Episode 165: Eulalee (Scipio)

There wasn’t a rule exactly, saying they had to go, but employees at the palace were strongly encouraged to at least show their faces at the festival.

Scipio, as a math teacher, was likely to run into former students, or their parents, or who knew who else, and he was going to have to talk to them. He liked talking, just not small talk.

He gravitated toward the food, because if he had food in his mouth maybe people wouldn’t talk to him, so he got himself a plate full of different kinds of sliced melons and berries, and then he got cheese too because he didn’t want diarrhea from all those berries.

Someone bumped her hip against him. She wore something…odd. A grey long-sleeved t-shirt and grey sweatpants, and white socks and shoes. Out-of-realm clothes.

Scipio bit back the wave of homesickness for his college days. Elesara was his home.

“Hi,” the girl…woman?…said. “I’m Eulalee.”

That was a pretty name. He looked at her more. Except for her taste in fashion, she was actually kind of pretty. Get her in some sturdy hiking boots, a tank top, fitted cargo shorts…she would look more feminine.

“Scipio,” he said. “I haven’t seen you around before. Are you one of the new teachers?”

“Not yet. Maybe, someday,” she said. She took a long bite of some tacky bread and chewed before she added, “I’m just visiting today. Are you a teacher?”

Maybe she was interviewing. He should put in a good word for her, like Oh hey I met that Eulalee, she seems like someone the kids would really connect with.

“Yeah,” he said. “Math and technology stuff.”

“I’ve always wanted to use a computer or a phone or anything,” she said. Definitely from out of realm then. Most people didn’t even know what those were. He was practically salivating with excitement over being able to talk to someone who cared about this stuff. “Do you love it?” she asked him.

He shrugged, to be careful. He had a tendency to come off like he was bragging when he didn’t mean to. If he stated a fact about himself that was negative, that was self-deprecation and not allowed. If he stated a fact about himself that was positive, that was bragging and not allowed.

He was supposed to be neutral, which made no sense to him. Like it or not, he was the most important person in his own life, and he had the right to judge himself against others without being told he was doing it wrong.

“I’m good at it,” he said. That was a fact that didn’t say he was better than others.

“What do you love?” she asked.

This conversation, actually. He thought about a more tenable answer. “I enjoy travel.” He grabbed one of the tacky rolls and had a bite. “These rolls are delicious.”

“Travel packs or outside travel or airplanes?” she asked. “Trains? Boats? What kind?”

Her words were more delicious than the rolls, talking about words he missed hearing.

Too bad he didn’t have a better answer: “Hiking and camping and small boats, I guess. I’ll take anything though.”

“I love the smell of air when I’m outside,” she said. She took in a deep breath through her nose and breathed a sigh of satisfaction. “It’s so fresh and invigorating. And these rolls are delicious. They might be the best rolls I’ve ever had.”

“They have a good pastry chef here. The queen likes pastries when she’s pregnant, which is all the time.”

He probably shouldn’t have said that. He probably shouldn’t have even thought that.

“Do you like her?” the woman asked.

“Yeah, she’s good.” He thought about Queen Aadya. Her smooth skin and the way she pretended she wasn’t tired, and the way almost no one noticed except the people who were close to her. Scipio wasn’t one of them, so he kept his thoughts to himself, but now… “She’s too hard on herself, I think,” he told Eulalee. “The king’s good too. Do you like them?”

She looked across the crowd, toward where the king stood engaged in some kind of conversation with villagers. He looked distracted, stressed a little.

“I think the king is quite boring,” she said. He laughed. She added, “But he’s improving.”

Nope. “The king isn’t boring,” he explained. She wished everyone could see what he saw when he observed them. Most people just looked at the surface, not at the depth, and with the queen and king there was a lot of depth. “He’s like…everything in computers is written in codes. He’s like the code for the kingdom and the queen is like the product of the code. You don’t get the product without the code.”

Add to that the way his calf muscles defined themselves as he walked, the way he held his head almost like a dancer…artful and strong and elegant…

“But he isn’t in prison and he goes nowhere,” she pointed out. That was a unique way of looking at the world.

He took in her grey outfit and clamped his mouth shut. Those clothes, the prison comment…

How did she get here?

“He went to Babylon this week,” he said, to see if she had any connection to it.

She didn’t seem to. “That’s better,” she said. “He needs to explore more.”

“I think he will, with his new girlfriend.” Wife. Whatever she was.

Eulalee studied him a minute too long. He met her eyes evenly, against the temptation to look away. “You like him a lot, don’t you?” she asked.

“He’s steady. Not a lot of fire fairies are.” It showed remarkable self-control, a lifetime of mental practice.

“Are you, too?” she asked.

He set his lips in consideration. “I want to be,” he admitted. He wasn’t sure he had it in him. He was pretty calm, but King Meldrick was placid.

“Where are the boats?” Eulalee asked. She started walking away from the food table, so he followed her toward a more private wrought-iron table painted white, with two chairs. Intimate in a way that most of the festival wasn’t.

“Not here,” he apologized. “The water’s too low below the dam and it’s not safe above it.”

She sighed, this time it was sad. “I don’t think I’m allowed to go further away today. I have to be good.”

The prison thing again. “Be good?” he iterated.

“Yes. I’ve been in jail my whole life.”

Surely that was an exaggeration. “Not your whole life,” he argued.

“The whole of the parts I remember,” she amended. She took a bite and sat there chewing, like it didn’t matter.

He leaned towards her. “They wouldn’t do that. There’s no kids in the jail.” He knew. He helped program all the security stuff, he’d know if there were kids down there.

“I’m not from here,” she confirmed.

So she’d broken out of jail, for who knew what crime, and landed herself here somehow.

“Where?” he asked.

“I live in Sylem with the wiccans.” The way she said Sylem made it sound like it was just a place to her, not a home.

“You should stay here,” he offered. “It’s safer. The wiccans put anyone in jail, I’ve heard.”

She leaned towards him and licked her lips. He almost thought she was going to kiss him, which he probably might not have minded, but instead she said, “Would you keep me safe?”

“I’m not…not sure I’m…the best…person…for that.” He had no idea why the wiccans had her in jail, or who she was, or how she’d gotten here.

But she felt so vulnerable to him. He was tempted to make promises he didn’t know he could keep.

“Why not?” she asked.

“I don’t know you,” he said. “I do computers. Look, if you need help I have some ideas about who can keep you safe.”

Nell or Konrad should at least meet her, get a feel for who she was and whether she was as safe and vulnerable as she seemed to Scipio, or whether there was some secret thing he overlooked because he wasn’t good at security.

“I probably have to go home today,” she stated. “Maybe next time.”

“Next time?” When was she coming back? He saw Nell about to pass their table and reached his arm out to snag him. “Hi Nell!” he said too loudly.

“Hey,” he said. His eyes settled on Eulalee with an intrigued tilt of his brows. “Hi,” he said to her. He flattened his wings against his back.

“Hi,” she said, “I’m Eulalee.” She offered her hand to Nell. “You have really nice animals.”

“She’s in jail in Sylem and doesn’t want to go back,” Scipio explained, to save Nell the time of sorting through what was going on here.

“How did you get here?” Nell asked her.

She looked across the room toward the king’s cousin’s husband’s brother. “Xandie’s testing me,” she told Nell. “He doesn’t think I can be good because no one thinks I can be good.”

“So,” Scipio said before Nell answered, “I was trying to tell her I’m just the computer guy, I don’t make that kind of decision.”

She leaned towards him again, so close that her hair brushed across his nose. “Maybe I just think you’re special,” she said.

He could taste her pomegranate scent. Why couldn’t it just be alluring to him?

“I told them not to spike the punch,” Nell joked, and Eulalee laughed.

She looked up at Nell, squinting because of the desert sunlight. “I’ve been alone for so long,” she complained. “I just want a friend.”

“What about Xandie?” Scipio suggested. “He seems nice.”

He couldn’t believe he was pushing her away. But really…prison her whole life, he didn’t know her, Nell wasn’t giving him anything to work with…

“He has a wife,” Eulalee sighed. “And he doesn’t like me very much.”

“Xander, is it?” Nell asked. “How about I talk with him?”

“Tell him I want to stay,” Eulalee ordered.

“I will do my best to convey that message,” Nell promised. “Did either of you want a snow cone? Those are spiked.”

Mm. He needed a spiked something. “Yes, please,” he said.

Nell passed them each a snow cone and wandered off with his cart, in the general direction of Xandie.

Scipio ate his entire snow cone in one bite, three enormous swallows, and then realized that his throat and brain were in agony.

“Do you want mine too?” Eulalee offered.

No way. His body was suffering from too much cold too fast. No way did he want more. But…spiked. No way did she need anything spiked. She already swayed when she sat there.

“Yes, please,” he said. He took it when she passed it to him. “Why are you in prison?” he asked.

He downed the next one, to the same suffering response from his body. While he tried not to cut his chest out of his body to get away from the cold, she answered him.

“My sister doesn’t like me. I can’t see why.” She leaned back in her chair. “If I live here, will you show me boats?”

“I can, or whoever’s free, yeah,” he promised. He didn’t want her to think he was the only guy out there. It would be healthier for her to have other friends, not just him, if she moved here.

She licked her lips. “I like you, Scipio.”

Oh, good.

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