Lisril relaxed under the hot spray of the shower, the greatest Dyrantoro innovation, so far as she was concerned. Outside, she could hear her Angel making himself ready. Unlike a Dyrantisa man, he favored clothes that accentuated his shoulders, wore no makeup, and needed none; he was beautiful.
Lisril had been taken almost the moment she’d met him, and as dearly as she would have liked to say she’d won him through the vigor of her pursuit, their love affair had been as easy as falling into bed.
He could be difficult, Lady knew, but also sweet and considerate and always attentive to her needs.
She finished washing and stepped out of the shower to find him in front of the mirror, shirt open, bowtie around his neck, applying talcum powder to his skin. This, he had taught her, was the best way to prevent the chafing ties caused.
As she watched, he buttoned up his shirt, tied his bowtie, frowned, untied it, and tried again. Apparently satisfied, he nodded, folded his collar down, and turned, staring openly.
Her chin came up, and she placed her hands on her hips, shoulders thrown back. If her Angel wanted to look, she saw no reason not to make a display.
He grinned. “It’ll be a shame to cover up perfection.”
She chuckled and blushed at the flattery.
“Stop that,” she said, the fondness in her voice belying the admonishment in her words.
It wasn’t a new game; she enjoyed Alex’s compliments, and pretending she didn’t, he enjoyed heaping her with praise and how poorly she hid her pleasure.
“Let me get ready; it won’t do to make her Magnificence wait.”
He smiled, kissed her, and slipped out of the little restroom, leaving behind longing and the sweet musky scent of his cologne.
She dried herself and joined him in the crew quarters. She found him straightening his suit for his meeting with the Empress. He would wear a pearl white shirt, cuffs held with golden links, set with emeralds, which she thought rather complimented his eyes, a rich cashmere suit of Burgandy set off by dark green shoes and tie.
It was, he informed her, terribly informal attire for meeting with an Empress, but he wasn’t meeting her as a dignitary, and in any case, men were at their best when they were on display, and her man displayed very well indeed.
His fiddling done, he turned to her, arms outstretched. “What do you think?”
She placed a finger on her lips, considering him, and smiled; she knew just the thing.
Going to his effects, Lisril fetched out a small case, inside, a collection of flowers. Not real flowers, but convincing facsimiles fashioned of silk. She plucked a white cherry blossom from the case, her favorite, and slipped it into his lapel.
It softened him, she thought, and gave him an appropriately masculine air. She took him by the shoulders then, turning him this way and that, perfect, not a hair out of place.
“Beautiful,” she murmured. “Elliza will love you.”
He smiled. “There’s only one woman I need to impress.”
Fondness crinkled her nose. “Now, why can’t you be that sweet all the time? As much as I’d love to agree, impressing the Empress and her Ladies is quite important.”
So important, in fact, that it would soon make him the most prominent man on two worlds, not that he needed to know that, not yet.
She went to the closet and withdrew her own suit, a plain, black affair, which would have been nondescript on Earth, but would draw looks on Nyx. She could have worn Nyxian formal wear and allowed Alex to take the attention, but he would object, she lived on Earth now, and her dress reflected that.
She palmed through his suits, found his heavy coat, and made a face.
His suits accentuated his exotic, broad-shouldered beauty, but this? It was simply too much; he looked like a woman in it, rather a large one. She passed it over and pulled out a cashmere cloak, lined and trimmed with otter fur. It could have simply been a fur cloak, but this way, he could reverse it if he wanted, and besides. She ran her hand over the soft fabric; she had fallen in love with cashmere faster than she had with him.
She turned and handed him the cloak; he would need it; if memory served, it would be winter now, and the Empire’s winters were bitter indeed. “She’ll love you in that.”
“I’m not trying to seduce her, Lisril,” his laugh was deep and rich.
She smiled and changed the subject. “How long until we land?”
He glanced at the clock. “Maybe, fifteen, twenty minutes until we make dock, another hour and a half to transfer to the shuttle and make planetfall.”
“Make yourself ready; I’ll dress and gather our baggage,” she said, nodding.
“Yes, Kitten, don’t be long,” he said.
He left her, and she set about dressing, first, an odd onesie of silver. Though thin, supple, and flexible as any cloth, she had it on good authority that if struck, it would harden and become veritably impervious to any blade and most modern small arms. Nothing she was likely to encounter on Nyx would be sufficient to the task.
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The rest was much as Alex had worn, only appropriately more dour and intimidating. Above her shirt, but beneath her jacket, she wore a harness which positively bristled with blade and gun and all other manner of nastiness, and all of it deftly concealed beneath her jacket, tailored for just that purpose.
She wore no accessories, with but one exception, a choker set with a black star sapphire, which he had given her to seal their engagement, and she was seldom without.
By the time she was done arranging herself and joined him, the ship was bringing them, of its own accord, down into the docking station.
In truth, she found the automation eery, but Alex had shown no concern, and she wasn’t about to raise the hue and cry if he wasn’t.
The ship attached itself, and they were conveyed through the weightlessness of the landing platform to their shuttle. It was always stomach-turning, being in freefall, but Lisril took solace in knowing it would soon be over.
----------------------------------------
Soon wasn’t soon enough, and by the time they landed, she thought she might be sick on the seat next to her. Mercifully, the shaking and feeling of plunging ceased, and soon thereafter, they were ready to disembark.
She followed two steps behind him, battling her instinct to lead him by the arm, and found herself amid a howling blizzard.
She was happy she’d bundled him up and that she’d stolen his heavy coat, which suited her far better, though the wind still whipped at her face and blew through the open front of both coat and jacket, a necessity of easy access to her weapons.
Men rushed about all around them, carrying shovels or pushing carts, doing their best to keep the airfield open. As they reached the bottom of the gangway, another man approached them at a trot. As he drew near, Alex snapped to attention, threw a salute, and shouted over the storm.
“Sergeant.”
Lisril didn’t know the proper form to salute a Dyrantoro soldier, so she didn’t.
The man, young-ish, late twenties, maybe as old as thirty or thirty-four by Dyrantoro reckoning, seemed surprised and returned the salute.
Handsome, in that particular Dyrantoro way, the soldier nonetheless lacked the easy dignity her man possessed.
The salute ended, and the soldier shouted. “You the engineer?”
Alex nodded beneath his hood, and the soldier waved them forward. “Come on, they’re waiting for you.”
They had to push against the storm to make progress, and as they walked, Alex and their host made conversation over the wind.
“You read my stripes; you a Marine?”
“Army, special forces.”
“Retired?”
“Medical.”
There was a long pause, then. “I see; what do you rate?”
“Nothing; I’m a civilian.”
“A vet, so far as my boys and me are concerned, that means you rate.”
Another pause. “I was a captain.”
“Sir!”
“Don’t sir me, I’m not in anymore.”
“Respectfully, sir, fuck that.”
Alex’s laughed. “I like you, Marine.”
“That’s good to hear, sir.” They came to the waiting coach, and the marine opened the door for them. “Travel safe; I’ll radio ahead to the Major.”
Alex nodded. “good man.”
They entered the coach, the door closed behind them, and with a jolt, they began toward the palace.
They sat hip to hip on the seat, and Lisril wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. “You’re not cold?”
He rested his cheek on her shoulder, wide, green eyes gazing up at her. “Not anymore.”
She laid her head against his, squeezing him tight; maybe it was sacrilegious, but she didn’t need heaven; this was paradise.
They were quiet for a long time, just enjoying the embrace, then she broke the silence.
“Angel,” she said. “You’ve never spoken of your time in the military.”
She knew things were different on Earth, but it was still strange thinking of a man, her man particularly, as a soldier.
Men were, of course, ill-suited to such tasks, but Alex? The idea that he should face any peril bereft of her protection was- well, it didn’t bear consideration.
Of course, they hadn’t then known each other, but that was irrelevant; he had been born her husband; it was only a matter of the Lady’s design coming to fruition. She, his destiny, and he hers.
But, despite fate having brought them together some time ago, she still knew precious little about his past. She had no concern of finding any iniquity, yet, her desire to learn more went beyond idle curiosity.
He hummed softly to himself. “Not much to tell, really.”
She smoothed his hair; clearly, he needed more prompting. “Well, what did you mean by your answer to that young man regarding your retirement?”
“Oh,” he sighed. “I got hurt, and the military decided I wasn’t fit for duty.”
“You seem hale to me,” she said, not disguising her surprise.
“Now,” he said. “I volunteered for an experimental treatment, and it worked, but before that, I could barely walk.”
Her grip on him tightened protectively. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “I was-” he stopped, thinking. “I was behind a machine gun someone had bolted to the back of an old pickup, going about seventy, eighty, something like that. When we drive into this ambush, it wasn’t for us, I don’t think, but we got hit anyway. In any case, I start laying down hell with this MG; when I get shot, not bad, flesh wound, shoulder, but it knocks me ass over teakettle off the truck bed, and I break everything in the right side of my body.”
He took a breath, eyes growing distant. “The boys managed to make pickup, and I scraped through, somehow, but I ended up partially paralyzed on the side I hurt. The bones could be fixed, or surgically replaced, if they couldn’t, but I had nerve damage and-. After that, I Didn’t really know what I would do with myself; I spent a long time in the military and didn’t make any plans for early retirement. Didn’t- really make plans for retirement at all.”
“Well, I went back to school, studied physics, and got picked up by DARPA for the FTL project. found out about extraterrestrial life with everyone else, decided I needed an excuse to meet one of our new neighbors.” He kissed her. “Met the finest woman in the galaxy,” He kissed her again. “Wifed her,” kiss. “Never been happier.”
She smiled, a happy flush coloring her cheeks, and took his hand. “She’s a lucky woman.”
“Not as lucky as me,” he said, grinning.
She chuckled and licked his cheek. “charmer. So, requesting a bodyguard from Nyx was just an excuse to meet me, hm?”
“Well, the politicos and military brass wanted to see how we got on, too. But, mostly.”
“I can thank the Lady for your curiosity, then,” she said.
He smiled prettily and seemed about to say something when there came a knock on the front wall of the coach.
“That’s the driver; we’re arriving,” she said.
The coach slowed, and she helped him down, smoothing his cloak. They stood in the courtyard of the Imperial Palace; the storm had abated as they rode, and the moonlight filtering through the breaks in the clouds shone brightly against the fresh snow and nearly painfully off the magnificent whitewashed palace walls.
The greatest feat of Nyxian engineering, the palace’s spires towered above them, defiant in the face of the savagery of nature.
The yard had yet to be cleared, and Lisirl pulled Alex close; it would be a terrible thing indeed if he were to take a spill and ruin his clothes before meeting Eli.
“Now,” she said. “you’re a man, and that means you’re entitled to certain courtesies. The Empress will want to take your cloak; you must allow her to do this, accept her attentions, and for goodness sake, don’t embarrass her.”
He laughed. “No promises,” he said, offering his arm. “Now, would you like to escort me in?”
She glared at him, “yes,” she growled, “very much.”
She took his left hand, laid it gently atop her right arm, and guided him up the steps to the great palace gate, its arched doors of polished wood standing open in expectation of their arrival.
Behind them, Lisril heard the coach woman urge her horses back into motion. She took it as an auger; the past behind them and the future in front.