Her hand takes Valentina's firmly. Her fingers work magic; these soft, sliding touches massage every crease and bend in her digits without ever seeming to move themselves. Her hands are very strong. Her fingers are very talented. Her claws are short and neat, do you see? She makes promises for the end of the evening (if she likes what she sees), without ever opening her mouth to speak. Not to interrupt, and not to answer. Her eyes are trained up on the stage. She is watching the river dancing across that model's chest. 

She could defend the show, of course. It's trivial to take the time to explain why these young artists deserve a chance to try things for an audience full of glitz and expectations enough to draw the eye of the rest of the galaxy. Innovation was sewn from the threads of a thousand, a million different failures, this was true. It was further the case that poorly targeted criticism could sometimes upend a creative's desire to continue creating, and further true beyond that that a party like this one was capable of attracting at least one or two incautious critics. That was fair, right? 

But it did not follow that unproven talent needed to be walled off and weeded out before it was presented to the public. On the contrary, so-called experts were [i]extremely[/i] vulnerable to biases built up over a lifetime of work and displayed marked tendencies to pass over the transgressive in favor of what their experience taught them which could set a field of exploration back decades or even lifetimes. [i]Wisdom of the Reeds[/i], went the saying. Well, the shorthand. The full aphorism was 'I hide myself among the reeds, to surprise my prey. My prey hides itself among the reeds, to hide itself from me. We watch the thousand heads bobbing, and together go hungry.' An expression with many interpretations, to be sure, but the relevant one at the moment was that information imparted by a large (often overlooked) source was typically richer than what your own instincts or history taught you. Though really, it depended on who you asked.

The point, of course, was that these young artists deserved the wisdom (and the test) of the reeds. For them, the benefits outweighed the risks. For them, locking them away until they'd cleared a pleasing shape out of their fields for easy viewing would be criminal. For them, those stars who blazed brightest would inspire and light the way for the minds that were to come in after [i]them[/i], and that could only happen in the place where every eye was gathered. I can do this, too. I could do this better! And then it will be my name worn by all the pretty girls, nyaha!

Mirror doesn't say a single word of this out loud. She's watching the drones flit about this model's body. She's envisioning the platinum dress as interlocking plates of alloyed armor and imagining herself piloting it. How does it differ from her Nine-Tails? How is it the same? Were there advantages to way this artist had gone about replicating her -- if indeed she was replicating anything -- what lessons would she bring home to Slate in the morning? Ah. Champagne. The afternoon, then. 

Mirror plucks two flutes from a passing tray with her free hand, and through the magic of incredible finger strength doesn't drop either one of them. She finally turns her eyes away from the stage to look her date in the face as she passes one drink to her with another promising squeeze and a smile that only mildly threatened the use of teeth. A thought pops into her head, or rather it comes rushing back to the surface after having dived down a moment earlier to make room for unspoken conversations and eccentric dresses. 

Aha! So 'Milady' was correct after all! After Valentina's reaction to the honorific in the battle she had been worried her grasp on TC linguistics was weaker than she thought. But not the case! How exciting, to discover nuance! A whole hidden dialect tucked away on Alcard somewhere with rules for politeness and situational use that sounded positively [The Stars, Bound In Chains] compared to the dusty drawl and spicy bursts that average humans were famous for! What a fantastic treat after what had been a deeply trying afternoon. She should really say thank you.

"I think..." she says instead.

They're the first words she's said in several minutes. She speaks them with deliberate slowness, as if the meaning of them was more important to convey than it was to explain why she'd been practically ignoring her date since they'd said hello. She looks up with her flowing, liquid eyes that are so similar to the patterns that had been playing on that dress before it left the stage. Her lips curl into an enigmatic and appropriately catlike smile. 

"This is wonderful!" she finishes, pushing the drink on Valentina with slightly more deliberateness, "That means you'll have my full and undivided attention during your favorite part of the show. I'm working as a model tonight, you see? And I'm not to be called to perform until the third act. Since that won't be until after the fashions you're excited for, I'm sure you won't mind at all, right? We'll only be parted for a short while, and you'll get a much prettier date out of it in exchange."

Mirror drains her glass from full in a single flourish, and twirls the empty flute about her fingers. She snatches it up with her paw and drags her tongue along the surface of the glass, never once breaking eye contact. The most important part of the evening was yet to come, but first she wanted to see this woman, and be seen with her, by everyone she could come across. 

"Come on, let's walk. Let's talk. I'd love to know all about your home, for instance. You must have so many occasions to wear a ballgown, I can't even imagine how magical that must be. Oh! And as the night carries on? You mustn't be afraid to kiss me, dear heart. These lips are yours tonight. You sure you want to waste them~?"