The Gods-Smiting Whip looks like a towering monument in the repair dock. Without a pilot or an active power source, the overwhelming impression the swift and fluid mecha gives off is that it was never made to move in the first place. It looms over the team of cats scurrying about its feet like an ancient god long since fallen out of worship. Even in this place that smells of grease and grinding metal, it is easy to imagine it grown over with a tangled growth of vines and flowers after a hundred years of neglect or more. These could be children scrambling and swinging around its limbs, laughing as they sing their working songs. Those mighty tails seem like discarded relics of some old building, maybe nothing more than a passing traveler's garbage littering the forest floor as they lie scattered about the ground with their paint flaking to reveal the dull metal underneath.

You'd have to be an idiot to think this was a machine of war. You'd be a fool to call it a labor of love of a work of art. It is a mess, plain and simple. The vulnerable carcass of a dream that died long, long ago. Nothing more.

"Mm. Bad. Insufficient. Start over."

"You're not serious, boss? I thought we were almost done! You can't even tell there was a hole anymore, and Tail Five is testing at ninety seven percent optimal capacity! For one night's work after all you put her through I'd say that's pretty--"

"Hm? Ah. No, no. Not you. Not... This. Personal project, sorry. Last minute revision, always tricky."

"You ever wonder if maybe the reason your dates always end on fire is because you keep calling them 'personal projects'? You don't make kittens with spears."

"...As if you have any idea how I handle a spear." 

"I mean if it's anything like how you handle a welding stick, I don't really need to."

"Slate."

"At least as far as these delicate human flowers go, your technique's rough enough to break them every time you make it past the door. For a Zald I bet you're perfect, but for the sweet little thing you're chasing right now?"

"...Slate."

"Well, really when you're ready to stop messing around, I guess I've seen you with a wrench too. I'd be happy to suffer through a shower if it'd get those fingers of yours inside of me like I'm your precious Nine-Tails~"

"Slate!"

"Oh. Uh, s-sorry boss. I take it too far?"

"Distraction. Leave."

"No I know, I know, I thought we were doing the routine she I just, well, got a little carried away, please say you're not mad!"

Mirror curled her fingers toward the top of hey palm, and held them there until the muscles quivered from the effort. She lifted her arm and wordlessly gestured toward the gate. Slate's calico pattern ears drooped, and she leaped several steps back as if pushed.

"I'm not... fired, am I?"

"Finish on my own."

No more words passed between them. Slate shrank into herself and slunk away toward the safety of the rest of her crew, gathering them up and gliding away in total silence. It was the only way she knew to patch things up. Mirror twitched her tail and pulled her hand along its length to soothe the ruffled fur. It took four passes before it took. 

The Gods-Smiting Whip looked just as lifeless as it always did without the crystal fire drive plugged into the conduit at its main tail unit. Just as discarded, forgotten, and incapable of judgment as could be. And yet, the way its head sat tilted like it was, it seemed to Mirror like it had been watching her the entire time. It offered no advice or comfort, not even as she forced open the cockpit and climbed inside.

"...A rough technique. Possible solution. Mayze profiles as aloof and brilliant. Interviews rare and generally exclusive. By design. Easier to maintain. Know all this, of course. Am this. Reviewing facts. Stupid Slate. Regardless. Short leap to... what is the word? Crazy. But, different. Implied intelligence. [Starlight-Kissed]. Eccentric! But a rough technique. Rough."

Without power, the dance of her fingers on the controls was pointless. But she adjusted each switch and stomped the foot pedal with so much force that she could hear the shriek of dying metal and the roar of her spear drinking from the drive of another mecha. To her mind's eye, it looks just like the Lonely Star.

"Cruelty, as an art form. No. Incorrect. The goal is violence. The Huntresses, turned to creation. Understood, commencing audio-only imprint."

Her voice turned sharper and faster after a cough. One false start. Two. She curled her fingers again, and the voice of Mayze Szerpaws filled Mirror's cockpit.

"You were expecting me tonight, weren't you? Poor darlings, maybe next time! But I am here, in a much realer sense than you understand. Pull your eyes to the stage, and gaze upon my latest true form!"

The laughter meant she was doing it right. This would work out after all. Only the ablative plating left; Slate and her team would handle the paint. That left just enough time for Mirror to focus on herself. A perfect date ended one discarded layer at a time. And she never let a date end imperfectly. She crawled out of the Gods-Smiting Whip, and made sure to leave the lights on as she left. Slate would understand, just as soon as she was brave enough to come and check.

******

Her eyes light up when she sees Valentina. Mirror crosses the distance of the room as if gliding on a patch of ice, so smooth her head hardly seems to bob despite how quickly she's moving. Her smile is playful, her tail raised in delight. She bows deeply in imitation of (some semblance of) TC etiquette and takes her date by the wrist as she rises. Her lips brush against the back of that hand, soft as a drop of dew on a lily. Her sandpaper tongue is rougher as she drags it all the way up to the wrist, but her cheek is downy soft again as she touches it where the gesture ends. She tilts her head up to look her date in the face, as tempting as it might be to keep her gaze at her natural level. Her own face wears a look of deep seriousness and concentration bordering on a scowl. Only her eyes are smiling.

She has come dressed modestly, for her. A fitted suit and vest clings to the curves of her body in a deep, monotone burgundy fabric that shimmers in the light of the room but otherwise does nothing to excite the senses. Her body is the only star of the show, and that a tightly covered secret. She flashes no hint of her firm chest, having buttoned herself all the way to the neck, where she's clipped a bright red collar decorated with tiny, dangling golden chains to complete the effect. 

At some point she'd cut out the elbows on her sleeves to allow for a tiny flash of her snowy fur patterns, as well as diamond shaped gashes from the top her ribs to the middle of her waist on either side of the vest and jacket. Stuffy. Positively prudish by the standards of her own public record. But there's a certain debonair charm to the way she carries herself just the same. 

She's painted her claws pink, lavender, yellow, and white, and drawn a simple glyph under her right eye in red dye: two prominent dots, which in the language of Fisher culture means she is here to win a battle. Depending on the tradition, they might be a window to the soul to expand her consciousness and grant her special prowess in combat, or they might mimic an eye so that something watching her as if through water would be fooled about exactly where she's looking at the moment. Ask he which tradition she belongs to some other time, and if you're lucky enough to do it in a bed with her arms pressed tight around you, she might even answer.

She has not worn heels in an attempt to compensate for her small build. For a Hybrasilian, Mirror is on the taller end of the register at nearly five foot even, and she will not insult her pride by adding height where none exists. Not here, in any case. Indeed, she's come nearly barefoot; her only footwear is a set of black lacquer straps that wrap around her ankles and the soles of her feet, leaving her heel and toes exposed where they can respond to all the subtle curves and scraps of information dotted about the floor of The Jungle. This is the simplest way in any estimation to make yourself into the kind of shadow you have to use your eyes to see. You can only watch, or she'll vanish without a trace.

Her snowy hair is pulled into a strange ponytail made of two wide loops, with another pair of locks kept loose to frame her face on either side. She fidgets with a onyx ring on her left hand, and directs her sight as directly as she can to Valentina's eyes. This, again, is her smile. 

"Good evening, dear heart. I should warn you, I'm here working tonight. Sorry I didn't tell you sooner; I couldn't figure out how. I might be stolen from you later in the night, but don't worry about a thing. As beautiful as you are, I very much intend to steal you right back."

Her expression hasn't changed at all, but she takes a single step closer, where Valentina can hear the purr creep into her voice.

"I have to say, I'm curious. I didn't have you marked for a, how do you say it? A fashionist? I don't know much about this sort of thing, are there... artists you are looking forward to tonight?"