Rimelion: The Exploiter

Back to Charlie…

I walked into Mia’s salon like a woman on a mission. Which I was. Sort of. The mission was just... not the kind I usually ran.

“Darling!” Mia materialized from behind a curtain of pink beads, already wielding a brush in each hand like dual-wielded weapons. “Welcome back! What’s the occasion? Another meeting? A gala? Oh—tell me it’s a gala! I have new palettes I’ve been dying to—”

“Not a gala,” I said, dropping into the chair. The pink briefcase was already on the counter, bunny stickers and all, open and ready. She spun me toward the mirror and began examining my face like a general surveying terrain. “Mm. Good skin today. I didn’t believe you, but the elven thing really is cheating, you know. No pores. It’s offensive.”

“I’ll file a complaint with whatever god handles pore distribution,” I said.

She grinned and reached for the base. The lavender smell hit me immediately. “So,” she said, “what are we going for? Powerful? Intimidating? ‘I own the building and also your soul’?”

“Beautiful,” I said.

Mia’s brush paused, and she looked at me in the mirror. “Beautiful,” she repeated.

“Yeah.” I swallowed. “I need to look... really beautiful.”

The brush resumed, slower now. “Darling, you always look beautiful. But that’s not what you’re saying.” She reached for the concealer, dabbing under my eyes. “You’re saying beautiful for someone.”

My cheeks were already warm, and she hadn’t even gotten to the blush yet.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Maybe!” Mia set down the concealer and picked up the highlighter, the slim little bottle that had turned my cheekbones into weapons last time. “Maybe, she says. Sitting in my chair with that face. That is not a maybe face, darling. That is a definitely face.”

I hesitated. “I have a date,” I said.

Mia’s eyes lit up as if someone had plugged her directly into a power grid. “A date! A DATE!” She nearly dropped the highlighter. “With who? When? Where? What are you wearing? Oh my god, what are you wearing? We need to talk about what you’re wearing—”

“Mia—”

“Is it someone I know? Is it someone famous? Is it—” she gasped. “Is it Riker?”

“What? No!”

“Oh, thank God,” she said, hand over her heart. “That man would clash with everything I do. The rainbow would fight the palette. It would be a color war, darling. Nobody wins a color war.”

I laughed despite myself. “It’s...” I started. The word sat in my throat. I’d never said it before. “It’s with my girlfriend,” I said. The word came out quiet and warm.

Mia stopped blending.

She looked at me in the mirror.

I looked back, cheeks burning, trying not to fidget, failing completely.

“Your GIRLFRIEND!” She actually bounced. On her heels. In platform shoes. “Oh, darling. Oh, darling.“ She set down the highlighter and grabbed both my shoulders, her face appearing next to mine in the mirror. “Then we’re not doing beautiful.”

I blinked. “We’re not?”

“We’re doing devastating.” Her grin was feral. “She’s going to forget her own name.”

She dove into the pink briefcase with renewed purpose, pulling out bottles and brushes and tubes I didn’t have names for, arranging them on the counter like a battle formation.

“So,” she said, already working again, setting powder going on in quick strokes, “where’s the date? I need to know the lighting. Indoor? Outdoor? Candlelight changes everything—if it’s candlelight, we go warmer on the contour and—”

“Not telling you,” I said, smiling.

“What do you mean, not telling me? I need tactical information!”

“You’ll just have to improvise. But will be candles, I got fleeced when I bought them yesterday so they better be good!”

Mia huffed, but her hands didn’t slow. She was lining my eyes now, the thin dark line that had made me look like a movie star in the mirror. “Fine. Fine! I’ll make you devastating for all conditions. Universal devastation. My masterpiece.” She leaned in close, tongue between her teeth, perfecting the wing. “She won’t stand a chance.”

My heart was doing something embarrassing.

“Does she know?” Mia asked, more quietly, capping the eyeliner.

“Know what?”

“That you call her that. Girlfriend.”

I paused. “...No.”

Mia smiled. “First time you’ve said it?”

I nodded.

She picked up the lipstick. It was a different shade, the color of late autumn wine rather than war declarations. She held it up, considered it against my face, and nodded to herself. “Then let’s make sure she hears it,” she said, and applied it with a flourish.

She took a step back.

Examined me.

Tilted her head. Adjusted one strand of hair. Tilted her head the other way. Nodded.

“Mirror,” she commanded.

I turned.

The girl in the mirror wasn’t the powerful, rich-and-unbothered version of me. She was something else. Softer around the eyes but sharper everywhere else, cheekbones catching light as if they’d been designed for it, lips that looked like they held secrets worth hearing, and an expression that was—oh.

That expression was mine.

That slightly terrified, slightly giddy, completely sincere expression of someone who was about to go on a date with the person she loved and couldn’t quite believe it was real. Mia had done something I didn’t think makeup could do. She hadn’t hidden me. She’d just... turned the volume up on what was already there.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah,” Mia said proudly. “‘Oh’ is correct.”

I stood up from the chair. “Thank you, Mia. Really.”

“Go devastate your girlfriend, darling.” She waved her brush like a fairy godmother dispatching a princess. “And tell me everything later, or I will find you.”

I took a taxi.

The city streamed past the windows, afternoon light catching glass and steel, and I sat in the backseat with my hands in my lap, feeling like a very well-dressed bomb about to go off.

Halfway to the Tower, I leaned forward. “Can you stop at the mall? Just for a minute.”

The driver shrugged. “Meter’s running.”

The mall was bright and loud and smelled like cinnamon pretzels. I moved through it, ignoring store windows and sale signs, heading straight for the food court.

Popcorn.

I bought four bags. The large ones. The movie-theater-sized, practically-a-bucket, caramel-and-butter monstrosities that came in bags so big the teenager behind the counter gave me a look.

“Party?” he asked.

“Date,” I said.

“Must be a good date.”

“The best.”

Then I hit the drinks section. Two bottles of soda in those oversized glass bottles that looked like they belonged in a vintage commercial.

I stood in the middle of the food court holding four bags of popcorn and two glass bottles and realized I looked absolutely ridiculous. A woman in devastating makeup and a beautiful outfit, clutching enough snacks to supply a small cinema, standing next to a potted plant and radiating the energy of someone who had not thought this through.

I needed somewhere private.

There; the corridor past the restrooms. A maintenance hallway, half-hidden behind a vending machine. I ducked around the corner, pressed my back against the wall, and glanced both ways.

Empty.

I held up the popcorn and focused. Inventory. The bags vanished, and I stared at my empty hands.

It worked.

The soda bottles went next; held up, focused, gone. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “Okay,” I said to no one. “Okay.”

I walked back through the mall with empty hands and a full inventory, feeling lighter in a way that had nothing to do with the weight of the popcorn.

The taxi was still waiting.

“Rimebreak Tower,” I said, sliding back in.

I watched the city pass and thought about Lola’s face when she saw me, and about the word I’d said out loud for the first time in a salon chair, and about popcorn and soda and a date I still hadn’t told anyone the details of.

My band buzzed. Lola.

Lola: Where are you?

I smiled.

Charlie: On my way. Did you clear your schedule?

Lola: I will

Charlie: Don’t start without me.

Lola: Start what?

Charlie: You’ll see, sweetie.

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Lola: ...Should I be worried?

Charlie: Devastated, actually.

Lola: What?

I put the band away, still smiling, and let the taxi carry me home.

The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, and I walked down the corridor like I owned the place.

Which I did. But that wasn’t the point.

I stopped at Lucas’ room and knocked.

Footsteps. The door opened. Lucas stood there in a t-shirt and sweatpants, mouth already forming some kind of casual greeting… and then his brain caught up with his eyes.

He stared.

Not the polite, oh-you-look-nice stare. The full system crash. Eyes wide, lips parted, every thought he’d been holding visibly evacuating his skull in an orderly but total retreat.

Then he caught himself. Physically caught himself, jaw closing, shoulders squaring, gaze snapping to the doorframe as if it were the most fascinating piece of architecture he’d ever encountered.

The blush, however, did not get the memo. It started at his neck and climbed with the speed and determination of a forest fire, reaching his ears in approximately two seconds.

“What’s—uh.” He cleared his throat. “What’s going on?”

“Is Pearl done?” I asked.

He blinked. “I—yeah? Maybe?” He shrugged, the motion slightly too loose, the body language of a man trying very hard to act normal while his face was doing the opposite. “She’s in the back.”

I stepped past him into the apartment. He closed the door behind me and followed, still not quite looking at me directly, like I was a solar eclipse he’d been warned about.

Pearl sat in her chair. Her fingers were still moving across a holographic interface when she glanced up.

Her grin was instant. “Oh, damn. Look at you.”

Lucas, standing just next to me, nodded. Silently.

Pearl leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Everything’s ready. Just need to dial one and you’re set.”

She turned to Lucas. “Transform for me real quick? I want to test the—”

“No,” Lucas said.

“Come on. Five minutes. I just need to check the—”

“No.”

Pearl pouted. It was a masterwork pout; lower lip out, eyes wide, the expression that had probably won arguments, negotiations, and at least one bet. Lucas met it with the steady, unmovable resistance of a man who had learned the hard way that three hours in a magical girl outfit was not a five-minute commitment.

Pearl held the pout for another second, then dropped it with a grin. She spun back to her monitors. “Fine. Charlie, enjoy the quest.”

I pulled a handful of candles from my inventory and set them on the dresser, the nightstand, the windowsill.

“Thanks for having my back, Cloudy,” I said quietly, arranging two more on the desk. “I promise not to make it a habit.”

Cloudy didn’t answer, but I swore I could feel his doubtful expression.

“I don’t have cool fire magic, only a lighter,” I pouted, pulling out the cheap plastic thing I’d grabbed from the mall’s checkout counter. It took three tries to get the first candle lit. Then the second. Then the rest, one by one, until the room glowed with warm, flickering light.

Not bad.

I turned to the bed. It looked like a battlefield where the pillows had lost. I grabbed the comforter, yanked it straight, fluffed two cushions, shoved a third one behind the headboard, and stepped back to evaluate.

It looked like a battlefield where the pillows had negotiated a ceasefire.

Good enough.

A knock came.

“Damnit,” I cursed, crossed the room in three steps, cracked the door open just enough to confirm it was her, and then vanished back toward the bedroom.

“Charlie? What’s going on?” Lola’s voice followed the sound of the front door closing, then footsteps, professional, the walk of someone who had been summoned without context and was already running contingency plans.

“Here!” I yelled, and pressed myself against the wall behind the bedroom door.

Lola walked in.

She was her usual gorgeous self; the business suit, the skirt, the holo tucked under one arm like a weapon of administrative destruction. Her hair was pulled back, a few strands loose around her face, and she was scanning the room.

I attacked from behind.

My arms wrapped around her waist and I squeezed; quick, tight, then pulled back and stepped around to face her, grinning.

She looked at me.

The blush started at her ears. It spread down her neck, across her cheeks, coloring everything it touched. Her eyes moved across my face, the makeup, the lips, the everything Mia had done, and her mouth opened slightly without producing sound.

“What...” She glanced past me. The candles. The flickering light. The bed that was trying its best. “Why does it smell like... Altandai?”

I froze. Sniffed.

She was right. The warm, spiced scent filling the room wasn’t exotic or romantic. It was the exact smell of every market stall in the lower quarter, the one that hit you the moment you walked through the south gate, the smell of a thousand merchants selling the same thing.

I cursed. “The Altandai merchant said they were the rarest, but apparently they’re the most sold candles in the city.” My pout returned with full force. “I got fleeced.”

Lola’s blush deepened, but now her eyes were darting; candles, bed, popcorn-less table, me in devastating makeup.

“Is... is this a date?” she asked.

“Of course,” I nodded.

“I don’t have time,” she started, and the holo shifted forward like a shield deploying. “There’s the supply manifest for the expedition, and the quartermaster needs updated figures by—”

I put a finger to her lips.

She stopped.

“Lola,” I said.

She looked at me, eyes wide above my fingertip.

“You work seven days a week, and your only break is sleep.”

“If I didn’t have to sleep like you, I—” she protested through my finger, the words muffled and indignant, and I leaned in and kissed her.

Her protest died somewhere between my mouth and hers. The holo slipped, I heard it hit the floor, a soft clatter of plastic, and her hands found my shoulders, gripping, then softening, then pulling me closer. She tasted like coffee, and I kissed her slowly this time, not the desperate cleaning-closet crash but something gentler, something that said we have time, I made time, this is the time.

Her fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt. I felt her exhale against my cheek, felt the tension in her shoulders release, the professional armor loosening not because it broke but because she chose to set it down.

I pulled back just enough to speak. “We’re taking a break tonight. Queen’s orders.”

She glanced around the room, lips still flushed, expression caught between surrender and the deep, structural need to be doing something productive. “I...”

I rolled my eyes. “I know you wouldn’t like it, so you can take it as a review of our latest quest.”

She blinked. I guided her to the bed and sat her down on the edge. “Review?”

I nodded and grabbed the remote, flicking on the holo-TV. Channel one. Private stream.

The image materialized, Lisa’s feed from Rimelion. The river stretched wide and dark ahead; the shore approaching. Then I reached into my inventory and let the popcorn and soda materialize on the nightstand.

Four enormous bags. Two glass bottles. Appearing from thin air with no sound, no flash, just suddenly there, taking up the entire surface and half the bed.

Lola stared at them. “Charlie, I—”

“Like it or not,” I said, and jumped onto the bed. She yelped as I caught her shoulders and pulled her down, both of us landing on the pillows, and I rolled onto my side to face her, close enough that our noses nearly touched. “We’re having a date.”

She let out a surprised sound, half gasp, half laugh. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks were pink, and her hair had come loose from its tie and was fanning across my pillow. “Yes...”

“Yes, who?” I teased, pressing my forehead against hers.

“Yes, my Quee—”

“Yes, who?” I repeated, grinning.

“Charlie...” She closed her eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“Say ‘yes, girlfriend.’”

A beat. Her ears turned even more crimson. “Yes... Lady.”

We both exploded.

The laughter came from somewhere deep, laughing until the candles flickered from the noise.

I wiped my eyes, leaned back against the wall, and glanced at the holo-TV. Lisa’s camera caught Luna adjusting her rapier harness, bouncing slightly on her heels, already restless.

“Wanna see if Luna trips up?” I asked.

Lola shifted beside me, settling against my shoulder. She reached for the popcorn, hesitated for exactly one second of internal debate, then grabbed a handful.

“I bet Lisa will be the first to kill the players,” she said.

I grinned. “Ten kisses it’ll be Fty.”

Lola’s blush returned, but she didn’t look away. She chewed her popcorn. Glanced at the screen. Then, quietly, with the careful precision of someone reclassifying an evening from unauthorized to sanctioned:

“I can... have an evening with review.”

I put my arm around her and stole a piece of her popcorn.

On screen, the shore was getting closer.