She ran her hand over her head, felt the scratchy texture of stubble under her palm, and wept without words at the dishonor. Around her lay the ruined remains of what had once been a glorious ink waterfall. If she wasn't already on her knees she would have fallen to them; instead she sobbed and reached to grip her hair in her shaking hands. Quick the razor flashed again, shearing more of her hair from the back of her head. Again and again the razor flashed until her head was a mess of tiny blood cuts and stubble.

“This is what disobedience gets you,” intoned the voice of the Overseer. They sounded almost bored behind the robotic ticks and whir of the voice masker, the usual fervor replaced by something akin to disappointment.

Each one of them had been brought to bring honor upon their families, to restore what little faith the Emperor had in their line. Each one of them was thus the last of their line, vying for a place in the court like sharpfishes circling in the waters. A small army of women, beautiful and ugly alike, stood in the courtyard in their neat assigned lines.

Only one place was empty, one very near the end of the forced formation. She had been made to make her way from the very back and prostrate herself before the helmeted face of the Overseer. Blessed with the Emperor’s divine mandate, the Overseer had made his judgement and she was cursed to live with the consequences.

From her place at the end of the formation, Fou-dete Gingham schooled her face blank as she watched the girl who had once been considered the Overseer’s favorite be punished. As much as she didn’t like the girl, pretentious and cruel as she was, Fou still couldn’t believe that the girl had disobeyed enough to deserve being Shorn.

But that was what refusing an Overseer’s advances could lead to. Everyone knew that the Overseers had second pick of women after the Emperor, and sometimes before if they were quick enough. The Emperor’s Chosen had to be chaste, artistic, deadly, and above all, flawless in all things. Overseers were responsible for their education and selection, and were famed across the galaxy for their pickiness.

“Fou-dete Gingham of House Coin! Come forward!” The voice startled her out of her forced impassivity, and she yelped.

“Y-Yes,” she stammered as she clutched at her chest in a vain attempt to keep her heart from thudding out in fear. Fou took a small step forward out of the formation as she had been ordered, just as the girl before her had. And just like the girl before her, Fou held her head high as she walked from one end of the courtyard to where the Overseer and the other girl waited.

Fou passed through the ranks of women, ranging from servants of all kinds to bored beauties who hadn’t lifted a cleaning rag in their lives. The closer to the front of them all she went, the more beautiful the women became. It was clear what it took to gain the attention of the Overseers, and Fou did not pity the women in the slightest.

Hundreds of women comprised the ranks of the Emperor’s Chosen, each one hailing from across the galaxy. Humans, Avexians with their horns, Dillorions with their scales and feathers, Xhverge and their mysteries, dozens of species and houses had sent representatives to the Emperor’s court.

For she was one of them now, and she would be just as desperate for the single glance of approval from an Overseer as they, her everything dependent on the whims and machinations of nameless and faceless men who each wore the lion-dog’s cowl of the Overseer.

Fou bowed as she reached the Overseer, tried her best not to make eye contact with the pitiful shorn girl who wept at his feet. She bit her lip as she bent at the waist in an attempt to keep herself from making a sound like the girl in front of her did.

Up close, the girl was a young Xhverge in the prime of her life, her people’s ritual mane shorn crudely from atop her head. Her yellow eyes were rimmed red from weeping, and what should have been skin the color of freshly tilled soil had gone ashen in her grief. But she was still beautiful, her claws flexing frantically against the ground even as her tail lashed about in a frenzy.

The Overseer dropped the razor to the ground in disgust. “This thing is now your problem. Get it out of my sight.” He turned on his heel to stride away from the assembled females, not even bothering to turn off the broadcast relay first. A few of the more graceless let out an audible breath, at least before the Lesser Overseers in charge of the day to day routines took over the assembly.

Fou stayed in one spot, numb to the implications of the Overseer’s words. She had been the absolute last of the Chosen’s ranking system, but now she had swiftly become the second-to-last. And oh what a responsibility she had been given in the form of a fairly pretty Xhverge girl.

She reached down, finally snapped out of her own stupor by the girl’s audible sobs. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up before someone sees you.” Fou reached down, mindful of the Xhverge's claws as she helped the other girl to her feet with as much of a friendly smile as she could manage. Her smile looked like a painful baring of teeth in a flash of painted lips and perfumed skin.

The Xhverge gripped Fou's hand as if it was the last vestige of kindness left in the galaxy. Shamed as she was before the entirety of the Emperor's Chosen and court ladies, Overseers and all, the girl clearly wanted nothing more than to be out of the public view. Fou had no issues with giving her that privacy, pulling off the outermost layer of her many dresses to cover the girl's shame from the public eye.

Dresses in the Court had too many layers in Fou's opinion, each one carefully chosen like a uniform. One layer for each title, and Fou only had the two. Fou-dete Gingham of House Coin, Lady of the Court. So she wore her dress of blue with silver coins beneath her green court lady's dress and thought that was plenty.

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The Xhverge girl wore twelve layers, each one more complex and colorful than the last. She had been someone important, but now she would only wear the same two layers that Fou wore. At least no one would come to collect the many dresses the girl wore. Instead the girl would be allowed to box them away until such a time as she had earned them back. In the meantime, she would answer to Fou and every one of Fou's whims.

The two girls hurried their way from the courtyard with a series of hurried bows and muttered praises that Fou would be hard pressed to remember. She simply said what the girl said, deferring to her clear expertise and hoping that the court lingo would make sense at some point.

Whatever passed for an introduction into the court manners, whether that be a course or an assigned mentor, hadn’t been prepared for Fou. After all, there was already a representative of House Coin present. No, Fou had been sent as a representative of the House Coin as a spare, a show of wealth that they could afford to have a Chosen and a court lady representing them. It was a common trick done by the larger houses and organizations as a way to flaunt their power before the rest.

It tended to work, especially when the first Chosen was a beauty beyond compare with a veritable small army of maids and guards of her own. Lan-oh was even known for her grace and compassion with all those who called upon her to the point that she had earned the Emperor’s favor as the Consort of Purity.

Fou led the other girl to what passed as a room that had been assigned to her with a flippant wave of the hand by an Overseer before she was ordered to report to the courtyard for a demonstration of the way of the court. She hadn’t even seen her room, simply yanked open the door and placed her belongings down in a rush before throwing on her new outermost dress and practically running to catch up with girls dressed in the bottled ink red of the lowermost court ladies.

There wasn’t much in the room to be proud of, probably because Fou had yet to curry favor with any of the Overseers or other members of the court. Her meager pack of possessions was joined by a second set of dresses, issued by the House of Coins in celebration of her joining the court, and would fit quite snugly in the little chest of drawers against the wall. The other girl would be issued a second mat to join the first, as neither of them now had earned a proper bed. Unless the Xhverge girl managed to keep enough of her favor to have some creature comforts along with her twelve dresses.

THe Xhverge girl had stopped sobbing, instead staring in horror as she looked at the small room the two of them would be sharing until and if Fou managed to begin currying favor for a higher place among the ranks. “You have to be kidding me.” Even the girl’s voice sounded like a melody, a cheerful tinkle of water against river rocks. But then again, the Xhverge were known for their beautiful voices, and the girl had been a Chosen before the day’s activities had begun. It made sense for even her cries of distress to have a melodic feel. She clutched her impromptu shawl around herself in incredulous awe. “You’re from the House of Coin and you couldn’t even be given bigger than a maid’s room? Someone doesn’t like you.”

Fou gaped like a fish. “I just got here, how could someone already not like me,” she yelped incredulously.

The girl gave her a long stare. “In the Emperor's court, there is always someone who doesn't like you.” She had a point, standing in the entryway of their now shared tiny room. The other girl looked majestic, all twelve layers of her dresses crisp and near despite the random hairs that covered where her knees were.

“That seems a little excessive. I've done nothing to anyone. It's not like I want to be here.” Fou scowled as she began unpacking her belongings to make room for whatever the other girl would be taking with her from her formal quarters.

The other girl threw her head back and laughed, hiccuping around each guffaw. “Oh. Oh you really believe that. You are a delight.”

Fou rolled her eyes. “No, I'm Fou. Fou-dete Gingham of the House of Coins, Lady of his Imperial Highness.”

The other girl smiled, letting her guffaw trickle down to giggles. “Zazhatta Kul Sanct of the Sanct Federation of Privateers. I suppose you can call me Zaza for now.” Zaza bustled forward to take the brush out of Fou's toiletries. There was more to her name, but Zaza seemed content to hold her secrets close to her chest and let Fou figure the rest of her twelve-layer worthy name out for herself.

Zaza pursed her rouge painted lips at Fou and motioned for her to take a seat on the one bed mat that the room had come with. “You look like a disaster. Come here.” She brooked no nonsense as she pulled off Fou’s court lady dress and tossed it to the side. “First we fix your hair, then we dress you properly and not like a backwater bumpkin.”

It wasn’t Fou’s fault she was a backwater bumpkin, unused to the fancy finery of the court. She hadn’t even wanted to leave her own family behind. But still she sighed. “Not my fault no one told me how to tie the stupid thing.”

Zaza’s sclera-less eyes tightened into a thin black line. “That’s no excuse. Putting two dresses on is the easy part.” She wasn’t wrong, not really. Saying goodbye had been the hardest part.

It wasn’t as if Fou had any choice in the matter, not when the branch head himself had taken the time to detour to their tiny little backwater planet with its meager rustbucket of a spaceport. They hadn’t been remotely prepared for a meeting with such eminence, least of all unannounced. Fou hadn’t been any different than any of the other girls and women who comprised the Emperor’s Court. Each of them had been sent (for a fee, for convenience's sake) to do their Houses, families, trade groups, and various organizations proud. Some of them had even managed to do their own proud right into the Emperor’s divine favor.

He would give them the stars if they asked, and some of the former Emperor’s Chosen had even been gifted with moons and resort planets all of their own. Silks and gems meant little when compared to such celestial prizes. But Fou still wanted gems of her own from his imperial hand.

“Do you think the Overseers will let you back into His graces?” Fou felt Zaza stop brushing her hair long enough to grab a ribbon for Fou’s hair. “I mean, surely he doesn’t care that the Overseers don’t support you anymore.”

The other girl sighed, flicking the back of Fou’s head gently. “Hold still Gingham. Your hair won’t braid itself.” She braided while she thought about what Fou had asked, the silence heavy and profound. “What the Emperor chooses is something we cannot fathom. His imperial wisdom is mighty and vast,” she finally intoned. “And in this his wisdom is absolute. No Overseer report, no Choosing. Simple as that.” Zaza tapped her fingers to tilt Fou’s head, and she continued to brush and braid. “I made my peace with it. So should you.”

A court lady without Overseer approval might as well have signed her own permanent station change. Fou knew that as well as Zaza did, and there would only be one fate for poor Zaza. It would be a shame, but she would be forced to fade into obscurity as just another background court lady, no matter how beautiful and winsome she was.