GRETA
Tall mirrors line the walls of this small rather empty chamber. I must be somewhere in Adler's temple. In the center of my room is a small clout surrounded by the soft glow of candles on the ground.
A small stream of water lines the perimeter of the room. The sound is soothing. I know the water must be coming from somewhere else outside. For this room has no door but a beaded entryway leading out into the back of the temple and into the courtyard. From here, I can easily see the massive fountain and rows of endless hedges and gardens.
No more is my hair wiry and thin, but long past my shoulders and thick. It is a miraculous change. Along with my hair, I have grown since waking from my nap.
How long have I been sleeping and when did I get here? I pick my Fluff up from the clout. It crawls up onto my shoulder where it curls into a ball.
"Greta?" Brommy's voice comes from outside.
He enters. It takes me a long moment to recover from my shock. I am nearly eye-level with him!
"Indeed, you have grown. How are you feeling? I hope someone has provided an explanation as to why you are being housed here against hospice orders."
"No...nobody has. I only just woke."
He stands very close to me. With a frown, his stare hardens as I step back.
"Why am I in this chamber, Brommy? How long have I been asleep? Why are you watching me like that?"
"Like what?" he chides.
"Ahem, Brometheous, you are blocking my way!" Adler announces in a sing-song. He walks out from around the corner of the temple as though intentionally having let Brommy enter first. "Let me see my little pearl. Oh! Look how you have grown-"
"All this time...I was indeed not dwarfed. Why are you still trying to repress my height, Adler? Why have you both come to me at this hour of the evening? There is nothing appropriate about either of your behavior."
With a lazy yawn, he leans against the wall and folds his arms with a smirk.
Brommy scowls at him.
"We have found a substitute to go in your place to Zard. Unfortunately, she does not know of our plan. It must remain that way. Right, Adler?"
"Huh?"
Brommy sneers, "If you wouldn't mind, for once, open your ears and start using them! Help me clean up the never-ending messes you leave behind...and give Greta the explanation she deserves for being shoved into this cramped space instead of the hospice!"
Adler laughs.
"Do you ever think, Brometheous, that these messes I create are intentional? As intentional as your time here rather than at home...with your wife. Why, I would dare say you just want to make a fool of me in front of a beautiful young lady. A lady much prettier than your own-"
With thinning patience, Brommy's voice lowers, "I think you have had enough of your fair share of pretty ladies. When you decide to go home to your wife, I will go home to mine!"
Adler straightens. Brommy's curly hair falls over his eyes as he turns to face me once more. Adler moves right behind him making mocking faces as Brommy explains my illness.
His smile turns toothy. I frown as his mischievous gaze looks me over slowly from behind the wall of Brommy's back.
"He's standing right behind me, isn't he?"
"Yes," I mumble while holding my Fluff, nervous.
Like a child, Adler continues to willingly poke someone he truly shouldn't.
"What do you think of his temper, my sweet little pearl?"
"Please, do not call me names like that when you have a wife. It makes me uncomfortable. My only name is Greta now. I...I have had enough of you playing around with my heart, Adler. Brommy has too. You are only creating chaos. We cannot have a real conversation when you are joking around and making fun of Brommy and I. It's distracting."
He appears genuinely confused drawing his eyebrows in.
"I am not playing around or joking. I would never make fun of you. Brommy is going to take you on a little trip to the sea. The air will be good for you down there. I will see you in a few days."
"A few days? Brommy, how long are we staying there for?"
"Oh, really?" Brommy cuts back sharply. For some reason that makes absolutely no sense, Adler gets some kind of amusement out of his growing agitation. "It seems all you know how to do is play around while everyone else deals with your mistakes, Adler. We have all had enough of your playing. Was it not a few moons ago, before you left for your sea voyage, that you claimed Zard would invade? And that our star would be finished? Where do the lies begin and end, no one can know, not even you can keep track of them in that deluded mind of yours!"
A strange rumble comes from the clout behind me as though in sync with Adler's own growing temper. That sea of old bitter anger is what really lies just beneath the surface of the feigned amusement.
"My deluded mind somehow brought this city from rags to riches."
"Your mind? Your mind built this city or could it be you mean the enslaved? The ones still wearing rags? Because I don't recall seeing you chipping away stone down in the city through the night and day with the encouragement of a whip-"
Adler growls. An actual growl. Startled, I look between the two men with new fear.
Silver bleeds down over the shapes of Adler's irises turning his eyes black. His teeth gnash together.
"Once, not so long ago, I was enslaved," Adler clenches through his teeth, "But you would not know that. You were raised, and more importantly, favored, by the mongrels...and I was thrown onto the streets."
"Adler, please calm down. I appreciate your all your family has done," I say gently. Nervous, I touch his arm watching the veins protrude in his neck. "I know it's not my place to say, but there is no need to get physical with your brother-"
He may still be smiling, but the rest of his body turns rigid. Ready to snap. I know I have said too much, and definitely, I have said something wrong.
"What did you just say?" he asks slowly. Brommy's eyes widen as Adler's anger turns on me. "What did you just say, you ungrateful, ignorant little brat?" he repeats through clenched teeth. "I don't think you don't deserve that pet anymore. Shall I take it away?"
"Th-there is no need to get physical or angry-"
"With who? My brother? Is that what you said?"
"Yes," I whisper.
Anxious, I hold the side of my face as he glowers down at me standing only an inch away.
I whimper when he grabs my hair fisting it tightly in his grasp.
"If you make one more peep tonight, my sweet, I will tear this hair from your little precious head and you truly will be the most hideous girl in this empire...not that you aren't already. Unless you wish to keep running your mouth, go to bed, now."
With a shiver, I nod rapidly watching the ground. Anywhere, but him.
Finally, he lets go of my hair. I hate his condescending attitude. It's terrifying how quickly his moods change. With a shaky breath, I lay down on the clout bed ignoring both of them as I wipe away tears.
"I will see you in the morrow and you can kiss your visits with Greta goodbye. It appears you and Enoch are doing nothing to put her in her place. So, now I have to."
"Whatever. Since when do you care what she says or thinks? You only care about yourself!" I hear Brommy retort. His voice rings louder, "The next time you touch a hair on her head will be your last, Adler. You have been warned." Their voices sound far away. They must be talking outside. "The only reason you got away with that tonight is because I refuse to disturb that girl anymore than you already have."
"You are right. She is only a girl. I am sorry I lost my temper-"
"You should apologize to Greta. She used to look up to you. I don't think anyone does now."
"Can you blame them?" I hear Adler ask.
He sounds a little ashamed, but not much. I don't hear anymore talking now.
A long time goes by as I listen to the bugs hum outside in the gardens of the courtyard. My knee still really hurts.
How long was I asleep for?
At least, the shifting puffs of cloud I lay on no longer are rumbling all noisy and angry like. Despite the peaceful atmosphere, the ache in my knee keeps me awake in discomfort.
I sit up and open my eyes.
My heart jolts as I find Adler standing right at the foot of my bed staring down at me.
"Your knee never healed right. It hurts, doesn't it?"
"No," I insist. "I'm just nervous and restless-"
"Around me? I know that already. I should never have kissed you. I am truly sorry. That was very wrong and I know you did not want it," Adler says softly. Where is this coming from? Why is he bringing it up now? I was hoping he had forgotten. I watch the muscles in his arms as he looks me over. "I regret it. I was imagining you as Femke and that was selfish. I'm sure you were imagining someone else too. It was awkward and not very enjoyable for either of us. It was a mistake," he finishes while watching me carefully.
I don't give him any reaction other than laying back down. This is a conversation I hoped to never have anyway.
"I understand you do not want to talk right now. We will go to the hospice in the morning-"
"Will you decide to dwarf me again? Otherwise, I could go on my own."
"Only in the daylight, little pearl. At night, you have the freedom to walk around up here so long as no one sees. You do not understand how despised our race is yet and my hope is you never have to find out, well, uh," his steady tone falters as he watches the whip marks on my neck. He rubs his chin. When I lock eyes with him, his gaze darts away. "I, uh...I should be turning in for the night. Goodnight, little pearl. I promise tomorrow will be more pleasant. I will take you to the hospice, but your noyk will be moved to my chamber with my wife until that leg of yours is healed."
I used to be angry about it. Now, I'm just sad as his spyrt glows and no sooner am I shrunken to the size of a small child again.
Adler takes his chance and picks me up.
"You're being awfully quiet. Aren't you interested in seeing my wife? She is very kind. She is nothing like Femke."
"Are you going to kill her too?" I whisper near his neck as he walks away with me.
"I hope I don't have to."
I guess that's as good of truth as you can get from a distorted god like him.
"Oh, stop that. No more tears, my sweet," he fusses, "Everything is temporary. I know it does not seem like it right now, especially of late, but your happiness is my priority. Please stop crying. You are not alone and you are loved very much. I'll make certain I never have to keep doing this to you. I just need a little more time," he assures me while caressing my back. "We won't be able to stay in this city for much longer anyway, and once we leave, I promise I will never dwarf you again."
"When will we be leaving?" I perk up.
"Can you keep a secret, little pearl?"
"Yes."
He stops walking. No guards are around. Is that who he is looking for? We have entered the large expanse of his temple near his throne.
"In just a few weeks our star will burst."
"Where will we go?"
"We will find somewhere," he assures me while petting my head.
"Where will we go, Adler?" I repeat.
"Well, you and I are going on a little trip underground in a few days-"
"What about everyone else? The civilians?"
"They will come too...but they won't like it."
"Why not?"
"There is no light down there."
"Why would we go underground? Why not just leave?"
"Well, um, how should I put this? If we leave our city, what waits on the outside will be just as unpleasant. So, you see, we must wait for that unpleasantness to leave-"
"And what if they don't leave-"
"Oh, they will," Adler begins calmly. A strange fire grows in his stare as he looks upward toward the marble ceiling of the temple. "The Eyu want to invade...Zard does not care about a wife. He could have anyone's wife at any moment. What he wants is not the woman I found, but the power I use to keep this city running. How foolish of him to think I would give him anything when he comes here to take all."
"If you will not do what Parshavar advised you, Adler, won't we end up trapped here?"
A hair rising chuckle rumbles in his chest making my stomach churn.
He palms the top of my head stroking my hair.
"Maybe that is my goal, sweet pearl. Imagine if I wanted my people trapped underground while he and his men invade above in our empty city. By the time they find where I have hidden my people, you and I will be long gone-"
"Adler, please do not do this. There must be a way to save everyone!"
"Why should I save those who wish for my own death, as well as your own, simply because my skin does not match theirs? Such minds as theirs are small and selfish."
"I will not go with you, Adler, if you abandon your people-"
"Well, little pearl, they aren't my people anymore. They are Enoch's problem now, not mine."
With a cunning smirk, he places a fleeting peck on the side of my head.
"I do not know how to say this politely, Adler, but I will never abandon so many innocent lives just to save myself."
"That is a silly thing to say when you do not understand those civilians are the same hands that discarded you to die in the desert...just like me. You have not been educated very well yet on the history of our race."
"I don't care what history is, Adler. It sounds like we will all be history soon anyway - except for you. What a broken man you are to choose yourself. Do you enjoy being alone?"
"I am no loner-"
"You certainly are," I whisper, "Who do you think truly loves you and respects you?"
"I could ask you the same. The answer is me. I am the only one in this universe who sees your misery and seeks to protect your wellbeing. Don't be fooled by my sons."
I shiver as he pets my hair remembering his unhinged rage only a few hours ago. Brommy is not his son. Is there any truth this man ever tells?
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