A Princess of Orokin
Michelle woke to dim light and was immediately still. She was lying on a large bed. She wasn't bound and... She stiffened further as she stared down at her right...arm. It was the same flesh as her left. The tentacle as gone as if it had never been. She touched it with her left hand. It felt like flesh and she could feel it under her fingers and her finger's contact on the skin. Then she touched the sleeve, staring at her garment. She was wearing a golden gown. It was thin, but warm.
"This isn't real..." Michelle said softly. "This can't be real..."
"It's real, Your Imperial Highness." A familiar voice sounded from nearby. The Mag Prime called Petra stood nearby, her stance vigilant. The golden Lato pistol at her side and golden Orthos slashing spear at her back gleamed in the dim light. "Good morning." The Tenno said calmly. "I will get the lights." She hit a control and the room suddenly was brighter. "How do you feel?"
"Where am I?" Michelle demanded, looking around.
The room she was in was large, but not ostentatious. The furniture was well built. And... She stared. It was all Orokin designs. Not the derelict Orokin she had seen so often, or the dusty, empty places that she had ventured into in the Void with other Tenno. But fresh. The sheets on the bed still had wrinkles! New. Clean! Orokin! This wasn't possible!
"These are the Royal Quarters, Your Imperial Highness." Petra replied evenly. "Your mother is three doors down the hall."
"This is a virtual world! It has to be." Michelle said with snap. "Who are you and why am I here?"
"This is not a virtual world, Your Imperial Highness." Petra said calmly. "Although I do not blame you for doubting." She nodded as Michelle stared wildly around. "My name is Petra, my rank is Captain and I have been detailed as your chief guard until and unless you choose someone else."
"My jailor?" Michelle demanded.
"No, Your Imperial Highness. I am your guard. You are not a prisoner." Petra said calmly. "If you wish to go, you may." Michelle stared at her as Petra raised a hand. "But... please... At least hear your mother out before you choose anything?" The guard begged.
"You would just let me go?" Michelle asked dubiously. "Just like that? After all this?"
"Well, we would want to be sure wherever you go is safe." Petra said with a sigh. "Or as safe as Tenno can get. But... yes." She said mildly. "You are not a prisoner, Your Imperial Highness."
"Why do you keep calling me that?" Michelle asked, still staring about, stunned. The art on the walls was exquisite. Everything about the room spoke of power, but... It wasn't ostentatious as odd as that sounded. It was nearly plain. The bed, a desk, a chair and a dresser. Nothing else.
"It is the proper honorific. Your mother is the Empress of Orokin." Petra said evenly. "That makes you a Princess of Orokin. The honorific is 'Your Imperial Highness'."
"My...mother... an Empress?" Michelle felt her world go into a tailspin. She fought the urge to giggle maniacally. It wouldn't help. "No. No! I am insane. This is not happening!"
"I don't doubt that you are confused, Your Imperial Highness." Petra said calmly. "But you are not insane. We can prove it and we will. If you let us."
"I..." Michelle shook her head. "This is... wait...! Jac!" She jerked, sliding her feet from the bed. "Where is Jac?" Petra nodded.
"She is in the next room." Petra said softly. "I..." She paused as Michelle turned to her. "Does Your Imperial Highness wish to see her?"
"I am not a princess." Michelle said, her tone dangerous. "Stop calling me that." Petra sighed.
"My orders are clear, Your Imperial Highness." The guard said stolidly. "Until and unless the Empress herself countermands them -since my orders came from her- I have no choice but to address you as a Princess of Orokin."
"Gah! Okay, Can you at least just call me 'Princess Michelle' or something? It's less of a mouthful!" Michelle said with a snarl. Petra thought about that for a moment, then nodded. Michelle sighed in relief, but then snarled again. "Princess! I am not insane, you are insane. My mother? Maybe she didn't die all those centuries ago, but she is not an Empress! And certainly not the Empress of Orokin. Orokin is gone!"
"Not yet." The guard said quietly. "And not ever if we have anything to say about it, Princess Michelle."
"Gah!" Michelle snarled a she rose, then tottered a bit. She felt dizzy.
"Are you all right, Princess Michelle?" Petra asked, stepping close.
"Dizzy." Michelle said weakly and did not resist as Petra took her left arm in a gentle grip and set her back on the bed. "What is happening to me?"
"The repairs to your body took their toll, Princess Michelle." Petra said quietly, holding Michelle upright while the Tenno regained her equilibrium. "You will be okay, given time, rest and exercise. But you will be weak for a time. Or so Chirurgeon tells me." Petra said quietly.
"My...arm..." Michelle lifted her right arm and scrutinized it. "How? Technocyte infection cannot be cured."
"I don't know, Princess Michelle." Petra said quietly. "I am Tenno, not a healer."
"Then... as a Tenno, on your honor as Tenno... Where I am?" Michelle asked.
"I can do better than tell you, Princess Michelle." Petra said with a smile in her voice. "I can show you. Window." She commanded.
Michelle went stiff as one entire wall of the room suddenly turned transparent. She stared out at... fury. The sheer power of a star was visible at close range. It was easy to see. From the view, they couldn't have been more than a hundred kilometers from the surface of...the Sun. Whatever was protecting the room she was in must have been seriously powerful. The radiation alone at this range would fry even a warframe, let alone a woman in a gown. Just looking at it unprotected should have fried her to a crisp. But she didn't even feel warm and she wasn't blinded. Powerful shields indeed. The view was... spectacular.
"Holy crap... The.. I..." Michelle stammered. "The Sun?"
"Welcome to Avalon, Princess Michelle." Petra said kindly. "I for one am very glad you are here."
"Avalon?" Michelle gasped. "But..."
Avalon had been the secret retreat of the Orokin Emperors. A hideaway from the universe. It's existence had been known, it's location had never been discovered as far as Michelle knew. Stories had abounded about the secret facility. Everything from secret laboratories filled with Frankenstein monsters to drunken orgies in the halls and everything in between.
Petra looked at her and nodded. "Window close." She said quietly and the window vanished and a wall took its place. "It is beautiful, Princess Michelle. But deadly."
"I don't understand." Michelle said weakly. "I mean... Avalon?"
"Yes, Princess Michelle. Avalon. We are hidden within the stellar corona." Petra said calmly. "The only way in or out is via portal. Any ship trying to approach will fry long before they reach sensor range, let alone anything smaller than a ship. The corona is thousands of kilometers wide and all the way around the Sun. Even if they knew generally where we were..." She shrugged and Michelle nodded.
The corona's temperature averaged a million degrees. Any projectiles would burn up long before reaching something buried in the corona. Energy weapons? Ha! The inconceivable amount of background radiation would scramble any coherent beams in milliseconds.
"I...see." Michelle said weakly. "Can I see Jac now?" She asked plaintively.
"Of course." Petra held out a hand and Michelle took it to rise. "If you feel bad, tell me. My duty is to you, Princess Michelle." She made sure Michelle was steady on her feet them retreated a step.
"To... me...?" Michelle swallowed hard. "I..." She shook herself. "I wish to see my friend."
"This way." Petra said with a nod, leading Michelle towards a door that opened as they approached it. On the other side was room exactly lie Michelle's with the sole exception that Jac sat on the bed, eating from a tray.
Michelle felt her heart leap as she saw Jac look up and smile. The other Tenno wore a gown similar to Michelle's and her face was radiant. But it was the other female in the room who stole most of Michelle's attention. Eliza sat in the chair by the desk, and her smile was wide as she turned to look as well.
"Michelle!" Jac said with a grin. "You finally woke up!"
"I..." Michelle swallowed. "Jac? You okay?"
"I've been better." Jac admitted. "But the hospitality here is first rate. Have you had breakfast?"
"Breakfast?" Michelle cursed the disbelieving squeak that entered her voice, but shook her head. "No. I just woke up."
"Then come on, sit down. Eat." Jac demanded. "You look pale."
"I am very confused." Michelle admitted as she moved to the bed and sat on the edge.
"Understandable." Eliza said with a small frown. "I will make some food for you."
"Since when does an Empress make food?" Michelle asked as she situated herself. "I mean..." She broke off as Eliza chuckled.
"Don't get me wrong..." Eliza said with a small smile. "Ordinarily, I would just snap my fingers and people would jump. But... it gets old. Sit down and I will get your breakfast for you." Michelle frankly stared as her mother rose and walked to the side where a small food preparation area appeared against the wall. She started working. "I need to remember where I came from. And I like to cook." The Empress said with a grin.
Michelle shook her head and stared from her mother to Petra, who chuckled.
"We keep trying to get her to accept our deference, our service." Petra said with a shrug. "Doesn't work very well sometimes."
"You have your job, Captain Petra..." Eliza said mildly. "I have mine. In public I have to be stern and uncompromising. A true Empress. In private, I can be myself." She quickly had a tray in hand and walked with it back to where Michelle sat, bemused by all this. She set it in front of Michelle with another smile and sat back down at the desk. "Go on, eat." She said quietly. "You will need to recoup your strength. The regeneration of your arm used a lot of your body's energy reserves. I have been talking to Jac here. We have a lot to talk about."
Michelle looked at Jac who nodded a little. She smiled a bit and dug into the huge stack of pancakes. They let her eat. Only when she was done with the pancakes and sipping her juice did Jac speak up.
"How are you doing, Michelle?" Jac asked quietly. "This was enough of a shock to me and I am not..." She broke off as Michelle grimaced.
"Frankly? I am really finding it hard to believe." Michelle said slowly, choosing her words with care. "Avalon?" She said, staring around. Eliza nodded.
"The last refuge of the Orokin Emperors." Eliza said with a sigh. "I woke up here, after the Collapse. Everything we knew and loved was gone. The few datafeeds we had access to showed little but rubble." Her gaze turned hard. "Michelle? What did Michael do?"
"I..." Michelle swallowed hard and then spoke softly. "I don't know for sure. I know that Sina, Coriana, Nisa, Oria... They died. I... felt them die." She felt Jac's hand come to take hers. Her right hand, the one that had been a tentacle tip. It gave a squeeze and then lay on her arm. Offering support.
"I figured. You were always linked." Eliza said with a sigh. "I... I knew that almost from the moment you were born. When one was unhappy, all of you were. When one of you hurt yourself, all of you cried. I...didn't handle it well." She said, her face crestfallen. "I am sorry."
"It's not your fault!" Michelle said quickly.
"Ah, but it is, Michelle." Eliza said quietly. "You see... I didn't like my family. They were...decadent. Slothful. Lazy. Good diplomats, to be sure, but..." She shook her head. "I always preferred dealing with Tenno. You all are uncomplicated." She said with a grin. Jac and Michelle looked at each other and nodded slowly. "I never told you or your siblings that I was the youngest daughter of the Emperor. It wasn't important to me. I had fourteen siblings!"
"So... When the Collapse hit..." Michelle said slowly.
"I was found by a squad of the Royal Guard. I was badly hurt." Eliza said, nodding to Petra who remained at her post by the door. "They brought me here. I was the only survivor of the Royal Family. But if there is one thing that the descendants of Talia the First know... it is duty. I took the crown and..." She slumped.
"I see..." Michelle said slowly.
"We looked for you." Eliza said, her face stricken. "We looked for all of you. We couldn't find any evidence of any survivors but us for hundreds of years! We all took turns in cryo, but..."
"We were...scattered." Michelle said, her meal ashes in her stomach. "All of us." Jac nodded, her hand still on Michelle's arm. "With the war over, we had no purpose. Nothing left to protect. Some disappeared completely, suicided or lost, we don't know. Some went into cryo. All five of...us went into cryo."
"I see." Eliza said softly. "And then the Lotus woke you when the Grineer started their reign of terror." It wasn't a question, but Michelle nodded anyway. "When did you realize something was wrong?"
"What we do isn't safe...mother." Michelle said with a sigh. "But Sina died first. She was on one of their massive Fomorian ships. Many of us were sent to destroy the reactors."
"We had wondered why the Lotus sent Tenno to aid the Corpus." Eliza said with a nod. "'The enemy of my enemy' and all that is one thing, but..." She shrugged.
"The way she said it, we couldn't let either side gain too clear an advantage or their war would spread even further than it has." Michelle said quietly. Jac nodded soberly. "I didn't enjoy it, helping the religious fanatics. But it was needed, so we did it."
"That I can understand." Eliza said with a grimace. "I have had to work with people I despise to get things done here. And then?" She pressed gently.
"I was on my ship." Michelle said softly. "I felt Sina's fear. Her pain. I was too far away...on the other side of the system." She said, starting to cry. "I could see through her eyes. Her team was fighting, but they were being overwhelmed. They had to retreat, leave her. I... I stayed with her until... until she was gone... It was all I could do."
"Oh Michelle..." Eliza rose from the chair and walked to the bed to sit beside Michelle. "Oh my dear girl." She said, putting her arm around her daughter. Michelle gave a small cry and buried her face in Eliza's shoulder. "And Michael?"
"The last thing Sina saw...before she died... was him with his hand up, energy coming from her body into his hand." Michelle said into her mom's shoulder. "All the others... They... I..."
Eliza looked up at Captain Petra who nodded.
"He said he was collecting genetic samples, Empress." Petra said slowly. "At least, that is what he told Karl when the Tenno ambushed us on our way out. But... Michelle said something about... Impregnation." The captain said with a gulp.
"Impregnation." Eliza said with a scowl, holding Michelle as she sobbed. "I never should have trusted him. He was so suave, so cool, always with a word. Always with an alibi. I know he cheated on me, but.. I did love him."
"What did you see in him?" Michelle asked, dashing her tears away as she leaned back. Jac's hand remained.
"I was young and foolish." Eliza said heavily. "He was dark and mysterious. Dangerous. And I was drawn to that. He was...kind... at first." She sighed. "Was it a ruse to gain my trust? I don't know."
"He left..." Michelle said softly. "I was...we were...ten?"
"Yeah." Eliza said quietly. "You were ten. He had been gone for long periods before that. But then he came back and told me he was leaving...We fought. He left." She shook her head. "I didn't see him again until I woke up here. After the Collapse."
"We all thought you were dead." Michelle said slowly. "The whole area where you lived was an irradiated wasteland." She hugged Eliza again.
"I know." Michelle's mother said sadly. "I am sorry, Michelle. I know you quarreled with your sisters a lot. But seeing each of them die... Feeling it... I can't imagine what you went through. All I can do is help now. And I will."
"How?" Michelle asked slowly.
"We need to know what Michael did." Eliza said with a wince. "Unfortunately, the only witnesses..." She trailed of as Michelle inhaled sharply.
"...are dead." Michelle said with a gulp. "And I refuse to let...that man...touch me."
"Can't say I blame you." Eliza said calmly. "Petra..." She said quietly. No, this wasn't Michelle's mom talking, this was the Empress of Orokin. "Executive order. If Michael comes anywhere near Michelle, the Royal Guard are ordered to use any and all necessary force to keep him away from her." Petra gulped and Eliza smiled evilly. "You would anyway. And I don't blame you. But this gives you some legal cover. Tenno Jac..." She turned to Jac who froze. "You have been abused. Your aid to my daughter nearly cost you more than any mother should ever have to bear. We pay our debts. But now we must ask you for something more."
"What do you need, um... Empress Eliza?" Jac asked after a moment.
"The entire current Empire of Orokin resides within this station, Tenno Jac. Less than five thousand of us in total." Eliza said with a nod. "It pains me to say it, but we need help. Will you go to your clan leader for us? Our shaman has proven untrustworthy and we need answers."
"Michelle?" Jac asked slowly.
"They won't hurt me, Jac." Michelle said softly. "Unless I miss my guess... They can't."
"No." Eliza said kindly. "You are the next in line for the throne."