Cassie hadn't dreamed since they entered space, but that night, she could still feel herself plunging underwater, again and again. This time, as she turned her face towards the light, she saw not the hazy sky but instead a definite sphere of light, who gleamed overhead with a vicious intensity. It grew stronger and stronger above her head, intensifying into a halo, and then she felt herself being lifted outside of her own body from the cold.

She woke up to find dear Rose Eudica placed gingerly on her shelf, with Pechi slinking out of the room.

"Pechi, wait! Am I awake late again?" asked Cassie, bolting to her hooves. The internal clock ticked dreadfully in her head. "W-wait, I arranged a full-ship meeting a few days ago, conditional on the premise that we'd have another single-day mission-- I must've missed it already!"

"C-Cassie, y-y-y-you are the only one who's s-stressed about this," Pechi said, canting her head to the side. "W-we're just downstairs, having c-c-casual conversation about the c-c-current state of the mission. It's n-nice to kn-now when we should be talking to each other, b-but your scheduling is a bit... obsessive, esp-especially as you never stick to it yourself?"

Cassie's ears flattened. She stepped around Pechi and out of the room, taking the elevator down to the inner ship, which was in no less a state of disarray than she had left it the last night. Fuming, she began kicking the blankets into something resembling a folded heap when Alexa folded it the rest of the way for her. The Canis, who was already situated back at the helm, barely turned when she said, "Nice of you to join of for the meeting you arranged."

Cassie situated herself at the table. Someone had already opened up the mashcakes for her, which would have been nice had they not already gone cold with exposure to the air. She took a few delicate bites and waited for conversation to continue.

It did not.

"Well?" Cassie asked. "I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"

Dusty shook his head. "Not as far as I know."

"Are you all doing the eye thing, then?" asked Cassie. "Do you have some kind of private telepathy?"

Dusty smirked. "Alexa and I aren't superpsychic. We just know each other really well."

"If you'd really like to discuss the seraph, we were discussing, at an earlier hour, we saw to be... an oversight, of kinds, in our current venture," Alexa paused. "Of course, Tabai missed this, and Pechi didn't seem to believe it, but Dusty and I are under the impression that the mission at large has been almost too easy thus far. We have made each mission within the span of a day. Only two of our members have fallen, and both times, it seems to have been directly correlated with an action of their own choosing, that is to say, internal error that has now been purged from the group. More startlingly, we have not once encountered the seraph itself, though it has to be out there somewhere, waiting on us. We do not know why he would leave his horns at these locations, which mind you, are not difficult for us to detect. We could be playing into a game of his, and as we are trapped within his spacial well, we have no way of leaving without eliminating him. Given those circumstances, why would he leave us a trail of his own energy to follow?"

Tabai grit her teeth. "We almost died. What part of that is 'almost too easy'?"

Alexa said, "I would have been able to teleport us all out of the lake the second that beast tipped over. I apologize for letting you run a mission on your own. It's clear that your sentimentality continues to addle your sense, and that says nothing of your strange habit of averting from using your spacial powers."

"They're limited when you're around the seraph, or any remnant of its powers. We've discussed this before," Tabai growled.

"You know that's not why you can't use your powers," Alexa argued. "You refuse to put your suit on by magical means. I have not seen you use telekinesis once while on board, even when it's obvious that the situation calls for it. You eat like a lesser-- oh, I'm sorry, telekinetically inhibited species. Dusty was able to move the body of out of the water, and yet you still stood there, dumbfounded, as if somehow this was some miraculous feat of strength and not something you should have been capable of from the first. I have no idea how they didn't weed you out from the first, but I'd imagine you managed to display some of the myriad... hobbies you're apparently gifted at, and they let you through. Or maybe the numbers for our mission were just that unfortunate. I wouldn't rule it out."

"I wouldn't be so hasty to harp on my talents as 'hobbies'," Tabai growled.

"I'd call them compensation, Forhaga," Dusty argued.

"Don't you dare use that language with me. You don't know anything about what I am!"

"Do we?" asked Alexa. "Would you like to explain yourself to us, Tabai?"

Tabai's face twitched with rage.

"This isn't important," Cassie said. "And it's exactly the kind of thing the seraph would use to drive us apart. You don't need magic to be a valuable part of the crew. Pechi and I don't have telekinesis, either, and yet we've been critical in the missions thus far. If Tabai doesn't want to talk about her powers, I think we should respect that."

"I don't think we should respect unnecessary secrecy. If she doesn't have anything to hide, why is she being aversive about it?" asks Alexa.

"My reasons for using telekinesis or failing to do so are entirely outside of your business," argued Tabai.

"Of course. Because it's not as if they've impacted the mission negatively, almost getting us all killed. I'll close my mouth, because I'd hate to intrude into your business. Need to respect our desperation hires' precious privacy." Alexa gave a long, exhaustive sigh. Cassie could feel all of her fur stand on end as Alexa's scrutiny passed them all over, the noise like a snake writhing its way across her back. Finally, the golden Canis continued, "Well. If we're going to ignore obvious signs of either incompetence or blatant betrayal, we might as well return to the point. Have you learned anything about the seraph's plans for us?"

Tabai looked up fiercely. "More than you ever would have learned. I talked to our host on the planet for an extensive time, and what she said about him was enlightening. She spoke of their utter adoration for the seraph at length. It would appear that the seraph has a kind of cult on these planets, and that it is responsible for the conditions of the inhabitants. On a world of utter interconnection between inhabitants, to the point where there is no privacy, it brings wind so that they never meet again. On a world of harsh conditions, it relieves them of pain. It seems to prey on their weaknesses in such a way that the solution is worse than the problem, and in such a way that it entirely relieves the species of agency."

Alexa nodded.

"So I believe our job is to, in the future, cease these quick dash missions and begin assisting these creatures with their problems. We might gain more insight into the seraph's plans, and we wouldn't be leaving these planets to fend for themselves in our wake."

"Makes perfect sense," Alexa said. "We just lose out on time, valuable resources, and the seraph comes in behind us and reinstates whatever reign it had, anyways, given that it has both the reputation and powers of a god. Thank you, Tabai, for your strategic brilliance."

"Stop mocking me," Tabai said, defensively.

Alexa cast her gaze over the group, again. Cassie, who was watching the clock so that she didn't have to focus on the face of either furious Sentient, felt her heart quicken. "Well," Alexa said. "Who thinks that we should be taking our sweet time on these planets? Does anyone else agree with Tabai? I'm not in charge of this ship. I'll listen to majority opinion."

Not one of them stirred.

"Come on--" Tabai said. "You're not moved at all?"

"There's nothing we can do for them," Dusty said, his whisper barely audible above the pulsing hum of the ship's intricate machinery. He asked, delicately, "Can I go do repairs? I'm behind as death right now, and I'm sure all of you would prefer that some of the critical systems in this ship remained in operation."

"I'd prefer if you repaired the refrigerator at some point," Cassie said beneath her breath. "Or that you retained a greater degree of transparency towards what 'critical systems' you're repairing."

Tabai yelled, "Are you listening to yourselves? Do innocent lives seriously take a backseat to the working condition of the refrigerator?"

"There's nothing we can do until we stop that seraph," said Alexa.

"W-w-we're not c-c-cold. This is just the reality of the mission. The mission you s-s-s-signed up for. Diplomacy and needless sentimentality aren't the same thing," Pechi said, eyes round.

"Looks like I have consensus," Alexa said, returning her vision to the helm and the vast expanse of space before them.

"Oh, that's just like a Canis! You believe everyone's beneath you, don't you? So who cares who gets hurt along the way? No harm, no foul, as long as you meet your goals, isn''t it? If someone does a kindness for you and suffers for it, they've involuntarily elected to furthering the cause. If you have to nudge someone out of the way so hard they break against the wall, they should have stepped somewhere they wouldn't be trodding on your tail."

"First of all, you're generalizing. Second, I hate to break it to you, but it would appear, unless we're much mistaken, that you're also a Canis," said Alexa. "There would be some mythological backing for that illusion, wouldn't there?"

Tabai seemed to shrink under her fur, but she still put a paw forwards, her face a mask of hatred and rage. "And what of it? At least I've tried, in some small capacity, to be kind up here. Meanwhile, all you've done is get Benn killed by driving her absolutely rabid, and stars knows how many civilians of these planets are going to get stepped on."

"Benn was a liability because she's too violent. G'ana was a liability because her heart isn't hard enough," Alexa responded.

"And they're all pawns," Dusty added. "for the seraph. We don't owe them mercy. Before you start spitting at me about morality, remember that we're pawns, too, for our civilization. If they could automate the process, and believe me, I wish they could, then they would have. Robots, at the least, would have an easier time following instructions."

"We don't have to be pawns! We're in space. The rules they put on us, the shackles of Omnia, all of that is gone up here! Even if we insist on finishing this mission, which is understandable because we literally have no other way out, we could at least try, for once in our short mortal lives, to show some deliberate kindness to each other. Is that really so hard to ask?" asked Tabai. "Yet I've been on here for what, thirty days, and all of you are too stuck up in your own self-perpetuating victim narratives or just-- just outdated beliefs to look over your own noses at another being and see them as an equal."

"I don't think that's fair, or true," Cassie mumbled.

"I think you're bad sports," Dusty said.

"I don't know if that's true either," Cassie said.

"Why are we even doing all this for Omnia? Our world is the worst. Do you think that anyone back home gives a single tail swipe about us? Why else would they send us into a suicide mission in deep space?"

"I'm doing this because it's my duty," Dusty said.

"Honor," Alexa added.

"I have friends back home," Cassie said. "They're in danger without this seraph energy."

"O-oh! Well, I guess Omnian order is... it's effective, isn't it? A-a-and we have good gods, who c-c-care for us. I d-d-don't really know wh-why we would... just... stop..." Pechi paused. Tabai's snarl was growing more obvious by the moment. "Well! We're overtime, aren't we, Cassie? J-just got another... another day until we hit the f-f-fourth planet, and then there's the asteroid b-b-belt, and that's just g-g-g-going to be its own debacle. I h-have plants to tend to, th-things to look over, and I-I'm g-g-going to go."

"I'll come with you," Cassie announced. "Bye!"

Tabai strode towards the other elevator. "Someday I'm going to get through to some of you," she promised.

The elevator door shut on Cassie and Pechi's faces. A slight whine escaped Cassie's throat, as if something was being strangled out of her, and Pechi leaned heavily into her side.

"I want to agree with her," Cassie said, "But we can't, can we? Just stop everything and help them, I mean."

"I don't think she's a Forhaga," Pechi said. "She doesn't have any obvious markings from another species, unless her massive size is indicative of Ursadom. Forhaga don't have horns like those, either. It feels like a deliberate illusion."

"I think I can see that," Cassie said. "What are the other options?"

Pechi looked at the glassy door of the elevator. The light shone over them, the shaft casting dark shadows across them that descended past them and receded back into nothingness. "I have hypotheses, but none of them m-make very much sense. Permanent shapeshifting is p-practically an impossibility. Nyuhenge, the shapeshifter race, died out eons ago."

"Nyuhenge?"

The hallway door opened. Pechi jerked her head to the side. "Follow me."

Cassie did. The pair passed a skulking Tabai in the halls, who hardly acknowledged the two except for a sideways glare, and disappeared like a phantom down the hall, her pawsteps still pounding in Cassie's ears. Pechi sled into her room, into darkness, with Cassie following. As she adjusted to the murk of the room, she noticed that there were deep blue pools of light near the base of the room, which reflected off Pechi's bed, her trees, and most concerningly, the figures of Benn and G'ana, who had both been slouched into their respective corners, like trophies.

"S-s-something the matter?" asked Pechi.

"I almost forgot you were keeping them here," Cassie said, still intent on Benn's sneering expression. Could the Lapnin-Canis sense her presence? Would she be relieved for the company, or would she be outraged at the disrespect with which she'd been lay to lie in the corner? How would being trapped in an unfeeling, unsensing void change one's personality? Cassie already found herself desperate for companionship, imagining the metal pressing in, a covering over her body that would never abate.

"I've b-b-been s-s-speaking with them," Pechi said. "Y-y-you probably think that's i-incredibly silly."

"If something happens to me," Cassie said. "Talk to me. Please. Every single day, until this is over. I want to know that you're there."

"Y-y-you wouldn't know," Pechi said. "I m-mean, reasonably. B-b-but at the same time, I have some k-kind of weird faith..."

"I don't think it's weird. I admire your conviction," Cassie said. "Honestly."

The two of them stood in silence.

"They weren't just liabilities," Cassie added. "Benn would have thrown herself into the water without a moment's notice. We need her strength, still, and we need G'ana to keep us all under control."

"S-so Benn w-wo-would have died here, instead of ag-against dragons. That's n-n-not even a b-b-better fate," Pechi stammered. "M-maybe there would j-just be power struggles if G'ana w-w-was still here."

Cassie shook her head. "Things would be better. I'm certain of it," she said.

"You're s-s-such an optimist," Pechi said.

"Like you," Cassie said.

"I'm not brave enough t-to be an optimist," Pechi said. "I'm j-just so paranoid it oc-c-cassionally comes across as hopeful."

The darkness pressed in on them both. "Aren't the Nyuhenge all dead?" asked Cassie. "They were the shapeshifters who stood in the way of the Auspicia, weren't they? Hearts dark as those of the Obsidians, they desired a death of deaths, and they were given it. The walls of the Auspicia's castle were hung with the nine tails of the leader, the fierce Agatou, and that night fire razed the forests, set by both sides. When the smoke cleared, the land had burned to cinders, and thousands starved. When it was all over, the Sentients beneath the Auspicia had cared for each other through the long winter, and Agatou's forces, who had only cared for themselves and the sharp tang of blood, had scattered and perished. From the fields that had burned, from the bodies which had been turned to ash, rose a field of lilies, and for years after, those who needed to deter the remnants of that coldest kind needed only smear the lily's entrails over their doorframe to ensure tricksters could not enter."

"Quite a recitation," Pechi said.

"It's a favorite," Cassie said. "Not of mine. A favorite of a friend's. Proof that good always triumphs over evil, or something."

"Define good," Pechi was stock still.

Cassie paused. "I guess-- well--"

"'Good' is whoever wins," Pechi said. "That's why 'good' can always triumph. Because we decide what it is, and so, no matter what trajectory history takes, it always comes around to good in the end, because we're the ones who are here to tell it, so things turned out great for us."

"But you think Tabai's a Nyuhenge?" asked Cassie. "Why haven't we talked about this as a group?"

"Because, by our mutual definition of 'good', the best thing to do when we find out that she's a shapeshifter, who almost set us against each other, and who is probably an enemy of our planet who is now distracting from the mission with h-her display of empathy," Pechi began, her eyes rolling over to Cassie.

"Is to kill her." Cassie finished. "But we could all work something out! Like Tabai was saying--"
"Then let's talk about it as individuals. No messy societal order in th-the way. Just us. Dusty and Alexa don't want to hear what I have to say. Tabai doesn't want me to say it," said Pechi. The scattered, lacking blue light from the pools made her eyes look darker, and her face inexpressibly more worn. "We're all a crew of one on this ship. You're the protagonist of an isolated narrative. You fight your demons. Alone."
Cassie's vision squinted up. All the trees in the room seemed to be moving slightly, which she had first thought was a tick of the light, but it felt like the longer she adjusted to the dark, the more she felt that the things that should have been illusions were actually, at the very moment, coming to pass. An old Omnian wind moved through the trees, and the trinkets hung on them reacted to patterns of shadow and light that had nothing to do with the lighting of Pechi's room. "Why did they send us? Why did you agree to come?" asked Cassie. "If you feel this way about the world, why try to save it?"

"You don't know how I f-f-feel about the world," Pechi said.

"Tell me, then," demanded Cassie.

Pechi hesitated. "Coward."

"What?"

"Me. My family was part of o-o-one of the m-m-main forces of r-r-resistance against dragon-Sentient conflict. I'm ha-half Spirit Canira, and w-w-we were all caught up in smuggling artifacts on and off-world th-through the dragons. Moral thoughts. Im-immoral reasons. I w-w-was caught d-during a raid by S-S-Sentients, and I s-s-sold my family all out. Gave exact coordinates. Y-y-you know why?"

"Did... something tell you to?" asked Cassie. "The trees?"

Pechi shook her head. "I d-d-don't even know. I was af-afraid to die, at first, and admittedly, it was partially because they said th-they were going to burn all of my t-t-trees. I was incredibly selfish. A-a-after that, they let me j-join the Defender corps. I was smart enough to g-g-give them the answers they wanted, most of the time, and then..." She looked up at the ceiling, which was dark as death. The light from the bottom of the room hardly reached up there, and Cassie followed her gaze back to her face. Pechi's gaze jerked away again.

"Keep going."

"D-d-do I have to?" Pechi said. "H-how much d-do I have to s-s-say for you to hate me?"

"Keep going," insisted Cassie.

"I c-c-came out here to die," Pechi said. "Or m-m-maybe to just to be away from my family. They're out there, in new bodies, watching me, waiting for me. If I g-g-go back, I'll see them again, in one lifet-t-time or another. I figure th-that eventually, the w-w-world will gi-give me what's coming to me. I thought this would be q-q-quicker, but it j-just isn't. And if we s-s-succeed, that's even better! If I d-d-do this, everyone wins. The b-b-barrier stays f-f-flexible enough to open, s-s-so Sentients can still collude with dragons. The barrier k-keeps going, so n-no one dies by Obsidian invasion. I'd m-make up for what I did, and I'd g-g-get all kinds of good things, and m-ma-maybe just be left alone to read, for the rest of my life. I th-think I'd like that."

Cassie paused, practically shaking with rage.

"Please don't tell me you want more," Pechi cringed away.

"Did they kill your family?"

"Wh-what does it matter? They'll be back. It's O-Omnia. Everyone is always back, forever and ever."

"But did they?"

"C-C-Cassie."

"Did they kill your family, Pechi?"

"Th-they s-s-staged a f-full coup," Pechi said. "I f-f-found about it later. Th-there were some casualties. I wish I f-f-felt something, but I was j-just angry at th-them for being so s-s-stupid. Weapons dealers t-t-to dragons, renegades, intent on s-s-social anarchy. W-w-we were all greedy. Wh-who am I supposed to be mad at? M-my family? S-s-society? I w-w-wasn't on either of th-their sides. I d-d-don't even k-know whose side I'm on n-now. I d-d-don't even know h-how anyone's s-s-supposed to l-look at me like anything more than a--" Pechi's voice choked up in her throat.

Cassie remained pinned to the spot.

"W-w-well? What do you think?"

Cassie's throat was full of ice.

"Anything?"

"I--"

"--selfish," Pechi told her. "I c-c-can't reconcile with myself if I w-w-wanted to."

Cassie lay down on Pechi's bed. "I can't give you words for this. Every time someone speaks, we just get angrier at ourselves, at the world, at what we were... and our actions aren't much better, are they? All the seven of us are is pure destruction, and we're mowing down everything in our paths."

"What do we do, Cassie?" asked Pechi.

Cassie's mouth tasted like blood. She knew exactly what needed to be done.

"Sit down next to me," she said.

Pechi sat.

"Let's pretend we're in the elevator again, and we barely know anything about each other."

Pechi leaned against her neck. Cassie felt how warm she was, but beneath that, she could sense the frantic beating of Pechi's heart, as if the Canira's organs were trying to tear themselves out of their cage. The anger only intensified further as they got closer, and Cassie found herself openly, angrily weeping. Pechi was silent as death, just watching her tragedy pour out through Cassie's face, and she stood still, untwitching, guilty.

"Do you believe in Verhamera, Cassie?" asked Pechi. "Do y-y-you believe that we're doing the right thing, here?"

"Yes," Cassie said.

"H-honestly?"

"Yes."

"G-g-good. If you believe in it, then I'll believe in it, too."

"Do you?"

"I believe in at least ten gods."

"Do you really think they're all real?"

"I just want t-t-to believe that there's more than one. Th-that way, I c-c-could have been doing the right th-thing, f-f-for someone, u-under some set of rules. I c-c-could be faithful to something. I might h-have never s-s-strayed from the path, at all, and when I die, it'll be as a p-p-p-paragon of virtue, heaped with all the wealth and praise I could ever want to carry me over," Pechi said. It rung in Cassie's ears, hollow and husky and full of all the despair the hopeful comment could carry.

The two of them lay together in the dark, just sobbing.