When she’d been deposited via interdimensional dragon torrent in the mountain meadow where she mourned her mother, Princess Ascendant Soleil gathered her senses as she gathered her atoms. Beginning with light footsteps down the trail, she made her way towards her home city on the horizon.

Plans had gone in advance with her friends, to set in motion for her. She’d be able to find out quickly which of them, if any, had opened up, and what she could do from there. Approaching her old neighborhoods, she disguised herself with her dragongift, to maintain her situational autonomy. If there was anything left for her to do from the shadows, she could only do it there. She looked like a hiker, just a hiker. Illusions that are partly true are easier to maintain.

Upon accessing the system, Soleil found that some of her calling cards had been received and acknowledged. This meant there were some people who’d agreed to expedite her into their books through a back door. These stones might only be good to land on once, but there they hovered in midair.

“Let’s start with brunch,” Soleil said, smiling over a com to a kindred spirit. “A lot needs to happen very quickly, and I want the whole day ahead of me.”

Margeaux Rienne’s voice patched through the earpiece at minimized volume. “This is feasible. It’ll be a pleasure working with you again.” She kept all her spoken terms generally ambiguous, keeping context as subtext like the elite partner in crime she’d always been.

“My only regret is that we couldn’t have begun this venture sooner.”