Luna felt an immediate sting of sickening anticipation as the doors opened. The Alien. Vo-Vakis’ arm looped in hers was suddenly no longer a reassurance but a trap closed tight, one she had walked into with open eyes and told herself was the lesser evil. She pulled – tried to pull – away, but he held onto her.
“I know you’re nervous,” he whispered, continuing their inexorable procession towards the ballroom. “It’ll be alright.”
Luna wanted to retort, to snap back at him, but the words seemed to die in her throat. Or lower perhaps, strangled by the restraints of the dress, another trap that he had designed for her.
They crossed the threshold of the grand ballroom and the light was blinding, criss-crossing reflections from mirrored windows and gold-edged furniture that had been polished to shine like the sun. And everyone was looking to see the alien. There were smiles, true. People trying their best to appear friendly. But more than that were the disgusted, the fascinated, the analytically disinterested. She wasn’t a guest, she was a case for study, or an object of repulsion or exotic desire. She kept trying to pull her arm out from Vo-Vakis.
“Please!” he hissed. “I know how you feel, but you have to be strong. If you try to run they’ll judge you all the more harshly!”
Luna opened her mouth to say that she didn’t care about their judgements, that he could never know how she felt right now, that she only wanted to be with Asta and leave this city behind her forever. But Pek-Tchat came sweeping over with a small army of attendants and hangers-on and snatched her up with a nod of acknowledgement to Vo-Vakis for services rendered.
“So glad you could join us,” he said elegantly.

The entourage was a swarm that knew no end, it seemed like. Luna jostled between balding natural philosophers and dashing young duellists with rapiers on their belts alike, and women too – these all young, younger than her, maids and ladies and everything between, and all had their own subtleties of reaction. She suddenly felt nothing so strongly as the desire to break free, but that was impossible, made impossible by the crush of people. She wanted to cry, but terror pressed the tears back inside and instead she just shook silently. There seemed to be no end.
And then suddenly, as suddenly as it had began, she was outside the swarm and being graciously introduced to a young woman in a flowing blue dress whose name she didn’t catch.
“May I speak to her?” said the woman to Pek-Tchat. She glanced at Luna, and looked down nervously, afraid to make eye contact. She was pretty, cobalt-coloured skin made up with the glittery pigment that the high-born of Tond, male and female, universally used to augment themselves. It was made of ground-up silver, the poisoning effect of which they were immune to due to a quirk of blood chemistry. Pek-Tchat nodded, and the young woman cleared her throat delicately.
“It is an honour to meet you,” she said slowly and clearly, over-emphasising the syllables. She was taken aback slightly when Luna responded with the customary greeting in easy, fluent Tond.
“She speaks it well,” remarked the big man at her elbow. “Although we haven’t managed to correct that accent.” He laughed. The woman tittered nervously in response.
“I never thought they would look quite so… alike to us,” she said to Pek-Tchat. “You look very beautiful in that dress,” she continued. “I wish I could afford Vo-Vakis’ talents!” Luna did not answer. She sensed that the woman wouldn’t want to hear what she wanted to say. More to the point, Pek-Tchat would stop her from saying it. The woman gave a last look up and down Luna, avoiding her eyes, and then was scooped up by a roving band of young men who were making for the dancefloor.
The ball proceeded in more or less this fashion for a while, Pek-Tchat and his entourage making their way around the people of note, and Luna would occasionally be dredged up from the swarm to exchange a few words, impress an old fellow or a duchess with her strong if rural grasp of the language.
“She’s quite the little thing, isn’t she?” said a man that Pek-Tchat referred to as “sir”, who had a couple of lines of black paint, almost blended into the dark blue of his skin, traced down the sides of his eyes. “Look at her, man! Some fire in her, I can tell!” He leered. “These savages from the sky, they make ’em strong!”
“She’s certainly strong-willed,” Pek-Tchat said calmly. “But she is remarkably compliant when push comes to shove. I can arrange a visit, if you’d like.” The painted man grinned toothily. He reached out and touched her naked arm, squeezing her steel-threaded bicep. “I know a warrior-caste when I see one, old boy,” he said. “If she’s compliant it’s because she wants to be. You take my meaning?” Luna’s face burned, and she turned her eyes downwards. It was the powerlessness that was the worst part. The people were a close second.
To hell with this. She felt the heat of embarrassment, of shame that she had let herself be squeezed into this little dress that started too low and stopped too high, into this grand room full of elegantly-dressed people who looked right through her, or saw her as only a body or a means to an end. She felt that heat drain out of her and her veins fill with ice cold fury instead.
“You couldn’t handle me,” she hissed to the painted man, shaking his hand off. “And I wouldn’t give you the chance.”
He laughed raucously. “What did I say! Fire in her belly!” he turned to Pek-Tchat and clapped him on the shoulder. “I was wondering when she was going to speak up!”
Pek-Tchat grabbed her and pulled her away. “What the hell are you doing?” he said in a low rumble.
“What I should have done the first time I saw you,” said Luna, and punched him square between the eyes.
The big man staggered back and Luna saw blood spurt from his nose as he clutched it, groaning. “You little savage!” he yelled. “You filthy beast!” Still reeling he waved to his entourage, gesturing wildly in her direction and yelling words to the effect of “get her!” The men and women hung back though, fearing what this little figure that radiated rage and danger might do to them. Hands rested on sword-hilts but didn’t close around the grip.
“You want savage? I’ll give you savage!” Luna said, grabbing Pek-Tchat by the collar of his rich velvety coat and throwing him to the ground. Her fist of steel descended with force that shattered the marble floor right next to his head and she leaned in so close that their foreheads touched. “Where is she?”
Sword drawn. A bold young man looking to prove himself. She kicked out, hitting him in the groin and grabbed the hilt as the metre of black steel fell. The whole ballroom was silent, eyes fixed on her no longer as the passive but the active. This was more like it. Planting her foot on his chest, she put the point of the rapier to Pek-Tchat’s throat and announced:
“Take me to the Philosopharium or I make him bleed.”
Someone lunged and Luna swung round to defend. There was a clash of steel, and the enemy blade scraped across her arm, tracing a red line where it made contact. Luna hissed from the pain.
“Yield!” said the man holding the sword, some handsome hotshot with a flashy beard. He was wearing a loose silk shirt that seemed to float around him with each movement as if he was underwater.
Luna didn’t dignify him with an answer. This damn dress; It was too tight, it was slowing her down. She could barely breathe. But hell if she was going to let this man get the better of her. She feinted, and swung the sword over his parry to drag it down his exposed collarbone. Before she could apply a little pressure to shut him down for good though, she sensed another blade leaving its sheath.
“Just – how – many – duellists – did – you – bring?” she grunted to the still-prone Pek-Tchat as she fended off dual attacks from both the young men, eager to prove themselves. She couldn’t keep this up. Pek-Tchat’s entourage was beginning to surround her. She had to get out before they could defeat her with sheer numbers alone. She knocked aside a thrust from the hotshot and, without another word, turned and ran.
Asta could wait. As she ran for the front door, she noticed a shape moving in her periphery. The worried face of Vo-Vakis emerged from the shadows, and she slowed.
“Lun?” he said. “What happened in there? I heard so much shouting! Is that a sword?”
She stopped, levelled her point at him. “You’ll take me to-”
Which was as far as she got before the other man behind her brought the vase down on her head.