Episode 99: A Night Twice Ruined (Meldrick)

The air was warm, a wave of heat brushing across his already warm skin with each passing breeze. It could have been cool, had the boat been moving faster across the black silken water of the bay. There was no haste, no need to be anywhere except here, beneath the milky city starlight evening, with his Giana.

Meldrick took a long and satisfying sip of the drink in front of him, whatever it was. It stung of alcohol and tasted like rice as the liquid lingered on his tongue.

This was what he had envisioned days ago when he had booked the trip, but in his dream it was just the two of them; reality had brought guests.

He leaned back in his chair and took another bite of the blowfish. The two guests – Penelope and Damon – had turned into better company than he had expected. Without the other man to cause issues…. He felt a bit bad, and hoped Aadya would forgive him. She was better at dealing with mannerless people asking for help than he was.

“I hope your friend doesn’t mind missing out,” he said to the two guests.

“He needs to chill, maybe this will help.”

There was something calming about being powerless; something that would hopefully reduce the pompous elements of the man – Greg’s – personality.

Penelope, with her dark curly hair she kept having to push away from her face, swallowed – a woman of manners – and said, “Or you really pissed him off.”

Her hand reached out to Damon’s, “Want to dance? I have no idea how to.”

He laughed and stood. “You think I know how?”

Meldrick was certain no one expected him to know how to dance; he was tall and looked more like a marble pillar that would never move than a man that could manipulate his body across a dance floor with the delicacy often required, nor lead a woman. 

The two were quite a pair. They danced to the music – his oversized body with dark skin and tattoos covering his arms, and her with her buttery brown skin, just a touch more golden than Damon’s. They were opposite he and Giana, who were both lighter. 

He moved beside her now, the main portion of the meal complete, and rested his arm across Giana’s shoulder and let his fingers trail down the side of her arm. In the distance, gulls flew toward land.

She leaned against him, her lips inches from his ear and her breath hot against him. He loved the heat, the reminder of how she tasted. He wanted her, alone and to himself.

“They seem….” she began.”

To be in the way, he thought, but he waited for her to finish her own thought. He loved her mind, the way she revealed herself bit by bit in such a thoughtful way.

He loved when she stopped focusing on how to reveal herself and was just – purely – herself.

He focused on her, her mind, whatever she wanted to say.

“Like an unusual pairing,” she finished. 

“Very,” he agreed. They both seemed rough around the edges, like pieces of a puzzle that had been chewed and cut to never fit, yet they didn’t care. 

He wondered what he looked like beside Giana, her chestnut hair flowing across her shoulders and her creamy skin, with far more color than his own. He was white – his skin, his hair. His eyes were more red; inbreeding at its finest. 

He loved being with someone unrelated to him, someone he knew would give him strong children and a new start. So long, too long, he had fought for Aadya. Here, there was no fighting. He didn’t need to understand it, he could see how much she cared for him. 

“But I haven’t minded the company,” he added. “Have you?”

“No. I love experiencing people,” she replied.

A small part of him felt a rush of anxiety, but he set it aside. The way Giana experienced people was much different than Aadya.

He sat wrapped around her, wondering if he should ask her to dance and what she thought of dancing. He debated, tirelessly, the desire to pull her to her feet and guide her through the cadences. 

“A cruise? Very nice.” The sanguine voice of the man Meldrick didn’t want intruding on his evening reverberated through his soul. 

It was not nice, nor were his hands on their food. 

“You’d be able to afford more stuff like this if you switched from a gold standard to aluminum and let me get rid of that gold for you.”

Meldrick tried to stay calm. He had Giana, after all. “I happen to know how to prevalent aluminum is.”

He was curious how Greg had found his way back, to the cruise. He considered the possibility that he had underestimated Greg and his abilities.

“Was the palace not interesting enough?”

Even if he had travel packs or magic, he had not yet met someone who passed up a chance to see dragons and explore a realm full of fairies.

“It was immensely satisfying,” Greg said. He took another bite.

It dawned on Meldrick at once: the way Greg looked calm, the way he gloated, the way …

Aadya.

“Do you always intrude on others?” he snapped.

Giana took his hand while his skin glowed. He felt hot, almost too hot for such a public location. Aadya wouldn’t satisfy a stranger, unless she felt compelled to, had bonded.

“I’m sorry, the first fairy I met kidnapped me,” Greg replied. “I’m still learning how courtesy works in your world.”

He continued to eat their food, to take perilous steps toward Meldrick reacting.

A thousand years of discipline pulled him back, away from any desire to react in a way that would make it difficult to spend time in Babylon again. 

“You didn’t seem to suffer,” he pointed out, despite the bandages that adorned his body and the way he breathed that implied he might have an injured rib.

He let his breaths slow. Greg was rude, without a doubt, but it was Aadya that had hurt him more. Her refusal to bond to him and the ease at which she allowed others in. The way he would never be enough for her, would never have something that pleased her.

It was one of the most frustrating things he had ever dealt with. She had dealt him blows in the past, but this….

“I was attacked by two dragons,” Greg confirmed. “Would you like to know why I’m here?”

Meldrick was too tired for games of cat and mouse.

“You shouldn’t have tried to escape their guard,” he replied. “Why are you here?”

“Endymion bonded to a classmate and they’re getting married.”

He squeezed Giana’s hand, softly. She deserved softness in the storm of his being. It was one thing that Aadya had – presumably – bonded to the man, slept with a stranger, it was another that that she had shared their children so openly with him.

Endymion, he said. Endymion is getting married.

Those were words he wasn’t sure what to do with, events he wasn’t sure how to handle.

He was on a date. He wanted the date to go well and all he had given Giana was evidence that he was not over Aadya nor was he acting responsibly.

“We should go,” he told Giana. 

“Of course,” she replied. Like Aadya. Words he had heard a thousand times.

“We could finish this at home later, if you like?” Giana offered.

Meldrick look at the table. 

“We’ll finish,” he stated. He looked toward Damon and Penelope, “Would the two of you like to join us one more time this evening?”

He used his calmest voice to speak to them; Greg was gloating. Meldrick couldn’t change what had happened, and he needed to let go of Aadya and the endless torment that feeling anything for her, anything romantic that was, offered. 

Damon glanced at Penelope, who replied for the both of them. “Yeah, why not. You’re coming right?”

Greg finishing chewing the next bite of food, the next affront to them. Then, he gloated again, “Yes. I have a busy night planned.”

“I hope it involves sleeping in the barn.” Meldrick stood and walked around the table. He lifted the two corners of the tablecloth on that side. “Gi, would you mind holding the other two?” he asked.

“I’m not sure it involves sleep at all,” Greg continued to press.

“Who do you think he bonded to?” Giana asked, distracting him. 

He thought of Aadya, bonding, allowing someone to bond to her, and the decade they had shared in hope. Even with Giana beside him, he missed Aadya. 

“A classmate,” he said in jest. He handed Greg a travel pack, for some reason he wasn’t sure of. A gesture to move on, perhaps. “Hold their hands, so they don’t get lost,” he told Greg.

He transported Giana and himself to the gardens, near the entrance he often sneaked through after tea, near her room. The decorations were set. 

A new emotion coursed through him – guilt for missing the preparations for his son’s wedding. He hadn’t done much travelling in his life, and here was missing life at home because of something he was chasing – something he was running away from.

“Now then,” he asked Giana. “Where should we set this?”

“I don’t care,” she said, the tableset folding between them as she moved closer to kiss him.

Mel laughed; taking the food was dramatic and unnecessary. They wouldn’t revisit the meal after the move. “I can’t recall ever disliking someone so instantly. Even my mother instilled some hope for a redeeming quality.”

Giana laughed too, the tensions easing between them and her smile glowing in its own way, a way that made him smile broader.

“How long do you think we have before we need to be somewhere?” she asked.

“A dozen minutes. You look stunning. You could go as is unless you want to change.”

“So do you.,” she replied. “Talk to me? Or are you alright?”

“I can set aside my feelings to celebrate Endymion and whichever classmate caught his eye,” he replied.

He dropped the cloth, as did she. He offered his hand. 

“Ready to go, then?” she asked.

He pressed his lips to hers, taking in something pure and fresh. Giana was what he wanted. The freedom to start anew and not be burdened by everything he had shared with Aadya – every secret he had hidden from her. With Giana, there were no secrets he felt a need to keep. There was only time and he intended to fill it.

As they walked toward the ceremony, Giana leaned down and picked a flower from the garden. Just a flower, no hidden meanings, though he knew it’s white petals well: intoxication by devotion. 

She tucked it into his lapel, “Better.”

It was – better. In every way.

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