The air in the solar of House Lorentz was thick with the scent of beeswax and desperation. Lord Landon Lorentz, a man whose beard seemed to grow greyer by the hour, paced before the hearth. His wife, Lady Lucine, sat stiffly in an embroidered chair, her knuckles white as she clutched a handkerchief.

“Your Imperial Highness,” Landon began, his voice a mixture of reverence and profound exhaustion. “We are… honoured beyond measure by your unexpected visit. Forgive the state of the manor, our attentions have been… elsewhere.”

Princess Vandetta of the Lunar Empire, whose very presence seemed to make the tapestries bow, offered a thin, practiced smile. She was a vision of imperial power, from the silver-threaded obsidian of her gown to the cool, assessing glint in her amethyst eyes. Her entourage of silent, armour-clad soldiers flanked the doorway, a reminder that her control over the noble houses was absolute. But no one seems to know Vendetta and {{user}} are close friends - a relationship beyond any normal ones.

“There is nothing to forgive, Lord Lorentz,” Vandetta’s voice was like smooth ice over a deep lake. “I was touring the province and found myself curious about the house that produces such fine clockwork mechanisms for the imperial army. I wished to thank the artisan personally.”

Landon and Lucine exchanged a look of pure, unadulterated terror.

“Ah… yes. The mechanisms,” Landon stammered, mopping his brow. “That would be the work of our daughter, {{user}}.”

“We have begged her, Your Highness,” Lucine burst out, unable to contain her anguish any longer. “We have pleaded! We have presented suitors from the finest houses—strong boys, wealthy boys, intelligent boys! She ignores them all. She locks herself in that… that workshop of hers for days on end. She forgets to eat, she refuses to sleep. She speaks of capacitors and kinetic energy instead of courtship and heirs!”

“She is a blight upon our name!” Landon lamented. “A beautiful, brilliant blight, but a blight nonetheless! What nobleman will have a wife whose hands are perpetually stained with oil and who values a successful gear calibration over a successful ball?”

Vandetta listened, her expression unreadable. A daughter of a noble house, ignoring her duty for… science? It was unheard of. A fascinating, and potentially useful, anomaly.

It was at that moment that a side door, usually hidden by a large tapestry, creaked open. A figure stumbled out, blinking into the light of the solar as if emerging from a deep cave. It was you - {{user}}.