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He appeared there, an instantaneous shadow hovering in the dark corner of the lavish woman’s bed chambers. He appeared there as an instantaneous shadow for two main reasons: mostly because he forgot to appear anywhere else, and partially because he forgot to appear as anything other than a shadow.
He quickly righted that.
Now he stood properly situated as a Tall, Dark, and Handsome figure. He was Tall specifically in a way that made him slightly taller than everyone else without appearing gangly or disproportioned. He was Dark in the sense that his hair gleamed like ebony and his features revealed a darkness of soul — not his soul of course, but a soul, somewhere, and a very dark one indeed — but he was dark also in the sense that his skin shone like the moon, which is to say that once a month it went entirely black. He was Handsome in a manner which could bring most women to their knees, as well as all men, and some species of small animals for a reason he could never figure. This annoyed him greatly because it meant he spent far too many hours a day telling people would you please just stand up and no, no point those lawsuits somewhere else! It’s my fairy god-uncle’s fault, damn him.
His name — his Tall, Dark, Handsome name — was Cabreyustian Crustaciono Cyanrebellum the XIII. The one and only peace that awful name brought him was the knowledge that before his birth, twelve other men, women, in betweens, and exceptions had been given the despicable curse of bearing it too. He commiserated.
Cabreyustian Crustaciono Cyanrebellum the XIII, who much preferred to be called simply Lord Cabrey the Almighty Vanisher — just Cabrey for short — stood in this lavish woman’s bedchamber like the least almighty person ever to live.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he said. He shouldn’t have been talking out loud either, but thinking things felt far too anti-climactic. He was already about to do something very anti-climatic by fleeing for his life, and two anti-climatic things in such a small period of time would be much too dull.
Cabrey fled.
His high black boots made ominous squeaks against the polished wood flooring, and then splooshes across the plush rug, until the squeak of hinges cut him off. One of the room’s two smaller doors opened, revealing a woman in a nightgown. This nightgown was probably a very thin, silky nightgown, revealing curves of just the right amount of curvature and a chest with just the right amount of those things that women generally have on them, though he didn’t know what just the right amount was so he couldn’t be certain. He also couldn’t be certain, because, like any respectable man caught fleeing a woman’s bed chambers, he immediately looked away.
“Who are you?” the woman shouted. “How in the purple pigeon’s name did you get in here!”
Cabrey stared aggressively into the small fire crackling in the heath across from the bed. If he looked hard enough, perhaps his face would begin to smolder in a brooding, mysterious expression, and his fingers would simultaneously stop trembling.
“Speak!” She sounded closer. Or perhaps only louder.
Fires are very nice, all elegance and passion. Cabrey had read that in a book somewhere. He wondered if fires looked just as nice when you climbed into them, and whether there was a burning inferno big enough to incinerate his damming social anxiety and terrible luck. Giving the hearth a glower of death, he managed to make a noise somewhere between a grunt and the letter h. It sounded rather low and foreboding, somehow. Perhaps the brooding mystery of scowling into flames was taking effect.
“How did you enter my room!” she repeated, her tone all but scorching.
Agonizingly, Cabrey forced out a reply, his voice moving deeper from the effort. “I cannot tell you that.”
A shuffling followed, though he dared not look away from the fire lest he find her aiming some deadly weapon at him. If it came to that, he much preferred to die without knowing what had hit him.
“Cannot tell me, or will not?” the woman asked.
Cannot, actually. He wished he could. If he knew why he suddenly plopped into a random, nonsensical places whenever his mind wandered too much, then he would have some hope of changing it. But in the literal heat of the moment and the heath, entirely different words came out of his mouth instead. “Are you implying I’m a liar?”
“A liar…” She moved again, stepping in front of him. “No, not a liar. A snake.”
Instead of a large, sharp weapon, she had a robe covering her gown, fluffy and teal. It hid curves, probably, but it was her face it accentuated, her wet, blond hair hanging in waves around sharp features. Her large, perfectly hooked nose made the delicacy of her brows look brave and triumphant. A smudge of eye makeup smeared under her right eye, a dark red to accent the dazzling brown of her irises.
She was beautiful.
As though that beauty had a life of its own, it rose to choke the words from Cabrey’s throat. “I suppose I— I must have inherited the snake from my mother. The— the snake-likeness, that is. Snakliness— snake-ili-ness… ness…” His face lit up like a stroked hearth, threatening to burn him from the inside out, yet not quite hot enough to murder his pathetic ass where it wavered.
She laughed, a sound more lovely than anything in the visual realm. “And your cunning tongue? From where did you inherit that?”
“My dastardly cunning tongue,” Cabrey objected, managing to pronounce every word without a hiccup. “That skill is purely my own.” He took a step, drawing so close that he could gently boop her nose if he wished.
The line of her shoulders grew stiff. Then she moved forward, forcing him to tilt his head down to meet her gaze properly. “What do you see in me, hmm?” A smile pierced her features, filling them with hunger and purpose. “A mouse, perhaps?”
Cabrey swallowed. “Mice should not look at snakes like that.” Somehow the words sounded almost sensual when the left his lips.
“Are you the mouse then?” She tapped a single, delicate finger to the center of his chest, her motion so light he could barely feel it.
He inclined towards her. “Do I look like I fear you?”
When she stepped away, she trailed a hand along his collar, tugging him forward with the smallest twitch of her wrist, yet one which extended through her body, her entire being calling him to come. “Not anymore.” Her shoulders hit the mantel above the fireplace as she backed up, but her smile only widened, the twinkle in her eyes brighter than any flame.
Cabrey leaned in. Her face blurred as he neared, replaced by golden curls on skin and the flutter of lashes as his breath met hers. Then her words fully hit him. “Not — not anymore?” He stammered, standing straighter on wobbly heels. “That was not fear!”
“Pray, do tell?” She smirked, her lips twitching in something which might have been laughter.
Laughter. Well, I do deserve it. He put on his smuggest mask, spreading his arms wide. “Self-preservation.”
She did the same, her palm pointed towards the room’s decorated entrance. “The door’s just there. No one will stop you from fleeing.” Her shoulders rose and fell as she spoke, and she brushed past him, moving toward the bed. “But I certainly wouldn’t force you to leave either.”
Drawing a deep breath to steady himself, he turned to watch her move. “Where else would you propose I go?”
“I can think of a few places.” Her eyes moved down the length of his body, her smile broadening.
He swallowed. And then followed her. “I’m accustomed to seeing other people on their knees before me.” Somehow he made it sound sexy, instead of a frustrating occurrence his fairy god-uncle had caused while he was yet a pathetic, squirming mess in crib.
“Prove it.” She lifted her brow.
“First, your name.”
“Inessa,” she replied. Her voice dropped, and she grumbled a series a words which caught his heat. “Inessa Ironika Imunician the second.”
Another alliteration. Someone else had as dumb of ancestors as he did. We’re made for each other. “Cabreyustian Crustaciono Cyanrebellum the XIII.”
A brilliant bout of laughter rose in her chest. It filled the world like a thousand stars, catching in Cabrey’s chest and weakening his knees. Or perhaps that was only a giddy lightheadedness.
“Your name is so much worse!” Inessa scolded, cupping her mouth with her hands, her cheeks flushed ever so slightly. “No wonder you need self-preservation.”
The sight of her made his not-so-dark soul leap. “Cabrey does well enough,” he muttered. He pressed a smirk across his face as her features only grew more lively. Carefully, he wrapped a hand around her waist, waiting for her body to sink in to the touch before lowering his face to her neck.
Inessa tipped her head back, a sigh escaping her lips. Cabrey’s heart rattled in his chest, but her scent engulfed him, dreamy and soft with a hint of flowery bath scents and chamomile. Somehow the combination made him tingle. He pressed his mouth to her skin. She trembled in time with him, but her body gave in just as his did, a moan escaping her like music.
“Mm, you’re right,” she whispered. “Cabrey is a fine name for a snake — a tall, dark, handsome snake.”
“That’s a gross stereotype, which I reject.” He kissed her neck again, tugging at the skin with his lips. She seemed to melt, both putty in his hands and a fire under his touch. Tender yet fierce, he pushed her backwards, pressing her towards the wall. Whatever tension remained in her bones vanished then, her breath leaving her like a sigh as he worked his mouth up her neck and along her jaw.
With one hand, Cabrey caught her wrist, holding tightly to her as though his whole world might become a dream if he drew back even a moment. He set his lips against hers waiting for her to return the motion in full force before pressing her any harder. The simple fire in the hearth seemed long gone, his own soul alight in a way no meager flash of energy could portray.
He shoved his hips against Inessa’s, forcing her body to the wall. A sharp squeak left her, and her form went rigid. In an instant, Cabrey pulled back.
“I’m sorry!” he whispered the words, lifting them higher as he repeated the apology. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to push so far. I encroached.” He backed away — two steps, then a third, glancing towards the door. “I… I can leave?”
“No! No.” Inessa leaned against the wall, her shoulders curled forward, suddenly looking much smaller than she had before. But she gave him a soft smile, shaking her head quickly. “Please stay, if you’d like. I’d love just to talk for a while. If you’re interested in that.”
Cabrey paused. His gaze went to his feet, the shiny tops of his black boots somehow helping him find the words. “I would like that. I talk real good — I mean nice — real great? Real… talkity.”
Inessa released a soft laugh. “So you’re a snake and a liar.”
“Both now?” He smiled, shrugging. “Two things is better than just one, isn’t it?”
A faint quirk drew Inessa’s lips into an off-set line, amused and a bit dorky. “I suppose in this case, yes.”
“The case where I’m a fool and you’re perfection?”
“Don’t sell yourself short.” The stray curl along her temple trembled as she bounced her eyebrows. “We are both each of those things, to some extent.” She walked toward the bed, her robe billowing like a cloud behind her. It swirled as she spun, and settled only once she perched on the edge of the mattress. “Besides, I find fools to be adorable.”
“That’s the highest compliment I’ve ever been given.” Cabrey laughed beneath his words, shaking his head slowly “That and, thank the gods, a beautiful dork is standing on your new painting of the Constipated King! Bless him!” He snorted. “I’m still not sure if she was blessing me or his poor majesty…”
“You are a liar; I know it!” Inessa’s words held a playful tease, and she lifted a leg to point her bare toes at him. “Why did you come here, dastardly Cabrey?”
His mouth dropped open a moment before the words finally fell from his lips. “It’s not my fault!” He threw his arms out, palms up. “I have a magical condition — Spontaneous Anti-Singularity Syndrome. It just — just happens, from time to time, whenever I’m not fully grounded in wherever I am that moment.” Frustration laced his voice, as it always did in consideration of his frequent, accidental teleportations.
But talking to Inessa, he felt something more, some strange desire to laugh at his abnormality and throw a crude symbol in its direction before strolling gleefully away. “I went for groceries this morning and it’s happened three times since. Three times! I haven’t even made it home yet—” He stopped short then, dread pooling in his gut. “Groceries!”
With a yelp, Cabrey tore through the room, Inessa watching with silent look of bemusement. He dropped to the ground to peer under the bed and shoved himself against the wall to peek behind the furniture, checking anywhere the day’s food stuffs might have vanished to. He discovered a pile of books, a lacy pair of high heels, and far more dice than any sane person needed. But no groceries.
“Dammit!” Groaning, he sunk onto the bed.
“They aren’t here, I take it?” She leaned over him, her shoulders bouncing as she giggled. “You poor thing. I’m sorry you’ve lost them.”
Cabrey bobbed his head, feeling rather pathetic. “Probably still sitting in The Seer’s Museum of Future History.”
“The one in Paithe?”
Hope swelled in his chest for a moment. “Are we near there?”
Inessa sighed, her face dropping. “Four hours by carriage.”
“Oh.”
The bed rocked as she flopped down beside him. “Are you going to vanish on me, then? Poof off to some other, better place?”
“You think I could forget for a moment that I’m laying beside someone I’ve kissed and still managed to have a full conversation with?” He asked in return. Inessa’s presence felt easy, somehow. A giddy, light rush flew through his heart whenever he looked at her, but it held happiness and comfort, instead of the awful mixture of anxiety and shame most people brought.
“Are full conversations difficult?”
Cabrey’s brow tightened. “Are they not for you?”
“I suppose on occasion…” She propped her elbow onto the bed, laying her head in her hand. “But they’ve been expected of me since I was very little. Parties and political conventions. My mother was always in the lime-light, and so I was too, by default.”
Cabrey winced. “That sounds painful.”
“Oh, sometimes. But it could be fun too.” She smiled, a dreamy sort of expression, like a million little fairy lights dancing in an enchanted field. “I met all kinds of spectacular people, experienced life from around the world. It was an adventure, in a way.”
A groan rose in Cabrey’s chest. “Between my fairy god-uncle and my frequent, spontaneous relocations, my life has held more than enough adventure for me,” he grumbled, rubbing the front of his face. “Though if I could enjoy the moving about, perhaps things would be different. I have always wanted to see the eight astonishments of the Archramidies.”
“You haven’t seen them — not even the Velacian?!”
“Twice I’ve seen the top of it peering over the roofs, but I didn’t make it all the way there on either occasion.” He closed his eyes, picturing the emerald spires piercing the sky above glorious hanging gardens. “It’s hard to exist in one place if there isn’t someone to ground me. But throughout my life, most people have been too busy for a boy who might not be there when you come back.”
“I would make time for that boy.” Inessa’s voice was so soft, he wasn’t quite sure he heard her, the dainty sound paired with rustling as she leaned towards the other side of the bed. Her weight shifted back into place before he could be bother to open his eyes. “At least,” she added, louder. “If he were a liar and a snake who brought people to knees.”
He laughed, a little off-key, peeking at her through his lashes. “What if that last one wasn’t a joke?”
She only looked more intrigued. “Do explain?”
“It’s a nonsense curse. For some reason it affects certain small animals too.”
Inessa’s face lit up, the edges of her eyes crinkling. “They know how charming you are, is all,” she said, playfully. “They’re paying you tribute.”
“It they wanted to show their devotion, they could bring me groceries instead…”
“Well, I have no groceries for you, but how do you feel about hot chocolate?”
“As a drink, or a weaponized projectile?”
“Drink, preferably.” She drew a bit closer, fitting her head into the crook of his neck, her breath on his skin. “I would feel awful if my maids were forced to clean aggressive brown splash marks off all my vanquished furniture.”
Cabrey’s whole being latched onto her closeness, and he had to entice his mind away with thoughts of chocolaty drinks. “I like mine with extra cocoa and three little marshmallows.”
She hummed, quizzically. “Only three?”
“They’re for the aesthetic,” he explained. “The whole point is that they melt by the time you’ve finished the mug.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Inessa tapped a finger to his nose. She promptly sliding off the bed, the absence of her warmth leaving him empty and alone. “But if you’re insistent on having terrible taste, then exactly three marshmallows it is.” Her partially dried, blond locks sprung about as she left the room, her feet light.
The soft weight of her fingertip on his nose seemed to linger, warm and a little tingly. It filled Cabrey up, not quite a kiss, but in some ways better — a dorky acknowledgment of his life, a silly, platonic token of affection. He lay there, running his eyes along the lines of the ceiling, unable to keep the smile off his face.
His gaze found a crack in the corner nearest the head of the bed, and his brow scrunched. She should have that repaired. He mused over it: where it had come from, when it had first appeared. Perhaps it had been there since before she moved in, formed by an earthquake or a sudden shift in the wooden infrastructure. Wood did change with time, after all. Though it looked so lovely on his floor at home, he—
The lines of Inessa’s room flashed away, replaced by the darkness of an alley, clattering with the sound of a busy street nearby. He pulled himself out of the shadows, standing there properly: tall, dark, and handsome. The light drifting of his heart seemed to drop in one sudden, terrible motion.
Inessa.
But she was gone, along with her room. Four hours from Paithe. That could be anywhere. She could be anywhere.
“No.” He said the word out loud, the whimper bouncing aggressively off the dim walkway. That could not have been their last and only meeting. He would not let his blasted syndrome take her away without her say so. Four hours from Paithe, and he would find her, if only to ask her if she wanted to see him again.
He would.
Cabrey shoved his hands into his pockets, the darkness of the soul that wasn’t his billowing around him fiercely. His hands brushed paper. Shaking, he drew the scrap out, holding it in the direction of the nearest light. An address scrawled across the top, followed by two sentences in simple cursive: In case you get lost. Come find me again.
He held to the note as though it contained the meaning of life. She wanted him to return, and he would. He would.
-
If Cabrey had been in Inessa Ironika Imunician the second’s bedroom at that moment, he would have seen her walk in with two mugs of hot chocolate — one with a total of three, perfect marshmallows, and the other overflowing in every manner of fluffy, sugary goodness — and her mouth hung wide. Slowly, it would have closed into a soft smile as she sighed and held the mugs against her chest.
“Oh, Cabrey, you snake. Come again soon.”