Pleiades Over the Shepherd

Fantasia for Two Soloists

Pierce came awake with a shiver, then lifted his hand off the cold, stone floor. His back stung, his legs were worn out, and the smell of sex surrounded him. He would make Freesia pay for drugging him with her miserable pet, then pay double for dragging Mono into her little games. Mono? He looked across the bed and around the room. He was alone among all the straps and gags and toys. He shivered again.

With a groan, he sat up and started looking for his clothes. They were folded and stacked neatly at one end of the bed. That certainly wasn't Freesia's style. But small gestures of courtesy also weren't Mono's forte. Thinking through her possible intentions, he quickly dressed and went out into the hallway and front room. A hornet buzzed past. He stopped his saber half-way drawn from the scabbard. They still needed Freesia's help. And revenge ought to be served properly chilled.

He didn't stay in the house though.

Freesia stood in her pink armor near a beehive at the corner of her property, cooing over the swarm like it was an infant in a baby carriage. 

Clenching and releasing his left hand on the grip of his saber there, he went to her, but stopped well away from the swooping insects. "Where is Mono?"

"Your pretty, little maid? I couldn't say." She turned back to the bees. "She wandered off into the woods nearly an hour ago."

"If she's injured---"

"Oh, please." She closed the lid of the hive and sauntered back through the light cloud of drones. "If she gets hurt in these woods, then she shouldn't be accompanying you on any assignment for the holy knights."

"She's ... not at full strength."

Freesia came closer and spoke in a soft voice. "Yes, she did mention something about that. Had all sorts of questions about the life cycle of butterflies. So I made sure to explain the reproduction process." She bumped her abdomen and hips against him.

"Always a mentor, eh?"

Stepping back, she grinned. "Oh, you heard that? Good to know. I wasn't certain just how potent that venom is. I'm glad you were at least semi-conscious through all that." She stretched her hands wide and twisted side to side like she was finishing a work-out.

"I will kill the next of your experiments that comes anywhere near me."

"Only if you see it."

He kept his cold stare fixed on her.

She tossed her hair over a shoulder and turned away. "Shall we be going then?"

Pierce turned and scanned through the trees surrounding Freesia's property. 

A ripple of magic pulsed in the air, but dwindled from someone leaping farther away. Then another wave came onward. Mono's slender form and leather jacket rose above the tree line, arcing forward to land near the road back to town. She walked gracefully toward him, watching him carefully until she looked away as if she'd found what she was searching for, then passed by.

The relief of seeing she was unharmed poured over him like a waterfall for a moment, stopping his reactions until she'd gone by. He turned and caught up with her in a couple quick strides. "Are you alright?" 

"Well enough, even though our plans have come to naught."

Walking beside her felt so familiar that it took a moment for her words to stir up a question. "What do you mean?"

"It's alright, Pierce. I understand that magic must be hatched like an egg, rather than stoked like a fire."

"Mono, I don't understand."