Chapter 8

By: Nevermore

"Oh Trance, you look absolutely magnificent," Salerma fawned. The old faerie, a dressmaker that served only the royal family, had been around the palace for as long as Trance could remember. She was known for having a rather restrained tongue and a professional demeanor; never before had Trance seen the servant so enraptured by a woman wearing a product of her labors. For the first time since she had returned home, Trance felt that she had finally received a truly genuine compliment. The experience was incredibly flattering.

"Thank you," Trance said with a wide grin, gazing in wonder at her reflection in the full-length mirror. Her dress was made of spun platinum, the material shimmering in the light. Placed throughout the surprisingly light, and obviously enchanted, material were exquisitely cut amethysts, each of which perfectly complemented Trance's own skin tone.

"If you don't mind an old woman speaking out of turn, your highness, I would say that no faerie has ever been so beautiful without being at all radiant."

"What?" Trance asked in surprise. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, nothing dear," Salerma replied. "Like I said, I'm simply an old woman speaking out of turn. Pay me no mind."

"No, I want to know what you meant," Trance demanded, exerting some of the influence that she knew she held over all of her father's subjects. Salerma looked down at the floor and started to shift her feet uneasily. Trance started to feel bad that she was forcing the woman to speak against her will, but she also wanted to know what the old seamstress had meant.

"It's not something that's really proper," Salerma muttered.

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the most proper person at court," Trance said softly, touching the old woman's chin with her right hand, raising her face to look in her eyes. "I won't hold it against you, Salerma, and I'm not going to run and tell people what you said. I'm just curious, that's all."

"Well, your highness, while your beauty is unmatched in all the kingdom, you lack a certain glow that I remember you having before you left us," Salerma explained. Trance winced at hearing the old woman's words, fears suddenly racing through her mind as she wondered whether anyone else had been astute enough to see the changes that had taken place within her. It was bad enough that she was lonely and heartbroken, but Trance knew that there was more to it than that. She had also become jaded, having seen the way life had devolved in the space that had once been controlled by the Commonwealth. She had seen more pain, misery, and cruelty than she had ever cared to. And she had also been expected to give up so much…

Of course I'm going to be different, she admitted, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But I have to make sure people don't notice. It wouldn't be proper. She knew all too well the scandal that could result if others began to realize how she had changed, and how she had grown to care for a human. "I didn't think it was all that obvious," she finally muttered.

"Only to old eyes that have seen the ways of our people," Salerma commented. "You're royalty, your highness, and thus you're forced to make sacrifices in order to maintain a certain decorum. I can see you've made a sacrifice that no woman should ever have to."

"Oh," Trance responded, not knowing what else to say.

"Who was he?" Salerma suddenly asked, catching Trance completely by surprise.

"What do you mean?" Trance responded, suddenly on guard against whatever subtle verbal attack the old faerie had planned.

"I hear many things, child," Salerma replied, her grandmotherly tone not changing in the least in response to Trance's reaction. "For example, I heard that your father had decided quite suddenly to summon you home. I also heard you had been up to something that he did not approve of. To see the pain and loneliness in your eyes, I can only imagine that he discovered you were enjoying some forbidden liaison, and that he forced you to end it and return to us."

"Oh," Trance responded again, once more at a loss for words. For so long Trance had been the one that had held the advantage in every conversation, always knowing far more than she ever let on, and enjoying the thrill of holding back a few secrets. Now she was stuck on the other side, and she did not care for it one bit.

"Do not worry, your highness," Salerma cooed, "it will all work out in the end."

"What do you mean?" Trance asked, surprised at the certainty in the seamstress' voice.

"I'm a seer, child," Salerma answered. "Your heart will be happy in the end."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Trance shot back, suddenly hanging on the woman's every word. "What can you see?"

"I can't see the details, only the general picture," Salerma replied, lowering her voice and looking around her warily as if she was suspicious that the walls themselves might be listening to their conversation. "What I mean is what I said, and what I said is what I mean. In the end, this will all work out. Does that mean your lost love will come for you? I don't know, but given the secretive history of our people, I would doubt it."

"That's all?" Trance inquired sadly, disappointed that she had not gotten something more to work with.

"No, that's not all," Salerma muttered with a sly grin. "I know that you have allies that are unknown even to you, and that you're being tested in ways of which not even your father is aware. I also know that the resolution of your pain will surprise you… in more ways than you can expect."

"And?" Trance asked expectantly.

"And while one man chases your heart, and another chases your title, there is yet a third man that pursues you for reasons only he can know," Salerma replied cryptically. "He is both a friend and a suitor, a confidant and a mysterious stranger, your greatest ally in finding love, and also love's greatest obstacle."

"I don't understand," Trance admitted, surprised to hear the words escape her lips. It had been decades since she had felt as if she was in the dark about anything.

"You will," Salerma assured the princess. "And trust me, young Trance Gemini, it will work out in the end."

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"So, what exactly are we looking at?" Dylan asked as Harper worked at the astrometrics controls, shifting the star views that made up the room.

"Right now, you're looking at a bunch of stars," Harper said with a mischievous smirk. "But in just a second…" he added as he finished his work with a flourish of his hands, "… you see the stars as they appear from Earth."

"From Earth?" Dylan asked, not following Harper's reasoning.

"Yep, that's right, boss," Harper replied, already trying to figure out just how much he would tell his captain. Once he had come to the epiphany about the one clue that Trance had given him, Harper had also seen all of the additional pieces of the puzzle fall into place. It was at once disturbing and exciting.

"Why?" Dylan asked simply.

"Before she left, Trance kissed me seven times on the face," Harper explained. "It seemed sorta strange, to have her kissing me all over the place just before she left, but I kinda ignored it. Then last night I had a dream about Earth, where I was lying on the grass looking up at the stars."

"Is this the strange dream you mentioned to me this morning?" Dylan asked skeptically.

"Sure is," Harper replied with a grin. "But here's the best part - I think I realized something subconsciously, and my brain was trying to relay the information to me in a dream."

"Okay, I guess that's possible."

"When she kissed me all over my face, it wasn't just a random pattern," Harper said. "She was actually forming a distinct outline."

"And what was it?"

"Ursa Major," Harper announced, raising his hands in a grand gesture of triumph over the puzzle. "You know… The Big Dipper."

"Yes, I know," Dylan assured his engineer. "So you think Trance was giving you a clue as to where she was going," Dylan surmised. "Somewhere in the Big Dipper?"

"Well, the area of space that lies between the stars of the Big Dipper, as they appear from Earth's Northern Hemisphere," Harper explained. He knew he wouldn't have to explain many of the basics, since Dylan was well aware of the fact that the stars of Ursa Major only appeared in that pattern when seen from Earth. As they existed in a three-dimensional area of space, and were all thousands of light years away from each other, the pattern would shift as one moved through space. But from Earth, Harper could imagine a tunnel being bored into space, and he knew in his heart that somewhere in that tunnel, on one of countless planets in an almost infinite area, Trance was waiting for him.

"Well, I guess it's a start," Dylan responded with a slight grimace, but can't we narrow it down any more than that?

"I think so," Harper said, though he knew that he was pretty much limited to simple hope. "I'm assuming that Trance would have given me another clue if we needed it, but if she did, I haven't seen it. So in lieu of any additional information, I'm gonna proceed under the theory that her planet, or at least the area around it, can also be seen from Earth."

"What are the stars in the Big Dipper?" Dylan asked. Harper could see the eagerness in his captain's eyes, and was glad. He liked knowing that Dylan would do whatever it took to help.

"Dubhe, Merak Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar, Alkaid, and Talitha are the main stars," Harper replied, "but I know what you're thinking. I already ran a quick search on each star and its surrounding system. Only Alioth has a settlement anywhere near it, and that's a Kierian colony. I don't think there's any way Trance's people could be mistaken for Kierians." Well, at least I hope not, Harper added silently, allowing himself a quick grin. The Kierians were a reclusive, asexual species that only seemed to interact with the outside worlds once every seventeen years, just after the Great Budding, when a new generation was created to launch the latest wave of assaults against their neighbors.

"What about any of the others?" Dylan asked, referring to the array of stars that existed around the Big Dipper. "What do we know about them?"

"Those are pretty much uninhabited, too," Harper said. "There might be some random trading colonies here or there, but nothing on the level of what Trance's people's civilization must be."

"So where does that leave us?"

"Looking inside the bucket of the Big Dipper," Harper answered. "There are a bunch of objects that you can see from Earth, a group of things referred to as Messier Objects, after some old astronomy guy named Charles Messier, from before humans could leave Earth. He studied nebulae, and most of them turned out to be galaxies that we can see from far away; but one of them isn't."

"Which one?" Dylan asked with a slowly growing smile.

"M97, also known as the Owl Nebula," Harper replied, answering the captain's grin with one of his own. We're finally getting somewhere, he assured himself, I can just feel it.

"There are two stars there," Dylan noticed.

"Yeah, they're sorta superimposed there…" Harper explained. "The one that interests me is right here," he said, pointing toward the upper right-hand quarter of the nebula. There's a third star here that you barely make out. I looked it up in the charts, and it doesn't have a name. In fact, from what I can tell, no one's ever even been out there."

"Seems a little mysterious," Dylan commented.

"Exactly like one might expect from the system where Trance's people lived," Harper pointed out.

"It seems like it's as good a starting point as any," Dylan replied. "I'll go talk to Beka and we'll get ourselves underway as soon as possible." The captain walked toward the door quickly, purposefully, and only stopped when he heard Harper's voice behind him.

"Thanks again, Dylan," the engineer said.

"You don't need to thank me, Mr. Harper," Dylan replied with a friendly smile, "but for it's worth - you're welcome."

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"Isn't this just absolutely wondrous?" Jasmine asked Trance, her bronze skin seeming to glow ever brighter as she soaked in the dancing lights and melodious music that seemed to flow from the air itself. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."

"Yeah, it's great," Trance answered absently, making certain she didn't allow even a hint of enthusiasm into her voice. Inside, she admitted that her father had truly outdone himself, that he was putting on a spectacle that his people may never see equaled again. And yet I sit here in the shadows, not yet permitted to take part, Trance fumed. Her parents had decided that she should wait for awhile, secluded, until the right moment. Then she would make a grand entrance, with every eye in the court settling upon her. The only thing that had made the waiting tolerable was Jasmine, who had volunteered to wait alongside her, despite the fact that it meant Robin was alone in the banquet hall.

"I think they're getting ready for you," Jasmine whispered as the music's tempo steadily increased, gentle harps, violins, and flutes giving way to trumpets, bells, and drums. The lights, too, that flickered through the air like countless, multi-colored lightning bugs also increased in speed, seeming to draw some of the energy from the music.

"I think you're right," Trance agreed as she made certain her dress was sitting perfectly upon her shoulders. While she hated being the center of attention like this, she also could not abide the thought of not looking her best while every eye was upon her.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Trance heard Normaf's voice ring out over the assemblage, "it is my distinct honor and privilege to introduce to you the daughter of our great King Oberon, a young woman who has been away from her people so that she could see the ways of the universe, to better guide us that distant day in the future when it is her place to assume the mantle of leadership. I believe I speak for us all when I say that she has been greatly missed." Trance almost gagged when she heard the words, feeling that the only reason most of the courtiers would have missed her at all was that with her gone, one of their greatest sources of gossip was also lost to them. "I present to you, the Princess Trance," Normaf announced, his voice dripping with an appropriate blend of respect and awe.

Trance walked from behind the curtain that had been concealing her, and immediately purple and gold lights began to dance around her, their light glimmering off of her dress. She looked upon her people, the courtiers, and saw in their eyes an expression of true amazement. I'll bet they never thought I could be so regal, she decided. They all still saw me as that mischievous little child, but now they know better. A crowd slowly gathered around her, lords and ladies in small masks that did little to hide their seemingly genuinely respectful expressions. So this is what it is to be royalty, Trance thought, realizing that though she had always been known as the king's daughter, she had never been treated like she had expected to be. This was more like something out of a storybook, and she found she liked it. A lot.

"You look wondrous, my daughter," Trance suddenly heard her father mutter behind her. She turned to look at him, and thought she saw a small tear forming in the corner of his eye. "My little girl has finally grown up, I think. I don't believe I've ever been more amazed by you."

"Th-Thank you," Trance stammered, unprepared for the amount of emotion she heard in her father's voice. It was something completely new for her.

"And darling, I think Randex is also quite impressed," Trance's mother chimed in, taking her daughter by the hand as she turned Trance to come face to face with her fiancée.

Trance looked at Randex, and saw in his lifeless, black eyes none of the wonderment she had seen in everyone else's. She could see hunger, an appetite to share in the admiration that Trance was receiving from all those around her, a desire to be one that commanded every bit as much attention as Trance now did. In that one moment, as Trance looked at her betrothed, her brief moment of fantasy and wonder came crashing to a halt. She was reminded once more of her responsibilities, of the chains that her station in life wrapped around her. She might be the center of her people's attention, but she was also not free to live the life she wanted. Even in that moment, surrounded by the most powerful of her people, all of them gazing upon her with admiration, Trance knew she would have traded it all just to be back in Andromeda's hydroponics garden, lying in the grass with Harper at her side.

"You look absolutely exquisite this evening," Randex said, a devilish grin coming to his face as his gaze slipped over Trance, his eyes seeming to undress her as he looked her over.

"You're such a charmer, Randex," Trance's mother bubbled. "Isn't he just precious, Trance?"

Oh God, I really shouldn't answer that, Trance decided immediately, literally biting her tongue as she opened her mouth to speak. As she gazed at her fiancée, her mouth agape and her tongue clenched firmly between her teeth, Trance felt a jolt of queasiness as she saw her life flash before her eyes. She would marry Randex, she would have children with him, and she would one day rule over her people. There has to be a way out of this, she thought desperately.

"Would you care to dance, my princess?" Randex asked, his gaze never meeting Trance's, his eyes fixed firmly in a stare directed at her breasts.

"I, umm…" Trance hesitated.

"Why of course she would," the queen said pleasantly, giving her daughter a slight shove in the small of her back. Trance stumbled forward awkwardly, but caught her balance quickly as she settled her left hand on Randex's shoulder. The two of them immediately settled into a graceful, flowing stride as they danced to music that seemed to adjust its tempo and melody to Trance's every movement. For the briefest of moments the princess was tempted to start running into people around her in an attempt to create a mosh pit, just so she could see if the musical enchantment continued to match her actions, but she decided against such a display. She could only imagine how her father would have reacted to that kind of behavior.

"Please forgive my rudeness," Randex muttered as he and Trance moved toward the center of the dance floor. Every eye was on them, but as the seconds passed, more couples began to join in the dancing, and the focused attention decreased as Randex continued to speak. "I know you do not think well of me, Princess Trance," the firestarter continued. "I simply have a specific role to act out. My father has certain expectations of me, and among them, apparently, is that I treat my wife as nothing more than an object. So please forgive me if I appear to be doing nothing more than stare at your chest and speak to you with no hint of caring in my voice. It's all for show."

Trance was taken completely off-guard by Randex's unexpected candor, and was suddenly unsure of how to speak to him. Rather than speak, she simply looked at him, and caught a quick, sideways glance from her fiancée.

"Well, I doubt the two of us will ever have another chance to speak alone before the wedding, so I'll pretty much say everything I have to say right now," Randex said, his voice hardly loud enough for Trance to hear it over the music and the constant hum of background chatter. "I can imagine you've gotten your head full of strange ideas after being away from us for so long, and I can't blame you for being a little miffed at having been torn away from your friends and forced to come back to marry me." Trance looked at Randex in surprise, then instinctively tried to conceal her true reaction. She failed. "Yes, I've heard about your friends, your highness," Randex added. "Humans wouldn't have been my choice in a social setting, but far be it from me to judge my princess' decisions - my presumption only goes so far. The fact of the matter is, though, that we're going to marry. It's been arranged, and there's not a whole hell of a lot either one of us can do about it. To be perfectly frank, I would rather have spent the next few centuries conducting research before settling down, but as prospective wives go, you're the very best there is. I can certainly imagine far worse fates than being married to the heir to the throne."

I bet you can, Trance fumed silently, remembering Salerma's words - one of her suitors was only interested in her title. Gee, I wonder which one of them that might be…

"So it seems we're both stuck," Randex said. "I don't expect you to just fall in love with me because we're getting married. In fact, I don't care whether you ever do or not. I would like, however, to have at least a hope that you and I will have a happier life than my parents did." The hint of venom in his words made Trance start, and she could not help but direct her attention at Randex's parents. They were both standing side by side, though neither one seemed to acknowledge the other's presence. They were just outside each other's personal space, and there almost seemed to be an invisible wall standing between them. The only word Trance could find to describe their apparent feelings toward each other was 'cold.' She had the grace, however, to keep that opinion to herself.

"Your parents seem happy enough," Trance lied. For the briefest of moments she thought she saw a hint of rage in her fiancée's eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

"Of course they don't," Randex replied, "though I appreciate your attempt at etiquette. My father sees my mother as property, and my mother sees my father as a means of increasing her social status, just as she does you. So forgive me, Trance, if I don't start jumping for joy at the prospect of entering into an arranged marriage, but likewise don't think I'll be stupid enough to let you go, either."

"Of course," Trance mumbled. Well, I guess it could be worse, she admitted to herself. True, she was still going to be stuck marrying a man she only knew enough to dislike, but at least he seemed to have somewhat of a handle on the unfairness of it all. Perhaps I can make something positive out of this somehow. With a violent shake of her head, though, she chased the thought from her mind. You're not marrying this guy, she swore to herself. Harper is coming for you. He'll find you, and he'll take you away from all of this. He had just better hurry.

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Chapter 9 coming.....

Jaimi/Nevermore Copyright@2001