"I'm poor."
Cecilia sighed.
"I'm so poor that if not for the scholarship and the school's cafeteria, I won't be able to eat," she continued, poking disconsolately at her mutton wrap.
Angela, sitting across from her in the sun-dappled courtyard, stared with the exasperated disbelief of someone to whom 'poverty' was a sociological concept, not a lived reality.
"This is why you should've received the empire's sponsorship," she said, her tone pointed. "I promise we won't try to ask for anything in return!"
Cecilia returned the glare, her blue-green-grey eyes sharp. Knowing it would be stupid to believe that. An empire's 'gift' always came with strings, usually made of unbreakable political steel.
Her independence, hard-won and precious, wasn't for sale, not even for three square meals a day and teleportation fare.
Ah, the teleportation gates. The logistical cornerstone of her insane remote initiation plan. And as expected, they were ruinously expensive.
