The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 1 : Eye of the Beholder
Scene 20: Unmasked
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Unmasked
"You're not sleeping. Your mind is clearly still in a conference room somewhere…"
.
The lights were off and so was the luchador mask.
Dutch Holland had married the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And she had married him, never having seen his face. In the nearly 15 years they had lived together since she might have glimpsed his face without the mask - he didn't sleep or bathe with it on. There was nothing wrong with his face - he was quite normal looking for a middle-aged Mexican - if a bit on the large and muscle-bound side. But both he and Sakura knew that wasn't really his face. The real Dutch Holland wasn't to be found under the luchador mask. It was the luchador mask.
Holland knew he had to be the luckiest of men. Finding a beautiful Japanese woman who was crazy about wrestling was rare. Finding one who desperately wanted to be regularly ravished by a champion luchador was rare beyond belief. Her family had nearly disinherited her for agreeing to marry one. Until they had discovered that this particular luchador was also a genius level engineer.
And what a family… Sakura was the heir apparent to the heir apparent of Nakamura Enterprises, currently run by her grandfather.
.
Dutch Holland turned carefully. Sakura wasn't tiny, but she was a little slip of a thing compared to him. She turned as well, facing away from him.
"Your friend, Skip," she finally said.
Holland was surprised. His wife and his closest friend usually got along famously.
"I don't think he understands the situation here. I am responsible for the safety of this ship and he wants to take it on a rescue mission - straight off to that horrible place…"
Dutch Holland disciplined the smile away from his face. He didn't want her to hear it in his voice: "You are not going to get a fair test of this ship and the faculty you worked so hard to put together without a real captain. I know your grandfather agreed to Skip because he thought you could keep him in a box… Skip's a Howard. They don't fit in your grandfather's little boxes." Holland could tell from his wife's breathing that she was beginning to relax. He wrapped an enormous, muscle-bound arm around her. "My Flower, if Skip thinks he can safely take us there and rescue those trills, then we'll go there. And we'll rescue those trills."
Sakura Nakamura Holland let out a long, slow breath and relaxed back into her husband's embrace and entwined her arms around his. Her voice was softer, more optimistic: "Yeah… we're all going to end up mindless zombies with mushrooms for brains…"
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