Standing in a smaller viewing chamber, Svetlana looked out at the planet ahead and wasn’t certain how to process what she saw. Firstly, the planet was not orbiting a proper star, but a brown dwarf that was glowing a soft sort of red. The planet itself seemed impossibly close, almost more like a moon of a gas giant than a planet. It also existed in permanent night. Of course, the skies here were so much brighter than even the fullest of moons back on Earth due to the countless stars of the central galaxy, so it almost felt wrong to call it ‘night’. The brightness was to the point that people apparently turned their lights on when they were on the side of the planet pointed at its star, as it blocked out the brighter lights of the more distant stars.

At least that was the impression she got from orbit, seeing which parts of the planet were lit up with the artificial constellations of city lights.

Above the planet there was a frankly absurd amount of spaceships. It looked like a swarm of gnats or sand flies or whatever those insects were that one encountered clouds of in summer. Those must have just been the bigger ships, too, because they were still a decent distance from the planet.

“Uh... can I change my mind about this whole ‘empress’ thing?” Svetlana whispered to herself with a nervous laugh.

This was terrifying.

“It’s a bit too late for that,” O’tmyil replied.

Because she could hear anything Svetlana said, being that she was in armour form at the moment and so was almost as close to Svetlana as her own skin was.

At least the snugness of her around Svetlana probably counted as a reassuring hug. That helped her mood. 

“I’m not ready for this,” Svetlana said, just as quietly though she was now consciously speaking to O’tmyil. “What if I trip in front of everyone?”

“That won’t happen. I won’t allow it,” O’tmyil replied.

It was a fact, too. She could completely take over walking if Svetlana froze up, internal segments massaging muscles into compliance if needed. 

“This coronation will go as flawlessly as the last,” O’tmyil said.

“Right. I’ve got to do another one of those... how many rehearsals are we doing this time?” she asked with a sigh.

At least dreading boredom was a good distraction from the risk of embarrassing herself in front of the entire galaxy.

“Oh, there’s no rehearsal,” O’tmyil replied. “The coronation is done on the landing. You will meet the high archivist. They will ask questions of me, in a language only I and the upper archivists speak. Your job will be to repeat what I say the best you can to prove our bond and thus to prove your legitimacy. You will not be docked on pronunciation, especially due to being human. Once the high archivist is happy the bond is proven you will be declared empress.”

“Ah. So I just have to look like a fool in front of the galaxy by butchering a language I don’t speak,” Svetlana said, shaking her head and wondering who in the world came up with that ritual.

“A language none of the audience speak either. You will be fine,” O’tmyil replied. 

Not certain she had O’tmyil’s confidence, she turned away from the window and headed towards the smaller shuttle where the others were waiting. The walk was only a few minutes of quiet, Svetlana’s brain currently too terrified for any higher functions. In fact, she would later be amazed she was managing any voluntary muscle commands. Maybe O’tmyil had actually been helping her with that already.

Reaching the shuttle and its main cabin where the others were waiting it was clear they saw her nerves painted across her face. The slight shudder of the shuttle disengaging from the larger cruise ship did not help. Her breathing was getting faster.

“It will be fine,” Plynx said, hopping to her feet and pulling Svetlana down for a kiss.

Feeling somewhat relieved, Svetlana spent a moment getting lost in Plynx’s large feline eyes. It helped her feel slightly less terrified.

“Don’t hog her,” Thisbe said in a playful tone, slipping over to stand on her toes and offer Svetlana another kiss. 

“Oh... that is definitely helping,” Svetlana said, before grinning. “I might need a few more to feel fully up for this, though.”

Nearly as soon as she’d said it she found herself lifted off her feet, spun around for a kiss from Bokarza. Then, as she was placed down Vivian bent in to give her a kiss on the forehead.

“I suppose we’ve saved the best for last, non?” Augusta said, strolling over before pulling Svetlana into another kiss.

One which was rather more than the reasonably chaste good luck kisses everyone else had given her. Augusta had always been amazing at these sorts of things. It left Svetlana rather hot under the collar... especially with O’tmyil being her collar at the moment, and so getting nearly as frazzled by Augusta’s kiss as Svetlana was getting.

“No fair, Augusta-fellow-wife!” Plynx protested. “If I knew we were giving Svetlana-wife kisses with tongue... I want a second kiss.”

Gasping for air as Augusta finally stopped (who then stuck her tongue out at Plynx) Svetlana had to shake her head.

“Maybe later Plynx. I need to use my tongue for trying to pronounce some words I don’t know in a bit and... well, Issiod’rian tongues are a bit rough on human ones,” Svetlana said as politely as she could manage.

Plynx pouted slightly, but seemed to accept that. Plus, another shudder revealed that they had entered the atmosphere of Throne World and would be landing soon. It was time for everyone to take their positions. Positions that led to squabbling, Augusta horrified to discover she was to be in the back of the procession.

“At least you’re in it,” Thisbe offered with a shrug.

Only actual wives (and armour) were to be part of it. And everyone was rather nervous about showing Thisbe off too publicly after consulting with Plynx and Bokarza about sentiments on Supernaturals. Throne World especially would be jumpy about that, apparently. There hadn’t been time for a history lesson as to why, so Svetlana guessed it was the prejudice of rich people.

It rubbed Svetlana as deeply wrong, but she had to actually finish her coronation before she could break with tradition so thoroughly. 

A few moments later they’d landed, Svetlana and the others ready to file out as Agent Lee’s personnel reluctantly made way for alien guards dressed in ornate ceremonial armour that had been waiting on the landing pad. At the prompting of what Svetlana guessed was the commander of that royal guard, she properly left the shuttle. 

The landing pad was atop a large plinth, sitting across from the grand entrance of a palace that had clearly been decorated by Lanthoneans, their crystalline design styles all over it... but she could tell just looking at it that there was something beneath those layers. A different idea of design that was far more imposing and hostile to viewers from the human scale. Some kind of evil cousin to brutalism. Which was saying something with how hostile people tended to already find brutalism.

Doing her best to take her eyes off of the palace and its ominous skeleton lurking beneath the surface (which took some effort, since the palace was massive... she was quite certain it could have fit the entire Toronto skyline inside of itself with both horizontal and vertical room to spare) she then processed the crowds that were present. It seemed like they’d built three quarters of a stadium around the landing pad, the seating rising away to a dizzying scale. Surely it was larger than any stadium on Earth? The whole walkway from the shuttle to the palace entrance was lined with people. She also realised that what she’d mistaken for streamers or distant flashes of cameras were actually vast numbers of camera drones in the air above.

It was all a bit much in her opinion.

Still she had a crowd to work, so she paused for a moment to wave to everyone (a roar of chearing rising from the vast sea of people around her) and then set off down the stairs towards the walkway before her. Reading the bottom she now had a better view of how massive the main entrance to the palace was, the archivists standing at the entrance dwarfed by the scale of all of the designs. Well, it was the palace for the head of state for the most of the galaxy. Even if the position was totally ceremonial. She should have expected something as absurd as all this.

The ramp up to the entrance, for instance. It was rather obnoxious to have to climb up that far just to make it to the door. It felt like walking up the whole Jolly cut or something. 

Thankfully O’tmyil had kept her in good shape, so she wasn’t winded at the top, but she could tell it had been rather rough on Vivian. 

“Claimant,” the high archivist said with a small nod.

The archivist was stern looking, and... to Svetlana’s surprise, a Grey. Most Greys lived in the Corporate Alliance and she also hadn’t expected anyone other than a Lanthonean for such a position so close to the throne. It was good to see that there was equal opportunity to be found.

“Archivist,” Svetlana replied, having remembered O’tmyil’s instructions on how to address the other side of the conversation.

“You wish to prove your claim in the eyes of the Imperial Archive?” 

“I do,” Svetlana offered, hoping that was sufficiently more formal than just saying ‘yes’.

“Then we shall test that you have truly gained the trust of the Heart of the Empire,” the archivist said, dropping a title for O’tmyil that Svetlana hadn’t heard before.

She could also feel that O’tmyil was a bit embarrassed by the title. Which was fair, Svetlana was also embarrassed by a lot of all this.

The archivist then spoke in a language quite unlike anything Svetlana had heard before. O’tmyil then gave her response in Svetlana’s ear, and she did her very best to repeat the phrase, reminding herself that she didn’t have to get every syllable perfect. There were probably phonemes her Anglophone ear couldn’t even tell apart.

To her horror the high archivist then asked another question, and Svetlana was forced to repeat the game of telephone in a language she didn’t even know the word order for. Which parts were nouns? Which were verbs? She had no idea. Then there was another awkward back and forth of unknown phrases.

At least the archivist’s eyes softened with some satisfaction at that moment and the next statement was only a syllable or two. O’tmyil’s reply was similarly brief and fairly easy for Svetlana to offer. 

“The Heart of the Empire has indeed accepted you,” the archivist said, stepping aside with a small forehead tap. “You may enter, Empress Svetlana, founder of the Third Dynasty.”

“Thank you,” Svetlana replied, glad that O’tmyil was holding firm so Svetlana couldn’t awkwardly fuss with her ponytail before proceeding through the entrance. 

To her surprise, the high archivist followed along with her through the brightly lit hallways. As the doors closed behind the last of the royal guards and Augusta the archivist let out a sigh of relief.

“I apologise for saying this, Empress, but your accent was quite difficult to parse... though I suppose you do not speak Lanthonean so it is understandable you would pronounce the Archival Tongue oddly,” the Grey said.

“Ah... so I made a fool of myself in front of the what... billion people who watched that?” Svetlana said, trying not to feel mortified.

“Current reports are estimating the final viewership with be between 250 and 300 billion,” O’tmyil chimed in.

Svetlana’s eye twitched. That was a size of number her mind simply couldn’t process.

“Only the archivists speak the Archival Tongue, and there hasn’t been a coronation in centuries,” the high archivist said in a more reassuring tone. “So the viewership had no idea.”

Letting out a sigh of relief, Svetlana vaguely wondered where they were headed. The palace seemed to go one forever every time they crossed a perpendicular hallway. Well, she supposed it was so massive she’d find out when she found out.

And then she let out a small chuckle as she realised something. “I suppose I can now feel some extra empathy for the workers stuck in those hypothetical ‘Chinese room’ situations.”

“Chinese room?” the Archivist asked.

Before Svetlana could answer, Vivian leaned in with a grin.

“你好,” she said said in Cantonese.

“你好,” the Archivist replied.

“You know Cantonese?” Vivian asked, surprised.

“The Imperial Archivists must be ready to record all happenings in the palace,” the high archivist explained. “As such we have learned each language spoken by your wives and consorts, Empress. I was already fluent in Issiod’rian and Kobaroic. Et maintenant je parle le français aussi.”

A glance over her shoulder let Svetlana see the look of horror on Augusta’s face. Not for losing access to an ability to speak in private, but...

“A Quebec accent?” Augusta said, eye twitching slightly.

“It was the accent of the instructors dispatched by the Empress’ homeland,” the High Archivist replied. “Is there an issue with mutual intelligibility?”

“Oui,” Augusta muttered.

“She’s just a snob about sticking to the Parisian accent,” Vivian explained before the archivist could worry too much.

“... Ah. That does occur in many tongues,” the archivist replied, before bringing them to a halt outside a large pair of doors. “Well, we have arrived at the primary imperial dining hall for the post coronation celebrations... I shall depart for my own duties.”

As the archivist stepped away the doors folded open, revealing a rather large dining hall with a significant number of guests. Important guests, too, if the presence of Plynx’s family were anything to go on. Mynx (who looked to have grown slightly) and Plynx’s mother were seated at tables, while Plynx’s father stood waiting for Svetlana with a number of folks Svetlana didn’t recognise at the end of a walkway arranged between the tables.

“Let us go, Empress,” Bokarza said, having moved behind Svetlana so that she could nudge her forwards.

Slightly confused about what was expected of her, Svetlana did as directed, scanning the audience as she walked. Thankfully Thisbe was already there, seated at what looked to be a main table where Svetlana herself would no doubt soon be seated. Once she met with the Issiod’rian king and... the others standing around him. It seemed there was one for each of the alien species Svetlana had seen, a couple she’d not encountered before, and then one or two species with more than one representative.

“Svetlana Fujikawa, empress above all monarchs,” Plynx’s father said, placing his hands upon his forehead. “It is an honour to swear my loyalty.”

“I... thank you,” Svetlana managed to say, genuinely having no idea how to respond to such a thing.

Only to have Bokarza step around her to be beside the man and make her own pledge as queen of the Kobaroians.

With that the others advanced, each holding titles of varying species. Not all were monarchs, but they held similarly prestigious positions, be they elected or spiritual. The repeats proved to be from peoples who had split so thoroughly to lack a single representative. Svetlana thanked each, and accepted a few had not yet learned English (or were physically incapable of speaking), offering her thanks in their languages to her best ability, as prompted by O’tmyil.

All in all it took a while, but there was such a genuineness to it that Svetlana couldn’t get bored. Couldn’t complain. She was simply overwhelmed. It left her in a slight daze as she began to walk towards the table where the others were waiting for her. She’d almost made it when the main door swung open, drawing all eyes to the late arrival.

Standing three metres tall, with pale grey-white skin, eyes as dark as dark could be, and long flowing black hair, the new arrival would have made a strong impression even if they hadn’t been unfashionably late. They were a Zuumult. The tall and predatory species that had founded the First Dynasty.

“Sorry I’m late, it seems my invitation must have been lost on its way to me,” they said with a wide grin and a casual shrug. Sharp teeth were revealed behind those lips. “I wasn’t sure which room to go to.”

Royal guards, Bokarza, Augusta, Plynx, and Plynx’s parents all rushed to their feet to stand between the new arrival and Svetlana. Each stood ready for the slightest sign of aggression, likely only held back from a pre-emptive surge by the wish to avoid a scene during the coronation festivities.

“You-enemy were not invited,” Plynx’s father hissed, claws extending from his fingers for want of a weapon.

“How did you even get into the palace?” Bokarza demanded.

“The Corporate Alliance sold me a diplomatic pass,” the new arrival replied, studying their fingernails for a moment. “It did take some work to convince outer security that it was real, but it was, so they had to let me in.”

That drew a few Issiod’rian and Kobaroic swears from her defenders.

“Now, is all of this really necessary? I came unarmed,” the Zuumult said, patting themself down briefly to emphasize the point. “Surely there is no harm in my attending the festivities in the spirit of diplomatic good will? What do you say, Svetlana, empress to empere?”

“Empere?” Svetlana whispered quietly enough that only O’tmyil could hear her.

“Zuumults are genderless. They clearly wish to convey gender neutrality whilst emphasizing their equal title to you. Though their remnant empire is much reduced compared to yours,” O’tmyil replied in a quick and efficient tone.

With a nod, Svetlana made her decision. “I... if you’re truly unarmed, then a little outreach in the name of diplomacy and peace sounds fair to me.”

“Svetlana...” Plynx whispered.

“It’s one dinner,” Svetlana replied softly. “How much harm could that cause? Unless they have table manners so bad they’re deadly?”

She offered that last bit as an attempt to soothe tensions, though it didn’t quite seem to work...