The dungeon was dark and still, although the sound of a single drop of water echoed throughout. Corinthia didn't know how an underground storage area – a people storage area nonetheless – could look so old when it had just been built. Through that darkness, she saw Benton and Jeevan, mostly because she had memories of their colors and she had trained her eyes to see them in dark places. As a sea creature, what bothered her about this prison cell wasn't that the place was too damp but that it wasn't damp enough. Corinthia didn't remember the last time she sat in a refreshing pool of water and that was what her body craved at the moment. All she could do was use her two-pronged tongue to suck the moisture out of the walls and cherish every drop she could find.
"What do you suppose she's going to do with us?" asked Benton. Benton wasn't necessarily frowning. Nobody saw him do that. But he wasn't exactly cheerful, either.
"Nothing positive, I'll tell you that," said Jeevan. The old man's brow – with tiny, tentacle-like feelers instead of hair – furrowed.
The dripping was driving Corinthia nuts. She was close to grabbing some dirt to shove into her ears but she wanted to remain civil at this time. She was always to remain civil. The elephant seal within her must never come out.
But her hearing picked up on something else: the sound of something heavy squishing across the floor. It approached the dungeon steps. Along with it were footsteps of something that weighed much less, a dainty creature. One by one, they came downstairs until they revealed themselves.
It was an abalone guard. And along with him was none other than Laertes.
"You guys have a visitor," said the big, shelled lug, "Don't make it too long." The abalone glided up the steps and left Laertes alone with the prisoners
When Corinthia took her tongue out of the wall and looked at her guest, she saw that Laertes had a look on his face that resembled that of a disappointed parent. She half-expected to see him at least be grateful that she was alive but one can only expect so much.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," said Laertes while shaking his head, "Corrie, Corrie, Corrie… I leave you alone for the evening and this is what I find you doing?"
Corinthia couldn't get out of this by saying "no." She couldn't even convince him with the classic "It's not what it looks like," for he was most likely told of this beforehand.
"Yes," said Corinthia.
"Why ever did you think this was a good idea? You've been using this time to stay away from the pearls and now here you are intentionally going near one."
Corinthia tried to swallow the water in her mouth but her muscles just couldn't do it. She felt an erratic wiggling under her skin as she combed for an answer. "Because…"
"Because maybe she's sick of being a well-mannered assistant, Laertes," said Benton, "She may have been faithful to the demands that you put on her but, by golly, she sure isn't faithful to the demands that the leaders of our fledgling empire put on her, one of those demands being the taboo of going near one of these fine goddesses without permission. So Laertes, let this young woman do her thing. I think she knows herself enough to know how much danger she can get into."
Corinthia's mouth was still open but she did not need to say anything. As much as she hated having people speak for her, Benton pretty much covered it all. If anything, he did her a favor.
Laertes sighed. "I know but I'm just worried about her."
"Laertes, I'm right here," reminded Corinthia.
Laertes turned his head and repeated an altered version of that sentence, although he really didn't mean to. "I know but I'm just worried about you."
"You needn't be worried about me, Laertes. I'm a grownup. I'll be fine."
Laertes looked pained for a moment; not the obvious outer pain that one could easily detect but a sort of emotional melting that occurred in someone from the inside-out. "Well you're not sure what kind of punishment you're going to get."
"I can handle punishments, Laertes." Corinthia did not bother going into any more detail about this.
"Prisoners!" shouted an abalone guard from the top of the steps, "Her Grace Queen Red Pearl would like to have a royal word with you!"
Laertes looked back at Corinthia. "For you sake – for all your sakes – I hope it's just a word and nothing more."
The prisoners were freed from their cell and led to the outside of the elegant room where Queen Red had been resting. Corinthia looked at everyone's facial expression: Benton, for the first time in living memory, had a look of deadpan seriousness. His fishy lips made no attempt to move their muscles into anything other than a slight frown. Jeevan did not look particularly frightened. In fact, he looked like he was just patiently waiting for this social interaction to begin, like someone waiting for a person to pick up the phone.
Come to think of it, Corinthia was like that as well. As far as she knew, the universe was on her side.
"Guards!" shouted the royal pearl, "Please escort them into my chamber."
The big, burly abalones led the four of them back into the room and all the way across to the queen's bed. She sat cross-legged with her hands placed squarely on her knees.
"Now… please close the curtains and leave so that the guests and I can have some privacy."
Guests. She didn't call them prisoners or malcontents or intruders but guests. And it was expected that people be as nice as possible to guests no matter who they may be. It was starting to become apparent that Corinthia and the others would not be punished after all.
The guards glided to each window and drew the wispy curtains before they closed the door behind them.
"Good evening," she said to the intruders, "I have gathered you here to-"
"Oh, mercy!" said Laertes, "Just get the punishment over with so I won't have to think about it!"
"I am not here to punish you. Especially not you, Trumpet-Mouth Leaf Man, since you did not commit any crime."
"Oh, yes. Sorry…"
"I have gathered you here to say some… things… to you." Queen Red closed her eyes and sighed. As prepared as Corinthia thought she was going to be for this, Queen Red was struggling to say what she felt the need to say. "I sentenced you to the dungeon like I would any intruder but what this old man said to me reverberated in my mind for the hours before this moment." She looked at Jeevan almost lovingly. "I sent you away not because I thought you were lying… but because I was lying to myself."
Corinthia was astonished: not because Red revealed anything new but because she was acting very un-tyrannical. Gold Pearl would not have appreciated this behavior from one of her puppets.
"Sir… what is your name, Sir?"
"Jeevan," said Jeevan, "My name is Jeevan."
"Well, Jeevan, the only thing you revealed to me was which exact pincta created my pearl. I have known all along that somehow, I was created from an inferior creature and not the strong, competent Achilles. The evidence to this is in what I have been hiding from the general population."
Little by little, The Queen was peeling herself apart and exposing her deep flaws to these mere mortal peasants. She clearly needed someone to pour her non-existent heart out to. Corinthia was starting to see this woman as what she always figured was the case: that she was a pearl who just was not perfect. And this was a relief to her.
"What the others don't know is that I am unfit to be a queen. If you want proof, then I will give you your proof." Queen Red readjusted her legs and got on all fours. She stepped onto her left foot, at which point, she very slowly stood up. As she did so, she wobbled a bit and tried to keep her balance. When she rose most of the way up, she felt the need to hold on to the post of her bed in order to complete this transition.
As soon as she stood up, she walked around the peasants, or she walked around them as best she could. As she did so, her left leg was the only one with strength for this simple task. The right leg couldn't muster much besides pressing itself to the floor. She moved with great difficulty. With each uneven step, she had a look of pain and desperation on her face. For a creature with legs, she was far too young to be walking like this.
As a creature with no legs, Corinthia thought of it as intriguing that there were races of people that could balance themselves on nothing but two protrusions coming out of their lower body. This pearl reaffirmed the challenging aspect of it.
"You don't have to show us any more, dear," said Jeevan, "Please rest those legs of yours."
Red hobbled back to her bed and sat back down.
"The problem here is that I felt it fit to give you answers," she said, "And because of this, I cannot let you leave."
The entire group flinched in horror.
"Why?" asked Corinthia, "You said you weren't going to punish us!"
"No, I wasn't, but you people are the only ones who know my horrible secret. If such a thing is revealed to the public, I will be shown as the fraud that I am and I will be sentenced to The Pulverizer."
Jeevan trembled. He closed his eyes real tight several times as if he were fighting back tears. Corinthia felt genuinely sorry for this low-wage worker.
"No!" he said. "I have only been working at that dreaded machine for one day and I already feel like I've seen enough suffering there. I've seen too many pearls from other parts of the galaxy turned to dust by that machine and every time, I'm forced to do my job sweeping up their remains with a smile. For every pearl sacrificed for having even the tiniest flaw in her design, I die a little inside. You're my creation, Your Grace, and I'm not going to let you suffer that fate."
Queen Red, looking weary from her physical and emotional states, smiled at the elderly pincta man who provided part of his body to make her gem. "Well I don't know how much longer I can hide this state from everybody. They're going to find out sooner or later."
At that moment, Benton stopped with his expression of seriousness and uncertainty and smiled.
"If you can't walk properly, then we can teach ya!" he said.
Everyone else looked at him as if he had grown a sentient talking pimple on his tail. This fish man was speaking to this high noblewoman like she was an old friend. Through his happiness, he showed no fear… a bit differently than how Corinthia showed no fear.
"You don't understand, Benton," said Queen Red, "I am a Pearl. We are immortal beings that cannot change. The way I am now will be how I am until the stars burn out." Queen Red, this ferocious warrior queen who was meant to further an empire, was defeated not by soldiers or rebellious peasants. It was her self-realizations that did her in.
"What?" asked Benton in an almost-joking tone, "What kind of attitude is that? You Pearls are these powerful creatures that can do anything that us mortals can't do and yet you can't change? I find that hard to believe." Benton put his hands on his hips and moved from side to side when he said this. "I mean… how long have you been alive? A day?"
"That shouldn't matter. I have been specially programmed with all the knowledge about my kind and-"
"Really? All the knowledge? They can't program everything."
"Eh… Benton…" said Laertes in his usual nervous tone, "I think you're stumbling into dangerous territory by saying things like this."
"Why can't they program everything?" Alas, Queen Red was not in the mood to persecute anyone. Instead, she was overcome with a childlike curiosity.
Little by little, Corinthia was starting to shed her prejudices about these powerful, light-based pearl creatures. She even gained some sympathy for them when she found out the fates of some of those mindless drones that were cloned from the other queens.
"Well I can't tell you why they can't program everything but I've got a reason to believe that there are just some things that they don't want to encourage," said Benton. He lifted his scaly (not hairy) eyebrows twice when saying this.
"So you're saying that my subjects change all the time?" asked Red, "That they weren't created the way they are?"
"Of course not! I started out as an egg and hatched into a chubby, tiny-finned, big-eyed translucent baby girl who eventually grew and chemically changed her sex into the man that you see today."
"Well… I think I would like to change."
"Oh? You think you would like to change? Because it sounded an awful lot like you did want to change."
"I mean… I do want to change!" Queen Red nearly stood up in triumph but could only manage to stand on her knees. She then lost that brief moment of can-do spirit and sulked again. "But I still don't know if it's possible."
"You're not gonna know if you don't try… unless Pearls aren't ones for trying things, either."
"Learning to walk isn't like learning how to fly, sweetheart," said Jeevan, "The worst that can happen is that you will remain the same as you are now…" It was now Jeevan's turn to sulk. "And probably get the death penalty…"
"Well I'm willing to try because as Queen, I want to be an example to my people and be able to fight for our empire!"
"But you can't tell anyone about your flaws… or overcoming them for that matter," said Laertes.
Maybe it was Corinthia, but Laertes was seeming more and more like he was everybody's worried father.
"If I cure my disability quickly, people will never know that I even had one."
"That's the spirit!" said Benton.
"That and… I want to know more about you guys."
"What do you mean?" asked Corinthia.
"I've been watching the locals and their habits. When you're not working, you talk to each other about non-political matters. You enjoy each other's company. And, my oh my, you're creative! You paint houses different colors, you make two-dimensional replicas of events both fictional and non-fictional and you're even creative when it comes to food, something that you're required to put into your blood-and-organ-filled bodies to stay alive. I wish I were all a part of that instead of spending my days surrounded by four walls."
"But Your Grace," said Jeevan, "Are you sure you want us to do more for you besides rehabilitate you? You may be bored now but you shouldn't get too used to the peasant population since you are expected to do much more as queen once your pearl clones come alive."
Queen Red jumped from the total shock of this reminder. Her pupils dilated and, if her skin weren't already porcelain-white, her face surely would have turned that color. "Oh no! No matter how much I heal, my soldiers will expose me for the fraud I am!" She remembered to keep her voice low while she was surprised, although there was still a bit of an echo.
Benton looked at Corinthia.
"Corrie," he said, "You haven't contributed much to this conversation. Do you propose any solutions to this problem?" It was as if Benton were trying to make up for speaking for Corinthia earlier. As good as this was, Corinthia didn't have any advice… or, rather, any helpful advice.
"I say that we should wait," she said, "Considering how strong we all are in our respective fields, we will figure something out when our greatest challenges arrive." Corinthia put her arms down and stood there with one claw over the other like a good girl. But in her brain, she wanted to wait for that fateful moment. Beneath the smile of this assistant was the spirit of an orca whale wanting to bring violent justice to whoever wanted to take advantage of her.
"I say that's good advice for now," said Laertes, "And on that note, I will leave you people to your conversation while Corinthia and I have our own discussion."
A nervous chill went through Corinthia. Did she say something wrong?
She followed him to a far-off corner of the room. Once she was in that corner, she could still hear the conversation from Benton, Jeevan and Queen Red but she and Laertes would do all they could to hush their conversation.
When Laertes put his hand on Corinthia's shoulder, he smiled, at least as much as a creature with a trumpet-shaped mouth could smile.
"Corinthia, this is an excellent opportunity!" he said.
"An opportunity for what?" asked Corinthia.
"An interest story! I've been looking for a good story to report on besides The Queen's creation and I've had a difficult time coming across one on this humble planet. The Queen's interactions with some of her subjects could provide that very story!"
"But Laertes, we can't let the people in on her secret or our attempts at correcting it."
"True, but we are also introducing the culture of her subjects to her and a story about a queen trying to understand and sympathize with the average folk is one that readers of net sites are bound to gobble up. So what do you think?"
Corinthia never thought that Laertes would ever ask her permission before publishing a story. After all, she was just the one who would bring him coffee. But during these past few months, she had proven herself to be a strong, important contributor to both her own story and the stories of those around her. She had outed herself as a dissenter to everyone including the elite and the choices she would make from now on could have far-reaching consequences both good and bad. Surely, an important person like her would be a valuable voice in this decision.
"I think you should do it since it would be good for your career. But make sure you don't reveal too much."
Laertes chuckled. "Listen to yourself, Corinthia. You don't even have children and you're already starting to sound like me."