Drowning Utopia

Chapter 20: Unwelcome

"Great." Tessa huffed under her breath as she turned back to Viloria, but to her surprise, the mysterious noblewoman was gone. She looked about, trying to spot any sign of the scarlet-clad guest, but to no avail.

Donny, on the other hand, was just in the middle of a joke that Tessa had heard a thousand times when he spotted her. The inventor braced herself as she heard him exclaim with a dramatic flair, "My dear Miss Copperfield!" She spun around and offered a quick look as he herded his throng to her.

"How have you been, darling? It has been far too long!" With a bow, Donny Marlow gracefully kissed her hand with a flourish of grandiose movements that would be best served on a stage play, yet he somehow made it look natural in the public setting.

Almost automatically playing along, Tessa gave him a curtsy, falling into character with ease, "Lord Gering, it is an honor to see you again." She gave him a piercing glare hidden under a smile that perhaps was a bit too wide to express genuine happiness, "Whatever are you doing here?"

Donny gave a mischievous grin and a wink as he turned to his targets. "My friends, this young rose is the lovely Miss Tessa C. Copperfield, the genius behind some of the most miraculous technologies that have graced these halls. If there were ever someone who could get you the technology you see here today, it would be her."

Well, at least I know where "Lady Viloria" most likely heard of my exploits, Tessa thought as she covertly stepped on his foot to silence him as she curtsied to the others, "Why, Lord Gering, you flatter me, but I must say that you are far too fulsome of my talents." She asked with a tilt of her head, "And who are your friends?"

One by one Donny introduced Tessa to the group he had been talking to, including a somewhat intimidating envoy from the Oni Tribes that altogether distracted Tessa from her previous conversations with Lady Viloria.

"...and this is esteemed Xo-Xing. He is the elder of the Dona Tribe of his people to the west."

As a young girl, Tessa had been told to fear the Oni, or "Fiends," as the colonists first called them. The term eventually became a derogatory slang. Along with the other exotic and strange natives of the mainland of New Albion, such as the well-built Jotnar, or the aquatic Mir, the Oni seemed strange, and otherworldly.

However, in her studies of the hominoid beings known as the Oni, and what her grandfather had told her about his few encounters with those that he had worked with hunting for treasure, they were not that different than any other race. Far from the supposed evil and fiendish nature that the church of Rim would portray them as.

However, their alien bodies were no less intimidating in person than in the textbooks and sketches that Tessa had seen. To her, the Oni appeared to have more in common with the beasts of lost folklore than reality.

Carlyle Xo-Xing was an excellent example of his race. Standing at least six feet tall on digitigrade feet, he possessed a long thick whip-like tail that lashed back and forth, with a set of swooping horns protruding from his head. Tessa knew that their horns varied in size, shape, and placement, typically smaller on females, yet their catlike slits for pupils were almost exclusively encircled by red or gold irises with a variety of skin tones and hair colors.

Their hands, like their feet, possessed thick claws for nails, and their teeth had a distinctly canine quality to them. These features were no exception on the man in front of Tessa. Even with his stately clothing, a stylish cravat and epaulets made of feathers instead of tassels (an element of his own people's wardrobe blended with that of the New Albanese fashion), Xo-Xing gave a very imposing silhouette, nothing less than monstrous. Even so, in a broad sense (excluding the fore-mentioned glaring traits), his lean, muscular body was still very human in shape and dimensions.