Mynah

Mynah sits in a narrow armchair at one end of the suite's coffee table. The black pleather seat cover sticks to her thighs below the hem of her shorts, itchy, but she doesn't fidget. It's hot despite the smooth hum of high-quality air conditioning. On the glass table-top, between water bottles and the managers' half-eaten snacks, are design sketches for stage outfits.

The designer sits to Mynah's left, a dark-skinned woman with round cheeks and tight braids. She reassures Mynah's stage manager, sat beside her on the couch, that the dense frills of one outfit will not restrict airflow once Mynah is moving around in them. Mynah leans forward and asks if there will be implications for choreography. There's a discussion of which songs might be in and out of that section of the set.

'Dragon's Feather' would be out, a little too slow-paced. Mynah's public image manager, kneeling on the rug opposite the designer, doesn't like that; it's her newest song, it needs stage time, it still hasn't overtaken 'Perfect Storm' in the charts. He doesn't add that they're trying to play up the idea that Mynah and Phoebe are a couple. The designer points out that the colours of this outfit wouldn't match that song anyway.

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Mynah points out that she can do 'Dragon's Feather' before the costume change in the middle of the set. The image manager's face wrinkles up. His face is almost square, and the effect of his expression is a bit like his nose is getting sucked back into his skull. He wants 'Dragon's Feather' in the back half of the show. The new outfit has to be in the second half too.

Mynah surprises herself by saying that she likes this outfit. She's not sure that she does, the frills look heavy. But the manager has irked her, and he senses that and backs off. Mynah has never developed any kind of reputation for being difficult to manage, but she's a big enough success now that her team generally try to keep her happy.

The outfit is approved. The stage manager and designer stand up and leave the conversation. The next topic is a new advertising campaign for a brand that Mynah ambassadors for. Phoebe will be filming on the same day. Mynah asks whether they'll be filming together. The manager stands and walks around the coffee table to sit on the couch. He doesn't know what the director has in mind, only that Phoebe will also be there.

What will Phoebe be like on a film set? Even just for a commercial, that can be a busy and confusing environment. Mynah imagines giving the dragon rider advice about how to handle it, the little things that the production assistants don't think to tell you because they take a certain basic level of familiarity for granted.

She realises she can't remember her first time in a studio.