. Hurls them aside, indiscriminately. She rushes forward through rounds of foul smelling, deafening SP fire and thickets full of lethal spears and knives and teeth. In a mass, they push her back with the unfocused strength of the oceans she used to read about in the stories she secretly carried off to her little bed to better learn their secrets, back during another, better life she used to have.

"Beautiful!" she screams, and is startled to discover she has a voice after all, "Beautiful! NO!"

There is an army swarming her, and she barely bothers to look. Her eyes are needed to watch her precious friend, and the terrifying arm hanging in the skies above her. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of new cuts and bruises being left across her body each time she is repelled. Superficial scratches, the lot of them. She pays them no attention. She can hardly feel them at all, beyond the vague disinterested awareness that some unpleasant thing has touched her.

The only reason it's enough to force her back at all is the frantic pounding of her heart pushing power through her body in jagged spikes and painful pressure. That stubborn, stupid heart that screams at her to stay alive. And fuck her, damn her forever, she listens to it. Beljani's mob is a wall she cannot cross. Her stupid, stubborn heart sings with the voice she can't remember. Triumph and hope for... something.

"Beljani!" she tries the final name, after the other two have failed her, "What the fuck are you doing, Beljani? She's gone, can't you see it? She's gone, she's... she's going, LET ME THROUGH! I have to! I can save her! Just! Let! Me! You! Bitch!!"

If her attacks are deathblows or little better than playfighting she does not bother to see. It's not important. It doesn't matter which way the knife has turned. It doesn't matter if she's the burning culmination of a lifetime's worth of training and brutal lessons, or just the shadow of whatever bits of strength Thellis Thist has left for her. There is a wall in front of her, as slick and unyielding as the one that guarded the Ceronian Queen inside the Eater of Worlds. Her claws are still sharp. Her talons still glint in the eerie light of the open sky. Let her sink them in. Let her climb!

If Redana is watching, she doesn't see. There's no time left to look behind her. Save Beautiful, stay alive, and the other shadowy yearning she can't name. They all call her heart to beat. Her legs to stand. Her eyes and claws to point forward. She burns. She trembles. Fuck it. A mirage is plenty for these useless dipshits. She surges forward and slides back in an endless, stupid dance that covers her in tiny wounds and makes her hands itch for a sword.

Animals aren't allowed to have tools. Monsters can't save anybody. A hero could manage both, but the only one she's seen is dead. A new one then, fuck it. Fuck you, why can't it be her?

If Redana is watching, she doesn't want to know. Her dance is ugly. Awful. Stupid. She'll never be loved again. She howls and surges forward again. And again she fails. Again. Again! Her body trembles again, this time with wet, pathetic sobs. And she charges straight into the wall again, failure that she is.

All around her, the building groans with the pain of enduring her battle. It shudders beneath hundreds of feet. It begs for death. Bella burns, and charges again.

It's the only hero's act she's fit to play.

[Alone Against the World: 11. Bella keeps everyone busy, and she'll do damage when she's done]

Breathless Dead

"Re..."

There's an urge to cover her mouth with her hands and press so tight that she starts to choke. To bite her lip and chew it until the blood fills her mouth. To give in to the serpents crawling through her spine and let her body twist into impossible angles until she's in so much pain she won't be able to do anything but scream. Anything at all if it lets her swallow the noises spilling from her lips right now.

"Re... da..."

Already her feet are dragging her backwards, away from Sko-- away from Re-- away from the shadow, away from Beautiful and the arm of a heathen god she controls in the sky above her, away from Beljani's blood flecked dress, away, away, away. Already her pupil is growing wider and wider until the black swallows the gold. Already her body is trembling as if she'd been freshly pulled from a frozen lake, and sweating as though she'd been locked inside a sauna and left to die. And she has. She has been left to die.

She tastes copper. She wants to spit, but her body doesn't belong to her. Her feet are dragging slowly backwards, until her heels taste the air at the edge of the roof. Her arms curl around her chest and clutch something small and precious tight against her, though everything worth keeping has already slipped away. She mustn't say it. She mustn't say the name, make it real. If she finishes Beautiful's work, she dies. And for all the buzzing in her ears, she can still make out the words of a dying hero.

Why? Why does it keep happening? Why why why why why why why why?! Why can't she make herself want to die?!?

"...Nnn-nnuh... nnnNNNN AAAAAAaAUUUGGhH!"

Her hands are trembling. Her hands are clawing at her face. Her hands are slashing uselessly at shadows in the air around her. Her feet are stumbling. Her feet are sliding off the edge of the roof seeking the sky and the fall and the retribution of the mob beneath her. Her feet are dragging her forward again and planting her in safety at the most dangerous place on the planet. Her eye is cold and empty of emotion. Her eye is a pale red orb filling her body with so much information she might explode. Her eye is wide and frightened, and filled with tears.

"Beautiful," she stammers, because there's no other safe place to turn, "Please. Don't."

Bella's dress is a shredded mess. Her body is covered in burns and gashes half scabbed, half oozing. But there is power left in her body. Her ELF flares to life behind her in a jagged corona of danger and warning. She stumbles forward, and where her talons strike the roof she leaves scars and dust and shakes the building beneath her. But there's nothing to do with her strength. There aren't any targets left, except the ones that fill her heart with the terror of death. And she can't, she mustn't, she... she doesn't want to die.

"I, I won! You won! You bet on me and I won! Pl-please, don't do it. Stop looking, stop it! Stop it! Don't do it, don't do it, fuck you STOP! Don't! Take! It! From! ME! Stop looking stop asking stop looking just fu..."

Why? Why? Why? This is everything she was chasing all this time. Why? Why? Why? She cut everything else away for this. She said goodbye, she said fuck off, she said she said she said shesaid so why?! Why?! Why is her body falling apart but begging her to hold it together still? Why is ozone and death all she can taste? Why does every little tremble feeling like nothing but a hot whip cracking against her skin? Why? Why is it all so horrible? Why all these tears, till the emotions drip down her nose and her throat and choke her even though she has to scream she has to scream she can't hold it in she has to scream!

"Please!" Bella's nothing but an animal that was taught to speak as a parlor trick. Her words are nonsense begging punctuated by empty threats of lightning and claw crushing the useless things things around her, "Beautiful, please! Stop thinking, stop asking, stop thinking! Close your eyes, just be wrong, just say you missed something, just lie and say it's fine! Let me... you have to let me... y-yyyrrrrggggraaaaHH!!!"

There are claws inside her throat. There are teeth inside her eyes. There is fire inside her heart. There are chains around her limbs. There's a rope around her neck. Pulling her down. Pulling her up. Pulling, pulling, pulling until the word that mustn't come out finally does.

"Redana."

Her voice is dry and cracking.

"Redana!"

Her voice is ripped from her throat by a wicked hook.

"REDANA!"

Her voice surges until it cracks against the heavens and clashes with the might of an assembled djinn.

Her eye is on the shadow, growing longer in the flickering dust and light. Masters don't, masters don't, masters don't!

"Help... mE."

Sunshards

Well Rose, we know you're good. Better than good, even. You're the best, and you're so strong you're even afraid to show it for some silly reason. Y'know where I come from? If you've got triangles, you wiggle 'em. If you've got a soft, fluffy tumtum you roll over and show it off. If you're fast, you zoomies. And if you're strong? Well I guess I just don't see the problem, Rosie. We established I could call you Rosie, right? Good. 'Cause I'mma gonna.

Anywuzzle! Gettin' sidetracked, where was I goin' with this? Oh right! You're amazingly amazeful you are, so maybe this won't matter to you none but... normally? If you have to ask a fox for the rules, you've already lost. Name a single time a fox has ever lost at anything! Yeah, you can't. Yip yip chormp. But you don't have to worry about that! The rules are super simple, fit for a silly country girl like Yue. The only thing I want you to do, the only rule you need to keep inside that pretty little head of yours is this: keep up. Here, lemme explain.

First of all: survive the First Form, Testing the Waters. Yue's grown as a swordfighter about as fast as willowherb in a sunlit field of topsoil, maybe even a little faster. But she's no Chen, and she's no... well, you. She doesn't insult you with sloppy strokes or wild, stupid footwork. Her stances are lifted straight out've the Demon Swordswoman's teachings, finally understood for what they are, and every thrust of her saber is graceful and fluid as the river that runs by her little home, dunno if you've seen it. She flows from one attack to the next, into defense, and back to attack. But she's slow. She's so slow she looks like she's meditating instead of dueling. She couldn't bop a sleeping housecat on its butt at these speeds. And her smile's brighter than the sun in the sky and her eyes are lit with challenge-glow, but she's keeping her distance, isn't she? You could fit twelve swords, or at least four and a half spears in the space she always backs off into, and sometimes even the space she attacks through. Like she's trying to anticipate a move that isn't coming and just sweep-slash-kick-hops through empty air into a twirl-lift-bow-hop and another grin.

And I'll tell you why it's like this, but that's the rule. Keep up. Don't break the magic, Rosie. Don't worry about being serious enough to keep from insulting her and focus instead on following along. Let her see your new style, and how fast you can turn from blushing and squeaky at your sudden change of style to comfortable in the way it shows your love for your perfect girlfriend. 'Cause she is a perfect girlfriend, isn't she Rosie? Don't forget, I was at every single one of those dates too. I saw. But anywhich. Which is like a sandwich except you can put anyth-- arf!! Sorry. Movin' along. Dance with Yue, please. Let her figure out your range and the power of your moves. Let her see new angles and dances and don't laugh when she tries to incorporate them into her style. She's from the Terraced Lake, ok? She can't help but be like water. So let her take in everything you give her, until she moves into

The Second Form: Hey, Would This Work? Ok, now we're dueling! Suddenly Yue's a lot closer, all up in your business Rosie. Her steps are erratic without bein' clumsy, if that makes any sense. Here she pops off a stool and bounces off of you from above. There she tries to tuck and roll between your feet and smack the side of her blade against your incredible, frosty toned butt with a giggle. Here she lifts a knee all the way up against her petite little chest before she suddenly stumbles forward and thrusts down at your toes to make you dance. Don't let any of it work! That's what it means to keep up with the Second Form. You've gotta be her teacher, Rosie. Show her the counters and the dodges, the holes in her ideas so that the ones she thinks of next are better ones. And more importantly, try to have as much fun comin' up with ways to do that as she is assaultin' you. If you laugh, she wins. But then again, so do you!

Finally, respect the Third Form: I Love You Very Much!. Yue's been slowly accelerating into her true fighting speed all this time. Now she's coming at you full on, sometimes even in flight. She's not tricky about it in quite the way Hyra would be, because she's too focused on making sure her technique is clean enough to make Chen proud, always returning at the end of every stroke to a position that establishes her Sphere of Defense or whatever you sword-and-thumb havin' folks call it. She doesn't dodge the way Chen does, she's more into parrying and sliding along your scimitar in ways that might surprise you, and giggling infectiously at the music your blades make as they kiss over and over. She's unpredictably predictable, you might say. But she fast. It's like I said, if you're fast then you zoomies. And Yue zoomies.

So keep up, Rosie! Don't get so caught up in the old slowness and silliness that you fall behind! You have to show what a good girl... er, handmaiden you are for your Chen, after all! When she speeds up, you do it too. When she flows, you ebb. Show her nothing less than the shape of your heart while you fight, Rosie, and then you'll have followed the rules. Oh, and when you smack her in the middle of a windup and send her skidding across the floor, don't feel bad! Just look at her smile! Listen to her laugh! She's having the time of her life!

"...Ok, that's one point for you! But I, oh hey!" she chirps, "My voice! Well that's just perfect, isn't it?"

Yue hops to her feet as light as a pound of feathers woven into the shape of a pound of rocks and zips across the space you opened up quicker than blinkin'.

"'Cause I've been thinking!"

High slash! She leaps and aims too high, but her momentum carries her around in a circle and as her feet touch down, she pivots all that circle zoomies power into another one at your feet. She grins and watches you rise above it, but that's when she crouches low and drags another circle so that her leg's like a tail that won't get out of your way and you've got no choice but to land in an undignified heap on top of her.

"We're gonna go see Chen's parents, right? Or one of 'em, at least? How're you hopin' that's gonna go? 'Cause I'm like... well I know there's all that war stuff or whatever but I had a dream last night, y'know? And I think I mighta heard wedding bells~"

Now it's your turn! Tell us what kind of phenomenal, earth cracking power the Rosie Pilgrim brings against Yue, the Wolf of the Sky Castle and how she manages to not disintegrate under it. But gee, you were holding back right? Of course you were, sillyhead. There's no way Yue could be managing you for realsies, is there?

"Or! Maybe! You've got other plans? Like I don't... know so much about parents. Or meeting 'em so like, were you wantin' to announce a romantic kidnapping? Have a cozy dinner? You gonna call her 'mom', or is that too silly? I'm just wonderin', have you been thinkin' about it all too? What d'you wanna come out of this?"

She giggles, but it's not mean in the slightest. She loves you, Rosie. She's watched you and admired you, and now you're her family as sure as Sis is. That's why she's fighting you so hard now. Mind you, she's still got her Secret Swords. Those special techniques that come from her life instead of what she's been taught so they're so full of Yue that nobody else could ever master 'em. But she hasn't revealed most any of those, and she won't today either. Those are for fights where winnin's more important than anything else. And, wanna know a secret?

That's actually up to you, Rosie. How this fight ends, I mean. If this is the duel where Yue's blade lifts your chin ever so gentle-like and makes you blush like a maiden while she smirks and gets the ropes to truss you up like a pretty lil' present for your beautiful princess girlfriend, and proves that maybe she's got what it takes to be a princess too, then you'll be the one that picks that ending and tell us all how she managed it. Or! If you want to just play and play and play until her twiggy human body runs out of energy and she's gotta call it so she can get an anywhich and a soda (and find Hyra for a bath after, I bet~), then that's just as valid and wonderful and I know we all wanna hear how your perfect ancient weapon body won by technicality and met all of your secret goals.

OR! Or or or! You can whip her little butt good. You can draw on, like, Iono, fifty percent of your true power? I think that's the expression? You can smash and frighten and embarrass Yue and prove to her that her journey's just beginning and she's a thousand years too young to be tryin' anything with you and that'll be somethin' special too, 'cause then you'll see the way she doesn't break at all, and how she'll laugh and pop back off the ground to tell you thank you and good fight and how much fun she had, what a wonderful duelist you really are. That's a possible future too. Go ahead and learn that the monster's got a place to call home, and she doesn't have to hide herself one bit. Yue's used to chormps from very dangerous creatures, I promise you.

But pick your future. Pick the end of this little duel, Rosie. What's the path that'll make you feel loved? What dream for the future are we planting the seeds for today? The world waits with baited breath. Erm. Bated. I-i-it doesn't smell a thing like bait, who told you!?

[Figure Out: 2, 5: 7 Yue's asked her questions, plus her Truth of Heart and Blade. ask your question back]