Rogue Sloth

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Although Cas had all day to prepare for the funeral, time seemed to fly by as he and Jacob worked on his speech. The guard stayed with him for the entire morning and afternoon, playing the role of tactful critic whenever the prince asked him for his opinion on the wording of certain sentences and rapt listener when he finished the script and spent an hour rehearsing it in the privacy of his bedroom. His presence was reassuring to Cas, and it reminded him that he wasn’t quite so alone now that he’d returned to the palace (it was hard to think of his home as anything else now that he was about to take on the title of king). Jacob couldn’t do much to share his responsibilities, but he was still glad to have the head of security by his side. Over the years, the older man had become something of a mentor and friend to him, and he had a lot of respect for his opinions.

Once the speech was done, Caspian spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready to make his public appearance before the rest of Aspiria. He showered and planned to take care of the rest on his own, but his father’s PR specialist—or his PR specialist now—had other ideas. She arranged for a beautician to cut his hair and shave his face, insisting that he should just sit back and relax while a professional took care of the work for him. It wasn’t the first time he’d been subjected to that kind of treatment, so he acquiesced and allowed the stylist and his partners to make him camera-ready. They handled his unruly locks and selected a suit from his closet that they’d deemed appropriate for the occasion: a black, modern fit outfit with a notched lapel. To go with it, there was a tie in the same color and a burgundy long-sleeved button-down.

Cas let them choose his clothes for him, but he’d never been fond of letting other people dress him up like a Ken doll, so he asked the beauty posse to leave his room while he put on the suit by himself. Standing in front of a full-length mirror, he was struck again that he was getting dressed up for his own father’s funeral. The knowledge brought about a strange sense of déjà vu, reminding him of the day he’d attended his mother’s funeral not so many years ago, and his throat suddenly felt tight. Both of his parents were gone now. He was only twenty-four, yet he was already on his own with neither a dad nor a mom to give him advice or help him when times got tough. Even what was left of his family were all estranged because of Atlas’s paranoid actions.

He could feel the raw emotions threatening to bubble up again, and he took a slow breath to calm himself. Even though it hurt, he had to keep in mind what Jacob had told him: Don’t shut down. Use the pain to push forward. He still had a funeral to get through, so he couldn’t lose control of himself now. Once it was over, there would be plenty of time to grieve and to forget it all in the numbing balm of alcoholic stupor.

Well, maybe not quite that much. If Iris called, he needed to be coherent enough to answer his phone, so he compromised with himself and decided that he would just get moderately drunk after the night was over. Until then, he had a speech to give and a father to bury so, making one last adjustment to his tie, he headed out of his room and joined Jacob at the private hangar, where the royal family’s hover cars were kept. In theme with the event, they took a black model, and the security guard piloted it to the square at exactly five o’ clock, shuttling the prince and two more guards who had been assigned to keep him safe until they returned to the palace.

They arrived two hours before the scheduled start of the funeral, so with plenty of time to spare, Caspian and his guards hung out behind the screen that made up the backdrop of the stage. The prince mumble practiced his speech a few more times to himself, occasionally peeking around the side of the screen to watch as people started trickling into the square and took up seats in wait for the funeral to begin. Reporters were already standing around the edges too, speaking into cameras about what was going on.

For the most part, the prelude was mundane. Black-clad high borns joined the audience, reporters narrated every detail, security guards circled the premises, and Cas prepared to speak about his recently deceased father.

Then the pallbearers arrived, carrying a white casket.

Cas happened to glance around the screen just as they brought it up the stairs to the center of the stage, and for a moment, time seemed to stop. The reality that his Atlas was inside that box struck him like a freight train, and he stared dazedly, suddenly feeling lightheaded. His father, the king, was gone, and he was about to send him off and take over the most important job in the country. There was no more buffer between himself and the crown. The weight of it all was suffocating, and his dizziness escalated to panic.

“Your Highness, you’re on in five,” Jacob announced, striding over to place a hand on the prince’s shoulder.

“I can’t,” Cas gasped, realizing belatedly that he’d been holding his breath. With a shake of his head, he pulled away from the guard and stepped back from the screen, trembling slightly as the anxiety gripped him in its full might. “I can’t do it. It’s too much… I-I need to get out of here. Take me back to the palace. Right now.” Winded, his sentences were clipped and breathy, and he paced back and forth, unable to stand still.

Jacob blinked, taken aback by the future king’s abrupt downward plunge, but after a moment, he sighed and walked over to stand nearby him. “Prince Caspian, you can do it,” he told the younger man with as much gentleness as he could manage while he glanced at the time on his watch. At this rate, the panicked prince was going to delay the funeral. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to take you back. Not until you give that speech you wrote about His Majesty and let the people know that you’re going to be a leader they can trust.” Even as he spoke, the other guards behind the screen gawked at him in thinly veiled horror. To disobey the orders of a royal was scandalous, and they all knew that he could be rightfully imprisoned for his insubordination. Jacob remained unfazed though. His first duty was to Aspiria, and he wasn’t going to sacrifice the nation’s wellbeing just to humor the emotional outburst of their next monarch.

“But I’m not a leader they can trust,” Cas snapped. “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I’m not my dad!” Flustered, he ran a hand over his face, averting his gaze to avoid Jacob’s. “He was the one who knew how to lead Aspiria, not me, and he’s dead. I’m not ready for this. I need more time…” He trailed off with a grimace.

“I think you already know you don’t have more time,” Jacob said somberly. “This isn’t something you get to plan and control, Your Highness. Whether you like it or not, it’s already upon you, and the whole of the nation is counting on you to do the duty you’ve been preparing for your entire life.” He placed a hand on the prince’s shoulder again. “Remember what I told you earlier? Use the pressure to push through. You’re almost done for today. Once the funeral is over, you can return to the palace and do whatever you need to do to cope with it all.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m being crowned king tomorrow,” Cas mumbled.

“Nothing will,” Jacob told him matter-of-factly. “But for what it’s worth, I believe you’re underestimating yourself. Your father was a powerful king, but he had his faults. You know that just as well as I do. If you put your mind to it, I truly think you could become one of the best kings Aspiria has ever known. You just have to start taking your first steps to get there, and that means walking out on that stage and speaking to your people.”

Cas turned back to him, surprised by the conviction in Jacob’s words. Had anyone else said that to him, he would have thought they were patronizing him, but it sounded genuine coming from the stoic guard. Jacob actually thought he would make a great ruler. He still didn’t know exactly why the older man felt that way, but the support was just enough to quell some of his panic. “Thanks,” he managed a smile and took a deep breath. “I guess it’s now or never… How late am I?”

“Only five minutes,” Jacob said after checking his watch one more time. “If you’re ready now, I’ll let the moderator know.”

“I am,” Caspian took one more breath for good measure. “Or at least, as much as I can be.”

Jacob nodded and said something into his radio, paused for a moment, then gestured to the edge of the screen. “Go ahead. Your people are waiting for you.”

Cas nodded back to him. Holding his folded speech cues in his hand, he turned toward the opening and stepped forward, striding out onto the stage before he could lose his nerves again.

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

She's been doing pretty good with that, actually. It's just that she's so young that we have to take her outside to pee twice every night, and I have to wake up in the early morning to play with her because she wakes up hyper xD The first 2-3 hours of my day are spent outside in the cold and snow, running around with her to get her to wind down and take another nap lol

Match Up in Malibu [Bee & Summer]

The moment the camera shifted away from them was like a breath of fresh air, and Jett let the polished smile disappear from his lips. He was still smiling of course—how could he not, when he and Anna had just won a whole ass tournament?—but the defining grin had been replaced with a more natural and slightly lopsided expression than he usually showed to an audience. Even though he hadn’t played chicken since he was in high school, it felt good to win the silly competition. He’d always been competitive, sometimes to a fault, so it was a stroke to his ego to know that they’d come out on top of all the other pairs at the beach house.

Feeling a tap on his arm, he turned to Anna and blinked, mildly surprised by the bright smile on her face. He didn’t know exactly when it had happened, but at some point since the night they’d met, he’d decided in his own head that she wasn’t capable of looking that chipper. Right now though, she looked about as happy as a kid in a candy store, and it stirred something warm in the pit of his stomach that made him worry for a fleeting moment that the heat had made its way up his neck and onto his cheeks. She was actually kind of cute. Suddenly, he was reminded why he’d had so much fun dancing with her at the welcome party.

He cleared his throat and grinned back at her, “I’ll say. You did do most of the work though. All I did was hold you up to knock over all the other girls. I was pretty much a glorified booster seat.” With the short interview out of the way, he turned his attention back to the smell of food coming from inside the house. After the many rounds of chicken in the pool, he’d worked up a hearty appetite; and since his dietician was all the way on the other side of the country, there was nothing holding him back from pigging out on as much unhealthy food as he could fit on a plate. Malibu was turning out to be heaven.

“Want to go inside and raid the buffet line? I think they’ve got a Hawaiian barbeque thing going on,” he said, nudging Anna eagerly in the side. After the match, he was willing to let bygones be bygones and forget about their argument earlier in the morning.

Cirque du Sombre [Siaya Dragalorn & Summer]

“For more than half my life,” Rayth said, amused by the surprise in Lune’s tone. Even though he was just as human as he was vampire, it was obvious which race she associated him with the most. She wasn’t the only one though. It was interesting to him that the reaction to whom he associated with was always the same. No one ever looked at him funny if he said he was living among a troupe of circus monsters, but both humans and supernaturals alike often gawked when he told them he’d spent decades among his own blood relatives. There was a stigma in there somewhere, but he’d grown so used to being an anomaly that he’d never cared enough to figure it out.
“Well, don’t forget mi familia is Latino,” he laughed at her remark. “We’re a lot more family-oriented than white people are. I liked living with them, and if anything, they’re the ones who put up with me.”
‘Tolerated’ was probably the best word for it. Being a vampire put him at odds with his relatives because he slept on a nocturnal schedule and fed on the neighbors. Being immortal made him stand out because he remained young while all of his cousins grew wrinkled and old. If he could have made the living situation work, he would have stayed in Albuquerque for generations, but unfortunately, his relationship with his father’s side of the family eventually grew too strained, and he’d uprooted himself when it became clear that he was more of a burden to them than an asset.
Thinking about his now-estranged family was always uncomfortable, so he happily dropped the subject when Lune joked about her interpretation of vampire culture.
“That’s exactly what we are,” he agreed with tongue in cheek, holding up his hand in acknowledgment when she brushed off his offer to help her into the car.
He waited for her to climb inside before he followed suit, stepping into the train behind her. He could find his way around the blackened room just as easily as he could underneath the moon and stars, but he knew humans had poor eyesight in dark spaces, so he gave her a wide berth to keep from startling her.
The smile he saw on her lips was reassuring though, and he wondered to himself if she was starting to feel more settled around him than she had been before. He hoped so. Just based on their brief interaction so far, she was definitely someone he wanted to get to know better, but it would be hard to do that if she stayed afraid of him.
At the moment, he was docile because he’d just fed, but even when he was hungry, he liked to think he had a decent handle on his bloodlust since he’d lived among humans for so long. As long as he drank blood regularly—which he always did in Frieda’s circus—he doubted there would be any problem pursuing a friendship with the new, mortal member of the troupe.
“There’s no one around to wake up right now,” he shrugged in answer to her question. “But it wouldn’t matter even if there was. The lights don’t work.”
To demonstrate, he stepped over to the wall and flipped the light switch on and off. Even if Lune couldn’t see the gesture, the soft clicking sounds the switch made was enough of a cue to give away what he was doing.
Quick on his feet, Rayth explained the odd detail simply: “The power generator is broken, and we haven’t gotten it fixed, so we’ve just been leaving it as it is. There’s plenty of light during the daytime because of all the windows anyway. It’s only an issue if you need to charge a phone or something, and most of us don’t have those.”
Ambling back over to her, he looked her down and up, taking advantage of the fact that she couldn’t see him very well inside the train. There was rarely an opportune time to stare at someone, especially as a creature that preyed on humans compulsively, but the lack of light in the car gave him enough cover to get away with it.
He thought she was an attractive girl. Even in her ragged clothes, his eyes were drawn to the shape of her figure and features of her face. While he had no intention of acting on his passive interest, he could still appreciate beautiful people for what they were and couldn’t help indulging himself in a benign way.
“I think all the beds in this car are taken,” he mused, sliding his gaze away from her to rove the cots around them. “We can check out the next one.” Turning back to Lune, he paused for a moment before carefully reaching out to touch her arm, hoping not to startle her. “If you can’t see, I can help you get around. Just hang on to my hand or my shoulder… Think of it like one of those stupid trust exercises companies like to do at corporate social events.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Sounds good! And yeah, it'll be airing all over the kingdom, so Ethan could see it easily.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

The funeral will be broadcasted on every channel too, if you had any interest in writing Iris's reaction to that. I think I'll skip ahead to it in my next post ^^

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

For a long time, Caspian had known that he would have to bury his father while he was still young, but to actually start taking steps toward that end was the most difficult task he’d been given in a long time. After his phone call with Jacob, he raced back home as quickly as he could, fighting past the reporters at the gate until one of the security guards spotted his car and escorted him inside. Being back was a surreal experience after everything that had happened too. The mansion felt empty in spite of the lavish décor, and when he traipsed up the stairs to his room, it seemed like all the guards and servants he passed were watching him with bated breaths and unspoken questions hanging from their lips. He hadn’t told any of them where he had gone the night before, so it was only natural for everyone to be curious, but he still disliked all the eyes on his back. He wanted nothing more than to be alone to process what was going on. Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to get the chance until everything was over, it appeared.

Just minutes after he closed the door behind him, there was a knock on the panel followed by the sound of Jacob’s voice. Cas gave him permission to enter, and the head of security stepped inside. “Your Highness,” he greeted him with a curt bow. “I’m here to give you your itinerary and offer my assistance with your speech… for the funeral.”

At the word ‘funeral,’ Cas’s stomach knotted, and he sat up on his bed. “Alright, just give it to me,” he sighed, running a hand over his hair. The sooner everything was over and done with, the better. If going through the motions would hasten that process, then he would gladly be Aspiria’s puppet for the day.

Jacob pursed his lips. After the phone call they’d exchanged earlier, he’d looked up the prince’s location and pinned him down at the Sunset Veil near the edge of the city. He didn’t know exactly what Caspian had been doing there, but the resort had been close enough to border to make him uneasy. If Atlas’s son had been planning to abdicate his title, he could still be flighty, and their country was in no position to handle the loss of a second ruler at that moment. He cleared his throat, “Before we get into the details, I’d like to ask you… How are you doing?”

Cas blinked, caught off guard by the question. Jacob had always been kinder to him than most of the other guards, but he hadn’t expected the older man to ask about his wellbeing. “Honestly? I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I mean, I just had a fight with my dad last night and then found out this morning that he died and I’m supposed to take over as king. How am I supposed to be doing?”

Jacob hovered in the doorway for a moment before quietly closing it behind him and walking over to sit down next to the prince. “You aren’t ‘supposed’ to feel anything,” he replied. “Loss is difficult, and everyone experiences it differently. I may not have lost a member of my own family yet, but I did serve in the military for years. During that time, I saw many of my brothers fall in combat. I wish I’d had time to properly honor their memory and grieve for them, but we’re in the middle of a civil war. I had to bury them and move on every time.” He patted the younger man on the shoulder. “I don’t have any words to make this easier, but I can tell you one thing… All of that confusion and sadness and even anger you’re feeling? Use it. Let it drive you forward and fuel your sense of purpose until you’re able to breathe again. Even though it’s hard, Aspiria needs you, Prince Caspian. You lost your father, but they lost their king. Show them that they still have someone they can turn to for guidance in this uncertain time.”

Cas chewed on the inside of his lip. Jacob had a point. Whether he liked it or not, he was obligated to become the next monarch. He still had a lot of thoughts and emotions to sort through, but maybe he could try using them to bolster him through to the end of his coronation. Take all the pressure and let it force him to be productive. Of course, it didn’t sound easy, and he doubted it would be, but the only other option was holing away and making the entirety of the kingdom wait on him to finish mourning before they had a new king. He couldn’t do that when everyone needed him right now.

“Thanks,” he exhaled. “I think I’ll try that.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Your Highness,” Jacob smiled. “And when you finally have a moment to yourself, I’ll bring you a flask… with whiskey this time. Not water.”

Cas laughed softly, “Whiskey sounds incredible right now.” With another shake of his head, he looked up to meet the other man’s gaze. “So, what’s my itinerary for today?”

Jacob nodded, relieved that the prince didn’t seem keen on bolting anytime soon. Taking his phone from his pocket, he pulled up a text file to share, “I’ve got a schedule for you to go over first. It would be most efficient if you arrive at the square at seventeen hundred…”

~Bonsoir~

“I believe it was long overdue, myself,” Sylvia sipped at her tea. “It’s a pity that Peter and Katherine are the parents whose blessing you seek. I would never say so to Vail out of respect for his bond with them, but his parents are horribly difficult people to get along with, especially his father. His mother is a rigid traditionalist just like Peter is, but at least she’s able to admit in private when her husband is wrong. If only she were brave enough to disagree with him to his face, she might help him realize that he’s made tradition into his god.”

She shook her head exasperatedly, “Peter believes he rules with fear, but it is fear that rules him. For all his physical prowess as a Hygrace, he stymies himself through his unwillingness to listen to new ideas to even humor the thought that his methods aren’t the best. My family has had relations with the Hygrace clan for centuries, so I’ve learned how to behave when he’s around… but that’s as a born vampire. I can only imagine how much time and effort it will take to win him over as a woman who was human until last week.” And that was if Peter was willing to accept the Crest heiress at all. Though she kept it to herself, Sylvia was unconvinced that Victoria would ever be looked at kindly by Vail’s father. She knew now that the other woman was the reason why Peter had tried to arrange her marriage with Vail in the first place. The drastic measures the Hygrace leader had taken to keep the couple apart spoke volumes about how little he thought of Lady Crest.

Still, the situation didn’t affect her directly, and she was far from an empath, so she brushed off the thought as they moved on to a more lighthearted subject. “It would, but from what I understand, the impulse is easier for our kind to ignore,” she answered thoughtfully. “We’re aware of it, but it isn’t consuming… If Vail hasn’t told you yet, our drives to reproduce are far lower than the average human’s because we live much longer and have more time on this earth to plan out when we wish to have children. Many of us remain unattached to a partner for centuries before settling down.”

Pausing, she took another pull from her tea and fixed her blue eyes on the firepit with an idle smile on her lips. “When I’ve faced my annual fertility window, there have been very few times in which I’ve needed to remove myself from a handsome man’s presence to keep myself from jumping him like an animal. It usually isn’t difficult to curb the desire, but if you really find sex tempting during those weeks, I’m sure you and Vail can come up with some creative outlets.” Another knowing wink chased the statement. “In any case, it’s nothing for you to worry about. You’re a clever girl, and I’m sure you’ll figure it out when the time comes.”

--

Vail nodded slowly when James answered his question. Because Victoria’s half-brother was a member of a powerful vampire clan, he hadn’t thought much about his human ancestry. He supposed it did make sense that James would be the best equipped to approach the Saints. Although he wasn’t sure how the slayer organization would react to a man who carried the blood of the creatures they had dedicated their lives to killing, they would probably have reservations about attacking him when he was half human too.

“That is a blessing,” he said amusedly. Compared to others of their kind, he’d honed his bloodlust until he was able to keep his composure around injured humans, but only if the injury was minor. As a pureblooded vampire, there was only so much he could do to suppress his own nature after all. “Well, I wish you the best of luck on your trip. If there is anything to be found among the Saints, it seems like you’re our best hope of uncovering it.” Assuming Ray and Gerald were actually alive, that was. He still wasn’t optimistic that the two men would be found unless they were corpses.

At Francois’s comment, Vail shot him a sideways glance and then turned back to James. It was interesting to hear more people volunteer support for him and Victoria, even if it was in a teasing manner. “Perhaps,” he mused. “I wonder whose wedding they’re planning though… I noticed Lady Sylvia took an interest in you.” He appreciated their acceptance of his relationship with Victoria, but he was still reluctant to speak much about his plans with her, so he changed the subject. Until he had more time to speak with his parents and try to warm them up to the idea of his desire to be with the new vampire forever, he preferred to keep his personal life to himself.

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

Our pup is little enough that she's noisy unless she's sleeping, so I relish the quiet xD That will change when she's older though!

My husband and I switched the times we take care of her last night too, so I managed to get like 6-7 hours of sleep for the first time since we got her! Hopefully now that I'm not perpetually exhausted, I'll get caught up on all my posts :)

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

The thought of purpose was one that resonated strongly with Azdrei’in. He still didn’t know if he would have been as trusting as she was if their positions had been reversed, but he did understand why she would be so determined to find a new meaning for her life. Most of her species had been wiped out by the virus that his people had released, and it seemed like she hadn’t encountered many others like herself who were somehow immune to its effects. She had spent many of her days just passing the time with no real aim or goal. He didn’t know what it would have been like to go through something similar, and he was uncertain what it would have done to him mentally if he had.

Lunvalgans were hyper-social beings who centered their purpose around the good of their communities. Their social hierarchy was rigidly defined and hive-like, with the Eilix at the top and every other member of the colony trickling down into different jobs that were needed for their survival. Their individual purposes were handed to them when they were assigned to their lifelong roles. His purpose as a warrior was to both defend his people and to provide for them once they descended on the Earth. And later, whenever the Om’phaers determined his compatibility with a female of his race, he would share the secondary purpose that all Lunvalgans did: procreating to escape extinction. He’d never found himself without a purpose because he was part of a cohesive society, and it was beyond his scope of experience to comprehend what it was like for Artemis to lack such an essential part of her being.

“Even among my people, I’ve always been a fast learner,” he mused, a gratified smile pulling at his lip. “I might have been a… an engineer if I hadn’t tested so well during my physical exam. Because we were going to begin colonizing your planet soon, my leaders decided we needed more warriors than engineers though, so that was where I was placed.” He shrugged noncommittally. Either way, he would have enjoyed his placement. Learning new things was exciting to him, and he had plenty of opportunities to do so as an engineer or a warrior. As the latter, he’d been able to visit the Earth before most of his people, to see it and feel it and explore the terrain as it was before the Lunvalgans came down and made it their own. He’d even had the luck of finding a living, miraculously uninfected human who was teaching him more about her kind than he’d ever hoped to learn. It was a satisfying job.

When Artemis showed him different animals on her screen, Azdrei’in decided definitively that he didn’t see her as a dolphin. If she looked different, then it would have been an accurate comparison, but she was too similar to his own species for that. He glanced between the video of the gorilla and her face, seeing a slightly closer resemblance but still unconvinced. Gorillas and humans bore some obvious likeness to one another, but humans and Lunvalgans were so similar, it was uncanny. The biggest differences between them were their diets, mental capabilities, and the color of their hair, skin and eyes.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, studying her amusedly. “Even if most of your people are violent, I don’t sense that trait in you at all. When I tracked you down, you had a chance to kill me but didn’t take it. Even I think you would have been in the right if you had finished me off. I was there to kill you. It would have been natural for you to protect yourself, but you didn’t. You put my health before your own. That is the furthest thing from violence.” It was also what had intrigued him about her, during the first few moments after he’d woken up in her hideout. She hadn’t behaved like he’d been told humans were supposed to.

Turning around to face the wall, he waited for Artemis to change clothes, honoring his word not to look over his shoulder even though it was tempting to find out how similar she was to a Lunvalgan female underneath the outfits she wore. When she was done, he stood up and turned back around, only to pause as his eyes swept almost involuntarily over the new clothes she’d put on. The bold red of her shirt was eye-catching, and he couldn’t help but notice the way her pants clung to her hips. Distracted by the sight, he nearly missed what she said to him as she walked back out and had to wrack his brain to belatedly translate the words before he cleared his throat. “Space?” he echoed, buying himself a little time as he peeled his gaze away from her to walk back to his bed and sit down. “I’m sure we can if the doctors don’t need you all the time. We have breaks for rest and meals built into our days here. If you are given the same freedoms as the rest of my people, we can take my spaceship for another drive later.”

Currently, that was a big ‘if,’ since he had no idea what the Om’phaers were going to do with her, but he knew he would have liked to get off the mothership again for a little while. He liked watching her light up at the sight of the endless expanse of black and stars that surrounded them. To him, the cosmos had become mundane, but her enthusiasm revitalized some of his interest in it.

Reclining on his bed, Azdrei’in watched quietly as Artemis applied a pigmented substance to her face. He’d never seen anything like it, but when she asked him how she looked, he gathered that she wore it to enhance her appearance. “I am dressed,” he replied, unsure what she meant by ‘dress up.’ Pausing, he considered the first half of her question. While his own people didn’t paint their faces, he could see the appeal of it. The red tint on her lips was pretty, and the black lining she’d applied to her eyes made the green color of her irises look even brighter. “I like it,” he said after a moment, deciding it was a positive change. Even more than he admitted, he thought she looked beautiful. However, she still wasn’t a Lunvalgan, so he kept that to himself.

Not long after, the door to their room slid open, and he glanced at the open passageway, where another warrior was standing with his white eyes fixed on Artemis and one hand resting on his gun at his waistband. “The Om’phaers wish to see the Earthling now,” he said in a gruff tone. “I will take it to them.”

“I will accompany you,” Azdrei’in stood up from his bed. “She does not speak our language, so the Om’phaers will need me to translate their conversation.”

The other warrior nodded, “Very well then. Both of you, come with me.” He waved a hand in a beckoning gesture and stepped back out into the hallway.

Azdrei’in turned to Artemis, switching to English, “Our doctors are ready for you now.”