Tea for Twelve
Cybird Creative Challenge: Day 6 - Wormhole
CRACK!
“Thunder? But the sky is clear…”
THUD!
“It’s a girl!”
“No, it’s a woman!”
Ivy stood up and brushed herself off. Looking around she saw ten pairs of eyes staring at her. Her own eyes widened. Those ten eyes belonged to an assortment of men. Not just any men: highly attractive men wearing military uniforms.
“No. Oh no. No, no, no, no!” she said, words rapidly tumbling out of her mouth.
“What kind of girl falls from the sky?” asked one of the men, his uniform highly decorated and colored in black, blue, and silver.
“Don’t even start!” the woman snapped. The man’s green eyes widened in shock, and then narrowed.
“You just got here; how could I have offended you already?” he asked with a dry chuckle.
“Maybe she can sense you’re a brat,” suggested another man, this one quite tall. Ivy turned to him, expression slightly cross.
“Oh, go water a plant or something,” she snapped. The man’s purple eyes widened like the first man’s had.
“Have we met somewhere before?” he asked, pursing his lips.
“Not the way you’re thinking of it,” Ivy replied, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes.
“The young lady obviously has some sense, despite her outlandish clothing. You are just a bunch of rabble,” came a rather cultured voice from the other side of the table. Ivy whipped around to stare at him.
“Don’t think you guys are going to get off easy either, you overbearing stuffed shirt!”
“How dare you!” sputtered the man, his porcelain features flushing with anger.
“She got you there,” said a voice from the first side of the table. Ivy turned back around and her eyes trained in on the speaker.
“Well, you can just…” she began hotly. Then her shoulder slumped. “Okay, you just keep being you. I can’t really find much to complain about.” She thought for a moment. “I suppose I could make a weak attempt at telling you to go home to your father.” Then she shook her head. “Nah.”
“You seem to know a suspicious amount of information for someone who just fell out of the sky,” came a cool, imperious voice. Slowly Ivy turned around.
“And you tend to withhold a suspicious amount of information,” she retorted. “Like the reason for all those scars on your arm.” The man narrowed his eyes blue eyes at her. Slowly the turned red.
“Sit down and behave,” he said with command in his voice, a ripple of energy flowing outward.
“Fat chance!” Ivy shouted, holding her hands out in front of her. A bright, hex-patterned flash appeared, accompanied by a faint shattered sound.
“You blocked my magic!”
“Oh, good, that worked. I wasn’t completely certain.”
“Perhaps, my King, we’ll have to try more traditional methods,” suggested a smooth, light voice.
“Sorry; I’ll have to pass. I don’t think I’d get along very well with your methods,” Ivy said. She tried to look defiant, but her expression was starting to waver; she was running out of steam. Finally she sat, cross-legged, in the middle of table, pushing aside the plates and cups. For a moment, no one said anything.
“How did you get here?” asked a voice gently. “Usually visitors from elsewhere show up in a specific location, and this is not it.” Ivy slowly looked towards this new voice, her expression twitching slightly.
“I didn’t fall down the rabbit hole, if that’s what you mean,” she answered, sounding resigned. “As you may have guessed already, I did come from the land of reason, but about a hundred years ahead of the one you know.” She sighed, her body slowly deflating. Whatever had irritated her, whatever force was driving her, seemed to have dried up. “There was a storm, and an accident, as lightning struck Big Ben. I found myself here.”
“It still doesn’t explain how you know so much,” the man…no, Blanc, for Ivy knew exactly who he was, prompted. Ivy’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“You just had to ask me that question, didn’t you?” she asked, her tone a mix of wry self-depreciation and amusement. Blanc simply looked at her expectantly, as did the officers of the two armies. So many eyes on her just made her blush deepen. “In my time there are…let’s call them chronicles…of certain events that happened here,” she said, choosing her words carefully. After all, she didn’t want to admit that she had, at some point in time, dated most of them via a phone app.
She’d never live down the embarrassment.
