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“Heeeeello to all of my lovely sparklies! It’s your number one super duper fave, Sparxicle, coming to you live from Star Rail Fest Day 2! For those not already aware, this event got incredibly de-railed, hehe, on its opening day by the unexpected announcement that the Daybreak Warriors had become Phantasmoon Games Supplicants! As a result, what was supposed to be a celebration of the Astral Express’s adventures suddenly became a battle between the infamous Trailblazer, the Daybreak Squadron, and yet another surprise Supplicant known as Ashveil. Full coverage on all of that can be found in my previous stream!
Now, I’ll be honest: I was planning to just skip over that Belobog section that I’d already covered yesterday and start today’s stream from where the fest got interrupted at the Phantylia fight over in Xianzhou. But, can you believe it, there’s just been another shocking new development here at the venue! Early this morning, as soon as one of the first park guests used the Flaming Lance Launch Device to channel everyone’s light towards Madam Cocolia, tragedy struck! The laser that shot out burned far too hot, so hot that our beloved Supreme Guardian was pierced through, perishing with a loud and ear-shattering pop!
Was this an accident caused by Pearluxe Corp’s negligence to properly maintain their own equipment? Or, perhaps, could this have been intentional sabotage by some horrible villain with a vendetta against Madam Cocolia’s legacy of hope and happiness? Dear viewers, tell me, what do all of you think?”
“I invoke my right to remain silent,” Serval says.
“Really?” Kuchiba, the cop who’s been questioning Serval for a while now, quirks an unimpressed brow from across the interrogation table that Serval is cuffed to. Once again, the detective leans forward in her seat to point at the admittedly incriminating photograph that’s resting on the tabletop between them. “You’re still not going to explain yourself? Not even when security footage of the crowd clearly depicts you opening the access panel of the Flaming Lance Launch Device and messing with the machinery inside?”
It was a stupid thing to do—Serval can admit that much to herself in her own head, if not out loud. She was motivated entirely by petty spite and destructive impulse, after she saw that ludicrous balloon fight and heard all that sickeningly earnest cheering and felt a white-hot rage that she thought she’d finally put behind her abruptly rear its ugly head again. She tried to ignore it, tried to stay cheerful as even the Trailblazer themself stopped by to chat with her, but the rage kept on simmering right there in her gut all the way up until that Supplicant battle abruptly broke out.
When everyone around her became distracted by that, Serval found herself standing in front of the ridiculous theme park prop, sliding open the access panel, and exponentially upping the power output. It’s not like it was hard. Rewiring the whole thing took a few minutes at most, and none of the staff onsite were paying enough attention to try and stop her. Serval quickly closed it all back up before fleeing the scene, and even when the burning anger later smoldered out into a cold void in the pit of her stomach, she still didn’t actually feel bad about what she’d done.
Guilt only kicked in after the cops showed up at the hotel this morning. Specifically, at the exact moment that Bronya saw Serval get put in handcuffs and Serval saw Bronya’s face twist with heartbreak.
So yeah: Serval fucked up, and bad. But while she can’t take back what happened, she can at least try to make things a little easier on Bronya by not incriminating herself any further. Kuchiba continues to badger her about the security footage, as well as about some fingerprints the police found on the device’s inner mechanisms that are surely going to match Serval’s own once they do a comparison, but Serval simply doesn’t speak on any of it.
She insists, again and again, “I invoke my right to remain silent.”
Kuchiba doesn’t stop pushing, but Serval absolutely refuses to crack, and the stalemate is only broken when a sudden ding resounds throughout the interrogation room. The detective visibly pauses before reaching into her pocket to retrieve her phone, silently reading whatever message she received with a perfectly stoic expression. Eventually, Kuchiba sets her phone screen-down on the table, slumps backwards in her chair, and sighs.
“It seems, Miss Landau, that you are now free to go.”
Serval blinks. Blinks again. Furrows her brow in disbelief. “Wait. Seriously?”
“Seriously.” Kuchiba swiftly stands from her chair to step around to the other side of the table, and although Serval is on-edge the entire time, all the detective does is produce the key to Serval’s cuffs and unlock them. “Just as well, honestly. I have much more important things to be dealing with right now than a case of petty vandalism.”
Serval, still not quite believing what’s happening, rubs at the reddened marks on her now freed wrists and stares blankly as Kuchiba stalks towards the only door to this room. To prop it open, Kuchiba leans up against it with her whole body, and then she calmly meets Serval’s bewildered gaze as she gestures towards the hallway with her shoulder.
“Come along. I’ll help see you out.”
Serval, as someone intimately familiar with the types of backstabbing tricks utilized by people in power (and also conniving exes), is half-expecting this to be some sort of trap. A way to bait her into leaving the police station just so that they can arrest her again and further charge her with escaping from custody, or something of the like. So while Serval does get up from the chair and walk out of the room and let Kuchiba lead her towards the lobby, she does so with a healthy dose of skepticism plaguing her every step.
It’s only when Serval sees Bronya standing by the front desk that some of her nervous tension finally drains out of her shoulders.
“She’s all yours,” Kuchiba tells Bronya, with all the blithe professionalism of a bureaucrat who knows that some fuckery happened somewhere higher up the chain of command but isn’t going to bother questioning it. “But from now on, do try to keep your associates out of trouble, Madam Guardian. The Phantasmoon Games have the department busy enough as is.”
“We understand completely,” Bronya says, her demeanor so polite and poised and perfect that it’s all too painfully reminiscent of her mother. “Don’t we, Serval?”
It’s humiliating to be talked over like this, as if Serval were a misbehaving child, but with how immature her own actions were, she can’t say that the treatment isn’t at least a little deserved. “Yes,” Serval intones dutifully. “Message received, loud and clear.”
Kuchiba nods. “Very well then. Enjoy the rest of your trip. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to some actual detective work.” The officer takes her leave quickly and dismissively, like she’s simply glad to wash her hands of this whole annoying affair, and Serval can’t even blame her for that. To her, this was probably nothing more than a huge waste of time.
“Serval,” Bronya calls, staring her down with the exact unique cocktail of sternness and disappointment and cold anger that, once again, makes her seem just like Cocolia. “Let’s get back to the hotel. We need to talk once we’re there.”
Serval, already bracing herself for a scolding, sighs in acquiescence. “Yeah. I know.”
“Serval, you cannot be pulling stunts like this while we’re guests on another planet!” As expected, once the two of them are alone together in the privacy of Bronya’s hotel room, Bronya is quick to tear Serval a new one. “I may be able to grant you some grace when you do something like shoot a chainsaw through a window at Qlipoth Fort, but I hold no such authority on this planet. And so long as you’re part of the Belobog delegation, anything you do while you’re here could have consequences for the entirety of Jarilo-VI. You know that!”
“I do,” Serval confirms, quietly and shamefully, as she sits on the lounge chair and Bronya stands looming over her. “I won’t make excuses. I was being stupid.”
“You were,” Bronya firmly agrees. “And you are not going to be stupid like that again, because until we all take the ship back to Jarilo-VI, you are hereby forbidden from so much as stepping foot outside of this hotel. Is that clear?”
Honestly, it’s far from the worst sort of punishment Serval could be facing. Missing out on the last few days of their trip is definitely a bummer, and it stings Serval’s pride that she’s essentially being grounded by the kid she once helped raise—at least for a little while, during those couple of years before Cocolia ejected Serval from the Architects and their relationship and their adopted daughter’s life—but Serval can just suck it up. This is light-years better than being officially charged with anything.
“Crystal,” Serval says. “But tell me, Bronya: exactly how much hot water did I just land our planet into?”
Bronya lets out a sigh, but she answers calmly, “Thankfully, not much in the end. Nobody was hurt by your tampering, just disenchanted at the results, and considering the alliance we only just struck, Planarcadia doesn’t want to make an interplanetary incident out of something that was technically harmless. Madam Pearl was entirely willing to put this on the record as an accident caused by a simple equipment malfunction, so long as I paid both your bail and enough compensation to cover the cost of an expedited replacement balloon.” She stiffly crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re paying me back for those when we get home, by the way.”
If Serval had actually badly fucked up Jarilo-VI’s political position, she doesn’t doubt that Bronya would try to downplay the severity of it to spare Serval’s feelings. But although Bronya has only gotten better at deception since becoming the Supreme Guardian, she hasn’t quite gotten rid of all her most intrinsic tells. Serval still knows whenever Bronya is lying, just as she always used to know whenever a certain little scamp had snuck an extra cookie or tried to skip out on her studying sessions.
Bronya isn’t lying right now. That, at least, assuages the worst of Serval’s fears.
“That’s completely fair,” Serval agrees, finally slumping down in her seat from relief. “Thank you for bailing me out, Bronya. And I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”
“…For the trouble you’ve caused me,” Bronya echoes slowly, as if testing the words on her tongue. “But…not necessarily for what you actually did. Right?”
Oh. Hit the nail on the head, there. Serval tilts her head up to meet Bronya’s piercing gaze, and her whole body abruptly goes rigid with tension.
“Look,” Serval utters carefully, “if you’re expecting me to apologize for…for disrespecting Cocolia, or something like that, then—”
Bronya quickly shakes her head. “No. No, that’s not it. I can’t blame you for whatever you felt yesterday. When I watched the security footage of the event, I…I felt it too, at least a little bit.” The strictness in her expression ebbs away in favor of something sheepish and sad. “I think I understand why you did what you did. And actually, I believe that I now owe you an apology of my own.”
Serval blinks up at her confusedly. “An apology? For what?”
“I…I knew that Mother had wronged you. But until now, I think I had been underestimating just how deep the hurt ran. How deep it still runs.” Bronya’s lips purse into a thin line. “You have every right to resent her, Serval. But I fear that a certain decision I made might have caused you to feel as if you couldn’t resent her. As if you had to stifle yourself to spare feelings and keep the peace. And if so, then that played a part in what happened yesterday, didn’t it?”
Bronya’s not quite saying it out loud, but Serval knows what she’s talking about. Serval had already realized, from the very first time Bronya told her the tale of Cocolia’s heroic self-sacrifice, that it was a lie. They’ve never explicitly discussed it since, but Serval knows, and Bronya knows that she knows, and Bronya has clearly never stopped feeling guilty about it.
“Hey, it’s…it’s not like I didn’t understand your decision, Bronya.” Whatever Cocolia’s true intentions were in the end, it would do the people of Belobog no good to know of them. Serval trusts Bronya enough to accept her judgment on that. “Everything about Cocolia is just…complicated. Yeah, I don’t really feel like I can say anything about her to other people. But in the end, everyone is allowed to feel however they want to feel about her. Even if they didn’t actually know her. Even if it makes me upset.”
“Still. It hasn’t been fair to you.” Here, Bronya bows towards Serval, bending at the waist and dipping her head low. “For that, I’m very sorry.”
“Stop it, please,” Serval insists. “It’s really not your fault, Bronya. I should have just been an adult about this. I should have known better than to lash out.”
“I don’t disagree there,” Bronya says, raising her head just enough to meet Serval’s eyes again. “But, may I ask? Did it…help you, to burst the balloon? Did it make you feel better? Less upset?”
Maybe if Serval was a less bitter and angry person, the honest answer to this could be no. Maybe Serval could just lie and say that, anyway. But then again, what was it that Bronya just said, about Serval feeling the need to stifle herself to spare feelings?
“Honestly? Yeah. It did make me feel better.” It’s not pretty, but it’s true, and Bronya did ask. “It was…cathartic, to set everything up and know what would happen next. It would only have been more cathartic if I’d actually gotten to watch her pop.”
Really, if Serval was going to get caught for it anyway, she should have just gone all the way and pushed the damn button herself.
“I see,” Bronya murmurs, straightening herself back up so that she’s standing tall again. “Thank you for your honesty.”
Serval gives a cynical, self-abasing chuckle. “But just because I felt better doesn’t mean it was right to hurt other people’s feelings, does it? There were people in the audience who felt genuinely inspired by Cocolia. There were kids who saw her as a hero to emulate. And…there’s also you.” Knowing that Bronya watched some of the security footage herself, Serval realizes now that the destruction of the balloon may very well have reminded her of Cocolia’s actual death. A death which Bronya had witnessed firsthand and still clearly finds traumatic to think about. “I hadn’t had any sort of relationship with Cocolia for a very long time, but she was always your mother. You have every right to want to remember her with dignity, Bronya. I should never have done anything to trample on that.”
Bronya’s lips quirk with just the tiniest hint of a wry smile. “I do appreciate that, Serval. But honestly, I’m not sure there is much dignity to be trampled on when it comes to…a theme park spectacle, depicting events in a manner that is at best thirdhand and at worst intentionally sensationalized, played out using giant blown-up balloon caricatures.”
When Bronya puts it like that, Serval suddenly can’t help the startled bark of laughter that escapes her. “Wait. Oh my god. Cocolia probably would have hated that balloon, wouldn’t she?”
“I think so, yes,” Bronya says, slight amusement underlying her own voice. “Perhaps she might even have approved of you destroying it.”
“Fuck, don’t say that, noooo.”
All of a sudden, this whole thing just feels absurd. Serval finds herself shaking with uncontrollable laughter as she falls back against the chair, and above her, Bronya dissolves into helpless chuckles of her own. Perhaps it’s senseless for them to be laughing right now, but it’s also instantly relieving, as the overwhelming tension that had once choked the entire room now swiftly bleeds away. When their ringing mirth finally dies down, the two of them are left simply smiling at each other.
“…I really am sorry, Bronya,” Serval softly reiterates. “I promise I won’t do it again.”
“I believe you,” Bronya says, as her gray eyes gain an almost sly twinkle. “But you’re still banned from leaving this hotel.”
Serval sighs. “I know.”
“And I should remind you that tomorrow’s leg of this trip consists of visiting Pearluxe Tower. The location with all the giant mechatrons.”
Serval groans. “I know.”
“A shame you won’t get to lay your eyes upon any of those fascinating mechanical specimens for yourself.”
Serval pouts. “Okay, kiddo. Now you’re just being mean.”
That gets Bronya to laugh again, though, so Serval can’t truly bring herself to mind.
Serval serves her sentence dutifully, spending the rest of that day and all of the next one sequestered in her hotel room. Technically speaking, she could easily sneak out if she actually tried—everyone else from the Belobog delegation is out having fun, so it’s not like anyone is around to really enforce her confinement—but Serval isn’t about to take undue advantage of Bronya’s already gracious clemency. She’s going to suffer through her assigned punishment like a champ, even if it means she’s stuck here sulking at her phone every time someone in the delegation’s group chat sends a picture of another cool robot that she’s not going to get to see in person.
Around the evening, though, Serval’s phone pings from a message that comes not in the group chat, but in the private one she shares with Seele. The text reads, [Don’t worry, Star Rail Fest just ended its third and final day, so Bronya managed to get actual permission for me to do this], and there’s an attached video file whose preview only shows a pitch black screen. When Serval hits play, she’s not quite sure what to expect.
A couple seconds in, the hand that had been initially covering the camera quickly draws away, revealing the familiar venue of the Belobog area of Star Rail Fest. The recording’s view is remarkably stationary, indicating that the camera is likely being supported by a tripod rather than held in anyone’s hand. On the screen, the Cocolia balloon—presumably the brand new replacement one—is swaying in the wind as the camera auto-focuses upon it, but despite how the sound of background rustling proves that this video does have audio, there’s a notable lack of any raucous cheering from a watching crowd.
After a few more seconds, a large rip appears in the balloon’s side abruptly and inexplicably, as if slashed by some invisible force. Air gushes out in a loud, continuous spurt. Fabric flaps back and forth in chaotically quick jerks. Cocolia’s blown-up effigy dances a comically pathetic dance before collapsing in a limp, formless heap.
Once the miserably sputtering balloon has finally breathed its last, a blur of blue suddenly appears in the video’s foreground, fuzzy and out of focus and seemingly materializing from thin air.
“Honestly, Serval?” Seele’s familiar voice chimes through the phone speakers. “I totally get where you were coming from. That felt good.”
The camera struggles to readjust its focus as Seele walks towards it, only managing to succeed in the very last second of the video. The final image it ends on is a clear, close-up still of Seele’s face wearing a lopsided smirk, and Serval stares down at it with wide eyes and a slackened jaw. But in time, incredulity gradually turns to gratitude. Shock gives way to vindication. Serval finds herself smiling with darkly satisfied humor as she taps her screen to play the video again.
Yeah. Serval has to agree. That did feel good.