Samira's gonna learn to be as sneaky here as she was out in the wilderness.

Always improving.

She'll be the best servant Micqui could ever have.

Samira already is the best servant in Creation. The best servant possible will be something beyond special. (Micqui is very confident Samira will achieve that.)

Definitely the best possible use for the gifts of Unconquered Sun.

Absolutely. Really, the Solars should serve Creation, so Samira's going to be the best Solar, too.

Happy shiver.

Kiss!!! (Samira's very pretty when she shivers like that.)

Micqui should endeavor to induce the feeling in her more often, then.

Oh, she plans to.

Good!

Giggle kiss!

Kiss.

And, other than some formal dinners with an old friend of Shochi's, an old teacher, the head of her branch - none of which will bear fruit soon, but Micqui keeps setting the stage, one piece at a time -

Other than that, all that's left is preparing for Micqui's first day of work. 

Slow steps indeed; no one even really acknowledges Layla unless she pushes - Micqui's old teacher is the only one to push back, challenging her - she changes his opinion a little when she does better at his rather aggressive pop quiz than the vast, vast majority of the students he's ever had (not that he says that out loud) -

But she's a free mortal in a world of the mighty, and quite possibly the only mortal here who's neither a slave nor servant nor Sidereal-in-training.

(And Night Solar Exaltations aren't very obvious; they get one person genuinely assuming the one in the collar is the mortal twin, and the one free is the Exalted twin, and one person claiming to assume it just to needle them.)

(It's going to be a long, long climb.)