"Good morning, Princess!" comes the familiar cheerful voice; but, of course, the instant Nairia sets eyes on her mistress she stops cold, her sunny expression darkening into a frown of concern. She's known Sesnai since the princess was a newborn; it was never going to be possible to conceal from her that something very upsetting just happened.

"What's wrong?"

The tone she intends as calm, soothing, and reasonable but it comes across as very annoyed. 

"I just had a prophecy of horrible fate and I'm going to end up enslaved!"'

(Damn it, In Character! Let me grow up faster!)

...she blinks, taking a moment to process this.

"Well, fuck that," is her immediate conclusion. "Who do I have to murder? —probably assassination shouldn't be our first response here, probably there are less drastic things we can try."

"FIRST I need to find out who we should murder, and THEN I need to hire assassins who aren't you, we can't have you getting caught, Nairia, that happened too many times already!"

"Right. Full summary." She pauses. "Some other woman, a human, ends up seducing Tefano - you know, that war hero guy I've got my first engagement to - and I'm thinking that's the start of it, in the vision? There's a war, or there's just been a war I'm not sure, and they're both in the fleet, and I'm there and I'm really really mad at her and she's - I don't know if she's casting it, I don't think so, I can read her and she's not strong enough, but someone is doing it for her, to bind me to her? And Tefano isn't doing anything about it! And you aren't anywhere!"

"...I see," she says. "Well, we can't have that. ...what happens if you break off the engagement now, do you think, is that enough to avert the whole thing? The war hero's a pretty good catch but, you know, there's plenty of fish in the sea and if some girl is going to enslave you over him it may be time to throw this one back."

"I'm not going to be bullied by her! If she thinks she can get me to give up just with threats of permanent enslavement, she's got another thing coming!"

... Sesnai pauses.

"Also I don't think that's enough to avert it. I'm not sure but I don't think it would actually work."

She considers the situation.

"...assassinate Tefano before he can catch her eye? No, the PR would be awful if it got out and these things are never as discreet as you expect them to be... all right, we've got to do something about her. Hmm, if she wasn't casting, is it possible she's not on board with the enslavement aspect of this situation? Should I be trying to convince her to go seduce some other boy in case that works?" Half-jokingly, "Should I seduce her myself?"

"If we can convince her to seduce some other boy - or girl! - that would be wonderful! Not you, though, I need you." Nairia is her ARM and she is not giving up her ARM to THAT WOMAN.

...  In Character, you are not No Compromise! (Sesnai is now considering that she possibly should have picked up No Compromise since she was going to do it anyway. Why didn't she think of that when she was Sandor Balog.)

"I don't think we want Tefano dead, though that's not a possibility I'd thought of... I think directing her somewhere else is good, and trying to have her killed is good, and - I don't know, framing her for treason?"

She considers again. "And there's also not that many people who can do that working! I'm not going to do it to MYSELF, my parents and Gyan aren't going to do it to me, and who does that leave?" The royal family isn't that large, and nobody else really compares!

"That is a good question... well. If you can get me a clear description of the girl, I can go see about redirecting her. And we can plan the framing for if that fails, and the assassination for if that fails."

Thinking, thinking...

"Do we want to warn Tefano that someone might try to seduce him? I have never personally caught him expressing a genuine feeling where I could see it, but maybe you have a better sense of the guy. It's possible we could get him on side here if we catch him early."

Sesnai can describe what she will look like in the original future which technically never occurred very accurately!

... "Why do we start with the framing instead of with the assassination? Piava can make sure nobody knows I was responsible." Framing people for treason is much harder; you usually need an accusation from a respectable source, whereas assassins you can just hire for money.

"... I have also never caught him expressing feelings. He's very hard to read. I can't tell if he's sensible enough that if I tell him 'there's a horrible prophecy of the future and one early stage in it is you getting seduced by another woman', he'll go 'well, I guess I shouldn't let myself be seduced' or 'I should investigate this woman I'm supposed to be seduced by' or 'tell me all about this prophecy of doom, hmm, is it doomful for anyone except you?'"

"I can try to sound him out about it," she offers. "And, hmm, I was thinking we assassinate her if we can't find anything to frame her for, which we very well might not, setting someone up to commit apparent treason sounds like a tough job. But you're right that having the world's most advanced AI in our back pocket is handy for hiring untraceable hitmen, I'm just pessimistic about how untraceable those hitmen will actually turn out to be in practice. Assassinating someone raises the question in people's minds of who wanted her dead and why; framing her for treason, done correctly, raises no questions it doesn't answer. So framing's cleaner if we get away with it." Thoughtful pause. "I guess when I put it like that there's the possibility that I could frame somebody for murdering her, or maybe subtly arrange for someone to want to murder her without you seeming to be involved...?"

"If you can arrange her murder, or her framing, without either of us seeming to be involved, that would be great! I'm just worried that if we do things ourselves instead of through Piava we might end up causing the prophecy ourselves."

She considers. "And it doesn't have to be treason? If we assigned her to some tiny backwater planet we could get rid of her without causing her any harm at all, I just don't expect it to be that easy." 

"Right. So—I should be looking into discreet ways to get rid of her, not doing anything irrevocable about it yet, and investigating whether we can get Tefano on side with the right pitch. And—my lady, all due respect to Piava, but I have seen so very many repetitions of a certain pattern where someone thinks that they definitely have the perfect solution to untraceably doing this-or-that via the computer networks, and then it turns out that there was a flaw in their tools that they were overlooking or their enemy had capabilities they hadn't anticipated or there were unanticipated advancements in network tracing or or or or. Despite the fact that you do, actually, have the best possible tools for the job, I still don't think it's wise to put much weight on the assumption that hiring untraceable assassins with them will actually work. I'd much rather find someone to subtly manipulate into wanting her dead. And try manipulating her into giving up, first, just in case it's that easy."

It's very useful she has Nairia's advice, but also Nairia isn't telling her what she wants to hear - 

The Titanium Tyrant crushes that line of thought ruthlessly. This actually matters.

"I understand," Sesnai says, "and we should work on all this, I just -" she slaps the bed in annoyance "- I think she's going to be impossible to discourage, and impossible to reassign, and fate is going to cheat so that anything that can go wrong will go wrong," and she goes seamlessly on, "so I need to work on my psychic masking so I can just kill her myself if I have to. If she's in a ship of her own I can blow up her engine and send her a false face and that might work and I'm just really not sure anything short of it will?"

"...wow. All right," she says. "This is really serious, huh? I'll get right on it at the earliest available opportunity. For now, though," she gestures at Sesnai's hair, which needs to be Elaborated.

Yeah, time for her hair to be made Elaborate. She's not going to show up for a Navy job looking like a commoner, after all.

(Her new and improved instincts seize on that concept, crush it, and replace it with 'if she loses her elaborate hairstyle, Nairia will never have existed' which is a much better excuse.)

Nairia is indeed worth every minute of the patient half-hour she spends braiding Sesnai's hair every morning. (It used to be an hour, when they were children, and it grows to more like two if anyone else has to take over. Nairia is very efficient.)

Nairia is worth a great deal, yes.

"Piava?"

A screen flashes on.

"Princess, I assume you've already considered the obvious theory that this fate is only going to be caused by your attempts to avert it?"

"Well, yes, but only because I'm trying to avert it! It would be caused by me not trying to avert it if I didn't try to avert it!"

"Understood, princess."

"Well, in that case I've compiled a list of 3,982 faces matching your description, sorted by ease of contact with Eshiaf, starting with anyone else who will be on the same ship as you two and moving on from there, and you can sort through them at your leisure. I'll start looking into assassins as soon as we know what environment they need to operate in, and I'll be sure to let you know if you're being watched electronically; I've looked at the ship's systems and they really won't give me any problems."

She nods, smiles in a grandmotherly fashion. "Nairia." 

Nairia is humming softly and braiding hair. It really does take all of her concentration to do it this fast.

Then Piava will start showing Sesnai pictures!

It doesn't take very long before they find the right one.

"There. That's her. The... daughter of a famous war hero."

She drums her fingers together.

"That's going to make this harder."

Aillis Caitebe, born Aillis Cherryblossom though most sources make an effort to obscure this, is by all accounts a wonderful person. In fact, the assessment that she's a wonderful person seems to keep making its way into places where that type of assessment does not normally belong, such as academic records, news articles about her famous dead father, reviews of her aunt's computer security consulting business, and confidential government documents profiling her likelihood of committing treason (you just sort of end up with one of those after a certain level of renown). There is no dirt on this girl. She is as clean as the driven snow. Everyone who has ever spoken to her thinks she's the bee's knees and she has, so far as a fairly in-depth electronic search can determine, never used this power for ill or even especially for personal advancement.

Nairia manages to scrounge sufficient spare attention to mutter under her breath, "I Can't Believe It's Not Mind Control."

It's not mind control, it's *fate*. How much else in her world is going to be this implausibly written?

"Indeed."

Braid braid braid.

When she finishes, the first thing she says is, "How far out are we? I'm anxious to start coincidentally running into people in the hallways and I can't do that until we dock with the school."

"Seven minutes."

"Thank you, Nairia," Sesnai says absently. "Thank you, Piava." (She was trained to be grateful to her servants, because that's how you keep them, and does it on automatic.)

"An idea that occurs to me would be sharing the contents of the vision selectively. 'There is another horrible war beginning very soon, which will be more desperate than any earlier war, and she's prophecied to have some horrible negative-impact part in it.' Don't try to lay the blame on her; just say that her Fate is tragic and horrible and bad for the world. Talk about the tragedy of such a perfect person being so Doomed and Doom-bringing, and the story will spread itself. When the war starts, and when nothing that tries to remove her from Fate succeeds, they'll know the prophecy is true - and such a good person will have to stand down for the good of the world."

Sesnai smiles. "We do want an excuse for why we're trying to get her to leave, don't we? And why all these assassins keep trying to kill her?"

"Hmm... yeah, I could work with that," she says, smiling slightly. "Maybe not right away, scouting first is important and all, but that's the kind of rumour it's easy to get spreading."

"Probably," she says, "but if the story is going to be plausible I'll need to tell Gyan and as soon as I get there, and he'll tell the Admiral." And their parents. And any other authority figure who looks like they might be able to solve the problem. She likes Gyan, but his desperate desire not to be the protagonist of any sort of story, ever, no matter what, is really annoying.

"Hmm, my instinct is to delay even if it means lying about when the vision happened but I think that's at least partly me being overcautious and not familiar enough with that social scene... on the other hand it could be more dramatic if you wait, like, a day, wake up in the middle of the night and go running to Prince Gyanto as though the vision's fresh that very minute... think you can pull that off? If it works I think it'll plausibly give you better enough uptake to be worth the lost time."

"Hmm. I can..." She is that good an actress. "I'm mostly just not sure how much time I have. I need to make my prediction before the war breaks out, after all, and -"

She pauses - 

"We lose. We are fated to lose. If I act - if I act like me, I lose! We have to not give Fate a chance. I think waiting one day is safe," not listening to Nairia was one of her Problems, after all, "I just don't like taking this kind of risk."

"I understand," she says. "I'm with you whichever way you play it, my lady." She flashes a quick smile. "And I won't say 'Fate can have you over my dead body', because if you do end up in the place you saw, I'll want to be around making it my life's work to convince her to free you."

"I expected no less," says Sesnai.

She considers a moment. Aillis doesn't have the training or experience she needs to War Hero yet, does she?

Not according to any accessible electronic records!

Great! Well, if Sesnai's Nemesis will need to learn how to pilot spaceships before she can Save The World, Sesnai has a day!

"The one-day wait," she says. It's still a risk but it's the right risk.

Nairia nods firmly in acknowledgment.

Zoom out, outside Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan's cabin, even outside her personal cutter, and see space; the glimmering stars, nuclear furnaces blazing into the darkness to turn night to day; the planets wheeling in their eternal dance, so many balls of rock, so few alive, and see the White Rose Fleet.

No, not the flagship of the White Rose Fleet, the Antemecar Adaitan, named for a king long dead; nor even Alba Station. The Antemecar will be seen should an enemy appear and the fleet split, along with the Velvet and the Snowstorm, the Spring Dew and the Last Petal of Autumn, and ninety-six hangared fighters, fighter-bombers, and dedicated bombers which do not have official names, just three-digit codes. But today the White Rose Fleet is a school, and that means that Alba Station is joined to the Antemecar like the stalk to a petal, that the four cruisers are four towering bulges on the station-ship's side like buds beginning to sproud, and that the ninety-six craft wait on the ship's side, thorns concealed amongst the petals.

Since the end of the last war, the White Rose Fleet has served as the Royal Academy of the Fleet, the training ground for every officer who goes to serve on any ship of the navy, and one of the easiest and simplest paths to the aristocracy. The young cadets there will learn tactics, strategy, piloting, command of their powers - and the other arts; how to sit, how to eat, how to duel. They do not, mostly, arrive on their own private ships, but it is not so rare that Sesnai is the only one to take that method.

You could tell a hundred stories about the White Rose Fleet, at least if the Tyrant and his worldbuilding team did a good enough job. Sesnai would say, with a raised eyebrow, that you could.

But this one's special, since it's the only one that Fate has very strong opinions about.

Or so she says, at least. You can be the judge of that.

By the time they dock at the station, Nairia has all of her princess's belongings packed and in hand, ready to be carried to their quarters in the school—there are, of course, procedures in place for noble cadets bringing servants. She leads the way, having already memorized the map.

When she opens the door, there's a gift basket waiting inside on the desk, a strikingly beautiful arrangement of flowers and fruit. The attached card says simply, Welcome to Villarosa.

Nairia lines up all of Sesnai's bags neatly just inside the door and stalks across the room to examine the basket with maximum suspicion. Try as she might, though, she can't actually find anything wrong with it.

"I don't like it," she says anyway. "It's a weird joke that I don't understand, and in my experience, those are never a good sign."

... What are the odds the Creators did this? Fairly high. What does it mean in the worlds the Creator didn't do this?

That someone knows who she is.

How the hell do they know that, there's no mind reading in this universe, nobody else gets their memories back if it would interfere with the story until after the story, this interferes with the story.

"Neither do I." {{Piava?}}

It's the Creators, or it's an Outsider, or it's one of the memory-return-yes-black-hats who had a complete enough change of personality to try to troll the Titanium Tyrant even though this is supposed to be too early in the story for that, and whatever the answer is, she's not happy.

{{Yes?}}

{{I want as complete a video recording as you can manage for every exit and entrance into this room. When, why, from where, and how did this fruit basket get here?}}

{{As you say, Princess...}}

Sesnai stalks forwards and looks at the fruit.

... Just how fresh is it?

Extremely. It was delivered about an hour ago by a totally ordinary member of the school maintenance crew, such as might legitimately be called upon to deliver packages between students under normal circumstances.

Nairia is examining the card. "Whoever wrote this had a very steady hand," she comments. "Might've been a professional, I'm not sure. I'm not a professional but most people aren't me. It's pretty plain, though, I don't think whoever did it is as into calligraphy as I am. I'd recognize the handwriting if I saw it again, but only if they were working in the same style, not if I just caught a glimpse of their grocery list unless they write their grocery list like formal correspondence."

Oh, no doubt it was. And where, pray tell, did that crewmember get it? Piava intends to hunt this source of fruit baskets down.

(She also passes an update on to Sesnai.)

Sesnai's instincts are telling her that someone is trolling her. They're usually quite good instincts, though of course Fate may be interfering, here. "Handwritten." Fruits and flowers are fresh; any symbolic meaning to the arrangement? That would narrow it slightly, since none of her Old Friends cared much about the language of flowers. Ordinary delivery... hmm.

(... Unless they were taken from well after her death. Who knows what Mechanos might learn in the next sixty years?)

(That's not his sense of humor.)

(Well, whose sense of humor is it?)

There's no symbolic reference to it in any flower language from the previous universe, perhaps partly because some of the species are local enough that they don't have Earth equivalents. In the current universe, the message conveyed by the flowers is the same as the overt one: friendly greetings, welcoming, and good wishes.

Piava's trace of the gift basket starts to peter out at the intra-station mailroom, which received it in a standard refrigerated mail crate three hours ago, marked appropriately for delivery to Sesnai but with no sender information provided. It's possible to guess at a handful of directions it might have come from, but the interior of this station is not one hundred percent surveilled and you wouldn't even need to be that good at spotting hidden cameras to successfully haul a disguised gift basket to an unsupervised mail repository without being unambiguously spotted. If she chases down all her potential leads, she will be left with no solid information about who ultimately sent it.

Sounds like Piava needs to make the interior of this station one hundred percent surveilled, doesn't she.

Sesnai's attempts on analysis of the deep meanings of this goddamn fruit basket is interrupted by her psychic senses picking up someone approaching - 

"Gyan's coming."

Nairia busies herself putting away the contents of Sesnai's luggage.

And Sesnai busies herself looking at the fruit basket and browsing the shipnet. When the door opens, she tosses a smile over her shoulder. "Oh, Gyan! Good to see you!"

And Gyantomerenti Adaitan, Sesnai's older brother, senior student at the Royal Academy, sweeps into the room.

His expression is perfectly polished, because the expression of the heir to the throne of Villarosa has to be perfectly polished; his manners are precise, because how could his manners not be precise, and his psychic discipline is perfect, because if it wasn't he might leak misery at people.

"Beloved sister," he says, embracing her. "Welcome to the White Rose fleet!"

And, to Nairia, a polite nod.

Hug! Sesnai does not think of herself as needing hugs, but she's not going to protest.

"Gyanto," she says. "Good to see you."

"Who brought the fruit basket?"

"We've been trying to figure that out."

"Welcome to Villarosa. Huh."

A half-smile. "Well, I can promise it wasn't me."

"I think I guessed that."

"The Admiral will want to see you once you're here."

"Now that I'm here."

"No, I think I said it right."

She grins back. "I'm here now."

And she gives Nairia and Piava polite nods and sweeps off with her brother.

Nairia finishes unpacking and then heads out for preliminary espionage a leisurely stroll around the station.

And Sesnai and her brother proceed throughout the station's corridors! They are, of course, gorgeously painted, because if you're going to build a giant flagship for your fleet and name it after your dead father why would you not also transport painters into space to turn every inch of the halls into artistic masterworks. Technically she is only wearing a cadet's uniform minus the insignia; that would be make her look much less impressive if it wasn't a family tradition to game the rulebook as much as elvenly possible, turning, for instance, a skirt of strictly defined color, length and cut into a magnificent tapestry of war and tragedy executed solely in threads of blue-grey on slightly-different blue-grey. (Humans might miss the details and the meaning with them; her people won't. Adaitan will follow the rules they write, but don't forget who writes them.)

Also, she's crackling with a near-electric aura of power, wears her handcrafted dueling saber at all times, and is visibly sensing all minds by default in a radius larger than the ship. The Tyrant considered, briefly, that being nice served an important instrumental purpose, but not for very long because he really thinks that it works better if people know you have a choice.

(Gyanto is not crackling with a near-electric aura of power. It might be considered rude. He is wearing the clothes his family had made for him, though, since not doing so could also be considered rude.)

(I will not say that this tells you everything you need to know about Gyantomerenti Adaitan, but so far as most people are concerned, it will do for a first approximation.)

And they arrive on the bridge, where, by Ancient Tradition, the Admiral of the Fleet sits in the captain's chair, the captain sits in the vice-captain's chair (which has all the same controls as the captain's chair, in case the captain has a breakdown) and the vice-captain stands behind the captain. Since the Antemecar Adaitan is currently a station, instead of a spaceship, the bridge contains an actual bridge, sixteen feet wide and eight feet tall, detailed with mosaics in gold and shimmering mother-of-pearl, with two command chairs on it (captain's and vice-captain's) like a pair of thrones, looking down on a vast cavern flanking them filled with banks of lights and consoles, most of which serve vitally important military functions in the event that neither the captain nor the vice-captain is psychic, which will literally never happen, or has just had a heart attack, which might, and otherwise are occasionally handy to have people on. The walls and ceilings of the cavern are exploiting the powers of holography to appear as towering natural cliffs under a moonlit night, waterfalls transforming into rains of shimmering starlight as they pass below the consoles.

And Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan advances, escorted (as is tradition, whenever a Royal Kinswoman takes up residence on the ship) by the Chief Cadet of the year above hers, officially only coincidentally her brother, to offer submission to the commander of the fleet, in acknowledgement of the supremacy of military titles over aristocratic. She takes the formal steps forward and bows her head and kneels before her commanding officer, Rear Admiral Duchess Alarante Paizar of the White Rose Fleet, Duchess of the Iron Reach, Victor of Negai Station and Heroine of the Order of the Triple Star. Court gossip has given six different reasons why the Victor of Negai Station is in charge of training instead of commanding one of the battle fleets, and not one of them is true. (Sesnai knows this because she is Adaitan, and because it gave her something to be superior about.)

She is, in an irony that was not at any point intended by any of the people who made the rules, also kneeling before her betrothed, Captain Lord Tefano Eshiaf, Hero of the Day of Death, "Ironwill," "The Scientist of War", Knight of the Order of the Lion, Ferryman in the Passage of Hell and Nextborn. A very impressive list for someone who only played any significant role in one battle.

Well. Better than her zero, at that.

And Her Grace Rear Admiral Duchess Alarante Paizar of the White Rose Fleet bids her rise, and they go through all the formal ritualized exchanges, in which Her Grace bids Her Royal Highness to accept the honors that are her due, and Her Royal Highness insists she desires nothing more than to be a perfectly ordinary cadet of the fleet like any other cadet of the fleet, and Her Grace asks if she's really really sure she doesn't want any special privileges for her being royal, and Her Royal Highness says in extremely ritualized language that defending the kingdom is more important than that, and Her Grace assures Her Royal Highness that it is her honor to have her assistance defending the kingdom, and bids her (and here the gods laugh) submit also to the authority of all officers placed above her, starting with the captain...

And Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan does not grit her teeth because she is the Titanium Tyrant and has better control of herself than that, and assures Her Grace and His Lordship that she will indeed obey all orders in the military chain of command where she recognizes any place above that of cadet she will need to earn herself by her own merits, all according to The Official Script, which is really amazingly ritualized considering it's been used about twice in Villarosan history, and waits for her betrothed to give the response.

Her betrothed smoothly intones the ritual assurances that he will treat her with all the respect that is her due as a cadet of the fleet, which should of course be enough for anybody, and that he appreciates her forbearance in entering the chain of command in this fashion, and that he will take care as he does with all his subordinates to be sure that he never issues her an unjust, unnecessary, or inappropriate order. Someone who was paying very close attention might notice him putting undue emphasis on that last section. Someone who was paying very close attention and knew him very well, a category with very few members and none of them currently in the room, might pick up on how uncomfortable he is with the whole business.

Unfortunately, there's a real shortage of people who know him well in the room! There is someone paying very close attention, though, since this is the first time the Titanium Tyrant has met Tefano, and so Sesnai will continue playing through her Official Boring Speech in which she clarifies that she will obey his orders and asks nothing he is not giving her and will of course never dream that anyone might possibly ever abuse authority in any way shape or form, at which point Her Grace will formally finish acknowledging Her Royal Highness's submission and Her Royal Highness can bow and leave, escorted again by His Royal Highness, who served no particular role in all of this other than introductions, and, just perhaps, being on hand to psychically restrain his sister if she completely flipped out and broke into a rant about the idiocy of the official system, which it is not inconceivable that Sesnai of one week ago would have done.

As the formalities are concluding, Sesnai receives a text message from Tefano. Should she investigate its contents, it will prove to be a somewhat stiltedly phrased inquiry as to when would be a good time for them to have an informal chat 'in a social rather than a military context'.

Oh, any time, texts Sesnai; after all, (she doesn't text), Nairia's unpacking and she doesn't have classes yet and she wants to avoid running into That Woman, so seducing encountering Tefano is really the most useful thing she can do today.

In that case he suggests that they meet fifteen minutes from now in her quarters.

Sesnai is fine with that, yes.

He knocks on her door fifteen minutes later, not quite precisely to the second but unreasonably close.

"Lord Eshiaf!" She's there to welcome him in! Nairia has, of course, already magically decorated the room; it does not violate any of the Official Rules for how a cadet's quarters ought to be decorated, but it also doesn't look like the quarters of someone who is not Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan, either. "Please come on in and have a seat."

(Nairia is, in some mystical sense, no longer around. Sesnai is not chaperoned but they are engaged, after all, and it hardly damages her long-term plans to have rumors that they are closer than they in fact are.)

"Thank you."

He is, for some reason, carrying a space clipboard standardized semi-disposable data tablet. He sits down, spends about half a second fidgeting awkwardly with it, then holds it out. "I have been advised against presenting you with a questionnaire about your relationship preferences, but it strikes me as dishonest to try to conceal from you that I am the sort of person who draws up a relationship preferences questionnaire to hand to my affianced at the earliest reasonable opportunity. I will not be offended if you refuse to fill it out."

"I think the people who gave that advice rather assumed you would be affianced to someone else," Sesnai says. "I think that is an extremely reasonable thing to do, and it may mean I need to solve aging rather faster than I'd intended."

And she'll take the tablet! 

"Oh," he says, with a small, surprised smile that may be the most genuine expression she has ever before seen on his face. "Well then."

"I'll forgive you not knowing this time," she says lightly, and starts on the questionnaire.

It is thorough, inventive, and despite carefully neutral phrasing it advertises some fascinating things about Tefano's mindset. For example, there is an entire page of the questionnaire that covers the subject of extramarital affairs: whether she would prefer to have them or not, whether she would prefer that Tefano have them or not, whether she would prefer in each case that the other spouse know about the affair in general terms or in very specific ones or not at all...

There is a section about sex that provides a 'skip this entire section' button, and further skip buttons on each of its many subsections. There is a section, for some reason, about home cooking, both whether she anticipates doing any herself and whether she has an opinion about Tefano doing it. There is a section about how much space she thinks would be reasonable to devote to hobby paraphernalia in their future home, and it reveals what may be some interesting priors about a reasonable amount of space to devote to hobby paraphernalia. There is a section inquiring after her thoughts on children. Every time she is asked for a positive/neutral/negative opinion, there is a standardized scale with a separate button for not being sure what her opinion is. There is a freeform section at the end for anything she has to say that the questions themselves did not cover, and another for feedback on the design of the questionnaire.

The whole time she is filling it out, Tefano is sitting quietly, apparently doing nothing, wearing his Generic Neutral Facial Expression. A keen observer with well-developed psychic senses could, however, catch him doing the psychic equivalent of twiddling his thumbs, a sort of intricate imaginary fidget that is nearly invisible because it doesn't project any power outside his own body. It's sort of a bizarre thing to be able to do at all, actually; it's like someone started with the very most basic exercises that you learn for getting a handle on your psychic powers before you've learned to actually do anything with them, and went off from there in sort of the same direction you would go from letter-folding to arrive at fiendishly complex origami.

Before starting on the form, she does a quick camera-kill, just in case there's something in her room, and severs all shipnet connections on the tablet but then gets started on it.

Sesnai thinks that extra-marital affairs are something she would strongly prefer to default to not having but worthwhile in some situations, and worth discussing in general terms since they are likely to have significant effects on the other's life as they are both public figures; she notes that she will end up married to other people for political reasons and this will impact both of their lives. Sesnai is mildly sadistic, moderately dominant but both of these take a back seat to hating people having power over her madly and furiously without limit in any context whatsoever, and doesn't have opinions on most of the content in that section. Sesnai is not going to do home cooking and has no objection to Tefano doing it but her expectation is that it will mostly be done by a cook. Sesnai thinks that it makes perfect sense to have a wing for your chemical laboratories, a wing for your smithy, and a third wing for wargaming historical campaigns to try to outcompete history's best generals, and really Tefano may be thinking too small with his hobbies. Sesnai wants children long-term (a stab of pain) but expects to be busy while she sorts out the whole Black Fleets business and is a little worried that if they don't fix aging that may preclude them for Tefano's life.

Her freeform section points out that she is actually a major political player and fantastically rich and that these are likely to have a much larger impact on their lives than Tefano seems to be considering; for instance, everything she does is automatically of extreme public interest to lots of Court schemers, which is why she is going to be erasing all her answers as soon as Tefano has memorized them and before the tablet can leave the room. Also, at some point Tefano will need to tell her how his psychic origami works, since she wants to learn all psychic skills she doesn't currently possess.

Other than that the questionnaire is fine.

He absorbs her responses at a truly phenomenal reading speed that is entirely in keeping with his burgeoning reputation for never missing a detail no matter how lengthy the report.

"The tablet is military issue and has a hardware switch to completely sanitize its memory. I can offer you my own answers but I think the highlights summarize reasonably well: to a first approximation I've never experienced sexual attraction in my life; I am solidly against having children until such time as I can offer them a life I am not afraid or ashamed to bring them into, which may well not happen during my lifetime; I have no objection to extramarital affairs and may eventually want one if I ever meet someone I am sexually or romantically attracted to, but I don't prioritize that aspect of my life highly enough to want to indulge it over your objections; I have some bizarre notions about what constitutes an uncomfortably intimate situation, but I needn't bother you with the details unless you wish to be bothered. I would be happy to teach you my 'psychic origami', what a lovely name for it."

"I actually think Villarosa is good enough to be worth bringing children into," said Sesnai, "though I am not sure I could convince you except by reference to suicide rates, revealed preference, and performance on standardized questionnaires, I just need to fix the galaxy before I can spend nine months on the project; I think that the highest priority in your extramarital affairs is to avoid causing serious political trouble since if you do fall in love, my annoyance is relevant but much less important than how relations with whoever it is are going to affect the galactipolitical system; it is probably worth going into that at some eventual point but not now and please, I don't like not knowing interesting things."

"I know this is very inconvenient of me," he says, "but I loathe politics to a truly unfortunate degree and if I had no external demands on my time or skills I would spend the rest of my life reading books and inventing pointless new psychic techniques in a room by myself without ever again having to take into account anyone's opinion of any of my actions. Anyway, the origami. I assume you had far better tutors than I, but the first psychic technique I ever learned was aura pulsing—"

He demonstrates, flaring his aura (respectable for any ordinary noble, downright shocking for a human like him, still just about nothing compared to Sesnai's) and then damping it again.

"—which has virtually no practical use, but the interesting thing about it to me at the time was that it wasn't a simple matter of on or off, I could pull my aura in farther—which gave me some ideas about stealth, though I haven't yet developed them to any useful purpose, and I suppose that makes sense since if psychic invisibility were that easy everyone would be doing it—anyway, while I was pursuing that ultimately futile endeavour I did discover that in addition to extending or retracting my aura I can, hmm, twist it? Like this." He demonstrates again, with his aura extended slightly to make it easier to view, and only making a very simple perturbation to start with. It looks really weird to psychic senses, sort of like watching someone with hypermobility fold their fingers backwards. "It's much less uncomfortable than it looks. And once I had that, I started doing patterns," he chains the first twist into a second, "and cycles," he adds a few more and loops them around so they form a pretty little knot of power, an experience somewhat more like watching a contortionist fold themselves into a suitcase. "And then I combined that with my otherwise inadequate stealth techniques so I could do the whole thing much more unobtrusively. You've got a very good eye to have caught me at it, I've been keeping myself occupied that way in boring meetings for years and nobody's noticed. I suppose that's what I get for doing bizarre psychic things in front of a member of the royal family. So, did you get all that or should I repeat or elaborate on anything?"

This is without question the most animated she's ever seen him. The Generic Neutral Facial Expression is nowhere to be found.

Great! Sesnai is also into this, which mostly just involves intensifying her usual expressions while she starts playing with her aura.

"I'm afraid that I love politics," she admits. "Well. Running things. Getting there, less. If I had no external demands on my time or skills I'd try to make it to Fleet Admiral, and limit my physical and psychical experiments." She tries to flex her aura; it roils. "I think I follow what you're doing just not how you're doing it - I started with force, I was two, and sometimes I'd make things explode and I wasn't sure why -" and Nairia would have to sort out why the two-year-old wanted things to explode "- and that's when they called in the tutors. I don't think I really have a grip on it -" it isn't that it's uncomfortable, it's just that it's slippery - "so I spent too little time on fine control and too much just on - basic control. My assumption was that I'd have time to depth-explore after I'd finished breadth-exploring and I haven't finished breadth-exploring yet." All right, so pulling it in - pushing it out - twist - 

"My 'eyes' are, alas, better than my 'hands'." She pauses - "Have you been following the hyperspace-manipulation research, though -"

He makes an intrigued noise. "Perhaps not in as much detail as I should have been. Go on."

"So, our main crisis is obviously military; there's an exponential decline in the gaps between Black Fleet arrival times - that's mostly not being published because of worries about panic, but everyone's done the math, the next fleet will be in the next year or two and we're hoping prophecy will get it more precise but we aren't expecting it - and we're building better ships and catching up to them, but things are not looking optimistic and this is one of the problems I need to solve. We're still trying to determine just how the Black Fleets are using the paths they are, but it appears that they aren't just using ship devices but actual powers to navigate, fluctuating the hyperspace corridors out to clear paths we can't take."

She grins. "But if they can push it out, we can pull it in. On their fleets, if necessary, or on every path leading outwards from Villarosan space. Duke Feian's clique has been testing the theory - it looks like it's possible to fluctuate the rim more in one direction than another if you get close enough, using some of the same techniques pilots use to maintain themselves on the rims of their carriers' hyperspace bubbles, the key element - by Ravera's paper - is that you need to keep your aura's signature harmonized with the rim instead of with the generator, but if she's right that means that we just need six different order-of-magnitude improvements and the war will be over."

"Fascinating," he says. "Well, thank you very much for dramatically increasing my level of ambient temptation to desert the military and become a full-time psychic researcher."

"It is, isn't it! You're very welcome. It will only end up mattering if we aren't conquered soon, though; we do have some more urgent problems to deal with."

"Alas, I am still needed for now."

...he hesitates.

"I had one more question, which I felt was inappropriate for the questionnaire, because as of the questionnaire we had not... really had a conversation, I don't think." They have exchanged words several times, but never like this. "Do you... hmm. This is more difficult to phrase than I anticipated. Do you... see yourself as open to having an honest and emotionally intimate relationship with me?"

Well, no, they hadn't talked; Sesnai hadn't known he was important and had been badly amnesiac.

"I..." she pauses, chooses her words very carefully. "There are things I cannot discuss with you, state secrets, and things - that cannot be shared with those people who do not already know them. Some of them I might be able to tell you in one year, or five, or ten; some of them I don't know if I'll be able to discuss with you this century, and not mentioning them imposes some limitations on my ability to be honest with you, or to tell you the reasons behind my emotions. But within those limitations - yes. Yes I do."

"I feel similarly, I think. I am, in general, not very good at trusting people, or at expressing myself emotionally. But I would like to be able to have that sort of relationship with my wife, and it seems a shame not to try." His smile takes on a wry edge. "And I understand about the state secrets. Feel free to tell me when there's something you can't tell me, or in extremity discreetly omit references to a secret I should not know the existence of, and I will do the same in cases where there's something you shouldn't know. I don't expect it to come up much on my end but I do, technically, command a military vessel, so it would be remiss of me not to plan for occasionally needing to classify something."

Sesnai is now seriously considering following a strategy of 'tell him that for state-secret reasons he can't date That Woman.' Her logical reason not to is that the Tell Everyone She Had A Vision Literally Tomorrow plan is still a better idea, but most of the emotional weight is that it is the sort of thing that would make the curtain go up.

"I understand," says Sesnai. "Thank you. I think..." her smile is slightly wry. "I think that I cannot tell you whether there is anything I cannot tell you, right now. But I do appreciate the offer. I would like to have that kind of relationship with my husband, too, even if it might be difficult."

He nods. "I don't expect it to be easy, but I have accomplished a difficult task or two in my time. I look forward to collaborating with you in this endeavour."

"And I look forwards to collaborating with you as well, Tefano Eshiaf." And she can't say that she's accomplished any difficult tasks, because she hasn't, yet - in this life.

Well.

In this life.

"Would you like me to make another attempt at teaching you my pointless psychic technique?"

"Yes!"

"All right. So—"

He asks insightful questions about how she approaches the use of her power, and successfully adapts elements of his technique to work more comfortably within her paradigm, and is fascinated by the innovations thereby produced. They still haven't fully explored the implications by the time he gets a reminder message alerting him to an upcoming meeting and has to excuse himself, leaving Sesnai with the memory-sanitized tablet formerly containing his questionnaire.

She listens to his insightful questions, and tries to come up with explanations! He thinks of things in a very interesting way, even if he is nowhere near ambitious enough. (Sesnai intends to be a famous researcher AND a large-scale ruler, really, she had been both before.)

She sighs warmly when he leaves. This is much less bad than it could be, even if she can't explain that for complex reasons she's already married.

All right, next step! She's headed to the library; most of the books she's reading for her classes she can do on computer, of course, but some things they don't want just anyone to be able to read, and some of his tricks reminded her of things that very few people not on the ship are cleared for. To the library!

In the library, a familiar face is engaged in quiet yet lively conversation with a pair of strangers. The two of them seem to hang on her every word.

She glances up as Sesnai walks in, and smiles, the very picture of friendliness. "Oh, dearest Princess!" she says warmly. "How are you settling in? —Oh, but I'm afraid I can't chat long;" she inclines her head to the two fellow students seated at the table with her, and explains with modest regret, "I have a few minor matters to attend to."

They seem very impressed to find their company superseding that of a Real Live Princess.

"Oh," Sesnai says, "everything is quite well with me, dearest friend." She smiles. "I understand, of course." She smiles graciously down to Hanuea's disposable pawns friends "- Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan, I don't believe we've met?"

Anything important? The great thing about telepathy is that nobody can tell how many conversations she's having.

Not remotely, she assures her. Hanuea's psychic powers have always been very weak by elven standards, barely even average for a human; her mental voice is, as usual, whisper-quiet, but Sesnai's senses are keen enough that Hanuea needn't strain herself to be heard. Just a few minor matters, as I said. Nothing for you to worry about.

The minor matters in question introduce themselves nervously. The one with a flower in her pale silver-blonde hair is Taini Amina, and the one with an enormous pair of glasses overshadowing the entire rest of his face is Fallo Wakefield. They are rather overawed by her royal presence; Fallo is a commoner, and Taini is barely anything more.

Good, Sesnai thinks. Hanuea is an important and valuable ally! It's good for her to be in control of situations! And Sesnai can be very gracious to minor matters, especially since she can be in telepathic contact with her files detailing everyone she's ever met at all times. She may have met Taini's great-aunt at one point, and to be acquainted with some of the classical works of Fallo's homeworld, though of course she can't claim real expertise.

But since Hanuea is busy, this is a brief distraction before she goes and does her actual research. She'll want to drop in and test her fencing reflexes at some point; she hasn't practiced since her memories returned...

The minor matters are so terribly impressed. Hanuea is unfailingly gracious with both of them, in a way that, to someone who knows her as well as Sesnai does, indicates that they are probably going to be especially disposable; she usually lets at least a little hint of a sharp edge show, around someone she's planning to keep for the long haul.

But, yes, soon enough they bid the princess goodbye, and she can be off about her other business.

And her 'other business' is looking at a few classified books discussing psychic tricks she might learn, visiting a handful of teachers who have limited ability to teach cadets - and, of course, showing the flag; letting everyone know that there is a Princess, that she is Good and Kind and remembers everyone's name (how could she not), and 

And once this is over, she ducks into the training hall. This late, on the first day, it's dark and, as far as she can tell, empty.

It's a reinforced building, new to the plans since the refit that made the Antemecar a modern ship; it'll do as an Admiral's bridge, so she can consult her staff officers without worrying about showing weakness in front of the captain by having them disagree with her. Or, while we're all at peace and have no worries, it will do as somewhere for the cadets to practice 'fencing,' as they so politely call the art of murdering people who challenge you with your mind.

(There will be a war. It will be bloody. The Tyrant accepted this as a price, limited the destruction as much as he could, and must now plot to win the war. But Sesnai knows the cost of a perk point.)

And Sesnai steps into the training hall, changes into her exercise clothes, selects a training sword, and takes the orthodox stance, blade in her right hand and left behind her. She's been taught to fight since she was a child, wrapping herself in her mind's armor and wielding the light fencer's blade that serves as a conduit for her powers. The blade is hardly sharp; when any blow that gets through the enemy's shields can destroy them, why do you need to cut them? Instead the blades are made to be light, for speed, and hard to break, to so she doesn't need to put too much power to keeping it intact.

And she calls up an illusion of an opponent and begins, shadow-fencing in the shadows. Salute, touch, thrust, parry - each step precise as the royal swordmasters could teach, the neat, orthodox style that every noble-born elf or human in Villarosa knows is unbeatable, careful motion aligned with your opponent to bind and best them. It is a style that swordmasters have refined to the highest levels they could manage, every motion stripped of all ornamentation, without the slightest flourish or risky trick that will cost an elf her immortal life, for what noble would accept a master who failed to teach a student the finest style in history? It is carefully optimized and if Sesnai ever duels someone better at it than she is and can't compensate with raw power, she will die, because they will know everything she can do and she is not the fastest in the world. It is called the 'white style', because it is colorless, lacking any flaw that could be named.

And the Tyrant smiles behind Sesnai's lips, lets Piava know she'll need to fake any video records there might be, and takes a step back, and salutes her imaginary opponent, taking for another moment the orthodox stance.

And flips an illusion of a pistol out of an imaginary holster and (sword in her right hand, gun in her left) breaks into a blur of speed, shattering the stance in the first moment. Her movements are - not refined, not cautious; she ducks close, binds with one and strikes with the other, the stabs of light at her opponent are blocked and she ducks and weaves out of the proper line, whispering soft taunts into the darkness as her blade lunges at feet and fingers, strikes half-aimless and wild like spurts from a broken drain and yet oddly accurate for all their madness.

No swordmaster in Villarosa would permit a student to fight like that. It is sheer lunacy; there are ten thousand openings in every motion and the Tyrant has never been defeated wielding it, for he leaves only the openings his opponent will never use. It is the giant-slayer's style, and it was made by a man who slew giants.

And then she steps back and the pistol fades into the dust, and she salutes her opponent, again - a fragment of light in the darkness - and enters the orthodox stance - again for half a moment, and then she takes it two-handed and her blade is a hammer. She takes hits on her chest and her head and grabs her enemy's blade one-handed and makes not the slightest attempt to defend herself, only to attack, remorseless and unhalting; to deliver absolute power (pulsing power through her sword whenever it nears the enemy) into every fatal strike, for there will be no flesh wounds when fighting with the Plate style, not when Sesnai is the most powerful psychic in Villarosa. She hammers the illusion a thousand times and takes a thousand blows of her own, and when she's finished she would be dead if she did not have Sesnai's invincible shield, the invincible shield of the most powerful psychic in Villarosa.

(For the Tyrant was a giant, too, and his armor could not be breached by a foe less than the Survivor - or so was his boast.)

And Sesnai finally lowers her sword, an odd smile on her face. Her arms and legs are the wrong length and her balance is off and unfamiliar muscles are complaining, and she'll need to practice more to get her new body used to fighting like she used to. But if she ever fights hand-to-hand, they will fight with the style that every man or woman of nobility has been trained to destroy, and she will fight with the styles forged by the greatest warrior of a dead world, for every counter to the Tyrant's two stances has died with it.

For Sesnai does not like to lose.

A soft, shocked voice says from the shadows, "What was that?"

(Inside Sesnai's head: AAAAAAH - and her senses snap outwards, no longer focused on her work - and see her classmate -)

"I think they call it fencing," says Sesnaiilaisa Adaita, voice filled with imperial amusement. "Or do you have another name for it?"

Her classmate has piercing green eyes and a weak-to-middling psychic aura, and something in the cast of his face might be familiar.

"I don't know what to call it but 'fencing' isn't where I'd start," he says, getting increasingly animated as he goes on. "If I'd pulled that sort of nonsense my fencing instructor would've put me in a sack and set me out for the trash collectors, but it holds together—or it does if you're insane—which you very well might be—did you develop all this yourself or was it taught to you by, by, by secret alien ghosts from another galaxy—who are you—"

At this juncture he squints, and recoils slightly, and begins to blush. "Oh. You're my brother's fiancée and I'm being very rude." He sketches a swift yet acceptably formal bow. "I'm terribly sorry."

"I was wondering how long it'd take you to notice," she says. "I don't object, though, since you and I are so - close to family. As for where I learned it, well, there are things I cannot explain; it rather goes with being a princess, I'm afraid."

She quietly replaces her training sword. "I will say, of course," dry amusement in her voice, "that whatever I may do on my own, leaving the 'white style' is something a superior combatant should never do. Breaking style is a matter for fools or the truly desperate. I agree with your fencing instructor there, you see."

"I could not in a million years make that work," he agrees readily. "...but you evidently could. That wasn't just playtime, that was a viable—though insane—combat strategy." He eyes her thoughtfully. "...granted that you can't tell me where you learned it... would you like a live opponent to practice against? I'm fascinated by the possibilities and I want to see how well I adapt."

Since he already knows - and since Fate is, for once, on her side -

"Why not?" She's not that tired.

And she collects the sword, takes the giant-slayer's style, and, once again - focuses, on him. Lets herself see the ten thousand shadows he casts, of the movements he will not make, and stares through them towards the one that he will.

(Her senses are nowhere near as keen as they were when she was Sandor. Well. Something to work on, then.)

Casne Eshiaf is a startlingly good fencer, for a messy-haired teenager who hasn't quite grown all the way into his height. He isn't by any means the best in the empire, but he could be, with a little time and polish. He thinks ahead, he thinks fast, his reflexes are exquisitely well-trained, and he either has an alarmingly subtle and intricate system of false tells, or he's pivoting strategies on a dime in response to changing conditions and converting feint into strike and strike into feint as smoothly as a dancer moving from one step to the next.

Sesnai isn't bad, she's above average, but she's never going to be that good. Her raw power might well save her in a real fight, but not fighting to a touch - she's smart, she thinks ahead and she thinks fast, but she does not have the sheer speed and reflexes that a master needs, and she's never going to have it.

Fortunately for her pride, though, she's also a precognitive with a style that Casne has no idea how to counter. He's going to land a touch or three, if they fight long enough, but that's mostly because the Tyrant never fought the 'white style' before he designed the giant-slayer's style, and there's this little bit of lag sometimes when he does something she didn't predict and her muscles just aren't fast enough to catch up.

As a smart, observant combat-level precognitive who's also a good enough fencer to really push him even if it's arguably by cheating, she is perhaps the first person he's fought who can definitively tell that, in fact, he has both an alarmingly subtle and intricate system of false tells and the flexibility to commit to one plan and then fluidly reveal another beneath it—a system which he may well have developed purely to throw off precognitives. It's a pretty effective way to throw off precognitives, if you have the mental flexibility to make it work and the on-the-spot analytic ability to make it useful, and you're a brilliant fencer to begin with.

"Well, that was magnificent," he says at last, when they've called a halt because they're both starting to flag. "Also still very much insane. You needn't feel too bad about that trick with the disarm, by the way, I got my fencing instructor with it and he's a retired tournament champion, that's the point at which he first threatened to throw me in the garbage. I used to legitimately have a problem with sloppy footwork under exactly those conditions and he used to keep exploiting it the same five ways because they really are the best five ways imaginable; you admittedly came up with a sixth but it was close enough to number four that my months of secret training still worked. He told me next time I should spend the months of secret training on fixing my mistakes and not coming up with clever counters to his responses, but he also said that this sort of innovation is how the style develops over time. And I did learn to fix the mistake, but I also kept it in my back pocket for occasions such as this one where someone is giving me a very hard time and has probably spent far fewer hours working on that specific exchange than I have."

She laughs. "I have certainly spent far fewer hours working on that specific exchange than you." Casne is very good and did much better than she expected. (Her performance was completely by cheating, to be clear.) "And I dropped into white style too many times; giant-slayer's is missing too many counters. I think if we wanted to practice with the plate style we'd need different rules, though, since it was derived for the difference between fencing and real combat."

"What rules are you envisioning?" he says, intrigued.

"That's the hard part, isn't it? It's a stance that is dependent on taking blows instead of deflecting them. We could block at full strength and strike at five percent, but there would be no good tracking-and-measuring system if we wanted to focus on the battle." Well, she could call in Piava, but Casne might have a better idea -

"Five percent of your full strength will still give me some trouble, not that I'm necessarily opposed, but if you want a way to track without either of us needing to spare attention to it... agh, I'd love to ask Tefano, either to sit in and watch or to design us something that can track it for us, but he's much too busy these days."

"We can call it three percent, if you like."

Piava? Can you track it for us?

Sesnai, do you have some kind of precognitive reason for showing this random teenager the fighting style you concealed from everyone you have ever met for your entire life, or do I need to prepare to clean up a body?

The former, as it happens.

I can track it for you.

"All right, that's covered." One of the scoreboards flashes to life. "Top left, my shields, top right, my renormalized output, bottom left, your shields, bottom right, your renormalized output. Reasonable?" Also, she's going to go get herself some water; best to stay hydrated during exercise.

"Sure. It might take me a bit to calibrate my output down to a reasonable approximation of three percent; if you wanted alarmingly precise psychic control you're barking up the wrong Eshiaf. But the theory's sound and the practice will follow."

He, too, gets some water. It's been a tough workout and it's about to get tougher.

"I've been working on that! You and your brother are both extremely impressive." Honestly, she's surprised Casne is this good (not being an elf), but her Admirer will inevitably come with some useful skills...

"I'm the meathead in the family," he says cheerfully. "But I'll admit I'm a very impressive one."

"Indeed."

And it's on with the plate stance! Sesnai sees no reason to stop just because her muscles are slightly killing her, if they aren't going all the way! If she has to she can telekinetically puppet her body tomorrow while it recovers, it's not like it'll be the first time she's done something like that.

Important lesson of the plate stance: Sesnai is really, really easy to hit, but not tremendously easy to get through her shields; normally you need to concentrate your defensive power to deflect a sword-slash if you can do it at all, but Sesnai is, uh, not normal.

Other important lesson: You know how you're supposed to concentrate your entire power into your blade if you want to get through, and how lightning bolts and force-blasts, if projected long distances, don't really compare to the amount of energy you can concentrate if you're just shielding your body at distance 0 from your body?

Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan does not particularly give a shit about that, not when she can fire off sideways blasts from her sword in a direction that has nothing to do with the one she's swinging it in, any time she gets close enough to Casne to be a bare miss. She is going to get hit so many times, and so is Casne. She will endeavor not to break him.

...yeah, he's doomed. But he's not going down without a fight. Several fights, even. And he's clearly having the time of his life about it.

He will manage to score some hits-that-count, if he can catch her while she's focusing too much of her strength on attacking, and leaving gaps in her armor as a consequence! She expects the score to be in her favor, though eventually even Sesnai will get tired.

The score is quite solidly in her favour, yes, though he's made a respectable showing.

"The most fun I've had all year!" he concludes happily, when they're good and done. "Can't wait to be your brother-in-law! Please tell me you get along with Tefano, I'd be heartbroken if you dumped him."

Good!

"Tefano is wonderful! I have no intention whatsoever of dumping him and I expect to still be looking after our descendants two hundred years later."

"Good! That's what I wanted to hear."

Then in that case, she do her cooling-down stretches, bid goodbye to Casne, shower, and head off to bed. Any updates on the situation from Nairia before she heads to sleep?

"This Aillis girl is pretty elusive. I couldn't manage to coincidentally run into her in the hallways no matter how hard I tried. She doesn't seem to have been making much of a social impression, either, which is weird because she makes a positive social impression on everyone she breathes air with down to the people who score her on math contests and you'd think she'd notice that she has this power. I guess the fact that she's not actively trying to get a head start on using it is consistent with the thing where she has not already charmed her way into a life of luxury."

"How odd," says Sesnai. "How very odd." Sesnai would have expected her to spend her time on some kind of resource-building. "Piava, can you check for suspicious shipnet activity?"

"No, no mysterious people plotting other than us."

"Well, wake me in the morning for Operation Prophecy, then." (To Piava.)

And, to Nairia, "I expect we'll learn how her plotting works tomorrow, if she doesn't try anything during the night."

"Either we'll learn how her plotting works or we'll learn she's playing the long game," she agrees. "Or, I suppose, she's a helpless pawn of Fate and has no idea there's even a game to be won here. One of those. Goodnight, Princess."

"Goodnight, Nairia."

Anything horrible happen during the night?

Of course not, whyever would you expect such a thing?

Then the next morning opens with Sesnai unleashing a psychic scream that shakes the ship, getting dressed really amazingly quickly for a princess, and rushing as swiftly as can be managed to her brother's cabin, no matter how many of her fellow cadets she needs to charge past in a horrified-but-urgent manner!

At least one of her fellow cadets ends up physically bowled over and very concerned about the whole business!

(Just as planned.)

... That is to say, oh no, she hopes Casne will be fine and she hasn't worried him overmuch. GYAN!!

Yes? What's the problem?

Gyantomerenti Adaitan is now awake, unfortunately for him.

Prophecy.

Ah. Of the war?

Yes. Can I come in?

Do.

Short summary, she thinks to him, once they're close and she can shield the room just in case. The Black Fleets will attack approximately now, following the same geometric progression as usual. The attack will be overwhelming; several people I know will still be alive, you aren't one of them though I don't know that you're dead, and everything will go very badly to pieces. My prophecy was of soon in the future, though I don't know if it's within the month or just within a few years, but the war had been going on for quite a while at the moment I saw.

Complete written summary?

Working on it.

What made you rush here instead of just messaging me was...?

As of the moment I saw, Aillis Caitebe, the exceptionally popular young woman, daughter of a hero, nobody has anything wrong to say about her - was pulling a coup.

Ah.

This would have been very bad on its own, but as it happened we were also losing the war overwhelmingly, and one of the thoughts going through my mind at the moment I prophecied was, in fact, that this seizure of power would start a civil war, at a time when we were losing.

A-ha.

I will not say that her seizure of power was ill-motivated, or that any of the people in charge were more competent than she was, or even that it was not the right thing to do. I will say that I am absolutely confident that the Fate we saw was her Fate; that she was key to the unfolding events aboard the Antemacar that lead to everything going so horribly wrong, and that her Fate is a Fate of doom, for Villarosa, for the Adaitan family, and for everyone who does not want to live under the rule of the Black Fleets.

Also probably for her, but as it happens I don't care about that part so much.

Understandable.

The prophecy was - bad for you?

The worst moment of my life, as it happens.

Understood. In that case... we need to tell the Admiral we know the war will start soon, and Captain Eshiaf, too. We need to get Caitebe transferred somewhere else - quickly, before someone lynches her; if four people know it won't be long before everyone knows. Do you think we have time to report the rest of it home?

I doubt it, but we can try. Tell the Admiral - about the war, about Caitebe being a focus of Doom... anything else?

Who was in charge of the fleet, when she tried to take power?

Captain Eshiaf. As it happened.

Then I think we tell her she should update her will.

Other information is - probably not urgently relevant; I'll send the complete message to Father and Mother, give you a private key you can use to decrypt the message if anything happens to me. 

You're Fated to live, though?

If any of this works, we snap Fate like a twig. Getting Caitebe off this ship ought to be enough to do it, unless by some coincidence we meet up with her later.

Understood. Let's see what the Admiral has to say.

And the two siblings depart immediately. There's no chaotic rushing, this time, just a swift, organized stride as the two heirs to the royal family head straight to the Admiral's quarters.

There is observably a considerable stir among the student body. People are gathering in knots to whisper gossip to each other.

Oh dear me how could anyone have predicted this.

(Sesnai is anonymously stirring the gossip pot, carefully choosing ridiculous theories that will foreshadow elements of the actual truth when that gets leaked.)

Gyanto will provide polite nods with reassuring intent as they pass; the purpose of his stride is to let everyone know that, yes, there are problems, but the ideal princely hero and his ideal princessly sister (um...) are on the task of resolving them as quickly as possible, and there's no reason for anyone to be worried.

Rear Admiral Duchess Alarante Paizar wants to know why she's being woken up. Please explain, small children who seem to think that they are sufficiently important to WAKE UP a DUCHESS who is IN CHARGE OF THE GODDAMN SCHOOL YOU ARE ATTENDING and can technically have you COURT-MARTIALED by a MILITARY TRIBUNE that can DELIVER THE DEATH PENALTY.

Prophecy.

... Understood.

Prophecy of doom. The war will start soon. They have overwhelming forces. I don't think it's unwinnable but there's a Fate attached and we need to break it as quickly as possible.

I need to know all the details -

Everything I can.

And she does some quick summarizing: The Doom of defeat, the invasion that will occur very shortly - Aillis Caitebe is at the center of it, I don't know how -

I need to know more.

It wasn't a complete description of the strategic situation, Admiral, it was a vision of looking at her, about to - well, have things go very badly for me - and knowing that it was her who'd put us in this disaster. From the humans I could see in it it was within a few years.

She pauses. I think you were dead by then. Captain Eshiaf commanded the fleet.

And Alarante Paizar is now basically confident that this is some kind of clever plot Sesnai is pulling. She'll probably need to go along with it anyway, of course, Sesnai's a princess, but she's been at court for long enough to know that "it's a prophecy, so shut up and listen" is just too simple. If she had a prophecy she'd put lots of irrelevant information that advantaged her loyal supporters in it. (Not that she'd ever get a prophecy.)

Which makes the important question how she makes sure that Sesnai is plotting against someone she doesn't care about, like whatsherface, Caitebe, instead of plotting against her parents, who will swat Duchess Alarante Paizar like a fly if she tries anything. Fortunately, she's checking the rules, and - 

Am I correct that this is your first recorded prophecy?

Only if you don't count short-duration precognition, but - yes.

(And there's a sudden burst of profanity inside her own head -)

Then I need to immediately confirm this prophecy with the Queen before I take any action.

Standard procedures, how wonderful they are when you don't want to get blamed for something.

Admiral, I must strongly urge you to reconsider -

Chief Cadet?

... Ma'am.

AAARGH

Admiral, I hereby predict that the war will begin before you get confirmation back.

You are NOT CONVINCING HER that your parents will approve of this prophecy! You really really aren't!

Admiral, I request permission to inform Captain Eshiaf -

I will inform Captain Eshiaf. You...

She pauses.

Get me that complete summary, one copy to me and one copy to Their Majesties. And say nothing to anyone about this until we hear confirmation without my explicit permission.

Which is more Official Policy For Prophecies From Self-Proclaimed Prophets Who Have Not Been Officially Acknowledged As Such!

Yes, Admiral.

And, quietly, to Gyanto, I told you Fate was against this.

Yes, Admiral.

It's not that he disapproves, exactly, of rules against random people hijacking arbitrary chains of command by prophecying nonsense, it's just that this is an actual prophecy. (Nothing else would make Sesnai act so out-of-character. Gyanto knows his sister well enough to know when she's actually afraid, and this is not her normal acting.)

So you did. 

Dismissed.

And they will depart the Admiral's quarters, looking visibly annoyed but not saying anything to anyone anyway.

'Say nothing to anyone', really, as if that can stop Sesnai. Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, after all.

(The Tyrant-reflexes take over, she is fated to be Doomed, how can she actually leak this without looking like she's leaking this - answer is of course Nairia, who hasn't been sworn to secrecy yet - quick message to her updating her; Sesnai accidentally told her that Aillis was at the center of the prophecy of doom the instant she woke before being sworn to secrecy, she needs to have leaked it before Sesnai can have ordered her to keep it secret, quick telepathic private message to her -)

Nairia, who has of course been delicately stirring the bubbling cauldron of rumour this whole time, sends a message acknowledging the secrecy order just a few minutes later. As to what may have happened in those few minutes, really, who can say?

Nairia is the best, yes.

And Rear Admiral Duchess Alarante Paizar informs her chief subordinate that there's an important update and he needs to cancel anything non-urgent he's doing to Be Interrupted And Listen.

It takes him but a moment to exit the conversation he's having and find a private place to take a call.

"Yes?"

"Her Royal Highness Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan," she says, voice not nearly as cynical as her thoughts, "and her brother His Royal Highness Gyantomerenti Adaitan, have informed me that there is a prophecy. The details of the prophecy are classified but relevant information has been added to the Emergency File." Which he will have access to if he finds himself in command. "The prophecy provides evidence for but not confidence in the belief that the Black Fleets will attack at an unknown time within the next several years, possibly within the next month. Do you have questions?" Before they get to "how do we rearrange our curriculum if we might be at war within a month?"

"The details are classified, you say, but is the—general tone of the thing—also meant to be a secret? Because I will have a much better chance at preparing these children to go to war within the month if I am allowed to let them know I'm trying to do that."

"The information that is not a secret," she says, "Is the information that cannot be kept secret, which is that Her Royal Highness woke up in a panic, stormed to His Royal Highness's quarters, collected him, and came to me. No one will be surprised if this means war is imminent."

"I see. I'll adjust plans accordingly. How close—I assume you cannot answer or do not know how close to us in particular the war will arrive, but I'm assuming it'll be plenty close because it seems better to prepare for the least convenient outcome. We will need to make significant changes to our curricula. Bring back the old system where faster students help teach slower ones for extra credit, maybe..."

And, as Sesnaiilaisa walks with her brother back to their rooms, she is keeping the faint smile that would naturally play over her face in check.

That was, by her calculation, around the thirty-fifth percentile of her perspective outcomes. Princess Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan hadn't realized that the rules intended to stop random people from going around claiming to be prophets could actually be used against her (because she hadn't thought about it since recovering her memories; a conscious note that any unreflected beliefs Sesnai possessed should be exposed to the Tyrant's analysis, because the majority of her life had not been spent in a friendly universe, not at all), but she had expected that some excuse would be raised to stop her enemy from being immediately removed from the ship. The only way in which it was actively worse for her than she had expected was that Tefano wouldn't be hearing the complete story yet, and she'd expected to be able to warn him faster. She might still be able to do that in secret, but it would give Caitebe plenty of time to worm her way into power before then...

After all, the purpose of it hadn't been to destroy her enemy. The purpose had been to spread the story.

The purpose had been to make Caitebe the enemy. And that purpose was accomplished.

So, really, it could have gone much worse.

Fate has not been averted. 

And Fate is civil war, and civil war is the end of Villarosa.

He can understand what could cause the fleets to turn on each other, and why; Gyan is heir to the throne, and that is not undeserved, for he is not as clever as his sister but he is wise, and far-seeing, and he understands all the cracks at the heart of the kingdom, all the hatreds of the counts and the secrets of the kings and the fragile state of the once-free worlds, all the ancient rivalries that shrewd and benevolent governance may bury but that only time and death can destroy.

The civil war needs not to occur. Aillis Caitebe may have reasonable objections to the royal administration, she may have better strategies for the war, she may have understandable grievances against the elves who ordered her father to his death - but all these are to be brought up after the Black Fleets have been permanently banished, not now while Villarosa faces an outside threat far greater than any it has ever known.

Caitebe needs to be guided away from that path. And by someone sensible and humane, before his wild sister starts hiring assassins, or worse, because if Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan decides the kingdom needs saving, she is not going to be averted by threats.

Gyantomerinti Adaitan sees his parents' thrones teetering, and he sighs, and puts on the face of duty, because it's always he who has to save the kingdom.

It is, at this juncture, not hard to find Aillis Caitebe. She's in the cafeteria just as it opens for breakfast, thanking the staff for her meal with a gentle smile.