Phoe

Breathless Dead

For a moment there is only the sound of her breathing. Not quiet and not gentle, but the heroic effort of somebody trying to will themselves not to cry. This is not a struggle marked by such silly failures as quiet sniffles or shuddering breaths. No, she is much more in control of herself than that. Her battle is readable by the tension in the tips of her ears, in how tight she sets her jaw for one single second, in the vaguest turning of her head, and in the way she holds her breath after taking a long and suspicious sniff of the air around her.

She lets it out again, and she is the master of her tears once more. Though not (as it turns out) her blood, which has rushed all to her face and turned her complexion crimson enough to carry the flag of Empire.

She'd slipped up. She'd lost herself to bad habits and assumptions and the stress of the job, and... she'd been rescued. She was still standing. She doesn't understand why. But she knows what it means that she is. Quickly she snatches the pot and returns it to the heat, stirring it counterclockwise for exactly sixteen strokes. That might not had made any difference at all, but she smells the air again and relaxes so much it's a miracle she does not faint.

"...I did not tell a single lie. Sir will not have had opportunities to study wonderberries because Sir is not from Tellus. They are one of Her Im... of Nero IV's, erm," she clicks her tongue against her teeth in search of the word, "...cultivars. A rare export even to nearby systems. There is no question who is the better cook. I would not presume to gloat over my betters."

Her curtsy is so practiced she is deep into the bend of her knees and the positioning of her hands before the notable flinch makes it clear she's realized which outfit she is wearing. She finishes the gesture anyway, and simply attempts to recover by radiating perfection overtop of the blunder. Which she immediately ruins by dropping into a sharp bow as soon as she's standing again.

She drizzles the syrup over a bowl of popcorn and holds it in her left hand without making a move toward either incarnation of Redana. She stares directly at them, and then at the floor directly in front of them when seeing Ember in her state proves too much to handle. She waits. Watches. Waits. Watches. Waits.

...The syrup hardens into a candy coating as it cools. She moves at last, trembling worse than if she'd been escorted to an auction audition again. Her hand finds Dany's, and places the bowl into those tiny, delicate hands. Her tail is bushing so much it seems to have tripled in size, and she hastily unbuttons her coat and removes it so she can throw it at Ember.

Bella turns away and worries her palms against her undershirt, all around her stomach especially, as though she were looking for her voice somewhere inside it. At long last she manages a sigh, and half turns her head so that her golden eyes can watch her Mistress and this Master Chef at the same time.

She draws herself up with purpose.

"I... would like," she falters, and dips her head in shame, "To know what a croissant tastes like. If... I could have that, I would..."

She glances at the door to the theater, and dares not speak any further.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"I want you to understand, little fox," Avenger's chorus of whispered voices are somehow more off-putting than they were in her giant floating death castle, "How much this moment means to someone like me."

"...Miss Sa--"

But Katherine is cut off when Avenger places the tip of a sword (the soothing wooden one, don't worry" on her lips. The giant woman simply shakes her head and gestures out the window again to the shimmering world at the bottom of the ladder built out of ancient ambitions. What dreams and nightmares and wonders did, or could, each of them lead to? I don't think anybody anywhere could say for sure.

"The tiny loud girl purchased only a small moment for the pair of us to act. Do not waste it on protests, or on names which will harm our cause. I merely wish for you to understand. I was not summoned to die at the end of the world that gave rise to yours. But I was summoned to the defense of this one. And even with my purpose corrupted, I was fortunate enough to be here at the end of things with a clear enough head to know how to fulfill every one of my promises."

She lifts the massive sword she'd taken from the underground forge and plants it deep into the floor of the space elevator/castle. She lifts the smaller, softer weapon off of Kat's lips and flips it around her wrist with no visible twist of the muscles at all.

"This is a problem that you three caused. And so the only honorable thing is for you to solve it. But I am a Valkyrie, if a fake one, so it falls to me to choose what heroes I can find to face this second Twilight. And what I see is a world below waiting for the blow to fall. If there are worthies down there for me to choose from, they will reveal themselves too late for my judgment. So I am left with a sneak thief..."

"WOW RUDE?!?"

"A manipulative wretch..."

"...," said Actia.

"And you." she finished, pointing the blade at Kat.

"And me?" she squeaked, "Why? What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing at all. Except that you are the only one here that I could or would call a warrior of any stripe. So I am selecting you..."

She flipped the purified blade over with another invisible flick of her wrist to present the hilt to Kat.

"As my champion."

"Oh! Oh yeah, yeah! Obviously it's gotta be Kat," said Cyanis, whose keenly honed fox-senses could always smell a chance to get out of doing work, "You know, one time she cut down an attack helicopter?"

"I-I didn't mean to! It was an!"

"Nope too late you're a hero now here put your hand on this ok that's that all settled do your thing child-murderer-kun and help her or whatever it is you're doing."

"...Is it always like this with you lot?"

"Um... no," Kat um no'd, "Sometimes when it's nice and sunny we take naps!"

Avenger considered this information. Then she carefully placed the sacred weapon in Kat's palm and closed her little fingers around it. The young foxgirl gasped audibly when she felt the warmth of it flowing through her. She didn't know a ton about swords, even now, but she could tell just by holding it that this was a special thing, and that Avenger could not have just had it hidden on her person somewhere the whole time. It meant, very obviously it meant, it meant that she had traveled the world looking for a thing just like this. And given what she found it almost certainly meant she had help. And that meant!

But Avenger shook her head, even before Kat had gotten all the way to opening her mouth to ask.

"No one is coming, little fox. This is, as they say, your story."

"But... well... you'll fight together with me, right? 'Cause I don't really know how to fight a giant space crab. I'm... really scared, Miss Avenger."

"Mm. Fear is a warrior's constant companion, Fluffy...biscuits. It is a necessary component for bravery. But be at ease. I promised you a victory, did I not? And so I have come as I said: as a Valkyrie. And I will bequeath my chosen hero with gifts. You have the first and simplest already. This second blade must be made ready. As must I."

And when she says it, she wrenches the oversized greatsword free. Kat looks at her in horror, but something has stolen her words from her. It's a promise, right? Say what you will about Ivar but she's never broken one of those, even when it meant giving up on everything she wanted and had been working towards. Some part of Kat understood that. Some part of her wanted to believe that it meant something other than a fast goodbye. Or maybe it's more that she's got enough fox sense to know that a wish won't come true if you question it. Either way it comes down to trust, doesn't it?

"Avenger-class Servant: Ivar. I have raged against the planet, and I have stormed in the face of base betrayals and shattered dreams. My howl has been the ruin of armies. Hatred is everything to me. This is my gift. This is my curse. This is the oath that gives birth to a nation within the quivering bosom of a hated foe. This is my..."

She lifts her hexagon-covered sword and turns it on herself. Kat shrieks in spite of everything.

"Noble Phantasm, release. Blood Eagle."

Avenger's armor shatters under the might of her own strike. Her ribs welcome the blade with no resistance, as if there were no bones in her for it to chip against or otherwise stick inside of. And more importantly than anything, she bleeds. Her armor, shrieking and falling to pieces on the ground at her feet, also bleeds. A wound returned for every one that she inflicted. A wound return for every one that she suffered. And Ivar had steeped herself in more violence than any other Servant in this war.

Everywhere her blood spills, the castle changes. Only subtly. It doesn't lose the beauty Berserker had managed to instill in it, but instead of awe what it inspires most is terror. Because it is home to monsters, brazen creatures of the deep who feast on crabs and think nothing of it. In every corner and every space and above and below and everywhere a fox could look, there are ghosts. The ghosts of Servants who never earned a name, or even a soul. Sabers and Casters and Lancers and Assassins and all the rest of them. Gone as soon as you look at them properly but very much there wherever your back is turned. Blades of every shape and kind all point toward the enemy of oaths and faith.

A hundred corpses for every fallen brother or sister. A hundred tears for every one that stained her face. A hundred times the suffering endured, now inflicted. That is the power of Avenger's Blood Eagle. It's unpleasant to think about, even when it's being used on your side. She wrenches the sword free from her body and immediately stumbles. She drops to her knees, gagging, and when that is not enough she braces herself with a long arm, too.

The sword seems smaller now, though not much. And very much not lesser. Where once it had been only a thing of ruthless machining and efficiency, now it is a thing of malice and the color red. Not because it's covered in blood, because it isn't. If anything it's more like the whole of it has become a ruby. It's not what we would refer to as a demon blade. That's the product of a very particular type of depravity and they each wield unique and specific powers that will turn a body that uses them against their old path and toward one that suits whatever demon that used to use it, if they're not prepared. This is more pure than that, though: for all that she called herself a monster and artificial and this and that, Ivar's anger was a deeply human anger. And it is humanity's wrath that she's poured into this sword in its new shape. If ever something was fit to roar and rage against a space monster that had so completely rejected the beauty of that anger in the name of so-called perfection, it would be this one.

"By my final Command Seal. I... order... myself. Pass on all that... you are. To... your chosen... hero. And be... who you must. Who you... wished... to be."

Ruined and wheezing, but with a sharp toothed smile on her face. Piercing blue eyes like chips of ice, and long intricately braided hair the color of spun straw. This weakened form belongs to the Saber class Servant Ivar. All there was of Avenger is now in that hot and terrible sword.

"Little fox." she rasps.

"A-are you... ok?"

"Katherine," she corrects, "I greeted you once today as a Valkyrie. It was necessary, to be able to make you a hero."

"I, um. Please can I just do something about that? You already said all this, and that looks so bad! Oh gosh, what did you go and do all that for?! I didn't ask you to!"

"It was necessary. I could not move except as Avenger. I could not arm you except as Avenger. And I could not survive the trigger condition for my true Noble Phantasm without that spirit core wrapped around this one."

"You... what?"

"I greet you now, Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, as a King. And as I have bathed this place in myself I claim it as my Kingdom. And you, little hero, are my subject. This is your promised victory. This is the true power of Ivar the Boneless. RIGH LOCHLANN!"

There is a burst of light beyond description. Anyone who happens to be down on Earth looking up at the big monster crab will wonder what sort of fireworks could have been set off to mark the occasion. What occasion? Doomsday? And then they'll think and they'll talk and some of 'em will decide that it was a weapon, instead. Some super Princess technique, or maybe something floating all up yonder didn't like a giant crab getting too close to it and now at least somethin' up there's exploding real good. The government will continue apace, of course. People will keep on to shelters and to quiet places and even to work. Just, with a little more sense of hope, y'know?

But it wasn't a weapon at all. It wasn't even an attack. Saber's noble phantasm, like all of them I suppose, is the crystallization of her legend. And what she is the most famous for is actually dying. Did you know? When she lay ruined after a battle (a sneak attack, some say, but who knows?), she told her people to bury her on a hilltop looking over her city. As long as they defended her grave, she promised, the city would be unassailable. And it was! Ships sank, swords rusted, armies broke and fled rather than face the wrath of a dead shark woman. It was only when she was dug up and burned that her city finally fell, and even then its people went on to build more, fight more, and live on in a land that they had decided they would never retreat from.

That is the power now flowing through Kat, who finds she can lift and hold and even swing that giant ruby sword as easily as she can the kindly wooden one. With one hand, even! As absurd as it is, she can easily dual wield. She even knows what that is. Sword forms, combat techniques, strength and courage, speed, and skin as tough as any armor. It's stronger even than it should be. Because the power of this Noble Phantasm is, like the Blood Eagle, a reflection of the pain Ivar has endured. Multiplied a hundredfold as it has been, and with only one body to put it in, Kat could accomplish almost anything.

Saber's been planning this for a day or two, let me tell you. But I guess she was right, because it seems to have worked.

"Are you... ok?" Kat asks, her voice still full of concern and not focused at all on the wonder of everything she's feeling right now. Which is a lot, for the record. Her body is literally sparking, like she grabbed a jar of lightning and now it's in her tummy only it feels as wonderful as a perfect cup of tea. She knows power the way only a scant dozen or so people who have ever walked across our planet could ever claim.

"I remain." is all that Saber says, lying now on her back with her unwieldy arms folded over her stomach. All her power is gone. She can't even lift her fingers anymore. Her last job in this war is to watch what happens. To see if all of her tricks, cunning, pride, and might were the match against the greediest and most powerful scions of a world that had come long, long after hers had faded.

I wonder, was that before or after her supposed Ragnarok? Or is that what this is, actually? Maybe she was the only real Valkyrie there ever was. It works out ok. Kat's the only one here who has any practice at being an army all by herself.

"I remain, my beloved subject. So turn your eyes to the enemy. And defend what you love. So long as I am here, you cannot know defeat."

Return to Thellamie

Assessment: this is nothing but a trick.

The mechanism is obvious: cherished hero and savior of Thellamie brought into contact with civilizational goddess and held... subdued? Captured? Merely manipulated? Uncertain and irrelevant. Witness testimony the only point. Goddess pulled into coma state via drug associated only with the Manor. Even if it is not widely known, minimal investigation will reveal it instantly.

Furthermore, a Civil Healer duels in front of said witness with the Mystery Builder. The moment a heartblade is drawn in response to threat, hidden camera within the room will capture sight, share with local authorities. Current identity compromised, proper name more firmly associated with with continued attempts on Civelia's life.

Assessment: Light is nevertheless necessary to counteract current attack patterns. No intention of fight-ending blow, no commitment, but base allowance of heartblows will inevitably turn into loss/loss of capabilities at critical escape juncture. In short, the creation of one hero and one villain in the span of a single night.

Best course of action, maintain manifested heartblade shards inside the Architect Knight. Use remainder of blade as coverings on fingertips, tip of right boot, and left knee. Weapons enough. Only defense is permitted. Perfect parry, no assault. Deflect trailing flourish to maintain control of exit path. Raise knee to interpose weight of body against attempted theft of mask. Prioritization: protection of identity and prevention of greater messes.

I will not trigger this latest trap. I will not blunder again. I will capture her here and now and drag her sorrowful ass back to the Headmistress who will extract a full confession and I will be done. I will be finished. The world will right itself and this feeling in my chest will release. I will!

I...

...Should not have said anything before I left. I should have said more. I should have said it better. Why didn't I say it better?! There are literally thousands of alternative confessions and all of them would have been better than this useless weakhearted line walking I attempted. Now she knows. Now she knows. She knows my horrible secret that I've kept hidden even from the other Aurorae. She knows that

Three finger block, spin. Single step back, capture fan between knee and, no. Miscalculated. Match spin, swing hand around. Failure to account for distance to wall? Not possible. Something is wrong. Why? Why why why why why? Why am I losing?! I'm better than she is! I'm supposed to be! I

...do not have a single romantic bone in my body. I am utterly incapable of charm or attraction, it is only my awkwardness and refusal to show flusterment in the face of maid aggression that earns me my reputation in the Great Game. A bluff mistaken for depth. A mask mistaken for a face. Silence mistaken for wisdom and courage and even beauty. And now she knows. Mayzie knows. Mayzie knows! I have no choice. As soon as I am free from this interminable distraction I will return. I will apologize. I will rescind every word. I have to make her understand. It's so selfish. I am so foolish. I cannot believe I

Wheeling backflip kick connects with opponent wrist. Why? What purpose did that move serve? Use of incorrect foot, only plain boot on flesh. Adjust. Shake head. Apologize? No, never! Plant... no, fuck. Fuck it, I need my swords!

"I am not here to trade words with you, villain. You have ruined everything. I am going to fix it. That is all there is to say."

I'm going to fix it, I'm going to fix it, I'm going to fix it, I've already had my breath, I proved myself in front of Hazel and that should have fixed everything that was broken inside of me. All that is left is to fix what is outside and that is why I will, why I will, why I will!

"WHY? AM I? NOT WINNING?? What did you do?! What did you hide, wretched fox?"

I am... jealous. There is nothing fun to be found here. So why does she get to laugh like that?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong.

It's hard to look at this as anything other than the end of the world. For sure, Kat isn't up to meeting this moment with the calmness and grace you'd hope for in a savior. Cyanis is just full-on panic ranting about shellfish allergies and sensitivity training, and Actia isn't even looking at the problem. She just keeps peering down out the window of the Space Elevator Castle to the world below and checking her (very tasteful and refined) watch.

So no, the answer won't come from those three. And there's nobody else left to carry the torch. And even though it's slow (unhurried, more like), that giant claw is ripping through the doors on the Vault with the inevitability of the apocalypse. There's nothing clever to say about it. Which is why I know you're thinking there's no good reason to hope. It's why you're thinking that brave and beautiful sacrifice amounted to nothing in the end. Or maybe you think a miracle will happen one more time, but even that would make this whole prior sequence completely pointless.

And it's just not. Look a little closer and you'll see it. If it hadn't been for that brave, beautiful dragongirl, Adam would have succeeded. That monster would be free, and those foxes would be food, and that really would be the end of everything. See, heroes don't always go out with victory clutched in their beautiful, shining hands. Sometimes what they buy is a bit of time for a friend to take a deep breath. But other times? They open the door to an even brighter miracle.

And that's why this is not a waste. That's why I won't let you call any of it pointless. Because if she hadn't given this her everything, we would've been too late. That is...

"Avenger?!"

The word tumbles out of Kat's mouth without thought. Because that's exactly who she's looking at. No special new costume for space travel; she doesn't need anything like that. Her glowing composite armor and blade-wings were already space suit enough. A Valkyrie goes to war wherever you can find it, isn't that right? And despite several people's best efforts, she has worked very hard to hold onto that label. So that's how she arrives. Even now, still bleeding out of a single wound in her abdomen. Little droplets of the stuff float freely among the debris, but she carries her towering frame so effortlessly you'd be forgiven for thinking it was something else, like little flecks of magic just pouring off of her instead.

"You have done well, little fox. Thank you for so steadfastly refusing to call on me until the end. If I had needed to fight even a single extra battle, I might not have made it to this point at all."

"Wh-wh-wh-what the Ffffff--"

"CY!!!!"

"Well no, seriously! How?! What? You don't seriously expect us to believe you've been hiding here the whole time? What, is there a second elevator nobody knew about? Were you just hanging out in the back sipping cocktails while we did all the hard work?! What the f--"

"Calm your tits, little trickster."

"ExCUSE?"

"There's a simple explanation," that was Actia this time, "If you've been paying attention."

Even under these circumstances, Avenger can't acknowledge Actia as an ally. Or even someone vaguely friend shaped. The five-tail is the key that holds this spirit core together. And like I just got finished explaining, she's held onto the shape and the name and the titles and the grudges as if her life depended on every single one of them. And maybe it does. That's why she only scowls and gestures out the window.

"You took the elevator to reach this place, correct?"

Avenger's terrible chorus on unvoices echoes across even the near vacuum of upper orbit. Three foxes look out the window this time, and in the gleam they see the explanation just as clear as sunrise. Floating in space, gathered in rising spirals like birds in an updraft and glittering in the reflected light of nine shattered suns, they give their answer. A seemingly endless chain of shattered robot pieces, chunks of factory and stonework, and the scrap of what was once an orbital weapons satellite. In short, the sum total of all of their efforts just to reach this point. The battle always meant something. You can't call it pointless.

Avenger's face breaks into one of her incredible shark-toothed grins.

"I took the stairs."

Breathless Dead

"...Excuse me, sir? Those are the incorrect ingredients for the wonderberry swirl."

A fifteen year old Bella stands in front of you with her golden eyes on the floor and a scarlet blush upon her face. Her pristine chef's coat is little more than a silly costume had made for her after she amused them so much by scrambling like mad for years to learn how to cook without being taught how. But now that she's wearing it in front of a true master (even if she is already taller than him), she wants to die.

"N-not that I needed to tell you that. The... young Miss here was doubtlessly about to inform you that it requires a genuine wonderberry. And... as I am sure she is also aware, a wonderberry is a very peculiar sort of food that overripens when it is watched. So Miss, if you could kindly..."

She falters, watching Dany cling to this sheep that she does not know. Her eyes linger on the blanket clutched in that tiny princess' arms, and a shadow crosses over her face. She tucks her hands behind her back to clench her fists tight without calling attention to it. She stands up a little bit straighter to hide the tension in her body, though the posture of her tail gives the game away immediately. One sharp, quiet sniff is all the space she gives herself. And then her head turns low again toward the floor.

She slips away, only to return from a farther stand carrying a large plate of fruits. Grapes and bits of carved melon, mostly, with the occasional strawberry.

"Ahem. Yes. As I was saying Miss, if you could kindly administer these to the, ah..." don't look, don't look, don't look, "...Woman in repose behind us. As c-certain as I am that Sir has done his best for her, anyone can see she needs. Erm. Th-that is... this will help her even more. I need to help makes sure your snack turns out right, but it would be an incredibly brave and heroic thing for you to take these over to her and make sure she eats the entire plate. It's... it's just important, ok? I can't count on anyone but you. Will you please help me, Your-- I, I mean... Miss?"

She waits in delicate, precise silence as she wills the sweat not to show on her face and watches for a little nod she is not remotely confident is coming in the first place. Her smile is half plastic professionalism and half the useless adoration of a Servitor who never thought she could wind up in this position in the first place. She sees that golden head start to move and she has to fight to keep the plate from bobbling. When she places it in Dany's hand, the princess will notice it is precisely balanced to allow it to be held by a smaller hand with ease, even if the other one is occupied keeping a death grip on a very warm but horribly patched blanket.

She doesn't so much sigh to see her go as she leaks. Deflates. She seems almost to decrease in mass with how rapidly all of her muscles seem to melt into gelatin. But one look at the Synnefo and that relief instantly turns to embarrassment and tension again. She rolls up her sleeves, careful to never let her claws show the entire time, and for the first time dares to approach him. And pass him. And take over his station, and begin cooking right in front of him.

"I don't expect you to understand," she whispers, "And it's not like it even matters since every one of you is going to die here. But still. She remembered it. Asked for it, even. So I..."

Calling her cooking technique unrefined would be a kindness she does not deserve. She does not use tools or utensils; everything is done by hand. She cracks the heating pellets open with her bare hands, she checks for temperature by holding one finger over everything (her left pinky, not that it matters), and she spends pretty much all of the rest of the time hunched low over the pot so she can take quiet sniffs of what's cooking inside. She even stirs with the the tip of one claw, as if viscosity was something she needed to test for through tactile sense.

"I don't want her to know this entire stupid recipe is bullshit."

Her tail has full-on bushed, now that the words are out of her mouth. She spins around, but if she's angled for a fight she's chosen terrible posture to try and win it. Her tail isn't even the signature flick that means she's ready to pounce. She is, if anything, too worried about her syrup to even notice what you're doing with the knife you've had all this time. It would be easy to kill her. It might even be a good idea, because when she relaxes enough to smooth out her tail and returns to cooking, the things that she starts adding do not add up to food so much as... very creative poisons.

She dips a careful claw tip in the mixture and licks it with the tidy precision only a cat can manage. Her lips widen into a relieved smile. One more cautious sniff, and she adds three drops (3!) of a substance identifiable by its label as an amphibian-origin neurotoxin. She watches the look of horror on your face and (at long last) grabs a spoon. She needs it if you're going to try it for yourself.

"They... cancel each other out. When these mix at this temperature the... look I don't know how it works, ok? You're a professional chef, it's embarrassing enough having to talk about this in front of a master already. Don't you think you know how obvious it is I don't have any training?! You, I... I-it's fine. I know it is. It has to be fine because I've served it to her it to her a hundred-hundred times. Just like this."

Flustered. Angry. Aggressive. But armed with nothing but a spoon full of what should be deadly venoms which you are somehow supposed to believe make up a wonderberry swirl.

"I don't want her to know. She doesn't get to find out this is something I threw together with whatever I could reach in time. I mean, gods, she doesn't even know it's my recipe to begin with!"

She is being loud. Much too loud. So loud that even inattentive ears will bend toward her voice in the middle of snack time, which is not what she'd been counting on.

"Do you have any idea how scared I was the first time? I didn't even want to serve it! I wanted to just throw it out, even after I panic-drizzled it over all the food: whoops I tripped and ruined it all! Clumsy, silly Bella hahahaha! But that stupid fucking serving girl went and plucked it up while I was hyperventilating and now! And now!"

All at once she becomes aware of her surroundings, and the sound of her voice. She does not look around. She merely pulls her sleeves back down and straightens out her silly costume-coat. A moment to straighten her hair, another moment to straighten her spine. One last one to lift her tail very intentionally into a posture of happiness. That is what it used to mean to be Bella. If she can simply be professional, courteous, and above all docile enough, then she will survive long enough to see the next disaster.

"...Look. I'm a Fragment, do you understand? Lady Aurelia doesn't consider me worth assimilating, so I only stay alive as long as I'm useful to this world. So I've got no gods damned clue about how any of this works or why Redana is like this. All I know is that she should know better by now. But she asked for this anyway. So I... if she's going to die here anyway? I'd rather she die believing in wonderberries."

Inside the theater, the loudest giggles yet heard echo out from inside the walls. Just what is that girl in there watching, do you think?

Return to Thellamie

Move. Move. Move. Do not stop and do not turn around.

The only thing that can salvage this situation is forward momentum. Now that it has come to this if I do not at the very least confirm the use of the incense for myself I will, I will, I will!

...Shortest path to the steam rooms is through the south exit. Sidestep crowds. Do not make eye contact, do not allow even the possibility of conversation. Eyes forward. Senses forward. I do not hear the calls of my 'name'. I do not hear the apologies. I do not hear what anyone has to say. I do not want to. I cannot afford to.

The only path is forward. So move. Move. M--

"Oh you must be joking."

Absurd. Infuriating. Again?!

No.

No I refuse. I won't do this. I won't be party to these ridiculous games. I attempt to walk away and I am blocked by the world. I attempt to put a... to have a moment for my heart's sake and I am blocked by the world. I heed the call of my own duties, and oh look at this! What is next? What is next, hm?! I am at the absolute limits of my tolerance.

"Shut up. Just shut up and begone from my sight, you self absorbed middle-act villain."

Move. Move. Move. Forward and only forward. Be silent, do not disturb the party any further, and do not stop.

Two steps to build momentum, leap. Land on target's shoulder. Summon heartblade and separate, Scoundrel's Technique. Incapacitate.

...To begin with, it is a little understood fact of heartblade that they must be pulled from the heart. But that is the only restriction. If you can imagine a path from your heart through your leg (and this is absurdly easy) then you can ultimately draw it from your foot at easily as you could your chest.

I have merely applied this principle as I slip over the edge of the Architect Knight and disappear through the door. And to avoid causing a scene I have also in the same motion shattered the blade into a thousand needles. This is easy to do as well, if you understand the trick. All that it requires is a broken heart. A broken heart, mind you. Not a broken spirit. That is important.

Because the chase will continue. And it will continue without this interfering jackass getting a say in my path whatsoever. Because I have pinned her. Her boots, her lacy gloves, all of the ribbons in the locks of her voluminous hair, even several fingers and a knee. To. The. Fucking. Wall.

Now. I will ask you agai--

I'll ask you again?????

...Why? Why did I say that? Why did I tell her that? WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Ohhhhhh, so romantic! Is this the maid-knight's duty as well? To cram a foot so far up your mouth you can no longer walk?

Ugh. Forward. Just... forward. Take me to the mystery.

I am sick of this.

[Eclair Defies Disaster with Radiance: 10]

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

It's so hard not to cry in the face of sacrifice. It's more than just that someone might give up something for your sake (or for some shared cause between you, I guess), and it's more than just having to watch 'em go. It's something bigger than regret, something bigger than sorrow, something bigger than gratitude, and bigger than even love. It's bigger than each of those things because it's all of them at once plus a little extra. If I had to compress the feeling down into a single word for you, it'd be 'A Lot'. Which is two words, so I think that kinda proves what I'm talking about here.

The point is, when Kat saw Diaofei fall it took her everything not to jump right after her and try to... what would she even do? Swim back up? She never learned! And she was so busy fighting robots that all she had time for was a gasp and a little 'no!' before her sword arm was needed again, and it was just... such a relief to see Opalis go diving after her. Good. That's really good. Neither of them were gonna die, then. 'Cause dragons could do anything if they wanted to. Even the really silly ones.

"Rather than looking for an escape, find the courage to live anew..."

Liz is still singing Kat's song. And with every member of the Elevator Crew who drops, she swings brighter and more sweetly than before, as if she was determined to make up the difference somehow. Or maybe she just smelled opportunity in the thin space air (like, there's still a little bit up here, right?) to shoot up the importance rankings and take all the credit that everybody else left behind. In this way, the difference between a foxgirl and a dragongirl was paper thin. But in any case, she's singing. And for Kat? That's the difference between being able to keep fighting and not.

"An impulse, for now that's all
Let's begin, no more delay"

Oh, but when Berserker dives, it's heartbreaking. Kat forgets that fighting is still a thing that needs doing, and she's only saved by the castle walls and the timely intervention of a pretty pink dragon tail from the cost of stretching out her free arm instead of swinging the one with a weapon in it. As if she could catch her Servant and stop her. As if she could will another Command Seal onto her hand and somehow make all of this stop. But she can't. And she wouldn't, besides. She's got too much respect for her partner to tell her she knows best at this point. And besides, someone did need to deal with that factory, or there'd be no end to the fighting.

"With all the traces we've built up
The budding prints leave their marks
One by one toward the future"

But it's so hard not to cry. It takes her very soul just to stay strong. Because... well, because. She knew, right? She knew the whole time that this ghost of an ancient warrior wasn't going to be with her forever. Like, even if she'd fought in the Sunshard War and won the whole thing, they'd have had to say goodbye eventually. Things would go back to normal. 'Cause all journeys end up back in your little house with your little family sooner or later, and Berserker wasn't a woman who could fit herself in a place like that. She wasn't even gonna wish for incarnation in the first place, Kat knew that better than anyone.

So she knew. She definitely knew she'd haveta say goodbye. But knowing that you'll need to at some point is a very different feeling from knowing that it's come to it right now. 'Cause sure as she knows that Berserker had to jump, she knows there won't be any coming back from that choice. Not even in victory. So 'some day' turned to 'right now', and then 'right now' didn't give her a chance to say any of the stuff that she'd planned on, to make it easier. No time for thank you, no time for sorry, no time for 'you were the best', no time to smile, no time to laugh, no time to scramble to ask her mom (hehehe) to make a cup of tea real quick to see her off. Nothing but a surprised yelp and the sight of a hero falling slowly, framed by the window in a castle wall that really only for the first time managed to be something beautiful instead of brutal.

"Should the end of the world come
You and I are together one."

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits continues her journey upwards from within a glittering space castle. She spares a glance downward, and for the first time in her life she sees the ring of broken glass surrounding her planet that used to be nine other suns from above, instead of below. For the first time, she doesn't need the sunset to see them glittering. And it's so beautiful. The gleam. That private aurora that was just for everyone brave enough not to run away. She couldn't ask for a prettier battlefield. She couldn't give Berserker a sweeter place to part from her. No surer sign that the both of them were heroes. There was no need to pretend at being knights and princesses... the woman she sees lit up by the First Princess' halo is surely a queen.

And she does not cry. And it's the hardest thing she's ever not done in her entire life. She stands up, instead. She fights, because the castle still stands tall and she can't let the rest of these stupid machines tear it down. And while she fights, she watches. She watches her home down below, in all of its incredible majesty. She watches her partner disappear into the enemy fortress and just barely remembers to raise what's left of her blade up in a salute. And she watches the vault climb steadily closer. She watches the laser array blasting away at it.

And she knows, without even needing to do math, that she isn't going to make it in time.

"Haaaaaaaaa, what a drag." says Elizabeth Bathory, still stubbornly playing the music in spite of everything.

"No! I'm not giving up! We... we all came this far! It can't have been for nothing, it just can't!"

She doesn't cry. She doesn't cry. She doesn't cry. Oh, Kat. My brave little flooferdoodle...

"Actia! You've got a plan, right? A spell? How do we make this thing go faster?"

"The nature of an elevator is that it only has the one speed, Katherine." Actia's gaze is locked down, not up. She follows the trail of a glittering ribbon with her fist clenched tight, "This really is the most that I can do."

"Wh- but! But we! C-Cy?"

"Whaddya want me to do? Shake my tails at it? You think I'm carrying Princess Qiu around in my pocket or something? I don't even wanna be getting closer to it in the first place! It's against my contract for one thing! And for another if I could solve this problem by being cute at it we'd be done already, wouldn't we? You're the one who's always talking about being a hero like that frizzy-fluffled busybody! What's your plan?"

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits does not cry. She does look at the blunted, mangled remains of her little sword and throw it as hard as she can at the orbital laser array, because it's the best she's got left. The music shifts when she does it, but she's too busy to notice. She does not give up, and she does not cry. Even when her weapon disappears without anything happening besides more of the Vault door breaking down, she doesn't cry. Because she's the bravest girl there is.

"Just like the sun (Everything is)
I must shine (Illuminated by me)
Call it Sadness, Eternity, Popularity, I just want to make sure
If I love you? You love me more!!"

Which is maybe why Elizabeth Bathory breaks several of her rules all at once and wraps her up in a big pink hug.

"That thing really is an eyesore, isn't it?"

"...Elly?"

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. Not her too! That tone of voice, that wistful look! Not you too, Magical Hacker Hero Idol Elizabeth Bathory! Don't you do it! Don't you start saying goodbye too! That's not fair, you've only even just said hello!

But her pinker than pink painted lips curl upwards in a smile that's about three quarters a smirk and one quarter surprise at feeling genuinely touched, and the true magic of an idol is that everybody can read the whole thing even through that opaque mask on her face. No secrets between an idol and her fanclub president. Well, 'til the next interview drops in any case.

"You're pretty pathetic when you get right down to it, aren't you cutie?"

"I, wh-wha?"

"Heh. Don't go getting the wrong idea or anything, I'm not doing this for you. It's just an idol's job to protect smiles. That's all this is."

"Th-then..." Kat's voice chokes in spite of her incredible bravery, "You've got a plan?"

"Psh! Who do you think I am?! I'm the cutest, most beautiful, most charming, perfect best dragon hero I✦D✦O✦L in the world: Elizabeth Bathory! That piece of useless junk's got nothing on me!"

She flashes peace signs and all of her best and cutest poses, and unfurls a pair of massive draconic wings from out of nowhere on her back. One last little pause, to make sure the elevator's got her backing track set up properly. It was pretty rude of her to switch back to her song without telling anyone, y'know?

"You go ahead and sing the fanchant, cutie. It's your whole job to make sure I shine as bright as possible, remember?"

Ah. Well dang it, how'm I supposed to stay mad at her after a line like that? In any case, she's off like a bullet. Or a shining pink laser. Or a hero. Or a princess. Or even a Princess. Her entire body is shining with pink energy, and the trail she cuts through space is something that everybody the whole world over down below can see trailing through the sky even through the light of sunset. So you can add 'comet' to the list of jobs she qualifies for now.

See, here's the thing. When she was summoned, Elly had three entire Command Seals burned on her in an instant. And all of them basically boiled down to the same thing, which is what put her on this elevator full of foxes to begin with: protect that vault. Ignoring that would've cost her pretty much everything she had. But following those orders? Puh-leaze. There is not a single thing in space the Burrowers had ever built that could handle her.

"Like an idol (Because I am)
It's ok if it all falls apart (not alone)
Love, Eternity, Popularity, I just want to make sure
You love, You love me more!!"

And that's the other thing. Even more than those Command Seals, her little song's true now. She's been alone, or pretty close to it, ever since she got summoned. And that happened well over a hundred years ago. But now. But now, but now? There's someone there. Someone's actually cheering for her. And then two someones. And then three. And three's a crowd, don't you know that? Did you think that glow was the light of three command seals? Did you think she needed wings to fly? Idiot! Those are just for show!

An idol does everything she does with love!

Gradually, the laser array pivots off of the vault. Adam has a new, much more terrifying target that he needs to take care of before he can get back to his incredibly important work. For once there's no dismissing the barbarians and the threat they represent. For just one moment, it's all he can do to throw the full force of his purchased might at making this awful, scary dragon... thing go away. The lasers power up and focus on a single point. Their combined might crashes down on the dragon-comet-hero-idol and engulfs her light completely.

"We believe in you, Elizabeth!"
"They'd better give me so many wallets for this I'll need a cart just to- oh! Sorry! Yeah, go Elly! And stuff! Woo~!"
"You can do it, Elly!"

"OF! COURSE! I! CAN!!!"

Her mic stand is her spear. Her voice is her power. And her love is still more powerful than either of 'em. Elizabeth Bathory crashes through the full power of that laser as if it were nothing more than harmless light. In fact, so much the better that it's all shining on her. What's this other than the biggest spotlight of her entire life?

A small, pink bullet crashes into a massive laser platform, and an entire world sees it happen. At first it's quiet. And then the explosions come, silent bursts of pure light in so many colors it's like fireworks. The most perfect, the most wonderful, the most incredible display of starbursts and flowers anyone has ever seen in all their lives.

She's still sparkling when she falls. And it's so beautiful that it takes even the closest observers need a minute to realize that her whole outfit is tastefully torn to shreds. That her wings are floppy, useless ribbons. And that her hair is a horrid mess. Her eyes shine wet from something that can only be happiness. And Elizabeth Bathory tears off her mask as she falls, first level with and then beneath the castle elevator.

Idol magic or no, it would be a crime if nobody could see how radiant her last smile is.

"Ahhhhhh, this was so much fun. I'm so glad I got summoned. I'm so glad I got to be an Extra Class this time. Be...cause. I finally got... to be... somebody's..."

Hero.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

So here is a fun fact about foxes! They are not natural sword geniuses! They're not even fighters, really. A fox more or less lives her entire life in a constant state of avoiding trouble in every way, shape, and form. And sword duels, while romantic, are dangerously close to manual labor. Which, eugh? Ew? Gross.

Although, there certainly are exceptions. There are a lot of foxgirls in the world, after all, and some of them are bound to fall in love with the blade. But foxes with 5 or more tails are quite a rarity for this crab bucket of a species, and it does take a fox with rather a lot of accumulated power and wealth before they start finding ways to become personally skilled at something without it coming too close to methods that offend their sensibilities. And even then they'd mostly rather be manipulators, advisors, and charmers.

Actia has all the power and poise to make an exception of herself. But she is not. She is, fortunately, something of a wizard though. And her chosen element (lightning) happens to be extra effective against Adam's chosen element (robots). The unfortunate downside is that it is also very effective against the element of space elevator, but part of being a wizard is knowing how to control herself. It just isn't very fun, and the music makes it worse.

Cyanis is the most typically typical (read: most specialest and bestful) fox who has ever foxed a fox. Even after participating in a war of ancient heroes for the fate of the planet she has never lifted a finger in her own name, nor has she experienced hardship beyond getting spanked after she got caught on a scheme slightly too big for her to swallow. She is supremely unbothered by the music of this particular battle because she cannot hear it at all underneath all of this excellent screaming she is doing. But it's a big sister's duty to help a little sister shine, which is why she is bravely hiding behind one Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits (Esquire).

Now, Kat? Kat is not a powerful foxgirl. Much has already been made of the fact that she is a failure among her kind, possibly owing to the unusual nature of her awakening and possibly owing to the unusual nature of her upbringing. Or both! Or neither. Maybe she's just kind of a loser? It's hard to say. But the plain fact of the matter is that she's the one who watched Yue across her own journey as a swordsmaiden, so she's been closer than any fox in history to both the first amateur slashes and the blade dance of a true master. It wasn't entirely bad logic that made Actia send her up against that helicopter all the way back at the beginning of this story. Perhaps alone among foxes, Katherine doesn't really mind getting her hands dirty. Perhaps alone among foxes, she's happy to get sweaty in the pursuit of a goal. Especially if it means she'll get rewarded with spa time after. But the end result of it all is that she is, perhaps more than any foxgirl in history, suited to the role of melee combatant. She will never be praised for this. It will never earn her so much as a single extra tail. But it's still special, y'know?

There's a problem, though.

See, Yue did not gain her skills in a week. Or a month. Or a season. It took endless hours of hard, sweaty work and the help of many of the world's greatest martial artists to shape her into the woman Kat idolized and chased after. And it's not that Kat didn't train at all during this whole sunshard war thing! But this adventure hasn't taken the same kind of time that that other one did. And a lot of the equivalent time that Yue spent going over forms and sparring and running in the shape of a wolf, Kat spent playing video games. Her talent is all and only in raw determination, and the fact that she was (however briefly) kissed by Qiu's sunshard at the start of everything.

And the further up they travel, the less that helps. The longer this goes on, the more the fact that she's tired and hurty overtakes the technique that living with Berserker and a handful of life or death fights have drilled into her. She's dressed well and she's determined as all get out, but left to fend for herself for the first time in forever? It's all she can do to bravely dodge roll out of the way of lasers and hope her weapon doesn't go flying out of her hands. She's already lost three (3) katanas along the way, y'know. With Berserker needing her sword back (as sad as it is, you can't make castles out of space elevators), she's down to a flimsy little poker and it needs timing and a shining heart to make it work and she just! Can't! Stop! Getting! Juked! By! This! Stupid! Music!

"Yeah ok," says Elizabeth Bathory, who has been quietly watching a party of heroes do their uninspired best to defend themselves, "I've had enough of this."

This is lame. This is stupid. This is the most impossibly weak ass way to go out in the history of ever. What, all those centuries of fighting demons where nobody even showed up to her concerts just to get shot to death with lasers right after the costume change! And to this backing track?! Nuh uh, no way! Rejected! Absolutely rejected.

Liz half stomps, half sways, and half dances her way over to a combat drone that is less than half a second away from putting a laser beam through the back of Actia's head and snatches it out of the air.

"This?" she trills, tracing a pink clawed finger around its camera port, "This is mine."

She presses her finger deep inside of it, and a curious thing happens. It does not shatter, or melt (though she does ruin the camera). It does not self destruct or turn on her and blast her into pieces. Instead, it... agrees? Despite having no domain over military equipment, no hacking experience, and really no technical expertise whatsoever, Elizabeth Bathory commandeers a sophisticated piece of death machinery and turns it into a pet. She repeats the process with five others, which float behind her like a little halo.

"Ok pets, now reprogram that sound system for me~"

I really must take the time to emphasize here that these are instruments of battle. They do not have multi-purpose programming and should, by rights, have zero ability to do what she has commanded them to. None of this makes any sense. It's like asking your refrigerator to disarm a bomb.

And, uh. And yet. Yeah. Yeah no, yeah. The music just changed. No yeah no, that's an instrumental lead up to a magical idol number. That's--

"That's my ringtone! That's my ringtone, guys!!!"

Sure. Ok. Thank you, Kat.

"Didn't I tell you not to disappoint me?" the Magical Hacker (?) Hero-Idol Elly says through a smirk, "What you losers need is motivation. Not just any idiot gets to be my fanclub president, you know. Now get out there and earn it! If you make me regret shaming myself with covers I'll kill you myself★"

Who said this is where it ends?
Only you can decide when this is over

There's two miracles happening here. The first is that this all sounds... nice? Not just as a break from the janky corpo nonsense noise, but really and actually beautiful. No bleeding ears, no sonic screeching, no weaponized high notes. Bereft of the, uh... enthusiasm? For her own original pieces, Liz croons sweetly and perfectly in key. I mean, of course she does! Did you really think she wouldn't be great at this? There's a fan on the line! And this time no cheaty stupid dumbface tail chormping losers are going to eat them before she sells merch!

Thrust ahead, blind to your weakness (If you run away)
From now on, becoming stronger is impossible
Whispers a presence from within

The other miracle? You guessed it already, you big genius you. The ability to fight was inside Katherine all along! Sunshard attunement and Mimic Techniques and blah blah blah blah blah. So what that she's not the best? So what if she hasn't practiced enough? So what if other foxes don't respect her? I do! You do! She's certainly learned enough to handle something like this!

Her sword might not be enough, and her grip is far from expert. She might be tired. Burned out. And about to destroy her weapon tearing through this swarm of evil death bots. But you know what? Once upon a time, she was a whole army! All by herself! The entire city of Ys trembled the day that she showed up!

And so, her beautiful battledress-spacesuit dances. She passes along the length of the elevator with a trail of shimmering blue like a river rapid with triangles and two fluffy green tails. Her little blade sings in time with her favoritest favorite song, and her heart lights up with the determination that only an idol can foster in a young girl's heart.

And by goshies? They are making it to space!

Breathless Dead

Dany!

Bella doesn't laugh. Her lips part, as if to smile, and warm red spills out and runs down her chin instead. She wheezes and does not dare to shut her eyes, in case this is the last time she gets to open them.

She reaches one trembling hand up and manages to brush a finger underneath your jaw. Where her delicate little fingers pass, she paints your skin in her color.

"Sil... ly," her voice is nothing more than breath now, "Wh-wh-when. Did... I say? It... w-w-was... y-your fault?"

Bella Meowmeow has promises to keep. Her fingertips strain but she can't reach the tears in your eyes without your help. Even then she might not make it. Every motion she makes causes her slick, ruined body to slip against your desperate clutches and spill more of her insides into the garden. She is growing colder, despite the warmth in her little golden eyes.

She wants to laugh. She wants to laugh so badly. But the closest she can come is a wet hiss.

You feel the ground shudder. Behind you, XIII crashes to the ground in a heap of mangled and crushed armor. Her claw tips curl toward each other with an awful tearing sound, and in a blink she disappears. Her howl shakes the entire garden before it is suddenly cut off. Bella Aurelia, her dress hacked and dirtied, her body battered and her hair in disarray, snarls and wrenches her terrible blade free from the Diodekoi's neck.

She kicks XIII back to the ground and plants her foot on the chest plate of the massive exoskeleton. Her heel grinds against it until the bone plating cracks. XIII snarls, but with her body broken the power is stolen from her voice too.

In this moment she seems less like a monster and more like a wounded animal. The lion of the forest roaring because of the thorn embedded in her paw. But Bella Aurelia does not bend down to pluck it out. Instead she stomps, again and again, grunting in equal parts effort and frustration, until the creature beneath her stops twitching. Until her arms are twisted and broken at odd angles by her sides and her spine is by all appearances shattered. Until the spikes of her armor are growing from her lungs.

"Insolent hound! Useless beast! After everything I've done to preserve you, how dare you bare your fangs at me! This is not the role I gave you to play. But I forgive you. Yes, even you. Regrow your body, vile creature. Pull yourself together and hunt to your hearts content. Howl and drool and fight until you finally turn to Rampancy. When you deliver Artemis to me, all will be well."

And with a final kick to the head, XIII stills. She has done nothing but hunt you, Dany. Nothing but slaughter every incarnation of Bella that has crossed her path, without regard for whether they were there to help or hurt you. But now that she looks like this, do you finally see it? Can you see that she is something to be pitied?

Can you see that this is not your fault? What is the heart of one little girl against the gears of Empire? What can a friendly smile or a stupid and childish argument amount to when set on the scales alongside the will of Olympus?

Do you see, Dany? Are your eyes open at long last? Can you see your little Bella struggle as her older, perfected self walks closer and closer?

It costs the younger Bella everything she has to throw herself on top of you. You hit the ground and know immediately from the feeling of warmth that covers you that there's no saving her. But she smiles at you. Do you see? Do you see the way her young face lights up at yours? There is no room there for pain or fear.

"Together, Dany. Forever and ever."

She collapses on top of you. And there is something of magic in that motion, because you are the one that falls. Your arms close around her and hold nothing except for a worn out old blanket, and the hand that reaches after you clutches only empty air. You tumble through darkness, and you are not alone.

Bella Aurelia pulls her arm free from the muck and stares at her empty palm. She sniffs dismissively and pats the dust off her glorious body. Desire gleams wickedly from its resting place atop her shoulder.

"You realize this changes nothing, of course. Soon I will have everything I want."

Redana?

Your hands are around her throat. You can feel fingers that are not yours crushing her windpipe. And you know that your instincts were right. That she was right. This is less cruel.

No more words to taunt you. No more mocking, no more torture. Just her surprised face, filling your vision.

Oh. But it is your vision, isn't it? You still own that. You can kill her but you'll still see everything, and this body won't be able to do a thing to protect you from that. You'll have to keep on being Redana. And that's the cruelest thing that anybody could ask of you, isn't it?

That's why it's a relief when she smiles. When her twisted grin is everything you can see, you know you've been a good girl. Not cruel at all. No more cruelty at all. You do not release her. She does not release you. You feel the hot lances of her thumb claws on your face, and your entire world turns Imperial Red.

There is a crunching sound, somewhere. You cannot tell where because there is no 'you' anymore. You are not Redana, you are only the stubborn threads of that identity that are stuck to the surface of your perfected body. The collar that clicks around 'your' neck is pleasant and cool, and not painful at all. The tug on the leash is soothing.

There is warm water at 'your' feet. 'You' bend down to lap at it, and it is the most delicious and refreshing thing that 'you' have ever tasted. Sweeter than any wine, more perfect than ambrosia. But there is no time to savor it before 'you' are tugged away.

'You' obey. 'You' follow out of the crumbling dance hall and into the darkness. As far as 'you' are aware, there is no difference at all.

Ember

Arm by arm. Heavier and heavier. Hotter and hotter. Lonelier and lonelier. But though every millimeter you drag yourself costs more than the one before it, on and on across their countless lengths you go.

There are no voices anymore. Only the dark. Only the heat. Only...

Only moonlight. Only a single hand underneath your jaw. Only the brilliant glint of teeth and the heavy smell of crab flesh and the soaking wet skin of Mosaic, who has come wearing her suit pants but otherwise no more than you.

"Do you know, little Ember? The other one told me I was wasting my time coming here. She was so certain you would quit. But she does not know my puppy like I do, does she? Does she?"

She plucks you off the ground as though you weigh less than a feather. When she laughs, you can feel the sea breeze blowing through this oppressive corridor. And then she leans down and punches a hole through what must be the ground, if anything here can be said to exist in the first place.

"I'm going to pay for that one, I think. Ha! Then this is as far as I go, my heart. But you? A little further for you. Do not worry, there will be others there to compliment your choice of outfit. Won't that be fun?"

The darkness seems to howl in response. Already it is clawing at her, but she turns her back and puts herself between you and it. You do not even see her bleed. She flashes you one more silver lit grin and tosses you into the hole she dug, and just like that you're in darkness again.

But this time you get to rest. You're going to roll the rest of the way there. Any bruises you accumulate will be a small price to pay, won't they? Damage your Grace, and enjoy the ride.

Dolce!

Your body serves you well. The only rustling in the roses across the whole of nap time comes from the stalking of the assassins as they prowl about in search of you. But their button eyes do not see as well as yours. Their stitched on noses cannot catch your scent. Four times you hear the snuffling of wolves, but every time they catch one of their fellows moving in another direction, and it distracts them before they can mark your location.

One time you see the owl. She is only a little ways away from you, but her back is turned. You keep your path, slow and steady. Almost as though the hand still clutching at that can of coffee is pulling you to the only path out of here there is. But you are traveling slowly, so there is time enough to see the tiny assassin pull free her little rapier: a needle still attached to some thread. She shakes her head and sticks it into the ground before she walks away.

You are silent. You are steady. You have already made your choice. There will be no asking what the intent behind that gesture was. And you are certain this is true because no sooner do you reach the edges of the garden than you hear the girl waking from her nap.

"Nnngh, where?" she asks, in the delirious tone of someone still wrestling with the Oneiroi.

"Where is he, darling?"

"M-Mommy?!"

"Where. Is. He?"

"H-he was here! He was he was he was! I zappeded him, Mommy! I did, I promise I did, I zappeded him just like you showed me an he wasn't movin'! He, he, he wouldn't stop! I saida stop and he didn' so I! S'not my fault! I'mma good girl, I am I am I am!"

"I will tell you what I see, ░░░░. I see an empty spot where I should have a guest waiting for me."

"But I!"

"DON'T INTERRUPT!"

She quails. But you are on the edge of the garden. Just a few more scoots and you cross the threshold of what you realize must be a door. To your no doubt intense surprise, it is already open. You slip past it, and the lecture that Bella Aurelia gives to her daughter fades into so much longwinded nothing.

You have made it, Dolce.

But.

You have not gone far. And you have not gone fast. And that's why you can still hear it. The panicked screaming of that little girl.

"Mommy! Mommy, please! I'mma good girl, Mommy! I'll be good! I'll be good, Mommy! I'll be!"

You hear one final note of shrill, unfiltered terror. And then you hear loud, wet crunching. And then you hear nothing. And then suddenly the floor gives way beneath you, and you are falling.

Damage your Courage, Dolce.

***

The interior hallways of the golden theater are empty. There are no staff selling snacks, though the presence of many different stands and the ghostly wisp of the smells of various foods hint that they must have been there once, and recently. All the lights are dimmed so as not to disturb the movie playing in the theater proper.

And into this scene falls a sheep with a shattered leg. He bounces when he hits the floor, like a metaphor for the stock market on primitive worlds where that sort of concept carries any water at all. He has only enough time to groan before he's slammed into by a naked Ceronian scout who's so soaked with sweat she might die without a drink in the next thirty seconds.

One moment after and the sheep is knocked to the ground again when he becomes the cushion for a frightened Princess, soaked in the blood of a best friend and wrapped tight in a blanket that is so threadbare it might be three hundred years old to look at it.

What a lovely reunion. Minus two.

The doors to the theater are shut tight, so whatever film is playing tonight is not a thing any of the three of you can tell. But even through the protection of those barricades you can still hear the shrill, peaking laughter of a girl who has just seen the funniest thing that has ever happened to anyone. A comedy then, one would guess.

In any case, you are together again. And you are alone. At just this moment, nobody and nothing has managed to follow you down the pits and back to the beginning, or the center or... however things work here. Isn't it enough to know that you're alive?

Return to Thellamie

"Mayzie, I..."

Force eyes closed. Force deep breath. Force slow sip of champagne. Force tasting notes: the dry elixir, the floral burst, the bubbles popping against the tongue. Swallow, delicately. Force exhalation. Force eyes open, meet her gaze.

"The first time we knew each other, I fell in love with you. It was a child's love, and I was such a coward that I could not express even that. But I have been lucky enough to get to know you a second time and I, I do feel a flame stir within me again."

Stupid. This is stupid. This is the least romantic confession in the history of Thellamie. And every moment spent on this inevitable rejection carries me farther away from the inflection point where my decisions buy me time to act. But I. But I!

What is a Maid-Knight's duty if it is not this?

"I am terrified. I have thought and I have gathered all the evidence I could, but I cannot pierce this mystery. I don't... know what it is you wish for. And so I cannot grant it. I don't know if you would ask me to go, and not return. I don't know if you would ask me to set aside my colors and my mission and remain at your side instead. I don't know what would become of me in either case. I do not know. I simply do not know what to do."

Clench empty hand tight at side. Feel heat rising in cheeks. Drain glass to shut self up, forget to savor. Regret instantly. What happened the last time you drank with her, you idiot?

"...At the end of the night I am going to ask you again. If you will let me. Whether there is a path that we can walk together, and whether that path stays still or chases the horizon. I believe in the vows that I took, and the colors that I normally wear. But I know that I am not unique or special in that regard. It does not need to be me. Except tonight, it does.

"There are faint traces in the air of an incense both exclusively used and developed by the Order of the Aurora. It has powerful soporific effects, though it is not inherently dangerous. Only, all members of the Order have returned to the Manor. It can only have been lit with ill intent. And there is another question eating at the edges of my mind, about why my face is on wanted posters. What is the act that they say that I committed? What is the point of manipulating all the actors thus? Something dangerous is happening beyond the lights of this party, Mayzie."

Reach forward, cut self off. Set glass on ground instead. Grasp wrist with opposite arm and squeeze. Turn away.

"I am going. I will return, and I will do whatever you ask of me after. I will pay any price. I will make any recompense. But I cannot live with myself if, knowing what I know, I allow anyone here tonight to come to harm. And I... believe. That if you believe me, you would not forgive me either."

The first step. The second step. The third. I have spent so much time on this childish need to be understood and loved that I may have cost myself my window. But I must act. I must.

I have to know.