Chapter 261: Bell Curves
Alexandra Erin on October 30, 2014 in Volume 2 Book 8: Elven Holiday, Volume 2: Sophomore EffortIn Which Mackenzie Gropes Her Way Awkwardly Around A Ship
I was elbow-to-elbow with Nicki, although that wasn’t the most accurate description since it left out quite a few points above and below that were also in contact with each other.
We’d seen each other in various states of undress before, but this was… sustained. Prolonged. Deliberate. I mean, we hadn’t planned on winding up nude, or right next to each other, but we’d each made the choice to undress, knowing we were there.
“Is there any wine?” someone asked.
“They wouldn’t let me bring nineteen and twenty year old humans on board and stock alcohol,” Glory said.
“Aw,” Nicki said.
“Sorry, kiddo,” Glory said.
Something about that response surprised me, and at first I thought it was just the endearment she’d used, which I supposed just fit in the context: by this metric, Nicki and I were underaged, even if we were legally adults and physically as mature as any of the elves.
But then I realized she’d said sorry. There hadn’t been a hint of apology in her explanation to her courtier, not in the words or the tones. She had simply stated the way things were with the expectation that they would be accepted.
“It’s cool,” Nicki said. She turned a bit more towards me, which made things a little awkward because I couldn’t exactly turn away from her. “I had just been thinking…”
“What?” I asked. I’d never found it easier to look another girl in the eyes.
“Just… wouldn’t it be crazy if we like, got drunk and started making out?” she said. “I mean, wouldn’t that be hilarious?”
“Wait, what?” I said.
“I mean, it makes sense that there’s no booze, and it probably wouldn’t happen…”
“Nicki, I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said.
“Oh… yeah.”
“I mean, in general… drunken hooking up stuff,” I said. “Nothing personal about you, but there’s so much potential for wrongness, people doing things they wouldn’t do sober.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “And of course… you wouldn’t do it sober.”
“I… well… I mean, we’re both other people’s girlfriends,” I said. “So, no, but not because… I mean, I wouldn’t be doing that with anyone I’m not with to begin with, but it would be even more rude now when Glory and Grace are here.”
“Oh, you two can kiss all you want,” Glory said. “I don’t mind.”
“Okay, but just friends, though,” I said.
“Obviously,” Glory said. “No reason for kissing to change that.”
“What I mean is, I don’t think we should be kissing, because we’re friends,” I said.
“So? Since when don’t friends kiss?” Glory said. “I imagine I’d rather make out with a friend than a lover, a lot of the time… I mean, if nothing else, a friend’s less likely to have just had their tongue in
my asshole.”
“This is really the kind of thing I should be clearing with the others,” I said.
“You mean Ian?” Glory said. “Go give him a reflection… I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“It’s three in the morning,” I said.
“And we have a full-length mirror,” she said. “And you’d be asking permission to make out with your friend. Maybe I don’t understand human guys, but I have a hard time imagining he’d object to waking up for that message, even if the answer is no.”
“Yeah, well… maybe that’s the fantasy ideal that guys are taught to think they want, but Ian’s had a chance to figure out what he really wants,” I said. “He was already worried that getting together with you meant our relationship was opening up, and he wasn’t a fan of that, so I really don’t think he’d like my personal circle… widening… any.”
“But we’re not talking about another relationship,” Glory said. “He already knows you’re friends with Nicki, and I think he likes her… I’m sure he approves of her more than me.”
“You know what? It was just a stupid idea,” Nicki said. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
“Why not?” Glory said. “You meant it… not the drunk part, that was the excuse, the alibi you used to say what you were really thinking, just like being drunk would have been the alibi for doing it.”
“Glory… you didn’t invite us because you wanted to see us kissing, did you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You’re my girlfriend. You’re here so I can spend time with you and you with me. Do I like human girls? Yes. Would I mind watching two nice human girls kissing? No, not at all. For that matter, I wouldn’t mind seeing you kiss any girl here, since the whole group is handpicked to be people I approve of. But if I brought you here to make out with anyone, it’s me.”
So saying, she pulled me into her lap… though, given how small and slender she was, it was more like we were, for lack of a better word, overlapping in the water… and we began to kiss. I was careful not to press my bare chest against her, mindful of how the iron base in my piercings would affect her. She didn’t mind the burn of them, since she associated such metals with humanity, and she didn’t hold back… but that was her not holding back, not me pressing them on her.
There was a lot of incidental contact between us and Grace and Nicki, who seemed to be similarly engaged behind me. I tried to relax and ignore it, which was easier because of the way that Glory kept grabbing my… attention.
Somewhere in there, there was a soft chime that came from all around and a brief shift in the cabin lighting. Glory gently unwound herself from me.
“That was the altitude signal,” she said. “The external doors just unlocked.”
“Why do we have to stay inside during take-off?” Nicki asked. “Not that there would have been much to see in the middle of night, but it still might have been fun.”
“Liability,” Glory said. “Apparently that’s when most accidents happen… people crowding around the rails, jostling each other, I don’t know. If we want to a view of the city as we come in, we can go to the forward compartment… for now, though, I want to see sky.”
“Should we get dressed?” Nicki asked.
“It’s weatherproof,” Glory said. “I don’t think this one would consent to be dragging out if it wasn’t.”
“No, I mean… that’s a bit more… public, isn’t it?”
“Only in the most improbable hypothetical sense,” Glory said.
“You can get dressed if you want,” Grace said. “Or we can stay down here and sit by the fire.”
“Let’s do that,” Nicki said.
She said that so quickly that I had a feeling that she was looking for a little distance, which I didn’t take personally.
Stepping out onto the deck was kind of like stepping into a tunnel, though it would have had to have been a hell of an awesome tunnel.
Air ships didn’t cross through cloud cover when they could avoid it, especially dense storm clouds, and with the heavy winter snow clouds hanging low and oppressive in the air, we’d stopped amazingly close to them, giving the appearance of a solid ceiling overhead. The view in directions other than up wasn’t much clearer, due to the maelstrom of snow that spiraled all around us. The boat’s protection spells deflected the snowflakes, creating the impression of a solid shell around us. The deck lights weren’t the least bit impeded by the shell, though, and the way it refracted through the swirling mass of snow surrounded us in an amber cocoon.
“Well?” Glory said.
“It’s… amazing,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“You’re not trying to take credit for this, are you?” I asked.
“I brought you here, didn’t I?” she said. “No, I didn’t plan the weather, but if it wasn’t snowing, it would be clear… and if it wasn’t clear, our view would be amazing in a different way.”
“Yeah, well… I kind of prefer the amazing view that doesn’t require going up to the edge and leaning over.”
“There would be no leaning involved, dearling,” she said. “Just looking… out, spreading for miles and miles. It’s like looking out across forever.”
I tried to picture it… and then I tried to stop picturing it.
“That sounds kind of terrifying,” I said. “I mean, the ground’s only like half a mile or so below us. I don’t know if I’d want to see forever… I think I’d be more afraid of falling looking sideways than down.”
“Oh,” Glory said. “I like to think it would give you some idea what it’s like to see the world through elven eyes.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I guess it’s kind of a moot point, since it is snowy.”
“It probably won’t be all night, though, unless the storm and us just keep pace with each other,” she said. “Anyway, it definitely won’t be snowing where we’re heading, so you’ll have plenty of chance to get used to the view from above. Anyway, let’s not just stand around staring at the sky… if you want to do that, I think we can find somewhere more comfortable to do it.”
It was probably a sign that Glory’s attempts to blur the dividing lines of ranks had enjoyed at least some early success that we weren’t the first ones to head up topside. The hot tub on the upper deck could have easily held eight people. It currently held only five, and there wasn’t a lot of space between any of them, but by the same token I wasn’t interested in joining them. Brushing up against Nicki and Grace was weird enough. The casual acquaintances verging on near strangers would only be weirder.
Glory saw my discomfort and lead me forward… or fore-ward, I guess… to and then up a set of narrow, steeply pitched steps set into what I guessed might possibly be called a forecastle. I didn’t actually have a clue, but I was about ninety percent sure that was an actual boat thing, and this was a structure towards the front of the boat that was higher than the rest, so… there you go, I guess?
Whatever it was, on top of it was another deck, maybe about a quarter the size of the main one below it. There were was a semi-circular couch and a kind of hammock/loveseat thing suspended from what I thought was an awning covering the area, though I noticed as I was looking at it that it was solid, and there was another ladder/stair thing that seemed to lead up to it.
“That’s the flying deck,” Glory said.
“Aren’t they all flying decks?”
“Very amusing,” she said. “But it would be the best place for cloudgazing.”
“…I think I’ve gone as high as I want to, tonight,” I said. I pointed to the swing chair. “How about that?”
“Okay,” she said.
She helped me climb into it first, which was a little harder than it looked, and then slipped in herself, hardly moving the thing as she did. I’d been too distracted by the spectacle of the storm until we were snuggled up together to realize that we were still naked, which… yeah, obviously, Nicki had even talked about that before deciding to stay below. But it had just become normal to me, possibly aided by the fact that we’d been in the giant hot tub, and now suddenly it seemed like it was turning into a thing again, even though we were alone by most reasonable definitions. I mean, I could hear the sound of splashy fun below and behind us, but they wouldn’t have had line of sight to us even if they had been paying attention.
“You’re getting warm,” Glory said. “Did someone just remember that she’s naked, or do I still have the power to fluster you?”
“I think you’ll always have that power,” I said. “Try not to let it go to your head.”
She laughed, and then we sat together, quietly watching the snow, which put on an even more intense show at the front of the ship… the bow, or the prow, maybe? Something with an “ow”, I’m pretty sure.
I wasn’t great with proportions, but I had a feeling from looking at the set up that this front deck extended over the pilot’s cabin, if it wasn’t covering it completely. It seemed weird that this space would be used for recreation space, but then, the whole ship outside of the part it was actually flown from was meant for recreation, and I don’t know exactly what the pilot would have done with an upper deck.
“Is there just the pilot?” I asked, realizing I didn’t know what kind of crew complement something like this called for.
“Pilot, mate, and engineer,” she said. “But their area’s pretty well cut off from ours… liability thing, again. The doors lock on their side. I suspect that has more to do with keeping friendly drunks out of the crews’ faces than thwarting would-be hijackers, but the rule’s the same whether there’s booze or not. Not that I mind… it means they’re not intruding on us, either. We couldn’t be as free as we are if we had to worry about strange men wandering back to say hello.”
“It’s… an interesting way to begin the trip,” I said.
“I am surprised and gratified at how quickly you got into the spirit of things,” she said. “And I don’t just mean stripping for the hot tub.”
“Well, I want to have a good time on this trip,” I said. “I thought… expanding my limits would be a good place to start. Though maybe I gave Nicki the wrong idea… I hope I didn’t make things awkward for her.”
Glory laughed.
“You think you were the one who made things awkward?” she said. “Mackenzie, I had more to do with that than you did, I promise you… but I swear, I wouldn’t have said anything if I hadn’t thought there was a decent chance you’d say yes if you knew I didn’t object.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because you used me as your objection,” Glory said. “I thought at this point in your life, if you really objected for yourself, you would have said so… anyway, Nicki took a risk. She probably wasn’t thinking about the odds or the consequences, but she did what she did. Some bells can’t be unrung. Well, I guess all bells can’t. The point is, she might try to avoid you for a while, which the trip will make easier some of the time while making it impossible for you two to stay completely out of each other’s hair, and that’s probably for the best. She’ll get over it. You’ll move on.”
“Yeah, but, she doesn’t really… I mean…”
“I know you heard her, Mackenzie Blaise,” Glory said.
“Yeah, but…”
“She wasn’t drunk,” Glory said. “She wasn’t prompted. You have to know she has a crush on you.”
“Okay, yeah, I had picked up on the fact that she was a little fascinated with me,” I said. “But that was before she got with Grace.”
“And after,” Glory said.
“She’s crazy about Grace, though!”
“How do you feel about Amaranth?”
“…point,” I said. “But Nicki… Nicki’s not like that.”
“Not like what?” Glory asked. “And at what point did you first become aware you were ‘like that’?”
“Don’t do it to impress me or because you think I want it,” she said. “Do it because it’s nice. Do it because it’s fun. Do it because you like Nicki and want her to feel good, as long as it makes you feel good, too. Probably most of the people on this boat are going to be exchanging affection with most of the others before the night is over, but they’re not doing it to impress anyone, and neither should you.”
“I just worry about… I don’t know, sending Nicki the wrong message,” I said. “Or ruining our friendship.”
“You know, I see that a lot, in human stories about relationships,” Glory said. “The idea that it will somehow harm a friendship if the friendship involves something else… why is that?”
“I… I guess I really don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I think probably the idea is that if we try to have a deeper relationship and then we break up, then we won’t be friends anymore.”
“Do friends never break up?”
“Oh, definitely,” I said. “I mean, I could recite some platitude about people who are really your friends or not, but yeah… friends can have a falling out without there being any kind of sex or physical affection in the mix. But if everything’s going fine… well, I guess the thinking is, why take a risk by changing it?”
“I see,” Glory said. “So, you’re playing it safe.”
“…I’m not talking about Nicki and me, specifically,” I said. “I thought you were asking me to explain the trope of not wanting to ruin a friendship with sex or a relationship.”
“Which you brought up, in conjunction with your friendship with Nicki,” she said.
“I don’t know why we’re talking about this,” I said. “Like I said, it’s not like I could do anything without clearing it with Ian… and talking to the others. I mean, I shouldn’t take anything for granted. That’s not going to happen on this trip, so nothing else is, either.”
“I guess I can’t really argue with that,” Glory said. “But if you did have a way of getting permission, would you want to try it?”
“I think I spend enough time thinking about hypotheticals,” I said. “Which is all it is.”
“Okay,” Glory said. “I’ll drop it, then. Anyway, there’s something else we should talk about.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, the way it was explained to me before take-off is that we’re going a lot slower than we’d expected because of the storm,” she said. “We’ll still be there in time, but with less time… do you think anyone would mind if you reflected to let them know you were okay after we were on board instead of when we get down there?”
Still time to get a bonus story this weekend!
“We’ll still be there in time, but with less time… do you think anyone would mind if you reflected to let them know you were okay after we were on board instead of when we get down there?”
I’m getting some serious red flags from this quote. Mackenzie wouldn’t be able to call for help until she’s stuck in a confined space with more than a dozen elves. Or else the Winter Guard won’t be able to see her until there’s more time for things to go wrong.
Of course, I’m already a bit skeptical of Glory. Despite her being a main character now we don’t actually know much about her. She’s a queen who doesn’t like Treehome, but that’s a plothook, not a backstory. She’s Ariadine’s cousin, but we have no idea what their family is actually LIKE and our least favorite professor’s backstory throws up it’s own red flags given some of her phrasing.
I honestly trusted Glory up until this quote… and even then it’s more due to the location of it than the actual content. It probably wouldn’t seem significant to me if it wasn’t what the chapter ended on, but because it is, I’ve not it in my head that this quote must be Very Dramatic.
At the same time, I could be totally off with jumping to that conclusion, so…
Also, I really want to be able to trust Glory because all the past scenes between her and Mackenzie are going to seem super gross if it turns out Glory was evil or using her or something. Maybe something Very Dramatic will happen because of what Glory mentioned but it won’t be Glory’s fault?
I’m not even sure what to think about that. It took my brain a minute to parse it even.
They’re arriving behind schedule, so Glory wants Mackenzie to delay her obligatory “we got here safely” ‘flec until they have actually boarded the cruise?
On one hand I’m not sure how this can go wrong, at least as far as Glory is concerned. If she has some ill intent she wouldn’t need to delay the reflection, in fact getting it out of the way would be an advantage.
On the other hand I don’t see how on earth this would even be necessary to prevent delay – Mackenzie has a hand mirror, can’t she talk while headed to the cruise (Glory could hold the mirror for her if she is concerned about tripping)? Plus surely this is some kind of line for boarding, once you’re in line you should be good to go.
Now if something happens between landing and boarding that causes her to be unable to reflect the lack of said reflection will be a good thing – it tips her friends off that something bad happened. The only way I can see this going really wrong is if there is some reason she should not board the cruise – and she doesn’t find out until after boarding. But I can’t really think of anything. The winter guard is in place so she won’t have to worry about the house, so even an attack wouldn’t be reason to call off the trip. And if something bad happens on campus someone would just call her anyway, rather than waiting.
The obvious ploy would be that someone on the other end would WARN Mackenzie if something happened. Glory may not know about her smart mirror and suggested using a full length one instead. The trick there is nobody can search Mackenzie’s name when she’s moving from mirror to mirror and owns none of them and isn’t registered as booking them.
The obvious question is how a dozen elves are going to do something to Mackenzie on an airship, but it’s more private than a motel room and more secluded than campus or town. It’s probably not even warded so literally anyone can make it aboard with the right plan.
If there IS some kind of plan, then odds are the Winterguard might find it living in their new home. Keeping details that secret between about fourteen people with no clues is hard, especially when people made to sense elven secrets have access to your living space. Keeping Mackenzie away from the mirror could be an extra precaution in case they catch on quick.
I’m a little leery after some of the comments on the last post about how Grace might have been the teacher that The Man had made a deal with. Yeah, it’s probably Acantha, but McKenzie is literally flying blind in the snowstorm, and then she’s going to get quickly bundled into a new conveyance. If they’re not going in the direction that they’re supposed to go, McKenzie may be kept distracted enough that she doesn’t get a chance to notice. She could potentially message everyone that she’s safe, that everything has gone according to plan, when in reality everything has gone rather far awry, which could making tracking her later just be that much more difficult.
It’s probably nothing, but…
So your theory is that Glory want’s to do something on the cruise that Mackenzie will not like, someone at home will find out, and Mackenzie will not find out from them?
It’s possible, but again why they wouldn’t just call her mirror immediately and at least leave an echo seems odd. If Mackenzie is thinking at all she would check her hand mirror regularly, if it disappears she would know something was up – she certainly wouldn’t board the cruise if the not-actually-hers mirror is missing.
Glory definitely knows about the hand mirror, since she calls Mackenzie on it all the time – she suggested the full length one because that would give Ian an eye full.
Furthermore if you wanted to get someone to not phone home, and not be suspicious. . . this is the wrong way to do it. Glory is way too elven to fail that.
The right way would be to wait till they are landing, and Mackenzie says “give me a minute to call Amaranth/whoever” – and be all “Oh! Crap, we are running late and don’t have time! Mind waiting to do that ’till we board?”, that way it sounds like a legitimate last minute change due to the weather, instead of a ploy.
I’ll admit the plan has some flaws. Such as “why doesn’t Glory do it on THIS airsip, where they’re even more secluded?”
Though given this information, maybe Glory doesn’t want to do it on an airship, maybe this is going to be public. If it’s on the ground when they touch down then they still will have zero warning. As a plus if you’re going through town it’s easier to just stick any non-demonic enemy between the two points.
That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Either Mack will feel in danger, in which case she’ll call for help regardless of what Glory just said, or she won’t, in which case she’d only call to say she’s okay anyhow.
Whether or not Glory has nefarious plans, there’s no benefit in this other than (possibly) alarming Mack’s friends by making her miss a scheduled check-in.
That’s not saying Glory couldn’t be untrustworthy, but if she is, then she has to be both some kind of strategic mastermind for planning this cruise, and a ditz for that last line.
“Oh by the way, we’re running late so you might want to wait until we’re aboard before you call for help— ah, I mean, call to say you’re okay. Did I say call for help? Silly me, why would you want to call for help? I don’t know.”
What’s with the paranoia?
I get the feeling Mack is going to have to cut loose a lot sooner than she expects, I wonder if Mercy is prepared to deal with a beserking demon with ‘spidersense’
come to think of it, if Mack Daddy is still around, things might go very bad for the crazy Bitch
I sooooo want Mack to meet her… oh, what is he? Half brother? That is my true hope for this airship arc.
The unfortunate fact is that Dan lives across the ocean, and no longer works on big airships. The chance of meeting on this cruise is not really any higher than running into eachother walking down the street.
Also, Aidan is her full brother. He was simply adopted because Laurel Ann was younger when she had him.
Yeah that last quote doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, unless it’s a completely innocuous “We will be running late and don’t want to be late-er” kind of deal. Could Glory be up to something? Sure. And that statement may be innocuous anyway even if she is. Or she could be innocent and all hell could STILL break loose.
I don’t think Glory is the one the Man got to, for assorted reasons, not the least of which is that for her to be called a “teacher” would be stretching matters rather a lot, and the Man could be forgiven for not admitting to another contact when Callahan asked, if she was the one. Mack is learning a lot as a result of their association, but Glory is not formally instructing her.
But again, all of that doesn’t mean she couldn’t have other plans. If I were Mack tho, I would prefer to take a chance on people. If you keep to yourself out of paranoia, then you’re harder to get to but you also don’t have backup.
Not being a teacher doesn’t mean that he didn’t get to her. It just means that MackDaddy wasn’t obligated to say anything about it. There’s no reason why he couldn’t have made a deal with Acantha and influenced Glory as well.
Now.. if you want paranoia… the word “Kiddo” has only appeared once before in this story.
And…that was when in the story?
I’m pretty sure The Man calls Laurel Ann “Kiddo” once. I feel like Steff has said it too though.
Ridiculous Owl Turtle Thing. There’s a search up in the top right. I miss that thing.
That thing works? Wow.
Also, weird. Is that really the only other person to say that?
Fair conclusion.
My long rambly point is that Mack’s dad doesn’t HAVE to have gotten to Glory for Glory to be non-trustworthy. But that Mack, while she should live carefully, shouldn’t hole up in a bunker somewhere as a result of the fact that anyone could be up to no good.
At some point, you’ve just got to live life.
…yes, but sadly while on paper a half demon is entitled to live life, in actual life it rarely turns out quite so properly.
Of all the half and quarter demons that went to MU, only ONE of them didn’t lose control and wind up put down at some point. Of Mercy’s girls, only one of them even might still be alive and that four were only the survivors of rounds of executions. Of The Man’s other children, you’re looking at a 96% casualty rating bare minimum despite them being effectively immortal. That’s just deaths too, Mercy’s “dogs” seem to be the tip of the iceberg for the remainder, since if I remember right the Imperium wants half demons for their own purposes if the military figures in and Mercy bought from an “institution” that may not have been the only one of it’s kind keeping them locked up.
It’s important to recall that the only reason Mackenzie is walking around free isn’t Imperium law. It’s because everyone else is letting it happen because their plans are long term enough that rushing things isn’t worth it right this second. But all of those plans are still actively ongoing and by people who don’t mean any good for her.
And they’ll still be doing it, even if she doesn’t make any friends. I’d err on the side of making friends.
Right, but friends with a side of caution. Mackenzie lucked out making friends at Harlowe Hall, mainly because it was where they crammed everyone they deemed not worth trouble, but Treehome is different. A few elves actively sell flesh to Mercy(who lets remember has a HUGE bounty on Mackenzie’s head). The man lives out in the woods and the forest of Prax is just as much his territory as the forest of Blackwater, in addition to being in the territory of a Dragon. Even a rebellious queen could have a few dangerous contacts after spending a large hunk of her life in there.
I’m pretty sure she wants Mack to call down so she can get permission to get busy.
The most improbable
Hypothetical sense is
Often the most fun
I don’t get it. Earlier in this chapter, Glory basically tells Mack to go use the mirror right now if she wants to! Then she ends by saying, we’re running late so we’ll have to wait to send a message.
Huh?
“Humans spoiling the fun again. -_-”
Hijinks may well ensue, but I don’t see it having anything to do with Merci, you cannot just have a character appear like that without foreshadowing. Besides there are Pax laws about abducting people into slavery and Mack isn’t going to sign her life away after her first brush with it way back in volume one.
If anything like that happened the perpetrator would literally be pulling a mountain down over his/her head as Mack’s A-team she put together wouldn’t stand idly by and let whoever get away with it.