Phi-Cubed
A golden amber glow with a frost touch of mint rimmed the silhouettes that throbbed in rhythm to the sound in the gilt edged cavern.
“Are you breaking up with me Snow?” The question was light, playful and ultimately rhetorical. “But I’m not done with you.” Their eyes intersected at the mirror behind the under-lit bar, they were alive with a sense of urgency and beneath that, danger.
“I’m merely expressing my gratitude for your backing dear, without you there would be no Order to speak of. Only a matter of errant property.”
“Now you want off the hook without our return of investment?” The reflection asked a touch crisply.
Snowflake turned to face her directly. “Are you suggesting that I simply swapped owners?”
Her Luminairian head tilted back while dark evocatively tousled hair jostled with the joviality of her clear bright laughter. “No no no, or course not, no. That’s not the way we do things. I just want to stay in touch, watch you grow, blossom.”
Snowflake mentally added ‘shape and mould’ to the list silently while nodding to her verbal echo “of course.”
“These meetings of ours have become rare Snowflake and I do so look forward to them. Come, let us a least enjoy the local together. There are saunas below where we can talk shop in the traditional manner since you are being so formal.”
“Shop?”
“The business of expansion darling. Making our scintillating dreams come true,” a general gesture to the crystalline room they both occupied" or die trying. You still dream, don’t you? Tell me what makes your bed rock these days."
“There is something you could help with. A new monastery, styled on the scans of The Eternal Flame to orbit Ethernity one.”
“Save it for the sauna darling.” The contact drained her vibrant cocktail and placed the empty conical crystal container on the bar with a delicate tap before handing over a pre-purchased chit access coin to the facility in question. “See you soon.” She said over her shoulder with a smile before she was lost in the massed throng of dancers.
Snowflake took a long moment to compose herself, chit in one open hand, a full crystal in the other. She put her crystal beside the empty one left behind by the representative known only as Aventurine on the bar, closed her eyes and lifted both arms high overhead, her hands curled into fists. Tilting her own head back she breathed deeply of the spirit of the place. ‘Victory’ whispered in endocrine by way of response to the mnemonic trigger.
“Now the negotiations begin.” She whispered to herself before following misadventure into the dark.