"So that's how you know so much about Psions." Lila grinned smugly. "How long did you date?"
"A little over a decade," Serix explained calmly, cruising over the planet like he was on a joyride. He was clearly enjoying Lila's company, despite her nosiness. "She never quite explained her work to me."
The Earthling nearly snorted, "But she totally mind-fucked you right."
Serix shook his head. He rarely encountered such brashness within the Consortium. It was a bit refreshing, if not a tad unsettling.
"It's okay, I've been there. No judging. No judging at all," Lila cringed at herself. "But like, you get it right."
"How your powers work? I do." Serix nodded. "How is that tube-baby anyway?"
"Ivy? She's great. Way better Psion than me," Lila smiled. "You should see her in action. So graceful. So hot."
"And did she ever receive formal training?"
"Uh...not really. Not with fighting on that level, I mean. In her mindscape, I found dancing, piano, ice-skating, gymnastics, that sort of thing."
Lila couldn't tell where the conversation was going. To that extent, she was grateful for her new mentor. He seemed awfully keen on her preferred learning method.
"Sounds about right. Her talents came through repetition, like with all humans. But her skill in battle sprang up through her use of the Psionic arts. Yrix had her own share of brilliance, but some things came to her faster than others. I'd wager your partner was an avid reader as well as a patient observer," Serix explained. "When you have the chance, ask, or I suppose, search for any history she might have with a combatant in her life."
"Noted," Lila stared out into space. "But so what...I can just kinda scam my way into piloting?"
"Yrix described it as a deeply emotional affair. If you really care about it, you'll *feel* your way through it."
"And where's all that knowledge and instinct really coming from? Out of the void?"
Serix huffed, "You'll get it from me. Psions fake it till they make it. The best mimics in the galaxy."
That word was a bit of a trigger for the Earthling, who flinched the moment she heard it. But monsters and nightmares aside, Serix had a point. Ivy could not have been a mimic and a Psion by mere chance. There was a correlation to be uncovered. In fact, so much of what she knew of Psions came from a deeply alien place.
"Don't you feel it already?" Serix continued. "Watch how I tilt the stick. Sense the vibrations. Use everything you've got to unravel the story. That's all learning is, a tale of how someone dissects something from nothing."
The material from the immaterial.
Lila tried to concentrate, yet when she began to visualize the Riven and all its mechanical complexities, she couldn't help but imagine the heiress. In fact, it soon proved impossible to wash Ivy from her mind. All she could see was flashing images of that beautiful heiress.
Her eyes.
Her lips.
Her subtle features on her curved figure.
"I uh," Lila shook her head, realizing she was beginning to imagine Ivy wrapped in her Psionic strands, lying on the floor, and looking up at the Earthling with a lustful gaze. "I think I'm a fraud."
"Don't be silly," Serix laughed. "Just get your head out of the gutter."
"I think I'm the goober Psion."
"You're all weird, that's for sure. But you don't have an ego, kid, and that's a start. How about I send you down some textbooks so you can find your footing? Play around in the cockpit, too, if you want, just don't blow it up. Can't fly without my credentials anyway."
"Uh-sure!" Lila smiled. "That could work."
Shit.
Reading.
Homework.
And to think, even the Aerie had that sort of thing.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
"So what, you thought playing more instruments at the same time would make him respect you?"
Ivy's cheek was buried in her palm, eyes flickering with sullen awareness as the Canere approached her glass for a refill. She had already torn through half the bottle. At that rate, even Alia was impressed, if not a bit tipsy herself.
"What else was I supposed to do?" Ivy responded to the dancer with a groan. "Sit there and look pretty? He was already letting half the market window-shop me."
Alia looked down at her own glass. "Well, can't say my parents were much better in that regard. I just thought maybe, after I sold the last piece of myself, they'd seem...a little proud. A little."
"And here I can't get my father to stop praising me. Sometimes it feels shallow," Anya sighed, clearly envying her peers and their ability to intoxicate themselves.
Though of course, only Ivy could begin to extrapolate the wonders of her own body, and how a mimic could get drunk.
"So what's up with you anyway?" Alia raised an eyebrow. "Why can't you drink?"
"Well, that's what happens when your blood is already a fermented nectar," Anya shrugged. "Can't tip the tipsy. I guess."
"We all have our talents." Ivy raised her glass for a toast.
Unlike Lila, the heiress was still in full control of herself regardless of what she drank. If anything, the alcohol only managed to make her a little more open. But her depressing, jaded tone remained intact.
"Speaking of which," Alia scooted closer. "I'd like to see you perform sometime."
Ivy squinted. "I'd like to see you perform...wait-."
The dancer giggled mischievously, "Not sure we share the same kind of intensity here. But I'd be willing to accommodate if I can see that Sonera girl of yours. Apparently, she's a ballerina."
Anya seemed visibly distraught that she missed another opportunity. Her eyes alone spoke to the vow that one day, she'd return for another visit. It didn't matter where the girls went. Her interest would follow.
"Yeah...I've only seen bits and pieces," Ivy stared into the void with a smirk. "But she's...she's good. I'm glad to share a...whatever we have going on at this point."
"Lucky you," Alia crossed her arms, the slight jingle of gold following her movement. "My group isn't so amicable. But I get it. We're all loners in our own way. At least I got Rena when I did."
"So curious," Anya interjected one last time. "This place seems to build just as much as it takes away. Yrix truly is a genius."
Her voice carried weight.
"This is it then," Ivy sighed. "Going home?"
"I'm lucky enough to get these little trips. Father is very protective. Ivy, will you accompany me?"
The heiress nodded, having lost the nerve to protest from both drink and dismay. Yet when she stood to leave, Ivy couldn't help but glance back at Alia, who was staring at her with a saddened face. She seemed to regret what she believed to be inevitable.
The feeling was mutual.
Anya was right. Yrix was truly a genius.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Is that...me?"
Sonera rested her head on Lunae's bosom, listening closely for her heartbeat. What she felt instead was a radiant fire. Her power was in there.
"Lunae..."
She tried to reach for it, only to cause the beautiful girl to stir. It was held close in her heart. And whether or not the seal was intended to be romantic remained a mystery to Sonera.
"Mmh," Lunae twitched, her markings coming alive with a radiant light.
Sonera's light.
The girl was clearly groggy, her mind clouded with the aching sorrow of her wounded partner. But when she saw Sonera alive and reasonably well, her face lit up with determination. Sonera had only a moment to react before their faces collided.
As if she were a cat snuggling up against a table-leg, Lunae met Sonera with feral excitement. She had so very much to say that her tongue began to trip over itself. All she could produce were a few passionate grunts.
"I knew it," Lunae whispered into the assassin's mind. "I could feel it. Sonera!"
"Lunae," Sonera grinned for only a moment.
She gently held the princess by her shoulders, attempting to create some space between them as Lunae's heavy chest began to grind her into the table. The Infestare was already on top of her by then, licking and biting Sonera's neck like a rabid creature, all the while bombarding her mind with mixed messages of love and rebuke.
"Nngh..." Sonera winced.
Without her own Psionic power, she had only the brutish strength of her new limbs to fight back. But they were not enough, sluggish and timid after the guilt had settled.
"For a moment," Lunae gasped, her eyes watering. "I felt you...you died."
"Maybe," Sonera's eyelids scraped together. "But then I remembered you."
"Don't do that," Lunae shook her head, coiling her tail around her own hand as she clenched her fist. "I can't be the reason you surrender yourself. Live again, so that you chop off another piece?"
Sonera wanted to argue. She wanted to give up. A war waged on in her mind, and all that was left was honesty.
"It's what I am...it's what you fell in love with," she shrugged with a tender smile.
"No," Lunae growled. "My mother was right about one thing."
"Please-."
"I'm not giving you your power back until you submit."
"Lunae. Don't do this."
Her face was so stunning, even as she glared at Sonera with contempt. That was the way the Infestare treated the girl she loved, as if she belonged to her by rite of some universe-spanning promise. And despite her growing strength, Sonera felt unable to refuse.
As if she were right back in that moment.
In the Crimson Forest.
Trapped with the one thing that could delay her fate.
The assassin wouldn't give up, however. And neither would her partner. They were locked at the edge between love and spite.