✾ Aura, a Lady.

The painted features on the armour's porcelain seem somehow more delicate, this up close. It lands in a weird, calculated motion, its legs crossing just so to keep the weight balanced, perhaps (or, wait, wait, is that a curtsy?) as its belly opens to reveal the cockpit.

And what a cockpit it is. Yours is standard-issue AMR, with a few tchotchkes here and there, your girlfriend's pic, your lucky pebble from that one beach on that one night on Lysander. But that cockpit? It's an art project. Tulle and chiffon, little curtains everywhere, gentle pink and black decorations — buttons and ribbons and tiny icons and cameos and a tiny rack of what looks like a series of chokers and collars — and what looks like an expertly designed, tucked-away touch-up and changing station on the side, in the back, mirror and combs and make-up brushes strewn in makeshift elastic holders and transparent bags pinned to the wall. No part of what you assume should have been the metal core of this beast is visible, its inside covered wall to wall and side to side by this little cabaret of follies.

And the pilot… well, it is no less decorated.