Ivy retreated inside herself.

She had seen death before. Every lifetime, she remembered those who went before. She could remember dying. Most of the time she was terrified when the end came.

There was no comfort in knowing that you would pass into the Green, to join with everyone else. Not that she would, if she died here. She wasn't on her planet, no forest to join with, and pass on who she was... But she wasn't the one who had died.

Not this time.

Some of her lives had faced their own deaths happily enough. They had no fear in becoming part of something new. They felt like their lives had been worth living.

She wasn't the one who had died, though. It had been a faceless man. She had never seen who he was, not really. She hadn't understood him. Ivy still couldn't say that she understood what motivated No... But he was gone.

No was gone, because she had asked him to help.

Demanded it.

She hadn't pulled the trigger, but he would have been nowhere near any of them, if she hadn't...

Tears ran down Ivy's face, as she hid inside her cocoon. She had no idea if she would ever bloom again. She didn't think she would feel any more guilty if she gunned him down, herself.

The ship was probably still unstable, maybe even crashing. Had Sudais gone quiet because the pirates had shut her down? Everyone on board was at risk, which Ivy should have cared about... But... She didn't.

The only thing she could think about, was the horror of what she had seen. What she had done.

The triple beat of her hearts thudded away in her ears. A drumbeat that measured the passage of time, reminding her that no matter how much she wanted to run away from the world, she was still in it.

As much as Ivy wanted to disappear and ignore everything, she couldn't. Maybe the commander would stabilise the cruiseliner. Maybe they would need to find a landing craft.

Either way... She knew the right thing to do, was to poke her head out, and be prepared to do something.

It wasn't like the pain was all hers, either. The blame probably was, but not the pain. Talia had just had a friend kidnapped in front of her, as well. Then been left all on her own, as she stumbled around on a falling ship.

Ivy bit her lip, she didn't want to come out.

The green leaves pulled back slowly, and the woman inside sat up even slower. Her hands were shaking as she blinked at a darkness she had absolutely not been expecting. The sun, that was what she expected.

Was she looking off into deep space?

Ivy reached out tentatively and had to bury a squeal in her throat as her fingers were bent backwards by solid metal, right in front of her. She rubbed at her hand and twisted her head back and forth, trying to get a fix on things.

She felt around herself slowly, using her sensitive fingertips to trace the edges.

She had to control her breathing as she found herself to be in a box. She was in a box that was barely taller than her crouching, and only just wide enough to fit her legs in a cross-legged fashion.

It was made of a metal, but she couldn't see enough to tell what kind. She also wasn't about to taste it, which was a way that she'd guessed some things in the field as an archaeologist. The metal was cold to the touch, so she wasn't anywhere particularly warm.

So at least she wasn't about to cook.

The box was made of slats, the edges of which had been fused together. Finer than most welding, so probably something chemical, then. She also caused herself to whimper when she failed to find any kind of hinge or latch. The box felt like it had been built around her, even though she knew that wouldn't be possible - the fine joins told her that.

Ivy took several deep breaths, and tried to reassess.

She was in a box.

She might be on a crashing cruiseliner, she might not.

She wasn't strong enough to break a metal box, not like this one. She didn't have any tools on her, so she couldn't chip away at it or anything.

There was no reason for anyone on board the cruiseliner to capture her like this. It wasn't Desdemona's kidnappers coming back for a friend. They had no reason for that. Nor did Sudais have any reason to treat Ivy like this.

The only thing she could come up with was... The crashing of cruiseliner would have released all the door locks. No reason to kill any passenger, no matter how terrible a person they were. It wouldn't look good.

So Duffle & Hurley would have released the guest who had attacked Ivy, and sworn his revenge.

He might have found her on deck, throwing a wobbly, and he might have... He might have hurt Talia. He could have done a lot of things, whilst Ivy was throwing a tantrum, instead of being an adult and putting her emotions behind her until she wasn't at risk of dying.

He'd been more than happy to throw her off a ship. If he was keeping her, Ivy was absolutely determined not to discover what it might be.

"Sudais?" She whispered, not really hoping for much.

Her own breathing was the only answer.

Ivy rolled her jaw, trying to bury her fear in anger and determination. She hadn't managed to find a weak point in the box, but she knew that physics wasn't as nice.

She shrank down as much as she could, pressing her roots to the floor of the thing, and mentally preparing herself for the pain.

She sprang upwards, snapping both head and shoulder into the far corner. A curseword fell out of her mouth, right before her entire world tumbled for a moment.

She had no idea where she was, as the floor of the box rose up, and then the world thunked upwards into her. She was lying on the side of the box, and she kicked down into the floor as hard as she could.

Brilliant white light flooded over her.

Ivy scrambled out, expecting someone to have noticed, and blinked around in the bright lights.

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Before she could even orient herself to make a run for it, something solid slammed into the side of her head, and the floor slammed into the other side as she tumbled.

Ivy groaned, grabbing at her poor skull, and looking up at the blurred image of the guest who had once tried to eat her. He crossed his arms, and his giant tongue slid out of one corner of his mouth, tracing his lips before popping back inside with a smacking noise.

Ivy flashed her weak knowledge of anatomy through her head, and then punched the man in front of her, as hard as she could, in the lower abdomen. Frogs kept their testicles there, and he was amphibious. Worth a shot.

The man blinked at her, making her think she'd failed, before he started letting out a slow and quiet groan.

Ivy launched herself to her feet, and sprinted. She ran for the door, and the hallway. She screamed in pain as she felt something grab onto one of her leaves, which tore free as she kept going.

She felt the cells open up, a dew-like coral bleeding out into the wound, and trying to seal it.

Her roots slapped against the metal floor as Ivy found herself somewhere below deck. These were access corridors, for the various machinery of the cruise ship.

She could feel a thudding through the deck - she must have been close to either the engine, or the heating system. Ivy ran away from that feeling. She needed to get up top, out and into the open.

The back of her shirt caught on something, jerking her to an instant halt. She pressed forward against the feeling as she looked over her shoulder to see the flexing tongue that had caught a hold of her.

Ivy's fingers scrambled, undoing the buttons, and then she sprinted forwards, free of her shirt.

She took the next door opening, trying to add some twists and turns and get the hell away from the man. Finding herself in some kind of cafeteria, one she hadn't even known existed, she took no time to take in that there was no one else there - heading for a door on the far side.

As she moved through the door, she heard the crash of a thrown table behind her, and the croaking roar of the man pursuing her.

Ivy found herself in an access corridor. No doors, and only one direction to head. She had probably just taken the wrong turning that would end her.

She bit her lip, refusing to cry, as she ran down it as fast as she could. Burning her lungs and xylem as she pushed her body to its absolute limits. She hadn't been unfit, but she was no athlete. Adrenaline could only do so much. Transpiration wasn't supposed to take energy.

A flight of stairs, leading further downwards, appeared in front of her. Ivy had no choice. As she skipped down them, taking three or four at a time, she heard the thud of something against a wall behind her.

"I eating you!" He roared.

Ivy put up her arms to burst through a pair of doors, before stumbling as she emerged into a space completely flooded with light. She found herself in a grassy area, surrounded by plants on all sides. Tall trees, and low bushes, all of them covered in flowers of every kind. These were genetic hybrids, bred and created by methods not available to nature.

She gave a stunned laugh as she stood where the guest had caught her last time.

No had been there to save her.

Now he was dead.

Ivy dove into the undergrowth, listening to the Green. She let go of herself, breathing in all the signals of the plants, crying out to them of the coming danger, and begging.

They spoke to her, even as the euphoria began to cloud her mind. They sang to her, leading her along a road of golden leaves, deeper and deeper into a wonderland she was willing to spend the rest of her life in.

Her confusion and disorientation increased with every single step, but it was replaced with a bizarre sense of excitement. This was an enchanting place. It was swallowing her right up, and she was okay with that.

The grass swirled around her ankles, blurring and rising up. Turning into questing reeds rising above a slush of living water. Filled with buzzing insects and floating algae, all of them joining her into their little colonies.

The trees overhead bent down towards her, bowing in the wake of her passing. Acknowledging her as more than an honoured guest, but as the queen of the forest. Every whispering leaf sang her praises, of her bravery and wisdom.

"Arrogant. Foolish."

The haunting words of No sang from the breezes, his ghost rising up to remind her of her utter failure. She was the reason he was dead, no other. She may as well have killed him, herself.

"You're not even fighting. You think this makes you strong?"

She ran from his voice, his accusations that tore through the veil between life and death. Ivy fled before the judgement of the afterlife, knowing that she never deserved to rejoin the Green.

Of all the accolades and vestiges of her family line, it was only right that it stopped with her. Others could carry on, lifting the inheritance out of the mud she had sucked them down into.

She hadn't saved Desdemona.

She'd killed No.

She was a nothing, a half-naked maid running around in the air factory of a tourist ship, about to die by either wild guest or impending disaster. She wouldn't even be a footnote in the journals who might write of this moment.

It wasn't like her family would much miss her.

She was nothing more than the weird child who devoted their whole life to an unimportant artform, that she could barely defend for still existed. She was a relic of the past, dragging down everyone simply for knowing her.

The sky overhead crackled with electricity, followed by a boom of thunder that swept through the trees and caught her up in it. She flew through the air, struck in the chest by the explosive judgement of nature itself.

The stones either side of her rose up, giant golems bellowing as the grabbed her by the shoulders and thrust her into the ground. The stone creatures pushing her down with enough force that the dirt turned into sea and swallowed her into it.

She sank down into the dark and sludge, unable to breathe, unable to scream.

*****

Her chest lay still, as Ivy found an unsettling peace forcing itself down on her.

As she slipped into it, smiling quietly, she found that she wasn't alone in the dirt. The dark was slowly lighting up, like stars appearing at the end of the day. Bright lights in the sky.

Each one winked into existence, like a beacon of hope. An ancestor looking down on her proudly, and urging her not to give up. To keep up the good fight. To take hold of the life she had been blessed with, and to speak out into the night.

She didn't know what she was meant to say, only that she had to say it. There was a word somewhere, something instinctual, deep inside her. Something that went beyond all the science she knew, reaching down into what it truly meant to be sapient.

She needed a reason to live, a purpose in it all.

Her friends needed her. Desdemona needed her. The professor had asked for help. The ship was falling. Talia was alone, and might be injured. Probably, considering the asshole who had kidnapped her.

The alien bastard needed to be taught a lesson in manners, and that you can't just go around eating other people, servant or not.

Mr. No had fought for truth and justice, with a resolute and unchanging sense of right and wrong. He had done everything he could for the rules, until the very end.

He had lived for what was right.

Purpose itself was the point of it all. You live for purpose, you don't drive a purpose to live your life. She might not know what her purpose was. She didn't know how she fit in it all, or if she even did.

None of that mattered a damn.

What mattered, was that she live.

*****

Her triple heartbeat thundered out a cacophony, crashing into her mind and shattering any of the clarity she had just found. Ivy gritted her teeth, crushing them together hard enough that they might well be cracking.

Her fingers became as claws, scratching at the metal floor, trying to find purchase to lift herself up. Ivy forced her muscles to flex, demanded her body bent to her will. Pushing out leaves and vines to lift up her brokenness.

The trees around her swayed in a non-existent breeze, as she picked herself up off the artificial floor.

She found the guest sitting in front of her, grinning. In his mouth was the remnants of her shirt, pushed into a corner as he sucked on it. Biding his time and enjoying all the strength he had over her.

Except her mind was free of the environment, for now.

Ivy didn't understand how or why, but she wasn't high anymore. Her mind was clear, and wasn't seeing strange cats grinning in the air. So she put her analytic skills to use.

He was amphibious, with an overly large mouth - but his eyes were also large. Easy targets, but put her in range of that ridiculously strong tongue. Kicking in the balls probably wouldn't work as well, the second time around. That really took surprise to make it effective.

The bones of his hands were probably hollow, weak. Which is why he hadn't used them to try and grab her. She might be able to tempt him into using them to stroke her face or something - giving her an opportunity to bite one, or maybe break a finger or two.

He was probably just as susceptible to the environment as she was. The heat and humidity might be making him slower. Not much, but something. He wouldn't be thinking as clearly.

His skin would be breathing in the water in the air. Which also meant he would breathe in anything in the air.

Ivy staggered upright slowly, and smiled, "Guess you caught me."

"Guess I be eating." He smirked back at her.

There was an immediate puff of yellow, blinding him. He gagged as her pollen coated his giant tongue, forcing him to taste her. As he tried to breathe through it, her knee landed in his testicles, again.

He dropped to the ground, but Ivy had already spun and headed towards the entrance that Mr. No had brought her into this place by.