Everyone Ages (XIAOLIN SHOWDOWN)

Dinner Party

(whoop dee dooparoo I'm not dead yet)

A low rumble of dinner conversation ceased. Three hundred eyes looked up at us xiaolin newcomers, disguised as neutral, normal beings. We hung in the glow of their gaze, nervous. We've never had to hide in plain sight before.

Sebastian, the headwaiter scanned up and down the tables for somewhere to seat us. Young waiters and waitresses with perky bow ties and flowing skirts bustled along the diners, stepping neatly over their skirts and jacket tails, serving the soup course.

I know. I know. I couldn't believe it either.

"Make sure not to loose each other." Oliver warned.

Our heads whirled. Before we knew where we were, we'd been seated down at this end of a table. Bowls of a clear soup were set before us. 

We must have thought we were the last of the latecomers. But like the crack of doom, the headwaiter's voice rang out: "All be upstanding for his royal prince, Chase Young!'

Oh no.

A hundred and fifty heylin pushed back from their tables and rose to their feet. A hundred and fifty-four.

We'd been sitting on wooden chairs with plush cushions. But next to me at the end of the table was a chair of English bone china, white with hand painted serpent's eyes. The motto in gold on it read:

Prince 

Sebastian appeared, sweeping back the chair and dusting it off with the hemstitched towel. The same man we've known for years strode up.

He's universally royal? Really real royal? How could he be? I never heard of such a thing among the heylin.  But everybody at our table curtsied and bowed. We did our best despite our shock. He was seated right there at my elbow just an arm away, causing me to push up my masquerade mask. He shall never know.

A crown seemed to be caught in his dense black hair.

"We rarely dine in public." He announced in a carrying voice. "But we thought it might be amusing on the first night of my search." He spoke just over our heads.

My land, he was grand.
He drew himself up, though he was rather tall already. "I am In waiting to assume a royal rank. It is tradition. The heylin royalty has never made a move without our men. Who might you be?"

He observed e. His teeth seemed to be particularly sharpened that night, and his breath was almost cripplingly minty, but he was very sharp eyed.
"I am.. Alice," I said, holding my breath - Alice is a common name.Use it on the spot. As long as I don't give out my last name. I was squeaking, petrified.
"This is my brother.... Ray." I nudged Raimundo.

"O-llie? Ollie, Kimmy, and Chris.." I named the other three off.

Chase leaned nearer me. His breath took mine away.
"And where does your capital reside?" His hair was knotted and his crown wasn't pure gold, but you better have an answer for him.

"Asia, though we are an older elite-"

"Asia? Asia?" Chase gripped the bone china chair arm. "Do you reside around China?"

"Well, no," I lied. What a gossipy place a ship is.

"The others from Asia.. China in particular, have already made an unfortunate impression." Chase bent still nearer, "My god, Spicer."

Oh, we were in over our heads now. Heads and ears. "we know of Spicer.." I sayy in mock disgust in attempt to fit in.
"The world is a much smaller place than it seems." He confirms.

His eyebrows rose high. "And what is the purpose of your journey? To attend the king, my father's great jubilee for my wedding?"
Everybody at our end of the table was naturally all ears. "Well, yes." I said, never realizing  about the Jubilee.

"Asia is off to a very poor start, I'm bound to say. We've fallen at the first fence." Chase shook his head. "Moreover we've picked the wrong crowd, in our own league. We are sailing very short of rank."

We didn't know what to think. Our brains buzzed.

He snapped a finger in the air, and three waiters nearly fell on her.
"Take away this soup!" he commanded. "It is entirely too clear!"

Our dinner had run to twelve courses. The remains of the pudding churned inside me. The night stretched before us.

"I could go see katnappe," Raimundo muttered.
"She'd be glad to see me when she-"
"I wouldn't count on it, Raimundo," I said. I talked him into sleeping in his room. Kimiko and I went into our room.

I wouldn't sleep a wink, but I wanted Kimiko where I could see her.

You were wondering about Omi? So was I. Oliver had taken charge of him soon after dinner. He spirited Omi off to a room he ran as a dormitory for travelling Heylin boys, the more we could fit in, I guess.
Omi went gladly. Too gladly, if you ask me.

Kimiko and I lay in our beds. How lumpy our beds were. Kimiko was asleep at once, snoring loudly.  What a provoking girl. The ship wallowed, and the ocean was a mile deep. She ought to be terrified. But she was sawing logs in my ear, and dreaming.

I can read her mind, she's pretty smart. Xiaolin dream of nothing but good and evil. But she was dreaming of Oliver. She sighed. Sea spray dashed at our portholes. Every rolling wave carried us farther from the only world we knew. I was almost homesick for Dojo.

I may have dozed just slightly when an unearthly meow jarred me awake. All the hair on my body stood up. Then another human-like imitated meow. Heylin.

It was Katnapped. I got up and tiptoed to the door where I peeked into the boys room, over a hard-asleep Clay. Behind me, Kimiko murmured, "Oh, Oliver, We can't," out of some ridiculous dream.

Katnappe was struggling to wake Raimundo up quietly. She was in a black night-dress. Her short hair was a mess.
"Oh, Rai wake up."

The cabin tilted. The hangers in the closets clashed and tinkled. Unknown things rolled around the floor. Katnappe was trying everything. She lunged for him.
Panic rose in my throat. What a shock for us all if Clay were to wake up.

Raimundo woke up with a jolt and looked at her, stroking his own cheek. "But you can't be.."
Katnappe drew back on her knees and rearranged the tail that she sewed onto her nightgown. She cocked her little face again with a smile.
"But how did you find me?" Raimundo was thunderstruck. "How the hell?"
"I just guessed!" she giggled quietly.

"You mean you just went room surfing?"

That was exactly what Katnappe meant to tell him.
Hugging Katnappe, Raimundo whispered. "oh, Ashley!" Which seemed to be Katnappe's real name. "I'm so glad to see you. It's so fucking hard to be on a ship full of enemies."

They were soon into one of their murmuring conversations. As if they'd never left China. As if I wasn't just right here behind the door, just out of earshot.
I am too proud to eavesdrop so I could only keep the door slightly cracked and wedge myself back into bed, with my pillow gouging into my head and a stuffed animal's nose in my ear.

"Oh, Oliver," Kimiko murmured from deep in a dream, "Do we dare?"

How I longed for home then. The temple even.
We'd been led away from all we knew in order to take down what we've been in a never ending tug-of-war with for years. Now look at us.
Katnappe (Ashley!) and Raimundo as if the two weren't enemies by league. And Kimiko, who was either terrified, lovesick, or sound asleep. And Omi gone gladly off into the unknowable world of heylin boys. Pure heylin indeed.
I am Alice Caterwall, the xiaolin monk of void, I reminded myself in the dark of that night. But I felt like Alice Caterwall, the only.

I could have wept.