The Clocks

The Year 50 After The Founding

Damn! For some reason I had a rather nasty headache. I lifted my head and looked around. Something was seriously wrong, but I had no idea what it was. Surprisingly the headache faded as my frustration grew.

The problem was, no matter how hard I tried to figure it out, each time I almost had it, the answer kept slipping out of my head, and I was left with a feeling of stupefied irritation.

There were several things that I was certain of, however.

I knew that I'd been out all evening and that it was now after midnight.

I also knew that my parents would flay me when they found out what time I'd gotten home, not that I had yet -- gotten home that is.

There was also one other tiny problem. I had no idea where I was.

No, I don't mean that I was in a part of town that I was unfamiliar with. What I DO mean is that I was unsure as to what country -- no, that's not right -- I was unsure as to what world I was on. Or perhaps "in" would be a better choice.

It was a moonless dark, but most of the details of the building behind my "companions" were surprisingly clear. It seemed to be some sort of stone cathedral but it was definitely smaller than I remembered from history class. You know, medieval style but no flying buttresses, yet still seemingly way too tall to be standing.

Oddly enough, each of the people standing near me were more brightly lit than the rest of my surroundings. No, they weren't glowing or anything like that. It was more like they'd brought little patches of near daylight with them that illuminated their bodies and the area about a meter in radius around them. All of them were facing, at least mostly, toward me.

To my far right was a male, fairly tall and slim. Shaggy blond hair, but only a little past his ears. He was dressed in a sort of medieval style outfit. You know the kind. Tight pants, calf-high boots. White shirt with a daggered front open down to just below his breastbone.

To my near right, were two people. I assumed that they were related from how they were sitting cuddled up next to each other and looking down at a book that the girl had open in her lap. For some reason I couldn't see what the boy was wearing, but the girl was wearing an ankle length white skirt with a three or four centimeter purple trim around the bottom.

Moving along, to my immediate left was another girl, probably a few years older than I was, maybe about 20 or so. She had raven-black hair that fell down to mid-breast. Her bangs were cut straight across the middle of her forehead. Her skin color was quite a contrast, as it was remarkably pale.

She was looking at the other three with a faint smile and an expression that could only be called "tolerant." Her clothes were a mirror of Boy A's, except that her shirt was buttoned all the way up.

Finally, to my far left, was another girl. Her hair was a medium blonde, but her skin was about the color of the outside of a light-colored coconut. The contrast was striking and rather lovely. She was wearing some sort of blouse and skirt combination that you'd probably call middle to upper-class merchant type clothing. She was also wearing boots like Boy A rather than the slippers or soft shoes a woman would usually wear, though hers only reached to just abover her ankles.

Oh, I forgot one thing. Probably fairly important. None of them were moving -- at all. I moved closer and discovered that they didn't seem to be breathing either.

I found myself walking up to Girl C (the one on the far left) and extending my hand. As I did so, she slowly swiveled her head and looked up at me with an incurious expression. Then she looked at my hand. After a few seconds she took it and stood up.

She managed to surprise me -- the first true emotion that I'd felt since this all started -- when, after she took my hand, she stepped around so she was facing the same way I was, and then, briefly, laid the side of her head on my arm.

I was again surprised when I realized that either she was quite small or I was unusually tall, seeing as the top of her head was about seven centimeters below my shoulder. I was also startled to see that the lighting on her had changed. Now she was in the same level of light, or dark, as I was.

When I'd finished absorbing that, I found that we were no longer facing the cathedral but rather the square it fronted on. Well, it was square, but it wasn't like any square I'd ever seen or heard of before. It extended at least 100 meters away, probably more as the far side was lost in the darkness.

Suddenly I wasn't paying much attention to the details of the architecture of this odd place. My attention was drawn instead to the people in the square. They were exclusively male. All of them were tall and had haircuts similar to Boy A. Every one was of medium build and, more importantly, all of them exuded an air of: "This is our place. You don't belong here."

They were all dressed in close-fitting, but not tight, dark colored...something. Many of them wore tops, and a few even pants, that glittered in the light as if they were made of reflective, diamond-shaped scales about a half inch or so across.

Most had no visible weapons, but after looking at their faces, I got a strong impression that they wouldn't need any if they decided to fight someone.

I was about to freak-out -- calmly -- it seemed that all my emotions were muted. It was like there was some sort of blanket over me that dulled that part of the mind. Before I could get to the actual freak-out stage, my heretofore passive companion tugged on my arm and turned me down a side street.

As we walked along, she suddenly bombarded me with enthusiastic chatter. "Well, how about that. I never knew that they had such cute shops open during the festival. We really should have done this earlier." She swiveled her head, taking in the sights and then stepped even closer to me than before, essentially gluing herself to my side.

"Or perhaps not," she murmured.

Given her action, I looked around quickly and, sure enough, about a third of the buildings had lighted cases or tables in the front of them, complete with sales staff - most of them female and cute. One even appeared to have cat ears.

If I had to relate it to something, it would be like the street-sellers in Japan who lay down blankets on the wider sidewalks and hawk their wares. Nothing particularly expensive, but all were reasonably well made and attractive. Just right to buy for your girlfriend as a gift to show that you care but without worrying about emptying your wallet.

All of the customers seemed to be male or, rather, every single person on the street aside from the salespeople was male. That explained my companion's apprehension and heightened mine.

It appeared that we were being consciously ignored, just as most people would ignore a gothic loli who showed up at a classical music concert. She would be tolerated but the general attitude would be the same: "You don't belong here."

"Johann, let's go home." My companion tugged on my arm and we headed down the street at a brisk walk. If anything, it was the pace used by someone who had remembered an urgent matter that needed to be attended to. Definitely not fast enough to be considered running away, I hoped.

It was then that I realized that my dignity was important to me. Not nearly as important as my life or my wife beside me, but definitely important.

Wait a second, my wife?! What in holy heck was going on? I stumbled a bit since I'd totally stopped paying attention to my surroundings, but Lily steadied me and forged ahead.

I knew that I was 17. Even allowing for how small people often look younger than they really are, my companion (my wife?) couldn't be more than 13 or 14, could she?

Still, at least that was one worry off my shoulders. If I was married, my parents, probably, wouldn't say anything about me being out so late at night.

That still left a sheaf of questions like: Who was I? Why was I was married? How did I know my "wife's" name? Who were my parents? And, most important of all, where in heck was I?! As we got closer to "home" we unconsciously matched our paces to each other and were managing a rather sedate walk by the time we entered our neighborhood.

Lily gave my arm another squeeze and began to speak about what was, to her at least, a topic that we'd started a while back.

"So my mother is still after me about when we're going to be presenting her with grandchildren. Can you believe it? I only started having my monthly four moons after we got married last year and she's already nagging me. Somehow it didn't penetrate that I'm still only 15 years old.

"If it weren't for that new class at school discussing the changes at puberty, I might have been tempted to go along with her. Now that I know that having a child before 18 or 19 is really hard on your body, I'm in no hurry. When I told her that, she got rather huffy, but she calmed down right away when I asked her how many of HER friends had died in childbirth or had children who died before they were a year old."

She smiled up at me. "Fortunately there are advantages to being an herbalist. I have that medicine that can keep me from getting pregnant, though it does make me a bit sleepy on the days I take it. At any rate, we can practice all we want without worrying about something like that happening to me."

That statement was followed by a throaty chuckle. Then she purred, "And I find that I quite enjoy the practicing. If we do it often enough, when we're ready to have children, we should have figured out how to do it right."

I glanced nervously about. That was something that one really shouldn't be talking about in public. Of course the streets were completely empty, given the late (or early) hour, but you could never be certain.

Lily laughed at me happily and cuddled my arm again. I was fairly sure that nobody who was up and happened to glance out their window at us would be able to see how much I was blushing.

We arrived at our cottage and walked in. Apparently one didn't lock one's door here when one went out, though I did notice two substantial bolts on the inside of the door.

"Johann, I am fairly tired, but I'm much too excited to sleep right away, so I think that right now would be a good time to practice."

She swooshed her way up the stairs, and, after a quick check to make sure that there was nothing downstairs that needed doing, other than latching the door, I followed her.

By the time I found and entered our bedroom, all her clothes were on the floor. She twirled for me. "Do you think I'm still growing?"

I looked her over carefully and thoroughly. She was definitely still filling out. Hah! She was nothing at all like the stringbean tomboy I'd grown up and fallen in love with.

She was suddenly totally serious and sounded worried for me, "Johann, what's wrong, is your head hurting again?"

I straightened up and rubbed my temples. There'd been something that was not right, something about when I tried to remember us growing up together, but it was gone now. The pain disappeared at the same time.

"No sweetheart, I'm fine. And you are too. You're definitely 'shaping up' in the best possible way. Seeing as how other girls take several years to, ah, settle into their final shapes, you probably have a ways to go too, though you probably won't be as full-figured as Raven."

She fake pouted. "And what were you doing watching other girls develop, you cad!" Then she laughed again and twirled for me one more time.

"Why do you still have your clothes on? Hurry up!"

It didn't take me long to shuck off my shirt and trousers and lay them carefully on the chair by the bed, in a silent rebuke to her for leaving her clothes in a pile on the floor.

Not that she seemed to notice. When I turned around I barely had enough time to catch her at the end of her leap. As usual, she settled with her legs wrapped around my waist and with my hands cupping her cheeks to keep her from falling. Said cheeks were soft and intensely stimulating.

Not for the first time I thought to myself that having a small woman as a wife had some interesting, and pleasant, compensations. My ruminations were interrupted by her tongue demanding entry, and my thoughts disappeared.

We'd started practicing kissing each other when she was nine, and since then she had become what I considered superb, or perhaps better than that. I didn't have anyone to compare her to, but I was quite certain that if there were an Olympic event for kissing, she'd be right up there at the top.

Once she was certain that she had my full attention, she leaned backwards and, well, what happened after that is none of your business, so butt out and don't ask about it later, OK?