Chapter 10
483 Words
Chapter 10
The princess ate a grape. It was supposed to be an Earthen delicacy of some sort, but it was too squishy, so she had a servant squeeze it first to let the juice out.
She snacked on a green one.
Hm. Tasty.
Maybe this planet had something to offer, after all.
“I like this. Bring me the tree that bore this fruit, I wish to speak with it.”
“As you-” Avatar Teddy communed with the ship and conducted a thorough investigation in an eye-blink. First, it snatched up the entire vineyard who sent this harvest. Then, it ran a DNA test on the juice left on the plate and compared it to all the trees. He was surprised to see that humans ran clones of it, but the ship would detect other small variances that allowed it to pinpoint the exact one.
Then it brought the tree along with a two-meter-wide circle of dirt in the middle of the throne room.
“-wish, Princess.”
Kyveli raised her chin. “I wanted to thank you, tree of grapes, for this delicacy.”
The tree remained silent.
“Well? You may speak, now!”
A shoving match took place next to her, and the smallest and most unfortunate of her courtiers was pushed forward. “Your Brightness, I’ve been informed that trees on this planet do not, in fact, speak.”
“They do not?” Kyveli was furious. “I demand to speak to it, now!”
“It’s not possible, your Brightness.” The courtier squirmed and practically knelt on the floor.
“What is this savagery?” She puffed loudly and sat back down on her jade throne. “Trees that don’t speak. What’s next?”
“I’m terribly sorry, your Brightness,” the courtier said, kissing the floor beneath her feet.
The flaw in the gemthrone pricked her skin. “Ow!” She stood up and kicked the tray to the floor. Grapes rolled all over the place and the servant crouched on the spot. “And now you’ve got dirt all over my throne room!” the princess screamed. “Stupid tree! Clean it up.”
The courtiers scurried and fell on all fours. They wiped the dirt from the floor with their sleeves, spat on their fingers and rubbed the shiny surfaces.
Kyveli gritted her teeth. Anger. Fury. All sparked by an imperfection on a chair. She screamed like a madwoman and complained about everything. “Why am I still seeing your stupid face, servant? Didn’t I order you get a facelift? Why is my floor still full of dirt? Why am I surrounded by idiots? ARGHH!”
The room doors slid open and an alien appeared, next to Pollux. They both wore the Ekrignontes proper clothes. But the man was weird. Pinkish. Tall.
“What the hell is it now?” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Reality boiled around her. Her white hair seemed like it was glowing. Servants and courtiers cowered around her, some crying on the spot, others updating their wills to a remote storage a few light-minutes away.
She started to divide. Anger, manifested. Atoms, divided. Spacetime, collapsing.
And then the alien hurried close to her in deliberate, long steps and stood before her and slapped her on the face.
- Writer
