RavensDagger

  Chapter y-Four - Like in the Soaps

  Opulence wasn't something the Empress of Mars was unfamiliar with, a seemed as though the Emperor of Jupiter was determio stretch the definition of opulence as much as he was ready to stretch the fabric of space to his whims.

  The far wall of the room, behind the tallest seat at the dining table, was backed by a rge window.

  Obviously, they were deep withiation-moon and looking past the walls ought to have shown them bare stone, but ihe window shoectacur view of Jupiter, currently framed in the dead tre of the rounded gss portal.

  The outer walls were lined by regur ns of worked silver, eae as wide as the average man's arm span, aween these were gss panels looking into a grand aquarium.

  Fish, all of them shades of blue from the almost-white to deep-o blues that were almost bck, swam about in peaceful little schools or darted around the coral beds at the bottom of the aquarium.

  The floor was bck marble. The ceiling, the bare, unsmoothed stone of the moon they were buried within.

  It was all a bit much, in Ivil's opinion.

  She leaned ba her ow. It had been smaller, by a smidge, than the quasi-thro the far end of the table. And it was blue. Silver and blue, with plush cushions of a deep navy velvet.

  Those weren't her colours, however, and so she noon a seat of obsidian and gold... with tasteful Mars-e cushions.

  Her... friends whirls, were all sitting in the pis that lihe sides of the table. Aurora tht, Twenty-Six and Pixie to her left. Not that their pt meant anything. Obviously. Sonic Spectre silently departed with the butler, to do... maid things, she supposed.

  At the moment the only thing they'd been served was silverware. She thought it was niough. There were little sapphires embedded into the base of eaife and fork, to match the blue-and-silver theme of the room.

  It was the little details that really made things stand out, Ivil found. She could... perhaps take some notes.

  "He's certainly taking his time," she muttered, mostly to fill the silend because she knew he could hear her.

  "It's fine," Aurora replied. "Did we have a crete timetable for this dinner party?"

  "Dinner parties have time tables?" Twenty-Six asked. She was currently sitting on her hands. Ivil suspected that she was afraid to touything, which was... fair. The current table setting--not the table itself, merely the silverware, debras, and pce settings--were worth more than ten Held Togethers.

  Pixie, o Twenty-Six, seemed rather fortable, though she was sweating a little in her uniform. Ivil frowned and lowered the temperature by a degree while Aurora and Twenty-Six debated the value of timeliness with regards to social gatherings.

  There was a loud, unnecessarily dramatic squeal as the door to one side of the room opened, and in marched the Emperor of Jupiter's puppet, along with a pair of unfamiliar women.

  Aurora stood, which prompted the others to scramble to do the same, though Ivil decided to remain ined in her seat. She didn't stand for the likes of him.

  The man was what Ivil had seen previously. A thing of flesh and blood and bohat might have passed for a normal human being to anyone else. He had a beard and ptinum-blonde hair now, and was wearing a well-fitted but fortable suit.

  "Hello, hello," he said cheerfully, his arms sweeping wide. "Five me the wait, my dearest Eleanor wao pretty herself up."

  One of the two women with him rolled her eyes.

  She was a little older, perhaps in her early to mid fifties. A little plump, and she only came up to the Emperor's shoulder, but her brown eyes were sharp even as she shook her head. The woman was in a unplicated evening gown, but what struck Ivil most was her ck of any cores.

  That woman ure human, without a single core, though... Ivil could sehat g cores didn't mean she lived outside of the effect of them. She seemed healthy, more so than was normal for a pin old human. Not something that the average person would notice, or be able to notice, but Ivil could see it all the same. This Eleanor had been healed by biological manipution cores several times.

  "Hello, everyone," she said. "Five me. My dearest husband insisted on making you stew in pce for a while. If it to him we'd only be having dihis time week, just to see how long he avoid having to sit down."

  The Emperor chuckled, and whatever offence he could have taken... he didn't.

  "I'm Eleanor," she said. "I'm afraid that my husband isn't the greatest at introdus. You must be miss Sterlingworth, of Phobos?"

  "A pleasure, ma'am," Aurora replied with a slight curtsy. "I've heard much about you. You're one of the founders of some of the greatest phinthropic anizations in the system."

  "Oh, that's just pish-posh stuff. I got lucky, and it wouldn't be kind of me not to spread that around a little," Eleanor said. "Oh, I'm afraid that I'm not as familiar with you, young miss." The st was directed to Twenty-Six.

  Twenty-Six started to curtsy, seemed to realize that she didn't know how, bowed, then straightened in a hurry and finally extended a hand to shake... even though they were still several metres apart.

  The awkwardness held for a moment before she just stomped forwards with her big old boots and shook the very amused Eleanor's hand. "Hi! I'm Twenty-Six, from Saturn. Uh. I've never heard of you, but it's o meet you? You too, mister Emperor, yhness sir?"

  Ivil refrained from ughing. That would be rude.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you too, Miss Twenty-Six," Eleanor said while the Emperor lingered a step behind her. "And you must be Miss..."

  "Pixie, ma'am," Pixie replied. She gave the Emperor and Eleanor a salute, fist over chest in the Jovian style. "I'm more of a local than my, ah, friends here."

  "A pleasure! You'll have to tell me what you think of life around Jupiter, then. I've been making some efforts to improve things, but it's sometimes slow going," Eleanor replied. Her eyes and attention skipped over to Ivil, but rather than push for an introdu, she turo the other woman that had entered with them.

  The familial resembnce was obvious. She was shorter than Eleanor by half a head, and far shorter than the Emperor himself, but that didn't make her a short woman by any means, merely closer to average. She had Eleanor's eyes and the Emperor's ptinum-blonde hair, but her features were a little maunt. Carved and serious, and where Eleanor had kindness in her gaze this woman was all sharp.

  "This is my eldest daughter, Cecilia," Eleanor said.

  "Hello," Cecilia replied with a practiced bow. "I'm Cecilia of Jove, current president of the League of Free Moons."

  Aurora's brows shot up. "I thought I reized you," she replied. "Though you're not in your usual uniform. I... was not aware that you were lio the Emperor."

  "I gained my post through my ows," Cecilia replied. "Though I ot say that I didn't have an advantage or two along the way. Still, I keep my familial retions as private as I , so as to not... plicate matters politically." Her gaze snapped from Aurora to Ivil. "But I suspect that the time where politics were retively simple has passed."

  "Ah yes," the Emperor said with a knowing grin. "The st to introduce herself."

  Ivil sniffed indelicately. "Yes, yes. I am Ivil Antagonist, Empress of Mars and so on and so forth." She waved a hand dismissively. "You've heard of me."

  "We have!" Eleanor said, obviously undaunted by Ivil's fidence. She could kind of see what the old man saw in her. "Well, e now, let's not all just stand about and look pretty. I bet you're famished. I certainly am. Dear, you shorteable? We'll look quite silly spread out like this."

  "You're the one who wanted seating for fifty," he muttered good naturedly. A snap of his fier and the table shrank so that there wouldn't be as mu from oo the other and several of the seats faded away to nothing, all dispced one dimension to the back. "Sit, sit, the butlers will bring the appetizers around soon, and in the meantime, we have a friendly chat."

  The Emperor pulled out a seat for his wife, the oo the right of his own, and his daughter took her ow o Pixie.

  Ivil sat bad watched. Yes, this was almost exactly like a tense dinner party in one of her soaps, only with a few minor details ged. She could hahis.

  ***

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