[i]“If you think it’s such a poor idea, then go ahead and say so.”

“Very well. I think it’s a terrible idea, for no real benefit, at great personal risk to yourself, and you will almost certainly regret it.”

Vasilia sputtered, glaring daggers at her friend’s reflection in the vanity mirror. “You - you’re not supposed to [b]actually[/b] say so!”

“If you don’t like the answers, ma’am, you should stop asking the questions.”

“Hmph. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“...no. I rather think I wouldn’t.”

It was unfair, how little room for anger that left her. She let slip a long, tired sigh as she sank back into her chair. “It’s this famine relief bill, Alethea. We need it. Our people need it. And no matter what I try, Senator Demetris will not listen to heart or reason. So. I am trying a change in approach. Meeting them in the middle.”

“Or, in this case, at the races.”

“Would that he had any more suitable hobbies we could bond over-”

“Do you even want to?” Her hands tightened to fists, and Vasilia grew deeply worried for her mirror’s safety. “He all but runs the races, and it is the [b]least[/b] heinous way he spends his free time. Why should you have anything to do with him? Why should anyone?!”

“What other options do I have?” Please, Alethea. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. “All my attempts at building opposition coalitions are moving at a crawl.” Can’t you see she’s been trying? “He’s got too many in his pocket to sponsor a challenger at the next Games.” They have to win this one, someway, somehow. “And I’ve had my budgetary pouring over the budgets for any other surplus we might use. Over a month, and we’ve not got a quarter of what we need.” If the price of failure was starvation for many, shouldn’t they choose the plan most likely to succeed? “We’re on a time limit, and if bending a little will get us over the finish line, then that’s what it must take.”

Silence. The pressing, suffocating silence absent of answer or approval. Despite how dearly she wished for either.

“So...what are you going to do when it comes time to end the races?” Like we promised?

She didn’t have to say it. They both remembered. And all Vasilia could do was bury her face in her hands.

“...I’ll figure something out.”[/i]

********************************************************************

Vasilia’s fur is rough. But, perhaps, not as rough as you were expecting? She’s trying, the poor, misguided kitten. It can’t be easy, living off the scraps that fell from Tellus decades, or even centuries ago. Who was around to teach her the different treatments for a lustrous coat? Did she even [i]know[/i] all fur wasn’t the same? There is damage, there is that awful reek of laser - seriously, first lesson, a real study of scentwork - but hopeless? Mmm, maybe not [i]entirely[/i] hopeless. In the right hands, of course.

Does her build please you more, Praetor? Here, the quality of the scrapyard shines! She is not prepared to burst through her jacket with an errant flex, nothing nearly so unwieldy and excessive. No, everywhere your hand rests, it rests upon a bedrock of toned muscle. Solidly built, yet not forgetting flexibility; a career skirmisher, surely, adept in sudden, decisive strikes. And while your hands feast, the Auspex devours her whole. All that she is, all that she might be, all that you might make of her. What couldn’t you do with such a canvas? Her lungs already know how to take breath and turn it to power. Run her on the marathon track, coax the hunger within her, and her last step would be as perfect as the first. Put a javelin in her hand, teach her body the shape of the throw, and they would sing songs of her deeds.

And oh, how you could make that body bend.

Your clever fingers tease out such secrets from her. The way to pet her fur. The most sensitive spots. The thrumming muscles fighting to keep shivers from racing down her arm. Her claws slowly, idly, work open and closed in the most idle of gestures, but you know. You [i]know[/i] she moves because she cannot bear to stay still. But the real prize comes when you hold her close. When your heart beats through her. No ear may hear, not even yours, but against your arms you feel the lowest, faintest rumble of contentment, deep, deep in her chest. So deep, perhaps, that she herself is not even aware of it. 

She opens her mouth, and we must now address the voice, and the talent with which she wields it.

Your attentions would break the concentration of lesser wills, at [i]least[/i], but has she stumbled once? Hardly! You wrap yourself tight around her, and she sings out all the clearer! Hear her sing a story of her own imagining, a story you [i]know[/i] she must be making up as she goes, but the ringing of her voice! The sharpness of detail! How could it be anything but the truth? You must have been sailing the stars, on an unspecified errand from the Empress herself, when the signs brought you to the Eater of Worlds. You must have thwarted the goonish Admiral Odacer, who lazed about with her vast Armada while you slipped through her lines. Do you remember now? You walked among the veteran Ceronians of old, a living soul in the land of the dead, right up until that oaf Odacer saw the Eater’s fins waving in the cosmic winds and thought her old foe had returned to life. How the ground beneath your feet trembled at the terrible broadside! But ah! As surely as you stand here before them, you escaped! With the speed of Hermes and the might of Zeus, you escaped from certain doom, and continued your quest undaunted!

(Clever girl, not mentioning the Princess, or your past meeting. No one listening could discern your true objective. No one would know the shape of your history with your prisoner, unless you yourself told them. Surely she didn’t have to go that far, and yet!)

She bows to thunderous applause, [i]your[/i] applause, and what a pet she might make, hrm? What might you do with such a creature, with the proper time and material to train her for the collar? But your thoughts are interrupted as she rises, gives a halting wave to the room, then collapses into your arms with a pained gasp.

“Ah! Hold, a moment, hold...where’s...that’s not...” She babbles, her eyes glazed, distant, searching. You watch the color drain from her face, and feel her breath come in short gasps. Alas! What trouble plagues your prisoner, your new pet? Was the excitement of the evening just too much for her? Does an old wound (no doubt ill-patched by these backwater quacks) return to torment her?

Your Auspex informs you that she is perfectly healthy, and that this is as transparent a ruse as they come.

Yes, yes, she’s fine. A clever trick of stagecraft, to carefully adjust her breathing without it being obvious, then lean into the symptoms with a little acting. With the sympathies of the crowd already with her, no one will begrudge you time in private to see to her health. Which is obviously what she wants. A diversion? A chance to get more information, without Birmingham listening in? Whatever it is, it’s probably stupid.

And yet. She trusted you to catch her. 

Maybe you’ll make something of this pet after all.

What do you do, Bella?