Power Ballad ch 99 - Can’t be all smoked meats and blowjobs

“Heaven,” Sion Benefice declares. “Two-odd years of traveling the nine circles of the furnishings inferno and I have found my way to heaven.”

“It’s ritzy.” Evan flops onto the elephantine couch and sinks a third of the way in. “Can’t believe we get the whole place. Anise, you’re my religion.”

“Thank you, Anise,” Thekla sing-songs. “We love you.”

“Love you too,” Anise calls, from the study room of Legendary’s rented home. She’s looking through a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, her pencil skirt riding up along her sheer tights. “This is such a collection. Oh my gosh, there’s English books in here. Tons. What lovely hosts.”

“Give me something to read.” Nick ambles into the study and stands in the doorway. “Now that there are no phones around, I’m down to get literary.”

“Look at this. Moby Dick. How the hell does every short-term rental I’ve ever been to have Moby Dick?” Anise stands up and tosses a paperback to Nick. “Give that one a try. Everyone should read Moby Dick at least once.”

“How do you know I haven’t?”

“Cause I know you, kiddo.” Anise smirks. “It’s a great book, but I bet it was assigned to you and then you didn’t read it, because you don’t enjoy reading when it’s assigned to you.”

“Depends on who assigns it to me,” says Nick.

“How about this?” Anise trails a finger along Nick’s bicep. “You give that a shot, and any time you need an afterschool tutor, come see me in my office.” One smoky lid winks, and her hand darts down and squeezes his butt as she walks back into the living room with a sway in her stockinged step.

“The bedrooms share a wall,” Sion says. “Can I trust you to control yourselves for a scant week?”

“Nope.” Kell kicks her feet onto the coffee table. “Get you some earplugs, Benefice.”

Sion shakes his head. “Two years of matrimonial groping and still too lecherous to give me a quiet home. For shame.”

“I’m imprinted and Thekla’s a litter-aged goblin, dude,” Kell says. Her pint-sized wife is blushing furiously. “We have needs.”

“How you haven’t reduced Evan Kamiyon to a desiccated tumbleweed is, to me, one of life’s unsolvable mysteries.”

“He’s not a mystery.” Thekla gives Evan’s typically unruly mop a scratch. “He’s a bassist. That’s just what bassists are like.”

“Now when you said this was where Legendary was going to stay,” Kell says, “I’m assuming you didn’t mean Nick, too.”

“No, she did not.” Nick unsnaps his aruoch-leather satchel and stows the paperback inside. “Dee booked us a hotel room in… where did you say it was, babe?”

“Barge North,” Anise says. “Right over the water. It’s fabulous. Very Vermont-y vibes.”

“Isn’t that gonna be mad cold?” Kell’s nose wrinkles. “Thought you hated the cold.”

“I used to.” Anise’s arm wraps around Nick’s waist. “C’mon, Nicky. Let’s go find the packmistress.”

They climb down the wrought-iron staircase leading up to the rental, and step onto the verdant catwalk that wraps around it. The bannisters and balustrades that line it bloom with riotous color and drifting vines. A nice distraction from what’s beyond: the kind of sheer drop that Nick’s only previously experienced from behind a secure skyscraper window, or in vertigo-inducing nightmares.

Elfheim’s horizontal footprint is barely larger than Hanem City’s. Its population is five times larger. The city’s massive tiers bridge two mountains, stacking down them like an epochally massive staircase. They board a glass-and-iron funicular whose rattling passage locks Nick’s hand around Anise’s.

“Not a heights guy?” she murmurs sympathetically.

“Not a falling guy.”

A pair of gossamer ash elves, their skin pale bone and their eyes molten red, titter softly to one another on the other end of the funicular. Anise shoots them a reproachful glance. Nick decides to believe they’re telling sibilant knock-knock jokes over there.

They dismount the funicular on the next terrace, and stroll along a busy market street that reminds Nick of Cable Square in New Laytham, his earthward home. Anise scoots in front of him to squeeze past an indecisive ogre at a fruit stand. “Are you wanting to read more because you’re in your head about the Joseph Campbell thing?”

“Of course not.” Nick catches her extended hand again as they break from the mercantile crowd onto a shaded thoroughfare. “I’m a punk. But, like… maybe if I’m gonna be mated to a couple high-powered leader type women, I shouldn’t be dumb. I can be the dumbest member of the matebond, that’s okay. But I need to catch up.”

“You are not dumb, young man.” Anise gives his shoulder a swat. “You’ve saved this tour’s bacon several times over.”

He chuckles. “That is really nice of you to say, but you met me because I was about to die of exposure after trying to light a candle.”

“Well, what I couldn’t say then, that I can say now is that I think unlicensed bards are very badass and rebellious. And brave.”

“No shit?” Nick speeds up to cross a metallic furrow in the terrace deck before the oncoming trolley rattles through it. “You did a good job pretending otherwise.”

“That was the job. But I was part of it, remember? I was right there when Legendary opened the Door. And I was busting people’s balls to get them there. Do I think that there should be some kinda oversight around it? Sure. Do I think it should be purview of the fucking feds?” She clucks her tongue. “No way. I’m punk too, y’know.” She throws the horns. “Hardcore.”

He returns it. “Real hardcore.” They turn onto a tower-lined street, deeper into the terrace where the upper level’s shade brings a chill to the air. He scoots closer to his elf girlfriend and lays his arm across her shoulder. “So what do you think we should do on Earth?” he asks.

She shrugs into his warmth. “Not my problem. I’m not an Earthling anymore. I’m out where the magic’s crazy and all over the place.”

“Like in Claymore Champions?”

“Exactly like in Claymore Champions.” Her crystalline laugh. “My daughter’s still out there, so it’s not like I’m totally disconnected. But she’s a smart cookie. Whatever ends up happening with the magic on Earth, I think she’ll figure herself out. And if things get weird, now she has family to stay with in the Dub.”

“Do I count as a father-in-law?”

“Ohmygod. No.” She thwacks his shoulder again. “You count as a Nicky.”

They find Dee in a music store, surrounded by humming amplifiers. It’s pleasingly grubby and cluttered in here. Nick’s glad that between all the fancy blooms and wrought iron, there are places like this in Elfheim. The scuzz in the hard-to-reach spots. Makes it feel like a real city.

Dee’s bass is in her hand, jacked into a minifridge-sized combo.

“I dunno,” she says. “It’s tamer than the one in Legendary’s tent. I miss the grunt.”

“Legendary use solid state, and that’s a tube amp,” Nick says.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means you’re gonna get that to come alive if you turn it up really loud.”

“Really loud? I can work with really loud.” Dee clicks her tongue and looks up at the stern-faced hobgoblin by the front desk. “Can I turn it up?” She mimes cranking the knob.

The hobgoblin grunts. “Only because Legendary. You play your songs, you bring many unskilled neophytes to my doors, buy things.”

“Aces.” Dee slides the volume knob and leers as the speaker makes its hissing presence known. “Oooh. Hello, sexy.”

She slips a pick out of her fur-lined sleeve. Nick turned her onto playing with this instead of her fingers and now she’s obsessed with the jagged attack and the grind it gives her against her roundwound strings. She roars into the freight train bass part from Integration. Dark and syncopated. Nick’s favorite. Even grumpy Ms. Hobgoblin’s head is nodding to it.

“Nicky,” she calls over the riot. “Whatcha think?”

“Warm. Really warm.” Nick gives his double thumbs-up approval as his head rocks to the beat. “And evil.”

“Warm and eeevil.” Dee slaps her hand into the strings and stills her earthquake. “We’ll take it.”

  *

“When we celebrate the end of the tour I’mma take you somewhere cute.” Dee bumps her way down the avenue. “Got a bunch of Ani’s money to throw around. Might go to Eventaia. You haven’t had Elfy food till you’ve had it from Eventaia. Coming through, folks. ‘Scuse me.” She moves like a stone through a flowing tributary of goblins, who begrudgingly part for her.

“I’ve got such a taste for pack barbecue now,” Anise says. “I don’t know how it would stand up to that.”

“The firepit stuff’s great, hon. But you really need to try some of these foofy places. This is your new home dimension. You gotta take all of it in. Not just the tasty ribs.” Dee leans down. “Tell you a secret?”

“Sure.” Anise eyes the listing amp.

“Their gemhold salad is fuckin’ fantastic. Fuck a dragon quest and a world tour. That’s the reason I’m willing to set foot in a city again. Best vegetarian places in the O-Dub”

Nick watches Dee’s pumped arms strain against the sleeves of her tunic as she hefts her new purchase. “Didn’t peg you for a vegetarian place kinda girl.”

“Course I am. I’m into health, man.” Dee demonstratively curls the amp. “Salads and wraps and grain bowls and shit. Can’t be all smoked meats and blowjobs. Too much sodium.”

“Those things are heavy, baby.” Nick’s been skittishly looking over at his mate every time he hears a breath of effort. “You sure you don’t need help?”

“Nah, hon. I’m all good.”

“You sure?” Anise is likewise concerned. “You’re kinda anemic, remember?”

“Sure I’m sure. This thing’s lighter than a baby rhino. And it ain’t trying to kick me.” She boosts it back up her body with a knee. “Good to feel the burn again.” She gestures with her head. “We’re that way.”

They emerge from the terrace shadow onto a tree-lined street with intricate paving stones of interlocking wave patterns. A middle-distant waterfall lays down a blurry roar and mists the air.

“Welcome to Barge North.” Dee grins up at the sun-glinting spires. “Y’all ready to give me a round of applause over the hotel room?”

“Jeez, Dee.” Nick’s eyes widen as Dee pushes the frosted-glass door open in front of a glittering rococo spire.

“Fancy, right?” Dee hands the amp off to an insistent bellhop with a hand truck. “You take that to the fifteenth floor studio, please?”

“Yezmam.” He bows them into a cathedralesque foyer, all bubbling water features and sleek cushioned nooks.

“A studio?” Anise whistles. It bounces around the echoing marble. “How much did you drop on this hotel?”

“Most of my discretionary funds for the rest of the quarter.” Dee winks. “Don’t worry about it, Lil’ Miss Treasurer. I’ve been saving up for a spot like this.”

“Why?”

“Gotta make sure everything’s perfect for tonight,” Dee says. “This is where we’re making you our mate.”