"Case- wait!"
Case turned at the sound of Tamia Benson's voice. Tamia was one of Jodie's posse, and he expected to find them together. But she stood alone. She was laughing.
"Yeah?" They stood on a quiet suburban street- Case had chosen to walk home. To think.
She grinned. "Case, I have something to ask you."
"Ask. I have to get home."
"Ooh, touchy. Is Ickle Casey getting tired of being bigger than Jesus?"
Case rolled his eyes. He didn't know which was worse- girls who worshipped the ground he walked on or girls who knew just how to piss him off.
"Yes?"
Tamia rolled her eyes, but in a good-natured way, as if she couldn't believe what she was doing. She kept laughing as she spoke. "Jodie wants me... she wants me..."
"She wants you to what?"
"Jodie wants me to ask you to the dance," said Tamia, giggling.
"You?" It astonished Case that Jodie and Tamia were even friends. Tamia was tough, street smart and dedicated. She spurned current fashions for baggy jeans and sweatshirts and once had led a sit-in at school because they wouldn't allow a student who had been expelled four years before to speak about the dangers of drug use.
Jodie, on the other hand, was... delusional.
"Weird, huh? She says I'm the only girl she can trust to get the 411 on you, my man, without getting close to you in the process."
"Was that a compliment?"
"You know, I'm really not sure."
"Thanks but no thanks."
"Hold on, Case. I'm not leaving you alone until you say yes. Jodie promised to pay me forty dollars if I got you to go out with me." She gave a small, wistful, un-Tamialike smile. "She's got some crush on you, Case."
"She is PAYING you to go out with me?"
"Ain't that precious?" smirked Tamia. "Come on, Case. It'll be a laugh."
"Well..." said Case, thinking. "OK. It'll be a laugh."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Bye," both said at the same time, and turned in different directions.
"Hey, Tamia!" he yelled. "How do I call you to talk about the dance?"
"My phone number's 555 3865!" she called to him across the street, and left.
Case wandered around until he found himself at the park, and lay down on the grass, looking up at the afternoon sky. So. Tamia Benson had just asked him to the dance.
Wow.
He closed his eyes...
Case found himself standing in a village square. There was a great deal of noise and dirt, as people pushed back and forth to get to the vendors yelling out there wares. It was late afternoon on a market day.
He knew that Princess Tinga was nearby, somehow, and boldly approached a burly man who was chortling with numerous cronies. Once again, strange words billowed from his mouth. "Good sirs, might you know where I can find the girl named Tinga?"
The man frowned, raising bushy eyebrows. "Tinga?"
"Or Brin?" he asked.
"Describe this Tinga, boy."
Case wondered where to begin. "She has dark eyes and skin and she's really beautiful, and-"
Shock administered on the man's face. Suddenly, he shoved Case. "Are you talking about the Lady Penelope?" he challenged.
"I don't know."
"He's talking about the Lady, all right. She goes by many a name, and 'tis no woman in our fair town spoken of so reverently as the Lady Penelope," simpered a rattish young man at the back.
"Woman?" asked Case in confusion. "No, you misunderstand; the girl I speak of is only ten years old."
The man did not appear to listen and suddenly, Case was knocked off his feet. All the men started in on him, beating and kicking at him. Women watched from doorways but made no effort to intervene. They seemed absolutely sick of men fighting over this Penelope.
"Stay away from the Lady," growled the man, and was interrupted by one of his men.
"What would the Lady Penelope want with a skinny boy, anyhow? She must marry someday, and it will not be to this runt," snapped another, and they laughed trollishly as one.
All at once, just as Case felt ready to pass out, he felt himself being dragged to his feet. A strong but feminine arm held him up, and he heard a voice talk concernedly to him. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," said Case, and slumped.
"Lady Penelope!" said the head man in shock, and the men scrambled away from her, tipping their ragged caps and bowing their heads as though they stood before a goddess.
"You impudent knaves swore your lives to me in the promise that I would choose to marry one of you, and promised great deeds in my name. Yet I find you beating this young boy? Is this your great deed?" asked the Lady Penelope.
The rattish man spoke. "He called you Tinga, milady...?"
Case felt the woman defending him stiffen. Yet she spoke in her same proud tones. "Fools! Do you think this an insult against my honour? This be'th my young cousin, and he does call me by a baby name. 'Tis sentimentality, and nothing more!"
There were gasps. "Oh, Lady Penelope, if we had only known..." whined the head man.
"You did not seem interested in finding out," she said coldly. "Be removed from my sight, you rogues. I wish no more of you."
Case seemed to wake up on a lumpy bed in a smallish room. As his focus cleared, he realised a woman sat on his bed and sponged at his forehead.
"Lady Penelope?" he asked weakly.
"I know not how you hath uncovered my true identity and true name. How much do you know, my boy?"
"Who are you?"
She came fully into focus. "Why, I am Tinga."
And he realised it was her. She was a woman, and so beautiful he couldn't begin to describe her. Her innocent and worldly prettiness at ten was nothing compared to her features now. Her black hair had grown ever longer, and even in common clothes she looked regal.
Yet Case knew at a second's sight that he was not attracted to her. He felt toward her as a brother, or a child to a defender. He was proud and happy, and nothing more.
"I have questions for you. Why do you call yourself Penelope?"
Tinga laughed softly. "Mighty men pursue me. I cannot use the name my heart chose, for it might lead me to my doom at their hands."
Case thought to be discreet. "Why do you call yourself a Lady?"
"That is a nickname crafted by those devious village men. They say my beauty be'th so renowned that I should be royalty and birds should sing at the sound of my voice."
"That's... nice."
She snorted. "Hardly. They admire me only for my beauty, nothing more. I would kill them if the need arose. They are but followers and I do not heed them. There is the more pressing matter of you. What be your name?"
For some reason, Case told her his name was Zachary.
"Zachary. A great name. I have a brother named Zack. Just Zack, mind you. Like I am only Tinga. Tell me, boy, how you know my name?"
"I'm... tired..." moaned Case, feeling suddenly wretched.
"Poor lad," said Princess Tinga gently. "It is important that you rest. I am to meet a friend of mine in town, so you sleep."
When Case felt himself next wake up, he could see Tinga and a man whose back was to him. They sat at opposite ends of a small wooden table in the middle of the floor. He opened his eyes just the smallest bit.
"So how is it you can fight so well, Penelope?"
"My father was one of the greatest warriors who ever lived. He taught me well," she said softly.
"And here I sit, talking with his daughter. Incredible. Tell me about your childhood, Penelope. You have told me almost nothing."
She hesitated. "Are you sure you want to know?"
"Absolutely."
There was a pause. "Charles, I tell you all of this because I have never felt so strongly for any man. I am not an ordinary woman. I am a princess."
She went recklessly on. "My mother was executed when I was a baby and I never knew my father. I watched from a window as she died. A tyrant king, King Lydecker, kept my siblings and I prisoner inside his castle. Manticore Castle, in the country of Wyominia. Evil monsters called Nomalies lurked in the dungeons and we were constantly on the run from their power. They killed us if we were slow. Magicians monitored our movements and struck us with a shaking sickness if we misbehaved. We lived in constant fear."
"Penelope?" he asked in shock.
"I am not called Penelope. I am Princess Tinga. Princess Tinga of the Protecting Few. My parents reigned before Lydecker took hold of the castle. When I was ten, we escaped. Three children died before we could. My brother, Prince Danny, was accidentally killed by my sister the princess Syl. Prince Jack, who was given to the Nomalies. And my dear little sister Princess Eva. I have met up with my brother Prince Zack, and he tells me we're to call her Princess Eva of the Heavenly Arrow now. She died for us. It is her sacrifice that made it possible for me to be sitting here right now. I would not have survived to my present age in that place."
The man called Charles seemed unable to speak. "I have to go," he said quietly. He started toward the door.
"Charles?" she said. Case heard the tone of a frightened, rejected child in her voice. "Charles, don't go."
"Pe- Ti- whoever you are. I cannot see you any more."
Princess Tinga began to cry. "By the Blue Faerie..." she muttered, and began to laugh nervously. It sounded like she was sobbing.
"What can you possibly find funny?" asked Charles coldly.
"It's... a joke, Charles. Oh, the look on your face!"
He stopped. "A joke? That whole horrific story was a joke?"
"Yes, Charles. I- I was making sport of you."
He let out a breath. "By God, Penelope, you have a twisted sense of humour. But I forgive you."
Case saw a hopeful smile dawn on Tinga's face. "You do?"
"Yes." Charles walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm sorry I made you cry."
"All part of the joke, dear one."
"When will I see you again?"
"Next week?" she asked coyly.
From Case's viewpoint it looked like the man Charles was smiling. "All right. I wait on bated breath, Penelope."
He let himself out after a few minutes. Princess Tinga looked after him. A look of great anger, the tiredness of a woman three times her age washed over her. "God, I love him. I am a fool," she said thickly, and pulled a locked box on the table toward her. Out of it she took a dulled diamond tiara- the one she had been wearing during the escape.
Princess Tinga cradled it in her hands a moment before sighing and beginning to cry again.
Case jolted awake, truly this time. It was getting dark. He swatted away mosquitos and made his way home. He couldn't get over Princess Tinga's latest appearance. That poor woman.
He sat and drew a picture of her. It took a long time to get it just right, and even when he achieved just the effect he wanted he couldn't feel happy.
He needed something to distract him.
Case sat down with the cordless phone and punched 555 3865 into the keypad.
"Hey Tamia? It's Case. Yeah. Really? OK. I wanted to talk about the dance..."
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.
Case turned at the sound of Tamia Benson's voice. Tamia was one of Jodie's posse, and he expected to find them together. But she stood alone. She was laughing.
"Yeah?" They stood on a quiet suburban street- Case had chosen to walk home. To think.
She grinned. "Case, I have something to ask you."
"Ask. I have to get home."
"Ooh, touchy. Is Ickle Casey getting tired of being bigger than Jesus?"
Case rolled his eyes. He didn't know which was worse- girls who worshipped the ground he walked on or girls who knew just how to piss him off.
"Yes?"
Tamia rolled her eyes, but in a good-natured way, as if she couldn't believe what she was doing. She kept laughing as she spoke. "Jodie wants me... she wants me..."
"She wants you to what?"
"Jodie wants me to ask you to the dance," said Tamia, giggling.
"You?" It astonished Case that Jodie and Tamia were even friends. Tamia was tough, street smart and dedicated. She spurned current fashions for baggy jeans and sweatshirts and once had led a sit-in at school because they wouldn't allow a student who had been expelled four years before to speak about the dangers of drug use.
Jodie, on the other hand, was... delusional.
"Weird, huh? She says I'm the only girl she can trust to get the 411 on you, my man, without getting close to you in the process."
"Was that a compliment?"
"You know, I'm really not sure."
"Thanks but no thanks."
"Hold on, Case. I'm not leaving you alone until you say yes. Jodie promised to pay me forty dollars if I got you to go out with me." She gave a small, wistful, un-Tamialike smile. "She's got some crush on you, Case."
"She is PAYING you to go out with me?"
"Ain't that precious?" smirked Tamia. "Come on, Case. It'll be a laugh."
"Well..." said Case, thinking. "OK. It'll be a laugh."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Bye," both said at the same time, and turned in different directions.
"Hey, Tamia!" he yelled. "How do I call you to talk about the dance?"
"My phone number's 555 3865!" she called to him across the street, and left.
Case wandered around until he found himself at the park, and lay down on the grass, looking up at the afternoon sky. So. Tamia Benson had just asked him to the dance.
Wow.
He closed his eyes...
Case found himself standing in a village square. There was a great deal of noise and dirt, as people pushed back and forth to get to the vendors yelling out there wares. It was late afternoon on a market day.
He knew that Princess Tinga was nearby, somehow, and boldly approached a burly man who was chortling with numerous cronies. Once again, strange words billowed from his mouth. "Good sirs, might you know where I can find the girl named Tinga?"
The man frowned, raising bushy eyebrows. "Tinga?"
"Or Brin?" he asked.
"Describe this Tinga, boy."
Case wondered where to begin. "She has dark eyes and skin and she's really beautiful, and-"
Shock administered on the man's face. Suddenly, he shoved Case. "Are you talking about the Lady Penelope?" he challenged.
"I don't know."
"He's talking about the Lady, all right. She goes by many a name, and 'tis no woman in our fair town spoken of so reverently as the Lady Penelope," simpered a rattish young man at the back.
"Woman?" asked Case in confusion. "No, you misunderstand; the girl I speak of is only ten years old."
The man did not appear to listen and suddenly, Case was knocked off his feet. All the men started in on him, beating and kicking at him. Women watched from doorways but made no effort to intervene. They seemed absolutely sick of men fighting over this Penelope.
"Stay away from the Lady," growled the man, and was interrupted by one of his men.
"What would the Lady Penelope want with a skinny boy, anyhow? She must marry someday, and it will not be to this runt," snapped another, and they laughed trollishly as one.
All at once, just as Case felt ready to pass out, he felt himself being dragged to his feet. A strong but feminine arm held him up, and he heard a voice talk concernedly to him. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," said Case, and slumped.
"Lady Penelope!" said the head man in shock, and the men scrambled away from her, tipping their ragged caps and bowing their heads as though they stood before a goddess.
"You impudent knaves swore your lives to me in the promise that I would choose to marry one of you, and promised great deeds in my name. Yet I find you beating this young boy? Is this your great deed?" asked the Lady Penelope.
The rattish man spoke. "He called you Tinga, milady...?"
Case felt the woman defending him stiffen. Yet she spoke in her same proud tones. "Fools! Do you think this an insult against my honour? This be'th my young cousin, and he does call me by a baby name. 'Tis sentimentality, and nothing more!"
There were gasps. "Oh, Lady Penelope, if we had only known..." whined the head man.
"You did not seem interested in finding out," she said coldly. "Be removed from my sight, you rogues. I wish no more of you."
Case seemed to wake up on a lumpy bed in a smallish room. As his focus cleared, he realised a woman sat on his bed and sponged at his forehead.
"Lady Penelope?" he asked weakly.
"I know not how you hath uncovered my true identity and true name. How much do you know, my boy?"
"Who are you?"
She came fully into focus. "Why, I am Tinga."
And he realised it was her. She was a woman, and so beautiful he couldn't begin to describe her. Her innocent and worldly prettiness at ten was nothing compared to her features now. Her black hair had grown ever longer, and even in common clothes she looked regal.
Yet Case knew at a second's sight that he was not attracted to her. He felt toward her as a brother, or a child to a defender. He was proud and happy, and nothing more.
"I have questions for you. Why do you call yourself Penelope?"
Tinga laughed softly. "Mighty men pursue me. I cannot use the name my heart chose, for it might lead me to my doom at their hands."
Case thought to be discreet. "Why do you call yourself a Lady?"
"That is a nickname crafted by those devious village men. They say my beauty be'th so renowned that I should be royalty and birds should sing at the sound of my voice."
"That's... nice."
She snorted. "Hardly. They admire me only for my beauty, nothing more. I would kill them if the need arose. They are but followers and I do not heed them. There is the more pressing matter of you. What be your name?"
For some reason, Case told her his name was Zachary.
"Zachary. A great name. I have a brother named Zack. Just Zack, mind you. Like I am only Tinga. Tell me, boy, how you know my name?"
"I'm... tired..." moaned Case, feeling suddenly wretched.
"Poor lad," said Princess Tinga gently. "It is important that you rest. I am to meet a friend of mine in town, so you sleep."
When Case felt himself next wake up, he could see Tinga and a man whose back was to him. They sat at opposite ends of a small wooden table in the middle of the floor. He opened his eyes just the smallest bit.
"So how is it you can fight so well, Penelope?"
"My father was one of the greatest warriors who ever lived. He taught me well," she said softly.
"And here I sit, talking with his daughter. Incredible. Tell me about your childhood, Penelope. You have told me almost nothing."
She hesitated. "Are you sure you want to know?"
"Absolutely."
There was a pause. "Charles, I tell you all of this because I have never felt so strongly for any man. I am not an ordinary woman. I am a princess."
She went recklessly on. "My mother was executed when I was a baby and I never knew my father. I watched from a window as she died. A tyrant king, King Lydecker, kept my siblings and I prisoner inside his castle. Manticore Castle, in the country of Wyominia. Evil monsters called Nomalies lurked in the dungeons and we were constantly on the run from their power. They killed us if we were slow. Magicians monitored our movements and struck us with a shaking sickness if we misbehaved. We lived in constant fear."
"Penelope?" he asked in shock.
"I am not called Penelope. I am Princess Tinga. Princess Tinga of the Protecting Few. My parents reigned before Lydecker took hold of the castle. When I was ten, we escaped. Three children died before we could. My brother, Prince Danny, was accidentally killed by my sister the princess Syl. Prince Jack, who was given to the Nomalies. And my dear little sister Princess Eva. I have met up with my brother Prince Zack, and he tells me we're to call her Princess Eva of the Heavenly Arrow now. She died for us. It is her sacrifice that made it possible for me to be sitting here right now. I would not have survived to my present age in that place."
The man called Charles seemed unable to speak. "I have to go," he said quietly. He started toward the door.
"Charles?" she said. Case heard the tone of a frightened, rejected child in her voice. "Charles, don't go."
"Pe- Ti- whoever you are. I cannot see you any more."
Princess Tinga began to cry. "By the Blue Faerie..." she muttered, and began to laugh nervously. It sounded like she was sobbing.
"What can you possibly find funny?" asked Charles coldly.
"It's... a joke, Charles. Oh, the look on your face!"
He stopped. "A joke? That whole horrific story was a joke?"
"Yes, Charles. I- I was making sport of you."
He let out a breath. "By God, Penelope, you have a twisted sense of humour. But I forgive you."
Case saw a hopeful smile dawn on Tinga's face. "You do?"
"Yes." Charles walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm sorry I made you cry."
"All part of the joke, dear one."
"When will I see you again?"
"Next week?" she asked coyly.
From Case's viewpoint it looked like the man Charles was smiling. "All right. I wait on bated breath, Penelope."
He let himself out after a few minutes. Princess Tinga looked after him. A look of great anger, the tiredness of a woman three times her age washed over her. "God, I love him. I am a fool," she said thickly, and pulled a locked box on the table toward her. Out of it she took a dulled diamond tiara- the one she had been wearing during the escape.
Princess Tinga cradled it in her hands a moment before sighing and beginning to cry again.
Case jolted awake, truly this time. It was getting dark. He swatted away mosquitos and made his way home. He couldn't get over Princess Tinga's latest appearance. That poor woman.
He sat and drew a picture of her. It took a long time to get it just right, and even when he achieved just the effect he wanted he couldn't feel happy.
He needed something to distract him.
Case sat down with the cordless phone and punched 555 3865 into the keypad.
"Hey Tamia? It's Case. Yeah. Really? OK. I wanted to talk about the dance..."
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.