“Junebug!” 

Sayeeda turned to see Taya hurrying up behind her. The young noblewoman was dressed for breakfast, wearing a single piece swim suit that wrapped her in a series of slashes allowing her pale skin to peak through in a dozen places while preserving her modesty. Junebug had donned her own swimsuit, a two piece in a pale white that set off her tanned skin, though for the moment she was also wrapped in a sari of light blue silk.

“What is wrong?” Taya asked as she fell into step. Sayeeda shrugged, Neil obviously hadn’t told her his news as yet and it wasn't her place to share it.

“Rough night I guess,” Sayeeda explained, which was true, though probably not in the sense Taya understood it.

“You were really putting it away there, I was glad we didn’t have a repeat of the panties incident,” Taya jibed Junebug smiled as the younger woman led her down the path towards the beach. To her surprise the air was noticabley warmer here and she could see a small pavilion had been erected on the sand below. Feathered palms waved in a gentle breeze and as they reached the bottom of the stone steps. Indra and Neil were not yet present but the Chancellor and Gabriella were already sitting at a small table drinking water from tall fluted glasses.

“Ah, Captain, Marquessa, a pleasure to see you this morning,” Gabriella called. Both of them were dressed in bathing suits, Gabriella a red two piece that showed off her considerable assets and her husband in swim shorts. He might be an administrator but his stomach was flat and tan, evidence that he worked to maintain is rugged good looks.

“Warm weather for a wrap around my dear,” Gabriella said with a smile to Junebug. Sayeeda removed her sari to display her bare midriff. Gabriella stiffened with surprise. The skin was mottled in places and three promient plugs of scar tissue stitched her from right hip to her left flank above her belly button. The noble woman looked embarssed by Sayeeda only shruged.

“I was burned a few years back, and these,” she explained, fingering the scars.

“Hyper velocity armor penetrators. I was manning a gunnery station and the first shot through me into the air before they riddled me,” she explained, trying to keep her mind away from laying in the dusk of Kymnara, bleeding out as her vehicle was ripped to pieces twenty meters away.

“And you didn’t get surgery?” Gabriella asked, clearly curious.

“Medics did the best they could,” Sayeeda explained, aware that the idea of not getting cosmetic surgery done was alien to her audience. 

“For some reason the synthetic skin never quite counterfeits the real thing.”

“A warrior is marked by their scars, they are a mark of pride,” Saxon grated. The hex sat up, having been buried in the sand nearby. The golden flecks streamed off him as he stood, clearly having been bathing in the stuff. Membranes closed sideways to clear his eyes as he stood. The approval of the scars clear in his voice and in the way his throat sacks puffed out.

“Thank you Saxon,” Sayeeda said politely.

“Mostly I was just happy to not be splattered over half an acre of countryside they way I would have been if they had punched through my LAV and started spinning before they hit me,” she admitted, giving the Hex a wry smile.