I smile brightly. Not so brightly that it seems unhinged. Just bright enough that it's beautiful. It's elated. It's confident. It's glory-addled.

My dark brown hair is meticulously dyed by henna to be a bright auburn. And my eyebrows and even my lashes. My tight curls are straightened out into looser curls. My dark green eyes don't look out of place. Especially against the lightness of my hair. My skin is lighter than it was when I was at home. The sunlight isn't as strong here. Even then my skin has been naturally lightened by turmeric. Natural-looking makeup makes my face shape even more Alturian than it was before. I pass for Alturian. I pass perfectly. And most of it is an accident. The Life Force, in its eternal strange ways, already made my Ieunian soul's body into the image of what a beautiful Alturian girl should be. 

It cursed me. It cursed me by ripping me from my home. By ripping my life and loved ones and freedom and autonomy from me. But it blessed me. Because I didn't die in the river my kidnapper ended up throwing me in. I sank into the water and then emerged from it, heaving and gasping and reborn, and I was able to slip through Alturian society like a ghost unnoticed. And I could slip through the cracks of anywhere, into anywhere. And I could be a sleeper cell. Ready to blow up as soon as needed. 

My lips are painted bright red. My nails are painted bright red. My cheeks are dusted warm pink. I'm wearing a low-cut cyan minidress that hugs my slim figure and is patterned all over with bright pink and red roses that have thorned green stalks all twisting around each other. Around my neck is a red choker with three-dimensional taffeta and georgette roses blooming all along it. I wear a bracelet that matches. It's casual. Flowing. Summery. But no doubt it's all incredibly expensive. It costs more money than my family back in Ieunia would make in three months. And this is what's considered cheap in Alturia. This is what's considered casual clothing. 

I am sitting around the stylish black-painted chairs of an outdoor café. There is a chic metal table in front of me and a colourful translucent umbrella above me. All around there are other tables with people chattering all around them. Fairy lights glow in the daytime. And the sun is shining brightly. All around us there are fake trees with "leaves" made of bright cloth. Some trees are green and blue, with gold and silver trunks. Some are pink and orange, with gold and copper trunks. 

The sun is shining brightly and the sky is supersaturated blue. I use the blue of the sky as my anchor point to the world, the one real thing in a world that's overwhelmingly, cloyingly fake. An imitation. A copy. An illusion. 

In front of me is a plate full of food ten times more decadent and extravagant than what I ever remembered food tasting like when I was at home. Boiled eggs cut in half and heaped up with guacamole, drizzled in this strange spicy sauce. Beside me is a tall glass of iced lemonade, gleaming yellow in the sun. And this was the cheapest thing there was. 

Around the chic metal table there are people dressed in similarly casual-expensive clothing. The men have gelled hair and the women have hair that is brightly dyed, at the tips or in highlights. I didn't dye my hair because I said that coppery-red was already the perfect colour. The people at the table are all various ages, but older than me. They sit straight and tall, severe expressions on their faces. They have twisting jewellery. They have thick, sturdy shoes that would cost three months' wages back home. I show off my red-painted toes in sky-blue sandals. And they're still very expensive. But not as much. 

Sharlee Atheren has platinum-blond curls dyed in stripes of blue at the ends, going from lighter to darker. She is wearing a dress made out of light silk, dyed blue to match her hair, embroidered with shimmering lighter blue threads. She has a silver and topaz headband. She has flowing sleeves made out of tullé and silver boots trimmed with white and blue fur. She has silver bracelets on her wrists and delicate, spiralling rings on her fingers. Her light-pink painted bottom lip has two topaz-studded silver rings woven through the left corner. There are soft wrinkles around her eyes as well as an unendurable sort of confidence. She is a head policy analyst in the Imperial government. 

Alezander Novaro has brown hair but only the roots are brown right now, the rest of it is dyed a dark shade of softly shimmering purple that is almost black. He is older, but a lot of that is hidden under makeup. He is wearing faux leather pants that are studded with red and orange gemstones and a gold-gilded belt. He is wearing a brightly-dyed tank top with a snarling tiger on it and a thin golden coat on top of that. He was always so gaudy. It's lucky that the café is air conditioned. Lucky for him at least I'm freezing my balls off. Alezander is the head propaganda producer. Technically as an actress I work under him. 

Alissika Avenon is in a thick, sleeveless knee-length silk dress made of swirling pastel colours. Colours the likes of which I couldn't even imagine back home. Along her sleeves she has rows of flowing, colourful feathers - most likely fake - bending up towards the sky. Her collar as well is fringed with feathers that bend backwards. Her hair is dyed light pink and is braided to crown her head, and studded with gem-tipped hairpins. She is in her thirties and her face is caked in makeup. Her jewelry, while being metallic and shiny, is also soft pastel colours. She has many bracelets that roll like waves and a chain that holds three different semi-precious gems. She is a nuclear physicist and on the frontlines of developing what is purportedly the greatest weapon known to humanity. 

Paeter Birgonnes is a wearing a leather jacket studded with platinum. It is brand new. Every single clothing item anyone here owns is alway months-new, and discarded at the first sign of wear. He is wearing a blood-red silk shirt below that, and black pants embroidered in various shades of red. He has a platinum watch, a platinum belt buckle, and platinum earrings studded with red. His curly blonde hair is dyed silver at the edges. And he has on bright red lipstick like me. He is the head of military recruitment. 

Igor Charnasse is dressed in a silk suit of dark and swirling, lightly shimmering colours. The colours seem to change and shift under the light like he does. His shirt is blindingly white, threaded with silver. He has platinum cuff links studded with diamond, and a thick watch that matches. His pants are tipped with silver. He has soft wrinkles around his eyes and a blood-red lapel and a blood-red tie. His top hat is the same colour as his suit and has a blood-red ribbon on it. He had a fake platinum rose on his lapel. He loves those metal roses. I remember when he was first wooing me. He gave me an armful of gold ones, in a cheap plastic vase. They even had fake thorns. 

Igor Charnasse is looking me up and down hungrily, but he still carries in his eyes the reverence that Alturians only reserve for each other. The pressing, piping kindness that's all-too-bright and leaves no room for declination. He wouldn't hurt me against my will. Well he would if he knew who I truly was. He doesn't. And he won't ever.

I'm their little girl. I'm their sweet, young soldier. The perfect Alturian citizen. I'm the head of the youth brigade. I help organize rallies, speeches, activities, camps, concerts, classes, parties, festivals. I have an artistic eye for colour and line and glitter and shine. I have the ability to make anyone feel at ease. And that's only in my free time. 9-5 I'm the prettiest most talented up-and-coming young actress in the film industry. I'm in the midst of filming the most bombtastic propaganda piece imaginable. And Lord Igor Charnasse, the leader of Alturia in all its glory, is not-so-subtly in love with me and I am very obviously amazed at everything he does. 

He's not a bad-looking man. He's on the shorter side, as far as men go, much to his chargin. He has strawberry-blond hair that has bits of gray in it. Eyes as blue as Arctic Blitz Gatorade. I'm never letting him put his disgusting meaty dick in me. I'll kill him first. But I have to pretend. Pretend just long enough for me to get the chance to kill him.

He thinks that I'm entranced by him and am elated that he is entranced by me. He thinks I'm a young girl and a model citizen. I've written speeches for him, that were tongue-in-cheek in the most subtle of ways. I've gone to his house and partaken in sugary-sweet alcohol-free drinks he's pushed my underaged way. I've batted my hennaed eyelashes and smiled conspirationally.

And right now I'm laughing loudly and jubilantly as he tells a racist story. 

"So the Amaranian barbarians, right? They believe - they truly believe - that if they die for their honour of whatever, they will become ghosts and come back to like annoy the living. How irrational is that?" The table around us erupts into laughter. Everyone is so mirthful and jubilant and free. At the expense of the blood and the suffering of the Amaranian workers. It's stomach-churning. Azenon, one of my friends in the resistance, is Amaranian. His escape was related to one of the bomb-and-runs Lord Charnasse is describing right here. Azenon is a good man. Caring. Selfless. Generous. Lovesick. His older sister died for him and it's a story that's far too common.

"We have tried long and hard to show them the ways of rationality. Of science. But these people are so stupid. Like goddamn. They are so fucking stupid. They believe that their plains are sacred, right? After all our attempts to teach them, they still don't stop. Anyways, they keep trying to escape from their labour camps. We tried to explain to them that we are providing them with work, with dignity, with a chance to make something of themselves. But no. They're lazy and would rather roam around in their fields all day doing fuck all. So as we have it every once in a while some idiot youth decides to make a goddamn pipe bomb and I don't even know how they keep making pipe bombs but they do. And then they're all like 'we don't want to work anymore' and blow up the walls. And they make a run for it. Stupid animals. They just run. It's so easy to gun them down. They know that it's easy and they do it anyways. Like they have no regard for their lives!" Lord Charnasse is much more well-spoken up in front of the crowds. But around his close circle he can let his guard down and speak freely. I'm glad that he can. 

A round of laughter rolls through. I make sure to laugh just a little bit louder, just a little bit brighter. I make sure to double over just a little bit more vivaciously. No one can be allowed to doubt my loyalty, or my enthusiasm. His words cut me deep and leave me bleeding. Another girl might have started crying or even raging right there and then. But I keep reminding myself that if I can slip by undetected I can help my people. If I can slip by undetected I can help my people. 

"They get picked off like headless chickens! Like fish in a barrel!" 

I breathe deeply. Mirthfully. Lean oh-so-subtly closer to him. He wraps his arm around my shoulders. He would pull me closer if our chair rails weren't in the way.

"I've seen videos of the massacres of Alttube. You should see. They're insane." 

"Anyways, there was an escape attempt. At this coal mine a few months back. We managed to kill everyone. Or so we thought. There was apparently a worker who escaped properly. But do you know what the idiot did instead of even going away from they place he'd tried to escape? He came right back and pretended to be a ghost! Honestly! These people are so childish!"

"What on Alturia's abundant rolling fields?" Sharlee laughs incredulously. 

"Why would he do that? Forget self-preservation this man - if he can even be called that - doesn't even have common sense!" Alezander exclaims haughtily. 

"What would barbarians know about common sense anyways?" Alissika's voice is haughty and slightly sardonic. 

"Well we can't," I start brightly, "we're trying to /civilize/ them! But we can't do that if they don't listen to us! They're like rebellious little teenaged brats. But worse. Way worse. Do they ... do they just not want to work? How lazy!" I exaggeratedly roll my eyes. Azenon works hard. But he works freely. He works for what he believes in. For the liberation of all people. Not for the destruction of the land and the moving of wealth to the hands of the few. I hate this conversation but I have to endure it. 

"Yes well, that idiot man will be captured soon." Lord Charnasse smirks.