Much has been said thus far about yearning and desire. Enough. We talk instead today about politics.

To operate under the auspices of one of the great Bureas of Heaven is to be an a thread on their lyres. Pulled and plucked and tightened and disrupted or neglected in turn to play a music only the the Sun of Heaven may hear. But though they be a band of five, the Maidens, like every other band, desire nothing more than to subordinate all the others to their creative direction[1][2]. Where Mars seeks to pound the world into a crater with her howling power-ballads and Mercury wishes to inspire everyone with her pure-hearted heroine act, it falls to Venus and her vast and mighty Bureau to put away their [i]niche[/i] genres until the second half of the album. Until the singles are over they are to stay on backing guitar where they belong.

So there are disputes. Given that Mars' suggestion for settling the disputes[3] was vetoed, the alternative is to wait until the Pattern Crabs decide that a certain individual has a load bearing destiny. Once located the idea is to make sure that destiny collapses as massively in your direction as possible. If Mars had twisted the arm of Venus while Iupiter chewed upon her ear and breathily entreated her to share her perfect-world ideas for the young princess-knight Kalaya, she might have said "A number of extraordinarily thrilling and ego-boosting low-commitment sexual encounters render her a devilish flirt to rival the Red Wolf, which naturally forms an escalating rivalry between the two until together they break every heart in the Flower Kingdoms except each other's, and at that point they can have True Love". Under the circumstances, though, Venus would simply be happy if the idiot girl simply [i]knocked it off[/i] with all this knightly bullshit, or at the very least kept it confined to courtly duels rather than riding around the countryside getting in unsexy brawls with no-name demons. 

In case it was not obvious: Venus [i]hates[/i] being made happy. If she is going to go through the trouble of commandeering a Celestial Lion and sending it all the way out here to the fucking sticks she expects to get everything she wants and a foot massage. It would arguably be less dangerous to return to the Heavenly City with a straight-up failure under her belt than a partial victory because then, at least, Venus would be distracted by the other Maidens putting her in her place.

"Well observed," said Zhaojun, raising her hand to approvingly scratch Vixen's ears. "Unfortunately I have need of your charms for something other than my own pleasure. We need to boost this girl's desirability until every maiden in these kingdoms seeks to throw themselves at her feet, and we need to boost her ego until she starts using them as foot-stools. Such is the will of Heaven and will no doubt prevent some sort of disaster[4]. You need to seduce her."

She does not bow to the approaching knights - she is in the role of a goddess and will bow to no mortal - but she does, perhaps unnecessarily, let her petting hand form into a grip on the back of Vixen's head and push her down into a deep bow. Her eyes burn azure-bright as the stars fade against the back of her head as she stares at Kalaya; stars, surely, for if it were faerie venom she saw it would no doubt seem entirely different and immediately obvious, for the rakshasa are not subtle creatures. 

"Kalaya," she said aloud. "You are expected."

[Figure Out: [b]6[/b]]


[1] Excepting Saturn, that subby bitch.
[2] The fact that desire lies at the hearts of their actions should, in a just cosmos, render Venus the chief amongst them. 
[3] Mud wrestling
[4] According to the Bureau of Serenity, Venus not being in charge is definitionally a disaster.