Everything here was wrong to Zai Tianci.

From the moment he stepped off the gangway of that ocean liner and onto the docks of the great port of Saintess McCormick he could feel it.

With every breath the air felt like it was cutting into his lungs, how his skin curled at the chill that was brought with the seemingly constant sea breeze. How even the scent of the ocean seemed to be wrong, filled with the awful stench of burnt oil and sewage that made him almost puke.

And how everyone seemed to yell in those strange accents, families screaming over the constant movement of cargo workers and the oppressive roar of industrial engines.

Aboard the train to Capital he and his father sat in silence as they faced each other; the discomfort of the overt softness of those seats aboard the diplomatic cabin swallowing them like some monstrous beast of silk and cotton. He watched as his father reviewed the paperwork, plunging through lines and lines of typed out text with the expressionless face he always wore (Zai thought it had to be Imperial in nature, the Ensolian Belters were the only ones insane enough to use typewriters for official documentation), and wondered what sort of business could force what remained of the Tiancin High Court out of the safety of the Palatial Temple and into the borders of their northern neighbor.

Whatever it was, the entire diplomatic contingent aiding them was tight lipped to any sort of inquisition from their Prince. So instead of wasting whatever energy he had left in attempting to pry open one of his two assigned royal guards for this excursion, Zai kept his mouth shut and focused on tasting the food of the Imperium. From the simple chunks of salted potatoes to cream roasted pasta, he wondered if this blandness was just some fluke of eating “train food” versus an actual attempt at Imperial Cuisine. A doubt lifted further as when he tried the Imperium’s best excuse for coffee, he almost thought they were trying to poison him.

So when they pulled into Capital after almost an entire full day’s travel, Zai not only noticed the sheer scale of the city’s size, but also the incredible diversity of the Imperium’s adopted cuisine base. Soups from the Kylmän Valley were served next to the rolled corn pastes of the Reinmatvalan People; pop-up stalls of Reichland Fast Food right in front of up-scale Tiancin Restaurants. Spices and flavors taken from across their world assaulting him the moment he steps onto the platform.

Maybe the taste of their food is what made the Central Ensolians into such great conquerors…

And there were so many people too, the streets crowded to the brim with just citizens going about their day to day even this late into the night. How, without any fanfare, his entire contingent dissolved into the street traffic within the prepared motor carriage.

The Apparatus had prepared for maximum subtlety here, the Dominion’s invisible hand censoring almost all mentions of Tianci’s presence within the Imperium and at home. This play of diplomacy was known only to the highest echelons of military and governance, in theory, for both sides.

Something that could annihilate the political stability of the entire Stygian Region was happening, Zai assumed. Something that would involve not only the Lord of the Dominion but him as well.

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He didn’t think much when they were lodged in the Imperial Palace; according to the primer documents that were given to him by the Apparatus and Dominion Intelligence this was a common court courtesy for foreign royals here. And he didn’t think much of that invitation for some ‘coming of age ceremony’ as it was put for their Fourth Princess (the most dangerous one of all, ranked from the briefing on the Elise Family). His father had insisted on his attendance; firm words spoken through the corridor of one of his personal guards used as a simple courier.

It wasn’t his place to defy him anyways.

Zai Tianci didn’t belong here, in this palace where everything was wrong.

The walls were too precise, and their edges too sharp; the way the sun filtered in through slits of stained glass and through armored ports throughout the palace were too thin; how each electrical lamp upon the walls would hum like a boil of tiny insects — and how every footstep placed upon the marble tile floor echoed too far into the halls.

How, in the midst of the swirling paths of socialites and royalty of a hundred subservient kingdoms he was completely lost. Alone without any contingencies; naked beneath a vast diagram of their solar system and the eyes of unknowable gods.

Zai didn’t like crowds, well known by his reputation at home, but out here everything came in a varying torrent of unknown quantities. The dresses were too bright, the suits too smooth; even the way each individual walked and spoke were like assassins preparing poisoned knives.

And so he did what he does best, trained by his own assigned guardians in their absence to find the darkest corner of any given space and hide. And there, he met her.

Charming, disarming; how she left herself so defenceless with that incredible grace. Almost every single part of him was drawn towards it: from how she listened with such intention and spoke with subtlety; to that soft laughter and intensive smile… and how those pale blue eyes of hers stared into his. That beauty and grace, so damning that some lizard part of his brain still wanted more; that some savage instinctive part of him needed her.

Zai Tianci had hidden away that part of himself a very long time ago, deeper than even he himself expected. And like an animal carefully emerging from its burrow after a forest fire, the young prince felt its paws grasp upon him once more.

There was a reason why the Tianci High Court was all of two; how a once great house could be slowly stripped from dozens upon dozens of heirs down to just a father and son. Between those killed leading regiments against the Eastern Axial Powers in the Second and Third Stygian Wars, to those felled by quiet blades at home; Zai as crown prince was nothing more than a prisoner being taken to the block.

And foolishly he allowed that intrusive thought to enter his mind as he laughed at her joke:

A simple ensolian girl (maybe her, or another); a possible minor nobility of a neighboring Imperium or even just a simple peasant, could’ve been a way out for him.

If he played his tiles just right, he wouldn’t need to sit upon the seat of the Dominion, to never play the power politics and face an agonizing death by a slow acting poison. He could fade into the endless bodies of the imperium, never to be recognized again.

And only when the tiles fell he realized too late what had happened:

Princess Sophia Elise the Eighth had played him.