Chapter Seventy-Two - Memorable

Ivil looked up as Aurora crossed the room and came to stand nearby. The woman stretched, hands on her hips and head tilting back as she let her spine crack. It made her blouse slip out of her pants and Ivil caught a faint glimpse of Aurora's stomach before her stretch ended. "That was... painful," she said.

"Was it?" Ivil asked.

The meeting had gone on for a solid six hours, with no real breaks. Some delegates had stood to use the facilities, but for the most part the meeting had gone on without a real pause.

"It was," Aurora said as she relaxed on the spot. It seemed to Ivil as though she was allowing herself to be far less formal than usual. Perhaps it was a natural response to having to sit straight and keep her mind in the game for so long. "I legitimately can't wait to be back in our rooms. This station had better have showers."

"I didn't inspect the washroom, but I'm certain there's something like that," Ivil said. She liked this more relaxed, less reverent version of Aurora. The woman was very attractive when she was her normal noble self, but that only made this more casual Aurora all the more interesting.

"Is... she sleeping?" Aurora asked with a small gesture to Ivil's side.

Ivil looked down and to the side. Twenty-Six's head was leaning up against her arm. Her mouth was slack, and there was a faint line of glistening drool running from the edge of her lips down to her chin. "She's been sleeping from almost the start," Ivil said. "Though she did move a few times. Did you know she talks in her sleep?"

"Does she?" Aurora asked as she raised a hand to hide a smile. "What sort of things does she say?"

"Nothing easy to parse, I'm afraid. I think she was talking about not wanting to read? She cried a little at some point and almost came awake when I started to brush her hair. Something about not wanting to tell Evelyn that she's bad?" Ivil shrugged.

"Dreams can be a little strange," Aurora said with a smile. "I suppose we have been through a great deal of stress lately. The sleep is good for her. Do you want to wake her up? I should go over what I've learned today with you and Pepper."

"It's fine," Ivil said. "We can let her sleep. I'll carry her over."

Ivil gently moved to the side while letting go of her artificial gravity around Twenty-Six. The girl floated slightly, now entirely weightless until Ivil shifted and hooked her arms behind Twenty-Six's back and under her legs. She rose, carrying Twenty-Six.

"A princess carry?" Aurora asked.

"Would it be more appropriate for me to carry you this way?" Ivil asked. "Princess of Phobos?"

Aurora's cheeks darkened prettily and she shook her head. "Ah, let's just get back to the rooms. I've made a mess of my dress and I don't want to be seen this way. Those seats were surprisingly comfortable, but I swear my entire back is covered in sweat. It's quite gross."

"Will Pepper be accompanying us?" Ivil asked. She glanced across the room where Pepper and a few other aides were gathered next to a few hastily set-up computers and a single printer which seemed to be broken at the moment.

"She's collecting the minutes," Aurora said. "As a hard copy, of all things. It might be useful later. I have the digital version in the meantime. We can wait for her, if you want?"

"No, it's fine. I'm certain she can take care of herself," Ivil said. She adjusted her hold on Twenty-Six slightly. She was keenly aware of the young woman's weight in her arms, and her warmth.

Aurora nodded along, and soon started to lead her back towards their rooms. "We'll be staying at the station for another ten or so hours," Aurora said. "I need rest, and I imagine Pepper does as well. Then we'll be heading back to Driftwood with Miss Pixie guarding us. Our shuttle for the departure will be arriving in about ten hours as well."

"That sounds good to me," Ivil said. "So, how did the meeting go?"

"You were there, weren't you?" Aurora asked.

"I was. And I can recite any part of it from memory, but that doesn't mean that I have full contextual knowledge to let me know if things went well or not."

"That's... fair, actually," Aurora said. "Also, the entire thing from memory?"

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"I have a very good memory when I care about something," Ivil said. For example, the memory of seeing that slip of Aurora's stomach was going to be seared into her mind until the sun winked out.

"I see," Aurora said. She didn't, but Ivil didn't think it wise to correct her.

They made it to their rooms, and Ivil finally looked down at Twenty-Six.

Twenty-Six was staring back with wide eyes, a hand close to her mouth as she was cradled in Ivil's arms. "Oh, you're awake," Ivil said.

Twenty-Six nodded slowly. "You... you can put me down," she said.

Ivil considered it. She liked carrying Twenty-Six like this. "No," she decided. "I don't want to."

"Okay," Twenty-Six said. Though, in reality it was more of a squeak. Twenty-Six seemed wide awake now. "So, um, I'll just stay here?"

"Did you know that Imperial Star Dreadnoughts carry ships with them? They're super-carriers. That includes several smaller frigates, but also a complement of tugboats."

"Oh," Twenty-Six said. Then she looked away from Ivil, her hair shifting into place to almost hide her blush.

Ivil liked it when she made the women she was interested in blush, it made something inside of her very warm. "Would you rather I put you to bed, if you're still sleepy?"

Twenty-Six shook her head and didn't seem ready to comment further.

Aurora was looking at them both with a raised eyebrow. "Today's... today's meeting went very well," she said. "The Uranians were belligerent as expected, and Titan's delegate is full of himself, but we have something of a tentative agreement."

"I heard that," Ivil said. "The member moons of the League are going to split the cores evenly?"

"Yes. At least, all of us here have agreed to that. Some moons don't want their share of cores."

"The Saturnian moons," Ivil said with a nod. She could recall the two delegates being somewhat disinterested in their own share. "They never explained why they have a lack of interest."

"It's because of the nature of Saturn," Aurora said.

"Oh," Twenty-Six replied. "Um, I think I know this one. Saturn doesn't have... government? I think we mentioned it already. What we do have is super loose, and we kinda mostly don't care. It's all families, clans, and smaller corporations that serve around Saturn and act as middle-men between us and the rest of the big corps in the system."

"That would explain it," Aurora said. She walked over to the fridge and tugged it open, pulled out a glass bottle, then drank from it openly. "They won't be able to share the cores evenly across their... constituents. Whereas most moons have something like a militia, or at least a more central government."

"What would Phobos do with its share?" Ivil asked.

"From what I can tell, it would be less than a hundred cores in all," Aurora said. "So they'd be divided across shareholders. Basically, the noble families would get a share each. With the number of noble families we have... it wouldn't be a number of cores to impress anyone on the wider stage."

"It might give Phobos a few more C-classers, or a larger number of D-classers. In either case, that would be somewhat impressive, especially to Mars who keeps a tight grip on any core that..." Ivil paused as she watched Aurora place the now-empty water bottle onto a table. She shifted her shoulders and removed her jacket, revealing a sweat-stained blouse beneath that clung to her, the sheer material hinting at a lot. Then Aurora removed her blouse.

Ivil wondered why Aurora wore lingerie today. Was it what she wore all the time? Twenty-Six was craning her neck so hard that there was a real risk that she'd hurt herself.

The door opened, and Pepper walked in before stopping in her tracks. She stared at Ivil and Twenty-Six, then over to Aurora who still had her back turned to the rest of them and who was casually riffling through her luggage. "Should... I return?" she asked.

"No, but you should close the door," Ivil replied. "Aurora was just filling us in on the results of the conference."

"I see," Pepper said. "Yes, I'm sure it was a very interesting meeting."

"Yes," Ivil agreed.

She was going to be remembering this too.

***