Malware and the Princess
Jun. 21st, 2016 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katleeptTitle: Malware and the Princess
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Original
Character/Pairing: OFC/OFC
Rating: PG-13/T
Challenge/Prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
femslashbb June Challenge: The First Five Times They Met
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 3,660
Date Written: 20 June, 2016
Summary:
Disclaimer: This one's all mine, folks, except for the excerpt of the poem which is "Seascape" and belongs to Elizabeth Bishop.
She notices her on her first day of school. She knows it's her first day, because she's gone to this school every day of her life since she was considered old enough by state law to be educated and has never seen her before. She knows she would have noticed immediately. She isn't just one of those kids who went away over the Summer and decided to come back with a new attitude. Those never last, and this girl is clearly speaking from the dark depths of her soul.
She's dressed in black lace from her head to her toes and is, hands down, the most beautiful creature Mal's ever seen. She's heard the line people say about having their breath stopped a thousand times and always thought it corny, but on this morning, her breath really does catch in her throat. Then her heart speeds up, and the whole world seems to finally fade away. There's no one left in the school or on the planet other than herself and this beautiful creature . . . who breezes right pass her without even noticing her.
Mal slams her locker shut, never realizing that the unexpected, harsh sound makes the other girl, who's been secretly trying so hard not to stare at her, jump. She turns her leather clad back to the new girl and stomps away, shooting silent snarls at any one who dares look at her, faculty and fellow students alike. Thunder rumbles outside. Mal thinks the weather's fitting finally for her snarls are like thunder and, if they think they can mess with her, they'll find out quick just how deadly her lightning is. But nobody dares mess with her, and the day passes without any other noticeable events.
=^.^=
It's a week later when she really takes notice of the girl again. In truth, she's been slyly watching her from underneath her black eyelashes every day since she started school in her little town, but it's only today that Mal lets herself be known. The girl's got her head buried in her locker. Mal knows the position well. She's trying hard not to let the cheerleaders behind her get to her, but Mal knows, too, that the bitches reach everybody except for herself.
She grew up with the whores. She knows every one of their dirty, little secrets. They can't touch her. They're justifiably scared of her, none more so than their so-called captain who she used to consider her friend way back when they started school together. The bitches are in their little pack, just like dogs, she thinks, with Melinda in their center, and they're all laughing and pointing at the Gothic Princess.
She's taken to calling the girl Princess. She doesn't know what her real name is. News passes fast in small towns, but when you don't talk to anybody, it can take you a while to hear things sometimes. They're in the same grade but in different classes, so Mal hasn't had a chance to catch her name yet. Besides, she thinks, looking at the girl leaning into her locker, Princess suits her fine.
"So what? Are you a Beetlejuice reject or something?" one of the louder girls, whose nose is still crooked from the punch Mal gave her in the third grade, calls to Princess.
The bitch almost swallows her tongue when Mal looks at her. "I'm surprised you know that movie," she comments calmly. Her thin-lipped smile grows when the girl stutters her response.
"W-Why?"
"'Cause it's got more class than you'll ever have, Twyla."
"Figures," another of Melinda's pack comments. "The demented takes up for Countess Dracula over there."
"Countess, huh? I knew you were all peasants."
Melinda's shocked gasp rings through the hallway. Other students nervously slide around them and, once they're pass, run on to their next class. "I'll have you know I'm actually descended from -- "
"From the bitch who's fucking our Principal."
"How dare you!" Melinda stalks out of their safety of their group.
Mal arches a pierced brow at her. "Really? You want some of this, Little Miss Muffet?" She relishes the way the blonde's face colors at the reminder of their first grade play where she tripped on stage. Mal jerks her dark head in the direction of her little clique. "Without your curds and whey?"
"You little -- "
Mal smirks at her. She knows damn well she won't do anything to her. If she ever lays one finger on her, she'll have her ass busted in the floor before she can blink, but they're on school grounds and Mal doesn't need another suspension on her record. Unlike the cheerleaders, she plans to make something of her life on her own terms and without the help of licking anybody's ass, but she doesn't need violence to shut this bitch down. "Don't forget," she hisses, "I still have the pictures."
" -- bitch," Melinda finishes with a squeak. Her face brightens even more, and it takes her a moment before she can speak again. "Of course you'd resort to those and my determination to protect my mother from her own mistakes," she says airily.
"You think I won't fight you?"
The blonde takes an uncertain step back.
"Name it. Anywhere but here," Mal snarls. "I'll take you and your bitches on single handedly and whup all your asses."
Melinda's mouth works soundlessly for a moment. Finally, she manages to utter, "We . . . There's . . . There's no need to resort to violence."
Mal's hands pump back and forth into fists in her black, fingerless gloves. Melinda's wide, blue eyes watch those hands carefully. She's felt them on her skin several times, and there are places on her young and beautiful body that already hurt every time it rains because of the pummelings she's taken at the hands of her former friend, the freak. The bell rings; her head jerks up. Saved by Heaven, she thinks.
"You're in luck." She smirks at Mal. "We have a class to get to."
"Run while you can, bitch," Mal retorts, but it takes every ounce of her self control to let the little posse go. She whirls around and slams her fist into the nearest locker once the hall is empty other than herself and the Princess, who she's forgotten until she turns back around and finds her watching her.
"That was very brave," the girl quietly comments, her large, dark, and beautiful eyes shining in awe.
Mal smirks. "Nothing to it. Dog's bark is worse than her bite." Her muscles shrug underneath her black leather jacket. There hasn't been a day since Kindergarten that she and Melinda haven't quarreled, if not outright fought. Tangling with the bitch is a normal part of her everyday routine; yet, the way the Princess is looking at her makes her feel like she's a Knight who just stopped a dragon. That's not a good analogy, however, she knows, because the dragons were good. It was the Knights who were to blame for their extinction; humanity's always the evil in every battle against animals, she knows.
The second bell rings. Princess grabs her books and quickly shuts her locker. "We'd better hurry," she says, her long, black hair swinging behind her slender back. Mal's fingers curl in an entirely new way at the sight of the cascading, glistening ebony. She dashes down the hallway. Mal lets her go, realizing that she still doesn't know the girl's name but Princess still works fine nonetheless.
=^.^=
It isn't until a month later that Mal finally learns the Princess' name. The girl's smart and keeps her head down, but she doesn't realize how book smart she is until that day, when she's standing with the school nerds in front of the rest of their school in one of the stupid reward programs that their equally stupid Principal forces upon them. She hates these moments. She doesn't make her grades to get looked at or for any one or thing here in this system. She makes them, because she'll need them one day when she's forging the future she wants, and that future is the business of no one else here other than herself.
But when a name is called that she doesn't recognize -- it's been herself and the same clique of nerds for the last four years --, Mal's spiky head immediately shoots up. She glowers out at the crowd, especially Melinda, who's giggling behind her hand. The bitch has the audacity to wave at her. Mal's eyes narrow; she'll make sure she pays for that later.
It's then that she notices who's making her way gracefully through the crowd. She doesn't know how the girl does it. Those kids don't move out of the way for any one, and yet as she works her way pass the sea of gangly knees and elbows, the Princess still seems to glide with effortless grace. What was her name? Mal's mind races. She didn't catch her last name, but her first is Lydia.
Of course, she thinks, remembering Twyla's Beetlejuice remark. Her smirk fades away into a rare, true grin. The name fits. She nods to Lydia, stepping away from the edge of the stage to give her room, as the girl joins their small line. Hers is a beautiful name for a beautiful girl, shared by one of the first Gothic beauties to ever appear on film and for the second Goth -- the first Gothic beauty -- to hit their small town.
She isn't the only one with that thought, however, for she hears the Principal mutter, "Lord help us, we have a second one name." Her dark eyes swing straight to him, and she glowers. Even he nearly swallows his tongue with the weight of her full, angry glower upon him. She knows he doesn't like her, and she doesn't care. But he shouldn't judge the Princess for being a Goth and letting the dark beauty of her soul shine.
She knows, though, that that's what these people do. All the people in her small, close-minded town always judge everybody. They judge each other, their friends, their neighbors, their families. Every one in this one-horse town, as her father used to call it, is narrow minded, and the Principal's smart mouth just proved the fact even more.
But she isn't completely alone any more, not really. There is a second Goth in town, and although they may not know each other, and she may never really get the honor of knowing Lydia personally, she's no longer the only freak in town. The other freak has a smart mind, too, if not a smart tongue. As the obligatory applause ripples through the crowd, Mal looks again at Lydia rather than at the sea of faces of people she knows hates and judges her every move. She looks at the Princess and smiles, and for the first time in a really long time, she thinks maybe, just maybe, school doesn't have to suck, after all.
=^.^=
Mal stumbles back as a smaller body collides with her own. She snarls instinctively, but the snarl falls silent when she looks up into the pale and beautiful face of the girl who walked into her. "I'm so sorry," the Princess, as Mal still thinks of her, rushes to apologize. "I wasn't looking where I was going."
She waves the book in her gloved hand as though it can explain everything. Mal recognizes the book instantly. It's a book of dark and beautiful poetry. She has her own copy at home. It's one of the last presents her father bought for her and is dog-leafed despite being lovingly handled.
"It's okay." She smiles and can feel herself nearly glowing like an idiot in the Princess' presence. She'd verbally rip off the head of any one else who dared bump into her, regardless of rather it was an accident or not, but she can't seem to be angry with a creature so fair and usually so elegant.
A smirk touches her lips before she realizes it. She's watched Lydia many times at school, and she's always been graceful. It seems odd that she'd bump into her now. She nods at the book. "Good book?" she asks as though she doesn't know.
"Oh, yes!" Her eyes sparkle like the night in the midnight hour, just barely touched by twinkling stars. "Listen to this!" She flips the book back open. " This celestial seascape, with white herons got up as angels, flying high as they want and as far as they want sidewise in tiers and tiers of immaculate reflections; the whole region, from the highest heron down to the weightless mangrove island -- "
Lydia has read the passage a thousand times plus, but it's never sounded in her mind as it does tumbling from the black lips of the Princess. Quivers race through her, and she almost gasps with her own emotions as Lydia breaks off from reading and looks back up at her, her eyes clearly marveling with the fantasy. Her dark orbs are so beautiful that Mal wants nothing more, in that second, than to gaze into them forever!
"Wouldn't it be wonderful," the girl asks, "to be birds, to be able to fly away to wherever we want whenever we want?"
She wants to fly into her, but not with violence. For the first time since she was a child, Mal's met some one who she doesn't want to hit. She doesn't want to strike the girl at all, but she does want to grab her. She wants to grab her, yank her to her, and kiss her senseless. She wants to ravish her mouth as violently as a hungry seagull crashing down into the waves in search of fish. She wants to --
"Lydia! Lydia, are you ready?"
Mal blinks as the voice intrudes on her thoughts.
"I'm sorry," Lydia apologizes, shutting the book. "I have to go. My mom." She blushes, and the rose tinge on her pale cheeks is adorable. Adorable is a word Mal's never used before, but yet it fits her quite nicely right now, as nicely as her name.
"Lydia -- " she breathes.
"It is nice, though, isn't it to imagine how free we would be if we could fly away from here?"
"Lydia!"
"Coming! Sorry! I'll see you at school." She glides away from her, leaving Mal quite breathless and wondering just what it would feel like to fly with her not as birds but as themselves, to fly from this town, to fly so high above every one else's expectations and ideas of what they are capable of and should or should not be doing, to fly through the night sky, so dark and deep and rich with its velvet folds . . . She gasps for breath, her own eyes shining, bedazzled. Even the stars couldn't shine as brilliantly as her Princess does!
And Lydia is her Princess, she decides in that moment, rather she knows it or not. Fate has handed her to her. There can be no other reason for her presence in this small, stupid town. She's come for her, and one night, they'll go from here together. Mal sighs dreamily. The future's never looked more beautiful!
=^.^=
It's a week later when Mal again finds Lydia at the library. She's surprised to see her there so early on a Saturday morning. Mal herself should be in bed, having stayed up all night, but she was desperate to see her again. She watched her all week at school but never could summon up the courage to make her move. Now she sits across from her, two computers between them, trying yet again to be brave enough to ask her out.
Her Princess suddenly throws her mouse back down onto the table and murmurs an oath. Her voice is so soft that Mal doesn't catch her actual words, but it's clear from her troubled face and actions that she isn't happy at all. She quirks a brow at her. "Problems?" she calls across the table.
"I just can't get this program to run right!" Her deep, dark eyes look like thunder clouds as she glowers at her monitor. "I do not like computers!"
Mal laughs, but she's not laughing at her really or, at least, she doesn't mean to be doing so. The Princess just looks so damn cute pouting at her computer! She almost tells her that the problem is probably in the user, not the system, but bites her tongue. This is the only person alive to whom she won't say anything she knows will upset her.
Instead, she signs off of her own computer, pushes her chair back, and walks around the table. She glances at the screen and the long string of binary codes and quickly finds her error. She bends over her shoulder, her breasts pressing into the silky back of Lydia's black dress, and grabs her mouse. "Here's your problem," she murmurs into her pale, pierced ear just as the aroma of Lydia's perfume strikes her nose. She breathes in deep before she can stop herself, and her eyes drift closed.
"Where?" Lydia's question prompts her eyes to reopen.
She clicks into the spot. "This is what you need instead." She types the right numbers, then tests the program. It runs smoothly on the school's web interface.
"Thank you," Lydia breathes with gratitude. She pauses, and Mal can practically sense the face she's making. "Now how do I save it? This program won't let me save."
"Copy and paste it into something else."
"Like what?"
"Send it to yourself in an E-mail. I can help you bring it back up at school."
"Thanks. You're a life saver."
Mal withdraws her hand from Lydia's mouse and watches as she opens up her E-mail, glancing away when she types in her password. The Princess thinks she's a life saver! She's the only one who will ever think that!
She smells so good. The aroma of her perfume is almost intoxicating. Mal starts to lean back, trying to claw back into her good sense before she does something she'll regret, but pauses when she senses Lydia becoming frustrated again. She watches her efforts to copy and paste for a moment before grabbing her mouse -- and her pale, delicate hand that's still holding the mouse. "Like this," she says and shivers from head to foot at the silken feel of Lydia's skin underneath hers as she directs the mouse's movements.
She looks at her sideways as their hands move together. Her ear is right next to her black lips. She's got three piercings on this ear. One's a plain stud, the second a tiny skull with crossbones, and the third looks and sparkles like a genuine diamond. Mal leans closer, Lydia's perfume once again wrapping around her senses.
"I didn't know you were so good with computers."
She shrugs. "Nothing to it. I write programs for fun." She almost blushes when she realizes the admission she's made. She quickly shuts up before she can admit that most of those programs hack into the accounts of governmental agencies and others who have done wrong. She's gotten quite adept at redirecting government funding to the places where it should be going.
"Wow," Lydia breathes.
Her comment pops both of Mal's eyebrows up. "People call me Mal, but I go by Malware." She eyes the diamond.
"Really?" Lydia giggles softly. Mal's always wanted to slap giggling females, but there's something different and almost musical about Lydia's laughter. It caresses her ears and leads her closer. "That's so cool."
She shouldn't do it. She knows she shouldn't do it. She hasn't even made her intentions known yet or asked the girl out for a date. She might be straight, for all she knows! But Mal has never been one to shy away from doing what she wants, or taking what she desires, and Lydia is both. She leans closer, whispers quickly, "You're cool," and then, before she can lose her nerve, runs her lips quickly over the top of Lydia's ear.
The elated, surprised sigh that gasps from Lydia's ebony lips confirms Mal's suspicions and simultaneously makes her realize she's no longer tired at all. "You got that saved, Princess?" she asks.
"Y-Yeah," Lydia whispers shakily.
Mal lips her ear again, this time kissing the diamond as she slowly draws her lips back off of her tender flesh. "Then let's blow this popsicle stand," she whispers into her ear, "and find some real fun."
Lydia signs off in a flash. "I'm right behind you," she promises.
Mal grabs her black shawl with one hand and Lydia's hand with her other. "No," she corrects, grinning joyously for the first time in over a decade, "you're beside me." She leads the way, though, out of the library and into the town, the town that she knows they're going to set on its proverbial ear one day soon. She is no longer alone. There are two of them now, two Goths to make the town protest, two Goths to turn everything upside down for the towns, two Goths whose destinies are clearly entwined, two Goths to forge a future together.
Lydia is her Princess, but she's no Knight. She is the dragon, the dragon who her Princess will ride when she's ready, the dragon who will protect them both from anything and every one, the dragon whose breath is going to blaze the brightest path the world has ever seen. She pulls her Princess to her in the light of day, for once not trying to hide from the sunlight, and kisses her long and deep and as hot as any dragon's breath ever was. She hears people gasp and yell in shock. Horns blare. But she doesn't care. Her Princess doesn't seem to notice. She's hers, and the world is bright and beautiful again.
The End
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Original
Character/Pairing: OFC/OFC
Rating: PG-13/T
Challenge/Prompt:
femslashbb June Challenge: The First Five Times They MetWarning(s): None
Word Count: 3,660
Date Written: 20 June, 2016
Summary:
Disclaimer: This one's all mine, folks, except for the excerpt of the poem which is "Seascape" and belongs to Elizabeth Bishop.
She notices her on her first day of school. She knows it's her first day, because she's gone to this school every day of her life since she was considered old enough by state law to be educated and has never seen her before. She knows she would have noticed immediately. She isn't just one of those kids who went away over the Summer and decided to come back with a new attitude. Those never last, and this girl is clearly speaking from the dark depths of her soul.
She's dressed in black lace from her head to her toes and is, hands down, the most beautiful creature Mal's ever seen. She's heard the line people say about having their breath stopped a thousand times and always thought it corny, but on this morning, her breath really does catch in her throat. Then her heart speeds up, and the whole world seems to finally fade away. There's no one left in the school or on the planet other than herself and this beautiful creature . . . who breezes right pass her without even noticing her.
Mal slams her locker shut, never realizing that the unexpected, harsh sound makes the other girl, who's been secretly trying so hard not to stare at her, jump. She turns her leather clad back to the new girl and stomps away, shooting silent snarls at any one who dares look at her, faculty and fellow students alike. Thunder rumbles outside. Mal thinks the weather's fitting finally for her snarls are like thunder and, if they think they can mess with her, they'll find out quick just how deadly her lightning is. But nobody dares mess with her, and the day passes without any other noticeable events.
=^.^=
It's a week later when she really takes notice of the girl again. In truth, she's been slyly watching her from underneath her black eyelashes every day since she started school in her little town, but it's only today that Mal lets herself be known. The girl's got her head buried in her locker. Mal knows the position well. She's trying hard not to let the cheerleaders behind her get to her, but Mal knows, too, that the bitches reach everybody except for herself.
She grew up with the whores. She knows every one of their dirty, little secrets. They can't touch her. They're justifiably scared of her, none more so than their so-called captain who she used to consider her friend way back when they started school together. The bitches are in their little pack, just like dogs, she thinks, with Melinda in their center, and they're all laughing and pointing at the Gothic Princess.
She's taken to calling the girl Princess. She doesn't know what her real name is. News passes fast in small towns, but when you don't talk to anybody, it can take you a while to hear things sometimes. They're in the same grade but in different classes, so Mal hasn't had a chance to catch her name yet. Besides, she thinks, looking at the girl leaning into her locker, Princess suits her fine.
"So what? Are you a Beetlejuice reject or something?" one of the louder girls, whose nose is still crooked from the punch Mal gave her in the third grade, calls to Princess.
The bitch almost swallows her tongue when Mal looks at her. "I'm surprised you know that movie," she comments calmly. Her thin-lipped smile grows when the girl stutters her response.
"W-Why?"
"'Cause it's got more class than you'll ever have, Twyla."
"Figures," another of Melinda's pack comments. "The demented takes up for Countess Dracula over there."
"Countess, huh? I knew you were all peasants."
Melinda's shocked gasp rings through the hallway. Other students nervously slide around them and, once they're pass, run on to their next class. "I'll have you know I'm actually descended from -- "
"From the bitch who's fucking our Principal."
"How dare you!" Melinda stalks out of their safety of their group.
Mal arches a pierced brow at her. "Really? You want some of this, Little Miss Muffet?" She relishes the way the blonde's face colors at the reminder of their first grade play where she tripped on stage. Mal jerks her dark head in the direction of her little clique. "Without your curds and whey?"
"You little -- "
Mal smirks at her. She knows damn well she won't do anything to her. If she ever lays one finger on her, she'll have her ass busted in the floor before she can blink, but they're on school grounds and Mal doesn't need another suspension on her record. Unlike the cheerleaders, she plans to make something of her life on her own terms and without the help of licking anybody's ass, but she doesn't need violence to shut this bitch down. "Don't forget," she hisses, "I still have the pictures."
" -- bitch," Melinda finishes with a squeak. Her face brightens even more, and it takes her a moment before she can speak again. "Of course you'd resort to those and my determination to protect my mother from her own mistakes," she says airily.
"You think I won't fight you?"
The blonde takes an uncertain step back.
"Name it. Anywhere but here," Mal snarls. "I'll take you and your bitches on single handedly and whup all your asses."
Melinda's mouth works soundlessly for a moment. Finally, she manages to utter, "We . . . There's . . . There's no need to resort to violence."
Mal's hands pump back and forth into fists in her black, fingerless gloves. Melinda's wide, blue eyes watch those hands carefully. She's felt them on her skin several times, and there are places on her young and beautiful body that already hurt every time it rains because of the pummelings she's taken at the hands of her former friend, the freak. The bell rings; her head jerks up. Saved by Heaven, she thinks.
"You're in luck." She smirks at Mal. "We have a class to get to."
"Run while you can, bitch," Mal retorts, but it takes every ounce of her self control to let the little posse go. She whirls around and slams her fist into the nearest locker once the hall is empty other than herself and the Princess, who she's forgotten until she turns back around and finds her watching her.
"That was very brave," the girl quietly comments, her large, dark, and beautiful eyes shining in awe.
Mal smirks. "Nothing to it. Dog's bark is worse than her bite." Her muscles shrug underneath her black leather jacket. There hasn't been a day since Kindergarten that she and Melinda haven't quarreled, if not outright fought. Tangling with the bitch is a normal part of her everyday routine; yet, the way the Princess is looking at her makes her feel like she's a Knight who just stopped a dragon. That's not a good analogy, however, she knows, because the dragons were good. It was the Knights who were to blame for their extinction; humanity's always the evil in every battle against animals, she knows.
The second bell rings. Princess grabs her books and quickly shuts her locker. "We'd better hurry," she says, her long, black hair swinging behind her slender back. Mal's fingers curl in an entirely new way at the sight of the cascading, glistening ebony. She dashes down the hallway. Mal lets her go, realizing that she still doesn't know the girl's name but Princess still works fine nonetheless.
=^.^=
It isn't until a month later that Mal finally learns the Princess' name. The girl's smart and keeps her head down, but she doesn't realize how book smart she is until that day, when she's standing with the school nerds in front of the rest of their school in one of the stupid reward programs that their equally stupid Principal forces upon them. She hates these moments. She doesn't make her grades to get looked at or for any one or thing here in this system. She makes them, because she'll need them one day when she's forging the future she wants, and that future is the business of no one else here other than herself.
But when a name is called that she doesn't recognize -- it's been herself and the same clique of nerds for the last four years --, Mal's spiky head immediately shoots up. She glowers out at the crowd, especially Melinda, who's giggling behind her hand. The bitch has the audacity to wave at her. Mal's eyes narrow; she'll make sure she pays for that later.
It's then that she notices who's making her way gracefully through the crowd. She doesn't know how the girl does it. Those kids don't move out of the way for any one, and yet as she works her way pass the sea of gangly knees and elbows, the Princess still seems to glide with effortless grace. What was her name? Mal's mind races. She didn't catch her last name, but her first is Lydia.
Of course, she thinks, remembering Twyla's Beetlejuice remark. Her smirk fades away into a rare, true grin. The name fits. She nods to Lydia, stepping away from the edge of the stage to give her room, as the girl joins their small line. Hers is a beautiful name for a beautiful girl, shared by one of the first Gothic beauties to ever appear on film and for the second Goth -- the first Gothic beauty -- to hit their small town.
She isn't the only one with that thought, however, for she hears the Principal mutter, "Lord help us, we have a second one name." Her dark eyes swing straight to him, and she glowers. Even he nearly swallows his tongue with the weight of her full, angry glower upon him. She knows he doesn't like her, and she doesn't care. But he shouldn't judge the Princess for being a Goth and letting the dark beauty of her soul shine.
She knows, though, that that's what these people do. All the people in her small, close-minded town always judge everybody. They judge each other, their friends, their neighbors, their families. Every one in this one-horse town, as her father used to call it, is narrow minded, and the Principal's smart mouth just proved the fact even more.
But she isn't completely alone any more, not really. There is a second Goth in town, and although they may not know each other, and she may never really get the honor of knowing Lydia personally, she's no longer the only freak in town. The other freak has a smart mind, too, if not a smart tongue. As the obligatory applause ripples through the crowd, Mal looks again at Lydia rather than at the sea of faces of people she knows hates and judges her every move. She looks at the Princess and smiles, and for the first time in a really long time, she thinks maybe, just maybe, school doesn't have to suck, after all.
=^.^=
Mal stumbles back as a smaller body collides with her own. She snarls instinctively, but the snarl falls silent when she looks up into the pale and beautiful face of the girl who walked into her. "I'm so sorry," the Princess, as Mal still thinks of her, rushes to apologize. "I wasn't looking where I was going."
She waves the book in her gloved hand as though it can explain everything. Mal recognizes the book instantly. It's a book of dark and beautiful poetry. She has her own copy at home. It's one of the last presents her father bought for her and is dog-leafed despite being lovingly handled.
"It's okay." She smiles and can feel herself nearly glowing like an idiot in the Princess' presence. She'd verbally rip off the head of any one else who dared bump into her, regardless of rather it was an accident or not, but she can't seem to be angry with a creature so fair and usually so elegant.
A smirk touches her lips before she realizes it. She's watched Lydia many times at school, and she's always been graceful. It seems odd that she'd bump into her now. She nods at the book. "Good book?" she asks as though she doesn't know.
"Oh, yes!" Her eyes sparkle like the night in the midnight hour, just barely touched by twinkling stars. "Listen to this!" She flips the book back open. " This celestial seascape, with white herons got up as angels, flying high as they want and as far as they want sidewise in tiers and tiers of immaculate reflections; the whole region, from the highest heron down to the weightless mangrove island -- "
Lydia has read the passage a thousand times plus, but it's never sounded in her mind as it does tumbling from the black lips of the Princess. Quivers race through her, and she almost gasps with her own emotions as Lydia breaks off from reading and looks back up at her, her eyes clearly marveling with the fantasy. Her dark orbs are so beautiful that Mal wants nothing more, in that second, than to gaze into them forever!
"Wouldn't it be wonderful," the girl asks, "to be birds, to be able to fly away to wherever we want whenever we want?"
She wants to fly into her, but not with violence. For the first time since she was a child, Mal's met some one who she doesn't want to hit. She doesn't want to strike the girl at all, but she does want to grab her. She wants to grab her, yank her to her, and kiss her senseless. She wants to ravish her mouth as violently as a hungry seagull crashing down into the waves in search of fish. She wants to --
"Lydia! Lydia, are you ready?"
Mal blinks as the voice intrudes on her thoughts.
"I'm sorry," Lydia apologizes, shutting the book. "I have to go. My mom." She blushes, and the rose tinge on her pale cheeks is adorable. Adorable is a word Mal's never used before, but yet it fits her quite nicely right now, as nicely as her name.
"Lydia -- " she breathes.
"It is nice, though, isn't it to imagine how free we would be if we could fly away from here?"
"Lydia!"
"Coming! Sorry! I'll see you at school." She glides away from her, leaving Mal quite breathless and wondering just what it would feel like to fly with her not as birds but as themselves, to fly from this town, to fly so high above every one else's expectations and ideas of what they are capable of and should or should not be doing, to fly through the night sky, so dark and deep and rich with its velvet folds . . . She gasps for breath, her own eyes shining, bedazzled. Even the stars couldn't shine as brilliantly as her Princess does!
And Lydia is her Princess, she decides in that moment, rather she knows it or not. Fate has handed her to her. There can be no other reason for her presence in this small, stupid town. She's come for her, and one night, they'll go from here together. Mal sighs dreamily. The future's never looked more beautiful!
=^.^=
It's a week later when Mal again finds Lydia at the library. She's surprised to see her there so early on a Saturday morning. Mal herself should be in bed, having stayed up all night, but she was desperate to see her again. She watched her all week at school but never could summon up the courage to make her move. Now she sits across from her, two computers between them, trying yet again to be brave enough to ask her out.
Her Princess suddenly throws her mouse back down onto the table and murmurs an oath. Her voice is so soft that Mal doesn't catch her actual words, but it's clear from her troubled face and actions that she isn't happy at all. She quirks a brow at her. "Problems?" she calls across the table.
"I just can't get this program to run right!" Her deep, dark eyes look like thunder clouds as she glowers at her monitor. "I do not like computers!"
Mal laughs, but she's not laughing at her really or, at least, she doesn't mean to be doing so. The Princess just looks so damn cute pouting at her computer! She almost tells her that the problem is probably in the user, not the system, but bites her tongue. This is the only person alive to whom she won't say anything she knows will upset her.
Instead, she signs off of her own computer, pushes her chair back, and walks around the table. She glances at the screen and the long string of binary codes and quickly finds her error. She bends over her shoulder, her breasts pressing into the silky back of Lydia's black dress, and grabs her mouse. "Here's your problem," she murmurs into her pale, pierced ear just as the aroma of Lydia's perfume strikes her nose. She breathes in deep before she can stop herself, and her eyes drift closed.
"Where?" Lydia's question prompts her eyes to reopen.
She clicks into the spot. "This is what you need instead." She types the right numbers, then tests the program. It runs smoothly on the school's web interface.
"Thank you," Lydia breathes with gratitude. She pauses, and Mal can practically sense the face she's making. "Now how do I save it? This program won't let me save."
"Copy and paste it into something else."
"Like what?"
"Send it to yourself in an E-mail. I can help you bring it back up at school."
"Thanks. You're a life saver."
Mal withdraws her hand from Lydia's mouse and watches as she opens up her E-mail, glancing away when she types in her password. The Princess thinks she's a life saver! She's the only one who will ever think that!
She smells so good. The aroma of her perfume is almost intoxicating. Mal starts to lean back, trying to claw back into her good sense before she does something she'll regret, but pauses when she senses Lydia becoming frustrated again. She watches her efforts to copy and paste for a moment before grabbing her mouse -- and her pale, delicate hand that's still holding the mouse. "Like this," she says and shivers from head to foot at the silken feel of Lydia's skin underneath hers as she directs the mouse's movements.
She looks at her sideways as their hands move together. Her ear is right next to her black lips. She's got three piercings on this ear. One's a plain stud, the second a tiny skull with crossbones, and the third looks and sparkles like a genuine diamond. Mal leans closer, Lydia's perfume once again wrapping around her senses.
"I didn't know you were so good with computers."
She shrugs. "Nothing to it. I write programs for fun." She almost blushes when she realizes the admission she's made. She quickly shuts up before she can admit that most of those programs hack into the accounts of governmental agencies and others who have done wrong. She's gotten quite adept at redirecting government funding to the places where it should be going.
"Wow," Lydia breathes.
Her comment pops both of Mal's eyebrows up. "People call me Mal, but I go by Malware." She eyes the diamond.
"Really?" Lydia giggles softly. Mal's always wanted to slap giggling females, but there's something different and almost musical about Lydia's laughter. It caresses her ears and leads her closer. "That's so cool."
She shouldn't do it. She knows she shouldn't do it. She hasn't even made her intentions known yet or asked the girl out for a date. She might be straight, for all she knows! But Mal has never been one to shy away from doing what she wants, or taking what she desires, and Lydia is both. She leans closer, whispers quickly, "You're cool," and then, before she can lose her nerve, runs her lips quickly over the top of Lydia's ear.
The elated, surprised sigh that gasps from Lydia's ebony lips confirms Mal's suspicions and simultaneously makes her realize she's no longer tired at all. "You got that saved, Princess?" she asks.
"Y-Yeah," Lydia whispers shakily.
Mal lips her ear again, this time kissing the diamond as she slowly draws her lips back off of her tender flesh. "Then let's blow this popsicle stand," she whispers into her ear, "and find some real fun."
Lydia signs off in a flash. "I'm right behind you," she promises.
Mal grabs her black shawl with one hand and Lydia's hand with her other. "No," she corrects, grinning joyously for the first time in over a decade, "you're beside me." She leads the way, though, out of the library and into the town, the town that she knows they're going to set on its proverbial ear one day soon. She is no longer alone. There are two of them now, two Goths to make the town protest, two Goths to turn everything upside down for the towns, two Goths whose destinies are clearly entwined, two Goths to forge a future together.
Lydia is her Princess, but she's no Knight. She is the dragon, the dragon who her Princess will ride when she's ready, the dragon who will protect them both from anything and every one, the dragon whose breath is going to blaze the brightest path the world has ever seen. She pulls her Princess to her in the light of day, for once not trying to hide from the sunlight, and kisses her long and deep and as hot as any dragon's breath ever was. She hears people gasp and yell in shock. Horns blare. But she doesn't care. Her Princess doesn't seem to notice. She's hers, and the world is bright and beautiful again.
The End
