The vulcanised rubber hit the steel bar with a resounding ping, and in response, about a hundred people in the packed locale moaned loudly.

“Oh come on, does Lindbach even know that the puck is supposed to go into the net and not hit the crossbar?” Edward asked incredulously, waving his arms at the HD screen.

“Alright, people, that’s another crossbar, take a drink,” Arvind said, grabbing his glass of beer.

“I don’t like this game anymore,” Peter Townshend said plaintively.

“Tough shit,” Arvind said after quaffing about half a pint of beer, “now drink the fuck up.”

Complaining under his breath, Peter tanked a sizable portion of his beer, Edward and the fourth member of the group, David Lee, doing the same.

The Humble Boatsman was anything but humble; it was a four-story Neo-Regency red-bricked pub which specialised in sports and having as stereotypical old British pub fare as humanly possible. Due to the national origins of the majority of Auroran colonists, the three largest sports played across the kingdom were, in no particular order, ice hockey, football (the European version, not gridiron), and cricket. Surprisingly, despite the nearly seven-hundred years since Aurora was settled, which had initiated the start of the extrasolar colonisation phase of human history, the rules of the sports in question had largely been left alone; cricket had gone back to a two-wicket system instead of three due to the incrementally increasing skill levels of the bowlers, and the offside and trapezoid rules in hockey had been revised and the pucks had been fitted with positional sensors, but other than that they were almost identical. The equipment like pads and helmets had changed, and athletes were in better shape than ever before, making almost a mockery of what the human body was physically capable of, but the sports were immediately identifiable if someone from the 21st century had walked into a 29th century stadium. Supplementing these big three were niche sports that had a tendency to attract different social groups, like equestrian sports, fencing, and sailing for the Auroran gentry and nobility, while the aforementioned three big ones were the sports of choice for the commoners.

Edward, who had grown up on a tropical ocean world, hadn’t really been all that exposed to the great sport of hockey until he came to Aurora and Cordelia, but once Arvind (who, while of Punjabi descent, preferred hockey to cricket, much to his parents’ horror) had realised Edward was a hockey virgin, made it his life’s mission to induct Edward into the Holy Church of the Puck. And he had succeeded, having converted Edward into a fervent Cordelia Grecians fan, the smaller and less successful cousin of the Cordelia Royals, winner of multiple King Edward’s Cups, while the Grecians were still, one-hundred and fifty-two years after their inception, still chasing their first. It helped that the Roccham ward, where Edward, Arvind, and the others shared apartments, was a Grecian bastion, so nearly all the patrons on the second floor of the Humble Boatsman watching the HD screens, wore variations of the same purple and white jerseys. On the floor below a feed from the Angevin national cricket cup was being streamed, while the two floors above were dedicated to other sports, like volleyball, swimming, and alpine skiing, streams pulled from a myriad of time-zones and Royal Union worlds.

“Oh my God,” David Lee commented, “the Grecian powerplay this postseason has been nothing short of atrocious. Why does Zenyschyn insist on playing Lindbach on PP1, while he has Vetrelli and Carpenter sitting in the slot on PP2? It’s like he’s a double agent for the, oh I don’t know, the rest of the goddamn league.”

“I don’t feel so good,” Peter Townshend said, looking decidedly queasy.

Edward and Arvind both laughed. David and Peter were their roommates in the shared flat that the four of them rented together. While Arvind and Edward were Classical Piano majors, David was a French major, while Peter was doing a specialised five-year course in architecture. Nevertheless, the four of them had bonded, first over Edward’s cooking and their weekly film nights, and then over their shared love of sports, which was surprising since Peter was a Cymran, and David was from New Victoria on the continent of Arcadia on Aurora, meaning they should really have appreciated different sports, if regional stereotypes applied. Instead, the hyperactive and contagious energy of Arvind Dahon had won them all over to make it a social fixture for their small group to watch the Grecians as often they could. Which is why they were all sitting at a wooden table at their local pub (which happened to be an amazing sports bar), watching the quarter-finals of the King Edward Cup Playoffs, shouting and arguing with referees who were literally thousands of miles distant over beers, and at Arvind’s insistence, they had turned what had been supposed to be a watch-party into a drinking game, which was why Peter Townshend, the group’s obvious light-weight, was not doing so hot.

“So, Lover-boy,” Arvind said, turning towards Edward as the screen tuned into the second intermission commercials, “how’s your beloved Adea?”

Edward, caught completely off-guard, coughed violently on the beer he had just sampled, just about avoiding spraying out across the table. Peter and David looked at him quizzically; they hadn’t been informed of the topsy-turvy of Edward’s life these past few weeks, and had been away when he had stumbled home after the infamous night out.

Gathering his wits, Edward fixed Arvind with an annoyed glare.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said, “I haven’t talked to her for two weeks now.”

“Why the hell not? I know you usually need a kick up the backside to get into touch with people, but mate, you had your foot inside the door there. Don’t let the trail go cold.”

“Because,” Edward replied, his annoyance giving way to despondence and he looked at his beer, “the handful of times I’ve seen her, she’s looked really perturbed and even furious at times. Not even Sandy, ah, that’s Alexandra Barham, one of her best friends, didn’t sit next to her in Political History class this past Thursday. And it might have been my fault.”

“Don’t you start again with that, I’ve heard enough about this Narissara already. I know the scions of nobility can be fickle and vain, but you’re self-aggrandizing yourself something fierce if you think that Lady Sélincourt has spent two weeks being angry because you danced with a girl a few times, and on top of that rejected going home with her.”

Arvind half-shouted this last part and Edward made desperate hushing gestures at him so they didn’t draw the attention of the rest of the patrons. He needn’t have worried, the men and women around them were more occupied getting their next order of beers and snacks in before the second intermission was over and the match resumed. On the other hand, David and Peter looked at him with increasing interest.

“I sense a story here,” David said with a smug smile on his face, “that we haven’t been privy to. Care to share with the rest of the class, mon ami?”

Edward looked pleadingly at Arvind, but his curly-haired “oppo” gave him a look that said if you won’t tell them, I will, and Edward groaned. Leaning closer to ensure they got all the juicy details, Peter’s and David’s –just like Arvind’s had–, expressions became increasingly incredulous as Edward, once again, retold how he had chanced upon Adea and Sandy, then Greco, and the revelry at the Pale Peacock.

“Look at you, mate,” Peter said at length, hoisting his beer in an ironic salute, “moving up in the world with blazing speed. Soon you’ll be too important for us humble folk, leaving us mere peasants in the mud where we belong.”

“I swear, I’ll clock you,” Edward said through gritted teeth, “if you don’t stop talking crock.”

“Why don’t you clear the air, so to speak,” David offered, actually trying to offer something approaching sage advice, “and message her? Think of it as testing your theory, which has more holes than the Grecian’s defensive line-up, by the way. If she’s actually angry with you, then you’ll know, and instead of wallowing in constant self-pity, you can rip the band aid, so to speak, and be miserable for a week or two instead, and then focus on your piano playing. If she messages back, and gives few to none indications that she hates you, fucking perfect, invite her out for a cup of tea or a river stroll or something.”

“Look at Cupid over here,” Arvind quipped, receiving a fist in the shoulder in response, and while smilingly rubbing it, he continued.

“In all seriousness, you really should do that Edward. You’ll get no closure without at least trying to talk to her, and you’ve been even more downcast than usual lately, and that’s saying something.”

“I’m not sure, mate,” the man with the notoriously melancholic green eyes responded uncertainly, “I feel like would be intruding, and who knows what she’s up to, I might interrupt something important.”

“I have a solution,” Peter offered, “we have six more minutes before the third period, so you have five minutes to chug another beer to gain some Valhallan courage and then fire off a text. Then the game will take your attention away from your handcom, so for at least the next half-hour, more if it goes to overtime, you won’t have to think about her.”

David and Arvind looked at Peter like he had confessed to devil-worship, before grinning widely and David refilled Edward’s glass from the pitcher on the table.

“Drink up, Casanova,” Arvind laughed, “you’re not getting out of this one.”

As David and Peter started to chant chug-chug-chug, the people around then noticed the old bar war cry, and in the most noble pub tradition since time immemorial, they joined in, and soon Edward was trying his best to drink down a pint without spilling or coughing while forty or so people were cheering/forcing him on. As he triumphantly but breathlessly put his stein down, the patrons cheered. Inspired, a tall man considerably more intoxicated than the four friends, placed a fresh pint of beer on the table in front of Edward and beamed down at him, red-cheeked.

“Fine fucking drinking, young man,” he half-shouted, “this one’s on me.”

He grabbed his own and with an increasing sense of dread, Edward realised he had to do it all over again, this time in time with the jersey-wearing man.

The cheers of chug-chug-chug resumed and with considerable effort Edward managed to finish without spilling too much down his chin, and with a boisterous cheer, the man finished as well.

“Let’s go Grecians!” he whooped and thumped his chest, eliciting more cheers from the packed pub floor.

“Oh, this was a piss-poor idea,” Edward complained as the screen cut out the commercials and the hockey stream resumed, the fans both in the arena and in the pub chanting; The season’s all yours, the season’s all yours; while we’re in the Finals, the season’s all yours.

The low buzz distracted Adea Sophia Carlisle-St. Eiron from the aria by the mezzo-soprano playing the part of Marienne, and she fished out the handcom from her small purse while fanning her upper body with the traditional Shan-style fan to hide the fact. As the music and dramaturgy on the large stage below changed into a duetto between Alessandra and Nicola, Adea smiled down at the message she had received, hiding her smile demurely with her fan as was the custom of the well-to-do while at the opera.

Going to the opera for the nobility and gentry, was as much for enjoyment as for partaking in the complex show of pageantry and social politics that characterised the Auroran upper classes. Therefore, Adea wore a relatively slim grey silken flutter-sleeve gown, with lace details along the hems of the skirt and the sleeves. The bodice and skirt were decorated with deep garnet floral motifs, and a damask rose silken sash crossed her torso. In addition, she wore black elbow gloves and a white high-collared inner shirt. Of course, there were no pockets in such a getup, so she had a small tan faux-leather purse decorated with bright gemstones from Dioscuria. The entire outfit had cost about fifteen-hundred pounds, which was considered quite cheap by the standards of the nobility. Her red hair was wrapped in an elegant chignon bun.

“Received some good news, Lady Sélincourt?” a voice almost whispered from her left and Adea’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, and she put her handcom back into her purse, fanning slowly all the time to keep up appearances.

“Simply a text from a friend, Lady Spencer, nothing more exciting than that,” she replied in the same hushed tone as to not distract from the performance. She really needn’t had bothered, the Sélincourt box at the Royal Cordelia Opera was high up on the left wing, suspended quite a bit over the large stage and the twenty-nine-hundred ground floor seats of the auditorium. The Royal Cordelia Opera was a masterpiece of Neü-Avant Rococo, with gilded arches and columns decorating the grand foyer, the two massive staircases that led to the truly awe-inspiringly ornate la salle de spectacle, which was so resplendent and ornate as to seemingly belong to a royal palace rather than an entertainment venue. The domed roof the salle was a majestic relief painting that depicted in a faux-Renaissance style the colonisation of Aurora, replacing spaceships with large birds carrying picture-perfect men and women down from the clouds.

“Must be good friend at that, eliciting such a fond smile at a mere text. Or is it perhaps from a gentleman?”

“Even if it had been, it would have been none of your business, Lady Spencer,” Adea replied with a smile that was at odds with her icy tone.

Lady Alice de La Croix-Spencer squinted for a moment in annoyance, but she recovered quickly. Adea was tall –at one-eighty-eight she was tall even among Aurorans–, but Alice was even taller than her again, with sharp facial features, plush lips, deep blue eyes that were almost purple, and wavy auburn hair that draped over her shoulders. Like Adea, she was dressed in an elaborate dress gown, Alice’s with a more flaring skirt silhouette, and a tight corset-bodice that on purpose emphasised her chest. Her dress was a velvety deep green, with muted golden embroidery in geometric patterns along her sleeves and the lining of her skirt and bodice. She also had a cream ribbon in the shape of a rose in her hair, and a Shan-style fan decorated with depictions of exotic flowers.

“I believe I’ve told you, Lady Sélincourt, it is ‘Lady de La Croix’, not ‘Spencer’. I am after all related to the Duchess of–”

“Oh, come off it,” Adea interrupted, “you’re Grey Hill’s sister’s youngest, you’re like eleventh in the line of succession to the Grey Hill name and estates.”

“Girls, behave,” a stern voice came from behind the two, and the bickering youths stiffened in their deep chairs.

Iphigenia St. Eiron, the Countess of Darkmoor, Adea’s mother, looked at them in displeasure for a moment before diverting her attention back to the performance of Alessandra, regina di Astra. Adea had not inherited her mother’s height or her strawberry blonde hair, but she had inherited her athletic build. Lady Iphigenia was not one for dressing up in finery, although she agreed with her husband’s opinions that it was imperative for the nobility to dress and act the part. However, she had opted for the ceremonial dress uniform of the Royal Navy instead of a civilian dress this evening, although she had omitted the sword and the medal bars she would have worn on parade or in a suitably posh military setting. The ceremonial mess dress of Auroran officers was believed to be the origin of the quip “the Royal Navy keeps the lace merchants in business”, which wasn’t hard to imagine when considering the amount of golden lace and embroidery on Lady Darkmoor’s uniform.

She had the rank of Captain, but had been beached by the Koyanagi Admiralty four years back, and by way of revenge she had spent most of her time since in the House of Lords protesting the Admiralty’s requests for further funding for the hare-brained ship-design schemes of Sir Noel Acciari and his “henchmen”, and arguing for a return to a more balanced naval budget. Iphigenia was at sixty-two years of age, forty-three years younger than her husband, Alistair, the Marquess of Sélincourt, but that was not very unusual for career naval officers, since they chose usually to settle down once they weren’t pinged around the known galaxy on-board warships by order of the Admiralty. She was a wealthy and prestigious noble in her own right, having inherited the considerable Darkmoor estates in southern New Ontario and a vast manor with accompanying land in Findias, and could count on a personal income of about two-hundred million pounds per year. Despite being born to this sort of privilege, she was still a consummate officer of the Service, and had been constantly been applying for re-instatement to active service, and with Dame Vanessa Howards running the Department of Personnel in the new Donegal administration, it was only a question of time before she got another assignment. Which was why she was annoyed with the timing of her husband choosing to get a bloody ward, despite the good connections that came with it.

Alice de La Croix-Spencer was only senior to Adea by two years, but she was already half-way through the four year course at King William’s Naval Academy, having opted out of a university degree before joining, quite unlike what most of the Royal Navy’s officers chose. She was by all accounts an astute student, grades consistently scoring in the top percentile of cadets, and she allegedly maintained herself admirably on campus. However, whenever she came to Cordelia was an entirely different matter… Both Alistair and Iphigenia had met the venerable old Duchess Grey Hill, who was considered by the men and women of the Royal Navy to be almost a living saint, only eclipsed by the memory of Charlotte de Chandlier who had crushed the Hydran Co-Prosperity League two-hundred and sixty years prior. Alistair had as a junior officer also served under the Duchess during the anti-piracy operations along the borders to the Neuhansa Sternbund and the Royal Union about seventy years ago. Dear Old Grey Hill was, despite her peerage, one of the most unassuming and rooted persons Iphigenia had ever met, jovial and easy-going, and despite having been retired for thirty years, was still extremely active and interested in the running of the Royal Navy. Iphigenia had then assumed that her niece, Lady Alice, had been cut from the same cloth.

Oh, how wrong she had been. Alice de La Croix-Spencer was Duchess Caitlin de La Croix’s sister’s youngest daughter, and as Adea had somewhat crassly pointed out, was descended from the Spencer branch of the large and complicated family, and not even close to inheriting the Grey Hill estates, let alone the name. Yet she still insisted on being called “Lady Grey Hill”, and acted as if she was the Duchess’ heiress, both in the manner she carried herself, and also in her expenditure. Her father had invested heavily in hydrogen extraction in the Nova Caledonia system, and was making a pretty penny off of that, so the money in of itself wasn’t a problem; but it was unseemly that a youth not entitled to inheriting any estates carried herself as if she was the heiress of an entire duchy. That certainly rubbed Iphigenia the wrong way, and she knew it irritated Alistair as well. Adea was making no attempt to hide her contempt for her temporary “sister”, and had demanded that Alice get rooms on the opposite wing of their Cordelian apartment. Alice had countered that the best rooms were in the west wing anyway, and Adea was welcome to her “cots”. Their feud had only escalated from there, and only God knew what they were saying to each other when Iphigenia or Alistair weren’t present.

Yet, there were benefits to having Alice as a ward. For one, it was an opportunity for a young cadet to directly learn from one of the most senior fleet admirals in the entire Royal Navy. Two, it was a sign of formal friendship between the respective Carlisle/St. Eiron families and the La Croix-Spencer… brood was the only appropriate term that sprang to Iphigenia’s mind, which opened up a lot of opportunities, from simple things like invitations to shindigs, to political support in the House of Lords. Was it an example of shameful nepotism? Oh, absolutely, and Iphigenia was fully aware of it. Yet it was a formalised and over the board practice, and rather the devil you knew than the shady dealings one would find in other star nations, or even in the Auroran House of Commons. No matter how you cut it, the game of politics was inherently dirty.

The duetto died down and the stage curtains came down, and the audience applauded politely as the tannoy announced a thirty minute intermission before commencing with the second half of the opera seria. Iphigenia, Alice, and Adea all rose from their chairs and made their way out of the door of the personal box, which had seating for twelve, but only the trio were present. Outside waited a waiter in a three-piece suit with a tray of tall-stemmed glasses and a cooled bottle of Westernesse champagne for them; they had ordered beforehand upon arrival, and it was considered uncouth to drink during the first half of a performance. After the waiter had poured for them, they walked out into the grand foyer to mingle with the other members of the audience. Alice immediately recognised the son of the Viscount of Scarlet Point, and darted off (after a polite curtsy to Lady Darkmoor) to strike up a conversation. Adea made a grimace and sipped her champagne.

“You really ought to give her a chance,” Iphigenia said to her daughter, but Adea scowled again.

“Mama, she’s everything I’m not, and I can’t stand her.”

A blonde eyebrow hiked up and Iphigenia regarded her daughter with a look that was half-chiding, half-humorous.

“Ah yes, you’re like apples and oranges alright. One is a tall beauty with impeccable grades and manners, of the peerage and with aspirations of joining the Service, and the other is… oh, my."

“Not outwardly different, Mama,” Adea complained, “you know what I mean. Alice wears her nobility as a badge, while I try to avoid drawing attention to it, apart from…”

“Apart from when it benefits you, Aditsa,” her mother shot in, using the Russian diminutive form of her name.

“Oh please, it’s not like I wave my birth certificate in the face of people.”

“You don’t seem to mind your status when the Season comes around.”

“I fail to see where taking advantage of the privileges given to me simply by the fact that I was born to the right people makes me a bad person.”

“Run this conversation back with Alice, and I think you’ll receive a very similar answer from her.”

“Agh, you’re impossible.” Adea slapped her fan shut in irritation, producing a clack sound that stuck out among the polite conversation happening all around them. It attracted the attention of a pair of pink-grey eyes.

“There is a reason,” Adea continued, “that I wanted to attend a public university. A friend pointed out a few weeks ago that I could have the choice of any expensive institution I wanted, like the Raleigh University of Technology for instance. Instead I chose a public school, with almost no fees, and it made me stick out. Lady Spencer over there made sure she got in first ballot into House Unicorn on King William’s, and even brought a fucking maid with her to bloody naval college. If that is not proving my point that we’re fundamentally different, I don’t know what will.”

“First of all,” Iphigenia said after sipping some champagne, “you have five personal maids of your own, and they all helped you fit into the dress you’re currently wearing. You live in what is generally considered a mansion by most people while attending university, while nearly all your fellow students have either left their homes –or even homeworlds– to attend university, and live in shared apartments. Second, you know perfectly well Queen Marie’s Metropolitan has the best political science courses in the Kingdom, so don’t try to spin it as you choosing a more humble path. And thirdly, who is this friend you mentioned? I didn’t know you had any friends at QMMU apart from Barham and Sciac- I mean Greco?”

Adea’s cheeks had been getting progressively more rose-coloured, and she was about to retort to her mother something she probably would have regretted later on, but her attention was grabbed by the uncomfortably familiar sight of a short girl with long near-white hair.

“Lady Darkmoor, Lady Sélincourt,” Artemisia de Vere said as she did a deep curtsy. She was dressed in a much more traditionally cut dress gown than Adea and Alice, and Adea felt a momentary pang of jealousy when she noticed how tight Artemisia’s corset was over the waist. The dress was pristine white, a flaring mermaid skirt lined with small bells of mother of pearl, and a tight corset-bodice torso with connected lace one-finger gloves. Artemisia’s hair was expertly braided and was draped across her right shoulder, reaching her chest. Her doll-like face was as damnably cute as ever, and Adea could tell she didn’t wear much makeup; she rarely did, because she didn’t need it, the adorable little fucker.

“Lady Trewellynshire,” Iphigenia said and answered the curtsy with a bow of her own (female Royal Navy officers didn’t curtsy for anyone but the monarch), “how do you do? I take it your father is well?”

“Please, Lady Darkmoor,” Artemisia said while waving her closed folding fan in a disarming gesture, “let’s not talk about politics tonight, it has been way too good of a performance to mar with such boring, and may I say, somewhat hostile conversations.”

“You’re a fan of Sir Louis Morgan-Kahun then?” Adea asked, her own fan masking the grimace on her face. Artemisia turned towards Adea (slightly craning her neck, to Adea’s delight) and smiled.

“I cannot confess to being a Morgan-Kahun die-hard exactly, but I have a certain fondness for Alessandra, and for some of his later work, like Thésée, fils d’Éthra. It carries such a certain classical charm that I cannot help but feel enraptured.”

“My, Lady de Vere,” Adea replied, “I didn’t peg you for an opera romantic. I thought you were more partial to Antigone, and by that I mean the original by Sophocles, not the Tomas Traetta libretto.”

“There is a lot you don’t know about me, Lady Sélincourt,” Artemisia countered. Artemisia produced the ghost of a smile.

“By the by, I met your man Edward over lunch the other day. Quite an insightful fellow, isn’t he? We’ve agreed to lunch again in the near future.”

Hadn’t Adea worn so much makeup as she did, everyone would have noticed her cheeks turning the same colour as the sash she was wearing.

“I don’t know,” she managed to produce, hopefully somewhat convincingly, “that I have a ‘man’, as you put it, My Lady, but I certainly know of the gentleman you speak.”

“Yes, he mentioned as much. A fairly interesting type, isn’t he? Dionysian mother and all, that’s quite rare considering Dionysians rarely settle outside their own borders. Helped me a smidgen with a personal problem as well during lunch, so I’m quite excited to see him again. Hope you don’t mind, My Lady?”

Adea grabbed the stem of the champagne glass hard, and thankfully her gloves didn’t show how white her knuckles were. Iphigenia looked back and forth between the two girls, confusion written all over her face.

“Oh certainly not, Lady de Vere, he’s a person of his own, I don’t have any rights to him as such. If you’ll excuse me though, I believe I have an incoming call on my ‘com.”

Artemisia de Vere curtsied again, the downward motion hiding the sudden smug grin on her face that was gone the moment the curtsy was over. Adea didn’t notice, because she was busy turning on her heel, downing her champagne glass in one go. She put the empty glass down on a passing waiter’s tray and fished out her handcom with her now-free hand.

Edward, Arvind, Peter, and David exited the Boatsman as angry as any one of the people around them, a stream of angry sports fans cursing and muttering as they exited the pub.

“A 4-3 loss in overtime after not one, but two, fucking two powerplay goals?” Arvind hollered, “PPGs are like manna from the Heavens for this team, and they waste two of them?”

“They had the comeback,” David complained, almost close to tears, “they goddamn had it, they just had to play it conservatively for four minutes, just trap hockey for four fucking minutes. I hate this team so damn much!”

“I don’t feel so good guys,” Peter complained, “can we walk slower?”

“Ah, you’ll feel better after some nosh,” Arvind replied, “we’ll stop by a food truck on our way back home.”

Arvind suddenly noticed Edward hadn’t commented on the Grecians heart-breaking playoff loss yet and turned around to find his emerald eyes glued to the glowing screen of his handcom, a smile hiking up the corners of his dark moustache.

“What’s she say?” he asked, and the usually melancholic green eyes met his own brown ones.

“She said she would be delighted to join me for tea on Monday.”