Tales of the Pearly Kingdom (Pearly Tales Vol. 2)

41. Cal's Panic and Shayley's Comfort

"They are dead." Cal clarified.

It was nighttime after a long sappy reunion. They'd off loaded the ships and had already begun trading and negotiations, but for some reason Seamus was seen coming and going through the town and forests chasing a purple weasel.

It had been an eventful morning. They had taken a break so that the King and Queen could gather the nobles for an emergency meeting. Cal and Shayley were currently waiting in their room to summoned.

"What are you talking about, you just called them-" Shayley argued.

"Because they look and act like my dead parents!" Cal shouted with angry tears in his eyes. "Shayley I buried my parents. Because of that event one of my father's friends gave me the Dread Pirate class and introduced me to Tales of Yggdrasil. After that I immersed myself in the game in order to cope. The only reason we even met was because they died. And now I just met two dolls that look like them!" Cal was getting emotional.

"Don't yell at me Cal, I'm trying to understand! If they aren't your parents, then who are they?" Shayley stomped.

"That's just the thing, they are my parents."

"Jasper, you aren't making any sense."

"Shay, Jasper's parents are dead. But Calloway Calphius wasn't born in a hole in the ground. They even look like my parents but that's only the beginning. Selene, that blue haired woman, she's my childhood friend." Cal ran his fingers through his hair and paced.

"Cal, what else aren't you telling me?" Shayley could read the signs.

"We were in love." Cal confessed.

"WHAT!" Shayley balked.

"Look it's a long story, none of this should be happening, none of this should even be possible. Shayley when I designed..." he pointed at his face and then motioned at all of him. "...this, for Yggdrasil. I was given a little box to write Calloway's biography. You know how I make detailed backstories. Well I needed a reason to be a Dread Pirate, the single most chaotic evil class I've ever heard of, so I figured a broken heart was a good start. Unlike you, she was written to be madly in love with me, but she had an arranged marriage and knew I liked the sea and freedom. Because she loved me she married the other guy instead of running off with me, all in order to 'set me free'. You can imagine that went over well. But they were all just names on a bio and imaginings in my head that I didn't even remember existed until I remembered the lame names I gave Cal's parents Drayken and Hydrallie." Cal paced more and more.

"Shayley whatever we need to do we need to finish and get out of here as fast as possible." Cal said his eyes full of frenzy.

"How soon?" she asked.

"Now! No, we won't have time, tomorrow maybe... tomorrow definitely. We can't stay here. I can't think I can't-"

Shayley grabbed the panicking guildmaster from behind in a solid hug.

"Gew! Shay. You're. Crushing. Me."

"Baby, you need to calm down. Everything is going to be okay." Shayley loosened her grip and pressed her face into his strong back. She could feel the muscles in his back loosen. "You aren't doing this alone. You have me and a hundred other friends who owe you everything and would jump at the chance to help. Stop trying to shoulder everything yourself. Have some faith in us. Have some faith in me."

Cal didn't say anything, but she could feel his erratic breathing slow and steady with effort while his heart thundered slightly less.

"You're too good a woman for me, Shay."

"Screw that, I wished for you, the last thing I need is you exploding. I'm just taking care of my property." She tried to give a lighthearted giggle.

"You own me now?"

"Of course. You're my prey, the only man I ever loved or respected. Even among the gods there were none like you."

"... Shay, what do I do?" Cal asked leaning on her.

"Cal, you are the single most brilliant man I know. But aren't at the top of your game when you panic. Take a deep breath and calm down first. We are a team, we will figure this out. How about you let me handle the meeting. I am the Queen after all, I need to be the one building the alliance between Calphian and Dragoonia. You just need to back me up if we get ambushed by assassins. We didn't exactly make the best impression at the docks."

Cal gave a weak chuckle. "Or maybe we did, we kind of proved we are not a forced to be messed with." Then he sighed. "But the fact that I'm Calloway Calphius is one step closer to getting out before we want it to."

"Even if it does, we'll figure it out." Shayley held onto him.

"Thanks, Shay. What would I do without you?"

She giggled. "Probably pace a hole in the ground. You were about to start a fire just a minute ago."

"Meanwhile, you were about to start a war. Between the two of us we are a force of chaos and destruction."

Shayley squeezed him from behind. "I call being destruction. The Calphius clan seems to be more chaos than anything else. Is Hydrallie anything like your real mom?"

"She's a dead ringer," Cal sighed. "She's a little less extreme, maybe being an elf leader helped her calm down."

Shayley's eyes bulged. What kind of childhood did Cal have with parents like those?