Dream of the Unlikely Princess Ch. 02

Oksana smiled at him with a little uncertainty for a few seconds."I would like for you to listen to me for a moment, Yevgeny. You called me little princess there in the alley that night. It felt wonderful. I have only ever felt anything at all like that when you say it to me. Unless you ask it of me, I will never tell you of my childhood since I felt like nothing so much as a problem to two people who had nothing but their own problems already. When I grew up, I was just another little beetle scurrying around on a dung heap with all of the others. And I was going nowhere but slowly downwards. I now know that you could see it as well as I did. The difference is that you could do something about it and you did. You have done more than I can ever even hope to repay, and now I find that you did all of this for nothing?"

He began to pull his hand away, but she held it there, keeping him in contact with her hand and the ring. She looked at his face as she continued.

"I do not doubt your kind heart or its intentions, my friend, not in the least. But it must be obvious that from my side of things, I have had a long time to think of that night, and the only one who has been kind to me. Yes, I know who it was in the dark there. I recognized your clothes. I was terrified and frozen with fear, but not because of you from the moment that you took my hand and I saw into your eyes. I was overwhelmed by the beautiful stranger there in front of me. I have been nothing more than a thief and a pickpocket and other things because I had to be. I would like now to become as a princess, Yevgeny, for the one who has done so much for me. I have wondered every day, and I still wonder even now what it is that you see in me. If I knew the answer to that, I would try very hard to be what you see."

"So, I will accept your kind offer for a place to stay, and from what you have shown to me, I think that I would like nothing better than to help you with this garden. It is such a wondrous thing to me, and to be able to work there for you is even better. You have my word that no one will know of your secret from me, though I want very much to know more someday if you ever want to tell me, but I think that I can say that I do not believe that it is an affliction."

She looked across the table at his eyes, knowing what she wanted to say, but not being certain about how her words would be received, "I saw what you did to mark me that night. I think that it is the man who I now sit with who is an affectation, a very handsome and well-spoken disguise. I believe that what I saw in the alley is a little closer to who you really are, Yevgeny, and I want you to know that I am not afraid, though I could see that you can be deadly if you have the need of it. Kirrill is not a man to show respect to one who he doesn't know outside whatever group he is in. But even I know that he is in terror of you, Yevgeny. Either way, man or living wonder, I am happy to be this close to you and I am sure that if you think enough of me to let me see you completely as you are behind this disguise, I would be in heaven."

"What I saw that night was beautiful and I have longed to see more of you like that. It is the other reason that I have come all of this way. No matter what Kirrill told me, I would never have remained in Kiev after putting it together that you were the one who was behind all of this, that you were real, even though you as much as said it to me yourself. I really had no choice anyway in my heart. I feel very much drawn to you, Yevgeny, I cannot help it. But I want you to show me a little of your heart here, not for me, but for yourself, that I might know that we are being honest with each other."

She moved her other hand and pulled the ring away from his mark on her finger. She left it there, only showing the vine so that they could both see it and she placed his fingers there on the ring again very carefully, moving it so that he could see the vine as well.

"A very lovely little thing that you have used to mark me," she said. "Well I think it has outlived its original purpose, except for how proud I am to have it there."

He stared at her, "You ... Oksana, you are proud of this?"

"Yes," she said nodding, "very proud. To me, they are a set, your mark and your ring."

"You do not have to say anything for the moment, Yegeny, and you do not have to show yourself to me yet, though it would make my heart sing to see, but ... you say that you can see a person's feelings. If that is so, then you must be able to tell how I feel about you." Their eyes met and she was thrilled to see the cat's eyes across the table from her now, looking hopeful once more.

"You placed a choice before me in Kiev. You did not think that I would come to this conclusion, but I know that you had a hope, even if you cannot admit it to yourself. I saw this in your wonderful eyes that night. So I now place a choice before you, because I have a hope as well. It is this hope which brought me here more than anything. I need only for you to decide here. I really have no more use for the ring if I am to be here as only a gardener or even if I am no longer with you at all, since you tell me that I am free. So if you want, then take the ring the rest of the way off my finger, and I will know what my role is to be here. But ..."

She paused to take a breath and hoped that she had the courage for this.

"Push it back on, Yevgeny, and then find the words for what you want of me, and I will not need to sleep there in the guest house. I will be where I have wanted to be since the second night there in Kiev, in your arms if you want me to be, like the wonderful man or the beautiful creature. Either way, please make your choice. Take it off and I only garden. Push it back on and you have a small and grateful woman to love you, one who is proud to wear your mark on her."

Yevgeny was astounded. "But, we do not know if we will be able to stand each other," he said.

"So?" She smiled at him. "You're right, of course, but you had a hope when you made your decision to help me. You can have any woman, I think, or almost any one when you look like a man."

She smiled at him in a hopeful way and he could see that she'd given this long consideration and thought as she'd journeyed to come to him.

"But you chose me. I have lived that moment when I first looked into your eyes as you smiled over and over thousands of times, Yevgeny. I know what I saw there. I saw you fall in love with me in that instant. You're the only one who ever has. If I'd known then what came to me only hours and days later, you'd have seen the very same thing in my eyes. You think that I ought to fear you, but I can say that I don't."

She sipped her coffee, "You are the only one that I have ever really wanted."

She smirked, "I know what I look like. I am not bad to look at, but I am small. I am not plain, but I am not a long beauty. I plan to spend a little money to get contact lenses and I hope that I can have some consultant offer suggestions so that I might be able to do my best with what I have. At best, I am pretty."

He shook his head vehemently, "You are wrong, Oksana. You are beautiful."

She smiled softly, "Thank you, but your words only add strength to mine. For some reason, I am what you want. I know it, and you must be able to see that I want to love you. For one such as you, who pulled me out of a sure slide into a shitpool and who now wants to place me in a lovely garden in the warm sunshine? I can do a lot more than fly halfway around the world. I'd have walked and swam to get here if I had to somehow."

She indicated the ring with her finger on top of his. "I am not trying to force you to decide in my favor. I only wish to make you see that this ring, this mark, everything, is not the only magic here. You would not believe what magic I am prepared to work for you, though I know nothing of the subject."

Oksana shrugged, "We might not get along all of the time, it is true," she looked at him, "but you ought to know what I am offering. Put this ring on over the mark again, and whatever you need from me is yours. You don't even have to tell me that you love me. I saw enough to know then, and I am looking at all that I need to see in your eyes right now. Only tell me that you love me if you can and that you want me here with you, and this will be my place in this world. It will be all the sunny garden that I need to grow in."

He stared at her for a long moment and then nodded. "Alright," he said, "You need to know only a little more about why, since I have just realized it myself from your kind words. You might want a last chance afterward," he smiled.

Drawing a breath, he said, "I am quite obviously not the same as you are. You're right, I don't have an affliction, it only feels that way to me --" he leaned forward a little, "but not with you here. You make it feel as though it's a blessing. You make me feel good just to breathe again. I don't belong here, and I can never return. But I feel something else now that I didn't think was possible at all. So please, Oksana, stay here with me."

He looked at her with a bit of sadness. "I am the only one like me here. Our females are quite a bit smaller than the males and we are stronger in what we do, but they are better gifted at planning and can accomplish much with us. We make a life-pair once we are mated. Perhaps now it becomes clear that I am also drawn to you and why. If you wish to spend nights with me, you will see all that I am, and probably more than you wanted, I am afraid. I would never wish to hurt you, but I think that you wish to mate with me. This is something which I have been feeling from you for some minutes now. I only hope that you survive it. Do you want to change your mind now?"

He almost smirked knowingly when he saw her raise her hand, but he didn't because what he felt from her hadn't changed, so he waited.

"Just so that I know, Yevgeny, are there the same, or similar parts involved between us, and do you think that the actual act is possible?"

"Yes," he said, "very similar. I have done this with a woman here before, but only once. She lived, I should tell you." Oksana almost laughed at his smile.

"And," she continued, "are the ... dimensions roughly similar? I do not wish to be torn apart, after all."

"Roughly," he said, "Think of it this way, what women have here must be able to pass a baby in labor, generally. It is the same with us, but the young are smaller."

"So you do not usually kill your females while mating with them?"

He shook his head, "We do not hurt them either."

Oksana smirked, "They do not shrivel up and blow away, or catch fire because of it?"

"Not so far," he smiled, "in all of our long history."

She smiled, "Well what could possibly go wrong then?"

The tension eased for him as they laughed.

"No," she shook her head comfortably, "you can tell me later. You can show me later." She took a sip of her coffee and nodded, "I do want to - mate -- with you if we can manage that, sometime anyway if we have the pieces between us that will fit. For now, I know all that I need to." She touched his fingers very softly and then pointed at his chest.

"Somebody in there already loves me. And I love that somebody. That's all that I need to know."

Yevgeny laughed softly and couldn't believe that he could feel happy. He bowed his head to thank her in his way and then looked up and said "You were right about me that night, Oksana. It wasn't anything that I'd planned or even had the thought of, but I have been calling Kirrill several times a week, never telling him why I was calling, but I'm certain that I drove him to wonder himself about me for how much I asked for news about you. Thank you for such trust."

He gently held her hand still and stared down with his eyes on fire. She felt the warmth of it again, hoping that in spite of his words, that he wasn't removing his mark. She was relieved when he turned her hand over and continued for a moment. Finally, he looked at her softly and then gently pushed the ring all the way on. She got up from the table and walked to him, motioning him to push back the chair a little. "I do not need much room," she said, "you may have noticed this."

When he pushed his chair back a little, she sat on him and put her arms around his neck. Then she thought of what he'd done and wanted to see. She pulled back her hand.

Oksana looked at the ring on her hand with a soft smile, "Thank you for such kindness."

"It is not only that," he said in almost a half-whisper. "It is as a sign of ... I think the words would be hopeful intent."

Her eyebrows rose and she freed her other hand to pull the ring away a little. It was a little hard to see, but the tiny little leaves were now filled in with green, and the whole thing now encircled her finger.

She looked into those deep eyes and kissed him with everything she had.