"Hi, you must be Dawn. I'm Candi."
    "Miss Rich. How are you?" Dawn's voice was noticeably cooler than normal. She hadn't brought up her argument with her father all morning, and it was making him nervous; he kept an eye on the two from a distance.
    "Miss Rich? There's no reason to be that formal. Call me Candi," she smiled.
    "Great. Candi. How do you like the island so far?"
    "Oh, I've been out a couple of times so far," she replied blithely.
    "Yes. Well, why don't I show it to you in the daylight?" A split second after her cut had been delivered to the startled model, Dawn's head snapped around to make eye contact with Emily. There was a moment of what had to be silent communication before the younger woman looked away. "I'm sorry, that was... cheap, and uncalled for, and I apologize."
    Phoenix Talon aborted his interception path with a sigh of relief.
    "We may have started off on the wrong foot here," Candi said diplomatically. "It's okay, I understand. He explained the situation was very, very...."
    "Weird Shitty?"
    "No, that wasn't what he said...."
    "I'm stunned. Why don't I give you the tour?" Dawn repeated in a more friendly voice. The two departed in a state of truce.
    "I don't know what you did, but thanks," Talon told Emily.
    "Oh, nothing. That wiener dog looks like it's a little undercooked," she observed, taking care of the problem.
    "Uh, thanks." He blew out the flames, oblivious to any deeper symbolism in her gesture.
    "Oh, you speak Japanese?" she asked suddenly.
    "Yeah. I learned when we were over there."
    "Huh. I picked the language up a few months ago myself. How'd you like it over there?"
    "It was an eye-opening experience. It wasn't everything I expected it to be, but I learned a lot," he judged. "Dawn and I got real close, so it was good for that. I'll probably go back sometime. I hooked up with a ninja clan, and a plastics firm. They're both the same thing."
    "Oh. You learn something new every day."
    "So we got involved in a little bit of a clan war, but everything turned out okay...."

    Scott was keeping an eye on Stephanie, who was deep in conversation with the charismatic Daedalus. She looked over at Thunderbolt once in a while to make sure he knew she was having this conversation, but Thunderbolt remained blissfully unaware. Obviously, there was more to this pheremone business than merely being human.

| Top |