There's someone there, right there, right out of your line of sight. You know that they're there. You don't know why, but the best thing to do when you're the future Empress of Alternia is to just assume that they're there to kill you.

You do a casual backstroke to get closer. It's closer to inland, shrouded by fog, but the outline of a figure is starting to emerge. (You're not worried about your safety; you're the future Empress of Alternia. You can defend yourself in water. You can defend yourself anywhere.)

Then you hesitate, like some kind of wiggler, as you see her.

She just hangs there, almost lifeless, but clearly watching you. Her hold on her needles is loose but you know if you move she could at least try to hit you and probably manage it. You remember, faintly, something like this before.

There's a flash and for a moment you think she's bursting into flame, but it's way worse than that.

"You," you say, unfortunately stunned. You know. You might only be six sweeps old but you know, clear as sunlit water, you know who she is. "You're…"

She speaks again, and it's the same stuttered, garbled near-Alternian as before, and your instincts hit high alert. You're the future Empress. The Handmaid can't be here for you, not now. You're going to survive. You're going to kill her and take your throne. "Fine," you call to her. "I can't understand you, fine, you just gotta go, you get it?"

She smiles, slowly, and the fear curls around you like Gl'bgolyb's tentacles. You want to flee, but your pride holds you there. You're a fuschiablood, fuck that. "Fine, if it's gonna be that way," you snap, and throw your trident.

It arcs, it's going to hit her, except she vanishes in a confusing mess of colors and you swear, vividly, diving to catch your trident before it sinks too low.

"What a bitch," you mumble to yourself.

The sweeps fly by, and the Empress is horrible and not nearly as good at the job as you'd be. You spend literally all of your time plotting. Even when you're swimming or getting more bling or treasure, you're still plotting.

You've got people in the Fleet now, you've been working as hard as possible since the moment you decided you were tired of sharing your lusus and your crown and your blood, and all you have to do is wait.

And wait. And wait.

It's ridiculous and you fucking hate it.

Finally, it works. You do some finagling (great word, great pun!) and she chooses one of your people into a position as head of her security, because she's a functional moron who has no clue who she's up against. You aren't some wiggler anymore.

"Her Terror the Empress," the castellan announces as she sashays into the throne room, and she draws her trident as she sees you sitting on the throne.

"What," the Empress says, icily.

"Oh you're so gone," you say. "I'm done putting up with your shit. Are we gonna do this?"

She smiles, unhappily. "Get off my throne first. I don't want to scratch it when I put this through your chest."

You rise, and saunter towards her, then she rushes at you and oh, you really want her trident, you want to mount it on the wall, you're thinking all of this as you're fending her off and toying with her, because oh she's so out of practice. You are NEVER going to be this out of practice.

There's movement out of the corner of your eye, and no one notices but you, which, really, you're about to take your throne and you're the one who notices something's up? But anyway, it's a shimmer of dark red and bright colors and oh fuck.

"No," you shout, and shove your trident into the Empress's face. She ducks back and you rake it across her face, then, drawing blood. You dare a glance back. "Fuck off," you shout at the Handmaid, infuriated, and twirl your trident to block the Empress's next blow.

You will not die. You're about to become the fucking Empress of Alternia.

"Someone's distracted," the Empress croons, and you start to hate, hate, hate her and the Handmaid and everyone else on fucking Alternia. You shove your trident into her stomach, land the blow, and kick her down, pulling the trident out after twisting it.

"Give in and die or I'll paint this room in your blood," you say sweetly. "I always liked this color."

The Handmaid's still there. You can feel her there. Are you the only one who sees her? Can she do that? She's Death's servant, she can probably do anything. (Are you insane? Is this really happening?) You're out of breath, you're hysterical.

The Empress reaches for her trident and you stab yours through her throat.

"Die, bitch," you say, casually, and consider the blood on your trident.

That's the last the Empire will see fuschia blood spilled in this room, and the last the Handmaid will see of it.

"Cut off her horns and put them on my wall. And give me my shit," you say to the castellan, and fix your hair around your horns in the most fetching way possible. Then you stride out of the throne rooms, towards the imperial residence, a huge respiteblock that you've completely deserved all of your life.

You turn, and she's there.

"You almost ruined that for me," you say, and arm yourself with your still-bloody trident. "Not gonna fucking stand for your shit, spooky bitch. Let's go."

The Handmaid laughs at you. She laughs at you. Part of you is scared out of your mind but mostly you're pissed off. She says something, and you can almost understand, somehow, that she's mocking you about your future. She's seen it.

You go at her with your trident, so incredibly done with this, and of course she vanishes and you practically hit the wall. You slam your trident there and as it's ringing you stare down through the near window and lower it, putting it away.

The Empress is dead. You're safe. Safe enough.

You need to forget that you're being haunted by a legend. There's nothing that you can do if she decides to take you, if they decide to take you.

No matter how much you hate the idea of her and the smug look on her face, there is nothing you can do.

At least, for now.

Being the Empress is awesome. Being Her Imperious Condescension is awesome. It is exactly as awesome as it sounds. It's literally the job you were born to have and you're not going to lose to some wiggler with the same color blood because you're absolutely a thousand times better at this than the bitch who came before you.

Even if that wiggler is born and you're told, by your lusus, when she is.

You make a point of getting some things you can stab the shit out of when you find out about this. Then you get more things to stab the shit out of, because you're not exactly done.

"Are you nervous?" It's arch words in a familiar female voice, but spoken all wrong, not like anyone you know, unfamiliar intonation, and lilt. You arm yourself and turn because you know she's there and oh coddamn you're right, she's there smirking, being horrible.

"Get the FUCK away from me," you snap, practically venomous. You're scared, you're definitely scared, you want her gone, and you hate that you can't deal with this problem by stabbing it in the face or siccing your awesome fleet on it. "What is your problem?"

"You're nervous," the Handmaid repeats, apparently gleeful about this. "I like that."

"I fucking hate you," you fume, and rake your trident at her; she disappears like smoke and reappears to your side. "FUCK YOU!"

She says something, all rapidfire, and you don't catch that, but you don't need to. She blasts you with something and your ears ring and there's blood in your mouth, and the anger and the hate is so satisfying that even as you suffer the pain, doubled over and shoved against the wall, you laugh until your sides ache from it.

"Fuck you," you say to her, even though she's gone.

You're not dead, even if Death is stalking you. And that little bitch of a wiggler won't make you that way.

"It's high time we kick this bitch into gear," you say to your highest officers, fingers tapping on your trident. "My Empire needs more, you hear me? Get my ship up. Mobilize the fleet. Double our efforts. Spread the fear. Make it inevitable."

You know they're good for you, because half of them are holding back a grin and the others aren't bothering. "Go," you urge them, and lean back in your throne.

She's not there. She hasn't been there. You might be free.

You doubt it, though.

When you find the psionic huddled with his friend's sad little mutant cult, you know what you need to do.

It would be a shame not to use him. So you do. You watch as they cram him into the ship, as the helm wraps itself around him, and, oh, it's good. Now you can go further. You can make Alternia an empire that won't ever be forgotten – you can make yourself an Empress who'll be legendary even when she passes on of her own fucking free will.

As you're about to crawl into your recuperacoon, it's in the corner of your eye, again, she is, and you're ready this time. You attack, first with your trident, then with your bare hands when she disarms you, you strain to catch her, you scream in frustration.

"What do you want?" you force out between your teeth.

"I want to see you fall," the Handmaid says, her power glinting around her huge horns, horns you just want to wrap your hands around and pull, hard – what, focus – "I want to see you fall, and become like me."

That's the scariest thing you've ever heard, but you don't let her see that. "Yeah whatever," you say, "now fuck off and leave me alone."

"It's all your fault," she says. "Remember that. It's your fault, and you're going to pay for it."

"What the fuck are you talking about? Oh, just, fuck – " You grab her by the horn even though the aura around her just burns like shit, oh it really fucking hurts, but you kiss her, you see nothing but black and pitch and awful thoughts and you just want her dead, then –

You're thrown backwards, stunned, half against your recuperacoon. When your eyesight clears, she's gone, and you scream again, desperate to kill something with your trident. Nothing is there, you just have to go in your recuperacoon and let the sopor do its work. There's no way around it.

You've chosen possibly the most frustrating kismesis ever. But if anyone can deal with it, it's you.

You sit on your throne on your ship with your dead psionic and you roll your trident in your hand, silent, sober, unsure.

You're sure that this is your fault, somehow. But you're not gonna motherfucking admit that. You're gonna solve it. You're gonna make it work.

Or something.

You haven't really come up with anything yet.

Death is everywhere. You try to raise your race again, and death is even nearer. You wonder if she's going to show up, with her fucking awful words and voice, with Death alongside her this time. You hate her. You hate the idea of her.

You navigate your ship back to Alternia, barely.

Gl'bgolyb's dead, too. She raised you, she fought you, she didn't want you to be you, she wanted you to be something soft and stupid like the wiggler who was supposed to come after you (in probably a few senses) wanted to be. She didn't warp you. And she died fighting you.

It's a hollow victory. Not much of a victory at all.

You sit at the edge of the water and let it lick your feet.

You can feel the moons shifting above your head, see the light refracting off of the water, and something shifts, something blocks your moonlight. The sun's about to rise, but she's in the way.

"Come with me," the Handmaid says, approaches you - you're on your feet in an instant, your your trident in hand, but she ignores all that and you hate her for underestimating you. She drops to the ground, you move to shove your trident into her smug face, and she moves back too fast for you to even see, and fucking laughs.

"Time to go," she sing-songs, all mocking, then in an instant she's got a handful of your hair and you scream out of pure agony and frustration as she burns through reality, almost, and…

You're there. In front of someone. In front of someone with power.

"Yo," you say.

He gives you an offer.

"You know you want to," the Handmaid says, needles drawn, and oh, you really, really do.

You don't know if you even want this. You don't know anything. You were a fool, and she was right. But fuck if you're going to tell her that.

It's time to kill the bitch.

She barely fights you, only to get you incensed, only to flirt, you know it, or maybe you're projecting, whatever. But eventually she lets herself get disarmed and your trident punches through her chest, and you push her to the ground, twist the trident, stand on top of her.

"Mine," you whisper, and yank it out.

She looks almost grateful when she starts to die.

For some reason, that almost means something. Then you look up.

"Are we good?"

He doesn't smile. Or, at least, you can't tell. But you know he approves.