The perfection of the moment doesn't last long enough for the quip to rise up all the way past her tongue. Improperly phrases, halted at the third gate. Access denied. Time stands still. Time shifts all the same. The energy of the moment changes, and the capstone to perfection falls broken beneath a pair of electrum colored wings. 

Time. Has shifted. To a place beyond her vision. Time. has shifted. Past the far edges of her plans. A whole tournament. Countless lives gathered up and dangled on strings. All for. This? 

Mira presses her cheek tight against Solarel's, and rubs it possessively against her. Her fingers dig in underneath the wings; if she did not keep her claws so fastidiously clipped she would be drawing blood right now. Instead there is only the application of pressure without release. Like being teased by an acupuncturist in some strange game of foreplay. Tighter, tighter, tighter, building and then... nothing. Her tail swats with performative heaviness against Solarel's thigh.

"This is what you sounded like by the way," Mira sighs and peppers that gorgeous neck with kisses, "Such a far cry from who you were when we met. Or the woman who brought the Bezorel to this tournament, for that matter. When I saw you, I..."

Hesitation. A war of conversations plays out in the waterfalls of her eyes. One where she says too much, and all at once. One where she says too little, and never at all. One where--

"No. I will not apologize. We wound up here. I am content. Nevertheless I. I regret. Regret that. That I could not. That I did not. See a path. Conceive a plan that asked less of you. That hurt you less. There are. Limitations to my power. How shameful."

Her whiskers twitch. Her eyes stare without quite piercing, much like her claws. Her ears pivot atop her head, but not to bend to the sounds of the mummified husk of a creature she'd sought to destroy rising up out of the dust in search of revenge, but solely to catch every creak of muscle and the sounds of wind through those perfect blade-wings, to hear truth in breath and heartbeat and the parting of lips before words begin. There is 'speak not to the outsider' and there is 'speak not'. And those are very different commandments indeed.

But what words gift her ears it does not change reality. It does not change tactics. Time has shifted. It has shifted, and the world demands recognition. To lose herself in the moment she'd tried to freeze meant dropping all the rest of them into the dirty piles of dead nanobots. A testament to her own foolishness mixed in with the folly of Empire.

How dare it. How [i]dare[/i] it. That worthless trash heap! These insufferable ghosts! How dare it survive even as scrap when her Gods-Smiting Whip had not?! How dare they pick the memory of stupid, tasteless power over her beautiful Selin's masterpiece?!

"Darling," she chirps through sudden bared teeth, "Lover. Starlight. So. La. Rel~"

Finally, release. Her claws are sharp enough to pierce after all. Her teeth are sharper still. Lover's marks, lover's fury, lover's faith. Her tongue is rough, and sweeter than honey.

"Fly us closer, if you please. If it is not too much trouble. I. Desire. To walk the mountain. With you."