Alexa's beautiful mane was well-past singed when she returned to the ship. She held her head up so that it looked that she was unharmed, at least in spirit, but the scorch marks said otherwise. Pechi was no better, with the white Canira skulking in and situating herself at the table, her neck cut up from one of her own necklaces. "S-s-so I t-t-told you I di-didn't want to use those," Pechi said.

"It was a necklace with a salve," Alexa growled. "We needed it."

"W-w-w-well we w-w-wouldn't even have h-had to if y-you hadn't rocked the boat!" Pechi snapped. "It w-w-was almost to the surface this time!"

"It's taunting us," Alexa said. "I didn't rock the boat, the boat rocked itself. I believe that our experience was part of the test--"

"I take it you two had a nice time," Dusty said.

"Besides having the suit blown almost blown off, yes, it was fine," Alexa argued.

"Blown off?"

"Yes, it started degrading once we almost hit the lava. We're lucky to be alive, but if you don't mind, I will be escorting myself to the infirmary right now, which doesn't talk back, and isn't going to refuse to use its only useful abilities on the basis of whatever petty sentimentality seems to enchant its every action," Alexa said, turning a stark right towards the elevator to the outer ring.

"Do you even know how to use the infirmary?" asked Tabai. "That's one of the useless jobs I've taken up."

"Oh, you mean your herbology? I was going to use the kits we were provided at the outset of the mission," Alexa said. "More effective."

"Blown off," muttered Dusty.

"M-maybe T-Tabai and I sh-should take the next try," suggested Pechi, as Alexa stepped into the elevator.

Yes, thought Tabai, that would be excellent.

"We can't leave you two alone on this ship without one of us," Alexa warned, lingering at the door.

"You're not leashing pups! Why must you continuously doubt our competence?" yelled Tabai.

Alexa looked to Dusty, who looked back at Alexa, who lifted her head a little, and the words that weren't spoken lingered on the air like a thin smoke. Tabai wanted to shove them up Alexa's throat and make her eat them.

"You two must be dead, and anyways, long day. If we're going to make a third attempt, it'll be Tabai and I. Our suits are still intact, anyways."

"Can you repair the heat suits?" asked Alexa.

Dusty sucked in a breath. "That's a great question."

Alexa's eyes rolled far into the back of her head. "I don't suppose it's a great question you plan on answering, is it? Get ready for tomorrow. All three of you need to get yourself into shape. Need I remind you we have five planets left? If we start stalling now, well--"

"You've made your point," Tabai said.

Alexa gave a snort that could have come from a Boanerges, the equine Sentients, and disappeared. Pechi's fur bristled and she began mumbling to herself. Eventually, she, too, took the elevator, probably off to her room.

Dusty, who was at least pretending he had something to do at the helm of the ship (which was on autopilot), was looking over some trinkets.

The energy in the room was electric.

Tabai figured she could work with this.

---

"And you're certain you weren't in my room last night," Dusty said, to Alexa.

"Quite," Alexa said. "If you're hallucinating, we'll need to mark that down as a symptom. I take it that you don't want to record that in the logs for when we return?"

Alexa's stubbornness was playing into this well. This mission might be the opportunity Tabai needed to 'loosen' Dusty from her grip a little, and after that, well, they might not have pure egalitarianism, but there would at least be some greater semblance of equality on the ship. Never mind how Tabai had to bring such a thing about.

No one else on this ship cared about the means. That had been evident from their reaction to Cassie's slaughter, or worse, from when they all stared at G'ana's body, defeated. There was the mission, and then they were the turning gears inside a machine, grinding everything stuck in the interior to bits.

"Forget this. We know what we can and can't say on this ship, and we're verging into ultimatum territory. As established, I'm not a big fan of ultimatums. Shall we?" His attention turned to Tabai just as Alexa was leaving, mildly incensed (and what a pity that was). Tabai gave him a stark nod in return and the pair moved into their positions.

As the ship began to detach, Tabai asked from her pod, "How do you two come to such clean conclusions?"

"I'm afraid I have no clue what you're getting at," warned Dusty.

"Well, you were clearly in disagreement, but you turned and decided for some inscrutable reason that the contention wasn't worth it, and that was it, as if the argument had never happened at all. I'm afraid I don't understand why you've decide to let it lie when there's clearly something more at play here."

Dusty began to jam the accelerator, which made conversation somewhat more difficult. Nonetheless, despite the intense sensation of hurtling downwards through space and the equally trying amount of noise it produced as their rocket screamed across the superheated sky, he managed, mainly in telepathic terms, to say, "Well, we figure we're being tested, aren't we? And if we fail the test, we get petrified. The best way not to fail a test, then, is not to take it at all!"

They broke the surface, a little light pinging joyfully on the radar.

"It's close, but it's deceptively close. You don't mind if we follow it by air, do you?" asked Dusty. "I get the feeling it won't come up, but..."

Tabai had already been down to the river of lava once. The horn moved beneath the surface, causing the dark stonelike figures in the lake to pop to life and begin writhing not in agony but with rage towards each other. They snapped at each other's necks, furiously, but the Seraph in its mercy had decided to hold them just apart from each other. Though they snarled, their faces changing shapes as they intimidated their foes, the lava hung tight around them, more like an adhesive than the substance the Omnians were used to.

It was still hot, though.

Everyone else had figured that out.

"Figure if we did fall in, we'd be petrified before we died?" asked Tabai.

"Likely. Doesn't make the situation any more agreeable," Dusty said. "If you don't mind me saying this, I think I'll prefer not to fall in at all."

"Naturally," agreed Tabai.

They followed for what seemed, at least to Tabai, to be an eternity. The signal continued under them, chirping happily, content in the knowledge they couldn't snipe it from the sky. It would appear they'd have to move in unrealistically close to get it, and then... Dusty seemed intently focused, but there was no way he would lift that from the heat. They'd need some way to drag it up.

"We could take a rope, lower it down, and... no, risk aside, it looks like they'd eat that. They won't touch us in the boat, though, unless-- listen, I think we're going to have to go down," Dusty said, his eyes alighting on what Tabai soon saw was another boat (they had been watched and judged accordingly, once again). "Pechi and I tried some smart stuff during our attempt. I think that we have to go back to playing into the game."

"We're always playing the game," Tabai said, as they descended.

Dusty nodded, releasing her from the pods. He moved into the back to put on his suit and his tail bobbed beneath the tight fabric. "You'll need help?"

"You don't have to make it sound like some kind of impotence," Tabai hissed.

"In a sense, it is," Dusty said. "You're not really a Forhaga, are you?"

"Is that what you think of me?" asked Tabai, her voice somewhere between amused and hurt.

"That's one theory," Dusty said. "There are other theories, but they're not much nicer."

"I don't doubt it," hissed Tabai beneath her breath as Dusty finished zipping up her suit. "You understand how difficult any of this is to do if you're not a Canis, don't you? The entire world is tailored to your abilities--"

"--you're a Canis," Dusty added, the airlock releasing a torrent of hot air as the pair of them exited. The boat loomed ominous below them, and as Tabai and Dusty fell into line, both having entered the dark structure at least once, they felt it almost naturally slide into the river, as if Tabai's prodding it forwards had hardly been necessary. Tabai was into the ship just as quickly, her paw hovering above the lava for mere heartbeats before she slid it into safety.

"We're offworld," Tabai said. "I brashly believed nothing was to be as... rigid as onworld, and yet I'm often proved incorrect, even when it would appear--"

Dusty was leaning over the edge of the ship, as if he were seasick. The lava broiled beneath them both as they moved closer to the seraph horn, whose signal beeped on the edge of both their radars, contained within their suits. The suit itself seemed off-kilter to Tabai, and its slight whine was afflicted, like the call of a bird as a predator gripped it about the neck. It was a dying thing, and Tabai felt guilty just inhabiting it.

"I take it you're not in the mood for debate," Tabai said.

"You'll rock the boat. It's what's happened twice... three times already? Three," Dusty said. A dark form dragged itself from the lava, throwing itself towards the boat, but it could hardly reach before the sinews of fire dragged it down. "That's just how the game is played, I'd wager."

"There'll never be a convenient time," Tabai agreed, reluctantly. "That's how you win."

"Me?"

"You."

"Fair enough," Dusty said. Before them, two of the beasts had become close enough to engage in combat, and were now fighting each other in the blazing sluice. Two mouths of tusks met, pressing against each other, and the lava began to drag them back, opening the way for Dusty and Tabai to pass between them. Dusty grabbed the paddle so generously supplied in the boat with telekinesis and moved them through. The lava burbled with displeasure, and Dusty flicked a little bit of it at the stone eyes of a creature that moved too close. "They make it too easy."

"Guess it was expecting Alexa and I to come down here at some point," Tabai said. "Seraph's got it in for me."

Dusty nodded.

The sound from the radar grew stronger. They were converging on something. It would be a while before they were atop it, sure, but they'd been encroaching by the heartbeat. All they had to do was lay low.

"Like I said. Just stop incensing her and everything will turn out fine," Dusty began.

The radar pinging grew brighter. It sounded like a star singing in Tabai's ears. Just stay quiet. Just let them win again. It wasn't so hard.

Hm.

"You're worse than her," Tabai said. "Sometimes. You enable it, and truthfully, you benefit from all these systems, so of course you have no reason to bring them down. Let them stand, testaments that they are to old, fragile orders. Rigid magic, rigid castes, it doesn't matter what part you have to play in it, what matters is that you get to sit back and benefit from it. Worship the old ways. Worship a table of revolutionaries whose necks were never at risk the way ours would have been. Worship the bright side of history--"

Dusty hit the left side of the boat with the paddle. All the creatures in the lava were roaring now, suddenly alerted to the discord brewing within the scrumptious looking vessel. Dusty stepped up to Tabai, striding down the length of the admittedly small vessel, and drew himself even with her. His eyes were dark as death and twice as cold.

"Would you like to think of a better way out?" Dusty asked. "We can do that, right now. You think me up a new order to the cosmos, one that doesn't disperse back into these patterns, and we go by your call from now on."

"Kindness," Tabai said.

"They'll take advantage of your vagueness," Dusty warned. The ship knocked again, but this time, it was because dark things were lurching under the murk. "They'll take advantage of any adjective you use that isn't pinned down. Give me laws. Give me principles. Give me a rule that puts you in a position where I should, as you so obviously mean for me to do, turn on Alexa and depose her."

Tabai took a deep breath. She had soothespoken thousands, burned bridges, mended bridges, deduced roses out of gardens of weeds, and now, here she was, saying nothing to the Canis with his jowls drawn back.

Dusty stepped back. "Well?"

The boat keeled over. Something knocked them out from under themselves and the next thing Tabai knew, they were flying through the air, landing precariously close to the edge. Dusty blistered up with rage as he drew back to his paws, sitting on the bank, and Tabai watched him, her heart thrumming in her chest.

"Damnit," Dusty growled.

Tabai watched their paddle float downstream with the overturned boat. It would be easy for him to reach out to it. The seraph horn still pinged, taunting them, and Tabai could sense it, too, beginning to sink back under. They'd chased the rabbit back to its hole, and it was laughing at them. The mission was likely still salvageable, but there was the question of how far Tabai was willing to go to salvage it. "You should go back to the ship and grab something. I'll be here," she said. "Tracking it. Grab whatever heat-resistant ware you can."
"Nothing we have, magical or otherwise, is going to let us go under lava. You'd need a dragon for that," Dusty said. "I shouldn't have let you throw me off balance. I apologize."

"No you don't," Tabai spat. "I'm going to negotiate with the inhabitants. I want you to leave."

"You wouldn't prefer to show off in front of me?" asked Dusty.

"Leave," Tabai reiterated.

Dusty's eyes narrowed.

"I am willing to turn around and concede defeat, too, if that better suits your designs for our day."

Dusty stepped back. "I don't trust you," he announced.

"You shouldn't," Tabai agreed.

He wouldn't disappear, so she started up the riverbanks. The tongue the creatures used here was like fire in the mind. It was loud, violent explosions of noise, little more than that, and Tabai could feel something coherent trickle out through it, never loud enough to sound against the pure distillation of hate. If there was anything more to it, they didn't have the time to crack the language barrier.

That was fine. Locals were impossible to negotiate with.

It dawned on Tabai now what a joke it had been to bring a negotiator. What had they expected to find? This whole solar system was way out of range of most interdimensional treaties. There was no one here who could translate to negotiate with them. Had she been brought here to reckon with the seraph? No, that didn't make much sense either, it was a seraph, it wasn't going to lie down and concede its death would benefit others timelines and lightyears away. Everything about her 'purpose' on this ship had been shrouded in secrecy because there was nothing behind the smoke and mirrors. They were a two-Canis crew with accessories and a subpar Vidante guard.

Monsters thrashed in the fire. Tabai joined them, growing the scales of a dragon. Dusty's radar pinged a way off, and Tabai looked at the heads of the beasts, searching for an alibi. She waded into the lava, her suit burning in the shreds that still hung off her, and she pulled the seraph horn out, easy. It could not have been a simpler mission for anyone besides a Canis. All one needed was an immunity to fire.

Oh, all the little gifts she could have given this world. She removed herself, settling back into her own deceit, and imagined herself jumping from monster to monster. Then how to explain the suit burning? The ground, too, was unpleasantly harsh on Canis pads. It was as if the land was kindly telling them to get out.

Dusty found Tabai in the ship.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "Your radar blinked off, and then when I came back to the place, you were gone, the seraph horn was off, and--"

Tabai was clutching it in her mouth. She dropped it on the table. "Oh, you followed that signal back to the ship, didn't you? Very clever," she said. "It was a very easy mission, all things considered."

"How'd you do it?" asked Dusty.

Tabai looked insightfully at the ceiling. "I negotiated."

"And the suit?"

His interrogation could not have been more formulaic. She had spent the last few... well, it felt like beats, but in all honesty, it was slow, so he could have taken forever. "Burned past usability while I was jumping from head to head of the beast. One of them tore it on the way back, so it wouldn't stay on. Everything around the river is dust. It's just one, long labyrinthine tunnel that courses through the landscape, and around that? Fire and ash." Tabai tried to sound regretful.

She wasn't, very.

"Don't you want to get home? I'd imagine you have an immense amount of work to not do."

Dusty grit his teeth. He dipped his head out of the way, as if warding some hostile off, and said at last, "I'm not angry at you."

"You could be," Tabai said. "You could be terrified by what you don't understand, and I could tell you, like I have been telling you, that nothing should matter up here. You could knock off everything that's been keeping you down, like that-- tradition hasn't been working for you. You know why it hasn't. They don't obey our rules, in space."

"We're playing someone else's game. This isn't going to become the unifying experience you want it to be," said Dusty. "Whatever you are."

"Canis--"

"No," Dusty said.

"Listen. When we got hit out of the boat, you didn't respond, magically, at all. It's not that your effort was insignificant," Dusty warned. "it's that there was no effort. This whole time, I had assumed that your entire ploy was out of some guilt at being born Canis at all. You're either barren of magic, which makes no sense, because it would have been caught at some point, and the gravitational and temperature related adjustments your body has been making are impossible unless you're doing it magically... or you're something else. And here I am, right after you made an impossible retrieval that just so happened to shred your outfit, and I'm supposed to believe you're not a seraph spy, or anything of the sort."

"You could force a very solid ultimatum on me," Tabai said. "If you were so inclined."

"I'm not and I can't be," Dusty said. "If I make hard lines, then someone goes down. I don't know about you, Tabai, but I'm afraid of death."

Tabai settled back into the pod. "Me too," she admitted. "but it feels like dying, living like this. Stuck in this rut. Forced to listen to half the abuse everyone puts up with... and forced to play into these old narratives. I came out here for hope."

"Did you?"

"Nowhere else to go."
"Did all of you come out here because you were that intent on getting away?" asked Dusty, his voice seething with pain. "Do the words 'suicide mission' mean nothing to you?"

"They don't mean much to you, do they?" asked Tabai.

"They wouldn't, if we had been given a functional cast."

Tabai paused.

Dusty clicked the ship into gear.

"You aren't going to force an ultimatum on me, are you?" asked Tabai, as space grew small above and below her.

Dusty did not answer. Fear lept back into Tabai's heart and sat on her chest with a force only matched by that of gravity herself, who also believed she deserved a recount on that mission and was luring the pair in for another round. Fear curled up inside her heart as Dusty began to redock, in silence, and Tabai had spoken too early, too out of line, she had been brave, but perhaps too brave, and did she overvalue Dusty's silence and ambivalence? Of course she had. Ridiculous of her to even half-confide in him, as it seemed, and was she losing her touch? Absolutely, and he could say anything.

He could say anything.

Time to take action.