In Which there is Explanation and Arguing

 

            She never thought that it would come to this.

            Lucidity Stork had been born in a perfectly average, perfectly boring village that existed solely so other, slightly less boring villages would have something to compare themselves to. It consisted of eight houses, a three sheds full of goats, and some potatoes. There was also a book- there was one book and one person who could partially read. The villagers were very proud of their book, and found that, although they understood very little of what the words in it meant, they all had a very pretty sound to them.

            Thus the unique christening “Lucidity.”

            Young Luci had always had a knack for the mildly criminal (although again, she never thought it would come to this), a natural mischievousness brought on by the presence of her of her stoic, beautiful, and flawless older sister Calligraphy. With the knowledge that she could never measure up to her sister in school work, needle point, or manners, she resigned herself to showing up everyone in goat teasing, petty thievery, tardiness, and lying.

            If she had remained in the village, probably, with time, she would have leveled out. With just a few more years she probably would have grown law abiding, while still not losing her sharped tongued twinkle. And probably there would have been at least one man that remembered how she had blindfolded him and left him tied to a goat when he was nine and loved her for it, and probably she would have become the village’s first school teacher and been very happy indeed.

            But she hadn’t stayed in the village. She hadn’t stayed because the Sheik had come.

            He had come in the summer, with a small pseudo-fair that occasionally drifted through the village when it was absolutely desperate.

            He swallowed some fire. He made some birds fly out of his sleeves (badly. They were clearly never in his sleeves in the first place, and nor did it seem that the fire truly went anywhere near any part of the Sheik’s anatomy.) But the eyes of the girls in the audience were never on the magic tricks… they didn’t need tricks because the magic of the Sheik was in the Sheik himself.

            Up on the makeshift platform that day in front of all six girls of the village, The Sheik had introduced himself with a brilliant white smile and a flourish of doves as “The Fifth Sheik Zzias of Bangladore!” (Although in the coming months, Lucidity would come to expect that his name was probably actually something more along the lines of “Rune Runesson of Glumpy-Upon-Flirth”)

            The girls oohed and awed and sighed. All except Luci. She was impressed, of course, but girls like Lucidity, who always have to be prepared to engage in the fiercest sort of verbal jousting with the village’s most mean spirited boys, can’t afford to lose their image by showing the fact that their impressed.

            In the summer heat with her wild brown hair tied back with a length of plain blue yarn, Lucidity did what she did best- she glared. She glared long and hard at the beautiful golden faced Sheik. And the Sheik grinned at her. That was the first time. Since Luci had started counting, there had been exactly thirty five more glare/grin exchanges.

            Then the Sheik said, “It pleasures me to say that never in my many moon years have my eyes seen so many girls like blossom petals in one place. The egret goddess must have indeed smiled upon this place.”

            And there was a collective sigh from the girls, and a collective groan from their parents, and all hearts were sold.

            Two days later, every girl in the village had had been blessed with a kiss from the Sheik. Every girl, that is except for one.

            Luci was in the barn milking a goat, barely the most flattering position for courting, when the Sheik strode in behind her and said, “As the elegant dancer said to the eagle.”

            “Mm,” Luci replied. You have probably never milked a fowl tempered goat before, but if you have you will probably realize that it is one of the last times you want to listen to obscure poetic zoological similes.

            The Sheik, apparently deciding that it was best not to beat around the bush with this one, had then proceeded to wrap his arms around Luci, sending her off the milking stool and them both tumbling down onto the mucky floor of the goat barn.

            The Sheik wasn’t bothered. He laughed, “Well, perhaps this is not the most romantic place in the Seven Deserts, but it is as if it could be with you here.”

            That was easy for him to say, he was on top of her. Only the tips of his toes and elbows were touching the goat muck. The entire back side of Luci’s personage was going to be coated in the stuff. So, understandably irritate, she had said, “GO AWAY!”

            And The Sheik’s olive eyes got wide. His sultry tempting mouth hung open. He blinked a few times. He swallowed a few times.

            The only people who had ever told him to go away were guards, fair trading merchants, fruit venders, minor royalty, town mayors, religious officials… well, actually, as he thought about it, a lot of people had told him to go away.

            But the only women who had ever told him to go away were… nobody.

            There. So his surprise was as understandable as Luci’s fury.

            His following infatuation was less hard for Luci to understand.

            Because after he backed out of the barn, timid and smelly around the elbows, Luci found that she could never get a moment of peace again. When she was trying to steal apples from the neighboring village he followed along like an over eager puppy and insisted on helping her. When she walked down to the stream to skip rocks, or, once, to bathe, he followed her and engaged her into conversations against her will. When she was trying to have a decent fight with one of the cockier village boys, he stepped in and won what she could have easily accomplished on her own.

            And when Luci’s father was trampled by a horse on a trip to the city leaving Luci with a mother who wanted to lay in bed and a sister who wanted her to get married, The Sheik asked Luci to come run away with him to see the wonders of Bangola.

            “Yes,” Luci had said, sitting in the loft of her barn. There was no enthusiasm on her scrawny and severe face.

            The Sheik had grinned, and kissed her hand, which she then slapped him with. This gave her some small degree of pleasure, even in her distraught state.

            The Sheik smiled, then bit his lip, “You know,” he finally told her, “I am not really going to take you to Bangola.”

            Luci smiled then, “I gathered that when I saw you making arrangements with the caravan man to go to Hindryshire,”

            “Ah,” said The Sheik calmly, “I am on the run, you see. From assassins in my home country.”

            “Of course,” Luci said, smiling at him again. Her eyes glistened, in a way that suggested Luci would find being on the run much more fun than luxuriating in steamy Bangola any day. “I don’t mind that.”

            Then the Sheik had leaned up to kiss her, but Luci had pushed him back into the hay of the barn with a scowl and informed him that the caravans would be leaving soon.

            So they left. The went first to Hindyshire, and performed a marvelous swindling magic act. Then they went to Larten, and sold a man a star (if it ever fell, it would come to him). Then they went to the city of Chirra, and robbed a visiting king… then Luci had stopped counting the places they went and the things they did.

And those were, in a roundabout sort of way, the chain of events that brought Luci to be sitting in the back stall of the seediest bar in Aca Kell (a great achievement indeed) staring down the supposed Sheik of Bangola.

“You said,” she told him, “that you were not agreeing to this. And you sure as Hell heard me when I told you I wasn’t agreeing to this.

The Sheik rolled his gorgeous eyes, and Luci wished them poked out by rooks. “Come now  Lucidity,” he said, “I don’t know if you realize what a great opportunity this is! In the favor of Shrathdor the Dark is by far the best place to be criminal! Have you seen the houses of the Carantak pirates? Their footmen have footmen! They shoe their horses with dwarven gold flown in from crystal mines by phoenixes of the Lorient!”

“You’re exaggerating,” Luci deadpanned.

“Yes! Yes I am! I am exaggerating!” So you see how completely I believe we should do this! You have driven me to extremes!”

Luci rubbed her temples, “It aint right…” she sighed finally, tired.

“Why not?” demanded The Sheik.

“Because!” Luci began, exasperated, “Look,” she said, glancing about her with evident nervousness, “We can barely talk about it here can we? Someone might hear us.”

The Sheik sighed the sigh of the worldly to the inexperienced. “Luci…” he said, “Of course we can talk about it here. That’s why they built this place. So people like us would have somewhere decent to talk about things.”

And, as if to illustrate his point, a voice from the stall behind them all but shouted, “So I says to ‘im, ‘I aint touchin’ the bloke’s body after ‘e’s been in there  for a week!”

“See?” The Sheik said, “Murder, arson, thievery… it’s all dinner conversation here! So tell me why you think this golden opportunity is so damn unethical.”

“Well for one,” Luci said, “You shouldn’t go about kidnapping people.”

“Psh,” The Sheik rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and laid back in his seat, “They ssay you shouldn’t go about stealing things and lying too, but that never stopped us before, now did it?”

“It’s not the same thing! It’s like murder! You promised me we would never do murder!” Luci said. He had promised her. She had made him, threatening to throw away his supply of Myrva Grass if he didn’t. The Sheik was a man very attached to his Myrva Greass.

            “It’s not like murder at all. We won’t be killing him! The heart within his little adolescent body shall still be beating. And beating with pubescent fervor at the sight of you, I’m sure. ” The Sheik insisted

            “But we don’t know that we won’t be killing him either,” Luci insisted. The Sheik opened his mouth, to say something supremely witty, she was certain, but Luci was not in the mood for it.

            “We are going to take a little boy,” she began slowly, trying to lay her extremely muddled thoughts clean and simply in the air between them.

            “He’s scrawny but he’s fifteen he was going to have to leave eventually any-“

            “Away from all his loving family,” Luci was one of the few people on earth who could ably interrupt the Sheik of Bangola.

            “He was found in a basket! He has no-!”

            “Away from all his hopes and dreams,”

            “You know hopes and dreams are always just fairy piss anyway! We’ll be doing him a-“

            “Away from the place he has lived his whole life. The place he loves.”

            “Have you ever been to the Palyce? Believe you me, despite all the glitter, there are tons  of places more lovable. In fact-“

            “Then we are going to take this, poor, scared, alone little boy,”

            “He’ll have us won’t he? We’re wonderful company!”

            “And bring him to the dark, abysmal, Cliffs of Suffering,”

            “Let me tell you there are some damn good pubs on the Cliffs of-“

            “Then we’re gonna turn him over to Dark Lord Shrathdor, Prince of all that is Pain,”

            “You act like he’s such a bad sort, when really-“

            “And leave him to the mercy of the most evil man alive.”

            “Do you have any proof that he is the most evil man alive?”

            “THAT IS NOT RIGHT  ZZIAS!”

            All the exasperation left The Sheik’s face. His eyes became soft and kind as he slowly shook his turbaned head.

            Luci wasn’t buying it for a second.

            He smiled at her. Luci cursed his wonderful warm honey colored lips against ivory teeth smile. “You know I would never make you do something you didn’t feel comfortable with, don’t you Luci? Because really you mean a lot to me. You know that, right?”

            “Hmph,” said Luci.

            “Good,” The Sheik said, “I’m glad we have this understanding… this deep, deep, mututal connection.”

            It was, as always, impossible for Luci to tell whether or not he was being sarcastic.

            “Because,” The Sheik said softly, leaning across the table and looking up into Luci’s eyes, “I’m not going to force you into this if you don’t think it’s right. I could never do that to you.”

            Luci smiled softly- softly but warily. She knew him much too well. She knew him well enough to know that he knew her even better than she knew him.

            “So, though I will most definitely miss you dearly, I have no choice but to allow you to branch out on your own. I shall carry out the mission myself, and I wish you the best of luck traveling down whichever long and winding road life takes you on. Perhaps one day we’ll meet again.”

            “B*****d,” Luci said simply. Although The Sheik’s face was grave and sad, she could detect the smirk behind his eyes.

            He knew that without her common sense, he would get himself killed with this mission. He knew that she knew it. He knew that she had been with him long enough to care that he was safe.

            “You have you’re two choices, darling,” The Sheik’s eye’s sparkled with the victory he knew he’d just one.

            Luci kicked him under the table for calling her darling, and started sharpening her knife, a nervous habit, and asked “So where do we start?”

 

Reviews

[Cricket Kidd]

wow. the sheik is a creeper. seriously.