At bedtime on nights when the Pearl Moon was nearly full, like tonight, its light shone through the ceiling windows in the dressing room and bedroom that Minye shared with Nyrkatess, causing the ivory-and-gold decor to glimmer softly. It had been a night like this one, years ago, when Minye first realized that what she felt for Nyrkatess went beyond gratitude.

Only Villacqui ever had a chance to see Nyrkatess in this lighting. The distinct possibility that these nights gave a preview of her future wife's permanent appearance--that this softly desaturated, glow-in-the-dark Moon spirit may be Nyrkatess' true form, in a sense--made Villacqui lightheaded.

For bedtime brushing, that future wife's hair was loose, flowing in ghostly waves to just below the seat of her chair. Were she standing, it would be a hand's length shy of the hem of her black slip. Villacqui was identical, except with hair and slip colors reversed.

They always brushed each other's hair carefully, but on these nights, Villacqui took her sweet, sweet time. Especially so, this night. Normally, Nyrkatess would be chattering away, but tonight, there had been only silence and glances, as soon as they were alone.

How could there not be a change? Between sunrise and now, they had passionately agreed to marry each other, and to spend the next few decades in the Keyic domain pursuing immortality. Apparently, the process was so unavoidably painful that the only realistic way to endure it was full-time cuddling, every day for years. Villacqui didn't mind that amendment to her job description.

Well...It was time to find out exactly what had changed.

Exhaling as much of her nervousness as she could, Villacqui placed the ivory-and-gold brush onto the ivory-and-gold vanity, and offered her own ghostly hand to her fiancée. Nyrkatess accepted it with a shyness more typical of Villacqui, pulled herself to her feet, briefly met Villacqui's eyes, then led the way to their bedroom. At the door, she released Villacqui's hand, continued to their absurdly gigantic bed without looking back, and slipped into her usual spot near the edge, with her hair gathered over her shoulder, a cascade above the blanket. Silently, she waited, watching the Pearl Moon through a ceiling window.

After another breath that helped as little as the first one, Minye followed and slid in beside her, same spot as always, hair gathered on the opposite side.

Being very nearly full, but not quite, tonight's Pearl Moon had a thin crescent of black on its edge. They watched it together, for a little while.

"Villacqui," Nyrkatess softly broke the silence, and took Villacqui's hand. "I know you want to wait to have our long talk, and that's fine. I am looking forward to having that one, once you feel safe enough. Tonight, I would like to have a smaller talk, while we have a chance, if that's alright with you."

Heart fluttering away, Villacqui interlocked their fingers, shocking herself with her own boldness, while both of them continued staring at the Pearl Moon. She could feel Nyrkatess' pulse; it matched her own.

"Yes."

"Thank you. Please keep the walls down," Nyrkatess urged, her voice a little strained by her own nerves. "To start, I want to say it properly. I love you in the way that makes me want to be your Nyrkatess, the same as you are my Villacqui. I want you to be my wife, and I want to be yours, too. Each is equally important."

Minye felt like she owed her parents an apology, for being so glad that her life had led to this.

Nyrkatess kept speaking, her words uncharacteristically composed and steady, especially considering her nervousness.

"I never said or did anything about it, because I was terrified that I would never know for sure if you were only pretending. I understand that you are still afraid to upset me, and I know why, and I respect that, but I want to request a compromise until you feel fully safe to speak your mind. You needn't tell me anything that you are afraid to say, but please, please, starting now, when we're alone, if you're too afraid that I may not like your fully honest thoughts, then instead of telling me what you think I want to hear, tell me that you're afraid to be honest, or at least say nothing. Can you promise me that?"

At sunrise, Villacqui would not quite have dared to risk this promise, but there had been a major change, today.

"I promise," she answered honestly, and squeezed Nyrkatess' hand twice, to provide a little extra assurance that she meant it. Even if Nyrkatess asked Villacqui whether she thought the Keyics might be working with the True Goddess, Minye would dare to say that she was afraid to discuss it.

"I believe you. Thank you." Nyrkatess squeezed Villacqui's hand in return. "The next thing I want to say is, when father and I start the dancing tomorrow, I want you to be my--"

"That seems much too foolish," Villacqui interrupted.

Nyrkatess squeezed her hand again.

"Thank you, my Villacqui, for speaking up. Let's argue," she said. "I think it will be safe. Everybody already knows that we go to every event as a pair. The bigots will see it as me being a ditz, choosing to dance with my very expensive pet, as lovely as she is brainwashed, incapable of thinking about anything except how best to please me. They won't see an Heiress dancing with her doubly-scandalous, cherished consort; it's so outrageous that it will never occur to them. Needless to say, I don't care if insecure bigots think I'm a weirdo. The only thing I'm capable of thinking about, is how much I want to dance at my investiture with the goddess who captivates me."

The words were heady enough, but what made Villacqui swoon most was how hard Nyrkatess was working to smother her usual excitability, stay collected, and speak eloquently.

"I'm not worried about that part," Villacqui clarified. "What I mean is...We can't afford any lapses, like in the garden, especially when we'd be the center of attention."

They had dangerously lost track of where they were, before Zyriko interrupted them, and dancing together at the post-investiture ball seemed likely to trigger another episode.

"Suri and Zyriko will be the center of attention, but I know what you mean, and...that's precisely why I wanted to talk about it tonight." Nyrkatess took a deep breath. "It's also why I asked you to make that promise first."

For a few pounding heartbeats, they only stared at the Pearl Moon.

"I think I know why, every night, you can't relax before I cycle my power through you," Nyrkatess murmured. "And I think you know why I need to do 'my petting thing.' If you want to do that, our usual routine, and try to get some sleep, say so, and that's what we'll do. If instead, you want to...try to break the tension, get as much of it out of our systems as we can, before tomorrow, then..."

Villacqui heard Nyrkatess' head turn toward her, so she did the same, and each savored an involuntary gasp.

"You're especially enchanting, on these moonlit nights," Nyrkatess breathed.

Villacqui swallowed.

Agents of the True Goddess judged Nyrkatess to be worthy of a chance to join them, and they themselves suggested that Villacqui could marry her. So...that must mean she was redeemable, and it was fine for Villacqui to be in love with her, right?

Right?

Being in love with her had better be okay, because Minye couldn't stop it from being true.

If she didn't answer soon, Nyrkatess would think it was a non-answer 'no,' and would never believe her real answer.

"To start...I want my Nyrkatess to cycle her power through me..." Villacqui swallowed again. "...while we kiss."

If this was a trial, Villacqui had failed it years ago.

'I really am unspeakably naughty,' she thought, as the lips of a one-in-a-billion supernatural beauty hovered over hers. 'We're not married yet!'

Villacqui squeezed her Nyrkatess' hand twice, to provide a little extra assurance that she meant it.

...Maybe they had actually passed the trial, together? How could anything this right be wrong?

----

"The tainted!?" Suri's mother-in-law was scandalized. "Opening an investiture ball!? Hmph! It's remarkable that the girl still knows her place, with how much the Tvokesses spoil her. One might think she was the Heiress' twin sister!"

Suri had already been feeling anxious, as She watched the newly-anointed Tvokess Heiress pull Villacqui out of the audience. Hearing that comment made Her cringe inwardly.

The couple had stayed admirably in-character the whole day, but Villacqui's disinterested facade had started cracking once Nyrkatess' father lowered the Tvokess medallion onto his daughter's neck. Now, as they headed hand-in-hand to the center of the ballroom, with the new Patriarch and his wife, both were giggling and blushing.

At least an older concern had mostly disappeared, before this new one emerged. A small army of Tvokess supervisor-guards had been not-so-subtly watching over the Keyic-Zyzz party since last night's meeting, a potent deterrent to anyone who might be nursing a grudge. Calling the Tvokess palace 'friendly territory' might be a stretch, but it was about as safe as anywhere could be.

<They know the stakes, and they're skilled actresses,> Zyriko reassured Suri. <This much can pass for normal pride and bashfulness.>

Taking care to be loud enough for other families nearby to overhear, he replied to his mother.

"The Heiress' siblings all envy her, and she's too respectful of our arrangement to choose anyone outside her immediate family. Opening the ball with her favorite pet is the closest thing she can do to opening alone, to honor her future husband."

<Or something,> he added privately.

<Bashfulness, for these two? Will anyone buy it?> Suri worried. Neither had a mote of stage fright in her. The opposite.

<Opening your investiture ball is its own tier. Everyone watching has seen people outright faint, or at least knows of it happening. Nobody will think anything of it, unless they reach garden levels of blatant.>

"I wonder if they're looking for buyers?" Zyriko's father mused, interrupting Suri and Zyriko's mental conversation. "She would likely break her own record, after all they've done to show her off."

"They would never!" Zyriko's mother scoffed. "They're too proud of their pretty pet. To think, they had her all dolled up, sitting by the Heiress' throne! I'm telling you, the dainty packaging has made them forget what she truly is, underneath. They've spent so long dressing her like their real daughter that--"

"Enough!" Zyriko's father hissed. "Remember where we are!"

On the surface, Zyriko's mother seemed almost disturbingly insightful, but in reality, <Villacqui sure does make 'the wilted remnants of last season's blooms' feel insecure, doesn't she?> Suri observed.

<This is the same woman who can't bring herself to admit that wearing heavy robes in the tropics makes her uncomfortable and sweaty.> Zyriko's exasperation and amusement dueled for supremacy. <A slave-born who matches her idea of a goddess better than she does? Yeah, she feels threatened.>

"I don't think anyone could afford her," Zyriko suggested aloud, ostensibly in reply to his father's original musings.

Suri desperately tried not to laugh at Her husband's hidden joke. Nyrkatess was Villacqui's legal owner. No price could buy her, not even Suri's tunic. Come to think of it, Nyrkatess must have received extraordinary offers, over the years. Suri wondered, idly, whether she despised those who made them, or interpreted them as a kind of worshipful tribute to Villacqui.

Definitely despised them, straight to the top of her list of the most loathsome bigots, Suri realized abruptly. Nyrkatess would view any suggestion that Villacqui's value might be finite as outrageous and insulting.

Suri suppressed a predatory grin. Oh yes. She could work with this.

<Who did you open with?> She asked Zyriko, as the first steps of the opening got underway. Her family hadn't attended the Zyzz investiture.

<My sister. Father made her.>

<Zelike?> Suri guessed the younger one.

<Yeah.>

<Sorry to bring it up.>

Zyriko would have suffered with any of his options. Suri felt a twinge of regret that She hadn't known to be there, at the time, but a twenty three-year-old and sixteen-year-old effectively announcing their betrothal might have been too much, anyway.

<It's fine. What about You?>

<My widowed grandmother. Totally normal, for a twelve-year-old with no siblings.>

<Ahhh! Must have been alright, then?>

<It was the only part that wasn't completely terrible,> Suri recalled, running fingers along Her circlet. <The rest of it was pretending to be thrilled with all the fawning, while feeling like an impotent fraud, and worrying that a single moment of carelessness from anyone could doom hundreds of thousands of people and their descendants. But you know exactly what I mean, don't you?>

<I don't even need the link to know. I can also empathize with how competitive You're currently feeling.>

Unsurprisingly, Nyrkatess and Villacqui's display on the dance floor was only possible for a pair of glamour-obsessed, color-coordinated, soulmate socialites who had danced with each other from their very first lessons.

<How about We captivate the audience to provide those two with a measure of privacy, and overwrite Our unpleasant investiture memories at the same time?> Suri proposed.

<'Help those who need help.' Yes, it would seem we have no choice,> Zyriko agreed. <Also, we mustn't forget the rule: no half-measures for Goddesses' performances.>

Zyriko stepped away so he could bow and extend his hand.

"Would my incomparably lovely wife be so kind as to show us all how a real Goddess dances?" he asked.

A few locks of hair fell forward from behind his right ear, emphasizing how even it glowed Suri's color.

Sunset rays cast across the heavens transfixed Her.

"Depends," She demurred, smiling coyly behind a divinely radiant sky-nailed hand. "What's your best offer?"

"Hmm. How about I spend eternity cherishing You?"

Suri glanced at Her poor mother. Surprisingly, only Her father's eyes were glassy. The Keyic Matriarch's dignified public mask was something to behold.

"I suppose that would be agreeable," Suri accepted, and allowed Zyriko to pull Her onto the ballroom floor.

Suri might not be as elegant a dancer as Nyrkatess or Villacqui, and no one could ever be remotely comparable to Twilight, but there were other ways to captivate an audience.

Aware of all the eyes on Them, Suri asked, <Is the offer to carry Me still open?>

Chuckling, Zyriko swept Her off Her feet, and Suri sprouted flapping gossamer wings from Her back. Supported by Her Own mana, twirling through the air was as easy as thinking. Maybe the move wasn't perfect, but They had been practicing most nights.

For the next few hours, Suri let Herself be a blue mage oblivious to everything except Her Own little fairy tale. This distraction was the most She and Zyriko could do for Nyrkatess and Villacqui, anyway. They would either draw suspicion, or they wouldn't.

----

Villacqui awakened to rays of dawn streaming through the bedroom window. When was the last time this had happened? She couldn't remember. Being a bundle of energy, Nyrkatess almost always woke--

"Ayahaha."

With a soft squeal, Minye remembered the events of the last two days, and covered her face with her hands.

Yesterday, they had just danced, and danced, and danced, Nyrkatess' 'blessings' providing endless stamina. No one had paid them any mind. Awing an entire ballroom was fun, true, but enthralling a single person, keeping her all to yourself, had its own charms.

Presumably, the power draw from all that stamina cheating, for both of them, had caused lingering vessel strain that Nyrkatess was sleeping off.

Normally, the Heiress would spend the day after her investiture ceremony entertaining guests, strengthening political ties and generally wallowing in all the attention, before saying farewells as everyone departed. Since this Heiress would be joining some of her guests when they departed, today would instead be spent getting Nyrkatess' possessions packed on the Keyic ship. Including Villacqui.

She looked around their bedroom, one last morning.

Even if Nyrkatess visited, Villacqui would need to remain in Keyic territory, to conceal that she, too, wasn't aging naturally. There was a strange melancholy, knowing that this was, therefore, the last time she would wake up in this bed, this room, these chambers, for at least a few decades, perhaps ever. For years, she had hoped to escape their opulent cage someday, and days ago, she had been desperate, yet she was already missing it, before she had even left! It was a home she hadn't chosen, and a tainted one, but it was still home, the only one she could really remember.

That said, Villacqui was confident that home was wherever her Nyrkatess was. She debated whether to let her exhausted fiancée sleep a little more, or seize a rare chance to wake a sleeping beauty.

On the one hand, it would be nice to watch Nyrkatess glint in the dawnlight a little longer. On the other, they had a lot to do today, and it would be best if they had some time to themselves before the attendants arrived, and this was such a rare chance...

"...I need to sleep in more often," Nyrkatess mumbled, as Villacqui pulled away.

"I wouldn't mind," she invited, pleased with her choice. "To the garden, first?"

"Yes. If we had needed to sneak out, the flowers were what I most wanted to try to take with us. We should get them ready, just in case."

Villacqui expected that she knew which color would be highest priority.

"Some may not grow, in the Keyic jungle," she warned.

An earnest smile of pure enthusiasm made Villacqui's heart thunder.

"My cherished Villacqui doubts my talents!?" Nyrkatess teased. She rolled back a little and sprang off the edge of the bed, not the least bit sore from all that dancing. "Don't underestimate my genius just because I'm so breathtaking."

Grinning, Villacqui accepted the hand she was offered, not at all sore herself, because Nyrkatess would never let that happen.