The Arrhazon Society of Thespians and Musicians annually held two awards programmes, one for musicians and one for stage artists. Stage artists held their awards two months before the musicians.

There was some overlap in awards, a music award incorporated into the Thespian programme, while a visual production that complemented music would be part of the Musician’s programme.

By the time llhaesa began to make a sizeable mark on the music world – and in politics – a behind the scenes agreement between the Brellian-fearing board of directors of TASOTAM and the llhaesa-fearing government unofficially and quietly banned the superb and brilliant young artist from awards consideration and nomination.

There was one minor and unforeseen problem, which would go undiscovered until it was after the fact: the ballots, which for purposes of long tradition, consisted of old fashioned and quite expensive paper. The ballots listed the nominees for each category, including an extra blank line at the bottom of each voting category.

There were no rules against write in votes; no one – not once in the history of TASOTAM – had ever bothered to try to cast a write in vote. No one had ever even explained why the extra line was on the ballots, few ever noticed them… but after the awards, a check of prior years revealed they were always there.

There were 44 major music categories included in the broadcast awards ceremony. An independent agency distributed and counted ballots; the owner, G’shal Xansa, was reputed to be a free spirit beholden to no one. He valued his firm’s reputation, and no one would mess with its credibility on his watch.

Only one person knew the results once tallied, and that person was G’shal.

The government was confident in its unofficial agreement with the board of directors, and so no one in government paid attention to the logistics of the awards balloting.

Llhaesa would attend the music awards; there was greater humiliation in her being there and shut out than in her not being there, and so the government gave its blessing to llhaesa receiving an invitation from the Society.

When llhaesa released Equality, the timing was fortuitous, quite unintended on llhaesa’s part – it came the next day after the deadline for inclusion in voting for that year. Fully a year passed after the initial release, and no one thought of it as a factor in the current year – most of the public and even music critics thought it belonged to the previous year. Had people looked more closely, they would have realised the most acclaimed release on the illegal broadcast stations was Equality, and that it was not eligible the previous year. Those in the Society did pay attention, and were well aware of its eligibility.

Five additional months passed from the close of eligibility for an award to the awards ceremony, by which time llhaesa and Jahrae fell in love and were married.

Finding the invitation to the awards in their daily post, the two partners loved the idea of the ceremony’s glamour and pageantry; it was exotic and frivolous, but fun in a ‘have you ever tried this?’ adventurous sort of way. Neither partner was particularly into the overall façade that some liked to throw over the entertainment industry, as one being above everything else, larger than life, but for a bit of an adventure, this would serve its purpose.

For the two young women, both possessors of a keen sense of humour, one night of play-acting would be fun sport.

The partners made a pact: both would wear tuxedos, albeit original designer wear. Both knew it would outrage traditional patriarch adherents.

Not content with the fantasy of their discussion, Llhaesa acted, and was easily able to connect with A’sla Ahra – one of the 3 best fashion designers on the planet – and the only woman of note at the top of the fashion industry.

Llhaesa shared her and Jahrae’s plan with A’sla, and much to llhaesa’s relief, A’sla loved and embraced the concept – and the spirit behind the concept. She well knew of llhaesa, and was calling up pictures of her and Jahrae on her interface as she conversed. “Yes,” she thought as she perused the photos while also listening to llhaesa, “we will have a lot of fun with this.”

A’sla knew llhaesa and Jahrae would be headlines in the fashion world from the moment they walked into the awards hall. Here were two divinely gorgeous young women who would wear old-fashioned tuxedos, a bastion of traditional patriarchal menswear – filling them out in quite nice ways, naturally – with their hair worn up and de-emphasised in such a way that it actually would hugely emphasise it. A’sla would have them show, just a sprig of hair here and there – suggesting and calling attention to what lie understated and barely visible.

This would at once be the easiest and the most fun moment of her career, not to mention the most rewarding In addition, as an added benefit, that dickhead Brellian would be beyond pissed. She loved it.

A’sla asked for llhaesa and Jahrae to come in sometime in the following few days to be measured and fitted, which they decided to do immediately – why waste time?

Within three hours, they were back in their flat, most of the three hours spent in uproarious laughter.

Little did they know that llhaesa’s first of two arrests would be a direct result of the humiliation inflicted upon Brellian, not just by the clothing, but also by the completely unexpected voting results.