[b]Solarel[/b]

Solarel, the intensity of your gaze burns where it lands. It’s impossible for anyone to endure it unmoved. 

Matty can’t handle it on her own. She’s soft and gentle and very shy, and when you look at her like a predator, she doesn’t feel safe. She clings to Mirror unconsciously, taking the offered arm without even being aware she’s doing it. Her eyes never leave yours so long as you have her attention. You’re like a cobra that has hypnotized her, every instinct in her body says she dare not turn her attention away lest she react a millisecond too slowly in the moment you strike. When she is held, and safe, this turns to a fascination. You can see it in her, that she’ll be going back over that gaze in her mind, tumbling it around from every possible angle, trying to understand everything that happened until she’s forced to turn her brain off entirely from the overload. 

Kiriala, well we’ll get back to her in a second. 

Slate stares back. She’s an engineer of a different stripe from Matty and you can see in her gaze the determination that could support someone like Mirror for a long time. She stares and bores into you, and someday maybe there’s a new battle of wills to be had there. It’s one that couldn’t be had in a mecha because Slate can never match you in that. But perhaps this is the first time it might have occurred to you that someone could match your will without matching your power.

Back to Kiriala though. When you gave her your gaze, she didn’t move. She wasn’t scared or frozen in place, but she averted her eyes, blushed, made it seem like you’d complimented her. So you turned your attention to Slate. And it’s only then that you see Kiriala come up to you and steal a kiss in the only way one possibly could from you. No request for consent and no hesitation. She took your gaze for an invitation, right or wrong, and she walked up and now she brushes her fangs across your cheek with the lightest pressure. “You’re everything she said and more” she whispers before turning away.  

And then, at last, the external world forces its way in and breaks the silence. At first, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly. The murmuring of a crowd that’s different than the regular murmur, the vague feeling of a group all reacting to something specific. Then the lights cut for a moment, and as the movement surges closer to you, you hear the sound of shrieks that can only be the former and current empresses of Zaldaria having it out with each other. The crowd is gathering around them and its inexorably going to pull you in as well.

***

[b]Mirror[/b]

You find yourself holding a very distracted Matty as everyone’s attention starts to shift away from the entrance at last and the spell of Solarel’s eyes is broken. And indeed there is the matter of the two empresses.

But you may also see another thing of interest. Adriana, intoxicated by your flower dress, deeply engaged with Isabelle, that unusual troubled pilot, who seems indeed to be manhandling your beautiful sacrifice’s dress to her own disadvantage. They’re dancing above you, visible through crystal spirals, and it would be little trouble for a Hybrasilian to slip through the Empresses crowd to reach them. 

***

[b]Isabelle[/b]

Adriana absolutely loses her balance when you pull her. It very nearly topples you as well. Your own balance wasn’t as good as you thought. Or…maybe drunk wasn’t the right word for what was going on here because holding her this close through the dance, you’re starting to feel a little woozy yourself. 

It might be a good thing though. Less inhibitions to throw your brain into disarray. Enough to let you start thinking with your own brain and not your mother’s paranoia. 

Adriana Teresio isn’t an unknown quantity, after all. She’s made hundreds, maybe thousands of public appearances across Terenian space and into Hybrasilian and Zaldarian space. The woman is known for being fearless and flamboyant. Nobody, literally nobody, has ever reported her a drunkard, nor the sort of actor who’d play one. She’s an actor, yes, absolutely, she knows how to play a public persona and she’s leaning into this one, but it’s patently obvious to someone like you, who’s supposed to have obsessively studied the woman, that this wasn’t her decision. This is something that happened to her and she’s playing the role she was handed rather than the role she wanted. 

This is important background information because you’re trying to figure out what she wants from you in a situation where she’s obviously intoxicated in some manner against her own intentions and she nevertheless came up to you and cut in. Stop thinking with paranoia for a moment. This isn’t a five-D chess thing, Isabelle. This is a first order optimal strategy given a set of limiting constraints: or in other words, she’s sincere in what she’s saying. 

Stop and take that in. You wanted her attention all along, isn’t that right? Destined to become her protege. And congratulations, you got it! And now she’s telling you that you were in the midst of blowing it and she’s trying to help. 

You ever see someone stuck on a tricky math problem or trying to build something and you know how to do it way better than they do? Like you’re watching them handle the screwdriver and you can see that they’re about to strip it? Where you know that you could help and you have the overwhelming urge to step in before they fuck it up because you know at a level of deep empathy how stupid they’re about to feel? That’s Adriana, you’re the one about to ruin the screw.

She responds to your last comment, about making enemies, it takes her that long to regain her balance. “I’m telling you that you can be better, child. You can. You’ve shown that spark, but you keep crushing it.” She shakes her head, then nearly falls into you again from the dizziness that causes and everything is the smell of roses for a moment. 

Let us be further clear. This is a moment when Adriana Teresio is going to determine what sort of person you are. If you can’t break out of Almira’s mold now, you’re done with Adriana forever. Even if you win the whole tournament. You can wish for her job, but you can’t wish for her trust. That’s beyond the power of material wealth and the greatest technology that has ever existed. 

Now tell Adriana honestly, what do you love most, Isabelle Lozano?

***

[b]Dolly[/b]

This is fun, right? Jade’s right there with you (sort of, she did need to give Angela her undivided attention, but you’ve still got your sleeve on and you know Jade will be right there with you any second). And that makes it okay that Valynia is back. This time you can seduce her properly! With Jade’s help and encouragement! 

So it’s not a problem when her warm spotted fur suddenly fills your face and covers your mouth, muffling your meep of surprise. It’s not a problem how strong Valynia’s perfume is and the way it seems to wrap all around you through her loose dancing dress as she presses you into her body and against its folds. It’s not a problem that they’re pulling you deeping into the crystal spiral, into side rooms that can’t be seen from the main corridors. None of these things is a problem because you’ve got Jade with you, and Ksharta and Angela, and you can feel everything and – oh goddess is Angela into the Empress fight? Oh gosh she’s totally into the empress fight, she’s loving every second of this and you’ve left her unsupervised and you can feel her intensity through the bond in combination with everything that’s happening to you and Ksharta’s growing awe! 

[b]Angela[/b]

You have to duck when they throw the first punch. Well, it’s not really a punch, you know how to throw a proper punch and Zaldarians don’t do that. It’s more of a push, coming from the empress with the shorter dress and cape (she’s the old one, you think) into the one with the long dress. It’s just, when that happens the one with the long dress pushes back only…it’s not a push, it’s like she shoves with her chest energy, which is a thing Zaldarians can do, you guess? 

And it definitely doesn’t seem like either of them are listening to you, but they did both grin when you offered to let them get back to it, which you didn’t really understand until this very second when the empress in the longer dress turns the force of that Zaldarian energy away from her Zaldarian opponent and hits you full blast. “Wouldn’t want to cause a diplomatic incident, you see” she smiles, and there are sharp teeth in her smile and the glow of her shoulders still faintly hanging in the air as she moves, seeming perhaps a little brighter. “But of course, when that pathetic bitch comes for another round, I will appreciate your fine support!”

But before you can do anything, there’s a tug from the short-caped empress, who has grabbed your arm and is pulling you away from the long-dress one. “Don’t let that usurping bitch get the better of you, you’ve got us going which clearly means you support me!”

So now they’re fighting over you and Ksharta is very extremely neutral right now actually and Dolly is gone because of the pirates you so helpfully directed towards her while Jade races her attention off that way. But that does mean there’s nobody else who’s in your corner at the moment.

[b]Jade[/b]

This sure is a lot, huh?