Much to Kasula’s dismay, Momo immediately forced her to use her family ties to their advantage. A quick flash of her passport, which included illuminating details such as her last name, her elvish political class, and a fold-out family tree that included Zephyra and six other siblings, moved them straight to the front of the line.
“This way, ladies,” a guard instructed, leading them sideways from the gate and into a separate underground pathway. As it turned out, the archways’ foundations were hollow; their interior contained an elaborate tunnel system which allowed the guardsmen to conveniently access different points in the winding city. Small torches ran across the sand-colored walls, brightening an otherwise pitch black underpass.
“Of all the places in Alois, she just had to choose this one, that absolute worm, that spindling spadra,” Kasula spat under her breath; she had been murmuring to herself for the last several minutes, cursing in a foreign tongue every one or two syllables. “If word gets back to mother…”
“I’m guessing that you and your mom aren’t on the best of terms?” Momo whispered, nudging politely into Kasula’s side. She wanted to subtly remind the elf that she was in fact talking, the aloud sort of talking, not merely disparaging her sister inside the safety of her own skull like most siblings did. Momo and company continuing to receive a personal escort through the city very much rested on the fact that Kasula was (allegedly) here to see her sister. Without that alibi, they were posed to be thrusted out onto the streets, or worse, to the back of the queue.
“My mother is a Beau Idéal,” Kasula said quietly, with an utterly poisonous tone. “If she knew I was alive, she’d have every able-bodied dope in the Elven Empire searching for me. Not to bring me home, of course, but to make sure I was deposited safely and politely in a body bag.”
Momo gaped. And she thought she had mommy issues.
“She thinks you’re dead?”
“Yes. And I try my hardest to keep it that way,” Kasula said. “If it wasn’t for the job Kami has me on here, I’d make a beeline for the ocean and paddle the waves like a goddamn sea turtle.”
Beside her, Nyk smirked. “You have a creative mouth,” the dokkaebi said. “It amuses me.”
Kasula did not seem amused. “I’m not joking in the least. If Kami gave me the signal right now, I’d happily swim back to Aloysius on nothing but a pool noodle. Anything to get away from that glorified dress up doll. But the merchandise we plan to acquire here,” she paused, pursing her lips. “It’s too valuable. I can’t let my tired familial angst stop me from getting the job done.”
Momo admired her conviction. She had personally let familial angst get in the way of most things in her life. In fact, despite being lightyears away from her mother, it was probably getting in the way of something even now.
“It won’t,” Momo assured her, knocking her on the hip. “You can just stay behind, play dead, whatever you need to do. I’ll handle the talking.”
—
Momo, of course, made that promise before seeing Zephyra Ren.
Thanks to several iterations of [Self Confidence], a giant boost in Charisma from her Expert power up, and the added public speaking practice that came with awkwardly ascending to queendom, Momo was finally less petrified by the idea of holding a conversation. But one remaining variable kept her from total, uninhibited extroversion; and that variable was beautiful women. Beautiful women that looked like they could skewer you with their shoe.
By all accounts, Momo knew it was a bit strange that she was still so deeply affected by any woman with a little bit of mascara and a dagger-like high heel. It wasn’t like she was a particularly superficial person. Hell, she couldn’t even be one if she tried; she was much too sensitive to be judgemental, and much too stupid about makeup to have an opinion about which chemical you should or shouldn’t lather on your face. It was more so Momo’s own lack of refinement that made the opposite seem so intensely alluring, her own complete inability to decipher between mascara and eyeshadow, or two handbags, or an evening gown and a dress you wore for pajamas. If she was ever invited to the Met Gala, there was a high likelihood she’d show up in overalls.
Beauty, charisma, wealth, stage presence—these intangible things had always seemed so elusive to Momo, who had never gone to prom, or saved up for a dress, or possessed more than twenty dollars at any given moment. It wasn’t that she never wanted those things, she was just never aware that those were things she could want. To be beautiful, striking, charismatic. Momo had spent her middle-school years wanting to paint herself the same color as the school lockers. To stand out, even remotely, seemed like an invitation for endless psychological torment.
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Yet seeing beauty personified to its logical extreme, elevated to such a ridiculous point that it seemed almost silly – it toppled Momo’s worldview entirely. She felt herself wanting, longing, like a fish that had, after many years of finding it a tad difficult to breathe, realized on a random Tuesday that it was flailing out of water. And Momo wasn’t even looking at the woman herself. She was only staring at a poster.
“Will you please stop ogling my sister?” Kasula groaned.
“I’m not – I’m not ogling,” Momo said. She really hadn’t been. She had merely been locked in a sense of respectful reverie, like one might have for a particularly fast dog at an obstacle course competition. “I’m just… how many high heels is she wearing? Like, six? All stacked on top of each other? That must give her killer leg cramps.”
Momo examined the poster again, and to her astonishment, it was seven shoes. Where each heel ended, another began. It wasn’t just the heels that came in excess, but the woman’s nails too, long like wolverine claws, each stacked on top of the last like a human centipede. Her dress was constructed of hundreds of pictures of herself, each framed in a certain way so that they perfectly fit her figure. It was all at once a performance and a parody, but done in a way that remained sophisticated. It bled Momo’s simple brain to bits.
“The poster is enchanted,” Kasula said, waving in front of Momo’s face until the girl finally (reluctantly) separated from the paper. “It’s designed to completely absorb you. Paralyze you. Works similarly to a toxin. Why else would all these sorry sacks be five hours late to dinner with their kids? They’ve probably been staring at the posters all day. It’s a powerful drug.”
Breaking from her reverie, Momo looked around her. The guard had dropped them off right outside the arena and gone for a quick smoke break. Zephyra was currently performing, and they weren’t allowed backstage – even with their family pass – until her act was over. And, just as Kasula let on, Momo wasn’t the only one who had been caught completely rethinking her life in front of one of those flimsy sheets of paper. Dozens of fans had their faces smushed to the parchment, others were praying to the poster as if it was a roadstop shrine.
“I don’t really get the appeal,” Nyk said, loudly chewing gum as she drew her finger over the picture. She pierced Zephyra’s face with one of her razor-tipped nails. “Oops.”
The parchment immediately healed the damage. The pictured Zephyra frowned at Nyk.
“Please don’t injure the merchandise,” poster-Zephyra said.
Nyk rolled her eyes.
“Merchandise? As if you charge people for these flimsy pieces of nothing,” she said, poking at it again. “I’d sooner streak my walls with horse shit than have your creepy face watching me every night.”
“Please don’t injure the merchandise,” the poster repeated as Nyk’s nail tore through it again. It repeated it ad nauseum, Nyk continually poking and prodding with increasing amusement.
“Alright, I’m out of here,” Kasula said with a sigh. “Telling by the tracklist, the final part of her show just started – and I am not staying long enough to hear her god-awful encore song.”
Momo bit her lip. Crap. “But how are we going to get backstage without you?”
“You’ll make do, I’m sure. Weren’t you the one who was going to do all the talking?”
“I never said that,” Momo squeaked.
Kasula stared at her with the dismayed, utterly drained expression of a kindergarten teacher.
“You said that literally no less than five minutes ago.”
“There’s no proof of that.”
Kasula groaned. The lights in the arena suddenly blinked, turning from plasma red to shining, blinding blue. The roar of the crowd reached a new pinnacle, and the DJ began building towards a crescendo on his already over-saturated playlist. From the look on Kasula’s face, Momo knew she’d rather lose her hearing than be present at the beat drop.
“Look. I know this puts you in an awkward position. I definitely wished on multiple occasions to never see my brother or, better yet, hear his bland, ear-bleeding, insanely obnoxious music ever again. And I actually got my wish. Permanently. And if I’m honest? It kind of sucks. Really sucks. It’s so terribly depressing that sometimes I wish I could just hear the end of his stupid Summer Hits playlist again, even though it’s always going to be Pitbull, and, worse even, it’s always going to be Fireball,” Momo said, equal parts emotional and exasperated. “But trust me. If the universe put you and your sister here, in this annoyingly hot city, at the exact same moment in time, maybe it’s a sign. Or maybe it’s not, but if you hate her so much – you might as well get the satisfaction of reminding her again.”
Kasula stilled. The bass built louder and louder, echoing around the arena. The soundwaves were so thick and heavy that everything had a faint ringing to it.
Nyk’s finger circled over the poster and dug into it again.
“—please don’t injure the merchandise—”
Nyk laughed. She dug three nails into it this time, ripping further.
“—PLEASE STOP injuring the merchandise—”
Nyk paused. “Huh,” she said, eyes widening. “I got a new voice line.”
At the same time, the beat dropped. The arena lit up like a strobe light.
“I’m not doing it,” Kasula said. It wasn’t angry, it was just tired. “Sorry, Momo.”
The elf stalked forward and pushed past Momo. Nyk pointed her nail at the poster again, but then she stopped, noticing something.
“Yo. Momo,” she said, cocking her head back. She pointed to Zephyra’s right hand. It was holding something sharp and gleaming. “Isn’t that the stupid dagger?”