"D'you think we could maybe move a little faster? My balls are freezing." Score whined, as was his custom, on the trek from the place the portal had deposited them to Shanara's gates. The others ignored him.
The gates were soundly locked, and when Helaine tried to wrench them open magically, she received an unpleasant jolt. Pixel frowned.
"I think Dorian has dropped all pretenses of being a gentleman."
Helaine did not answer, but instead levitated them all over the ramparts into the courtyards by means of sapphire. It did not seem so long ago she had done something similar, when Shanara was the unknown enemy, not the damsel in distress.
She strode purposefully into the main chambers, and came across Shanara, reposed luxuriant on several pillows and silks. She looked splendid. "Where is he?" Helaine demanded, her hand on the hilt of her sword.
"Hello Helaine, you're looking well. Who are you searching for?"
"You know who I mean." Helaine's voice was granite. The innocent look on Shanara's face melted away.
"So you've come back for him then?"
"Yes" Pixel interrupted the staredown between the two women, who glared at him momentarily before continuing.
"Yes." Helaine repeated.
"Ungrateful bitch" Shanara snarled. "He told me what happened. Told me you tried to seduce –"
"And you BELIEVED him?" Helaine spat. "You should have—"
"You always thought you were better than me! Thought you were some brilliant witch, didn't you? You hadn't enough men already" Shanara pointed accusatory fingers that cracked with green sparks at Pixel and Score, who edged nervously out of reach "– you had to take MINE too! You churlish harlot! Little trollop! I knew—"
"Shut up" Helaine interrupted coldly. "I'm not going to listen to your empty-brained jawing. Where is he?"
"You can't have him!" Shanara screeched, lunging towards the other girl. Helaine unsheathed her sword, lightning, and fell into a defensive stance before catching a glimpse of something she'd forgotten.
Crow stood off to one side, behind Pixel, head tilted, frowning.
Helaine turned her face back to Shanara, and held up a hand. "Stop." She said, calmly. "This is ridiculous."
Shanara withdrew.
"I'm not going to fight you over this. Dorian is a bastard, and he's not worth injuring you." Helaine sheathed her sword triumphantly.
Shanara's face took on the runny look it did whenever she shape-shifted. Dorian emerged from the enchantress's figure, eliciting rather trite gasps from everyone, except perhaps Crow, who was looking admirably at Helaine.
"Well, that's nice to know. You look positively fetching when you're angry, darling."
Score growled, and Pixel elbowed him.
Dorian seemed not to have heard, but Helaine looked rather surprised, cocking one eyebrow in Score's direction.
"What makes you think I won't kill you?" Helaine asked instead.
"Because if you do, you won't find out where I've stashed your precious shapeshifter friend. And she would die. And that nasty little animal too."
Helaine cogitated for a minute. "Okay," she said at last. "Tell me where Shanara is."
"No."
*Helaine...* Pixel began. He expected her to snap at him, tell him to stay out of it, but she replied pleasantly.
*Yes?*
*We've got Shanara on the map at home. We don't need him to tell us where she is.*
"Excellent point!" Helaine said jovially. She turned to Dorian. "I am banishing you." She opened a portal, with considerable effort, and waved towards it. "Either go through the door, or I'll kill you."
"But what about Shanara?" He asked, confused.
"I know exactly where you've hidden her." She narrowed her eyes "absolutely pathetic, to think you could keep anything secret from me, scum."
*Where are you sending him?* Score asked.
*I instructed the Portal to send him to the place he's praying he won't end up.* She laughed out loud. "That's what I do. Answer prayers."
With Dorian on some desolate, inescapable planet on the outer rim ("it must be somewhere dreadful like Earth" Helaine managed to joke, much to everyone's surprise), the four returned to Dondar. Although a bit tired from all the recent planet hopping, Pixel eagerly offered to retrieve Shanara from the scab of a world Dorian had sent her to on the middle circuit. He had declined offers of companionship from both Score and Helaine, but elected Crow as his traveling companion. "It will do you good, to get out and see the universe."
Pixel and Crow departed, leaving a dusty silence between Helaine and Score in the courtyard on Dondar. Score kicked at a loose paving stone, sending it scuttling into the long shadows. The soft twilight crept over the walls and nestled into corners and under trees, a complacent lavender.
"You know, I was worried about you."
"About me?" Helaine turned an incredulous face to Score.
"Yeah. I didn't know how you would react, to seeing...him."
"Clearly, I behaved as a lady born." Helaine said with a sniff. Then she frowned. "Something about Crow...made me think. About how we know good from evil, and why we're one and not the other."
"Deep thinking from someone who purports to be all brawn." Score teased, reaching out and lightly jabbing her shoulder. Helaine swatted him away irritably and continued.
"Where do morals come from, on Earth?"
Score shrugged. "Church, synagogue, parents. School, a little. They make a big stink about kids getting bad morals from TV and movies and stuff, but it's more like an absence of good morals, if you ask me."
"Ah yes, your TV. I do not understand, though. Storytellers tell bawdy tales, these do not contribute much to disobedience on Ordin."
"Hah!" Score snorted. "That's because it's one thing to say 'Score stands too close to Helaine', but quite another" – he stepped towards her, pressing her elbows to her side before she could pull away or strike him – "to see it".
They were still for a moment.
Helaine had been closer to Score than this. On more than one occasion, a life-threatening circumstance would cause the triad reborn to fall into a heap, and more often than not, Helaine would find herself squashed under one or both of the boys.
This was different. This was not haphazard contact. She was acutely aware of the gap between them, and stared dumbly at it until she looked up and caught Score's eye. He inhaled briefly at this unfamiliar but incredible view of her, and his belly brushed hers, closing the distance.
Helaine burned.
"Er... I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
Neither Helaine nor Score seemed willing to break the gaze to look upon the visitor. Reluctantly, Score slid himself a half-pace away from Helaine and turned to see Oracle.
"I do seem to have a penchant for being untimely." Oracle laughed at his own joke, the somber black outfit flickering slightly.
"Got any telemarketers in the family?" Score inquired gruffly, for his own amusement. He didn't really expect the other two to know what he was talking about.
"That isn't funny," Oracle snapped peevishly. "You know I haven't a family."
"Whoa!" Score threw up his hands in defense, stepping backwards "Relax, Oracle. I didn't mean anything by it."
Oracle muttered a bit, then sighed. "Sorry, Score. It's just... I have some bad news."
"Tell me something I don't know." Score rolled his eyes. Helaine poked him.
"Go on, Oracle."
"Well, I can't vouch for this prediction personally, as I didn't make it..." Oracle gave a little sniff, as though to say that all other prophesies were inferior. "...but I'm near positive it pertains to you, and it's not very cheery. Anyway, here goes:
And of the three who choose not to rule
Each against the other. Fallen in duel,
One will meet death on the end of a blade
The Diadem unraveled, unordered, unmade
Scavenging birds claim the old throne
Naught be left but dust and bone
There's more, about death and pestilence and such forth, but that's the general gist."
"And I suppose it just had to rhyme, didn't it?" Score sighed.
"Of course." Oracle wrung agitated hands. "Look, I've thought about this for a bit...and it has to pertain to you... 'three who choose not to rule'...that's such a bizarre occurrence in the Diadem... you would have to be the only ones."
"Say that middle part again," Helaine demanded, "about the sword."
"One will meet death on the end of a blade." Oracle obliged
"So you're saying... if this is true... we're going to start fighting..." Score pieced together the rhyme slowly.
"...and one of us will kill another?" Helaine finished for him.
"Not just anyone. Probably you. Neither Pixel nor I carry a sword everywhere we go." Score corrected her gravely. Oracle nodded.
"Impossible" Helaine scoffed. "I don't believe it." She tossed her chin high. "I would never kill you or Pixel, no matter how you irritated me."
Oracle shrugged. "Like I said, I don't know how accurate it is, but I just thought you should know." He waved a little. "I'm back to the post-Council party. It's really a gas. There are games and refreshments and we projections are having a "mysterious guidance" competition. We're trying to see who can be the most confusing and awe-inspiring. You ought to stop by if you get the chance."
Helaine and Score exchanged twin looks of mock horror as Oracle 'popped' away. They both headed for the castle, equally wary and tingling.
"Hungry?" She asked him at last.
"Famished." He replied. It had been a long day.
More silence.
"When do you think Pixel will be back?" Score asked in a blurt. Helaine shook her head.
"He said he might stay overnight when he finds her. He looked exhausted."
"We're all zombies."
"Zombies?"
"Never mind, Helaine."
Helaine dreamt that night. It was a real dream, not an excursion to Elysia, and it seemed quite tactile. She was standing in the burnished gold and umber fields of Dondar in the late summer, and someone was speaking to her.
"Lady Helaine Votrin, I am charging you with a task."
"Who are you?" She demanded of the faceless voice, looking around her.
"I am the Lord of your Fathers, the Lord that came before the Houses of Ordin, who hears the prayers of the silent." The voice boomed impressively, but it was only a dream.
"Hah! The priests invented you to keep our noses clean!" She exclaimed, heartily displeased she was dreaming about fantasies again. "I don't believe in you!"
"That is irrelevant. I have marked you as my own and you will complete this task for me."
"What is it?" Helaine asked, curiosity getting the better of her dream self.
"You are to raise the orphan Crow in the way of God."
"And exactly what way is that?" Helaine demanded. She knew little theology. There was a pause, and she could have sworn the voice sounded a trifle amused.
"I am every way."
Helaine woke because someone was screaming. She automatically lifted her sword up from the floor beneath her bed (contrary to popular belief she did not sleep with it) and chased the noise to its source in Score's room.
The bloodcurdling cries emitted from Score himself, who was thrashing dreadfully in his sheets. The enchanted walls responded to their creator's distress, quaking and storming. Helaine glanced about for signs of any strange presence, then dropped her sword and attempted to wake him up.
"SCORE!" She shouted, shaking him violently. He sat bolt upright, quivering and sweating and panting, as though he'd just finished wrestling with the devil.
"What? I- the sword, shit, Helaine – and it –Helaine?"
She conjured a bauble of light, and the whites of Score's frightened eyes reflected back at her.
"Are you all right?" She asked anxiously, "you're delirious! What a nightmare that must have been –"
Score snatched at her hands, which were feeling for fever on his forehead, and held them still. "It wasn't a nightmare." He said quietly. He dropped her hands and attempted to disentangle himself from his sheets somewhat.
Helaine sat on the bed next to him, and placed her palm firmly on his head. He did not object this time, but stilled under her hands. She decided he felt warm, but not unreasonably so, considering his previous state of distress, and let her hand linger. Score tossed in sheets dark with sweat, and turned away from her, knocking away her probing fingers in the process.
"What did you dream about?" she asked after awhile, trying to keep her voice light.
"I can't tell you." He whispered bitterly. Helaine stood to go, slightly angered at the harsh tone. He must have felt the springs release as she rose, because he rolled over and snatched at her wrist desperately. "Don't go...please. Don't leave me alone. I'm sorry."
Helaine softened. The moisture curled his hair, ringed around his pale, alarmed face, and his eyes were still wide. He didn't really seem coherent. He might not even remember this in the morning.
She didn't move towards him, but he sat up, the sheets sticking to his wet body, and hugged her middle, pressing his cheek into her stomach. When he spoke, his words were muffled by her nightgown. "Once, you let me sleep with my head in your lap..." he trailed off, peering up into her face. She stared, incredulous, then smiled indulgently.
"Of course." She climbed on top of the sheets, relaxed against the headboard, relatively upright, and gathered his head into her lap as she had on that limousine ride in New York. She stroked his hair absentmindedly, tired once more, masking all signs that she was frightened. It scared her that something terrified Score so badly that he begged for companionship, when his natural tendency was to push his friends away in times of need. Never mind that, as a Lady, she should never be caught in a bed not her own, but this would not be the first time she'd abandoned her modesty to save the earth boy. She looked down at him, half expecting to see him wearing a prankish smirk, ready with a quip about her lap, her nightgown, her concern.
Tears were leaking from his squished-shut eyes.
Although she hadn't intended to, Helaine spent the rest of the night in Score's room. She wasted a good deal of that time dithering over his hair, his ears – all slick with sweat – as he slept. He'd lumbered off to sleep in a matter of minutes, and not a shadow of a dream seemed to have crossed him since then. Helaine, however, found herself kept awake by various thoughts. She took a deep breath, and ordered herself as best as possible.
First, there was the matter of Score's nightmare-that-wasn't. A once notorious coward, Helaine hadn't seen Score so witless in years. She didn't like to see her friend that way, preyed upon by his own mind, helpless. It didn't fit, either, that he would turn against his habit to ask for her company, more specifically, that of her lap. She colored a little, at this thought.
Helaine quickly turned her thoughts away to her own dream. Not nearly so unpleasant as Score's, but important, she felt. She only vaguely remembered it. Curses. Something to do with Crow... perhaps she would recall better in the morning.
Dorian. Helaine snarled at the name, even in her own head. She opened her palm to look at the tiny twin scars from the dagger. She would never forget this. Though he was stuck on a planet of the rim world, completely alone, she still felt cheated somehow. She longed to take a sword to the devil, defeat him in real combat, crow victoriously over his fallen body...Helaine stopped herself suddenly, ashamed. It was the same feeling that had seized her when she'd glanced at Crow. Shame at her violence. Helaine's stomach clenched subconsciously and Score reacted, muttering in his sleep, casting an arm over her legs.
Score.
Oh yes, that was a subject to be dealt with too.
Helaine hazarded a peek at the sleeping face of her friend. She did not understand why she had acquiesced to his peculiar request. She certainly would have denied anyone else. But in the pale light of her orb, he had seemed so tortured, and she quaked with anxiety. He certainly appeared fine now; she could leave whenever she chose. All she had to do was shift his head off her lap and slip back to bed. Helaine reached down to do so, but ended with her one hand smoothing the hair around his face, and the other dabbing sweat off his nose and forehead with her sleeping gown. It wasn't that she couldn't go back to bed, it was just that she didn't want to. Not just now. At least, that was what she told herself.
As though he knew he was the subject of her thoughts, Score stirred a little, and Helaine got a funny feeling in the back of her throat as she watched him. He'd been acting so peculiar as of late. The scene in the courtyard returned to her: Score, a breath away, and the awful-wonderful heat in the pit of her stomach.
She bit her lip, gently. He was a fair strange and marvelous boy, and an excellent friend and comrade. Still, something was missing. She knew she'd provoked his anger when she'd left Dondar and gotten tied up in the mess with Dorian. Perhaps that was why he'd been so odd lately; he was recovering from his fury.
Score twitched, interrupting her thoughts. Helaine looked around at his room, at the sleeping young man in her lap, at her silly, girly nightgown. She grimaced. With any luck, he would not remember this in the morning. She didn't think she could bear to be teased about an action she didn't fully understand. Before he woke, she would sneak away, no harm done. Perhaps, after a short nap to restore her energy...
*****
Well! 3,000 odd words later, and I somehow managed to get Score and Helaine in bed with each other... though not like that, of course.
My thoughts: reviewers = amazing! And so sorry about not updating... I have a thousand excuses, but they aren't terribly interesting. What is interesting, to me, of course, is that, condensed to paperback size, this story so far is 245 pages long, a bit longer than any of the original six. Guess I'm too wordy (35,834 to be exact) for my own good.
And finally, I really tried to make it obvious that Helaine doesn't feel romantic towards Score. I normally don't believe in reiterating the plot in the author's notes (if the story doesn't make it clear, I'm not doing my job), but I really feel like I need to stress this point. Although Score induces pity, friendship, worry, and even a little lust, Helaine misinterprets his actions because she does not feel (or does not want to feel) anything more than friendship for him.
That said, I think its time I start working on the next chapter. I hope you enjoy this one.
Aroo!