"The session proceeds to... Luna Starweaver."

Orion didn’t wait for the master of ceremonies to even finish settling into his position.

"Before proceeding, the Night faction wishes to note that several of the merits listed for Miss Starweaver present overlap with contributions already claimed by our faction during the same period."

The Night representative also said his part with the fluency of someone who had rehearsed the sentence. "We request simultaneous review to avoid duplication in the record."

Luna listened to it with the face she had learned to wear since she was small.

Julius responded with the documentation he had prepared in advance, because he had spent enough time studying Orion’s methods to know the pattern of demands would repeat itself. Luna’s contributions had been certified independently, with signatures from tamers who belonged to neither faction in dispute.

The overlaps the Night faction was pointing to were technically nonexistent when the complete and current records were read... but that wasn’t the point.

The point was to blur the lines enough to create negotiable ambiguity, to make what was clearly defined look contested, to wear down the clarity of the record through volume of objection.

The Night representative pressed the same empty arguments in different configurations, the kind that served no purpose except to shift the opinion of the distracted or the credulous.

Larissa, without moving from her position, passed something to Luna in a voice too low to reach anyone else. Luna incorporated it two exchanges later when the opening was correct. The argument landed well, the representative’s insistence collapsed, and Orion let it collapse without fighting too hard.

Because it wasn’t the argument that mattered to him.

It was just the warm-up.

♢♢♢♢

The distribution of intrafamily leadership was the first real point.

The Day faction theoretically controlled half of the Starweaver family from the perspective of lineage and tradition. But in practice, the Night faction controlled the majority of the active military force and the extraction territories, over 80% of the operational infrastructure, accumulated gradually over the last years of absence, disaster, and deliberate consolidation.

Orion’s argument was that effective leadership should correspond to whoever had actual operational capacity, and that a fifteen-year-old with no independent governing experience didn’t meet that criterion regardless of her lineage and what he called ’a few little exams’, however traditional they were.

It was an argument with enough surface logic that the room listened to it.

"Lineage does not automatically confer competence," said the Night representative, with the tone of someone presenting a reasonable consideration that just happened to align with everything his faction wanted.

"Tradition is relevant but it is not the only criterion. The Starweaver family has been without stable leadership for several years now. What it needs is to keep someone capable of exercising that leadership consistently and effectively."

Luna responded before Julius could.

"They weren’t just ’a few little exams’ when you went through yours to claim what you have now, were they?" Her voice had the quality it produced in formal sessions, no visible emotional inflection, each word placed with the composure she had copied from her father’s public manner over years of watching him operate.

"The record of the most recent examinations documents that I am the second-ranked tamer of the fifth year. Yours don’t place you even in the top five." A pause. "The nobility examinations that measure the very capacity you are calling into question place me in the highest percentile of my generation, second only to the young man you appear to fear. Both records are available for verification."

Another pause, brief, like mocking Orion’s ones.

"If competence is measured by verifiable results rather than by lineage, then it’s fine, I regret to inform you that I have both..."

"Academic results are not equivalent to governing experience," the representative replied.

"Governing experience is acquired by governing," said Luna. "But your faction hasn’t been doing much of that either, in reality, your power was concentrated not in our territory but elsewhere and held in check by my father until recently. I would suggest not presenting yourselves as seasoned governors simply because you occupied territory while the legitimate leader was absent."

The hall took a moment with that line.

Larissa, without looking at her, adjusted her posture in a way that in another context might have looked like she was simply rolling her shoulders in extasis.

Several members of the Night faction reacted with visible irritation, which was exactly the wrong response in a formal session, because irritation made their subsequent arguments sound like grievances rather than positions, and grievances didn’t get the same reception as positions.

The explosion of emotion cost them credibility at the precise moment they needed it most.

The point was disputed, partially ceded, and ultimately recovered in a democratic form that preserved the rights of those who wished to remain within Luna’s faction and her territory.

But that territory was the next thing to go through.

Rights over the extraction zones, the commercial routes, the access points to the installations the recognition included. Each point was attacked with the methodology of someone who knows they aren’t going to win all of them but wants every concession to cost the maximum possible.

Luna didn’t yield a centimeter more than she had decided in advance to yield, and what she had decided in advance to yield was less than Orion had calculated.

The marriage proposal arrived the way it always arrived in their private negotiations, as a proposal for stability.

"Miss Starweaver is heir to a faction with complex diplomatic needs," said the Night representative, in the tone of someone presenting a reasonable consideration that everyone present was supposed to find obvious. "A matrimonial alliance with a family of comparable standing, now that hers is ’damaged’, would strengthen her position and that of the Day faction in the current political landscape. There are candidates of appropriate age whose families have expressed interest."

The reality was that the closest options in her age range, Klein, Jin, had already been eliminated from consideration, but a few candidates remained.

One of them was Seiya. Knowing that Orion had dragged him back into this despite his father already showing resistance upon learning of her situation with Ren made her irritation sharpen into something less manageable than she would have preferred.