[i]I'm surprised[/i] you [i]believed me[/i], signed Solarel. [i]No, I'm surprised you [b]asked [/b]me. Everyone else has been able to form extremely strong opinions about my true nature without doing that. They've never believed me when [b]I[/b] tell them the truth.[/i]

The iron frame stairs were only wide enough for one at a time, an inconvenience for those who needed their hands facing each other to talk. Solarel instead started to sign with one hand behind her back and her tail, an awkward and mistake-prone from of speech.

[i]But what is love?[/i] Solarel hummed a few bars of a tune. [i]People have just as many opinions about that as they have about me. Just as many of them are wrong. When I say love I am not talking about playing a role, about embracing conventional courtship rituals and restructuring a pyramid of loyalties to centre a new mistress. Imagine thinking that love is an act of treason, imagine thinking that love involves stepping away from divinity - kings and their ministers think this way. They rearrange all of life so everything is viewed through the context of the political.[/i]

She reached the top of the stairs and walked backwards along the catwalk, speech becoming fluid and natural again.

[i]Do you think this is about turning the guns of the Kathresis on the Evercity? Do you think this is about acquiring resources for state expansion? Do you think this is about courtly titles? Do you think this is about the reactor core output of the Aeteline?[/i] she asked. [i]Do you think this is about forming a family unit? Priestess, if you do think that, it is no wonder my answer would surprise you because from any one of those metrics I am mad.[/i]

She hauled open the upstairs hangar door and walked out into the twilight sunset. There she stopped and leaned against the railing as an evening breeze blew in.

[i]I am not a politician,[/i] she signed. [i]I am the second greatest warrior in the galaxy. Before me stands the greatest. The path is clear: I must[/i] "[Defeat her/become her/become one with her]" Solarel finished out loud with the Hybrasilian word. 

It was her favourite word. Of course those things were all the same thing.