The First

[Er'in Tenel]

(Solo, getting to grips with the character)

The glittering vista of Hapes was like no other. Light streamed down from the clustered light of countless stars, filling the sky with morae spectacle of reds, oranges, golds and whites, pin-pointed by the occasional blue supergiant.

Er'in strode lazily through the evening light, her white and gold gown shimmering with elegant perfection, it's every curve and fold designed to reflect the starlight above and to enhance her tanned skin. It wasn't hard to get a tan on Hapes - aside from having some of the finest beaches in the cluster, the perpetual near-daylight resulted in a high UV level on every inhabitant.

The metriome click of her high heels on tile marked her progress around the glass-walled curve of the walkway, the silent presence of two life-protectors a pace behind her the only sign that this was very much enemy territory. Grand gala for Lady Isolde's coming of age or not, the odds of someone dying tonight were very high. A fair few friends of Lady Isolde - of which Er'in was most certainly not one - would happily give her the body of an enemy on such an auspicious day and Er'in had no intent of being that body.

As she walked, her mind drifted back to her first kill. Not her first ordered killing - that had been when she was eight, when she convinced her dumb brute of a brother to pick a fight with Ka Ven's bodyguards. She hadn't truly known what she was doing until the other boy had hit the ground, spraying the red crimson of blood across the rug.

But her first actual kill was at Trista's eighteenth birthday, three years ago. She had been sixteen, all hormones, rage and emotion - no, don't think about that. All hormones and intellect. Trista had been drinking her birthday toast, all glittering gold spirals of cloth and elegant motions, when her hand had gone jerky and she'd fallen to the ground. Everyone else rushed to her side, or out, or to their bodyguards. But Er'in had watched, it's what she did. To let an emotional reaction get the better of you here was death, or worse, it was humiliation. Mother had always told her emotions had no place in the intellect of a Hapan woman. Senna hadn't moved, not even a muscle and Er'in knew.

She knew she shouldn't go down this line of thought before a party - better of think of coming home with a pretty young man or woman, of drinking and debauchery all undercut by the tension of threat. The edge that kept it so very real and alive. But... she couldn't help it. Because right then, something had snapped inside her. All the intellect, all the control washed away in a swirl of something she didn't understand and couldn't name - no, that's not right - she could name it. Rage. Pure rage. Trista had been a friend. Trista had never done a single thing to Senna, the younger woman was just filled with spite and ambition.

It had been easy. Two steps forward, drop the hidden needle from it's finger sheath, a tiny prick on Senna's bare thigh. Senna had known immediately, she turned to look at Er'in, shock and outrage in her eyes as she scrabbled for the emergency wide-spectrum anti-toxin every Hapan noblewoman carried as a matter of course. Er'in had smiled - filled with... something... satisfaction, perhaps? Vengance? It wasn't supposed to feel good. A dish better served cold, they said. But Senna knew Er'in knew, and Senna knew she'd never live to see the rewards of her death. A poor charitable gift for a dead friend on Er'in's part, perhaps.

But the best she had to offer.

Her face hardened to stone as the grand entrance to the gala came into view - beautiful women in dresses rivalling the wildest and most outrageous the galaxy had to offer, all competing - not for male attention, that was a given, not even for female attention, that was less of a given but all the more intoxicating because the odds of a needle in your ribs in bed was far greater - but competing for status, for grandure.

And for a very long, tiresome moment, at the grand old age of nineteen standard years. Er'in Tenel wanted it all to end. To be free of this tedious, pointless dance. Some alien emotion - don't name it - welled up inside her. Then she forced it down, swallowed the bile and smoothed out her features into a meaningless smile. Game face on. Because she was better than each and every one of these women, and hundreds of steps from the throne or not, this planet would recognise her.

She had no other choice, there was only one profession open to Hapan noblewomen.

 

[Er'in Tenel]

It was all going to Chaos, of course.

Mother was dead by her own hand. The family name... well... Tenel had never been popular in it's own way, old and bad associations. But now she knew when she walked into that room, the wolves would be watching. She was Tenel, the family funds were being frozen, her brothers had universally been cashiered out of the navy or turned pirate - the useless men. Her younger sisters... she'd made sure they had good lives with other families, at least. Some of the few old friends she could count on. Two.

Out of all them.

All the rest of them would stare. She would shortly be nothing. Out on the street, or a rich nobles pretty courtesan. Or worse, were the other fates worse? Damn mother to the Netherworld for taking the cowards way out, without even a word to her.

She didn't even know why she'd come - it would be futile, boring and hopeless, the same old dance with only a string of hope and credibility to cling to.

But something had called her none the less. Despite the looming end of her world, despite every preparation put in place to slip from Hapes and become a middle-class nobody in the rest of the galaxy, something had called her to accept this one final invitation, and the humiliation that came with it.

But she couldn't put a finger on what. Yet.