Episode 93: E is for Ever Part 1 (Eurydice)

There was a song stuck in her head, and she tried not to move her long dark hair to the beat of it.

He was a paper Prince but he had no sword, repeated itself over and over while she watched Endymion take notes.

“Euri,” her friend Phemia said, nudging her in the rib.

“Huh?” she asked.

Phemia’s eyes widened, and she exhaled, “You got partnered with Endymion.”

‘What?” Eurydice asked. Her body felt cold as water rushed through her.

She couldn’t be partners with Endymion.

He was still taking notes.

“You are going to get your chance,” Phemia said, rubbing her shoulder against Eurydice’s, “to snuggle up with your prince.”

Goosebumps prickled across her skin.

“I’m trying to listen,” Eurydice replied.

She let her hair fall as a wall between her and Phemia. Her eyes latched back onto Endymion.

“To what?” Phemia asked. “You’ve been stuck in your own head all class.”

It was the song. The crown prince, Endymion’s brother-in-law, had written it with his band. Everyone knew the song, and everyone kept playing it because the newest album had a follow up, Dear Lyra.

“What are you going to say to him?” Phemia prodded.

Eurydice tried to imagine saying anything to him. Hi, for instance. She couldn’t picture it. She had admired him from across the room for months. She had the desperate tendrils of a bond to him, reaching out. She kept them close to her so she wouldn’t have to talk to him and possibly break the bond.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you better know soon,” Phemia stated. “Class is over.”

Eurydice looked up at their teacher. She had no idea what he had been talking about.

At least he wrote the homework down on the board. She grabbed her pencil and copied it onto her notebook, between the swirls and fancy cursive interlaced Es she had drawn everywhere.

Phemia stood. “If you faint, I’ll make sure the janitor doesn’t mop you up,” she joked.

“I’m not going to faint,” she said.

Eurydice closed her notebook and stood.

Endymion was packing his belongings.

She watched him, sort of frozen. She was almost certain if she got too close she wouldn’t be able to refrain from bonding.

Phemia nudged her forward, too hard, and she almost collided with him. She braced her hand on an adjacent desk.

“Hey, Endy,” she said, as she almost crashed into him. “Mion.”

Full name! You’re not best friends, or even friends, she reminded herself.

If she focused on swallowing – the action, that she had done it too many times. Every second was buzzing with the electricity of her bond wanting to exist.

He looked up at her, his chestnut hair styled toward the center, but not in a mohawk way, just up. Like most of the princes’ hair.

He smiled, his eyes a pale grey she couldn’t stop falling into.

Endymion was so casual, so put together. Everyone liked him.

She was so awkward.

“Hey. Hi,” he replied.

Silence.

She felt like she was going to burst into a flood.

“So,” Endymion said. “Project.”

She crossed her fingers against her thigh, in the space where he couldn’t see because a table blocked the view, hoping it would give her luck or strength or something.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“A project,” she replied. Her fingers fell apart; she was going to mess this up. “On a thing,” she added, trying to assemble sense to her non. “Within the parameters of the directions.”

She stopped herself from talking as his eyebrows raised.

Mop, aisle 1, melted Eurydice.

“Do you want to meet in the library and figure that out?” she asked. It would buy her time to sort her stuff out.

“The library?” he asked. His fingers ran through his hair.

She stared. She couldn’t even avoid it. Every ounce of willpower was withholding the bond.

“We could, yeah. Or my room, It’s quieter.”

This room was empty now, she was pretty sure. Everyone had left for the day. His room was more empty. More private. “Sure. Okay.”

She reached for the table to grab her stuff. It fell from underneath her arm.

She soaked the notebook with water, an extension of herself encompassing it and preventing the full fall.

She pulled the water out of her clothes and her notebook.

“Do you have any thoughts about topics?”

They started walking, out the door of the classroom, and toward the staircase.

She called on her water magic to soothe her. Most people in her family had air magic, and she did too, but she was the least air-type of them all. Where they were relaxed she was too tense. Maybe it was just Endymion’s influence.

At least she had a new thing to distract herself from the bond. Her mind focused on the project as they left the school and headed toward the main palace, where the royal family lived.

She tried thinking, but every thought slipped away as she tried to grasp the bond.

She let it go.

At worst she would have to get tea. But he deserved a decent grade on the project.

She could feel it, every piece of the long pent up desire attaching to him. It was strong, secure, and she could think again.

Mostly about how much she wanted him. Still, the other parts of her mind felt more free too. Wanting him wasn’t taxing anymore, just intense.

She refocused. She had gone over ideas the night before and her favorite involved repairing some machinery in the Lower Dell. There was an alarming amount of damaged equipment and she thought it would make a fun mystery piece to solve too, which would enhance the report and probably earn a decent grade.

She told him about the equipment, then added, “That’s a big project. We could just fix a few things.”

“Maybe,” he replied. “Or… why give a man a fish when you can teach him to fish? What if we held a tech class for three weeks for free?”

“Okay,” she replied. “That’s doable and fun and we’d get credit for fixing a dozen things with this project instead of one or two.”

She tried not to add in a lengthy explanation that she didn’t mean they would take the credit from the people that did it, but that they would have a stronger project, but he seemed so at ease and she figured he got it.

“Okay,” he said.

It was becoming their thing. Okay, let me buy some time for my brain to work. At least, that’s why she kept saying it. He probably just liked the term. The conversation wasn’t bad. It was just school. It was good. She was managing to get through it.

“So we should figure out what people should learn about,” he said.

“Yeah,” she replied. “The equipment is mostly farm stuff, but I bet there’s a theme to the issue – it’s always something small. We should teach them about how the pieces fit together. Maybe a basic gears class, where they can see how they fit and how the move as a unit.”

She almost told him about making it into a mystery, and adding some fictional elements.

“And pass out tool kits to everyone who goes to all three classes, so we’ll have to procure those too,” he added.

He opened a door. It was his bedroom door. She had missed the whole walking through the palace part, because the way he stayed near her side even around corners made her buzz and she was trying to keep the project in mind.

She walked into his room and took in the blue and cream blanket and the tv with a game system with a desk next to it. It was clean, but not too clean. She could tell he lived in the room.

She turned around after she heard the door shut and looked at him, her heart pounding in her chest.

Phemia would never believe how things had gone.

“We can make the kits early, so it doesn’t become a stressful last minute thing,” Eurydice said.

She didn’t really know what else to say. She was standing in his room, a few feet from him.

“That’s a good idea,” he said. He scanned her face, then cleared his throat.

She waited, because she was almost certain he had something more to say.

“Did you know my mom’s a water fairy?” he asked.

That was a surprise.

“So is my dad. Do you want to include water in the project?”

They could do well repairs instead. It was a different project, but she wasn’t that picky. She liked the other one more, but she liked succeeding most.

He laughed, a soft chuckle that erupted from his body is waves, “No.”

His eyes scanned a shelf, and she looked at it too.

Maybe he had a book about something.

“Is your dad selkie or undine?” Endymion asked.

Eurydice turned to look at him.

“That’s dumb,” Endymion added.

Eurydice laughed. She had been so nervous. “Are you asking if I have had tea recently? I haven’t…”

“Neither have I,” he replied.

His voice was deep and intense. He stepped closer to her, without realizing what he was doing.  

“So,” she said. She let her body gravitate toward his. “This project will be a lot of fun. Maybe we could go on some dates. To talk about things. During the project. And maybe after too.”

He smiled, “I didn’t know it would feel like this.”

Her body went flush again. She hated the bursts of cool sometimes, how much it reminded her that she was so nervous next to his calm.

“Does it feel okay for you?” she asked. Her palms felt watery. Not sweaty, just… basically sweaty.

“Yeah,” he replied. He was so close. It felt impossible that she was here, looking at his warm tan skin, bonded.

“But,” he said. “It feels like some dates isn’t enough.”

“I know,” Eurydice agreed. She tried to sort her thoughts, which were admitting defeat in terms of talking about the project.

They both had bonds, they both wanted more. She took a second to let her mind convince her mouth it was going to work.

“At sea, this would mean we are married. But, we should get to know each other better.”

“I know,” he agreed. “What do you want to do?”

She wasn’t sure if that was code for he happened to have nerves too.

“What if,” she began, her body moving too close but her eyes fixed on his shoes.

They were sneakers. White sneakers with green stripes on the sides.

“We did a subproject.”

She exhaled the tension of the first statement, but there was more to say so she made sense. She liked making sense.

“We have three weeks, plus this weekend, for the project. We could just stay here together and go on dates and decide in three weeks which parts we want to keep doing and which we don’t.”

It wasn’t a bad way to phrase something like taking over his life.

He laughed, and his hands reached for her and he pulled her against his chest. “You really think in three weeks, with a double bond, we’d have to decide?”

She looked up at him, still tucked into the embrace of his arms, “I think that extra weekend is going to be a game changer.”

He laughed again, and their eyes met. “I can help you move your stuff. When you’re ready.”

Maybe he had been denying himself the bond too, or maybe he hadn’t noticed her enough to bond. Whichever way it felt intense and permanent. It’s why her dad had left the sea – he had bonded to her mom. It had been over a thousand years since they met and they were still happy together.

A double bond meant so much more. It meant a level of security because they were both in the same place: Bonded, trusting each other, drawn to each other.

He pressed his lips to hers before she could. It didn’t matter. it was mutual. It was encompassing.

As far as first kisses went, Eurydice didn’t care if a better one could exist, because each kiss with Endy, stacked one against another, elated her.

She was still so nervous, so struck by her feelings for him. Days spent doodling their initials had turned into something she knew she’d never walk away from.

They ended up on his bed. Her shirt was unbuttoned; the sleeves still covered her arms. His hand was wrapped behind her back, pressed into the skin that covered her spin. Her own hands were under his short, pulling him closer.

He pulled away and rolled onto his back, “We need to find the other tea.”

He kissed her again.

The other tea – the one only the royal family had, for preventing pregnancy.

He was worried about getting her pregnant.

Her body went flush again, a cool current that surged down to her toes. It was replaced by warm. An unfamiliar warm she wanted more of.

“I can find it,” she guessed. She wasn’t exactly sure where to look for it, but it had to be somewhere. “We should wait to finish school.”

“I… yeah. But we can do other stuff before then. Do you want to wait to get married or plan that sooner or do you not care because we have bonds?”

She wasn’t sure if plan that sooner ment plan kids sooner, or what. Maybe it was wedding related, but he had wanted to say something..

“You what?” she asked.

“I don’t want you to go, not even back to the dorms. Or a different class, but I know that’s unreasonable.”

She kissed him.

She wanted the same thing. She told him she felt the same feelings, and avoided the obvious way to dull them faster. She’d figure the tea thing out first. The. She admitted the trying not to bond stuff.

“You can try not to bond?” he asked.

She laughed with him, and she laced her fingers in his, because she needed more. She knew he did too. New bonds… she had been warned by her dad, but she didn’t believe it at times.

“It’s challenging, but possible to withhold a bond. We don’t have things like tea anywhere else. So, It’s learn how to or risk death.”

Endy kissed her, his lips soft and wanting against hers, “It’s intense, though. I had no idea it was this intense.

She sighed, relief that her bond was no longer being held back from him. It was intense, but it was permanent and relieving too. He felt like home to her, instead of torment.

She kissed him, and pushed his back down against the bed as their lips melded together. “It feels so good,” she breathed against him.

When they broke free again, he propped himself on his elbow and grinned, “We got assigned to work together, I looked at you and tried to decide how that would go, and bonded… months.” he kissed her jawline and neck, a trail of sensation tinged with pulses of heat. “Wow. I’m sorry.”

She reveled in the sensation. Then, after his hands started wandering again and she started feeling sparks sprinkle her skin, she answered the question he had asked, “I like that everyone has weddings here. But we can take time planning it, since we have bonds.”

This eyes met hers, and his hand brushed her hair behind her ear. “Who are you? Besides classmate? Where did you come from? What do you like to do?”

She tried to remember who she was, outside of the girl that was irrevocably attached to Endymion.

She loved the sound of their names, the way the two Es looked when scripted together: Endymion and Eurydice.

“Well, you know my name and while there is some romantic background as to why its my name, my mom just likes to tell my dad she named me that to inform him he wasn’t going back.. like you’re rid of the sea. That’s kind of the humor I grew up with.”

He laughed, a glow to his face. She was so happy; she could see how happy he was.

Phemia was going to die when she found out.

“He didn’t go to the underworld to find her?” Endymion joked. “Maybe that’s my job.”

She laughed, and kissed him again. “I’m from the coast, in the Upper Dell. I like reading and mysteries and I’m pretty handy,” she added. “What do you like?”

“By the temple?” he asked.

“A bit more southwest, Beasol.”

“Sisters? Brothers?”

“Six sisters, two brothers, all older.” She watched his eyes scan her face, and then click back to her eyes as he smiled. He leaned close to kiss her and she pulled her head back, teasing. “You never said what you like.”

He looked up at the ceiling, “You. Reading, I like learning new skills. I like school, and I know that’s weird but it’s fun to see how teachers think and what they think matters. What they want us to see, versus what we see.”

“That’s not weird. I like school too,” she replied.

Eurydice let her fingers trail down his chest, “I had this huge idea for the project that was impractical and spanned multiple subjects.”

He turned and slid his hand behind her neck, his fingers weaving into her hair as he pulled her close to him, “Yeah?”

He kissed her, then let his fingers fall through her hair and down her back. He seemed to like it, or notice how much she liked it, because he pulled her into his arm and continued to run his hand through her hair.

“I was thinking, since so many things have been broken, the report could be written like a mystery.”

She watched his smile turn to a grin, “Yeah, we should do that. We can be detectives.”

“Exactly,” she beamed. “And our class is our undercover identity. we can make up names for the people that make us the toolkits, and we can write up fake reports of the equipment spying on people… if we have time.”

She had gotten carried away. She stopped talking.

He laughed, “We could set up cameras on unbroken equipment to see if anyone damages it too.” He turned his face toward hers, and she turned too. Their faces were impossibly close for how the day had started. she could feel his breath on her skin.

“Or maybe Nell’s just procuring cheap stuff.”

She let her feelings consume her, kissing him, pushing against him, getting lost in him.

It took a few minutes, but they parted, with labored breaths and bright lips. Sparks flew between them until they were more than two inches apart.

“I’m glad you like my idea,” she said.

“Do you want to come to dinner with my family? And then we can find tea?”

She wanted to tease him about where his mind was, but hers was drifting there too. Kissing would only last so long. Already she longed to feel the skin beneath his shirt again. Her own shirt was still open. She didn’t even care. She was his.

She smiled, smitten, bonded, and curious, “Yes, to both.”

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