Flopping into the back of the obnoxiously oversize stretched-SUV that was now the standard for her road travel, Svet out a bit of a sigh.

  “I hought I’d actually be happy to be ba Ottawa,” she mumbled as the others filtered in.

  “Wherever I’m allowed to rest for a bit is good to me,” Vivian said, lightly holding her belly as the vehicle started moving. She was actually visibly pregnant at this stage. “I have had enough travel.”

  Svetna nodded, leaning across the plush seats to pce her own hao Vivian’s. It still excited her so much to feel the movement in there. They really were going to o e up with a name soon. The baby would be out in the world in only a little more than a month.

  Those thoughts were interrupted as she realised the ed looks on both Plynx and O’tmyil’s faces, however. Sitting up to focus despite her slight jetg after flying from Tokyo, she tilted her head.

  “What are those faces about?”

  “Well... we-two are merely ed that Vivian-love said she does not wish to travel when there is arip ahead of us,” Plynx replied.

  “Another--I’m giving birth in a month,” Vivian said. “Where in the world are you pnning t me?”

  “She does need rest,” Thisbe said, clearly doing her best to help diffuse the tensions she could feel strohan any of them.

  “Nowhere in this-Earth world,” Plynx replied.

  “She means that we wish to take you to space,” O’tmyil expined. “There is aire gaxy that wishes to see you, Svetna... and you, as the first Empress-sort, Vivian.”

  “And, as I just said, I’m about to pop in a couple of weeks,” Vivian protested.

  “Exactly why it is important!” Plynx replied, half jumping to her feet before the SUV took a turn onto a reet and she sat back down for ease of bance. “Earth doctors-butchers are not to be trusted!”

  “That may be a touch harsh on terrestrial medical sces, Plynx,” O’tmyil said, before turning back to the three Earthlings in the car. “But the point does stand. It would be much safer and signifitly more fortable for you to deliver the child on another world, Vivian.”

  “I... how much more fortable?” Vivian asked, once her jetgged brain caught up with the information.

  “As much more fortable as a sex-s ray is pared to Earth bottom surgery,” Plynx replied. “Perhaps more.”

  “her of those are really things I’ve experienced,” Vivian said, turning to Svetna for some input.

  “Well, vaginopsty has a pretty long recovery period from what I’ve read. Like, a month of barely being able to walk due to pain,” Svetna replied. “While my zap just sort of tingled a bit and I’ve heard the actual ics are so good you barely eve.”

  Nodding, Viviaurned her attention back to the two aliens and nodding. “Alright. If the analogy is accurate then space it is.”

  “Will I be ing along?” Thisbe asked.

  “Umm...” Plynx began, before turning to O’tmyil.

  “You were human inally, so you should be fine away from the Earth,” the blue woman replied.

  It seemed to reassure Thisbe, though Svetna saw that Vivian was just as fused by what that sentence meant as she was.

  “How is that relevant?” Svetna asked.

  “Pure supernaturals do not tend to haravelling away from the biologicals who believe in them very well,” Plynx expined. “They-supernaturals exist through belief, so without anyone who believes... sometimes they stop existing.”

  That news filled Svetna’s eyes with fear, and she turo Thisbe, wanting to talk her out of it, but O’tmyil spoke before she found the words.

  “Having started as a human and only ter being transformed, vampires should be quite fine and, even if she is not, it takes several days for a supernatural to fade away. That is more than enough time for Thisbe to return to Earth. We would need only hours at most.”

  “Ah... ok. But, still, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to take the risk, Thisbe. I wouldn’t leave you behind for long or anything,” Svetna said.

  “Being the first female vampire in space sounds fun,” the petite woman replied with a fangy grin.

  “I suppose it--wait, there’s been a vampire in space already?” Sveltana asked.

  “A few. The Soviets sent a bunch of strike teams up to the moon ba the day. There’s pear the poles iernal darkness and even in other pces you get, like, two weeks of night, so they were the troops with the best ce against the Ameri werewolf andos,” Thisbe replied.

  Nodding, it took a few moments for what her girlfriend had just said to get through Svetna’s exhausted brain. O did it was another few moments before the meaning dawned on her.

  “Ohhh. You’re messing with me. Good one,” Svetna said with a ugh... before realising Thisbe was wearing a perfectly serious expression. “... you are messing with me, aren’t you?”

  Before she could get an ahe absurd car they were in came to a stop outside the new royal pace. A flurry of activity saw Vivian being led off to her bedroom, while a parasol protected Thisbe as she headed off to make some calls. Svetna did her best to hurry after her, only to be guided off by a swarm of aids. Soon enough she was corralled towards her office, only O’tmyil following her.

  A pile of paperwork awaited her, the new quee utterly baffled as to how her ceremonial positioed in so many things to sign. Wasn’t she only supposed to sign off on new ws and acts of parliament? They weren’t that busy over on Parliament Hill.

  It was nearly three hours before Svetna was released from the swarm of secretaries, bureaucrats, and such forth. Taking a few moments to lean ba her objectively amazingly fortable office chair, she retty sure she dozed for a few minutes before the sound of a clearing throat woke her up.

  Standing at her desk was Agent Lee.

  “Your majesty.”

  “Oh! Hey Lee! It’s good to see you,” she replied before yawning. “What’s up?”

  “I would like to request your approval to pn your offworld security detat to my own discretion,” he said.

  “Uhh... I mean, sure, I guess? I know you more than most of the other security folks, so I trust in your petence,” she replied. “Even if I know it means you’ll probably go behind my back stantly and lie to me any time I ask a question... I know that’s just how you work.”

  “Would I also be able to request that you refer to such matters as ‘proteg cssified information’ in future, your majesty?” Agent Lee added.

  “Mmmm... nope. I like being able to pin,” Svetna replied with a grin, before blinking and leaning in. “Besides, don’t I teically have maximum clearah the whole ‘head of state and ander in chief’ thingy?”

  “That is cssified... and not to be referred to as a ‘thingy’, yhness,” Agent Lee said, his tone as ft as ever.

  That caused her to pout slightly, as well as not beiain it actually made sense as an answer. Was her security clearance cssified at a level she didn’t have access to?

  Well, sidering how a lot of the gover operated, ‘not making sense’ probably proved it was the truth.

  “Alright, sure...” she said, waving her hand before realising something. “Hey, Lee, you tell me... are there really Ameri werewolf andos on the moon?”

  The question caused the man to tilt his head slightly in surprise. “Do not be absurd, your majesty.”

  “Ah, I though not,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

  “The Ameris realised that the added food and oxygen requirements outweighed the bes of werewolves for lunar bat decades ago,” Lee tinued before marg off to attend to other matters.

  Watg him leave in utter shock, she decided to accept that the world was more absurd than she’d ever dared imagi was the sort of realisation that made one want to go to bed and try to ighe world.

  Unfortunately O’tmyil decided that her being able to take a nap ted as her having free time and stepped forward to begin instrug Svetna on matters of gactic etiquette she would need for her trip. Calling it ‘teag’ would have been inaccurate, however. Svetna’s brain was more or less the sistency of lemon spread from the twenty something hours on a pne followed by hours of signing paperwork, so she was likely abs a ive amount of information from O’tmyil’s lesson.

  That night, despite her exhaustion, Svetna struggled to sleep. Her internal clock had literally no idea what time it was, and seemed to decide the correct respoo that was insomnia and inprehensible nightmares. Well, one or two involved travelling into spad having Thisbe vanish in a poof of smoke, so she uood those ohe others, though... it robably best not to dwell on them. She didn’t think she wao know what they meant about her psyche.

  Especially not the carrot cake.

  Instead, she dragged herself out of bed at about 4:50 am and aimlessly wahe halls until hunger dragged her to the kit. Teically she wasn’t supposed to cook anything, but she felt she was allowed to hunt for snacks.

  Rather thaing to raid the cupboards for something to nibble on she found a pair of women w on preparing baked goods, which seemed slightly absurd to her. Couldn’t they just get food from a bakery? Why did the gover insist on giving her so much personal staff?

  Either way, after a bit of work to vihe women to treat her like a normal human beie her ‘queen’ status, she mao find out there were some leftovers from the day before. Those were generally meant as snacks for the kit staff, but it was still almost two hours until breakfast so she pulled out her saddest puppy eyes to be given a day-old cupcake to tide her over.

  She loved getting to do that now that she was a woman. It just never worked the same before...

  A cucpcake wasn’t really a proper breakfast, but it gave her enough energy to risk waking up O’tmyil and beihrough a m workout. Though the other woman did prove a kind drill sergeant, making it a light workout due to Svetna’s general exhaustion.

  Then it was time for breakfast, which was the start of a mad schedule. Apparently leaving the p required quite a whole new magnitude of forms, waivers, and such forth to be rushed through immediately. It also meant listening to pints from representatives of the provinces aories she hadn’t visited yet. The excuse of it being for Vivian’s sake with the baby ended up proving effective, so she reused it a few times, while feeling a touch guilty she was using her pregnant wife as a metaphorical shield. Still, it wasn’t a lie, so it robably fine.

  Finally, just a short while before dinner, she was through the bulk of them. All that was left was... the prime minister. How had she not noticed her on the day’s agenda?

  She’d probably been snu after the day had started. One of the bes of being PM was getting to do that.

  At least Svetna had voted for her... back when she was allowed to vote. Was she still allowed to vote? She knew from some movies that the UK monarch wasn’t allowed to, but she wasn’t actually certain for herself... And, well, teically she’d voted for her local MP rather than the Prime Minister, whose riding was in Montreal.

  Either way, she smiled as Prime Minister Bethune came in.

  “What’s up?” Svetna asked as the older woman strolled in.

  “You o pi ag governeneral for your absence, ma’am,” the PM said while depositing a number of files onto Svetna’s desk. “These are my leading picks.”

  “Uhh... right. Right,” Svetna said, pig up one of the rather hefty file folders to flip through briefly. “Do I really his muformation on them?”

  “It’s a major decision with possibly signifit political ramifications,” the older woman said, sitting down across from Svetna. “There’s already a bit of an uproar about you being from Ontario... Quebec is mildly appeased by you having a French wife, and the Caribbean provinces are... shall we say ‘torn’ on your having a, I suppose we call her a vampiric ‘lover’ from Barbados.”

  Svetna nodded, suspeg she knew what this was going. “The Western provihink I’m ing them, though?”

  “Indeed. Especially with my also representing a Montreal riding,” the Prime Minister replied. “As such, we o make sure your sele is geographically and politically viable. My gover having plunked a pansexual trans woman onto the throne, even ing with alien diplomatiefits as it has, is still being seen by more servative folks as an effort to impose leftism on every level of the state. So we ’t have aoo political.”

  “Mhm...” Sveltana muttered, before opening the folder up properly.

  A lot of the informatio rather irrelevant to her, but she could give it a proper skim. Nothing about the first didate stood out to her, so she flipped over to the , reading another list of impressive aplishments, but still nothing that grabbed her.

  “Wait, aren’t you supposed to just put forward one pick? That’s how they did it before, didn’t they?” Svetna asked.

  “Officially, but there was generally a fair amount of back el bad forth. The GGs do represent the , so a poor choice reflects badly on the monarchs. They’ve always wao do a bit of vetting,” the Prime Minister expined. “Since you’re here in Ottawa I thought we could cut to the chase.”

  “Ah,” Svetna mumbled, before looking at the third dossier.

  As she read, there was a knock at the door, drawing both her and the Prime Minister’s eyes up. The tall and handsome woman standing at the entrance jumped slightly when she realised who Svetna had in her office.

  “Woah! Sorry,” Eliza Haliwell said. “Vivian said you were supposed to be done--I’ll e back.”

  “It’s not top secret or anything,” Svetna replied, gesturing for her cousin to e into the office. “I’m just having to figure out which impossibly qualified total stranger I’ll be naming as my representative while I’m gone.”

  “Oh. That sounds... fun,” the taller woman said, standing awkwardly o the desk. “I guess you want me for moral support?”

  “Mhm, you’re... wait,” Svetna started as a thought struck her. “You’re from Manitoba. And you live in BC.”

  “Y-yeah?” Eliza replied.

  Svetna turo the Prime Minister. “You’re worried people think you’ve staged a sort e Party coup over the monarchy, right? So you don’t want the governeneral to seem too politically motivated?”

  “That is... true,” the older woman said, clearly having worked out the general shape of what Svetna was about to offer and not seeming thrilled with the idea.

  “Well... what if we break with tradition a little, let me show a touch of independence from you, and nominate my western cousin?” Svetna said with a grin. “Royalty giving responsibilities to retives is properly traditional.”

  “I’m... I’m not certain a butch lesbian married to a trans woman is exactly going to thrill servatives,” the prime minister replied.

  “At least it will be my own decision and won’t refle you,” Sveltana offered, before turning to Eliza. “And you’ll behave yourself, right?”

  “Oh. Uh. Yeah. I’m not going to step out of line. I remember learning about the King-Byng Affair from high school,” Eliza said, eyes going slightly wide.

  “You remember a lesson about 1920s politics?” Svetna asked.

  “The name is very memorable,” Eliza expined.

  Both of the other women had t and nod at that. It was catchy.

  “Alright. I ’t believe we’re trying to show the independence of the from the elected gover, in plete reversal of all political trends since federation, but... why not,” the Prime Minister said with something of a defeated sigh. “You’re a adian moing into space. It’s utterly divorced from the st one hundred and fifty years.”

  “This is going to look so cool on my resumé,” Eliza said. “Though I’m not sure Olivia will be thrilled to have it sprung on her...”

  AnnouWoo, chapter 3. We're properly starting the story now. We'll see if I maintain the writing pace, though...

  Standard note about how you get two more chapters right now on patreon. As well as access to a some bonus shorts about Svetna, and other projects I'm w on that I won't be posting to scribblehub. For just 1 US/month.