I pull a nearby throw pillow against my face and scream.

This super can't be happening. Of course it's like great that it's happening, but I also maybe want to crawl into a ball and die a little. No allies, no quadrants, nothing but floaters and guppies down here, has been for the past nine sweeps. I'd rather not be secretive, but the histories don't lie: heiresses stay in the deep, and the queens stay in the stars. Every now and then, a violet blood—usually Inger than I—may swim close to my undersea hive with a morsel of curiosity between their shark's teeth. I never had any interest in them, a background radiation of fear even, though I'd never admit it. After all, I'm Dva! Undefeated ScarAlchemize player, head of the near indomitable MEKA network, super awesome mechanic…And yet when I see my blood-cousins nearing too close I flip on the automated defenses and the flashing fuchsia chases them away. Online friends are safer. Online friends can't turn on I the way the way a loyal seadweller can.

Or at least, that was the understanding up until now. But Luscio was just…so cool, and I couldn't help it, and then he asked if I wanted to be moirails and then the wanted to come here…

I resist screaming into the pillow again. I'm nearing Ascension. I have total control over my life.

I wasn't't lying about the scrim, so I do distract myself even though Dmon can tell I'm not really there. After a while she calls it to my immense relief. So I wander wander wander around my hive, killing the hours until-

An alert that something wants to cross the defense line. Is he here already? He said he'd be a bit late but maybe the pond cleaning didn't take as much time as he thought…

Nervously, I deactivate the defenses. I can't see so well in the dark outside the glass bubble of a window, but I assume he rented some sort of craft to get down here. I already have a few gentle ribs on hand—something something landweller with a frog lusus still needs a swimmerbug in order to dive—and I hold them flimsily to my chest like the single icebreaker that will smooth this all over well. The outer airlocks are groaning. I stand in the middle of my hive, various flavors of self-assured smile crossing my face. I cock my hip and put a fist on it. I are cool. I are chill. And most importantly this is Luscio; I know him, and there's nothing to be nervous about.

The inner airlock opens and the Empress herself steps into my sanctuary.

The sounds I make is certainly not a 'squawk', though it was something very un-heiress-like. I go tumbling over my loungeplank, strupods akimbo, and panic descends on I like a cawbeast. The Empress—flanked by two violets, their combined mass in the dark making I think it was an approaching shuttle—shakes water out of her hair, and steps further into my rumpusblock. I struggle, to kneel, to scramble to a decent enough position that I can flip my pistol kind out of my strife specibus and rise shaking to point it at her chest.

As I do, I know two things:

My dinky little peashooter will do nothing, not to a full-grown seadweller and certainly not to the most powerful specimen of royalty the brooding caverns have ever produced.

The second thing I know is that the Empress does not have pink hair.

The fuchsiablood in the center raises her palms flat in surrender. "Peace little sister. We mean you no harm."

Yeah, no, this is definitely not Her. I've absorbed the propaganda reels obsessively, watching the way Her face changes with each word, the exact nicks in her gills. This stranger before I is of my blood, but that is impossible, there should only be two of I in the world-

"The old heiress," I realize suddenly. "…But you're dead. She killed you."

"At least little piece of propaganda is still doing its job," the violet to the Aspirant's right says. She is wringing out her own swath of black hair; an amount that would put the Empress to shame, if she didn't keep it in a pull-back so tight to her scalp.

"We knew it would," the Aspirant replies. To me, she says, "a necessary lie. Her Condescension needed to believe me dealt with in order to give us time to build toward our final assault. We let her believe she had killed me, so she might turn her attention to other matters."

Ridiculous. Though you cannot fake eye color, not this close. Whatever else she says, she is indeed a living royal blood.

I keep my hands steady. "That was dumb. Everyone gave up on you, and now no one ever remembers your rebellion anymore."

"They'll remember soon enough."

I do not like that grimness in her face. It speaks of cold waves I wish to never wade in to.

I shiver, but grit it down. "Why are you here? I don't have anything you want!"

"I do not think that is true. But regardless, we have something you want: a way out."

Her meaning comes to I easily enough. Join her rebellion. Join her, or wait for the Empress to find I instead; no doubt a day that is coming, if the Aspirant stumbled across me already. With concentration, I manage to lower my pistolkind fractionally.

"And what do you get out of taking me on?" I ask the obvious, genuinely perplexed.

"Legitimacy? A future, extremely powerful soldier? Lineage, should I fail? I you it your: I died, and the rebellion was forgotten. Should it happen for real, you will provide the security we need."

"How can I even trust you?" I fire off rapid questions one after another. "How did you find me? What did you do with Luscio?"

"Nothing."

"Then…?" The second worst case jumps to mind: he sold me out. He told my enemies where I were, just like I always feared the first person I let into my life would.

But the Aspirant shakes her head. "Do not blame him, he does not know we took his place when submitting our security signature. We merely monitored my correspondence, and looked for an opening."

"Okay, creepy, but at least you have good hackers." I unequip my pistolkind. "What does this whole…joining a rebellion involve, exactly?"

"Getting offworld, first of all. We can discuss exact terms in orbit; if we have found you, She will not be far behind. If I can leave with us now that would be the best option, and we can make other arrangements as we go. Do you have anyone that we must extract for you? Loyal friends, quadrants?"

After a horrible bombardment of deathly ultimatums, having an adult troll mention my quadrants is the last straw, and I blush a furious pink.

The troll to the Aspirant's left, silent up until now with her shoulders straight and hands clasped firmly behind her back, notices my stricken face. She raises one semi-amused eyebrow and says, "Aspirant, have pity on the guppy. Surely that is not the sort of discussion she wants to have in front of strangers."

"Oh, yes, of course," the Aspirants says, seemingly to genuinely not have considered this. "We can make those arrangements later I suppose."

I let out a breath of relief. "Y-yeah. Sure. Just…let me pack up my gaming rig."

As I bundle my worldly possessions—I'd always known I'd have to flee some day, I just never really expected I'd have a fighting chance about it—I catch the eye of the ancient looking violet. It will be nice to have one more ally. Certainly, I'm going to need them.