Gloriously Other
by: Semi-Precious Weapons
amanda&rae

Chapter One: Librarians in Leather

The night I met Theo and Baptiste, and subsequently tried to blow a hole through each of their chests, I worked the early shift at the twenty-four hour library—24 hours, because, you know, we've got to accommodate the vampires, since they’ve get the right to read too—that afternoon, so I could go out dancing.

I’m ninety five percent sure I’m the only librarian in the whole city of Chicago who wears supple, very broken-in, mid-thigh length black leather boots at least three times a week. They’re perfect because they’ve got enough room to accommodate the matching ankle sheaths I usually wear. And tonight they'd help camouflage the leather thigh sheath that finally came in. I'd ordered it around three weeks ago, but that's the thing about getting things custom made—especially things you plan on using to accomodate a number of weapons—it takes a long time.

I don’t only keep up to five blades on me at night because the area my friends and I frequent is sometimes over run by vampires, weres, and a number of other dangerous supes, but because my father insists on it. The first attempt on my life was at age sixteen and they haven’t really gotten any less ruthless in the last ten years, so I stay strapped—figuratively. I use firepower only for the vamps.

You can’t turn someone’s head into so much meat and rip their heart to shreds without getting really close with a knife, and getting too close to a vampire while trying to stop its heart can get your throat ripped out, really quickly actually.

There’s nothing like the white noise that fills your ears while you’re watching a vampire rear back to strike. I promise.

The year they sent vampires after me was one of the closest any of the assasination attempts came to fruition.

But most vampires hardly scare me anymore. Most aren’t—especially the young ones; they’re so very tame—as scary as my step-dad’s enemies. But I guess being an enemy of the Unseelie Court Prince next in line to be king is pretty badass. Especially to me, since I’m just his fully mortal step-daughter.

But, I digress.

So I got off of work around eight thirty. I’d only just gotten my boots on over the garters and answered the door like a hooker without her trench coat since I always put on whatever dress I want to wear after the shoes. And my underwear and thigh highs that night came straight from France. Scratch hooker, I’m thinking more high-class escort.

This was especially essential tonight, because in a cherry red leather paneled mini-dress with four inch heeled boots, one just can’t be careful enough not to flash anybody and who wants to flash plain old cotton briefs?

I undid the dead bolt and pulled open the door to reveal a tall, super-leggy blond woman with the prettiest human eyes I’d ever seen.

Marissa’s one of those women who walks into the room and the inner light in just about every other female dims. Her cornflower blue—or at least cornflower’s what they imitate; I’ve seen fey with eyes that make you want to invent a new color, or at least a new way to describe them—eyes take up most of her face and naturally ripe, red lips and high, high cheekbones are mostly what’s left of her face. I don’t count her nose. It’s such a small, delicate ski-slope of a thing, why even mention it?

“Marissa, darling,” I smiled and rose up on the tips of my toes to a kiss on each of her cheeks.

“You look like a high-class whore. I like it, but are you planning on wearing just that to the club, because you might get mauled—literally. Liza and I want to go to that new vamp club on Clark Street. They say the head vamp’s the oldest thing in the city and the most beautiful vamp in the Midwest, if not America itself; more beautiful, even, than some of the fey. And you know they put on a show.”

“I actually wanted to have sex tonight, Marissa. And you know I don’t do bloodsuckers; I’m just not the prey type,” I smile and by the way her golden skin blanches, I can tell my expression falls into the more predator-like expressions that will make any human nervous. Humans haven’t been at the top of the food chain since—well, since never.

I give her a hard look, turn around and walk back into the living room and through that, the bedroom. My apartment’s actually pretty huge, mostly because my father pays for it. He’s really into real estate as of late and he built this building only five years ago.

It’s on Michigan Avenue, with a perfectly picturesque view of the lake. The whole back wall of the apartment is actually a window, so that I don’t wake to the sound of an alarm clock, but bright morning sunlight peaking through the shades.

But, in truth, the best part about the place is the wards. The whole sky-rise is warded; my father was there when they broke ground and started building; that’s the only way to get it fool proof. Plus each piece of glass, metal, brick, and stone has been warded and blessed individually. No one with any magical skill can get in without either me or my guard, Aro, knowing and/or letting them through.

Of course, just as soon as I think of Aro, Marissa has to bring him up.

“I saw your Aro downstairs, still as stone-faced as ever, still as fuck-able as ever, and still as beautiful as ever,” she sunk down into my bed and flashed the pout that had appeared across many a European fashion magazine, “And I still don’t understand why, if you’re not going to sleep with him, I can’t either.”

“I’m doing you a favor by not letting you hook-up with Aro. You’d be sidhe-kissed, Riss, elf-struck, and longing, for the rest of your life, for another touch of taste of sidhe flesh. It’s been known to drive humans crazy. You know this, Marissa. Stop asking me, alright?”

I picked up the dress from chair behind my desk, with nothing on it but stacks and stacks of books piled on top. I’ve got a library room right down the hall, but most of the books I haven’t filed yet are stuffed into various places in the bedroom, since beside me, Marissa, Liza, and Aro nobody really comes in here and I like the mess.

Also, even if I did bring someone home to have wild, drunken sex all over the place, I’d draw the line at my desk. I don't mind a little rough sex, as long as it's pair with enough pleasure, but those sharp corners could do a serious number on someone’s flesh.

“Couldn’t you have your dad work some magic on me so that I don’t get addicted to the touch of the sidhe skin?”

As soon as the phrase “have your dad work some magic” reached my ears, I sighed deeply and silently thanked God for blessing my mother with such a startling beauty that would draw a faery prince out from the mounds. Unfortunately, it didn’t do much for my life.

You know, besides the uber exclusive pent-house apartment and the bank accounts over-flowing with cash, even when I plead and beg him not to give me anymore. Just for once, I’d like to get a real job. One that I’m not actually over-qualified to work, one where he won’t make a few calls and make sure I don’t get an interview.

I didn’t get my bachelor’s in Journalism and master’s in Preternatural Studies to hammer away my day at the PTN (that’s preternatural, if you’re wondering) reference desk in 24hr library downtown.

I glance at Marissa with renewed annoyance at myself more than anything she said.

It’s pretty much exclusively my fault that she’s so naïve about my father—that and that Marissa doesn’t know too much about the history of the fey. If she did, she’d definitely think twice about asking a man who has creatures that would gladly suck the marrow from her bones at his beck and call for help with her sex-life. At least, I think she would.

I just had to make him play human for her. Turn down his many shaded blue eyes, like a bit of each ocean was trapped inside his iris; make his hair, much like the currents of the sea, each moving independently on their own, a plain and dull-looking dyed blue; and tamp down the moonlit glow of his skin.

I just couldn’t have another person thinking, if this is her father, then, well, of course she’s a freak. I mean, I’m an oddity in my own right and I still would be even if my mom hadn’t wandered off into faerie land one day and came back pregnant—but that’s another story. One for late-night sappy music, girl-talk, and chocolate ice cream.

I tossed the dress to Mari and lifted my arms over my head.

Marissa towered over me, even in the heels, and drew the dress down my body. We did this at least a couple times a week, so my shimmies matched her tugs perfectly and I was perfectly sealed in once she did the zipper.

“My dad’s a very powerful and busy man. He’s not going to waste his magic just so you can have the most mind blowing sex of your life,” I stepped away from her and stood in front of the mirror by my desk. “And, Marissa, you don’t even want to know what his reaction would have been if you were around when I asked him.”

I took three steps back and two to the side and slipped into the bathroom. The whole apartment’s very modern, with no doors, even on the two bathrooms, and so is the furniture to match.

My bed’s this big brown square with a mattress sitting on top. Everything’s done in icy shades of blue and rich chocolate browns. My favorite is the pale brown blown glass vase on my top of my bedside table. The most beautiful blue orchids sit in there this week, with no water and no little plant food packet.

Aro brings in a different flower to each room each and every week, though I’ve never seen him do it, but only flowers touched by the hand of a sidhe faery who was once worshipped as an agricultural deity can last that long without water and minimal sunlight.

I’ve tried asking Aro what his real name is, or even what part of Europe he was worshipped in, but he doesn’t talk about it. Once the certain abilities that came with his godhead left him—which is slightly my fault, so I kind of understand—being called by his once-name was too much.

I made the mistake once of telling Marissa about Aro and the flowers, but she misunderstood, just like any other present day American woman would. Aro just can’t stand to be around all this metal and technology without a touch of nature around him. It’s a small comfort living here in the big city.

I’d dumped out my big bag of cosmetics on the bathroom counter, around the raised copper bowl, and started to sort through everything. “I’m not going to a vampire club, Marissa.”

“The hell you aren’t. You never want to go anyplace where we might just get a glimpse of the ‘gloriously-other’,” she called, just before appearing in the doorway.

Gloriously-Other is the number one fashion magazine in the world, made for and by preternaturals. They’ve print in about fifteen different countries, Gloriously-Other Americano and Gloriously-Other Italiano being the most popular. All the models are either fey (and of the fey, mostly sidhe, and of those sidhe, mostly Seelie sidhe, depending on how avant-garde they want to get), vampires, or shifters and they only feature designers who are decidedly other.

Marissa’s had a subscription since she was eight years old. She is gloriously obsessed. Although I haven’t got much room to talk; I’d almost give up a piece of my soul for a job there. Which is actually what I plan on doing next Monday morning at my interview, unless the usual comes into play and somehow I’m thwarted out of a job once again.

“You see me almost every day, aren’t I gloriously-other enough for you?” I start to smear a bit of Vaseline on my eyelids so the black and gunmetal grey glitter will stick. “I’m not in the mood, Riss, really. Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

“Nude lip with that, I think. And yes, I do seem to remember the time you were arrested for blowing a vampire’s hand off. I can still hear you yelling at the officer, half-crazed, yelling about your diplomatic immunity and that Prince Dylan, ruler of Ocean and Sea, of the Unseelie Court was your father. How could I possible forget that?”

I leaned over the sink and worked on my eye make-up while I waited for the blush to roll away from my cheeks. My blushing is so apparent sometimes, that I’m tempted to wear base, but I can’t stand the thought of caking on all that stuff on my skin.

My skin is semi-pale; semi because it’s not a lack of color really. It’s the creamy, milky complexion that all redheads have, where a summer tan is just a pipe dream and bright funky colors really do nothing for you. My wardrobe is a sea of black, white, rich red, and royal blue.

“He was trying to mind-fuck me. That bastard is lucky I chose to send a message, rather than deliver his death certificate once and for all,” I smacked my lips in the mirror and leaned back abruptly, “Damned corpses.”

“Living, walking, sexy fucking corpses,” Marissa smiled with a hungry glint in her eye.

And, of course, twenty minutes later, I was downstairs, fully made up, and watching Marissa and Liza—I was thinking she and Riss were coming separately, but all the while I was primping and prepping, she’d been downstairs talking to Aro—hail a cab.

“Sorry about Liza, she’s—well, she wants to have sex with you, Aro, as do all my female friends and a good amount of my male ones.”

I glance down at the reflection of his face on the shining black glass of the table. His ivy-like dark green locks curled loosely around his face and down his back almost to his ankles; liquid black eyes take up most of his face, so dark that you could truly see three rings of green on the outer edge of his iris. Aro’s lips are almost too lush and red for my tastes, mostly because men shouldn’t be so perfect; his nose is straight and aristocratic and beautiful too. It’s not right. It just isn’t. And maybe that’s why I’m not sleeping with him.

“Madeline,” Aro’s fingered hovered above my hand, caressing my aura like it was something pet-able.

I could literally watch his aura flare up to meet mine before I pulled away. It was seeing, not in colors or shapes, or even with my own eyes. Definitely more internalized than that; a sort of sensing, I guess. Actually, this is probably the reason we don’t fuck. I’m not eager to find out just how much reaching Aro’s aura was ready to do and how much he wants mine to do.

My mother and every other woman in her family are either wiccans, or some sort of psychics, but because of an itty bitty metaphysical accident when I was ten, and who—actually, it’s more like what—my biological father is, my powers are a little bit different.

I could smell him. The freshness of spring, cut grass, and newly turned earth all combine into a sort of musk that just was Aro, before I snapped my shields closed, aiming for impenetrable. “Don’t, Aro.”

A grin flashed across his face almost so quick that the change in emotions gave me whiplash. Only a split second ago, he’d been solemn and now, a lascivious smirk? “I’ll see you in a few hours, fair Madeline.”

“Or not. I could bring someone home and—,” I stopped and glanced up into Aro’s barely passing for human eyes.

See here’s the hang-up between Aro and me. Yeah, we’re not having sex, but we sleep in the same bed every night. And I can’t explain that to Marissa and Liza, or any of my other human friends for that matter, because they wouldn’t understand it at all. It doesn’t have anything to do with our feelings toward each other; it’s all a part of what we are.

Though Aro’s fey and I’m very much not, we both can find comfort in just flesh-to-flesh contact without it being anything sexual. Or it used to be. Lately, Aro’s been pressing for more and being even more confusing than I can deal with. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he had feelings for me, but centuries old used-to-be gods don’t fall in love—or like for that matter—with decent-looking somewhat-human girls.

You know how puppies like to sleep all piled up on top of each other? So do most animals, and, in turn, so do I. I’ve heard almost all other wereanimals do too, but I wouldn’t really know. They mostly keep their distance where I’m concerned.

“And what if I waited up for you to scare them away? How’s that sound, Madeline?” His expression was serene, though I could feel his magic pressing against my body like a vice. It was like one of those ancient torture devices, the Iron Maiden, with all those nails pressing in on your body. Only what Aro was trying to force into me felt like the sun beating against my skin.

It was something you wanted to lose yourself in. I’ve seen my father do it too, and he’s told me that it feels like waves crashing onto your body from all sides. What most don’t understand is that you can choke on sunshine too.

I knew that if Marissa or Liza turned around, my different shaded hair would be floating around my face like a nimbus of red, orange, and even in some places, blonde light and my skin would have an inhuman glow. My eyes might even be lit up like they are when I shift.

“Don’t do this,” I choked out. It sounded more like a growl than my true voice and I felt my power curl up inside, deep inside me like a thick, corded whip. It was pure instinct that I whipped it out at him.

He didn’t stumble or blanch like most would if I threw all that corded up energy into them, but he did take a slow step backward, like he’d finally realized just who he was dealing with.

“I apologize. I didn’t mean to—,” Aro shifted toward the door a split second before me and we both turned toward what would become the first big disaster of the night.

It was Aro’s fault, really. After he’d probed so far into my aura, my defenses were all disrupted and I didn’t have enough time to slide my shields back in place. And so the three werewolves in the doorway scenting the air with their currently human noses could smell me and they were none too happy about it.

Probably because two of them have been trying to date me for the longest time now and it’s just common courtesy to share, one were to another, and especially if they’re trying to fuck you, that you’re one of the two-natured also. Only I’m not just two-natured. There are quite a few beasts trapped inside of my tiny little body. And if any of the wolves were powerful enough to figure out that million-dollar question, we were in some deep shit. Knee deep in shit.

And I hadn’t even gotten to discipline any overeager vampires yet. Damn.

Authors' Note:

rae: oooohhh my first fp chapter!

amanda: *squeal* my first chappie with rae! Oh. And for the sake of not confusing everyone, in the world of Gloriously Other, humans and any mythological creature you can think of live along side of each other...ENJOY!

rae: & review too! please! We'll send you some of Aro's ever-lasting orchids!