Interlude Eight - The Silly Noble Girl

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

Aurora Sterlingworth was a ball of conflicting emotions at the moment, and seeing as how she was all alone for a moment, she didn't feel that same straining need to keep it all contained.

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 in her too deep for that to ever be possible.

Instead, she politely stomped back and 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 knew that it would end in some amount of disappointment. 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 semblance of a fight!

Now she was tangled up.

Not just in the entire ordeal around Jupiter, a dozen factions with their own interests, fledgling alliances, and plenty of backstabbing. It was what she expected. It was what she'd been bred for and yet 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? Someone to 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 convoluted multidimensional love shape of some sort and she wasn't sure which way was up anymore. Missy was out of the running, somehow, and yet Pixie was in by dint of being competent, obviously desperate for affection, and by being cute. Twenty-Six was somehow the front-runner in the whole thing and...

Okay, Aurora could understand that one. Twenty-Six reminded her of the golden retriever one of her uncles had imported from Earth at enormous expense. It was impossible not to like her. And Twenty-Six's stuttering compliments and subtle affections made Aurora's heart flutter.

One of Aurora's necklaces had broken a few days prior, and Twenty-Six nicked it, repaired it, and left it by her door in a little box with a note saying she'd fixed it.

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

Honestly though, a relationship would never form between them. She found Twenty-Six cute, but the young woman was... Aurora groaned and rubbed at her face. She found Twenty-Six beneath her, didn't she? She was entirely aware of how stupid that was, and yet 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 wasn't either.

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

As the ancient 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 to regret never taking any action for the rest of her life. The usual.

The issue was Evelyn.

If that even was her name.

No, she knew it 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 exponentially, so much so that the result of her simple addition was practically nonsensical.

She wanted to ask. To pin Evelyn to a bulkhead and demand to know if her suspicions 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 honest about her intentions. She was, in her own way, kind and attentive and so stupidly powerful.

If anyone was going to be pinned to 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 any resistance, and... and...

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"You, uh, good there?"

Aurora screamed.

She found herself clinging 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 and gently set down the tool.

"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 expecting 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 leaned to the side. "So... what's got you all hot and bothered?"

"Nothing," Aurora lied.

"Uh-huh. So, did you sleep with nothing yet? 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 nose. "That'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, you're going 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 definitely that, but it's also more? Wow." Missy whistled. "The little tug boat thing is real, huh? So, you and Evelyn and Twenty-Six? Colour me 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 confidence. "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 relationships didn't hinge on it. Never the 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 accomplish 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 can. 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 pace in, and she wasn't about to waste those by standing here and not stressing about it. She wasn't just some silly noble girl.

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