She had been trying to distract herself from her need for him, especially with the loneliness she was feeling from wandering the grounds and the palace. She needed him, she thought. She needed his warmth and his love, his arms and his smell. She needed him, and Juniper wasn't sure how long before she had to corner him and make demands that he notice her. The picture of his home life was finally dawning on her. The internal politics, the aloof maternal figure, the infighting with his brothers, and the dismally dangerous climate that Cecil hinted at tonight. She wanted to help ease his pain and bring him some comfort, as much as she hoped he could do the same for her. This was a strange place, and although it was her own choice to be here, she felt he had some responsibility for her.
Juniper finished her meal a few moments after Cecil, but he had already rushed out of the room and disappeared through the many winding corridors and passageways of the palace. Even if she had tried to follow him, it would have been no use. As Juniper found her way back to her chambers she decided that she would have to wait for her Prince to come to her.
His Real Father
The Atlantean Royal Guards Military Arsenal (ARGMA) was a massive underground facility dug out of the solid bedrock below the City. It stretched for miles in every direction and ended near the city’s farthest boundaries. Every year Atlantean engineers sought to expand it to help enlist and train more people, create more submersibles, and launch more discovery missions to the deeper depths of the ocean. For some, Cecil included, the expansion was crucial not only for the safety of the City, but also to ensure that Atlantis was still dominant over its sister cities.
Cecil walked into the docking area looking for the Lord of the Guards. The short man, with this usual headdress, stood in front of a platoon of Guards, each holding a lance and a shield. “Gaze forward, chin up!” the small man said, his usual booming voice even more stern this morning. Cecil walked up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Good morning Lord Manfred,” said Cecil calmly. He nodded to the platoon.
Manfred jumped slightly and immediately barked, “Guards! Salute the heir apparent!” They obliged, swiftly stowing their shields on their backs and then saluting Cecil.
“Stand down Guards,” replied Cecil. They all relaxed. “May I have a word Lord Manfred?”
Manfred nodded to Cecil and then to the Guards in front of him. “Dismissed.” They turned swiftly and departed in a sloppy military fashion. Each of them were not in tune with the other’s movements and quickly a few of them tumbled into their colleagues. Manfred shook his head. “New recruits, sire. They only learn so quickly.”
Cecil chuckled. “None of that sire business just yet. I’m still me. And, as you well know, I’ve been out of this particular loop for quite a long time. So I’m sure I’m just as bad at marching and the rest of it.”
“Hardly. You served more than your necessary time. If I recall, and I always do since I trained you myself, you were the star of the Guards. Everyone looked up to you.”
“Yes, and then I left, to everyone’s horror and dismay.”
Lord Manfred chuckled, a deep sound like a saw blade going through oak. “Unfortunately I think I was the only one who understands what was going through your head at the time. But you were young, and even now, you come back to do your duty and do your blood the honor it deserves.”
Cecil sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Something like that,” he replied. “Would you care to walk with me? I’d love to at least see the new improvements down here.”
“Sure. Is there anything specific you’d like to talk about?”
“Let’s start with some facts and then we can go from there. What’s our total guard strength?”
“76,157,” replied Lord Manfred, counting figures on his hands quickly. They had passed through the docking area and strolled into the Mechanization Division, where large hunkering masses of metal and stone were being molded together to create mechanized warriors. A few mechanics were busy fixing the internals, while others painted lavender stripes on the stone and metal exterior.
“This is new,” remarked Cecil.
“Your absence was felt. Your father took a lot of your suggestions to heart.”
“Finally. I was sorry to hear of his passing.”
“And yet you didn’t return Master Cecil.”
Cecil paused, not caring that they had walked into the new infantry division. Racks of swords, shields, and light arms lined the walls, while a sparring area was set up in the middle, with a padded floor and racks of dummy weapons. “My father was not the man I thought he was.”
Manfred chuckled again. “And I thought it might have to do with Marabella.”
Cecil looked up sharply at that. “Of course it had to with Marabella. And my mother. And my father. And Augustus and Luxor as well. It’s this entire damn place Manfred. This entire existence down here.”
Manfred smiled. He reached up and put his hand on Cecil’s shoulder, in an almost fatherly fashion. He could barely reach Cecil’s shoulders and Cecil tried not to notice that Manfred was standing on his toes. “I know all this. I think it was at some point in the Campaign that I truly understood your hatred for everything down here. And I understand that you didn’t run away from your responsibility. You ran away from the expectations. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I understand.”
Cecil’s thoughts floated back to the Campaign, all those years ago. His eyes misted over as he remembered the blood, the lost brethren, and ultimately their victory over the rebellion that dared raise its head against the might of King Horace Montenegro, his father. He felt ill.
Cecil looked down at Manfred, feeling his hand on his shoulder, and knowing that he was finally in like company. That there was someone down here who could understand. “I’m sorry it took me this long to come and see you.”
“A week? That’s no time at all for people our age.”
Cecil hesitated then. He walked over to the wall near the rack of small arms and leaned on an open space. “I need to ask you something. And I don’t need specifics. But it’s important that I know before the coronation.”
“Anything Master Cecil.”
Cecil turned his hard lavender gaze to Manfred, finally meeting his mentor’s eyes. “Were my father and brother murdered?”
Manfred broke the gaze and his eyes shifted to the floor and ceiling. He breathed in deeply. “Are you asking for your sake or the overlander that you brought with you?”
“What does that mean?” asked Cecil, confused. “Is she in danger as well?”
“The answer to all your questions are in the affirmative. There are forces at work here that I don’t even know about, and you know how much I hate that.”
“Who will know? How can I save her?”
“You can’t save her. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but everyone else definitely has. Your little friend has a will that even you can’t conquer.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
Manfred started to back away. “I have to get back to my duties, and I believe you probably have to as well. However, I would advise that you seek the counsel of that which you maligned Master Cecil.”
“Princess Marabella.”
Manfred nodded, turned around, and immediately began barking orders.
“And this is why I fucking left this hellhole,” muttered Cecil under his breath. “No one can ever give me a straight fucking answer.”
Of Feelings and Cavalcades
Juniper had been staring at the undulating membrane that protected Atlantis for hours. She was hoping that by just looking at it, rather than learning Atlantean script and reading about it, she would figure out by what scientific principle it worked. The membrane was mesmerizing. Beneath the city it shone with the brilliance of the brightest rainbow, simultaneously casting blues, greens, and yellows down onto the residents. She had figured out, or so she thought, that there was no scientific principle behind its beauty and most likely also its purpose. I
t was just a magical thing which she would need to accept, rather than constantly look up at it in a scientific questioning mode.
She sat under the curved arches of the main palace’s portico, staring both up at the membrane, and then down at the city’s occupants whenever there was something interesting to see. The palace sat at such a height above the actual city that it wasn’t always clear what the residents were doing down there, but a few times she could a least tell if they were bartering for livestock, or even getting some kind of rudimentary automobile fixed.
She stared in amazement at the fantastic light show in the upper left quadrant from where she sat. She didn’t know how the city was mapped yet, as she hadn’t been allowed outside it, so she had made up her own system. The light show with its sparks of blues, its green shadows, yellow streams, and every color in between was completely foreign to her. She hoped this was the magical quarter of the city. She knew she had to visit it at some point.
There was a tall bell tower with a brass clock face in the middle of the city and she realized that she’d been sitting there for over six hours, completely lost in thought. Most of this thought was, unfortunately, around Cecil. He had been so aloof this past week and she had a hard time empathizing with him. He seemed completely changed. He scurried about, talking to people, always with papers in his hands and a stern look on his face. And yet, there was something else there. A sort of deep sadness she had surmised. A deep sadness that she wished she could solve. But he wouldn’t even come near her. A few times over the week she had tried to sneak into his rooms, but at the top of the stairs to his chambers there were nine guards posted, all of them armed to the teeth and with looks on their faces as if they were ready to kill anyone who approached. She was in a completely different world. A world where no matter how she felt, she didn’t really know who she could express it to.
Finally, she got up and decided that it was probably best if she went to her chambers, took a shower, and waited for the dinner bell. It would hopefully be a better and more lively dinner than the awful one she had with Cecil’s mother.
She had, had quite a bit of free time, which she had used to explore the palace and marvel at its architectural beauty. From her college electives in architecture, she could see influences of Greek, Ancient Eqyptian, and even Middle Eastern cultures. At some points the influences weren’t even used in conjunction. Sometimes a hallway’s Greco-Roman pillars and floor design would abruptly end and suddenly it was as if she had walked into an old mosque in Turkey. She tried not to think about that particular study abroad trip. The pieces of it she did remember were filled with awful liquor and ridiculously hot weather.
Her chambers were in the more Middle Eastern influenced side of the palace, up a flight of roughly hewn stone, and behind a wooden door that looked as if it had been repaired a thousand times.
She found herself leaning against the door, not really wanting to go inside. She hadn’t really thought about the Queen’s offer that she join the Royal Guards, but she knew she wasn’t a soldier. Or even a desk clerk. She was a researcher, an archivist, a librarian. She didn’t want to admit she was already bored, but the lack of Cecil and the lack of things to do gave her an anxious feeling, as if she wasn’t preparing for something, and something was coming for her.
She opened the door, putting her entire weight on it to get it to open into her rooms. She pushed so hard that when it finally opened she tumbled inside, falling to the stone floor. She heard footsteps and into her gaze came a pair of intricately embroidered leather shoes. She looked up into the smiling face of Cecil.
“What do you think?”
She got up off the floor, dusting herself off and trying to rearrange her hair quickly. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“Oh sorry,” he replied, smiling sheepishly and then perking up again. “What do you think?” he asked again, pointing down at his shoes.
After staring at the city skyline and the membrane all day, despite its beauty, Juniper realized then that she was not in a good mood. “I think that after a week of avoiding me and leaving me alone in this strange palace and city your audacity to ask me about your shoes is the-“
Before she could finish, Cecil closed the gap between them, grabbed her around the waist, and planted a kiss on her lips. Slowly she relented and relaxed. When he let go the fire in her eyes had calmed down but not disappeared. “I hate you,” she whispered. She pounded his chest with her fists for a few moments. He smelled the same as he usually did, that odd mix of leather and salt, and for whatever reason there was an added sweat characteristic in there somewhere. She inhaled deeply, trying to remember the blissful times up above where she knew how everything was. “Where have you been?”
“I dunno if you heard Junie, but, I think I’m gonna be King around these parts,” said Cecil with a chuckle.
“Shut up.”
He tilted her head up with one his rough hands and matched his lavender eyes with her brilliant greens. “I’m really having a hard time down here and I’m sorry I’ve left you all alone. It wasn’t my intention. I tried to sneak out of my rooms, but my mother has those guards posted and I’m not sure what to do.”
“But you’re here now,” she replied, flipping her hair back. She knew what she wanted then, and she knew that, that’s why he had figured out a way to come to her rooms. It was sad to think of it in such clinical terms, that whatever they had up above had somehow melted to just sex down here, but maybe this was their adjustment period. Perhaps if they discovered each other down here, again, it would have a semblance of what they had above.
“I am here now,” he said, slipping a hand beneath her simple cotton attire. “I see you’re dressing in the Atlantean way,” he remarked.
“I didn’t really bring any clothes with me,” she responded, backing him towards the bed.
“That works for me,” he chuckled, toppling backwards on the fluffy down bed, beneath a four poster canopy.
“You’re the most cliche man I’ve ever met, do you know that?” He burst out laughing, grabbing her waist and pulling her towards him.
“I feel that I’ve been neglecting you, Miss Juniper Nesbitt,” he said, looking into her eyes. He pushed her onto the bed gently and began to peel her pants down. He tossed them aside lightly, kissed her inner left calf, then her right, inching his way up her knees. He worked slowly, pausing every few pecks to gingerly run his tongue up her calf until he had reached her ever wetter lips. She shuddered in anticipation each time, but finally, he pushed his fingers inside her and began working his tongue in an around until he had found the best rhythm, trying to remember how he had pleased her before. They both thought of the simpler times above the abyss and of their joint rhythms and love.
Juniper’s soft moans turned into angry guttural cries as his tongue moved faster and faster, around and around, inside and out, pulling at her clitoris, his fingers finding their way up and inside, gently bringing her closer and closer. Her mind cried out when her mouth could not, the screams of pleasure and the notes of intimacy. She was loving the attention and the delight by which Cecil had mounted himself in charge of her pleasure, and just hers, in this moment. Her breathing was rapid, her mind focused on the coming charge of sexuality within her, the pressure building up to the hopeful release. Cecil kept up his end, slowing down every few moments only to speed up and cause her even more beautiful anguish.
A bugler’s horn sounded off in the distance with four high notes followed by a lower horn player blaring a low continuous note. The repetition began again, and then again, until Cecil could no longer concentrate. He pulled away from her, wiping his mouth with his arm. “I’m sorry, but this is important,” he whispered. The sounds intensified and with the horn blasts came cheering and thundering applause. Juniper didn’t understand what was going on, but finding herself pants-less and half satiated, her mind and body aching for the release that was denied her, she could feel herself getting angry. She tried to tamp down those feelings and concentrated on
the growing noise in the city outside her window. She found her pants lying on the floor and put them back on, trying not to move too quickly, or feel the cool breeze between her legs where Cecil’s mouth had just been.
A bank of windows lined Juniper’s rooms. Cecil got up, slipping his pants back on, leaving his shirt resting above the bed, on the canopy. He leaned against the window. “Well fuck,” he whispered. Juniper couldn’t make out what was going on, so she also got out of bed, but put on a simple white cotton undergarment. She joined Cecil at the window, thinking that not wearing a bra was sometimes entirely more comfortable. Perhaps she could get used to the Atlantean ways.
Far down below thousands of Atlanteans had rushed into the street, chanting and yelling, as if creating an impromptu parade. From the far side of the city she could see throngs of people lining the main thoroughfare. More moved into the street every second. She could hear their chants far above, but couldn’t make out what they said.
“What’re they saying?” she whispered to Cecil.
The look on his face gave her every indication that his mood had just turned sour. Cecil’s thoughts were down below on the street level. He knew what they were chanting, and as more voices were coming in, it was getting louder and clearer. He felt envious then because he wished it was his name they were screaming. “They’re chanting ‘Luxor.’ My younger brother has returned,” said Cecil. He went back to the bed to collect his things. He quickly put on the rest of his clothes and left the room, bounding quickly down the stairs.
The Return of Luxor
To Live With Ancients (Ancient Atlantis Book 2) Page 2
