Belina couldn't see. Her eyes still physically functioned, but her mind- her ability to even process incoming senses had ceased to function. Her mind sputtered like an old combustion engine that couldn't quite catch as it attempted to turn over, flashes of garbled and warped visual-auditory snippets occasionally coming through.

Her perception was off, mangled and perverted in a terrible, terrible way.

An Unthinkably cruel way. An almost *Dame-like* way.

Her Grasp. Her grasp…

Her mind had been bored into, and something had been painfully crushed in how she could see the world. Something had lobotomized a part of her soul- *and she knew it.*

…

Ruth was cleaning up. She had a captive beast to deal with and secure and her baby was in need of repair. She needed to catch up with her withdrawn boarders, but her captive had managed to inconvenience the engines just enough during her prior attack that she hadn't been able to effect a pursuit. Not yet anyway.

…

Miriam hated teleportation. So of course her Boy went and married into one of the 5 known families in existence that had ever produced teleporters.

She sighed to herself.

She looked at the familiar kitchen counter, of newly-weds and new-parents, of times lived and loved and set to blissful nostalgia, until now. She wasn't here in three years. Not that any outsider would have been able to tell without looking at the server logs, as there wasn't even dust. There was nothing to say she even left.

That should have been satisfying… But as she took her seat and gave her request, it felt terribly wrong- nostalgia betrayed by circumstance.

"My coffee please." An autonomous server, new when her husband bought it, but old by today's standards, made and gave her the same old standard. She grasped it firmly, taking in the smell, the warmth, the very essence of the coffee. 'Some things never change regardless of time or situation', she mused to herself.

Her littlest girl was in trouble, again. For love, again. This time it wasn't some school bully, or neighborhood crush, and the resulting fallout currently inflicted on the family- it really wasn'ts the fault of either her little Ruty or the boy she had given her feelings to. Miriam sighed again at that. She had thought the interesting times for her family were long gone, all that was supposed to be left was Ruty's wedding day and great-grandkids but nope, Pirates and Gangsters.

Arnon came back from the lavatory and hugged her from behind.

"It will be alright."

She sighed and leaned back into him.

"Thank you, dear."

He frowned a bit at her tone. "It's ok, say what you want."

Her face frowned, and turned her head slightly so that she almost nuzzled herself into her traditional hiding place, with her face in his neck.

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"It's cringe. I want to say something about how I would never be adrift while you are with me." She mumbles, sure that her face boiled his neck.

"I've been your husband for almost a century now. I've earned my cringe." He kissed her shoulder. "Gimme."

She smiled, the pains of mounting tension disappearing all over.

…

Clara hated her job. That's not to say that she didn't love her job, but more so that she hated the circumstances that came with it. To be able to get her craft, her wings of freedom, she had to basically sell herself to the mob, and *The Dame* never was one to give back that which she took. She belonged to *Her* now, and could never repay her debt to get back her freedom… Not with money anyway.

When the… "Boss Approximate", *the* "Heir Apparent" came on, she essentially systematically destroyed her crew. To be mild about it, Clara would honestly kill the bitch given a chance, but she was backed by an even worse bitch.

At least Clara could comfort herself in the fact that "Boss Approximate" lost one of her lackies on her mission. That and the fact that she noticed that the parasite didn't actually dare to *play* with her captive the way she played with the crew.

Part of her was envious of that, but the adult part of her wanted to see if she could use this to get out from under the thumb of *The Dame.*

"Hey, Mom, you ok?"

Dean truly was a dear. Even after… *that*. He focused on her and her needs first. She honestly wished she could protect him better- the way a mother should.

"Just thinking of how we can use the latest development to our advantage."

He smiled a small smile.

"Well," he said conspiratorially. "-now we party that those witches got bloodied."

"Here, HERE!!" Everyone else in the room cheered to confirm.

She smiled, Dean truly was a dear.

…

Dean had always loved his mother.

Clara always took whatever options she had, and always took the best available, and always did what was possible for the best result. If she ever lost, that was life. She never complained. Just bided her time, and if the opportunity ever came along, She would take her vengeance- And he learned well in that regard.

After the party everyone were in their cabins, ‘Serinys Soul’ was a good ship and could manage alone for a bit. In his room, blissfully alone, he paced in thought. Their Starving Cunt Patrons didn’t call him to serve tonight, 'Thank the star spirits. They’re licking their wounds. And placed their captive *alone*, in his *own* room.' While Dean could not simply release the guy of his restriction mechanisms, he could have a conversation with him. If nothing else, he wanted to know how, even captured, did such a "hot guy" manage to keep those hungry holes from simply taking what they want. After all, Dean knew that they intended to party on his cock, and that had zero compunction about unwilling dudes.

…

Eliezer felt off. Just lucid enough to know everything was wrong. That everything about the last fight had gone to baskets and hand grenades.

Above-Behind him he *saw* a face, it was always there... At least it had probably been.

It said something. Maybe. There was a question about bad people?

There was a story Eliezer told to the watching face. It was a story about a guy and his Princess Knight, she was pretty, and brave. She was safe, and strong. She loved her guy and used magic to send them to the stars when three witches came to hunt him.

The spells of the witches were terrible. But the guy knew he could take them. He'd taken them before after all. He'd take them again this time… Until they got lucky. It was just a little scratch.

Just a scratch.

Just a scratch.

But there were so many scratches, and they weren't *really* all that little. He scratched them back when he could, but they became harder to predict, harder to hit, harder to shake off.

And Rutti, poor Rutti- Rutti Cracked.

How could he make her cry… How could he lose?

The Princess Knight cracked, and shattered, and was reborn again as a monster.

She took one. She squeezed it crushed it without mercy. She mangled and warped the witch's soul and its soul screamed. She will take them all- all the souls of the witches and those who brought them to the stars... The face looks sick. Why though?

When it happens the guy will sing, sing… And the face should be happy with him.

…

Ruth really wanted to *play* with her captive. Her very soul sings for it. Unfortunately, she has to settle for placing the rabid animal in a medical coma. It's flailing limbs lacking the coordination and control common to decent lifeforms. Not like any laws will be bothered, if she *did* happen to *play* with her captive, But her friend took him. She was her bargaining chip.

So, little Belinda gets to just be isolated in her head, with all her psy loci being distorted.

She should sing Ruth's glory with the compassion and restraint Ruth was showing her, but all her comatose state gave was a never-ending series of pained and contorted facial expressions.

Ruth got up from her sleepless cot and screamed. This, Situation, was really heavy. She already dug through the little pieces of dung knowledge and links to be found on Belinda. She was already on the way to the little baby vulture's nest. To where they took him.

She started to go over the records on the incident, again. Trying to find a good tactic. She wasn’t sure about tactics per say… But she did, get an insight. A concept. As a space dweller, she always had an almost instinct for how gravity worked, its shifts, and ebbs. That was the basis of most contemporary spacecraft, of course. Angular momentum, spin gravity, being manipulated into a forward momentum. The degrees of it…

But now, she got it in a whole new way. Right in her dimension loci. She got heaviness.

She grasped her baby, And fell toward her target.

And laughed.