Phoe

Breathless Dead

Redana!

This is the 99th time that you have been put back together. This will be the 100th time you are torn apart.

There are so many ways to be killed when you don't fight back. You have felt your throat torn out, quick and easy. You have been pummeled by fists and apologies until your bones and your muscles all lost their shape and firmness and you collapsed into a vaguely you-shaped mess. You have been showed the inside of your own heart, of your lungs, of most every major piece of you that anybody could care to name. You have always been allowed to keep your eyes, though: this last time they carved you away chunk by bloody miserable chunk until eyes were all you were. They apologized for that. They always apologize for everything they do to you. But then Bella looks at them, and they do it all again. And every time afterwards they always stitch you back together perfectly. As though none of it happened.

Though, of course, it did.

Everywhere you look is panic and desperation. This room full of maids is covered in your blood, each of them trembling and retching from the overwhelming saturation of it all. The color. The texture. The smell. The heat. It is every Bella's dream to be covered in your scent, but this has wrapped around to torture. This time when they throw themselves at you it is even more of a disorganized rush than usual. They are slow. They stumble. Their claws do not tear at you. Their fists do not pulverize you. Instead...

"Mistress!"

"Lady Redana!"

"My Lady!"

"Princess!"

"Your Highness!"

"PLEASE!"

You are held. Clung to. Pawed at. Grasped at with such desperate longing that you can feel it squeezing your heart. But their hands are soaked and slick with your blood, and without digging in their claws they cannot take hold of you and keep it. The heat from their collective bodies causes you to sweat; it is much worse for them. A hundred maids writhe in agony, reaching through the mass of themselves even still just to touch you once more, just one more time, just one last time!

"Please, please, please," goes the chorus, "Please, please, please!"

They do not all die unique deaths. There are repeats. A handful of favorites. But even still, it is astonishing the sheer variety with which a palace maid can fall apart.

Some of them crack across their faces. They crumble into piles of blue-black stones with pitiful wails still on their shattering lips. Some of them melt with agonizing slowness into the raw tar-stuff that this maze seems to be built out of. Some of them wither into dust, starting from their fingers and the tips of their ears. Some of them roll around on the ground screaming in anguish, even now trying to beg 'please', even now reaching out with their hands which fall apart like broken mannequins filled with bone and blood as some kind of cruel joke before they can manage that last touch. One of them simply dissolves into a grey mist of cigarette smoke and wafts toward your lungs.

A white tail blows her apart before she can reach you. Bella, the queen of the ballroom in her extraordinary gown, peers down through half-lidded eyes and wrinkles her nose in distaste.

"Really? After all of that?"

She shakes her head with an air of sadness about her. She lifts the champagne flute to her lips, but it is empty. She has already poured it all down your throat.

"You know, I think it might have been less cruel if you'd simply killed them yourself."

Dany!

"Do not mistake my generosity for tolerance, child. Nor should you mistake my preference for your power. You have not come to a bargaining table, and I was not asking. Do not make me regret my kindness."

But Bella Meowmeow grips your fingers even tighter than death, and finds the courage to stand that head or so taller.

"Sh-sh-she said... n-no! We... d-don't d-d-deserve this!!"

"This is your final warning, Fragment. Even my forgiveness has a limit. You will both climb in this Box and you will not leave it until commanded. I will not ask again."

"She... she isn't going to love us! I-isn't that the point of... of everything?"

"Us?" laughs Bella Aurelia, "You little fool. It is her job to love me. What need have I for a Redana that will not accept my methods? Or for a little adventurer who will dash off toward every new horizon without checking if I care to follow? Since I must mold my perfect wife anyway, it is hardly any extra effort to simply build her from scratch. All that matters is my love."

The fingers go slack. Only a little. The smaller Bella shivers, only a little. Her fear is music. Only a little.

"Y-you...you're a--"

Bella Meowmeow's entire body goes limp. She tries to gasp, but it only comes out as a wet bubbling noise. And she is lifted into the air like a doll, impaled through the chest by Desire.

"A mere Fragment is not fit to tell me anything, you cretin. I am the true Bella. I am the end of the journey, the culmination of all she is and every dream cradled tenderly inside her heart. What are you, by comparison? Just a memory. Childhood memories..."

She scoffs, and twists the blade in the air. The air fills with wet attempts at screaming and the sounds of tearing fabrics and crunching bells, as the butterflies of the garden all scatter and flee in all directions. There is only the blood of this sad little girl and her fingers clutched desperately around the blade, as though by holding it there inside of herself she could keep it from hurting her best friend.

And Bella Aurelia sneers at her efforts. With the merest flick of her wrist she discards her child self and sends her flying into the rose bushes. Red drips from every leaf and coats every petal. The garden drinks it all thirstily while the Empress produces a cloth out of the same shadow stuff as The Box to wipe her sword clean with.

"Useless. Why should this single moment in time carry so much importance? Children have no real personalities, they are less people than even the meanest of Servitors. You might have pulled her ears off as easily as you pulled her out of that silly container. Should she then have nursed a lust for revenge across those miserable decades? Stupid. Pointless. You were and are a random decision engine; there is no value in anything that you do. I will burn the past clean in the fires of my perfect future. And we will have no need of--"

She turns her head, suddenly. That horrible howl, an expression of pure rage, washes over the garden with such force that it strips several bushes of their bloody flowers entirely. Snarling, slavering, shivering, XIII pounces from the shadows with her wicked claws turned straight on Bella Aurelia. The Golden Hero and the blood soaked beast clash on seemingly equal footing. For the moment, their world is each other.

You hear a horrible cough, and you're sure that it's what Dying sounds like. It turns into a wheeze, and then into gurgling tears.

"Dany, Dany..." rasps little Bella Meowmeow, "D-do you... see?"

Dolce!

"Stop it!"

The girl reaches for you and misses. She clutches at empty air, and you feel your kneecap shatter.

"Stop it!"

She clutches one of her assassin dolls to her chest for comfort. She fumes and sniffles and squeezes her doll so tight that it starts to make noises on its own.

"Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it STOP IT!!!!!"

There is a scream. It is not hers. It is not yours. The chameleon doll's arm falls from the tea party table, awash in little paper streamer "blood" that nevertheless spatters in hot droplets when it hits the ground as though it were real, only to return to paper as soon as you look at it. The doll writhes in its owner's grasp, but she clutches its head next. Her little fingers crush its soft face as her arm trembles with the effort of holding in her fear, of trying to be brave for mommy, when suddenly...

Rip.

She is holding a chameleon doll's body in her hand. She is holding its head in the other. Her fingers are stained red and she looks down on all of it with total non-comprehension. All she can do is hold them toward you, the only adult in the room.

"Fix it."

But how can you? Even modern materials have a limit, you would need to make a new assassin entirely to replace this poor, abused thing after what she's done to it. It's a miracle it hasn't disintegrated under her attempts at loving it, frankly. Besides--

You are burning. You are not a star yourself this time, but plunged inside of one and regenerating endlessly so that you can feel it sear you clean on an awful, agonizing loop. It doesn't last any longer than the other moment, but when you come to in the garden again your leg is still broken. And you are still smoldering, your lungs filled with ash. Do not think about what that ash could be. Just cough it out.

She wails inconsolably. Her frustrated pounding has already shattered her tea set, and sent her remaining assassins scrambling just to get away from her before she can tear them in half too. She has only you to blame, of course. There is no look of hatred more pure than when a child decides you are the enemy.

And your coffee explodes. It reforms. It turns to mercury and flies at your arm in half a dozen goopy tendrils that all sharpen to knife points before they impale you through the wrist.

And then the coffee is in your hands again. It is a can now, and not a cup. Lovingly handcrafted through countless hours of space travel and boredom.

There are, of course, a lot of things that have been said about the creativity of children. This is something of a misunderstanding. She knows very few ways of hurting you, it turns out. Most of them involve stars in some way shape or form. A piece of you here, a nuclear engine of flawed energy production there. Your knuckles, just behind your eyes, up your nose for some reason, again and again and again. Sometimes she remembers other things, sometimes she flails and the grass turns to swords that run you through in places before it turns cool and limp again. Sometimes she forgets to shape her will at all and the only thing you experience is the pure, unaltered concept of pain.

But that is all the creativity of a child amounts to in a moment like this. It is less that she can conceive of infinite possibilities and more that there is nothing stopping her. She bawls, shamelessly, and calls you all sorts of terrible names that are just as blunt and non-cutting as her take on torture. She takes the shortest path toward Want, neither considering what would need to happen to reach that path, or wondering if there would still be a You on the other side of it. It's much easier to just press the button. It would take her time to learn how to make this intimate. She will need to study hard to make you feel it.

But in the meantime she can make you writhe on the floor just fine. At least until she runs out of energy. You are whole, Dolce. If perhaps numb and weak. But through that numbness and that weakness you still know that the pain was almost pure sensation. Hardly anything damaging about it. You can tell there is a can of coffee clutched in your hand, and that a rose blossom is sitting about fifteen or so centimeters from your nose. It smells beautiful.

You can tell that this little girl has lost her ability to cry and scream. She is reduced to sniffling. And, as you are so still and boring, she has also decided it is nap time. You can also tell that nap time is when assassins do most of their work.

You hear the scraping of knives as they slide off the broken table. You have senses enough to know that you are hunted by wolves. They may not be very large, and they may be mostly fluff, but all the same.

From where you are? They should be more than enough.

Ember!

Darkness, darkness, darkness.

And from that darkness, now heat. Sweltering moisture, the limitless yawning black now filled with invisible steam and the oppressive flowing air of a sauna turned up beyond the point of misery.

"Em"

Voices muffled in the murk. Far away. As if through several walls, a whisper in the corner of some other room.

"urn ba"

You sweat alone. You walk alone. There is nowhere to go. There is no point in stopping.

"CaN't save"

The heat is stealing your strength. Your hair and your fur mat with sweat and you feel twice as heavy as you really are. You feel it more with every step. Who is that voice, you wonder?

It sounds almost like Mosaic.

"Just give up, Ember."

You are tired. Your legs won't carry you any farther.

How about your arms?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

What does a simple two-tailed fox know about Space Fashion? Well, would you believe "enough"?

It's not so out of pocket when you consider the company this particular one keeps. A little bit of listening, a little bit of watching, a (very) little bit of reading, and a lottle bit of fantasizing, and just like that Kat is equipped with a few basic but very important rules for success.

RULE NUMBER ONE! You cannot breathe in space! I mean, probably? Maybe someone somewhere can just chill up there who isn't a robot or a doomsday whatsit, but the world isn't so backwards that nobody understands there's no air up there. And like sure, Princess Qiu almost certainly knows a way to survive a void using sword techniques, and Princess Chen might also know a spell that wraps the caster in a bubble or something, which means that Not-A-Princess Yue might have been secretly working on some ridiculous attempt at kludging those two techniques together that makes sense to her but is in practice more difficult than either of them. But those are exceptions! Quite possibly the only exceptions, who all happen to know each other. Actually, probably because they know each other. There's not much of a reason to bother otherwise. Even Hyra would just shrug and suit up.

However the math breaks down (and math always breaks down!), the most important fact is that any cutie who wants to go cutie-ing above the atmosphere line needs to do it in a sealed suit complete with Super Cool Helmet. Luckily Actia thought of everything, and the helmets on offer here all or mostly all have designed adorable plating to accommodate a lady's triangles.

RULE NUMBER TWO! If you are going to do fashion with armor, form factor is the most important consideration. That power armor over there with the awesome flared shoulder plates and the rad punching gauntlets may be cool as heck, but the added weight and bulk of everything means there's only really room in the fit to drape a tabard or whatever overtop of it. Not that that isn't a neat look, but it's a look for a knight. Katherine is not that. She will not take the title from her Servant, or blur the line that Berserker has been using to stay comfortable. That one over there might have a jetpack (!) but what could you possibly accessorize with that? Toss anything over the top and not only will you lose the awesome fit of the suit but you'll look like someone tried to inflate you, making you big and round. So given rule number three, the right kind of space armor for Kat is something tight fitting with well articulated ceramics. And cute boots, of course (of course!).

RULE NUMBER THREE!! You! :Clap: Have :Clap: To! :Clap: Have! :Clap: A! :Clap: Skirt! :Clap: How are you supposed to fight a battle without being pretty?? Huh??? Did you think about that?! How are you supposed to be pretty without a skirt?? It can't be d-- ok well it can. Obviously it can. But it's also a verifiable fact that the edgier or more warlike the rest of your outfit gets, the cuter you can make the whole thing by adding a girly flare around the legs. And it's just as verifiable of a fact that you need to feel good about yourself to get a good performance out of yourself, especially when you're not-so-secretly exhausted and kind of just running on adrenaline and ice cream cake? And finally not that it matters or is at all surprising, but Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits is a girly girl's girly girl, through and through. So again. Rule number three.

That all adds up to a beautiful white armored suit with matching helmet and clear visor, so that her shining eyes keep shining for everyone to see. She puts a kind of retro-future black leather jacket over the top of it with a matching, tight fitting t-shirt that covers up to the top of her thighs and almost doubles as a dress in and of itself. She spends a bit of time fidgeting with all the straps and belts and buckles on the jacket until they're all tightened to her satisfaction, and then she works her skirt on while humming the chorus from her old (rip) ringtone.

In her humble opinion, this skirt is a masterpiece. It's shorter in the front than it is in the back, so it doesn't obstruct her movement too much while trailing out behind her in dark blue and gold trimmed silks that pool like a third, glorious tail behind her feet. Or maybe like feathers. Or like...

It's a simple enough thing. All bold but solid colors in soft and flowing fabrics without any intricate patterns woven into them. The trim is only around the hem and the trail, and is itself just a clean line of gold that makes her feel that little bit fancier about herself. The effect is really in the cut, and the fabric itself. Because when she moves, it flows like water. Constant rippling, wavering, almost but not quite the impression that a school of fish should be wrapping around her legs like a favorite pet. She should be dripping, reaching for a towel and some sunglasses, and yet. Again, again, again. She turns and grind, and the waterfall crashes down behind her. Up, and splash! Back down, until it settles like a bubbling creek behind her again.

She ties a belt around her waist with a throng to hold a sword. She of course has no weapon to call her own right now, but Berserker puts her own in its place. She looks at herself in the provided mirror and gasps with unrestrained awe. If there was such a thing as a Space Princess, surely this is what she'd look like. Or want to, if she didn't.

Her body might be made of aches. Her brain might still be one setback away from a meltdown. But her heart? That's as full as it's ever been. There's a warmth inside of her that the cold logic of a machine or the crushing hunger of space can't possibly extinguish. It doesn't occur to her to ask if this is ok. This one time, she's sure, it is. She doesn't worry about how she's going to pay for this. If it comes to debt she'll just do summer jobs until everybody's happy. It's not like she has any wallets of her own to just give back. Sure, she tried stealing one that one time, but she felt so guilty after the heist that she put it right back before its own even knew it was missing. Everything else had all been for Cy's sake. Or for--

Well. Don't tell anyone she said this, but... she's been a really bad girl, hasn't she? The world wouldn't be doomed right now if it wasn't for her. And maybe... maybe there isn't any coming back from this. So maybe... it doesn't matter how this money gets spent. It's one last little bit of foxgirl mischief before the final confrontation, in an arena she doesn't even know the way back from. Do space elevators even go down? She has no idea.

But right now, none of that. Right now is about hugs. It's about saying thank you to every last one of her friends. To all of the special people who were part of her first solo adventure, who were here with her right now in her hour of utmost need. She casts a little smile down at the earth where all the other special people still were, the ones who were with her in her heart but hadn't been able to make it in time.

She'll... she'll see you soon, guys. She promises. Thank you. Thank you all so much.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Oh, uh, it's not..."

No wait hold on, I've been here before. It doesn't go well to say stuff like, 'No it's just Yue.' That's a whole... I dunno the name for the situation? But it's a thing. I don't have time for Things just now. Apparently? I'm suddenly not super sure what's goin' on.

"Yue's fine. And, uh, oh. Well dang. Gosh, thanks so much for tellin' me? Fox crime, you say. Double dang. Bein' honest, I'm not... ah! Woah woah woah there buddy, I do not know you well enough to, ffmeep! Hey! Slow down! I said, oh goshies, will you just!"

Right, confession? My mule's real bad. Mostly I just try and trace the root words back through horse? Like, there's differences obviously. Plenty enough to trip up a gal who's not studied. But it's close enough, except in a pinch, which this (meep!) is. Look it's not my fault ok? Beasts of burden are way outside of my expertise! I'm more of a wild animals girlie, y'know? Birds and some small skyfish and rabbits and especially the local predator population. If you brought me a wolf right now I could translate just fine! But this is...

Uh, shoot. 'Kay, what do I have on me? Bread's no good, I think I've got an emergency apple or two in one of these, uh, lemme just--

"Oh hey shoot shoot no, dang it! Dang it! My tanghulu! I was savin' thaaaaaaat!"

'Kay. I guess that's a way to solve the problem. Ivar's given me such a stare, I know she'd be chewin' me out something fierce if she thought we could afford the delay. But she's already draggin' me off by the collar instead, so there's not much I can do besides scramble behind her to keep my feet not that she's not carryin' me anymore.

The real problem is the Government went and got involved in all've this. And, like, there's nothing wrong with that! Usually! But like, dang it all the only reason I've been so carefully sneakin' around behind this whole story is to make sure my little Kat doesn't go to cutie jail! And now that it's come to it, not her little friends either! Ahehe, listen to me 'little this' and 'little that' everything. Did I sound like Avenger just now? Heeeeee~

Right, no! Emergency just now! Emergency! I can't exactly explain myself, 'cause foxes have a pretty well deserved reputation. You pretty much never get to convince anyone that you love a fox 'cause you raised them from a kit, it's all schemes this and evil plans that. So it goes, I guess. Anyway, emergency.

"Well, um. So thanks again but. I'm in a bit of a hurry here and... you said you've got a fix? What exactly do you have in mind? 'Cause I don't, uh--"

*

If there's a number small enough for Kat to understand, it's zero. Zero is the basis for all creation, isn't it? It's nothing, and everything comes from and returns to nothing in the end. That's what it means when a foxgirl steals your wallet!

So zero. Or as Cy likes to pronounce it, "overpriced." Most would call it "free". There's a world where you could describe what's happening as a total defeat. Right? Actia gained and then burned an impossibly huge fortune, all of Cyanis' future children will have to make do with C-cups, and foxes all the world over abandoned all manner of awesome and/or devious plans for Kat's sake only for it to have turned out to be free after it'd all already been spent.

It's like... they pretty much just set the foxgirl economy on fire, right? And not even the good kind of fire you get to roast marshmallows on and eat dumplings after while everybody looks at the fireworks or anything awesome like that! No, just like, karma fire, one supposes, or whatever the opposite of insurance fraud is.

And that isn't... that's not ok! Well, like, it is but only because it's annoying Adam so much. Which is both the name of the crisis and the opportunity. Crisitunity, is probably the word for that? Katherine won't back down from her position. If every fox in the world contributes to something, that means they can't lose. They certainly can't lose right away!

So it doesn't matter that there's no plan right now. She doesn't need a plan. She needs a scheme. And while some people, sillyheads mostly, would try to tell you that you can't heist a free elevator ride?

Skill issue.

While the Queen and her servants (that's lowercase) are metaphorically punching Adam in the financial throat, Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits has snuck bravely forward and cut just enough slices of delicious ice cream cake for all of her friends. It's easy to do, because everybody involved is busy with discussion or with the very difficult and fiddly work of dispersing wealth to the populace who can make use of it better than some hoarding meanieface. Also because she's not trying to make off with the whole thing, so she gets the sweetiebiscuit discount on Stealth Checks.

With plates carefully balanced on arms and hands and tails (and on top of her head) she steals her way back over and slips them to Actia and Cyanis and Berserker and Hot Dragon Girl, uh... Elly? Yeah that. And Opalis even though she is a narc and even the monk Diaofei gets a little slice of yummy yummy frozen dessert. Because they all deserve a treat for being here.

And with those treats, they also deserve tickets to the space elevator. With only minor nudging she's able to position all her besties (minus the one person she still can't help but wish was here) on the platform and stick herself in the middle of them. She offers her best and cutiest bow.

"Hi! I know you said we're under arrest? But the thing is I reaaaaaaaally need to go save the world right now? So, sorry! And nyahahaha! We are heisting your free elevator! Ride! The elevator itself is not private property, I agree with you about that part! But the ride? Heisted!"

She laughs from behind her cake, as is proper for a noble lady who grew up in a tiny cottage by a lake and is maybe not actually noble at all. And she waits. And she wonders. So she leans in to Actia, who among all foxes she has ever met seems to Know Everything.

"Psst, hey. Is there a go button we need to press?"

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

There, see? Wishes never come true. Even if you're brave enough to ask for something, chances are you're not going to get what you asked for.

...Though, maybe? It's still a good thing to ask.

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits wipes her eyes on her ruined sleeve. Then she wipes her nose on the other one. Then she goes back to the first sleeve because she's started crying again. She can hardly believe her eyes, for reasons that have nothing to do with watery distortions. What did, what did, what did, what did, what did she just see?

She can't, she! She!

Kat is on her feet before she understands what's happening. It's not that Actia's five tail transformation doesn't register, it's just that there are much more important things about her going on right now. Like that she's here. Like the way she's holding up her phone and the way that number is going down, down, down and the way her blue-painted lips are smiling! Smiling! Her, Actia! Smiling! Not the mischief of a colon followed by a three, but the passion and the love of... of a... a colon! Followed by a three! I-it's just different!

Two Servants (one of them a dragon) are powerless to stop her from launching. A monk is no obstacle at all in the face of her sheer determination. She takes off, not like a missile but a twin-tailed floofy hittle and tackles Actia so hard it takes all five of her magnificent tails to keep from being bowled over. The hug is crushing, but it's soft. The nuzzle against her cheek would be pathetic if it weren't so sincere.

"Y-you came! You made it! You, you, you... thank you! Thank you thank you thank you! I knew it! I knew you were a good girl, I just knew it!"

"HEY?!" squeaks Cyanis, "ExCUSE? Where's my good girl, huh? How many wallets does it take for you to remember your BEST FRIEND??"

"Oh! Cy, I! Well y'know, you've got like... yeah! No of course thank you too! You're here and that's what matters!"

And then she drags the pair of them into a big fluffy snuggle pile so she can laugh and cry at the same time. Berserker watches with an intense glare in her eye and the strange smile to go with it that together tell the tale of a person who is entirely too familiar with alliances that fall apart to petty bickering or ambition, and how special it is when a pack of sillyheads are too soft and too sweet to backstab each other properly. You could call it pride. Pride in her Master, pride in her own taste. Pride so powerful it can conquer the storm inside of her. No England, no Wales, no arguments about who she needs to be or isn't allowed to, only the understanding that what's happening before her is a miracle. A gathering of heroes, of a sort, and that by her own sweat and blood and long labor were the foundations laid to bring it about.

Elizabeth Bathory, meanwhile, chokes down several choice but deeply not-safe-for-idols words. She is furious. Fuming! She's hopping mad about how not mad she is about this whole affair. That stupid mirror was right after all: this little fox is (at least in this moment) cuter than she is. Though her hair is a mess in a way that she would never let it be. And those ridiculous floofy triangles on her head were no substitute for perfectly spiraled horns. And the way she can't do disheveled or distressed half so well as a certain main vocalist she could name (Elly! Elly! Elly! Say her name and scream! Elly!!!) But even despite all those handicaps... ah, jeez! Look, never mind who's cuter than whomst! Once this fox is the president of her fanclub none of that is going to matter!

As for Kat? She is managing the trick of laughing and crying at the exact same time. She's never been so hopeful in her entire life, not even that time Yue left a tray of cookies really close to the edge of the counter and forgot about them for an hour while she went off to take a bath.

It doesn't matter that she doesn't have a plan, or know anybody who does for that matter, for what to do once she's in space. Or any idea of how to follow said plan (that she does not have) once she's there. It doesn't matter that the number for the space elevator is still so big she can't even tell how close they are to beating it. She only knows she's not alone. And the idea that every fox in the whole world could band together and still somehow fail?

That's so silly it doesn't even bear thinking about.

*

"What are we stopping for now, Demon Swordswoman? How much more time do you think we have to spare?"

Oh! She used my title! Well goshies I wanna blush about that so bad right now but unfortunately, she's right. I save the moment inside my head so I can twirl my hair and 'ehehehehehe' about it later, but right this second all I can do is look at Miss Saber-Avenger and point up.

"You can't feel that?"

"Feel... what?" she cocks her head at me and glares in that intense way of hers that says she'd really like to kill something if she could figure out any little way that might benefit her.

Lucky thing for me she can't, huh?

"The air, right? There's a lotta birds fallin' outta the sky right now. Someone did somethin'. I'm just..."

"No, wait a moment. How can you possibly know what's happening to the birds? My eyes are far better than yours and I--"

"Well now who's wasting time, huh?"

I shouldn't be so smug about this, but I can't help it! She's so fun to tease! Ever since she let me braid that wonderful flaxen hair of hers I've felt like we could be besties. Followin' along behind this story the whole time I'm not three thousand percent sure what it takes to be a Master but if I had to pick a Servant it'd be her for sure. But I shake my head before she can admonish me, or worse, drag me away by the collar before I can take care of anything.

"There's just an energy in the air. I dunno how else to explain it. When they pass through a place, if they're happy especially, you can feel it in the currents for hours. But right now they're... I think we might be out've time."

"What will you do, then?"

"I'm... I'm gonna pray. I think. Something's tellin' me that's what my little Kat needs."

"There are no gods to pray to anymore, little sword dancer."

"Hmm. Maybe not, but even stiiiilllLL~~!"

I yelp when I feel her lift me off the ground and set me on her shoulder. Goshies, that strength! It's like I don't weigh more than a sack of potatoes to her. And me, a fully grown woman in dress-armor! Sheesh, what a little adventure this has turned out to be.

"You pray then. I will walk. My oaths demand I reach the girl before the end. But neither will I abandon you to this place. If birds are truly being knocked from the sky than this is no fit place for anyone to be alone, to say nothing of unfocused."

"I see. Well thank you very much, Miss Saber."

"...I would still prefer to be called Avenger."

"As you wish~"

I let the conversation drop with just a smile. I'm good at findin' time to waste but there's limits, y'know? Miss S- sorry, Avenger's stride is so long and steady I almost feel like I'm just flyin'. So I can just close my eyes and focus on my precious Fluffybiscuits.

I dunno what I'm hoping to accomplish. I dunno what good it does to close my eyes and clasp my hands together. I just... I know a lot about a certain kind've miracle. The kind that only works if everyone involved all believes in it together. And I feel it. In my heart, y'know? That I can be the difference for her. I can be what lets her win.

And if that's how it is, I'm happy. I'll give her everything she needs. Because this is her story <3

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Katherine can only watch him go. She can only watch him take the whole point of this with her.

Again. It came down to this again! It didn't matter if she was strong or brave, it didn't matter if she had a heart full of love or if the real treasure was the friends she'd made along the way, it didn't matter if she healed a heart or fought it, if she studied the blade or finance or foxgirl schemes or, or, or, or, or... ANY OF IT! It didn't matter! It, it, it, it, it didn't work! She couldn't beat him! He was the most loser-coded sniveling coward she'd ever met in her entire life and no matter how she came at him he just! Kept! Dunking! On! Her!!!

Her body is so tired. Her brain is so tired. She can barely stand up straight right now and no matter how hard she squints at that stupid screen it won't even make sense! 10 billion? 10 billion?! That's not even a number! That isn't real! What would that even look like? And what was all this other scheming and nonsense and Servants and Sunshard Grail Wars and Actia even for if this was his whole plan anyway?

She didn't. She couldn't. It wasn't supposed to! It was all her fault and she!

The world turns blurry. That's what things look like when there are too many tears in your eyes.

"I'm sorry!" she sobs with the quivering voice of the Defeated, "I'm really, really sorry!"

Berserker appears at her side, bloody but unbroken. All Kat can do is cling to her, almost knocking the smaller woman over in the process.

"I couldn't do it, Berserker! Even with all your help I couldn't do it! You were so brave and so cool and you were the best knight ever and I still couldn't do it! What're we supposed to do? We can't get up there! I don't want the world to end! I wanted you to get a wish! I wanted to show you my house and have tea and cake and stuff! I just wanted to show Cy I'm not a stupid little loser like she thinks I am! And I! And I! And I!!!"

The finality of it all is what breaks her. There's no more plans. No more ideas. No more room for heroes or even Princesses to step in and fix things. It can't be done. Adam has an answer for everything. It's a stupid, frustrating answer, but it's still an answer. And now there's nothing to do and no way to stop him, and she simply cannot handle it. Her body trembles with uncontrollable sadness, limitless despair, and the horrible shame known as Being a Bad Girl.

Elizabeth Bathory's attempts at platitude are less than helpful. For one thing, she sucks at this. For another thing it was never in the job description. For a third thing every time she gets going on a good point she keeps distracting herself by staring up at the sky and saying, "God I better not get blamed for this."

Well it doesn't matter because wishes are all lies apparently anyway. Everything is just harvest stars and stock markets and advertisements for shoes that don't fit and gum you can buy on installment plans. But even if that's true, there's still something she can't help but cling to. One thought she can't get rid of, a childish want she's never managed to grow out of. She can't get rid of it even though the idea of this wish coming true is terrifying, means she is in the Most Trouble and will never be trusted or loved again. But even still. Even still. Even still!

She's thought it over and over since this journey began in the back of a speeding truck full of illicit goods, but she's never dared to say it aloud. But now she can't stop herself. She sniffles as loud as any fox has ever sniffled in the history of foxes, and her lips part of their own accord.

"I, I, I wish..."

She chokes. She feels a spiked gauntlet on one shoulder, squeezing her for support. And a set of delicate pink dragon nails on the other, not really sure what they're doing there but feeling too awkward to not be part of the moment.

"I wish Yue were here..."

Return to Thellamie

Queen of Light ceremony recently held with fractured results. Second Yukisworld visitor Hazel Valentine Fletcher (friend, correspondent) confirmed Child of Prophecy. Yukisworld residents remain at 1:1 invitation to starlight ratio. Curious property, should attempt to make the crossing in the other direction to study their civilization in greater detail.

Regardless, subject involved in caravan wreck of a marriage proposal situation. Appears to have no idea of his circumstances. No cause for alarm. Subject is fully capable of grasping the shape of his own heart once he comes to know and understand love. Without knowing the full list of marriageable candidates it is impossible to speculate on the exact future of the world, but given the target there is no reason to suspect the eventual fiancée will be anyone who could persist in remaining a high class threat after claiming their prize. Will be rooting for him, but other matters retain investigative priority.

Mystery Rank: E-

"Aha. Ravens and Starlight. Well. That is rather... stereotypically Thellamie, is it not? And you say the Goddess gave you an amulet? Was this pre or post her attempted assassination?"

She frowns for a moment, not from any sort of displeasure but in a fussy, lost in thought kind of way. With a shrug, she blows her ink dry and flips her notebook shut. She leans against the back of a chair and taps her chin in deep contemplation. Her eyes rake up and down Hazel's form and the way he carries himself when he knows he's being watched, lingering extra long on the horn-tinsel.

Then she is in motion, taking his head gently between her fingers and tilting it this way and that to see it in different lighting, sweeping her hands across his neck, his shoulders, lifting one of his arms and pressing her fingertips against his knuckles. She tugs on his cape and examines the fabric with the same kind of seriousness to her expression she might have if she were fighting a rogue Paladin or a bandit of some kind.

"They have dressed you in a joke. I see no point in... this," she picks at the thing masquerading as a shirt with complete disdain, "Other than as an attempt to fluster you. I suppose your attendants find that sort of behavior attractive? Well that's as may be, but this is still a dereliction of duty. Shameful."

She disappears among the racks of clothing. Her progress is only traceable by a few vague "hmms" and the occasional clack of a hangar or sudden shift of an item when her browsing becomes more hands-on. One unnervingly silent minute later, she returns with an armful of clothing in her arms, and a pair of boots balanced precariously on her tail.

"I must apologize for this," she says with the tiniest dip of her head, "I do not know a better or faster way. And as you so clearly indicated, this is an emergency."

One step, two steps, three. Toss unassembled outfit into the air above target's head. Pounce. Sweep leg and press opposite shoulder, unbalance. Catch under waist before he hits the floor. Use momentum to spin target up and around. Lift, throw. Leap after. Touch. Touch. Touch. Palm on left shoulder blade. Right. Lower back. Left knee. Right. Ankles, opposite order. Grapple around waist with legs and use own hips to reverse momentum.

Land. Adjust bearing, rotate target thirty seven degrees to face mirror. Knock out knees and push gently downwards on shoulders to encourage sitting position.

"There is a name for this technique, but I have never learned it. The Order of the Aurora uses it to dress unruly children, but I have... shall we say 'adapted' it for combat purposes. It has been an interesting experience to reapply the technique toward its somewhat intended purpose."

Hazel has been undress. Hazel has also been redressed. Each individual piece happened faster than blinking, without exposure and without a hand appearing anywhere near anything sensitive or unwanted. Other than perhaps the actual weight of the strikes themselves. In any event, she has him in a stately white silk dress with a modest cut that exposes part of the collarbone but nothing more. The skirt is pleated but plain, a simple a-line to flatter any body frame, and ends at the lower part of the thigh, where loose, cream colored trousers take over the duty. Eclair bends for a moment to better tuck them into a pair of a pair of slender boots with the same brown color as an ancient tree's bark, narrow around the toes without pinching and sporting a raised heel with a wide and flat base. A beginner's fashion boot from top to bottom, balancing the need for easy walking and dancing with the necessary adjustments to posture and the stately movements of the leg and torso that a deer is meant to have.

She clips a bangle that she missed around his left wrist, slipping underneath the flowing, loose sleeve of the dress to lock the silver band and its leaf-like spiral of sapphires and diamonds into place. She pops up to check that the matching earrings are securely in place, and then fastens a golden necklace made of chunky, flat plates of the shimmering precious metal around his neck so that it covers most of what the dress' neckline exposed with something regal and (tastefully) flashy.

"I have to say, I admire your boldness in setting these challenges. I was under the impression from your letters that you were more... shall we say, shy about these things? I suppose starlight makes Herons of everyone it touches. Each in their own way of course, I found Lady Yuki Edogawa much the same. Still though, I am desperately curious: have you given much thought into what you are looking for in a wife? Or is the romance of the notion that you should discover your own tastes alongside theirs?"

Eclair descends upon Hazel again, though more gently this time. With an array of brushes. With careful art she pulls his cheekbones into view, paints his lips the lightest, softest pink (plausibly their natural color, but fuller and less easy to dismiss. all the better to make a pretty smile out of the goofiest heart. or hart), and dusts a blemish on his neck into oblivion. She paints around his eyes, lines of cobalt and lines of gold, and curls his lashes until they stand kingly and beautiful against the colors. At last she slips behind him again and takes to brushing his hair, every stroke adding luster and softness to an untended mop abused by tinsel.

"There. You are, in my opinion, stunning. But if you are unsatisfied you need only say so, and we shall do battle once again."

Breathless Dead

Dolce!

"So. That is your answer, is it? "

Bella stands up and turns her back to you. She casts a disdainful look at the shadows, and though there is no threat of violence in her posture or her motions, for a moment you feel a pressure around your throat.

She opens a door out of nothing, filled with bright light. She dips her head with courtesy and a symphony of bells, and gestures inside.

"Very well. I suppose to you I will always seem like an enemy, despite my best efforts. But in the spirit of trust and honesty, let me warn you right now: you are going to wish you had allowed me to waste your time."

The light is blinding, too much to make anything out, but you're vaguely aware that the Bella you've been talking to is evaporating. She is gone. The shadows have nothing to say about this; they cannot exist in this much light. The world is nothing but searing white, and then...

Roses. A garden full of roses, all in neat rows of red and white, where white-winged butterflies drift lackadaisically from bush to bush. Everything here is leaves and flowers and the overwhelming scent that's so heavy in the air that it sticks to your tongue. Though they must be here, the thorns of these magnificent bushes have been carefully covered up.

You are still seated at a table. But this one is lower to the ground, too small for you to sit at comfortably. Around the table with you in little chairs and darling little dresses with more frills and ribbons than sense sit several plush animals. At a quick count, there are two wolves sharing a seat directly next to you. An owl with button eyes that feel like they are watching something outside of the garden entirely to their left. And a lizard of some description, which has evidently seen a lot of love by the number of times it's had to be stitched back together, to your right.

At the head of the table opposite from you stands the younger of the two girls you saw outside the maze. Her short hair is all kinds of messy from endless play and she's managed to get dirt on her pretty little white sundress despite being from a world where none seems to exist. Such is the power of youth. Even still, the resemblance between her and Bella is striking. Even the pout on her face calls to mind the flashes of cold fury that appeared on the woman who chased you across the galaxy time and again.

"This is stupid. I wanted ta watch a movie with sis," she whines, "But mommy said it was a 'mergency so now I've gotta do my dumb chores."

She points a finger at you in accusation. It's all your fault, Dolce.

"BANG!"

And for exactly five seconds, she replaces your heart with a star. The world does not exist. The garden does not exist. This little girl does not exist. You do not exist, as anything other than fire and screaming without a voice to be heard. Five seconds is a very long time to be a star. But no time at all to be a sheep. The girl watches you twitch and clutch at your chest and breathe to steady yourself and giggles with musical delight at the look your face.

"That's for bein' rude an' bringin' coffee to a tea party. Guests are s'posa wait til they get served. And you hafta say 'thank you' and drink it this time, kay? Any more rudeness and I'll feed you to my assassasins. Now get ridda it!"

You are suddenly aware of the stuffed animals again, none of which have moved a bare centimeter since you arrived. And yet, their eyes are all turned towards you. A completely empty dress, all black and white and overdone with the ruffles and frills of a child's idea of a maid, picks up a teapot and pours a 'serving' into the little teacups for each of the animals. It hesitates for a moment, but when its mistress nods, it fills your cup too. A glance shows nothing but empty air, but your nose fills with the smell of darjeeling.

"Ahem! So. Mommy says that you said I'm not allowed ta exist. She says you think I'm not her dream or her heart cuz you're a liar and a cheater who got help. She also says you're a meanie face with a big butt. How do you respond to these alligators?"

The plushes stare at their teacups and promise death for disobedience.

Skotia!

Bella Aurelia's hand caresses your chin. A moment of tenderness that she shatters when her thumb slips into your lips and presses down on your tongue. She laughs in that stageplay voice of hers, and tosses her hair back to catch its golden gleam in the light.

"You know, when I saw what was happening in my world? I worried about you the most. After all, you're like me: one of Aphrodite's weapons. That's why I came to deal with you myself. Now I see my foolishness. Of course he loves me more than you. Of course you weren't a threat. Of course not! You 'only wanted to be mine'?"

Her lips are heavy upon yours. Her tongue is forceful and conquering, and tastes like the ashes of a cigarette. Her fingers grip the hair at the back of your head and pull so hard you feel like your skull is going to tear open. She pulls free and smiles like an oil slick.

"Of course you are mine. If you want my love, then have it. Take as much as you like! Take even more than that! In fact..."

She plucks Desire free and rams it through your chest. Deeper and deeper it plunges, making sure you feel every last bit of its unclean edge and yet never breaking through to your back. It just sinks into your heart, infinitely deep and infinitely painful. She pushes it deeper still, until her hand is in you as well. Deeper. Deeper. Until she's all the way up to her elbow in your blood and your sacrifice.

"There we are. I think it's time we spread this boundless love around a bit. I know that you won't mind any of this. After all, you are mine."

With a deep and throaty growl, she grabs hold of your heart and wrenches her arm back out. But she does not hold a heart. Rather, a doorknob. She pulls further and further, harder and harder, stretching a shadow until it can no longer call itself a man. Only then does she twist the knob and open.

With a self satisfied nod, she steps through the blood soaked portal, pulling it shut behind her and dragging the contents with her into nothing. The room she leaves is empty, but for two rotting halves of a mask.

Redana!

Bella leans in close enough to let you smell the champagne on her breath as she presses the pill between your willing lips. And then--

Fingers. Crushing against your jaw, tilting your head upward and forcing your mouth open with tight, insistent points of pressure. You feel her bones press against your own teeth. You feel her claw tips sink just into your skin. Only enough to draw little dribbles of blood and pain. Enough to make it painful and cruel, but no further.

She upends her flute into your mouth. Something to wash down your medicine. She is not careful or particular about where she pours; as happy to splash it down your neck and across your chest as she is to see it choke you. Only after you start to cough and gag uncontrollably does she throw you aside.

You feel the pill working its magic. Ruinous hurt gives way to the wet relief of submission, and then to tingling warmth, and then to... strength? The Praetorian Bellas lift their spears away from you, no longer needing to support your weight. One brings you a mirror, to show what has become of you.

And you are... you.. Healed. Fixed. Restored to the same pointless strength and vigor as you had when you decided to fight this army in the first place.

"Always looking for the easy out, aren't you Princess?"

Her voice is the same even keeled and boring tone that most all the Bellas speak with in this place. But her eyes have shrunk to furious slits. She can't even manage a sneer, not with her lips pressed so tight against each other in cold contempt. The shadow that crosses her face is pure terror. This is disgust. Absolute and unyielding disgust.

She steps backwards, and a circle of heat lances once again hems you in.

"This does not stop. I will put you back together as many times as I want. And you will suffer until I am satisfied. You will fight until I am satisfied. Unless?"

She snaps her fingers, and the guards are replaced with a roomful of terrified maids, who have no more desire to fight than you do. But they have no say in the matter. But they raise their clenched fists toward you regardless. To let you leave is to have to endure a palace without you. And they do not believe in a better life.

"Maybe you will find this more to your tastes."

Ember!

No Plover head flies at you in the darkness. No claws rake across your back. You are not kicked or tripped or suplexed through an errant piece of furniture that you cannot see. You have stood up. The fight does not continue.

"There is no way out from where you are," Bella's voice echoes from above you, "And no point in you continuing."

Darkness, darkness, darkness.

"Just give up. For your own good, Ember. Give up."

Dany!

The pull on your arm is strong, but gentle. There is no pain in this insistence, and the howl of the monster is, for the moment, distant. Through the darkness, you smell flowers.

This is a garden full of peonies, in brilliant pinks and purples and only a few soft white petals to be seen. Everywhere is the glittering light of evertorches and the soft chiming of harps that play from somewhere out of sight. Bella smiles at you.

She is the spitting image of the girl you plucked out of that box one faithful day, after Nero told you that you'd done well enough on your tests to earn a Friend. Her dress is a beautiful pink, red, and white affair with flared skirts tastefully accented by ribbons around the hem and a particularly large one tied around her waist. Her long, blue-black hair is sweetly braided in a pair of pigtails dotted through with musical bells.

Bella Meowmeow looks around for a moment. And then she relaxes with a sigh.

"I'm so glad you don't want to kill her. I'm so, so glad."

And she wraps her arms around you in a hug.

"I know she's very scary, and I'm not saying she isn't dangerous, but you have to understand Dany. She's--"

The music stops. In its place, the sound of a door, the splitting of flesh, and the snapping of ribs. Bella Aurelia steps forth, and stares in surprise at what she sees.

"And what are you doing outside of the maze, little one? This is not where I meant to put you. Go on, back where you came from. There is no need for you in my plans, I have children enough."

Bella Meowmeow steps in front of you, and shakes her head.

"No, you can't. It's not safe for her there, not with Tredecima about."

"That is not possible, little fool. I sealed that one away myself."

"I'm telling you she's loose! She's loose and she's gonna kill Dany so don't go trying to stuff her back there. What's the difference if she just stays here instead? It's not like anything changes in your stupid plan!"

Bella Aurelia laughs. She plucks the sword named Desire from the earth where she'd been resting on its hilt and hefts the unclean blade onto her shoulder. With her other hand, she plucks a mess of Shadow from her pocket. In no time at all, she twists the writing mass into a new shape, more pleasing to her designs.

"Well. If it is a monster you children must hide from then why did you not say so? In you go, ungrateful beasts. Into this Box with you. Stay there, and stay out of my way."

Bella Meowmeow quails at the sight. She clutches at your arm, Dany, but she does not move from in front of you.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Bite down, he says. Bite down, bite down, bite down. Bite down to keep what you have. Bite down to get more. Bite down because it's never, ever enough. Bite down to prove how smart I am. Bite down, bite down!

For a fleeting moment, it does not occur to Kat to be terrified. It doesn't occur to her to be intimidated or even awed. It's the funny thing about the end of a journey: after such a winding and difficult path it is easy to mistake the last step for another step. So there's no thought inside her head at all except for two words echoing around inside her cutie skull:

"Bite this!"

And the next thing anybody knows? Her delicate hands are wrapped around that bird. She squeezes it tight as her leg winds back. Release! Swing! Kick! She watches with satisfaction as the mechanical creature operating as Adam's current terminal bounces off of the far wall hard enough to start skipping along the floor into the darkness of parts unknown. Wherever he winds up it's not her business. 'Cause it's not here!

"This is exactly what I was talking about! 'Preparing arguments' my left tail! Preparin' them for what???! If I'd sat down and talked it out you'da already destroyed the world behind my back! A real villain woulda at least had the decency to go 'Nyo ho ho you foolish fox, I already pressed the button ten minutes ago <3' or whatever. But you're like, tryina convince me you're right while you're doin' the mean sneak stuff. Honestly, learn some... uh... some... ah. Strawberry pop rocks."

Sometimes, you miss the final step because you just have too much momentum built up to stop. Sometimes, it misses you instead. Because it was never the final step in your journey, just the last one you were meant for. Kat reaches for her piece of rebar and stumbles as the sudden adamant bulk of a growing dragon takes up the space she'd been using for standing and shouting and bowls her over onto the ground. Her version of a forward roll turns out to be an undignified flop and flail completely unsuited to a hero or other kind of savior of the world.

She looks up and sees shadow. She looks up and sees light. She looks up and sees moss and flowers and all manner of things that grow and which are alive, and for once they bring no comfort even in a place as unwholesomely overbuilt as this. Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits beholds Oroboros; the End and the Beginning, and the Beginning of the End.

"I... oh goshies, bubblegum. H-hey? I, I kn-know that jerk was telling you to bite down, but if you could please just--"

Bite down? Bite down. Oroboros' jaw clenches harder around her tail. And once more her size begins to swell. Kat scrambles for something to do, anything at all, because the alternative is- well no, she's screaming anyway, but the alternative also involves crying and if she'd stayed where she was then whatever that pink glittering laser actually is it would've turned her to dust on the spot. Possibly by accident? Probably by accident. Either way she moved, so she gets to keep screaming. Her hero's resolve tightens in the face of absolute disaster. This is where she proves she's got what it takes to save the world. All she has to do is fight it.

She plants her feet. How hard could this be, compared to catching a cat? She pivots on her front foot and swings with all her might, so heavy she can feel the impact rattling her bones all the way up into her shoulders. It feels almost like she's going to crack. Her weapon shatters in her place, leaving her with nothing but fistfuls of... ivy? She gasps and tries to tug away, but what's one forest fox against the whole stinking forest?

"Berserker!" she shrieks, but twisting branches filled with thorns wrap around her throat and cut her voice off.

Katherine is lifted up, and up, and up. From within the scales of the World Dragon she sees the green glow that means an energy burst is about to blow her to pieces. Sweat beads on her forehead as tears well in her eyes. Is this... really how it ends? Was she that bad of a girl? All she'd wanted was! The only thing she wished for was!

She only! She only wanted!

...At least it doesn't feel so bad anymore. She can't feel the thorns biting into her now, and her body is relaxing before she dies. It doesn't even feel like she's being dangled anymore, which is nice. If anything, it feels like her feet are planted on nice, cool, familiar... stone?

"Berserker!" she cries again, but this time with full throated joy. "Berserker!!"

She's alive! She's standing in a castle tower! Her knight came to her rescue and she... oh crackers, she's gotta go! With a yelp that sounds just a little bitty bit more confident, Kat goes scrambling, twisting, leaping out of the newly formed window not even a whisker's width away from lasery green death as it vaporizes the stone behind her. But she's not even singed. She's free falling into the waiting arms of her favorite knight.

Though, really? Surviving the first attack is only one piece of a battle like this. A very small one, at that. Kinda doesn't seem fair, does it? When both of them, modern foxgirl and ancient king alike, are looking up and up (and up) at Oroboros in her seemingly infinite bulk and seeing nothing but an opponent so beyond them that she shouldn't even be able to fit in the same space as them anymore. But here they are. So close and yet so far.

The attacks crash down on them in waves. The dragon does not move, except to bite down harder, to consume and to grow in the same motion. But missiles of horn and bone fire off like the cross of a missile boat and an extremely angry porcupine, though from the way the ones that miss bury themselves multiple meters into the walls and the floor, anything a viewer might find comical about that comparison dies about as fast as they would if they were even a little closer. Berserker pulls her sword and crushes through the first batch but the second follows so closely after that the only way she can protect Kat is to raise a battlement in such haste that she can't make it uniformly thick. Several barbs catch her on the leg and hip with enough force to tear through her armor. She bleeds, but her Master does not.

She snarls, and her tightly controlled platinum blond hair dances in the heat waves preceding a barrage of laser fire. Her leap is barely in time to avoid death, and there's nowhere safe to land that isn't on the dragon herself. Her blade slams full force into Oroboros' hide and to her own surprise it bites through the scales almost down to the hilt. She slashes through the flesh and wrenches it free in a torrent of blood that turns into a swarm of furious pecking birds of paradise she is obliged to crush with her fist. She takes a wound above her eye in the process, and when she finally pulls free of the swarm there's no visible damage to her opponent anywhere that she can see. It was too superficial, too easily healed for a creature this size and with this much toxic magical power coursing through it.

Ridiculous. Ridiculous! She howls her fury, for the moment not even caring whether or not it scares her Master. Not even noticing that Katherine is screaming her encouragement right alongside her. What makes her so inferior? Be she King or Tyrant Oppressor she is a dragon too! Strip her of her holy sword and all her heroism, trap her in a cage shaped into armor, scream and howl into her head until she can barely hold herself together outside of the light provided by a slender foxgirl's loving smile, no cries of brutality or insistence that she call herself a monster can take away what she is. The Dragon is the Land! More so! Even more so than this, this!

It simply isn't fair. All of her power is compressed into the form of one very short woman, and she has a tall, awkward, and unarmed Master to consider as well. Her swordsmanship is peerless for all that it is wild and brutal, but when spines and fins and branches all grow out of the ground around her it's all that she can do to give as good as she gets. Her deepest, cruelest strikes are scratches compared to the battering she gets in turn. She can't even keep the pride of keeping Kat perfectly safe, as the fox is forced to hop down onto her own feet to keep her head and is promptly knocked into a terrifyingly giant venus fly trap that Berserker is only barely able to rip open with her fists before the acids inside it finish dissolving all of Kat's nice clothes and start burning her pretty skin beneath them.

Spines and lasers shoot into the sky, curving slowly above the pair of them as they prepare to rain down like destruction from heaven itself. Berserker pulls Kat close to protect her. Kat wraps her own arms around Berserker's neck in response.

"...Back." she murmurs, voice shaking with exhaustion.

Berserker growls in question, head tilted toward her Master.

"I said quit holding back! Are you the King of England or not?! If you are, then use me! I'm sorry I blew all of our Command Seals on such silly things, I'm sorry, ok? But I'm still here! I can't do anything on my own, Berserker, so use me! Take everything you need! Just! Beat! Her! I, I, I, I don't! I DON'T WANT TO LOSE LIKE THIS! Not to him! Not to this! So take it already! Take my mana and conquer this stupid land already!"

Ever since she'd pulled her helmet off for love, Berserker had refrained from building proper castles. Small things, or partial things, in this much she couldn't really help herself, but choosing to be someone's knight meant that on her honor she couldn't be a conqueror. And only honor could hold back the storm of voices threatening to claim her. But the wish of a princess is a powerful thing indeed. Even this deep underground, when Berserker's eyes turn upward, what she sees is not the ceiling of a grand and horrible tunnel. She doesn't see the glitter of certain death streaking down on top of her.

She beholds the sky. And high above, shining just for her, is a single star. A small thing. A pointless thing. A kindly thing, with perfect timing. The most beautiful thing in the world. And isn't it true? Isn't it always the case that the fate of the world hinges on tiny, lovely things like a little mote of light in someone's heart, or the love of a fox too trusting for her own good?

Even now, Berserker's castle is not a glittering palace of ivory towers and white marble. It is a squat and brutal thing for gathering armies and siege engines instead of heroes. An impenetrable bubble of solid stone that exists to claim the land. To claim all of its bounties forever and for always. Flowers are crushed under the spreading stone. Vines wither, and the green along Oroboros fades to gray. Nature in all its deadly shapes rains down upon her palace, and while walls and ramparts and battlements crumble under the weight of the assault, the castle stands firm.

Long live the King.

It is an ugly battle. It is a war of attrition and the long winter. Berserker's soldiers work, if not tirelessly, than with more fear than fatigue as they gather grains and the bounties of the forest in the form of taxes. Rippling scales crash and crush into the main walls, and torrents of arrows and hot oils pour from slits in response. Burning, rampaging, scouring, crumbling, devouring, enduring. And growing. Ever growing. Berserker's is a legacy that once lead to the conquest of the known world. The terror of it is known to all land that claims this world as its home. The settlement grows. New castles spring up by her will and her power along Oroboros' length. Where they rise, the dragon seems to wilt. Green becomes tired grey. Impossible might becomes trembling effort. What gets torn down is rebuilt.

She is provided with a horse. Lifting Kat into her lap she takes the saddle for herself and sallies forth, sword brandished high to strike terror into the barbarians that would dare to challenge her.

"Go, go, go!" screams Kat, holding her hand over nose to cover how badly it's begun to bleed. Her eyes are shining under the dark circles that are forming there. But she doesn't shut off her connection to her Servant. If she can't be the hero holding the sword, she'll be the core of this great engine. Whatever saves the world, y'know? It's all her fault, so whatever it costs to put it back right is just... fair, isn't it? Not what she deserves, but it's what's asked of her. Nobody gets to call her a bad girl ever again. Not her, and not her Berserker either. She holds the flag high and shouts her foxy war cry for the world to hear.

But even through all of this, Oroboros' assault continues unabated. There is always more of her to conquer, more of her to fend off, and more of her all the time, because nothing has managed to get her to stop biting down. That pink light, whatever or whoever it is, strikes for the heart of the beast on repeat, but even it can't force the nature of the dragon to alter itself. What even could? A foxgirl takes what's Next. It's not in their nature to grab everything at once, even if everything would eventually be Next. Their silly heads and fluffy tails are just too easily convinced to settle for the pile in front of them, and then the one next to that, and...

"Hooollldd!" cries Berserker, and there are no more words in her than that. Nor does she need them.

A wave of spines crashes down around them as they ride. One takes Berserker in the shoulder and knocks her from her horse, so she rips it free and throws it like a missile so that she can ride it instead.

"FLLLLYYYYY!" she roars, and hurls her sword to Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits.

There are only moments to spare before the pair of them are crushed into pulp, and the pulp blasted into dust, and the dust crushed into nothing, to be scattered through space or burned up in whatever cruel alien god the Harvest Star must secretly represent. But tired as she is, Kat has a guiding light and a word to follow. She scrambles onto the horses neck as best she can, takes her aim, and leaps with all the power left in her slender, exhausted legs.

The sword is heavy in her hands. That's a good thing, though. It means she can let the weight of it do all the work. All she's got to do is point it in the right direction. All she's got to do is not miss a giant dragon's mouth. She's too tired to even scream about how scary all of this is, or to waste energy on something as ridiculous as shaking like a leaf. It's hard enough holding this giant blade steady. How the hay does Yue manage with hers? Who even knows? That's just one more reason to make it past this moment: to ask her. And to whine about how much easier her best friend's first adventure was than this.

She doesn't cut deep. She doesn't strike especially hard. Just enough to catch a tooth and bounce right off. She tumbles out of the air, cut up and dripping blood and sweat and maybe something grosser that she'd rather not really think about, if that's ok with everyone. She hears the hiss of pain, and lets her eyes close.

So she misses Berserker's great charge. She misses the gauntleted fist smashing through that same tooth, though she hears the terrible howl of her knight as she reaches into the maw of a dragon and stomps a foot into those fangs to buy herself purchase. She hears instead of sees the cracking of Berserker's armored dress, and the final rending of the metal as it snaps and shears and falls away. She listens, and she shudders at the sound of muscles giving out under the strain of trying to do the impossible, trying to force open the mouth that only exists to swallow that tail, and anything else it sees.

She doesn't know what she hits, if it's not the ground. But it's softer than she expects. That's enough to force her eyes open. So she sees it when Berserker summons one more tower. And this one is a glittering monument to hope. It just also happens to be the most horrible thing she's ever seen. Because it's growing out of Oroboros' mouth itself. The unyielding stone of an impenetrable fortress presses into that jaw until it cannot help but wrench open. Even it begins to crack under the strain of the dragon's desire to bite down, but it is enough.

Oroboros gags. She coughs and writhes, and something falls free from her throat. The tower splinters into rubble and Berserker falls with it, but this is it. They've won. All she has to do is...

Well that's funny. She can't feel her legs. That's gonna make standing up a lot harder. Katherine reaches for the indistinct glowing shape on the floor in front of her, instead. She tries to find a grip on her Servant's sword, tries to summon any kind of strength to swing. It can't take much, can it? She just needs that one more push! She rest after, gosh darn it.

A burst of pink like a supernova explodes overtop of her. Elizabeth Bathory twists her spear-slash-microphone stand into whatever horrible thing was causing all of this. She tosses her adorably pink hair over her adorable shoulder, and smirks (adorably) at the ruined foxgirl beneath her.

"Tch. Well, it just got way too pathetic watching you fail like that. Don't go forgetting who the real hero was, pipsqueak."

"Oh. Uh. Th-th-thank... thank? You? Um? Miss?"

She feels those pinker than pink claws caress her chin. It's embarrassing how much it makes her tails flutter, even as tired as she is.

"Elly, little fox. At least to my fans. Which includes you, doesn't it~?"

Oh. Um. Well. Goshies. What's a fox to say?

Return to Thellamie

A request for fashion advice, just beyond the beginning of a major ball. A guest of honor who has failed to make their scheduled arrival. A pen pal from Yukisearth offering apologies for his lack of contact since making the journey to Thellamie, owing to a hectic schedule and lack of available free time.

...No, this is not a difficult deduction at all. Rather, it is the sort of puzzle fragment one might offer to a small child to get them interest in the concept of solving mysteries. In fact calling it 'child's play' would be an insult to the games Eclair and Mayzie played as children. A more appropriate comparison then might be a hook dangled with unsecured bait to attempt to entice a particularly depressed fish. Just a nibble, River Queen, and then maybe you will remember the thrill of the chase and the game. Eat and grow strong so you can become a worthy rival once more.

The temptation to ghost is overwhelming.

And........

Yet.

Here she is, clinging to the outside wall of the building, shaping a lockpick out of Light. Curious that magically locked objects should be so much less secure than mundane fastenings, but so it goes. No need to steal a key when the lock for everything fastened in this manner gave way to the same password. It is as though the wizards of the world never bothered to conceive that a powerful or pure soul might think to use that purity to force entry somewhere. Or perhaps they had considered it all too well, and this was actually...

Click.

The Hero of Vespergift lets out a silent sigh from between her black painted lips and slides inside the frame. The window closes behind her without a sound. In front of her an antlered figure awash in Starlight sways nervously to and fro with his eyes focused on an impossible rack of clothing and his foot twisting into the carpet in such a way as to suggest a mind drifting every which way but fashion. She smiles, if only slightly, and aligns her tablet to capture her own face (ever-so-briefly sans mask), two fingers raised in a "V" gesture, and the back of the Golden Faun's head.

This image is the reply that .eclairespoirviolet sends to @cinnamondrumroll. She smirks when she hears the pinging of the tablet in the room. There are moments left to her to rearrange her mask while she waits for recognition to dawn, and to position herself behind him as recognition turns to understanding.

Before he can yelp, before he can call by accident or fright whatever guardians and attendants may be waiting outside, she loops an arm around his neck and presses a single velvet gloved finger to his lips. 'Shhhhhh'.

"You must not speak my name," she whispers, "It would not do for you to imply familiarity with a wanted criminal."

She spins him around, steps back, and curtsies (using the tails of her coat in place of a skirt).

"I apologize for not giving warning; this seemed overall the fastest method. You are having difficulty getting dressed? Then tell me what the problem is. I will help as my meager skills allow."

A single tiny smile steals its way across her face, here and gone in an instant. The only thing that makes it beautiful is the lack of any other emotion or tangle of thoughts to weigh it down.

"I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Master Hazel Valentine Fletcher. For the time being you may call me the Mystery Builder. I can spare..."

She pulls a watch out of her pocket and frowns. She replaces it and pulls a pen and a small notebook in its stead.

"Ten minutes of our mutual time. Perhaps fifteen if I knew what this was about. What is a 'Golden Faun' exactly, and why is it important?"

Breathless Dead

Dany

There is no escape. There is no finding Bella again. You cleverly double back around on your path, through things already smashed into tiny broken bits and all that is left at the beginning is a fragile girl's broken body. Her eye is dull gold and unseeing. Her ribs are covered in red where they have been pulled out of her chest. Her limbs bend at terrible and broken angles and she makes not even the slightest protest. The hole in her stomach does nothing but drip, drip, drip onto the floor where she lies still.

You can still hear the monster behind you. Breathing, hissing, snarling, crunching your name in its mouth like so many bones. Re. Da. Na. Re. Da. Na. Re. Da. Na. Over and over, punctuated by stomping boots and slavering, heavy breaths that bring a shudder to the very air itself.

"Re. Da. Naaaaaa..."

You spin around with a start. XIII is hunching in the shadow of the door she tore open in this place just a moment ago. She shivers, claws twitching in anticipation of the kill, and she pounces over your shrill shrieking for help, in spite of all your need for bravery.

"You can't have her, beast. We need this one, remember?"

A Princess' rapier looks out of place in the hands of Stellabrande, who had always stubbornly clung to the role of the damsel to be rescued. But desperate times. Her lanky, clumsy body is still wrapped in all of the embarrassing pink lace and ribbons of her special dress made even more ridiculous by the onset of her teen years and the uneven growth it had caused in her body. Her legs too long for her torso, her arms too short for her legs. Her hips still boyish but her chest blossoming like under-ripe fruit and the first hints of her womanhood. It is perhaps the short moment of her life where Bella could not have been called beautiful; stuck between the engineered radiance of childhood and the queenly perfection of her adult life. A shadow of two selves at play in a world she no longer fit inside of.

Her arm trembles violently as she tries to hold off the claws of a monster almost three times her size. Stellabrande releases the weapon and uses the sudden shift in weight to slip inside of XIII's grasp and punch her on the underside of her unprotected jaw. Her delicate braids (still nestled in the lace of her borrowed bridal gown and the paper prisoner's chains wrapped around her shoulders) dance when she turns to look at you. She does not offer a smile.

Another pair of heroes come flashing out of nowhere: a Bella in the full blossom of teenage maturity in a party dress freshly ruined by painted starlight and an even more adult version with a bare and bloodied back and a crown of laurels in her hair both match the monster claw for claw and hiss for hiss. The air around you crashes like thunder without lightning. They are none of them strong enough to hold off a Diodekoi in the fullness of her power. But together, and for you, they...

"Princess!" the same voice calls to you three times, "Run! I will be along to collect you shortly. I simply have to deal with this--"

"Dis. A. Gree."

Heroes don't beat monsters, Dany. And even if they did, Bella could never be one. XIII vanishes, only to reappear above the Olympian Bella and crush her skull with a spiked heel and so much force that her torso contorts around her hips entirely before she falls to the ground with a red, wet thud. As though she were nothing more than a sack of unwanted meat thrown out a window. The would-be painter Bella drops to her knees. Her head rolls off her shoulders a moment later.

But Stellabrande holds firm. She flies between you and XIII and, bereft of her sword (it has wound up at your feet), she throws her hands wide to make herself into a wall through which no violence may pass. It cannot reach you. Not you. Not the one who pulled her free from the Box.

"Princess," says the awkward damsel in a voice that's all her own, "I, I love, ghhhhhk!"

Stellabrande's eyes flutter closed, open, closed, open. Her head turns shakily down to look at the twisting gauntlet buried up to the elbow in her petite chest. Pink ribbons stain bright red. She shudders, she pulls, she beats a fist against the wicked bone of that monster's arm even as her fingers break against it. And then with a final, horrible crunch she falls limp.

XIII holds the dripping heart of Stellabrande above her mouth. She opens her jaw wide, so wide that it unhinges. Wide enough to show rows of extra fangs, more shark than cat. She closes her eyes tight and squeezes so that blood falls messily onto her waiting tongue. She wrings Stellabrande's hot love dry, not caring what splashes her or where, only stopping when the delicious stream finally slows to a trickle so she can stomp the ruined organ flat underneath her sole and twist.

Her ears twitch in pleasure. Bella is not supposed to enjoy blood. Even the smallest trickle makes her ill. But XIII sucks on her fingers with obvious relish, pausing her own hunt for the pleasure of the smell and the taste of violence.

There is a sword at your feet. But from the shadows, you can feel a pull against your wrist. And the chime of a single bell.

The sword, Dany? Or the hand?

Dolce!

This isn't the first time you've asked her a question like this. It's not even the second or the third. And every time a topic this intimate has been breached, some question about her loyalty or her trust, or whether she deserves to continue living or who might want her dead, her response has always been the same.

Bella always laughs. More than laughs, in fact. She doubles over and barks until she's hoarse from sheer, unrestrained mirth. She's never explained why it's so funny to her, and maybe she can't. Maybe it's a result of living a life full of assassination plots and backstabbing on a world where none of these questions could even afford an answer. Maybe it's the contrast of seeing politeness and courtesy used as something other than weapons or shields, or maybe it's the ridiculousness of seeing someone so soft and fluffy lift himself up to try and stand at her height. Maybe it's just because it reminds her of something, something worth laughing like that about. Or maybe it really is because she's spent so much time thinking her life is worthless that there's no other way for her to respond.

Whatever it might be, this Bella holds no answers. Because she is not laughing.

She tilts her head to one side, considering the question with a placid expression on her face.

"Of course, Dolce."

//Wrong. This is wrong. It isn't supposed to be this way.

She smiles, and gestures at the drink again.

//Do not. Do not. Do not. Do not. Do not.

"But I think my questions are rather more relevant than yours. Mmmhmhm, don't we all?"

Don't we all, whisper the shadows.

Redana!

"Well. I appreciate the attempt in any case."

You are on your knees. The only reason you do not bleed is because the heat lances have been cauterizing every wound as Bella's Praetorian Guard have wrenched them free. Even now a pair of them take turns working their weapons through your wrists. It's agony that you don't need to describe.

But there are fewer of these guards than there were when you began. Thirty or so, maybe a little more. If you could only stand again the fight might be a bit easier this time. Another chance and you might be able to reach her. And then? You don't know. What you know is twisting. What you know is needles made of molten fire. What you know is panting, and the tearing of fabric, and a moan that you don't recognize as yours until you realize you've been making it for the last several minutes.

Bella calmly sips a flute of champagne and watches her guard work their magic on you. She holds up her hand, and then it all stops. Click, her heel on the dance floor. Tak, the ball of her foot pushing her forward. Click, tak. Click, tak. Swish, the rustling of her dress. Fwip, the twitching of her tail.

Bella stands in front of you, watches the butts of twin crossed heat lances holding up your chin so you can see her face as she watches you with the dispassionate gaze of a critic browsing an art museum. She unfolds her palm, and reveals a small black pill.

"Do I need to force them down your throat this time? Will you show me that look on your face again, I wonder?"

She pinches it between a thumb and a forefinger, and brings it to your lips. What do you do?

Skotia!

Bella Aurelia does not make the choice. She does not need to.

Your mask does not fall to the floor cleanly split in two, but morphs into the same black tar sludge this whole place is made of before each shattered piece grasps your neck with crushing alabaster fingers. Two long arms stick out grotesquely from the floor and hold you in place. Squeezing your throat shut. Wrenching your head toward Aurelia's light so that you have nowhere to hide the truth of your face from her.

She grins at you, and brushes your chin with her fingertips. It feels like being painted by oils.

"No, I did not mean it then either. It was a passing fancy brought on by temporary madness. Nothing more. Disappoint me any further and I will be happy to show you the speed with which I can abandon you, little hero."

She laughs, and stamps the tip of Desire into your boot. Already you can feel the material melting off and pooling around you like disgusting, boiling slime. Already you feel another hand crushing a new part of your body. Already you feel the tip of that unclean blood slicing its way up the leg of your trousers, its next victim.

"Oh, but I am in haste once again!" she laughs at a volume designed for someone sitting in a balcony at the other end of a theater, "No, silly shadow. You were not enough. You have always been a disappointment, flashing from one unfulfilling moment to another."

Desire clips the buttons of your coat now, and they come flying off with little clinks of brass and hope. Bella Aurelia runs her palm up the length of your stomach and over your chest.

"But I forgive you. Even now, I forgive you. As many times as you need. As many times as you like, I forgive you. It is necessary, to craft the Redana I deserve."

She stomps the sword into your other boot.

"Aren't you excited? Things can finally be even between us."

Ember!

She kicks you in the stomach as you reel, hard enough that you can feel something inside of you try to twist where it does not belong. The horrible sensation doesn't last, but the heat that follows after it is no more pleasant. Her claws rake through your dress and draw long trails of oozing red where the fabric no longer covers you. Soon it's little more than a slip, less protection for your modesty than even her own worn down and comically large shirt.

When you get up, she is there to knock you down again. With violence sharp enough to bring your entire pack down around you, though never enough to break you completely. You always get up. So she always knocks you down. That's the dance she has selected in this little hallway. It's not a place for being clever. It's not a place for being free. Even she is constricted by the smallness of this place. Even she bumps her shoulders into the walls, even she stumbles, even she hisses at how bright and plain and white everything is.

Maybe that is why she hasn't killed you yet.

"It is important to me that you understand the truth. I am not a villager on some rock half a galaxy away that you can fool with batted eyelashes or... breast inserts."

She sniffs and glowers. Her hand clenches into a fist, and a fresh Plover head obligingly appears between her fingers to crush with a satisfying squelch of metal and piping.

"All of me is me. And all of you is you. If I can't tell the difference at a glance, then we must be the same person. Not that that doesn't sound just utterly romantic. You becoming me. But you're not ready. You do not understand. Where do you think we are, exactly? Even this place, these walls, this cute little maze... is me, Redana. Here, would you like to see?"

She rakes her claws through the wall to her left, and the hallway fills with a skull splitting scream. The ground beneath you trembles so violently that it smashes your face into first the near wall, and then the far one.

And then Down becomes Up. And White becomes Black.

"I think I'll just leave you there," Bella says through the impenetrable murk, "Feel free to rest, if you'd like. Rest forever, in fact. It's better if you just give up, Redana."