Fantasyland: Midnight Soul Part 22

I didn't care.

In my estimation from the message delivered by the bird my brother sent sharing when they'd left his home, Kristian and his family would arrive at the Winter Palace on the morrow.

It had been nine days since the drama in the b.u.t.tery. Due to a physician's care (and Josette's), my back still ached, but it was healing far more rapidly than normal.

Noc and the rest had not ceased being friendly and sociable in this time. In fact, the more I was able to get up and about, the friendlier and more sociable they became.

This didn't matter to me.

I wanted this final visit with my parents done and behind me. I wanted to see my brother. After that, Josette and I (and whatever maid she selected to accompany us, the task of finding said maid something Josette had thrown herself into with abandoned glee) were off to cross the Green Sea.

Therefore, whatever befell me at this present moment, and the next, and the next, I would endure.

Until I was away.

Perhaps the others were preparing to go into town. There were two royal sleighs waiting and a variety of horses.

That was likely it.

But due to the fact that they were friendly and sociable, for whatever reason traits like that made you behave in ways like this, they were milling about waiting to see Noc and I off.

Noc noticed me making my descent, and not surprisingly he broke off from chatting with Cora and Tor and jogged up the steps toward me.

"How you doin', sweetheart?" he asked, his face a picture of concern, his hand capturing mine, and before I could pull it free he tucked my fingers around the inside of his elbow, drew me close to his side, kept his fingers snug around mine in a way I could not escape, and thus he a.s.sisted me down the steps.

"How I'm doing is being quite capable of descending a flight of steps on my own," I replied.

"I'll take that sa.s.s as you doin' good," he muttered.

I had learned from the very beginning that Noc decided to take whatever I said in whatever manner he wished to take it.

Hence in response I simply sighed.

Noc led us to the side of the sleigh where Cora and Tor were standing, and I noted Frey ceased speaking with Finnie, Lahn and Circe and came our way.

We stopped by the sleigh and Frey stopped at our grouping.

He was looking down on me with the same concern Noc showed.

"You're certain you wish to do this, Franka?" he asked.

"Absolutely," I answered.

He studied me a moment before he nodded once and declared, "We'll be there with you in case something upsetting happens."

At his words, I felt my body jolt and knew the extent of recovery in my back for I only felt a vague twinge of pain.

"I...sorry?" I asked.

Frey indicated the a.s.semblage with a sweep of his proud head, which now included Circe, Lahn and Finnie, all of whom had joined us, before he repeated, "We'll all be with you in case something upsetting happens."

Dear G.o.ddess.

They were going to the jail with me.

But...

Why?

"That isn't necessary," I stated swiftly.

"A sister has a sister's back," Cora decreed. "And a sister's man has her back."

I looked to her. "Rest a.s.sured I mean no offense, princess, but we aren't sisters."

"We totally are," she returned.

"But..." I felt my brow furrow. "Are you, that is to say, is the other me your sister in your world?"

I heard Noc chuckle and saw grins and smiles all around while Cora answered (through her own grin), "No, babe. What I'm saying is, we're both chicks and all chicks are sisters, blood or not. And we have to look out for each other."

How peculiar. She, too, used these slang words "babe" and "chick" to refer to her own gender.

Mad.

And women looking out for women?

That wasn't mad. It was delusional.

It was my experience (and not experience due to my partic.i.p.ation in such vulgar goings-on, they were so vulgar, they were even beneath me) most women, at least women of my ilk, didn't look out for each other.

They seduced one another's men and uttered cruel things about clothing, hairstyles, excess of weight or not enough of it, not to mention honing in on and dissecting with malicious glee anything else that might be perceived as a weakness or unattractive. Or they would harp on it to make it seem unattractive (mostly due to jealousy or spite). The sound of a voice. An ungainly talent at a dance. A gaucheness with social discourse.

These were not the cuts I had once relished, and not because it was all too easy.

Mostly because if a woman had a man, it was lower than low to set your sights on him. And tearing apart anyone for things they could not control wasn't sport. It was simply vicious.

But I'd lived my life with women behaving in this manner. Josette had even shared tidbits of female servants doing the same.

Three women giving up a morning where they could be at their leisure to do anything they wished in order to accompany me to a b.l.o.o.d.y jail just in case I got upset?

Unheard of!

"There's really no need," I persisted. "I'll only be there a short while."

"There's a need," Circe put in.

"Absolutely a need," Finnie agreed.

I didn't understand this.

However, this discussion was prolonging a situation that I'd like to see done. Precisely getting in the sleigh, getting to the jail, seeing my parents and returning to the palace.

So I gave in, murmuring, "As you wish," pulled free of Noc and turned to the sleigh.

I felt movement around me as Noc reached in front of me to open the door to the open-topped sleigh. I also felt his hand at my hip steadying me as if I couldn't climb into a b.l.o.o.d.y sleigh on my own, something I'd been doing since I'd gained control of my legs and feet.

I clenched my teeth in frustration, attempted to ignore his touch, which was firm enough that I felt it even through my furs, my gown and my warm undergarments, and found my seat.

Noc found his beside me and Cora had entered the sleigh and was settling beside him.

I didn't stoop to looking around to see where the others had gone. I simply grabbed the fur throw that was at the ready for us on the floor of the sleigh to pull over my lap. It was large and long and while I did this, Noc adjusted it over his lap as Cora did the same.

All of us tucked in the sleigh together like bosom buddies on a jaunt (laughable), Noc reached forward to take hold of the reins secured before him.

I looked at the four horses attached to the sleigh.

For the horse's sake, two was optimal to share a load, even on a long distance ride.

Four to sledge through town was ludicrous.

Unless you were a royal.

And since Cora was, I supposed it wasn't outlandish.

What surprised me was that Noc took the reins when I was relatively certain that the other men mounted steeds.

I turned to him and asked, "Do you not ride?"

I heard him click his teeth and watched him snap the straps, lurched with the forward movement of the sleigh, and then saw him look down at me.

"Ride?" he asked.

"A mount," I explained.

"Not much of that kind of riding in my world, babe," he stated, and I felt myself blink in surprise. "Though I do ride, just not a horse. A hawg. As in a Harley."

Cora piped in at this juncture.

"You have a Harley?"

Noc looked to his other side. "Yeah."

"Wow. Cool. Wish I'd gotten a ride with you before I had to leave our world," she remarked.

"Didn't get to get on it much in Seattle," Noc remarked. "Figure that'll change in NOLA. Least I hope so."

I heard this conversation but I was still back where it started.

"You ride a pig?" I asked with disbelief.

Both Noc and Cora's attention came to me and they stared at me mutely for a second before they both burst out laughing.

Well.

How rude.

I looked forward.

"Not laughin' at you, sweetheart," Noc said gently, through laughter that was, indeed, at me. "But you were bein' funny. We're talkin' about motorcycles. You don't have them here. We have automotive vehicles powered by gas. Move on wheels called tires. No animals needed. They go a lot faster. Most of them are enclosed, but not bikes, what motorcycles are sometimes referred to as, a brand of which is Harleys. That's what I've got. Those have two wheels, not four, and are open to the elements. You ride them kinda like a horse, except they're motor-powered."

"Interesting," I said like it was not.

However, it was.

What kinds of machines would these be, no animals needed? They seemed implausible and fanciful, just like what he'd shown me that first night we spoke-his "phone."

And yet that was real.

I had often thought of his gadgetry since, in the rare alone times I'd had, wis.h.i.+ng I'd taken hold of it, inspected it, tested its magic.

Animal-less "vehicles" powered by gas I would adore the opportunity of seeing.

"It's cute, you not getting it," Noc went on to explain, noting my continued mood (as he always did, he just often chose to ignore it). "If you went to our world, you'd understand it."

I did not share that I'd be quite interested in going to his world and seeing these fantastical contraptions at work.

I also did not share that it was not cute to laugh at someone who was ignorant about something for reasons not in their control.

I just looked out the side of the sleigh, not noticing the houses and buildings and people we sledded by, and barely noticing the whoosh of our transport, the one behind us, and the clomp of the many horses' hooves in the snow.

But I did vaguely sense that many watched us pa.s.s.

Then again, we were a grand procession with a king, a queen, a prince, princesses and The Drakkar. But even if it was only Dax Lahn, the fellow was such a sight to see with his large body, long, bunched hair, fierce face with its abundant dark beard and unusual clothing made of hide, all would stop to watch.

Truth be told, I wished to watch him ride. I was certain he'd be good at it (though, that wasn't the only reason I wished to do this, as fierce as he was, he was most a.s.suredly pleasing to the eye).

"You're right," Noc muttered, pulling me from my thoughts of the Dax, and I felt his arm round my waist so my head snapped around to look up at him again, seeing he appeared contrite. "Wasn't cool, us busting a gut like that. You don't know. And there's all sorts of s.h.i.+t about your world that I don't get or know about. I probably wouldn't like it much if I said something you thought was funny and you laughed in my face."

"Yeah, that wasn't cool, Franka, really sorry," Cora chimed in.

I did not know how to take this. Outside of a servant making a mistake and apologizing to me for doing so (as they should), I didn't think anyone had ever apologized to me. Certainly not when they'd done something wrong or hurtful. And absolutely not admitting they understood they'd done so and moving verbally to rectify that hurt.

"You cool?" Noc asked.

In that moment I did not wish to get into the fact that their usage of "cool" was like Noc's usage of "s.h.i.+t" and "f.u.c.k" and a variety of others. In other words, these were all used frequently but with what seemed like different meanings.

We spoke the same language but it still felt like I was cast adrift in a foreign land with only a modic.u.m of understanding of the native tongue and I had to decipher all with only the barest of foundations.