A Lady so Fair

by AJ Kalliver

  Help me, somebody please help me!

  Not that they would; no one could hear her out here, not unless she got to the communications panel set into the hull beside the weather door. That wasn't going to happen. She could barely think, much less manage any movement besides an occasional shudder. The only place she could even form words was within the confines of her own thoughts.

  Please, anybody! I swear I'll be good from now on, I'll be a good little corporate slave and do what I'm told, when I'm told, just please don't let me die here!

  An almost violent blast of wind whipped her hair across her face as she lay there, and another spike of pain lanced through her head at the same instant.

  Argh! All right, I take it back! If I'm going to die of a brain hemorrhage or something then go ahead and do it already, don't just torture me like—

  From nowhere, a hand touched her shoulder. If she had been able to move she would have jumped, if she could have spoken she would have shrieked in surprise.

  Who? She managed to wonder, in the momentary lull between waves of pain. Did someone come? Maybe… maybe there's a camera watching up here, and someone saw me fall and came to—

  Pain. Pain like an explosion that would rend her into a million pieces, like an avalanche that would crush her and bury her in darkness forever, like a—

  The hand moved from her shoulder to rest instead upon the top of her head, its companion pressing with firm warmth against her cheek and temple… and in the space of a long breath, the pain faded to a faint shadow of what it had been.

  Claudia opened her eyes and tried to raise her head. The hands released her, but she wasn't able to see anything until she pushed herself up on one arm and raked her hair back from her face with the other.

  It was a man, crouching just out of reach now, watching her with anxious eyes.

  "Are you all right?" He asked, sounding as if he were honestly concerned. "Is there still pain?"

  She started to shake her head, then thought better of it.

  "Not as much now, no." Tears had streaked her face, but when she used her fingers to wipe away the moisture she was faintly surprised to find no blood there. Going from the intensity of the pain there at the end, it would have made more sense to discover that she had been bleeding from her nose, or ears… or from her eyes themselves, for that matter. Such was not the case, though, and sitting there, sprawled awkwardly on the deck with a stranger staring at her, she found herself feeling stupid and foolish.

  "No," She repeated, starting the process of struggling to her feet in a snug dress and fashionably high heels. "I'm feeling better now, thank you." She had not yet made much progress when he stood, and stepped forward to assist her to her feet. Embarrassed anew, she let him help her, hoping that he wouldn't make things worse by assuming that one touch meant he could try for another. He didn't, though. Once she was back on her feet he stepped back, and she managed a smile of gratitude. "Thank you." She said, and this time it came out more naturally.

  He just nodded, still watching her closely.

  Claudia knew she needed to get to the airship's medical office as soon as possible, but she didn't want to try it until she was sure her legs would carry her. So she took a minute to lean against the safety barrier, looking out at the sky once more so as to avoid the strange man's oddly intense gaze.

  What she saw in the sky made her forget about being self-conscious.

  "What.. the… hell?"

  The incredibly beautiful, gorgeously self-illuminated clouds were still there, but they had been joined by something else; or rather, many somethings.

  Dozens, scores of blazing points of light, each glowing a different hue, flew among the clouds. Orbs of roiling, misty radiance, trailing long streamers of luminescence as they looped and dove through the turbulent sky like dolphins playing amid ocean waves. One of the nearer ones, an eye-searing mass of orange and reds, zipped suddenly closer, and with shocking speed it was hanging in space, just two or three meters beyond the railing where she stood. For an instant, Claudia could have sworn that there was a human face there, staring back at her with curious eyes, then, just as suddenly, it was off and frolicking amid the clouds once more.

  The woman clutched at the rail with all her strength, gazing blankly out at the lovely, impossible spectacle.

  "I am so going to sue those idiots at Infinite Spiral." She muttered. "They think I did a good job for them? Just wait until they see me on the other side of things." She rubbed at her eyes, hoping that when she looked again the otherworldly hallucination would be gone.

  No such luck.

  "'Completely safe process' my ass. I'll show them what a class-action lawsuit is all about."

  The man had moved to the railing beside her, not so close that he was pressed against her, but close enough to make her look over at him. He was tall, though not overly so. Slender, almost to the point of being thin, with features that were too strongly defined for him to be handsome. His face was too narrow, cheekbones and chin too pronounced, nose too curved and hawk-like for anyone to hold him up as an ideal of masculine beauty. Not that he was ugly; his eyes were large and oddly pale, as was the longish hair that the wind continually tried to pull across his face. Both hair and eyes looked nearly white in the flickering stormlight, and for a moment she wondered if perhaps he were another early recipient of the Rewrite process like herself.

  If he is then I had better warn him about the migraines and hallucinations, She thought, half-serious. And maybe offer him a spot in my lawsuit. After a bit more consideration, however, she dismissed the idea that he had been cosmetically enhanced as she had been. If he were that vain, he would have had his face changed too. No, he just happens to be odd-looking… not that it's made him shy.

  That thought came because though he had glanced out at the skyborn lightshow, that spectacular sight had been dismissed almost instantly, in favor of a detailed study of her own face. She could hardly object after her own examination of his features, but nevertheless she looked away, back out at the darting lights, which stubbornly refused to vanish back into whatever treatment-damaged portion of her brain had conjured them.

  "Are you certain that you're feeling better?" He asked her, his soft voice barely carrying over the distant rumblings of the storms.

  Claudia nodded, still not looking at him.

  "Mostly, yes." An errant gust of cool, moist wind pulled a skein of her hair across her eyes like a veil, and she irritably reached up to pull it away. "Except for some visual issues brought on by the neural damage caused by an under-tested process which is now wholly-owned by an amoral conglomeration of profoundly stupid people—" She took a deep breath, then blew it out. "—Other than that; yes, I'm fine."

  He cocked his head slightly at that, no doubt wondering just what this crazy woman he'd found lying on the deck was talking about, and she smiled in a attempt to reassure him.

  "I'm sorry. You've been very kind, and I appreciate your help. It's just—" She shrugged, again having to raise a hand to restrain the hair that the wind insisted on pulling across her face. "Well, it's not been a good few months for me."

  He nodded in understanding.

  "Yes, this is hard for you, isn't it? The change, that is."

  His words were so matter-of-fact that it took a moment for the strangeness in them to penetrate her abused brain.

  "Change?" His eyes seemed to look right through her, and the thought that leapt into her mind was that he knew; he somehow knew about the Rewind-Rewrite, that she wasn't the attractive twenty-year-old that she appeared to be, but was instead someone easily old enough to be his mother. Working through the sick, sinking sensation in her middle she tried to gauge his age. Twenty…five, maybe? Not much older than that, surely, and she was grateful that the darkness was hiding the flush of shame that would otherwise have been excruciatingly obvious on her pale face. "I-I'm not sure what you mean," She stammered, all the while wondering where her courtroom cool was when she really needed it. "I mean, ye
s, I had a makeover, with the… hair." She'd been holding the hair in question back with one hand, despite the wind's continual efforts to blind her with it. Now she held a handful out as if for his inspection even as her voice trailed away.

  The way he was looking at her, his pale eyes so full of compassion and understanding, the rough-spun cotton of his loose clothing stirred by the same gusts which continued to brush past her….

  Claudia shook her head fractionally, still off-balance from the… attack, from its abrupt end….

  And this nameless man wasn't helping matters at all.

  "I don't understand what you're talking about." She said, finally. "Things have been hard, yes. I've realized that I hate my job. It's been building for a long time now, but now there's no doubt. I hate that place, I hate what I do there, I hate everything about it. I've wasted a huge part of my life there, for nothing." She grimaced, not sure why she should suddenly decide to vent at a complete stranger, but then again someone with neurological damage could hardly be held responsible for their actions now, could they? "Add to that this awful, horrible case I was involved in, that's going to cost a lot of people their lives, and incidentally make a certain group of feckless thugs even richer than they already are, and maybe you can see why I'm not exactly feeling like I'm on top of the world."

  There; if that glimpse of the crabby, embittered woman hidden inside the fresh-faced girl image didn't scare him away, she wasn't sure what would.

  He wasn't running away, though; he was just leaning there, against the railing like she was, looking at her.

  "If things are as bad as you say, then why not go elsewhere?" He asked, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "You are unhappy with things as they are; so change them."

  If there had been the least iota of condescension in his voice or expression when he said that she would have done her best to throw him over the railing.

  Or possibly just turned and stalked away with what dignity she had left. As it was, the concern and sincere interest there had her answering honestly before she was fully aware of what she was doing.

  "It isn't that easy," She said. Looking into his unsettling eyes wasn't the most comfortable thing to do, but staring out at the dancing, playing orbs of light was even worse, so she did her best to bear it. "Okay, it might seem that easy, but…." There was really no way around saying it if she was going to keep talking at all. "I'm a coward."

  There. It was said; done. Staring at the deck between them (not that there was a great deal of deck between them) she frowned. The very dim light made it difficult to be certain, but it looked very much like his feet were bare.

  Bare feet? Is that even allowed on board? I thought you had to wear sandals at the very—

  "A coward in what sense?" He asked, drawing her gaze upwards to meet his own. "My understanding is that a coward is someone who is weak, yet my…." He paused, seeming to search for the proper word. "My… impression, of you, is that you are very strong indeed."

  From her would-be suitor down in the lounge that would have been empty flattery; from this man….

  "Trust me; I'm not." Funny, she must be determined to give him a horrible impression of her, because here she was, telling him things she had trouble admitting even to herself. "For example; the hair, the eyes?" He followed her finger as she indicated the freakish coloration of each; hers, not his. "Why do you think I got this done?"

  He shrugged, looking unconcerned.

  "Because they are beautiful; the color of the upper sky in deep autumn."

  That brought her up short for a moment.

  "You really think so?"

  "Yes." Again, what could have seemed like nothing more than a way to get her naked and horizontal came off like nothing of the sort. "They reflect your inner self, now; the true color of your soul."

  She frowned slightly.

  Well, that was a bit… odd. But in a nice way, all the same.

  "Thank you." She was saying that to him a lot, it seemed. "But the reason I did it was so that my boss would fire me. He would call me into his office and demand that I change it back; I would refuse, we would get into this huge argument, and he would toss me."

  It was his turn to frown now.

  "This is not what happened?"

  She shook her head.

  "No, it wasn't. He called me in all right, but he didn't demand that I go back to brown on brown. He—" She thought about what had taken place in that office, and just the memory of it was enough to make her deflate. "He didn't argue with me, he didn't give me the chance to argue at all. He just assumed that I would change it. And by the time I knew what was happening, here I was, on a scenic cruse across the states, then up the west coast for a tour by air of the Alaskan wilderness, waiting for it to be safe to go back and have it all reversed." She thought it best not to mention the age thing; that part was definitely not going to be put back the way it had been. Though she hadn't exactly done such a great job of being young the first time around.

  Claudia sighed, having successfully brought her own mood even lower, which was something she would not have thought possible.

  "So there you go. If I can't even bear to take responsibility for quitting a job I hate, just because the thought of being out there in the big, scary world with no idea of what else I could do is so terrifying…. Well, that's not the portrait of a strong person, is it?"

  Silence then, for what seemed like a long time though it really wasn't.

  "You have never been happy, have you?" He asked, his eyes never leaving hers. "In your whole life, you have never found the freedom your soul yearns for, a place that was truly yours, a life that was utterly your own to live." She had no coherent answer for that, not that he needed one. Leaning closer, he spoke very softly, his words melding with the distant voice of the storm.

  "You need not live that way, not if you do not wish it. The only power that place holds over you, that anyone holds over who you are and what manner of person you chose to be, is the power you give them."

  She looked away, in the only safe direction she could; the darkened shadows to her right where the weather door, outlined in tiny guide-lights, offered access to the clean, luxurious, empty pleasures which the ship offered.

  "It's too late." She answered him, the words bitter. "I'm… not as young as I look." She glanced at him, but there was no condemnation in his eyes, no judgment at all. "I've waited too long for something to happen, for someone or something to just come along and hand my happiness to me. I—" Her throat had tightened, and she had to clear it before she could continue. "I always thought that if I were just patient long enough, a happy ending would somehow magically appear, and everything would be okay."

  Stupid. It was so stupid… but it was the truth, and only now did she fully understand how ridiculous she had acted all those long years… by failing to act at all.

  "It's too late to start over somewhere else." She finished, looking at her hand where it gripped the railing. "I need to hold on to what I have, get comfortable with that even if it's not everything I would wish for; it's all I'm ever going to get."

  Only sensible, yes; act your age, old girl. Those books and movies with their rugged heroes and beautiful ladies were all about young people; best put the idea of something like that happening to you right out of your head. Anything else will only depress you, and you know how miserable that is, don't you?

  Her eyes weren't working so well, all of a sudden, and there was moisture spilling down her cheeks. She started to turn away in embarrassment, but a pair of strong, gentle hands caught her shoulders.

  "Stop this, please." He bade her, and she blinked away the tears as best she could, wishing she could vanish on the spot and spare herself any further humiliation. "You lament your lack of choices, your entrapment in a world where you have never truly belonged, and all the while you stare unseeing at an open door."

  This man had a way with enigmatic statements, she had to give him that.

  "What?" She man
aged, no doubt stunning him yet again with her rapier wit. As answer he raised his arm and pointed out into the flickering light of the open sky.

  "Look there, and tell me what you see."

  She didn't want to look, but his eyes held hers until finally she spared it a quick glance.

  Canyons of clouds. Giant Japanese lanterns lit by flickering candles made from lightning.

  Oh, and a symptom of her uncertain mental state; the glowing orbs of light, two of whom were now racing playfully round and round the airship itself in a giddy game of follow the leader.

  Looking back into his waiting gaze, she shrugged with elaborate calm.

  "Clouds."

  His brows drew fractionally closer together, and he shook his head.

  "No, when others look they see clouds. You see more. You see something new, something which frightens you."

  She felt her lips pressing into a thin line, and she pulled back until he let his hands drop away.

  "You can't know that." She whispered shakily. "It's not possible for you to know that." Bad enough that she was damaged, now, as well as pathetically stupid, but if it were so obvious that a stranger could pick up on it then there was no way she would be able to fool her fellow employees, much less her superiors.

  He watched her across the space she'd opened between them.

  "I can know; it is possible."

  She didn't want to know; she only wanted to be allowed to cling to what bits and pieces of a real life she had. This, whatever this was, threatened to take even those meager scraps away from her.

  "How?" She barely heard it herself; doubtful that he had, over the airship's engines, and the distant rumbles of thunder, and the wind….