Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Idon’t think Flint has ever had pizza.
I’m trying really hard not to think too much about the things he has said.
That Goira is real, that Calida really is a dragon, and really exists (although, that one is hard to rationalize the cognitive dissonance when I saw her set a fire).
How is it even possible that a world that exists solely in my imagination could become real?
And let’s be honest here. I didn’t even fully develop it.
I sat down at my laptop with a hope and a prayer, and have been word vomiting on the page, hoping that something – anything – would stick.
I don’t have some great back story for Princess Aisling or her great warrior lover, who is still little more than a vague outline.
I don’t know how, or even if they’re going to win this battle that I’m putting them in.
I don’t know where the power she is able to access comes from or what, exactly, her lover’s power even is.
I’m not even convinced he has a name yet.
How can I be so sure that Flint has made some galaxy-hopping crossover?
Based on what I remember of what I wrote last night, Flint has all the makings of a Fae warrior: strong, tattooed, drop-my-pants attractive.
But did I actually write him that way or is Flint just sexy enough to have superimposed his image in my brain?
I’ll need to check my notes. I think I read once that you can’t imagine or dream new faces — every face you see, even sleeping, is a face you’ve encountered in your life, even if you can’t remember it.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why Flint seems so familiar?
There’s so much about my story that I haven’t thought of or even bothered to sit and think about, figure out.
It’s super possible I’m just taking this at face value.
Maybe I’m having a delusion, but if Bits could see him, I’m probably not hallucinating.
Or maybe it's a group hallucination. That could totally be it.
Then again, if this is all true, maybe Flint can fill in some gaps for me…
Bitch — focus!
I eye Calida, happily devouring three pieces of meat lovers pizza on the kitchen tile.
She is purring like a fucking motorcycle.
It’s hard to imagine that she, specifically, could be a hallucination, but if my mental illness has taught me anything, it’s that the pile of electrified tapioca pudding piloting this particular meat suit is weird as shit and anything is possible.
I serve Flint and myself, since he doesn’t seem super confident in the kitchen, and I give us both a little bit of everything, especially since he’d indicated he isn’t picky, pouring us each a generous glass of wine.
It occurs to me that he might prefer a beer, but it’s too late for that now.
With the old television show playing in the background, I settle back onto the couch with my pizza and wine.
Flint elects to toss a pillow on the floor, sitting atop it, with his back braced against the base of the couch.
He looks oddly at home there, I think. He’s removed his boots and cloak.
He’s wearing some sort of… are those britches?
!... and a plain cotton shirt. He’s rolled the sleeves up to above his elbows, showcasing the swirls of ink that flow down to his wrists.
He appears to be watching the TV and although I’m not sure how much he is actually getting, he is laughing at all the right spots.
Maybe this relationship has a future after all.
Why am I even deluding myself? I need to focus. Eating my pizza, I try to think about what I know about my story. What can I possibly ask Flint about that world, the world I made up, that could help cement whether this is a mass hallucination or if it is a real, unbelievable thing?
I chew my cheese pizza thoughtfully. Yes, I generally prefer something more substantial on my pizza, but given the giant male and what may or may not be a dragon in my apartment currently, I felt that it was in everyone’s best interest to just eat the cheese. Stop judging me, ok?
“Flint?” I pause to swallow. “Can you tell me about the Sorcery of Sentiments?”
He fumbles as he reaches for his wine. Drawing his arm back to his side, I can feel him looking at me. Shit. Was that too forward?
“The Sorcery of Sentiments?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I reply, “I mean, that was a battle you fought in… right?”
Silence.
I don’t dare look up from my pizza. It tastes like paste, which is sad, because this is usually some bomb pizza. I can’t bear to look at him. Either he’s trying to formulate a response to my off the wall question or he has an actual answer and is trying to spare my poor, mortal mind.
Flint seems to consider my question, carefully, as he refills his wine. “It was,” he says, hesitantly. “It was indeed. But that was a long time ago. I think I’d much prefer a different life these days.” His eyes are on his pizza now, refusing to look at me.
“What are you looking for now?” I wonder. “I would think being a renowned warrior would be like, peak performance for you, right? Isn’t that sort of the end all, be all?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “It would be, for some. Even for most. I, however, find myself drawn to a different kind of life.”
“What kinda life do you want, Flint?”
He’s quiet for a long time.
“What sort of life do you want for yourself, Casie?” he counters.
I let out a huff of breath. He’s got me there. Well, let’s blame the wine.
“I want a life where I make a difference. It doesn’t have to be a big difference,” I state.
“I don’t need to cure cancer or find the cure to the common cold or anything.
I just… I want my words, my characters… the people that only exist between me and those twenty-six letters…
I want them to matter. I want someone one-hundred, two-hundred years from now to pick up something I’ve penned, slaved over…
spent days selecting just the right adjective…
I want it to matter.” I finish, lamely. “I want my stories to matter. I want to be remembered.”
Flint softly mutters, “They matter more than you could imagine.”
“What?” I say, sure I’ve heard him wrong.
Rather than answering or repeating himself, Flint shakes his head, seeming to come back to himself.
“You never answered me. What kinda life do you want?”
He seems to think. “I want a peaceful life. A quiet life.” He glances around the space again.
“Like what you have, I think. A home that’s my own.
A job that fulfills me, that gives me something to occupy my time.
I might like to travel later, when there’s time.
There’s so much to see and do. But I think, at the root of it all, I want something… extraordinarily boring.”
He says the last word with enough relish that I’m eying his wine glass. I think my lovely Fae house-guest may be a teeny bit tipsy.
Shit. House-guest. I still don’t know where I’m going to put these two. Which reminds me…
I glance around until I spot Calida, and can’t help but giggle. She’s laying on her back, wings splayed out on each side, snoring softly. She has pizza sauce on her snout and all four feet up in the air.
“I think our friend is in a food coma.” I say, gesturing with my chin. Flint follows my gaze and smiles, softly. He’s so pretty when he smiles like that, I think, taking another sip of my wine.
Pretty? Okay, maybe he isn’t the only one who’s a little tipsy. What the hell? It’s been a very long, very weird day. On that thought, I refill my own glass.
As we finish our pizza and continue to work on killing off the wine, Flint continues to ask questions.
I think he’s mostly trying to stop me from asking him any of my own.
I tell him about how I met Betsy after I dropped out of college due to asshole professors who were doing their level best to squash the joy of the story out of me.
I tell him about finding Willow Creek by chance, how I’d met Betsy.
“She handed me a handful of cash, kissed my cheek, and went on her way. I’ve been at Wanderlust since. ”
“She sounds wonderful.” he comments, as he helps clear up the meal and put the room to rights.
"She really is. She almost makes me believe fairy godmothers exist.”
Flint seems to choke a bit on his latest glass of wine.
“You ok?” I ask.
He nods, settling on the couch and clearing his throat. “I just swallowed wrong, that’s all.” He takes a more careful sip. “Can you tell me about the story you’re working on?” He gestures with his glass towards my small writing set up.
I take a seat next to him on the couch and tuck my feet under me. “Well, if you’re to be believed, it’s about your homeland.”
He tries to wave his arm in a sweeping motion, but lists a little too far to the side. “Forget that. Tell me the story you’re writing.”
“Well, it’s about a distant land, where the Fae reside.
Every Fae has some sort of power, like in so many books.
It’s tried and true for a reason, right?
Anyway, there’s this princess who has the ability to draw power from emotion and she goes to battle…
” I lay out the very crude synopsis I have in my head.
“Of course, I have huge missing chunks and so much I don’t know or, well, I guess I really haven’t figured a lot of the plot out yet and I don’t know how to write battle scenes because I’ve never actually been to battle before and at one point there was a giant cat…
” I realize I’m just rambling, barely taking a breath.
Flint is squinting at me, his eyebrows drawing together. “A giant cat?”
Glumly, I nod. “See? Even some of what I’ve actually managed to write doesn’t make any sense.” I pause. “Wait. You mean there aren’t giant cats where you come from?”
He pauses to think. “There are large cats, to be sure, but nothing I would classify as ‘giant.’”
“Well, fuck.”
I had long since lost track of how many drinks either of us had consumed. Flint’s cheeks are rosy, however, and his eyes seem to gleam.
He lays back on the floor, his feet braced and his hands behind his head. He studies me with a playful grin spreading across his face as he watches the animated gestures I’m making while I tell him about a scrapped short story I once tried to write.
“I didn’t know you could be this... bubbly.” he teases.
I snort in a very unladylike manner. “Bubbly? Is that a compliment or an observation?”
“Why can’t it be both?” he sits up, bringing his face closer to mine. My heart seems to do a slow somersault in my chest and I’m not entirely sure I can blame the wine as his eyes seem to burn into mine.
The world seems to fade, the background noise of the TV becoming a drone in the background; just a distant murmur as the tension between us seems to thicken.
Flint reaches around me for his glass, and his hand brushes my arm, bobbling my wine. The accidental contact seems to send a jolt of electricity through me and based on the way his eyes widen and darken, he feels it, too.
“Oops.” I say, barely above a whisper, because I’m awkward and tipsy, and of course I’m going to ruin this moment.
Flint’s eyes stay on mine as he puts his glass back down, and gently brushes the hair away from my face with the back of his fingers, turning his hand to cup my cheek.
My eyes shutter closed, I feel his breath on my face as he drifts closer, and then I feel the warm, firm pressure of his lips against mine.
They’re so soft, so warm and my brain scrambles into a tipsy mess.
I try to move my face for a better angle, but accidentally misjudge the distance between us because of course, I’m tipsy, and we just end up bumping noses in a messy, clumsy collision.
Flint pulls back and smiles. I smile too, even as I can feel my cheeks heat in a deep blush.
“Let’s try that again,” he suggests. He brings both hands to cup my face this time, holding me in place as he gently presses his lips to mine again. Once, twice, three times; gently, warm, increasing the pressure with every contact.
I’m dazed when he pulls back, struggling to open my eyes.
“So sweet, Ash. So very, very sweet.”
I swear his eyes are glowing. It has to be the wine. Eyes don’t glow.
Pushing my hair off of my face again, Flint smiles at me. He slowly draws me forward and places a chaste kiss on my forehead.
“You should get some sleep, love. We always have tomorrow.”
Nodding dumbly, I drag myself off the floor after a couple of tries, bracing my hand against the couch and using Flint’s chest as a place of leverage.
I stagger behind the partition and fall into bed, fully clothed.
A thump on the mattress tells me Calida has decided to join me, and then the darkness drags me under.