"Pops, I'm going to be fine. It's just a bath." I mutter, knowing full well he's not going to listen to me, regardless of how simple it is. Daddy's little girl, now and always. As far ahead as the unreachable future and as far back as the blocked out past. Always his daughter.
"In a flowing river," he answers right back, his paws double-checking the barricade he and Hrurim set up. A pile of debris anchored between the shoreline and a boulder from somewhere up above. Enough to disturb the flow and something that can give me a reprieve from the current.
It's not like I don't know how to swim, anyway. Pops made fine work making sure I knew all my essential survival skills even before things turned out the way they did. It was never a trip to a water park or a fishing venture. Professional paranoia, knowing experience, all of it.
My tongue clicks and my eyes roll up and over, setting down with an uncomfortable weight in my iris'. A huff pops out my mouth and Pops gets to tying his caution into an applicable knot. He double-checks that as well, yanking it as hard as he can again and again. I tighten my arms against each other, holding myself to an uncomfortable squeeze, and he finishes up.
"I'll let you have your privacy," Pops says and some snark catches in my throat.
"Obviously, not a little girl anymore." I hiss and he stares, a slight depression to his eyes. He blinks and nods. This uncharacteristic timidity makes my insides twitch uncomfortably.
A slow breath comes out of him and he looks around, "I... I found something I think you might like."
"Hm?" I go, still harbouring the attitude externally, and he comes back with a familiar-looking machine. A couple of thin pieces of card in hand.
"The dining room of the ship had this. Its legs broke, but the player still works." Pops explains, handing me one of the records and I look at the cover art. Serelv's Golden Records. My expression straightens, something of a smile coming to its edges.
"Thank you, Pops." I tell him, shooing him away as I begin to unclip all of my harnesses and packs.
"Oh... Here." Pops goes, his head not facing me. I follow the patterns down his quills and head to his hand. A bottle of shampoo. I take it, my grip lingering on his backhand. He leaves quickly, and I am left to my affairs.
"Water's no doubt going to be cold. Freezing, even. Still, it's something." I complain to myself as I finish with the last of my add-on kit. I arrange it across the floor, tidying the mess up so I have some idea where everything is. An arm goes around to my back, finding the zip of my main suit, and I pull. A shiver shakes me to a stop, and my eyes linger on the record player.
Smiling at my imagination, I sashay over and flip up the record holder. The front cover goes away and I bite my lip as I read through the list on show. Fourteen songs and all of them some of Preslav's finest early work. Songs that mean all the more to me because they're his versions of songs I grew up hearing.
The kind of songs families in all the back alleys and ghettos know about. No matter where we ended up while me and Pops were still underground, we'd hear these songs. Communities that don't have much always find all the more reason to share when they can. Everyone's in it together and soon, all I had other than Pops was a single, consistent voice.
A striking superstar of unbelievable energy and a hook in every hwardlette's heart. I could never go home if I wanted, not while Pops has business to take care of. But, while I have Serelv, I have all the connections I could ever want. A man I've never met and probably never will is what reminds me that there are good memories down here.
I sniffle, escaping my unfortunate thoughts, and I focus my attention back on the song list. Fourteen of them, I like them all. Surface Pest, Love for You, Shaken About, Excessive, A Heart for Me, Party at the Stockades and... Break my Heart, at the Hotel...
A digit runs along the instructions and I set the black disc in place, the needle running about until it finds what I am forcing it to. The songs go by, lyrics interrupted without pause. Some words never even come out, the starting tune never quite able to take off. And, when I find it, I finally let it play.
My next breath carries with it the stress making me stiff, even if I know I'll breathe it back in. The sounds of rushing water are all but blocked out and all I can hear is the starting tune to my favourite singer's song. A strange piece, it is, 'Break my Heart, at the Hotel.' It doesn't sound like a song at first. They recorded it like a film running in someone's house.
A bushel hits the hardwood ground of a set long taken apart and the music begins. I smile and sigh as I return my paws to the zipper. My hips bounce gently to the beat and I pull down and down, freeing myself of the constraints of Pops' lifestyle. Though I am covered in short and soft fur, the change in temperature still makes me shiver.
Shivers only made all the better as Serelv's voice lets out its divine tune, "Well, since she told me no. Walking right on away. Well, I checked right on in. Well, certainly makes sense now. This Lonely Street."
Kicking my overalls away, I find myself naked and exposed to the reflections of the crystal clear water. Like handfuls of excited, adventurous fingers, the reflections of light go all across me. Touching me in a way I can only dream I will eventually feel. A moment to remind me that I have the body of a woman, the curves of a young girl with dreams of a family.
Though I will never be anything as impressive as a human or something else. I know I have grown up quite well for a hwardgon my age. What I might lack in sheer volume, I certainly remind people of with how my shape has come out. Now... If only I had someone to actually share that with.
"OOH!" I let out, dipping my first foot into the water. Though the current is blocked, it still rushes past me, cresting up with splashing energy. My fur, desperate to bring it higher, lets the water climb as it becomes flat with wetness. Its grey shade nearing a pale black. I take in a sharp breath and wade in, sinking down until I am in as high as my hips.
"Although the place is crowded, you still managed to find some room. For all the broken-hearted lovers and those left behind. Crying in their gloom. Where we all get so lonely, lonely without you, darling. Well, they're so lonely. So uncomfortably lonely they could die," the record player sings and I pick up the shampoo bottle.
Singing along with Serelv, the record holder art helps reinvigorate my imagination. The delusion breaks and breaks as I lose my voice to humming. My eyes never open, though. I pop open the bottle, treating the water like a pair of arms around my waist and so seductively low. My palm fills whatever scent Pops was able to scavenge, and the films I've seen with Serelv flash through my mind.
Never with the actress he was with, but always with me. A warped, fuzzy me in his arms. I slather myself in the shampoo, gyrating about as I keep myself in my tight rhythm. Never walking too far or quickly on the drowned rocks. A giggle escapes me as I start to see the running off current as being like one of those jealous boyfriends the newstablets always talked about.
Even the films sold themselves with a few plots like that. Serelv comes striding in, piston hips thrusting every which way while those legs never find a moment to rest. He always has a way, Serelv does, he always finds the way to make the song match him. Even the very Mistress Music can't help but love and want for him like a squealing girl. One I never allow myself to be, even in private moments like this.
"Oh... Serelv..." I moan gently as I instinctively apply a naughty amount of pressure across my chest. Another giggle escapes me, and I hold myself back from doing anything inappropriate. I'm before a crowd, on the dance floor with my beloved idol. The darkness of the bedroom is just that, a mystery that I can never fathom until I am there.
My bubble rich paws go into the water, scooping up what they can and splashing it along my front and back. The highest drops build up and run right back down, slipping across my muscles and bones. Outlining them and outlining them all some more. Both paws go into the water and I splash my face with a drowning wave.
It goes through my quills, knocking some bits of dirt out while relodging other bits. It drips through, arriving at the top of my cute bottom and slipping through the gap. I shiver, quaking my rear end with an innocent shake to help the water up there. Still, I cannot imagine as anything other than all the rumour you hear about famous people and their fans. Those scandalous moments where the man on top of the world finds a moment to take you up there with him.
Oh, to have a moment like that, I want it more than any other girl in the world and no one else can possibly understand. The ones normally in these stories, they have all the chances in the world to be the girls that they are. I do not. Though it is unlike any girl in the world, unlike anyone in All-That-Remains. I will fight for that one night with a ferocity that is as terrifying as it is arousing.
An evil giggle escapes me as I walk along to the edge of the safe space in the river. I twist around and dive in, breaking with the help of the opposing current. Picking myself up with an arch to my back and a raised leg on a tensed thigh, I breathe. I let in all the air I can and clean my body of the bubbly build-up.
I pat my chest down, getting rid of those drops catching on my aroused body. I smirk on over to the record player and get out of the water, swinging my hips as if I'm approaching the man himself. They keep on bouncing, an empty tune keeping my legs moving as well. Reaching out, I tenderly hook a finger and take off the needle and spin the record.
It lands back in place and I slap the player back down, an enthusiastic cheek swing departing me. The other half of the record plays without interruption and I go back to my moment of peace and dreams. While my lower half is soaked, it's not particularly washed. So, I get to rubbing in more and more shampoo and whatever else is lying about.
"Quite fitting, you know? Having you sing about a girl's fine legs as I slather them up." I explain to the record player, biting my lips as I stare into the eyes of the creased cardboard image. A forced smile comes to my lips and I get up, accentuating my body shape all the while until my arms are above my head. I force them together, imitating a firm grip where there is none.
Getting back into the water, I dance the chemicals and most of the scent off of my fur. My paw touches the other and my eyes shoot open. The daydreaming comes to an end, and it becomes almost oppressive, the view all around. Stepping back, my bottom presses onto the rocks and planks and what not.
I look up, spreading my paws out behind me and stretching my front open for all to see. One day, one day when this all comes to an end, or even maybe before. I'll have a moment, just one moment where I go to a concert in a pretty dress. I'll doll myself up like all the normal girls and maybe I'll even let my quills grow out more than I usually do. Run a glittered brush across them or tie a little bow made of a bright fabric!
Have that moment where I can be a normal girl... Not the daughter of a hitman on the run from a crime family he used to work with. I sigh and close my eyes as I slip into the water. Keeping my head well above, I rest and let the current take the tension away as I lose myself in the dreams again.
"Didn't you know, Pretty Girl? I am made for loving you and only you forever..." I and the recording sing, a gentle sway keeping me in motion.