Family Matters

by S E Zbasnik

  The dwarf watched her go, afraid he'd lost his entertainment for the day. Ferra wasn't about to let him rejoin her game, and anvil's knew he had no intentions of starting out at the unpaid internship level. It took him almost a month to level up his persuasion and dexterity skills after his first three characters all died in mysterious filing cabinet explosions. His day was looking boring as sin, then the high elf coughed in the tweest way imaginable, like a baby bird wrapped in a scarf sneezing into a bowl of soup.

  "So..." Orn stretched onto his tiptoes to see over her shoulder, most of that purple hair blocking his view, "what are you doing?"

  "I am composing a new ballad," Brena explained, shaking her digital quill. Despite not requiring ink, it still jammed after every 5,364th word. Rather than fix it, the production line called it a design choice to increase the historical accuracy.

  "Don't tell me, it's one of them sugar-laden tales girls in locs swoon over: Romeo and Juliebot, Love in the Time of Space Warts, or Kronos."

  "You seem well versed in the popular romantic vids of the last century." Brena jotted down another line as she engaged the dwarf.

  Orn gestured back towards his wife, "She loves the blighted things. Drug me to Kronos six times. Six! Take an infamous planet implosion into a dwarf star and mutate it into two people too stupid to live mooning over each other for three hours. Around the fifth viewing I tried to stab my eyes out with a straw."

  Brena chuckled. "I am, in fact, trying to adapt The Vow into a one voiced operetta."

  "The Vow? A wedding movie?" Orn didn't hide his horror at the words. He'd only attended three weddings in his life, one which involved a hovercraft smashing through the windows and a chapel decompressing, but visions of floating white candles and heavenly choirs ripped at his nerves whenever the W word was brought up.

  "Somewhat," Brena explained, setting her quill down. "It is about a lone wedding planner who is actually a secret agent. He must stop the Bride before she disseminates the elven fleet's defensive codes to the orcish army and keep the caterers from swiping all the half finished bottles. Flint IronStag pulls off an impressive maneuver in the third act when he garrotes the photographer with his own camera strap. I am having some difficulty with the strangulation sounds while he utters the catchphrase, 'Say cheese.'"

  "Flint IronStag? The Flint IronStag?! The famous action hero of over thirty films, each bloodier than the last, Flint IronStag?"

  "You have heard of him, then?" Brena was surprised. Even by her lengthy lifespan, he was considered a classic. Most other species couldn't remember anything past a few dozen decades.

  "Heard of him? I've seen all of his vids enough times they're tattooed on my eyelids. I even paid nearly a week's wages to see that horrific SoulDay special he did with those grunting bath rugs." Awe griped Orn's face like he'd wandered down the flight deck and found the galley stuffed full of gifts from the passing starman. "But I've never heard of this Vow movie."

  "Ah, that is unsurprising. It fell under distribution issues when all the lawyers for the film gathered on a legality ship that was unexpectedly sucked into a black hole along with any signed contracts. Rather than risk the wrath of some lone survivor who could prove his company stood to benefit from the sale, the movie was only projected across three screens and then buried in a sandworm's nest."

  "How do you know about this?" Orn waved at her little book full of the movie's lines.

  "An ancestor of mine was one of the wedding guests. Rather than payment, each extra received a copy of the movie. He'd pull it out every quarter feast to show his big moment, and -- out of curiosity -- I reviewed the film on a whole as a child. I've wanted to bring it back from its slumbering grave ever since."

  "But...I thought all you bards did was sing about romance, and kissy stuff, and brave knights rescuing damsels from the crushing monster of their own addictions."

  "Some do," Brena admitted, "And some prefer to describe the visceral gore as a nuclear warhead tears through villain's loo straight into his giblets."

  "I've been grossly misinformed about bards."

  "Action films can be more difficult to adapt at times." Brena had been at work on this masterpiece of hers ever since she left her home planet with Taliesin.

  "All that blood, and bombing, and 'Aaaah!'" Orn agreed with her, for the first time in the seven months he'd known the elf.

  "The blood is not difficult, I have a pneumatic tube inside my sleeves that can spritz out a combination of dyed liquid sugar and ribbons. My current tree to ascend is the cake scene."

  "Cake scene?"

  Brena leaned over her notes and read to him, "'Flint, holding onto his stomach wound, inches closer to the seven tiered wedding cake he spent the first half of the movie purchasing. As the choir of assassins surround him, he shouts "The cake is a lie" and thirty silver spider bots burst out from under the bride and groom topper.' Spider bots are difficult to mimic with ten fingers."

  Orn's jaw fell so agape a griffin could fly inside. He flapped his teeth up and down like a fish to get the thing working again and shouted loudly, "I have to see this movie!"

  Brena's plastered grin cracked at the outburst, but she regained her composure. For the first time, she used her upper hand. "I suppose something could be arranged, in exchange..."

  "In exchange for what?" Orn leaned back, aware that if he made any deal that pissed off Variel he'd be walking home. If he made any deal that pissed off his wife, he wouldn't be walking period.

  Brena leaned into his hairy ear and whispered, "Get me a copy of that SoulDay special."

  Taliesin tossed his soaked tunic into the dryer, not praying but encouraging the guardians of the path would see fit to un-saturate it sooner rather than later. If they weren't too busy. Leaning against the machine vibrating from an improper load he closed his eyes, folded his arms across his exposed skin, and buried a secret smile.

  "Hello there!"

  The cheery voice shattered his internal thoughts. Blinking rapidly, he tried to realign himself with the present. An elf stood before him, her limbs willowy even for their shared species. Rosy skin would be the polite way to refer to her countenance, pinker than a slapped pig would not. Still, Taliesin couldn't bury the thought quickly enough as she improperly leaned into the personal space he carved for himself.

  "Come here often?" the voice was a curious blend of accents, neither light nor dark elf. Certainly not a sea one; for starters she wore shoes.

  "Only when I require drying," he said slowly, hoping that was enough to send her on her way, but the intruder pushed ever inward until she was in danger of face planting into his chest.

  "I'm called Glynn," she said confidently, as if sharing her life's secrets with a complete stranger.

  "That's interesting," the assassin responded leaning back into the dryer. The whir of the machine overtook her heavy breathing.

  "Silly, now you tell me your name." Glynn wasn't going to make escape easy.

  Taliesin glanced around, praying to find someone, anyone to save him, "Why?"

  "So I don't have to keep calling you sexy," she purred.

  "Taliesin! My Taliesin is name," his words tripped over themselves, trying to head off any more of that rumbling sound from her gut.

  A smile pulled at her thin lips, "You're dulcen then? I'd heard tales of their prowess."

  He jumped as her hand inched towards his nude arm and whacked the back of his head into the top dryer. The pain didn't register as he babbled, "Yes, I am dulcen. High born. Up in the trees and all. And you are neither dulcen, nor tennen, so you must be..."

  "Spacer." She paused her hand inches from touching him and the assassin sighed thankfully. "Cosmos dust runs in my veins."

  And in your brains, Taliesin thought to himself. Glynn proudly thumped into her chest, shaking a handful of medals pinned to it. They didn't mean a thing to anyone outside those rare elves who gladly escaped the confines of land ages ago. Spacer elves were the professional tourists of the galaxy, out to experi
ence every microcosm the universe had to offer and document it for their fellow brethren, often in excruciating detail. Taliesin was in no mood to be her next tale of conquest.

  "It was very...interesting meeting you, but I need to get to something important," he said, knowing that would silence any dulcen into shame for interfering, but the spacer picked up on her toes, bringing her face closer to his. She smelt of charred wiring and syrup, a bit like the dwarven pilot after he tried to repair the viewscreen himself.

  "Oh? Perhaps I can assist you with something important," she didn't hide her internal salivation as her view drifted down his exposed body. Taliesin mentally cursed Orn in every word available to him. Being trained in both the art of killing and story-telling, he had a multitude of choices.

  There were three different ways to break this elf's life without alerting another soul in the launders, another five if the machines could be assumed to muffle a small scream. But, despite his profession and schooling, if there was no contract, he did not kill unless he or those he cared about were under immediate threat. While he could garner some sympathy for removing a lustful spacer from the galaxy, it would not be enough to convince the guardian council.

  An elaborate lie bubbled up from his brain, one he cribbed out of Brena's paltry vids, but it froze as a familiar figure wandered into view. She shoved a cart with a hand while the rest of her wiggled into one of her trademark brown shirts. It was unsurprising the captain's laundry finished sooner than the others. The woman discovered one color that worked and wasn't about to take any chances trying something different.

  She didn't see her resident assassin caught in his own personal hell or she'd surely have come to his rescue. Probably come to his rescue. At least provided a distraction so Taliesin could vanish into the ducts. Outside of the ship their rules of interaction muddled. Variel smiled softly to herself as she pushed her cart along when a buzz claimed the snoozing intercom.

  "Terrwyn. Would Terrwyn Yates report to the front desk? Your guardian is looking for you."

  Anyone else wouldn't have noticed the shiver running down the captain's spine, but Taliesin devoted too much of his free time watching the human. She pretended to sort through her bundle once more, her eyes never falling upon her laundry as she watched for someone to attack from the shadows or burst dripping out of a machine. When no one appeared, the small skip was replaced by a quick boot. She yanked her laundry sack out of the cart and jogged to the ship's airlock.

  "If you will excuse me," Taliesin said, pushing past the spacer elf.

  Glynn folded her arms and huffed, "What about your shirt?"

  "It is a gift," the assassin called out carelessly, his lanky gait increasing to catch up to his captain.

  Shrugging, the spacer elf pushed the stop button and removed his shirt. Ripping off a single button, she pinned it to her piles of medals and tossed the rest into the rag bin.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A throbbing alarm roused Variel from a shallow sleep. Her errant arm tried to rub sticky sleep from her eyes as she shouted for WEST to shut off the damn thing. When it didn't answer, probably pouting, her hand reached out to the panel beside her bed and thumped into the comm line.

  "Cap, you there?" Orn's fuzzy voice buzzed across the line, cracking like a teenage boy hiding a lewd drawing.

  Variel sat up at the intrusion into her room, whacking her head on the alien ceiling. "Sonnofakraken!" she rubbed her forehead, unused to this side of her bed.

  "Did I interrupt something?" Sleaze oozed out of the speaker's grate as she was sure Orn waggled his face fuzz.

  Her naked arm leaned onto the comm line button, "It's called sleeping, Orn. You should try it sometime."

  "Can't, too busy avoiding sleep."

  Even in her groggy state she spotted the small red light flashing in her cabin's darkened room; the line was jammed open. Her hand dropped down to the bed, gesturing to the LED. Raising her voice, she asked Orn, "What do you want? Or are you calling to tell me you crashed us on the event horizon of a black hole?"

  "Please, give me some credit, Cap'. You think I'd call you if I did that? No reason to let you kill me before we're all squashed together into an atom."

  Variel felt the bed shift beside her, and her hand silenced the room. Orn may play the fool, but he could sniff out scandal like a bloodhound. When it suited him, he considered every little thing as scandalous as a blue-haired church lady.

  In the waning silence, Orn filled in, "You got a call."

  She gingerly massaged her bruised temples, "It's probably Whitley checking in on us."

  "We ain't supposed to see Wheezer for another week," Orn whined.

  "He's thorough, and don't call him Wheezer for gods' sake. The man's the only client we have that pays upfront."

  "And goes through our pockets once the job's done." The dwarf lost a nice pair of nicked scissors he'd taken a fancy to during one of Wheezer's random searches. "It's a wonder he doesn't ask to smell our fingers after."

  Variel ignored him as she usually did. "Ask him what he wants."

  "Nope, the comm was specific, just you -- Captain of the Elation-Cru -- may answer. Git's getting twitchier with every passing year."

  "Fine, I'll be down in a few minutes," Variel said, eyeing up her long lost pants and wondering just what happened to that bra.

  "You're ten steps from the bridge. Shimmy down the ladder and get this blinking light off my console."

  "I'm also completely naked. Or would you prefer I wander in like that?"

  Orn faked a few gagging sounds and then took a dying gasp, "Sweet ancestors, no! One look turns men's picks to stone." The dwarf paused as he played back what he said, "I mean the shattered rock kind, not the rock hard..."

  Variel interrupted the babble, not in the mood to watch her pilot hang himself, "Then give me a few minutes."

  "I'll tell Wheezer to hold his breath. One way or the other that'll solve my problem."

  Variel pushed off the open line, the red light vanishing as she called for the overhead lights. She rose off the shared bed, hunting for her clothing. "That damn dwarf," Variel cursed to herself. "I should throw his chocolate supply into the heating unit."

  Taliesin watched the comm line, making certain the light wasn't about to reappear. Even then, he kept his voice low, "Do you think he suspects?"

  "That the entire galaxy is run by some kind of secret society of frog people? Yes." She gave up on the errant bra and settled on her shirt. It was hard to match the luxury of freshly laundered fabric across the skin.

  "I was referring to us," he sat up slowly, avoiding the beam she whammed her head on earlier. Variel's only blanket covered most of his body. She was always tossing the thing onto him when she overheated in the night.

  As the captain slipped her foot into a boot, forgoing socks as well, she said, "If Orn had any idea about what we just did he'd have been standing outside the door with his video PALM. The dwarf doesn't have a clue."

  "Ah..." Taliesin didn't sound convinced, but it was better if they remain hyper aware of their little dalliances. Let him keep thinking Orn was a danger to more than a vegetable farmer's bottom line. Variel had her own problems outside of the amazingly obtuse pilot.

  "What do you think the communication refers?" And then the damn elf went and dug at the thought nibbling on the back of her mind.

  "Like I said," Variel cinched her laces tight to distract from her own concerns, "Wheezer checking to make sure we're still coming. He's done it before."

  "Ah." Again with that 'Ah.' He sounded like a cola commercial. "There is something I have wished to ask you since the Washing Scrub."

  Variel rose from her shoes, the toes throbbing from a lack of blood, and looked him in the eye. Ever since he bumped into her outside the ship, his chest still naked and heaving in a way she'd have enjoyed if she wasn't busy fretting about things years old, she expected this discussion. He hadn't said a thing as the others returned with their own laundry, as Orn pulled the ship out of
orbit into the gateway passage, or even as he climbed through the duct work to her room. But elves were notoriously slow.

  "At the laundry," Taliesin asked softly, "when Orn bet you the color of my stomach, why did you choose orange despite knowing the answer?"

  Variel tried to not sigh as a planet lifted off her shoulders. She'd been preparing for a confrontation on the entire biography of Terrwyn Yates. This was like opening up a bomb casing and finding it stuffed with chocolate coins. "Because nothing will throw Orn off the scent more than me having to cough up candy. If I'd said just where your orange is, however..."

  She let the thought hang as Taliesin's one orange cheek turned bright red. Variel didn't have time to check his other orange cheek. Maybe later when Wheezer was dealt with. "Give it a few minutes before taking the back exit," she said to her lover? Bed mate? Occasional distraction?

  Taliesin nodded, "I believe the others are cracking into breakfast."

  "Elven hearing?" she asked.

  He shook his head. A surprisingly charming smile curled those tiny lips, "I can smell burned yeast."

  Variel laughed. Before she opened the door, she ordered her lights lowered. Her assassin vanished into the darkness, only the glow of the invading hall light landing upon his yellow eyes.

  Orn greeted her with a wave of his stump, his hand charging upon the console. Occasionally, the fingers would twitch when too much juice passed across the illegal hookup he jerry rigged directly into the power supply. A few wrappers crinkled under the dancing mechanical phalanges but Variel didn't say anything. It was easier to let her pilot wallow in his squalor than charge into a passive aggressive battle she could never win.