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EPILOGUE
Lyssa
“This is amazing,” I say, spooning chocolate cake into my mouth. Calista made it especially for me as a thank you for ensuring her download into the electronic kitchen we promised her. She is enjoying being a kitchen, living her best life. I’m really happy for her, even if Manik continues to insist that she’s just a program, and there’s no real sentience there. This chocolate cake says otherwise. It tastes like love.
“I will take your word for it,” Manik says. I am crouched on a big fluffy cushion next to his chair as he flips his way through tabs of reports related to various kingly things.
“So, that’s it?” I ask the question when I have swallowed. I know it sounds sort of ungrateful, but I don’t know, there’s something missing. Everybody has what they want and need, but somehow… I don’t know. There’s just… something left to be done.
“What’s it?” He chuckles because he finds questions of that nature funny almost always. It has been seven days since we landed here on his world, seven days in which he and I have become the talk of the globe. As expected, Manik has been busy with affairs of state; however, he has kept me by his side nearly constantly. True to his word, he is keeping me for his own, trusting nobody else with me. He is jealous, possessive, and he is mine.
“This. This is our life now, is it?”
“It is,” he says.
“I’m just going to sit around at your feet, eating candy and having a nice time? Sometimes we’ll have orgies if the ladies have been naughty enough. I hope they keep being naughty.”
Manik laughs. I love the sound of his amusement. It makes me feel warm all the way through to my core.
“You did enjoy yourself, didn’t you.”
I nod, biting my lower lip so as not to grin too broadly. I love the way Manik makes me free. If I were on a human world, there would have been so much judgement for what happened to me. People would think less of me, and they’d call me horribly charged names. Here, on Maniae, I am just one of the girls.
“Are you happy?” He asks the question, though not without some warning in his tone that suggests I might be in trouble if I come across as being ungrateful. I really don’t want to do that. Manik has proved he has less than zero tolerance for spoiled brats. Half his court is currently doing hard labor in the fields and mines, in what he calls work experience.
“Sure, I’m happy,” I say, immediately wishing I hadn’t added the sure, because that makes it sound like I’m not happy.
Manik puts his work to the side and sits up. “Stay there,” he says.
I stay because I am a good girl and I do what I am told. Wuff wuff.
He is only gone for a moment, and then he returns with the kind of smile on his face that might bode either very well or very terribly indeed.
“I was going to wait to give this to you, but I think now is as good a time as any. You are yet to be fully compensated for your pains. I have regained my kingdom, but you are still suffering great loss.”
“Well, I don’t know if I really lost anything,” I muse.
“Still, there was one thing this man who wanted to engage you as a servant of bland matrimony took from you. I cannot give you the original back, but I hope you will find as much happiness with this one as you did with the former.”
He leads me into a room where a little box is complaining. I recoil, wondering if it’s a body part or something terrible. Manik has a habit of taking bits and pieces, even though he is now in a civilized world. His trophies currently adorn the throne room in a frankly disturbing style, the appendages and heads of those who did not welcome him back with open arms. He is a monster, and I do not think he will ever be anything other than a monster. But he’s my monster. So, I suppose that’s alright if you ignore most, if not all of the moral implications of the matter.
Manik goes to the whiny box and picks something up out of it. When he turns to me, he has something small and furry, something squirmy and squishy. Something that barks and licks and dives into my arms as if it has belonged there all along only to emerge in a powerful butt wriggle and lick my chin furiously.
“Puppy!” I feel the rush of pure joy that can only be experienced with a baby dog. It is a unique experience to the human condition to be partnered with a canine companion, hearkening back to our ancestors and their taming of young wolves.
“I cannot get you the dog you lost to your ex. But we can start over. You and I, and whatever you decide to name this…”
“Pumpkin.” I knew her name the moment I saw her.
“What?”
“She’s orange. And fluffy. And pumpkins were a big part of our relationship.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s a good name.”
I can barely say anything because I am being absolutely deluged in puppy kisses.
“I can’t believe you got me a puppy. I don’t even remember telling you about Stan and the dog.”
“I listen to you, Lyssa. Indeed, my presence on this world and on the throne is due to you. Never imagine that because you are my pet and my possession that I do not value your wickedly agile human mind. You are my greatest asset, and the love of my life.”
I start to tell him that he is also the love of my life, but at that moment, Pumpkin decides to lick the inside of my mouth and I am gagged by hairy dog nose.
The End.
