Celyz inclines her head to watch Jessica hop off the bed, paying close attention to any sign of instability in her gait. She notices that the short woman wavers on her feet but finds no sign that the signals that her brain is sending to her legs are disrupted.

The Princess exhales lightly in relief, the Little one didn't attack the nerves directly as far as she can tell but humans are fragile so it is difficult for her to assess and she does not want to trust her assumptions considering how wrong she has previously been about the degree of damage the parasite would cause.

She thinks back to their conversation while Jessica takes her time gathering herself to get off the bed. Celyz took herself by surprise when she gave this compassionate, but occasionally brutal, woman a free pass to do to her what she desires in order to compete in a battle for a heart that she has already lost.

A risk that the Princess would never have taken if not for the trust and love she feels for this human who was terrified of the Rykz yet came to view their lives to be as worthy as hers, something which no human Celyz has met ever did.

Celyz pays close attention to how quickly her blood is flowing inside her trunk in Jessica's presence. It surprised her that Jessica could hear it, she thought it a gentle lie at first as it should not be audible to humans when she stands immobile.

It both frightened and exhilarated her when she found the claim to be truth. Princess and Queen lifespans can vary widely depending on how physically active they have been during their life, the difference has been observed to be that of a whole millennium between some.

It is one of the reasons why the oldest Queens do not to approach battlefields, along with the fact that their larger trunks require that they consume more energy to move and that they make larger targets if found.

Elder Queens are best suited to ruling, research, and egg laying. The exception that confirms the rule being the Azure Hive's Queens who have traditionally been much more aggressive in defending their Hive.

Celyz' body's increased activity in Jessica's presence can be said to literally be burning her life expectancy even if not by much at all. Celyz does not mind, in fact she welcomes it as a proof of the intensity of her feelings and that hope remains for them, although she will never tell Jessica for fear of the human woman's compassion will clash with the fact that most of what the Rykz do comes with a cost in life.

Jessica makes her way to her thick sole boots, set in a corner of the study, casually trailing her fingers along Celyz' thigh as she moves past. The Princess' core tightens under the touch and her next inhalation vibrates inside her ovaloid head, not to mention the further increase in her blood pressure.

“How do you think Leomi Lance will choose?” Celyz asks against her better judgment.

She feels further emboldened by this reinforcement of the connection that they agreed would last forever, definitely taken by the intimate mood they shared as she took care of her. The Princess does away with the title as she has taken the habit to because she resents how Jessica has called the woman 'my Lady'.

“I actually have no idea.” Jessica grunts. “I've piped the dice as much as I could but she might end up...” She takes a deep breath, focusing on tying her boots for a few seconds before continuing. “She may end up dumping us both.”

“That would be foolish.” Celyz notes, dismissing her friend's use of the royal pronoun to refer to herself as a quirk, something Cetyz has taken to call human madness. “I will do all I can to keep your heart once I have obtained it.”

“Confident.” Jessica whispers, blushing. “But you already have it. You found it in you to tie your tendrils around my heart, I won't be capable or willing to untie that knot.”

“Good.” Celyz replies in a raspy resounding voice, her chest tightening from her magnificent but painful love for this woman she has watched grow so much in the past few months.

“So much for the goal having been to set me free.” Jessica teases, walking back.

“If I have learned anything about you, it is that you will do what you desire in the moment as long as it does not conflict with your duties.” Celyz replies, avoiding to mention that this is one of her reasons behind leaving herself open to being taken advantage of at Jessica's discretion.

The Princess is aware that her window of opportunity is very limited, she needs to remove the symbiont as soon as feasible which means that even if Leomi Lance does not interfere, the two of them will return to simple friends with no hope of development.

She believes that Jessica is serious and honest when she says her feelings come from her human side but knows that there can be a sharp difference between truth and honest belief.

“I do not have any duty.” Jessica fiercely denies. “To anyone.” She continues after a pause. “Anymore.” She adds, like an afterthought.

“You impose it on yourself.” Celyz gently explains.

“That's... okay, that's probably fair.” Jessica folds with a grimace. “How did your construct test go?” She asks.

Celyz heads to the table and picks up a report about it, more to gather herself back together than to refresh her mind. Jessica follows along very close walking to the left side of the tail, making it very hard for the Princess to do so. Jessica casually, and confidently, reaches up to Celyz' back to rest the tips of her fingers just below the neck.

“W, what are you doing?” The Princess asks, stiffening.

“Just a little reward for using the fact that I kept us as friends against me, for finding a way to cross words against Leomi for me in a way that you can live with.” Jessica explains.

The human then slowly runs her hand down Celyz' spine which has the effect of almost instantly making the Rykz Princess mellow out, her reversed knees bending along with the gentle stroke. Celyz' tendrils grasp at her torso, giving herself some support against her impulse to give herself over to Jessica's more affirmative side as she is quite clearly merely teasing her.

“The activation failed as expected.” Celyz replies calmly, directly controlling her vocal cords so as not to fully expose her weakness. “But we have learned some of the runes' functions from partially activating the runic construct. We will not be able to decipher them but what we have found will bring us closer to copying the method that the Empire uses for its system of long-range communication.”

“I see.” Jessica nods with a wide smile. “The Rykz always seem to do several things at once, you are currently making a good demonstration of that.”

The Princess pauses at the words, noticing quite a bit too late that her tail has been caressing Jessica's leg during the explanation, her body physically pleading for the human's acceptance.

“M, my apologies.” Celyz hurriedly says, pulling her tail away.

“No need.” Jessica smiles. “Weren't you supposed to keep this a secret?”

“Not any longer to you.” Celyz tells her, seizing on the more serious subject. “Your reaction to the drone who was injured trying to defend you has convinced the rest of my sisters that you can be trusted to remain discreet in case you have something to contribute.”

“Good.” Jessica sighs, moving past Celyz to hop and sit on the table. “Because I've been wanting to ask for your help about a couple of constructs I can't handle with my knowledge but I do not want to share them with the Rykz.”

“I would have kept them to myself.” Celyz says, feeling hurt.

“I don't doubt that!” Jessica hurriedly explains. “But I did not want to ask this of you if it meant wedging myself between you and your sisters. If they are alright with me holding things back from my species, they won't resent you for doing the same, am I wrong?”

“You are not.” Celyz acknowledges, feeling her core expand at this wonderful human and her ability to understand Rykz society. “Unless we are at risk of extinction.”

“I would not hold it against you if it came down to that.” Jessica nods. “Definitely feel free to use them yourself.”

“Are you still tired?” Celyz asks.

She angles her head down to bring attention to the fact Jessica is sitting on the table, something the Princess finds a little unsettling despite knowing that there is no risk that Jessica will disturb her papers, at least not on purpose.

“A little, it's hard to breathe deeply but it doesn't hurt.” Jessica replies, waving the concern away.

“Workers do not know how to fashion human chairs, my apologies.” Celyz bows slightly.

“Don't worry about it.” Jessica says.

The human's bright reassuring smile instantly convinces Celyz to teach at least one worker to make some of those flat chairs once she is back at the Silver Hive, adapted to Jessica's size of course.

It'll make her happy and we already provide beds for our drones to ensure they are as comfortable as possible so the Hive won't be able to complain about that allocation of resources, Celyz thinks.

“What constructs did you want to discuss?” Celyz asks.

“Only two.” Jessica says. “But, I'm out of energy...” She trails off, extending her hand out.

Celyz unhesitantly pulls her last hundred portions out of her reserve, giving the energy to the human against all protocols in the presence of a member of another species. She buckles a little, feeling light cored.

“Are you okay?” Jessica asks, concerned.

“It is alright, I have depended on sunlight, flow, all day so pulling it all out at once is a little harrowing.” Celyz reassures.

“Oh, okay.” Jessica nods, having experienced the same at times.

“Flow can be blessing and curse at once.” Celyz explains, eager to provide context to impress Jessica. “It erodes the materials it is stored in which is why water is so conductive for it as it doesn't suffer from that attribute, or not meaningfully. Fortunately, the effect does not apply when stored inside our reserves which can be considered to be an unconscious unstructured construct that obeys the survival instinct's intent. Part of anyone's flow access serves to heal and maintain one's body as well as countering the adverse effects of using biological constructs.”

“That's, actually a life savior.” Jessica blinks. “I thought of trying to tattoo a runic construct on myself.”

“It would have been unwise.” Celyz agrees. “But would not have done more than reduce your access proportionally to the damage the runes did to your flesh. There are some rare isolated cases where beings have lost their entire access because of an intensely suicidal state of mind.”

“Hm.” Jessica ponders. “I wonder if that's why some don't believe me when I say I'm suicidal.”

“Please do not joke about that, losing you would be akin to my losing a half-dozen limbs.” Celyz says, slapping Jessica's left shoulder with one of her tendrils to underline her point. “It is likely not the reason, this knowledge isn't widely taught outside of academic pursuits as far as I am aware.”

“Sorry, I should know better.” Jessica says, looking down. “I'm familiar with loss after all.” She adds.

Celyz smells intense guilt and decides, ashamed, to quickly change the subject. She pulls on Suxen's notebook to place it near Jessica before grabbing her writing supplies and a piece of parchment.

“You can start whenever you are ready to demonstrate the constructs.” The Princess says.

“Right.” Jessica nods. “Do you have a weapon?”

Celyz heads to a small coffer to grab an awl that she hands over. Jessica assembles a lightning and an armor-piercing construct that she then combines into the tool, picking the Princess' curiosity.

Jessica then creates a defensive construct, using a little more flow than she has for the other two, before applying it to a corner of the table. Celyz wrestles with herself as the human prepares to make her demonstration, she hurriedly seizes her friend's wrist before she can strike.

“Hyz.” She nervously exhales. “Sorry, could you not damage my work table?” She asks, her tendrils twirling awkwardly.

“Oh, right. My bad.” Jessica says, hopping off the table. “What can I use?” She asks.

“I do not have anything I would like destroyed, since I assume that is the result you are aiming for.” Celyz apologetically says.

“I'm not going to destroy anything with that awl, just poke a little hole.” Jessica notes. The Princess stands there, slowly inclining her head to the side with her head constantly directed at her friend. “Um, okay sorry. I won't be damaging any of your stuff, I promise. How about the wall, it should work on compact earth right?”

“It will.” Celyz nods, pulling on the flow she's been regenerating to assemble a construct to immediately fix any damage. “It will only result in a small hole, you are certain?”

“Absolutely.” Jessica confirms, throwing the Princess a slightly amused look as she applies the defensive construct to the wall. “You're tidy.”

“A proper, clean, and organized environment is much more conducive to productive work.” Celyz replies in a slightly stiff and defensive tone.

“My expertise lies more towards destruction and chaos.” Jessica makes a mean grin, bringing her hand back to strike.

“W, wait, I do not like that look on your face.” Celyz hurriedly intervenes, grabbing her right wrist.

“Oh, relax, will you?” Jessica sighs, her left hand reaching out to gently unwrap the tendril. “It'll be minimal and you'll forget all about it once you see how efficient it is.”

“Doubtful, the armor-piercing construct is among the least mechanically understood along with the air-blade despite their wide use.” Celyz shakes her head. “But, go ahead.”

“Thank you.” The human says, rolling her eyes.

Jessica strikes out. The Princess witnesses the awl piercing the wall through the defensive construct like it isn't even there when the dagger should have been stopped at the half-way point if Jessica had used her full strength which she obviously hasn't considering how lazily she swung the tool.

“Amazing.” Celyz whispers, still not forgetting to quickly pull the awl out and use her construct to push the earth back into place, repairing the small hole. “The lightning construct enhances the armor-piercing one?” She asks for confirmation.

“It does, quite well if I might.” Jessica says.

“I can understand why you would not want this shared.” Celyz says, her mind immediately reaching the conclusion Vikiana had about the Lisilese. “Our drones would not be able to use this as they are not capable to combine two separate constructs and rarely even grant them the necessary energy to even assemble a normal armor-piercing construct.”

“How bad would it get?” Jessica asks.

“So terribly that we likely would not trade the lightning construct to the Lisilese for fear that we would then need to go to war with them to prevent the southern regions of the Empire from being completely destroyed.” Celyz comments calmly. “It is more beneficial for us that your two species do battle over these lands than taking over and being turned into a buffer.”

“That's, worse than I thought.” Jessica blinks.

“The main advantage that Humanity has over the Lisilese is their endurance as you can keep running for days on end. That translates into the ability to do battle for hours longer than the Lisilese which the Empire exploits to hold its borders, dragging battles out with sturdy formations until the attacking Horde has no choice but to pull back to rest despite their heavy use of horses to remedy their weakness.” Celyz explains. “This construct would allow the Lisilese to resolve these battles before they run out of energy while also being more efficient with their flow. There are many other factors, of course, but this would overturn the basics of warfare between your two species which means that everything else would crumble until the Empire could counter the construct.”

“Okay, do not show that to anyone else.” Jessica says, shivering in fear.

“I will not, there are very few Rykz who would have any use out of it if it makes you feel better.” Celyz replies.

“I trust you, no need for any extra assurance.” Jessica waves her hand in dismissal. “The other is unstructured, it copies an effect that one of Suxen's constructs had on me. I had to let go of my flow with only the intent to copy it to succeed.”

“That was very unwise.” The Princess carefully comments.

“It was but it worked.” Jessica shrugs. “It just takes way too much energy to be reasonably made use of.”

“Show me.” Celyz says.

“It's internal.” Jessica says. “Do you have a way to observe or should I try to deploy it in thin air?”

“I do but it will not be as precise as directly observing and manipulating it.” Celyz says. “What is the effect?”

“It slows down my perception of time, and that of the symbiont I think since I only lose my connection to it if I overdo it.” Jessica explains, creating a field of unstructured flow in front of herself which is as tall as her but only arrives at Celyz' waist. She then severs her link to it to allow the Princess to examine it. “It has to cover the entire body, which now that I think of it might be why I almost lost consciousness when I tried it since Suxen might have only applied it to my brain... it might not actually not make me pass out if I slow my perception to the level it had back then.”

“It likely affects the nervous system.” The Princess says. “But I am not certain how it could work on both you and the symbiont so take what I tell you with caution.”

“I thought the Rykz knew more about themselves than Suxen ever could discover?” The human asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Your brain's internal architecture is not very different from our cores', the main difference lies in organization. Our species' evolution likely crossed with that of mammals in olden times because we have obtained a skeleton which no tree has.” Celyz absent-mindedly explains, focused on examining the unstructured time construct, assembling tools as required with her energy. “We have a construct to improve our focus, for both drones and us, it has similar effects from what you have told me but functions very differently from this one, I can tell you this much.”

“Okay, so, would this work on you?” Jessica asks.

“Perhaps, if I took the risk that you took to adapt it to myself.” Celyz takes a deep breath. “I want you to promise me right now that you never again do something as dangerous as controlling unstructured flow through intent and without restriction.”

“I know.” Jessica frowns.

“You clearly do not.” Celyz sighs, having wanted to avoid a confrontation in one of her eminently enjoyable moments with Jessica but her feelings do not allow her to leave this discussion as is. “Queen Halkyz the Mad became so while attempting to further improve our brain chemistry, nervous system, and skeleton structure by making use of unstructured flow, one of her objectives was to resolve our knees' relative weakness, something you have yourself found out. It was more than likely not the only factor as other Rykz have lost their minds in the past but I hope that the danger is now clear to you.”

“It, it is.” Jessica stutters. “Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you.”

“It is quite alright.” Celyz replies, embarrassed that her concern was seen through. “I do believe that this field is in fact unusable by anyone other than you, and the Little one, but not necessarily together. There is a clear sign that the frequency remained yours even after I linked to the unstructured time construct.”

“Ah.” Jessica bites her lower lip. “Too bad, you would have been safer with this.”

“I may not be as capable as Fenyz but I remain eminently capable of defending myself, Jessica.” Celyz gently replies, feeling uplifted by how much this human accepts and cares for her.