Page 87 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
“I know, my champion. I know.”
She inhaled. “So I have tonight.”
“You have tonight.”
Princess Bring interrupted, “What were you just saying about me?”
I glanced to the doorway where she blobbed.
“Not you, my queen,her.Who must I meet again?” the young princess demanded.
Marchioness Take scoffed. “No one.”
Duke Raise fortified the lie. “I wondered the same, but perhaps the princess spoke from an irrational place of emotion just now.”
The princess of taking glared, but said, as if she chewed nails, “Yes, I suppose I did.”
I rather thought the duke may be good for Marchioness Take. My other princesses rarely held her accountable.
Princess Change added, “Perhaps meet yourself again. You are learning so much every night.”
Their protective instincts warmed me. We had never cared for a baby monster, nor a teen monster. We may never have that experience again. Releasing our expectations of Princess Bring so quickly was difficult indeed, but I rather thought fromthe storm clouds gathering in her blobs that we should adjust with all possible speed.
She slapped the floor with her bottom blob, and I cut in. “What are your current mature thoughts, Princess?”
Princess Bring did her best to rein in her slap and squelch. “I have thoughts of maintaining a home, Your Majesty. Of exploring the pleasures of my body. For as magnificent as I feel, I can only imagine the magnificence to be shared with another’s body.” She looked at each monster in turn. “I had thought that only a pawn might remain to entertain me. Do you say that there is another monster I have not met?”
The princess was full in power, and she radiated a confidence that had been so rattled apart in her first life.Thatprincess had reclaimed her self-esteem, but how heartening to see its pure form.
How much rage was inspired by the thought of King Bring ever harming those deepest parts of her again.
“There is another monster,” I told her. “He will be your monster, and he has been your monster for an age in your first life.”
Her breath hitched so soggily, like the squelch of walking through deep mud. “But mine?”
“But yours, dear Princess. You mature in power, thought, and body, and that is the great sign of your readiness, but I must be sure of his.”
Princess Bring blinked. “His? Is he not fully grown and mature too?”
Duke Raise laughed under his breath, and Marchioness Take snorted while Princess Change grimaced.
How to phrase this? “While you have been locked in physical growth, your monster has been locked in inner growth. You should know, Princess, that ruin was set upon you by King Change, such that your union was greatly upset and confounded. You should know that your union started in thesweetest of origins. You should know that your monster had vowed to drill through all that he has denied until the truth is revealed without vanity.” I lowered my voice. “Your monster has despaired of your absence, and he has set himself to the task of deserving you with devotion.”
Princess Bring’s blobs heaved, creating small suction noises against the stones. “He is mine, and he has always been. My queen, when might I meet him?”
“When I am certain of his growth, as I am certain of yours. And I must warn that meeting him may not mean the unshackling of him. Only utter certainty in the wellbeing of you in your union will make that happen.”
She squelched forward. “But to meet him would bring me so much happiness, my queen.”
I set my hand on her slimy shoulder. “Then I go to him now to assess his state. Remain out of the conservatory, Princess. That is a firm order.”
Her expression fell, for I had dangled a great prize before her, but she nodded.
I said to my champions, “We must still depart to stitch as many veins as possible tonight. With our full numbers, I am hopeful of healing many.”
I left them to sweep back upstairs, past the third level, and to my conservatory.
Hellebores stroked King No Change as they stroked King Bring, but at my appearance, they ceased their work on the bringing monster to retreat along the wall.
