The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

The Greenfield Family.

It's Graduation Day! Paula, Zander, Heather and Lance are stepping out in their caps and gowns to finish high school in style--with a certain unexpected guest in attendance at the ceremony.

And as it turns out, their graduation is not the only ceremony they will be having today. Another less formal, more impromptu one is in their cards during their signature type of celebration during the evening.

It's less formal and more impromptu, and not especially solemn, but that doesn't make it any less meaningful to the participants.

And above it all, love is the ritual.

Bobbi tutted in displeasure as she looked Paula over. “We don’t have a pretty dress or anything for her,” she complained.

Andie scoffed as she tested the knot of Paula’s hair tied to the paper towel. “Eh, it’s more fun if we’re all naked anyway,” she said, and stepped back when she confirmed that the paper towel was securely tied.

“Now you two face each other,” Heather directed them. “Clasp hands, like that...”

Zander and Paula looked each other over as they stood with hands clasped. It was slowly starting to come together. They were facing each other like a bride and groom. The length of paper towel in Paula’s hair looked more than anything like a veil. And looking around, Lance was now standing off to Zander’s side like a best man, and Heather was standing next to Paula’s like a maid of honor. And their eyes went wide with realization as Andie stepped up beside them like a minister.

“Dearly beloved,” Andie began, “we are gathered here to join this brother and sister in incestuous matrimony. If anyone should have just cause why this couple should not be wedded, let him shut the fuck up!” Heather, Lance and Bobbi all laughed. Paula and Zander managed a slight chuckle at least.

“Zander,” Andie continued, “do you take this girl to be your not-so-lawfully wedded sister-wife, to have and to fuck, to love and to ravage, for as long as you both shall live?”

Zander managed a more genuine laugh, starting to get into the groove of Andie’s little game. Looking Paula over, drinking in the breathtaking beauty of his twin sister, he said half seriously, “You know what, I do.” Paula beamed at him.

“Paula,” Andie said, “do you take this boy to be your not-so-lawfully wedded brother-husband, to have and to fuck, to love and to ravage, for as long as you both shall live?”

Paula could no longer hold back her laughter as she said, “Hell yes I do!”

“Then by the power vested in me by the fluttery feeling in my heart and the tingly feeling in my pussy, I pronounce you brother-husband and sister-wife. You may French the bride.”

Paula and Zander both laughed at Andie’s antics, but did precisely as she bid. Heather and Lance applauded as they kissed, and then the reason for the newspaper and the bag of rice became apparent as Bobbi tossed a handful of rice over them, which scattered over the newspaper beneath their feet. When they broke the kiss and looked at each other, the twins both knew they were thinking the same thing: this whole ceremony may have been largely a fun little game and have no legal bearing, but in their two hearts, it was as close to real as it got.

https://storiesonline.net/n/52852/the-gr...-family/36

Headless Over Heels.

The Thief

Four days with no executions. On the fragrant streets of Jonquil, whose boughs were heavy and redolent with its namesake, and atop Asterbak’s indigo-painted bandstand, which had been repurposed into a scaffold through the application of a vast and bloodstained canvas, Seth bore witness twice over to the same transformation on the faces of corregidors and citizens. From abject fear when the carriage rolled in, to cowed confusion when its black-clad behemoth greeted them with a friendly smile and a what’s the craic, to guarded hope as it departed.

Four days, two villages, no heads.

Annalise steadfastly pretended as though their conversation had never happened, but every day that went by in cozy companionable routine, without the lurking awfulness she had promised, was another day that ended with an unspoken moment between the thief and the Verdugo. A shared look—quiet, grinning provocation from Seth, a roll of the eyes from Annalise.

The rations were rough-and-ready; the going was, too, in most places. But Seth cooked well enough, and he was getting much better at keeping everything settled on the bumpier days when the road nigh-on evaporated into the thistle and brush.

He spent his days learning to swing a cutlass thanks to Tiago’s punishing but patient instruction, or riding the coach listening to Annalise hum road songs and tell stories, or reading one of Ofelia’s castoff books, which she’d otherwise happily leave in the road’s dust; he’d never met a reader so zealous and with such callow disregard for a book as soon as it was finished.

He spent his nights staring at the tent canvas above his head and thinking about Annalise. There was a knack to setting up the tent. Far enough away to avoid any awkward looks or conversations. Close enough that, in the dark, he could fall asleep to the sound of Annalise’s snoring breath.

He hadn’t realized he was capable of this sort of yearning. He hadn’t considered himself the type, even in his hormonally tempestuous teenage years. But he’d been right about that stupid dam. There was no going back. Over the two weeks Seth had known her, Annalise had gone from good-looking, to beautiful, to the most beautiful woman in the United Territories.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...-four-days

And Princess of the Void.

“Edward Dominguez.” Grant reads the name off Jai’s notes and connects it with the genial, balding man sitting across from him in the administrator’s office. “Can I call you Ed?”

“I’d prefer Edward, actually. Annoying as it is, I’ve never had the wherewithal to think of myself as an Ed.” Edward crosses his tweed-encased legs, the better to fit into the one-size-too-small chair on the other side of Grant’s desk. “Too dour, I guess.”

“Fair enough,” Grant says. “Tell me about yourself, Edward. What is it you do on Earth?”

I am your enemy.

“I write,” Edward says. “Or wrote, I guess. I worked in journalism for a while—local stuff, and then sports at the News-Gazette—and then I was an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. Then, about five years ago, that ended, and I’ve done a few different things. Apps, gigs, freelancing. The new economy, you know. I’d found a job at a warehouse when you picked me up; I imagine that’s probably over with. Now I’m told I’ll be rich, so that’s the whole resume, I imagine.”

“Not eager to go back to the pick-and-pack line?”

Edward chuckles and scratches his salt-and-pepper beard. “I think our hosts have maybe calibrated that wrong. You can’t exactly pay a guy 250 million and then expect them to badmouth you.”

“Tell Rita that.”

He chuckles again. “Fair point.”

“You don’t tend to share,” Grant says. “You were quiet in the session. I was always like that in big groups, but I always had a lot on the mind. I hope you’ll tell me what you think.”

“What do I think.” Edward steeples his fingers in front of his narrow, beaky nose. “I think enough people think like Rita and Gabriel think that it will present a challenge, certainly. But a civilization that can make the things I’ve seen, that can keep my feet on this floor in the middle of space in whatever miraculous way, surely has many ways to address those challenges. The degree to which the technology you’re introducing will change just about everyone’s lives, that’ll certainly cut down, too, on the number of Jonathans you’ll get in the mix. I think there will be many of us—billions of us—quite ready to accede to the Imperial demand. And I think it will be a terrible shame.”

Grant’s stomach sinks at that conclusion. “Is there a way I can convince you otherwise?”

“Well, I guess I have a question,” Edward says. “The Empress. Does she have her own planet? Is there a Taiikari home world?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been?”

Grant nods.

“What’s it like?”

Grant is quiet.

“I was expecting you’d say it’s beautiful, it’s opulent, it’s, uh, I don’t know. The silence is concerning.”

“It is beautiful and…” Grant rattles the cabinets on his limited English. “Opulent? What’s that mean?”

“Rich and fancy.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Edward says, carefully. “So… it’s an Empire, still. For all the high-minded stuff and for as cute as they are, it’s still Empire in the human mode. You are the smiling mouth of the Imperial hose, sucking the resources of its subjects up into the homeland. Homeworld, in this case. You’re conquering us, and then colonizing us. I’m not sure I’d call myself a student of history, but I know what that looks like and what it leads to.”

“I know it’s hard to trust this,” Grant says. “But our history is different from theirs. It’s not something we can look back at Maekyon to understand.” Earth. You meant to say Earth.

“I’m not denying that,” Edward says. “I’m just saying that’s what it is, right? A pyramid, and we are at the bottom. And I take your point that the Taiikari bottom looks a lot better.” He laughs quietly. “No pun intended. And for most of the people of Earth, it would be a better life. I can believe this. I can even believe that they believe they’re doing this out of kindness. And what are the resource they’re taking from Earth? In the main, it seems like they want to date us. Well, I’m sure many humans would be thrilled. I’d date a Taiikari.”

“I can highly recommend it.”

“And of course by ensuring a smooth transition you are saving many lives. Not only the lives that would be lost in resistance but the people who would otherwise die under the comparatively flawed rule of their fellow humans. Do I have your position right, more or less?”

Grant nods.

“But they are here to exploit us, Majesty.” Edward gives Grant a sad smile. “Dressed up as wonderfully as it can be, that’s what this is. Their great kindness, real as it might be, is contingent on total submission. And I just don’t know if that’s compatible with a human mind. And I don’t know whether it ought to be. Whatever arrangement we agree to, they can change that agreement whenever they wish, entirely unilaterally. And since there is one supreme leader, and even the Taiikari are mortal, there is no divining what the future would be. What do we do if they get a bit too bored with their handsome pet humans and look for other value to extract from us? What recourse do we have if the generous Empire decides that its charitable redistribution of its loot back to the looted is a bit too charitable?”

“You have me.” Grant rests a hand on his brocaded chest. “I’m a Maekyonite.”

“I know you are, Majesty,” Edward says. “But I am a human.”

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...am-a-human