Solin nudged another vittle over to her dear twin brother.

He needed constant distraction. Dutifully as the one of their pair that actually took anything seriously it fell to her to provide such when their honor and reputation was at risk.

She knew that as a twin the both of them were meant to fly together but along different courses.

But every time the twins were called upon to uphold the family honor in a glorious ceremony for their lieges Nolin became so disrespectful and bored.

Would that she could fly solely in her brother’s stead and save him the discomfort!

But half of a twinned pair was practically neither of them when it came to matters of honor and ceremony.

Not that she thought less of her twin for his complement to her own nature.

She knew her twin was among the best of any when it was time for trials by combat. Whether as legate, hunter, general or gladiator Nolin had no peer within their caloric bracket. There was no other dragoon in the Aggregate his age that was equal in combat or security to him but herself.

And that was simply because she did not fight in the same manner he had excelled in.

As was the way of twins.

Separate and together they fought in trials both courtly and brutal against all comers for the right of their placement aboard the ship of song.

Their parents, uncles, aunts, and grand sires and dams had likewise fought and proven themselves for the rights to continue to the line of candidates.

Honing the best eyes, the greatest minds, the sharpest munition factories.

Upon those natural talents the training and education of generations of wisdom was burdened.

Trials and quests that broke her lesser cousins and brothers.

It was not in question that she and her brother were worthy.

In another time where the Ship of Song was not reaching her final maturation the twins would be aligned as heirs in waiting to the leadership of the Braxal Aggregate.

But that was not the Twins destiny.

Ever since she was a pup with her brother before even fully knowing the meaning of duty and honor she had beheld the glorious features of The Ship of Song and knew this was her place.

She knew the moment well that solidified her resolve that this would be so.

When The Ship that Song had broken free for the first time to fly.

She had been in the sky beside the shining glow of the sun framed by the far features of the Courtesan Estate Beautiful and yet so distant.

Like a dream and a constant visage of an unknown but friendly sister the Ship of Song had been a constant all her short life to that point.

The Ship had been wrapped in scaffolds that glittered in the light ever since her eyes had grown sharp enough to see her. Eyes had opened and fluttered and occasionally sang to her as it did all dragoon children.

But this had been different.

Three broods of the Matriarch ago it was.

In the Old spire of Rulership where now only children flew but then had been the heart of office for The Braxel Aggregate. Her great grand sire who had long since gone on his last crusade now had spoken to her and her brother of the sight before them.

“Lo is she, Ship of Song.

I Beheld the coming of her mother.

It was my Great Sire who ruled the houses of Braxal then.

Lo behold her now. You shall see her emerge from her cradle grown.

You Childer sired by my childer’s childer behold now.”

And the scaffolds had burst apart, glittering in transfixing beauty, every trajectory a glorious panoply of shining light. It was then as she saw The Ship of Song flying free for the first time, f’teropods free and glittering loose the shards of their last chrysalis.

It was then that Solin knew her Destiny and though he still would never admit it she knew that Nolin felt the fire of duty within himself then too.

As she finished relating the tale of why she was joining the crew to those that shared her rented stream of Pylo’s attention, responses fluttered and flooded in from the dozen other participants.

“Wow! You saw the Tunie’s Chrysalis Crack!?”

“So old! So ancient, So crusty! You’re old enough to remember three broods ago?! You're older than Pylo! How can anyone be older than Pylo! She is the best Scion!”

The host of the shared observational court laughed, it was but a fragment of a shard, of a fragment of the Courtesan Siren’s attention. Barely a tine of a feather’s worth to the vast focus available to her soon to be crewmate and Liege in all but name.

And even with so small of herself the laugh was enough.

For Solin it was an impression of a tumbling innocent child in joy, for the others among the channel each had a unique but unified experience.

For all it was a delighted lilt that smoothed over the teasing into civility without stinging with admonishment to the perpetrators.

It spoke to a shared joy that soothed any ire before it could rise.

Even in so small a form a proper Scion was a wonder.

Solin had studied the ways of Courtesan and knew that she and those sharing this stream of conscious observation were engaging with their host in a manner she was hardly aware of.

But at the same time she knew that if any of them met her as Solin soon would there would not even be a stutter in the Scion’s recollection or a shift in her cadence with them.

She could speak to them as the old long time friendships she had cultivated even if those cultivations had happened beneath her notice until that moment.

But such was the character of Pylo that this thread of her even acknowledged in a conspiratorial humbleness that she would admit and acknowledge such as honorably as a first meeting instead of pretending that this thread of her was equal to the totality as some of her sisters might.

A Private missive completing that thought with actual words, spoken by the Siren’s thread to Solin as the dragoon would to her brother.

"Well to be fair, I AM cheating, most of these responses are externalized reflex and the shared estate court handles a lot of the personalization, I basically just went ‘Laugh Number thɛnudoʊnkʌ please'."

Such as it was.

Equally was the experience that she transcribed for the Ship of Song and the scattered constellation of interest and curiosity which suffused in the thinnest web through her vastness.

The missives were as rich and complete and whole as her eyes and mind could make them. It was the rightful duty of these events that Solin transcribed the judgement and inevitable acceptance of the crew member.

This most momentous ceremony needed the legal witness and acceptance of the ship herself if there was ever to be any honor in it. So at her request her speech of sight was further couriered and signal encrypted in the skilled cortices of the local Courtesan staff. Then it was sent afield to the close (but still far too distant for the voice of a mere dragoon) Vessel so she in what ephemeral and twinkling interests drifted through her magnitude could apprehend and be satisfied.

It was a minor thing, completely superfluous against the vast stores of detail and lore which the estate itself was further transmitting to The Ship of Song. These events were minute and miniscule and tiny.

But enough of the vessel who was the vast fixture and center of her Solin’s entire life wanted to know of these tidings.

A fragmentary dusting of specks of the vessel against the immensity of the whole cared at all about these events.

But such specks were of a scale as all of Solin herself.

So of course she provided all she could.

And basked in that appreciation which drifted back to her.

So it was.

Solin did not learn the intricate precisions of her munition factories until her life passed well beyond its second brooding of the Matriarch. The one in which Pylo herself had been born.

Before that time she had lived unconsciously and unaware of the intricacies of her own gifts and body.

As unaware as The totality of the Ship of Song was of her miniscule missive. As unconscious as Pylo Courtesan was of the ebbe and flow of society that enveloped her nearly every waking moment.

So it was with every Siren of Matriarch’s Gown, they breathed the politics and adoration of their people while mostly blind to it. At first of course. The older ones could work it with fine skill comprehension. And the Matriarch herself and her eldest daughters?

There was no way a mere dragoon could conceive of what such heights were accomplishing.

This was fine for Solin though. They were her superiors.

As was only proper of the Leiges that had earned the loyalty of Solin’s family eternal (contract and obligations fulfilled aside it was an open secret that there was not a single house of Dragoons from those lines that would deny a call of aide from the Matriarch or any of her clan).

That thought Solin preferred the Sirens of the Family to the Masque and other Species of Scions.

Although it was her honor and duty to uphold all of the clan of her leiges it was in the Sirens that the bond was most authentic she liked to think.

The Masque were more distant and aloof most times. And they made her deep gift of insight from her Courtesan genes spark her mind with clear sharpness.

There were stories of relatives of the species outside the clan who were tyrannical and cruel.

Legends spoke that it was the First Mother Courtesan that gentled them such that they could rule fairly and well at the side of their siren sisters and mothers.

Solin did not know for sure if it was a story spun by the great tale singers of the clan or history so ancient none but the Courtesan Archivists knew its truth.

But she found unease with the Masque and suspicion.

And it was not just because their children could still out perform either of the twins in any contest of strategy, logic or tactical acumen.

For all that she had spent her entire life honing, training and growing an ephemeral fleet of security forms and far more solid armaments to make her a military match for some untrained Alien Masque thug in the rougher districts of the Braxal Aggregate. She was outmatched by them.

But that was as it should be?

It was not like the Courtesan Masque were at all of a peer with those in the shades.

Where the shining apartments of the richer houses shadowed the poor and the refugees that poured into Matriarch's Gown from beyond the Courtesan’s benevolence.

Yes, Solin and Nolin alone and especially together had been able to put down the odd Masque troublemaker and their ramshackle armies.

Likewise did they stymy the exploitations of the less powerful with the support of the rest of the Legate apparatus in the far more courtly engagements of law that such troublemakers equally engaged in.

But alone without support in a contest of pure strategy, where a Dragoon could not use total surprise, ambush and otherwise apply sheer sudden brute force?

The Masque would always win.

These were ill thoughts though. And not fit for sharing with the courtiers and adorers of Pylo.

Solin considered the next piece of lore and wisdom she’d contribute to the festive aura of the stream. And her own thoughtful musing.

But like a wound from a gladiatorial bout it would not stop itching at her mind.

Not until she accepted the lie she had told herself.

It was a discomforting acknowledgement of her own sin, but she was better trained then to blind herself to the truth. The Masque of Courtesan had less of her preference because she yet feared them still.

She thought she was past the childish notion but alas it would seem she still needed contemplation and council on the matter. Even after all this time.

It was something to discuss with her Brother when they were not imminently going to need to perform their duty and present for the honor of their house, family and the whole of the Braxel Aggregate before a Scion of Courtesan in the heart of The Estate, pivot of Courtesan Rule.

But it was council she apparently still needed.

And there was the signal from the stream that Pylo was turning the whole of her attention away from her many admirers and advisors.

Turning that attention and active communication to herself, her brother and the rest of the crew in Attendance in the Carthisisium.

Solin shifted her downy F’teropods to show all the signs of her and her brother’s accomplishments, to display the full pride of her family and with not even a nudge of her own attention her brother followed and complemented her choice of spectral expression.

She knew she could count on him when it mattered, and thanked him softly for putting up with the pomp of one of the events she knew he found so terribly dull.

And then she Beheld the majesty of her future direct Liege.

And it was Awe and Beauty.

Pylo Courtesan did not disappoint.