Outworld appeared vast before her eyes. All the same, the window from which she sat to view it appear very much like a cell from where she must remain unseen. Baked in warmth of the purple suns, the thin linen dress covered her well, but the barest spot that she most concerned over was her face. Her cheeks etched out in favor of jaws like that of an Earthrealm bear. Her lips settled in the center, normal and plump with health, but each breath in that past those teeth and trickled over the scar tissue of her birth was a cold reminder of her place in the world.
The wooden portal doors opened to her chamber and Mileena pulled from the window to find Kitana, Stewardess of Outworld greet her at the doorway.
The sight of Kitana was usually a good one, but this day was not a normal day in the dull placeholder life as the two waited for Kotal Kahn's return. This would be a very stressful day instead.
"You look good." Kitana remarked, and the lines in her eyes and lips as she spoke came as honest as Mileena had ever seen of her sister. "You'll need a belt though, and a veil."
"To hide my face?" Mileena paused as Kitana passed her for the dresser.
"I will wear one too." Kitana added.
Mileena joined her at the dresser and pulled from it a metal belt that she quickly fastened around her waist to tighten the noblewoman's dress she adorned on herself for the sake of a vacant Kahnum. Her shows thin and pink, as the rest of her matched the theme and her sister always a regal blue when she addressed the public, and her enemies.
She watched carefully as Kitana's hands traced the wrap handle of Mileena's sai and passed it to her sister.
"I've no where to put it." Mileena revealed the belt had no frog, no clasp, just presence.
"Beneath, wear a belt under your dress, I meant. We cannot be certain of the results of our meeting today." Kitana handed a black belt after, small and thin and perfect to hide beneath the linen dress. "I am wearing one too."
"Will it be that bad?"
"It shouldn't, but I do not trust this man, nor his people, no matter how orderly they come across."
"They are the Order Realm though?"
"They are men, and men of their own principles." She added, "principles that change when suits them."
"As with all men." Mileena snickered, but understood and fastened the belt around her right thigh and the sai tucked with it.
Kitana stood back as her sister dressed and prepared. She forewent the slip on shoes for boots, just as Kitana had. A leather mask tied around her face so that any who look upon her would not know the difference between the two. As Kitana turned her back to Mileena and swept an errant swirl of hair to free her neck before the Tarkatan, Mileena stared at the bare flesh, her hot breath heated further with each exhale in the leather mask, and the raspy sound of her tarlatan throat only blew that air back into her ears.
Kitana wore a leather mask as well, however, this was dyed black and blue with silver adorned at the edges to distinguish her as the stewardess of Outworld, and from Mileena, who held no position in the realm.
"What if Kotal Kahn never returns?" Mileena pondered, her voice clouded by the mask, but she had to add an even worse question, "what if Raiden doesn't either?"
"That's what the meeting is about today, at least in regards to Raiden." There was a pause between them, Kitana turned around, hand on the dresser and eyes stared back into her own as if Mileena were a mirror. After a long breath soaked into the leather, she let her hand trace up to hold her sister's shoulder. A sign of assurance, she hoped. "We'll cross that pit when we come to it."
"Aye." Mileena nodded and a knock came from the door.
"It's time."