Cloud 9

The sky was dismal, as if weeping over the casualties of war, and the clouds were heavy, dark and swollen with rain that at any moment would thunder to the earth in diamond shaped droplets. The Rose, is her crystalline beauty, glistened in the shiny dew sheath that covered her surface. But even within the awe of the palace’s heavenliness, a dark shroud surrounded the building, like an evil lurking in the shadows of a snowy forest. The clouds were thick today, weighted down by water, and the Rose dipped closer to the planet below than ever before. Soon the Patrol would inflate the hydrogen balloons to keep the city afloat, but for now the sad overcast was their only defense.

Kenastra Rigend descended slowly into the bowl of the city, sweeping with her the wisps of clouds that hid the thriving metropolis from invading Realmers. Her leaf shaped flyer swept quietly down, only a high pitched hum emitted into the air. Descending into kingdom Rose from the cloud bowl was an awe-inspiring sight. Tiny thriving air ports glittered like small jewels as people rushed about their usual routines. A Reeyl beast hovered above the city, like a large bird it kept the spies away with it’s large red eyes and yellow, curling horn. It flapped its leather wings and spiraled downwards dramatically, and like ants compared to the beast, Custodians swarmed the alerted area, tumbling down the slopes of the clouds to reach the intruder. Small lighted airways glittered invitingly as beasts flew their Currulus masters to their destinations. Each home in the suburban crawl was like a small crystal dome; geometric and glittering just like the rest of the city. And above, the Rose Bowl sat gleaming and majestic, like a mother diamond nestled in between millions of tiny gems. King Nash’s palace was the love of the city, the life, the breath in every creature that walked or flew.

And that is why a custodian zapped Kenastra as she descended into the urban city, making her mind blank painfully as her body pitch forward on her board. Sensing the strange movements of the person above, her flyer inflated like a balloon just as she fell, her glue worm bracelet burning brightly as it attached itself to the underbelly of the swollen flyer like a magnet. Kenastra hung heavily there for a moment, unconscious as the trooping Custodian zipped forward on his own flyer.

The young man, wearing grey and blue as a uniform swore colorfully as he carefully extracted the beetle dart he had shot at her. The bug squirmed heartily as he extracted it carefully, making sure the powerful toxin stayed in the bugs sore pinchers as he slid it back into the thin glass vial.

“Sorry little fella,” The man said kindly, as he stuffed the tubed bug back into his equipment bag, which was hanging off his leaf flyer attached by a glue worm hitch.

He turned back to Kenastra, who was swaying slightly in the wind, hanging from one limp arm as her flyer let out a distress signal, obviously scared shitless. He grabbed her arm to gently pull her hovering form to his level, carefully unstitching her little glue worm friends from her frightened flyer. He gently pulled her onto his board, having done this many times with her before.

“Kenny,” He urged her awake, shaking her lightly to disturb the venom from the beetle from flowing tunelessly through her blood stream. She stirred beneath him, her long auburn hair slipping from the slick surface of the custodian’s flyer. Her dark lashes lay across her cheeks like tiny-feathered fans, casting extreme shadows across her flawless skin. Her crimson lips parted as she breathed in, and finally opened her yellow eyes to stare into the face of a familiar acquaintance.

Slowly, she scowled at him, huffing up before any one else would have able to with beetle juice in their system.

“Couldn’t help zapping me again, could you Thro?” She asked moodily, standing up quickly to coax her flyer back down. The leaf animal deflated at the sound of her voice and floated like a falling parchment into her arms. Thro stepped back to give her space, but was met with the backside of his own flyer, the poor animals weren’t meant to hold two Cloud walkers, and it was slowly descending lower and lower into the clouds.

Kenastra knew this more than anyone, so she quickly asked her own flyer to harden so she could get off the other. As she pulled herself up onto the leaf animal, she sat with her legs dangling down, hovering in the air as she quickly checked her body for any damage that may have happened when she was unconscious.

“Please, Kenny. You know you have to radio in to let us know you’re descending the bowl before you enter. Security is tight these days, you know the rules.” Thro said exasperatedly, watching with hidden amazement as she floated along in companionable friendship with her board. Kenastra was always able to interact with the beasts of Rose with an envious ease about her. As she tapped her glue worm bracelet quietly two times with a third sharper click of her fingernail, the glow of the worms died down until Thro could tell they were asleep again. The tiny little glue worms, encased in a fiberglass tube-like bracelets, glowed only when they were awake, and if any distress signal sounded from the flyer beasts, the worms would immediately wake up like little lamps being turned on. They were worn as bracelets to any fly-riders for safety—the worms natural food supply were flyers, and if the flyer sent out a distress call, the worms would wake to do anything in their power to stick to that flyer like glue, even if it meant lifting a fifty pound cloud walker.

Kenastra looked up angrily, standing in one fluid motion at the words that left the custodians mouth. “I told you, the radio’s signals disrupt the brain flow of the Rosies—it shortens their lives by years.” She was clearly upset, and Thro backtracked, trying to find a way to calm her so she wouldn’t be angry with him. By Rosies, of course, she meant all the beasts in Kingdom Rose. It had been shown recently that the distress call the beasts let out were similar to the radio signals, and just like their species—stress limited the beasts’ lives too. For a moment, Thro tried to think like Kenastra would: How would you feel if your distress calls were constantly being dialed? How exhausted would you be?. He imagined her saying, but then he looked at her crystal butterscotch eyes and realized if he didn’t respond soon, she was sure to leave him here without a word.

“You know that if we don’t take these precautions, it could be us being killed.” He pointed out, almost knowing her reply before she said it.

“All the better,” She said unhappily, tossing her arms in the air ruefully. “At least they don’t go around starting wars to kill each other off.” He had heard her dislike of the recent war on many occasions, and wasn’t keen on hearing another lecture, so he quickly changed the subject.

“Alright, I know. We’re an awful species, us Currulus’.” He amended, and she eyed him wearily out of her sharp, pretty lashes. “How did your mission go?” He asked quickly, before the pretty curve of her lower lips distracted him anymore. Her expression became even stonier, if that was possible, and he felt himself sigh inwardly as he realized it was a bad thing to say. Kenastra hated killing things, and hated even more that she was good at it. She never wanted to be an assassin, but it sure beat the crap out of patrolling the Rose bowl while shooting beetles at supposed intruders.

“Fine,” She replied icily, and then nodded jerkily at the hydrogen balloons above the Rose City. “Are they being filled?” She asked, and he almost smiled at how observant she was. Only having arrived minutes ago, she already noticed that the Bowl was sinking lower in the atmosphere than usual.

He nodded, and glanced at the gigantic swooping balloons, keeping their entire world afloat. “Yeah, heavy clouds today. They’ve been weighing us down.” She nodded thoughtfully, her jaw still set stubbornly.

“You know that means an attack from the Realmers is on its way? The clouds always get dark and polluted when they come. All the exhaust from their wretched machines.” Thro had never noticed this before, and was silently awed again by how much she understood the world she lived in.

“I’ll tell the Captain.” He intoned, impressed with her for the millionth time in his life. She cast him a sideways glances, still floating along the wind current upon her oval flyer. As the sun dipped behind the Rose palace, it shone a brilliant blinding orange, reflected from all the crystal surfaces. The light highlighted the dark clouds like gold, and made Kenastra seem even more beautiful with the glowing orange behind her. It almost matched her eyes.

“I should go.” She said quietly, with no expression change, as if she sensed his thoughts had become inappropriate. Then quietly, with a slight nod goodbye, she tilted her flyer forward in the most natural movement, as if it were part of her body, and shot off into the air, riding the winds like part of the sky.

Kenastra flew into the Palace courtyard more carefully than she had carelessly approached the bowl. Unwilling to be zapped again, but equally unwilling to admit it had bothered her. She rubbed her neck absently where the beetle had bitten her, and internally decided that unless she wanted a colorful blue orange scar, she had better disinfect it later—when she had time that was, if ever.

She spoke quietly to her flyer, telling it to go to her room, and watched as the beast obediently moved around the castle to infiltrate the window to her chamber.

Kenastra nodded at the guards as they let her, and walked down the floating glass walkway to the open doorway of the pink diamond palace. The Rose Palace, named after it’s blushing shade of dusty pink, was made completely out of the hardest stone in the world: Diamond. And just like all the other structures in the Bowl, it was dome shaped and geometrical—like a giant geodesic dome.

Inside, she was greeted by Herf, a castle servant as he led her to the main hall, where undoubtedly King Nash had ordered her to be sent if she showed up. The inside of the palace was large and spacious, split into many different rooms by large sheets of black marble that separated each one. The darkness of the stone hardly dimmed the palace light, as most of the ceiling and outside walls were as clear as crystal, letting the suns rays dance down in the shadows.

When she arrived in King Nash’s chamber, she expected him to be at his study table, working with the familiar crease between his eyebrows. He was always working, always trying to think of some way to improve his almost flawless rule of Rose City. As she entered, and was announced formally as Lady Kenastra, young King Nash looked up from the mountains of papers and laws stacked upon his desk in orderly disarray, to see her walk in regally unamused by the Welcome Servants appreciative gaze. She could tell almost immediately that he was biting back an uncivilized laugh at her annoyed expression, and her face darkened considerably.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, King Nash stood royally and said in an authoritive sigh, “Leave us,” as he swiped a large hand down his face as if to wipe away his exhaustion. His servants and guards scurried out the door to obey their master, closing the golden door behind then with a quiet click.

Kenastra stood quietly, observing him like he knew she would with her butterscotch eyes and whimsical soft lips. After a beat of silence he motioned for her to take a seat, and with a cat like grace he watched her shift into the seat before his desk unnaturally, as if she didn’t like sitting because she knew it would give her a disadvantage in a fight if one were to occur. He knew her mind was constantly scaling the world around her, taking in anything that could be a threat, that could hinder her chances of surviving. He watched her for a moment, wondered how long it had been since she had sat in that chair. Had it been a week?

He averted his eyes, trying to concentrate on what she was brought here for.

“I trust you were successful?” He asked quietly, raking his fingers across his desk to stack the papers neatly to the side of his work table. She watched the movement with hawk like golden eyes, knowing he never organized his papers, knowing that he didn’t like stacks of documents, but instead files spread messily in front of him.

“Aren’t I always?” She asked in answer, her eyes still watching his hands move, before flickering up to his face, which was now watching her. He sighed.

“Yes,” He answered, wondering why he bothered pretending he wasn’t attracted to her. She was bound to know, she knew everything. He finally settled down in his worn chair, noting how much she hated sitting still by the stiffness of her shoulders.

“You look tired,” She noted quietly, and he nodded, averting his eyes from the movement of her lips.

“So do you.”

“I supposed we both have good reason to be exhausted.” He nodded his head in agreement and the room fell silent again. After a beat of stillness in the room, where neither of them moved, King Nash roughly pushed back his chair and stood fluidly. The sudden move didn’t seem to surprise Kenastra, and he let out a frustrated groan as he paced towards his bed, stopped to turn around and look at her before sinking to the royal bed. His golden hair was messy from running his hands through it too many times in frustration, and his eyes were bloodshot from many sleepless nights, but his handsome face still managed to breath a refreshing beauty.

She stood too, except her movements were silent and chilling. If he closed his eyes he would have no idea where she was in the room with her ghostly footsteps…

He opened his eyes to see two very golden eyes in front of him. He almost jumped in surprise, but he knew she would do this. Gently he lifted his hand to cup her cheek, the smoothness of her skin like silk under his rough fingers.

For the millionth time he wished she would turn her head into his touch, he wished she would close her eyes and sigh with contentment, and let him kiss away all her worries. But she didn’t, she stared at him as if she were trying to see into his soul, and then she pulled away.

He wondered vaguely if she used her rapturous beauty to seduce the men before she killed them. But he knew that was an unfair and cruel thought, it was after all, under his order that she killed all those men.

This war was making his mind crumble, his body was exhausted beyond belief, and he thumped backwards upon his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He begged her silently to help him, to quench this thirst he had for her so he could think clearly without her face disrupting his work. He wanted her so badly, wanted her more than this palace. He would gladly sell the failure of his people in this war to be with her for just one night.

She seemed to sense his thoughts, sense the turn they had taken was dangerous. She stood stonily, and with the soft, barely distinguishable noise of her footsteps, she walked back to his desk.

“I think Ill retire, now, my Lord. If you don’t mind, I haven’t eaten in days.” She cast him one last wary glance, watching him for a long moment. She could feel the beginning ache in her muscles from the beetle juice, and it wouldn’t be long before her limbs cramped into stiff, useless logs. She needed anti venom. She needed sleep. She needed food. And Nash needed time. He was always like this when she returned, and she wished desperately that for once in her life, the men around her could harness their emotions and desires. It was getting tiring.

“Come back in the morning, I have another assignment for you.” Kenastra could hear the hard edge in his voice, she could hear the cruel under current. He knew she hated this. Hated killing, and he was intentionally trying to spite her.

She turned with her hand on the door knob, angry that he had the nerve to take out his sexual frustration on her, when it was his own issue. It wasn’t fair.

“Give it to me now, that way I wont have time to eat or sleep or relax after the last mission. If what you want is to be cruel, be cruel. Don’t pretend to care.” When he didn’t answer, she spun on her heel and swept over to his desk, picking up the file she knew held her assignments. She ripped the top paper off the stack, shook it in the air to show him she had it, then walked back to the door and left without another word.

King Nash flinched at the sound of the door snapping shut. He felt the familiar feeling of guilt travel down his spin and penetrate his gut.

He swore and stood up, cursing himself for being such a pompous, self absorbed, ass, and slumped down onto his desk chair.