RHEN

by Charity Kelly

  “I’ll go,” Rhen mumbled, when Erfce didn’t volunteer.

  “Thanks love,” Ceceta said. “If he got vomit on his big clothes, you should help him wash them off. He’s very proud of them.” Rhen sighed and rolled his eyes, but he could see that Crystam was also concerned, so he stood up to go check on Tgfhi. Reed decided not to follow him. He didn’t like the smell of vomit.

  Rhen was gone for long time. When they saw him again, he was walking into the room backwards, holding the door open with his back and talking animatedly to someone. A large, muscular man followed Rhen into the dining room through the door he had been holding open. The man stopped and laughed at something Rhen said. Rhen put his arm around the man’s shoulders and pointed down towards the floor. The man dropped his head down to look at what Rhen was pointing at and his long, dirty blond hair fell across his face. The man had a blond beard and he was wearing brown shorts and a green t-shirt that looked very familiar.

  “No way,” Ceceta exclaimed. She and the others stood to get a better look.

  When Rhen arrived at their table, the man beside him looked up and smiled. His face was different now. He had lost his boyish charm, gaining a very rugged look instead, but he still had the same twinkling, blue eyes. There was no mistaking his eyes. It was Tgfhi.

  “Tgfhi?” Crystam asked in a small, high-pitched voice that caused everyone to laugh. She blushed and covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t believe how much Tgfhi had changed. He was so… handsome. He had thick, strong looking shoulders, long muscular arms and legs and a strong jaw line that suited his eyes.

  “Yes,” Tgfhi said in a low voice, sitting down at the table next to his tray. They followed his lead and sat down but continued to stare at him in wonder.

  Finally, Erfce yelled out, “Holy crap! Now I’m the smallest one here. You look like a man. How did you get all those muscles and that chest hair?” Tgfhi smiled at Erfce’s compliments as Erfce said, “You’re just so damn… big.”

  “I’m a man now,” Tgfhi said in a deep voice. He felt proud of his new body. “What do you think? How do I look?” He stood up again and backed away from the table, turning around, so they could look at his body. “Do you like it?” he asked. Everyone nodded with appreciation. “See,” he said, pulling on his shirt. “I told you it would fit.” He had been right. Tgfhi’s shirt and pants were tight against his body. He probably would have been more comfortable in a larger size.

  When Tgfhi sat back down, he looked at Crystam, which made her blush and turn away. He glanced towards Rhen for support and found him smiling. Tgfhi gave Rhen a lopsided grin as he pointed towards his new face. Rhen opened his mouth to comment on Tgfhi’s looks but thought better of it. Instead, he reached past Reed and ruffled Tgfhi’s hair.

  “My hair grows fast like that sometimes,” Rhen admitted. “For no reason at all, I’ll turn around and my hair will be down past my shoulders. Ceceta has to cut it before I can go out in public. She’s good at cutting hair. Do you want her to give you a trim?”

  Tgfhi looked at Crystam. She was gawking at him from over the rim of her glass. “Do I?” he asked.

  Crystam coughed and put her glass down. “Well, I prefer long hair, but if you want to cut it, so you look like a Tgarian, then you should.”

  Tgfhi smiled and glanced back at Rhen. “I think I’ll leave it like this for a while.”

  “But you could shave off your beard,” Crystam said.

  Tgfhi’s smile widened. He reached up to feel his cheeks. “Yeah,” he said, nodding his head. “Maybe I’ll just shave off my beard for now.”

  Crystam blushed and picked up one of her books to hide her face.

  Tgfhi watched as Crystam hid from him. He could tell she liked him, she just wasn’t admitting it. When they got up to leave for class, Tgfhi walked around the table and picked up Crystam’s book bag.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I always carry your books for you,” he said.

  Tgfhi had carried Crystam’s books for her when he was a small boy, but now that he was a man, somehow it seemed wrong to Crystam. It would signal to everyone in the school that they were a couple.

  Tgfhi had been friends with Crystam long enough to know what she was thinking. He held his breath, waiting for her to make her decision. Without saying anything, Crystam lifted her chin and brushed past him as she walked out the door towards their class. Tgfhi cried out in victory before running after Crystam, carrying her books as if they were rare jewels. The others laughed and headed off to their classes accompanied by Reed and Lilly.

  That evening, after class, they met up at the school’s portal. Somehow, during the day, Tgfhi had found the time to shave off his beard. He had a few cut marks on his cheeks, which Crystam found endearing. They had all received permission from the Headmaster to visit the City of Warton, which was the closest Thestran City to the school. Crystam had picked out a restaurant she thought everyone would like. It was also the only restaurant she could find that agreed to serve raw meat to Rhen and Ceceta. “You ditched the Thestran Royals?” Crystam asked Ceceta, when they arrived.

  “Totally,” she said with a laugh. “Let’s go.”

  “Do you want to take my spacejet?” Tgfhi asked.

  “Do you know how to fly it?” Latsoh inquired.

  “No,” Tgfhi said. “But it’s been sitting in the jetport all year, waiting for me to turn into a man. My Dad is going to show me how to fly it when he visits tomorrow.”

  “Ah… let’s use the portal then,” Crystam suggested as Latsoh nodded in agreement.

  The restaurant Crystam had found for them was a small, Ventarian restaurant. They stood in the entranceway talking, until the hostess led them to a round table. Crystam translated the Ventarian menu for them and everyone discussed which dishes they wanted to try. Rhen and Ceceta inspected the items that were offered, but they knew they couldn’t try anything. When their waiter arrived, Crystam ordered everyone’s meals for them in Ventarian.

  The restaurant owner, a native of Ventar, was thrilled to have the Queen’s daughter dining in his establishment. He asked them if he could take their picture to hang on his restaurant wall. “Of Course,” Crystam told him.

  Rhen, Erfce and Tgfhi rose to stand behind their ‘girlfriends’. They joked around, saying they felt old, as the manager took several pictures of them.

  A few minutes later, the waiter brought platters of tantalizing Ventarian delicacies to their table, and Ceceta and Rhen were given some raw meat. “God, I’d give anything to try some of those,” Ceceta said, gazing longingly at the noodles in front of Latsoh. Rhen reached over to rub her shoulders.

  “I’m sure it doesn’t taste very good,” he told her. “Otherwise, the dining hall would serve it.”

  Crystam laughed. “Rhen, the dining hall’s food is horrible. You have to go out to a restaurant or visit someone’s home to get good food.”

  “Do you really think the dining hall’s food is good?” Tgfhi asked him.

  “I thought it was,” Rhen said. “Why would you eat it if it wasn’t?”

  “Because there’s nothing else to eat,” Latsoh complained. “We have no other choice.”

  Rhen smiled and looked away. He was embarrassed. He had thought that they enjoyed the dining hall’s food.

  When they were finished with dinner, they walked down the street to the movie theater. Rhen had never seen a Thestran movie before. “That was fun,” he said hours later as they stepped out of the portal into the University.

  “I told you you would like it,” Ceceta said, releasing his arm so she could say goodnight to their friends. “We’ll see you guys in the morning.”

  Tgfhi and his friends were walking down the brick pathway towards the student dormitories chatting about their evening, when they heard Ceceta calling out to them.

  “Ceceta?” Tgfhi asked, when she ran up to them. “Are you okay?”

  Ceceta laughed and bent over to catch her breath. “Sorry,” she sai
d. Standing up, she placed her hands on her hips. “Rhen and I were talking, and we want to give you a birthday present. So, since you love the Black Angel, we figured, if we could provide you with some information on him, then that would be a good gift, yes?”

  Tgfhi smiled at her obvious enthusiasm. “That would be an amazing gift, but you can’t provide me with anything Ceceta. The whole Universe is stuck on the Black Angel.”

  “Well, actually,” Ceceta said, trying not to laugh. “We can. We know he’s a man.”

  Tgfhi’s smile fell, and he stared at her in silence. Eventually, he asked, “How do you know the Black Angel’s a man?”

  Ceceta pushed a lock of her hair away from her face. “I guess we could have told you this before. But, well, it didn’t really seem to matter what sex he was. Anyway, we know he’s a man, because, well, the cape he wears is a male Genister cape. You can see pictures of it in: A Tribute to Genisters, by Maryanne Williams. It’s an ancient book that’s mostly speculative, but the drawings it has of the Genisters’ capes are the same as the Black Angel’s. You can see for yourself. The book is in the school library. Go check it out.”

  “He wears a Genister cape,” Latsoh yelled. Ceceta nodded.

  “So, he’s a Genister,” Crystam said.

  Ceceta appeared confused for a moment. This wasn’t going well. She had thought that Tgfhi would scream with joy and hug her, but instead, he seemed angry and Latsoh and Crystam seemed flabbergasted. “No,” she told them with hesitation. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve known this all along and you’ve never told anyone?” Tgfhi demanded.

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter what he wears, does it? It won’t help you determine who he is,” Ceceta said defensively. She couldn’t understand why Tgfhi was getting mad at her? She had just given him an awesome present.

  Tgfhi pushed past Ceceta as he marched off towards the library. “Is there anything else you’re not telling us that could help us discover who he is?” he yelled back over his shoulder while the others ran after him, leaving Ceceta alone.

  They left before Ceceta could answer Tgfhi’s last question. She was glad they did, because she felt like screaming at them that Rhen was the Black Angel, and if they weren’t so blind, they’d be able to see it. Ceceta marched back to her apartment. “And to think I was going to offer him a chance to ride through the sky with the Black Angel later tonight,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

  The next morning at breakfast, Ceceta and Tgfhi glared at each other. Everyone tried to ease the tensions between them, but nothing seemed to work. James, Reed and Sage were sitting with them this morning. As usual, they were trying to engage Rhen in conversation, but he wasn’t in the mood to speak.

  Suddenly, Tgonar appeared at the table startling everyone. “Dad,” Tgfhi exclaimed, jumping up to hug his father.

  “Sorry I couldn’t get here yesterday. You got my note that I was busy?” Tgonar asked.

  “Yes, I got it.”

  “Well, let me look at you,” Tgonar said, backing up to stare at his son. His face radiated pride as he took in Tgfhi’s mature body. “You’re much bigger than my side of the family. You look like your mother’s brother Tgiis.” Tgonar slapped Tgfhi on the shoulders with affection. “Congratulations Tgfhi. You look wonderful. You grew well.” Tgonar pulled Tgfhi in for another hug and then kissed him on both cheeks, because he could no longer reach the top of Tgfhi’s head. Pointing behind him to a string of servants carrying boxes, he said, “Your new clothes. Where should I have them leave the boxes?”

  “My dorm room would be great, Dad.”

  Tgonar turned to speak in Tgarian to the men behind him. When he was done, he sat down at the table to eat breakfast with his son. “Prince Rhen,” he said, bowing to Rhen. Rhen nodded in response. “Thestran Royals,” Tgonar said, giving a nod to James, Reed and Sage.

  “Your majesty,” James said.

  Tgonar smiled at James, who was sitting there trying to get close to Rhen. He had already accomplished that objective with his Tgarus weed. If they only knew. Turning to Tgfhi, Tgonar asked, “So, how was your birthday?”

  “It was great. We went out to dinner and then to a movie.” Tgfhi paused. Turning to face Ceceta, he said, “And then, I got the most amazing birthday present ever.”

  “Really? What was it?” Tgonar asked, looking over at Ceceta, who had become a vision of the perfect Surpen woman. She was staring at her plate without moving.

  “Well,” Tgfhi told his Dad. “A friend of mine has been studying Genisters, and she discovered that the cape the Black Angel wears, is actually the cape of a male Genister, so the Black Angel is a man.”

  Tgonar sat up straight. This was big news, very big news.

  James, Reed and Sage seemed just as shocked. “Are you sure?” James asked Tgfhi.

  “Yes,” Tgfhi said. “I didn’t believe her at first, and I was angry with her, but I went to the library and I read through the book she told me about. It showed images of what people used to believe the Genister’s clothing looked like. She was right. The Black Angel is a man, and he’s wearing a cape that’s similar to the ones they believed the male Genisters wore.”

  “That’s incredible,” Reed exclaimed. “He’s a man. That’s huge. How do you think he got a Genister cape?”

  “He must be a Genister,” Latsoh said. “How else would he get one? How else does he have so many powers?”

  “But the Genisters have been dead for almost a thousand years. How could he be a Genister? He couldn’t,” Sage said, feeling overwhelmed.

  Tgfhi ignored them and continued speaking, “The book claimed that Genister women and Genister men have different capes. There were sketches of what their capes looked like. We think the Black Angel either read this book and is imitating the cape he saw or he has somehow found a real Genister cape.”

  “What book did you find this in?” James asked. He rose from his seat with Reed. “We’d like to have a look at it.”

  Tgfhi reached into his school bag, pulling out an old, crumpled, brown book. “I got it out of the library last night,” he informed them. He handed the book over to James, who immediately snatched it up and left with Reed.

  “I guess, in a few hours, the whole Universe will know the Black Angel’s a man,” Tgfhi murmured.

  “Probably,” Crystam said, giving Tgfhi a sweet smile.

  Tgonar noticed the look that passed between them and was horrified. The Ventarian Princess and his son? This wouldn’t do at all. They were Surpens and the Ventarians were Thestrans. Surpens and Thestrans did not mix. He would have to talk to Tgfhi about his relationship with the Ventarian Princess later.

  Glancing over at Rhen, Tgonar noticed he was being watched by Sage. He felt sorry for the boy. It was obvious the Thestrans were annoying him. He would have to tell Andres about it when he got home. Clearing his throat, Tgonar asked, “Prince Rhen, would you mind doing the Tgarians an enormous favor?” Rhen looked up at Tgonar with raised eyebrows, but didn’t speak, so Tgonar continued. “We can’t train Tgfhi to fight while he’s at the Elfin University. If you have any free time, would you please train my son for battle? I will talk to the Headmaster to make sure he’s free, when it’s convenient for you.”

  Tgfhi was shocked by his father’s question. “Train me for battle?” he asked. “But, I don’t need to know how to fight. The Surpens protect us from attack.”

  “Of course, you need to know how to fight,” Tgonar said. “The Surpens won’t always be there to protect you. You are my heir. The Prince of Tgarus. You need to know how to fight, so you can rule properly.” He prayed Rhen would agree to train Tgfhi. If he did, Tgfhi would know how to fight like a Surpen, and he could, in turn, train the Tgarian army to fight like the Surpens, thus making them as lethal a planet as Surpen.

  Rhen was silent. He glanced over at Tgfhi, chewing on bloodworms. There was no Debrino Code against training others in Surpen’s battle techniques, so his Dad couldn’t get upset. In fact, Rhen t
hought, it might be fun to train Tgfhi. He hadn’t trained anyone in a long time. As Rhen glanced back down at his breakfast, he nodded once in agreement.

  If Tgonar hadn’t of been watching, he would have missed it. “Thank you, my Prince,” he told Rhen, with barely concealed joy. Tgfhi’s new body was perfect. He was tall, broad and muscular. With Rhen’s training, he would be lethal. Tgarus would be in good hands, when Tgfhi took the crown. Thank the Gods he had caved into Tgfhi’s pleas to attend the Elfin University. It was proving to be the best decision Tgonar had ever made for Tgarus.

  Tgonar spent the rest of the morning celebrating Tgfhi’s birthday with him by teaching him how to fly his spacejet. Just before lunch, Tgonar bid Tgfhi goodbye, stopped by the Headmaster’s office, to have a word with him, and boarded his own spacejet to return home.

  Professor Dewey walked into the student dining hall during lunch and sat down next to Rhen. A grimace passed over his face, when he caught sight of the bloody animal parts that were on Rhen’s plate. After he had gotten his gag reflux under control, he looked up at Rhen’s face and said, “I understand you will now be teaching the Prince of Tgarus how to fight. May I open the course up to other students or is it a private lesson?”

  “Private.”

  Professor Dewey frowned. He had hoped he could add a Surpen Fighting Class to the school’s brochure. It would’ve been a popular course for the students, especially for those, whose planets were located near the Convention members. “Okay,” he said. “If you change your mind, please let me know. I’ve arranged for you to train Tgfhi during your math class. As I understand it, you have a free period then?” Rhen nodded. “Perfect,” Professor Dewey continued. “The stadium is free during that period, so use it for your lesson. You can begin tomorrow. Good day.”

  Once the Headmaster had left, Tgfhi shook his head. “The best fighter in the Universe is going to train me to fight.” He laughed and asked, “What do I need to bring to class tomorrow, professor?”

  “Shorts and a t-shirt,” Rhen said.

  “Should I bring any weapons?” Tgfhi inquired. Rhen shook his head.