Chloë (5 page)

Chloë
stood in front of a mirror in her bedroom back at the house as she spun back
and forth in one of her new dresses; its flow was perfect.  It bounced and
lifted with every turn but fluttered expertly back into place ever so
elegantly.  She had worn finer fabrics, but quite honestly she had never
worn anything that had fit her so perfectly.  There was a level of art and
craftsmanship that was present here that was sorely missing back home. 
“It is gorgeous,” beamed Chloë.  “They all are.  Machine sewn
garments have nothing on these.”

Heather
nodded, “That is what happens when you have people who take pride in the work
for its quality, not its speed.”

“Indeed. 
I noticed the stitching was uneven, but symmetric.  That threw me for a
loop.   But now wearing the garments I can understand: the density of
the stitching changed to help control the stretch of the fabric.  That is
an amazing level of detail and understanding!”

Heather
nodded with a smile, “There are many lowlanders who visit just for clothes
shopping.  I think you are starting to see why.”

“Yes. 
Yes indeed.”  Chloë suddenly frowned, “I hate to ask, but how expensive
were these?”

Heather
cut loose with one of her signature raspberries, “If Dad said ‘don’t worry’ we
don’t worry.  Besides, I think they’ve been emptying the pockets of
everyone they deport.”

“Was
there a problem with those other three?”

“Don’t
know.  We can ask Dad later.  But I seriously doubt there was a
problem on our end.   If they leave when asked nicely, they get to
keep all their teeth.”

“This
is just a side of you I would never have suspected, Heather.  Not exactly
brutal but…”

“Mercenary?”
Heather offered with a grin.  “Hey, I’m happy to be sunshine and
roses.  But I’m not going to roll over and play dead if someone is causing
problems.”

Chloë
smiled weakly, “I, on the other hand, was instructed, trained, to roll over and
do as I was instructed without pausing and without question all of my life.”

“Didn’t
take as well as they would have hoped for,” grinned Heather.  “Be proud of
what you are and the fact that you did finally take a stand.”

“I’m
not so sure if it was I who took a stand or if it was just that my governess
felt sorry for me,” murmured Chloë.

“Don’t
sell yourself short, even with your governess’ support, packing up and leaving
home and traveling 7000 light years away isn’t something you do lightly.”

Chloë
tried to smile, “Yeah, I guess so.  Although it wasn’t much ‘packing up,’
I only made it out in my nightgown!”

They
both had a laugh at that.  Chloë suddenly noticed Heather’s ear was
twitching, “You all right?  Your ear is twitching.”

Heather
laughed, “Sorry about that, just straining to listen.  My dad came in the
front door and I was trying to tell if he was coming up here or not.  He
likes sneaking quite a bit, and I don’t like getting caught.”

“Do
I really sneak that much?” suddenly asked Llewellyn from the hallway.

Chloë’s
fur spiked on end before she broke out laughing, “Yes, yes that is considered
sneaking!”

Llewellyn
was grinning broadly, “The dresses seem to suit you both quite well.”

“Yes
indeed, sir, eh.. Llewellyn!  They did an excellent job and it is a
perfect fit.  They seem to take quite a lot of pride in their work.”

Llewellyn
smiled broadly, “You should tell them that in person.  They always like
hearing that.  Especially from lowlanders.  Everyone there seems to
take pleasure in precision over accuracy, if you know what I mean.”

Chloë
nodded, “Then I will be sure to do that next time I’m in town.   What
of the others that Tobias was going to confront?  I hope things went more
smoothly than the first.”

Llewellyn
looked hurt, “Um, I thought Heather did an awesome job.  Wasn’t that
smooth enough?”  He fired back to his own question with a broad grin, “And
yes, the others went smoothly.  Two were detained, the third left
willingly.  I think he realized things were going to be a bit rougher than
he planned.”

“Um,
sir, may I ask a question?”

Llewellyn
just stared at Chloë like she had lost her mind and stuck out his tongue.

“Oh,”
giggled Chloë, “
Llewellyn
, may I ask a question?”

“That’s
much
better,” he replied with a broad grin.

“I
know Heather is really awesome in hand-to-hand, and I imagine you are even more
so, but how can you afford to be so cavalier around firearms?  I’ve heard
mention of Live Steel in passing, but honestly I’m none the wiser.”

“Do
you want the touchy-feely answer, or the overly technical answer?” 
Llewellyn asked with a gentle grin.  That was nice—no sarcasm, no
melodrama.

“I
guess a bit of both, actually.”

“Excellent
choice!  Heather, hand me a short sword!”

Heather
held out her hand over her father’s and then winked at Chloë.  There was a
sharp blast of blue sparks that erupted from her hand in a blink of the eye
formed into the outline of a simple, double edged short sword.  Just as
quickly the blue sparks were gone and the blade fell from Heather’s hand into
Llewellyn’s.

“Whoa!”
exclaimed Chloë, “That is both impressive and a little spooky!”

Llewellyn
offered a fatherly smile, “The humans have basically theorized that the weapons
are stored in a ‘pocket dimension’ that is just slightly out of phase with our
own.  Items can be brought back and forth across this boundary and provide
a method for storing a vast array of items.  We commonly say ‘Live Steel,’
but that is just a name.  The items can be wood, metal, liquid, just about
anything that the operator is comfortable with.  The blue sparks are an
artifact of the two dimensions racing past each other and then slowing, giving
off optical radiation in the process.”

“Čerenkov
radiation,” chimed Chloë, happy to understand at least
one
aspect of
what was going on.

“Exactly!”
smiled Llewellyn.

Heather
stuck her tongue out, “Bleah!  Physics… heavy on the ‘icks’”

Chloë
giggled. No matter what was going on Heather, always seemed to be able to make
her laugh.

“Now
the fun part is, the weapons themselves are just a projection, their mass and
other material properties are variable.  Thus it is possible to change the
mass, momentum and even the kinetic energy in real time.  Very handy.”

“Dad
has tossed grav tanks at people before!” beamed Heather.

“Ultimately,
it is all
just
a projection into our existence and one need not invoke
the weapon.  One skilled enough can just focus on the desired results and
not on any particular manifestation of a physical device.”

“You
have to be five flavors of awesome to pull that off,” interrupted
Heather.  “Dad, however, is
seven
flavors of awesome!”

Llewellyn
laughed and tousled Heather’s hair, “My own minister of propaganda here! 
Anyway, to lick the fur the other way, Live Steel is a projection of one’s
mental image of weapons and armor that materializes on our plane.”

“And
armor?” asked Chloë, bright eyed and curious.

“Armor
up, girl!” beamed Llewellyn to Heather.

“Dad!”
came a quintet of voices from downstairs, “Fourth Mother is looking for you!”

Llewellyn’s
eyes went wide and his grin threatened to engulf his face, “Sorry, girls, I
need to go.  We’ll talk about it later.”  He turned to leave and made
it all of one step down the hall before he turned back to face Chloë.  He
pulled a doll out of one of his long pockets and held it out to Chloë, “Gavin
found this when tracing your path.  I do believe it belongs to you.”

Chloë’s
fur stood on end as she laughed with a single tear in her eye, “Yes, I thought
I had lost that for good!”

Llewellyn
stepped forward, handing Chloë the doll before kissing her on the head.

“It’s
kinda stupid, still having a doll around at my age, but it is all I have to remember
my mother by,” remarked Chloë as she tried to maintain composure.

“Hey!
It’s okay!” beamed Heather as she hugged Chloë.  “I’ve got my own doll
collection that I won’t let go of.  That one was special to you; why
shouldn’t you keep it?”

Chloë’s
eyes flashed with worry, “Um, is it bugged, like my clothes were?”

“It
was, past tense.  We took care of that,” replied Llewellyn with a fatherly
smile.  “I’ve got to go, take care you two!”  With that he spun and
skipped down the hall toward the stair landing.

Chloë
hugged the doll and sighed deeply before neatly setting it on the pillow of her
bed, “Some of the stupidest things get you worked up the most…”

“So
you grew up without your mother?  That seems terribly sad,” offered
Heather.

Chloë
smiled at Heather as she sat on the bed and looked up at her.  Sincere,
concerned, supportive, Heather was all of those things and more so.  Chloë
was so used to the happy/silly side of Heather she kept forgetting she was so
much more of a person.  Just the person Chloë needed, “When I was around
six, something happened between my parents, I never found out what.  But
she was packed up and moved out of the…well…”

“Palace?”
offered Heather.

Chloë
tried to smile, “Yes, palace.  I wanted to say house, but it was never a
house.  A house becomes a home.  This place is most definitely a
home
. 
The palace never was.  It never had that warmth or liveliness, that extra
bit of depth that made it feel… alive.”

“Well,
liveliness we have here in spades,” offered Heather as she tried to lighten the
mood.

Chloë
finally smiled again, “Yes, yes you do!”  She brightened as she finally
managed a laugh, “Okay, enough of this.  Where is that other dress?”

Chloë
came down for breakfast only to find Heather missing.  Gwen and the mob of
younger teenagers were already busily devouring the morning fare but Heather
was nowhere to be seen.

“If
you are looking for Heather,” began Lilac (or was it Violet?).  “She is in
the library,” finished Violet (or was it… argh!  Twins!) with a grin.

Chloë
bobbed politely as she turned and started for the library; it was just barely
down the hall on the right.  Just before the Great Hall.  A few quick
skips and she found herself at the library, but paused before going in. 
She could hear voices and they weren’t nearly as happy as the previous few
mornings.

“Heather,”
came Maria’s voice from the library, “you are sixteen years old.  You have
gone through three apprenticeships in the last six months.  That is
unseemly.  You don’t help Gwen with the younger children, so I’m still
working under the assumption that you aren’t wanting to be a Second
Mother.  That’s fine, but you need to pick
something
!”

“Mom,
I tried!  Okay maybe not so hard with the first two, but with Annette, I
did try hard.  Remember, she dumped me, not the other way around this
time.  It wasn’t my fault she was a lousy teacher.  I’ve already
taken over two of her classes.  That’s progress, isn’t it?”

“It
is a start,” agreed Maria, “but only just barely.  You can’t make a living
teaching two dance classes a week.  You need to comb your fur, straighten
your ears, and get out there and
look
for what you want to do for
work.   You need to find out what your calling is and embrace
it.  With that in mind…”

“Oh,
crap…”

“Yes,
Heather?  Did you have something to say?”

“No,
Mother,” sighed Heather, “I’m sorry I interrupted.”

“Very
well then.  As I was saying: your cousin Ellis has agreed to take you in
for two weeks or so at her inn there in Edmundshire.  It is a much larger
town than here and there would be a lot more opportunities to find another
teacher or someone to apprentice with.”

“Two
weeks?” asked a truly flustered Heather.

“With
as much idle time as you’ve had lately, I should imagine the time will fly by,”
replied Maria with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“I
know I need to be looking harder, but Edmundshire?”

“It’s
only a half day travel, you’ll do fine.”

“It’s
not the travel…,” murmured Heather.  “What of Chloë?” she asked as she
looked for an out. “I mean the poor girl’s just gotten here; it wouldn’t be
right just to go off and leave her at this point.”

“I
could go with you,” offered Chloë as she stepped into the threshold of the
room.  She caught Maria’s eyes and apologized, “I’m sorry to have been
listening in, ma’am.  I was just trying to find Heather and I didn’t want
to interrupt.”

Maria
smiled broadly, “No, that’s fine.  I’m just glad you are willing to stick
up for Heather.”

“That’s
what friends do, ma’am,” replied Chloë evenly.

“Ugh,
stop with the ‘ma’am’ already,” grinned Maria.  “Both of you, go, back to
the kitchen and eat breakfast.  We’ll talk more of this once you two have
eaten.”

Heather,
happy for the release, bolted from the room grabbing Chloë’s hand as she rushed
past. “Girl, you didn’t have to do that.  I’m pretty sure I could have
talked Dad into letting me stay here.”

“Uh,
no,” laughed Chloë.  “At this point I think your father’s entire attention
span is devoted to Moira.”

“Males,”
groused Heather melodramatically before she grinned back. “Yeah, but you are
probably right.  That and I guess I am just prolonging the inevitable.”

“Is
Edmundshire that bad?” asked Chloë.

“Nah. 
It’s a fun place to visit.  It’s just the idea of looking for a new
teacher to apprentice under that just makes me want to paint my fur blue.”

“And
you have such a lovely coat!  Wouldn’t want that!” laughed Chloë. 
“Oh my word!” blurted Chloë suddenly. “I just realized that not only did I
volunteer myself, I also imposed on your cousin Ellis.”

“Oop! 
I didn’t think about that either,” remarked Heather.  “Maybe…”

“Maybe
Ellis won’t mind since it is the slow season and we are picking up the tab for
your meals anyway,” interjected Maria over their shoulders.  “You will
have to work harder than that to escape!”