Gerald shook his head.
...student at Central Exeter. I can do anything.
“Well, if you can dance, THEN DANCE!” Lustaxi grabbed her hand and pulled her out.
The other performers began their music again. They started slowly as Lustaxi went through each step. Cha’Rolette was a little reserved at first, but quickly warmed up as they went on. Within a few minutes, she was jumping and clapping, spinning around with them like she had been doing it for years. Seeing the young beautiful woman dance drew a crowd that quickly choked up traffic. She had a poise and a balance to the way she moved that was mesmerizing to watch. She quickly began to improvise, using her ta’atu to levitate herself into the air, turning double spins into triple and quadruple spins, and even inverting herself, to perform parts of the dance upside down above Lustaxi. Within minutes the hat was filled to overflowing.
Cadbury fed off the energy of the music, running and zig-zagging about, letting off a poof of feathers whenever she ran into someone’s leg.
When the music finally stopped, the crowd applauded. Cha’Rolette rested her hands on her knees and beamed while she caught her breath.
“Gerald, you bring her by as often as you want,” Bolsorg said, picking up the bulging hat.
“You did great,” Lustaxi praised. “Now, you teach me one of yours, eh?”
Cha’Rolette raised an eyebrow mischievously. I dunno, Issaguardian dances are pretty hard, are you sure you can handle it?
The men all laughed at her brazenness.
“Hey, look at the tahns on this one, eh?” Bolsorg praised. “She’s gonna come into our neighborhood and take us to school?”
Cha’Rolette gave the men a nice measured melody to play, and she energetically went through the basics.
While she taught them a kind of waltz from her world, Gerald leaned back against a wall and watched her warmly. This was not the snooty duchess he had known. This person was curious, playful, even a little shy. Despite her upbringing, she seemed to ease into being with these people on the street with surprisingly little effort. He never would have expected that in a million years. She seemed comfortable with them. In many ways, more comfortable than she seemed at the academy. Gerald knew priests that worked on the streets every day of their lives without ever fitting in as much as she already did.
As Gerald watched her joke around with them as she went through the steps, he wondered what made her so different. She seemed to have a feel for the rhythm of the street, the way of speaking, the culture. It didn’t really make sense to him, but watching her radiant smile as she danced about, Gerald couldn’t find the heart to care too much about it.
Then she grabbed his hands and pulled her out with him.
“Hey, what are you...”
Nu-uh, if I am going to dance in public, so are you, she laughed.
Gerald found himself caught up in the energy of the moment as she taught him the dance. The world seemed to become a blur of music and color twirling around him, with her smiling face at its center. In spite of himself, he couldn’t help but have fun, and as the performers cheered and clapped, he danced until he lost all sense of where they were or what they were doing. There was just him and her, and being with her made him feel happy.
When it finally stopped they were face-to-face, pressed tightly against one another, her hands holding his. Gerald blushed heavily as he breathed. She looked up at him with her beautiful green eyes. Her pupils were dilated, her cheeks were blushing, her lips were aflush. Even at her worst she was very pretty, but at that moment, she was irresistibly beautiful. She shone like a polished stone. The smile on her face was one of unabashed affection. He could see his reflection in her eyes, and realized that he was smiling back at her the same way.
Catching himself, Gerald backed off and thanked her sincerely. She looked a little disappointed for the moment to end, but thanked him in return. They said their goodbyes to the performers, and continued on their way.
When they got to the orphanage, the kids shoved Gerald aside and ran over to play with Cadbury. The frightened chicken ran for her life as the children chased her about, spreading panicked feathers everywhere. The children looked healthier than before. Their eyes were not so sunken, their skin not so pallid, and they had begun to develop a nice healthy layer of chub. They seemed more like normal kids now. Cha’Rolette wasn’t as nervous around them as she had been, but she still didn’t seem quite certain of what to do with them. That is, until Gerald shoved a picture book in her hand, and invited her to do story time for the night. Gerald watched her with a little grin on his face from the back of the room. She was unsure at first, but the kids were so riveted as she read that she quickly got into it. She began using her ta’atu to make the illustrations come alive in their minds, and the kids ooed and awwed as if it was the best thing ever. By the end of the story, she was completely into it, creating a fully-rendered animation of the hero fighting the dragon to save the princess. Cadbury squawked in terror and hid herself underneath a sofa. The kids screamed in delight as the dragon swooped around in the air above them, snapping its jaws. They cheered like mad as the good faeries enchanted the prince’s sword and he threw it, piercing the dragon. And when the prince kissed sleeping beauty to wake her up, the girls squeed, while the boys stuck out their tongues in disgust.
“All right everyone,” Priestess M’Quagta said as she waddled in. “Time to go wash up for supper.”
The children groaned as they reluctantly got up, dragging their feet as they walked away. Erumub stopped and came up to Cha’Rolette. “Thank you for reading us the story, you do it a lot better than that Dyson guy.”
Well, thank you, she said. I enjoyed it.
Erumub leaned forward and hugged her. It was so sudden it caught her off guard. She looked like she wanted to run away. Then, slowly, she stopped resisting. Her eyes softened, and she hugged him back. She closed her eyes and a thousand years weight seemed to lift off of her. When she opened her eyes again, she couldn’t stop smiling, and as Erumub ran off to wash up, her smile lingered.
“Thank you for coming,” Gerald said as he walked up and sat down beside her.
Having him see her grin like an idiot made her self-conscious. She looked down and tried to hide it, but then decided not to, and simply looked back up at him. These kids are amazing, she marveled. They don’t have anything, and yet they still find a way to be happy.
“They do have something,” Gerald corrected. “They have you.”
She looked at him meaningfully.
“...for tonight anyway.”
Cha’Rolette looked down bashfully. Me, huh?
“How do you feel now?” he asked.
She looked up, and some of the weight returned to her. Better, she admitted. Thank you for bringing me here.
Cha’Rolette looked away, as if she was struggling with something, then gave in and leaned over onto his shoulder. Normally he would have objected, but this time it was different. There was no ulterior motive, no manipulation. Right now she wasn’t a duchess, she was just a girl, and so he let her lean on him. For several minutes they sat there together in comfortable silence while the children ate in the background. In a world of constant streaming noise, they found a tiny bubble of stillness, and neither of them wanted to break the spell, for fear that it might never return.
It only takes one, she said to herself.
“Hm?”
She shook her head. Something my father always says. It has taken the Ssykes family a thousand generations of blood and sweat to get what we have. It takes only one to lose it all.
“That’s the weight you carry, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“You won’t be that weak link,” he assured.
Of course I won’t, she kidded in a playful voice. I am a Duchess, after all.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
Oh, whatever. She threw her weight into his shoulder.
“Maybe you should mention it more often. You know? T
hen people would be aware that you are a duchess.”
She sent him a mental raspberry, and they both chuckled together. When they stopped, their eyes found each other. Gerald could feel his heart beating inside his chest, and she was blushing again.
Something was changing inside of her. He could feel it. Something wonderful was growing within them, like a delicate plant breaking through the hard soil to take its place in the sunlight. A light that was growing brighter, and it made her radiant, like in his vision.
He wanted nothing more than to reach out and embrace her. To bring her close and feel her warmth against him. In his heart he began to suspect that Zurra had ruined him. He had felt the touch of a woman’s lips, and now he craved to experience it again. His whole body ached for it, but he kept his hands at his sides.
She leaned in a little closer to him. Gerald... I...
The floor flew open and a pink copy of Cha’Rolette stood there, fuming. The ends of her ta’atu were scorched, and her pink clothes were torn and burnt. “You didn’t tell me she had combat training tonight too,” Zurra yelled.
Thuquan stepped in behind her, looking fiercely betrayed. “Madam Ssykes,” he said sternly.
Cha’Rolette looked like her heart had just frozen. She stood up in terror, her ta’atu trembling. Then she assumed the position Gerald had seen her take in her father’s presence. She stood straight, eyes looking a thousand yards away, arms at her sides, her face an expressionless mask.
Thuquan came and knelt on one knee before her, eyes lowered. “Duchess, my family has been indentured to the Ssykes for over a hundred cycles. Generations of my fathers and uncles have lived and died to keep each heir to the Ssykes line safe. I have a most serious duty, and tonight I nearly failed you. I nearly failed my family, I nearly failed my race. You know what would happen to me and family if something had happened to you. You know what he would do if your father found out what you did tonight.”
She looked like she was about to cry.
Gerald stepped up. “It wasn’t her fault, I was...”
Thuquan silenced him with a glance. “I wasn’t talking to you.” He turned back to Cha’Rolette, but kept his eyes lowered. She was trembling. “Duchess, I cannot perform my duties if you will not cooperate.”
Please...she begged.
He looked up. “Please?”
Please don’t tell my father, I...
Thuquan raised his hand. “I won’t...”
Cha’Rolette was relieved. She was so scared she had forgotten to breathe. Oh, thank goodness.
“...if you tell me why you did it.”
She took a moment to catch her breath, then nodded.
While Zurra flopped down on a worn couch and returned to her adult form, Thuquan gently escorted Cha’Rolette over to a corner. The children all looked on from a distance as the two of them spoke.
After listening to her explanation, Thuquan asked her a serious question. “Madam Ssykes, you could have any man you want,” he whispered. “Why do you spend so much time focused on this one?”
She narrowed her voice to project only to him. Because...she said quietly, in a world where everyone bows, there is nothing more rare than the one who will not bend.
Thuquan indicated that he understood.
“I trust that this will never happen again,” Thuquan said threateningly as he turned to Gerald.
“No promises,” Gerald joked nervously.
At the bodyguard’s humorless expression, Gerald retreated. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
“Not this time, you’re not, but you will be the next.”
The air bent around them, and then Cha’Rolette and her keeper were gone.
Gerald wiped the sweat away from his brow. “Well, kids, it’s getting late. I better get...”
Zurra’s arm grew long and wrapped around his waist. “Oh no you don’t! You owe me a sketch.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he recalled.
Zurra pulled out a sphere and tossed it into the air. It exploded into a window of light. On one side was a spinning outline of a female, while on the right were hundreds of sliders and controls.
“What is this?”
“This is an old Ejaw Naze program for designing your perfect girlfriend,” she explained. “See, you can use these sliders here to control every feature. Nose, eyes, hair, color, skin texture, height, muscle definition, waist, hips...”
“Is there one for bust line?”
“There are fourteen, you can adjust the size, suppleness, elasticity, sensitivity, everything.”
“Wow, Tomar would love this.”
“Who do you think I got this from?”
They both chuckled.
Zurra stood back and watched while Gerald thoughtfully worked away on the sliders. She felt a tug on the hem of her uniform, and looked down to see little Sossios, his finger buried deeply in his nose.
“What do you want?” she asked
“Are you made of slime?” the child asked, working his finger from side to side.
Zurra’s eyebrow twitched. “Why you little... ahem... I am not slime, I am a mutagenic matrix of bio-mimetic enzymes and...”
“I have bio-mom-tic end-times too,” the child insisted.
She blinked. “You do?”
He nodded and pulled his finger out of his nose, leaving a long drooping trail of slime. “See? Just like you.”
Zurra ground her teeth. “He he he, you’re a cute kid... now SCRAM!”
Sossios ran off.
“All done,” Gerald announced.
“Yay!” Zurra said, turning around. The woman spinning in the air above them had an adorable, slightly pointed nose. She had cute little freckles, and a kind face. She was slim, but still soft and delicate. She was young and healthy, and had a mischievous little grin on her lips. She was also pink from head to toe. Her eyes, her hair, her nails, everything.
“But...” Zurra stammered. “This looks exactly like me.”
“I know,” Gerald said, slapping her on the back, causing her body to ripple like Jell-O. “You don’t have to change the way you look for anyone. You are perfect just the way you are.”
Zurra blushed bright red. “Oh... you...”
Gerald smiled.
“That isn’t playing fair!”
He held up his hands. “But it’s the truth.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You say that you don’t want romance, but then you say cool stuff like that. Don’t you know what it does to a girl when the guy she likes says things like that to her? Actions speak loud enough to keep the doctor away from apples. You... are a Lothario, that’s what you are.”
“Look, Zuri, one day you are going to find the perfect guy for you and start a family, and when you do, he’ll adore you for who you are, not what you look like. I just want you to believe in yourself now, so you don’t miss your chance with him when the time comes.”
Zurra blushed even harder and balled her fists. “Ohhh, you big dummy! That just makes me want you even more!”
Gerald smiled at her. “I’m just trying to be a good friend.”
Zurra looked away snootily. “Tampering with a pure maiden’s heart. Misery loves to grow on trees, you know?”
“The pure maiden who was modeling lingerie for me in the middle of class?”
She stuck out her little pink tongue at him and then stood up. “I’m going home for the night.”
Gerald was surprised. “What, you’re not going to stalk me?”
She sniffed. “You get a free pass... just this once. Go back to your dorm, I will leave you in peace.”
He was impressed. “I thank you, because believe it or not, I really need a shower.”
“I believe it,” she grumbled, waving her hand.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.” She turned around and pointed a finger at him. “But tomorrow night, the hunt is back on. You WILL sleep with me, Gerald Dyson.”
Morphing into a hawk, she flew away out the door in a rustle of pi
nk feathers.
Gerald looked down at little Sossios, who was staring at his wet finger.
“What’s wrong, buddy?”
The child looked up. “Is my slime going to fly away too?”
* * *
The puppy wined so loud that Trahzi nearly flipped her bed over in frustration.
“Stop making that noise!” she yelled. “We have fed you, we have changed you, we have made sure you are the proper temperature, what else do you need?!”
The puppy yelped and rolled over, giving out a long squealing howl.
Trahzi turned around and shot out a fireball, cracking her desk in half. The noise startled the puppy so much that it stopped its whining and curled up into a little ball.
Trahzi instantly regretted her outburst. She walked over and reached out, gently stroking her hand along the puppy’s back.
“We are sorry. We did not mean to lose our temper.”
She could feel the puppy’s tiny body trembling.
“Please do not fear us...”
Trahzi looked over at the note Gerald had left for her: Check diaper, check tummy, check blanket, check nap, check snuggles. The puppy was fed, changed, rested, and warm, that just left the final option. The one she was the most reluctant to do.
Carefully, hesitantly, she slid her hand underneath the puppy and brought it in close to her. Worried that she might hurt it, she made sure to keep her body at just the right temperature, and embraced the little netsav against her chest as delicately as she could.
“Everyone else fears us... please don’t be afraid.”
The puppy relaxed into her, nuzzling her tiny face against Trahzi’s red skin. Content that she had solved the problem, Trahzi found herself slowly rocking from side to side and humming softly. She didn’t know why or how she was was doing it. No one had ever taught it to her, but it felt right, and the puppy relaxed even further when she did so.
The puppy yawned, her little tongue sticking out. For some reason it made Trahzi smile to see it. Then something happened she did not expect. The puppy looked up at her, and opened her eyes for the first time.
As Trahzi looked into the puppy’s perfect little eyes, a sensation nearly took her breath away. The puppy leaned forward and licked her on the chin affectionately, then settled back in, and fell into the most peaceful sleep.
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