Shade of Deception (Two)

Nine - SoD

Nine:

We passed through the middle of the spires, and through several courtyards which were ripe with many different types of veggies and other spice plants. Even here in a city so advanced it made humans appear positively ancient and backwards by comparison, the people still preferred to grow their own produce. That in some ways felt more refreshing to me than the thought of advancement requiring us to become sterile and vacuum-packed like we were dried foods on a spaceship.

There were humans tending crops, and others wearing servant uniforms. Clarke noticed that the humans were all some sort of domestic help or another. As a passionate young black man, he was uneasy, to say the very least. I couldn’t blame him, because even I felt worried at the clear-cut differences.

Hidden, even upon a casual glance, had a massive slope in classes, and in how the city seemed to appear form district-to-district. While the others, Sky aside, could not make out much atop this pentacle, I could see clearly to the ground level.

I could see the village-style Nix lower city settlement, and its more worn-in and homey feel. I could see the unrest brewing, and the silent animosity between the cat people and the Nix. The magus appeared to be dispassionate about either side’s cases or causes, and they seemed more focused on their profits and furtherance of their own ambitions. The Tren seemed to be unaffected, like they were not fleshy-enough to comprehend the issues of most of the meat-suits around them.

Strange as it sounds, I felt a harmony, or resonance with them. I could sense the Tren more vividly in expression than any other species here. The Magus were powerful, but the Tren were distinctive, and completely pungent in their every expressive working. Metal and sentient energy combined, and the wonders of their Aurora Borealis-like glow together in their district of mech-like industrial production, was mind-blowing.

They expressed via their imagination, as did I on an intuitive level. Their form was closer to mine than any other I had seen. This also explained how I could cast and express without using my hands as points of focus, and most beings seemed limited to expressing only from their physical limbs. Though, I had seen some who could channel and express through their feet as well, which was awesome, and extremely difficult to accomplish while also standing.

“What do you see with those terrifying eyes of yours, world ender?”

A Magus woman inquired, as she shooed her young girl-servant human along. The girl scampered off like a faithful dog on a leash to carry on with whatever task she was performing before the woman stopped.

She was striking, beautiful, her hair was silken, platinum and pink. She had numerous body piercings three through her nose, and at least eight in each ear. She had long flowing locks that touched the perfect curve of her tight ass. She was about five-seven, and she was eyeing me with one-part skepticism, and the other part was smoldering lust. Her eyes were a vivid shade of light brown and amber mixed.

“Quite a few disturbing differences in cultural distinctions and social-economic injustices, for a start.”

I challenged her, and her perfect pink lips turned up into a coy smile.

“I like you. You might just be the first of your species born with a soul after all.”

I frowned and I gave her an irritable look.

“I’ve just spent the day with Lord Yawns-A lot, so if you wish to insult me, please wait until my back is turned. I am feeling a bit hangry now.”

She tossed back her pink-platinum mesh of hair like the ultra-sonic snaping of a whip. Her melodious laughter cascaded along the open fields and rattled around the nearby spire.

“Of all the mortal phrases your generation has invented, I do believe that one is the most, how shall we say, precise. Back in the old days, we merely used to imply one was not being properly fed, which was ever so dull and tiresome a verbal expression. You lot have managed to make a single word for a paragraph.”

She was clearly a woman of many words, and her English accent was dated, even though she kept trying to sound modern. She seemed almost like she was appropriate to an Austen novel. If also in a bit of a hot lesbian goth-lily sort of way. She was harsh and soft all at the same time, and very abrasive. Even though I still had confusing feelings for another woman, I felt a warmth in my gut as she raked her eyes over me. She was not subtle about her proclivities, or her wandering gaze that seemed to devour me like a morsel.

It had been a very long time since anyone had looked at me this way, even if she was still out on the verdict about me being a shade.

“Well, they did not have emojis and hashtags back then, so your peeps did not have to worry about character limits.”

I said in a slightly sassy tone, and her coy lips twitch in amusement, lips that looked like velvet and promised sensual bliss. I was almost eighteen, and I was in the very peek of my life, a girl could not be faulted for feeling something. Even if it was only further aggravating my background thoughts about Nadia, who was also a mortal enemy of this particular vixen before me.

A soft sigh escaped my mouth, and I turned back to the city. It was fair to assume that magus woman did not mean me harm, if she was busy perusing me.

“I can feel your gaze, it is fascinating, the sensory-perceptions of a shade. It took over a thousand of us the last time one of your nutter brothers went bananas on the world.”

She said, without any apology or sympathy. She also seemed like she said this, so that I knew she had shed shade blood in the past. She did not lay this before me in any antagonizing manner, just that of fact.

“So, you want me to know your score? Are you asking me to trust you?”

She laughed and prowled over to me and clapped her hand on my shoulder. I could feel her expressive potential like lightning surging along my fabric-clad shoulder. She was powerful, beyond merely the levels of the other magus I had met.

“You are their leader or can I assume someone else equals your power?”

I blurted on the wake of my previous observation. I saw her surprise and her grudging respect for my intuitive senses in her eyes.

“I am Grendel, and, I appear in that rag of a penny dreadful known as Beowulf. However, as you can see, I am no monster. I was merely the anger of a spurned man casting me in the worst possible light.”

She sniffed indignantly, and I caught myself smiling back at her over my shoulder.

“How on earth do you even know I would have read Beowulf? I am not even eighteen, yet.”

I ask in a coy tone, and she leans in closer and she murmurs, “I could see the recognition in your eyes at the timbre of my name. That, and I am a lot more seasoned than a pretty little lass like yer self.”

Her tone was smoldering, and it reminded me that she could tutor me—in many things. I felt heat in my cheeks, and I managed to keep myself calm and my behavior within the realm of what was normal for me.

“I could take offense at being called young and naïve and throw my lot behind the Volupine.”

I teased her, and I saw her eyes shift dark for a moment, but she shrugged.

“Either way, I can manage, but I don’t believe you like their delegate very much, from what I have observed.”

I blinked and I gave her a slightly shocked expression, a very naked, vulnerable one.

“You were spying on us? Either that, or you were cloaked and physically trailing our progress.”

Grendel swished her hand dismissively and noted, “That second bit is a wee too much leg work for me, Lass. I believe I am entirely ill-prepared for your level of keen observational prowess. The fictitious Mr. Holmes would have been impressed himself—if he were a real man.”

I bit my lip and I tried to hold back how much the praise seemed to touch me. I have been dealing with a sort of social isolation for over a year, and my s*x life—well ok what s*x life. (Yeah, a girl has her issues.)

“Why have you split from your group, Dove?”

She asked, and the weird pet-name did not sound insulting, but it did make me blush deeper. There was something very intimate and personal in her references and her words of choice. It did not escape me, that she approached me only after I was split from the rest of the pack. My brooding dragoness bestie was busy being bored out of her skull with Nix-Hidden politics.

“Seemed like a good time for a break, besides, I can still hear everything being said.”

I confessed, not exactly sure if this was public knowledge about shades, but it seemed like a safe assumption. I was certain she knew as much as anyone about my kind, seeing as she survived an encounter with a member of my species, and a leviathan had not. That made her resourceful, and smart, as well as highly dangerous. Could a girl be helped for feeling a spark of attraction for a bad girl? I mean, there is the reaper in the other corner, so I think my type is being clearly established, with Ariel being the only inconsistency in my rotation.

Thought of my dead girlfriend was like icy water on the brushfire that was beginning to rage in my soul. She looked at me, as if she could feel it, then I realized, she could feel my pain. I forgot how much more sensitive some magus is, than humans or even the average Nix. Highly evolved perception seems a necessity in expression.

“Something has hurt you, pray tell, Dove?”

She inquired in a softer tone, almost like she cared.

“I lost someone, I was just reminded of her, just for a moment.”

I said, speaking my truth, despite the nakedness it also cast over me, like she could see everything inside me. I was woman-enough to deal, should she try to abuse this information later, even if that also stung.

“I am sorry. I heard the spectral being, the wrath killed your human girlfriend. Ariel, was it?”

She said, her tone was tender, and I nodded in confirmation.

“Yep, and my whole town seems to think that I am to blame for that, along with so many other things.”

She sniffed and let out a gusty sigh.

“If only Hawker had rung us, we could have bloody-well dispatched magus to use a more exact geas to properly handle the situation.”

She seemed irritated suddenly, and I could gather that the Nix and the Magus had their own little squabbles. It appeared that as with the mortal divisions, so too the immortals had just as many splinter-cells of perception and contrast.

“Well, it’s done, and no one knows it was in fact a world-eating monster, so there is that.”

She purred out, “But that does not keep a girl’s sheets warm at night, now dose it?”

I looked back over the view, as if I could somehow hide the embarrassment from her. I had only even been involved with one girl, so I was a newbie at all this flirty and sensual stuff these immortal women were leading me towards. It was all a grand new discovery for me, and yes, I felt like I was fresh off the farm naïve most of the time!