A Talespin fanfic by Lizzy Spencer (KarmaCat) Page 12

 
 

        Orly woke up the next morning face down in her bed, sprawled all over like she usually was. Her multicolored bed sheets, a confusing mix of tapestry that she recalled was aptly named "Jungle Gypsy Dance 310 Thread Count" , were wrapped around her like a cocoon around a striped butterfly.
        She sat up and blew an errant strand of fur out of her face. She had slept like a rock. And for some reason, the first though in her mind was one involving Kit Cloudkicker, and then Gabriel. Then she winced at what she imagined and got out of bed.
        "Good morning, brain," she said. "I hope you're not going to do that all day. I'd like to be able to eat."
        She went to her vanity table with much difficulty, having to dodge past the cavalcade of clothes that blocked her way, and, for no particular reason, clipped a blue and green silk butterfly into her hair. It looked nice.
        She ambled to the corner of her room and dragged a great oak standing base to her bed, along with a book of sheet music. She had to practice. Orly played the standing base in a small swing band that played for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs and such. She was the only girl in a group full of men her age of older, and she got to wear a tuxedo with a blue cummerbund. She had never had more fun in her life. It was the kind of thing where she just couldn't believe they paid her to do it.
        But it wasn't as if she, of all people, needed the money.
        She stood next to the base and prepared to pluck at the strings, but then a thought occurred to her. She stumbled over the clothes to her door, opened it, stuck her head out, and yelled down the hall, "Everybody still alive?"
        "Yes, Orly," her father and sister called wearily from the kitchen.
        "Come eat breakfast," her father said. "You can practice later."
 
 

        "You've got a bug on your head," Shere said when he saw his daughter.
        She gave a great fake laugh and slapped her knee. "Har har har! Gosh darn, Papa, you should take that on the road."
        He smiled. "No need to get smart, Orly. Eat."
        "She never was smart, father," Sarabi said with a smirk.
        "Back to your usual self, I see," Orly replied, sitting down at the table.
        Shere looked at his two girls momentarily, enjoying them. Sarabi shrugged at her sister and took a sip of coffee, her white hair wild down her back. Orly was conducting an in-depth study of her muffin, pensively deciding how to spread butter upon it.
        How he loved them. How he LOVED them!
        He smiled a private little smile and drew his eyes across the meaningless words of the newspaper.
        Then there was a sudden clatter that shook him out of his spell.
        Sarabi and Orly both looked down to the floor, Orly's face contorted into a look of shock, and Sarabi's a look of grim unacceptance.
        "How in blue tin heck did that happen?" Orly whispered.
        "Did what happen?' Shere asked.
        "The pitcher of water flew across the table and almost hit Sara. All by itself. I think," Orly replied, bewildered.
        Shere looked to Sarabi.
        "You are getting stronger, my sister. That is all," said a smooth female voice that only Sarabi heard. She winced. Her father was still staring at her. He was surrounded by concerned yellow smoke, as was Orly.
        Sarabi swallowed and whispered, "I was just going to ask you to pass the water, Father."
 
 

        "I want to know what's going on," Shere said grimly. He and Sarabi were in his great office, looking out the window.
        "What makes you think I know any more than you do, Father? Why do you think I ran into your room last night? For kicks?" The smoke and voices had dissipated.
        He closed his eyes and sighed wearily. "It just reminds me of something that occurred when you were seven...and of those damned legends..."
        "That's nonsense, Father," Sarabi replied. "You know that."
        He looked to her for a moment and opened his mouth to say something that would have affected them both greatly-
        -but the phone rang-
        -and he only seemed too glad to answer it.
        "Yes?" he demanded, the early morning sun flooding his office. Sarabi picked a piece of lint off of her blouse.
        "Is that so?" he said into the phone, sounding a tinge on the sad side. "Of course. I'm sorry to hear that."
        Orly came in through the door behind the jungle, jabbing her thumb in her father's direction and mouthing, "Who?"
        Sarabi shrugged, even though she knew it was her grandmother's nurse in England saying that the old woman didn't have a lot of time left on her clock. Grandmother on her mother's side. Sarabi almost jumped. Where did that knowledge come from? There was no way she could have known...but she did.
        She looked to her sister for a moment and saw green smoke rising off of her. But now, instead of looking away, she tried to study it more. It was beautiful, like the swirling veils of thousands of tiny Arabian princesses. And she found that the more she looked at it, the more she wanted to see.
        "That is good, my sister, but your power will not build much unless you find your consort quickly," said the voice again.
        This time, she winced, but nevertheless found her deepest self agreeing, even though she didn't quite know what she was agreeing to. She shivered, however. She didn't dare tell anyone short of a certified shrink that she was hearing voices.
        "What're you looking at?" Orly demanded crossly.
        She forgot that she had been staring. "Your butterfly," Sarabi replied.
        "You want one? I can make you one." Her eyes lit up. "I'm feeling all itchy-creative today. Want to go to a beatnik bar and snap? Grab your beret, we'll get a move on!"
        "Um, maybe later." Sarabi turned her attention to her father's phone conversation.
        "Yes," Shere said gravely. "I understand. May I speak to her? Resting? Yes, of course she is. Right. Thank you." He hung up the phone, his face a little lower than usual.
        "What's wrong?" Orly asked.
        "I'm afraid I have some bad news," he replied. "Your Grandma Marian is sick. They don't think she has that long to live."
        "Oh, geez," Orly whispered. Sarabi just looked to the floor. They all loved Grandma Marian. Shere was rather fond of her as well. Anyone who had given birth to August was as good as a queen in his book.
        "I'm going to make arrangements for the three of us to fly up to England to visit her this weekend. We'll go on the Leer."
        "Hmm," Orly said thoughtfully. "I'll make her a sachet. She likes those. I heard somewhere that nice smells can take away from the effects of being sick."
        Shere briefly thought of taking the Jade Parrot onto the plane with them. He could save the money of having it shipped, but then quickly dismissed the thought as foolish. It was dangerous cargo, and he wasn't going to take that risk with his daughters aboard.
 
 

        Sarabi sat at her father's desk once more doing her homework, the homework she had missed for the past two or three days due to her accident. Of course, Orly had balked at her for that. "I don't believe you!" Orly chastised. "Would you take a moment to relax for once? You know, enjoy life? HAVE a life?"
        Sarabi told her to go play her base and be gone.
        So she currently sat at the monster of a desk in that monster of an office. She loved the way her father had set up his office. It was so deliciously threatening. She thought of how it would be, this long walk down to this huge desk, with her sitting behind it, so powerful! And all these plants, seeming in the later afternoon like a mess of black vines waiting to tear you apart in their grip. Who dares enter my lair! Sarabi thought with a greedy smile.
        And, appropriately enough, the door at the end of the office creaked open, sending a shaft of light up and over the desk, and into her face. She peered at the silhouette, not recognizing it for a moment, and suddenly realizing two things: 1) That she and her sister used to play tag on this great expanse of carpet, so the office must not have been THAT threatening, and 2) the person at the door was James. She had forgotten about him.
        She took a quick breath and, pretending not to notice him, looked down at her papers. She could feel his...his ENERGY from all the way across the room, so strong she felt that she might just lift out of her seat and float towards him. She listened to his every step as he slowly walked across the office towards her, sensing the movement of each muscle in his body. It was a weird sensation. He held a broom and bucket full of cleaning supplies in his hands. She could hear his breaths, and she stopped for a moment to wonder why she was listening so intently.
        He stopped at the foot of the desk, but she didn't dare look up. He tossed something in front of her. It was a single Fire Island Bloom. The scent of it wafted up into her face and forced her to crane her neck upward and look into James's eyes.
        His face was deft and hard as a rock, like an unblinking, emotionless stone statue. He looked, if she was not mistaken, a tad on the ticked off side. His eyes were shining like polished coals. He looked like a titan, a regular god. She heard the statue breath once more, and it sent a tremendous shudder down her entire body. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant shudder, however, but she was having trouble identifying the feeling...at least with respect to James.
        "I heard about your accident," he said tightly. "Glad to see that you've recovered. Now if you'll excuse me, I've been told to clean the office." His voice was a young, masculine rumble.
        "Should I move my things?' Sarabi asked. Her voice had the tone of a young girl startled by herself.
        "You can do whatever you want," he replied. "You always do."
        Sarabi should have taken that as an insult, but something about it just made that shuddering stronger. She could not, for the life of her, take her eyes off of James. He looked rather nice that day; instead of his usual garb he wore khaki pants, black suspenders, and a white collared shirt with a black tie. He kneeled down to clean something and she watched the crisscross of the suspenders across his back, moving along with the muscles there, listening to his breathing, watching the strong line of his body.
        She looked down at her work in a futile attempt to stop the thoughts that were racing through her head. It was to no avail. The words were just a meaningless jumble, and the second she heard him breathing or saw him out of the corner of her eye the thoughts ran another lap. She didn't understand.
        He got up from his work and walked towards the desk, towards her, and back around where she was sitting. She watched him like a hawk and she could see that it startled him, her eyes on him like a target, but she was in no position to care. She was swiftly becoming lost in this tremendous succulence-while-looking-at-him, like she was this tender fruit filled with juice, just ready to burst in the midday sun of some tropical island.
        The thoughts, those sordid thoughts, were racing through her mind faster than she could control them. She looked to James again, who was going around the back of her chair to reach something, and she saw that he was surrounded by a royal purple smoke, so thick and deep that she felt as if she could reach out and touch it, envelope herself in it, give some relief to this awful, wonderful shuddering-
        -"S'cuse me,' he said. He reached over her shoulder to polish a section of the desk. His arm brushed against her hair, then her neck, then her shoulder. The contact slammed through her body like a speeding car, increasing the shuddering, shuddering, shuddering-
        -she gritted her teeth and ground her claws into the desk.
        "Hey, you mind?" he asked. "I'm trying to polish this thing and you're using it as a scratching post. Make my job a little easier, okay?"
        She looked up at him with utter defenselessness and sweat in her eyes. James folded his brow, puzzled. "You okay?' he asked, sounding genuinely concerned but trying to cover it.
        "I, uh-" He was beautiful. He was...different. She wanted to run her hands along his chest and press herself against him, wrap herself around him - it was like the want of a great banquet after an eternity of starvation.
        And for the life of her, she didn't understand why.
        "This man is your consort, sister. That is why he is here! That is why he was led to be employed at this place! Go to him! Do you not feel it?" The voice was insistent.
        She felt it all right, but she still asked out loud, "What?"
        'I asked if you're okay," James said.
        "Oh! I'm fine. I'm...um, I'm-" she looked him up an down and her face contorted for a split second into a look of forced pain, "FINE, really, I just, er, need a rest, is all." She got up from her chair. Her hands were shaking.
        He opened his mouth to say something, but she held her finger to her lips and a "shhh" position. "I'm fine. Don't say anything, James, don't even breath. Don't BREATH. I'm just going to-" she couldn't finish the sentence. She had extracted a claw from her index finger, bitten down on it, and quickly fled from the office, leaving James in a flurry of confusion.
 
 

        Sarabi slammed the door of her room behind her and slid down to the floor in a puddle. She had felt those feelings before, she knew what they were as well as the next girl, but never in her life had she felt it to that caliber. But being away from James provided her with no relief. Tears of frustration burned in her eyes. She curled into a ball on the floor as her body pounded. "What is happening to me?" she groaned quietly, digging her claws into the carpet.
        She closed her eyes to squeeze a tear out of them and swallowed a ball of warm phlegm in her throat. "If you're there," she whispered, "talk to me."
        There was no answer.
        "Talk to me! Whoever you are that's doing this to me, the least you could do is own up to it." Still no reply. "Fine," she growled, "I won't accept this. I won't accept this disturbance into my life, do you hear me? No more moving objects, no more ridiculous voices! I am Sarabi Khan! I don't have room for this. I have my father's company to inher-" Her sentence stopped short when another wave of need washed over her, rendering her momentarily defenseless. And her head began to pound again.
        "Oh God!" she whispered. The dual sensations were driving her into the ground. Or at least that was how she felt, like she was being swallowed up by the floor.
        How could she feel this way? How could she feel this way about James?
        CONSORT. The word rang in her mind even though she didn't know the meaning of it in that context. James was a janitor. Any fool could see that he wasn't worthy of that kind of reaction from her, but there it was nonetheless, completely uncontrollable. And she hated not being able to control things, especially herself.
        If this was how it was, why didn't she feel this way about him before, when she first met him? Why all of a sudden? Given, he was handsome, and polite, but this was ridiculous. For bright's sake, she had already blown him off! How was it going to look when-
        "It's not going to look like anything, " she panted to herself, "because I'm not going to give in to this. This must be another side effect of the accident. It'll go away. I'll just lie here for a moment and it'll go away."
        So she lay there for a moment. And another moment.
        The sensation did not wane.
        In fact, if she was not mistaken, it had gotten just a little bit stronger.
        She curled into a tighter ball.
        "I am going to die," she whimpered.

 

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