Slime Evolution

Chapter 489 - The Real Dessert

The side door of the private room opened onto a narrow path of pale stone, and Lohan had the sensation of stepping into the sky itself.

The hanging garden was smaller than it looked from inside, but far more beautiful up close.

Small islands of grass floated at different heights, connected by thin stone walkways and braided rope bridges that swayed gently, and among them, glowing petals rose and fell in the air like firefly dust, shining in shades of blue and gold.

In the distance, on the artificial horizon that surrounded the place, a perfect projection of Orvyn’s gas giant filled much of the sky, immense and striped in soft colors, with a small gray moon slowly crossing its edge.

The air was cool, and carried a light scent of flowers he still couldn’t name, and somewhere, hidden among the leaves, small crystal bells chimed on their own in the wind that didn’t exist.

"I’ve been coming here since the restaurant opened," Isabella said, going down the stone steps with one hand resting on his arm. "Everyone stays at the table, talking business, and I’ve always been the only one who escapes to the garden. I’ve never brought anyone here."

He noticed the weight of that last sentence, and said nothing, because some things didn’t call for an answer.

The two of them walked slowly along the first walkway, and Lohan noticed that her arm, resting on his, weighed almost nothing, and that each of his steps required a discreet calculation so as not to be stronger, or more abrupt, or faster than it should be.

It was like dancing, he thought, a dance he was learning while dancing it, with the music playing in the rhythm of her breathing.

And the touch of her arm on his was making all of it even harder.

At a certain point, the walkway ended on a small island, of soft, dense grass, with a single stone bench facing the horizon. Isabella stopped at the edge, and slipped off her shoes with a quick motion, setting them aside, and stepped onto the grass barefoot, showing off her lovely little white feet with a sigh of relief that made her smile.

"A dress that costs as much as a small car and barefoot on the grass," Lohan commented. "Your ancestors would be horrified."

"My ancestors never experienced grass on a floating island," she replied, and took two steps into the middle of the island, turning slowly with her arms open, and the skirt of blue silk rose in waves around her legs. "They didn’t know what they were missing."

The island swayed slightly with the movement, and Isabella, who hadn’t expected it, lost her balance for half a second, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a small cry of surprise.

Lohan didn’t think.

The invisible hand left him before the will itself, a force far gentler than anything from his training, which caught the air behind her like an open palm and pushed her back to the center of her own axis, at the same time as he crossed the grass in two strides and caught her by the waist.

The world stopped for an instant.

She was leaning against his chest, both hands gripping his shirt at the shoulder, and her face was turned up, so close that he could see each of the lighter specks spinning in the gold of her eyes, and the trail of pink climbing up her neck.

Her white ears, which had flattened in fright, rose slowly, one at a time, and turned toward him, like little antennas.

"You pushed me with your mind," she said, a little breathless.

"I pushed you with my mind," he confirmed. "With my body, too."

"That was cheating."

"It was an emergency."

"It was very good cheating," she murmured, and didn’t pull away.

They stayed like that for a length of time he couldn’t measure.

It could have been a second, or an entire minute, and the only thing Lohan was certain of was the light weight of her hand on his shoulder, and the warmth that came through the fabric of his shirt, and a strange, deep calm that he had never felt, not even in the most complete peace of Elysium.

She was the one who pulled back first, slowly, with a shy smile, and went to sit on the stone bench with her legs folded to the side, and he followed her, and the bench was narrow enough that the two of them ended up with their shoulders touching, with no elegant way to avoid it.

Up above, a cloud of glowing petals drifted slowly between them, spiraling, and Lohan, on impulse, extended the invisible hand and picked one of them, small, light blue, almost transparent, and guided it through the air to the height of Isabella’s face.

The petal danced before her eyes, floated to the top of her head, and landed with absurd delicacy right between the base of one of her ears and her hair, where it stayed, glowing softly.

"Was that on purpose?" she asked, without moving, her eyes fixed on him.

"This time, yes."

The blue light pulsed under the skin of his forehead, and he felt her look at it with a tenderness she had never directed at anything like it.

"I like the light," she said, softly. "It only shows up when you’re feeling something real. I noticed that. When the spoon floated, when you held me. It’s like a thermometer."

"A very indiscreet thermometer."

"Very," she agreed, and laughed, and then grew serious, and looked at the horizon, at the gas giant moving slowly behind the crystal bells. "Halon, I need to ask you something. And I want you to tell me the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable."

"I will."

"What do you want?"

The question hung between them, simple and enormous, and he took a deep breath, and tried to remember the egg, the pressure of one millimeter at a time, but this time the image didn’t help. Some truths couldn’t be measured out, he realized.

They simply needed to be said, whole.

"I want you," he said. "Not just as a friend, or as the guild president, or as the person who showed up in a white Ferrari to get me out of a police stop. I want you the way I’ve never wanted anyone, and I don’t know what to do with that, and I’m very afraid of ruining everything. But today, in this garden, I can’t pretend anymore that it isn’t true."

Isabella went very quiet.

When she turned her face, there were tears in her eyes, big and warm, that ran down without any shame, and a smile so wide it seemed the whole garden could fit inside it.

"Do you realize I spent three days rehearsing a speech to tell you exactly this?" she asked, her voice choked. "And you settled it all in two sentences."

"I’m very efficient."

"You’re an idiot," she said, and laughed, and dried her face with the back of her hand, and her ears quivered with pure joy. "A wonderful idiot."

She turned her whole body toward him, so that their knees touched, and Lohan felt his heart beat at a speed that not even the evolution had caused.

"I want you too," she said, and her voice came out steady, despite everything. "And I’m afraid too. But I’m tired of being afraid, and I’d rather get it wrong trying than spend my whole life wondering how it would have been."

He opened his mouth, and found no word that could match that.

"I’m going to do something now," Isabella continued, lower, leaning toward him with the petal still glowing between her ear and her hair. "If you don’t want it, just tell me."

"I won’t tell you," he answered, and it was the easiest thing he had ever said.

She closed the remaining space with an almost painful slowness, her golden eyes closing before she arrived, and Lohan felt, before anything else, the warmth of her breath against his lips, and the soft scent of jasmine, and a slight tremor in her hands, which rested against his chest.

Then her lips touched his.

It was a soft kiss, hesitant, almost shy, like the first touch of a note on an instrument that hasn’t been tuned yet, and for one whole second neither of them knew what to do.

Then, little by little, the kiss deepened, hesitation turning into confidence, their mouths learning each other’s rhythm, and Lohan raised a hand and rested it against the side of her face, his fingers almost weightless, the tip of his thumb brushing her warm cheek, and thought, with an almost funny clarity, that he had never touched anything so carefully in his whole life.

She sighed against his mouth, a low, trembling sound, and her hands rose from his chest to his shoulders, and then to his neck, and her ears, which he glimpsed in passing, quivered lightly with each breath, and the crystal bells in the garden, far away, rang a long, clear note, as if the place itself had decided to take part.

When they finally pulled apart, it was only enough to breathe, their foreheads still touching, their eyes slowly opening, and the two of them stayed there, trading short breaths, saying nothing.

The blue light on his forehead shone so brightly that it lit up her face.

"Halon," Isabella whispered, and began to laugh, a low, disbelieving laugh that shook her shoulders, and hid her face in his neck, still laughing. "You’re literally glowing."

"I’m trying to stop."

"Don’t stop," she asked, her voice muffled against his skin. "Please, don’t stop."

He laughed too, and held her, with the same gentleness as before, and felt her body fit against his as if that space had been made for her, and they stayed like that a good while, embraced on a stone bench on a floating island, while the gas giant moved slowly across the artificial sky and the glowing petals drifted down like colored snow around them.

"Does this mean we..." she began, after a while, and stopped, and laughed at herself. "I don’t even know how to finish that sentence."

"Me neither," he admitted. "But I want to find out."

"Me too." She lifted her head, and looked at him with her eyes still damp, and a smile that Lohan knew he would keep in his memory for the rest of his life. "We’ll find out little by little. No rush, no rules, no one telling us what we have to be."

"Deal."

"And the guild?"

"The guild is tomorrow’s problem."

"Agreed," she said, and then, with a sudden mischief in her eyes, leaned in again, and kissed him once more, quick and light, just to make sure it was real.

He stared at her, dizzy, the blue light still pulsing, and Isabella reached up and felt for the petal still caught in her hair, and removed it carefully, and placed it in the palm of his hand.

"Keep it," she asked. "For when you need to remember that this happened."

Lohan closed his fingers around the petal, with the exact care of someone holding something worth more than any Mana Stone, and thought that, from that day on, he would never again need any other memory.

Out past the garden, Orvyn’s artificial sun began to slowly sink, tinting the sky gold, and the two of them stayed there, leaning against each other, in no hurry at all to go back.