This story takes place after the events of "Forte Chronicles #1: Into the Realm" and "A Hangover Far, Far Away"

 

Davis Alexander—in his human form, not in the rocky and bulky form of Rainier at the moment—sat at a square wooden table. A laptop was near his left arm, a notebook was beneath his right hand (which currently held a number two pencil, which he still preferred over the fancier automatic kind), and an open, old book that he was presently scanning was before him—one of about fifteen that were laying about the table. His glasses had slid down his nose, but he hadn’t bothered to push them back up yet, since that was working with his current reading position.

The room he was in was one he had taken over not too long after they’d all moved in to the latter-day Forte base. It had originally been a meeting room for the engineers on the Mariner project (the previous occupants of the secret building), but now it was Davis’s library and research room. He’d added shelves, and had filled many of them already with books ranging from modern to ancient. There were also artifacts and objects on both shelves and tables. There was a main computer station against one wall, one that tied in to the main Forte network back at the original Forte base, and the laptop he used was linked to the station via wireless network.

“Hey,” a voice said behind him.

Pulled from his focus, Davis turned his head that way and found Dyna Girl standing in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, with the top of a Fudgesicle in her mouth, looking (and it was not an uncommon look for her) kind of bored.

“Hey,” he said, distractedly, with a polite smile, and then turned back to his book to finish the sentence he’d been reading.

Holly strolled in and stood behind him, looking down over his shoulder. Davis tried to keep his train of thought with the distractions of both 1) someone looking over his shoulder and 2) the annoying slurping sound.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asked soon enough.

“Uh,” he said, writing something down in his notebook before he forgot it, “I’m…trying to get our cultural database updated. We have an information exchange coming up with the Paragons.”

“Oh,” she said, continuing to watch him.

“We’re trying to keep each other up to date. Get our databases current. Just something Knightmare and I thought was a good idea. So…just trying to be ready.”

“Cool,” she said, though her tone of voice didn’t really match the sentiment. As he reached to the laptop and pulled up an Excel file he was filling, Holly finally moved from the spot and walked around the corner of the table and slumped down on an open chair, sitting on her legs. She slid one of his books to her—a dusty, leather-bound one—and folded it open. She absently eyed one of the pages while going back to work on her Fudgesicle.

Davis looked up at her, back down at his laptop, and then back to her again. He looked a bit antsy.

“Could you…” he started to say.

“Huh?” she answered, looking up at him.

“Just…” he said, starting and not quite completing a finger-point in her direction, one aimed at the book. “Could you…be careful? With…the ice cream? The book.”

She looked down at the book, then at her dessert, then back at him. “Oh, sure,” she said, nodding, and leaned back a bit, bringing the frozen treat to a safe distance.

“It’s just…” he said, apologetically. “It’s…really old, and…”

“Okay,” she nodded to him again with a smile, then started slowly flipping pages, keeping the Fudgesicle safely in her mouth.

“Thanks,” he said, going back to his own book. He tried to focus on it, but his eyes kept going back to her and the book. He finally forced himself to stop it and trained his mind on the historical text before him. After a couple of moments he started making handwritten notes again, trying his best to ignore her presence there.

“You know,” she mentioned, conversationally, still turning pages, “I’m not just a Realm citizen. I’m a Realm COMMANDER.”

His pencil stopped in mid-word. His eyes rolled up, looking over his still-lowered glasses, and fell on her. She didn’t look up, but just kept perusing the book and snacking.

“Yes,” he said, semi-pleasantly, turning his eyes back to his own book. “You’ve mentioned that.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, nonchalantly. “Realm Commander Dyna Girl.” She bit off some of the icy chocolate and crushed it with teeth and tongue. “People have to, like, salute me when I walk by.”

He started writing again, slowly. “Hmm,” was all he felt like adding.

“I can, like, command whole armies if I want,” she said, changing her position, getting on her knees on the chair and leaning on the table on her elbows. And getting her Fudgesicle hazardously close to the book again, he noted from the corner of his eye. “I can tell them to go kick a planet’s ass, and they have to do it.”

“That must be…quite an honor,” he said, diplomatically, trying to remember the thought he’d just been trying to put together. And trying not to look up at her.

She flipped another page and bent her knees, and started kicking her boots lazily together behind her. “Or I could just get on any ship in the fleet and tell them where I want to go, and they’d take me. Whatever planet I pick.”

He made another non-committal noise in response, and wrenched his mouth a little. He took a breath through his nose and had to go back to re-read the sentence he’d just been on.

“Of course, I’ve seen so many of them already,” she said, looking dreamily up at the ceiling. “All those cool planets, all those races, all those fascinating CULTurrrrrres…”

He ground his teeth together a little and held on to his patience.

“All those religious ceremonies we got to go to… Oh, did I show you that picture of me and Lightsedge with the priestess queens of Kadranah?”

Pausing for a moment, tapping his pencil on his notebook, he answered. “Yes. Yes, you did.”

“They were so neat,” she said, remembering fondly. “They were, like, four hundred years old. And twins. The stories they had to tell. All that history and lore. Wow.”

He flipped a page a little harder than he’d meant to and pressed his finger against it, scanning text. Holly kept looking at her book, tilting her head to study a sketch in it, as she ate some more ice cream.

“Not that you really had to leave the throneworld,” she said with an ironic laugh, and Davis closed his eyes as his countenance went darker. “Not with that library there. Oh, my God. There had to be MILLIONS of books. Like, literally. And all those interactive holographic learning rooms. You could learn whatever you wanted about any world in the Realm right there. You could just study and study for months and never get bored.

“You know,” she added, shlurping some chocolate from between her thumb and forefinger. “If you’re into that kind of thing.”

Davis had now reached the point of stewing, and turned his attention to his laptop, and tapped some buttons on the keyboard there rather loudly. Holly finished contemplating the sketch and turned to another page.

“So that dimension you guys went to while I was gone,” she said, suddenly, looking up at him and resting her cheek on her left hand, looking curious. “There was really no civilization there at ALL? No people? Just miles and miles of endless, boring desert?”

Davis sighed hard and closed his book deliberately. And pushed his glasses up on his nose, finally. He rose from his chair and stood and met her innocent gaze.

“I’m going to go get some air,” he said. “I think I need a break.”

“Oh,” she said, watching him, kicking her feet again. “Okay.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, put his pencil down, turned and walked heavily out of the room.

Holly bent and put her forehead down on the table after he disappeared, and her upper body shook with silent laughter. Finally she sat back up with a flip of her hair, and her face was red.

“Uhhhh,” she breathed out with satisfaction. She snickered mischievously and finished the last of the ice cream, cleaning it off the stick. “I’m a bad person,” she said aloud through her mouthful, snickered some more, and went back to paging through the book.

 

END.

 

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