Act II - Part Two
Michael grimaced the second she beamed onto this planet.
Qo’noS was the same as Philippa remembered it. The stench and the storms were not to be missed, though the weather is clear for the time being, orange clouds are scattered across the skies, it won’t be long until the storms take over the night.
Philippa must have guessed correctly, as they hadn’t even gotten to get a good look at any of the stalls before the aliens started packing and moving to spaces with a roof over them that could give them cover from the incoming rain.
Neither Philippa nor Michael was interested in being doused with rain or getting struck by lightning, so Philippa decided that they might as well go into one of those Orion cabarets and get a drink until the weather passes – either that or return to the Shenzhou, but Michael insisted that they stay a while longer.
So now they’re sitting in a quiet corner inside a cabaret drinking synthehol. What a way to celebrate Michael’s captaincy. That Philippa gave her.
“Do you know that woman?” Michael asked, tilting her head towards the stage, where a pale curvaceous Orion woman is dancing to the soft beat of the music. “She was looking at you.”
“She’s looking for customers.” Philippa corrected. “A cabaret isn’t a place for making friends or finding love, Michael.”
Michael only shrugged and finished the synthesized Cardassian ale in her glass, wincing at the burn as she swallowed it in one big gulp. Philippa shook her head and emptied her glass in a similar fashion, except she savored the way the liquid burned its way down her throat.
“I’ll get us more.” Philippa stood up and headed towards the bar.
It wasn’t a quiet night, but the bar clearly wasn’t busy. The Andorian working the bar clearly seemed ecstatic that Philippa came back asking for two more glasses of synthesized Cardassian ale, dropping a large cube of ice in each glass before almost filling the glasses up to the brim, and sliding the glasses towards her. Making her way back, on the other hand, took longer than ordering the drinks, tens of dozens of Terrans on shore leave are jam-packed around the stage. Whoever’s performing must be enticing, Philippa thought.
When she finally returned to their table with the drinks, now less than cold, no doubt, as the ice had mostly melted, she saw Michael speaking to the Orion woman who was on stage earlier. She didn’t see it earlier, but her eyes widened when she saw that the black silk wrapped around the Orion’s hips wasn’t opaque enough to hide the vaguely butterfly-shaped branding underneath it.
“Looks like K’elebek here does know you, Mother.”
Truth be told, if it weren’t for the branding and Michael mentioning her name, Philippa never would have known that this was the girl she had spent countless nights with leading up to her coronation, with her thick wavy hair, soft curves, and full hips, the once waif-like young woman had grown into a full-figured vixen that would be any establishment’s headliner act.
But the woman didn’t speak, she only pursed her lips at Philippa without saying a single word to her. Philippa only gestured to one of the rooms at the back.
The woman led the way, and she followed.
“What could possibly bring the Emperor to Qo’noS?”
“Maybe it’s you.”
“We both know that isn’t the truth.”
“I didn’t realize I was being interrogated.”
“You never give a straight answer.”
“And you’re still as tactless as you’ve always been.”
“Apologies, Emperor.” The woman muttered, shaking her head. “But I do wonder, what brought you here?”
Nothing and everything. Politics. The next conquest. The Empire. Her ambition. But Philippa just told her another truth instead: “My heir.”
The woman frowned. Philippa could tell that she was trying to make sense of her interaction with Michael, though she was not present, she knew her daughter well enough to make an educated guess on how that went.
“Relationships don’t work the same way in the Empire.” Philippa said before the woman could say anything. She doesn’t expect Orions to understand, she wouldn’t expect anyone who isn’t Terran to understand, though it is hardly a complicated concept – subordinate officers are expected to obey their superiors, there is nobody superior to the Emperor herself, and her heir belongs to her.
It is not that Philippa minded Michael having lovers on the side, it was her subservience that was an insulting slap to her authority. Perhaps Cornwell did have the right idea, after all, it would probably be best to distance Lorca from Michael before he pollutes her with even more of his destiny-brought-us-together nonsense. Those delusions would be unbecoming of a ruler.
But she wouldn’t expect an Orion dancer to understand any of this – what do they know but how to seduce men with their pheromones?
“Relationships, no matter where, are complicated.”
“Perhaps,” Philippa hummed. “The solutions, however, are not.”
“Do you love her?”
Love.
What a vague concept. Philippa never understood it, though some particularly sentimental Terrans certainly do, she finds it to be absurd to reduce their relationship to be one of mere affection.
Attraction. Infatuation. Obsession. Affection. Devotion. Adoration.
All reduced to one word: love.
But before Philippa could answer her, the woman had her back turned to her as she walked towards the stage, the spotlights reveal a faint outline of a dagger that she had been holding behind her back.