Phoe

Breathless Dead

Overwhelming. The aroma: the acrid stench wafting through the air and choking her like a malevolent cloud. The bitter tang of iron building in her nose. The antiseptic sting of combat drugs swirled into sweet, honeyed toxins and salty pheromones. Like being trapped inside a bakery built into a hospital morgue. The pressure building behind her eyes as blood vessels restrict instinctively at the at the sight of the ruby red shower, gemstones falling like rain and... blood. So much blood. Mynx's... Mynx's blood. In the air. On the floor. In her -- ghk!!

She is incapable of tolerating it. She is programmed especially to get sick at the sight and smell of it; a last minute safety added to her suite to keep the ultraviolent tendencies suppressed. They'd told her, of course, it was a vaccination. So she wouldn't get the Princess sick with her Kennel filth. And she'd never questioned it, and even now she doesn't question it. Bella simply breaths, tilts, and drops to one knee as heavy as a stone. It is far, far worse when the smell belongs to someone she's so familiar with.

"Hfff, hsssst, M-M... Myn-- d-don't you... get. G-get back hhhfffffffft!"

Speaking through it is a mistake. Her body contracts violently, and the welling headache tips completely over into nausea. She feels it rising in her throat and automatically covers her mouth with her hand, to keep from making a scene in front of Redana. And the smell grows stronger. Her hand. Her claws. Covered in sweet, shimmering red poison.

Her retching is too violent to contain. The air fills with the sounds of Bella gagging, coughing, sputtering, stubbornly trying to pull air through her nose while her hand stays planted over her mouth to keep more than a glistening trickle of drool from escaping to the floor. Her entire body is convulsing with seizure pains and hideous choking. Her throat is filled with dying animal snarls as she falls from one knee to both, and from her knees to needing her hands to keep from dropping to the floor completely. She hunches and shivers as she spills her shame out onto the floor beneath her, and trembles until the air clears enough for her to get her first whiffs of clean air.

Slowly, her body calms. Her breathing slows, but then it hitches. No, no, no, damn it, no! But whether she wills it or no, the tears sweep in to fill the growing calm.

"Damn it. Damn it!" she hisses, and weakly pounds her fist into the floor.

The girl called Bella unravels. Her claws feel unnaturally, sickeningly pleasant at the ends of her fingertips, tingling with the sweet, soft itch that faintly calls to mind the sensation of a name going cool and silent against her skin. No, her armor. That isn't her. That isn't her. She sobs openly, without any thought or care for how it makes her look. Her wails pierce through the broken remnants of the party and coax sad sighs from the forest. She grieves.

"You, you!" Bella is interrupted by a hiccough that almost sends her spiraling back into the world of sickness, "Fucking idiot! What's gonna, nnnrgh! Gods! You... you! How can you? Just, just..."

She breaks down into a fresh wave of tears that are stronger than any words. Pitiful sniffles and wet vocalizations drip out of her like a summer storm across a plain. A hand touches her shoulder, but she curls into herself and away from it. No. No. Leave her alone. Fucking... leave her alone. Don't you get it?

What else could they be? What else could the Lethe possibly leave left of them both but murderers and monsters?

Breathless Dead

She should be stronger. Faster. More ruthless. She should be everything Mynx is accusing her of being, and everything she feared that she was. But in this moment she is pinned. All that power won't come to her; muscles strain and her body thrashes, but it's not enough to even move Mynx. Her fire has gone cold. Her ELF flickers out. Their lips come this close to touching, and all her strength is good for is wrenching her head away instead of closing the distance.

That's how it always was. In the lonely dark, in the heat, just the two of them. Clinging to each other, listening to the sounds of their breathing mix. Mynx's, slow and shuddering. Bella's, short and sharp. Their hands would find each other's, wrapped behind their backs. It was as difficult to move back then as it is right now. And then she, and Mynx would close her eyes like an idiot and inch her face closer... only to flinch. Only to let go suddenly, and draw back the entire space of the bed with her scales constantly rippling in complete embarrassment.

"Do... do you want me to..?" she asked, already shifting her form to be smaller, more muscular, covered in smooth skin.

"No. Don't you dare. Put on her face and I'll kill you."

"But why? She's the one you want. Just because she's not here doesn't mean you can't have h--"

"I SAID! I... said no. She's not here. You're here. I don't want you to be anyone else."

It was on Bella to cross the distance again, to prove her words meant anything with her lips, and her teeth, and the fingers where no claws grew. That was how it was. She'd never forget...

Well. Apparently she would. Before long it would be failure or erasure. No other options. Bella's stomach twists in knots as she strains and thrashes against the captor still pinning her to the floor, but none of it does her any good. She's still stick, still mute, still snarling and frustrated when any decent person would be understanding and sympathetic in the face of those scars.

"Mynx, you are... such a liar."

Her accusation explodes in a storm of feathers. Her tongue sits heavy in her mouth, her breath sticks in her lungs, her eyes blink stupidly. Stunned. And then suddenly the weight is lifting off of her. Suddenly she is free. Suddenly she lifts her neck and there's no threat of a final kiss anymore because Mynx has turned toward Redana and shifted her weight away from Bella.

But her eyes are only on that scar. That pale patch of pinkish scales among the red where they've had to rapidly regrow; the thing that probably pushed her into this latest transformation. That's where her claws dug in. Where she buried her arm up to the elbow in her sister, and never knew that it was her until it was too late. Which is why she recognizes the posture: Mynx is rearing her hand back to put claws into the distraction. Because she too does not recognize her target. She doesn't have a name to guide her. Redana is about to die, and the stain on both of them will run so deep not even the Lethe could wash it out.

Her entire being is a scream. Her legs are lightning, and she plants them in Mynx's stomach with desperate forces that launches her a full dozen meters into the sky. Bella is on her feet faster than thinking, surrounded in a burning halo of ELF light. Her tail thrashes behind her with the fury of a dragon's, and in that single gesture she takes to the air and meets her target halfway to the ground again.

They speak in combat. Heavy elbows against enlongated, whiplike arms with claws wicked enough to give XIII pause. Crushing knees meeting bones suddenly solid enough to pierce a star ship, and a dozen dozen heavy bruises appearing on both bodies where they meet. I hate you, I hate you, I love you. You rejected me. You lied to me. You told me I was special. You told me I mattered. You lied. You lied.

You lied to yourself. The entire fucking time. And now you. And now you! And now you're killing Redana!

Two bodies crash into the ground together, their positions flipped. Bella is stronger. Faster. More ruthless. She is as unstoppable as Mynx threatened she would be. Her body is softened, slowly turning blackish blue underneath thin trickles of red, but it's nothing compared to Mynx. She howls in fury. She howls in victory. She lifts her arm back for the final strike, the one that will render Mynx unconscious and give Bella a chance to put her words in order. She'd fix it. She'd fix this. She'd say the last and most important 'sorry', and nothing would get in the way.

But the blow never comes. Bella's eye blinks shut to block a sudden drip of blood. She glances up, only for a moment, to see where it came from.

Her claws are dripping red.

Her.

Five.

Claws.

Bella's eye opens wide, iris shrinking to a slit in equal parts surprise and terror. Her body freezes, first in place and then in temperature. She no longer breathes. Heart no longer beats. Her every nerve is a frazzled, frigid mess of pure static. The sense of power is welling in her core, ready to explode into violence.

She disappears from on top of Mynx, reappearing several steps away on her feet in the same instant. Her wrist is gripped tight in her other hand, which digs her other pair of fresh claws into her own skin and muscles. Her posture is hunched, back arched, tail bristling in terror. And only now does she see, feel, smell how much damage she was really doing.

"...Mynx. I--"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"But at any rate, it is possible?"

Mirror repeats the question in the sign language she picked up from Solarel. She is all at once much too fast and much too slow: her hands move with the absurd speed and precision necessary to pilot the Gods-Smiting Whip with the skill that she does, but she lingers on each word for too long and 'rewrites' several of them multiple times before moving onto the next, even though they wind up exactly the same each time she does it. But even accounting for her peculiarities, the act of moving the question to a different language changes the meaning of what she's trying to say.

<You agree, then, that many things are possible.>

The riddle of the Mirror is, is this a mistake? Has she fallen victim to bad dialectic decisions, or is she making a deliberately dense inquiry? Or is she even asking a question in the first place? Maybe she's hiding something, instead.

In any event, she frowns as she sits. Her hands briefly fold on top of her knee as she crosses her legs, but when she immediately uncrosses and flips them she switches to stretching her arms behind her head as she leans into the seat. Her stub-clawed fingers play idly with her cascading snowy hair as her whiskers twitch in thought.

"...What would it take for me to adopt your assistant?" she asks, "I have honestly felt minimal desire to ever have a kitten, but she feels like she would make excellent practice. My Slate would have a field day with her."

Liquid eyes flick over to catch the reaction. Or maybe reactions? Matty's expressions are a rapid and many-tiered thing, which is a delicious and welcome tension break in an otherwise very cluttered day. Mirror licks her lips, and allows herself a moment to hope that Matty is imagining it. She would like to know what it looks like when that face combusts.

"Not trying to poach her, to be clear. Despicable behavior. My interest in her is strictly that she is adorable. Though I suppose, since you must already know that, you might consider that a form of poaching anyway?"

Mirror's hands continue to worry at the back of her hair, and across her neck. She rolls her shoulders, straightens and curls her spine, and lets her tail flop back and forth between the armrests of the chair. She makes no effort, in short, to hide her own discomfort with the direction of the conversation.

The directness of the consultation, and the speed with which it closed. The burden shifted back onto her with the mystery left entirely intact. The implication that she had Masters who could be charged in her stead. Which was of course a moment of cultural expectation, but the thought digs into her brain like an icicle fallen from a roof. To wonder why she would have said it in the first place, and to feel ashamed for spending any amount of time not getting it. To feel angry with herself that there was still so much that needed learning in spite of all her advantages and her life, and to feel resentment that she should be the one who needs to feel inadequate.

In short, to feel defeated by Solarel all over again. Mirror sits up in her chair, and leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees, her chin on her freshly folded hands. Eyes cast down toward the floor.

"I'm uninterested in armor. I have no use for it right now. I had armor, and it was pried open as simply as a shellfish. My ugliness is bared, and I will not cover it again. Do you not know who I am, even looking at me this close?"

She sighs.

"Naturally, you don't. She is the famous one; I am a name on a list of conquests. I am Mirror, the whispered promise. The One-Day Defender. I fought Solarel in her Aeteline for a full solar cycle. And then I lost, and disappeared from history for the duration of the war. My story is someone who sits and watches. Little difference if it happened staring at the stars from the port of a research station or tied up inside a war tent. The fish tastes nearly the same in both places."

Mirror plucks her tablet up and lets her fingers dance across the screen, for a moment treating it like she would the Nine-Tails. She rapidly closes her mail, calls up several data files only to close them all again, reopening and rearranging until the information is laid out in a way that would be impossible to misunderstand.

When she flips it around, what she's showing are the schematics to the Gods-Smiting Whip. Not its public specs, but its true self. Its beating heart, with only the cockpit data excepted. Even that is a kind of sharing, isn't it? There are detailed glyphs explaining the nature of her crystal fire drive and the conduits she designed herself and built with only help and resources procured by her own close-knit engineering team.

The Nine Drive System: an energy transfer device that operates on the principle of alternating current, pushing power from one output device to the next and even drawing latent, leaked energy signals into itself from competing systems in the atmosphere itself. In short, a beast that devours its prey and becomes stronger with every passing battle. In short, a family of smaller figures working in concert to take down the largest foes imaginable. In short, a weapon. One that only she, only Mirror, could operate. The system is stupendously complex and fiendishly intricate, the sort of thing it would take hours of intense study to really understand. Certainly more than the handful of seconds Mirror lets it be seen.

But for someone like Trosta, it surely says enough. Ancient concepts, expressed in novel ways. Uniquely Hybrasilian ideas, blending ideology from the Hunter and the Fisher lodges, bound together in response to her exposure to the Gods of Zaldar, both the tiny and the huge. Here, she would see, was an effort by the ugly stray to transform her body into something godlike and glorious, to rise up and over the bar she'd fallen short of.

And now she was seeking to alter it again.

"I will say it again. Armor has no interest for me. For protection, I have plenty. What I lack, what was revealed to me... is restriction. I need a system that will bind and baffle my hands, and occupy my mind. I need a system that will reduce my sum capacity so that I can overcome it and develop new techniques. Like She did. I need a system that will reward me for testing myself against it even as it seals away my old tricks.

In short, Miss Trosta, and her darling little helper... I am interested in chains."

Breathless Dead

There's electricity caught in the back of her neck. There's fire racing down her arms to settle in her fingertips. There's a hurricane thrashing about her chest. Her vision is specked with silver. This is it. This is it. The thought pounds inside her skull with the relentless pressure of war drums.

The Hunt is back on.

Bella's body is as fluid as the river she watched on Salib, and as firm and unyielding as the walls of the Yakanov. She does not glide or sway behind Redana; she prowls. Liquid motion gives way to planted feet and muscle tension worthy of a mountain that crushes the floor beneath her. There's electricity caught in the back of her neck. There's fire burning in her fingertips. Sparks are bursting all along her back, and she has to fight not to let them explode into burning wings.

Not yet. Not yet. Silver specks are building into a line, but they are still disjointed. Her nose closes off scent after scent, narrowing the possibilities down to a manageable space. She knows what she's looking for this time. Not the faint whiff of perfumes and chemicals trying to cover over that pheromone tell, that won't ever fool her again. She is sniffing for Mynx's true scent, which is to say Redana's scent. Perfected. The real Redana is sweaty and nervous and coated in wolf musk. Mynx will be a better, purer version of the smell underneath all of that. Anything less would fail to live up to Mynx's idea of the princess. It would be a failure on her part. She can fake a flaw on purpose, but not one that implies a failing of Dany's. That's her true tell. Bella will never mistake it again, if she can simply find it.

The waiting is unbearable. Her palms itch, and demand to be flexed. Her claws stretch ominously, promising death. The silver path is winding around Redana's silly dancing girl persona, tighter and tighter and tighter. Soon, the moment would come. The moment to pounce. Mynx would lower her guard to attack. She'd go after Redana first, confident she's a step ahead of Bella. She'd only need a tiny nick, and this whole fucking thing would become pointless. It would end in death. And maybe... maybe the pair of them were still very much alike after all.

Well fuck her. No. If that path ended in failure for her every time she took it, Mynx wasn't going to manage it either. No. If Bella has to keep living, so does Mynx. It's in the middle of that thought she almost misses it. The pair of princesses are dancing. The push and pull, the give and take, the inevitable defeat. The pressure in her spine is unbearable. Wait, it says. Wait. And while she's coiling tight enough to make her own strike, Mynx moves in for the kill.

And misses. Something stops her, and in that moment of hesitation Bella closes the gap and sends Mynx sprawling across the hall. She is not gentle. The move will daze, and it leaves her in the open where escape is not an easy option. Her eye has been calculating the angle on this strike the entire time she's been prowling.

"Mynx..."

Yes? Mynx what? What is she supposed to say? It's time to stop? You don't need to do this? I'm here for you? No it isn't. Yes, she does. No, she's not. And if she was, then she's shown more than enough times that it's a bad thing for Bella to be there for anybody. There's no way to finish her sentence. No way to even start it. The only thought worth expressing is the one she doesn't dare try.

Why? Why didn't you tell me? Why, for all that time, did you let me think I was different from you? Why did you lie?

Bella's mouth closes without a sound. She turns away from her prey, though she bends both ears back to track things anyway. There's something more important right now. Something she can say, because she doesn't have to say it to just one person. Her hand clasps around Redana's wrist, and she lifts the princess to her feet as easily as if she were lifting a child.

There's a pause. Another moment of hesitation that almost costs her everything. Bella's voice is raw, when she finally speaks.

"I need you."

She turns. Her ELF flares across her back, scorching her dress but expanding no further than a meter or so to either side of her. Controlled violence. Measured aggression. In a flash, she vanishes. She crosses the space between herself and Mynx without touching the surrounding air, and puts her fist through the floor not even a breath after a shaky Mynx has risen to her feet. Bella snarls, and both eyes gleam with menace.

You're gonna fight, Mynx. The gods damn you, you're gonna fight and get this shit out of your system. That's what Bella can offer you. If there's one thing she's learned, it's that peace only comes after defeat.

[Keep Them Busy: 4, 2, +2 = 8. At the end of this sequence, the fight will turn against Bella]

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Hmph. Irritating, the degree to which people never think through the ramifications of a thing. Order after order after order, no specifications to speak of. Ridiculous. Absurd. Did no one realize the cost of an endeavor like this? Clearly not.

To be certain nobody who saw her show, saw Mayze's show, and understood would know how to ask for a dress that was made just for them. They weren't meant to, even having a flower in mind was silly, unnecessary, extra information from people more worried about seeming connected than they were with getting the piece that actually fit them. Certainly, little sillyheads, you may have precisely the petals you were dreaming of. Bravo to you for thinking you know what those are. You might even be right! But that's not at issue, here.

While asking her what flowers you wanted your dresses grown from, did it occur to a single one of you that these dresses would, in fact, be grown from flowers? To spec?? Was she unclear about the way this process worked? And despite this, not a single prospective client shared their measurements and dimensions. Fools, what made you think that listed dress size was enough? This is not a factory. Every mannequin needed to be built in exact replica of the client. Now she'd need to reverse engineer it from publicly available photos! Idiots!

...As soon as she finishes reading it, she deletes the Chrysanthemum mail. No actionable information. Ok, you're mysterious, so what? Goodbye, see you again later. Next time bring a degree of trackable mystery and you might actually get her attention. As things stand there's too many other puzzles to solve and this is too likely to fizzle into something useless. Pass. Next was Charon. Flowers for the underworld, is it? Difficult to know where to begin with that. Maybe she could... no, getting ahead of things here. This isn't the place to get wrapped up in design work. Play later, Mira. Mayze Szerpaws has no place in a forge.

Maelia Dala, though. Well that was a mystery worth exploring. If only for stress relief. Best to respond after a delay with clarifying questioning, tease out the details of the person behind the order. If this was some flustered assistant assuming the big name designer would only work with names she recognized... well. Again, the dress must be made to a person's exact body shape, or there'd be no point to making it at all. And if it was the great scientist after all? That would be its own sort of fun. Perhaps it would behoove her to assume this was straightforward after all? It would let her get to the design process faster, and... mm. Mm. More distractions. Flag it, put it aside.

Which left Adriana Teresio. Grand Queen of the human world. This one at least was easy to understand. She'd watched the show seen Mayze's work, and like everyone else cut straight past her attempts at expression and jumped to the big showstopper piece. Fair enough. But this one goes a step farther. Strict directions, but unlimited sanction. To 'avoid restricting the designer's creativity', that would be the public reasoning. Stupid. Anyone could see what this really was: a challenge. A slap in the face. This woman was daring her to be bold beyond any of her previous designs. Adriana Teresio thought she was a woman without flaws to highlight. You will learn, Human Queen. You will learn. She was serious when she offered to overthrow the Zaldarian Empire for Solarel, do not think yourself safer. Hmph.

It's a lot to think about, all at once. So it surprises her when she stops tuning out the pounding of the hammer and is greeted with a Hybrasilian face. Mattara... Swimmer, is it? Eight Cigni? Oh, how curious! A hybrid!

"A Worlder, working this far out? Fascinating. Truly. Mira Fisher, Whispered Promise. I am... not a customer. Not looking to buy. I don't want your services. My team is adequate. I will wait, if I must. Oh, to clarify: I seek information. Expertise, if you don't mind. My [Partner] was sabotaged recently, while my hangar was staffed. Allegedly. I simply want to understand how this is possible."

The look of disappointment on Matty's face hits like a knife in Mirror's neck. Tch. Hffff. Shocking. Irritating. She's so overwhelmed by the aura suddenly hitting her in the face that she almost hands back the ginger beer without comment. She also almost reaches into her pockets for some way to pay for it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop making that face. You knew what you were doing when you came out here to work, what made you think you'd see another cat looking to let you tinker with her life's work? You could not have recognized her, could you Matty? Or you would triply never have dared to..!

She blinks. Her eyes wander across the expansive hall, as they might have on their own. But this time, it's a retreat from that face. What she sees pulls her breath from her. She takes a loud sip of the ginger beer before she realizes what she's doing. Cold, mostly bitter, but a little bit pleasantly tingling and sweet. Not sweet like Slate's drink was, just barely enough to stimulate. And relax. Ahhhh. Home is so very, very far away. Isn't it?

What a. Fascinating place. The workings of nanobots are inscrutable. Bleeding edge tech to use them so specifically, if she understands Zaldar even a little bit. And she flatters herself to think she does. But the hammer blows ring in her ears, making them flinch and flatten, making her heart pound faster and faster to keep up with the rhythm. Archaic techniques guiding modern advancements. Here as well. Here... as well.

Is that what makes her pulse constrict so much it hurts? Is that what makes the guilt crawl over here like ten thousand prickling needles? Is that what makes her finish her drink so recklessly fast? Is it why she almost hands the glass back as if to dare to ask for another one? Is that why? Is that? What face is she making? Why is Matty looking back at her?

Mirror swallows. Her face feels hot. She wipes it with the back of her wrist. She leans closer, gestures for Matty to lean in with her. And she surprises herself when she starts to whisper:

"I do, actually. Have work I need done. There are parts I cannot produce myself. Outside consultation to finalize the design. I simply... it was not a lie. My [Partner], the Gods-Smiting Whip, was tampered with this morning. I do not know why or how. You see my issue, yes? Can I. Can I count on you? To be discrete?"

Hrn. Stupid, why did she say that? The only expansions worth making would require, to some extent, explaining the secrets of the Nine Drive System to a stranger. But now that face was lighting up. Coming to life! So earnest, serious, and guilelessly giddy. Damn it all, there was no backing out.

Mirror's tail curls behind her with apparent pleasure. She frowns and flicks it from side to side to calm the feeling welling up inside her. She cannot help that it looks just like wagging.

Breathless Dead

This is not a place of pleasure.

She has to keep reminding herself as she crosses the party. She is here to do a job and if she lets even one extra thing into her heart she's going to wind up breaking all of them into pieces. She is here to find Mynx. Put right just one of the hundreds of things she's done wrong. Any more distractions can only hurt her, can only cost her everything she's trying to protect.

But. The drumbeats pound thunder inside of her bones. Echoes ache in her lungs, pull at her brain, rattle through her body until she can't possibly help but adjust her steps to follow the rhythm.

But. The smoke lives inside her lungs now. Bella is trained against the corrupting influence of Oratus pheromones, but she has no defense against drugs fit only for hedonism. This is a haze of celebration made to enhance the pleasures the victim is already feeling. Evil. It could even be one of Mynx's poisons, she doesn't know. She doesn't care. She can't care. The taste on her tongue is sweeter than flower wine, her arms pulse after every heartbeat with a fresh surge of power in relaxation in intoxicating tandem. Every flick of her tail behind her tingles with strange warmth that demands she touch something soft so she can spread it.

But. Her eyes are filled with the sight of Redana. Redana, in her silks. Redana, with her softly singing bells that Bella's ears insist on hearing overtop the chaotic music. Redana, swaying her hips with the sultry confidence of a temptress. What happened? Where did that awkward little princess go? The sight of her bare back pulls Bella helplessly forward with every ripple of those Olympian muscles. She would follow this plan of the Princess' whether she agreed with it or not.

The smell of her. Lust and nerve and determination painted over perfumes of several warriors of Ceron. Bella grimaces, and her claws stretch in warning as she glides silently behind her prancing princess. She forces herself closer, and closer still, pushing through the crowd until their bodies are near enough that the wrong step will send them tumbling into each other.

The wrong step happens over and over again. Bella's hands are gentle on Redana's soft skin. Wrapping around her shoulders, stealing touches, stealing squeezes, stealing precious seconds of contact under the guise of putting the silly girl back on her feet with a tiny growl of admonition to go with each. This little act of theirs is pathetic. If Mynx were her usual self she'd fall out of hiding just to roll on the floor laughing at the pair of them. Just fuck already, she'd say if the two of them were alone on the Anemoi. And then her scales would ripple in her equivalent of a blush she wouldn't be able to hide in the time it would take her to say she was kidding, she was just joking, gods, Bella.

What the fuck was she thinking? This is not a place of pleasure.

Mynx isn't her usual self. Only an idiot didn't know what Rampancy looked like, and what cure was anything she had to offer against that? All she can do is offer her neck in penance, and even that would only push her further down into ruin. She needed a miracle far beyond forgiveness to fix a single fucking thing.

And Redana... doesn't say a thing about Bella's touch. All she does is look away, adjust her veil, and return to her search. Those little glances back are reprimands, checks to make sure the former handmaiden is sticking to the plan. And she knows this with certainty, because every time, Redana steps away. Every time, she chooses to be a hero.

Instead of Bella's. A lifetime's worth of dreaming and hinting and carefully worded questioning with nothing to show for it should have been enough to teach her that. How was she supposed to overcome that? How many times was she going to forget she had nothing to offer a woman who could snap her fingers and have anyone in the galaxy she desired, whenever she wanted? What was she supposed to say to compete with that? I love you?

Ridiculous.

The true form of the toxin reveals itself. Pleasure turns to paranoia. Ease turns into unbearable tension. Bella sniffs deeply and loudly, trying to find a scent, literally any scent, that isn't Redana's. But there are none, apparently, in the entire room of full of Bacchanalia. Her claws strain at the end of her fingers. Mynx is coming. And Bella still can't find her.

She needs Redana for that, too.

Breathless Dead

The first sound she hears is a dull clunk: an awkward and atonal thing that's as far from beauty as this rusted, dying crapsack of a ship is from the heart of the Empire. It's a stunted noise, nothing more than a tiny bit of rubber striking a piece of pinched metal. It is the sound of a dancer catching her foot on a scrap of silk and falling on her face. One brief moment of attempted beauty cut down at the knees by poor execution.

But it bends her ear all the same. Bella half turns her head to put sight to the ugly noise. And she sees the bell flick loose from the collar it got caught in. The sudden symphony of chimes puts her heart straight into her throat. Her ears flutter stupidly with each new jingle. Her fingers squeeze Beljani's hand hard enough to turn it into dust; the only way she has to acknowledge the two moments pinching her together in their vice at the same time.

There are three bells, two small and one larger than any that she'd worn in her time. They have their own distinctive tones and pitches, high and clear or low and soothing, and when they blend together it sends the kind of tremble down her spine that pulls her foot around with her consent and moves her a full step closer. The call of them. The smell of silver and leather and silk. The smell of sweat and brine and nervousness. The feeling of organs crawling around inside her.

"What... the fuck?"

Bella's eyes seek the floor, instinctively searching out protection. She tries to pull her head away to search for the spiral and save herself in the depths of the hunt, but gold and silver paths both are hidden under clouds of cigarette smoke. The party falls away as if the whole of the Plousios was toppling over and crumbling into a great bottomless pit that leaves only this tiny, smoking platform left to stand on. The only important place in the universe.

So looking to the floor only helps her see the pair of dainty bare feet begging for attention and painted toes. When she retreats, muscular calves and thighs expertly not covered by triangles of diaphanous silk are the only road she has to run on. Up the thighs, and between, to the colors held there. Soft blues, purples, and golds that make her body melt and freeze at the exact same time.

Her breath hitches. The Auspex traitorously records every bare millimeter of Redana's body. The twitching of her abs as she sways and rolls, the princess not quite able to stop herself even as the reality of her situation catches up to her. Nervousness and confidence circle each other like twin hawks, and between them drops of sweat trickle down her royal skin in patterns that make Bella's tongue press itself against the backs of her tightly clenched teeth.

Dizzy. Hot. Her body sways in mirror to Redana's. She only barely remembers to let go of Beljani before her feet carry her forward again in a daze. Her face must be crimson just now. Fuck it. Just... fuck it. Her eyes travel up, over the soft and tiny breasts that haunted every dark, lonely night and terrified her at every bath and oil massage. Her tongue is turned to lead. Her mind along with it. She sniffs, and there's not a smell in the room that is even the slightest bit tolerable, let alone appealing. But she drinks deep of them like a woman dying of thirst, deeper, deeper, deeper. It is the most beautiful thing in the galaxy.

Up, up. Past the perfect collarbones, to the collar with the beautiful bells. To the bouncing, dangling silk that covers the neck. Up. To the face. To the eyes. Mismatched, just like hers. Staring, just like hers. Gems. Stars. A universe worth of treasure, locked all on her.

She steps forward. Closer. Closer. Again. Tiny steps that use her entire body, send the motion through her hips and waist and arms as if to show her princess an example. Like this, you moron. To set someone's heart on fire, you move like this.

The tip of her tail brushes Redana's stomach and across her waist as she passes. Anything more would have been impossible even if she wanted it. But on this day of treasures and miracles, this might stand as the sweetest of them. Bella's face betrays equal parts embarrassment and confusion, but her body is heat, power, and confidence. She steps forward again, farther away this time, and stops.

She runs her fingers over the scale in her palm, and plants her feet on the ground. It's her, between the princess and the party. No entry without permission. Bella sniffles once, barely audible. Just a leftover reflex from a moment before. The joy of gaining a sister. Nothing more.

She is being greedy enough already.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

It begins with fusion cuisine. Slate's idea, naturally. When in a multicultural hub, why not take advantage of the unique fruits? Besides, 'sandwiches' sounded fun and exotic. Roasted waterfowl on wild, herbaceous grasses with a mildly salty sauce and a... nut of some description that neither of them could identify. Served, rather ostentatiously, between a pair of crispy 'breads' which represented one of the heights of Consortium cookery. Along with chocolate, of course, but that was toxic to them in the way that TC prepared it, and the Hybrasil adaption was perhaps a little...

Anyway. Interesting. Crunchy, sweet, salty, a satisfying puzzle. Good recharge food. Mirror initially left half her plate untouched, too absorbed in conversation to consider bringing it to her mouth, but in the end she simply couldn't help herself. But there was so very much to talk about, after all. Repair plans and countermeasures, sabotage speculation, the performance of Nine Drive the level of engineering miracle it would take to develop new capabilities for the Tail conduits within the span of the tournament.

The tournament. In the end it's what pushed her away from the hangar. Every question about The Gods-Smiting Whip begged a question about the match, and that demanded answers that couldn't be found chipping out the damage on burned out armor plates. And even though the team could handle the work that needed doing just fine on their own, they'd handle it much better with Slate's hands and head around to help them. And Slate wouldn't stop begging to be sent back to work before 'the jokes built up to lethal levels'.

Akar II it was, then. Mirror knew little enough about these little outpost planets to be able to pick one hunting ground from another beyond what they printed in the brochures, but as it happened the brochures were enough to tell her that if she wanted a technical question answered about the construction of mecha hangars then that was the place to go. And any place was as good as any other place if she wanted to hear speculation about her match statistics and outcome. Perhaps if Mayze... no. It would cause more problems than it solves to let her be seen directly. She'd have to put together a disguise as an intermediary, instead. Perhaps electronically was best? Uncertain. Regardless. Akar II. Multitasking always felt good. Information more soothing than food. Even... well. She should probably eat a second time. A restaurant would mark a good chance to collate her information, once she had it.

And so it was she missed those flowers. Later, she would come back and learn about them from her team. She would even feel guilty about it. Like her choice to pursue her own tactical enrichment was actually a failure on her part. Like the reasonable move would have been to anticipate Valentina's level of understanding and bend her habits and decision making to match, for long enough at least to reciprocate the gesture. It must have been quite a night, she'll suppose. Surprising. Nevertheless, guilt. Enough of it to send her engineer on an adventure to deliver another handwritten note:

'The Star's Breath is toxic to me. The small purple one. No, that's not right. Allergy. That's the word you use for it. Not lethal. Simply an irritant. Rash under fur on contact. But, the gesture is appreciated. Sincerely. Your recreation of my dress was impressive. I am touched. Mayze's dress, technically. But I wore it. You saw me wear it. As an apology for disappointing you, I will let you see me without it.'

But just now, she has no idea how she'll feel or what she'll wind up inviting Valentina de Alcard to do. Just now she's on a shuttle, heading to Akar II. Plans had failed her time and again today, so this time she was simply winging it. Reach the planet, follow instinct, let it carry her where and to what it would. If that failed, she'd stop and sit and listen, and bend her brain while she bent her ears. To simple a plan to be sabotaged, this time. Even sabotage would be it's own form of information, in this context.

This is the first time. The first time since she learned Solarel would be her opponent, the first time since she learned Solarel had chosen such an inferior machine as the Bezorel to be her god's shell for their reunion... the first time since all of it that she's found herself just sitting. Waiting. Breathing.

Immediately, she reaches into a carry bag and plucks out a datapad. This would be the first time her mind was focused enough to check the account of Mayze Szerpaws, too. Might as well see what the orders looked like. And who was asking.

Breathless Dead

She'd read a book about snowflakes, once. It was Redana's book, one of her school things left carelessly out when she'd decided she was done with studying and couldn't be bothered to think about who would have to clean up after her decisions later. It wasn't even a textbook as she'd come to know them, more a collection of poetry that claimed to be from the ancient world and talked about the wonders that had long since vanished from the galaxy.

She'd been behind on her chores that night. But the way the light hit that paper, she hadn't been able to help herself.

A tiny thing, a fleeting thing. A cold, precious, beautiful thing that lands on your outstretched palm and glitters in the light before your passion turns it into... she can't remember how it goes. And this scale is hardly cold like the words said it should be. It wasn't melting or vanishing in her hand. It wasn't fleeting at all, this smooth and brilliant thing. But even still it calls this word to mind, from out of the depths of her memory. For the first time, she has a picture to go with the idea. And even though she'll never see one, with this she's sure she never needs to.

...What a day for treasures.

Bella's eyes narrow as she folds her palm closed over the scale. She pulls her hand away from the strange computer creature, to a neon flash of protest. Her spine straightens, her shoulders lift, her neck stretches. In contrast to Beljani, she looks directly forward; focused and intense in a way that either means she is deeply touched or deeply offended with no space for feelings in between. Her expression is stony and severe: lips only barely pursed and parted with her jaw set firm. Her eyes gleam in murderous red and gold.

She lifts her hand, still closed around the scale, up to shoulder height. She squeezes the little treasure tight, and it grows warm inside her tightly curled palm. It is warm and smooth, and the light it gives off is just strong enough to give off a faint glow that just barely breaks through her skin. And it does not disappear. She turns suddenly, and spits.

"I", she says with the graveled voice of a huntress, "Am going to find Mynx."

Her hand lowers. She lets it drop limp down to her hips, though she keeps that fist clenched tight. Her tail flicks behind her as she walks, and her sandaled feet make soft tak-tak-tak noises with every step. Tak-tak-tak, the foot meeting the cold metal floor. Pressing down, springing off, the sandal following foot a split second after. Tak-tak-tak. She sways her hips. She tenses her legs into things of steel. Power, purpose, drive. The invincible assassin with no time or patience for feelings. Tak-tak-tak. She approaches. Her will is iron. Her gaze is distant.

"I am going to save Mynx," her voice has gone so quiet now that it's as if she's speaking on the Anemoi, I don't give a single worthless fuck what it costs me."

She is close now. Close enough to smell the person under the pheremone and discern the sting of nervousness smothering her. The slight twitch her arm trying to reach forward for her "sister" only to think better of it. But too late, and too far back. Beljani's entire body is draining of heat as quickly and surely as though she'd been cut in half on the spot. Bella snorts.

"And you." she says. Her voice trembles worse than her fingers around the scale.

It is the speed of an attack that cannot be guarded against. No amount of training, self discovery, or improvement could prepare her for the strike of a Diodekoi in the full might of her element. Bella's arms are vices around Beljani, and they squeeze tight enough to trap her in place forever. All she's got left is the use of her forearms. Just enough, if she tries, to return the hug.

"And I want you to help me. Sister."

Bella's voice gives way to tears. Warm, wet relief stains her face. A hundred nights or more spent worrying, spent wondering, spent hating herself for hoping. For feeling the connection and never knowing how to hold onto it. And even now, she knows she doesn't deserve it. The rooftop on Salib was the best that she was capable of, and all it had resulted in was a not quite lethal mauling. Crushing one sister to try and save another. The last left broken and forgotten, and in the end she'd collapsed anyway and delivered them all into the hands of the Master.

Self loathing didn't begin to cover it. Of course that was the real shape of the leash, you idiot. But here you, but here you, but here you..!

Bella shakes, and holds onto her temple sister firm enough to keep her here even if she melted into mist and tried to float away on the air. Family. Family. The only ones who understood what it meant to be herself. They walked a path just one step to the side of hers, and that's why she can't push these feelings away. If she deserves it or not, it's beyond her power to turn it away.

It's fine to be selfish, isn't it? It's fine to take, and take, and take until she can't even stand. It's fine to hope. To hope for at least one more impossible thing, and not deserve it. It must be. It has to be. Or the snowflake would have melted in her hand. Right?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

It takes her a while to answer. She doesn't open her eyes or lift her head off of Slate's lap, except occasionally for the tiniest bit necessary to sip on her refreshed drink. It's good. She'd considered that it might have simply been a consequence of post-combat nutrient deficiency, but no. This is well and truly delicious, how had she never come across it before? What other secrets was her engineering team hiding from her?

She snorts, and lets her head turn to the side so that she's facing Slate directly, and all she'd need to do is open her eyes to drink in the view of her. She does not. She stays still, eyes held gently shut, and allows their paw to glide through her hair and soothe her. Still no response. Her mind is busy with the knot of her fight with Solarel. She reconstructs it from the opening move, her every decision and response. The timing of her inputs and the quality of her move selection. Her lip twitches as she reaches the shutdown.

There is no visual element to her recreation. It's a play-by-play of a data stream, words taking the place of every single sense and simply echoing in the void inside of her. This is necessary. When she takes the sensory data onto a neural weave later, the reconstruction exercise will give her the context she needs to absorb it without overload or breakdown. Everything that pushed her to explore alternative systems in the first place would invert, and she would finally, finally understand what Solarel was saying. If only for a minute. Had her rewire preserved enough power to core systems for her to be able to experience the sensation of total shutdown? Her heartbeat races at the question.

"I might fire you someday, Slate," Mirror says without a hint of playfulness or irony, "But I will never replace you."

She feels a paw suddenly catch in her hair as it seizes up in a moment of panic sudden enough that it can't quite be disguised or converted back into the rhythmic stroking fast enough to cover it. For three glorious seconds, that hand can't decide if it wants to pull away (and risk pulling Mirror's hair hard enough to cause pain), simply sit there (and let Mirror feel how bad it's shaking), or escalate (oh, would you dare, Slate?). She feels the pressure of a thumb suddenly rubbing circles at the base of her ear. Mirror grins from ear to ear, delighted and toothier than a shark.

"Even, now. But I'm serious. The day we're unfit to work together is the day I destroy our Nine-Tails. I will never pilot another craft for as long as I live."

"But, uh, n-not today. Right Boss?"

"...Inevitable discovery," Mirror sighs softly as fingers start playing on the base of her neck in a brazen display of escalation, "That's what you mean to tell me. I made a mistake. It may only be a single observer perhaps, but the fact that the possibility can't be discounted means that one or more persons or factions will make the connection. Sabotage means somebody saw inside my-- it means that. Somebody. Saw. Understanding irrelevant. Offhand conversation over drinks will be final confirmation for our mystery observer."

Mirror cracks one eye open, cold and furious. The water in her iris looks almost frozen. She grabs her drink and loudly slurps the rest of it down to nothing. She licks her lips with a lot more passion than is necessary.

"Order a meal, please. For each of us. Your selection, my money. You know interesting flavors. Furthermore, continuing, your assertion is that we have minimal control over the nature of discovery. We cannot 'get in front of the narrative', as they say. [Fang to Feather (Negative Conjunction)]. If we speak out or make a move to contain the flow of information we reveal that we, that I am interested in hiding something. If we do not complain publicly about the act, we invite tournament level scrutiny. So you see? Our wrists are bound tight. We can only aid in the detective work. Either, broadcast all heretofore undisclosed details of Mira of the Fisher Clan, Whose Star Name is Whispered Promise, or else..."

"...Inevitable discovery." Slate finishes with a heavy sigh and a wince she can't keep out of her thigh muscles.

"Cannot know the nature of the discoverer. Not enough information to even guess. Maybe it will only be a curiosity to them. Maybe they will use it as a weapon. Maybe they will ask for help. No way to tell. Saying that? Still useful conclusion. Listen to the river feed into the lake, Selin Makers. We will want to know who knows, and ideally as they know it."

"C-could you, ah? Not use that name in front of the girls?"

"You would prefer I used it in bed?"

"BOSS!!!"