Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

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EURI

As Portia drifted into unconsciousness, I came slightly more alert, blinking, and leaving behind the grey-green seascape of our minds. I'd tried to ask the woman I loved if she recognized the color of the water, but she'd been too lost to hear me. The color of the sea we'd been floating in was the exact shade of the dolphin sculpture I'd loved so much on Mirtoux. We'd been floating in an ocean, but it wasn't exactly water. Or maybe it was water, I wasn't sure, but whatever it was, I could breathe in it.

The post-coital haze lifted, and I was back in our bed aboard the Good Time, hurtling my way across Andromeda. Was it lost on me that we were on our way to Trinovar 34? The furthest sphere on the furthest edge of Andromeda? Nope, not lost on me at all.

Ostensibly, Ronnie had suggested we go to the most prestigious college of arts in the galaxy to see their exhibit on light and sound, which was supposed to be spectacular. Well, it would have to be, wouldn't it? To attract people to go that far out? The farthest edge of Andromeda? Yep, once we got to Trinovar 34, there was no where left to go unless we wanted to go past the galactic edge. Next stop: Milky Way, two days beyond.

Ronnie was up to something. I knew it, Portia knew it, and Ronnie knew that we both knew. It was a lot of knowing, but not a lot of talking about it. We weren't back to the not talking thing we'd done months ago. No, it wasn't that bad. It was just mysterious.

Ronnie wanted something, and I had an idea about what it was because I was good at listening to what people weren't saying. Ronnie had taken us to Mirtoux and then had asked me how I'd liked the art exhibit about the wind. Not a coincidence since I was now a Friend of the Wind. Whatever that meant.

Did you know that you can hear the wind when you're flying faster than light across the galaxy in a starliner? Umm hmm. Yep. Not the sound of the air rushing past the hull of the ship. Nope. The distant wind, far off on every sphere. It's not always the same, but it sort of is. In that way that a breeze is the same as a tempest.

I could feel it, hear it, sense it. I smiled every time I did. It was a friend I hadn't realized I'd been listening to my whole life, and it was within me and without.

I wasn't sleeping, but the woman I was spooning was. I rolled onto my back and managed to wiggle into my boxers without waking her. Questing out with my telepathy, I found her brother awake and looking at what— lizard pictures? Oh! He was working on research for The Avenging Augment episode one.

My metal-handed pops had written the perfect intro script for the cartoon, and my characters Crystal and Nathan from Eclipse Chasers of Yester Rear had gotten an action scene to spice up their love life. Yeah, fighting poisonous man-sized lizards got the blood pumping. Ronnie had some really scary lizards in his brain.

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What is that, Ronnie?

Komodo dragon. Real lizards. Not fake. I heard my pad buzz and grabbed it off the nightstand, opening up the image Ronnie sent.

Dragon? There's no such thing as dragons. Holy hells. You're telling me those are real?

Mental chuckle. I looked through the images on my pad. All of a sudden, the episode sounded way scarier than I'd meant it to. Ronnie laughed at me and pushed some drawing ideas into my brain.

Alright, yeah, he had to make them scary. If they were cute, people would be upset when Paul Morton went all avenging assassin on them, so it had to be scary. Criminy. This was looking macabre! It was supposed to be entertainment. Comedy action adventure. Not horror! Ronnie laughed at me again.

A zillion images assaulted my mind of lizards, scary lizards, cute lizards, animated lizards that were fun, cartoon lizards that were dangerous.

Quit that! I yelled mentally. When Ronnie sent my mind reeling like that it always jolted me back to my own body, away from him. I wasn't sleepy, so I wanted to hang out.

The feeling I got back from him was something like "what're you gonna do about it?" What was this? Ronnie wanting to fight? Like brothers? Okay, Ronnie, how do you like this? I elbowed him in the gut mentally.

He side-stepped before I even got close to him. Punk. No response from Ronnie. Like I was so far beneath him I wasn't worth his time. Hmm. He was goading me on purpose. All part of whatever bigger game he was playing. Fine.

Want me to show you what I've got, oh you with the super brain? I whirled at him, spinning with a kick and then pushed at him from the other side with a gust of wind to knock him on his ass. A wall of stone flew up around him, and he vanished from my mental senses almost entirely. Except I could feel him wryly laughing while he drew scary lizards.

Asshole. I made the earth quake under his stone wall. Nothing happened. I tried to melt the stone like it was ice and I was the sun. No change. I let a trickle of water run at the bottom of the wall. Ronnie laughed and opened a hole in the wall to let the water in. I mentally crawled through the tiny hole and got sucked down a drain pipe!

Hah! He flushed me down a mental toilet, and I dropped into a puddle of piss. Bastard!

Fine! Fine! You are god here, Ronnie. I give up!

But Ronnie wasn't done. The rock wall fragmented. As in, it used to be rock, but now, in my mind's eye it was made of dust, but still stood upright. I called the wind to me. I felt it in my being, in my belly, and I breathed out, pushing the wind. Too much. It made a mess.

Ronnie didn't want a mess, he wanted art. I breathed the wind back into my lungs and focused on the wall made of dust.

Coaxing, I thought. I needed to be coaxing. How could I coax dust and turn it into something beautiful? I thought of Portia asleep on the pillow next to me. Of her curly brown hair splayed out around her perfect face. I breathed out a soft sigh like a lover's caress, and the wind shaped the dust into a spiral— slowly. . . gently.

The dust moved, up, out, and away, in a funnel going up. Slowly, softly, the dust was carried away and underneath the once wall, a sight greeted me.

A giant lizard head. It's tongue slicked out and lashed at my face. I jumped back just in time and suddenly had a sword made of wind. I struck the lizard's tongue but it got away.

Ronnie guffawed at my pathetic sword skills and hit me mercilessly with a tail of some kind. I spun in the air, lashing out with the wind and righted myself. I couldn't tell where Ronnie was anymore. Everything was just dark and grey. I held my breath, waiting, wondering what was coming next.

Clapping, slow clapping. Then pelting, driving rain. I pushed the rain back. I was the wind. Rain was nothing to me, and I was done waiting for his next game. I gathered the rain to me. He wanted art? I'll show you art, Ronnie!

The rain and wind were one as I channeled them into a fury. Dance for me, I commanded, and the world turned into a fury. It was the raging seas of Shurwinn, and I heard Ronnie laughing down the hallway and into my mind as I drowned him in the furious waters of my home world.

He kicked me out of his mind then because I'd done what he'd wanted. He'd wanted me to see what sparring was like on the mental plane, and I'd shown him that I could keep up. Hmm. I'd passed Ronnie's test. I wondered what was next.

I rolled back over and wrapped my body around his twin again. My face buried against the back of her neck, I fell asleep holding the woman I loved.