24. Darcy
24
DARCY
M agnolia sprang out of bed before dawn, jostling me awake. I groaned, rubbing at my eyes as she flitted about the room like a fairy, zipping this way and that in her excitement to start the day. By the time I felt alive enough to sit up and fully open my eyes, she was already dressed.
Considering I’d be saying goodbye to her so soon, I’d opted to sleep in her bed with her overnight. A sort of last hurrah human slumber party before she rode off into the alien sunset to find her man. Fallon had looked completely crestfallen last night when I’d told him where I’d be sleeping. But he’d rallied and supported my decision, even if his shoulders and tail did look a little sad and droopy as he’d trudged off to bed alone.
Speaking of tail… wonder how his cock tail is doing…
In my barely awake state, I found my mind wandering towards the idea of him needing me to kiss it better again. I followed that sleepy daydream around in my head, not feeling obligated but actually excited by the prospect.
As glad as I was to have spent the night with Magnolia before she left, I missed Fallon.
I yawned and rubbed my eyes again, finally mustering the willpower to swing my legs over the side and get out of the cozy bed. For a guy who lived here alone and had literally never had a female of the non-dog or cow variety on his property until now, Fallon’s place really was quite nice and domestic. Magnolia’s bed was comfortable, with another intricate – though slightly faded – quilt.
“How you feeling?” I asked Magnolia as she put her curly hair in two thick braids. “Ready?”
“So ready.” Once finished with her braids, she put on a broad-brimmed hat and beamed. She looked so stinkin’ cute standing there all dressed with her hat and her luggage and her smile. It made my stupid heart feel all topsy turvy.
“I’m going to miss you,” I said, giving her a watery smile back. Jesus, how many times had I been on the verge of crying since arriving here? Don’t cry for almost fifteen years and then boom – tears galore. I took a steadying breath, wondering where the hell the old guarded, half-numb Darcy had gone.
And wondering why the hell I didn’t even miss her.
Magnolia’s window was closed, but through its dusty surface we could hear what sounded like movement and voices outside.
“That might be Cherry,” I said as the blush of dawn began to warm the room. “You go on out. I’ll be there in a second.”
Magnolia did so, and I went back to Fallon’s room to get dressed. After a quick scrub of my face and a clean of my teeth in the kitchen, I noticed that several plates of food were already out and arranged, enough for Magnolia, Garrek, Killian, and me.
I felt surprisingly deflated to see that there was no happy-looking bacon to greet me today. I rolled my eyes at myself. Despite his chill nature, I knew Fallon was busy as all get-out. He had a lot of chores to do, especially in the morning. After getting food out for everyone he’d probably just run out of time to do the happy breakfast thing.
If anything, I should have been the one up early enough to prepare breakfasts for the guests and him. A wife was not supposed to sleep in later than her husband, and she definitely was not supposed to make him take over domestic duties like food preparation when he had guests. I’d been well-trained to be the perfect hostess.
Only problem was… Fallon didn’t seem to care. About any of it.
And maybe that wasn’t a problem, considering how resentful I’d been about becoming somebody’s wife, about being so sheltered with no money and job experience of my own.
But if I wasn’t going to be the polished wife I’d always been pushed to be…
Who was I?
I shook off that alarmingly dreary thought, grabbed a pickled egg off a plate, popped it in my mouth, then went outside. Today was about Magnolia, not moping around over some weird identity crisis.
The noise outside had indeed indicated the arrival of Cherry and Silar. Cherry was all smiles as Silar helped her down from the shuldu they’d ridden together. Silar was much the same as I’d seen him last. Shirtless, stone-faced, and silent. Garrek grunted some sort of greeting at them as he rolled up a bedroll. I wondered which one of these quiet, growly cowboys could out-grump the other.
My money was on Garrek.
Magnolia was chatting happily to Killian. The Zabrian boy had his big, moony eyes glued to her face, as if she were some goddess or hero from a story come to life.
The only person missing is…
I started looking this way and that, quickly finding the orange figure of Fallon jogging towards us from the direction of the barn. His grin was lopsided and easy. His loping gait was heavy but smooth. My heart bucked – unnervingly shuldu-like for a human heart, thank you very much! – at the sight of him.
When his eyes locked on me, I knew. Because a blast of white went through them.
“Greetings, Cherry! Silar,” Fallon said cheerily. He came to a stop at my side, so close his arm brushed mine, and giddy heat bubbled through my blood.
Oh my God. Am I seriously getting that excited about an arm brush? What the hell is the matter with me?
“Hey, Fallon,” Cherry said with a jaunty little wave before she came forward and enveloped me in yet another hug. Just like the last time I’d seen her, it caught me off-guard. But I kind of liked it. I wrapped my arms around her back and gave her a squeeze right back.
Cherry and Magnolia hugged, too, and Garrek watched this with a furrowed brow. I noticed he’d managed to get those goo-goo glowy eyes of his under control this morning. In the berry-blush of dawn, I couldn’t quite tell what their colour was.
When Cherry and Magnolia pulled away from each other, Cherry introduced herself to Garrek. Like I had done last night, she stuck out her hand, but she realized how pointless a gesture it was much faster than I had, dropping her hand with a little shake of her head.
Garrek acknowledged her name with a flick of his tail and yet another grunt. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his eyes didn’t go white when he looked at Cherry. That seemed to have been a Magnolia-only response.
“We should go,” Garrek said abruptly, eyeing the rising sun.
“Oh!” Magnolia squeaked. “Of course. I just need to grab my things…”
“But there’s food!” I found myself interjecting. “What about breakfast?”
“We can eat on the road,” Garrek said, already turning his big blue body towards the house and heading inside. A second later he reappeared with Magnolia’s bag, the straps held in one hand. It was a decent-sized duffel-style bag, but in his meaty hand it looked like a purse. “This everything?”
“Yes! It’s all packed. I’m wearing everything else,” Magnolia said. She had on her hat, her boots, and her jacket.
As Garrek headed for the shuldu with Magnolia’s bag, calling a reluctant Killian to accompany him, Magnolia, Cherry, and I went inside the house to pack up some of the food.
“Ooh! This is so cute,” Cherry said upon exiting the mudroom and entering the kitchen. She eyed the table with its various mis-matched chairs. “I see your place came furnished!”
“Furnished?” I asked as I started repacking a plate of cheese and fruit into a clean towel to bundle up. “What do you mean? Didn’t you move into Silar’s place? Or was it a new, empty house?”
“Oh, it was his house alright. But it basically had nothing in it. He just ate standing up with no table. Absolute bare minimum for all the domestic stuff. So I’m surprised to see how homey it feels here already! I’m sure Fallon hasn’t built all this stuff since your arrival.”
“No. It was already here,” I said. I thought back to the cozy quilts in the bedrooms.
“I wonder what Oaken’s place will be like,” Cherry said with a smile at Magnolia. “Apparently, he’s very excited about getting married. He voted yes to the bridal program right away. Just like Fallon.”
I felt a flush bloom in my cheeks. I could already picture how excited Fallon would have been when he’d first heard about the new bride program. Pretty much the exact opposite of how I’d felt in arriving here to get married.
“Really? Oh, that’s lovely to hear,” Magnolia gushed, squeezing her hands together. “I can’t wait to meet him. I barely slept last night!”
Apparently, I’d slept like the dead, because I hadn’t noticed if she’d tossed and turned.
“You think… You think he’s a good guy? Oaken?” I asked Cherry, a waver of worry creeping into my voice.
A sudden memory of meeting Massimo for the first time flashed in my head. The smack of his hand on my ass. The appraising leer. The way he’d told me that the first thing I’d have to do before the wedding was change my pink hair back to its natural blonde and that the second thing I’d have to do was lose ten pounds.
If Magnolia experienced something like that, I would ride all the way out there and fucking kill his cowboy ass. I was already living in a penal colony. Might as well earn it.
But Cherry was nodding.
“I truly believe the warden wouldn’t let someone participate in the bride program if he wasn’t reliable or decent.” Her face and tone went oddly sober for someone who was usually all smiles. “I trust Warden Tenn with my life.”
Well… that’s weirdly intense.
I didn’t get a chance to ask her more about her relationship with the warden or what had inspired that deep sense of trust, because a big pair of boots was stomping their way through the mudroom. Garrek appeared in the doorway. Interestingly, he was the only non-warden dude who consistently wore something on his upper body. Fallon, Silar, and even Killian were permanently shirtless, but Garrek wore an old, worn leather vest. It didn’t have any fasteners, so it hung open over his barrel-like chest, but his back was covered.
“Shuldu are ready,” he said to Magnolia.
And that was it. No polite inquiries about if she were ready. No telling her to take her time, to have a bite to eat, to make sure she was hydrated before they hit the long, dusty road.
I glared at him, but he didn’t see it because he was only looking at Magnolia as she finished wrapping up her little sac of food.
“Coming!” she said. “Oh! I almost forgot. Garrek, I have a small gift for you. It’s nothing big. It’s just a little something from home. To say thank you for bringing me along.”
She put down her food and reached into her pocket, pulling out something small and disc-shaped, wrapped in floral-printed paper. I honestly wondered if Garrek wasn’t going to take it, because he just stared at her for a long moment before he finally reached out his hand palm-up.
Magnolia dropped the disc into his hand and then he began to unwrap it. He eyed the solid pink disc, mumbled something that might have been “thanks,” and brought it up to his mouth.
“Oh, no! That’s-” Magnolia started.
But it was too late. Garrek had already taken a nice, big, juicy bite of Terratribe II soap.
Cherry and I sent each other oh shit expressions while Magnolia looked like she was about to self-combust.
“Stop, Garrek!” she cried, bouncing on the balls of her feet and waving her hands in a panic, as if the two feet of height difference between them meant she had to flail wildly to get his attention. Like somebody down on the ground calling up to a person on the roof.
Garrek did stop, but not before forcing himself to swallow the bite.
Gross.
As if his politeness extended only to swallowing the rancid bite and not to his words, he grimaced at Magnolia, coughed a little bit, and asked, “Is it supposed to taste that blasted bad?”
“It’s not supposed to taste like anything because you’re not supposed to eat it,” Magnolia said with a sigh. “It’s soap.”
“Soap’s made from lard. What the blazes is this made of?” Garrek asked, raising the pink disc of soap – now with a big old chomp missing – accusingly.
“Um. It’s made from all-natural Terratribe II ingredients. I made it myself, so I know there’s nothing toxic in it. At least, not for humans.”
“You made this?” Garrek asked, frowning at the soap and giving it a suspicious sniff.
“Yes. I just… I didn’t bring much else to give, and…” She looked down at her feet. “Sorry. I suppose that wasn’t a very good gift after all.”
Garrek stared at her while she stared at the toes of her boots. Then, more carefully and gently than those big hands should have been capable of, he wrapped the now crescent-moon shaped soap back up in its paper, put it in his vest pocket, and gruffly muttered, “Didn’t say that.”
“Why don’t we head outside,” I said gently to Magnolia, trying to dispel the awkwardness and the guilt she clearly felt. Magnolia nodded, and she hurried out, followed by Cherry.
As soon as Magnolia was out of sight, Garrek took one big step to the sink and spat into it before turning on the tap and vigorously rinsing out his mouth. I watched him with my arms folded across my chest.
“Look, I know I already got all up your ass about this last night.”
Garrek whipped around to look at me.
“You what ?”
“And I believe you when you say you’d protect her with your life,” I went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But I just want to make sure you’re going to be nice to her, too. Maybe thank her for the soap. I think she feels really bad.”
“I did thank her. Didn’t you hear me?” he demanded. Then, after spitting one last time into the sink and before striding from the room, he muttered, “She’s probably just poisoned me and I’ve gone and thanked her for it. Empire help me.”