Warning: some language
The movement draws the boy's attention. "Dad!" «Dad?»
For a brief moment, the drow is in an unaccustumed state of stunned speechlessness. He certainly doesn't remember having any children, and definitely not by Kirsten. On the other hand, the emotions he is reading indicate an incredible amount of sincerity and truthfulness. Then, add in all the possible complexities of time and dimensional travel.
In the end, he opts for what seems the proper thing to do. Dropping into the silent tongue of the drow, he quickly inquires as to how he has been, ending the inquiry with the classic human action of an embrace, blending the two actions into a smooth, single act.
The boy's Drow is weak and unpracticed, but he replies that he's doing rather well on the whole, and hugs back strongly.
"Bwa."
The boy silently asks how his lemon... no... father has been, and where he's been for the last two years or so.
The dark elf replies that it is a very long explanation, and that, as with many things in their lives, it will make no sense on the first telling.
"Ain't *that* the truth."
"Beh."
Breaking out of the hug, he turns to face his mother. He frowns a moment... it may just be him, but she looks awfully good for her age. Antiagathics?
"But..."
"Mom?"
Kirsten's eyes are wide open in shock and surprise. "But... I haven't *had* any kids yet. I haven't even," she blushes faintly, "y'know... *tried* with Sil-chan." //Oops.// "What did I... what's your name?"
"Stephen Wintermere," the boy answers softly. In all of his dreams and thoughts about his parents returning to him, none of them involved a scenario like this. He casts about, trying to figure out something to calm things down, and a whistling noise from the back of his booth suffices.
"The Precognitive Teapot's* finished boiling... anyone for a cup of tea? I've got some of that odd stuff you like, Dad."
The dark elf nods, not at all sure what Stephen is referring to, but deciding for the moment to go along. "Thank you, Stephen. This is going to be one of the odder explanations."
A thought crosses his mind. Surely, not just a son. He couldn't have failed THAT badly if he had wanted to. "How are your sisters? Have your grandmothers been keeping an eye on you?"
"Vicky?" Stephen pauses as he pours out tea, dropping two sugars into Kirsten's automatically, and serving Silussa's the way he preferrs. "She went after you guys, six months or so ago. Told me to keep myself safe, and to hang around home. You guys always liked going to PhaCON, so I thought I'd come by again this year to see if Vicky or you showed up." He sets down the pot, having prepared his tea with lemon and one sugar. "And you did."
He thinks a moment. "Grandma Viconia's been doing some sort of research project... but I think she's fine."
Kirsten's still getting herself back on the psychic equivalent of the horse that's thrown you, and tries speaking again. "You've... I've got a *daughter* too? Anyone else?" She sips from the tea - quite nice - and tries again. "I'm sorry... this is... all new. I'm still pretty young, and I'm just having fun, and exploring and inventing. I certainly don't need to settle down yet! And now I've got kids I don't know, and another me wandering around?"
Simultaniously, Kirsten and Stephen both hit their foreheads on their hands. "Time Travel, oy!" they chorus. It's kinda spooky.
The dark elf nods. "Well, that makes the explanations a lot simpler. You see, Stephen, your mother and I just met a few weeks ago, OUR timeframe."
"For that matter, she hasn't even told me her last name yet."
He turns and looks at Kirsten. "As for children...well, among the drow, the family line is carried by the females. So, there would HAVE to be at least one daughter. Probably more."
Sil sits back, awaiting the inevitable burst of confusion, as his mind continues to sort the situation out.
Just then, a rather large and obvious hero-type trips over one of the contraptions lying next to the booth and crashes into the rather flimsy plywood. "'Scuse me," he mumbles.
The dark elf blinks, surprised that anyone could actually bounce off the flimsy plywood, obviously so since it says right upon it "Flimsy plywood".
"Katrak!" Trouble bounds over to the large hero. "What's happened to you?"
It's a good question- Katrak has one arm in a sling, a black eye, and seems to have bandages for about half his clothing.
"Name it," Katrak replies.
The dark elf looks again over the strange person in the combination skin-tight costume/Band-Aid brand bandages (TM) outfit, allowing himself a slight smile.
"I would venture to guess that you fell twelve stories out a skyscraper window, bounced off a flagpole, dropped two more stories onto an elevated train track, then got knocked off by an express train, falling three more stories to street level, where you were hit by a blue Beetle carring a large rug in the forward trunk.
"You're close," replies the hero. "That and my mother's been held captive by some villian I've never heard of before; my arch-enemy I thought was gone has arisen again and killed my long-lost brother; and my sister has turned out to be a vampire of some sort. Each and every time I've come within a hair's breadth of croaking for good. I've never had this kind of luck before this year."
Kirsten only listens with one ear, as she studies her future son. "Well... uh... how are you doing, kid? You eating vegitables and the like?" Her mother had never been the 'hovering' type, and she regretted it now as she casts about to think of motherly things to check up on. Stephen shrugs.
While he expounds on all that, he exercises a fair amount of will, considering that his future mate to be would look quite fetching in a skin-tight outfit, with a few strategic modifications, of course.
Kirsten's breath goes out with a audible whoosh as her Scooby Doo T-shirt constricts around her chest, and her loose, comfortable jeans similarly contract. Meanwhile, bits of her body adjust and grow, turning her from a relaxed techie into a tightly wrapped lust object with twice as many curves as she's had before - eerily reminicent of Ms. Peel from the Avengers in some of her more popular pinups.
Looking down at herself, she gasped. "What... What... Who?"
Stephen's nose leaks a little red onto his upper lip at a moment as his mother... changes. Wiping it off, he starts backing away.
The dark elf's eyes are open wide now, and no person could possibly mistake the look in them. His eyes scan Kirsten's whole new body, from the long, muscular, statuesque legs to the face which could launch a thousand ships. Rarely does one have the potential of fulfilling a physical fantasy, and the drow's lust is overflowing, emotionally, and growing very tight in other ways.
Quietly rising, he moves to Kirsten's side, one hand gently caressing the newly-born sex tigress's arm. His breathing is deeper, and slightly more ragged, as he struggles to restrain his desire to make physical love to her, here and now.
Kirsten flinches at the touch, turning to face Silussa. "Hey! Geddoffa me!" She pushes herself away from him, stepping back a few feet. As she holds one hand in front of her, the other slips up and behind her, and flips open her backpack to grab something from it.
The commotion attracts attention from across the way. Certain things are frowned on at conventions.
A simple query to Stephen in Silent Tongue. «I hope your mother and I are about to play, I hope. Would you care to join us?» //After all, if he's my son, he has LONG ago been introduced to "the birds and the bees", as the humans put it....and it would be rude to do otherwise//
Whatever one may think, hundreds of years of life and godlike powers do not prevent one from being an idiot.
Stephen's eyes go wide, as he replies. «No thanks, Dad. Boy, you really _don't_ know mom, do you?» It is perhaps telling that Stephen then picks up a pair of eye protecting goggles and dons them as he ducks behind a heavy, sheilding piece of equipment.
Something in the back of Sil's mind tells him he is in deep trouble. Part of him finds it confusing; after all, what female wouldn't want to be a supercharged sex tigress?
Another part, long buried, looks forward eagerly to disciplining.
Kirsten, on the other hand, is continuing to get more frantic. As her burrowing hand returns with some sort of folded metal stick, her other hand points accusingly at Silussa. "Did YOU do this to me?" She shouts. "Huh?" A practiced whip of her hand causes the long stick to unfold into a gun-like weapon whose barrel spreads out at the end like a blunderbuss.
//Goddess,// thought Stephen, //it's Mom's Happy Boom Stick.// He started looking around for ear protection.
«I guess not, Stephen. This should be....interesting.»
The dark elf swallows hard, as he begins to slowly back away. For a moment, a brief moment, admittedly, he considers lying.
Then, his eyes once again enjoying the leather-clad goddess-like figure, he realizes he couldn't do so, even if he wanted to. Dumbly, he merely nods, as his excitement continues to grow against all reason.
But then, no one every claimed the drow were reasonable by human standards.
Silussa is saved by a voice that chants a short phrase, blasting the equivalent of two-demensional lightning into a wall between him and Kirsten, as well as surrounding the immediate area.
"What is going on here?"
The speaker is not visually very imposing- she looks like a younger version of Vixen, say, about 13 years old. However, the circlet of white gold on her shoulder-length hair and the cloak that billows behind her without any wind tell a different story. Even as distracted as Silussa may be, he can see that her aura glows with the kind of power that only high mastery of magic and psionics can create- same as they created the sparking wall in front of him.
Silussa admitting to being the source of the change paradoxially calms Kirsten a smudge. Her finger relaxes off of the trigger as she realizes things aren't entirely as out of control as they seemed. She had been feeling trapped, having discovered that her future was 'fixed', and she no longer had any control over it. That blossomed into rage when she was changed so abruptly.
So she's willing to look behind at the nice girl who seems to be doing something. "This... This... ASSHOLE changed me into... THIS!" She gestures to herself. Then she turns back to Silussa. "AND HE'D DAMN WELL BETTER FUCKING UNDO IT, THE SON OF A DIARRIAC CAMEL!"
That said, she backs down to 'seething' mode.
Control having reasserted itself, the drow bows politely to the Constable, now in formal mode. "Her statement is quite correct, ma'am. I misunderstood a situation badly, I fear. With your permission, I will fulfill her request, and undo my error."
"After that is done, I will withdraw to avoid any further confusion or problems. I certainly do NOT wish to cause any further commmotion."
Her son remains behind the heavy machinery. It's all well and good to have the local constibulary show up to break up domestic disputes, but any cop would tell you that that rarely goes well. Unnoticed by him, a piece of equipment in his personal area has started to blink.
"Commotion is fine. Weapons being drawn is not. You may sell them, buy them, and carry them, but not use them. Now, if you'll excuse me.. Quinn!" The sternness vanishes from her face, if not her aura of power. "Coming to the committee meeting tonight?"
Quinn nods. "Figured the once a year I can make it, I ought to go."
The girl nods, taking out a notepad and marking it down. "Good. It's such a pain, being the head of the committee."
Quinn nods, again, seeming fully sympathetic.
With that, the girl sweeps her hand; the walls of two-demensional lightning disappear, and so does she.
The inhibition against drawing weapons strikes Kirsten as highly hypocritical in a society where everyone _else_ seems to be bristling with fantastic magical powers that they don't seem to be prescribed form using. After all, what's the difference between a gun or a spell that changes one into stone?
However, as Silussa undoes his major mojo and resets her back to _being_ Kirsten, she decides that she Doesn't Care Anymore. It's all been far too much, from time-loops to transformations to 13-year old dictators. Pressing a catch on the side of the HBS, it folds back to travel size with an audible snap, and she stows it back into the separate flap of her backpack, ready again for use.
That done, she walks off quickly back to the door they came in through, and from there back to the ship, and her cabin therein. She needs time to herself, to calm down and to think about what she's going to do next.
Other than yell at Silussa for an hour or two.
---
Stephen gets up from behind the heavy engine block that was sheltering him, and walks up to his father, taking eye and ear protectors off as he goes.
«So, Dad,» he says in silent tongue, «You always this charming with the ladies, or am I just lucky?»
Teras, like everyone else, has just observed the confrontation. He shudders, and resolves to stay away from Silussa for a while. Besides, he may have found a new mentor -- if he can just stay out of trouble for another day or so.
The dark elf merely shakes his head in wonderment as the crowd disperses. «Actually, I've never had to go chasing the women. But that was a magnificent body; it would have been ravishing a millenia from now. Incredible brain power to supplement her own. Instead, she blew up.»
Stephen frowns a moment. «I think the problem, Dad, is that you didn't tell her anything. Just 'pop' and Mom's a sex symbol. And afterwards, instead of trying to calm her down, you just.. came on to her.» He grins. «If you're gonna rob the cradle, Dad, you've got to accommodate your partner's age.»
«Rob the cradle? She's adult, by human standards.»
Stephen grins, and hands Silussa his tea back. «Yeah, _for_ human standard stuff. She's just not _used_ to time travel, and shape-changing, and other weirdness. And you are, what? Several thousand years older than her? My guess is: Too much, Too soon.»
«Not THAT much older.» The dark elf pauses to count as he accepts the tea; one does not tend to keep close track of age when one is immortal. «Only about 553 more.»
«Well, if she's going to be on the boat, it is probably best that I be somewhere else. Can you suggest a place to stay, Stephen?»
«Oh, sure. I'm renting a room... 304+5i. It's got a king-sized bed.»
«The floor will do fine; I've slept in worse places, and it IS your bed.»
«Oh, C'mon Dad. It'll be fine. And if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have a body to put in a bed, no?»
«I suppose so; still, one should not get too soft. You never know when your next sleeping place may be in a cave.»
It is at this point that a girl about his own age runs over to Stephen and hugs him tightly, wrapping her arms around him as she literally hangs from his shoulders.
Slightly startled, although not showing it, the dark elf gives a little room, watching warily to see what happens next.
She's got a Mediterrainian light-olive skin color, with blond, if not slightly pink, hair which is gathered into two globe-like hair ornements and then comes down in two tails. Her eyes are a strong green in color, and her face has a cuteness that is partially ruined by a little too much makeup.
Her outfit consists of a silvery over-robe that hangs open to the waist to reveal a fine white silk shirt embroidered with abstract designs which is unbuttoned in a vain attempt to call attention to cleavage that isn't there yet. Below she wears a pair of light brown slacks that end at the knees to become a long hanging fringe of multi-colored beadwork. Her feet are bare.
"Are you okay, lover-boy? I saw all of the pyrotechnics and rushed over as soon as I could! Is this guy bothering you?" Two globe-like hair ornaments start glowing a bright orange as she looks suspiciously at Silussa.
Stephen blushes a little. "Aneka, _please_. This is my Dad... kinda. Dad, this is the Princess Aneka Dorango Sivven-do-lush McKelhey of the planet aRuthi. Aneka, my father Silussa." He doesn't go into all of the titles because he's not sure which ones his father would have at this time.
The dark elf bows politely. "Silussa, elf of the drow race, mage, warrior, Prince of Newhome, resident of the Dominance of Dragons, co-deity of the Elven Pantheon with the portfolio of peace and longevitity, at your service. You will have to forgive Stephen's choice of words, but they are indeed accurate. We currently have a bit of time travel confusion, which I'm certain will iron itself out in due course."
"Time travel, huh? I'm sure loverboy can iron it out." Stephen rolls his eyes.
"Assuming, of course, his mother to be doesn't kill me first."
Aneka _jumps_ at the mention of Stephens mother, and lands a foot away. "Your Mother's _here_?" She looks around, nervous. "And she's mad?"
Stephen rolls his shoulders for a few moments. "Time travel, Aneka. She doesn't know you yet."
The dark elf looks at his son, one eyebrow raised, obviously expecting an explanation for why someone would jump a foot at the mention of an upset mother.
Aneka calms herself down visibly, and grins. "Well, good! I can make a first-class first impression with her this time!" She strikes a heroic pose, one hand pointing up and into the future, "Yes! I, the Princess Aneka Dorango Sivven-do-lush McKelhey, shall impress the hell out of your mother!"
Silussa's eyes roll upward briefly. Given the recent events, he does NOT think this is likely to work.
At this point another girl Stephen's age walks up to the group, a respectful distance away. Unlike Aneka, she's blossomed, and blossomed early. Flaming red hair cascades freely down her back, and a pair of glowing read eyes look out over a pair of ornamental green sunglasses with brass fittings. Her clothes look like a stereotypical pirate's outfit, only slightly alien and made with the best materials and tailored to her form. Her overcoat is a number of rich green shades with gems inset into the buckles and buttons. Underneath is a white shirt with many ruffles and folds that doesn't need to be unbuttoned to remind the viewer what's inside. Her pants are a dark brown leather in color, and hide the top of a pair of fine black boots, again embellished with brass fittings.
She bows deeply to Silussa. "Hello, Father-in-law."
Stephen cringes.
Silussa bows in return. "Greetings, daughter-in-law. Due to the vagrities of time travel, I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage. Perhaps you could introduce yourself fully, as we have not yet met in my reference." Given the aura he is looking at, she would make a fine catch for either his son or his daughter. //Perhaps she's been reengineered to make her more suitable? A little magic of the right type can do wonders...//
"Cow!" shouts Aneka. "You're no more his daughter in law than I'm... I'm..."
"Female?" Suggests the new arrival.
Aneka's face goes red. "You Boyfriend-stealing Date-ruining Over-developed SLUT! How _dare_ you say that to a person of royal birth?"
The new woman's eyes glow a brighter red. "You errant, flap-mouthed pignut! You venomed, sour-faced, lout! Why, I ought to reach down your throat and pull out your liver, you lewd, pox-marked, dewberry!"
Stephen has, by this time, fished a whistle out of his shirt that dangles by a leather strand from his neck, and blows it. The piercing noise cuts through the altercation, and the two girls look at him.
"Ixnay on the ightfay in the onkay," he mutters, dropping the whistle back down his shirt. "Dad, this is Xura Metallos, of Corporate Pirate space fleet Metallos. And Aneka is right, she isn't your daughter in law."
The dark elf sighs. "Pity. A little tinkering, and she would have probably made a good mate for Vicky."
Xura sticks her tongue out. "Ick."
«Are there any OTHER ones to crawl out of the woodwork?»
«Luckily, Lucy's on a research trip studying sub-orbital carbon crystals*, so she's not likely to show up.» [*Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds]
"Anyway. Girls, it's nice for both of you to show up and check on me, but I _do_ have a booth to run. Can we get together for dinner, and work things out then? Maybe, by then, Mom'll have gotten back."
The little family reunion is interupted rather sharply...or at least, one small part of it is interupted. Two heavy set figures approach Aneka, wandering over from a booth. One of them has a suprised look of recognition on her face. Both look to be anthropomorphic badgers.
The suprised one is about 5 feet tall, and heavy set, muscular, though not overly so. Her snout and face are white, striped with two black streaks that go up into black-and-white short, frizzy hair. European badger markings. Her brown-grey-yellow eyes are wide and expressive, and slightly crazed looking. She wears a brief, tight fitting black tank top that leaves her midriff bare. It says something on it...but one's eyes tend to skitter away, as if the word doesn't want to be read. Her lower body is swathed in baggy camo cargo pants, crazy with pockets. A strange necklace hangs around her thick neck...braided or twisted leather cord? Upon closer examination it appears to be a stylized, thin noose.
But more startling, on a furred person, are all the tatoos. Her salt-and-pepper grey fur is clipped short to better show off the plethora of markings. On her left upper arm, a vertical line, with two crescents set opposite each other, the curve of their backs touching on the midpoint of the line, like back-to-back 'c's. On the left upper arm, and odd sort on yin/yang...but instead of the dots, there are two symbols: in the black portion is an apple with the letter 'K' inscribed on it, in the white portion a pentagon. The back of her neck sports a pyramid with an eye over it, much like the one on the dollar bill. Tatooed over her midriff, just above her belly button, in a neat arc, is the phrase 'Ewige Blumekraft'. On her lower back, over her left hip, there is stylized cockroach, smoking a joint, all done in black.
She speaks in an amused, pleasant voice. "Dude! It's der princess. Long time no see!"
Behind her, the other badger scowls. The two are a study in opposites. This one is HEAVILY muscled, about 5'5", though slightly out of proportion. Her shoulders are simply enormous, and her arms too long for her body, giving her a gorilla-like appearance. Her fur has more of a brownish tint to the grey, and her facial markings have more stripes, giving her the appearance of sideburns. American badger markings. Her short, streaked hair is slicked back with what smells like bryll creem. Her narrow dark brown eyes study the rest of the group warily, ignoring the younger girl. Several scars mar her snout, and the visible parts of her hide...thick, disheveled fur is not enough to hide them.
She wears a tight men's undershirt the stretches to cover her shoulders and breasts. The only clue to her gender is neatly outlined in dirty grey (what used to be white)...to put it bluntly, she's stacked. Over that she wears a polyester bowling shirt, in various shades of brown. Under this, baggy black slacks, good for hiding stains. Everything about her, from the heavy brow, to the huge digging claws on oversized hands, says 'thug'.
Meanwhile, the other badger pulls out a sheaf of cards from her pocket...look like business cards...and splays them like a hand of playing cards.
"Want one?" she offers.
Aneka looks confused, and frowns a little. "Do I know you?"
The frizzy headed badger blinks, then thinks. "Kinda...no...by reputation. What year is this, and how old are you?"
She shrugs. "It's the year of the Tortose, and I'm 15."
Xura snickers at that.
"Oh, alright. I'll be fifteen next month. _Practically_ fifteen, you old hag."
The smiling badger nods. "Duh, of course...we just got in from Al Amajra, and so time is a little messed up...I'll know you by reputation and correspondance in about..." she thinks. "25 years? Not sure...I think you're lying about your age." She looks down at the young woman. "Well, that explains a lot," she adds, eyeing her lack of a chest.
The dark elf lets his eyes play back and forth between the two badger females and Xura. While he doesn't say anything, one almost gets the impression that he finds the argument about calendar years almost amusing.
"Perhaps, ladies, we should simply acknowledge that this is the 52nd PHACon, and leave it at that."
The firzzy headed badger shakes her head, still looking at Xura..."No, I mean, when I know her LATER she's lying about her age...." She looks over at Silussa, and her eyes suddenly spring into comically wide-openess.
"GREYFACE!" she hollers, her eyes skittering right and left..."No time for..." suddenly, without warning, she takes one of the small cards she held in a fan, and throws it with suprising accuracy at the drow's head.
With barely a thought, the drow is suddenly holding a pair of swords: one long, one short, both elaborately worked, and expensively ornamented. To anyone knowledgeable in the ways of magic, these are probably major magical items, clearly of drow workmanship, possibly just a step below artifact level.
If one perceives magic, of course, then there is no doubt.
Almost as fast, the other badger moves into action, though not a particularily offensive one...she simply steps between the drow and the other badger.
"Heads up!"
With that, the drow is somewhere else. Specifically, behind a heavy bank of machinery that, very recently, Stephen was using.
Given the momentary respite, the drow's thoughts finally catch up with his fighter reflexes. //WHY THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT?//
The card keeps flying through the air, thwaps some poor passerby on the head, who turns, irritated.
"Geez, watch where you're chucking stuff!" He bends down to pick up the card, examines it, then smiles. "Hey, cool! Thanks!" And wanders off.
Meanwhile, the larger badger keeps her body between the drow-and the bank of machinery-and her companion. She hisses over her shoulder in a low voice, thick Brookynese accent.
"Lyzzy! Wha' the fuck d'ya think you're doin'?"
The other badger, Lyzzy, apparently, peers over the others shoulder.
"Greyface," she explains. "I thought I'd make him a Pope, and then he wouldn't bug us. No time for the turkey curse. Come on, Loosh, you know how they are."
"Lucia," the other badger corrects absently, and rolls her dark brown eyes. "Look, I dunno about your psycho little religion, but you are not payin' me enough for this kinda shit. This was supposed to be our vacation."
Lyzzy grins, a bit sheepishly, showing a good deal of teeth. "I know...but...well, gut reaction."
"I thought you couldn't alwuz tell these guys on sight?"
"Well, you can't....um...and that guy probably wasn't one. Oops?"
Stephen sighs. "I wish the Drug Emporium wasn't so near my booth. Stuff like this keeps happening."
Resolved to (more-or-less) ignore the furry humanoids, he goes over to his Dad. «False alarm, I think.»
The dark elf nods, as he puts his swords away. «Concur. Strange pair.»
Xura rolls her eyes, and then stops as one of her earrings flashes and whispers to her. "Ahh.... Mother desires me to return to start getting ready for the banquet tonight. See you later, Stephen?" Stephen nods, and watches her leave, to the envy of Aneka.
//I hate looking like a little girl!// She thinks to herself, stamping her foot in annoyance.
As Silussa emerges from cover, he pauses to extract from his small purse a goodly-sized object, creme-colored and about the size of a bowling ball, which he then sends rolling across the floor toward the badger pair.
"Catch!"
Lucia moves to pull Lyzzy away from the ball, but the smaller badger is faster, and leans down to pick it up. Lucia winces, and then opens her eyes as nothing happenes. Lyzzy peers at the ball, as a long, thin crack appears in it, then another. Then, the entire top half of the shell, for that's what it is, falls ooff, landing with a crunch on the ground. Lyzzy peers inside curiously, and frowns.
With some fishing, she pulls out a very, very small rabbit. As in about one inch long, though close inspection shows it is, indeed, full grown.
"Huh."
Lucia still keeps her distance, but appears somewhat relaxed. The rabbit looks anything but, until Lyzzy comments, "Too small to eat. But kinda cute." She looks over at Silussa. "Thanks! Sure you don't want a card?"
The dark elf shakes his head. "Maybe tomorrow."
«Let's get out of here, before something else happens, Stephen.»
Lyzzy frowns. "Okay. Might want to get a white thought generator, too," she adds, helpfully, and then wanders back off into the crowd.
Stephen nods, and pulls back a few items from the walkway before unfurling a large tarp to cover his wares, which Silussa helps him with. Then, having effectively shut down his booth, he turns to Aneka.
"Sorry to leave you, but Dad and I are gonna go take a break from the crossfire."
Aneka nods. "I need to get back anyway. I was just going to go get some pillows for Mom, and she'll be pissed if I'm late." That said, she impulsively kisses Stephen on the cheek, and runs off.
Stephen sighs.
«Such a problem; being pursued by three young, attractive, virile females. I should have had such problems as a kid.»
«Well, Dad,» he points off in a direction, «this way to the living quarters. Watch out for the Pirana-bird booth - they can't fly out of the forcefield, but it's a shock to see one diving at you anyway.»
And the pair move off for a break.
«So, perhaps you should bring me up to speed? I may be in the wrong time, but I am still your father, and I would prefer not to make any more major mistakes. I STILL think she would make a good match for Vicky.»
---
And in her room, Kirsten finally falls to sleep.
To her deep annoyance, the dreams involve her and Silussa, a bucket of ice, a small canister of chocolate sauce, another of whipped cream, and a salad.
---
Stephen led his father to his hotel room. Swiping a coded card through a slot in the door, it opened and lead to a modest room featuring a desk, bed, minibar, a small bathroom, and a couple of comfortable upholstered chairs.
Stephen waves at the minibar. "Please, help yourself, Dad. After all, you're paying for the room." He pauses. "Or you will be."
Silussa looks about, then goes ahead and checks out the contents of the minibar. "Anything for you, son?"
"I seem to still be fairly free with my cash, at least."
Sinking into one of the chairs (which is more comfortable than hotel furniture has a right to be), Stephen closes his eyes for a moment as he think. "How I got into this mess... Sounds like a book title."
"Aneka I met a year or so ago at her home planet. Mom was there on business, and since the planet is fairly nice, she let me go off on my own, as long as I kept a phone with me."
The dark elf slips into the other chair, listening intently.
***
Stephen walked along the aRuthian capitol's streets, looking around everywhere. The Festival of the hanging of the law-knowers was in full force, and he stood aside to let a miniature parade of kids, each holding up a stick from which a small effigy hung, run by. Tiring of fighting through the crowd, he took the first turn-off he could find, a small ally that ran down to the next street, with brightly-colored trash incinerators cheerfully warming the area up. He walked slowly down, enjoying the respite, and then discovered that the alley opened up into a small, hidden courtyard that enclosed a fountain in the center. There, a three men in subdued clothing that managed to conceal their faces where attempting to wrap something in a rug. Something that wiggled, and bit.
"Ow! Bitch *bit* me!" His hand went up to hit the rug. One of the others stopped him.
"C'mon, Lenny. Let it be. The ransom'll make it feel better."
'Lenny' grinned, broken and discolored teeth not making it a happy sight. "Yeah. I'll let it go this once."
His friend pulled something out of his pocket, and after a bit of a struggle, managed to slip what Stephen gathered was a gag into the victim's mouth.
//Ransom?// Stephen thought. He ducked down, and searched his pockets. Two packages chewing gum, his phone, an instant-gro law-knower effigy, and a multi-cannon. //Shame mom won't let me arm it with anything but smoke.// He pulled out the multi-cannon, and shot three times into the courtyard.
*PFF*PFF*PFF*
The smoke was blinding to most, but Stephen's inherited elven senses allowed him to jump into the fray quickly. Avoiding the three stooges, as he was thinking of them, he dropped the instant-gro effigy into the water, and quickly removed whomever it was from the rug. Pushing the person off to run in the direction of the alley, he pulled the full-grown effigy out and wrapped it in the rug, able to slip away just as the smoke dissipated.
There, he found a girl, in nice clothing, in fine aRathi clothing, from the embroidered silk shirt to the knee-length beaded trousers. She was pulling at the gag, but it wouldn't come free. She jumped when he came out of the smoke to stand next to her.
"Hi, I'm Stephen," he said, looking at the gag. "My... that's on pretty good, isn't it?"
The girl mrrphed agitatedly, trying to pull the gag off.
"It's probably some kind of chemical-release. We'd best start running... we don't know when those stooges might figure out what's up."
"Hey, Lenny! The pigeon is gone!"
Lenny made an impressive imitation of an angry bear.
"Now," Stephen suggested, and took off running. Luckily the girl was as quick as he was, and ran down to the next street with him. Emerging into an empty throughway, Stephen pulled out his phone and hit the call button.
For which trouble he received static.
"Damn! Mom's going to have someone's head!" He looked around quickly, and decided to run to the right, hoping that might head back to their hotel. The girl kept pace. "Do you know the way to the hotel of unRathi delights and business complex?"
The girl shook her head no.
The stooges, having cleared the last corner, snarled in anger and started following after them. He dropped more smoke, and cut into another street, but it only bought them a few moments of peace before they were once again chased.
"This is no good... they'll catch up eventually."
Further down the street, he looked up and saw a zeppelin slowly going by overhead, advertising a nightclub for celebrations tonight. His hands worked through his pockets a second time, discovering a longer projectile in a seldom-used pocket of his jacket. He took a look at it and stopped, dumping the remaining shells from his multi-cannon before slotting the new one in.
The girl came back to him and 'mrrrph'ed loudly, waving behind him. Stephen grinned in the rakish way he'd been practicing for six weeks now, grabbed the girl around the waist, kissed her cheek (the gag making her mouth impractical), and shot the grappling round out of the multi-cannon up at the zeppelin.
Elven reflexes came through again, as the three-pronged hook caught on the zeppelin, sending a signal down to the charge to stop nano-weaving more line, and to start reeling in. The pair jumped up into the air.
Lenny put in a final moment of speed, and wrapped his hand around the girl's boot. Stephen groaned as his hand strained at holding on, the gun wanting to go up, and the girl wanting to go down. He was out of ammo, and the only thing he had left was gum and a phone that didn't...
"Grab the gun! Both hands!"
The girl moved to comply, grabbing on and letting him let go. She gave a squeal as the weight of the boy and the man added to her own, as Stephen grabbed the unworking phone out of his jacket and threw it at Lenny's eye.
Lenny cried out, grabbed his eye, and dropped five feet to the street as Stephen and the girl shot up to the zeppelin.
***
"The people in the zeppelin recognized the Princess, and took us to the Palace, where they got the gag removed. Aneka was *really* smitten with me - she'd always dreamt of being rescued by a knight in shining armor, and was willing to take me as a modern example of the same. Thanks for the grappling round, by the way. You'd left it in my jacket just in case.”
"You're welcome." Silussa makes a mental note to remember to put it there. "Obviously, your mother and I don't agree on appropriate weaponry", the drow notes with a slight smile.
Stephen blushes. "Uhh... four months ago I sorta... blew up the guest room. While Mom was in it."
The dark elf leans back, a gleam in his lavender eyes. "I assume it WAS an accident. And she has shown absolutely no sense of humor about it."
"Mom's got a really low opinion on accidental assasination attempts by her own children. It's... how did you put it? 'One of the little quirks your mother has that makes her so endearing.'.
"Funny you should mention money, though. That's got a hand in how I met Xura..."
"For my troubles I got a nice reward, lots of kisses from Aneka, and invitation to the banquet that night for Mom and me. It was pretty nice, too, until Aneka managed to douse Mom in thirty gallons of quick-setting glue. Luckily her nostrils weren't glued shut, but that kinda soured Mom towards Aneka.
"I can understand why", Silussa chuckles.
"And she's been chasing me ever since. She's a lot of fun, and a real tomboy, but she seems to always think that we should be married just because I rescued her once... and I'm not sure."
Stephen gets himself a Coke from the mini-fridge, and takes a moment to wet his throat before he starts on why Xura's after him.
The drow's eyes twinkle. "Well, I don't know about there, but among technologically sophisticated humans, it is a classic fairy tale. Princess kidnapped, rescued by handsome young Prince, they're married, and live happily ever after."
"Of course, where *I* was born, you might get a substantial reward. You might get her hand in marriage. You might get your head lopped off, for one of a number of reasons. Always kinda iffy."
"Personally, I always preferred the gold."
"Meeting up with Xura was interesting.
"She was going to the same school as I was, although we were seldom in the same class. I'd noticed her, someone as pretty as she is, but we didn't travel in the same cliques. Unfortunately, I came to owe her quite a lot of money."
Stephen pauses at this point. "Um... don't tell her parents, okay?"
Silussa raises an eyebrow, and pulls himself to a sitting position, a foot above the bed. "This should be interesting."
---
You see, she'd brought some sort of antique family heirloom to school as part of a project. At the end of the day, when she was taking it from her locker to go home, Chuck and I ran through the hall on one of our rampaging fights.
Chuck's a good friend of mine, but he's easy to tease, and sometimes we get a little out of control. Most of the school's pretty sturdy - it has to be with the sort of students they get - but it was pretty unlucky for Xura that one of Chuck's stray energy blasts had hit me a few moments before, and it smarted. So when I tripped over her legs, I grabbed her little treasure and used it to shield myself from the next blast.
Xura screamed, and Chuck was out of there. I couldn't blame him. Xura started laying into me, hitting me and yelling at me. Luckily, my jacket was pretty padded, keeping her from hurting me.
Well, in time she calmed down, and we picked up all of the pieces, at which time she grabbed my ear and dragged me to a cafe to talk.
It turns out that she wasn't really supposed to take that out of her house, and her folks were going to be pretty steamed at her for doing it. I apologized, and offered to pay, but she pointed out that if I went to my folks, you guys, for money, her parents were sure to find out.
I was feeling pretty bad. We took it by a place that could do repairs, but the bill was pretty large. I didn't have that kind of money on hand, and I'd learned earlier that it was hazardous to try to deduct from the family funds without asking.
So, I needed a job. Something local, something that would pay well enough to pay off my debt, but without getting you guys wondering what I was doing with all of that money. So I started wandering around.
One of the places I wandered into was this nightclub called Duke's place. It wasn't really open, but they were cleaning down for the evening. I was checking into any job I could, but the manager was busy with the band. They were called 'Johnny Keys and the Swing Killers', and they were pretty hot. I remember sitting there, to the side of the stage, as they kept practicing this new number. Both them and I could tell there was something missing, and they kept playing around - a little more sax, a little less drums, but the song just wouldn't hang together.
Suddenly, I realized what it was. Luckily, I was trained for this sort of opportunity. The next time they went through the song I grabbed a trombone from a case, and butted in with a sharp riff of music.
They were pretty cool about it too. They kept playing, although they were all pretty surprised, and I did my best to keep up with them, dancing in and out of the tune here, and playing backup to the lead there. After the number finished, Johnny Keys looked over to me from the piano he was sitting at.
"You got a name, Kid?", he says.
"I'm Stephen."
"Can you be here Thursday, Friday, Saturday Nights at five? Practice daily at one?"
"Yessir."
He nodded, and looked at his band. "$250 a week, kid, and we won't tell the taxman if you won't."
I was overwhelmed. Not only would that pay off my debt in a month, but I'd be playing with a crack band of swing musicians.
Xura was pretty surprised as well. After I'd gotten it down pretty good, I invited her by as my guest, and even improvised a little ditty with the band in her honor.
Style gets you into trouble, more than anything else. She was so impressed with me paying off the geegaw and keeping it from our folks, and coming up with the song. And that's when she joined up with me as my supposed girlfriend.
* * * * *
The drow nods. "Okay, that makes sense. All the way down the line, including style getting you into trouble." He allows himself a slight grin at that last comment. "If I might ask, though, how did the two of you figure it would get back to her parents? I don't know about your mother, but I'm pretty good at keeping my secrets. It's a prerequisite. And my pockets are...well, deeper anymore then I've needed in a LONG time."
Stephen nods. "Oh, sure, tell me _now_."
"Mom has some firm ideas about raising children, and some of them involve not spoiling me. So... well, until everyone disappeared on me, everyone put up a front of being rich, but not being quite _that_ rich. Once everyone was gone, though, I was able to figure out the finances, somewhat.
"And I didn't want Yet Another Lecture about being careful about innocent bystanders in a running fight."
Sil can't help but grin a bit. "Well, yes, you would have. Probably a long one, at that. As for spoiling children, your mother and I are...um, WILL....be in agreement on that point. On the other hand, that doesn't mean hanging you out to dry when accidents happen, either."
For a moment, he looks about the room again, eying the expense involved, as well as the defenses set in place. "Obviously, you found at least some of the money. Probably your mother's; I've never been a big fan of banks...interesting idea, but hard to find one with enough stability."
"Lucy." Stephen smiles. "She's number three... at least, chronologically. You haven't seen her yet." He gets up, and fumbles out a wallet, flipping past pictures of Aneka, who is smiling and eating an ice cream cone with him; Xura, posing in a skimpy one-piece; to Lucy. He slides it out and hands it to his father-to-be.
The dark elf accepts the photo, curious about the woman who is the only one of the three to bring a smile to Stephen's face.
Lucy is an anthropomorphic cat. Panther-spotted, her half-human, half feline face in rolled up in a large, cute smile, the fur and spots disappearing under the white halter top she's wearing. Up over her right shoulder a similarly-spotted tail curls up, the end of it blurred by motion.
"Mom and I were were doing some exploring on Alpha Lyndon Five, where some isolated Precursor artifacts had been found the summer before. We had a squad of General Electric 15-B's with us, and they were doing all of the heavy lifting and moving. For treasure-hunting, it was pretty low-impact."
"It also got boring." He grinned. "But not for long, as you'ld expect."
Sil merely nods in agreement.
---
Stephen had had to climb the last few feet of the 'mountain' on his hands and knees, his breath exploding out of him in bursts, but he made it. Balancing carefully on the loose rocks of the summit, he stood up tall, looking down and around himself in all directions.
He'd seen the peak ever since he'd come here with his mother, but other things had gotten in the way - unpacking, programming the 15-B's, and working out search patterns. But that was behind him now, and he was taking time to enjoy himself, and this was the beginning. He looked around from his perch, spying his mother working down in the camp, a team of robots working on uncovering something, and then a gleam of something metallic on his right, away from the camp.
"What's that?" He turned to look at it.
Unfortunately, it was at this point that the rocks he was standing on decided to give out, shooting to the side and throwing the boy down on his back, sliding down the mountain in a personal avalanche of rock and shale. Stephen cried out as he felt the stones chipping away at his skin, and after a minute of unrelenting terror he slammed into the ground, small stones and gravel raining on him as he fought to master the art of breathing.
For being a bed of rubble, lying very still was pretty comfortable. In time, his breathing slowed down, and he started testing his limbs the way his Dad had taught him. Either his father's training in how to fall correctly had sunk in, or that luck charm Aneka had given him was going full-strength, because other than cuts and bruises, everything seemed to be fine. He carefully climbed to his feet, and got out his comm. Time to call Mom.
Kirsten joined him quickly with some 15-B's and a medkit, and quickly ascertained that her son was alright. "You've got to be more careful! If your father finds out I had a heart attack because you fell of a mountain, he'd be pissed."
Stephen smiled, and then winced as iodine was applied to a cut on his face.
"It's good for you. Maybe next time you'll be more careful. Now, where's this thing you found?"
Stephen held up a piece of metallic wreckage that he'd found under a rock.
"Hmm.. Good. We'll have the robots start working over here, and see what they find."
What they found, after a half-day of digging, was a dark hallway that lead deep into the mountain. They had the robots turn on their floodlights and cameras, and started going inside, looking around at the stone walls, covered by strange markings.
"This could be it, Stephen. Very good work."
Stephen nodded. His mother may have been upset at his fall, but nothing calmed her like results. He stopped at a door in the wall. "I'm going to go look in here, Mom."
His mother nodded. "Call if you need help. Take some robots."
He stepped into the room, three robots following him and illuminating the large, circular chamber he was in. There were strange decorations on the walls and ceiling, and he took them in before noticing that the light was reflecting oddly off of a small dome in the center of the floor. He stepped in to see.
In the center, under some sort of force-shield, lay a female humanoid with catlike features.
"Is she dead?" Stephen started looking around, and found a round button... no, four quarter-circle buttons up against each other. Above them was some strange readout, which he couldn't understand. But some of the lights were changing, which suggested the woman was alive.
He hit one of the buttons. Nothing happened.
He hit another button. Nothing.
He hit a third, and was rewarded by seeing the figure jerk, but nothing else.
He hit the fourth button, and the forcefield collapsed. Unfortunately, since he'd been leaning against it, that tumbled him down on top of the girl.
"Ah! Sorry!" He tried to get up out of her enclosure, but his hand landed on one of her... assets, and in his haste not to offend her he fell further in.
The girl raised her head and looked down at him, her mouth opening. Her voice was very musical, sounding like a harp and piano duet, but he didn't understand it. "What?"
The harp and piano tried again.
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't..."
The girl grabbed his head by the ears, and dragged him up on top of her naked form, and kissed him.
Stephen blinked. Kissing hadn't been something he'd expected. Hey, this was nice. He'd never quite gotten the idea of kissing down, before. It was the tongue that he'd been missing, that made all the difference.
She broke the kiss. He tried not to be too disappointed.
"Could you get off of me?"
"Ah! Yes, yes." This time, he was able to climb up out of the pit, and then offer her a hand as well. Her grace and balance rivaled his father's, although he had to admit it wasn't just her grace he was looking at.
"Thank you for waking me."
"Um... Sure. Yes. Waking. No problem."
She tilted her head to the side, like his mother's cat Ulthar did when she was about to attack a deserving piece of string. "Is there a problem?"
"Ah... Do you have some clothes? It's distracting."
"Not unless you have some to give. Is there something wrong with the way I look?"
"NO! No, no, no no. Very nice. Ah, quite nice." He wondered why she affected him like this? Dad was always more than forthright about sexual matters, although Mom tended to put her foot down on what she considered to be the more weird things. Then he remembered how she kissed again.
She smiled, her eyes closing a little. "I'm glad you like me." Then she came and kissed him again.
Kissing was good.
Luckily for the part of his brain that liked thinking in complete sentences, his mother had backtracked to see how he was doing, and caught him in mid-kiss.
"Stephen? What are you doing?"
He and the girl stopped and looked at his mother. "Um. Kissing?"
"I see that! Where did she come from?"
"She was in some kind of stasis, here in the floor." Stephen pointed at the center of the room.
"And what did I tell you about kissing Precursor artifacts?"
Stephen wracked his brains. He could swear the subject of _kissing_ the artifacts hadn't come up, and said so.
"Well, in the future try not to kiss them until I have a look at them." 'Kissing! My baby's growing up. Mom never had this trouble with me.'
The girl bowed. "I am a... helper being, Mother of my awakener."
"Awakener?" Mother and son chorused.
"Yes. I am intended as a fully-functional assistant, and am bonded to Stephen, as he awoke me."
'Man,' thought Stephen. 'This brings a whole new meaning to Home Entertainment.' He blushed.
His mother started to slide out of her coat. "Well, then, put this on for now. We'll get you some proper clothes when we get back to camp... What's your name?"
The girl smiled. "I have not been named yet." She looked expectantly at Stephen.
---
"And so I named her Lucy. It's from this song Mom had been playing earlier that day. She helped us explore, and when we got back to base Mom lent her some clothing. Lucy was pretty subservient for a while, but Mom and I kept encouraging her to think and act for herself - neither of us thought that I needed some kind of slave.
The drow nods thoughtfully, thinking.
"She's still pretty devoted to me, though, although she treats me more like boyfriend than master. She got really interested in geology, and she and Mom have worked together on a number of projects."
Stephen stretches, and yawns. "And that's all three. And if you don't mind, I think I'll take a quick shower before dinner."
Sil nods. "No objection."
As his son to be disappears into the bathroom, the dark elf begins his own cleaning up and changing. Showers are wonderful things, but certain "field expedient" spells can do just as good a job.
Of course, most people would probably assume that the drow has a very, very limited wardrobe.
Not THAT limited, as it turns out.
The dark elf eyes the room critically, then adds a couple of protective spells before turning off the lights. "Good night, Stephen."
Despite claims by humans to the contrary, elves do sleep. The sleep is incredibly light, though, and of shorter duration then the human standard.
As Silussa is himself heavily modified (thus, the "surface dark elf"label), there are other complications. The major one is that he is, as Matron Mother would describe it, "designed to keep a female happy who likes several sessions a day."
Thus, the early hours of the morning find the dark elf in the shower, trying to figure out where dreams involving chocolate syrup came from.
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