Chapter 43
We need to have some fun.
I stepped out of the experience suite and stretched. Monqilcolnen was right behind me. His tail took mine as he led me out of the shop. The hour was late, but tomorrow was another free day for us both.
Monqilcolnen said, “We’re getting close to the end of the story.”
We were. After I’d fainted, our characters had continued to run from their clans, who were still at war, and forged bracers embedded with scales, which meant we were moving in the right direction.
I hoped, at least. It was still possible to get a sad ending with us splitting, and therefore dying, while our clans remained at war.
“I’m enjoying this story,” I commented, tugging on his tail to keep him from bumping into another person. “It’s challenging without being daunting.” However much I was struggling with wishing the words belonged to Monqilcolnen.
“I agree. I would like to play another after we finish.”
I gave him a smile. “As would I.”
If I spent a second night in a row in Monqilcolnen’s quarters instead of my berth, I would be in for some good-natured teasing, but ignoring my fellows and staying with Monqilcolnen would be easy because…
I wanted to be with him. Besides, I was going to have to develop a shield against truly barbed remarks.
While I’d been lucky to be protected by this navy bubble and Monqilcolnen’s rank, it wouldn’t be like this forever.
Once we returned to regular life, the snide remarks would come.
I would receive them for my entire life, so I had to find a way to ignore them because I refused to not be with Monqilcolnen at this point.
“Dinner, then bed?” he asked, and I fought a smile at his assumption that I was coming to his quarters with him again. I would, obviously, but I did adore how much he wanted me there.
He had asked me to move into his quarters.
I did spend a considerable amount of time in his space, whether I slept there or not.
A huge part of me wanted to tell him yes.
We belonged together, and I adored spending time with him.
However, a small curl of ice remained in my gut.
A fear, a worry, a terror of coming to regard Monqilcolnen as my mate and having him reject me.
Until that fear went away, I was going to have to keep the illusion of space.
I kissed his shoulder quickly, and his sharp intake of breath made me smirk.
I adored how Monqilcolnen was so greatly affected by my presence.
I felt so powerful with him. I didn’t have to be in control either, though he was ceding control to me more and more of late.
Just watching how he reacted to me, how much he cared about me, how much he desired me was enough to make me feel like the ruler of the universe.
“Wyn?” he asked.
“No,” I replied, realizing I hadn’t answered his earlier question.
Monqilcolnen paused in his step, stumbling, before he resumed his earlier pace. “You’re not sleeping in our—my quarters tonight?”
His slip made me bite my lip. How I wished it was true. “I am, though I’m having dinner with Urgg and Seth tonight.”
“That should be fun,” he commented, his voice upbeat. “That means Kalvoxrencol is available. Perhaps I can convince Serlotminden to join us.”
“I’ll invite Bartholomew.” I liked the other human, though I hadn’t spent much time with him.
Monqilcolnen smiled, and the sight still sent a ripple of awareness through me. “Thank you, Peace.”
I ducked my head, shuffling. “Of course.”
We parted at the lift, though not before Monqilcolnen gave me a quick kiss.
Trying to suppress the heat rushing through me, I pulled out my touchstone.
“Bartholomew Reginald Lucian Cavendish-Wallingford,” I said.
Serlotminden’s mate had a very regal name—I quite enjoyed saying it—but he’d refused people from using the entire thing unless it was necessary, like with NAID.
In person, it was either Bartholomew or Teddy.
“Wyn,” he said, his voice smooth and utterly without emotion. In my limited experience, Bartholomew was rather hard to surprise or get to emote in any way. “What’s going on?”
I’d never spoken to the prince consort like this. I straightened my slumped shoulders and took a deep breath. I wished to be friends with him, and this was the first step.
I asked, “Would you like to come to dinner with Seth, Urgg, and I?”
Silence was my response. I waited and waited and waited until Bartholomew replied, “Yes.”
“Seth probably won’t mind leading you. It’s at our regular place.”
“Fine.”
“I look forward to spending more time with you.”
He grunted.
I had no idea what else to say to the quiet human and ended the session. I moved through the bustling crowd toward Mistress Kel’yeena’s noodle shop. I stepped inside and went straight to the counter to greet her.
When I brushed a web near the counter, beads clacked as she came out to see who was calling for her. “Wyn, I have missed your breath.”
“And I yours.”
“Busy with that new mate of yours.”
My soul pounded and heat suffused my limbs. If only that were true, then I wouldn’t worry about him leaving me behind. “We’re not mates.”
Her mandibles clicked and the beads on her abdomen shook and smacked with her movements. “No? That seems odd.”
I didn’t know what to say, but she did.
“You are spending time in his nest and your webs are entwined,” she replied, her front legs shifting and rubbing the fine hair there. Her mandibles clicked as she said, rather forcefully, “Is he denying you?”
“No,” I told her. “Monqilcolnen would never do that.” He wouldn’t. If I told him I thought of him as my mate, even though I wasn’t there yet so I had no need to worry, he would accept me.
“Then you are denying him?”
“No.” I wasn’t, was I? He hadn’t hinted I was his mate. “No,” I repeated. “We are courting.”
“Courting,” she repeated, her abdomen bobbing and sending her beads rattling. “How ridiculous. You are one web, one breath, one nest, one being. You are one.”
I swallowed.
She patted my cheek, the pads on her hand soft yet sticky from her fine hair.
“I do not mean to push, Wyn, but our breath is short. One day will be one day too late. Every breath, every tremble of the web is to be treasured because all too soon those shakes will vanish, and you will wish they’d come back. ”
“I understand.”
Her mandibles clacked, this time in humor. “I doubt that. You are young and foolish. It’s the way of youth. But I have a gift for you and your mate.”
“You do?” I asked, my hand over my soul.
“Indeed. To decorate your fine nest.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Not yet,” she replied and vanished behind the bead curtain that blocked the front of her shop from the back—her kitchen, her private space.
When she came back, I took a sharp inhale.
She held out a luxurious blanket. It was woven with the strands of her own web.
The strands had been carefully dyed and woven together into an intricate geometric pattern.
Foblen woven art was highly prized, and they rarely gave it away to anyone outside of their species.
“I can’t,” I told her and stepped back.
“You can.” She ran one of her front legs over the masterpiece. “This was freely made and is freely given. I care for your breath, Wyn, and this shall keep your nest comfortable.”
“Kel’yeena,” I said, shaking my head in awe.
She ran her leg over the pattern. “It is woven in your own colors. The green, gold, and white of your mate as well as the pink, purple, and blue of you. I even have hints of your skin tones that peek around your and his scales.”
I gently accepted the blanket; it was like silk beneath my fingers. “Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome, young child. Soon you shall step into your own nest and be a child no longer.”
Much like drakcol, the foblix species believed you only became an adult when you took a mate.
“Thank you,” I repeated.
“Now I shall free you, for your friends have arrived.” She motioned for me to leave, and I stepped back, clutching the blanket close to my soul.
The gift had been impossibly generous of her; I could hardly believe it.
The blanket would have to go to Monqilcolnen’s quarters because it wouldn’t fit on my small bunk.
I easily caught sight of Seth, Urgg, and Bartholomew at our usual table. I asked Kel’yeena for two of Seth’s usual order and two of her spiciest soup in a loud voice, which she acknowledged, before heading over to them.
“What’s that?” Urgg asked, pouring a glass of maroon graugg for me.
I stared at the alcohol. Kel’yeena didn’t serve it. No foblix drank alcohol or took stimulants or any kind of mind-altering drugs. Urgg had to have brought it with them.
At my glance, Urgg said, “We have to celebrate Bartholomew joining us.” They slapped Bartholomew’s back, and he grunted.
“Ow,” he said, and both Urgg and I stared at him. I had no idea what that noise meant, and NAID hadn’t offered a translation.
“You hurt him,” Seth offered before taking a drink.
“Ah, I’m sorry! Humans are so small, though you’re bigger than Seth, in height at least,” Urgg commented, patting Bartholomew again but much more softly.
“Hey,” Seth complained.
“I wasn’t insulting you,” Urgg said, practically yelling in their halting voice. “I quite like your figure. Nice and girthy like a barbarus. Though yours is also nice, Bartholomew. Everyone looks quite lovely.”
I burst into laughter. “Better than Talvax?”
Urgg slammed the table with a fist, making Seth leap and dump his drink on himself. Urgg pointed a thick finger at my face and said, “No one is prettier than Talvax.”
“I don’t know,” I said, provoking them, “Monqilcolnen is quite lovely.”
“No one is prettier than Talvax,” Urgg growled, placing a huge foot on the table. “Monqilcolnen is ugly compared to her.”
I stood, hands gripping the table. “Monqilcolnen is far prettier.”
“Take that back.”
I snarled, “Never.”
Seth commented in a dry voice, “And, Teddy, this is where we start drinking more.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” he replied.
I giggled and told the others in a whisper, “We’re not supposed to be doing this.”
Urgg waved a hand, colliding into the wall and sending a cloud of petals to the moss floor. “Bah, we’ll be fine. We have two princes with us.”
Seth replied, laughing, “We’re not prices. No, I mean princes. Or are we?”
“Close enough,” Bartholomew replied, in a properly quiet voice. “So we sneak in and then what?”
“Wyn here,” Urgg said, slapping my chest with the back of their hand and sending shocks of pain through me, “will embed the code. So when anyone enters their officer number, they will receive a message telling them that Talvax is the prettiest.”
Tears built behind my eyes and spilled only a moment later. “I can’t believe I lost. I failed to defend how pretty Monqilcolnen is.”
Seth yanked me into a hug. “You were so close.” He started sobbing, and I wasn’t far behind him, clinging to his wide form.
“Shut up,” Bartholomew ordered, his voice steady, though he swayed and his face was bright red. “You’ll bring everyone here.”
Urgg broke into loud sobs. “You don’t have to write that Monqilcolnen is ugly, even though he is.”
“Thank you,” I wept, drawing them into the hug with Seth and me. “I knew you’d understand.”
Urgg swept Bartholomew into the group embrace, and he grunted, pushing on Urgg’s arm, “Come on, let’s do this.”
I opened the door to the NAID server and went to the appropriate terminal, giggling.
I’d lost the drinking game, so I had to do this.
It would be fine. People would see Talvax was pretty every time they logged in, and not how lovely my Monqilcolnen was.
It was a travesty, but at least I didn’t have to say he was ugly, because he most certainly was not.
I’d never seen someone more attractive than him.
Seth was laughing and asking Bartholomew if he wanted to go running. Bartholomew didn’t. Urgg said they would, and when they won, I would have to put in that Kalvoxrencol was ugly. I nodded. He could be ugly, but never my Monqilcolnen.
My fingers trembled and my thoughts kept straying as I tried to place the correct sequence in with the message. It wasn’t working right. Ugh. Again and again I tried, but my brain was seemingly fighting me. Why was this stupid thing not working?
“Are you done yet?” Urgg whined.
“I’m bored,” Seth said.
Bartholomew grunted.
Glancing at my friends, I bit my lip. I didn’t want to bother them, and we needed to leave before someone noticed us on the server.
I logged into my own account to use some of my own replicating software.
I’d made similar things; I just had to put in the right message.
Once I got the message typed out and the program inserted, I laughed, crashing into Seth and Bartholomew, arms around their shoulders.
“We need to drink more,” I said, “to celebrate.”
“Yes,” Urgg called out. “Finally, you’re becoming a proper barbarus! Let’s go.”
Urgg led the way, singing a song I didn’t recognize. Not to be outdone, I started my own. Soon Seth and Bartholomew were singing as well, though they sang the same song.
Together we weaved and bobbed down the corridor toward the canteen to drink more. Of course, the officers there were more than happy to join us.