by J. Naomi Ay
He moved aside for a moment and I pulled the blanket out from beneath him.
"Are you going to sleep in your clothes or are you waiting for your valet?"
He pulled off his shirt. Yikes! His whole right arm was nothing but tattoos up one side and down another. "Why'd you let them do this to you?"
He shrugged and lay down again. "What reason did I have to say no?"
"It’s your body..." I started to say and then shut up. He belonged to them. I covered him with the blanket and then settled down again. In a short time, he was sleeping.
I couldn’t sleep now. I laid there listening to him breathing, sometimes mumbling strange words in his dreams. Sometimes things moved when he slept; a hairbrush, my shoe, his netbook would all go flying about the bedroom, years ago in Takira-hahr.
He moaned a little and turned to his side. I watched his face studying the lines it, the silver hair in his beard. I remember when he was a boy and how I would lie awake at night staring at his face wondering how in the universe he ended up here next to me. I wondered the same thing now. Almost involuntarily, I reached up and gently stroked his hair and that's when I saw it. There was an aura surrounding him. There was a light given off by the silver hair, and it formed a sort of halo around him. My hand ran through the light. I could see it reflected in my own skin. "Beta proteins," I told myself. I whispered it like a mantra until I fell asleep.
Sometime during the night, I forgot the last ten years happened. Sometime during the night, I folded myself into his skin, and he into me. For a few beautiful moments, all was right with the world, and everything was as it should have been. "Forgive me," he said and I did.
It was morning and sunlight was streaming in through the windows. Senya was smoking a cigarette with his bad leg propped across mine, pinning me down just in case I thought to escape. I was not particularly interested in escaping anywhere right now. I was happily a victim of Stockholm syndrome and content to be that way for the rest of my life. Someone was on the vid droning on and on with a morning report.
"I hate when you smoke in bed," I said, playing with the silver strands in Senya’s hair. They glistened and sparkled like his eyes, sending out light, fooling everyone into thinking he was some kind of angel.
"Shhh, I'm listening." He put his hand over my mouth.
"Sorry, Your Majesty?" the disembodied voice said.
"Nothing, continue." Senya decided his hand could be put to better use elsewhere. I gently move his leg off me and pushing him back down in the pillows, I climbed on top and carefully straddled him.
"Now listen to me," I demanded, taking away the cigarette.
"Beg pardon, Sir?" the voice asked.
"Actually, Lord Beket, I've got an urgent matter I need to attend to. Eberly and Garing are in the office. Contact them if you need to. I'm on vacation, right?"
"Uh, Sir?"
"Right. That will be all then, Beket." The vid clicked off. "You were saying?" The silver light flashed in my face.
"No, don't you go blinding me either." I covered his eyes with my hands. "I was going to say that this is your last and final chance Sehron de Kudisha. It'd better be happily ever after from here on out or...stop that."
"Stop this? Really?"
"Ok, don't stop that, but you had better promise me..."
"I promise," he said solemnly. "Ay ow!"
"Oh! Sorry!" I leaned to the left away, from his bad leg. "Better?"
"Ay yah."
"How about here?"
"Ay yah, better still."
I was breathing hard and drenched in sweat when the vid rang.
"Fuck," he mumbled into my chest. "It's your mother."
"How do you know?"
"How do I know?" he scoffed and gingerly rolling onto his back, he lit a cigarette. The vid clicked on.
"That camera better be off," I warned, scrambling to find the blanket.
"Katie," my mother shrieked. "Katie Anne, are you there?"
"Yes Mom, I can hear you. How are you, Mom? Are you settled in now?"
"Oh yes, it's lovely here, just wonderful. When are you coming, dear? I want to go shopping with you. Why don't you turn on the picture dear? It's too dark. I can't see you. Katie?"
"I'm busy right now, Mom, and I don't know when we are coming back yet. Why don't you tell Noka and Kira to take you shopping? Do you want me to tell them?"
"No, no, I just want to go with you or Luci. Is Luci there? Hello Luci!"
"Luci's not here," I laughed. "Senya...Ron is here. Say hello to Mother," I told him.
"Hello Charlotte," Senya said.
No response.
"Mom?"
"Tell him, I absolutely refuse to get down on my knees. I don't care what everyone here says. I am not getting on my knees. Frankly, I don't believe he's the big muckety muck they all say he is. "
"Now I am a muckety muck?" Senya turned to me. "What does this mean? Muckety muck?"
"Hush. Mom you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Just enjoy yourself. When I get back, we'll go to the mall." I glanced at Senya. He shook his head. "Or we won't," I added. "I'm still under house arrest. I'll have Luci take you. You'll have more fun with her anyway."
"Well that will be nice, dear. Oh, someone is delivering lunch. I must run. Goodbye, dear. Goodbye…uh, Ron."
"Goodbye Charlotte," Senya called, exhaling a puff of smoke and smiling. "I adore your mother."
"Stop it. Even angels are forced to endure mother-in-laws."
"Ah, about that..."
"About what?" My heart skipped a beat.
He turned to me, his eyes and silver hair sparkling. "This business about angels. Garinka's theory...about me."
"You are not an angel," I declared. "You're something Senya, but you are definitely not an angel!"
"How are you so certain?" he smirked.
"Angels do not fall in love with Humans and create babies with them. As Tuman said, angels don't need to procreate. If you were an angel, what would that make Shika? I love him with all my heart, but he's not exactly angelic either."
He laughed.
"What?"
"What if two angels loved each other?"
"They don't do that," I protested. "We've already been through this. The purpose of love is procreation."
"Ach, Kate. What did we just spend the last twenty minutes doing with absolutely no intention of procreating anything?"
"That was sex. Angels don't have sex."
"How do you know this?" He took a long drag on his cigarette.
"Angels don't smoke cigarettes either," I said. "Especially in bed when they know it irritates their wife. If an angel loved someone, they would do everything to make their life perfect and happy. They wouldn’t be smart asses and irritating dickheads."
He smirked again and kept smoking.
“Angels are also asexual, not male or female.”
“That’s not true,” he replied. "Let us theorize about love between angels." He tossed his cigarette into space and turned to me with bright eyes. "Since you already have a few strong theories."
"Why? I don't want to discuss it anymore."
"Hear me out. This is an important discussion."
"Speak then." I picked up my tablet and glanced through the morning news. The tablet went flying out of my hand and landed on the bureau across the room.
"Did I ask you to listen to me?"
"Yes, Your Imperial Angelness, I'm listening." I lay back down on my pillow with arms crossed in front of my chest. "Speak, oh wondrous one."
"Ach Kate," he sighed. "How is it for the last ten years I have missed you with every breath yet now that you are here again, I would happily send you away?"
"Ok, sorry!" I threw myself on him and kissed his face. "I am all ears except for the mouth, nose and eye parts. Tell me your theory."
"Thank you," he said either for the kisses or my willingness to listen. "Let's say, for instance, that love between angels doesn't produce another angel but rather somethin
g else like stars or universes or simply a good energy."
"Ok?"
"If that were the case, would you believe angels could love each other?"
"I don't know," I replied. "I'm not even sure I believe in angels to begin with and even if I did there is nothing that could make me believe that you are one. Now if you want to try to convince me that you're related to a devil, well then maybe I'd buy that."
"I didn't say we were talking about me. I said we are just theorizing, yes?"
"Nobody can theorize with you because you already know everything. Do you want breakfast?" I climbed out of bed and hunted down my robe.
"In a minute. Let's say that two angels fell in love, and it was allowed because when they did they produced a wondrous energy that made the universe better. Will you accept that?"
"Yes Master, whatever you say." I pulled his robe out of the closet. "What would you like to eat? Do you want whatever Keko left outside the door?"
"Ay yah!" He leaned back on his pillow and spoke to the ceiling. "Everyone else in this bloody galaxy quakes whenever I deign to speak, but you couldn't care less what I have to say."
"And that's why you love me," I replied and grabbing his hand, tried to pull him up. "Come on, I'm hungry."
"Katie!" He grabbed me and held me still. "I want to tell you this. Listen, please!"
"Senya," I said, cupping his face in my hands. "I don't want to know who you really are. I don't want to know that you are the Archangel Mika’el whose been sent back down to right all the wrongs with the mortal world. I just want you to be you, as weird and strange as you are, because I am only me. It's hard enough being married to the guy who is number one on the mortal world food chain. Imagine what kind of trauma it would be for me to find out I'm married to number two in the Heavenly food chain. So for my own personal sanity, please keep your revelation to yourself and for the next fifty years or so that I'll be around in this life, let's just try to live it and enjoy it. After that, when I'm dead, you can tell me anything you want."
He blinked his eyes and furrowed his brow. “But…”
“No,” I repeated.
“Alright,” he shrugged. “Will you make me some eggs?”
"Yes. Wait! Two?"
Chapter 29
Moira
I was going to the Opera. Opera was one of the few remaining pleasures I had in this life. The Imperial Mishnese Opera House was by the far, the most splendid in the realm and the tenor who was currently starring in this year's rendition of The Magnificent Fool was my favorite tenor of all time.
I was going alone save my one remaining attendant, Lady Drefus. She was old and didn’t hear hardly a thing. I took no pleasure in her company, but she was company none the less. I wore one of my best Court gowns. It was one that I wore in my last year as Queen, the year before Yokaa died. Some of the seed pearls were coming loose. I caught a few in my hand. I would need to get it repaired after this night.
Lady Drefus suggested I commission some new gowns. The Emperor had granted me an allowance, a generous one I would concede, but I was still loathe to spend his money. It gave me more pleasure to dress like a pauper and have people remark that he kept me in this fashion.
Lady Drefus and I descended from our limousine, and I clutched her frail arm as we paraded up the red carpet of the Opera House. It was more for her benefit than mine that I held her arm in this manner. Surely, she would have toppled over should I allow her to walk alone.
There were still those that curtseyed to me and snapped my picture. It warmed my heart that I was still loved. There were many who did not even know who I was. Mishnah was filled now with those who hadn’t a drop's worth of Mishnese blood. They came from everywhere, from all the planets of the Empire. They looked at me as if I were a great oddity and I heard some murmur to each other, telling themselves that I was the Emperor’s grandmother.
What did I feel when I heard this? I was not certain. My instinct told me to shout a denial. For more than fifty years, I had done so and still I was tempted to do so now. They would look at me then as a mad old woman and laugh in their hands as I passed by.
“Come M’lady,” Lady Derfus said as if it were she guiding me rather than the other way around.
We took the lift to the top tier and an usher escorted us to the Royal Mishnese box. This was my box. This had always been my box. My life had passed by in this box. When I was young, and the Crown Princess of Mishnah, so slim and elegant, I stood in here and waved at the crowds. Then, I was heavy with my daughter and later my son yet still they loved me and cheered me when they saw me here. Later again, I was slim, and a Queen, and now I was an old and bent dowager who the crowds no longer knew.
“Look M’lady,” Drefus said, even as my eyes set upon the same.
There was another woman in my box. She sat in my seat and looked upon the empty stage with my opera glasses. I was enraged. I stormed the last few steps to my seat and demanded her removal.
“Who the hell are you?” this woman retorted. She did not speak Mishnese but that foul language English that was the native tongue of the Karut’s wife. She carried a translator, and it was from this that we managed to shout at each other.
“Who are you?” I demanded in reply. “This is my box.”
She pulled herself up haughtily, and for a moment I wondered if she was royalty from one of those other planets now within the Empire. It seemed there were a whole host of kings and queens, princes and dukes who called the Karut their overlord and Emperor. This woman was dressed like a queen and even wore a tiara though I found it so crass and unfashionable to do so outside the Palace. At least the Human agreed with me in this and refrained from excessive display.
“This is the box of the Mishnese Royalty,” I said, calmer now. Perhaps she was merely lost. “The other boxes belong to the lesser planets.”
“No, I was told to sit in this box,” she replied and looked again at the stage where the orchestra has just started to warm up. “You are in the wrong box.”
“Who told you to sit here?” I demanded.
“My grandson!” she replied and just at that moment, dear Shika joined us carrying a bottle of wine. He was followed by the bastard's grandson, his friend Petya, who held some wine glasses.
“Hi Gramma,” Shika said and the woman and I turned simultaneously, and we both replied, “Hello dear.”
Shika laughed. He came to the woman and kissed her cheek. “Hello Gramma Charlotte,” he said and did the same to mine. “Hello Gramma Moira. Have the two of you met?”
“No!” Again we both replied in unison.
“Well great. Now you can. Come on Petya, why are you standing? Pour! Gramma Moira, sit down here.” Shika pointed at the seat next to the woman. “Allow me to introduce Charlotte Golden, Dowager Duchess of Renfort and my mom's mother.”
“The Duchy of Renfort?” I gasped. “I remember when Lork and Nadia had Renfort.”
“I remember too,” Drefus mumbled. “But they're both dead now, aren't they?”
“Well I hope so,” I replied. “They were ancient even when I was a girl.”
“My late husband was the Duke of Renfort,” the woman said. “Although poor Manny died before he knew that. Now my son is the Duke. He doesn't deserve it in my mind either. That alien man was all too generous to that schlub, Allen and his horrid wife, what's her name.”
“What alien man?” I declared, sitting down beside the woman and taking the wine that Petya offered me.
“Oh, that dreadful man my daughter is married to,” the woman replied swallowing her own wine.
“That would be my father, the Emperor,” Shika informed me.
“Somehow, no matter how hard you try, your children end up with the least desirable spouses you can imagine,” the woman mused.
“Quite so,” I agreed. The wine was fine, and I indicated for Petya to pour me some more. “My daughter was matched to the most awful man. It was an absolute nightmare.”
“I can believe it,” the
woman cried. “Look at my daughter's husband!”
“My daughter's husband was your daughter's husband's father and let me tell you, the street rat was a saint compared to that bastard.”
“Um, that would be my grandfather, Prince Sorkan,” Shika smirked, and he and Petya both laughed.
“Steven, pour me some more wine, darling.” The woman held out her glass. Turning back to me, she said, “What did you say your name was?”
“Moira,” I replied. “Dowager Queen of Mishnah.”
“Oh! Well, I'm Charlotte.” She held out her hand to shake. I don't believe I had ever in my lifetime shaken anyone's hand, but I shook hers. “So you were saying your daughter's husband was a bastard?”
“Well, not a real bastard,” I replied. “He was quite legitimately born.”
“Well my daughter's husband is a bastard,” she declared. The boys sitting behind us snickered again.
“No, he's not,” I protested. “He was legitimately born, as well. We had a beautiful wedding for the two of them and then I was present throughout her lying-in. I was even there at his birth. Quite a surprise he was indeed, such a strange little fellow. Then of course my daughter died, and I couldn't think straight after that. I didn't know what to do, so I did nothing.”
“I'm awfully sorry about that,” Charlotte said and patted my hand. “I couldn't imagine losing my daughter, even for this delightful boy.” She reached back and squeezed dear Shika's hand.
“He is a delightful boy, isn't he?” I agreed, squeezing his hand, as well.
“You’re okay too, Peter,” Charlotte called. “A little fatty like your mother but still a good boy.”
“Thanks, Lady Charlotte,” Petya replied and both boys burst into peals of laughter.
“Petya and I are going to head out now if it's okay Gramma Char? Gramma Moira?” Shika said when their laughter had finally calmed. “We don't really like opera.”
“Actually, we hate opera,” Petya added.
“Oh, that's fine dear,” Charlotte said and then turned back to me. “Who did you say you were?”
“I am Moira,” I repeated. “Dowager Queen of Mishnah.” Perhaps it was the wine speaking or perhaps something had happened inside of me for my next words I had never before uttered in my lifetime. “I am Sehron de Kudisha's grandmother.”
