The room erupted into music and festivities as Selene approached Kai somewhat self-consciously, sending glances the way of staring guests. She tried to appear pleasant as she parked herself at Kai's side, up at the head of the grand, bedazzled ballroom.

"Congratulations, your Majesty." Selene smiled sweetly and dipped into a bow. "What a beautiful ceremony."

Kai stared at Selene, beside him, for a while before cracking a grin. "That's the first time you've ever bowed to me."

"What?" Selene righted herself quickly. "I'm sure that's not true. I've bowed to you before."

"No, that's the first. You have given me respectful nods before, though."

"Well, since you've become emperor, about fifteen minutes ago, you've just had this air of power and prestige. I couldn't help but feel inclined to pay homage to your greatness." Selene rolled her eyes and nudged Kai's shoulder with her own, smiling, before she suddenly remembered where they were and took a sobering step away from him. Kai cleared his throat shyly, his cheeks dusted with a pink that hadn't been there before, and smiled to himself. Selene looked away.

She'd felt strangely self-conscious in a way she never had as queen before, all the Earthens surrounding her and staring at her and pointing discreet cameras at her. She was lucky they all feared her so much they didn't try to approach her.

She did have to pay complimentary respects to the government leaders attending Kai's coronation, and spent a few minutes drifting around the room, having her hand kissed and shook and receiving bows and compliments. She kept a smile plastered onto her face, though it did nothing to make her wary callers more comfortable. She felt as though she were stumbling into unknown territory, and it was a strange feeling. One, however, that was becoming more familiar the farther and farther she drew from Luna. Selene felt too bare. She shivered.

As the guests for the Peace Ball started to arrive at the palace, Selene became pushed and delegated up to the head of the room with Bement and Winter at her side, up besides Kai and his advisor. Kai was making his rounds in his own, newly-coronated way- a bit of a queue had started to form to shake Kai's hand, congratulate him, discuss bright futures in trade and international relations, and Kai was more calm and regal than Selene had ever seen him before. He was already a responsible leader, and Selene had to remind herself that despite the uncertainties and nerves he'd shared with her about his coronation, he'd been preparing for the role of emperor for years. Far longer than Selene had prepared for hers. She'd been queen since thirteen, and had hardly grown wiser.

Selene huffed to herself at the almost ironic nature of it, earning a quizzical glance from Winter. She needed food, while Kai was occupied like this.

Hiking up her skirts, as elegantly as she could, Selene marched down the steps and down into the ballroom. Grand displays of food swept across two buffet tables, and Selene made a beeline for the shrimp platters. She didn't know if she was really supposed to be eating, and if Winter was going to berate her later for making a fool of herself at the Peace Ball for all the world to see, but she did know that all these people's stares were beginning to make her starving.

Selene hadn't even touched the shrimp before someone familiar caught her eye, and she glanced up.

Linh Peony really was here, like she said she'd be, and she was accompanied by an older woman with hair that showed attempts at masking imcoming gray, pulled back into a tight bun, and a teenage girl who looked to be maybe a little older than Selene. As Selene watched, Peony appeared to be arguing with them, waving her arms in big gestures and speaking in hushed, angry tones.

Selene knit her brow and forgot the shrimp, making her way around the buffet table and over to Peony. Peony didn't notice her approach, but her companions started to stare, wide-eyed, as they realised that Selene was coming over to them.

Peony almost whacked Selene in the face before she noticed her over her shoulder, and immediately dropped into a deep bow much like in the elevator not long ago. "Your Majesty!"

Her family followed suit, their mouths batting open and closed as if they were catching flies.

"Oh, please," Selene waved her fingers through the air, "that's unnecessary. How do you do, Miss Linh? I don't believe you've yet introduced me to your company."

Peony come up from her bow and nodded uncertainty. "Um, yes. This is my mother and- and my older sister."

Peony's mother drew herself up an inch taller, making her posture self-important, and smiled pleasantly. "My name is Linh Adri, your Majesty. And may I just say, it is an amazing honour to meet you." Adri dipped into another bow as a peacock would, feathers spread, and came up with a triumphant smile on her face.

"The pleasure is all mine, Ms. Linh. It is very nice to meet you." Selene turned to Peony's sister, who stammered for quite a while before introducing herself as Pearl.

"I noticed you were having quite the animated conversation, before I interrupted." Selene knit her fingers together and looked questioningly at Peony.

Peony blushed hastily. "I was just- we were just-"

Adri stepped in with a hand on Peony's shoulder, which she promptly shrugged off. "My daughter gets overexcited very easily. Please, make no waste of your Majesty's time on her silly endeavors."

Selene narrowed her eyes quickly at this peacock of a woman. "Far from it, Ms. Linh. I value her opinion quite a bit. If you took time to listen to her, I'm sure you'll find that she is a very intelligent young woman. She's working quite hard."

Adri turned beet red and opened her mouth to say something futile, but was saved as the orchestra started a new waltz and a hand clapped down on Selene's shoulder, sending a shock down her spine. She looked over her shoulder to find Kai there with the same calm smile he had on his face as he juggled foreign diplomats and dignitaries.

"Please excuse me, ladies," Kai said, flashing a charming smile in Peony's direction. "I'm afraid I must tear the lovely Selene away. Your Majesty, would you like to dance?"

Selene glanced back at Adri and Peony, suddenly very demure and pink in Kai's presence, and then back at him. "I suppose so." She placed her gloved hand in his and nodded to Peony and her family. "It's been a pleasure meeting you."

Selene glided out with Kai onto the polished ballroom floor, turning to face him among the waltzing couples. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" Kai looked genuinely confused.

"You just completely melted them. One smile and poof, they're a grinning mess."

Kai smiled, glancing back from the direction they came from. "Really? Huh."

"Oh, you can't be serious." Selene rolled her eyes, taking his hand in hers very suddenly and resting the other on his shoulder. "You can't be that oblivious to your inborn charm."

Kai turned back to Selene, glancing at her hand in his and slowly resting his hand on her waist. His ears started to turn red. "I guess I've never noticed that before. Perhaps it explains why I have such amazing success with women."

Selene chuckled and they started to dance, gliding and stepping with all the other couples. Selene's skirt spun and swayed with her, and she began to notice belatedly how beautiful this room was. The golden chandeliers cast a glow on the excited faces of the crowds, and Selene closed her eyes for a moment, drinking in the music and the chatter. If she closed her eyes, she could almost forget the cameras, the stares.

And when she opened them, there was Kai, who had been gazing at her in a way she'd never seen before. It sent a strange shiver into her stomach, and he smiled.

"I don't think I've told you yet how beautiful you look tonight," Kai said, drawing Selene a minute bit closer. "If I haven't, well, you look beautiful tonight."

Selene nodded slowly. She'd received a lot of compliments tonight, but this one felt a little different. Maybe it was the way she was hyperconscious of Kai's hand on her waist, or the way her brain was suddenly trying to measure the exact distance between them. "Thank you. You look very handsome, too."

Five and a half inches. That was her rough estimate.

With a flourish of violins, the waltz ended, and the ballroom erupted into polite claps for the musicians. Another song began to play, a merry dance, and Kai's hand stalled on Selene's waist for a few seconds longer before he pulled away awkwardly.

"Hey," he said, scratching the back of his neck, "Do you want to take a walk in the gardens? I think it would be good to get some fresh air from this crowd."

Selene smiled, lowering her chin. "Do you think that would be a good idea? They would miss you."

Kai looked back at his advisor, across the ballroom, and then shared a secret smile with Selene. "I've done enough duty for one night. Shaking hands with almost everybody in here should be enough to satiate them for now."

Selene stared for quite a while, trying to decipher the look behind Kai's eyes, and resisted the urge to reach out for his bioelectricity. "A quick walk."

Selene wandered over to the open doors to the gardens, removing her gloves finger by finger, and made sure Winter and Bement weren't watching as she ducked out into the dark gardens, strolling over to the clipped edges of the patio and waiting beside the hedges as Kai followed suit into the darkness. He smiled sheepishly at Selene and they started into the fragrant, peaceful palace gardens.

In this portion, they were bordered by a tall hedge, but farther along the winding pathways the wall fell back and left any wanderers with distant views of the brightly-lit city from above, on the palace cliff-side, and a wide garden of high-growing bushes and vine trellises. Kai and Selene walked along the paths into the dark gardens in silence, lit by the moon and the echoes of chandeliers and laughter from the palace ballroom. Kai fidgeted with his hands nervously as Selene breathed in the air, faint with the smell of roses and sage. As they strolled slowly and the noise of the ball became more distant, Selene stopped by a bush of white roses and smiled to herself, glancing at Kai and then down at the bush.

"These are Commonwealth Glories." Selene said, stroking a delicate white petal softly. "Very fitting." Kai stood beside her and watched Selene's eyes as she ran a tan finger along the stem, and then stopped.

A prick of blood sprung from the pad of Selene's finger where a thorn had broken the skin, and she stared at it, frozen in silent shock, for a long while. It dripped off of her finger and onto the rose slowly and Selene watched the blood fall. She watched the trail it made on her finger. Finally, she stuck the finger in her mouth and turned back to Kai, smiling as if it were fine. Fine that she'd just marred a beautiful, innocent flower with her prying. Find that it had attacked her. She felt silly, but a tear sprung up in her eye.

"I got pricked by a rose," she said, "imagine that! They're supposed to be friendly, aren't they?"

Kai knit his brow. "Are you all right? That looked like a lot of blood."

Selene looked at the bloody rose one last time and turned away. "Yes, I'm fine."

Farther the stone paths, Kai stopped before a koi pond and gazed down at the fish darting lazily in the cool water. "You know, I once had a really vivid dream. It wasn't a nightmare, but it made me feel just as stuck in the sleeping world as if it were one, and I woke up and came here." Kai tapped the ground with his foot. "Right here. And then I sat down on this bench," he gestured to the wooden bench behind them, "and I looked up at Luna, up there, and I thought about what the people up there must be doing at that moment. Do you know what time it in Luna, right now?"

Selene squinted at the pure moon. It was full tonight, and it cast a pallor of tentative gauzy white light onto the gardens. She looked up at Kai. "It should be tomorrow already. A few hours through morning. Everyone's probably getting ready to start the day's business. In the palace, at least, they may get started earlier in the outer sectors."

Selene turned her gaze back up to Luna. Kai glanced at her as she extended a hand toward the full moon, as if she offered something.

"'And suddenly the moon withdraws her sickle from the lightening skies, and to her sombre cavern flies, wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze,'" Selene recited, and Kai found himself lost in the shine of her eyes. She stared intently at the moon, gazing straight through it into Luna, Artemisia, and exhaled a long breath, pulling back her hand, retracting a promise, extending a lifeline. She turned back to Kai, and there was something different. Moonlight sent shadows and light soaring across his face. When he spoke, he whispered, unwilling to awaken the hushed silence hanging thick as a fog between them.

"Selene," Kai whispered, "I think I'm in love with you."

Selene froze suddenly, as still as the fragrant air, and then a gust of wind blew through the gardens. Kai leaned in and kissed her.