They stood at the precipice between blinding heat and infinite darkness.

"I'd gather there's no turning back now," G'ana announced to the crew. The six assembled Sentients collectively gave an uneasy laugh. In reality, the point of no return had been in rooms back on Omnia, the homeworld. It had been, for some of them, long before that, when they had first pushed themselves into the careers they now occupied. It had been an inevitable light, dancing on the horizon, and as the light of a sun foreign to their own spilled over them, everything changed, and nothing did. G'ana's eyes gleamed with an even fiercer warmth. "I'm honored to be here with you. This is the most distinguished crew I've lead--"

From the back, a Canis with shocking yellow fur, darkly lidded eyes, and a mane that spilled around her shoulders and framed her like her own miniature sun, asked, "Isn't this your first?"
G'ana's ears slid back. The Canira hadn't quite anticipated this, out of the many complaints she figured she'd receive about her leadership, and then again, somehow an abiding affection for these strangers had blinded her from the possibility she'd hear anything. "Well," she began, breathlessly. "I don't believe that demerits the expedition. For my lot, I've done lots of on-world training, enough that they trusted me with a mission of these caliber... consider me precocious!" The joke, indicated by perked ears and a quick swing of her tail, was met by little more than a cough. She continued, "Oh, seriously. We have a first-rate Vidant on board for our protection, frankly a brilliant navigator and planner in Cassiopeia, Pechi's knowledge is legitimately unmatched, Tabai's solved conflicts that no Canis had any business handling, Dusty's been recognized in Evelsca, and Alexa, you, you've done it all already, haven't you? I don't think, if I'd had a thousand missions, I'd be fortunate enough to take a cast like this to the stars with me. All of us, individually, could be considered heroes the likes of which would make a seraph quake, and yet here we are together. Who knows what we're capable of?" Breathlessly, she looked across the six other faces, looking for so much as a flicker of warmth following the adulation she'd personally bestowed upon all of them. Her head lifted slightly, her chest heaving more than she'd intended, and she managed to wager another quick swing of her tail.

"Is that all?" asked Alexa, her eyes fixed on G'ana's trailing whiskers instead of her face.

"There is... I mean, if you all are ready, we do have plans for tonight. Technically! There's nothing too serious until the first planet, but I did write lists--" Cassie began, from the back. Among the others, her silhouette stuck out immediately, even moreso than G'ana's did. She was lanky even for a Fauna, although her stomach seemed a little swollen. A heavy eater, maybe? She was being too quick to judge. G'ana dragged her eyes away.

Benn, who was standing close to the front, but who had had an almost hazed-over expression the entire time the speech was being given, gave a quick, dismissive grunt. Though she was a Canis, she stood at half Tabai's height, possibly even half of Alexa's, and her long, excessive ears almost dragged against the floor, where they might have collected dust if the facility had ever had the luxury of being exposed to time. The fur and even the skin at the end was cut to bits, although someone had at least attempted to hide the damage as the result of battle scars. Benn trailed out of the room, towards the major ring of the spaceship.

Tabai, whose green fur shuffled under her massive shoulders, asked cautiously, "Would that be our sign to leave?"

"If you need an omen, Lucil has spoken," said Dusty, the final Canis of the assembly. He cast a quick glance towards the tapestry of the current Auspicia thrown up against the back wall of the "cockpit" (although it was more of a general gathering place).

With a respectful nod, Tabai stepped after Benn, as did Cassie. G'ana shuffled in behind, feeling, not for the first time in what had likely amounted to little more than a sunrise back home (and even for all the fires in all the worlds, oh how she had missed it), that she was already being undercut. The four of them proceeded through a long elevator which pushed them into the outer ring of the ship, where they all immediately felt a shift in their inner gravity. Some crystals were embedded into the side of the doorway, but they weren't helping. Had Pechi asked that someone attempt venecrystology on a foreign ship? Omnian magic was going to be a tenth as effective here. She might as well have asked them to install outwards-facing nails on all of the walls. G'ana brushed against them as she heaved herself out through the microgravity, feeling the weight of the world settle back on her, even if a false one.

Cassie stared at her, cautiously, and G'ana flashed her the most confident smile she could muster. At this point, she was well aware that her tail was probably spiked up as if she'd seen the face of death, just from the anxiety of the affair, but she was determined, old-fashioned and potentially unfair as it sounded, not to be undercut by a Fauna. Immediately, guilt wracked her, overwhelmed by a torrent of love for Cassie, her beautiful face, her small hooves... oh, she wanted badly to think of something less superficial to say. "Fouled that up, didn't I?"

"Oh... that? No, no. Of course not! I'm sorry for undercutting you, though. I didn't realize they'd try to use my schedules as an excuse to get out--" Cassie mumbled. G'ana jerked up her whiskers just as the door to the elevator closed, and Cassie gaped at it. "Oh, we're going to have to remember that. Someone's going to get stuck one of these days, huh?"

"Maybe," admitted G'ana, timidly. Her whiskers trembled with shock as they felt the floor, perhaps glad for their own life. She looked up at Cassie. "Don't worry about it. You didn't undercut me at all, in fact, you were doing your job, and I think you deserve to be commended for that. I'm just-- I'm thrilled, and I'm terrified, you know? This is about the biggest mission we could have gotten, and I feel we should have been eased a little more into our dynamics. Not that I have any right to question the authorities! I'm certain they have protocol for off-world seraph chases, they just don't come up very often, so..." G'ana shook her head. "... whole world's on our shoulders, right? At least it's our shoulders. You all are so incredible. I read up on all your accomplishments in the palace, before we warped into the ship. You were on the committee for Dog Day Wars evacuations last year?"

"Honorary position. I'm a navigator by trade. Fauna knack for finding fortuitous timelines," Cassie nudged G'ana's head up. "Say. I've got an idea... you should go around and talk to them, while I go give everyone their nightly responsibilities. I'll start with the bighorns in the cockpit, you start with these three, and then we'll switch places. How's that?"

G'ana's tail waved. "Wonderful."

Cassie almost sprung up. "Alright! It's settled, then. I'll see you soon, partner." She gave G'ana a pointed wink as she hit the button to open the elevator, stumbling in with all the grace of a fish on land. G'ana only just caught her struggling back to her hooves as the corridor entrance clicked shut again.

Alone, G'ana looked up the white hall. In spite of herself, or maybe completely in line with her current desires (if not the current state of affairs), she felt her jowls rising, a smile creeping across her face as if Omnian sunshine, instead of the sweltering heat of a too-close foreign sun, was washing over her. She walked proudly through the plain halls, staring ahead at the sloping floor, and at last turned not to Benn's room but the makeshift training room they'd arranged for. Benn had spent most of the interspatial jump and solar approach setting it up, and it showed, because everything was carefully arranged yet haphazardly put together. There was the usual bag hanging from the ceiling, swinging back and forth with the gravity's artificial tempo, and there were a variety of targets and a few machines that looked like they might need telekinesis for operation, although G'ana supposed one could pull the bar back to lift that weight by putting the bar in one's mouth. It just didn't seem all that fun.

Benn looked up, eyes still narrowed. "What?"

"Admiring your set-up," G'ana admitted. "You took so much time working on it, and I just can't help but be swayed by that kind of initiative. It's really touching--"

Benn's ears twitched. "Thanks," she said, "but I need to be alone for this."

G'ana's fur prickled. "I understand completely! Don't let me get in the way of your training."

"I'm not," Benn said, her ears practically rolling back. She looked like an apprentice being chided by her mentor, back home. "You're... excused?"

"As are you!" chirruped G'ana. "Have a nice day. Take good care of yourself!"

Benn kicked a leg out, exposing white fabric held tight against the soft part of the pad. "I'm bandaged. Don't worry about me."

"Oh! See, I didn't even notice at first--" G'ana started, and upon seeing the sheer dullness in Benn's expression, caught herself. "I'll go."

G'ana exited into the hallway, door sliding shut behind her. Pechi's room was a little further down, practically equidistant between the corridor G'ana had used and... the corridor. It was still hard to process the space they now occupied, and G'ana could swear it was making her as dizzy as the actual lack of gravity. Nonetheless, she trotted through the corridors with the most enthusiasm she could drum up. Benn had definitely appreciated that under the surface, hadn't she? Definitely. Absolutely! G'ana closed her eyes, thinking about her tightly curled horns (she'd never seen any like that), the scratchlike black marks beneath her eyes, and imagining just how much strength was contained within those legs... well, G'ana definitely felt safer now. Safe and a little lonely. She could have had the best conversation with Benn about their mutual status...

G'ana's head jerked to the right. "You're being silly. They don't even know you," she whispered.

Pechi's door slid open as she stood in front of it, and G'ana's heart quickened. Her fellow Canira, if she could have the audacity to say such a thing, given her condition, was up against the back wall, moving pegs with her mouth. Her room was backlit, which she had managed by turning off the lights in her room and instead using some bioluminescent cans of... were those real organisms? Aboard this? How could she have possibly snuck that past protocol? In fact, Pechi's whole room was, as fashionable as it was, also an incredible breach of safety. There were dozens of magical artifacts hanging from a veritable garden of small trees on either side of her room. With that combined with the ominous purple lighting from the small jellyfish on the bottom shelves, it was nearly impossible to see in here, although G'ana had to admit that she'd gotten quite an atmosphere down. G'ana reached out, delicately, to tap a tree, and Pechi snapped, "D-don't touch that."

G'ana bolted back as if the tree had hit her. "Oh, I am so sorry--"

Pechi shook her head, inserted a peg, and slid over. She had curly, tufty fur around her face, which framed her massive eyes, and a long, thick body, which G'ana couldn't help but find a little cute. There were dozens of crystals around her neck, arranged in what looked like highly deliberate patterns, and the two of them scrutinized each other for a second. Pechi's ears fell back. "No need to seem so-s-s-so frightened, you didn't do any harm. If you had-- I mean-- um--" She stopped, and her whole body went rigid, ears perked up as if to listen for something. "Walker class. Anomalous jurisdiction somewhere in the millions of millions of miles. Incredible, I think I just worked that out. You can excuse me, right? Right." Pechi walked back over to her board and began rearranging pegs, frantically as she could while using her mouth.

"Is there a problem?" asked G'ana, timidly.

"Depends on how you define 'p-pr-' Verhamera's tails, 'problem'," Pechi spit out. "Would you define it as an entity of divine power ruling over nine planets, created by an unknown god hostile, and possibly already being b-b-besieged by dragons? Because, that, that would be how I define 'problem', if I were to-- and he's, I'm assuming, he's, because of the high spacial range, lack of life signatures, the males are always more territorial but you knew that, of course, they're all... well, they're seraphs, so they're all different species, but I guess you could say there's a universal tendency towards territorialism in males, but that can't be right, it's only a good five-per-cent of species that even use the basic schematics of our almost-binary gender system, of course, that's all completely besides the point. The point has something more to do with the fact that our problem is most definitely a Walker instead of a Funnel or Emissary, which is what the Auspicia is, and that means that his incorporeal range is likely what's causing all the disruptions in the spacial field... say, have you talked to Dusty and Alexa? Have they had issues with navigation? They're going to be having issues with navigation. Not that Dusty should be navigating! He's a mechanic. What did you need me for again?"

"What's..." G'ana quietly sifted through the half of what she had taken in from the conversation for the first thing she should be confused about. She wasn't sure if she'd been lost at 'binary', 'besieged', or 'depends'. Potentially it had been a great, rolicking downhill journey the whole way through, a constant descent towards confusion which G'ana had not wanted and had received anyways. "I'm checking up on everyone." She squinted through the dim at the board behind Pechi. "They must've told you a lot more than me, huh? That's a lot of information you have there, even though I can't really... tell what any of it means."

"It's color-coded!" announced Pechi, gleefully. "We are hunting down a seraph, so it's mainly information on their power set. Seraphs being emissaries, of a kind, for gods, influence of their will as manifest in the mortal domain... most of them are a lot less friendly than ours, if you know what I mean."

G'ana tried to smile. She had no idea whatsoever. "Seems like you're busy?"

"Sure, sure. Now, can you tell me if you have any weird dreams? Same on the navigation. Don't forget the navigation!" Pechi swung her tail violently. "Oh, I've got it. I've-- I've--" she began arranging again, unfortunately, unfreeing her mouth, and G'ana stepped back.

The bewildered Canira's eyes narrowed as they were re-exposed to the light of the hall, and feeling a deep weight on her chest, she continued through the halls. Tabai was around here somewhere, wasn't she? G'ana had no idea how the hallways seemed so vast and illusory, given she'd probably already passed each room ten times since entering the ship, and there wasn't much there to begin with, save for their rooms, life support, general mechanics, a few spare rooms they'd decked out, more life support, 'guts'... right, maybe there was a lot. Big mission, big ship. Long mission, big ship. Hard mission, big... big ship.

Cassie fell directly into G'ana. "Hello," Cassie said, struggling back onto her hooves.

"Hello," echoed G'ana, startled.

"So! Talked to Alexa and Dusty," Cassie began, ears flattening.

"Coincidentally I was going to speak to them after-next," G'ana said. "Wow! We must be running the same thing, or... or something."

Cassie at least gave her a small giggle out of benefit of the doubt. G'ana felt new warmth rush through her. Trotting off, she called back, "Keep up the good work, partner."

Partner. Was that a term of affection? It had to be a term of affection. She'd used it twice, too... and it didn't sound like a joke, either. No more than a day in and already she meant something to someone on board. That was good, yes, G'ana was doing an excellent job. G'ana closed her eyes and tried to let the statement fill her again. She could hear it echo in her seashell ears, as if it were just being said again. Perhaps it was just a wisp of sentiment, but she'd held onto less for longer and with greater ferocity.

Partner.

Yesss.

Tabai's door opened up before her like an answer, and G'ana wasn't sure if she was ecstatic or about to collapse when she entered. The room looked just as they'd found it, in that there was some bedding in the corner but nothing else there. The others had at least brought some material possessions, but this room couldn't have had so much as a stray hair to mark it as Tabai's. Tabai's fur stood on end when G'ana entered, and G'ana realized she likely should have said something. "Pardon," she muttered.

"I'll ask Dusty to set up the lock system later," Tabai said to herself. "Save your sorrows. I figured I'd be interrupted, so I've been idle. I was planning on a long nap prior to our first planet, but that can be easily postponed. What's the matter?"

"We have a few days," G'ana said, "Cassie'll be keeping us busy. As for the matter, I only... " G'ana sat down next to the sheets, careful not to let so much as a paw cross that sacred threshold of another Sentient's fabrics. "You don't think you could soothespeak me a little, do you? I am incredibly stressed right now."

Tabai didn't look a soothespeaker, given her breed clearly had no aptitude for it. (Maybe it was her aptitude? As in spiritual aptitude? There had been nothing on the magical fortitudes of Tabai, specifically, but she seemed very well qualified around that, which was more than a tad strange.) Tabai was a colossal Canis, with sloping shoulders and a tufted white chest speckled with pink, giving way to the soft, verdant green that coated the rest of her body. There was a sash with a dagger and several small vials around her side, which seemed like something she should have taken off, not that G'ana was judging. Tabai's lingered over G'ana. "Are you going to get closer? I don't bite unprovoked."

G'ana stepped onto the blankets. "Oh, I-- I'm sorry. I don't really, I mean, back home, I--"

Tabai nodded. "Anything to do with those?"

G'ana's whiskers, which had been trailing the whole time, flicked. Tabai was looking at her shoulder scales, which gleamed prismatically even in the heartless light of the barren room. "They'll come around, won't they?" G'ana asked, trying not to lean into the static grasp of Tabai's side.

"The scales? The scales will always be there. The feeling you get when someone else sees them... soon, it'll pass. You'll be looking at supporters instead of strangers. You'll find friendship, pearl-like, in unexpected places, and when you rise from the ocean with it clutched in your mouth, you'll find something to be proud of beneath the skin."

"You're good," G'ana said. "Very good."

Tabai narrowed her eyes. "I'm not magically gifted," she said, "So I have to actually apply effort."

G'ana stumbled up. "Well, can you at least say it's a little true?"

"If someone believes something, that makes it, at least from the other's perception, true. Lying is when you create a false perception that can not be continually substantiated, at least to that other, by the reality in which they live. So if we keep believing in something for perpetuity, it couldn't possibly be any more real."

G'ana nodded again, so violently she was sure her head was going to fall off. "I think I get it," she told Tabai. "Thank you so much." Tabai nodded, the tension in the air seeming to fall from both of them. She watched as G'ana loitered in the door, a little too long, a too deliberately, and at last G'ana turned. The hallway opened up beneath her, the long, elevator shaft a gaping maw which would take her into a darkness that some part of her brain was viscerally unsure would end. Still, when she fell, she found herself back in the 'ship' proper, that is, the bit that they'd be using to rove around planets or to fight seraphs... it was a strange contrast, the bulky exterior and this sleek, cylindrical interior, especially given that the interior was more prone to darker colors than the exterior. The intended effect had been to better match the night overhead, which the long window at the front displayed in all its astral glory, but all the sky made G'ana felt that she might be floating.

"Excuse me? Is there an issue?" Alexa asked from her position at the dashboard, refusing to so much as turn around. A thousand flickering colors lit up the window, as if Alexa's board was trying to outshine the sun that blazed on outside.

"Well, Cassie and I were just trying to ensure everyone was in their place, doing what was needed of them... it's not too strange, if you think about it, that we would want to ensure maximal performance on the first day--" G'ana felt her heart sinking in her stomach.

"But you needed both of you to make those rounds independently? That sounds redundant," Alexa tilted her head, still looking out at the exterior. G'ana's eyes seized upon the thickness of her fur, the way it caught every color and cherished it... the white mane was meant to work such wonders on the light around it. That wasn't even to speak of her horns, which were massive... at least, the top pair were the biggest G'ana had ever seen, with two nubs beneath them, pushed out of the way. Such contrast would be comical if it wasn't pulled of with such a determined deftness, daring anyone to mock it.

"Alexa has a point," Dusty grumbled. His own horns were shorter, certainly, but both pairs stuck out in small lightningbolts. His patched fur, a mottley of browns and whites, gave him the impression of his namesake. Detached voice, sure, but nonetheless, as with the others, G'ana could barely keep herself from moving to the tips of her pawpads. They could say whatever. She was just glad to be seeing them, other civilians, underneath her order, so, of course, there would be plenty of time for them to become friends... it only made sense that someday, she would be beautiful as them. Or maybe they would at least grow to love her regardless of appearance. She was getting ahead of herself. Her heart thrummed in her chest, filled with song.

"I'm sorry, you're just... I'm so taken by your degree of expertise, I figured, I had to at least understand some of what's going on, and I knew you wouldn't mind updating me, the Captain, Mind You, on some of the mission details, since clearly everything is under control?"

In the mirror, Alexa's face twitched. "We're doing a slingshot around the sun to the first planet. All nine of them are neatly lined up for us, so expect them to know we're coming, but also expect travel to be the least of our concerns. I'm not going to mess this up. As for everyone else? I'd be worried about every single one of them."

"No!" G'ana called.

"Absolutely," Dusty said, with none of G'ana's earnesty or concern. "Anyways, we appreciate the moral support, but it's a little early to be extolling our praises."

"Think of it as more a preemptive bout of admiration, for all the great things you will do, at some point in the future," G'ana's voice cracked. Oh, was she too young for this? She was nigh certain that everyone else in the ship was around her age, but now she was growing nervous about it. If she had pup-fluff all about her face, that would be one reason they were acting so obstinately. No, that was an unfair assessment. They were doing an excellent job already. She'd seen them all attending to duties, so they were all functional... what kind of sick paranoia was overtaking her? Best put away.

Alexa and Dusty looked to each other. "We know you don't have the best grasp on intersentient interaction," Alexa said at last. "Given your background."

G'ana's ears twitched as she removed herself from those warm confines of her own mind. "They told you about that," G'ana said, distraught, "in the briefing?"

"We heard everything," Dusty agreed.

"It really does bring into question why they'd put you into this position," Alexa mumbled, again, but not in such a way that her voice was unclear... Alexa's voice was more like an infrasonic knife.

"They figured that this crew would handle themselves just as well, I s'ppose," G'ana admitted.

Alexa's eyes widened slightly, revealing the brilliance of her green irises."Yes, yes, you have been given a low maintenance crew. On that account you should be quite grateful." G'ana peered around the middle of the room, still wishing she was getting more than the back of Alexa's head outside of her often illusory reflection. It had a habit of making her look much larger and more intimidating than the Canis before her, which was unnecessary, because Alexa was scary and way you looked at her. "You should sleep. We're setting up autopilot for the night. Dusty was just helping me with the interface."

"Oh! We have autopilot?" G'ana's tail perked. A dull glare from the duo assured her that every interdimensional vessel ever constructed had autopilot. She found herself edging towards the exit. "If you need help with something, I'll be in my quarters, settling down... never hesitate to ask me for help."

Dusty tilted his head. "What would you possibly know how to do?"

G'ana left with her tail half tucked. Once out of earshot, she went back to debating herself, quietly, although it was nice to give voice to the little thoughts that had been biting her neck since she had entered the room. "Of course they respect you. Don't be ridiculous. They'll learn to. You were given this job for a reason." Not helping very much. That was bothersome. "And I forgot to even mention the spacial-- the spacial thing Pechi was saying! They probably already know. I'm being ridiculous." At least this exit, one of the two corridors, spit her out near her room. She entered the quarters and looked out at the massive window, the single defining feature of the room. She hadn't had much, and there was nothing she wouldn't be ashamed to bring, so the rest was empty, save for some blankets she'd brought along. They smelled like home. G'ana thrust her muzzle into them, wrapping herself up, and then caught her reflection in the glossy gaze of the window's reflection. She looked ridiculous.

Standing up, she moved over to the window, her white fur gleaming against the traitorous dragon's scales that worked their way down her back. Hybrids weren't supposed to come this far. Not just Benn-hybrids, as in inter-Sentient species, but dragon hybrids... the dragons, the real dragons, they'd be on the group soon. Seraph hunting was profitable. She expected the worst, then, or she would, but that was out of line with her morals. She forced a smile, and the irregular pattern of dragon teeth grinned back. The truth went all the way down. She needed someone to smother her.

"Bad night for introspection," said a voice. Two demon's eyes stared at her, the long, rectangular pupils tracing over her own. Slowly, horns appeared across her face, like those of a Canis's, except they burst from the jawline as well as the top of the head. They were long and curved at the bottom, curled at the top, and intimidating all the way across. Limber legs formed out of hers, and finally, the seraph stepped out of her reflection and became its own, standing behind her. "The Least Offense watches the stars, wondering how best to hold them to her sides. You burn with a passion, but alas, you burn."

G'ana's face twitched into a snarl. "Least Offense? Out of this lot, I'd wager I'm the most offensive."

The demon's pupils dilated slightly, as to feign surprise. "There's a tongue that could lick stars. Know what fire you're holding to your face. Water elementals, too, have reason to fear fire. Oil flames dance on the surface. Fire will raze you if you are too small or sedentary. Once you are steam, you return only as parts of yourself. You may be ever-changing, but do not allow yourself to think there is nothing you can't come back from."

G'ana watched him, forcing herself to contort him into a vision of ugliness. It wasn't the superficiality of it, she reminded herself. There was a rottenness within this stranger that went all the way down, and it was her responsibility to expose it in her mind's eye. She stared intently at him. "Do you hope to cultivate a weakness by entering here? I'm warning you the seeds here are unsewn, and you'll place nothing within me that would strange me, as Lotus of myth."

"You'd be happy to to speak of seeds and cultivation, I take it," the demon muttered back. "I am here to offer you my soul. If you do not want it, I will not give it to you, but when I speak to any passing travellers who are looking for my power, I must give them the same offer. It will be easiest for you, as the nine planets are currently in a perfect alignment, but the distance between them is deceptive."

"And we need to travel across all of them?" G'ana asked.

"My soul is in nine locations. It will cease to be in those locations only when you take it, but once you have one part, you will need all nine, otherwise, you will not be able to remove yourselves from the astral field I've placed around this solar system. It is an indentation in spacetime so deep that you may as well have stumbled into a black hole," the demon's voice was dryer as it said this, with none of the malicious purr that had infiltrated it moments ago, when tormenting her. Naturally. This was not a matter of vice, as that had been, this was business, and it was so much worse. "I will not personally attack you. Your adversary here are the nine worlds, but even those are trifling challenges in comparison to the strife that already lies within you. It is the fate of all beings with free will to be besieged by it, and I would merely like to make my case before you... do you think you're braver than your demons, G'ana?"

"Yes," G'ana announced.

"Can you say the same for everyone aboard?"

"Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!" G'ana cried out.

"You scarcely know them."
"I know they're good. I know they're good all the way down, and they're professionals, and no matter what you say or throw at us, they'll stand by their Verhamera-given duties to the last, so come at us with horns and teeth!" G'ana yelled.

The seraph's reflection in the glass grew more sinister as six wings unfurled behind its ramlike countenance, its reflection seeming to vibrate as if plucked by the heartstrings of space. "If you are so terribly certain, as your host, I give you my first piece of advice... turn around."