“Val, I…”
“Please, I never want to hear my Alliance name cross your lips again. Use my human name, ‘Valentin’. And don’t think this is the end, it’s not. I will not forget you so easily, but I must walk away now, so this looks like nothing serious, just some playful kisses in the garden. This is to save us both some honor and UCs. Now, in accordance with Imperial customs, may I take my leave Madam Ellie?” The last thing Valentin wanted to do was walk away.
Ellie was frantically trying to think of a reason to make him stay. Some loophole that an Alliance woman would use that would intrigue him not to walk away, but her mind was blank, “Do you always kiss random women at parties out of habit?”
Valentin sighed, “No, Madame Ellie. I do not.” He wanted to tell her that this was the quickening, finding one’s true other half in an instance, that he knew from three days ago when he saw her at the starting line. But he didn’t want to tell her that yet. He wanted to go and figure out a way to make this work. The longer they stood together now the more difficult things would be in the future.
Ellie almost swooned when he said her name. It had never sounded more melodical to her ears, “You’re not human enough to have the courage to step around the rules?” Ellie taunted him in a final bid to make him stay.
“No, you mistake me. I’m human enough to know that Admiral Jei will waste no time in taking his sword and killing me if we continue. And unfortunately, I won’t be made into a god.”
Ellie felt enraged at his comment, targeted at her mother, compounded by him wanting to kiss her and then leave her in public. She lost all control over her emotions. She ripped off her ID necklace and threw it directly at his face with all the force she could muster.
Valentin was shocked when he saw her necklace flying towards him. He caught her ID necklace with this right hand just before it struck him squarely in the face, “Good aim,” he commented but he doubted she heard him.
Ellie stormed off into the dark garden, lit only by lanterns without another word to Valentin. How dare he use me and then just walk away then use me again and want to leave. I’m not a bad kisser, she thought.
Valentin looked at her ID necklace briefly in his hand and then put it in his pocket. He decided that this small token was better than any of the other prizes he won today. He had found his true other half and there was no doubt in his mind that he would have her, enraged and all.
Tamsin saw Ellie storming off after making out with the victor in the garden. She excused herself from the conversation she was having with the Alliance men also from House Rega and quickly followed Ellie.
“Ellie?” she called out.
Ellie didn’t stop walking but turned and then said with tears in her eyes, “I’m going home.”
“That’s fine. I’m ready to leave too.”
They walked to the entrance where their guards met them, and the transport appeared outside the door to take them back to the House Rega Main House. In the transport, Tamsin watched Ellie wipe away some tears from her face and then asked, “What happened?”
Ellie looked at the guards and then Tamsin.
Tamsin nodded, “Tell me over some hot chocolate. I brought some from Earth.”
Once back at the Main House and in their pajamas after saying their prayers, they were sharing some hot chocolate in Ellie’s room while she recounted everything that had happened between her and Valentin to Tamsin. “Then, I was so angry, I threw my ID necklace at him because I had nothing else to throw.” She was standing on the bed for dramatic effect as she told Tasmin, Nibbles, Prue and Piper what happened, and she almost tumbled off as she re-enacted her dramatic throw.
Tamsin laughed, “I love it. And what did he do?”
“He caught my necklace easily and said something like, ‘not now’. I don’t know. I was so livid I couldn’t listen to anything.”
“Too bad. He might have been giving you a plan to run away with him,” Tamsin suggested with a small smile, but when she saw the look on Ellie’s face she said, “I’m only joking. I’m sure he will never forget you though. Who throws jewelry at a man after making out with him, after meeting him five minutes before?” Tamsin questioned. “I know I’ve not been on this side of the galaxy for long, but I don’t think these things happen very often. Definitely memorable.”
Tamsin looked at Ellie and then they both laughed.
“Yes, I doubt he will ever forget it. I know I won’t.” Ellie sat down on the bed again and drank her hot chocolate, “I just wish he would have been a regular maximum class Alliance man in the fleet that I could run away with and marry next month.”
“Do you hate it here that much?” Tamsin knew this was a stupid question as Admiral Jei had murdered her mother, but she thought that somehow Ellie had come to terms with that in some kind of Stockholm-Syndrome-Alliance-material-wealth-fundamentalist-religion-way.
Ellie shook her head, “No.” Then she began again, “Actually I don’t know. I despise how Jei treated my mother, but besides murdering her he was not unkind or unfair and now she is a goddess,” Ellie shrugged. “And my own father, well, he caused all of this because he had to get Sandra, my mother’s best friend, to move in. He just couldn’t stay faithful to my mother, not even just pretend to for her sake. She never wanted to be in the Empire. She hated it here, but she couldn’t just leave either. I used to think marriage was wrong, but if my father would have been married to my mother, none of this,” she raised her hands towards the ceiling to indicate Jei and her mother’s relationship, “would have ever happened. My father would have been faithful to my mother.”
Tamsin realized then that Ellie had a lot more on her plate than just the death of her mother and the difficult position with Admiral Jei, “But now you have Magnolia.” She was no therapist and didn’t have the skill to say something that Ellie needed to hear. As far as Tamsin was concerned, she would need to find out more and think a lot about what she just found out to say something more appropriate. This is so messed up, she thought.
Ellie smiled at the mention of her name, “Yes, and I was the one who got to name her, and I share guardianship of her with Jei. It was a big thing for him to give that to me. You know he didn’t have to.”
Tamsin wanted to say, ‘He didn’t have to, but he isn’t an idiot. He’s buying your loyalty.’ Instead she replied, “That was very kind of him.”
They sat in silence then. Ellie began petting her kitten named Piper. After a few minutes she exclaimed, “Ugh, I feel like a fool. And now, I just hope it’s not all over the gossip columns. Jei won’t like it.”
“Don’t worry about it. In the scheme of things, it was a trifle. You’ll probably be fined and nothing more. However, I heard from the men you left me with that the fines are not always equal or fair. That they fine people based on how old they are and how great they feel the offense was to the gods or the Empire.”
Ellie laughed, “Well, I’m an underage ward and he is a half human outcast. I’m sure it is going to be expensive and Valentin will be angry I lied too. I told him I was of age. I wonder when I will find out how much it is? I am dreading it.”