And then, waiting near an outcropping on one of the lilac-tipped mountains, I saw a familiar silver shape waiting for clearance to land.My pulse picked up, and I schooled my face to perfect blankness.
There he was.He'd be here soon.
My hands curled, reflexive, and I forced them to relax.I made myself look away and head back downstairs and I kept the small, private smile fighting to get out tucked away, kept somewhere safe.
Silver Sea was waiting for me outside of my room with a willowy marn.She mostly ignored me as the marn had me try on different clothes, pinching and holding things in one hand while adjusting seams and adding darts with some of the others.After some time, during which the marn studiously ignored my attempts at conversation, Silver Sea hissed something under her breath, stiff face tightening.
"Problem?"I asked, arms held out while the marn worked on nipping in the waist of the dark, gauzy outfit I'd been told I would be wearing that night.
Her yellow eyes flicked up to look at me."A last minute addition.Grizlak just let me know.They've asked me to draw up his schedule, as if I didn't have my hands full already with one human."
My eyebrows shot up."There's another human?"
She hissed again in an irritated affirmative.
"How many participants are there?"I asked, wondering how up-to-date those files had been.We'd expected there might be other participants who joined up late.
"There are eight others now."Her head tilted as she flicked through some files, charms tinkling softly."Hm, nine is an auspicious number.Tell me, have you found your scheduled hygiene breaks to be sufficient?"
"Sure, yeah."
"Would you be amenable to some piercings?A colleague has made the suggestion.It would be beneficial for your audience engagement metrics."
I blinked, trying to keep up while the marn waited for me to shuck off my current outfit and pull on the last one."Wait, what?Why?"
Silver Sea's nostrils flattened as she tapped frantically at the input board hovering above her wrist."You are not a woman, but in our culture men may choose to have piercings to indicate sexual availability.You are a dancer.It would be coherent with your branding."
I let out a surprised laugh, and Silver Sea's eyes narrowed in her gray face."Is this an offensive line of inquiry for a human?I understand that your species tends to be sexually repressed, which is at odds with your profession."
"No, it's fine," I said, waving a hand as the marn tailor finished poking, prodding, and stitching."Sure, if you think piercings are going to make me look hot."
Her mouth tightened."Would they impact your ability to thermoregulate?Brin use their ear fronds to cool down.I hadn't realized –"
"Sorry, that's slang I picked up at the den.Hot is a stand-in for, you know,sexually attractive.I meant that I'm game if they'll help with my metrics.Which piercings will, for some reason?"
"They will generate more interest and therefore greater revenue."She nodded her sharp chin once, tapping away at her wristband."I have made an adjustment to your schedule.Another ketaari will come to your room later for the modifications."She headed out when the marn packed up,herjewels jingling, and left me alone with nothing in my schedule beyondreflective time, punctuated by twohygiene breaksandmeal ('lunch').
Apparently, even a ketaari could see something virra in me.Whynotadd jewellery that advertised that I was ahot slutin a way that crossed cultural lines?
There was some part of me left over from Seraphim – persistent and hard-to-kill, despite my ongoing efforts – that bristled a bit at the thought that they wanted to mark me aseasy, a fallen creature, shameless.But the other, stronger impulse was to lean into it.I didn't imagine they'd ever broadcast the Tournament on Seraphim, but maybe the Shepherds who handled diplomacy, business interests, andmission work kept their thumbs on the pulse of galactic entertainment.Maybe they'd see, and they'd be disgusted.
And Iwouldbe shameless.I'd be shameless as I fell in love with an alien; I'd be shameless when I fucked him for broadcast; I'd be shameless when I danced at the party tonight and when I allied myself with Araxis in the arena and when he paid my debt and I walked away from Seraphim forever, and maybe then they'd realize that they wouldneverbe able to touch me.That I had finally killed the last part of me that they'd been able to claim as theirs.That I was finally, finally free.
The blue ketaari, who still hadn't given me a public name although I'd asked a few polite leading questions, came to see me later that day and jabbed a bunch of holes in my ears.He was quite distressed when I started bleeding, which was cute enough that I forgave him for not telling me his name, but a quick trip to the medical suite had the holes healed enough for the jewellery to be added and for his panic to subside.When he left, I amused myself by turning my head to and fro and feeling the way the dangling charms and connected chains jingled.I pulled on the outfit that Silver Sea had earmarked for me – high-waisted charcoal pants that tied at the narrowest part of my body; a black mesh shirt that darkened in a panel at the back, but not enough to make me fully respectable by the standards of several species and left me entirely unrespectable by human standards; a plunging gauzy jacket (or blouse?who could say?) that twinkled with dark beads, the fabric soft and sumptuous between my fingers – and I realized, with a start, that I looked… well, expensive.I was used to looking hot, sure, but this – the dark layers ofluxuriousfabric, the tousled hair, the glint of gold along each ear, the swipe of dark colour the ketaari had put over each of my eyes – made me look almost like Ibelongedon broadcast and I smiled, despite the circumstances.
Maybe the conglomerate would air a loop of me sneezing and then crying late at night while watching a romance, but the audience would also see me looking this good, and that had to count for something.
I wasn't sure I wanted to meet any of the other participants yet, even though I'd read their files and so alreadyknewthings about them.Something about meeting them all would make this whole thing feel progressively real, and I was enjoying living in a bit of a fantasy.WhatifI had signed on for some galactic dating show instead?What if that was how I'd met Araxis?
What if my whole life was different and better and I was made of clouds and dumplings, hm?What was the point of wishing?
So I sat around and watched another episode ofAcross the Timescape(in this one, they had to break into a museum vault and use Caso's burgeoning telepathy to avoid certain death by laser grid).I made it only a few minutes into the next episode before I called it quits: the schedule on my wrist had started to chime in increasingly irritated tones and I'd received three reminder messages from Silver Sea in a row, so I picked myself up, gave myself a quick once over, and headed down to Common Area C.
I ran into Silver Sea on the stairs, her yellow eyes narrow."Thereyou are.You're late, Sashen Solar."
"Only by a few minutes," I insisted as she pivoted hard on her heel and tromped down in front of me.
"We have been waiting.We cannot make the introductions until all participants are present."
