P.O.O.F. Happens

Primi Capitis, Primus Territory

Friday, 13 th September, 49 Aevum Magia

E xcellent work today, Pako, the photo shoot director, Elasha, praised me as I shook out the ache in my arms while walking out of the surf.

Thanks, I grunted, more akin to the brutish ways my people were perceived than I usually portrayed but I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was change and go home after the long evening of being shouted at, sneered at, and treated more like the help than a fellow model. I made my way toward the outdoor showers to rinse the sand and salt off.

The dark elf that I’d spent half the time holding in one pose or another out of the ocean huffed past me with his nose in the air like the entitled brat he was. I was surprised he hadn’t demanded that I carry him across the sand so he didn’t get dirty, but then again, I’d have to lay my…what did he call them? Oh yes. Filthy and calloused hands on him again. I smiled broadly at him, making my gold-ringed tusks more prominent.

I turned the waterspout on, bracing myself for the chilly water that hit me. He was lucky that orcs had evolved over the millennia past our tribal and warring ways. But one thing that stayed with us was our sense of pride, and while being used more like a prop than an intelligent being hurt my pride at times, the money was decent. I didn’t make as much as other models did, but it was enough to keep my studio apartment and maintain my regime that kept my skin soft and my hands clearly callous-free.

While my outer skin was thicker than most, I had to build my inner skin. I hadn’t been prepared for the prejudice when I moved to the Terran dimension from my home on Magnus. While some considered our tribal lands barely evolved past our nomadic ways, we did have a capital that was as modern as Mythtalas. As one of the ley line nexus points that connected all three dimensions together, Mythtalas was the height of nature, magic, and technology fusion that housed millions of people.

The water cascaded off my dark, mossy skin and I closed my eyes as I ducked my head under the spray, getting my white locks wet and free from the goop they put in it to keep its style despite the salt water. It’d take a more thorough cleansing when I got home, but I needed at least the initial rinse to feel free from not just the crap they put on me physically but the crap those assholes had piled on me emotionally during the sunset photo shoot.

I shut the water off and grabbed two towels from the stand at the edge of the showers. I had a lot of body to dry and the towels were always so small. I went into the parking lot where the modeling agency had set up a makeup/dressing room trailer for the day.

The trailer was decent-sized, but with three other models, it quickly became claustrophobic. I pushed through to the back, where I had my duffle bag sitting on a table, or it had been sitting when I left. I started to confront the other models when Trixie, one of the agency’s imps, materialized next to me with it in hand.

I sighed and tried not to take my annoyance out on the imp as he offered it to me. Thank you for keeping it safe, Trixie.

It’s my pleasure, Mister Pako. With a small bow, he disappeared before I could admonish him for adding Mister before my name. But truly, I wished that he didn’t have to safeguard my things. They weren’t expensive, but some of the models didn’t think my species should be viewed as what they considered beautiful.

I changed out of the swim shorts and into my more comfortable cotton pants. Donning a loose-fitting tunic-style shirt and my favorite sandals, I made my way back out of the too-quiet trailer. As soon as I closed the door, the trailer erupted in chatter. One thing I made out as I got as far away as I could was, Whoever thought it was a good idea to let monsters grace the cover of ezines should be shot.

I was pretty sure it was the damn elf, but knowing didn’t stop me from physically cringing at being called a monster. Muscles burned as my whole body tensed abruptly with the instinctive urge to rip my claws into their smug faces. Who was he to call me a monster? It wasn’t like his species had a squeaky-clean past. No one did. All species, from elves to dragons to humans to unicorns, for ancestors’ sake, had all done things they weren’t proud of.

I closed my eyes and took a slow breath in, letting the sound of the ocean soothe my frayed temper. A monster was a being who was evil, immoral, and scary. Anyone could be a monster, but all things that defined a monster, in my opinion, were internal, not external. The most gorgeous creature you’d ever seen could be a monster. It had nothing to do with looks or species but everything to do with heart or lack thereof.

Swamped with a heaviness that was as much emotional as physical, my heart calmed with my breath. Feeling more centered, I moved to lean against the agency van and waited for the driver to return. With the sun fully set, the beach and ocean became dark, ominous things for those who couldn’t see past the lights that lined the top of the beach area. But for those of us who had superior night vision, the beach only appeared as it did on those days when clouds covered the sky from end to end.

I wasn’t alive when the vampires led The Uprising and took control of this dimension from the humans. But I’d seen plenty of pictures in the archives to know what Earth, as the humans had called it, looked like before. I much preferred the more harmonious balance between nature and modern technology the cities had adopted after The Uprising.

I stared out across the sand. An eerie glow shone through the water, an indication of the flora that was transplanted from the Shadow dimension to help cleanse the ocean. Lights flickered from an island a little north of us, but a flash of something caught my attention on the sand. Water washed over it but as the wave receded, it sparkled again. Curious, I pushed off the van and jogged back to the water’s edge.

I lost the sparkle, but as the next wave fell back into the ocean, I saw it again to my left. I crouched and swiped some sand away from the small object. The next wave came and I snatched the object out of the sand before it got covered again. I opened my hand, flicked more sand away, and with the next wave, washed the round bit of metal.

The now cleanish coin was gold with an embossed unicorn on one side and the number one on the other in draconian. I didn’t recognize some of the other symbols, but I knew one place I could go to find out more about it.

Iducked through the first set of doors that I came upon without much thought to where I was going before the sudden deluge soaked me to the bone. While it wasn’t unusual for this time of year to get this much rain,