Megajolt Rattle

It's easy to confuse monarchy for family, and vice versa, in the grand scheme of humanoid hierarchies. Though the High Entian imperial unit does conduct a highly successful rule of Alcamoth and its environs, that doesn't necessarily equate to a functional, let alone happy, family unit lurking within. Conversely, it doesn't matter how much a family loves each other, member by member, when one considers the efficacy of a group-officered government. There are concessions that must be made, things that simply must be done.

Yumea is richly invested in the fabric of what the throne owes her, what politicks must be picked and chosen. She thinks being the First Consort even means anything, when there's a Second Consort present to make a point of reference back to the origin. Really, that should just about give it away, what all the throne thinks of a true finder's keeper's.

Lorithia is not so deluded as to see it that way. Instead, the winged and armored chess pieces will be moved as necessary, discoveries passed out of the Ministry of Research will help to sway the public's thinking, and in the end Lord Zanza will always be fed and honored. The cycle continues. It always does.

Her joy, beauty marked, comes in the power she holds without having to bend to a role ordained by motherhood and the divine right of son-born kings, alongside the oncoming fate that they all (save her) face. It's really wonderfully freeing.

Yumea...oh, poor, dear Yumea. How ever shall she instruct and convince?

For Lorithia is a scientist, even still. Not a brute, not a cryptic mystic. Lorithia still and always has her methods, until the end.

As generations of Antiquas have come and gone, Lorithia has loved some, hated some. She's been amused. She's been bemused. She's found them utterly intractable or woefully underserved.

Oh, and she loves Yumea's foolish pride. It's absolutely decadent. It's given her Kallian, of course, and unfortunately it wasn't enough to stop Sorean from giving the rest of the Entia a prop of a princess, but that's Lorithia's job, here, to stop it all from ending the way they'd planned it.

Whether Yumea listens willingly to Lorithia's instructions is neither here nor there. She doesn't know what the Bionite Order truly serves, in its loyalty to the Bionis as a being. She doesn't have to.

Dear Yumea rarely ever smiles, anymore, and when she does it's only half a sincere victory, if that. To trifle with her for her own gain...Lorithia almost feels guilty, at times.

The decadence shows in how richly Yumea is garbed, yet she does not wear rings as her son does. Her plaits are plush, but are tied practically. Her wings blend seamlessly into the gray of her hair.

Ah, severity. Such a revered trait of the High Entia - and those pure-blooded, in particular. The dilution represents an overall thinning of the barrier between the Entia and the Homs. It's only natural that one would feel threatened by this.

That's what Lorithia tells Yumea, because it gets Yumea to cheer. It cannot do anything to save her cherished concept of a family; that has already far and away, long and ago been defeated by the dissolution of the Order.

Still, Lorithia's support... It's almost like Yumea can truly count herself an empress, with such a beautiful and loyal subject to be her retainer.