“I want to talk to you.” C’liss told me after supper. He took my arm and steered me down the hall. “Alone.” I could have gotten away from him if I really wanted. C’liss was a little shorter then me but he was broader- lithe and muscled as a dancer.  I’d heard some of the other elves talking and the general consensus was if you could convince him to strip on say, Ladies Night, he would make the club downstairs a killing. He never would I knew. He was much happier bouncing the door ands cracking skulls then displaying himself to a bunch of lust-crazed Asian women. But that was neither here nor there.
I was stronger then he was, even though I’m not much more then skin and bone. A ‘beanpole’ I think the humans would say. We both knew I could break his grip if I wanted, and his wrist with it. But I was curious and let him lead me into the old freight elevator.

There was a normal elevator, of course, but I’d always liked the freight. It was bigger- and in the days not-so-long ago when I had wings that was a godsend- I didn’t have to fold and curl and squeeze just to fit through the door.  That and I always though the freight was more honest [if an elevator could be said to be honest]: It was battered, with scuffs and chipped paint, covered here and there with the bright stickers of local clubs and imported bands some of the residents felt like adding on the industrial gray of the walls. It was dirty. It was worn. It was loved. I’d always found that something of a comfort.

We stepped inside [it seemed so much bigger without my wings] and C’liss reached up and hauled the metal mesh door down and locked it in place, hinges squealing with age and lack of grease.
He didn’t say anything on the way up, just leaned against the wall and watched the gray-black concrete of the shaft shoot by three feet away. Something weighed heavily on his mind I could tell. What that something was- I had no idea.
He sighed, straightened and reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and fiddled with something inside of it.  He drew out a pack of cigarets, tapped the top absently with his dark forefinger and slid one out.  He put it in his mouth, put the carton away and snapped his fingers. A spark jumped out of nowhere, bright and tiny against the pale walls of the elevator. Then it blossomed into a glowing golden flame at the tip of his finger. He leaned forward, cupping his other hand around the flame to shield it and sucked. A curl of fragrant smoke rose lazily toward the ceiling. He puffed contentedly and shook his fire-y finger out. Then the smell reached me, the old familiar scent of burning coltsfoot and comfrey. That too was a comfort.

The elevator slowed and stopped, the indicator bar above the door glowing on ‘Roof’. C’liss stooped and unlocked the door, and slid it up, into it’s slot, so we could get out.

I followed him out of the small shed that held the mechanics for the elevators, out onto the loose gravel of the roof. C’liss strode on ahead of me, the bright cherry of his ciggy lining his dark face in red. He walked slowly, his boots quiet on the small stones, then leaned on the heavy metal railing that rose to chest height all around the roof, arms crossed. I moved to stand next to him, watching him out of the corner of my eye.
The wind was strong up here and bitingly cold. It tugged loose wisps out of my tight braid and haloed it around my head. I blinked hair out of my eyes and frowned. I hadn’t brought a coat up with me and the breeze cut through my nubbly sweater as though it wasn’t there.
It stirred C’liss’s hair, hanging in heavy shoulder length dreadlocks. It ruffled the thick fold of the hood that lay along his back. He sighed.
“I need to ask you a question.” He sighed. “About your sister.” He continued, stopping my query before I even opened my mouth.

        I looked at him and waited. He would tell me when he was ready. C’liss wasn’t an overly talkative person, but when he felt like talking he was usually worth listening to.  He took up his ciggy and held it between thumb and forefinger, looking down into the burning ember as if it held the answer to whatever was bothering him. A bit of fine white ash built up around the tip then the wind caught it and peeled it off, trailing bright sparks.

He turned to look at me, the rising moon catching in his vermilion eyes and causing them to glow- red- just like his ciggy. “I would have asked your Father if he were still alive. But he’s not so-”

“So I’ll have to do, yes?” I grinned at him. I looked across the night dark city, amused. I had a suspicion what his next question would be. The skyscrapers and office buildings were dark now, only one or two rooms lit every few floors: dedicated employees I guessed, or simply janitors, working late into the night. Their tops were crowned with small beacons that flashed and faded, red as fresh blood. They were there so low-flying areoplanes didn’t crash into them. A similar one strobed slowly behind us on the shed.
The somewhat smaller apartment buildings nearby were better lit; tiny flats packed and stacked together, some no bigger then a single room. Golden light shone out of a thousand windows, some the horizontal slashes of Venetian blinds, others a muddled glow through thick curtains. Below them all the sheer drop to the city streets: a neat grid-work of pale amber streetlights marching block by block until they were out of sight amid the buildings. Emerald and scarlet sequenced stoplights flashed in every intersection and the tiny cars below fled in swirling red and white patterns. Light glimmered off reflective glass and neons glowed, garish in the gloom, from the soon-to-close stores and just-opening bars and discotheques. The dim light danced off the chrome of bumpers and bus stops and even the faintly metallic paint that striped the macadam. The strange reddish-gold glow reminded me, as I looked down, of wet-just-after-rain and at the same time of the heart of a dying fire, all white ash, black charcoal and the same sort of odd crimson light.

“I…” C’liss stopped, frowned and then smiled self-consciously. “I would like your permission to marry your sister.”

“If my Father was here he would say,” And I tried to sound like him. I am not a good actor at the best of times and my memories of Zarhan are dim. C’liss knew this though and humored me. “Young Man- It is high time you asked me that. Indeed I’ve been expecting you to come to me for just this reason for quite a while!” I shook my finger at him as though he were a child caught with one hand in the cookie jar.

C’liss laughed. “Yeah.” He agreed. “Yeah he would have done that, like he knew for certain that I was going to ask, it was only a question of when.” He tapped his ciggy on the railing and sent tiny shooting stars trailing toward the street.

“What would you do,” I asked him back, “If I said ‘no.’?”
He just looked at me and shrugged. “Probably ask her anyway.”
I couldn’t argue with that: it was a fair answer.

The moon silvered the cone of the great volcano brooding in the distance and picked out a bright shimmering trail in the wine-dark sea below it. It picked out the fine cheekbones and slightly smiling lips of C’liss’s face and gilded them, bright against his dark skin. It threw his hair into a sharp bright-dark contrast and made me think, suddenly, of a cast bronze statue come to life as I watched him stand, still leaning casually on the rail.

“You know,” I told him half seriously. “That the others have been betting on when you would ask her?”
He looked over at me then and smirked broadly. “Really? That’s too funny.”
I nodded. It wasn’t really a lie: The dark elves that lived in the building under our feet had a tendency to gamble on absolutely anything. I didn’t have any doubts that someone sometime had put money on it.

        “Did you get a ring?” I asked him. One dark hand slipped into his front pocket again and pulled out a small velvety box, no bigger then an inch and a half square. I wondered, absently, what else he had in that pocket. Then he opened the box and I stared.
It was a silver ear-cuff, of organic loops and swirls that would fit on the broad pointed plane of an Elvin ear, set with a sapphire. The cuff glowed brilliantly in the moonlight, white as snow, the gem sucking in light and blazing of it’s own accord, a cold blue fire. I realized it probably wasn’t silver. White gold maybe or probably even platinum- with a stone like that it had to have been custom made.
I touched the cool metal with a fingertip, running it over the graceful bends. It was very, very, shiny.

I’m rather fond of sparkly objects and C’liss must have noticed my expression because he took the little box back and clicked the lid closed.
“I know she likes blue.” He said. It was something of an understatement. My sister loves blue: half her clothing is blue, her boots are blue- she even dyes her hair blue!

“Yeah. I think it will go with a lot of her stuff.” I agreed. “So when are you going to ask her?”

He hesitated and I saw the tips of his ears flush darker: he was blushing. “I…” He stammered. “I’m not sure. I want it to be just right- you know?”

I didn’t. I’d only had one girlfriend [well only one I remembered] and that hadn’t worked out. But I grinned and nodded anyway. I’d seen enough human-made movies over the years to know he wanted the moment to be suitably ‘Romantic’.
He looked down. “What if she says ‘No’, Zin? I don’t know what I’ll do if she does.” He stubbed out the remains of his cigaret and crumpled it between his fingers. He thrust his hand over the rail and let loose, the wind catching the herbal fragments and sent them soaring out of sight.

“She will not say no. You are being paranoid.” I moved a bit closer to him and leaned beside him. “She loves you, you love her. Plus there is Lyrra and Liira to think of. You gave her your baby and you gave her Brenn and Vesli’s baby. She loves both, has two daughter instead of one. You not marry her and Liira is bastard. That is not good. Baby bastard okay- older bastard not so good.” I scowled: I’m terrible at explaining things. C’liss knew that too and knew what I was trying- and failing- to express.

“Plus our father Zarhan, he trusted you, thought well of you while he lived. You are our oldest friend. You take care of her because I cannot. This is also good. I am appreciate this.” I knew what I wanted to say but my brain and my mouth weren’t quite matching up. It was frustrating.

“I know Zin.” C’liss looked at me under his wild fall of hair and smiled. He reached up smoothly and ruffled the top of my head.

Over the wind I could just barely hear the gears and mechanics of the freight grinding away, then the rasp and clatter as the door opened. The wind told me who was coming, just as it hid the knowledge from my soon-to-be brother.
“Just ask her. She will say yes.”

        “Ask who what?” Came a voice out of the darkness.
C’liss whirled, hand reaching automatically for the long knife at the small of his back. Then his eyes widened and his hand fell away as soon as he saw who it was.
“Zav.” He gulped. “Umm…”

I chuckled. My sister stood there watching us, a half-smile on her pretty face. She wore black, tight black pants tucked into knee high soft leather boots blue and silver and indigo in the moonlight. She wore a hooded jerkin, edged with pale blue embroidery on hem and cuffs. It framed her face and hid her features, only her large amber eyes, [the same colour as my own] visible. A few strands of silver hair blew out, the faded dye shimmering against the black fabric like a moon-bow. She slid into the small space between us and wrapped her slim hands around the cool metal guard.

I looked at my sister and then I looked past her at C’liss and I realized he was nervous. He’d faced storms and sea serpents, fought pirates, traded with cannibalistic savages on distant islands and as a mercenary survived skirmishes in the deserts of our forsaken homeland.
And here he was: desperately, horribly nervous over one simple question with an easy yes-or-no answer. I could hear the anguished hammering of his heart from where I stood.

“He was curious.” I said slowly. Oh C’liss was not going to be happy with me now! “He was wondering if he asked you to marry him, if you would say yes.” He turned, mouth hanging half open in surprise and I could feel his astonished gaze boring into me. “So of course I told him you would say yes. Silly of him to think otherwise, eh?” My tone might have been half-joking but I meant every word.

One of Zavita’s hands was moving up to cover her mouth and she too stared wide-eyed at me.
I grinned at them both and nudged Zav a bit closer to C’liss with my elbow. “But I could be wrong.” I told them and pushed off the rail, slowly sauntering toward the machine shed. “You have much to talk about. Pretend I not here.”

I looked over my shoulder once and saw them staring into each other’s eyes. C’liss was shorter then me but my sister was even shorter still and they were spooned together, his arm around her shoulder, hers around his waist, silhouetted by the glowing globe of moon.

        I crunched the gravel sharply- there wasn’t much of a chance they could even hear it over the wind but I thought it necessary. I knew I shouldn’t do it but I had to make sure, if only for my own peace of mind. I jumped, grasped the edge of the shed’s roof and swung myself over and up. Then I settled in my familiar spot between the two red beacon lights, back against the pole that held them. I hadn’t been up here since I’d lost my wings but the view hadn’t changed. The bloody light washed my hands and the bent knees of my jeans but even then I was all but invisible to the two elves staring out over the city. It gave me a moment to think.

C’liss was older then me by nearly two decades: about the same amount of time I was older then Zavita. He’d worked for our father since he was a boy and had watched both of us grow up. I’d known him all my life and I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d want to marry my sister.
C’liss was a brave warrior- true. But he didn’t take stupid risks. He was calm, collected and practical- even under circumstances that would have pretty much anyone else fleeing in panic. I’d seen it happen with my own two eyes.
He had a sweet side too, particularly for my sister. It was almost as if he was another brother. In a way, I considered him one. After our father’s death it should have been- it was- my duty to make sure my sister was safe, her belly full and any reasonable wants provided.
I failed. We both knew it. Hell the entire colony of dark elves here knew it! [Not that there weren’t good reasons for it but it bothered me, even now, years later.]
In fact we’d reversed the roles- she took care of me!
Father died, I was cursed and Zavita and I fled, eventually coming here, to Earth. Years passed then fate brought C’liss back to us… back to her. The day I saw him run up, pick her up in his arms and swing her about, legs and hair flying, like he had when she was a little girl I knew this day would eventually come.

He’d stepped in where I could not. He protected her, loved her; occasionally made an outright fool of himself for her. And she did all those things right back.
Father would have approved. I certainly did. And in my own sort of way I was grateful to him. I think he knew it, even if neither of us spoke of it.

        “I… I wanted to do this right.” I heard C’liss say, a slight tremor in his voice. “I had the perfect spot all picked out. There’s a grove of cherry trees in a little park no one really goes to…” He trailed off. I smiled to myself.
“But I guess your brother, he kind of spoiled the surprise.” Now there was a bit more confidence in his tone, even a faint chuckle.

I saw him kneel on the light-washed roof, head bowed, long spill of hair hiding his face. He offered the little velvet box, cupped in both hands. I couldn’t see it but I knew that was what he was holding. [It was either that or his carton of hand rolled ciggies and really- what would she do with those?]
She stood there a moment looking at his prostrate form then cautiously, hesitantly picked up the box. The wind gusted right then and blew her hood down. She was crying I saw, tears leaving slight pale streaks down her cheeks and chin. She opened the box, looked at the ear cuff then closed it up again.
C’liss turned his face up towards her, hopefully, and murmured something I couldn’t quite catch. But I knew what he was asking.

She wiped her eyes on the cuff of her sleeve and nodded. Didn’t say a thing, just stood there, nodding. Then she was on her knees beside him, her arms thrown around him, face buried tight against his shoulder
“Yes!” The wind rippled. “Oh, yes!”

There was a slight pause and I saw her pull away. She looked so radiantly happy just then it almost broke my heart.
“I was beginning to think you’d never ask, silly boy.”

C’liss took back the little box and gently slid the cuff into position on her right ear. It twinkled in the darkness, like an earthbound star.
They rose as one and arm in arm, hand in hand walked over to the waiting freight, opened the door and stepped inside. The machines under me rumbled and squeaked as the freight descended.

        I sat up there beside the beacons alone a while longer. I didn’t want anyone to find me just then, because I was crying too.


Fin.

“Untitled”
Dec. 31 ‘07