I sat on an armchair to her left. “I would like to understand how my touch affected you so, if you would like to share.”
“You have an articulate, well-formed way of phrasing thoughts. Yes, I would like the opportunity to do so. Mortification fills me when I recall the ending of our last delightful visit. You see, I have not been touched in centuries. I am used to slime and squelch and the whisper of one layer of my covering over another, but not dry touch from another.”
“You know, I had wondered how your outfit managed to float about your form and not stick to that marvelous slime of yours.”
“’Tis just a matter of two layers of material, Your Majesty. The bottom layer is thick and warm and absorbs my slime without congealing to my blob. The light and gauzy top layer can be free to move. A garment of my own design.”
I was properly impressed. “A fashion engineer, no less. Let me return to the more vulnerable part of your statement. You are used to a great many sensations that I am not, Princess, but of dry touch from another you are no longer familiar.”
“That is a great summary.”
“I would like to be clear on whether touch from another is something you detest.”
“I might care for it, Queen Perantiqua. I have forgotten. When you touched my shoulder, a cannon exploded in my heart and mind. I had not known the cannon was loaded or even that one existed in me, but when the cannon ball fired, so exploded all my feelings of being a dismissed and forgotten princess.”
Ah.“My touch had a drawing effect.”
“A healing effect?” Three squelches. “As if cleaning a wound?”
“Once you marveled at the sight of yourself, and you do so no longer. Is this a wound? Only you might know the answer.”
A great drip of slime pooled under her robe. “There is a great wound in my heart. I feel it after your touch. I-I do not know if any healthy tissue remains around the wound, for it festers so. This poisons me, and I have felt poison of a different nature lately too.”
My brows drew together unevenly. “Whatever do you mean, Princess?”
She wobbled side to side with great agitation and moisture. “I should not say. This has naught to do with his purpose. I have felt such stirrings of what I wish to do, though, and though poisoning me serveshispurpose, I do not wish this fate for myself. If I can say something of my wishes, then surely I should. Or am I a terrible princess indeed?”
I had risen to my feet during her speech because a terrible feeling had risen in me at her frantic words. “Princess Bring,I will ask you now, and you must tell me true. Is King Bring poisoning you?”
“He sets curses alight in my room at night, Your Majesty, so that I might breathe in the smoke. He has done this to me since seeing you for the first time.”
Irritation scratched at my doors. Fury whined in my walls. Immortal monsters were not so numerous that we should poison one another.
She was hisprincess.This was a foul act. A cowardly device.
This went beyond his purpose. This spoke of a corruption akin to that of King Raise.
I sank into my seat again, though my queendom continued to whine and scratch. “This is shocking. Greatly shocking. I would not think him capable of that. Princess Bring, you do not deserve to be poisoned. I am very sorry and angry that someone would treat you this way.”
She did not answer. While she had uttered her wishesnotto be poisoned, she had not voiced anger over the actions of her king.
“You do not deserve to be poisoned,” I repeated.
A damp splat. Her sorrow was so wet and clear. “I am in his way, Your Majesty. I have managed to stay out of his way and be helpful for so long, but now I am an inconvenience. I had feared becoming that.”
“You are no inconvenience,” I said, barely managing to hold in a snarl. “You are a wealth of knowledge. You are any number of marvelous phenomenon. You are my friend.”
“Friend?” she whispered. “But friend?”
Sheepishness filled me, for friendship was not something to be declared by one person. “Forgive me, that is high-handed.Willyou be my friend?”
She folded her blobs and shook. She shook and shook, and her answer was gargled in slime. “Yeth!”
Yes.
I beamed. I beaconed. I had a friend. A female monster friend.
My grin was wide indeed. “I will be deserving of it, Princess. Think how we might go on together over immortality.”