DGO: Clipped Wings Chapter 3

We learn some about Alvenica's past.
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"I go where the Empire wills. No more, no less."

These words stewed in Alvenica's mind, eclipsing anything else uttered at that tragedy of a Convention. Official discussion had collapsed as soon as the Imperial officer was let out of the longhouse, each Mandate choosing to instead revel in the food and drink. Her duties as host were to keep the peace, and she perhaps only nominally succeeded. Few deals had been hammered out, most of them at crafty Tachyon’s hand.

It was a relief to find herself secluded in her private car, some hours hence, as the tilt of the Ring brought a kind of night. Enough to make clearer the ponderous bulk of the host planet Midgard more visible over the atmospheric retention walls in the great distance. True night was an impossibility here, but the people of the Ring learned to sleep with ease under the light of their patron.

"That went better than expected," Gawain said. She sat opposite Alvenica, back against the dividing wall that delineated 'passenger' from 'chauffeur'.

"How so?" She was distracted, she knew she was. Jupiter had willed one of its agents- and she had no doubt Valiant was an agent despite his insistence he was an officer of the Spacy - to her home. Such was the doubt that fact spun into her that the image of Midgard was replaced in her mind with a great whorl of red hung in an opulently large window, and of the leering boy that sat before it.

"No duels were fought, and the factions kept to themselves." Gawain, ever present Gawain, stared through her. It was a dagger pressed firmly against Alvenica's cheek, even as she resolutely stared out the window. A few cars passed them by on their spinward journey, but they were a rare sight.

"The Squabblers and the Reticents?" Alvenica was at least grateful for the attempt at a distraction.

"So that's what you've been calling them?"

"Black, Moreau, Arms-Wide, and Reach prefer to keep to themselves. What else should I call them?"

"The Quiet, perhaps?"

"Arms-Wide downed two bottles of champagne by himself. Do you think that quiet of him?" Alvenica couldn't help but chuckle at the memory; by the end of the dinner, he was red cheeked and leaning on his attendant to help him eat more than his helping of croquembouche.

"Perhaps not. I like the first name, though. The Squabblers. Very direct."

"Sometimes I think Zhou ‘encourages’ them on purpose."

"She's hoping Medici and Herschel will fuck."

There was a dark thought festering at the back of her mind, a Jovian memory threatening to intrude, banished by sudden choked laughter that hurt her throat and put tears in the corner of her eyes. "Surely not!"

"Gossip moves faster than any ansible, Your Highness. Servants have a way of seeing things they shouldn't."

They settled into a comfortable kind of silence, broken only by quiet directions from Gawain to the driver. The mirth was only a short reprieve, and soon enough her mind returned to familiar dark corridors. Gossip, they echoed. Gawain was her knight, her most trusted soldier, trusted agent. If anyone had heard something...

A finger twitched on an imaginary control. "What do you know of Norward Valiant?"

Gawain hummed, as she often did in thought, and turned to regard the scenery herself. "Only by reputation. I've never been in the same room as him before."

Then she was right, and the Spacy operated as much on gossip as any noble house. "And what reputation would that be?"

"Nothing pretty I fear. Men like that don't do pretty work," Gawain was eyeing her carefully. Like she was a porcelain doll, threatening to crack from wear. If anyone knew precisely what the Princess was worried about, it was her. "He's a fixer, so to speak. Jupiter identifies a problem, and he goes out to solve it."

"Problems?" She watched the dim outline of a ship lazily drift across the shape of Midgard, in a holding orbit designed to spend as much time as possible in the vicinity of Midgard the Ring. Before she loved Dragoon Gears, she had loved ships. Much of her childhood had been spent learning to recognize the silhouettes when she would go planet-watching with her attendants. It was a destroyer, identified by the protruding laser arrays and missile racks. For a moment she superimposed Valiant atop the concept, and gave him a mirrored laser emitter for a face and missile racks for words.

And they were aimed at her. He was a weapon, pointed inside Jovian borders.

Gawain's silence confirmed it for her. The rest of the ride passed in such thick tension she thought she might choke and die.

Instead she just rolled down her window. She thought the fresh air might do her some good.

*

Evening had come and passed by the time her car pulled into the long driveway of her estate. Blue planet-light cast the entire property into actinic shadows, save the warm lights set about the front fountain and leading up to the entrance. Gawain exited first, and Alvenica followed only once her knight had rounded the car and opened the door for her.

It was a mimed kind of gallantry, but the dance was second nature by now.

"Thank you," she said softly, taking an offered hand and using it as leverage to stand. Unnecessary, but expected.

"Of course."

The driver pulled away as soon as the door closed, electric motors silently delivering it to a garage hidden in another part of the property. Princess and knight walked the short path up towards the palatial estate, passing under arches and around elegantly sculpted hedges that seemed to hold strange depths in the blue-tinged dark.

In her youth the size of the place had terrified Alvenica, the many corners and secret places holding a yawning kind of potentiality that she had always failed to explain to her mother. Even now, as its so-called master, the feeling had not faded. The estate had a very real weight to her, one she could feel pressing down when her mind was not otherwise occupied.

Ash doors, stained red and carved with the ringed planet emblem of Midgard, swung open at their approach. A man, hair gone grey enough to match the tie tucked into his pressed red suit, answered. He was as elegant as the house he managed, as if he'd been brought to life by delicate brush stroke rather than something so brutal as organic life.

"Your Majesty, welcome home," he spoke with a bow, his voice a gentle purr.

"Mr. Scyple, it's lovely to see you as always." He had offered his hand, and she took it gently in her fingers for a moment, as was custom. His gloves were finely made, the white silk as clean as ever. "Thank you for the continued care of my house."

"Of course." He rose to shut the door behind them, and Alvenica had time to observe the foyer.

It was a delicate thing, made of material drawn from across Midgard space, and beyond in many cases. The marble pillars lining the space had been mined from a world a scant star away, the wood railing for the twin curving staircases from the forests typical of the opposite end of the ring, and the delicate chandelier - a clockwork orrery of the Midgard system, of delicately strung brass, silver, and gold - was a gift from the Medici estate. Even the relic suit of armor stood between the two staircases, that a knight from humanities ancient past might wear, was a gift from Jovian scholars, and had been in the family for generations.

It all made her feel very small indeed. As always, she was careful to not look up lest the high ceiling put a nausea in her gut. "Have I missed anything in my absence?"

"Your seneschal has been eagerly awaiting your return. I have him in the sitting room."

"Of course he has," she sighed and steeled herself. "Anything else?"

"Merely that your lady-in-waiting is upstairs and ready for you, your Majesty."

She clicked her tongue thoughtfully. She had no desire to speak with the man who was her seneschal; navigating such a conversation was an expenditure of energy that she wasn't possessed of at this moment. But she could not dismiss him out of hand, not such a noble and long time servant of the Mandate...

"Gawain," she spoke after a few silent moments. "I understand you have other duties to attend to tonight?"

"The Knight never sleeps," she said, and Alvenica half-believed the tired stock phrase. "Do you have further need of me?"

"Attend to my dear seneschal, and deliver my most sincere apologies to him? I find that I am too exhausted to take counsel so late at night."

"Of course," Gawain assented, voice cool and free of judgement. "Should I see him off the property as well?"

"You two will be heading in the same direction, so, of course. Please ensure his safety."

"Your Majesty," was all that was said, and Gawain was off, disappearing into the depths of the estate, an unerring missile aimed at the princess' problems.

Alvenica herself took to the stairs, and turned momentarily. "Good night Scyple. Please don't stay up too terribly long."

"Of course, your Majesty."

Silence was her companion once again; the estate was a maze unto itself, festooned with empty guest rooms, overnight rooms for the staff, and almost endless hallways. She navigated all of them with ease, moving at a sedate pace that belied the internal turmoil in her gut. Some tiny little part of her screamed at her to run, to flee the memories that coiled in these corridors. Instead, she focused on the present.

A visit from Jupiter, and a visit from the man who had sent her there. So others had not given up on using her as a game piece, had they? She could flee these problems, she had laid the plan many nights ago. It would require a ladder of theft: ID codes, Dragoon Gear, and then a cutter large enough to mount an interstellar engine. In this way she would flee to the nearest star-line and cut free the tangled red thread that was her destiny.

And yet still she strode down a final hallway, this one lined with paintings depicting the women who had come before her on one side, and their Prince-Consorts along the other. Someday her picture would grace this hall. It was a cosmic certainty, that thread. Cause-and-effect.

She settled a hand on a silver doorknob and let herself into her own room. It washumble despite its size; she had little need for more than a bed, a desk, and a single chair on the balcony directly across from her. The long glass doors that led to said balcony were thrown wide to let in a gentle breeze, and a woman went about diligently ensuring the space was dust-free and spotless.

"Maryam," Alvenica spoke. "It's good to see you."

"My girls did adequate work on you." Maryam Cline, lady-in-waiting and head of household for the Mandate Midgard, spoke frankly, her back turned to her liege lady. She did not need to see the Princess to know her girls had performed their duty; Maryam was an exacting task master. "Pity about the hair."

"Helmet hair is notoriously difficult to tame," Alvenica allowed, finger tugging awkwardly at the epaulet pinning her mantle to her shoulder.

"Well then," Maryam said, setting down her duster and turning to face her princess finally. "Little we can do about that now. Come, let us get you ready for the night."

Maryam was a severe woman, all hard lines hidden beneath the modest cut of her black and white servants dress. Her long brown hair was caught up in a high bun, tight enough against her scalp that Alvenica often wondered how the woman hadn't yet begun balding from pure traction alone.

She raised her arms and allowed the work of undressing to commence. Maryam's hands were gentle and soft, contra her appearance, and Alvenica paid their deft touch little mind. The woman had known her since she was a girl, after all. Had known her mother. "I hadn't intended to cut it so close."

"Of course you didn't." Maryam gently folded the mantle first and set it aside atop Alvenica's dresser. "You never intend these things. They just happen."

She took the scolding gamely, certain that she was deserving of it. Just as the people of Midgard deserved a better Princess, but had to suffer with her at their helm. That she could not live up to these expectations was a failing she expected to be scolded for, and yet only Maryam offered this. Even Gawain's admonishments fell short, criticisms of her skill behind the control stick, not her choice to be there in the first place.

She stepped out of her boots at a gesture, and soon her pants and tunic followed. "Again. My apologies; I never want to disappoint you."

"It would be untoward of me to call you a disappointment, your Majesty," Maryam spoke drily here, tactically. "And no one could begrudge you a bit of stress relief. The Mandate is a heavy burden to bear, after all."

She shivered, at the chill against her bare flesh, and at the sudden imagined thing about her shoulders. It brought out a touch of the petulant child in her, a protest she knew would fail. "My mother flew deegees."

"You are not your mother. She was not called to take up the Mandate until halfway through her Naval career." Gently, her bra was unclasped and she shivered again. The breeze was good for the room, but poor for her. Perhaps that had been Maryam's idea of punishment.

'It's not fair,' she wanted to say. 'No woman in my family was asked to do this so young,' She might protest. 'My grandmother got to be a scholar, my mother an officer,' also leapt to her tongue.

Instead her throat clenched at the memory of her mother, and she turned her face against it. Maryam rose from stripping her of her underthings, and turned to place them atop the dresser for later cleaning. And, perhaps, to give Alvenica the privacy to shed a few tears.

"...the grief period is almost up." Maryam stated softly.

"Next week."

There was a rustling, the head of house going in search of an appropriate nightgown for the weather. "She was a great woman, Alvenica. She would be proud of you, I think, doing something so difficult for your people."

"It's a great duty to fulfill."

"One you will attend gamely, I think. You simply have to outgrow this girlish phase of yours." A tap at her shoulders and arms. "Raise your hands please."

She did so, allowing the delicate wool nightgown to fall about her body. "Girlish phase. Of course."

If it was all a phase, then she knew that the failing was all hers. A girl was allowed her flights of fancy, her vagaries and her emotions; it was a woman’s job to collect the experience of such into a worldly, tempered knowledge. She was a woman; it was time.

Maryam turned her to face her. "Alvenica. I have known you your whole life; this is not something you will fail."

"Of course. Thank you, Maryam, for everything."

The older woman hugged her then, a tight thing that Alvenica did not get a chance to return. "Sleep well, my dear. I have more to attend to before I may rest for the night."

And then she was gone, out the door like a rocket on a mission. Perhaps there was a servant girl somewhere misbehaving and she could smell it in the air. Whatever it was, Alvenica would find out when she did; rather than worry, she went to the windows and closed them against the breeze, then to her bed where she could finally, finally collapse into a fitful sleep.

She regarded her bedside table, for just a moment, as the paralysis of sleep slowly took her. It bore two things; one photograph turned face down, and another depicting a smiling blonde child beside a severe Gawain; she remembered that day well. It was sunny, and she was happy.

She fell asleep anything but.

*

You are Gawain. Dame Gawain, the Knight of Midgard. You promised your charge that you would sleep, but you will not. You have not slept a night in quite some time, after all. As soon as your orders - the escorting of an unwanted seneschal off the premises, despite his protesting and despite how your charge had worded it - are complete, you call a car. It is delivered swiftly as you wait at a darkened corner, and the driver salutes as he exits.

You take the controls, and he strides off into the dark. Dramatic, as men are wont to be.

"Captain," you say to the man in the passenger seat.

"Dame," Captain Drey responds. "How is the Princess?"

"Exhausted, I think. A Convention this close to the anniversary of her mother's death was too much for her."

"A pity," Drey shakes his head. You catalogue his features on instinct: sharp jaw shaded unshorn, flinty eyes pinned dead ahead, and square set shoulders that spoke of years of proud service. The kind of man that Midgard popular culture was ever so preoccupied with; beautiful and disciplined. "Her seneschal should have had the good sense to appoint an Advisor-Regent. She needs life experience."

"Would you trust that man to do such a thing?" You ask. You take a turn, at random of course. It doesn't matter where you go, just that you go. “We’re lucky he didn’t install himself outright.”

"I don't trust that man farther than I can throw him, and my arm isn't what it once was." Drey smiles. "Imagine my relief when you were the official 'assigned' to her. A princess needs her knight."

You drive another few blocks, winding on and off the speedway. You keep an eye on the mirrors, and the camera feeds set into the dash. Only a few cars on the road, each broadcasting ident for a known Midgard official.

"We aren't being followed." You state.

"My boys made sure the car was clear of bugs," Drey sighs and his smile falls off his face. "I have bad news."

"Of course."

The captain hands a thin datachip over to you, and you take it to slip it into your breast pocket. "A summary. Valiant arrived on the HMT Lily of the Valley, which is registered to a Midgardian corporation."

"Odd. What company?"

"Carpagian Interstellar. It's not uncommon; Imperial officials have the same claimant right that Midgardian Royalty maintains."

Another random turn, now passing from painstakingly maintained countryside into the outskirts of a township — Fort Lockland, if you remember properly. "What do we know about Carpagian?"

"They manufacture and sell star-sails; my understanding is that their clients are largely Midgardian and Medici shipyards, though Jupiter herself has done some minor business with them."

You hum and tap the steering wheel. Star-sails, the poetically named and regarded engines that let one twist the space between stars just so, and leap great distances in a way defiant to the tyrant cause-and-effect. "The simplest explanation is that it happened to be headed this way already."

"We pinged flight control to try and confirm; nothing. The Lily has a completely classified flight log."

"Which means you don't have it yet."

Drey smiles wide, and it fails to reach his eyes. "What I do have is on that chip: crew count, inventory logs, and the last confirmed port the Lily put in at."

"And it's blueprints?"

"Of course, old friend. A little faith."

At the city center, Drey steps out of the car, and bids Gawain a cheerful goodnight. Another unmarked vehicle waits to accept him, and when it does it disappears silently into the city. You wait one beat, then two, then abandon your own car. A sailor from the Machine will come for it soon.

It is late, and you were ordered to sleep. But the Knight has never slept, so you find a bar operated by a salt-and-pepper woman with a crooked smile, and order a shot; Sandalay Spirit, sweet and tart and locally distilled. It is free for you, so noble a servant of holy Midgard of course.

You cannot sleep, but this is close enough.