Sayeeda laughed in spite of herself and clinked her bottle against Neil’s. The glass tonked unmusically but she didn’t let that stop her from taking a mouthful of the smoky liquor. Neil might have had a point, the fancy of aristocrats was nothing to play with. Granted Aiden didn’t seem the sort to have them all impaled on a whim but… well they had risked enough they deserved to get paid.

“It is a date,” she declared with a throaty chuckle. And may the stars save us if it goes sideways she added mentally.

It seemed that the red carpet that the Highlander’s crew had previously enjoyed was well and truly rolled up. When they arose the next morning they found that while the doors were unlocked armed guards politely but firmly turned them back to their quarters. They were able to establish contact with Lonney, who to Sayeeda’s horror, seemed to be developing a taste for the news feeds. Somehow, and she had her suspicions, footage of last nights events had been leaked to the press. The prevailing narrative seemed to be that while Alexander had tried to usurp his brother, most of the death could be chalked up to the ‘foreign killers’ who Aiden had generously, but foolishly,  bought to Dar’mond.

“Nice,” Neil griped, “we save his ass and now this.” Sayeeda could only shake her head. That was the way it was sometimes. Politicians needed mercenaries but they were rarely welcome once the cold calculus of victory started to grind away. If nothing else they were a reminder that where one regime could be toppled by hired guns, so could another.

“I’m just mad I missed my chance to be swept off my feet by prince charming,” Sayeeda grumbled mostly in jest.

“You just make a terrible damsel in distress,” Taya observed, swiveling in her plush leather chair to face Neil and Sayeeda as they sat at the table playing cards for the few small denomination credit chips they had.

“Plus I don’t think Aiden is much of a dashing Prince. I mean he says all the right things but you should have seen him last night. He was terrified,” Taya disagreed. Sayeeda snorted as Neil took the pot with a particularly unlikely play, she peered suspiciously at her cards.

“That makes him human, only an idiot wouldn’t have been afraid,” Sayeeda declared, tossing a card half heartedly into the play area. Taya arched an eyebrow.

“You two didn’t seem afraid, I wasn’t or I mean not totally terrified,” she protested. Junebug grinned without humor.

“Maybe we are just dumber than we look?”

House arrest aside the day progressed more or less as normal. Instead of travelling to the Royal Seamstress the entire department came to their room, dividing the space up with mobile partitions so they could be dressed appropriately. Sayeeda strenuously overrode every attempt at a traditional court dress, settling instead for a black top made of a leather like material and accented with gold. The thing had a breastplate like appearance and pinned over only one of her shoulders leaving the right side of her from throat to armpit, with a generous scallop of bosom, bare. For her lower extremities she selected a black on black slashed skirt that fell nearly to the ground and long leather boots of matte black leather with high but sturdy heels. Around her waist she hung an intricate belt of woven gold strands which gathered and expanded from a central clasp consisting of a gold rimmed saphire the size of a lemon. At the right hand side of the belt hung a platinum chased holster which held a unadorned 20 mm pistol. The choice to go armed horrified the dress makers but they lacked the authority to prevent it. Her hair she wore pinned up on one side, held in place by long pins of polishe electrums, accented with small sapphires. As a final touch she added a small pin to the shoulder clasp of her top. It was a small shield bearing a raptor spreading its wings, dark blue against a silver field the formal sigil of Andor’s Armored. Over the bird stood two golden captains bars in simple bas-relief. 

Most of the clothing was run up by computerized fabrication units and sophisticated material printers, though the final tailoring was done by the team of clucking women, each eager to put their own stamp on the project. Junebug looked into the mirror with satisfaction as the final laces were pulled tight on the corset like breastplate. The effect was almost ascetically slimming and pleasing to her eye. Maybe there was something she would miss about this place afterall, she never looked this good in her pt gear.

“Are you ready Neil or are you going to primp all evening?”