Beth's Stable

by Amanda Milo

  Tiernan explodes upright in his seat. His cards flutter everywhere, and his chips pop up and roll around and right off the tabletop.

  Used to his calm quiet, it’s a shock to see him shocked—and he’s staring at Beth… who is covering her mouth as she surveys the mayhem.

  “Nebula’s belt.” Oquilion’s grinning at Tiernan archly. “Did something attack you under the table?”

  My gaze leaps to Beth—and my jaw drops as she covers her face to hide and snicker. “I wanted you to feel included!” she protests, laughing and sounding embarrassed. “I was trying to find your knee. I didn’t mean to reach that far!”

  Oquilion chuckles. “Oh, narra, I don’t think he minded…”

  “It’s not a big table,” I pretend to observe. “But I bet Tiernan’ll be wanting to cut it in half and make it even easier for you to include him anytime you like.”

  Tiernan snorts and collects what’s left of his chips and cards as he takes his seat, color rising like a dark band around his neck and traveling into his hairline. Before his silence can stretch on long enough to make her more uncomfortable, he rasps, “Feel free to include me all you want, Beth.”

  Beth drops her face into her arms on the tabletop and gasp-laughs, “I can’t believe that happened…”

  “I’m not regretting that it did,” Tiernan returns, flashing an honest-to-Creator smile and sounding quite smug—justly so. If Beth had touched her feet to my lap under the table, I’m afraid I’d be so excited I’d embarrass myself.

  Ekan interrupts the byplay as he enters the scullery, looking so satisfied, it’s as if he’s ringed by his own personal nimbus of jubilation, dropping into his seat and taking up his cards with nothing more than a hearty laugh when he sees what’s become of his stack.

  “I’ll just have a turn, pardon me,” he says merrily as he reaches for a new card—and with this single, random pick, he takes one look at his hand and tosses down his whole set, face up. “Tekk tekk!” he calls.

  The teveker has managed to pull a winner. No surprise—to us. Beth’s still amazed by his luck and makes an excited gasp.

  He grins at her—and at our combined groans.

  “Why do we play with him?” Oquilion asks in disgust, dropping his hand.

  Tiernan flicks one of his wayward chips in Ekan’s direction. “Somebody keeps letting him out of the upstairs freezer.”

  Beth makes a choking sound. “You wouldn’t lock him in the freezer! Then you’d have bad luck!” But she’s laughing.

  “Which is why the downstairs freezer stopped working,” Tiernan tells her gravely, and Beth isn’t sure if he’s having her on or if he’s telling the truth but she’s laughing harder anyway.

  “Good thing it broke when it did,” Ekan pretends to shiver. “It was so cold, my stones climbed into—”

  “STOP!” Beth cries, covering her ears. Her skin instantly coats itself in the colors normally reserved for the hottest flames, and seeing this, Ekan is quite pleased with himself.

  It’s hard to despise him for it. A flame-colored Beth is pretty moonringed fetching.

  “We’ve got a lead on a good ship,” announces Ekan, suddenly changing the topic and turning as serious as he really ever gets. “We’ll be in its orbit in just a few spans. It’ll be a quick job, but it’ll take four of us.”

  We look to Beth.

  Her smile dies. “You guys will be leaving me all alone to steal stuff?”

  Ekan grabs his chest. He looks dumbstruck. “The muscle that pumps all my blood just squeezed like you’ve wrapped yourself around it—you almost make me want to shout that we’ll stay! But sorry, narra. This ship’s cargo is ours just as soon as we get the chance.” He stands. “Is it time to retire? Ready to bounce naked with me in our bed?” His brows hop up and down in a pantomime of how he’d like bedtime to go.

  Beth’s color intensifies. But her expression has cooled, telling us all that it’s not time yet to razz her quite this far. Her head tips before she delivers a negative. “You’ll be naked and bouncing alone. I’m sleeping with one of the other guys tonight.”

  Ekan’s wincing. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, narra. I’m sorry. Just for that, I’ll let you actually have a choice instead of insisting that you grace me with your loveliness… would you please grace me with your loveliness?”

  “He knows how to apologize?” I ask, amazed. “All this time?”

  “I’ve never heard evidence of it,” Oquilion chimes in.

  “Don’t succumb to his blandishing, Beth,” Tiernan mutters. “Teach him manners.”

  Beth shifts back slowly, wearing a contemplative expression that makes the three of us here who didn’t share her company last night just a bit uneasy. Oquilion’s gaze flicks to mine for a beat, and I read him just fine—he’s wondering if she’ll end up with one of us…

  Or will Ekan pull a trick and take her for himself after all?

  “Where I’m from,” Beth starts, “When we want to make an arbitrary decision, we play a game.”

  Instantly, she elicits four masculine purrs of approval, making her grin hugely. She tosses her cards down and picks the top chip off one of her chipstacks on the table just in front of her stomach. “We flip a coin.”

  “A game of chance?” Oquilion says with a little interest, wrapping his arm around her tighter, bringing her in closer to himself before he looks past her at me.

  I roll my shoulders. “I’m up for a game.”

  Ekan motions to Tiernan and then at us. “This will be grand! Count me in—”

  “No,” we all say in unison.

  “That’s fine,” he says easily, dropping back into his seat. “I’ll steal her all to myself tomorrow.”

  She gives him an amusedly disapproving look that I don’t think she means for him to take as her approval, but that’s exactly how he takes it, blowing her a triumphant kiss.

  “Keep the luck source scum out, and I’ll bravely go up against Prow,” Oquilion declares as if we’re about to go to battle.

  I look to Tiernan. “You in?”

  Tiernan stands and begins collecting the drained cups off the table, tidying up. He sends Beth a warm look. “I enjoyed your company to a supreme degree, narra. Never think you aren’t welcome in my bed. Unlike these machaii, I know it should be the lady’s choice.”

  Beth claps regally, and beams at him. “Now THAT’S the right answer!”

  A crease appears in Tiernan’s cheek. You’d almost think his stern face was cracking.

  Oquilion makes a face above her head. “But that’s not a fun answer.” When she turns a look up at him, Oquilion coughs. “Right! Shut mouth, play, don’t rut this up: got it!”

  Half a span later, I determine coin flipping is grand! Especially when it’s me who gets all the luck. Tonight, it’ll be me sleeping with Beth’s soft hair tickling my face.

  CHAPTER 23—BETH

  BETH

  I say goodnight to everyone but Qolt (whom I still haven’t met), and Prow starts leading us to his room.

  Here and there, I’ve picked up a little about Qolt—a very little. I did learn that he and Ekan are brothers though. I found that surprising, because I always imagine siblings having a close bond. But Oquilion told me that while Ekan is ‘cog-damned hard to rile,’ when it happens, it’s almost always something to do with Qolt. Tiernan was about as verbose: “One’s a combustible and the other is flashfire. Best if they keep apart.”

  About the time they reached their teenage years, they kept quite apart. Qolt jumped ship; leaving his family crew in favor of striking it on his own for a few orbits. Qolt doesn’t talk about his solars away, and all Ekan ever told the guys was that Qolt came back with a right hook more wicked than a bilge rat’s.

  “Is Qolt a luck source too?” I ask Prow.

  He tugs on a lock of my hair, smiling when I tip my head back to look up at him. “No,” he says. “For being brothers, they aren’t much like each other, and there’s always been a bit of a rivalry between them. Qol
t is Ekan’s trip wire, and he loves getting a rise on his sibling. They work well together, but if left for too long, they squabble like children. When they really get going, Qolt feels the satisfaction of the moment is worth the bad luck it’ll bring to strike Ekan. That never ends well.”

  “They really hit each other?” I ask in horror. I thought and hoped that if I had brothers or sisters, we’d have this idyllic relationship of love, and closeness and… not hitting each other, my stars.

  “Qolt hits Ekan; I’ve never known Ekan to hit back. He doesn’t have to—his luck will knock Qolt around for him.”

  “Wow. That’s crazy.”

  “Mmhmm—” Prow freezes mid-agreement, and hisses a curse.

  “What?” I ask—right before a ball of black, shiny webbing sails through the air and blows up in front of us.

  Prow thuds to the floor.

  I realize the webbing didn’t touch me—but it wrapped around him. It’s a net.

  “Prow?!” I’m inhaling to scream, to warn the others that we’re under attack, when Oquilion strolls out of a little nook in the corridor just a few feet ahead of us. “Beth,” he calls. “Can I escort you to my bed tonight?”

  From the floor, flopping against the stretchy, diamond-patched squares keeping him prisoner, Prow spits, “You son of a two-credit whoreship—”

  “Eh, eh,” Oquilion says, bending down and stuffing something through Prow’s mouth-area of the netting. A gag, I realize, when Prow’s words muffle. “No insulting my parent-crew.” He stands and offers me his hand.

  I stare at it. At him. “Are you serious right now?”

  For the first time, Oquilion starts to look concerned.

  “You just attacked Prow to—to—how could you—”

  Prow barks something past his gag, no longer fighting—because he’s laughing.

  Smiling ruefully, Oquilion kneels, tears his gag off, and slaps Prow amicably on the shoulder.

  Eyes screwed shut, snorting in his effort to speak, Prow manages, “It’s all right, Beth!”

  Throwing up my hands, my voice strains. “This is NOT all right—” I start.

  Prow’s body is shaking so hard he’s having trouble extricating himself from the webbing. “This is the Na’rith way, narra. He stole you fair and square.”

  “Stole me,” I repeat woodenly. Ekan warned me about this.

  “Yap,” Prow confirms briskly, finally able to move, and rolling to his back. He kicks out his legs, forcing the net to stretch enough that he can reach his hands around inside of the form-fitting, squeezing netting, and retrieve his knife. “Go on, Beth. You should get some sleep.”

  Instead of offering to, oh, help his friend and crewmate get free, Oquilion urges me to follow him, not caring at all that Prow’s on the floor, using his serrated blade like a hacksaw on the net’s ropes.

  Dazed, I fall into step with Oquilion, but look back at Prow no less than three times. On the third scan, Prow stops sawing and gives me a jaunty wave—and winks.

  “Oquilion?” I say faintly.

  He exhales a breath and throws an arm around me, like maybe he was afraid he might have taken his game a little too far, shocked me, and I’d rebuff him. “Yes, Beth?”

  “Pirates are weird.”

  He sighs lustily and gives me a squeeze. “Ah, Beth, but you’re doing so well with us!”

  ***

  That night, I jolt awake up from a dead sleep. “Oquilion? Do you hear something?”

  A masculine snuffle answers me. “Huhmhh?”

  “There’s a…” I try to listen for what woke me. “There it is again,” I hiss. “It sounds like a giant rat is scurrying in the ceiling—do you hear it?”

  The scurrying stops.

  Before Oquilion can form a better answer than whatever he’s mumbling, he gives a muffled snarl as he’s whipped off the bed.

  Frantically, my hand flails over the little shelves around the wall, trying to find something to defend us with as I watch the dark shape that is Oquilion drop his shoulder and slam into his attacker, taking them both down.

  "Help!” I shout. The line about somebody needing to call I-X-I-I in the movie Hercules zips through my mind, making me suck in a hysterical breath. (Seriously one of the funniest underappreciated lines in a Disney flick, folks.)

  I stop panicking when I recognize Prow’s huff of surprised laughter in the midst of the scuffle.

  I start grinding my teeth.

  Oh no, they didn’t.

  “BOYS,” I shout—and the room goes silent. Finally, my hand manages to hit the light, flooding the room, illuminating Prow splayed on his stomach, Oquilion’s arm around his throat. What Oquilion might not have known until the light came on, was Prow had slipped his knife out and had been ready to stab backward at his crewmate—surely he’d have given him a warning first, surely.

  “That’s it,” I hiss through clenched teeth. “I don’t care if you’re pirates! I’m putting my foot down. DO NOT ever wake me up like this again. NOT EVER. Not unless there is a bona fide emergency.” I seethe as I glare in disbelief between the two of them. “You both should be double ashamed of yourselves. I expect this sort of immature, underhanded behavior from Ekan—not you two. If Ekan’s behaving better than you, you have to ask yourself if you need to reevaluate what you’re doing!”

  Prow holds up three fingers, and I suppose it could be a gesture of alien-peace, or the Na’rith way of indicating politely that he’d like to speak—or maybe this is the alien way of saying his air has been cut off too long and he needs to tap out.

  I wave my agreement. Oquilion sheepishly eases up on him.

  “Ekan is here,” Prow gasps.

  Crisply, I ask for clarification. “Excuse me?”

  I hear Ekan’s sigh of “Snitch,” float to my ears—it definitely sounds like Ekan—and then I hear a metallic creak, followed by a heavy thud.

  I look up to see part of the ceiling hanging open. Under it, is a crouched Ekan. He’s decked out in all sorts of gear, and is looking dashing in all-black tactical-type pants, and long sleeve shirt. It might be borrowed. Or stolen. Probably from Tiernan, because it looks a little big on him. “Hi, narra,” he greets with something that could pass for an authentically repentant smile.

  I stare at him.

  He indicates the grate overhead. “I climbed through the ventilation shaft. I figured I’d let Prow take care of Oquilion, then I’d get Prow, and then I’d get you, and we’d go back to my room.” Hesitantly, eyes anxiously searching mine, he adds, “Yippee Ki Yay?”

  “Nice,” Prow says from the floor, at the same time Oquilion folds his arms over his chest and grunts a surprised, “Air vents? Never would have thought a man would fit.” He looks ridiculous, criss-crossed with reddened marks like his skin was pushed too hard against the ropes of the net. A part of me feels sorry for him. The other part of me says all three of them deserve to be trussed up in a net.

  “Cog-damned near didn’t,” Ekan says with a grin. “But as luck would have it, I managed to slide in.”

  One of Oquilion’s brows rise and his smile is a little bit not-nice. That’s when I notice that one of his eyes is swelling—if he’s anything like a human, it’ll turn black-purple by morning and he’ll be wearing a shiner for days. These boys do not play easy on each other. “I think you’re about to find out what it feels like not to have all the luck sliding anywhere.”

  “Say again?” Ekan asks as if he misheard.

  I take Oquilion’s pillow, and like all the beds I’ve been to, he only has the one. “Goodnight boys. Oquilion, can you steal Ekan or Prow’s pillow?”

  “Absolutely,” he confirms.

  “I suggest you do that. I’m taking yours.”

  Oquilion sighs fondly, his swelling eye watering slightly. “Spoken like a true Na’rith, narra.”

  I glare at the other two. “If you want to sleep with something under your heads, I suggest you work something out between yourselves.”

  They send each other
calculating looks, and I push past them.

  The guys follow me—keeping a safe distance from my growling range—all the way to Tiernan’s room, squabbling loudly enough that Tiernan’s opening his door just as I’m reaching up to knock. He doesn’t look happy—but he’s glaring at them, not me, so I get it.

  Tiernan’s voice drips disgust. “Our narra’s not Na’rith to enjoy these games—she needs rest.”

  The guys all look chastened, and Tiernan opens his door wider, motioning me in.

  The three idiots marvel after me. Oquilion muses, “You know, Tiernan hasn’t overtly tried to steal her away once, yet he ends up with her just about every time.”

  Prow fingers a cut over his eyebrow that’s starting to bleed. “That is not a normal strategy.”

  Ekan tips his head like a demented bird. “This machaii bears watching.”

  “Watch this indeed,” says Tiernan—and with a very satisfied grin, he shuts the door in their face.

  “Jacklegs!” I call to them in a playfully insulting parting, and Tiernan throws back his head and roars with laughter.

  Feeling happy that I made Tiernan happy, I darn near sparkle.

  I can’t bask in it though. I dash into his bathroom, not even able to wait long enough to drop off the pillow first. I have to hold it on my lap while I pee. I tuck it under my arm while I wash my hands, and when I walk out, I toss it gratefully on the bed and awkwardly dive after it. “Sleep,” I say.

  “Mmhmm,” Tiernan agrees, his big body shifting to his side, a silent offer to cuddle if I want him.

  Of course I inch over and snuggle under his heavy arm.

  It’s so nice, maybe I should thank the guys tomorrow for driving me to Tiernan’s bed tonight. I fall asleep with a smile, thinking I should say it just like that, too.