"Father, are we done with government business? May I be excused?" Kristoff whined.
"Patience," Doom counseled. "What have we here?" he asked, looking at me.
The aide who had accompanied me said "Another genetic refugee, my lord." He had a display module under his arm, my application pulled up on the read-out, and passed it over to this stranger who was there in place of Victor.
For he was a stranger, that tall, dark and handsome man. I was disconcerted by just how extremely handsome he was, and if I wasn't careful, I was going to be blushing, stammering and giggling out of nervousness. Imagining him naked, supposedly a cure for nervousness when speaking to a stranger, didn't help either. I had a pretty good idea of how he would look. That impulse vanished moments later, when he began to speak…
He looked at me without any recognition in his eyes. He took the module and looked at it. "Another American. Am I supposed to harbor every last one of them?"
"I beg your pardon," I said, in Latverian. "I am not here simply as a random petitioner, but as one who can claim Latverian blood. My father's mother was Latverian. She was born Anisoara Bran, in the village of Doomvale near Brantzia. I have documentary evidence to that effect, and if there are any descendants of her brother, Radu Bran, I would welcome the chance, not only to meet them, but to prove my claim through a DNA test.
"I regret that I have not come here under happier circumstances, as a visitor rather than a fugitive. I loved my grandmother dearly, and being here—where I can hear Latverian spoken, where I can smell the sorts of food she used to cook—makes her memory live again for me."
"At least this one speaks Latverian." Doom grumbled, and read over more of my history. "Occupation: Professional artist. What medium do you work in?"
"Calligraphy." Explaining what I really did was not an option, and I did not want to admit my last job in the United States under my old name was as a cashier. Calligraphy was the one area of art in which I had any talent.
"You should address us more formally when you speak to us." instructed Doom. "Your Majesty—your Excellency—your Grace—my lord—any of these would be acceptable." He caught a glimpse of himself in the Great Hall's mirror, and could not resist preening himself a little.
Oh, no. I had a problem with that. There was only one man who merited that much respect from me, and this smug looking poseur wasn't him. But I didn't want to be deported, so I said. "I apologize, my lord."
"Calligraphy?" hooted Kristoff. "Who does that anymore? All you need is a software program with some fonts."
"Quiet." Doom said to his adopted son. "Have you any samples?" he questioned me.
"I'm afraid they're spread over several square kilometers of the Serbian landscape. I arrived here as you see me, with no more than my identity papers and the clothes on my back."
"But with such a beautiful ring on your hand." said Valeria, purring. Valeria reminded me of Salma Hayek—petite, dark, and curvy. "Is it a real emerald, or a just a very fine peridot?"
"It is a real emerald, my lady. It was a gift." I told her, and turned back to Doom. "Loan me paper, pen and ink, and I will prove my skills."
He was continuing to review my application. "Reason for seeking asylum—gene complex for exceptional intelligence. How intelligent are you?"
"My IQ has been tested at 167."
"Why are you merely a calligrapher, then?" Doom looked at me, as if to challenge what I had said of myself
"I like it, I'm good at it, and it gives me a great deal of time in which to think." I replied.
"And of what do you think?" he countered.
"All sorts of things." was my response.
"As an example?" he asked.
"If the costumed adventurer Thor is really the thunder god of the Vikings, to whom they sacrificed and sang, who went to the frost giants dressed as a bride when their king demanded Freya's hand, and ate eight whole salmon, an ox, and drank three big barrels of mead, the same Thor who tried to drink the sea from an enchanted horn, and wrestled with Old Age itself—why, then, is he so neat, so clean, so well dressed and civilized? The smells of blood, smoke, grease and sweat should be ingrained in him as the odor in a block of sandalwood. Why does his hammer Mjollnir look nothing like the representations of antiquity? I was in his presence once, and he smelled faintly of ozone and a commonly available white soap. Soap? When the myths were forged, soap did not exist! What has happened to him?"
"Who cares?" asked Kristoff, who I positively disliked at that point.
"What very odd thoughts for you to be thinking." Doom stated. "You are also fleeing retribution because you flung lye in a mutant's face, and you think you might be pregnant."
"Yes. My lord," I added.
"Might I see your ring a little more closely?" asked Valeria.
I looked at her, at her avid eyes and her smooth, untroubled brow, and again thought: Botox. I amended my thought to: Enchantment, a magic of some sort.
"Of course, my lady." I extended my hand.
She took it, spreading my fingers a little wider than was comfortable. "Lovely. This is a very nice stone…Is your lover very rich, that he can make you presents like this? It was a gift from a man, wasn't it?"
"Yes, from my—fiancé. It was extravagant of him—perhaps too extravagant."
"I could see it much more clearly if you were to take it off." she hinted, unsubtly.
"Where is your fiancé now?" queried Doom.
"I don't know," and the absence of Victor flared up in my being like the pain of a toothache when the codeine is wearing off. "Dead—imprisoned—missing. Not here. Not with me." Looking at this poor substitute for him did not help. "I know, my lord, that you have many other pressing matters to think of than one poor wanderer without a home or a country, but I am most anxious to know what will become of me. What of my application?"
"What of it?" he asked, and glanced at his wife, who still held my hand in a way that was gradually becoming painful. She looked at him, and at me, and quite pointedly at my ring.
I could hardly believe it.
The unstated truth of it was, they were demanding my ring as the price for my citizenship.
I did not want to give it up. It was Victor's gift to me, the only tangible link I had to the world as it was and to the Victor I knew, and, looking at it strictly from a practical point of view, it was the only thing I had about me that I could turn into ready money.
On the other hand, I didn't want to be deported. I needed to stay in Latveria.
"Since you admire my ring so much, my lady, perhaps you will accept it as a token of my esteem?" I slipped it off my finger and held it out, flat on my hand.
"Oh, why, thank you!" she said—not to me, but to Doom. She then kissed him on the cheek, and they smirked—yes, smirked, that loathsome and nauseating expression—at each other.
My jaw wanted to drop. I didn't let it.
"Your application for citizenship is granted." Doom said. "Welcome to Latveria."
"Can I go now?" asked Kristoff. We had walked a little further into the castle, and where the conservatory should have been, there was an indoor pool, with about half a dozen aspiring models, allteenage girlsin bikinis, lounged and chatted. "I've got some celebrating to do!" His eyes roamed over their figures.
"Of course, my son. You made me proud today. Go enjoy yourself."
"Oh, I plan to!" Kristoff responded.
His father watched as the teen sauntered over to two of the girls and announced, "You! And you! You're with me."
"P-prince Kristoff?" Their expressions said they weren't altogether happy with this honor.
As he steered them toward another door, talking about a party up in his suite, Doom said to his wife, "Maybe it's time I sat my young ward down and talked to him about keeping those baser instincts of his under control. Too many of his 'parties' end up with his little playmates recovering in the burn unit."
Valeria stretched herself against him and gently chided him, "Leave him be, darling. He's young. He'll have adult responsibilities soon enough. For now, let him have his fun."
The implications of what I had just seen and heard went through me and left me sickened.
Kristoff—who was no more than fourteen or fifteen—was permitted—even encouraged-to indulge himself with several girls—I could imagine what went on at those 'parties'.
In the process, he hurt them, severely enough to warrant hospitalization.
His foster mother only said that he was young and should have his fun.
And his foster father only spoke of giving him a talking-to about it.
Extorting my ring had been crass, but this—?
These people were monsters.