by Mia Archer
“On the bright side, we’ll have one hell of a story to tell when people ask us how we met,” I said.
Hailey laughed then pulled me in for a kiss and I forgot about everything else for a good little while.
28: Six Months Later
Hailey:
I stepped into the convention center and took a deep breath. There was something about the smell of a convention that always put me in a good mood. It was the smell of new plastic from all the toys that were on display at various booths. The smell of brand new T-shirts waiting for people to try them on and take them home. There was also an undercurrent of B.O. that I could’ve done without, but other than that it was a good mix of smells.
For me it was the smell of coming home.
“Think you could stop sniffing the air long enough to help us out with some of this stuff?” Cassie asked as she stepped in behind me carrying a table.
I hopped out of the way and moved to the back of the table. The convention center wanted to charge us $200 per day for providing a folding table so we said “fuck it” and told them we’d bring our own. Thankfully we could do that at this convention centers. We’d heard of other groups that had to pay ridiculous fees because otherwise they’d be standing at an empty booth.
It was a racket that you never thought about when you were visiting a convention as a guest. It was a whole new world I’d been introduced to since I joined the local chapter of the Battle Angels officially.
“Sorry,” I said. “Let me help you with this so you’re not dragging it all over the convention center.”
“Awfully nice of you,” Cassie grunted.
I thought she was being melodramatic. It was a folding table. It’s not like it was that heavy. Just a little awkward because of how long it was. We carried it back to the booth space and Zoey appeared a few minutes later carrying our banner and other stuff.
“Looks like you-know-who is going to be here today,” Zoey said, a frown on her face.
I looked through the empty tables and rolled my eyes. There in the distance was Natalie glaring at us. It wasn’t the first time that had happened and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last, though it looked like she was down a couple of girls from the last convention. At least one of those girls would be joining us this time around.
“Let her stew over there,” I said. “People know who we are and we won’t be able to see her once all the other booths in between us are set up anyways.”
“I know you’re right, but it still pisses me off,” Zoey said.
I reached out and took her arm. Pulled her in and hit her with a big kiss right on the lips. For a moment we forgot all about our troubles and she-who-shall-not-be-named setting up with her failing group on the other side of the convention floor. The organizers gave us a much better spot than she got anyways.
We’d be fine.
I pulled away from the kiss and glanced across the room again. Natalie was glaring at us still, but she looked even more pissed off now than she had a couple of minutes ago when we noticed her. Good. Let her sit over there all alone thinking about everything she lost. I was going to concentrate on how awesome things were over here.
“Do we have all the swag ready to go for the raffle?” I asked.
“Looks like Lisa already swung by earlier to drop everything off,” Cassie said.
“She did,” Thea said, appearing from behind a curtain. I breathed a small sigh of relief. I was going to be annoyed if someone dropped off all our raffle swag and didn’t leave anyone to watch it. That was the rule at these things. Always have someone watching our toys because you never knew when someone with sticky fingers might be walking the convention hall.
Even right now a couple of hours before the convention center opened when we were just setting up.
While they were busy setting everything up I went through some of the paperwork and advertising stuff we had ready to go. It’d become very important to differentiate our group from others operating in the area over the past half year, but I thought we’d done a pretty good job of it. Especially since we were the group with the obviously professionally made costumes. All the girls had sets of wings made by yours truly, and we had a couple of other people who were starting to do just as good a job as I did.
I looked at the bustle of activity and smiled. Six months ago I never imagined something as simple as putting together a costume would have given me a second family like this, but now here we were half a year later and that’s exactly what the girls had become. We were a sisterhood. We were family, and it was awesome. It was the group of friends I’d never known I needed until I found them.
And then there was Zoey. Beautiful Zoey. Geeky Zoey. Zoey who was perfect in every way. I felt butterflies when I looked at her that were every bit as intense now as they’d been the first time I saw her. Heck, if anything they were more intense now than they’d been back then because we were talking about moving in together.
Sure it was crazy. Sure people said we were moving fast, but I didn’t care. Everything about our time together had been crazy and fast and so far it had been wonderful even considering our rocky start. I smiled as she turned around and caught me looking at her. None of us were in our costumes yet, but even in her civvies she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“Are you going to help us with this stuff or are you going to stand there sneaking looks at my ass while I do all the heavy lifting?” she asked.
I shook myself out of the reverie. It’d been a nice reverie staring at her and lusting after her, but she was right. There was work to do and I was screwing around.
I threw myself back into the work. It was good to have an excuse to go to these conventions more often and a group of friends I could hang out with. It was good that I had Zoey to hang out with at these things and to have fun with after the dealer hall closed and we could go out and have some fun on our own.
Or retire back to the hotel room for some fun. For some reason Zoey still acted like it was a big deal that I shared a hotel room with her at these shindigs. I didn’t dig too deeply because I had a feeling Natalie was the monster lurking at the bottom of that idiosyncrasy.
I pushed those thoughts away and concentrated on the work. We were going to have an awesome fucking weekend.
Zoey turned around again and smiled at me.
“What are you thinking about?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got that goofy smile on your face again. The one you had on your face when you asked me to move in with you.”
“I’m just thinking about how much better my life is now than it was six months ago. I’m glad we gave each other all those chances.”
Zoey stepped away from the work of putting together the booth and wrapped her arms around my waist. She leaned in for another kiss, and when she pulled away she was all smiles.
“I’m really glad too. Now let’s get to work. The dealer hall opens in a couple of hours and we really do need to get to work!”
“Aye aye captain,” I said, sketching a mock salute, but I dove in with gusto. Was it hard work? Sure, but it never felt like work. Not with Zoey and my new friends.
Yeah, life was pretty fucking awesome these days, and it was all because two geeky girls met and fell in love at a con.
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1: Mysterious Stranger
The heavy wooden door to the inn slammed open and everybody turned to look. The human who stepped through the door stopped for a moment, his hands on his belt, and surveyed the room as though he owned the place. He exuded power and authority. He had the calm confidence of someone who was in his element, someone who knew nobody in this room would dare cross him.
This close to the city I’d say he had all the cocky swagger of an enforcer, though he wasn’t wearing their uniform. Perhaps he was an officer. Perhaps he was off duty. Perhaps he was simply working in secret and doing a terrible job of keeping that secret.
Whatever it was, everybody immediately paid attention to their drink. Paid attention to what they’d been eating. The conversation that had filled the large room was gone.
I sighed. Humans and their petty squabbles.
The man looked around the room one more time and then did a double take when his eyes ran across me. I fought the urge to smile. It wasn’t very often that my kind traveled in the human realms. It definitely wasn’t very often that my kind graced a simple tavern this close to the city.
Apparently my uniqueness was enough to draw his attention. I was immediately on guard. My fingers crackled with the energy of several magical surprises I’d worked up just in case it turned out he wasn’t a member of the enforcers. In this city somebody with that cocky swagger could just as easily be a member of a local criminal syndicate. Crime families seemed to spring up and disappear on an almost nightly basis in this place.
No matter what the circumstances, whether he was enforcer or criminal, I’d found it was always a good policy to be on guard when traveling through the human realms. Better to fireball first and ask questions later.
He moved over to the bar slowly which gave me plenty of time to give him a cursory inspection. He had a tunic that was made of fine materials, though not so fine that it would mark him as a member of one of the local human noble houses. Those also seemed to spring up and disappear on an almost nightly basis around here. Part of the turmoil in the human lands. He had a sword at his side and from the way he moved with a dangerous coiled grace like a cat about to spring it seemed that he knew how to use it. He was ruggedly handsome, though not too pretty. Nothing like the men from my homeland. He had a scar running along one cheek and a nose that looked like it had been broken on more than one occasion.
Yes, definitely an enforcer or a criminal. The question was, which one? I would just have to wait and see.
He leaned against the bar and it creaked under his massive weight. He really was enormous. Not fat, just big. Broad shoulders, heavy chest, a stomach that was perhaps a little larger than most in this area which once again made me think he was working for somebody with the means to provide a regular meal. That was a rare luxury in these lands since the Sundering. He definitely didn’t have the lean look of someone who spent their time out in the world adventuring.
He grinned down at me. One of his teeth was missing. His eyes openly ran up and down my body and I fought the urge to reach out and smack him. Reaching out and smacking him was the last thing I should do no matter how tempting that might be. With the magic that was just itching to be released from my fingertips I was just as likely to engulf him in a column of flame or disintegrate him where he stood as actually physically smack him.
Occupational hazard of working with powerful magic.
Stranger finished his inspection and chuckled. The inspection made it clear he was the kind of man who had to categorize everything as to whether or not it was a threat. The chuckle and the way he smiled at me made it clear I’d been dismissed as no threat at all. There was a time when that would’ve made me bristle with anger. There was a time when I was out to prove myself and my ability when I might have been tempted to teach him a lesson.
But that time passed while his great grandparents were probably still children. Experience taught me that having somebody dismiss you out of hand like that could be an advantage rather than a liability. Especially with meatheads like this who thought a sword at their side was the only thing they needed to make their way through the world.
He returned his attention to my eyes for a moment, then moved down to my chest. That was another move that would’ve made me bristle once upon a time. How dare a human look at me like that! Only now it was just one more thing I welcomed as a potential advantage, a potential weapon in my arsenal, and I have to admit that feeling his eyes on me like that did send a thrill running through me. A thrill that I’d never admit even to myself because that was definitely not the sort of thing I was looking for in these taverns. That was definitely not the sort of thing I would ever do with a barbarian human like this for that matter!
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” he said.
His voice was deep and gravelly. It promised danger. It promised quick death to anyone who crossed him. I had to fight the urge to giggle as he stood there trying to look imposing and threatening with no idea that I could disintegrate him with the flick of a finger if I wished it.
“I sometimes have reason to travel in human lands,” I said.
“Oh?” An elf is rare enough, but it’s even rarer that we see an elf maiden from the Elven Order traveling these lands.”
I bit back a curse. He wasn’t supposed to know that. Wasn’t supposed to know who I was, what I was, who I represented, and yet here he was saying it plain as day for everybody in the tavern to hear. Talk about bad manners! Poor form and bad manners!
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
There was still time to salvage this. Still time to hope he’d take the hint. This had been off to a promising start, and I didn’t want to be disappointed now. Of course it wouldn't be the first time I was disappointed by a guy who was probably doing all of his thinking with his dick. In-game or out.
“Of course you do, elf,” he said.
“Why would you think I was in the Order?”
He grinned. “I just have a way of knowing these things.”
I sighed and
rolled my eyes. Of course he’d say something like that. Of course he wouldn’t have any good reason why he knew what he knew. He just expected me to take it at face value that he was some super genius fantasy Sherlock Holmes who could immediately tell everything about a person’s background from looking at them. Of course I knew he could tell everything from looking at my profile and the guild tag over my head, but he wasn’t supposed to bring that into our conversation. It was supposed to flow naturally. It was supposed to come out in the back and forth. Not for the first time I regretted ever using one of those role-playing profile plugins in the first place. They caused more trouble than that they helped in my experience.
“I think our conversation here is done,” I said.
That grin on his face grew even wider. It was definitely ruined by more missing teeth that became obvious as his mouth opened. Sometimes it felt as though humans had never heard of hygiene or its benefits.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about! So are we going out to the edge of the zone or what? Maybe a little fun?”
I pulled away from the keyboard let out a noise that was halfway between a frustrated angry cry and a strangled retching noise. I should have expected this. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the screen for a moment, tried to collect myself, tried to think about how I was going to respond to this asshole.
“Something wrong?” Megan asked.
I wheeled my computer chair around to face my roommate. She also had Tales of Elassa up, but her gaming experience looked way different from mine. She had a massive gaming rig set up on her desk that glowed with various LED lights. It seemed to positively hum as various fans turned on and off to make sure all the expensive widgets she’d put in the thing to make sure the game ran at maximum settings at all times worked.