He agreed, looking at her pale face. Her surveyed her appearance, correctly judging her pasty face to be shock induced. He stood abruptly, a tiny ball of red fire springing from his hand. It lengthened rapidly until it reached the ceiling, a flaming bellpull. Servants came into the room quickly, and were sent out with directions to take her to the infirmary.
She came to herself, noticing the white linens and steel frame beds surrounding her. A cluster of concerned gowned men and women cocooned her in extra blankets and forced hot chocolate upon her. “She`s not doing anything,” a young man with a yellow trainee badge on his white uniform murmured. “Maybe she`s mentally infirm?”
“You dummy,” exclaimed a woman with gauzy fairy wings. “That`s called shock.” Another man with the gold trim of a senior nurse thumped the trainee on the head. Jackie ignored all of the commotion, sipping her cocoa and thinking her thoughts.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Allies and Enemies
One of the women silently started tugging at the patient`s hand, her nose and lofty rabbit ears twitching in nervousness. “He wants to see her, he wants to see her,” she announced to the group in a quavering voice. Jackie protested, complaining that she had already seen enough of Aeron`s face to last her a lifetime. In his own domain his demands came first, however, so she was dragged into an elegant room and the door was silently closed behind her.
A lilting voice wafted out from the corner. “Jacqueline, my dear friend,” he said. He was five foot four, with lean compact muscle and intelligent almond eyes shaded by ruffled raven hair.
She jumped in surprise. “What are you doing here? You should remember that I don’t work for you, Richard.”
He ignored her and asked, “What do you think of my latest experiment,” he asked, raising his arms and twirling in a circle.
She gave him the once over, scrunching up her nose. “You always look very put together,” she said, “But aren`t rings and earrings a little bit of overkill?” She pointed at them, one and two rings on every finger and large skull button gauges in his ears. He only laughed at her distaste.
“All the kids were doing it the last time I visited Tokyo though,” he laughed. “Even the guys were wearing skulls with their bleached hair. You think my hairdo would be better lighter as well,” he teased.
“You look ridiculous. You must have gone to one of the weird underground clubs to think this was the style. I’ll have you know most of my countrymen are very respectable looking, even the young ones. You just look one of those sad Westerners trying to hard to look cool,” Jackie giggled.
“Aw, don`t give me that,” he spoke in a simple farm boy accent. She giggled some more. “You should research your own style too, you know,” he continued in a facsimile of a Venice Beach accent.
“Nope,” she flipped her hair. “Someone has to have their heads screwed on straight around here,” she said, “and that someone can only be me. I`m imminently normal, you know,” she continued, flippantly grinning up at him. “I dabble in some sports, dabble with some guys,and dabble with some fashion. I’m an expert at dabbling, and that makes me the epitome of normal. It’s so old fashioned and dreary to get so serious about something so unimportant, your age is showing.”
“Like the one time, when someone questioned if you were a tree hugger or not, you went up to another contractor`s tree and hugged him despite being contracted to a lake?” He asked, mentioning the lifetime contract to protect and empower each other that all nymphs enter into at their coming of age ceremony. Those who contract with a tree or plant are considered nyads, and those who contract with a body of water are called dryads. The nymph`s power is based on the power and type of contractee they pair up with, and the contract relationship last for life. In return for these powers, of course, the nymphs in question promise to protect their contractee from any harm.
“It doesn’t count as a betrayal to be friendly to my sister’s contractee,” she protested with a smile.
“Or that other time you were so excited at a party, you kept talking and accidentally spit your gum out at the person you were talking to!” Jackie blushed, but she was giggling too. “But my favorite,” he continued, “was the time where you trying to grow some brambles on this guy who was bothering Priscilla, and you ended up growing a watermelon vine instead!”
They both looked at each other with blank faces for a moment. Then they both broke out into hysterical gales of laughter. A minute, then two. Jackie was gasping on the floor with hysterics while her friend looked on in alarm. “Well, I guess I haven`t really let loose like this in awhile either,” he said, alarmed, “but aren`t you taking this a little too far?”
She instantly ran to him, crying, clinging onto him while the tears fell down. “You have no idea how awful today has been,” she sobbed. “I’m being freaking blackmailed, and I`m lying to a friend,” she said. “I feel like crap, complete and total crap. I’m not good at lying to people, and I hate feeling like I’m someone else’s go-fer.” She hiccupped. “And Priscilla`s been attacked, maybe even kidnapped!,” she wailed. “Help me,” she cried, a heart rending plea with starry eyes.
He stroked her back in small soothing circles. Slowly her sobs quieted, and at last there was only some sniffs and gulps. Then silence. He dug around in his blazer pocket, finally bring out
