Her Royal Guard

Chapter 9

Dara's eyes slowly opened but the light threatening to burn her retinas forced her to close them. Cursing herself for forgetting to close the drapes and for her decision to place the bed facing the damn windows, Dara dragged herself out of bed and crawled to the bathroom. She was by no means a morning person. At all. She couldn't understand how people got up at 5 and jogged before getting ready for work by 8. Want to know what she did at 8? Turn in her bed.

That's it.

Doing her business in the bathroom, Dara made her way downstairs, her brain and body still half asleep. And it would stay that way until she had her full glass of orange juice. Scarlet's soft, off tune humming could be heard from the kitchen, where she was hopefully making pancakes to go with the orange juice Dara was fantasizing about.

Dara paid no heed to the persons seated at their dining table, her mind refusing to process anything but orange juice. Her focus was the glass of OJ her mother had outstretched towards her, a small smile on her lips. Not having the energy to think about it, Dara took the glass and emptied the sweet goodness into her mouth.
Feeling a bit better, she turned and saw Sera seated at her usual spot at the dining table.

She mumbled something resembling a "Good morning" as she passed Sera and another figure seated at their table.

By the time she plopped her butt down in the seat, her mother had her refilled glass of OJ in front of her.

"Dara, you ready for today?"

Dara looked across and saw Sera leaning forward, her elbows holding her weight on the table.

"Huh? What's today though?" Dara questioned, everything still kind of unfocused and jumbled despite her almost finishing her second glass.

"Job hunting silly."

"Dara, darling, are you sure you want to go searching today? I mean you guys just did that performance two days ago. You should rest some more. Stay home for today and then you can start job searching on Tuesday." Scarlet inserted, hee voice laced with concern.

Since her back was facing her, Dara didn't see the looks and indications her mother was sending erratically to Sera, getting her to notice the other person at the table.

"Yeah Dara,  take the day to relax. Job hunting can start Tuesday or so".

" Wait. Didn't you just ask me if I'm ready to do it today now you're telling me to wait? What's going on Sera?"

It was then that the other person at the table decided to make their presence known. Dara was about to respond when the clearing of a throat stopped her, followed by a deep, accented voice that she often fantasized about hearing whisper dirty things to her all night.

"Dara."

Well there goes my underwear, Dara thought with a sigh. His voice alone could do that to her, imagine what he could do with his hands then.

"Rhiad,  when did you get here?  Why are you here? Why did no one say anything to me? And why the hell isn't anyone answering me?"

"Well if you actually stopped talking we'd get to answer your questions, darling.  I swear that child chats as much as her dad did", Scarlet muttered the last part to herself.

"You're one to talk mom. Ms. Dervish next door has had to hang up on you quite a lot because you don't understand that 'have a good day' means the conversation is over."

"Ladies, both y'all mouths can't stop once it gets goin'. Now back to what that accented Adonis was gonna say."
Sera felt a sting on her leg and looked down only to see Dara's hand retreating after just pinching her.

"Thank you for that introduction Sera, dear, but I don't have anything to say-" Scarlet begun in a strained, male British accent, only to be drowned out by the laughter of everyone at the table.

"Well as the only accented Adonis here, I believe it is my turn to speak." Rhiad started, ignoring or oblivious to the stifled laughter coming from all three ladies around him.

"Nuri, you were to go to the shelter today to meet the girls, remember?"

"Well shit, I completely forgot about that."

Plus I want to ask you out to dinner with me tonight, Rhiad thought as he watched her berate herself for forgetting the shelter. In truth she had not forgotten it, he just hoped she wouldn't remember that they had not set a specific date to meet the girls there. Not being able to take her self berating, he asked her to quickly get dressed so they wouldn't be late.

The ride to the shelter was anything but strained. How could it be when Sera decided to sing along to every song that played on  the radio? Mind you, she sounds like a dying walrus and a pain ridden cat having sex.

It was that bad.

But the part that Dara questioned, is how the heck she knew every single song that played. It didn't help when Rhiad changed the station to one that played these strange old school music.
And she. Still. Sang. Along.

"I can't believe you're so boring. You couldn't even sing along with me? And I know for a fact that you wanted to sing along when Gorilla came on."

"I didn't wanna sing. Didn't make sense to expose him to the sound of two cats crying."

"Oh so it was about Rhiad, huh?"

"Let's just go in. He's already waiting for us by the door."

They both hurried into the building, only slightly noticing the exterior.

Dara and Sera were greeted by cheers and applause when they entered. Looking around,  Dara noted that most of the ladies there looked to be in their late teens and their eyes all held pain and secrets. The younger ones, all four of them looking around eleven or twelve years old had mistrust in their gaze when they looked at the newcomers.

"Hello everyone. As was explained earlier, you were all selected to be here based on your indication of wanting to dance. I am not sure of how many of you are comfortable with me giving details of your past here, so I will just leave it at that."

At his words Sera and Dara shared a look that morphed from confusion to understanding in less than five seconds.

"These two ladies with me are dancers. Some of you would have seen their performance recently for the Sheik. They'll be helping you to learn the art of belly dancing and any other style you want to learn, as long as they know how."
Rhiad indicated both girls to step forward, Dara doing so somewhat shyly.

"Hi everyone. I'm Serafina but you can all call me Sera. I can't wait to work with you."

"I'm Sundara but I'm only called that when I'm in trouble-", at this some of the girls smiled.
"You can call me Dara or D-"
"Call her Seductress. That's her belly dance name"

"Dara or D is fine, Sera. As I was saying, I can't wait to help you express yourselves through dance."

Individual introductions followed, but Dara had already forgotten half of the names. It wasn't her fault that she was freaking terrible with names. After about an hour of getting to know everyone, their first lessen official began with them teaching the girls the basics.