Agatha's ears were starting to itch. The wood-elf blood on her mother's side made them wider and pointer than the average highborn elfkin's and she often struggled with helms, visors and other equipment that weren't designed with someone like her in mind. The equipment in question was a kind of brass bascinet that sat snug on her head with her squished, pale features and a few stray locks of red hair sticking out the front. It was part of a larger Orhcraft apparatus that drew on energy from the event zone pulsating through the mountain beneath the Elven Redoubt, enabling them to tap into sentinel posts maintained all around the world to see vast distances. But the vibrations tended to make Agatha feel nauseous, which just added to the discomfort of having her ears roughly jammed into the helm.

"Is Her Excellency quite finished?" She could hear Theodluin ask from the platform beneath her. The middle-aged Curator of the Eye had to tolerate Agatha and her highborn siblings but he did little to hide his displeasure when they got their grubby little hands on his precious equipment. 

"Master Theo, did you look into Alva Twenty-Seven like I'd asked?" Agatha pulled the bascinet off and blinked to get her bearings back in the natural light of the Brass Observatory. She took the Curator's hand as he helped her back down to the platform. 

"Your Excellency, I must confess that much of our resources have been occupied tracking the frontlines at Desjards- 

"Yeah, yeah, I thought as much. Don't you think it's such a waste to use all of this fancy kit..." she knocked on one of the support poles with her ringed fingers, creating a dull, brassy clang that echoed through the vast, domed room. "...to stare at humans piddling about on their little islands like any of it actually means something?" 

"I... well... I just do what I'm told like the Curator before me and the one who comes after me. But has Her Excellency found something of note at the mountains of the Southern Frontiers?" 

"I've never seen a mountain move before. It's twenty-seven clicks further west from where we marked it last month, wouldn't you call that significant?" Agatha ran her hands through her short red hair, shaking it out from the bowl shape it got pressed into. She massaged her ears back into life. 

"It's an old Sentinel, Your Excellency. Perhaps it needs to be recalibrated. And besides, the hypothesis that Alva Twenty-Seven is a giant is far from the scholarly consensus and- 

"Which fucking scholars, Theo? Helathe has been piss-frightened of magic for longer than either of us have been alive. The Rahethians are far more occupied at mastering the art of throwing silly little fireballs out of their hands over any actual research. And we haven't come down from this mountain for an entire aeon." 

"I would request Her Excellency not to take that tone with me. This is a sanctified space- 

Agatha smirked. Her hands lashed out lightning-quick just past the Curator's head, pinning him up against the curved wall. "It's a holy mountain, I know..." He instantly shrunk, pressing back against the wall and cowering as Agatha pressed forward, her sharpened canines glinting in the dim sunlight through the grates up above. Her green tunic left her tattooed, toned arms completely exposed, muscles rippling as she leaned into her prey. "But I do all sorts of unholy things in all sorts of places." Their breaths mixed in the reducing gap between them while Theodluin's eyes desperately tried not to meet the intensity of her own. Her leather-clad thigh pressed in between his legs and Agatha's lopsided smile widened just a little when she felt him harden. "Ooh, what's this?" She mock gasped. "My lord Curator, you never told me you had a holy mountain of your own."

"You-your Excellency... please... I..." 

"You'll what? You'll be a good boy, won't you, Theodluin? You'll look into the frontier. You'll collect some data. You'll make time." 

"I-

Agatha ran her hand along his thigh, stopping at the twitching heat in the middle of his body. She gripped him gently through his pants, fingers squeezing. 

"Yes! Yes, you'll have the data within a fortnight- 

She squeezed harder. 

"Within a week! A week!" 

Agatha chuckled, leaning forward to bite his earlobe. "There's a good boy." She whispered. 

She'd been hearing the footsteps clacking against the marble floor for a while now and she chose to ignore it about as soon as she recognised who they belonged to. Theodluin seemed to have been caught far more unawares when the low voice rumbled behind them. 

"Diddling the help, sister?" 

Agatha rolled her eyes, pirouetting on her leaning toes to turn back around to the doorway to the observatory. The tall, armour-clad Elven figure was bathed in the dimming sunlight from behind him. She could hear Theodluin mumble in a frenzied panic. 

"M-my lord! My lord Corwyn! I can explain." 

"Shut the fuck up, Theodluin..." Corwyn of the Highborn Elcyne said. "Go back to your looking glasses. And you." He pointed at Agatha. "Come with me." 

"For what? You want to diddle the help as well, do you?" 

"Oh don't be disgusting." Corwyn beckoned imperiously, his silver armour twinkling. "The High Father wishes to see us."