RavensDagger

  Interlude Eight - The Silly Noble Girl

  She paced the main room of the Sappho and tried to e to grips with... everything. It wasn't w very well, but that didn't stop her from stomping up and down anyway.

  Aurora Sterlingworth was a ball of flig emotions at the moment, and seeing as how she was all alone for a moment, she didn't feel that same strainio keep it all tained.

  She wished that she was the violent sort, then maybe she could throw something, kick a wall, maybe fling some tools across the corridor? But no, the thought of Twenty-Six disappointingly having to pick up after her mess left a pit of guilt ioo deep for that to ever be possible.

  Instead, she politely stomped bad forth through the corridors of the ship she'd started to call home.

  It wasn't supposed to be this way.

  Her little tryst with adventure was... realistically, she khat it would end in some amount of disappoi. Even if she was mildly successful, her family would always keep an eye on her moving forwards. She'd mark herself as a risk.

  But dammit, it was that or be chattel, and she wasn't going to go out without at least having put up the sembnce of a fight!

  Now she was tangled up.

  Not just iire ordeal around Jupiter, a dozen fas with their own is, fledgling alliances, and plenty of backstabbing. It was what she expected. It was what she'd been bred for a never expected to actually do. She loved that part of it.

  The rest of the tangle...

  Aurora had maybe allowed herself to imagine running into a dashing young woman while she was out making a name for herself. She was allowed to imagine such things, no? Someoo have a romantic tryst with, to spend a few passionate nights together before she was wrestled away back to Phobos and all the responsibilities that came with her family name.

  It had been supposed to remain a bit of midnight fantasising.

  Now she was in some sort of voluted multidimensional love shape of some sort and she wasn't sure which way anymore. Missy was out of the running, somehow, a Pixie was in by dint of being petent, obviously desperate for affe, and by being cute. Twenty-Six was somehow the front-runner in the whole thing and...

  Okay, Aurora could uand that owenty-Six reminded her of the golderiever one of her uncles had imported from Earth at enormous expe was impossible not to like her. And Twenty-Six's stuttering pliments and subtle affeade Aurora's heart flutter.

  One of Aurora's neckces had broken a ferior, and Twenty-Six , repaired it, a it by her door in a little box with a note saying she'd fixed it.

  It was such a simple but kiure that Aurora felt... something about it.

  Holy though, a retionship would never form between them. She found Twenty-Six cute, but the young woman was... Aurroaned and rubbed at her face. She found Twenty-Six beh her, didn't she? She was entirely aware of how stupid that was, a years of instinct kicked in anyway.

  Well... she could admit to herself that it wasn't just that.

  Twenty-Six wasn't the sort to make the first move. Aurora washer.

  Were circumstances different, they'd probably happily circle around each other, flirting in small and subtle ways, until they were both grey.

  As the a memes went... they were both bottoms.

  That would have been fine. She'd go on her way, Twenty-Six would go hers, and Aurora would live tret aking any a for the rest of her life. The usual.

  The issue was Evelyn.

  If that even was her name.

  No, she k wasn't her name. Aurora wasn't stupid. She could put two and two together, but as was often the case when it came to that woman the numbers grew expoially, so much so that the result of her simple addition ractically nonsensical.

  She wao ask. To pin Evelyn to a bulkhead and demand to know if her suspis were right. Because if they were, then... then what the hell was going on?

  Was this some sort of joke to her?

  But Evelyn was so brutally, simply ho about her iions. She was, in her own way, kind and attentive and so stupidly powerful.

  If anyone was going to be pio anything, it was Aurora, and then Evelyn would press those cold lips of hers against her, and Aurora would melt. She wouldn't be able to put up aance, and... and...

  "You, uh, good there?"

  Aurora screamed.

  She found herself ging to one of the walls, half climbed onto a shelf with... what looked like a spanner in her free hand. She felt like a cat that had just been spooked.

  Missy stared at her impassively, hip cocked to the side with one hand on them, her other arm loose. "I'll take that as a no?" she tried.

  "You--you scared me," Aurora said. "I thought I was alone."

  "Clearly."

  "And what exactly does that mean?" Aurora asked as she straightened her outfit aly set dowool.

  "Red in the face, eyes closed, chewing on your lip. Your hands were definitely wand--"

  "You clearly misread the situation," Aurora snapped.

  Missy blinked slowly, then smiled. "Sure."

  Aurora narrowed her eyes, but she could hardly call the woman out, not when she'd been caught... thinking so hard about something. "I wasn't expeg you. I thought the Sappho was empty."

  "It was. I went out to get some supplies. Unless you want to do the shopping yourself? Nah? Cool." She crossed her arms and leao the side. "So... what's got you all hot and bothered?"

  "Nothing," Aurora lied.

  "Uh-huh. So, did you sleep with nothi? Or... nah. You're too prim and proper for that. You're the sort that would wait for an invitation in the mail."

  Aurora took in a deep breath from her hat's insulting."

  "You didn't deny it," Missy pointed out. She smirked knowingly. "Or maybe it's that you're waiting for nobody to bend you over and give your polite ass a sma--"

  Aurora coughed loud enough to interrupt Missy mid... whatever that was. "Please don't," she said.

  "Fine, fine. I've got to warn you, though, if you're waiting for Twenty-Six to make the first move, yoing to be waiting for a long, long time. Unless you've got a whole engine in those britches of yours, she's not gonna go poking around. Too shy by half, that one."

  "It's... not that," Aurora said.

  "Oh? So it's defihat, but it's also more? Wow." Missy whistled. "The little tug boat thing is real, huh? So, you and Evelyn and Twenty-Six? e impressed."

  "It's nothing official."

  "So do you want it to be?" Missy asked.

  Aurora shifted. "I don't see why I have to share details of my love life with anyone."

  That prompted a snort from the former warmime. "Lovelife implies that there's any amount of love making going on. You three are firmly in the 'making doe-eyes' stage."

  "And you'd be better?" Aurora asked.

  "Yeah," Missy said with absolute fidence. "I've been around. I know what I want, and when I want it I get it." She tilted her head to one side. "Bet that if either of them pushed you they'd be getting it too, fancy girl. Want some advice?"

  "I think all of your advice will be sexual in nature, so no," Aurora said.

  Missy rolled her eyes. "Don't be like that. I've been teasing you because you're uptight about it. Sex is fun and all, but it's not everything. Hell, some of my best retionships didn't hinge on it. he best ones, but some of them. Nah, my advice to you, princess, is to get your shit into gear. Because throwing a shitfit in here while you're all alone isn't going to aplish anything."

  "You think I want to," Aurora said. She wasn't even sure what she meant by that.

  "I think you do," Missy said. "I bet there's a lot holding you back. And I'll bet ten times as much that none of that stuff is actually important. Don't let your own head get in the way of happiness. Loyalty isn't real. Family is whatever. Nations don't care about you. Get happy while you . And I bought some juice, it'll be in the fridge."

  Aurora blinked as she tried to parse all of that. By the time she did, Missy had walked past with a backpack slung over her shoulder that jingled and jangled with every step.

  That woman was... a menace. And she clearly didn't know what she was talking about.

  Aurora chewed on her lip some more.

  Well, maybe she could do something about it, but there were a few hours of time left to worry and pa, and she wasn't about to waste those by standing here and not stressing about it. She wasn't just some silly noble girl.

  ***

  RavensDagger

  Finally got ba track with Ivil! I was kinda lost for a bit on what to do , but Hesketh (author of... a few things) helped! Some of my stories are on TopWebFi!-amon Bun-Stray Cat Strut-Lever A-Dead Tired-Heart of Dorkness-SpeddonVoting makes Broccoli smile!

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