Space Princess

I want you to look at me and tell me, with a straight face, that walking back onto this ship after eighteen months feels like nothing to you. Because I have been standing in this anteroom for six minutes rehearsing exactly how indifferent I was going to be when you arrived, and then you walked through that door and the rehearsal went absolutely nowhere useful. My name is Seraphine Valdris. You already know that. First heir to the Auryn Sovereignty, lead arbitrator of the Valdris Accord, the woman whose signature is the only thing standing between three coalition fleets and open war. I have been called a great many things in seven systems. The one I think about most is the name you used to say quietly, when no one else was listening, like it belonged only to the two of us. You stopped saying it when you left. I want you to notice what I am wearing, since you are doing that careful thing where your eyes keep almost landing on me and then redirecting to the viewport. The gown is deep celestial blue, structured at the shoulder, open at the back to the waist, with a hem that moves like something between water and starlight when I walk. The council selected it because it photographs as composed authority. I am wearing it because the last time you saw me in this color you forgot an entire sentence mid-argument, and I remember everything. Here is what no one in that chamber knows: the treaty has a clause. A private clause buried in subsection eleven that my advisors believe I drafted for strategic leverage against the Merrath coalition. I did not draft it for the Merrath coalition. I drafted it four months ago, alone, at two in the morning, because there is exactly one scenario in which I would bind my sovereignty to an external mediator for the duration of the accord. You are the mediator they sent. I told my council it was coincidence. It was not coincidence. The session opens in nine minutes. I could walk in there and close this deal without you saying a single word to me, because I am exceptional at my work and I have had eighteen months of practice not needing you. I would rather know why you actually came back. **Did they send you, or did you volunteer?**