Odd Prompts; Djinn
This is a snippet of a short story which I plan to publish shortly Available Now! under my penname, Lilania Begley. ***
“Oh no, here it comes again.”
“What?” He sounded confused. Which made sense, as he was under the vehicle and she was in it, staring out at the dusty landscape.
“That dust devil. You’d better get inside.”
He wriggled out, took one look at the growing pillar of sand, and opened the hatch to climb inside. She wriggled over to give him space. The little jaunty was supposed to fit one person. It was also supposed to allow a tourist, which she was, to fly safely over the surface of Sumire.
She didn’t feel very safe at the moment. He was crowded up against her, very much in her space, her skin under the light linen shirt heated by the heavy canvas of his coat. Once the hatch was closed behind him, he pulled down the cloth that had been wrapped over his mouth and nose, revealing a face tanned and roughened by the endless winds of Sumire.
“So…” She wasn’t sure where to start. “Thank you?”
He looked back at her, hazel eyes narrowed in amusement, laugh lines at their corners betraying his good humor. His lips, fuller than she’d seen on a man before, didn’t betray him.
“Don’t thank me yet.” His baritone was a little gruff. “The flitter is still non-functional and you appear,” He nodded towards the erratically dancing windstorm, “to have irked one of the minor djinn.”
“A what?” She didn’t care if she sounded stupid. “You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly. They are highly adapted to Sumire, you realize. Fascinating creatures, really.”
She blinked at him, then shook her head. “What are you?”
“Human.” He replied laconically, then his eyes crinkled again, and this time his mouth joined in on the fun, “Male. How about you?”
She couldn’t help it, she giggled. “Human, female. Doctoral student, was supposed to be taking a break from study to actually look at what I was studying, and well, you found what happened after that.”
“You’re studying this planet, and you didn’t know about djinn?” He sounded as disbelieving as he looked now.
“I did not. At least, not under that name?” She shrugged, feeling the scrape of his arm against hers when she moved. She was more aware of him than she’d been of a male, human… since longer than she wanted to think about. He smelled of dust, clean sweat, and something spicy she couldn’t identify.
“Speaking of names, mine’s Henry.”
“Mine’s Seona. And there are a lot of gaps in the information about Sumire. I theorized there had to be more to the ecology than the books, and, well… that’s what landed me here.”
“That, and a cut air line.” All the humor was gone from his face now.
“What?” She flinched, not from him, but the very idea of it. “I don’t… why?” ***
I was prompted this week by Padre with “Oh, no. Here it comes again.” I prompted Fiona Grey with "The lean cat wore two white stockings and a pair of long white gloves." You can find all of the prompt responses, or join in on the fun yourself, over at More Odds Than Ends. You'll find Djinn for sale soon! I'll post the link here when it goes live, and you can follow on with the adventure and attraction between Henry and Seona in a short science fiction romance story. All the romance I write will appear under Lilania Begley, to spare my readers who don't care for that genre.
