When they were settled in, Kay said, “So, welcome to Jefferson Unit.”
“Thank you. Until today I haven’t really seen anything except the infirmary. And the Chamber room,” she said as an afterthought.
“Is that the now-famous locket?” Kay nodded in the general vicinity of Elora’s chest.
Storm followed his gaze and realized he didn’t want Kay studying the locket too closely where it snuggled in the cle**age between her br**sts. He mentally caught himself being irrationally possessive and gave himself a little internal shake.
Krisp came by and oversaw the pouring of water by a young man in a black vest and white waist apron. He rattled off chef's selections for the night. The only dish Elora recognized was chicken. She didn’t understand pecan crusted, but she did like mushroom sauce so she asked for that. After everyone had ordered she admitted that she didn’t really know the dish choices by name and would need to get a quick education on food. They were served a tomato soup course which she thought was delicious, but eating red soup can be worrisome when trying to make a good impression.
Kay turned to Elora, “So far what’s the biggest difference between your world and ours?”
“Vampire,” she said. “Plural. The plural of vampire is vampire, right?”
Kay exchanged a surprised glance with Storm, thought about it for a second and then asked, “How do you know?”
“Black Swan Field Training Manual, Section One, Chapter One, Number One.”
Kay chuckled softly and shook his head. “I mean, how do you know there aren’t vampire in your dimension? Only a tiny fraction of our population knows that our world is crawling with them.”
Her brows drew together as she considered that. “Crawling?”
He smiled at having been called out on an exaggeration. “Okay. Maybe crawling is a bit much. I guess it just seems that way to us sometimes.”
When they took the soup bowls away, Elora realized that Rammel had been staring at her the entire time. She knew that cultured persons do not initiate confrontations, but she’d had enough so she trained the full force of her attention on the man across the table. “Why are you staring like that?”
Kay looked from Elora to Ram. “Don’t let him bother you. Elves are not known for manners.”
Ram dragged his eyes away from Elora long enough to turn a sarcastic comment toward Kay. “Oh. And berserkers are the essence of Miss Emily Post I suppose?”
“What do you mean, elves?” she asked Kay.
Kay shifted in his seat and looked at Storm like he was trying to get a clue if he’d said the wrong thing. “You know. Elves. Pointy ears? Big feet?”
She looked at him waiting for the punch line or the clue that it was an inside joke. “You mean like in fairy tales?”
Rammel’s head jerked up and his face took on a slightly pinker color as he sucked in a gasp. He had the look of a person who had just been slapped. “I am no’ a fairy!” He stared at Elora with gaping indignation like she had just delivered the most profound insult in the history of effrontery.
“Um,” Storm began, “elves and fae have been at war for over a thousand years. They hate each other.” He glanced at Ram. “A lot.”
It took a minute for Elora to realize that they were being serious. Somehow it was easier to accept the possibility of vampire than elves, maybe because of her love of fairy tales. She turned to Kay.
“Would you mind changing places with me?”
She caught a flicker of surprise, but, like a gentleman, he said, “Not at all,” as he rose and surrendered the seat next to Ram.
Elora moved around to the other side of the table and sat. Turning to Ram she studied him for a moment, then lifted her right hand toward his hair and said, “May I?”
He nodded, looking completely intrigued. Gently she ran the backs of her first two fingers underneath the hair covering his left ear. Feels like corn silk. Looks like spun gold.
While Ram did his best to suppress a shiver, she lifted his hair up and out of the way until his entire ear was revealed. A beautiful, and, to her, quite magical, pointed ear lay close to his head. And it was her turn to gasp.
She thought she saw a firefly of silver dance across eyes gone dark blue, but dismissed it as a trick of the light. She touched the tip ever so slightly, looked from his ear to his eyes and back again, then suddenly grinned at him like he had just performed the most incredibly marvelous feat. It was the first time Storm had seen her smile turned up to the full power of radiance squared. The effect was breathtaking. She lit up the room.
Elora reluctantly pulled her hand away from Ram’s hair, but continued to look at him like he was a bona fide miracle. “In your world, do you not have a collection of stories called fairy tales?”
Ram shook his head and drew his brows together slightly. “Sounds most disturbin’.”
She smiled. “Well, there are some that are rather unpleasant, but most are magical and charming. These stories feature mythical creatures that do not exist in my world. Creatures like fairies, elves, dragons and ogres.” She continued to stare for another minute, then, looking around the table she said, “Do you also have dragons and ogres?”