Sub Dio- Under the Open Sky

“You shouldn’t be here in the first place,” Paul said.

I was doubled up on the parking area of Old Farmer’s. A lazy trickle of crimson blood bled from my lips.

My life had just been punched out of me by this bald guy with a serious B.O. problem. He made a move like he was swatting a pesky fly and the big orb of light hovering over him immediately aimed at me and hit my stomach causing me to fall on my face to the grimy puddle. Well, anything that stops him from lifting his arm and freeing the four horsemen of the apocalypse from his armpit. My name’s Chris by the way and you just caught me in one of the most embarrassing and pathetic moments in my life.

Before us stood people who were ready to pound the living daylights out of us for which reason I have no friggin’ idea.

Chances of survival: 0 or 2.5 if you count Paul’s kendo sword.

How did I get myself into this? I dimly wonder as Baldy lifted his boot to bring it down on my head.

It all started when I met Fly.
*

He was dressed in white shirt, black pants, matching vest complete with a Fedora hat and tap shoes. He was going all out with these sick moves that will make Fred Astaire sign him in as his next partner.

He was Fly, the new student in my high school and tap dancing outside Old Farmer’s supermarket. It was the first time we met and I was filming him.

He finished his routine by tossing his umbrella up in the air with his foot and then spun around and caught it in time with a blinding smile and a flourish. A shower of coins and the occasional bill rewarded him which he caught in his hat.

“That was amazing!” I gaped at him in admiration, hitting the pause button.

Suddenly a stunning blonde in a knockout little dress shoved me aside causing me to momentarily lose my grip on my camera. Thankfully, I caught it before it could continue its future Odyssey towards becoming metal debris.

“Hey!” I cried out but she he had already disappeared into the supermarket.

My face and Fly’s expanded like pancakes on the small screen as I adjusted the equipment, checking for injuries.

“So in which part of the movie will you put my moves?” he asked.

“Probably in the beginning. I’m thinking the sounds of the tap shoes go first. The screen is still blank, no credits nothing. They escalate louder and louder, just that beat until we see a close-up of your shoes and boom! your first appearance.”

“Sounds great.”

I thanked him for allowing me to film his dancing and put the camera back in my backpack. He picked up his box and just stood there with a frozen smile, looking wistfully inside Old Farmer’s.

“Are you meeting someone?” I asked.

“They’re……. inside.” He gestured clumsily. Then he abruptly turned to walk away.

“Seems like you’re running away from seeing them.”

That stopped him. “I always do.”

“Do what?”

“Run away.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “The guys you’re meeting, they’re not bullies from school, right?”

He turned back and shook his head. “They’re friends I haven’t seen for a long time.”

I felt sorry for him. Maybe he’s got some unresolved issues with his pals. “C’mon, I’ll go with you.”

He looked startled and followed.

Inside I greeted an African-American man in his forties behind one of the counters.

“What’s up Benny?”

Benny gave me a weak smile and turned his attention back to scanning the goods.

I recognized some of the kids from school. There was Paul going over their old debate with Mac on Byzantium history. Mac’s Benny’s kid and he works part time here. He’s one of those brilliant dudes on scholarship but so laid back and cool that you wouldn’t know he can recite famous writers from the Da Vinci Ages to the Steven Spielberg period in his sleep. Paul’s his close friend and rival for top honors. He’s half Japanese. He’s one of those anal type A superachievers. The kind that always gets straight As, is Supreme Student Council president, Kendo team captain, head of V.P.S. (Volunteer Program Services, if you don’t know) and still has time to bake your mom cookies that actually taste good. You know, the kind you love to hate.

Tryst, resident pothead and slacker, had his signature skateboard tucked under his arm and was staring at a box of tampons as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

Steve, the most popular guy at school was too engrossed with his own reflection in a display of mirrors. His blonde hair glimmered like the surface of my mom’s new vase around his effeminate face. He was wearing an expensive top and jeans over his slim frame that must have been freebies from his rumored modeling job. A number of girls in the building stopped to ogle at him. Actually, it wasn’t that hard to fall in love with him but he had only one person he was smitten with: himself.

Yet there was something bugging me looking at him now. There was something familiar about ----. That’s when it hit me.

He was that bombshell blonde that pushed me aside earlier. Holy shit. He’s a crossdresser!

“Long time no see,” Paul said to Fly. He turned to my direction. “Hi Chris.”

I don’t blame Fly. If Paul was my longtime friend, I’d be nervous too. I shoved aside my shock at my new discovery and focused on the present moment. I saw a flicker of life in Tryst’s pot hazed eyes as they fixed on Fly.

“Hi.” Fly looked really guilty. “Oh, hey!”

A kid not more than three was fiddling with his box and had pushed the play button.

“Henry!” After a torrent of apologies, his mom pulled him up to her arms.

A jazzy hiphop beat pulsated from the box. A few people’s heads snapped up from their shopping. But it had no greater effect than it did for Benny. Him, pudgy Benny was suddenly doing these moves that would make street dancers salivate and rush to his cash register shrine to worship him. He began using his scanner gun as a prop, flipping the products up in the air with his feet, scanning and shooting them with steel precision into the bags. He stood on the desk and did a forward roll to the other end just in time to grab the two ready shopping bags and handed them to a shocked lady. Then he immediately ran out of the building.

We followed him. Poor Mac was beside himself seeing his old man move like he was fifteen years old.

Benny was with five others outside. I did a double take when I saw Ms Phelps, our history teacher with them. The others included a bald guy, a loser who looks like he’s in accounting and a well dressed man in a suit.

The man in a suit stepped forward and pointed at Fly with his briefcase. “We’ve come to take you back to our planet.”

Huh?

“Not a chance,” Fly put down his box and started to escape.

The man nodded towards his direction and the bald guy gave chase. He cornered Fly and had him by the arms. His captor gave him a swift kick on the shin and sprinted again. In his haste, Fly tripped and landed on me, knocking me down.

I felt bumps on his chest. Oh, shit.

“You’re a woman?!”

Fly just grinned, enjoying the surprise on my face despite our situation. She pulled me up. Then a look of horror crossed her face as a ball of light came blazing out of nowhere. It came from the bald guy.

WTF?!

“You shouldn’t be here in the first place,” Paul said.

I collapsed to the ground after receiving another hit on my stomach. Just when Baldy was about to squash my face to a pulp, Fly had him by the neck with what looked spider silk threads.

“Your business is with me,” she said.

The accountant was next to Baldy in a flash. I don’t know how he got there with the big distance between them but somehow he did. He tried to help his buddy but Paul stopped him.

“I don’t think so,” Paul pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and raised his practice sword to club him down.

In a flash the two disappeared and teleported just about anywhere in the area. One second they were on the ground, the next they’re above the Old Farmer’s sign. Wherever one was, so was the other.

I saw with a sinking heart however, that fate wasn’t on our side. We were losing. Baldy managed to knock Fly to the ground, her threads lying useless beside her. The accountant was beating Paul to a pulp. Their fight took place so fast that within seconds Paul was sprawled unconscious on the ground.

I was angry.

Humiliated.

With my face stuck in the mud.

Too much weird stuff was happening and I wasn’t given enough time to process them.

What right did these guys have to beat high school kids? Where’s the justice in that? Never mind that they were shooting round shaped lasers and had preternatural speed. Shaking with fury, I slowly got to my feet and wipe my face clean from muck. I wanted to get back at them. My hands strayed to Fly’s box.

So I did the only thing I could do to fight back.

I picked up Fly’s hat and put it on.

I danced.

I jerked my knees, doing some serious popping and locking. I did some hat tricks. Spreading my arms wide open, it managed to complete an almost impossible trajectory from my left arm and onto my right.

All the while my eyes never left these guys. In this way, I taunted them. Defied them.

I shoved down the hat firmly on my head. I walked over to suit guy and pulled off his glasses. I put them on as I spun around. He just stood there in his stony expression watching me.

I finished with a split and the music ended.

The sound of clapping pierced the stillness that followed.

It rose in crescendo and a kid stepped out of the rooftop of the building across from us. He could not have been ten or eleven. He had platinum blonde hair covered with a red cap and steel blue eyes which belied a superior intelligence a hundred times older than his appearance.

He leaped from the roof to the ground and onto a fire hydrant before him. My jaw dropped open as this kid started to perform breakdancing feats no one in his age could have done. Grasping the red metal top, he launched into the coffee grinder and did a pike freeze before going into the windmill. He was so fast that he became a blur. Then without stopping, he tucked his legs together and continued to whirl before pulling them up straight. Finally, he finished by tumbling up into the air to land before us.

He stood up. “I’m General Cerberus but you can call me Dennis –the name of the host body I’m occupying. I’m the leader of this team.”

“What have you done with my dad?” Mac burst out.

“His body along with others, myself included, serve as temporary vessels for our alien forms. We will return them in due time after we take Ms Fly back to marry one of the great lords of our planet, Enna.”

He turned to me. “You’ve inspired me to think of a way we can solve this without ---“ He signaled to Baldy to let go of Fly. “ –unnecessary violence.”

“How?” It was a miracle. The listless Tryst finally spoke.

Dennis smiled. “A dance battle. If we win, Ms Fly will come to us.”

He held up an index finger. “One week. Let’s give ourselves one week to step it up.”

“You better have him in your team,” Dennis continued, indicating me. “You will decide the time and place. One of my men will meet you a day before the fight.” He transferred his gaze at the open mouthed crowd around us that was growing by the minute. He swept his hand in a careless wide arc. “Mind swipe,” he said and in a second the people started to disperse and carry on with their lives. After a moment, he and his group walked away.

Tryst and Steve tended to the injured. I was left staring at the prone figure of Fly, the person who has just drastically ruined the normalcy of my life in one day.

*
(The whole group is sitting in Mac’s tiny living room. He has just explained to his mom that Benny won’t be back for at least week for an Old Farmer’s staff outing. Paul and Fly are all patched up nursing their injuries not to mention their bruised egos. I wait patiently for their explanation.)

Paul: We’re aliens.

Me: (ready for this) Who?

Mac: Not me, that’s for sure. (crosses his arms and waits. The others remain quiet.)

Tryst: We started life as a single amoeba.

Me: Wait, you lost me somewhere between amoebas taking over the world and Genghis Khan coming back from the dead.

Steve: (ignores me). We broke apart when this strange music out of nowhere came. It made us come alive. We craved it. We couldn’t live without it. We wanted to know where this thing comes from, who made it. And after light years of searching, we found it.

Tryst: So that’s why we’ve come to earth.
Paul: Implanted ourselves into the embryos of your own species. Listening to music, leading our blissful sheltered lives and separate identities until – (his eyes slide to Fly) you came.

Fly: You see, when the group decided to go earth, I panicked. There was so much I wanted to do before being shackled in a happy blue planet so I left without saying goodbye. (looks at all of them. Her gaze rests at Tryst the longest). I got into some pretty serious shit across the galaxies. The latest included getting engaged to a filthy rich lord from the Andromeda stars. It was all a game to me, you see but apparently that dumbass thought I was serious.

Tryst: But you don’t love him?

Fly: (vehemently) No way! Anyway, I decided to escape to earth, commissioned a human body made –took pretty long—and a brainwashed family to take me in.
Mac: I want the satisfaction of kicking that extraterrestrial scum out of Dad by joining this battle.

Fly: That’s why this is perfect! A dance battle! Think about it. We were created because of music and since then in our amoebic existence moved to our own beat.

(The others fall silent)

Paul: When did I give you the impression that we’ll save your sorry little ass after you’ve left us?

Fly: Glad to know you never lost touch of your cruelty.

Paul: Easier to maintain than looking for you. I prefer the former. Less work. (thumbs towards Tryst) You think after all this time when you say, “Jump,” he’ll ask, “How high?”

Tryst: Hey! (pauses) Partially true.

Steve: Completely true.

Fly: I’m sorry. I was a big jerk leaving like that. But I really need your help on this. Look, I’m groveling. (kneels) After, you can do with me whatever you like even chaining me to a comet. Complete banishment into eternal galactic oblivion. Really, I won’t mind. Nothing compares to saying ‘I do’ to a middle aged pudge and having to deal with that Jupiter weight on me on the marriage night. (she shudders visibly at the thought.)

Paul: Alright, I’m in.

Fly: (surprised) That easy?

Paul: Actually, I’d like to pummel you into amoeba goo now but he won’t be happy. (nods towards Tryst’s direction).

Steve: If your marriage to that Ennan blob happens, Tryst will just spiral into manic depression and Paul and I will have to put him on Prozac and play nursemaids. It’s enough that he’s on a crack fix and puts himself out of order 24/7 just not to see your face wherever he goes.

Fly: (winces) Tch, that bad? (shots a look of apology at Tryst which he ignores).

Tryst: Enough reminiscing. You heard that Dennis kid? Let’s step it up.

*
And so the practice began.

We’d rotate houses. Ms Phelps didn’t show up for class for a couple of days now, no surprise. Tryst laid off the drugs completely. I gotta admire his willpower. Well, if I think of it as alien willpower, if there’s such a thing, it makes sense. Steve was often late because of his part-time job as a model. But what we didn’t know was he was hired as a female model. That’s some weird shit. Which totally explains why he had to cross dress every time he left for work.

Other problems surfaced. Mac and I were poppers. Tryst was a true blooded b-boy. Paul was into jazz. Fly was a tap dancer and Steve was….. well, he’d said he would just go with the flow.

Very reassuring Steve.

“What can we do?” I asked in exasperation.

“What can we do?” Tryst said. “What can we do?” A smile slowly curled on his lip.

*
It was the day of the big battle.

The time and place had been decided and sent. We were facing each other in an abandoned construction site away from the prying eyes of people. The setting sun cast its fingers of amber glow on our determined faces before the steely darkness decided to join us with its chill. My camcorder was parked nearby ready to record our battle and upload it on the Internet for the masses to decide the winner.

Dennis and his crew went first.

They were dressed in black. An eerie whispery music cut through the prickly atmosphere. An electrifying scream punctured the air and their hands shot out from their vertical line formation.

Another shriek and their bodies fell to the ground and leaped upright again like a human fan. They separated. The music gathered momentum and tiny orbs of lights like fireflies materialized and danced with them. Suddenly they shot the balls towards us.

But we were ready.

Mac and I bent our bodies in angles that can only be achieved if you’ve been dancing for a millennia. The shots zoomed past us.

Paul blocked one with his sheathed katana.

Steve created a sphere of water to diffuse it.

Fly deflected it with a single thwack of her string.

Tryst caught his coolly in his hand. He infused it with his own lightning energy and pitched it back.

It missed Dennis by a hair’s breath, a few strands of silver hair went flying away. The move cost the kid to spin his head a morbid 360 degrees and then flicked us a mischievous grin.

All of a sudden, they stamped. Poles rose out of the surface of the ground. They faced each other and started to move the poles like the furious waves of the sea. Dennis emerged from them breakdancing his way through. Out of nowhere a pole hit him. He tucked himself in and backspun so fast on the ground like a hockey puck.

The accountant and Baldy did a re-enactment of Paul’s defeat. Baldy playing Paul crouched down on the ground, covering and shivering while the other held a cellphone to his ear looking bored as he beat him to pieces. Finally, he pounced on “Paul” holding him down as he did a single handstand. He spun himself and the body around all the while still talking to his phone making the move effortless and screaming a message to the real Paul: You are not worth it.

Paul’s scowl deepened.

The guy stopped and in a flick of an eye was gone and stood before Paul. He swung it but Paul blocked him coolly and he did this in every step of the way as they disappeared and reappeared in our line of vision. The only traces of their presence were the swift flashes of light emanating from their swords. Paul knew his moves now. He had been ready for this.

“Gary!”

Dennis tone was sharp. Gary bared Paul a wolfish grin before returning.

For the finale, the group formed a huge upright clock. Dennis faced us, the clock maestro.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, the box said.

His hands started to inch their way up.

Tick.

Gary and Ms Phelps found themselves getting closer to the top.

Tock.

Dennis’ hands pointed at 12.

And then the lights went off.

*

Did you ever have this feeling of excitement building up inside? The moment when you’re backstage and you know it’s going to be now or never? Your throat feels dry. Your palms get all sweaty and your heart’s performing its ultimate drum performance like it’s back in Woodstock.

Steady, Chris.

The lights switched on.

We faced them with our ghostly grotesque alien masks. The music started on a low whirl. We levitated up the unfinished construction building, each bathed in a spotlight of bluish white light that seemed to pull us like magnets.

And then it exploded.

And I went wild.

I didn’t think about anything else but the feel of that mounting pandemonium. It swept through me like a crashing avalanche. My body could only respond in a series of whipping and lashing limbs and legs. In that moment when your physiognomy is gyrating passionately to the pulsing rhythm, you’re in a state of suspended euphoria. You are not there. You don’t exist in the past. Or for that matter, the future.

You’re here now.

Huge copper bubbles of glowing water were thrown up in the air. We used these as props for our dance routine which was a combination of jazz and hiphop.

The familiar tap! tap! announced its arrival and Fly descended like an avenging angel, tapping her way on a narrow steel beam attached to a crane in the yawning center of the building. Steve joined her in a separate beam and together they scrapped the heels of their shoes against the metal sending a shower of fiery copper around.

Fly cast her strings on Steve and threw him towards the other crew. She began making him dance like a puppet, taunting them and dragged him back up again after Steve slapped his sweet little ass at their faces.

Paul did some awesome moves before spinning around faster and faster till he reached the end of the horizontal beam that jutted out of the site like an unwanted tooth. He did a plange and dropped down only to teleport himself to several locations in a series of jazz poses –the straddle split leave, the forward jazz slide and ended in a surprising pike freeze.

Mac and me cartwheeled our way together to the other end of the infrastructure. Then we did some popping and the King Tut, stirring up clouds of ancient dust along the steel planks. We did some fancy downrock moves and rolled towards each other to give ourselves a high five before ending our routine with a backflip.

Tryst swept into the scene skateboarding in a huge cylinder suspended several feet above the air. He pushed himself to a handstand and spun 360 degrees on the air. He ditched the skateboard.

Still standing on the cylinder, he did the windmill followed by the airflare whirling his way to the other end. His eyes sparked with lightning as he built momentum. Stopping abruptly, he leaped back towards us.

We whipped our masks to the side of our face. We made for a macabre bunch of half alien and half human hybrids. We danced together again with the some of the others stuck dancing upside down on the horizontal beams. We alternated walking around on our boxed structure. When the music stopped, we jumped as a high burst of fireworks exploded behind us.

That was when Benny chose the time to have a heart attack.

*

We all sat there in the waiting room, reconciled for the moment, the battle temporarily forgotten as old Benny’s life hang in the balance in the ICU.

We deduced what happened. Benny’s body had collapsed under the great physical strain. The alien inside his body didn’t know Benny’s medical history. That he had been in and out of the hospital a couple of times. Now that extraterrestrial was stuck inside his human vessel and couldn’t get out until Benny regained consciousness.

“Here.” I gave Fly a cup of water. She had been sitting there alone for hours now maybe grappling with her own private demons.

She looked up with a start, guilt all over her face.

I sat down beside her. We were seated away from the rest.

She looked down at her reflection on the water. She just clutched the cup and never drank it.

“Remember you asked me to repeat something when we first met?” she said.

“Uh-huh.” I lifted and drank from my cup.

“What was it?”

“That you don’t want to keep running away.”

“But I always do.”

“Then don’t.”

And this time, she looked at me. Fear and uncertainty pooled in her eyes. And that’s when I knew she had made her decision.

“Then don’t,” I repeated.

She saw Mac’s dreadlocks swaying as he paced to and fro frantic with worry over his old man’s fate and with a groan, buried her face in her hands. “I didn’t want this to happen. This is the first time my mistakes could cost a life.”

After a long time, she lifted her head and set her jaw. “What I’m going to do next Chris is going to make you and the others wish you will never seen my face for the next ten agonizing puberty ridden years of your life,” she said. “All our hard work, the battle –it’ll be for nothing.”

“I don’t know about that but I’ve had a wonderful time,” I said. “I don’t know if the others will understand. Heck, I know Paul’ll skin you alive but as for me, never in my entire lifetime could I dance like that again and you were the one who gave me that chance.” I patted the bag where my camera is. “Besides, you’ve given me my movie.”

Fly smiled at me and then looked wistfully at Tryst hunched down on his seat. “No more running,” she whispered.

And then we shook hands, perhaps for the last time.

*
Fly went out to talk to Tryst. Saw her finally show the first ever sign of affection she has given him since she got here –that of holding his hand tenderly. I never saw Tryst again that night.

Later, she had a talk with Dennis. Paul and Steve looked on and perhaps, guessed.

“I haven’t forgiven you,” Paul said.

“Who said you had to?”

“Well, at least this time you said goodbye,” he told her.

She didn’t have to tell him.

She knew who he was referring to.

“I don’t know if I’ll come back. If they’ll let me,” she said. “But I’ll sort out this mess. I’m not getting married to that Ennan dumbass. If they have to throw me in jail for that, fine.”

Suddenly Mac came barreling towards us and engulfed Paul in a bone crushing hug.

“He’s okay! He’s okay!” he cried out.

*
Benny slowly opened his eyes. An alien intelligence stared at us. It was a look of utter relief of being back from the dead.

“Success,” Dennis told him.

Then he blinked and it was gone. He was old man Benny again and his son was clutching his hand, never letting him go.

Dennis, Mac, Fly and I were gathered in Benny’s room together with his family.

“Where’d he go?” I asked.

“Back to the ship,” Dennis replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to return these bodies to their rightful owners.” He led Fly out of the room. She gave us the last fleeting glimpse of her farewell wave before the door abruptly snapped the linking thread she had with us.

And that was it.

Meanwhile, Mac was pumping his old man’s arm gently and laughing. His eyes glistened. “Oh boy, dad did you pop,” he said. “Did you pop.”

*
It was springtime and I was filming the rest of my movie in the park.

“Steve, you decide it’s time to tell the crew to fight back. You’ve just been humiliated by a 10 year old kid. How can you stand it?”

I get a somewhat less intelligent reply. “I can’t, not with this skirt. Can’t I just be a guy? I mean no offense, it’s nice and does wonders to this damn heat but give me some of my pride back, man. At least with modeling, it was inside and we’re outdoors. If any girls at school see me in this --” His voice trailed off as his expression twisted into a theatrical face of abject mortification.

“Wait, wait! Hold it! Let me get that.” As I started filming, Steve lost all his previous objections with the familiar sight of the camera aimed at him and concentrated on sinking himself deeper into the emotions he’s stirred up within himself, building it up as he sank into an exaggerated pose of defeat.

Behind me Tryst was rehearsing his moves with Dennis except he’s not Dennis the alien anymore, just a normal kid who likes his Nintendo and has the emerging talent to be a great breakdancer. He and Tryst would play in opposite camps in the film with Dennis as the star motivating a group of pathetic dissatisfied disillusioned adults to pursue their dreams of dancing and battle against some ‘arrogant high school upstarts’ that will culminate in the finale of our famous battle which I had saved.

As for Tryst, he was coping. There would be some lapses now and then but what Fly must have told him worked like a rehab medical cure. I gave him a copy of an earlier video I shot of Fly at Old Farmer’s and he’s must’ve exhausted himself watching it a million times by now. You could really tell he was existing in the moment as he demonstrated the windmill to Dennis who just worshipped the ground he walks on.

Mac was making sure his dad was on the road to full recovery. He was beside me helping me with the props and stage direction. Paul was on the phone with Gary, the human Gary and the two have become pretty close. They must share some anal interests.

“I got Ms Phelps and B.O. signed up ---” (Yes, Baldy turned out to be nicknamed B.O. It stands for Brad Orden who has his own online business at home and seldom showers.)
“—Benny promised to show up for some appearances, keep in mind his heart condition. Mickey is ready for a break after his lawyer pilot flopped.” He paused listening. “Yeah, don’t worry. We’ll put some of the movie posters in your office with your name on it. And probably that girl in finance you’ve been drooling over will finally give you a lap dance and perform oral kinky sex under your desk, who knows?”

Then suddenly, it came.

We all heard it and froze.

It became more pronounced and stronger as it came towards us. The familiar tapping sound.

There she was dancing her way in a grove of trees ahead. The leaves and petals swirled and rained around her like they were welcoming back the long gone Persephone. There was the familiar white shirt, black pants, matching vest complete with Fedora hat and tap shoes.

She somersaulted and landed on her knees before us, her arms spread wide open, her cheeks flushed, her dark eyes shining.

“Did you miss me?” Fly said.

We didn’t have to answer. Our actions spoke for themselves or at least one of us did. Tryst just rushed up to her, lifted her off the ground and then planted a kiss on her breathless lips.

“Welcome back to earth,” Paul said, sarcastically. But he was smiling.

And we, we looked on. Maybe after she’ll tell us what really happened. But I knew from her triumphant expression that she did sort out the mess and didn’t marry that Ennan dumbass. She’s a fighter if only she’ll allow herself to face the odds. Stop being a coward, which she did. How exactly she did it is a story I’m looking forward to.

But we will hear it some other time.

Discreetly, I pointed the camera at Tryst and Fly to record their moment forever in the archives of film.

“Spring has come,” I whispered.

END