Conception - Beadality: Book 1

1 - Meigwen

 "Blue belly bead brings baby boy." she whispered to herself, and to her blue-beaded belly button, as she slowly exhaled her hand across her belly.

"Garnet green pearls get pretty girls." was the equally whispered echo from her previously silent sister.

"Have you gone green?" came back a swift reply from Meigwen as she opened her eyes to gaze over at Selinda.

"Not yet." Selinda reluctantly responded, "I was just saying..."

   Meigwen cautiously yet curiously queried her sister "So you want twins?"

"A gaggle of girls would be nice." she giggled.

"You are crazy Selinda! You already are swamped with both your jobs."

"Yeah, yeah. Maybe. But what are you going to do? How are you going to juggle your little blue one?"

Meigwen phased out into that distant realm of uncertainty for a moment, then dashed back to the present, smiled, and surmised "Well, I'll wait until he's about two sixty six to figure that out. We still have time."

 Just as she was saying 'time,' her Charybdis refrigerator chimed in with a reminder, "Excuse me, Gwenny, you may want to thaw your eggplants for dinner."

  "I want to go out with Selinda. Could you call Gaolen and ask him to take care of dinner, please?" Meigwen responded to her refrigerator.

  "As you wish." was all the cool boxy appliance had to say, and with a glance by Meigwen and a nod by Selinda, the two women were out the door, which slid closed and silently locked behind them.

As the two sisters walked out into the sunlight of the sunpatio, their navel jewels sparkled in the evening luminescence, Meigwen's a brilliant azure pea-sized orb, Selinda's a clear translucence like a smooth diamond minimarble. They stood for a moment as their air taxi extended before them and the patio railing opened like a gate to let them step onto their taxi's thin platter surface high above the city park's expanse some thirty stories below. The sky taxi was like a double-wide surfboard that hovered effortlessly. It was as stable as the patio they had stepped off.

Selinda took in a deep breath of the pure autumn air and asked "Cerulea's, right?"

"Yes, after such a wild day at work, I called you over so you could help me build a new chandelier for Gaolen's conception day. Will you?" pleaded Meigwen.

With each step they took, their sky taxi extended another couple of feet in the right direction and retracted away from whence they had been so smoothly and unnoticed by them it was as though they had learnt to walk on air taxis since birth. Yet it seemed also as if the air taxi had learned to walk with them. It adjusted so that it was always beneath their feet, yet never lingered far behind them, conserving mass dynamically in response to their footsteps.

"He'll be eleven six eighty-eight, right?" Selinda said as if the sequence of digits was something she had memorized in kindergarten. "I wish I could stay ninety-nine ninety-nine forever. Well, just sometimes."

Gwenny smiled at this latter whimsy, yet simply said "Yes, on both counts."

They were now walking about one hundred twenty meters above the center of the oak-wooded park, straight out from the sunpatio they had just left. As they started to turn left toward the south end of the city square, the taxi resounded at their course change, "Gwenji, Linji, would you like to walk down to Cerulea's now?" in a silky smooth male baritone.

"Oh yes please, smooth sloped descent if you would." Meigwen graciously responded. Gradually, with the ladies' next few steps, their air taxi tilted incrementally until within a few seconds they were walking down a gradual decline. As the breeze blew gently by, the air taxi remained perfectly stable, extending it's leading edge and retracting the trailing side with such fluidity, it seemed as natural as the clouds shifting shapes. The ladies possessed such a casual yet respectful attitude toward their platform with no hint of fear of falling.

They continued to chat as they slowly descended as they headed south out of the park airspace, past a half dozen skyscrapers, and toward a large tower. This descent was indeed gentle and not at all steep, for they were not walking from the thirtieth floor down to ground level. In fact, when they finally reached the multicolor glass-like tower which conveyed an aura of tangled rainbows with its patterned mosaic of hues, they were at the twenty-fourth floor, having descended only six floors over the span of the park and another two blocks. Along their route they had passed other such skywalkers in the distance, as well as a few birds flapping and gliding their way about the city.

Now, as the black-haired sisters unhesitatingly stepped from Meigwen's sky taxi onto the skypatio at this particular cerulean blue glass tile in the tower's mosaicked face, they were greeted with glances and smiles from a half dozen people seated at tables on the grand patio. Before them, the entrance to Cerulea's extended beneath a great glowing sign labeling said establishment.