Uploaded Fairy: Dantino The King Quarterer

第4話 Hair Like 80s Synthwave

She had the ponytail that reminded one of princesses from eighties fantasy movies. The only thing missing was a frilly royal dress.

Her entire picture was one designed to irritate people who hated flight of seagulls hair the most, while reclining back and having an alcoholic toast. And a side of the finest pot roast, by the finest chefs. She placed her napkin in her lap, like her mother would always tell her. By contrast, for those whom actually dine on Earth, the occasion was far more sparse. Only the buzzing of L.E.D. lights broke the monotony of extreme propriety. The rest of the planet was not the mafia.

The princess stood in contrast to the rest of the dance hall, where people downed nut brown ales to darksynth flair. Madam Millie, dined to T’en vas pas. In the actuality of the song, the singer was her polar opposite, who know gave up music for sake of working in a homeless kitchen. Contrary to the princess nature, whenever she went out with Nadine, she would take out her cell phone to text her sister Ellen. For her, she preferred the communication with her other royal family members, of the peasants of her immediate surrounding. Despite having long sense lost her throne. Nadine capitalized her displeasure with a zombie like groan. Among other less than mentioning things, resisting the temptation to sit at a different tables, until Millie shut the fuck up.

Nadine was a cryptographer, while Millie took whatever security came with the protocol largely for granted. It was this part of their relationship that made her question whether it was really worth being a free and open source developer. And ever sense the merger, she found it almost impossible to communicate the merits of the technology to those whom still lived in the past. She assumed fairies were telepathic anyway, so any protocol was largely moot for the occasions they would meet. And yet, Millie was more attached to Nadine than vice versa.

Of course, Nadine knew what would happen if she let her die again, although her affections were still largely sparse. But she could maintain the farcical nature of sarcastic laughter to the princess’s lame word play. Although the while imagining eating tin foil roasted in a microwave. The only thing that would make it worse was if Dantino never shaved.

Arguably, if going by appearance, Dantino loved Millie more than she. But there was something about her over affections, the somehow rang false. Part of her no longer cared if the game were broken, if not for the game world merging with the real world, and it would break her own sense of reality. But her sense of reality had already been on the outs, ever sense she met a super computer of the female gender, who would periodically warn her about Dantino’s false efforts to erase the past.

If life were an ocean, she was a vanishing point in the endless waves of time. And Millie gradually losing the wind in her sails. Dantino chopped down on Millie with razor wire teeth, as if her were great white.

“Nadine, you haven’t spoken a word.” said Dantino.

“At least speak me, I’m your reward love interest.” Millie didn’t totally believe this herself, and it was mostly a reference to no longer being bound by some abstract programmer’s formula. Finally she could have a life of her own.

But Nadine didn’t understand the purpose of continuing to play this abstract game, a game where if it were a normal cassette, she would have traded it into the now defunct Game Shop, that almost everyone looking for a new console hated, but had no other choice besides Walmart. If it were a Nentendo Princess, the princess would be constantly outside of her reach, but with Millie she could not be anything but within her reach. There was no more game of chase, just constant floating in the hybrid between cyber and dream space. Millie was Jupiter crashing into Earth.

“You were fun to chase after, but now that your not a quest, you’ve been somewhat boring. Cuteness only takes you so far.” Nadine took out a cigarillo, popped it in her mouth. “You’re not even worth the chase.” Nadine left the table, purchased two extra bottles of Hard Eggnog, and drank it far away from the crowd. To have some bit of alone time.

Millie took her mind to other things. “So what about restoring my royal court?”

Dantino smirked at Nadine walking alone. Finally he could have Millie all to himself. “Well there is no reason you can’t rule both worlds with in iron fist, and I can even train you in the ways of the sword.” In a word, Dantino knew what Millie liked. Some feeling of empowerment. She was playing right into his hands, while Nadine acted like a douche.

“And I’ll even pay for a Flemenco and Waltz musician myself to entertain you.” Dantino continued.

“This would be exquisite.” said Millie.

Nadine and Dantino were Vampires mutually after each other’s blood. The main difference was crucial, yet could easily go unnoticed. Nadine was inherently a people pleaser, while Dantino was out for himself. She didn’t start dating Millie under the idea of using her privilege pass into night clubs. Rather she had originally wanted to uplift the mass, such as her first girlfriend Ellen, who she had not seen in months. She loved Ellen, because Ellen simply wanted a better life, and her willingness to work hard at the burger parlor.

But for Millie, she came from the same upbringing as Dantino, who were closer to her other merely for being taught by the same tutor in the castle. Even if they had nothing else in common, they could both afford caviar, until very recently. But for Nadine, her fangs were not merely decorative, despite her hesitance to use them for self-defence. She dreamed of biting Millie into her neck, her begging for more, like some near orgasm growing steadily more faint over time. One of the reason Nadine initially hated Millie, was because she hated rich people. She had largely grown up with others on Purgatory Road, having to eat cockroaches from the city streets, and sell their bodies for quick bit coin.

Millie was never hungry in her life.

When Nadine used to be able to build robot dogs for fightings, Millie was never hungry in her entire life. She always wanted things Millie took for granted. Like endless mobile data, while those on Nadine’s street went through the effort of building an entire network from the ground up, only to have it suddenly become irrelevant by the merge of the artificial world and true reality, with nothing any longer as it seems. Simply put, Nadine was no longer sure what was real, and what was not.

Because of this judgmental impulse, and her desire to see Millie’s blood on the dance floor, after faint look into her flight of seagulls her was like looking in their past together. Nadine didn’t want a reward, and thought this was a stupid thing video games offered. She found Millie lacking purpose for her existence, but could not make herself take off her head. Only give soft butterfly kisses and tender bites on the neck. Every princess was just out of reach.

It was as if the Trump family had never lost political office, that by now was more like their collective orifice, as they sucked the life out of the planet.

Nadine didn’t want a queen.

She found herself floating, with her wooden shoes barely cementing her to the forest floor. She had to struggle to keep her head above water, until eventually Millie had to push Dantino off of her.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Millie said.

“I’m just getting rid of scum. She hates you, you know?” Dantino said.

Millie seemed to take this at face value, but it left Nadine with a permanent sense of distaste for the man. That Millie would be chill with almost drowning the protagonist, showed how much she really valued her presence.

Nadine rued the day they ever met.

Dantino put Millie aside, and took out his hand gun. “You seem to want Millie back, you’ll have to get through me first.”

A blinding flash of light.

Millie took Dantino off balance. The bullet hit the top of the weeping willow tree. “Now is not the time, we can get rid of Millie later.” Dantino knew that Nadine was harder to manipulate than Millie, but soon he shall take the throne of Voreth’s Promise once more.

Nadine took this as a sign.

She left her apartment door locked.

Nadine could hear Millie’s pleading, as she banged on the door. But refused to let back inside for the night. Because knew how Millie really felt about her, or at least she thought she did. And there was nothing to change her mind. Because life was a like a nightmare you couldn’t wake up from.

Simply log out to a different level.

In this bite of life.

Hemato-Tomato saw what had become of the relationship between Millie and Nadine. Originally she had wanted to build the quests to be such that it was easy to obtain the princess as a prize, even if she had more personality than most other classical damsels in distress. Part of her sense of humor was letting life continue to go on as was for Nadine, despite knowing that Dantino poses an incredible danger to the fantasy kingdom. For the Vampire Game Developer, it was a much of a game to see just how much Nadine could possibly take.

With a flick of a finger, she reset the night.

Millie decided to turn off her cell phone. “Had enough talking to Ellen? I took you as more of a cell phone body.” Nadine said, winking at Millie.

“I can talk to Ellen at any point.” said Millie.

But Dantino felt that something was off, almost as if he had lived through a completely different outcome. As if he had already seen the past.

But Hemato-Tomato cackled in the darkness.

The was so much in store for Dantino. Hemato-Tomato could reset the world back to being whatever image she wanted, but mostly took very little part in the affairs between humans and fairies. She enjoyed savoring other beings misery, like it was blood flowing into a wine glass. She downed it with more class than Nadine could munch a pork belly on Symphony night. She played reality like a cassette tape.

Occasionally in rewind.

Never in fast forward. And with a tip of her hat, and a tap dance with her cane, she hops out of the game.

She released the rewind button.

Nadine considered Millie an NPC without a purpose in the plot. Millie considered Nadine more of a cheater than an honest protagonist, and they were all one loving familla. Millie never discussed her desires to have her throne restored, because she knew that if she were to bring it up, it would imply ruling both worlds, which wouldn’t wash so well to someone like Nadine, who was inherently anti-authoritarian. That they met at indicates that not everything in life goes according to plan. Generally it’s never been a good idea to assume there is one, but Millie held onto the idea there was one, slightly longer than most.

So it made living without a title of nobility somewhat difficulty to adjust to. In a sense, Nadine would have been better of traveling through time, and retrieving Jean D’Arc or Anna Boleyn, even if she would eventually chop their heads off. But whenever Nadine would take Millie to see a romantic comedy, these old animosities would eventually melt away like tide on the sea. Nadine however hated the sound of romance in a flower field, unless it was the flow of some abstract Japanese pop star, who had long sense deceased, but continued to be relevant in pop culture through the decades.

“Waboo Kapatcho you say? I’ve never heard of him.” said Millie.

“Of course you wouldn’t, you’re a fairy. And your culture is closer to Spanish or French.” Nadine said. Millie grimaced at her for so bluntly saying it, however she knew that this was true to a fault. Somehow Nadine knew, or perhaps that was the thing that attracted to Millie’s wing. “But this guy knows how to write one hell of a Piano Sonata in Japan. Helped make some great JRPGs.”

“Right, because it’s all Japan for you.” said Millie. “The romantic comedy wasn’t Japanese.”

“Neither is your face.”

There were times when Nadine would rather have her face sprayed on by pepper spray, than kissing the filthy lips that spewed the words that Millie did. So when Dantino would arrive from the grocery store, and leveling up by attacking some ape-goats, Nadine took it as a break from the both of them.

In truth, Nadine was afraid to love.

She had tried it once with Brittney.

Nadine didn’t want to be reminded of Brittney, because every time she remembered her, she also remembered the times she had to deal with living inside of a boarding school for boys, despite being a girl herself. They were never the most tolerant for people with extreme sensitivity, and Nadine had this to the ninth degree. She behaved the worst whenever Millie would make the effort to do motherly things for her, such as offering to comb her hair. Or cook her dinner.

Nadine preferred cooking herself, but would sometimes burn her hand on the stove. In Millie’s case, she wanted to learn how to cook, as she simply never had to back when she was living on the top most floor of her castle. To this day she remembers her lovely maid who had been more of a mother figure to her than even her own mother, when her mom was away for diplomatic arrangements. In a sense, she wanted to get to know Nadine more, and the gamer would simply have none of it. Yet here they were splitting a one bedroom apartments in Chattanooga.

With nothing else to do, but rot.

Millie slept on the couch, while Nadine slept on the futon. Millie was stuck with a hero that almost seemed like didn’t even want her at all. And she finds Dantino’s advances more desirable by the day.

She wished she was still a Queen.

Then she could command respect. While listening to Flamenco Waltzes in her royal chair. And perhaps play a game of hand carved chess.

“You don’t speak to me very much.” said Millie.

“I told you, I’m not a talker.” said Nadine.

“But it feels like something else is going on. Like you’re missing someone from you life.” Millie stole one of Nadine’s cigarillos. “Frankly it doesn’t seem like you love me.” Millie flicked off some the ash.

Nadine wasn’t sure how to respond, it was to much for her to put her mind around that a video game characters would even really desire humanly affection at times. She found it easier to attend to an undemanding cat. Whom she could simply put food in their automatic feeder, and would be content for the evening. “Are you tired Millie? Your eyes are droopy.”

“But who would I sleep with?”

“Do you need someone to sleep with?”

Millie stormed off to Nadine’s futon. Nadine didn’t mind her attitude as much as she used to. She knew that love could be like a maze in a rogue like game. These days all to literally. She could dream of procedural generated dungeons, with her love always out of reach. She could climb endless floors in a tower, and her devotion brought her beyond all permanent death limitations. She fought Minotaur and demons, and unmentionable demons. Millie was the one that kept her holding on, when all hope was lost.

She was the princess, at the top of the tower.