"Rita..." Alina's heart pounds staccato in her chest. Her whole body is tingling. She just ran a race up and down and back up Big Hill. She just swallowed bees. She just... oh, rivers. Rain on a wedding day! This is not! How she planned this! At all! It's too soon! She had the whole thing planned out, ok? She'd already asked Freesia to make the ring, and even managed to get it delivered a couple of hours before she had to board the (ugh) [i]Pear[/i]. Such a pretty thing, the delicate silver band set with colored glass arranged into the traditional Rainbow Promise Knot, but with little chips of amethyst set at the top to look like little cat ears. And to really drive the point home, she'd also taken the time, secretly over the course of the last three weeks and change, to weave an Askaian Wish Band in as many different colors of yarn as she could find. It just wasn't quite finished yet, she didn't have the grasses she needed to entwine in it for it to be right, that's why she was hoping to wait... But you don't get to be a Princess and not know what it looks like when The Moment is happening. Bzzip! Indigo shoots out and hooks the discarded shoes back into her hands. They're fine, they're perfect, actually, she just. Need to. Eep! Hurry! She sheds her clothes so fast you'd think they jumped off of her. Orange and Green lift her dress off the mannequin and float it over top of her. She lifts her arms and lets them slip it gently but quickly into place. Violet and Orange adjust the skirt, tie the ribbons, zip the back, adjust the bust, arrange the necklace, and all the other little touches while Yellow guides Blue, and Red through weaving her hair into a tight four-plaited braid with carefully careless messy curls for bangs. She dabs the pink lipstick on herself. Quick, spin! Mirror check! Is she ok? Good enough! Now sit! Alina still takes the time to mess with the front of her hair a little more. Come on, just... ok! She smiles like an idiot at the little lump under the blankets. Pat pat pat! She teases the mattress just in front of Rita, suppressing a giggle when she sees her adorable tail start flicking eagerly. Pat pat pat! Swish swish! Her fingers dance a teasey little beat on the blankets and her hand wiggles back and forth, oh-so-chaseable and good for catching! And biting! Come on, darling, catch the fishy! Underneath the blankets, tiny paws keep trying to catch her hand. The sound of huntress chirps sings just for her. Alina pats and wiggles further up, waiting, teasing, up! Up! Turning her girlfriend around and leading her toward the pillows until... aha! She snaps both hands out and grabs those naughty little paws, scoops her Rita up and sets her on her lap. Chin rubs! Engagement chin rubs for Rita von Catabas! Deep breath, Alina. You've got this. She brushes Rita's fur, caressing all of the nerves and embarrassment out of her beautiful kitty princess. One more deep breath. Be romantic. Lead slowly. "If we did the Summer-and-Winter," she says with an unnecessary degree of elocution, "I would want it to be Winter/Spring and Summer/Autumn. Because the traditional way is so... huh? What was that?" *** Alina falls in darkness. Tumbling, twisting, clutching at the tatters of her moment and finding nothing but the shrieking air. She has no sense of time right now. No sense of place. Her eyes sting in the darkness. Her only feeling is of falling. Maybe this is her heart? Maybe she messed up, after all. She must have messed up. If she hadn't, her world wouldn't have turned into falling. Down she goes, indistinguishable from the rest of the useless debris of the ship. Nothing but a flailing, screaming mess. The water rushes up to meet her like a scorned friend with a grudge to settle. For an instant, her body pulses in gold. SMACK! SPLOOSH! The world is freezing, flowing water now. Alina sinks beneath the surface with her lungs already used up from screaming. The currents push and pull her as they will, pulling at her pretty dress and tugging on her braided hair, and pushing on her chest, and... Rita! Alina's eyes snap open. Her lights are swirling all around her. There are shapes down here, but none of them are... where is she? Where is she?! There's no time for this. She cuts through the water like a dolphin with a knife and leaps above the waves for a moment with the grace of a shark. Her lungs fill with air that's laced with the fetid stench of the Garthim. She doesn't care; this breath is only for screaming. "RITA! RITA WHERE ARE YOU, I CAN'T... RITA!!" She turns her head desperately this way, then that. Her eyes slash across the flotsam in search of the only treasure on board worth saving. She fills herself with the stinking air twice more. Once to call her name again. And twice to dive back down into danger. She has to find her. Has to! This can't... This can't be how her moment ends.