11:12 / 24:37, Rotation 482 / 687, 231 AE, 8.888910, 138.387201, Aryss

  Ensconced within the protective ectoplasmic sac of the dragon sent to her new station, the Princess Amefrid huddled peacefully in the fetal position, but despite external appearance, within the royal’s mind was a hatestorm.

  How dare Senjya wormtongue their Mother behind her back? How was she going to get out of this? She had to get back home.

  While she lay still she tapped into the mind of the rider. The red dot, that nightmare of a realm, Aryss, grew closer and closer, and as it did, so did Amefrid’s dread grow in tandem.

  The dragon finished it’s journey across the void, the rider given permission to embark upon the Hive – a bubble of hexagonal panels mimicking a soap bubble, smaller pustules of expanded clusters of chambers protruding like uncontrolled growth – the ectoplasmic sac that protected the Princess from the gravitational forces of the dragon’s serpentine movement was unceremoniously dumped through the main receiving shaft that cut through the Hive vertically.

  Once the sac – slowed magnetically to the base of the Hive and diverted through its branches – reached the Aryssal Administrator’s Grand Chamber, it burst. The ectoplasmic fluid drained through the array of grates that collected all manners of waste at the very bottom, and the fiery haired and voluptuous Amefrid erupted from her crouch like a spastic infant.

  Being totally dominated had left her already frayed psionic health in tatters, though she refused to accept that she was anything but ready to obliterate every obstacle between her and home.

  “I hate you, Senjya!” she bawled, and she shook her fists to the Aryssal heavens, but she was only received by the high, unresponsive ceiling of her new living quarters. Eight workers rushed to her to clean the remaining dripping ectoplasm and to dress her in the outfit she had chosen for herself for her arrival, a long gown of thin polyester and cotton damask with the carefully spirit woven image of a phoenix.

  Her scarlet bouffant hovered statically about her, a corona of her wrathful aura.

  Psion! Come, now!

  Meekly, a bald and scrawny psion, clad only in a psion’s bodysuit, appeared before her. Her name was Therys Amallark, and she had been Princess Senjya’s personal psion, her right-hand worker, who was chief orchestrator of nearly every single one of the Princess’s complex projects. But now she had a new boss.

  How may I serve your highness? Her head was bowed. One knee bent. She dared not speak with her tongue.

  Amefrid had never set foot on Aryss. She took a deep breath to try and calm herself, but the stale and catalyzed oxygen felt like a pollutant to her lungs, that had only breathed the freshly photosynthesized air of the domed, engineered forests of Vyredia. It smelled like plastic fumes to her, and she began to hyperventilate, her gasps growing erratic, until she finally had to scream again. It was quite unlike Goddess Mother.

  WWGMD? She took more breaths, each one slowed, became deeper than the last, and she composed herself.

  She was still angry.

  So, she struck Therys with a backhand.

  Therys took the blow without hesitation, indeed, even raised her head again in case Amefrid wanted to further cathart herself. But Amefrid restrained herself, lest she fray Therys or worse, turn her against her. She was, after all, servant to that bitch little sister that got her here in the first place, and she was going to need her.

  Finally acting more like Goddess Mother.

  “I’m hungry,” she grumbled. The journey was long, and Amefrid was used to plentiful nutrition. Her shoulder slammed against Therys, throwing Therys to the side, as she stormed towards a small receptacle that had held all Senjya’s meals for the many revolutions that Senjya held this damnable post.

  Used to being tended by dozens of handmaids, Amefrid could scarcely believe that there were no workers to bring her food. Labor was far too scarce and needed in Aryss for riding cocoons by dragon across the void was an all too great, albeit necessary, expense. The receptacle only took in foodstuffs by pneumatic tubing and spat it out.

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  The Princess looked upon the receptacle with peevish odium. It wasn’t much. Hydroponically grown fruit was far too difficult to grow with the scarce resources on Aryss, so much of it was mere tubers grown directly from the barely fertile soils of Aryss. Nonetheless, the workers knew that Amefrid would be pissed off on her arrival, so they had taken every care to try and make it more palatable for the princess: deep fried sweet potato, taro, and yam fries julienned as thinly as possible. Accompanying it was a mere sandwich of spirit forged flesh and cassava flour, dripping with synthetic protean juice and some sort of melted substance. This was it? Junk. Disgusting empty calories, only meant to fill her, and nothing else. Briefly, Amefrid had a pang of remorse that Senjya had to eat such filth for so long, but it was too soon overcome with petty and bitter resentment.

  Wine. Now.

  A worker meekly brought to her a glass bottle of deep cerise from Senjya’s private stash, one of the few Reathean imports she could beg the Empress into allowing, a vintage she had been saving for a special occasion. Her sister had recommended it to Amefrid in advance during her litany of taunts. They were the only sisters that saw each other as equals after all and Senjya hated waste, so she had saved it for a special occasion that never quite came.

  But the new Aryssal Administrator could not even bother to allow the worker to pour it into a crystal goblet, placed carefully by the receptacle, before uncorking it herself with a gryphantene nail. She took the bottle to the face, taking a deep swig. It tasted of vinegar to Amefrid’s pampered palate and she spat it out, directly on the worker who served it to her, and considered smashing it to the floor, but then thought better of it and upended it into her lips, chugging forcefully. Goddess Mother, she needed to get wasted, right now.

  Then she shoveled fries into her mouth by the fistful, before practically shoving the whole sandwich into her open maw. Therys could not help but think that such mannerisms were positively orc-like but to Therys’ great relief this thought went undetected in Amefrid’s gorging. Though she hated the oversalted greasiness, she couldn’t help but admit that it did give her some small measure of comfort. She took another chug of the bottle, and now it was already half empty. The worker who handed it to her was aghast at how Amefrid could so willfully waste something so precious, as she wiped the spat out swig off with her bare hands.

  Amefrid’s eyes darted sideways at the impudent worker. This thought she did catch.

  What was that?

  The worker’s eyes widened with horror. And Amefrid promptly flayed her with a debilitating stomachache. The worker doubled over in cramped pain and shuffled away on all fours.

  My personal belongings.

  Another worker now scurried forwards, but so struck with trepidation at how quick Amefrid was to flay – Senjya treated her underlings at least with just a tad bit more respect – she fumbled the pouch that Amefrid had brought with her in the dragon, and she gasped as it fell to the floor. Amefrid simply looked down at it and looked back up.

  She would have chosen more luxurious textiles, but given the limited resources of Aryss, to create a new outfit – and Amefrid never cared to ever wear the same thing twice – it was all the workers could manage to create in such short notice.

  A true cryptid of Godlike imagination, a mythical wyvern that, to legend, could rebirth itself in a burning conflagration: Amefrid felt this fitting of her current situation.

  This was most surely psychosomatic, for it really wasn’t that bad. Better than having no air to breathe at all. She would eventually accustom herself to the scent of recycled, spirit scrubbed air and inorganically alchemized oxygen, but until then, she felt like gagging after every whiff.

  The Goddess, who had been observing up to this point, was satisfied that the total domination had done some good for Amefrid. For astral projecting all the way to Aryss needed many dragons to form a conduit, and that was far too critical of a resource to be wasted spying on her daughter now that the Goddess had swept her away. There was only one thing Ami could even do to make the God Empress care about Aryss again: kill Talisa. Not for any strategic advantage, Talisa had been already neutered as a threat. No, it would have just been for kicks. The God Empress despised Talisa, and the feeling was mutual.

  What might be called a cheeseburger in the Lost Age, but this one had neither cheese, nor burger.

  Which was quite incorrect for the tubers, in fact, held all the vitamins and minerals necessary for sustenance of elvan life, and was the primary ingredient of the various gruels that most of the Aryssal elvans ate. And with the rich assortment Amefrid would find that she’d have all the energy she’d need.

  Ironically, Princess Senjya quite enjoyed Aryssal burgers.

  A pinot noir.

  Aged sixteen revolutions, as Senjya had been promoted before she had a chance to consume it, so now it was slightly too aged.

  The truth was Senjya had waited too long, and knew it, and this really was just an elaborate troll.