The Raspite Prince

"So what will happen if you do not take over his business?" He had said something about younger sisters so you would think at least one of them would step up and take over.

"I am sure he will find a way to convince me to return home if not then my mother will." He replies. He takes the last bite of his food.

"Oh I see you are closer to her?" It is a distracting conversation trying to take his as well as my own mind off of the events of the elevator.

"Yes I do not like to disappoint her and she uses that to her advantage some times." He takes my tray, stacking it on his own, and hands them off to someone else as we sit still talking.

"I wasn't that close to my own mother she like most people she was terrified of me." I look down. He reaches over and lifts my chin up. He looks me deeply into my eyes. They are truly hypnotic, irresistible and he knows they weaken me, he must or he would not force me to look into them so often.

"I think he knows that I have feelings for you." Here we are back to this. It seems to be something he is not willing to drop so easily.

"Why?" I ask. Not sure I really want to know at this point.

"He was watching our every move. The fact that I spoke up for you, I saw the look in his eyes when I did. Trust me he knows. I can't tell if he is happy or upset. My father was never any good at showing his feelings." He says with that sideways smile that is so captivating.

"My father wasn't so hard to read and I miss his smile." A sad look comes across my face.

"I actually love listening to you talk about your father it seems he was the closest person to you." He scoots his chair over right beside me. With his elbow propped on the table as he gently rubs hand up my shoulder while we continue talking.

"He was. He was everything to me my father, my friend, and my hero. He was always there for me. My mom doesn't even know all there is to know about me. She was not present when the priest of my world read the entire prophecy of my birth and my life to come." I stop and look at him. I am hoping he won't ask what is said as I have left out so much of it.

"Really why was she not present?" I release a breath that had caught itself in my chest at the mention of the prophecy.

"My mother, although I am sure she loves, loved me in some way, was always extremely terrified of me. She knew what I was from the first second I was born. She had very little to do with me ever since." It hurts to think of it even now I wish for a chance to somehow make her love me, but it is too late as she is dead.

"And yet you still show much love toward her." He just seems to be in awe of my ability to forgive.

"She had her reasons. I hold no ill will toward her. Besides it is not good for me to hold a grudge with what I am capable of it wouldn't be safe." I respond.

"I guess I can understand that. How do you possess all the powers of creation and destruction and still come out as well balance as you are?" I look at him for a moment, but then I remember he has seen me bring the plant back to life.

"My father has taught me well. As a king he had some powers, not quite like mine, but still powers as well. He always told me that being king and caring for his kingdom was one of his most challenging accomplishments." I watch as most of the other crew has now left the cafeteria as lunch is over.

"Why is that? I mean, what did he mean by that?" he asks.

"Well," as I thought of everything my father had taught me I could feel my spirits lift, "he always said the key to running a kingdom is the same key as having a happy life. You have to balance, decide, and act. You have to balance the good and the bad, emotions, and personal feelings. You have to decide what is in the best interest of everyone involved. Then you have to act on the decision that you made and stick to it." He smiles at me as though what I had to say weighs on him somehow.

"Well I guess that explains how you turned out so wonderful." I smile back at him and blushed a little. We still have an hour before we reconvene.

"What should we do now?" I ask as I look at the completely empty cafeteria.

"I don't know they haven't called us back yet." He replies.

"Perhaps we could go to the garden again?" I like it there, it is so beautiful and peaceful.

"You know I think I have an idea." He stands and holds out his hand to help me up but after I stand up he doesn't let go and I don't pull out of it. We make our way up the elevator but I do not recognize the button that he has pushed.

"Where are we going?" I look into his eyes as the doors close.

"I thought we would go somewhere different. It's actually on of my favorite spots." He is being so mysterious, but I go along with him. He is so strange and exciting at times, perhaps not so much so to others, but to me it is wonderful. We still have some time so if this is what he wants to do with me before I leave him then I will go along with it. What harm can come of letting him treat me as though I am more than just my curse? I am already willing to walk away even with feelings for him there isn't anything at this point he can do to convince me that staying would be a good idea. Or am I fooling myself?

We enter a hallway and go to the doors directly in front of the elevator. The room is empty except for a small control panel in the center. He walks over to it leaving me a few feet away. I look at him for and he looks up at me and smiles.

"Watch this." he pushes a few buttons and all of the sudden we were surrounded by space. The entire room fills with images of stars and planets in miniature size.

"What is this?" I ask as I reach forward and ran my hand through the image of a planet. It goes right through it displacing the image as it continues to move.

"It's a hologram. It's a projection of an image that looks real but it's just a picture. I come up here to think, to clear my head." I look around as the images move slowly around me. It is beautiful. I am in outer space without actually being in any real danger.

"It's beautiful." I smile as I play with the images he just stands back and laughs at my child like behavior. I have never seen anything like this which is becoming common place as I venture forward with him.

"Yes just like you." I turn to face him he is staring at me. I watch as he now moves closer to me. I must admit this time I am the one who makes the first move toward the kiss and there is no way he will push me away. I ignore the glow and just hold the kiss for more than a few minutes. When I do pull away I see a look of happiness as well as shock in his eyes.

"So your feelings are the same as mine." His smile is as big as it can get as I have just showed him exactly what he already knew.

"Yes Patrick I do love you. But it changes nothing." I say as I look down he pulls my eyes back up to his.

"I knew you were hiding it. Well trying to hide it anyways." His smile has not went away in the least. There is a look in his eyes that draws me in to them as he seems more than just happy.

"We should go, we have to go back to the conference room now. I have to convince them that it is too dangerous to keep me around people." I say as I turn and walk toward the door. He doesn't completely let go of me as he allows his hand to slide down my arm until my hand is in his.

"If that is what you really wish to do then I will argue for it." I turn back to him and now his face has changed to one of sadness.

"I don't want to hurt you Patrick but somehow I think that it would hurt so much more if I were to end up killing you. I couldn't live with myself." I look at him with a sort of sad smile.

"I will need to speak to the captain as well to get him on our side, and them as well before you join us." He walks back to the center panel and presses the button to turn it off.

"Of course." He turns back toward me and we leave. I try to calm myself down as we got back into the elevator because at this point I am still glowing. This time he doesn't reach for my hand we just walk side by side.

"You have to set aside your emotions we have to get them to focus on what is right and not on the feelings we have for each other." He looks over at me and grabs my hand lifting it up to kiss it.

"Your right." I focus as hard as I can on bringing the glow down. At first it seems like it isn't going to work, but then Patrick keeps whispering that he knows I can control it. The sound of his voice is relaxing and helps me to focus.

"Focus Laoonica, focus on bringing it back in." He repeats what I had told him my father taught me. "Balance, decide, act."

"I am trying." I say as the elevator head back to the main deck. "Balance, decide, and act." I repeat the words over and over and by the time the doors to the deck opens the glow is completely gone. We step onto the deck the lieutenant steps away for a moment and into the captain's quarters. He is in there for a while but I can't hear anything that is going on. I stand alone fiddling my fingers together. I don't realize I am doing it until I notice one of the deck personal staring at my hands. I immediately drop my hands to my side and recompose myself. I walk toward the Captains quarters. I try to hear what is going on, but I can only hear their muffled voices. It is somewhat strange because I can hear three muffled voice. One sounds like a woman's voice. I don't want to seem anxious or nosey, so I took a few steps back. I try to wait patiently but I wonder who the woman is. It takes several more minutes before they come out. Why did this seem so easy when my father was in charge of things? I keep wishing I had the ability to bring him back somehow. He would have demanded more respect and they would have undoubtedly listened and respected him.