Pride x Familiar

by Albert Ruckholdt

  I thought I saw her miss a step. At that moment, something became abundantly clear to me.

  Caprice was keeping secrets from me.

  An unpleasant sensation began festering in my chest. For the first time in the many months since I’d known her, I felt my trust and faith in her begin waver. Maybe she was only doing Arisa’s bidding. Perhaps she thought keeping me in the dark was for the best. But I couldn’t help feeling betrayed. And yet, I wanted to believe in her…I truly did.

  My heart beat a little painfully in my chest as I stared at her slender back.

  Caprice recovered and again resumed walking.

  I cleared my throat quickly. “Caprice, I didn’t tell the Countess about your underwear.”

  She stopped, and I watched her clench her hands tightly.

  From over her shoulder, she growled in a voice that was anything but emotionless. “You expect me to believe you?”

  In the past I’d experienced her anger on brief occasions. But I’d never seen her flushed red with anger like she was now.

  This was a new Caprice.

  A frightening Caprice.

  But I’d spoken the truth, and I chose to face her anger without flinching.

  I gave her a single nod. “I’ve never told a single soul.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes, because that’s something between you and me. A prized secret. A prized possession.”

  Trembling in fury, she stared at me for a while longer. “Then you tell me, how the Hell did she find out?”

  She half ran out of the garden, clearly not wanting to spend another second near me.

  With that realization in mind, I debated whether or not to attend training.

  Arisa would reprimand me if she learnt I’d missed a session.

  But I had a lot on my mind, and there was Caprice to consider. Maybe I should just give her some space, at least for today.

  Yet for the life of me, I couldn’t understand how the Countess knew of those black panties from Caprice.

  #

  (Haruka)

  Siobhan, Alistair and I were sitting in a cake shop not far from the Academy.

  Three parfaits sat before us on the table, and we ate them in silence using spoons with long, slim handles.

  After a few minutes eating in silence, I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore.

  I looked up at Alistair sitting across from me. “Ally, what’s going on?”

  Siobhan and Alistair looked up in their own time. They’d been eating their parfaits like automatons.

  Alistair put down her parfait spoon. “I’m not sure. That’s why I wanted to eavesdrop on whatever the Princess might have said to Desanto.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She was quiet for a moment. “Because something’s happening at the Academy, and I want to know what it is.”

  Siobhan gave her a complicated look. “Something’s happening at Galatea? What makes you say that?”

  Alistair shrugged faintly. “Because my brother’s been acting anxious for months now. He used to discuss school matters with me at home. Now he rarely talks to me, and when he does he tells me to study hard and keep out of trouble.”

  I noticed the spoon in her right hand tremble.

  Alistair looked down at her gradually melting parfait. “He’s become so distant.”

  Siobhan made a pained expression. “Well, that’s understandable. He’s got responsibilities he didn’t have before. I can’t believe his job is easy.”

  Alistair banged her right hand onto the table. “I’m telling you he wasn’t like this even after he took office.”

  Siobhan raised her hands placatingly. “Okay, okay. Ally calm down. You’re making a scene. Want us to get kicked out?”

  Alistair glared at Siobhan, but then she turned away and stared down at the parfait in front of her. “But a month ago…a month ago he starts telling me all sorts of stuff. He starts telling me about trouble between the Ventiss Family and a few other Families. He starts telling me to stay away from Prissila. But that’s not all.”

  Her expression grew troubled and she looked up at me.

  I almost gulped in response. “Ally? What’s wrong?”

  Alistair stared at me for a while. “Haruka, I’m sorry. I haven’t been honest with you.”

  I blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

  Siobhan looked confused. “Yeah, what do you mean?”

  Alistair inhaled deeply. “Haruka, I knew about Caelum transferring to Galatea. I knew he was the same Caelum you spoke about.”

  I had trouble digesting her statement. “You what?”

  A guilty, regretful look blanketed her face. “I’m sorry. I was told not to say anything. I’m so sorry.”

  I leaned forward across the table. “You were told by whom?”

  “By my brother,” Alistair admitted. “I knew Caelum was a Familiar. And I knew he was the source of the trouble between various families and Prides. I knew about Prissila causing a stir many months ago over him. I knew all this from my brother.”

  I clenched my jaw as I struggled to keep my breathing even, and my anger down.

  I felt betrayed, but I also understood that Alistair had been told about Caelum in confidence.

  Knowing we were good friends, it couldn’t have been an easy secret to keep.

  I looked down at the table as I asked, “How long have you known?”

  “For about a month….”

  “A month?” I looked up into Alistair’s eyes.

  She broke eye contact as she nodded gently. “I’m sorry, Haruka. I’m really, really sorry.”

  I took a deep breath. “What else do you know about him?”

  There was a noticeable hesitation on her part. Alistair looked conflicted but then appeared to come to a resolution.

  “I know that he’s classified a Special affiliated with the Lanfear Pride.”

  I frowned. “What’s a Special?”

  “It’s a Familiar gifted with a Fragment—a Familiar entrusted to perform special duties for their affiliated Pride.”

  I tipped my head slightly. “A Fragment? One of those ancient devices from the time of the Cataclysm?”

  Siobhan muttered, “Didn’t they say that most of those pieces are broken?”

  “That’s what the news reports say,” Alistair stated. Her voice grew low and uncomfortable. “But not all Fragments are broken. A lot of them work quite well. The problem is that only Familiars can use them, and even then the right Familiar needs to be matched to the right Fragment.”

  I narrowed my eyes a little. “Caelum has a Fragment?”

  Alistair nodded faintly. “Yes, I’m certain he does.”

  I regarded her for a long, quiet moment. “Ally, do you know if Caprice Steiner is a Special?”

  Again, Alistair looked reluctant but once again she pushed through her indecision. “Yes, she’s a Special and she has a Fragment as well.”

  Siobhan straightened. “You mean, if we’d tried to get past her, she could have used it to stop us?”

  Siobhan practiced Kendo, and Alistair had been raised on a diet of Aikido since she was knee high. Both could handle their own against a Regular man or two.

  Alistair looked thoughtful. “Yes, she could have stopped us easily. But Familiars aren’t allowed to use Fragments in public unless it’s under special circumstances. Even then, the rules are pretty strict. The use of Fragments in public would rouse fear in the public. I mean, Fragments are pretty powerful, and people would start clamoring that something needs to be done about Familiars. Things would turn ugly very fast for the Prides and for Familiars.”

  Siobhan looked confused. “Then why give Fragments to the Familiars in the first place?”

  Alistair shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Siobhan sat back. “Well, if it was up to me, I’d keep the Fragments under lock and key. Considering Familiars have no love for us Aventis, I can’t understand why the Prides trust them with stuff so dangerous.”

 
; I thought about Caelum’s hatred for the Aventis.

  I wondered how he felt being a Familiar affiliated with a Pride.

  Would he use his Fragment against the Prides?

  I noticed Alistair had grown very quiet. In fact, she wasn’t moving at all.

  She was looking behind us.

  I turned, and saw a good looking young man walk up to our booth. I recognized him a moment later.

  Siobhan gasped, “Pres—President.”

  President of the Galatea Academy Student Council, Severin Kell Avenir, bowed to us in polite greeting.

  “Ladies,” he said. He gave Siobhan and I a good look, then asked me, “May I sit down, Miss Amiella?”

  I nodded unevenly and scooted along the bench seat in order to afford him room to sit.

  He sat down beside me, our shoulders a good foot apart.

  He fixed Alistair in his sights. “Hello Alistair.”

  I watched her swallow nervously. “Hello, brother.”

  Siobhan and I sat deathly still. A dozen reasons for him to be here ran though my head.

  Severin Kell folded his arms on the table and swept his gaze over all three of us.

  “Alright Alistair, you called me over, and now I’m here.”

  Siobhan and I stared at the girl in utter disbelief.

  Severin Kell smiled warmly at his sister. “Now tell me what’s on your mind?”

  #

  (Caelum)

  I skipped Friday afternoon training.

  Instead I went home to the apartment Arisa had designated as my home.

  I checked for messages but had none.

  After eating a processed square meal, I showered and went to bed.

  But sleep eluded me, or rather chose to keep its distance.

  I couldn’t fault it. Haruka’s Symbiote was still inside me and would probably continue to ‘boost me’ for another ten to twelve hours before it began to die out.

  I groaned in frustration.

  So I lay in near darkness and mentally reviewed a rather mixed day.

  I wondered how many more Familiars at Galatea Academy were also bonded with a weapon. Severin had called it a bumper year, but he’d only called in four of us, namely myself, Caprice, Maya and Rina.

  But the girl, Constance, was also a Familiar though she was affiliated with the Ventiss Family.

  And Prissila Ventiss was aware of the Student Council’s plans. How was that possible? Had Severin tried to recruit Prissila’s help? Was that how she knew the Student Council had plans against Crimson Crescent? Or was she spying on the Student Council?

  I thought about Simone’s fears over the Student Council becoming involved in something it wasn’t fit to handle. I wondered if she was being dragged into Severin Kell’s machinations without much of a choice.

  And I wondered how I was going to appease Caprice’s anger toward me.

  In the end, I managed a handful of hours of sleep and woke up early on Saturday morning.

  No overnight message had been recorded by the apartment’s information management system. There were no messages recorded on my palm-slate.

  How long before Arisa rang and asked what was going on?

  I decided to head out early and make up for yesterday’s lack of training.

  I stopped by Caprice’s apartment. When I rang the door no one answered. Checking my palm-slate, I used the linked tracking function to find her location. She was inside, or at least her palm-slate was. I sent her a text message telling her I was heading out to training. Then I left the apartment complex and made my way by mag-lev to the gym in Habitat Two, District Two.

  The training center was deserted. There was no one around to perform the medical exam at the completion of training. This wasn’t a frequent occurrence, but there were times when Caprice and I would train on our own, and then rejoin the outside world.

  An empty gym suited me just fine. I pushed myself, hoping the exercise and holovid combat training would clear my head. In the end, after two hours I’d succeeded in exhausting myself, but as soon as I stopped training my worries started trickling back in.

  I realized I had no other way to deal with them but to face them.

  The first of which was Caprice.

  After showering and changing back into my street clothes, I walked back to the mag-lev station. I joined the pedestrian traffic, though my mind was actually on reviewing the events in the Student Council room.

  The Countess had joked about not wearing underwear.

  Caprice had quickly presumed the Countess was making a reference to the panties in my possession.

  But did the Countess really know about them?

  If not, why would she assume I was interested in her underwear as a prize?

  Was she just making a general assumption about what interested all teenage boys?

  Or did she really know about Caprice giving me her racy black panties some seven months ago?

  I stopped walking.

  I told Caprice the truth – I’d never revealed that secret to anyone. I was certain Caprice had never spilled the beans either.

  So how did Simone learn of that compensation gift?

  I remembered the conversation at the beginning of the week in the cafeteria. Caprice told me she would knife me if I ever told anyone about her panties being in my drawer.

  Could it be…our conversation was being monitored?

  I was bumped by passing pedestrians. Knocked back into the present, I realized I was a mere hundred feet from mag-lev station entrance, so I quickly walked up to it.

  “Desanto.”

  I stopped and looked around, searching for the girl’s voice that called out my name. It was a voice I didn’t recognize.

  “Desanto, over here.”

  I turned and saw a sleek, low slung trike parked beside the sidewalk. Leaning against it was a girl dressed in a skintight black riding outfit that followed her slender curves. My interest was split between her and her ride, but then I recognized her face and my innards froze.

  She waved me over.

  I hesitated for a long while before eventually walking over to her.

  “What do you want?” I asked. “You following me?”

  “No, but we have surveillance on you.”

  “Great, that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.”

  “It should, after all you’re affiliated with another Pride yet we still keep an eye on you.”

  “Prides spying on each other’s Familiars? What a comforting thought.”

  She pushed off the parked trike and straightened. I noticed she was a couple of inches shorter than my height of five foot eight.

  “Get on,” she said and offered me a helmet.

  “Why?”

  “Because the Princess wants to continue her discussion. I’ll take you to her.”

  I shook my head. “If she wants to talk, she can clear it with my Handler—I mean my Guardian.”

  “That probably wouldn’t happen,” Constance replied. “In fact, we don’t know how much time we’ll have before the Lanfears step in.” She pushed the helmet against me. “Do you want to know the truth or not?”

  “The truth about what?”

  “About a lot of things surrounding your life, and what the Prides want from you.”

  I searched her face, aware that I probably had no way of knowing if she was lying. Then I looked down at the helmet in her hands.

  After wondering if it was a good idea to trust her, I took the helmet. “You do know that my palm-slate is being tracked?”

  She nodded casually. “Of course. All Familiars are tracked. Come on, we need to hurry. I don’t want to keep the Princess waiting.”

  I slipped the helmet on my head and tied up the chin straps. I felt the base of the helmet suddenly expand like a curtain around my neck and shoulders.

  Constance sat on the trike’s long seat and I sat behind her. The girl slipped on a helmet and then tied up the straps. Then I felt a faint shiver run through the machine as it started up.


  In-wheel electric motors drove the three wheels.

  Constance pulled out smoothly into traffic, and quickly whisked us away from the mag-lev station.

  I held onto her, feeling very little wind blow by, and realized it was probably due to an effect-field surrounding the trike, aiding its aerodynamics.

  But I was acutely aware of her body as I held onto her.

  A very taut and trim body, not unlike Caprice’s.

  Reflections – 7.

  Before the super freighter exploded in the Harbor Sphere, no one had ever heard of Crimson Crescent.

  That is to say, the general public had never heard of them.

  Afterwards, the furor over their existence and agenda lasted a couple of months.

  But by then, Crimson Crescent had disappeared ‘into the woodwork’, and the public quickly forgot about them.

  Perhaps the Prides’ management and control of the information mediums played a part in that.

  Nonetheless, mere months after the explosion life returned to ‘normal’ for those unaffected by the freighter’s destruction.

  If there was one change to the populace’s daily existence, it was the increased security within Pharos, and the greater restrictions on personal freedom. Crimson Crescent’s announcement – their declaration of war against the Aventis – gave the Powers-that-be within the Prides a reason to implement those changes. But the general public, being the sheep that they are, accepted all this as necessary for the sake of ensuring their safety. It was the ‘price of freedom is eternal vigilance’, et cetera, et cetera.

  How are you supposed to argue against that?

  Well, in many ways, but the problem is that the Powers-that-be are in charge and they don’t care for your arguments. They won’t even bother pissing on your complaints.

  Having said this, life within Pharos didn’t change all that much, so it was somewhat easy to grow accustomed to the increased levels of security, especially when you didn’t notice they were there.

  But what of Crimson Crescent?

  For a few of weeks after their explosive debut, the media had tried to interpret their agenda.

  The problem was Crimson Crescent had declared war but not declared their agenda. So for a short while people wondered what the organization stood for. On the news networks, experts were asked their opinions on what Crescent’s existence meant for the average Joe. What were there motives? What did they hope to achieve? So on and so on.