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11:37 pm; she had fallen asleep and woken up with Cyclonis sitting by her feet.
Piper sits up slowly, eyes wide and set on the inky figure at the opposite side of her bed. In any other case, seeing Cyclonis at this distance would cause her to swing, but the fact that the Emperor was also staring her down as though it was her fault that she was here made her pause. It was as much a quiet stand-off as they had reached. Her room's darkness lay across their shoulders like weighted blankets, pillowing into itself to the point where Piper feared if she were to break away from Cyclonis' eyes, she'd turn back and the woman would be gone.
By all means, this could have been reality, she had broken onto the ship before with much success and little fanfare (until she started trying to fight them). But they had been flying without a signal for weeks to hide from the Empire's prying eyes. Stork had personally flown outside to survey every inch of the Condor's surface, daily, to ensure there weren't any stray tracking devices. They banned themselves from contacting the lingering squadrons to lessen the chances of their calls getting traced back to them. Unless Cyclonis had taken a shot in the dark and sifted through Atmos to find them tonight, there was no way she could be sitting on her bed.
She shivers involuntarily when Cyclonis shifts closer to her, eyes darting along her face, down her neck as if assessing whether she was real. The moonlight streaming in catches her face, ghastly white skin pale enough to reveal the black veins underneath, dark eyes with darker circles underneath that squint with accusation. Piper feels like she's being stripped to the bone before her, scrutinised and poked at with scalpels. Under the covers, she pinches her thigh, minds heaving in relief when no pain flares from it. So this is a dream, a nightmare.
"Get the fuck out of my head."
The accusatory squint draws closer, "Who's to say that you're not in mine?"
That surprises her, forcing her to look at the confusion behind Cyclonis' glare. She trains her eyes away from her face, spotting the gloved hand on her thigh digging sharp lines into it. Either they've both been thrown into a terrible shared dreamscape, or Piper's brain is very good at convincing her that this is real.
"You're on my ship. You're in my bedroom, sitting in front of me." she reasons, "You're very much in my head."
Something flickers across Cyclonis' face, a realisation and understanding of the setting that something has thrown them into. It is quickly replaced by the same glare, followed by two hands wrapped around her neck and shoving her against pillows.
"What did you do to me to bring me here."
The pressure on her throat grows, but a dream doesn't have air and she, therefore, doesn't need to breathe, "Nothing at all, dipshit."
After a few more moments, where Cyclonis thinks adding more weight will have her panicking, she stops in frustration and lifts her hands away as though they've been burnt. Caging her between the mattress and herself, she lets out a long sigh, breath tickling at Piper's nose, closing her eyes in acceptance. It takes another moment of silence before she lifts herself back up, head banging against the metal wall as she gives Piper a side-long glare. It seems that realising you can't hurt your nemesis takes all the fight out of you.
"I think it's very clear that I don't know anything about this."
"Neither do I." she snarks back, sitting back up and not bothering to rub at her throat. The places where Cyclonis dug her fingers into burns like brands. "As soon as I wake up I'll pay you back for that though. Friends don't tend to strangle each other."
Cyclonis ignores the last sentence, eyebrows furrowing in thought as she stares straight ahead. Somehow the darkness has turned from foreboding to a pitch-black void, yet the moon still shines on them.
Piper feels herself wake up, but not before she hears the Emperor mutter something about the Royal Libraries.
3:48 am; she withdrew from her office, stepping outside where Piper was already waiting.
"Took you a while," Piper quips, "I couldn't open the door you entered. I just woke up here."
Here, is a balcony overlooking Cyclonia's red skies, darkened by night but still blooming from the Wasteland mines. She rarely uses it, sick of the sight, but Piper still hasn't turned to face her, engrossed in the never-ending plumes. True to her word, the Emperor had dug her way through the Libraries, they had a mental link, some sort of tether binding them to a shared dreamscape that flipped its surroundings based on who was better at controlling it.
She does not plan on informing Piper, she plans on using this to her advantage.
"What do you think of the view?"
"Terrible." the Storm Hawk snorts, turning so that Cyclonis could only see one of her eyes, squinting in suspicion, "Do you have any idea why I get thrown in before you did?"
The true answer to that is that the dreamscape can only work when both of them are asleep. Cyclonis is probably passed out at her desk, Piper she can only guess is still on the Condor.
"None whatsoever." She lies. Walking in this mental link feels like gliding, as though the ground beneath her will give way if she doesn't concentrate hard enough on joining Piper at the railing. An old tome about the Binding and Perfect Attunement has led her to believe that they share the same bond and that it has somehow manifested into this connection rather than its traditional setting. Piper still stares straight ahead at the horizon, the sun frozen between the twin peaks that start the border between Cyclonia and Atmos. The Emperor takes this opportunity to survey her. The tell-tale greying of her skin, the black veins that are too faint to see without trained eyes, the darkening circles under her eyes.
"Is fighting your inevitable doom taking its toll on you, my friend?"
Piper glances at her, surprise on her face before she schools it with a glare that the Emperor is strangely impressed by. "Your stupid forces make me lose precious sleep."
"That's the intention."
As she recalls, they had just thrown the Rex Guardians into the crystal prison, the third of the squadrons on their list with many more to follow. The Absolute Zeroes are next, then the Amazonians and so on and so forth until they finally get rid of Starling and set their crosshairs on the Storm Hawks themselves.
"What are you doing to the captured squadrons."
"You'll join them soon, so don't worry your pretty little head about it."
In the real world, Dark Ace is walking into her office. She feels her dream self fade, giving one more glance to Piper and wonders how else the Binding Sickness will debilitate her.
12:12 pm; she fainted, lightning arching up her spine before Cyclonis' hands grabbed and pulled her up.
Piper gasps for air that doesn't exist, chest heaving and clothes supposed to be soaked in the water of the dreamscape before them. Cyclonis stands before her, wiping her hands against her pants as she surveys the land around her.
"You made me faint," she mutters.
Cyclonis shrugs, "I was simply testing out our little link."
She stands to her full height, swaying slightly as her vision blurs. The water beneath her doesn't react to her footsteps as she lurches forward, a perfect mirror for the cloudless sky above them. It makes her head hurt more if she tries to discern where the horizon ends and begins, so instead she reaches out and pulls at Cyclonis' shoulders.
"You said you didn't know."
The Emperor smiles back at her, but her eyes don't follow, "You should know that I like lying to you."
"Tell me," she demands.
Cyclonis ignores her plea. Hands dragging invisible lines up her forearms to rest against the ones digging into her shoulders. Piper prepares for a fight, for the Emperor to force a space between them. Instead, she takes her right hand, splaying her fingers outwards and mirroring the motion with her left. They are the same size.
"You haven't been using that new crystal magic for a while."
No, she hasn't, whenever she does it feels like something is sucking the air out of her lungs, making her heart race, pulling any energy she has out of her and into something else. She can barely sleep, fevers are becoming a daily occurrence, an unpleasant and unbearable rush of cold and hot that she has to grit her teeth through. At this rate she won't be able to hide it from anyone. She was mid-remark to Stork when she felt her consciousness slip, heat rushing to her head like a fever but sweat breaking out on every inch of her skin as she fell like sand from her palms. Piper still feels hot, the endless water around her mocks her.
"I've been using it plenty."
The Emperor hums, "You're getting better at it." Piper hates the way her eyes rake over her body, focussing on the patch of black veins and bruises hidden just underneath her gloves.
"As if I need someone like you to tell me."
Their hands interlace, rather, Cyclonis curls her fingers around Piper's and she keeps them open out of spite. "I'm the only other one here capable of using it, you should be flattered."
"What do I call it?"
"I won't say," she replies, smirking at the frustration now open on Piper's face, "have you told anyone about our little meetings?"
Piper barks a laugh, how could she tell anyone about this? A link between her and their biggest threat, and all she's managed to do was argue and snipe at her instead of trying to get as much information as possible. Sky gods above she's becoming more useless by the second. No, this remains a secret between her and Cyclonis, a burden she will shoulder so that no one else's plate is filled with another problem they can't fix.
Briefly, she feels a hand against her forehead, hears her name being called out to her. In front of her, she sees her hand fade as she's pulled back into consciousness. Cyclonis' smile is the last thing she sees.
"You're getting sicker as well."
4:39 pm; she was deliberate this time, seeking Piper out to yank her back to their shared world.
Cyclonis sees Piper, a golden thread in a void, before reaching out and tugging it. Likewise, she feels her body hit the bed and the new dreamscape flash into view.
Piper is upon her the moment she opens her eyes, hands around her throat mirroring the first time they had found themselves here. Blearily, she realises that she is still in her chambers, still lying down. Only that a very angry crystal mage is trying to choke the life out of her.
"Do it one more time, see where it lands you."
"Keep trying to strangle me," she says, "I think we've both established that it does nothing."
The woman above her is haggard, skin now ashen and adorned with black veins crawling around her neck like a noose and digging themselves into her eyes. Even with the haze of the dream, Cyclonis can tell that her grip is weaker, body focussed on suppressing a wave of shivers rather than choking her out.
"You're dying." the Emperor observes.
The grip tightens, "I'll kill you."
She wraps her hands around Piper's wrists, brittle from muscle atrophy, "I can help you fix it."
"I'd rather drink acid."
With a sigh, she wraps her legs around her, locking her ankles before very easily rolling and switching their positions. Knees on either side of her hips as her wrists pin her hands against the silken mattress. It's almost sad that Piper doesn't fight back, head resting against the mattress in defeat and eyes watching her warily. Like prey that knows it has been cornered and will find itself dead within seconds.
"Let me help you fix it."
Her hands curl into fists, "Die."
She ignores it, "How useful are you to your beloved crew if your body is rotting away? How will you be of any help when I finally find your blasted ship and turn it into rubble when you're too weak to push me away in a dream?"
Piper shuts her eyes, face contorted as though she can feel the pain of the Binding Sickness within her head, "You won't even tell me its name."
"You don't need to know its name if you just agree."
Piper doesn't respond, opening her eyes (with glee, Cyclonis realises that the sclera has turned from white to grey) to shoot a final glare at her, "Fuck you."
6:23 pm: she hit her head on the way down.
Piper is standing, surrounded by storms and lightning on one side and an impenetrable mountain on the other. Cyclonis has her back to her, sitting on the cliffside. The dreamscape is a downpour and they're both soaked. Wordlessly, she joins her.
"It's called the Binding." the Emperor mutters, in a tone that is equal parts defeat and admittance, "It eats away at you until there's nothing left."
She looks at her, properly this time, illuminated by the flashes of light that adorn their world, she sees black veins, dark circles, skin so dead it's as if she's looking at a living corpse. They are days away from getting caught, Starling's communications have been silent for the past week and the Condor flies alone in Atmos' shrinking territory. Her sickness worsens with each step and she knows when the two finally face each other, in the real world and not muddied by dreams, it will be like looking into a mirror.
The silence eats away at them as they stare at the horizon. They both know what's coming.
"Consider this my second, and final offer," Cyclonis begins, "join me, even briefly, so I can save you."
Piper shakes her head, tilting her face up to the endless sky as the rain continues. Whatever will happen in the next few days, will happen, and whether or not either of them will be alive to see it, she's found she doesn't care.
"I don't need it."