Morph

The dress flows just past my knees and hugs me. It has short sleeves and a sweetheart neckline, and the color is a blueish grey. My hair is braided into a crown in the front, but flows carelessly behind me.

A clicking noise sounds through the hall as I make my way to the dinning room, the bottom of my creme colored heels high five the black tile of the floors even as I stand in the doorway of the dinning room.

Everyone looks up as I enter, I try to act as though they’re not looking at me and take a seat next to a stranger. The table is packed with them. Libra’s eyes catch mine, and they gleam with raw anger, I feel naked under his gaze, so I look away.

Other than the twins, the general, and the rude snake boy whose name I can’t remember, I know no one at the table, and that makes me nervous. There are over twenty people at the long table, they vary in looks so I’m sure they vary in species.

The boy sitting next to me has skin the shade of paper and hair that of fire. His lips are pale and his yes glowing a deep red. In the corner of my eye I see him staring at me, I ignore it. Thanking God when Gemini starts talking.

“Fractions of the Depth Manor.” He starts, as Libra stands next to him. They wear identical black suits that hug their torsos and if it weren’t for Gemini’s lack of an accent, and Libra’s suit jacket lying carelessly over his chair, I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. “As you all know, the sixtieth rein has begun, as the morpher queen has now joined us.”

The crowd agrees, as Libra takes the stand. “She is very important to this world, and she holds up a fraction in our manor now.” His voice is demanding, final, cold. “But with her, comes enemies, many others who wish to harm her. Being loyal to us, is now being loyal o her. Do we understand?” They agree yet again.

I get stares, my skin crawls from the attention and I thank Libra this time for taking the attention from me. “A threat to her, is now a threat to us. Do we understand?” Its a demand in the form of a question. Authority rolls off him, his voice daring anyone to disagree with his words, the lord in him comes out. The Libra that is a ruler.

“We understand.” They say in unison. “My Lord.”

Libra nods at the people of the manor. Gemini takes his place, letting everyone know that dinner may start, and it does.

Chatter now fills the room, but I stay silent as I fill my plate, careful not to dig into any octopus.

“So your the Queen of Morphers?” A voice asks from beside me. I nod awkwardly, chewing my food. “I’m Seconne, a dragon.” He holds out his hand and I shake it, choking on rice at the last part of his sentence.

He laughs, patting my back while I gulp don some kind of fruit juice. Once my throat is clear, I look at him wide-eyed, ignoring the looks I get from others. “Would you like to see my fire?” He asks, I nod rapidly and he laughs again.

“Pass me the goosh.” He says pointing to some raw looking meat. I hand it to him, not asking what it is. “I’m not actually a dragon you know.” He says grabbing the plate from my hands. “The correct term, is Detomin.”

And with that, fire flows from his throat and the goosh cooks to a golden brown. I say nothing, astonished. He offers me some of the meat and I decline, learning my lesson last time that that meat could be anything. “Its only cow tongue.” Seconne shrugs, setting the plate down, and I gag glad I didn’t take any. “We don’t have the strange creatures here, so we cut the tongues from the human world, then skin them.”

“I’ll act like that’s normal.” I say, he laughs.

“Your weird is our normal, your story books or our lives.” He talks through mouthfuls of food. “Soon though, you’ll have a story worth a title in the human world.” He promises. “You could be one of those.. book people, who twist our lives up and write them down, calling them fantasies. A fantasy is a bird, I’ll never understand that.” His face twists in confusion and I burst out laughing at his misunderstanding of a fantasy book.

I see Libra glaring at me from across the table, his eyes are cold and his jaw hard as he watches me like I stole his crack money. I ignore him and enter a full on conversation with Seconne. He explains to me what each creature at the table is, starting with the end. There’s an ice breather, a bird man, an elf and even a goblin. There are many more which go completely over my head due to the amount of information given at once.

After, I tell him of the many races on Earth and how the species are kind of like races. He asks me what specie of human I am, and after laughing at his word choice I explain to him that my father is half Korean and half Italian, while my mother is fully Caucasian. Then I have to explain the map so he can understand where Korea and Italy are, fifth grade social studies did me justice there.

“If that’s the case, then where is Caucasia?” I throw my head back in laughter.

“Koreans are sometimes referred to as Asian, and Caucasians as white, white people mostly came from Europe from my knowledge.”

“So Caucasians are Europeans?” He’s a fast learned. “Wait white? So I’m Caucasian?” He wiggles his fiery red eyebrows. I shake my head, laughing again as Gemini dismisses everyone. People clear out, and workers start cleaning the table. I stand to leave, saying goodbye to Seconne.

“Queen of morphers?” He calls. “I never got your name.”

“Queen Serenity, at your service.” I bow jokingly and he laughs along, hugging me before I leave.

I walk out into the hall, my feet aching from having heels on all night. The clicking sound starts again as people rush to their rooms. Someone grabs my writ, pulling me into a dark side hallway. I elbow immediately, turning when Libra’s voice lets out a groan. He curses, rubbing his jaw. “I would say sorry, but we’re not going to pretend that this isn’t at all creepy.” I fold my arms, awaiting an explanation.

He doesn’t respond, only looks up at me with that never faltering anger. “Yeah so, I’m just going to go.” I turn, but that’s the farthest I get before I’m pinned to the wall. His hands hold me in place and I silently thank them as he looks me directly in my eyes, and my legs falter.

“You look nice.” He says plainly, his depths raking over my body. I want t throw an entire trench coat over this dress, I hate how it feels when he looks at me, like all my skin is even off my body.

“Your angry, because I look nice?” I nearly choke on my words, its a stupid question I know, but its the first thing I could think of.

“Yeah.” He says, pretending to think. “Sounds about right.” Chills run through me at his cold tone.

I stiff a fake laugh. “Sounds absurd.” I mean really, what’s it to you how I look? How can you be angry about something that has utterly and absolutely nothing to-”

My nervous ramble is cut short when he slams my wrist against the wall. “Please stop going on and on.” He says harshly, his face twists as if he’s in physical pain. Libra lets me go and steps away from me. He paces the small area of the hall. “God, love.” He sighs angrily.

“If only you knew how bloody dreadful your voice is.” His hand slams against the wall, I flinch from the sound, confused on how I did nothing at all but still made him so angry. He turns his head back to me. “Its lovely, your voice.” If I wasn’t confused already, I’m drowning in it now, he has a bi-polar disorder, that has to be it. There’s no way a sane person can jumble words like this and think it sounds okay.

“I hate when I find things lovely, and darling,” his pitch black eyes seem to do the impossible, darken, as they take in my appearance again, “you look, very lovely.”

Its a compliment inside an insult, and I can’t say it doesn’t settle within me. “So do you.” I reply truthfully, I always seem to fight fire with fire with him, being the bigger person doesn’t exist once we get to bickering. He looks shocked at my revelation. “That suit does wonders for your already gorgeous figure, but do you see me throwing you around in a hallway?” My voice is harsh and my words surprise me. His eyes go wide, showing me that he’s surprised as well.

“I hate you.” He says blankly. Bi-polar disorder it is. “The more I’m around you the more I crave your presence. The prophecy will have its way and I hate you for that.” Green flickers in his eyes, gone as quick as it came, only adding to the truth of his words. The prophecy will have its way.

I stay quiet, what could I say? Anything that could come from my mouth would only drive his anger, and whose to know he won’t hit me, again. Then we’d have a WWE match in a hall which I could have avoided. He takes my silence as an opening to speak.

“My mother searched for life her entire benign.” His voice cracks as an emotion tries to break through, he doesn’t let it. “She died without it, so I search for death, not life.” I can tell he’s suppressing an emotion, so without thinking I walk up to him and wrap my arms around his torso.

He tenses under me, before letting out a deep breath and slowly placing his arms around my waist. His head falls into my chest and one of my hands trail up and latches itself into his hair. We stay like that for a while. At least ten minutes filled with me assuring him it was okay to feel, and that if hate is the only thing he can feel, that that is okay because at least he feels something.

His arms tighten around me, then he lets me go and I do the same. “If you want me to stay away from you I will, if not feeling is that important to you, its that important to me.” My proposition stands, but this time it stands for a different reason. At first, it was to not make him feel uncomfortable in his home, now it stands because its important. I don’t know why, but his opinions and wants are suddenly as equal as mine.

I’m trying to help him fight a love we can not escape, and as crazy as that sounds, its crazy true.

He shakes his head. “I’m afraid its a tad too late love.” Libra offers me a small smile, I try to snap the sight in my mind as I return his very rare smile.