Fitting in

The first week of their travel towards the homeworld of her ‘husband’ had been a disaster in every possible way for Jaisyl. Leaving aside her initial faux pas in assuming Yaerwen and Rye had been merely staff rather than Dustin’s consorts, there had been the clothing situation - and the dining.

She had at least not been left to starve, though it had been a close run thing. Back in the palace, she would have been summoned for dinner at a suitable time by her parents or elder brother, but apparently that was not the done thing on-board Dustin’s ship. She’d been sat patiently in her room, ready and getting increasingly hungry for over an hour when the door chimed - apparently, Aricia had noticed the absence of the princess in their ready room, checked with the galley, and then come to check in on her to make sure she ate.

Out of the entire crew, the butterfly woman was the only one growing on Jaisyl. She was flighty, utterly unconcerned with anything of any real import, and flatly refused to respect the Tho’unn’s rank - but she also clearly wanted to help reduce the number of fish-out-of-water issues that the princess was having. Which made last night’s gaffe all the worse.

Jaisyl paused her needlepoint and slowly bit down on her fist again at the thought of it. The night had started out simply, she’d taken a walk through the gardens with Aricia as the Lieviran had wanted to take pictures of the flowers. It’d been nice, one of the few activities that took her out of her quarters that was not either studying (with Emely on human culture and Trea’k on galactic politics) or food-related. And then she’d gone and spoiled everything by making an offhand comment about how Aricia didn’t respect her as a princess because the butterfly woman had asked her to move her arm while posing for a photo.

She could still remember the look in the woman’s eyes, hurt, anger and something else before Aricia smiled and shook her head. Later, Jaisyl had asked Trea’k about it, in case it was some Lieviran thing; the butterfly species was a new discovery after all, and hadn’t been included in her general education.

Trea’k’s answer… Jaisyl winced as she pushed the needle through her cloth without looking and stabbed her thumb. Sucking it and glaring at the offending inch of pointy metal, she tried to calm her nerves again. Trea’k had patiently and carefully explained about the situation on Aricia’s home planet prior to the Solar Ascent’s arrival. To think that a priest caste could have inflicted so much suffering. Even leaving aside the trauma the Fractal abduction must have caused Aricia, her entire life had to have been based around a fear of authority, and Jaisyl had demanded she respect rank.

For the butterfly woman to set all that trauma aside to be so kind to Jaisyl… the princess resisted the urge to bite her fist again, instead focusing on her sewing. She would make it up to the Lieviran with a gift and an apology. It was the correct, regal thing to do… but it was also the right thing to do. That irritating human and his ‘work on making a life that makes you happy’ speech echoed in the back of her head as she worked, the thread slowly filling in the outline of a flower.

Aricia carefully considered her subject, frowned, then stepped forward and adjusted Defia’s fingers slightly. “You’re sure you want an image to work from?” she asked the naked Fractal woman for the third time since they’d started this photo-shoot.

Defia’s features remained locked in a half-smile, the rogue Fractal taking Aricia’s earlier comment to hold her expression far more literally than was usual for a photographer’s subject. Instead, a second mouth appeared just above Defia’s navel. “Statement. I believe I have already reiterated my desire to work from an image you take of me for this latest attempt at a self portrait. You are the most capable person to take an image of me from the perspective of an intimate partner. Please continue.”

Nodding, Aricia adjusted the void-black fingers again to allow a hint of nipple to poke through, then stepped back. “Hmm… Move your leg up just a fraction… There! Hold that.” Taking a picture of the rogue Fractal was a completely different experience to any of the others who she’d snapped shots of. For one thing, Defia had approached her rather than the other way around, and for another, the instant Aricia said to hold position the rogue Fractal ceased all movement. Even the woman’s breathing appeared to stop; Emely knew her red-eyed lover didn’t actually need to breathe and only did it to avoid freaking other people out, but it was still strange to be able to carefully adjust her camera in her own time, tweaking every detail to get the very best angles.

Defia was lying on her side on one of the raised platforms in the ambassadorial bedroom, which let the Lieviran move around to get a range of different shots. The Fractal had her head resting on one hand, one leg bent and her other hand holding her breast - it was a simple enough position, but it showed off rather a lot if the picture was taken from the right place.

The fact that she was being trusted to get involved with Defia’s self-portrait project meant a lot to Aricia, and she was determined to take at least one photo the rogue Fractal would like. After walking around taking image after image - and in one instance, leaning over Defia’s shoulder to snap a picture down the valley of the posing woman’s cleavage, the Lieviran eventually set her tablet back in the tripod rest she’d used for initially composing Defia’s posture, and smiled.

“That should do it. Do you want to go through them and see if there’s one you like?” Aricia asked, offering the other woman a hand up.

Defia allowed herself to be assisted upright even if it would have just been faster to reflow her body. She did somewhat do so anyway, her nipples and folds retreating into the mass of Fractal matter that she was made from, only to be replaced by the Solar Ascent jumpsuit she’d been wearing earlier. In place of undressing she’d simply absorbed the fabric, holding the suit in a ball inside her until she was ready to wear it again.

Shaking her head at the attentive butterfly woman, Defia gestured vaguely out onto the ship. Technically, it wasn’t vaguely - since she’d been allowed into Dustin’s relationship she’d been monitoring the electromagnetic signatures of all her lovers in case they needed her help in a hurry, but Aricia didn’t need to know that as the rogue Fractal replied. “Statement. I appreciate your taking the images, but I do not need to go through them. Please confer with our other intimate partners and send me two or three that have the highest approval.”

Aricia blinked. “You want me to share your nudes with the others and then let us all pick the ones you’re going to use as a reference for a self-portrait? Are you sure about this Fi-oh? I’m happy to do it, but it’ll take a while - I can’t exactly go up to Naera in the galley and be ‘look at this great photo of Defia’s cunt’ while she’s ordering her sous chef around.”

The rogue Fractal tilted her head to one side. “Inquiry. Why not? My species does not have an issue with displaying our bodies in public due to our non-sexual reproduction, and the other motivator - Dustin’s opinion on modesty - does not apply. Surely he would want us to do what makes us happy, and correctly identifying a suitable source among your images would make me happy.”

It took a moment or two before Aricia could formulate an answer to that. When she did, it was one she hoped would work, because trying to explain why Dustin probably would view this as an exception to his happiness rules might be a rather large challenge. “It would make you happy, yes - but it would likely embarrass both me and Naera, which wouldn’t make us happy. I’ll try and get everyone’s opinions as soon as possible - but it’ll be later today or tomorrow before I can send the pictures across to you. Is that alright?” To her relief, Defia smiled one of her overly-toothy grins and nodded.