Majesty

by Brooke Vinson

  “I just found what I wanted anyway.” I pointed at the shop that had weird contraptions hanging in its window. They looked to be normal items except for some major alterations to the designs. They were made for the sky. I walked into the large electronics shop and stared at the items with disappointment. The mechanism that made them usable in Skypia was much like the ones used on holotrains, exactly like the ones used on holotrains.

  “Excuse me,” I walked up to the counter and to a fairly heavyset human who was organizing some type of hairdryer contraption on a shelf behind him, “Do you have any Skyskaters?”

  He stared at me for a moment before laughing under his breath, muttering about tourists. “I don’t know what fairy tales you have been listening to, but Skyskaters are not only illegal, they are also nearly all destroyed. The only people who have any of those things left is the Resistance.”

  “The Resistance?” I inquired, determined to get a pair of the legendary skates.

  “Boy, you’re delving where you shouldn’t be. Look, I have a really neat pare of hover-boots here for only a gold coin. They’re almost Skyskaters and perfectly legal. They come in any size and—”

  “Good night.” I walked back out of the store and started snooping around the stores again.

  “Able,” Amica grabbed me this time and pulled me into a loud shop selling various Skypian pets. “I don’t feel comfortable asking around about lost Skypian technology like this. I don’t think you understand exactly how bad the divide is up here. Skypians are slaves and if they act up, even the slightest, they’re executed on the spot. The people here don’t take kindly to people inquiring about Skypians either, except to buy one as a servant.”

  “I want to see what Skypia has to offer.” I muttered. “I want some type of Skypian technology. I’ve already collected samples of Cloudland and Skybone—”

  “You what?” Amica shifted worriedly. “Able put them back! We’ll be caught and killed. This isn’t like the Earth Guard Camp. This is much, much worse.”

  “Amica,” I flashed my eyes, “calm down. Now, is there any legal Skypian technology that I can buy or find?”

  “Skysilk.” Amica nodded, looking calmer, but I knew inside he was still on the verge of panic. He may be adorable and sweet, but he wasn’t much for remaining calm. “It’s this really cool material that certain Skypians can weave out of thin air. It insulates when cold and breathes when hot. Not to mention it’s extremely beautiful and soft to the touch. The only problem is that it takes a long time to make so it’s really expensive. Garments are even more so because when it isn’t sewn properly, it literally dissolves and—”

  “Money isn’t a problem. Show me one of these Skysilk stores. We need to get rid of these army clothes anyway.” The store Amica led me to was not only very high quality and high priced but also extremely nosey. I was asked fifteen questions about my personal life while the lady was measuring me for the four suits I had chosen. She was working on more when I flashed my eyes and silenced her. With only minutes to spare until my powers dissipated, Amica and I walked out of the store with a bargain of only forty gold coins as payment.

  We were passing by a store when Amica suddenly jerked to a standstill. I stopped too, but he jerked back into movement almost as if what he was looking at was an aberration that should be ignored. I looked again and saw it was a music store filled with instruments and the like. “Do you play?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Amica lied to me for the first time and something about the lie caught my absolute and undivided attention.

  “Which instrument? I have plenty of money. I can buy one for you if you just—”

  “Able!” He turned to me and closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t play. The little mistress played and when she grew tired, she made me. She made me play over and over and over again until my fingers bled and the instrument was close to being damaged by my hands. She wanted to please her mother. Make her think that she was trying, trying as hard as she could to be the musician she never could be.”

  “Why didn’t you leave? You’re a human; they couldn’t have forced you to stay.” I cocked my head, looking back at the instruments.

  “I tried once…” Amica wouldn’t look at me as we walked onward without direction. “They didn’t chase after me, they didn’t do a thing to me… They made Ursa-Gramama take on my duties. She was already elderly and was in charge of the cooking and preparing the baths… making her do my hard labor… The wounds on her hands from the cello… I was there when they burned her body and they never said a word to me. They held out their hands, smiling and told me they had missed my services.”

  “I thought your first owners were kind.” I muttered and he looked lower at the ground.

  “They were.” We finally decided silently on a direction. We were heading back to the Sun Tower and our train. Even though it was under repairs, they had removed and had already repaired the sleeping car so we went in together.

  Amica fell asleep before me and I left him in the bed to return to the store. I was human and my head was pounding, but this was the only time I felt comfortable leaving Amica alone. I inquired about the young mistress he had talked about and found that she had played cello. I could tell by the way he had looked at the store; he had loved to play the cello. Circumstance had made him hate to. The only way to fix this was to let him fix it on his own.

  I had just left the music store with the cello being delivered on foot when I bumped into someone. A bright red someone who was staring with an open mouth at a man who had a horde of women surrounding him. I looked at the man Raven was salivating over and red the bulletin board with interest.

  “A famous actor, huh? I think he has his hands full without you, Raven. Raven?” I asked as she suddenly snapped her mouth shut and turned.

  “Able, stop me?”

  “What?” I asked confused and then I found out why I was stopping her.

  “Edward!” She shrieked and launched at the stage through the pack of women. The women scattered with shrieks of fear, but it was the man who looked the most shocked. “You lying, thieving bastard! I thought we were lovers! I thought we were supposed to be together forever!”

  “Who the hell are you?” The man recovered after a minute, sneering. “I would never touch something as vile as you!”

  The man, who I now noticed was a human, flashed his cape as he turned, making the remaining women sigh. Raven let out a roar of the likes I had never heard before. She launched at the stage, her fingers acting as talons as she clawed her way up the stage and to the man who viciously kicked her. The man managed to unbalance Raven who was only wearing one heel, having lost the other one in her climb onto the ten foot stage, and he took the chance to dash down the stairs and run. The fall only stopped Raven long enough for her to get back on her feet and chase, screeching, after him.

  “Raven stop!” I cried, chasing after her. The man had no chance of escaping the enraged Skypian, but he wasn’t alone in his endeavors to flee. Women were practically attacking Raven as she passed by to try and save the ‘Miraculous Edward Allen’.

  The man finally made a break for a house, climbing up the stairs before locking the door. Raven pounded on the door and I barely managed to get her to stop as we quickly attracted a very curious and suspicious crowd. She jerked from my grasp, but I groaned as the man reappeared at the second story window.

  “Edward Allen is a married man. He has no room in his heart for women,” I paused, praying he wouldn’t say it, “or men.”

  Raven broke my grasp as she turned and I stared in fascination as she pulled off her sleeves for the first time and revealed what she had been hiding. Her arms were wings and even though I doubted she could actually fly with them, she could definitely glide. She launched skyward with her powerful legs and towards the window.

  “Raven!” I screamed, wishing I had my powers. Then I stared in absolute horror as the sizzling black light of a stun-gun struck her in the side. She fell uncons
cious, possibly lifeless, to the ground feet from me. I tried to back away and pretend like I had nothing to do with her, but as I turned, I found a stun-gun pointed at me too.

  “Two Skypians running around without their marking bands and assaulting a human.” I cursed Raven up and down as the man turned me around and cuffed me. “You don’t have—”

  “I’ve heard it already.” I snapped as he shoved me along with another couple of officers carrying Raven’s body. “Just hurry up.”

  Road to Liberation

  “Edward!” Raven woke with his name on her tongue and she launched at me in her still enraged state.

  “Unfortunately, no. Try Able and if you don’t calm down, I have a feeling those guards will be pretty happy to taze you.” Raven took a second to look where I was pointing and after a minute of heavy breathing she calmed down.

  “Where is he?” She growled.

  “The guy you were chasing?” I asked. “Probably sitting in his nice little house, preparing for his performance tonight. Why in the world did you do that? Out of all the men in the world, why did you have to go berserk after that one?”

  I wasn’t expecting an answer; I was trying to make her feel guilty and repent about making me sit in jail all day instead of in bed with Amica. “He was my husband.”

  “Huh?” I jerked to look at her. I was pretty sure, despite the makeup and what she truly believed, she was legally male. “But—”

  “Screw those filthy old white humans!” She snarled. “We were married in all but the eyes of the law. I… we…” She finally broke and burst out sobbing and as she sobbed, her feathers shed.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I protested, trying to calm her. “You shouldn’t be doing this. Just calm down for a moment and talk it out. Maybe you have the wrong guy—”

  “Edward Allen.” She turned her eyes on me. They were burning, burning for some reason, any reason to explain this horror she had stumbled upon. “We became lovers at the young age of fifteen. I was what people called a ‘changeling’ baby. Thankfully, the family who wound up with me thought of me as their own child and loved me so much that they helped me hide the changes. I tried to break up with him.”

  I let her sob a little more until I figured she had shed enough tears and wiped her face, urging her to continue. “The dumb idiot… he climbed through my window on the second floor, or tried to. He knocked over the ladder and I had to catch him and drag him through the window. He didn’t even blink at my feathers. He stroked them, told me they were just as lovely as I was and asked me to marry him.”

  She doubled over sobbing this time, crying his name over and over under her breath. She was devastated, beyond devastated and my heart screamed for her. I wanted to go find Amica and hug him as hard as I could and never let him go. The feeling, the feeling of absolute betrayal, loss and broken love was crippling at the least. I couldn’t let her sob though; I just couldn’t let her breakdown now. Later, when we were safe, she could cry and wail and let her existence fall apart so later she could pick up the pieces and still have her life.

  “How did you two get separated?” I asked and after a moment of sniffling, she answered with a wistful look on her face.

  “We were on our honeymoon and I didn’t think twice about taking the blood test. Before puberty, Skypian children can test negative to the blood test, but after I turned… I was positive. They locked me up, but they didn’t expect anyone to try and help me. We broke out, but we couldn’t get far. We made it to the holotrain yard, but there was only one spot on the train left. He forced me to go and we promised to meet again back at home.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked, trying my best to keep her from breaking down again.

  “Our home… they found out who I was by my ID. They had invaded it. I tried to find my parents, but they had been arrested for harboring a Skypian. I went on the run. That’s why I joined the circus with Dexter and Siniste and the rest. I needed to find him. I’ve been searching so long. I’ve been waiting for him. He’s been the only thing left…” She stared at the floor for a moment and then started crying, silently. I saw the look on her face and I grabbed her in a hug.

  “It’ll all be okay, honey. It’s all fine.” I hugged her and prayed that later she would be fine. I couldn’t stand loosing someone I had lived with, ate with, picked at, become friends with all because of an asshole. I couldn’t stand to lose a piece of my family. I jerked, still holding her. Family… I had a family, a new family, a family who were willing to risk their lives for me even though I was a slightly sadistic, controlling, smart-ass, probably bisexual Skypian.

  “Raven,” I leaned her slightly away from me and stared at her with my normal but still very persuasive eyes, “let’s catch a few hours’ sleep and when night falls, I’ll get us out of here. We’ll find that bastard and get him to talk, okay? But first we have to make sure we’re alive.”

  “Okay, I’m taking the bottom bunk.” She sniffed and shuffled up. “The top bunk is exposed to sunlight. Sunlight is bad for my complexion.”

  Any other time I would fight her or point out I had a better reason to take the bottom bunk, but she needed every piece of kindness I could give her. So with the sun beating down on me, I tried to fall asleep.

  When the sun disappeared I opened my eyes and without moving off my bunk, caught the eyes of the main guard. He came over and conveniently opened the door before slamming his head into the wall. I flipped out of bed easily and touched the sleeping Raven’s shoulder. She opened her eyes slowly and stared at me despondently.

  “Come on sunshine, we’re busting out of here.” She stood and wiped her bloodshot eyes as we walked down the hall to the elevator. I pushed the buttons to go to the ground floor, but as the elevator moved upwards, the two-way holoscreen lit up and a guard looked in.

  “Identification,” he asked and I prayed that my powers would work on him through the electronic screen.

  “No one. Elevator malfunction.” I cooed and after a moment of hesitation, he repeated my words and shut down the screen. We walked out of the guard house without a single alarm being raised.

  “That was too easy,” I muttered to myself. “Why aren’t the…”

  I stared at the man, quite obviously used to sneaking around, who came out from where the guard’s electrical circuits were housed. As he turned around, I recognized the cloaked face with an almost humorous amount of shock. Edward Allen was indeed the Edward Allen Raven used to know and love. He had loved her so much as to risk being arrested while rescuing her from jail. This was worthy of being a television soap opera.

  “Raven, what do you think about Edward Allen?”

  “If I see him again, I’ll gut the heartless bastard.” She stiffened and I saw tears once again threaten to break out of her eyes.

  “Well, there he is trying to break into the jail we’ve already broken out of. Why don’t you go say hello?” I laughed lightly to myself as Raven twirled around and dropped her jaw, staring at the trying, but failing, sneaky hero.

  “Edward!” She cried and I winced at her tactless approach. He flinched and turned around, but upon seeing his love ran towards us, still crouching low to the ground. I sighed as Raven ran towards him too, her heels abandoned beside me. They were two fools made for each other.

  I walked over slowly as they started tearing at each other in the street, wondering if I was going to have to be their voice of reason. Then something seemed to hit Raven like a brick because she pushed Edward off of her violently.

  “What the hell were you thinking? How dare you treat me like that and you just expect me to forgive you!? I’ve never been so humiliated or hurt in my life. Edward Allen, you have a lot of explaining to do!” Edward tried viciously to stop her from yelling, but Raven wasn’t someone to be easily silenced.

  “My dear, my beloved!” He cooed as he finally gave up. “How sweet it is to hear your voice! Like the velvet—”

  “Don’t give me any romantic bullshit!” She slapped him and he
took the blow like a man. I felt like applauding him, but didn’t want to ruin the romantic mood. “You think you’re too good for me now? That you have to lie and pretend like you don’t know some sick cross-dressing fag! Well, I’m through with you!”

  “Raven, my darling, my love,” he cooed then very violently covered her mouth, “be quite for a second and let me explain. Look around you. This is Skypia and I’m not exactly a nobody here. I make my living as an actor, someone constantly in the spotlight. If I admitted that you were my lover, they would be all over you in a swarm and they would find out, someway, somehow, that you are a Skypian. Do you know what they do to Skypians who are romantically involved with humans? Instant execution, no matter the place, the time or the occasion and I too would be locked up and after trial, eventually executed. When I heard your voice, I wanted nothing more than to scoop you up in my arms and scream your name to the heavens, but I couldn’t.”

  “You liar! You claim to be married! You chose some girl—”

  “I am married,” he sighed and stole a quick kiss, “to you. Did you forget our wedding that quick? My love, why else would I come to try and rescue you from the depths of hell itself?”

  “You… you…” Raven broke like the woman she was and latched onto him, sobbing. “Oh, Edward! Edward my beloved husband! Come with us! Flee this horrid place with us and join our travelling circus. We tour the world with the sky as our limit. Hell, not even the sky is a barrier to us!”

  “My beloved, I would love to—” The sirens that broke into their romantic dialogue pierced through my skull and obviously Raven’s too. We were Skypians and being this close to such a loud sound was the equivalent of having a dagger thrust into our ears. I managed to get my legs moving away from the horrendous sound, but Edward wound up having to physically pick up Raven to move her from where she had crumpled to the ground.