ANYONE WHO HAD A HEART,

"You've always been so consumed by paperwork and figures." A half-assed little tut! goes along with it, barely escaping before she takes a sip from her glass, held solely by its stem in an iron-clad grip. So much of tonight has been about changing the direction of Coronado's future, of refocusing the national narrative. These past few months have been chaotic, disordered, messy. And while she knows this new administration's plan to combat the—what was it Noemi called it, the cultural erosion of Coronado? While she knows it is not without its detractors or critics, Luciana does believe it is the right move. (Might it help that she played a hand in bringing it about?)

The peach cream lubricant helps slide the steaming pile of bullshit into its serif keynote wrapper.

It's still oozing out at the seams, fetid and cloying, sending Greta to the balcony for fresh air.

Behind her the low buzz of voices like a studio audience, before her, Villa Solana's lights are gradually swallowed up by the growing night's darkness. She feels like that, some oversaturated TV image visible through a distant window, about to disappear.

She shouldn't have wasted her cigarettes on River.

Crafting a career out of being watched trains a person in how to notice when it's happening. Greta feels a gaze pinning the center of her upper back, bare and vulnerable.

Her smile is already alight before she turns to see her voyeur. "Such a pretty view, amiright?"

He's known the King and Queen for a long time—he'd known Luciana back when she didn't dye her hair and was prone to smoking near the docks, reeking of privilege and poor judgement. It was one of the things that drew him to her. Not the bad judgement of course, but the magnetism that the out-of-place woman had developed, lurking by the seaside night after night, with Rafael following so soon after. So, it would at least behoove the both of them, if not their history, the professionalism that was afforded to Dimitri as to what exactly the hell was going on right now.

There was no mistaking that the two leaders of Coronado were Del Bosque marks—and not even subtle marks. Hell, if Dimitri were to guess, they were as subtle as raining mortar on the streets of Genta. It was shameless, and these new proposals raised some eyebrows, if not outright painted targets on their backs. Was Rafael having a stroke? Did Luciana suddenly develop dementia? Everything else didn't matter except the bottom line, and with these new changes, it was sure to be an upheaval that people did not like.

He knows her, too. More than she'd like him to, in all honesty. He's one of the few who remembers when her drink of choice was cheap scotch, not for any lack of finances, but for the look. When her hair was wild and untamed and an unmentionable colour, and her clothes belied a sort of grungy rebellion that only money could buy. He introduced her to Rafael, for God's sake! No, Luci is not fool enough to act like she can trust him any further than she can throw him, but she will always appreciate that he is not one of the yes-men that she finds herself so often surrounded by.

To say that Giulia is used to these kinds of soirées would be an understatement. She knows and has seen it all, each face is attached to a name, estate and bank account which she shamelessly uses as way for her to manage her time and energy. There are people less worthy of her attention, and she's made good use of her skills tonight, which is why she allows herself a breath of fresh air in-between two courses. The air is warm and other people have had the same idea, so when someone comes at her side, it's all due to the three glasses of champagne she's politely drank that she aknowledges their presence first. "I don't think I saw you on the dancefloor earlier, not much for ballroom valses?" Dances are another language at these events, one doesn't just dance with anyone, and one cannot accept or refuse some partners. "Or was the music not to your liking?"

Their reflection is held in the glass table next to them, split into two by its central beam carving a clean line down the middle. He shifts slightly, fingers folding under his palm, leaving only his index finger to tap light and slow along the velvet. A metronome of restraint.

His eyes settle just past her shoulder, briefly, as he realises she sounds like his parents. "Do you really think that?"

The room still carries the faint hum of the broadcast, a leader gunned down mid-sentence. The people are no longer sheep. Their revolt no longer hid in alleyways or underground bars. Under Hector, the invisible hand was shown, and the family's grip on the state became undeniable. Now, it seems, the fury left behind was Rafael's to face.

A beat. Then, but quieter: "Ignacio did not die a martyr." The message was loud and clear. Didn't this scare her?

Ignacio did not die a martyr, he says to her with quiet gravity, and it's almost enough to make her laugh. Something ugly an hollow and mirthless builds itself up in the pit of her stomach, but it dissembles itself just as quick: she's long since mastered the ability to control her emotions, to mask them. It was practically a childhood game of hers, one she rebelled against in her youth, in the rosy early days of their relationship, and one that she relies on daily in her current position. Wife, mother, director, island matriarch. Ignacio did not die a martyr, he says: but he did die a traitor to their cause, she thinks.

She catches his gaze, then, fixed and unflinching. That dreaded soundbite of Santos' final words, the one that clogged airwaves and television channels alike for weeks after, it plays once again in her head—they gave us a dream. Unluckily for him, and maybe for them, Luciana has never been a dreamer.

"Emilio will be found." Correct. "The assassin will be brought to justice." Incorrect. "All will go back to the way it was." If she has her way. "Why do you seem so insistent on disrupting things?"

Decades on, the chill turned on himself. Now the keeper of history means something new entirely and it scares him to his core. It's seen in the stillness that overtakes him between thoughts, half a breath held, when unspoken words linger in the air between them. If someone was next, then it’d be him. Or worse: her.

"That isn't up to us," he says, after a beat. He stretches an arm along the sofa's spine, fingers spread out as if reaching out for what was lost. “We were never meant to govern.” A beat. “The next Premier will be voted by the people. They need a win.”

They were close, once. A team, she might go so far as to say, and one that was to be feared by all who encountered them. Luciana isn't sure where or when along the line exactly that they fell apart, she only knows that the chasm which exists between them now seems entirely too big to patch over.

Is it worth the effort, she sometimes wonders, in between galas and foundation meetings: but she has come entirely too far now to back down. One cannot simply do what she has done and throw it all away without a fight, no matter how determined her husband seems. "But the people may need some shepherding, is all, and who better than us to do it?"

The television screen turns black. Rafael stand besides the drinks cabinet, one hand on the edge like he might pour something and then thought the better of it. The last static of the late night broadcast echoes in the yawning space between them. Only the slow tick of the grandfather clock in the corner can be heard, as if time is passing by waiting to be blamed.

This is how it’s been: a fine line separating them, their shadows dancing along its narrow spine. Above them, the sun decides whether they draw closer or drift further apart.

An assassinated Premier, a missing Vice -- but it's their names on placards. Her face remains unreadable, unyielding. He wonders if she knows he’s not taking any meetings with the High Council. “The longer they delay the election is better for us.”

She's heard rumblings that the Council's numerous requests to meet with him have fallen on deaf, unwilling ears; it's bound to happen when she works so closely with the Culture & Heritage Chancellor, already a close and personal friend of hers. Luciana suspects her husband will soon realise that; whether he will care, is something she's unsure about.

the clatter of cutlery against the finest porcelain, more familiar than any song, marks the near end of the morning feast, though, if one were to glance down at monarosa's embelished plate, they'd asume it's just beginning; the food's barely touched, one piece of luscious grape rests jabbed on a golden fork, while the last tendrils of steam abandon her imported tea.

discomfort, like a firm hand, presses at the back of her elongated neck, accelerating the irregular beats of her heart. before her mother, it's too late or rather impossible to pretend, even as silence stretches just between the two of them at the family table.

"i want to do something for the people, mom," the blonde begins without lifting her gaze, grasping for words yet coming up with nothing, dry mouth opening and closing like that of a fish gasping for salt water. "something good. i wish to be like clara, or grandmother amara. i just — " refuse to be weighted down by nothingness. "don't know where to begin."

"You have it in you to be even greater than Clara or Amara combined." She means it, too, setting down dog-eared pages to focus her attention solely on Monarosa for now. There aren't many who exist within these hallowed halls that could say she would do the same for them. "You can do anything you put your mind to, my love."

It's late, and she is unannounced. By the time Elena arrives at the gallery she isn't even sure why she has come.

She lingers at first, keeping out of the way as Luciana works. Here, her mother is both director and silent partner to the artwork lining the walls. From her spot near the doorway, Elena is just a spectator trying to see through different eyes, trying to understand what the other has dedicated her life to.

The truth is, she has always lacked the vision for artistic pursuits.

She hardly wants to interrupt, but takes a few steps forward at last, arms folded across her body. "All coming together?"

It isn't easy, having dedicated herself to the redirection of Coronado's cultural narrative—toeing the line between the preservation of classical masterworks and techniques, and the promotion of controversial modernists. Here, the walls are lined with canvasses and murals, Rococo next to Expressionism, with the odd cluster of cubism here and there.

Sometimes, Luciana bemoans the fact that nobody in the family seems to understand her goal with the Foundation, Monarosa aside: but then, perhaps that's to be expected of her little mini-me.

"Yes, I think so." Hands clap together as thought to punctuate her answer, finally turning to face her, shallow smile pasted on. "What brings you 'round, darling?"