— CHAPTER THIRTY —

Ari

You are going to look so chic in this,” Ari said, holding the long, plush sweater to her body. Emerald green and made of fine Dreseldian fibers, it was softer than a newborn flying seal and twice as cuddly.

It reminded her of her own youth on Aurelia, passing the endless hours locked away in their family apartment with her favorite hobby—stealing into her mother’s closet to touch and admire her gowns. Cut from the finest fabrics around the universe (gifts from Ari’s uncles and other admirers), her mother’s dresses were handmade, wildly glamorous affairs befitting a famous royal. This sweater was even the same shade as Ari’s favorite gown—her mother’s green and white wedding dress.

Ari hummed one of her early hits while spinning softly in the air with it. “No offense,” she sighed, “but I might kill you and steal this to wear myself.”

“Better yet,” said Izo, his voice muffled from inside her shower, “you take the outfit and steal my papers back, and I won’t bother going to the party at all.”

Ari frowned. Izo was still joking that he might not go. Now that he’d agreed, no-showing wouldn’t be acceptable to the big man downstairs.

The Aurelian singer landed hard on the ground. She tossed the sweater toward a free-floating pedestal near the middle of her master bathroom. The pedestal, a state-of-the-art piece of fashion tech all the rage two years ago, stood near the main entrance to pull and magnetically suspend any hanging outfit with the flick of her wrist. It was like a fashion summoning altar, and she’d demanded Mort install it the second she’d laid eyes on the prototype.

But even her favorite structural extravagance couldn’t put her in a better mood at the moment. Izo was vexing her, and before an important social gathering no less!

“Avarians don’t cancel social events without good reason, Izo.”

“Do they ever lie about having a good reason?”

“No,” she said flatly. Flitting forward, she banged on the side of her jewel-encrusted shower door. “And they don’t take this long in the shower, either!”

“Calm down, your highness. We still have thirty minutes.”

“Tell me you’re joking. That’s barely enough time to contour and put on an eye!”

“Or—and here’s a crazy thought,” said Izo, “what if we don’t put a bunch of goop on my face?”

Ari glowered. Was this her destiny now? All her precious moments before big events—press outings, fundraisers, awards—doomed to be wasted arguing with this child?

She understood he was unused to their customs, but he was a public figure now. Everyone at this level, Malforian to Ginarsian, used facial coloring for big events. Ari sailed across the room to stand in front of the shower. Lifting her wearable device, she went into the settings and turned on the one selection she knew would speed him up faster than anything. Then she floated back onto her bathroom lounger and waited.

It took him barely a minute to notice.

“What in the hell? ARI!” Izo yelled. She could hear him stumbling around in the shower. “Why is all my pinche hair coming out?”

“Don’t worry!” She called out merrily, holding in laughter. “It’s designed to only remove body hair. Stay in the water a few more minutes and it’ll wipe everything away itself.”

Izo yowled and slapped the water off. A second later, the shower door swung open and a very annoyed, very naked Gravity Sprite was revealed in all his angry, hairless glory. “I happen to like my body hair!”

“Oh? I didn’t think you’d miss the little you had.” Ari held up her hands. “I’m sorry!” She pointed at the shower. “That’s how I always have it set.”

Izo lifted an arm to look at one of his armpits. Smooth as a flying seal’s bottom. He glared at her anew. “Mentirosa. You did this on purpose.”

“I swear I didn’t!” she lied. “Anyway, we don’t have time for this. Dry off. You have to get ready.”

But Izo wasn’t done yet. Looking over his chest with a mournful sadness, he caught sight of his privates. He gestured angrily at them. “Puta madre, I’ve got no hair on my balls. I look like I’m thirteen.”

Ari lifted a brow. This certainly wasn’t true. After a month of a carefully curated diet and nutrition, the scrawny and half-starved stray who’d arrived in Mort’s house was long gone, replaced by a healthy, young-bodied Avarian, just as lithe and compact as any carbon-based person she’d ever seen. Not that all this healthy youthfulness had amounted to anything. His sex-life was still as dry as a desert wasteland.

“Don’t talk to me about your balls. Your balls are stupid as shit. Why are they on the outside?” said Ari. Last Gravity Sprite in the universe and he’s got all his genetic material stored in a pair of squishy bags.

“Where the hell am I supposed to keep them?”

“On the inside, duh!”

Izo looked at her like she was crazy. Ari returned the expression. After a minute both seemed to realize they were at an impasse.

“Whatever,” said Izo. “Can you hand me a towel? Inside or not, they’re about to freeze off over here.”

Ari reached back and tossed him a towel. Yeah, because they’re on the outside. But she didn’t say anything. Instead, she glanced at her device again. She hissed. Feet soaring off the chaise, she arced behind him and began pushing him toward the top of the bathroom. “Enough! We have to go.”

Dragging them straight up, she led him into her attached wardrobe overhead. Two stories tall and directly above her bathroom, it was designed by one of the top Avarian-friendly architects in the tri-galaxies.

She hurried them to the far wall where her larger face and hair stations were housed. “Sit down!”

Ari sent the youth a flying robe while pushing him toward the makeup station. Flitting next to the floor-to-ceiling mirror behind the station, she quickly synced up her wearable device. “We’re going to a party, so the lighting will be mellow,” she said mostly to herself while reaching down to adjust the room’s backlit hue.

“You base make-up around lighting?” Izo asked.

Ari wanted to roll her eyes. Do you base make-up around lighting? I don’t know—do you base music around time? Or spices on flavor?

But she didn’t have time to explain how dumb he sounded. Instead, she mashed a finger over the younger Avarian’s lips. “I’ll throw something stylish but simple together. We’ll have to pray no one takes pictures.” Ari pushed her finger in harder as her subject began to speak again. “Quiet,” she warned.

Izo stilled under her deadly serious glare.

Ari took a deep breath and floated off the ground. She centered herself in front of Izo’s face, her eyes flashing back and forth as she mapped out the Earthling’s every feature and facial line. Her brain silently analyzed the fastest ways to contour slenderness, symmetry, and youthful vibrancy while using Izo’s favorite masculine color: green.

Cocking her head to one side, Ari flicked a finger to summon her floating, refrigerated cosmetic stand.

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Twenty minutes later Ari floated to one side to finally let Izo look in the mirror. “Whoa!” the Gravity Sprite said, moving his face back and forth. “That’s cool.”

He was the picture of Avarian youth. Knowing his preference for warrior looks, she’d given him a stronger eyebrow and a streak of green across the cheeks, both of which he would think looked “tough” even though she knew it was incidentally the fashion of the time.

His nose and lips she’d left alone, neither highlighting nor hiding since she’d known he’d throw a fit. His eyes she’d also barely touched, giving him a simple green line that accentuated his eye color. It was a bold statement, the exact universal shade symbolizing pre-budding and virginity.

Not that Izo needed to know that.

The thing she was most proud of, though, was the contouring around his chin. She remembered the accidental conversation that had led to it. Doing his makeup for a team photographer who’d shown up out of the blue, she’d been admiring the shape of his face once they eventually stopped quarrelling.

“You have such a nice jawline,” she’d complimented as he squirmed in the chair in front of her. “And the cutest little chin!” she’d added, giving it a playful pat with her brush.

“Thanks,” he’d mumbled. “I guess it’s never been very strong or square.”

The comment had surprised her, and she’d changed brushes and outfitted him with a stronger, “squarer” jaw on the spot. He’d been astounded, truly impressed, and genuinely grateful. For some ridiculous reason, she’d decided to add it again.

“Niiiiice,” Izo crooned back in the present moment. Grasping his powerful new jaw, he turned his face to check himself out. “On Earth we call this dashing.”

Ari dropped her brushes into their swirling cleaner with a chuckle. Sure, it took a little longer and the effect was so subtle that almost no one ever noticed it, but it gave Izo a happy little boost of confidence. Wasn’t that the point of all this?

Then she glanced at her wearable device and cursed. They had ten minutes. Ari flicked her wrist to summon the outfit from the pedestal below. As it flew into one hand, she yanked Izo up with the other. “Get up, Prince Dashing! You have to get dressed.”

“Calm down,” Izo said, taking the long black pants. Pulling the magnetic riser off the top, he bent low and began stepping into them one foot at a time. The pants were tighter than expected and he immediately snagged his foot.

“Mierda,” he said, hopping on one leg. “How do you—”

“Are you stepping on my pants? Those are Bgulvrian, you oaf!”

“Ari, I’m stuck,” said Izo.

“So fly, dumbass!”

It never failed to amaze the tiny pop singer how many times she had to remind the Gravity Sprite that he could fly. Shoving Izo into the air by his butt, Ari managed to yank and tug him into her tiny slacks, smoothing and adjusting its skin adhering fabric as they went.

“Done,” she said, gasping for breath. “Now pull on the top. And don’t forget to—”

Izo jerked his head through the tiny head hole. “Forget to what?” he asked, fishing his arms through.

Forget to unzip it first, she thought to herself. A headache was lighting up her temple. “Nothing,” she said out loud.

Ari dropped to her hands and knees to crawl to the spot where she’d hidden the only pair of shoes she’d ever lend the Gravity Sprite—an ancient pair of hideous boots with size-morphing technology. She’d let him borrow them during their outing and, as if the fates themselves had spoken, the shoe’s software had glitched and gotten stuck in his exact foot size.

She handed him the shoes. “Here.”

“Hey! It’s my favorite green boots.” Izo plopped down to pull them on, gazing happily at his feet. “Man, do these things fit great.”

“Doesn’t matter—they’re mine,” said Ari. She turned to kneel more gracefully on the ground. “If you lose or ruin them, I’ll clean the hallway with your face again.”

Izo’s body went rigid. As Ari well knew, their fight in the hallway was one of the Gravity Sprite’s more touchy subjects.

“That fight didn’t count,” said Izo. “I was sick. I could barely stand.”

“Sure as hell couldn’t stand afterwards either,” Ari mumbled, looking away. She pretended to adjust her hair.

Izo glared at her sharply. “You want to go again, Tinkerbell?”

Ari smirked and kissed him on the nose. “I would, but I don’t have time to fix your face twice. Anyway, come on! It’s time for the best part.”

Jumping up, she soared through the hole in the ceiling to the last and most expensive floor of her closet. In fact, she was pretty sure it was the most expensive room in the house.

Over the years, Ari living with Mort and Mort inviting various Avarians into their home had led to a number of ugly fights. Many had no foreseeable end. Mort wasn’t going to apologize for his lifestyle and interests. He also wasn’t going to let Ari leave no matter how much his life choices hurt her.

What formed was a hellscape of a relationship, a sharp and dangerous place where no one was safe to relax. Every square inch was filled with pitfalls, all leading to the same set of painful, never-ending impasses. But over the tops of these pits a few rickety bridges had been erected, jittery compromises that allowed them to move about confidently enough as long as they didn’t look down.

Virtually the first of their mad house compromises was their arrangement for Ari’s wardrobe. All her collections were curated and hand-chosen for being only the latest, most cutting-edge and flawless pieces. Mort, on the other hand, often picked whatever gaudy thing caught his eye: ridiculous, over-the-top garments that rose and fell in popularity as sharply as the Mountain from which he sprang. Since Ari’s tastes tended toward things that were ninety-eight percent sure to be classics, it was little surprise that the more random Avarians seemed to waltz into Mort’s house, the more Ari’s stuff seemed to walk out of her closet.

Hell, she almost couldn’t blame them. Given the choice between taking something from a famously vengeful Senator and a famously adorable pop star, who wouldn’t choose her stuff? Nonetheless, it had been a sore subject and a barely-masked proxy to a much larger fight.

In the end, they’d compromised—Mort would finance her ever-expanding wardrobe and she would open it (within reason) to his guests. Every year she’d pushed herself to the edge, outfitting all of Mort’s Avarians in the absolute pinnacle of style and taste. And every year her budget had gone up until, one day, Mort had unknowingly equipped the captive singer with a wardrobe worth more than most armies.

Landing on the third floor, she clapped her hands under her chin. A proud, un-ending smile had spread across her face as she gazed at her collection.

Seventy shelves of handheld clutches. Twenty-two columns covered in shoulder bags. Fourteen drawers filled with quilted and leather Minaudières. Sixteen shelves, all positioned at eye-level, with the absolute latest in day bags. A section for flap bags, satchels, buckets, and slings. There was even a small area dedicated to vintage saddlebags in case they made a comeback again.

All together the room housed over twelve hundred name-brand options. Ari’s collection was worth enough money to get her and whoever else she wanted across the universe and safely settled for life. The best part? Ari was slowly sneaking them out of the house, and tonight, she had the perfect reason to set aside two.

“So, which ones should we take?” she asked. Her voice had gone low and sultry as her fingers played over some of her favorites.

Izo eyed the collection with a frown. “It’s just a house party, right? Do I need a purse?”

Ari whipped around on him like he’d mentioned how young her mother looked. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“I don’t have anything I need to bring with me and I’m only going to be there for an hour. What do I need a purse for?”

“Purses aren’t for things, they’re for…ugh!” Ari pushed a finger into her temple. They didn’t have time for this.

She stomped up to the clutches and grabbed a silver Pradnai. She turned and shoved it into his hands. Small and encrusted with antique jewels, it was worth more than six months’ rent on most planets.

Izo turned it over dubiously. “Does it have a strap or…?”

“No, so you need to be extra careful to keep track of it.” She put her hands on her hips, challenging him in the low tone she’d figured out always worked. “Think you can handle that, genius?”

“Psshh.” Izo put the purse under his arm. “I got this.”