Between Friends
Part 13

        Corona stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around herself.  
"Ahhh, that's nice," she breathed, viewing her glowing pink skin with 
satisfaction.  She'd scrubbed hard to get all of the ingrained dust out of 
her pores, and for the first time in a year she could detect no dirt 
underneath her fingernails.  It seemed sinfully luxurious to be this clean, 
in a house this big, with a towel this soft wrapped around her.  She smiled 
and opened the mist-guard panels in front of the mirror with a touch, 
examining her reflection curiously.  It had been so long since she'd had 
anything other than a pool of water to study her reflection in that she'd 
half-forgotten what she looked like.
        Light red eyebrows traced gracefully above violet eyes, set in a 
face that had been tanned brown by hours of working in the sun.  That alone 
should set her apart from the city dwellers; most of them had complexions 
as pale and pasty a white as porcelain.  But it didn't actually look too 
bad.  Hair that was a medium brown due to the water clung her her neck and 
the sides of her face, reaching to her collarbone.  When it dried, it would 
be the same red as her eyebrows, and once she got it trimmed and arranged 
nicely, it ought to just hang to her shoulders.  Corona frowned and brushed 
the hair on the right side of her face back behind her ear, exposing the 
long white scar that it had hidden, running from her temple to her chin.  
That was her souvenir of her joined time with Ford.
        Her frown lessened only slightly as she picked up a comb and ran it 
through her hair, rearranging it to cover the scar again.  It was only 
mid-afternoon now, which left a few hours before their parents returned 
home, assuming their usual patterns hadn't changed.  If she hurried and got 
dressed, there was probably time to excuse herself from her little brother, 
saying she wanted to go see an old friend--which wouldn't *quite* be a 
falsehood--and go see Geo, picking his brain about this "Lantis."

        Eagle watched as Corona left, saying she wanted to check up on an 
old friend, and decided he wanted to take a nap before dinner.  Tonight was 
bound to be exciting and full of family chatter as Corona and the rest of 
them caught up on their mutual family news, and he wanted to be fully 
rested for it as it was bound to last long into the night.  He headed for 
his room and kicked his shoes off as he tumbled into his bed, which was 
nice and comfy and soft after three nights spent in a sleeping bag on top 
of the hard ground with whatever rocks, sticks, roots, and other 
uncomfortable protrusions he found out he had failed to move, usually 
discovering them when he woke up in the middle of the night.
        Of course, the fact that he had placed his sleeping bag next to 
Lantis' for the last two nights and had inevitably woken up snuggled into 
Lantis' warm form had been nice, and he didn't have that here.  And Lantis 
hadn't seemed to mind at all....  Eagle sighed and closed his eyes, hoping 
for dreams of the man he had fallen in love with....

        "What's the game called?" Eagle asked.
        Cadillac smiled.  "'Touch,'" he replied.
        "How do we play?"
        "It's simple.  Here is the card deck.  We each get eight cards, and 
the rest go into a pile," Cadillac said, dealing the cards out face-down.  
"What we try to do is make sets of three consecutive numbers.  Three reds, 
or three blacks in a consecutive sequence.  You take those three cards and 
set them down in front of you.  At every turn you have to take one either 
from the pile in front of you, or from another player's cards.  The 
objective is to get rid of all your cards, by the way.  For every black set 
that you put down, you get a cookie.  For every red set, you have to take 
off a piece of clothing.  The same thing for me."
        "Okay," Eagle absently agreed, arranging his cards so that he had 
all the blacks together and all the reds together.  He had five blacks: a 
six of squares, a ten of squares, a seven of triangles, an emperor of 
triangles, and an alpha of triangles.  He had a three reds: a two of 
circles, a seven of pentagrams, and an empress of pentagrams.  "You go 
first."
        Cadillac put down a black set and took one of the cookies, then 
reached for the stack of cards between them and took the top one.  He 
smiled as he set down three red cards and took his jacket off.

        Geo looked up at the picture of the person standing before his door 
and started.  "Corona?!" he asked, dumbfounded.
        "Hiya, Geo!" she said brightly, with a wave.  "Can I come in?"
        "Uh, sure," Geo answered, hitting the sequence of numbers that 
opened the door to his place.  "I thought you were out in the middle of 
nowhere on the northern continent!"
        "I was," she said, stepping into his living room.  "I just got back 
from the dig.  Most enlightening, I must say.  I found my topic for my 
dissertation, so I'll be hanging around for a while while I work on it."
        "That's great," Geo said, offering her a seat.  "Do you want 
something to drink?"
        "No thanks," she declined with a slight wave.  "Actually, I'm here 
on business.  What can you tell me about this 'Lantis' that Eagle's dating?"
        "That was fast," Geo mumbled.
        Corona smiled.  "I'm as quick on the uptake about him as you are, 
and you know it.  So give."
        Geo took a breath, then started to smile.  What else did he expect 
from Eagle's sister?  She'd always been very protective about him.  Even 
when she had been in trouble herself he'd seen her put Eagle first.  
"Lantis is a great guy," he said.  "A little close about himself, but he's 
really loyal to his friends, and is a marshmallow if you get him right."
        "You approve of Eagle dating him?" Corona questioned.  She'd relax 
later, once he'd calmed her concerns about Lantis.
        "I do," Geo confirmed, noticing the ragged cut of Corona's red 
hair.  She must have *just* gotten back from her expedition if she hadn't 
even bothered to go to a stylist.  "Eagle's head over heels in love with 
Lantis, and I've never seen him happier.  And Lantis knows how fragile 
Eagle can be, so he's not likely to break his heart."
        Corona was silent for a moment, then Geo saw her breathe a slight 
sigh of relief.  She smiled tentatively at him, the first real smile he'd 
seen from her since she'd gotten there.  "That's good," she said quietly.  
"If you trust him, Geo, then he's bound to be good for Eagle."
        "You worry about Eagle too much," Geo noted.  "He's seventeen, 
Corona.  He can theoretically take care of himself by now."
        "He's in his first relationship," Corona pointed out.  "Need I 
remind you how you were when you first started dating Previa, Geo?"
        Geo surprised himself by blushing slightly.  "Let's not talk about 
that," he muttered.
        "... Besides, remember how sick he got when he took the entrance 
exam for the military?" Corona asked.  "He's delicate when he gets upset, 
and you know it.  I don't want to see him hurt, Geo.  He's the only brother 
I have."
        Geo nodded, aware somehow that Corona's feelings of protectiveness 
for her brother surpassed even his, though she was very careful not to let 
Eagle know about it.  Like her mother, she manipulated things from behind 
the scenes.

*********
A brief note; thank you for worrying about me to all the people who did, 
but I'll be fine.  It's just something that I have to deal with.  Life goes 
on, y'know?  And I work a lot when I get upset or excited.  Two parts of 
this in one day, plus four loaves of banana nut bread (knew my mom 
shouldn't have bought a huge bunch of bananas; they all became overripe at 
the same time), one killer batch of salsa (not for the weak of heart or 
tastebud... hmm, I think the cilantro-habenero combination may be the best 
flavor yet...glad I talked Mom into a window herb garden), and an entire 
script edited today.  And as I forgot to tag the credit onto part 12, 
thanks to Stephanie-chan for finding Corona's name for me.  Also, my 
apologies to those who get this twice, being on both the CML and tardis 
lists....