Stardust

It was many and many a year ago

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

—Annabel Lee, Edgar Allen Poe

     Despite being in one of the most luxurious game rooms money could buy, surrounded by glass cabinets full of decks of cards and hand-carved wooden chess sets and the occasional cardboard Hasbro game, and despite the ongoing round taking place at the lavishly-felted maple billiards table at that very moment, Aranea was stunningly bored.

     Thinking was rather difficult when she was bored; thinking in a straight line was practically impossible. She stretched out lazily on the velvet couch she was draped over, reaching one thin palm out in the air above her; her pale flesh shifted and twisted in her vision, a jellyfish floating through the river of time, draped in black lace.

     When she began to drift away from herself, Aranea often liked to talk to the spiders, but there weren’t any around at the moment—they didn’t like Taner’s voice. They didn’t like Daddy’s, either—they would scatter in every direction like so many marbles the minute he spoke.

     Both of their voices echoed in the peripheries of her attention at that moment; Taner’s quiet flame-crackle and her father’s low car-engine rev melded together to flow serenely over her. A word, though, a single word stood out—

     “—York—“

     —Aranea struggled to the surface, making broad, sweeping strokes with her arms above her head in her effort to focus her attention. That was an important word. She’d want to bring that word to the garden, later.

     “The damn thing is still underwater.” There was a clack!, followed by the clatter of balls scattering across the table, followed by an “Ah, shit.”

     The smile in Taner’s voice was audible. “I’m assuming we have a team working on that?”

     “It’s very likely doomed to fail, but yes, we have men trying to recover it.” Every time he spoke, Daddy’s voice made ripples in the current, even if he wasn’t saying anything particularly important. These words, though—they were waves. “We lost good men in that firefight, Remus. I need you to know, I don’t want to waste unnecessary lives on terrorists.”

     “I don’t, either. They’ve never been this aggressive…”

     “With access to informants, I suspect they’ll only escalate from here.”

     In a feat of indescribable effort, Aranea hoisted herself in all her heavy black finery from the opulent crimson cushions to sit fully upright. The grand tableau of the game room's hand-carved-oak-molding glory came into view; Taner facing away from her, leaning over the billiards table in an ashen arc, body completely hidden under the baggy drapery of his white silk dressing gown. Her father standing across the table from him, long fingers of one hand tapping gently against the wood of the table, shirtsleeves rolled up to expose his forearms; his face was chiseled from sickly-pale marble, high cheekbones and a square jaw covered by salt-and-pepper stubble, sunken black eyes that flickered over to Aranea as she sat up.

     “Anna, sweetheart,” he said. “Are you alright?”

     “I’m fine,” she said, nodding so furiously her bangs whipped against her forehead repeatedly. For good measure, she raised her arms up over her head and wiggled them around. “See? I’m breathing and everything.”

     “Do tell me if you stop,” he said dryly. Another clack! resonated throughout the room; his attention turned back toward Taner, who straightened up, holding the pool cue aloft like a sword.

     Taner was a strange man, in Aranea’s opinion. His ears were a bit wide and jutted from his head noticeably, his dark beard was scruffy and rarely trimmed, and there was an ember burning in his almost-concave chest that she didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about. It hollowed him out, made him glow like a jack-o-lantern, but she didn’t know who put the candle in him, and this upset her very much.

     “Three in one shot,” Taner said, throwing a glance over his shoulder toward her. “Looks like Daddy should be worried, eh?”

     Aranea wasn’t sure how to respond to this, so she nodded enthusiastically again.

     This seemed to be a fine reply; Taner turned his attention back to the billiards table, crouching down to align his eye with the line of the pool cue. His dressing gown bunched up rather inelegantly around his thighs.

     “You’re improving, I’ll give you that.” As he spoke, her father retrieved a piece of chalk from the intricately carved box set on a nearby sidetable and began rubbing it in slow, gentle circles over the tip of his cue. “What will you tell Hughes?”

     There was a stretch of silence as Taner continued to focus on lining up his shot. Aranea stretched both hands out in front of her and wiggled her fingers, delighting in the little current-shifts she felt at the very tips. She wanted very badly to drift away enough to see the jellyfish again. This distracted her so much that, when it finally came, the sound of Taner’s cue hitting a ball caused her to jolt and let out an involuntary squeak.

     “Shit,” Taner muttered. He stepped back from the table. “I think it may be worth it to go scorched earth.”

     “Bold.” When Daddy leaned over the table, cue in hand, it was much more elegant and striking than Taner’s haphazard posture. His movements refracted through the river both before and after his body; every arc was choreographed, or improvised but in the way a fencing match was improvised. “What changed?”

     “The cost-benefit analysis. They—“

     Taner was interrupted by a knock at the door. This did not surprise Aranea.

     After a moment, the thick brass handle turned and Ophelia stepped through the door, carefully closing it behind her as she did. Her frill bristled slightly up from its position nestled along her spine as she saluted with long fingers—she never quite got the hang of saluting, but Aranea never had the heart to point out that her extra joints at the claw were always slightly off-kilter.

     “Mr. President.” She nodded toward Taner. Her head then inclined slightly in Daddy's direction. “Marcus, sir.”

     “I swear I’ve asked you to call me John already,” he said. In one smooth motion, he jabbed his cue, sending balls skidding across the felt in an arc that cleanly knocked one of the striped ones into a pocket. He straightened up, smiling peaceably. “What’s the occasion?”

     Ophelia’s frill twitched nervously, mottled red fringe agitating against the crisp white of her blouse. “We’ve finished assessing the damage in medical. No mouths, of course, but we’ve also confirmed there is no damage to the meat and no doorway drift.”

     “That’s very lucky.” Taner’s eyes were still fixed on the table as he commented—he was back to his goblinesque squatting position, his hands braced against his thighs as he peered at the balls from every angle, repeatedly twisting and re-angling his torso. “The way that man blew through it, I’m surprised we aren’t patching holes between every two ships.”

     It hadn’t been that bad, in Aranea’s opinion. Holes in the river weren’t even possible. The water would rush in too quickly no matter what. And navigating transport wasn’t that difficult for an amateur, at least, not ones like—

     Daddy hit another shot, clank!ing Aranea’s thoughts clean out of her skull. None of the balls sank. He frowned. “Any news on the escapees?”

     “We’ve confirmed there were only two. Romero and Bowen.”

     “If I recall correctly, Romero could be an issue,” Taner interjected, bouncing up from his position. “We were just talking a moment ago—the cost-benefit analysis has changed. His profile is concerning in the wrong hands.”

     “He’s fine,” Aranea said, a little too exuberantly. Everyone’s heads immediately swiveled to look at her, Ophelia’s cocked heavily to the right in an obvious display of curiosity. Aranea felt her cheeks flush. “He didn’t get along with his body. It hurt him a lot.”

     The lizard tapped her long, gray-brown fingers against her thigh thoughtfully. “Romero presented with chronic pain as a result of our processes. She’s correct that he wasn’t a particularly good candidate.”

     There was a long, loaded silence, during which Taner took a shot, clapped exactly once in delight, and proceeded to bound around the table taking shots from different angles, becoming more and more excited as he progressed.

     Aranea rapidly grew bored with this and began combing her fingers through her hair repeatedly, bringing ink-black locks out to squint at through her lashes. They floated lazily under her gaze. This made her remember she was hungry, so she began gumming on a lock thoughtfully.

     “As I said, you’re improving.” Daddy’s voice brought her attention back to the material world and the room swam back into focus. He had a hand clasped on Taner’s shoulder; Taner, for his part, stood tall over the pool table looking immeasurably pleased with himself. He was very imposing for someone whose dressing-gown was hanging off one shoulder, exposing a disconcertingly pale and emaciated collarbone.

     “Three shots less than last time,” he said, shoulders back and chin high.

     Daddy nodded towards Ophelia, still hanging awkwardly just inside the doorway like a lost child. “You’re dismissed. Thank you.”

     She gave another salute, which wasn’t any more accurate than the first one. Aranea wiggled her fingers slightly at the Dusty’s retreating back. She rather liked Ophelia. Despite the species difference, or maybe because of it, she was one of the only people Aranea got along with.

     Her father’s weight sank into the velvety couch next to her. Across the room, Taner was busying himself with digging through one of the wooden game cabinets.

     “I worry about you visiting medical,” Daddy said quietly.

     She looked over at him. He was leaned back against the couch in an easy sprawl, arms draped loosely over the cushions, his crisp button-down slightly rumpled. The top two buttons were undone, revealing a few sparse strands of gray chest hair that stood out starkly against his pale skin. The air around him was still and calm.

     “Ophelia’s nice to me,” she said.

     Across the room, Taner closed the glass-paneled door of the game cabinet with a quiet click. He crossed over to another corner of the room, where he sank into a plush embroidered armchair and began dealing cards onto the adjacent side table.

     Daddy leaned his head against one hand, fingers spread to press against his jaw and temple. His pitch eyes tugged her forward ever-so-slightly. “I know, and I’m not worried about her. I’m worried about your relationships with the subjects.”

     There was something that Aranea knew she had to impress on him very firmly, but she could not for the life of her remember what it was. Thinking very hard, she continued to chew on her lock of hair.

     “We’re very lucky the recent crisis didn’t result in untold amounts of damage, both to our crew and to the ships themselves,” he said. “I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you were… involved, somehow.”

     This was tricky to navigate. Aranea could feel her brain beginning to overheat. She decided not to fight gravity and allow herself to lean in towards him, feeling the air ripple and shift ever-so-slightly around them. “I promise I won’t get involved.”

     Murky shadows moved in the depths of his eyes. He sighed heavily. “I know you mean well, sweetheart—“

     “You can’t be too overbearing with teens,” Taner interjected from the corner. “Let the girl breathe.”

     Daddy looked at her quietly for a few moments, during which Aranea felt the river beginning to boil around her head with the effort of keeping her face still. The shadows of the holes in his face continued to shift ever-so-slightly, teeming with hints at the creatures behind his whiteless eyes—monsters of the deep sea, designed to withstand inconceivable amounts of pressure. Aranea became hyper-aware, not for the first or the last time, of how many limbs Daddy had other than the one currently wearing his finger-puppet.

     “You’re right,” he finally said, breaking gravitational contact to look over at Taner. Aranea sat back very suddenly. “I worry too much.”

     “I didn’t know anything was going to happen the other day,” Aranea said virtuously. “And I wasn’t even home.”

     “I know,” he said. In one swift motion, he wrapped his arm around her and tugged her against his side. Aranea let herself fall against her father, burying her face in the soft folds of his shirt and letting herself be overcome by the sweet-spicy wafts of his cologne. It smelled piney and clean and old—felt like tripping and falling in the woods. “It’s too easy to worry about you—but you’re a grown woman, now.”

     Aranea cooed appreciatively. One hand was cupped slightly against his chest; the other fumbled around by her head until it found his own hand and gave it a squeeze.

     The current swirled around, bringing Taner’s voice to her in a slow, drifting motion. “Are you wrapping this conversation up soon?”

     Daddy’s voice rumbled directly against her ear on his chest. It seeped directly into her brain, cooling down the gears even as it evaporated on touch. “I could be. Why?”

     “We need to draft an order—“

     “Right,” he said, very quickly.

     The world shifted as he grasped Aranea’s shoulders and drew her upright. He made direct eye contact with her again, cupping her cheek with one hand.

     “Anna, sweetheart,” Daddy said, fingers to her temple, rubbing in a soothing circle. “Why don’t you go out tonight? You and Mary can take my card, get dinner somewhere nice.”

     “Alright,” she said peaceably. He gave her a kiss on the forehead before standing up; dizzily, Aranea followed suit, which promptly led her to giggle in delight as her toes wiggled in the faux fur rug. She spun in a small circle, scads of black lace and ribbons swinging around as her skirt twirled around her, then gave her audience a little bow. Daddy clapped, as was only appropriate.

     As Aranea bounded out of the game room, she resolved to go find some spiders before heading out on her date. It would be easier to understand what had just happened if she talked to them about it.