eleven #2
Early in the morning, Mira was roused by a happy commotion as Graella burst from her room and shouted down the hallway that she could spot her fiancé’s space cruiser in the sky.
Sure enough, when Mira peered out the window, she saw—and heard—the private four-seater hovering in the blue Arrahite sky. The white flames of combustion suggested that the pilot had recently switched to landing, and by then, half the house was out in the front yard beneath Mira’s guest room window.
“Look!” Graella, barely bedecked in a robe, much to her mother’s consternation, ran up to Sulim, who stood with her in her regular clothes. Someone was up early again. Yet Mira didn’t have the mind to admire anything with so much happening. “They’re here a day early! He messaged me from the moon!”
“Graella!” Jacelah appeared on the balcony atop the main entrance to the house. “Get in here right now and put on some clothes!”
“But they—”
“I’ll send someone to pick them up at the airfield! But it will be at least an hour, you silly girl!”
As the cruiser slowly came closer, the tops of the tallest trees swayed beneath the artificial wind, and it became increasingly difficult to hear anyone over the deafening engines.
I take it they don’t get a lot of space cruisers landing nearby.
“Sulim!” Jacelah waved at her daughter-in-law.
“See if you can find Marco! Otherwise, I’m sending Sonall. He just got up.”
Sulim cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted to the balcony. “I’ll go with him!”
“Try to find Marco first!”
Jacelah went back inside. So did Graella, reluctantly. Sulim spared a look up at Mira’s window before she hurriedly jogged to one of the nearby stables.
“Well…” Joiya said behind her daughter. “How exciting.”
Mira blew air out of her mouth before closing the curtains again. “It’s gonna get more insufferable around here with lovey-dovey couples.”
“Young love is a beautiful thing, my heart.”
“Sorry if I don’t get excited by men having anything, let alone women.”
Her mother half-heartedly scolded her, but Mira already saw the gears turning in Joiya’s head. She fucking loves love. Joiya would want to make this a special occasion for all involved.
Mira attempted to stay out of everyone’s way. What better time to call my father… Unfortunately, he was busy. So Mira called the man who had left a message on her communicator before she went to bed.
“I am dying here,” she told her uncle Ramaron, who was not her uncle at all. But he partly raised me, so… As the best friend of her parents and the Head of House Marlow, he was a good man to have on her side. “My title to pour my tea without having to raise my hand.”
“You’ve gone without sorcery for over ten years,” he said. “I think you’d be used to it.”
“Yeah, well!” Mira flopped onto the bed. Her mother was long gone. “Anyway, you messaged last night if I wanted anything from the care package you’re sending us from Yahzen?”
“I recall doing that before bed, yes. Your mother sent me the address, and that she received permission from Lady Gardiah to accept packages there, so I thought you lot might like some snacks, tea… a proper chazah board, and maybe the head of your grandmother.”
“You can procure that for us?”
Ramaron chuckled. “Happy birthday?”
Was it Mira’s birthday? No. Why is he messing with me?
“Actually, there are a couple of things I wouldn’t mind.”
She got back up and paced the room as she spoke.
Outside, another commotion erupted as the family automobile came through the gates with their VIP.
Graella had already raced out in her favorite dress with both arms waving in the air.
My great Void, what in the… Mira would never understand.
But she was amused by the way the young woman flung her arms around the shoulders of a travel-weary man and covered his face in kisses while her mother freaked at the lack of propriety. “Books.”
“You’re that bored there, huh?”
“Hey, I’ve got some specific titles in mind. But you can’t tell Mom.”
“Can I tell your father?”
“I mean, if he somehow charms it out of you, sure?”
“You sound like you don’t think that’s possible.”
“I don’t think he may think about me enough to care to do that.”
“You might be surprised. When your father puts his mind to being charming, your mother and I are goners.”
“I know. You two are impossible. I am the only one who can tell that stuffy bastard to go fuck himself.”
“No, no, we’ve both done that plenty, too. So, what books do you want? I might have them in my library already.”
I know you do. House Marlow was a literary-minded family that had one of the biggest libraries on Yahzen. Then again, there was what House Marlow owned and what Master Marlow personally possessed in his apartment.
“100 Classic Love Poems,” Mira said. “Twelfth Edition.”
“Mm. I’m sure I have multiple copies.” Luckily for her, he didn’t ask why she wanted that. “What language?”
“Julah, of course. Just send whatever copy you can spare. It can be the copy you abused in one of your Academy literature classes for all I care.”
“And the other book?”
He really wasn’t playing along with her sardonic musings, was he? “I’m assuming you have a copy of Orleah! somewhere around there.”
Finally, she caught Ramaron off guard. “Why would you assume that?”
“Because your father was friends with the author. Anyway, I need that one. It’s urgent.”
“Mira…”
“In Basic. I should probably add that.”
“What are you up to there?”
“Why don’t you drop by and find out?”
“If your mother has her way, I just might.”
“Ugh.”
“Ugh?”
“No, no, not at you. Just how these humans would shit another shrine if the great Ramaron Marlow, son of the author of the most well-known Julah novel, came here, too.”
“That bad, huh?”
Mira sighed. “I’m used to Mom being a celebrity wherever we go, but not when we’re just trying to live our lives. It was always while during official business for the Temple.”
“It’s rather strange she has you all cooped up there at Gardiah Estate. Horses. Really?”
“Well…” Mira flopped down onto the bed. “There are interesting people here.”
“Uh-huh…”
“What?”
Her honorary uncle was always the quickest to accuse her of something. It’s like he knows what it’s like to be me. The child of a cultural celebrity; a queer who could never live openly. “Are you getting into trouble? Orleah? Really?”
“It’s a modern classic.”
“About two women who can’t keep their hands off each other.”
“Yes! Despite what the world tells them they should do in their overtly patriarchal society! And, gasp, one of them is married to the scion of an important House.”
“Something tells me that if you wanted to read this book that badly, in Basic, you would find a digital copy.”
“It really must be a physical version, Uncle Ramaron.”
“Oh, no, she’s calling me her uncle. It must be serious.”
“Would you just…” Sometimes, Mira had to remind herself that this was one of her elders she spoke to.
It was too damn easy to treat him the same as a male friend at the Academy.
The kind who like my brand of teasing. Unfortunately, most of them tried to marry her after a while, so her only true male confidants were those who did not care for female companionship in the traditional sense.
Then they started courting me for lavender marriages, too!
Ramaron was one of the last men in the universe who would do either. “I’ll owe you.”
“You already owe me.” His voice was suddenly grave, hitting her where it hurt most—in the subconscious. “Which is why you don’t owe me at all. I’ll give my library a look.”
She thanked him. When she hung up, she rolled onto her side, hands folded beneath her chin as she contemplated what she was getting herself into.
Wasn’t it better to just not think at all?