Where We May Be Willing To Shout 'Long Live'A Chapter by Alskar The camera’s light was intrusive. This blinded her to the point that she had been disorientated with her surroundings for too long. “Miss Silver, over here!” Adainne turned to the paparazzo on her far left. “I’ll answer his question as a final one. Yes?” “The British public have been wondering, what does it feel like to be the new Chief In Staff of the Silver Earth government at only seventeen? Were you given the job because your father is Prime Minister?” “I was given the job as it was I who proposed the assassination of Wizard Eron, and not my father. I came to him while he was in a cabinet meeting, with this notion. All the members agreed. Wizard Eron should be taken out before we present a war to him. Now, if there are no further questions, I would like to finish this press conference.” The journalists rabbled at Adainne but she ignored them. She stepped down from her podium, where two policemen guarded either side of her. The journalists were drowned out as she stepped into her shuttle. Her black pencil skirt was so tight it was hard to fully reach the pedals. Her high heels meant her foot kept slipping off. Adainne considered the uniform to be one of the toughest parts of her new job. Or, was it new? She couldn’t remember the amount of time she’d spent there, around three months perhaps. Adainne pulled on the lever. The shuttle lifted off the ground. Below, she could see paparazzi desperately taking photos of her leaving the scene by her own transport. Normally government officials were put in escort shuttles. Adainne had insisted that she fly her own ship. She guessed it was part of her public appeal. She pulled the lever back to maximum capacity and zoomed high above Regent Park, rocketing up into the white clouds. Her home was a modest white cloud. From below, it resembled the shape of a star. Adainne put the shuttle in park adjacent to the cloud. Then she waved herself inside her home. “Adainne!” a deep American voice boomed. “Wha-” Adainne was knocked over by something black. An obnoxious, grinning cat face was in her’s. “We did it! You did it! You saved the world!” “I wha-” She screamed. It was searing, sickening, she wanted to vomit… “Get her a chair!” The cat called. Something that resembled a toy star seemed to push a chair over in her direction. Another burst of pain. “Sit up, sit up,” ordered the cat, jumping off her. Adainne managed to crawl into the chair. She threw her head into her lap, waiting for the pain to pass. After a moment or two, it was gone. “It’s alright, you can look up now,” said the cat. Adainne did. She stared at the cat and floating star cushion. She remembered. “Boston…” “It’s okay, Adainne. What you’re experiencing is a result of remembering a past that never existed. You saved the world from war, Adainne. Thousands of lives have been restored.” “But then, if you’re here, then where’s-” “Oh, I thought you’d never ask,” said another light American voice behind her. She jumped off her seat and turned. She gasped. “I know, right? Not one of my most attractive looks.” “Trellor…” said Boston slowly, staring at his master. “You’re a hologram,” said Adainne, quietly. “Why are you a hologram, stupid?” Trellor laughed briskly. Adainne felt her muscles tighten with the realization that Trellor was about to cry. “I’ve been very stupid, sexy face,” he said, a tear rolled down his face. He wiped it away with irritation, but more kept appearing. Adainne could barely stand. “It’s finally happened, hasn’t it?” “Yes, I think so.” Boston, on the chair next to her, stared at his master. Then, a single tear rolled to the end of his whisker and shimmered off. The star was black and had dropped slowly next to Boston. “My time-wizardry has finally turned against me,” said Trellor, pushing away the tears. “I will never see my sister or family again, that’s all I wanted. Of course I wanted a better world too, I just wanted-” “Stop, stop Trellor,” Adainne breathed, her face clenching in pain. The tears were hot and salty and fell into her mouth with the overflow. She, like Trellor, was wiping at them angrily. “Can’t I touch you?” “I can let down the rift shield only for a minute or so, or I’ll blow up a planet.” He shot her a half-hearted grin. A moment later, he was solid. Adainne ran to him. She held him, grasped him, breathed him in, kissed him over and over. The kisses were passionate, tasting of salt and moist with heat and tears and their own mouths. They had to part the barest inch to speak. “There must be a way, you have to come back.” “I can’t, I’m sorry,” he said. “Trellor.” Adainne nestled her forehead against his chest. “There’s so much we haven’t said. There’s so much we haven’t got to know about each other. I had to be me. I had to be stupid, actually stupid, I had to shut you out because I was some big stupid War Wizard, I’m so-” “Stupid?” Trellor finished with a small laugh. He kissed her hair. “Yeah, I know Adainne.” Adainne felt a warm drop splash on her scalp. “Insult?” “You decide.” Adainne couldn’t laugh. “I won’t forget about you, will I?” She felt Trellor’s chin shake a no against her head. “You’ll start to remember more soon. You’ll forget most of the details eventually. But there’s nothing to say you have to forget about me, Adainne.” “I’ve read books where people have to forget. If they don’t, if they hold the information of a non-existent reality in their head, they die.” “You won’t die remembering me, Adainne.” “Oh good, a consolation.” She lifted her head to look at him. “I wanted to be with you forever. I wanted to come back to your nimbus cloud and cook eggs Benedict and smush popcorn in your silly hair and sneak the star sweets and-” Trellor’s lips caught her square on the mouth. His hand pushed strands of sugar blue from her star-pale face. “It’s funny. Don’t you find it funny? I mean, we spent four days together. Just four days.” “I know, I know,” whispered Adainne, kissing him again. “I never bother with that sort of thing. It happens to me. I have boyfriends. But as for true feelings…” “That’s the same with me,” admitted Trellor. He picked up both her hands and kissed them. His heat disappeared and her hands fell through his. He was a hologram again. Adainne stepped back, her chest wet with tears and sweat. She stared at Trellor. “Can’t you see your family like this?” “This hologram is burning a hole in another part of the universe. If I continue it much longer, I’ll end up sucking another civilisation into it.” Adainne was motionless. She began to shudder and more tears slipped under her fringe. “So what?” Trellor gave a genuine laugh. “I can be happy here, Adainne.” “What’s it like there?” “Almost a parallel Earth. There’s humans, countries, economies. A few differences is all.” Trellor paused. His eyes were on the floor. Adainne studied him. “What’s wrong, then?” Trellor raised his head. “I’m going to get married someday. I’m going to have kids one day. I’m going to lead some sort of normal life. So are you.” “I guess so. And?” “It’s not really the same, is it?” “I know it isn’t.” “It won’t ever be the same.” “No, it won’t.” The two were silent for a moment. “There are no wizards, here,” said Trellor. “Just Old World humans. I don’t know if this place is some sort of universal memory of Old Earth. It sure seems like it.” “You’ll be something unique then. Like you always are.” “Insult?” “Yes, definitely.” Adainne smiled. Trellor smiled, too. “Oh, and Boston and the star are your’s now. You know, I don’t know why I never really mentioned this before. The star’s name is Lucy, after my sister. Boston and Lucy are your’s now. You have the option to track down my family, or keep an eye on them, but that’s entirely up to you.” Adainne was silent for a moment. “Is there no way we can join you?” “It would never be a case of joining. It would always be a case of me coming back to you.” Adainne dipped her head. “I see.” Trellor flickered out of existence. He came back, but Adainne was already crying. She moved to him, placing her forehead just against what would have been his forehead. “I’ll spend the rest of my life finding a way back to you,” said Trellor. “Thank you Trellor, thank you.” Trellor closed his eyes and dipped his head into her’s, too. “Don’t waste your life, Adainne. Roll around in barley fields, get drunk on Jesus wine, get married and have fun in the mean time. I‘ll probably be old and not as hot when I find you next.” “Doesn’t matter, I’ll be here.” “Yeah, you’d better.” He pulled away from her and grinned. “Go on then, off you trot. Time to have a proper life and all that. Have a silly cat and a cannibal star and have a right hoot.” Adainne laughed, stepping away from him. “Don’t pull too many pranks on people now, invisibility face.” “That was the most unimaginative comeback I’ve ever heard.” “Well, I wasn’t trying to impress you.” Trellor flickered once more. “Yes yes. I’ll see you some other time, sexy face.” “Goodbye, Trellor.” Trellor winked at her. Then, he was gone. The room was still for several heartbeats. Adainne was staring where Trellor had left. Boston and Lucy were consoling each other, each still crying quietly. “I love you.” The words were disjointed. Never before had she spoke them. The front door opened. “Adainne, I’m going to scrub that room of your’s. Do you hear me? You’re a wizard and yet your room’s a tip. Even the rest of your house is reasonable. You might be a government agent but you still need your mum to clean your room.” Adainne turned to the door. “Mum?” Boston and Lucy looked up. “Well who else?” she said, stumbling in the door with shopping bags. “There’s enough bleach in here to scrub a continent.” “I love you, mum.” She had remembered her mother’s death and the time she and Trellor rescued her. Her mum blinked. “I love you, too. Not often I hear a teenager say that to their mum, that’s for sure. Right, I’m off to clean that room. It’s no wonder you get spiders.” Adainne laughed. “Have fun, Mum.” Adainne’s mother trundled up the stairs. “So what are you going to do now, Adainne?” asked Boston, jumping on the dining table. “Actually, now you ask, I feel like grabbing this ship by it’s stern and going off to see the world a bit. I can be back before I’m needed for work, probably.” The cat smirked. “Kidnapping your mother and taking her round the world? I never had you down as the type.” “She can magick herself back to London when she’s finished, right? Time and tide wait for no man, or woman, and all that.” Adainne went to the ship’s wheel, then turned it like a gleeful sprite. “Off we trot, again,” murmured the cat. The star sighed and twirled yellow beside him before shooting off to Adainne’s shoulder. If one were to observe the view from the outer region of the cloud, they would see it shudder as the ship’s wheel was rigorously turned, then speed up unnaturally. The dove white cloud began to pass through the atmosphere until it was no more than a speckle of dust against the river blue sky and approaching, cosmic twilight. © 2012 AlskarAuthor's Note
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