Standing in a smaller viewing chamber, Svetna looked out at the p ahead and wasn’t certain how to process what she saw. Firstly, the p was not orbiting a proper star, but a brown dwarf that was glowing a soft sort of red. The pself seemed impossibly close, almost more like a moon of a gas giant than a p. It also existed in perma night. Of course, the skies here were so much brighter thahe fullest of moons ba Earth due to the tless stars of the tral gaxy, so it almost felt wrong to call it ‘night’. The brightness was to the point that people apparently turheir lights ohey were on the side of the p poi its star, as it blocked out the brighter lights of the more distant stars.

  At least that was the impressio from orbit, seeing which parts of the p were lit up with the artificial steltions of city lights.

  Above the phere was a frankly absurd amount of spaceships. It looked like a swarm of gnats or sand flies or whatever those is were that one entered clouds of in summer. Those must have just been the bigger ships, too, because they were still a det distance from the p.

  “Uh... I ge my mind about this whole ‘empress’ thing?” Svetna whispered to herself with a nervous ugh.

  This was terrifying.

  “It’s a bit too te for that,” O’tmyil replied.

  Because she could hear anything Svetna said, being that she was in armour form at the moment and so was almost as close to Svetna as her own skin was.

  At least the snugness of her around Svetna probably ted as a reassuring hug. That helped her mood.

  “I’m not ready for this,” Svetna said, just as quietly though she was now sciously speaking to O’tmyil. “What if I trip in front of everyone?”

  “That won’t happen. I won’t allow it,” O’tmyil replied.

  It was a fact, too. She could pletely take over walking if Svetna froze up, internal segments massaging muscles into pliance if needed.

  “This ation will go as fwlessly as the st,” O’tmyil said.

  “Right. I’ve got to do another one of those... how many rehearsals are we doing this time?” she asked with a sigh.

  At least dreading boredom was a good distra from the risk of embarrassing herself in front of the entire gaxy.

  “Oh, there’s no rehearsal,” O’tmyil replied. “The ation is done on the nding. You will meet the high archivist. They will ask questions of me, in a nguage only I and the upper archivists speak. Your job will be to repeat what I say the best you to prove our bond and thus to prove yitimacy. You will not be docked on pronunciation, especially due to being human. Ohe high archivist is happy the bond is proven you will be decred empress.”

  “Ah. So I just have to look like a fool in front of the gaxy by butchering a nguage I don’t speak,” Svetna said, shaking her head and w who in the world came up with that ritual.

  “A nguage none of the audience speak either. You will be fine,” O’tmyil replied.

  Not certain she had O’tmyil’s fidence, she turned away from the window and headed towards the smaller shuttle where the others were waiting. The walk was only a few minutes of quiet, Svetna’s brain currently too terrified for any higher funs. In fact, she would ter be amazed she was managing any voluntary muscle ands. Maybe O’tmyil had actually been helping her with that already.

  Reag the shuttle and its main where the others were waiting it was clear they saw her nerves painted across her face. The slight shudder of the shuttle disengaging from the rger cruise ship did not help. Her breathing was getting faster.

  “It will be fine,” Plynx said, hopping to her feet and pulling Svetna down for a kiss.

  Feeling somewhat relieved, Svetna spent a momeing lost in Plynx’s rge feline eyes. It helped her feel slightly less terrified.

  “Don’t hog her,” Thisbe said in a pyful tone, slipping over to stand ooes and offer Svetna another kiss.

  “Oh... that is definitely helping,” Svetna said, befrinning. “I might need a few more to feel fully up for this, though.”

  Nearly as soon as she’d said it she found herself lifted off her feet, spun around for a kiss from Bokarza. Then, as she ced down Vivia in to give her a kiss on the forehead.

  “I suppose we’ve saved the best for st, non?” Augusta said, strolling over before pulling Svetna into another kiss.

  One which was rather more than the reasonably chaste good luck kisses everyone else had given her. Augusta had always been amazing at these sorts of things. It left Svetna rather hot uhe colr... especially with O’tmyil being her colr at the moment, and so getting nearly as frazzled by Augusta’s kiss as Svetna was getting.

  “No fair, Augusta-fellow-wife!” Plynx protested. “If I kneere giving Svetna-wife kisses with tongue... I want a sed kiss.”

  Gasping for air as Augusta finally stopped (who then stuck her to at Plynx) Svetna had to shake her head.

  “Maybe ter Plynx. I o use my tongue f to pronoune words I don’t know in a bit and... well, Issiod’rian tongues are a bit rough on human ones,” Svetna said as politely as she could manage.

  Plynx pouted slightly, but seemed to accept that. Plus, another shudder revealed that they had ehe atmosphere of Throne World and would be nding soon. It was time for everyoo take their positions. Positions that led to squabbling, Augusta horrified to discover she was to be in the back of the procession.

  “At least you’re in it,” Thisbe offered with a shrug.

  Only actual wives (and armour) were to be part of it. And everyone was rather nervous about showing Thisbe off too publicly after sulting with Plynx and Bokarza about ses on Supernaturals. Throne World especially would be jumpy about that, apparently. There hadn’t been time for a history lesson as to why, so Svetna guessed it was the prejudice of rich people.

  It rubbed Svetna as deeply wrong, but she had to actually finish her ation before she could break with tradition so thhly.

  A few moments ter they’d nded, Svetna and the others ready to file out as Agent Lee’s personnel relutly made way for alien guards dressed in ornate ceremonial armour that had been waiting on the nding pad. At the prompting of what Svetna guessed was the ander of that royal guard, she properly left the shuttle.

  The nding pad a rge plinth, sitting across from the grarance of a pace that had clearly been decorated by Lanthoneans, their crystalline design styles all over it... but she could tell just looking at it that there was somethih those yers. A different idea of design that was far more imposing and hostile to viewers from the human scale. Some kind of evil cousin to brutalism. Which was saying something with how hostile people teo already find brutalism.

  Doing her best to take her eyes off of the pad its ominous skeleton lurkih the surface (which took some effort, sihe pace was massive... she was quite certain it could have fit the eoronto skyline inside of itself with both horizontal aical room to spare) she then processed the crowds that were present. It seemed like they’d built three quarters of a stadium around the nding pad, the seating rising away to a dizzying scale. Surely it was rger than any stadium oh? The whole walkway from the shuttle to the patrance was lined with people. She also realised that what she’d mistaken for streamers or distant fshes of cameras were actually vast numbers of camera drones in the air above.

  It was all a bit mu her opinion.

  Still she had a crowd to work, so she paused for a moment to wave to everyone (a roar of chearing rising from the vast sea of people around her) and the off dowairs towards the walkway before her. Reading the bottom she now had a better view of how massive the mairao the pace was, the archivists standing at the entrance dwarfed by the scale of all of the designs. Well, it was the pace for the head of state for the most of the gaxy. Even if the position was totally ceremonial. She should have expected something as absurd as all this.

  The ramp up to the entrance, for insta was rather obnoxious to have to climb up that far just to make it to the door. It felt like walking up the whole Jolly cut or something.

  Thankfully O’tmyil had kept her in good shape, so she wasn’t wi the top, but she could tell it had been rather rough on Vivian.

  “t,” the high archivist said with a small nod.

  The archivist was stern looking, and... to Svetna’s surprise, a Grey. Most Greys lived in the Corporate Alliand she also hadn’t expected aher than a Lanthonean for such a position so close to the thro was good to see that there was equal opportunity to be found.

  “Archivist,” Svetna replied, having remembered O’tmyil’s instrus on how to address the other side of the versation.

  “You wish to prove your cim in the eyes of the Imperial Archive?”

  “I do,” Svetna offered, hoping that was suffitly more formal than just saying ‘yes’.

  “Then we shall test that you have truly gaihe trust of the Heart of the Empire,” the archivist said, dropping a title for O’tmyil that Svetna hadn’t heard before.

  She could also feel that O’tmyil was a bit embarrassed by the title. Which was fair, Svetna was also embarrassed by a lot of all this.

  The archivist then spoke in a nguage quite unlike anything Svetna had heard before. O’tmyil then gave her response ina’s ear, and she did her very best to repeat the phrase, reminding herself that she didn’t have to get every sylble perfect. There were probably phonemes her Anglophone ear couldn’t even tell apart.

  To her horror the high archivist then asked another question, and Svetna was forced to repeat the game of telephone in a nguage she didn’t even know the word order for. Which parts were nouns? Which were verbs? She had no idea. Then there was another awkward bad forth of unknown phrases.

  At least the archivist’s eyes softened with some satisfa at that moment and the statement was only a sylble or two. O’tmyil’s reply was simirly brief and fairly easy for Svetna to offer.

  “The Heart of the Empire has indeed accepted you,” the archivist said, stepping aside with a small forehead tap. “You may enter, Empress Svetna, founder of the Third Dynasty.”

  “Thank you,” Svetna replied, gd that O’tmyil was holding firm so Svetna couldn’t awkwardly fuss with her ponytail before proceeding through the entranbsp;

  To her surprise, the high archivist followed along with her through the brightly lit hallways. As the doors closed behind the st of the royal guards and Augusta the archivist let out a sigh of relief.

  “I apologise for saying this, Empress, but your at was quite difficult to parse... though I suppose you do not speak Lanthonean so it is uandable you would pronouhe Archival Tongue oddly,” the Grey said.

  “Ah... so I made a fool of myself in front of the what... billion people who watched that?” Svetna said, trying not to feel mortified.

  “Curres are estimating the final viewership with be between 250 and 300 billion,” O’tmyil chimed in.

  Svetna’s eye twitched. That was a size of number her mind simply couldn’t process.

  “Only the archivists speak the Archival Tongue, and there hasn’t been a ation iuries,” the high archivist said in a more reassuring tone. “So the viewership had no idea.”

  Letting out a sigh of relief, Svetna vaguely wondered where they were headed. The pace seemed to go one forever every time they crossed a perpendicur hallway. Well, she supposed it was so massive she’d find out when she found out.

  And the out a small chuckle as she realised something. “I suppose I ow feel some extra empathy for the workers stu those hypothetical ‘ese room’ situations.”

  “ese room?” the Archivist asked.

  Before Svetna could answer, Vivian leaned in with a grin.

  “你好,” she said said in tonese.

  “你好,” the Archivist replied.

  “You know tonese?” Vivian asked, surprised.

  “The Imperial Archivists must be ready to record all happenings in the pace,” the high archivist expined. “As such we have learned eaguage spoken by your wives and sorts, Empress. I was already fluent in Issiod’rian and Kobaroic. Et mai je parle le fran?ais aussi.”

  A gnce over her shoulder let Svethe look of horror on Augusta’s faot for losing access to an ability to speak in private, but...

  “A Quebec at?” Augusta said, eye twitg slightly.

  “It was the at of the instructors dispatched by the Empress’ homend,” the High Archivist replied. “Is there an issue with mutual intelligibility?”

  “Oui,” Augusta muttered.

  “She’s just a snob about stig to the Parisian at,” Vivian expined before the archivist could worry too much.

  “... Ah. That does occur in many tongues,” the archivist replied, before bringing them to a halt outside a rge pair of doors. “Well, we have arrived at the primary imperial dining hall for the post ation celebrations... I shall depart for my own duties.”

  As the archivist stepped away the doors folded open, revealing a rather rge dining hall with a signifit number of guests. Important guests, too, if the presence of Plynx’s family were anything to go on. Mynx (who looked to have grown slightly) and Plynx’s mother were seated at tables, while Plynx’s father stood waiting for Svetna with a number of folks Svetna didn’t reise at the end of a walkway arranged betweeables.

  “Let us go, Empress,” Bokarza said, having moved behind Svetna so that she could nudge her forwards.

  Slightly fused about what was expected of her, Svetna did as directed, sing the audience as she walked. Thankfully Thisbe was already there, seated at what looked to be a main table where Svetna herself would no doubt soon be seated. Once she met with the Issiod’rian king and... the others standing around him. It seemed there was one for each of the alien species Svetna had seen, a couple she’d not entered before, and then one or two species with more than one representative.

  “Svetna Fujikawa, empress above all monarchs,” Plynx’s father said, pg his hands upon his forehead. “It is an honour to swear my loyalty.”

  “I... thank you,” Svetna mao say, genuinely having no idea how to respond to such a thing.

  Only to have Bokarza step arouo be beside the man and make her own pledge as queen of the Kobaroians.

  With that the others advanced, each holding titles of varying species. Not all were monarchs, but they held simirly prestigious positions, be they elected or spiritual. The repeats proved to be from peoples who had split so thhly to ck a single representative. Svetna thanked each, and accepted a few had not yet learned English (or were physically incapable of speaking), her thanks in their nguages to her best ability, as prompted by O’tmyil.

  All in all it took a while, but there was such a genuio it that Svetna couldn’t get bored. Couldn’t pin. She was simply overwhelmed. It left her in a slight daze as she began to walk towards the table where the others were waiting for her. She’d almost made it when the main door swung open, drawing all eyes to the te arrival.

  Standing three metres tall, with pale grey-white skin, eyes as dark as dark could be, and long flowing bck hair, the new arrival would have made a strong impression even if they hadn’t been unfashionably te. They were a Zuumult. The tall and predatory species that had fouhe First Dynasty.

  “Sorry I’m te, it seems my invitation must have been lost on its way to me,” they said with a wide grin and a casual shrug. Sharp teeth were revealed behind those lips. “I wasn’t sure whi to go to.”

  Royal guards, Bokarza, Augusta, Plynx, and Plynx’s parents all rushed to their feet to staween the new arrival and Svetna. Each stood ready for the slightest sign of aggression, likely only held back from a pre-emptive surge by the wish to avoid a se during the atioivities.

  “You-enemy were not invited,” Plynx’s father hissed, cws extending from his fingers for want of a on.

  “How did you eve into the pace?” Bokarza demanded.

  “The Corporate Alliane a diplomatic pass,” the new arrival replied, studying their fingernails for a moment. “It did take some work to vier security that it was real, but it was, so they had to let me in.”

  That drew a few Issiod’rian and Kobaroic swears from her defenders.

  “Now, is all of this really necessary? I came unarmed,” the Zuumult said, patting themself down briefly to emphasize the point. “Surely there is no harm in my attending the festivities in the spirit of diplomatic good will? What do you say, Svetna, empress to empere?”

  “Empere?” Svetna whispered quietly enough that only O’tmyil could hear her.

  “Zuumults are genderless. They clearly wish to vey gender rality whilst emphasizing their equal title to you. Though their remnant empire is much reduced pared to yours,” O’tmyil replied in a quid effit tone.

  With a nod, Svetna made her decision. “I... if you’re truly uhen a little outrea the name of diplomad peace sounds fair to me.”

  “Svetna...” Plynx whispered.

  “It’s one dinner,” Svetna replied softly. “How much harm could that cause? Uhey have table manners so bad they’re deadly?”

  She offered that st bit as an attempt to soothe tensions, though it didn’t quite seem to work...