Private A Morning After

[Daiya]

— B E F O R E —
— A L S O • B E F O R E —

— N O W —​

"Daiya, Daiya, Daiya!"

A ball of energy pounced on top of the bed, crawling on top of Daiya. The teen girl groaned at the interruption. The job from last night had taken longer than she expected —and she had expected some problems, but not hiding out in a cupboard under a refresher's sink for three hours kind of problems— and all she wanted to do was sleep. Everything was sore and weary, even her bones felt tired. Especially compared to the youthful face that greeted her as the girl pried her eyes apart, staring in bleary confusion at the eager face of Zenie looking down at her.

"Uhhhhhh, whaaa-aaat?" the sleepy girl whined, closing her eyes again. She tried to roll over, but Zenie put a hand on her shoulder and tightened knees against her sides, pinning her to the bed.

Zenie bounced a little, and Daiya's body limply followed. The girl frowned under tightly-clamped eyes, shaking her like jello was not the best way to wake her up! Her younger friend persisted, "You won't believe this! Come on, you gotta get up, I'll show ya."

The teen wrapped her arms around her friend's, trying to still them as she summoned the fortitude to open her eyes for the day. They were heavier than a whole Wookiee, but once she managed to crack them enough to let some light in, the rest followed easily enough. Daiya brought her hands back to her face, rubbing it in an effort to get the blood moving. After a moment, she felt a little better. She pulled her hands away, as if revealing a surprise, and conceded, "Alright, alright, I'm awake. Let me up!"

A weight lifted from her body as Zenie climbed off of the girl, seating herself at the edge of the bed with her legs dangling over. She bounced a little more as Daiya propped herself up, her boundless energy evident as the younger girl waited impatiently. Surveying the room that had once been Zenie's, the blonde heiress remarked, "Wow, Daiya, you live in a puffer pigsty..."

"Why thank you!" the girl quipped, her groggy voice laced with heavy sarcasm. She had only been on her own for a week, the place wasn't that bad. "Puffer pigs are very clean animals."

Zenie giggled before pointing out, "Then you're a very messy puffer pig."

Daiya glanced over the room. She had a holo-dinner tray sitting up on the dresser, hosting only a few crumbs and utensils, next to a scattering of empty snack bags leading to a larger bag of uneaten snack treats. Her half-empty bottle of water sat perched against the chair back, propped up loosely by the matted jacket sitting underneath. Her pants were half-draped over the bed, one leg barely hanging on while the seat joined the other leg on the floor. A couple pairs of underwear and bras hung out near her laundry hamper, which was empty but for a few t-shirts and a blouse, despite there being enough dirty clothes to fill it. The closet door was open, revealing that only half the clothes were actually living on hangars, the rest lay fallen or tossed toward the closet floor. Her satchel was propped up against the windowsill, right underneath the hook that often served to keep it hanging, sitting on top of a spread of flimsiplast magazines.

Okay, so it was a little messy.

When Zenie finally let her stand up, Daiya stretched her arms overhead. The girl felt the cold air tingling against her legs, and aborted to pull down the oversized shirt she wore to bed. She walked around the room to collect the clothes she had on yesterday, dropping them in a pile on the bed. She started one leg, then another into her underpants until an inquisitive voice drew her attention again.

"Umm, aren't you going to wear something clean?" Zenie asked. The young Belazuran's face was crinkled slightly, as disturbed by what was going on.

Daiya looked down at the clothes she had assembled, then tossed her head to the closet to make some mental calculations. She sighed, her shoulders slumping a little at all the demands Zenie was making so early in her day. "Do you want me to shower, too?"

"Would you?" Zenie asked, and it wasn't really a question.

"Fine," Daiya agreed. She thought Zenie needed her right away, but the look from her friend told her that Zenie's excitement wasn't going to die out in just the span of one shower.

By the time she was done in the refresher, Zenie was sitting impatiently on the couch in the living room. It was far tidier than it had been, and when Daiya peeked into her bedroom, she saw a similar neat ethic had been applied there, too. Glancing back to the Belazuran girl, she looked for an explanation and her friend was all too snarky to provide, "I picked up a few things, you can do the rest. Don't think just 'cause you live on your own now it means you don't have to clean your room."

"I know, but you're not my—" she started, but stopped. A deadly look from Zenie told Daiya to hurry it up. Awake enough now not to default to petulance, the teen scampered into her bedroom to dress and finish getting ready for Zenie's ardent field trip. She wondered how far her little, blonde taskmaster was going to take this.

"Finally!" Zenie groused, but she jumped to her feet as eager as the first moment she'd arrived. The younger girl, her eyes almost at Daiya's nose now, wasn't so little anymore as when the two had first met. Nor was she as listless as those first days after her father's death, when it had taken everything in Shenn's power just to get her to eat. Now she was leading the way, taking Daiya's hand to lead her with no uncertainty toward whatever place she had come begging to show off. "Let's go!"

"Go where, Zenie?" Daiya probed at her friend's reticent insistence, but the other girl pressed her lips together and shook her head at the question. The teen girl had little choice but to follow her hand where Zenie was taking it. Out from the safehouse that Shenn had lent, first to Zenie, now to Daiya as a place to stay. Out into the wilds of Denon, where the young heiress demonstrated just how comfortable she had become on the streets that Daiya had grown up on.

Neither one of them spotted the pair of observers tracking the girls, quietly moving behind them as Zenie took Daiya someplace exciting.

 

[Daiya]

"I spy something....taupe."

"Ohh, hmmm." The bright-eyed girl next to her spun her head, and it wandered as she looked around the the tram compartment. Daiya could hear her friend softly repeating the color name to herself as she spent a minute searching. The teen giggled softly to herself as her prompt seemed to stymie the girl, and in a moment she found Zenie's eyes looking back up at her as the younger girl shook her head. "I can't find it. Who's wearing taupe?"

Daiya pointed up to the thin, plasteel moldings running along under the marque of holo-ads. "Those are taupe—Hey!"

The older girl squealed in jest as Zenie poked a finger in her side. The little heiress wouldn't stop, stabbing her a few more times with her finger until the teen wrapped her hands around her giggling friend's weaponized fingers. When she could do no more damage, her friend pointed out. "That's not fair! We've been doing clothes!"

Zenie was wearing a frown that was only skin deep, and it drove a smile on the teen's face. Daiya giggled back, and let go with her hands to waggle a finger in Zenie's face. "Uh-uh, we've been doing colors. It's not my fault they've only been clothes so far."

The game was I Spy, something that Daiya had not played much since she was a youngling until she met Zenie. The exiled heiress had latched onto her newfound friend's fledgling art skills, challenging Daiya with a host of prompts and customized games like this one. Zenie's particular twist for I Spy used unusual color names, and now she fired back with her own. "Fine! I spy...something puce!"

"Yeah, right! You just like saying puce," Daiya admonished her friend sarcastically.

"Do not!" Zenie sassed back. "I really see it, but you're gonna have to look everywhere!"

Armed with the newfound expectation that her friend was looking beyond clothes, Daiya decided to focus elsewhere first. The flickering holo-ads contained a myriad of colors, but they were usually neon or bright, and not very puce. Her eyes traced over the colors of the tram car, but while taupe fit well into its color palette, puce did not. She made an audible sound of consternation, and heard another giggle beside her. Oh. The teen finally started looking at the clothes the other occupants were wearing, settling her eyes at last on a light scarf worn by a Rodian woman.

When she pointed it out to Zenie, the younger girl's eyes lit up atop a mischievous grin. "Yep! And you were looking at everything but clothes to start, I saw you."

"Ha, yeah, you got me!" Daiya drawled in mock concession. That only made Zenie giggle again, which set the teen to finding a real challenge for her friend. She had plenty of time, the tram was another dozen stops away from their transfer station. She hadn't been in the mood to draw earlier, even when Zenie pleaded and cajoled, so the pair had chosen to play the game instead. And as much fun as she was having, Daiya was still anxious to see whatever it was that made Zenie drag her out of bed that morning.

"Oh, I got it. I spy something roseate!" Daiya announced at last. She smiled warmly at her friend, and it skewed into a smirk. Zenie looked at her with a half-open mouth, and just as the younger girl started to look out for an answer, she turned back to Daiya.

"That's easy, that's just rose-colored!"

"Well, then if it's so easy, Little Miss Gotcha, find it for me," she teased, and watched as Zenie set out to do just that.

It took a lot longer for the blonde-haired heiress to finally turn back to Daiya, and there was something odd on her face as she confessed, "I don't get it."

"What, you can't find anything roseate? I thought you said that was easy!" Daiya reached out a finger to poke her friend's side, but she stopped as Zenie shook her head.

"No, not the game. I don't get why you won't make up with Tawrro," Zenie told her. The older girl studied her younger friend's face. Zenie's normally full lips were drawn into a tight line, and her forehead was creased from perplexity. Daiya's heart deflated, and she dropped her hands into her lap.

"Oh," she said simply. The teen looked down at her hands, running a thumbnail over a chip in the paint on one of her fingers. After a week of sympathy and tacit acceptance from her friend, Daiya had stopped awaiting Zenie's questions about it. She really hadn't been looking forward to this conversation, not after how eagerly Zenie got along with Tawrrowaldr. Her earstwhile companion had been like a surrogate uncle to the sweet, little girl they rescued from Belazura, who had likewise taken to Shenn as a substitute grandfather. As tightly as Zenie had clung to Daiya's makeshift family unit, the teen couldn't help but feel guilty for driving half of it away from her. "I don't think that's ever going to happen, Zenie."

"How come?" Zenie implored, and her hazel eyes found Daiya's even while downcast.

The older girl lifted her head to consider her friend straight on, taking in a sharp breath before offering, "It's..." Daiya let it out in a sigh. "It's complicated. Okay?"

For a moment, Daiya found the whole situation eerily familiar. There had been another tram ride she had taken once before, with another blonde girl she knew all too well. Only then, Daiya had been the one with questions, a burning curiousity to know more about an uncomfortable subject. Now that she held the answers, the girl found it difficult to be forthcoming enough to satisfy this blonde girl beside her.

"It's not complicated, Daiya, he loves you. You're like his daughter, and fathers don't abandon their daughters!"

Daiya found Zenie looking quite agitated about this remark, and she pried apart her hands to take hold of her younger friend's arms. "Your father didn't abandon you, Zenie."

The thin line of Zenie's lip had become a pout. "Well, he left me to go make another stupid business deal! If I had just been there..."

"Then you wouldn't be here with me!" Daiya said, trying to lift her friend's spirits with a smile. It wasn't that genuine, and Zenie's drooping expression told her that she'd failed. "And look, Tawrrowaldr didn't abandon me. I left him."

"But whyyyy?" Zenie whined with exasperated curiousity.

It was clear that Zenie had drawn a straight parallel from her own father's assassination to what had gone down between Daiya and her Wookiee companion. The teen's heart sank, finally realizing just how much Zenie had latched on to her surrogate family as a replacement, not just a successor, to her own. Maybe that was why the young Belazuran heiress had been so willing to accept the offer from Luminous Sun, Daiya recalled the many times Zenie had acted as if she were the one comforting them about her departure, insisting she would return to visit.

"Oh, Zenie, I don't even know how to explain it," Daiya said, finding it difficult to even offer that much. She wanted to explain it all to Zenie, to start from the beginning and walk the younger girl through the events that led to their parting of ways, but the teen didn't know where she would start. She was no historian, nor was she a storyteller. And the story of her own life, well there were parts of it she still didn't trust herself to reveal even to Zenie. "I just can't be around him anymore. It's not good for me."

She heard a soft gasp from Zenie, "Did he hurt you?"

"No!" Daiya cried, trying to kep her voice low but insistent. "Nothing like that. At least, not physically. It's just...there was this big fight, and someone got really hurt, and..."

"And Tawrro hurt them?"

"Yeah." Daiya swallowed at the admission. She tried to resist dwelling on it, unwilling to relive those feelings again. "He did."

"Oh," Zenie said simply, and now her eyes turned down. She considered that for a moment before deciding, "Well, he was just doing what a father would do." She looked up into Daiya's eyes. "He must have been trying to protect you. Daiya, he'd do anything for you!"

"I know..." the teen said softly. A shiver ran up her spine, and she blinked a few times. "And that's what scares me, that's why I can't go back."

"But..." Zenie seemed ready to interject with a new argument, but then she stopped. She sighed, looking crestfallen but she gave Daiya a single, curt nod. "Okay."

"Okay?" Daiya echoed in surprise, not expecting her friend to accept her wishy-washy explanation so easily.

"Okay," Zenie confirmed. But she unwound from Daiya's grasp, and turned to look at the rest of the tram car instead.

They spent the rest of the tram ride in a demure haze, and after Daiya found only monosyllabic answers from Zenie to her attempts at conversation, she just decided to let the younger girl alone. The little heiress needed some quiet time to figure out her feelings. Daiya could understand how that felt, she had spent whole days in mourning herself, and the last thing she wanted to do was make it worse for her young friend.

She checked the progress of the tram again, to see how far they still needed to go before the transfer station. At that point, Daiya would have to check the schedules and stations, they were quickly heading into unfamiliar territory to her. Yet as the chronometer ticked on, and her stomach protested its emptiness with a growl, the teen knew she had time.

Daiya would happily sacrifice a whole day of hers for Zenie.

 

[Daiya]

They entered through a back door, made obvious in a moment by the adjoining rooms filled with supplies, industrial laundry machines, and a bustling staff that never seemed to take a rest. In the process of getting here, Zenie had changed. Her long, striking blonde hair had been tied back into a neat bun, her small shape puffed and distorted by donning a bulky sweatshirt, with its hoodie raised over her head. A pair of dark shades completed her transformation, which stayed on even inside the building.

As the girls slipped discretely through a pair of double-doors and into a gilded lobby, Daiya quickly found out just why her younger friend needed to hide her appearance.

"Zenie!"

"Zenie!"​

"Zenitha!"​

"Miss Chuma!"​

"Over here!"​

Daiya slowed her pace, her attention drawn to the crowd of eager reporters and holographers, recorders and cameras out as they advanced on the pair. She glanced back to Zenie for a moment, before turning to face the onslaught of incoming paparazzi, reaching into her satchel for the blaster, only intent on using it to scare them off.

The teen never got that far, she jerked as a hand around her wrist yanked her forward and a close voice hissed in her ear. "Keep walking, Daiya."

Zenie dragged the startled teen down a side corridor and into a lift whose door nearly blended into the wall. Daiya kept her hand near her satchel in case any member of the shouting crowd of followers stepped into view, but the doors closed too quickly for them to get close enough.

Daiya turned to Zenie once the lift was moving upwards, a puzzled look on her face, "What was that all about?"

"I'm 'sposed to ignore them," Zenie told her with an exasperated sigh as she took off her sunglasses. She frowned to herself before straightening up, squaring her shoulders, and assuming an odd expression on her face before asserting, "I mean, I'm supposed to ignore them. 'The life of a public figure will always be full of someone trying to catch a glimpse.' I am not to bother with them unless I wish to be seen."

Zenie let down her face again, throwing Daiya a more familiar look as she explained more. "Ms Sun says I need to work on how I speak. I'm supposed to be eloquent and confident so I sound like a queen."

Daiya couldn't hold back a giggle at that remark, eyeing her friend with a side-eyed glance. She wasn't quite sure what to make of the whole display, Zenie's words didn't seem entirely her own and the teen wasn't following the whole explanation, but she couldn't pass up the chance to pounce on the younger girl's slip. "Queen?"

"Governor, president, whatever it's called." The flustered young heiress waved her hands, and seemed to fill the rest of the confined space in the lift with her theatrics. Daiya just laughed, and after a moment, Zenie broke her pensive spell to join in. That lasted until the lift finally deposited them on their intended floor.

As the double-doors closed behind them, Daiya was enveloped in a completely new world. Once or twice before, the girl had caught glimpses into the homes of those who lived on the upper crust of society, yet they paled in comparison to the interior of Luminous Sun's loft floors. The inside gleamed from its materials, its layout, its furniture, all of it beautiful and immaculate. It blended classic design with modern aesthetics, a holo-projection where glass might have been, glass or crystal where something should be stone, some metal so highly textured and polished to look like wood at first glance, and on and on. Her mind gaped at the scene more than her face, not in her wildest dreams could she have imagined such a palace, and Zenie lived here.

The teen was so consumed by her wonder that she barely noticed that Zenie had fallen silent while she explored the two-tiered entrance, apart from footsteps around them as the estate's staff busied themselves with the return of their ward. She took notice as a heavier set approached her, prompting her eyes to lower their gaze back to his level as the tightly-dressed Twi'lek drew near her. His voice held the clipped, august tone of those from the Core worlds, with the attitude to match it. "Now, you're not to touch anything while you wait."

"I'm not going to steal anything, don't worry," Daiya intoned, waving her hands to the man before shoving them into her pockets. That seemed to satisfy the Twi'lek enough to step back several paces and leave them in peace. That was an odd way to treat Zenie in her own home for a moment, and after a moment of wondering she glance around to find her friend to ask, only to discover that the young heiress was nowhere to be seen. The Twi'lek remained as tight-lipped as his suit was cut, and it was only when another staff member approached her that Daiya found an answer.

"Ms. Chuma is ready to receive you now," the woman said. She waited at the base of the enormous staircase which split the room almost in two, her clasped hands folded between her.

Daiya looked at the woman strangely for a moment. Accompanied by Zenie today, it had been easy to see the differences between the young heiress and the Corpo mistress who had opened a home to her. The differences were beginning to fade away now as the young shadowrunner realized just how easily Zenie heeled to the norms of this household. Whisked away willingly by the same staff who treated Daiya with hostility, Zenie's wordless compliance gave the teen a bad feeling about this whole thing. If this was not for the sake of her friend, she might simply turn around and walk out.

Assuming anyone would let her.

The teen tried to ignore the eyes that tracked her as she followed the woman up the ornate staircase, though she felt the heat of their gaze anyway. She willed herself to push down, focusing her mind on Zenie. It occurred to her that she still didn't know what her younger friend wanted to show her, the little blonde rascal had kept her in the dark this whole time. The amusement didn't make its way to her lips, something Daiya was glad for given all the scrutiny, but it at least comforted the teen as she was navigated through the hallways toward a door at the end. The woman paused in front and gestured for Daiya to stop, before turning and giving the door a knock.

An actual knock, rapping it with the knuckles of her hands. Daiya looked at the sides of the door, noting that there were no panels for notifying the occupant that someone was at the door. Nor did there seem to be any actual handle to get in, either. When a voice sounded from inside, the girl strained to hear if it was Zenie, but she couldn't make it out quite well enough. That didn't seem to bother the woman, who reached for the door, and to Daiya's bewilderment, it responded just the same as if it possessed an actual handle.

Zenie was there, standing behind the door with a grin on her face and wearing a change of clothes. She bounded out to Daiya, a ball of endless energy and excitement, and the teen could feel it rippling off of her friend. The other girl grabbed her by the hand, dropping a courteous, "I got it now, thanks Karmya," before dragging the teen forward, deeper into the room. "Come on in, Daiya, look at all this. Isn't it just a-mazing?"

Daiya looked. Zenie's room was incredible, that much was for certain. It was a room fit for a princess, a circular tower that rose above the level of her eyes to the bed at the top of it with a posterless canopy overhead. A staircase descended in a spiral from the bed, circling the room with detached steps that seemed to float in place until they reached the floor. The first floor, anyway, which hosted several circular, terraced landings culminating in a center stage, where a desk and chair sat between an array of holographic projections. A step or two down from the center workspace were wardrobes and shelves for possessions, most of them ringing the back wall where the stairs allowed. A small set of steps on either side allowed access to the center ring, leaving the center free for a stepped path down to where a spacious, and comfy-looking, sunken lounge space rested underneath the terraced floor.

"It's a-mazing, Zenie," Daiya agreed, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. She let the other girl lead her around the room, showing off the kinds of features or tech that was meant to dazzle her, or memories the little heiress had made in only her short time here. The teen found she just didn't have the heart to put into it anymore, even for Zenie. Earlier that morning, she had been curious and excited about whatever her younger friend was eager to show her, but now that Daiya was here it just seemed like a hackneyed example of everything she despised about wealth.

There was so much given to Zenie, so much of it for no other purpose than to look beautiful or to show off in the brief moments when Zenie had a guest in her room. All the grandeur, all the spaciousness, all the features for convenience or awe, what was the point? It was something to spend credits on, that's all Daiya could see from it. The attitude of the household staff persisted in clouding her mood, coloring the way she looked at everything Zenie was showing her, staining it. There was so much that Daiya wanted to be for Zenie right now, and she just couldn't.

"What's wrong, Daiya?" Zenie wondered at last, looking at the teen with those big, hazel eyes.

She averted hers, drawing her lips into a line at having to explain it. Daiya considered shaking it off, planting a fake smile on her face so she could muster through. It would be so easy to blame it on fatigue, her late night, or the lingering feelings over Tawrro. No, she couldn't do that to Zenie, it wasn't right. Her friend needed to know what she was doing. "It's just...this"

Confusion reigned over the other girl's face as she asked, "My room?"

"No, I mean...yes, your room. But more than your room, all of this. The whole affair, you being here. With her. She's given you all of this, everything I couldn't, and Shenn couldn't, and it's like what you had—"

Before. Before Daiya had helped Darkwire murder her father, on the orders of a Corpo. A colleague of the very DireX who was playing host for Zenie now, and one whom Daiya had little doubt that playing was the extent of it.

The little heiress withered under the weight of Daiya's words. Her downcast face hid the tears that she knew were there, Zenie's weighty breaths and a voice full of sadness said it all. "So, you hate this. Even though you said it's a-mazing."

Breath caught in her throat as the teen realized her mistake. The words tumbled out as Daiya tried to quickly backtrack. "No, no, I don't hate it, it is a-mazing!" How was she supposed to make Zenie understand what it was like to have nothing when someone else had so much excess? "But it's just...so over the top, Zenie."

"What do you mean, over the top?!" Zenie looked up at Daiya, her face red and streaked with tears. She sniffed back another wave of tears, her eyes searching her older friend's for a reason to stop altogether. "Don't I deserve nice things? I'm the daughter of a governor!"

The teen's shoulders fell. Somehow she was failing to be delicate and convincing with her friend, where it had come so easily before with strangers. Daiya felt a growing sense of dread at the direction of this conversation. "I didn't forget that, but you aren't anymore."

"But I should be!" Zenie's tears flowed freely now, sobs wracking her small body. Daiya stared at her friend, feeling as helpless as the younger girl was hurt. Her words were harder to understand, slurred by sobs and anguish now. "Ms. Sun is helping me, and someday I'm going to get my planet back. I thought you wanted me to. I thought you were my friend!"

"Of course I am!" Daiya reached out for Zenie, but the other girl shrank back. The teen let her arms fall lifeless to her side, her body slumped crestfallen. Her sense of dread was overwhelming now, and a sadness began to infect Daiya. She tried to carry conviction in her words, but they faltered, and she feared they convinced no one. "Of course I want that for you, Zenie, but not like this. Sun isn't a nice person."

"She's been super nice to me, Daiya. You just don't know her!" The little heiress shot back bitterly.

"She's a Corpo!" Daiya returned in kind, frustration entering the mix of emotions. "She just wants you under her control, her little puppet to parade around."

Zenie folded her arms, stubborn in her accusation as her voice rose, "Why do you always have to make it about that? Not everything is Darkwire versus Corpos, Daiya!"

"Don't you want Belazura free from the Corpos?" Daiya couldn't help but match the level of shouting now, her senses on a knife's edge.

"I want Belazura free from Diviak Manfloon!" Came the little heiress' declaration, and Daiya could hardly disagree with it. Her young friend's next words sounded eerie, like they weren't her own again. "And his treacherous betrayal of Belazura and my people."

At last, Daiya had nothing to respond with, standing there facing Zenie, both staring at the other with shaky breath and sharpened claws. The last tears had fallen, and though Zenie's face was still damp, it brightened for a moment with a weak smile. Her words were softer now, and maybe a little hopeful."Tell you what, when I have my world back, I'll...I'll outlaw the Corpos! How 'bout that?"

An olive branch.

It still felt wrong somehow. The teen couldn't help but feel like she was being patronized, and by someone younger than her. Someone she considered a friend. The unsettling dread returned, gnawing at her, yet she forced a smile anyway as her calmer voice said, "That'd be a-mazing!"

Zenie pushed further. "So, can't you just be happy for me right now?"

Daiya nodded. The teen felt her dread swell, but she pushed it away. This was what Zenie needed right now, not her. She held open her arms for the other girl again, "You're right, Zenie. I'm sorry."

Finally, cautiously, Zenie walked into them. Daiya brought her in slowly, and the younger girl folded herself against the teen. Though it couldn't quickly mend their hurt feelings, their embrace was a welcome salve.

"I didn't mean to make you feel bad..." Daiya started as the two stepped away again, only an arm's length apart. She ran her fingers against a lock of Zenie's front hair.

The younger girl wore a pouting face for a moment. "Well you did. But...!" The face disappeared, replaced now by an impish grin. The Zenie that Daiya knew, the one she had first met so long ago on Belazura, surfaced once more. "You can make it up to me! Ms. Sun has a pool, wanna go swimming again?"

"I'd love to!"

"A-mazing!"

 

[Daiya]

She floated on her back in the water. Her hair buoyed up behind her head, a golden ray of sunshine just under the surface. She felt weightless, untethered from more than just gravity. As if the events of the last few months had been nothing more than a dream, and she might wake up back at that pool on Belazura again.

Back to before.

Daiya found her reverie broken by a splash, water spraying over her face. Her eyes smashed shut, and she brought her hands up out of the water to wipe off her face. Blinking back the treated water a few times, the teen's blue eyes turned to find a pair of hazel ones boring a hole through her head.

"HEY!" The devious youngling bared a wolf's grin at her, shouting despite having the teen's full attention.

"Hey yourself." Daiya returned, and then panned her gaze back to the textured ceiling above them. The pool room was like the others in Luminous Sun's penthouse villa, its high-ceiling decorated in lavish ornaments and colored lighting to reflect a kaleidoscope down to soak across the surface of her buoyant body. .

"Are you just going to float there?" Zenie's voice held a familiar brooding tone, the kind that craved attention.

Daiya's voice was cold, hiding the smile blossoming on her face. "Yup."

"You don't want to do booma balls again?" The request was more of an appeal, an opportunity to make it up to the little heiress.

It was almost impossible to hide her smile now, and it crept into Daiya's voice this time. "Nope."

The water stirred around her, sending Daiya driting away. Small movements from her hands steered her back, and now the teen floated next to her preteen friend.

"Just thinkin'?" Zenie seemed to finally be on her level now.

The teen shrugged, though it moved more water than her shoulders. A quiet voice answered at last. "I guess."

"What are you thinkin' about?" The Belazuran girl put a soft clip in her words, mirroring Daiya's street speech. Zenie paddled softly around her drifting friend.

Daiya shrugged into the water again, letting the words and gentle waves wash over her. "I dunno. I never get the chance."

A giggle rippled the water as the younger girl considered Daiya's revealing honesty. "Good point." Zenie was quiet for a moment, venturing a timid curiosity at last. "You're not still mad at me, are you?"

"You?" The water splashed from Daiya's startled movements, paddling until she could look back at her friend's face. The teen wore a plaintive brow while speaking earnestly to the little heiress, "I could never be mad at you."

Worried, maybe.

Jealous, perhaps.

Not mad. Never mad.

"Okay." Zenie's chipper response came quickly, and Daiya felt herself relax some more. The air was quiet for a moment, but for the sounds of lapping water and their breathing, until the Belazuran heiress punctuated the moment again with her declaration. "Good! I don't ever want to stop being friends."

Daiya had to giggle at that, buoyed more by her friend's cheerful tone than the pool water itself. "We won't, Zenie, I promise. Friends forever!"

"Friends forever!"

The young shadowrunner grinned at her younger friend, her own heart settled by the reassurance. Even after a week, her feelings still rubbed raw. The absence of the great Wookiee left a gaping hole in her life, fraying her at the edges. The permanence of her friendship with Zenie helped mend some of those edges, soothing her tender heart.

Daiya floated for a while more in the water, just enjoying the companionable silence. It was unusual for her, but everything about recent events had been unusual. At some point, she couldn't help herself from the mention, "But—"

"Uh-oh." The little heiress' interjection was coy, followed by a quick chuckle.

"—it feels like everything's about to change now." Daiya's had actually been thinking as they floated, her mind taking the teen to places she didn't like. The message might hurt Zenie again, but she forced herself to carry on. "You with Sun, me without Tawrrowaldr."

The little heiress didn't giggle at that, her voice small again when it came. "Oh...yeah, I suppose it will."

It was something neither of them wanted to acknowledge. The truth of it was, they might not be seeing much of each other for a while. Or ever again.

Daiya swallowed, wishing she could hold back these words. As young and unready as she was, her friend needed to hear them. "You can't be a little girl anymore, Zenie."

Neither of them could.

Zenie's expected rebuttal came swiftly on her heels. "I'm not a little girl!"

"No, you're not," the teen agreed. She kicked her legs down, pivoting to float at her shoulders instead. Her feet kicked slowly as her arms treaded water. "You're a beautiful, young lady!" Daiya watched the wide grin travel over Zenie's face, the Belazuran girl's cheeks growing rosy from the compliment. It was among the galaxy's true marvels in Daiya's opinion, a sunrise spreading over the face of the dethroned princess. "What I mean is, you're gonna be alone now."

Water shifted as Zenie looked over at Daiya, splashing while she roughly imitated the same move as her older friend. The furrowed brow spelled out confusion, not yet anger, on the girl's fair skin. "What do you mean? I have Ms. Sun, and—"

Daiya's words were forceful, a little more than she intended. "No, you don't have Sun. She has you, okay Zenie?"

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

The teen's mantra was a command as well as a desire. She searched Zenie's face for hint of cracks, for anger, but all she saw was more confusion. "Don't forget it, she's not your mom. She's not your friend, either. She's just using you."

Confusion became disappointment. That probably hurt even more. "You're wrong, Daiya. She believes in me! Unlike some people..."

The teen kept treading, wishing she could put her arms out to hug Zenie instead. Instead, she pushed on. "That's what she wants you to think."

For once, the little heiress didn't have a retort for the teen. A knot rose in Daiya's throat, from the pit her stomach had been nursing since they arrived at Sun's penthouse.

"I dunno, maybe she actually does," Daiya offered generously. She shrugged, and it sank her down a few centimeters. She kicked back up, letting the water wash down over her mouth. "But she's a—" Zenie didn't understand yet why Corpo was such a bad word, why it spelled doom not salvation. "—she's not like us. She uses people, and she'll use you."

"But—"

Zenie might be quick with her protest, but Daiya was quicker with her follow-up this time. She grinned at her friend, a lopsided grin that meant more than her words could have. "Use her right back, Zenie!"

If anyone believed in Zenie, it was Daiya.

"What do you mean?" Zenie was curious now, and it unwound some of the teen's tension.

"I mean use her, Zenie." Daiya pushed onward, driving open the crack in the door Zenie had left for her. "Don't just do what she tells you, use her faith in you to get what you want. If she says 'no,' find a way around it. If she says 'stop,' keep going. And if she has something you want —I don't mean like fancy clothes or apartments, I mean like resources or contacts or equipment— then you beg and plead and use all your beautiful, young lady wiles to get them for you. You won't have me or Shenn or your dad there anymore, you can't just be a good, little girl and do whatever she tells you."

Zenie swam off, and Daiya felt her heart sink. The Belazuran girl paddled toward the ladder, climbing up the side of the pool as the teen watched, her head bobbing into the water. It was hard to stay afloat, her knees felt too weak to kick strong enough. She didn't need to cry, the pool held enough water than Daiya's eyes could ever offer.

Through blurry eyes, Daiya saw the Belazuran girl walk past the towels waiting to dry them, and back to the edge of the pool. A warmth flooded through her when Zenie sat down at the rim, dipping her feet back in to kick idly back and forth at the side. Daiya's heart surfaced, and she swam over to the chattering girl, dipping her head underneath the water to wash off any evidence from her face.

"...but what if Ms. Sun really is on my side?" Zenie was saying as Daiya broke the water, resolving from gurgling distortions to clarity as the water drained from her ears. "And when she says 'no' it's because it would cause a lot of trouble?"

Daiya took a moment before she responded, not yet trusting her voice to betray her. The girl in front of her was one of the strongest beings she had ever known, and the teen would never forgive herself if she betrayed the trust Zenie had placed in her. "Zenie," she started at last, swimming right up to rest her arms on the side of the pool, wiping away damp hair from her eyes and tossing it towards her back against the borrowed swimsuit. Daiya looked up at her young friend, her eyes shining with pride. "I wanna see you cause the biggest trouble Belazura's ever seen!"

Light spread over the face of the little heiress, blooming from a smile that grew slowly until it stretched from ear to ear. Zenie's beaming face sent warmth into Daiya's heart, compelling a mirror's image upon the teen's own face.

She could afford one compromise, if it made Zenie happy. "And if Sun helps you do it, that'd be a-mazing."

Zenie giggled at the touch, fast to return the teen's catchphrase. "No, you're a-mazing."

Daiya's beaming smile became a wicked grin, tossing one hand back into the water to pull a wave at the girl sitting outside the pool. The Belaruzan girl turned away from the splash, and the teen cried into the opening, "No, you're a-mazing!"

Zenie leaned down to sweep her hand through the water, drawing a splash over Daiya's head. "No, you're—""

Daiya didn't hear the rest. Holding her nose, the teen dove under the water. She kicked her legs, then reached out with her arms to grab Zenie around her midsection when the two collided. She felt the little heiress squirming with resistance, and a pair of hands pressed against her head. It only drove the smile that grew on her lips, Daiya motored the pair from the edge of the pool with a series of powerful kicks.

Squeals reached her ears when Daiya surfaced again, the little heiress armed with a giddy face and two arms full of water rushing toward the teen. She was ready this time for the splash, and turned her head with closed eyes to avoid the worst of it. Their skirmish became a pitched battle as she turned back with a splash of her own, her locked palms in front of her pushing a cascade over the younger girl's head.

Daiya giggled at Zenie's shocked squeals again, earning a mouthful of water for her euphoric troubles.

"Hello girls..."

The young shadowrunner lost her breath, and the splashing war, as she spun in the water to face the lithe figure of Luminous Sun standing on the sidelines of the pool.

 

[Daiya]

A hushed quiet drew over the pool room in Luminous Sun's penthouse, only the sounds of lapping water, the swish of the two girls staying afloat, and the deep breathing on all sides remained. Startled by the entrance of the DireX, the teen glanced over to her younger friend, looking for direction or initiative from the Belazuran girl. For her part, the little heiress seemed caught just as much off-guard, all of her earlier praise for the woman just as quiet now as the room.

The DireX luminary looked between the watery pair, almost content to let the moment linger before speaking. "Far be it from me to interrupt the fun, but I need to have a little word in private right now."

Daiya felt tension loose its grip on her body, casting her eyes over to Sun at last, full of wonder for what she and Zenie needed to discuss. She felt herself dip back down, kicking again to stay afloat, when the woman's eyes returned her gaze.

"Daiya, can you come with me for a moment?"

She heard the water swish more, and felt Zenie's eyes on her. Daiya nearly froze, only the need to tread water keeping her aware. The teen glanced to the little heiress, and then up to the DireX, suffering the longest moment of her life.

"Aren't you going to go, Daiya?" Zenie asked the teen, the words sentencing her more thoroughly than the woman's judgement. Somber eyes returned Zenie's gaze, before Daiya nodded and swam to the edge of the pool. As she climbed from the pool's comforting grasp, Daiya heard a more chipper tone from her friend, "I'll ask Myra to make lunch, I am hun-gry!"

Daiya shivered out of the water, standing at the edge of the pool with only her arms and the borrowed swimsuit for cover. She shook her matted curls, gritting her teeth against the threat of chatter.

"That sounds like an excellent idea, Zenitha!" Sun beamed at the remaining girl in the pool, turning to a chilled Daiya standing outside of it. "Go get your towel, Daiya, you'll catch a cough standing there like that."

Frozen limbs barely responded to her hesitant mind, the presence of Luminous Sun weighing everything down around her. She could lure her eyes to watch the cherished girl in the water, christened with honeyed words, while the teen instead suffered only chills and a cold demand from a woman radiating no warmth for her. Daiya stepped numbly towards the towel rack by the pool rim, pulling off the colorful fabric Zenie had loaned to her, and drew it around her shoulders.

Sun clicked her tongue, then swirled her hand toward Daiya, "Come, come, Daiya, we have much to discuss. Try not to drip too much on my floors."

Daiya's stiff limbs could finally respond once more, embracing the moment to follow the woman's beckoning hand. The rest of the penthouse was frigid by comparison to the warm, humid air circulating in the pool room, and she clung more tightly to the towel wrapped around her shoulders. Sun pontificated as they went, finding little trouble in filling to void that an unusually-reticent Daiya left for the star-studded woman.

"Are you enjoying my house, Daiya? I do hope it matches up with the expectations you had for our mutual, dear friend Zenitha. I care very much about her well-being, much more than you might imagine, and you can see that she'll want for nothing here. I know you did your best for her, the best that you and your acquaintances could manage, but really Ms. T'aemin, I think you'll agree that Zenitha is better off here with me."

Sun spun around to glance back at the young shadowrunner, a dainty laugh tumbling beneath eyes full of delight. The woman nearly pranced back toward Daiya, putting a finger under the teen's chin, tipping up until she could look into her eyes. "You look as if I murdered your Wookiee right about now. Or did he simply leave you, too?" Daiya felt her hands clench tighter behind the towel, but the woman only smiled wider. "You needn't worry your little head, our Zenitha still considers you part of her little family. And now that your shadow isn't big and hairy, you can visit her anytime you wish, isn't that wonderful? Oh, Daiya, the possibilities are endless now that you're a free woman, unburdened by that awful partnership and the needs of caring for a child."

Her mind had thawed enough by now, helped along by the woman's suggestive tone, to wonder just how much Sun knew about the last few week's events. Daiya might have marveled at it from anyone else, but the cool demeanor and casual cruelty of the DireX would have made her limbs break out in goosebumps if they weren't already covered in them.

"Zenitha has nothing but praise for you, Daiya. You're her best friend, did you know that?" Sun winked at her, then dropped her arm and swept back alongside the teen. Daiya felt herself pulled along by the theatrical woman, every step seeming like a venture deeper into Sun's intricate web. She shuddered through a thready breath, from lungs as trapped inside her ribs as the young shadowrunner sensed now, striking deeper into the spider's lair.

"Oh, to hear that girl talk, Daiya. She's incredibly bright, and very well-spoken for her age. Zenitha certainly still sounds like a child, but that's something I can help with, of course. You have an excellent nose for finding assets, it's a wonder you gave up the intelligence business to start shadowrunning. From what I've heard, you were a natural. I never did quite work out how you happened upon Zenitha and captivated her so much, she's incredibly loyal, Daiya, and won't utter so much as a peep against you. I admire that, I want you to know, and it sparks an insatiable curiosity in me."

She trembled with every naked step now, no armor or blaster to steady the teen as she went, her bare feet padding deeper into the finery and indulgence of Sun's interwoven tapestry. Yet she didn't struggle to keep from falling behind, and Daiya couldn't figure out whether it was compulsion or curiosity that drove her. Of all the reckless, impulsive things she had done lately, willingly following in the footsteps of a DireX surely topped the list.

"I'll respect her loyalty for you, if you'll do one thing for me, Daiya." Sun stopped them outside a door, one that Daiya had not even noticed them approaching. It was unadorned and nondescript, looking much like the entrance to just another utility room among many in the penthouse. With no secrets to find on the door itself, Daiya turned to look at the woman. She found herself still mired in the intricate web of the fiendish woman, compliments swam with insults and threats delivered in nearly the same breath by the DireX. The teen's head spun, quite lost in the maze of Sun's delivered sermon. The hairs on her arms and neck, almost dry by now, pulled back in warning to the teen. They synchronized with the tightening of her stomach, scraping out all the warmth she had accumulated since climbing from the pool, to hide inside that knotted organ.

Whatever lay behind that door was something Daiya wouldn't like. Every bit of her screamed to run, to hide, but where? A wing away, Zenie still splashed by herself in the pool, where Daiya's own clothes and gear had been left. Her throat tightened at the thought of it, not for her possessions but for Zenie. A fire streaked through her body at the thought, a despairing furor at the understanding of having —at last— something in common with DireX Luminous Sun. "And you'll promise to take care of Zenie if I do?" Daiya finally had a voice enough to speak, weighing her words carefully against the manipulative DireX. "If I do you this favor, you'll do everything in your power to help her? No matter what?"

"Why Daiya, my dear, I'm offended you had to ask—" Sun placed a dainty hand to her chest, a grave voice eminating from the cavity where Daiya thought a heart should be. "—but I'm impressed you found the courage to. Perhaps I was wrong to doubt you. Yes, you have a deal, you do me this little favor and I'll spare no efforts to assist our Zenitha."

Still unhappy with herself, the teen set her jaw. Then she nodded to the woman, and Sun clapped her hands together, nearly squealing with delight. "Good! It's simple Daiya, just step through the door."

A bitter laugh rose up within the young shadowrunner, but fear clawed it back before it could escape. She could feel her throat closing in, the bile rising up as she faced the door. It loomed before her now, unrelenting in its design. Sharp, angular corners defied any attempt at appearing harmless, Daiya knew better. Sun wielded emotion as a far better weapon than words, she had witnessed as much, and was certain that the woman would not have built up the moment for a simple task at all.

She reached out a hand. There was nothing left to do but step through the door. It opened easily, and the teen did not wait to step through it.

Daiya stared at the room, surrounded on all sides by a tank full of water. It was so very different than the pool she had left behind, and it alarmed the teen to understand that without knowing how. She took another cautious step, her heart pounding in her chest. Veins pulsed at her temples, drawing a hand from beneath her towel to press against it. The sensation felt familiar to her, and her muscles tensed against the realization.

The first creature swam into view.

It hit her like a tsunami, no harsh pounding or moment of warning for the vision this time. The teen's head was on fire, a thousand needles pricking into her skull, and the floor rushed up to meet her. The last thing she remembered hearing was a voice behind her, intoning gently, "So it is true! How wrong I was to doubt you, Daiya..."

Then her world exploded into vivid color.

She stood at the window, looking down at the vivid scene unfolding on the streets below, a city not on Denon but somewhere else. She had the impression that she had been observing the scene for a while. The fight unfolding was one of awesome power, something she could feel even from a distance away. Two groups, at least, met in a battle of chaotic lines and strange patterns. Blasters and bombs, shouts and slogan, all paired together in the clash between the two forces. They seemed to be unequal in numbers, though equally matched in strength.

Though she looked out the window, the actual battle was levels below, appearing to her by holo insets in the window itself. Far beyond, the city descended to a horizon of terrain, largely barren with sparse, sickened foliage. She soon realized that another woman was standing nearby, observing the fight with her. She took the opportunity to ask, "What's going on?"

"Looks like it's happening at last," the woman remarked. "Deesa's extremists went too far this time, and the Z-Runners are finally going to put them down. I only hope they don't bring down a cloudcutter like they did last time, those are expensive to replace."

For some reason, she felt like she should know those terms. Yet the names eluded her, even as she felt a vague familiarity around some of the figures in the scene below. At last she realized she knew some of them as Shadowrunners. In shock, she told the woman, "This doesn't make sense. They shouldn't be fighting each other!"

"What do you mean, Ms. T'aemin? You've been waiting years for this moment, I thought you'd be happy." The woman turned to her at last, and she recognized the face of Luminous Sun. "After all, this was entirely your idea."​

 

[Daiya]

It was cold on the floor when she awoke, her muscle already sore from the moment the teen first stirred. She rose from the hard bed of tile, the chill of it prickling goosebumps along her exposed skin. Still in the borrowed swimsuit, Daiya shivered slightly at her condition, wrapping her arms around her slender body and tensing as she heard a voice in the room with her.

"Good morning, sunshine!"

The blonde's legs swung under a chair that hadn't been there before, her giggling face watching Daiya with some amusement. The groggy teen squinted at her friend's dry, brushed hair and her change of clothes, and her head whipped around to find a chronometer. It took Daiya a moment to realize that the light streaming in from the open door into the sun-dimmed hallway marked the time as evening instead, and she turned back to Zenie with an exasperated tone, "It's not morning."

"Nope, but you were out for a looooooooong time." The little heiress giggled again, drawing a pink tongue from Daiya's lips in retort. Zenie scoffed at the teen, shaking her head now. "You went off with Ms. Sun and she came back to say you were resting. I thought she meant in my room, not on the floor in here."

Daiya's eyes avoided her friend, drifting to the tank behind Zenie. Her muscles tensed at the reminder, her body flooded with the memories of the insidious creatures lurking inside them. A hand flew to her forehead, pressing tightly against the splitting pain that was no longer there. It took a second for the teen to realize, warmth flushing her cheeks pink as she tried to offset her initial blunder. Hands found her hair, matted and clumped from sleeping on it still soaked from the pool, and Daiya found herself sheepishly running her hands through them to brush out the tangles. "I got..."

Her eyes drifted back up to Zenie, and then unavoidably to the tanks once more. The creatures drifted lazily inside them now, their soft bodies looking like the innocents she knew they weren't. Daiya reserved her glare for the moment, returning back to Zenie and the answer her friend was waiting for. "...dizzy, I guess." The teen's stomach twisted, wondering if she should have told the little heiress of her visions. "I should have eaten breakfast."

Daiya shoved the pit deeper into her stomach, convincing herself not to share her curse with Zenie just yet.

"Oh yeah, that's why Ms. Sun had me bring you a plate!" Zenie gestured to the dish sitting on top of the second chair in the room, with Daiya's clothes lying folded underneath. Hunger drew the teen to her feet, stepping forward to examine the offering closer up. The lunch plate was filled with an array of fried foods, with a few conspicuous empty spots. The teen looked plainly at her younger friend, who blushed in return at being exposed. "Sorry, it was getting cold, and you were all..."

Zenie tipped her head back, going cross-eyed under wavering eyelids, as a grating sound emerged from her throat. It sounded like gravel grinding under old-fashioned tires, like those some wealthy Corpos had on speeders, and Daiya threw hands to her hips at the implication. "Hey, I do not snore!"

"Really? Because you do a pretty good imitation of it, then." The Belazuran girl's laughter tickled her in half, and Zenie only laughed harder when she looked up at Daiya's disapproving glare.

Daiya gave up, shaking her head as she grabbed the first morsel to catch her eye on the plate. The crunchy texture of the fried tuber still held the golden, salty taste that melted in her mouth. It wisked away the frowns and glares off the teen's face, who picked up the plate and sat down on the pile of clothes atop the chair. The cushioned throne gave her even more of a height difference with Zenie, one that Daiya used to wiggle herself into a straightened back, squared shoulders, and a grinning face.

"It's still good cold," Daiya remarked, quickly shoveling more into her mouth. She ate quickly until her growling stomach abated, filling her mouth too full to talk. Zenie easily filled the gap with her own one-sided conversation, and it made the teen realize just how much the little heiress was used to fending for herself. As an only child, and now practically abandoned to a series of caretakers, Daiya's ability to swallow grew more difficult the more she marveled at how easily Zenie adapted to it.

It only made her feel a different kind of guilty for letting Luminous Sun have such power over the Belazuran girl.

"Zenie?" Daiya asked when she could eat no more. The teen offered the plate to her friend, to pick off whatever else she wanted. When her hands were empty, she brushed them against each other, then moved to wipe the grease onto pants she still wasn't wearing again. "Turn around, will you?"

"Why?" Zenie asked with her mouth half-full. When her eyes found Daiya picking up her clothes again, she wrinkled her face in confusion at the answer. "We're both girls!"

"Still!" Daiya insisted, grinning at the long groan from the little heiress. She took a few steps to shut the door, bringing darkness back into the dimly lit room, which only forced the teen squint in order to confirm that the young blonde's back was facing her. Ditching the suit on the floor, Daiya started pulling her proper clothes back on, feeling like more of herself with every layer she returned. "That wasn't what I wanted to ask you, though."

Zenie turned around to ask, but then squealed as she caught herself, almost at the last minute, to spin back around. "You're okay," Daiya reassured her friend as she fastened the closure on her pants, "I'm all dressed."

The little heiress spun back again, with hands covering her eyes this time. She peeked out, giggling softly, and then let her hands slowly drift to her lap. Zenie straightened up, much like Daiya had before, assuming a posture the teen presumed had been instilled in her by Sun. "What did you want to ask?"

"Is this what you want?" Daiya sat down and looked deep into the eyes of the little heiress, before gesturing around them. Not the room or the penthouse apartment, she meant, but whatever was going to come out of Sun's guardianship of the Belazuran girl. The thoughts and words that had tumbled from Zenie's mouth hours earlier didn't sound like the Zenie she knew. It sounded like a mouthpiece, one that Daiya could only imagine had already come from days of listening to the honeyed words straight from the DireX' mouth. "Really?"

Zenie sighed in a complete sentence. She placed the plate on the floor, before scooting her chair close enough so that their knees touched. She reached out her hands, palms up, urging Daiya to take them. The warm contact lit up the teen's mind, prompting her to turn her eyes to their clasped hands. Zenie gave them a little tug, and Daiya lifted her eyes up to the Belazuran girl. "I really. Truly. Want this."

"Are you sure? I mean—" Daiya was cut off by the shake of the head, as Zenie stared deep into her own eyes.

"Daiya. I know you're worried about me, and I know you think Ms. Sun is evil, and that she's just using me." Zenie renewed her stare to cut off Daiya's opening mouth, thrusting her chin forward intensively toward the teen's face. "I know she can use people, I've already sort-of seen it, but I also know that she's the only one who can help me win back Belazura." The little heiress thumped their joined hands on her knees, "I need this, Daiya. I'm the only one who can do this the right way, you know I am. And you know that Darkwire could never help me do this, either, it has to be someone like Sun."

"Yeah, but—"

"Let me finish! I don't want to spend my life in safe houses and hiding who I am. Shenn is nice, you're a-mazing, but you can't do what I need. I need to do this my way so I can do it the right way! Just trust me!" Zenie closed her mouth, drawing her lips into a line. Her eyes shimmered from moisture Daiya hadn't noticed there a moment ago, and the teen squeezed her younger friend's hands.

"I do trust you...I just feel like you broke up with me or something." Daiya suggested, wistful words that sounded too bitter the moment they left her tongue. She willed them back, unsuccessfully. Instead, she just stared haplessly into the Belazuran girl's eyes, watching for a hint of relief.

"No! Of course not, Daiya, you're always going to be my best friend!" Zenie's hands dropped hers, as she rushed forward to embrace Daiya in a hug. The teen froze in shock, not only at the friendly warmth suddenly reassuring her, but at the confirmation of Sun's words.

Daiya was Zenie's best friend. Was Zenie hers?

Her arms slowly moved to wrap around the slender form pressed tight against her. Daiya blinked back the tears that threatened to come, she just couldn't shut down the stomach doing flip-flops in her belly. She couldn't come up with anything equal to offer Zenie, and it made the teen feel even worse to be so conciliatory. "I never doubted it, Zenie."

"Oh! I almost forgot!" The young heiress broke away from Daiya, and it felt like the last time. The chill left in Zenie's absence was her new friend, and the teen shivered at that abominable knowledge. It wormed her way inside anyway, and when Zenie returned with a box in her hands, Daiya nearly recoiled from the sight. She dreaded to watch the hands that opened it, unveiling a future she had almost nearly forgotten witnessing in her Vision before.

Nestled in the box were a pair of long-nosed, colorful blasters with an orb at the back of each one, where swirling gases churned in patterns that recalled the battle Daiya had Seen. She drew in a sharp breath, choking on the sudden lack of air in the room, terrified to even meet Zenie's eyes.

"These are for you! They're from Ms. Sun, but really they're from me. I saw them, and I knew you would like them!" She caught enough of the grin to know how proud the little heiress was right now, and it twisted Daiya's stomach even more not to feel the same. "Come join me on Belazura, and you can have them!"

The teen might have doubled over from the pain, but her eyes were transfixed on the set of blasters. And beyond them, to what they meant to her, was a path Daiya knew she could never walk. The Vision in her mind was vivid once more, one that the teen knew she would never forget. She could draw it a thousand times and never forget. Even if she couldn't know the events that would lead her to that, Daiya knew that she could never take that first step.

She would never live with herself to be working side by side with Luminous Sun.

"Oh, what's wrong Daiya?!"

The younger face was suddenly looking deep into hers. Daiya's fear drew her back, sliding the chair from the box in Zenie's hands. "I can't, Zenie..." She could no longer find the proper words to express herself. Not with those spelling out a different set of words. "I have to stay..."

Away?

"Here." She managed to swallow, looking at Zenie's face with a little more self-control. The teen offered a pained expression, the best she could do in the moment, hoping that her friend would understand. The words of the young heiress ran through her mind again, and Daiya drew from them for herself. "I'm needed here, just like you're needed on Belazura. I can't...I can't just leave, this is my home."

Zenie's shoulders drooped as she closed the box. She took her seat again, nodding to herself. "I told Ms. Sun you'd never agree, anyway. She thought I had the best chance, though."

Daiya's face brightened softly as the Belazuran girl shrugged, feeling the tempo of hope alive between them. It wasn't in their words, but she sensed it on the air. The teen climbed down from her chair, resting on her knees in front of her young friend. "Zenie, I'll always be there for you, you know that right?"

The little blonde nodded her head, a solemn gesture that seemed to be earnest regardless.

"And if you ever want me to come rescue you from Ms. Sun, I will, right?"

Zenie giggled at the suggestion, her eyes rising to meet Daiya's now. "Yeah, but you'd probably shoot her in the process."

Now it was Daiya's turn to be solemn, nodding intensely into Zenie's hazel eyes. "And anyone else who gets in between us."

The grin lit up the room, or so it seemed to Daiya as she watched it split Zenie's face in two. It faded, just a little, as the young heiress finally came to the same realization she had. "I guess this is the end, huh?"

"Never." Daiya put definitively. She tossed her matted hair until Zenie giggled at the show, then the teen leaned up to plant a kiss on the girl's forehead. Her hand brushed some hair back from Zenie's face, hovering at eye level. "We'll always be together, even when we're apart. This is just something new, for both of us."

"Best friends forever?" The question hovered between them, demanding to be answered at last.

Daiya shook her head, talking quickly before she shattered Zenie's dreams. "Better than that. Sisters."

The Belazuran girl gasped, rushing forward to clasp her arms around Daiya again. In her ear, the teen could hear the quick patter of excitement from the younger blonde. "Ineverhadasisterbefore!"

She giggled in return, whispering in Zenie's ear. "I've always wanted one, too!"

When Zenie drew back, Daiya could spy tears welling in her surrogate sister's eyes. She wiped them away with a thumb, grinning at the girl she cared so much about now. The teen wanted anything to see Zenie succeed, and anything to avoid the Vision she saw to come true. Balancing the two gave her pause, but for the moment, Daiya only had to worry about Zenie. "You can't break apart sisters, right?"

The Belazuran girl nodded, and her new sister nodded back. "So we'll always be sisters, no matter what. Even if I can't be right there with you, I'm with you."

Zenie wiped at her leaking eyes, pushing the box on her lap toward Daiya again. "Take it. You don't even have to be right there with me, I just want you to have them."

The teen put her hands on her new sister's. "Save them for me." Daiya giggle briefly, grinning at the thought. "For when I change my mind."

Daiya sat back on her haunches, and then stood up. Her muscles protested against her, demanding attention from being neglected on the floor. She ignored them. She ignored the tanks around the pair as well, her eyes and thoughts totally on Zenie now. The teen grinned at the girl, taking a step back.

Zenie understood. If anything, she didn't protest Daiya's departure. She just offered a retort to the teen's claim, scoffing at the notion with her own suggestion. "So, like, a thousand years?"

"A million!" Daiya offered back, and it was Zenie who giggled now.

The teen almost couldn't bear to leave her. She knew, deep inside her, that Zenie would be alright. The young heiress had a strength and optimism that she didn't show very many people, it had taken Daiya years to see it herself. The knowledge buoyed the street-worn heart of the teen, if Zenie could hold onto herself for that long, she could hold on until Belazura was won.

Daiya stepped out the door into the penthouse hallway again, blinking back at the bright sunlight. This was not her fight. She didn't belong here, steeped in riches and mired in Sun's manipulations. Zenie could thrive, but Daiya needed to return to her place on this world. Below the sunlit lofts of the upper class, back to where twilight and shadows reigned supreme.

Back to her life, to her fight.

The young shadowrunner left as quickly as she could, confident that Zenitha Chuma was in the best hands possible.

Her own.

— F I N —​