Beau and the Clockwork Girl

by Kami Bryant

  We immediately set off for a cantina after leaving the phoenix’ mountain. “What are the cantinas like?” Beau asked me.

  “Hang outs for scum and villainy? Exactly what you would expect.”

  “Does it get rough in there?” Beau asked me curiously.

  “I have heard stories, but I have never actually been in one.”

  “Well no time like the present,” said Beau and we climbed on the two hover speeders that we had parked at the foot of the mountain and I led the way to a cantina. Well we first walked in, the smell and sounds immediately wafted around me and I felt like throwing up.

  “Should we order a drink?” Beau asked me as we sat down on a bench. A small griffin-type creature bar maid walked over to us. I wasn’t really sure what a standard type of drink was in a place like this. Ale? Wine? “What would you recommend?” Beau asked the griffin barmaid.

  “Dragon blood shooters?” suggested the griffin.

  “Sure, two of those,” answered Beau. “Is actual dragon blood in this?” he asked me.

  I don’t think so,” I answered. “There is a plant called dragon blood, but it is poisonous. I don’t know how someone would ferment that and make a drink of it.”

  “Well nothing ventured, nothing gained,” said Beau as the griffin served us our drinks. I sniffed it and immediately pushed mine away. “Are there any vampires hanging out in here?” Beau asked the griffin.

  “Yes, Layla,” said the griffin pointing to a blue haired woman with its eagle claw.

  “Wow,” said Beau. “She is beautiful.”

  I looked over at the long fanged, pale skinned, blue-haired woman wearing an extremely tight black gown. “Wish me luck,” said Beau. “I am going in,” and he stood up.

  “What are you doing!” I yelled grabbing onto his arm. “You are just going to walk over there and ask her for her blood?”

  “I am going to go over there and flirt with her. She’s beautiful. Stay here and watch my back,” said Beau and all I could do was watch him walk away. I can’t even count the amount of times that I was always told to “stay here” and “watch my back”. Countless times that I watched him walk away.

  Beau sat with Layla for hours drinking his shooters and then they stood up and started to walk through a door. I jumped to my feet and rushed over there. “Where are you going?” I hissed at Beau.

  “Oh, hey, Juniper,” he said very unsteady on his feet.

  “Are you drunk?” I asked.

  “Is this your dragonfly fairy?” asked Layla of Beau arching a blue eyebrow prettily. Her gold eyes glowing with her excitement. I really didn’t like the look of this at all.

  “She might kill you!” I yelled.

  Layla laughed her honey sweet laugh, flashing a lot of fang. “I am not going to kill you, my dear,” she said to Beau stroking his arm.

  “I will be back,” said Beau. “Don’t worry.” And then he was gone. I waited in that cantina the rest of the day and into the night and halfway into the next day before Beau returned sporting fang marks on his neck and a very satisfied smile.

  “Did you get it?” I asked him.

  “What?” he asked me, his eyes still glazed. “Oh yeah, her blood.” And he pulled out the phoenix glass from his pack. It was full of a dark liquid. “No sweat.”

  “What did you promise her in return?” I asked him.

  “Nothing that I regret. I just need to meet up with her again a few times a month. Don’t worry, Juniper. I am a big boy and can take care of myself.”

  Then we traveled back to the phoenix. We gave it the bottle of Layla’s blood and took the phoenix feather back to the dwarf. Golmul Orcfall promised to get to work on the sword and armor immediately and after that we went home.

  “What are we going to do now?” I asked him.

  “More training?” answered Beau. “I am thinking that I should somehow contribute to our earnings. You have been so kind with sharing all your resources. And all these quests have been really fun, don’t you think? Layla told me that a lot of those scum and villainous characters back in the cantina were mercenaries. After I get my sword and armor and after I kill Zorow Shade and Aminth and Myrinth and rescue your parents, I think I would like to go on some more quests. I need to get back to Morovia.”

  “Only Braxen Xarraz can open a portal. I already told you that,” I answered.

  “I know, Juniper. But I am not going to give up. I need to get back to her, do you understand?” he said to me.

  “I will help you,” I said.

  “Thank you, Juniper. You are a good friend.” Then he wrapped his strong arm around me and I kind of melted then.

  “Did you like the world that I sent you to?” I asked Beau as I sat in the Mirovian throne.

  “Not at all,” said Beau. “First of all, I couldn’t relax because I was so worried about you. What happened after you swallowed Mormorant and threw us through that portal?”

  “I lost myself a bit at first,” I said. “I ate everyone. People were terrified. I missed you so much.”

  “And you took over the throne?” he asked me.

  “People are afraid of me. They all went into hiding.”

  “You were lonely?” asked Beau.

  “Yes, and then I started watching you and Emberlyn.”

  “That was a breach of our privacy, Juniper. You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “She was different then how you described her. And she was different than when we kidnapped her. She was a different person completely,” I said.

  “Yes, she has evolved. We fell in love with each other all over again.”

  “I thought when I created that stone on that leather cord, you would see that she wasn’t changing and then you would give up on her,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Beau asked.

  “It didn’t mean anything. You needed a tangible piece of evidence that would show that nothing you did would change her. She was an evil shrew and the darkness of her soul just kept growing, no matter what you did, and yet you still didn’t give up on her.” I was starting to get angry with him. My shadowy tentacles grew into hairy spider legs and my mandibles gnashed at him. “She wasn’t worth it!!” I shouted. “YOU WEREN’T WORTH IT!!!”

  “Are you going to kill me too, Juniper?” he asked me calmly.

  “You were so good at finding out what everyone wanted in exchange for what you wanted. You gave vampire blood to a phoenix. You gave a phoenix feather to a dwarf for a sword and armor. You gave your body to Layla for her blood. And you gave your sword and armor to the dragon for the Arachnite egg. Now you want Em and your unborn progeny back. What do I get in exchange for that, Beau?” I asked him.

  “I can’t give you my love, the kind of love that you want from me. I do love you, Juniper but the love I feel for you isn’t what you want. I can’t give you back your parents. I can’t turn back time, so that you never swallowed that Arachnite egg.”

  “I wish that I had never found you in that pool of Bonelich snot,” I said.

  “I won’t give up on you, Juniper. You aren’t a monster,” said Beau.

  “I AM A MONSTER!!!” I screamed, my hairy spider legs wrapping around his midsection and pulling him closer to my mandibles and wet maw.

  “You are not!” shouted Beau.

  “I AM, AND IT IS YOUR FAULT!!!”

  “I didn’t tell you to seek out Mormorant’s daughter. I didn’t tell you to swallow that Arachnite egg. If you had discussed it with me, I wouldn’t have let you. I told you not to swallow Mormorant. I told you not to lose control! You chose all of it!”

  “For YOU!!” I shouted. “All for you.”

  “We need to figure out something. You have all the mages’ memories and Mormorant’s. Is there a way to separate you from the symbiont?”

  “I don’t know,” I said setting him down on the marble floor. “I don’t think so. I am lost.”

  “No, Juniper. There has to be a way to cut it out of you like a cancer. It is like a virus. If
you make the host unsuitable, maybe it will leave or die.”

  “Unsuitable,” I said.

  “You chose it, didn’t you? You accepted it.”

  “I like it,” I said quietly. “I like being strong. I don’t want to be weak.”

  “You are strong,” said Beau. “You were so brave to save me and take me to your home. You were brave to face a phoenix, Zorow Shade, Aminth and Myrinth and a dragon. You are brave.”

  “You don’t want me,” I said to him. “Why won’t you ever want me?”

  “Juniper, please,” he said. “Please try to expel it from your body. Please try to find a way to save my little dragonfly fairy friend. Please.”

  “It isn’t possible,” I said to him.

  “It wasn’t possible to create a second phoenix but we did. It wasn’t possible to get a vampire to give up her blood. It wasn’t possible to survive a dragon encounter and live to tell about it. It wasn’t possible to open a portal from Traetan to Mirovia. It wasn’t possible to stop Mormorant and save Em. We have conquered so many impossible things together. Why not this?”

  Dark shadowy tears dripped from my eyes. I opened a portal beside me and slipped through it. I couldn’t face him, and I couldn’t fail him. I would live in the between place. Or I would find a way to destroy myself. It was the only way. Dying wasn’t that scary. Beau was right. I am brave.

  END INTERLUDE

  END PART TWO

  PART THREE

  VALVES

  BEAU AND EMBERLYN

  CHAPTER ONE

  EMBERLYN

  When we fell through that portal and I hit the bed hard, I rolled off it to the ground and then Beau fell on the bed after me. My mind was still buzzing with all my memories hitting me all at once. It was so painful, and I was just holding my head, trying to absorb it all. Beau was screaming for Juniper and I was crying for hours. I missed my mother so much. I was huddled on the floor, my arms wrapped around my knees, keeping my face pushed into my legs. I hated Mormorant so much for taking my mother from me and I regretted everything that I had done. I had missed so much with Beau! He had changed so much. When we were young, he was so lanky, all legs and arms. Now he was a man, covered in muscles and that sexy scar that I was really beginning to love. It gave him such an air of roguishness.

  When I came back to myself, he was no longer inside the room. I stood up and looked around the bedroom and then walked out the door to the modest living area and out the door. The cabin sat on a cliff overlooking an amazing view of the ocean. Well the ocean of this world. I decided to name the world after my mother. So, I started calling it Reiynovia in my mind. Beau was sitting on the ground looking out into nothing. I thought I should give him some time, so I went back into the little cabin to look around. I found the letter that Juniper had left for Beau. I checked all of our food and supplies then I decided to go exploring. Reiynovia was beautiful and I was kind of glad that Beau and I were given a second chance to rediscover each other. But he was mourning and worrying about Juniper. After a few days of trying to coax him inside and of bringing him meals that remained untouched, I’d had enough with his moping. I know he loved Juniper. And I know that he was broken hearted after what she had done, but I didn’t like him sitting there in so much pain. I read him Juniper’s letter and then I held him as he cried.

  He was so warm and hard. He was never so thick and hard with muscles. I was getting really wet just rubbing myself against him. I wrapped my hands in his gold hair, wrapping the long strands around my fingers, and then he turned to me and kissed me hard. Neither one of us was in the mood for slow and gentle. He tore off my gown and corset and I ripped off his shirt as he reached down to undo his pants. He picked me up and carried me back into our little cabin and dropped me on the bed. I tore at his flesh with my nails as he bit me hard on the neck.

  “Beau!” I said as I pulled his body close to mine. He entered me with his hard cock and I screamed my satisfaction. We were together, and nothing was ever going to get between us again, I would rather die first. “I love you,” I said to him, my face pushed against his shoulder and I felt his tears fall on me as he plunged his dick over and over inside of my tight, wet pussy.

  “I missed you so much,” he said. “I need you! I love you!” he said as he thrust over and over, and we orgasmed together, my legs wrapped tightly around his waist, my teeth biting deep into his shoulder, his head cradled against my throat and chest.

  I lay in bed wrapped in his arms and I thought about all that I had done. I couldn’t even start to imagine how to atone for the evils that I had committed. All of Clockwork Heart Emberlyn’s torture parties. If I could find out the names of the families of the people I’d hurt, I could try to do something. Give them enough money that they would never want for anything for the rest of their lives. Food, clothes, anything they wanted. But of course, money couldn’t make up for the pain that I had inflicted on them and their families, and I wasn’t even in Mirovia anymore. What could I do? I was so disgusted with myself. I kept having memories of everything that I done, as if I was staring out of the eyes of a stranger. It gave me nightmares.

  I thought about what my life would have been like, what it should have been like. My mother alive. No Mormorant. Beau at my side.

  The next morning, I woke up alone in the bed. I went back to the kitchen to inventory all the food that Juniper had left us. I knew that all the vegetables and fruits that she left us were edible, so I knew that they would be safe to harvest. The ocean should have many edible sea creatures. There was fishing equipment left in a closet. Juniper had really thought of everything. I planned to keep all the seeds from the fruits after we ate them and to start a garden behind our new little home. I walked out of the cabin, to see if Juniper had thought to leave me gardening equipment. I had found knives, four protoblasters and two protorifles. She hadn’t left a hover scooter anywhere, so I guess she expected us to walk. I wondered if there were any animals that we could domesticate to ride. Plus, we would have to find the natives of this land.

  I walked out the door to find Beau sitting outside, looking out at the ocean. In the exact spot that he had been sitting for the last three days. All of this moping was seriously not accomplishing anything.

  “Maybe, we should hike down to the shore?” I said. “Juniper left fishing rods and nets. You could try fishing. Maybe we could find some clams? We could swim naked in the ocean?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  “Snap out of it!” I shouted hitting him upside the head.

  “Ow, Em!” he said as he turned to me with shock and then his eyes started bleeding arousal and he grinned at me with that sexy lopsided grin. “Hmmm, are you going to punish me, Em?”

  “Well, that wasn’t exactly what I was planning, but I did see some rope. Juniper didn’t leave me any whip which wasn’t very nice, but maybe you could make me something from some reeds.” He ran over and scooped me up in his arms and carried me back inside.

  “Where did you find that rope?” he asked me, his voice dropping an octave and my excitement bubbling deep in my stomach.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BEAUREGARD

  Emberlyn and I walked down to the ocean of this strange world that she was calling Reiynovia. I was telling her about my adventures with Juniper in Traetan.

  “A pool of monster snot?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said laughing. “It was disgusting.” I told her about the phoenix and she was very impressed at my ingenuity. I was feeling pretty good about myself. We had been fucking a lot and I was rather proud of that too. She was so beautiful and sexy. The minute I started thinking about this, my dick started getting hard. Her tight little ass. Her big, bulbous breasts. Fuck, she was amazing. She looked over and gave me a knowing grin and then she took off running for the shore and I chased after her. I caught her before she had made it to the sand and swung her around as she squealed. “I want you naked,” I growled.

  “You first, my dear sir,” she answered, and
I set her down. I peeled off my shirt and my boots. I saw her checking out my muscles, so I gave her a little flex and she laughed.

  “I haven’t seen any flying ships in the sky since we’ve been here,” she said.

  “You’re right. I haven’t heard much noise around here either. No people or motors.”

  “Just bird song,” she added. “Like a little island paradise. What are we going to do here?” she asked me.

  I stripped down my pants and flashed her my naked ass as I ran into the ocean.

  Those first few days on our own private island were a lot of fun. We had lots of sex and spent many hours getting to know each other again. I would spend hours knee deep in the ocean fishing and setting traps for sea creatures and Em would spend hours in her garden. It is funny how much she now enjoyed gardening after all the tantrums she threw working with Emmy at the Forsaken camp. I worried about Emmy and my other friends on Mirovia. I hoped that they were safe and happy. There wasn’t much I could do stuck in Reiynovia on this island. Em and I explored the island and we couldn’t find any other people living there. This was odd since Juniper had said that the natives of the island were friendly. So, there must be natives somewhere. I was down at the beach checking my lobster traps when I finally met one.

  I lifted the lobster trap and was dragging it in back to shore. I was working on building a boat so that I could take out my traps farther out. I had felled a few trees with the ax that Juniper had kindly left, but it was slow going. For now, I just had a simple raft, which for safety, I couldn’t take out very far. I was rowing the little raft to shore with my trap when I saw a distinctive human type head rising from the ocean. ‘Holy shit,’ I thought.

  It was a man. His skin was tinted a strange green, he had sea wood stuck in his long black hair and I swear to God, he was sporting gills on each side of his neck. He continued rising from the ocean sporting some kind of weird shell-armor type vest. He was majorly ripped, and I had a bit of pec envy as he continued splashing out of the ocean. Then he jumped and lighted on a nearby rock and that’s when I saw that the dude was sporting a fish tail.