Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

EURI

"Your Auntie is Sibsil Creed!?" Portia shouted as gales of laughter poured out of Ronnie.

"So, you two have read Within and Without?" I asked, not at all surprised. After all, Dwin had found it on stream when I was twelve, and we'd read it, thrilled to find a sexy book that was tailor-made for telepaths. We didn't know our Aunt had written it, but when we'd found out years later, we'd loved the book even more because it meant our Uncle Nayth had been the one she'd tormented in dreams for years before they met in person. Gleeful we'd been about that.

"Who hasn't?" Shah asked, but there was something evasive in her eyes as she said it.

I was working on my scripts on my pad while they were reading Ryst's earliest files from her days when she first arrived on Shurwinn, overwhelmed with her telepathy and having no idea what was going on.

I'd gotten a message from Muse about my first three episodes of Eclipse Chasers.

"Enticing start. However, we only have eight episodes, so move up the pacing. Have them make contact by the end of episode two." Yeah, good 'ole dad had noticed that my erotica was all happening in the mind, not the body and hadn't approved.

But now that Shah was actually in my house and not running off on the Good Time— whatever that was, presumably a starliner? Did she have her own starliner?— I thought I could re-write episodes two and three and get some actual Crystal on Nathan body slammin' on screen.

I nodded to Ronnie and Shah. "Yep, my Aunt wrote the book, and my dad, Peydran, came up with the Sibsil Creed pseudonym and published it on stream."

Ronnie overflowed with triumph. I don't mean he was a little jubilant, I mean the man was practically standing on the tallest mountain in the world and declaring himself god.

"But— but— wait. Your dad, Euri? But, all those little snippets on the stream, Ronnie. . . "

Ronnie nodded emphatically.

So, they'd seen the Known Cosmos Earth Press teasers we'd been publishing. Uh oh, something ugly crossed Shah's face.

"Lorran Christopher Sloan, what have you done?" Shah spat at her brother.

All traces of humor were gone. Ronnie gave her a mulish stare.

Oh boy. I didn't know what was going on between the two of them, but obviously something. Their shields were solid, and I wasn't getting any emotions off of Ronnie anymore.

They stared at each other, faces blank, both of them stubborn like they'd dug in their heels. Were they mentally yelling at each other?

Portia scoffed in disgust and looked away from her brother then picked up her pad and went back to reading. I raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips in an "Okay" gesture and went back to my screenplay.

Crystal had just started up the boarding ramp to Nathan's Eclipse Chasers tour when she saw him leaving on the exit ramp. Nathan! she shouted in his mind, and he whipped around, searching the crowd for the voice he loved—

"Unh, wow, this is all enormously painful to read. Does it ever get better?" Shah asked.

"Apparently your parents haven't told you about the wedding of the millennia? You know Nayth was your dad's best friend?"

"Nayth?"

"You're kidding me! You don't know who my Uncle Nayth is?"

Both Ronnie and Shah looked at me with blank faces. "So, the not- talking thing runs in the family," I nodded. "Suddenly, a lot of things make sense." I laughed in their faces. Yep, unashamedly.

"You come by it honestly, apparently. Well, if nothing else, Portia, you can be pissed off at your parents because they've kept you in the dark about so much. But, since they don't know that you're telepathic, maybe it never occurred to them to tell you about their telepathic friends."

I sighed. "If it's any consolation, you'll find this out later on, but your dad gave off some kind of light that hurt Auntie to look at, so once she married Nayth, they didn't go around your folks anymore. There's probably more to that story than what we know, but keep reading. Maybe you'll pick up on things that we haven't seen yet."

Crystal and Nathan ran to each other and embraced on the platform, then hurried up the boarding ramp so they didn't miss their eclipse-chasing tour. Couple united in episode two. Hooray!

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"These journals are a gold mine," Portia giggled. Ronnie had been chuckling off and on for an hour. Obviously, they were well past the slow burn and into the real life sex portion of Ryst's journals. It was hilarious, and yeah, great fodder for my erotica.

Like them, I was re-reading sections of the journal and book two of Known Cosmos getting ideas for the sex scenes of my animated series. I just had to ad lib a bit so I could justify the title of Yester Rear. It was coming together perfectly.

Hours came and went. Lunch. Dinner. Midnight snacks. I took a shower at 2:30AM, leaving the Sloan Sibs downstairs. I had no trouble sleeping and didn't wake until 10:00 the next morning, smelling cinnamon and toast. In the kitchen I found Ronnie grinning at me over a pot of oatmeal and a plate of cinnamon toast. We settled at the dining table, and a wet-haired Portia appeared a few minutes later.

"Yum. Thanks for breakfast. I slept good. You?" Shah asked aloud.

Ronnie and I both nodded. "How far are you in the journals?" I asked.

"Both weddings are over, and Dwin was born. But your Auntie sounds sick. I don't want to keep reading."

I nodded. "You can stop if you want— "

No. Ronnie said mentally, emphatically, and shaking his head. We should read it all. We need all the information we can get. All those tangles when Ryst saw the future. All her dreams that came true. Well, do what you want Shah, I need to understand her Talent.

"Okay, Ronnie. Okay. I'll read it to the end. We'll try to understand," his sister agreed.

So, something had been going on with them, or at least with Shah. Something about Ryst's journals had gotten through to her. Maybe just knowing there was someone else atypical out there helped them feel less alone. Good, I nodded to myself. Good.

Ryst would like this. She could see all of this, I was sure. Maybe her attention wasn't on us at exactly that moment, but my Auntie would want to help Shah and Ronnie, I had no doubt. My two friends were exactly the reason Ryst had written everything down in her journals, even if she hadn't known it at the time.

Ronnie thunked his pad down and raised his hands in a "That's all" gesture. So, he'd gotten to the end of Auntie's journals. There was more to the story, but to get to that, they'd need my dad's records and the books of the Known Cosmos Press.

Which they should have already known about since that was all aligned with the project their parents had been working on since before the twins were born.

I nodded, "So, now we come to an awkward part of the conversation. Because, yes, Ryst and Nayth disappeared. Vanished into thin air. That's why your family came here when we were fifteen. That's what our parents talked about in this very house while we were lost in our VR world."

"Your dad showed my parents his Talent and recruited our family for his project. That's how our families started plotting to change the trajectory of the whole Known Cosmos, and yet you two seem uninformed about all of the above. There's no reason for me to keep the full truth secret from you, or at least, the truth as much as we can make out. But, it'll have to be your decision—"

I already pieced a lot of it together. I figured out the Known Cosmos Earth Press. I didn't know about Ryst and Nayth. But I figured out a bunch of it, Ronnie insisted.

Shah was completely closed and stony faced. There was obviously something there that she didn't want out in the open.

I raised my hands, "Look, everyone is allowed privacy. If there's something you don't want me to know, I respect that, okay? I already know that you're keeping secrets from your folks. You've already trusted me with your telepathy. I'm not here to push you into something else. Do you believe me?"

They looked at each other for long moments, and Shah shook her head emphatically. Ronnie looked pleading, then sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Can you tell us more of the story for now, Euri? Maybe at some point, I'll want to let some of my secrets out into the open, but I'm not ready for that. Thank you for respecting my privacy. That makes all of this much easier," Shah said, somewhat conciliatory, but it just made me feel cold inside.

I nodded, "I'll tell you about my musical dad, then, and hopefully fill in the gaps for you."

I told them the story as much as we'd been able to piece together. Of course, they'd been at the concert that Dwin and I had put on. When Nayth's otherworldly presence had showed up laughing, Shah had chosen to believe that it was thunder and had ignored her dad using his Talent out in the open.

Ronnie rolled his eyes, as usual. I didn't tell them that I was Sibsil Creed v.3 yet. I wanted to, and I planned to, but if they were keeping secrets, I wasn't gonna give everything up.

They'd left me high and dry too many times to just spill everything out before them. Trust was a two-way street, and it felt like I was doing all the heavy lifting.

So, instead of telling them about me, I told them about my dad's song "The Legend of Sibsil Creed," and the long-term strategy for publicizing Ryst and Nayth's biography and how that related to the Five Spheres. How we were telling their magical story to unite people so the unusual could gather on a world where they'd be safe.

"We need writers, and especially artists that we can trust to help. Your dad isn't the only one who needs the VR drawings. There's a lot of content that the Press needs to create over the next few decades. That's how we'll get the word out: by hiding the truth in plain sight, buried in stories that seem like fantasy," I concluded.

Ronnie felt victorious again, and he and Portia locked eyes, having another mental battle. Ronnie jumped up from the table and glared at Shah, hands on hips.

She folded her arms over her chest.

Hells, if they did this in front of their parents, then their telepathy was not as secret as they thought it was.

Ronnie pointed his index finger straight down at the ground and said emphatically,

I'm helping. That's my choice, then he looked at me. My art is yours. What do you need?

It was my turn to feel victorious. How do you feel about animation, Ronnie?

His faced glowed, and an eager voice spoke into my head. What are you working on?

I made sure Portia was outside my mental box when I responded to him. If she was gonna balk, I wasn't gonna include her. Yes, I was ten years old again. I had a brother too. I knew how to play the game.

How do you feel about erotica? A love story called Eclipse Chasers of Yester Rear?

Ronnie doubled over laughing and didn't stop. Oh! The irony! It's delicious! You have no idea! This is priceless! Best day of my life! You got any scripts for me?

Three episodes coming your way.

I went up to shower and go to bed, Ronnie cackling in my head and Portia sulking on the daybed.