Chosen Bride of the Seven Dark Princes

Poppy pulled the fencing mask over her face and carried her sword onto the fencing piste where the match was to be held.

Her opponent was already there. He looked tall and formidable, but Poppy was no joke. She had been fencing since her early teen years.

They began to parry and lunge at each other—attack and riposte, neither giving nor losing much ground.

Her opponent had height and weight on her. Poppy had speed and agility. They seemed to be fairly evenly matched and the duel continued for some time until with a final shout, her opponent hit the final touch and won the match.

"Good job." He called out.

"Thanks." Poppy muttered and turned away, sweating buckets.

Any match where she had to work that hard, whether she won or lost, was a good match. Still losing was not preferable to winning.

She pulled off her fencing mask and threw it at her handler, letting loose a cascade of shoulder-length deep red hair into the light. It was damp with sweat and dangling down her back like clumpy red strings.

She was definitely not a pretty sight, but Poppy didn't care. She was an Erenveil warrior. What was a bit of sweat and funk?

As she walk into the back area, Poppy unstrapped her arm bands and detached the sword wires. Without a word, she handed her sword and gloves to her handler.

Her white fencing outfit was drenched in sweat so she began stripping even before she made it into the shower.

As the warm water streamed across her face, Poppy closed her eyes and tried not to think about anything. Too much had been happening lately, none of it very good.

The war had been dragging on and on, causing people to become weary of fighting.

At first, it was just a few border skirmishes between the battle-hardened outliers comprised of avians and insectoids who had been scuffling over the same old tired territory.

Eventually, it had involved the Larouche Gardens insectoids and the avians of Coraline Moons. Fighting was now intense around that area, with neither side gaining much ground before being pushed back again.

It was the inevitable culmination of an ancient clash. Both sides laid claim over the territory, calling it holy space belonging to their ancient ancestors who were ironically enough, humans.

Poppy sighed.

The term 'Holy Space' was so oxymoronic. There was no such thing because the Erenveilian galaxy was in constant motion as it orbited around another galaxy.

What they fought over was the relative distances between the various worlds that were also spinning in their own orbital voyages around their home stars.

But it was a truism that the more knowledge was available, the less people were inclined to care about the truth. In the end, what they thought were truths was good enough for them, irregardless of whether the truths were really true or not.

She squeezed lime-scented soap onto her hair and body and scrubbed herself until her skin tingled.

Inhaling the fresh sparkling scent, Poppy laughed as she remembered Jason complaining at one point that she smelled like dishwashing liquid soap.

What they didn't realize was that she and Slate shared one thing in common.

Whereas Slate only wanted to see a clean white environment around him to escape the bloody filth of war, she only wanted to surround her senses with fresh citrus scents to replace the smell of blood, vomit, feces, and all the charred, burned bodies that came with heavy intense fighting.

It was the sad consequence of being a warrior who could never escape the frequent visitations of post traumatic stress brought on by horrific memories of violent encounters.

By the time Poppy emerged from the hot shower, her stomach was complaining. She needed food.

Her handler had laid out another set of clean space warrior black bodysuit for her, along with the insignias that identified her as Commander of Dante's armed guards, the Special Forces.

Poppy threw on the clothes and made her way to the dining hall to fill her stomach.

She had a couple of hours at least, before she had to meet up with Dante and Slate for their weekly overview meeting. It would be time for her to destress and just rest her tired mind and body.

The dining hall was filled with people from across the sector of space she was currently patrolling.

Some were visiting dignitaries that had been caught in the crossfire. Others were business executives who were enroute to take care of urgent emergencies and had found themselves stranded.

Here and there were a few youths, students far away from their own home world. There was even a young mother with two small children.

All were displaced due to the war which was dragging on for longer than it should.

As the attendant brought her a platter of what looked to be some sort of thick vegetable and mystery meat stew over mounds of rice, she blew on a spoonful of the food and stuffed it into her mouth, uncaring of what it tasted like.

This was not high level eating. This was just to quell the stomach's rumblings.

"Mind if I join you?" A male voice asked in formal polite Erenveilian speech.

Poppy looked up.

It was the man who had beaten her at fencing not an hour ago.

"Be my guest." She indicated the chair across from her with a careless wave.

He gave her a grateful smile, set down his platter filled with steaming hot food that looked to be of the same caliber as what she was eating, and sat down.

Even though he had showered and cleaned up, just as she had, she could still catch his basic smell, a musky sweet cinnamon scent that reminded her of a warm tasty dessert.

He wore basic white bodysuit—a safe nondescript color which tagged him as a neutral. It was what most intergalactic travelers wore to remain neutral and prevent people from misidentifying them with one faction or another.

There were no other identifying badges or insignias on him to give a hint as to his home world. For all intents and purposes, he could be a ship captain or a deck hand. There was no way to tell.

The man was quite tall with a wiry frame that was deceptively strong. She knew how strong he was from the way he so handily beat her at one sport that she was truly good at.

He had thick shimmering silken strands of silver hair hanging slightly past his shoulders. It was the kind of hair that would be found on dolls and tiny lap dogs, not on strong dominant males.

His skin was almost translucent they were so pale—and so flawless it was as if they were made of the most precious magnolia petals.

His eyes were a light crystal blue that looked out on a world with the kind of rare joy that young children exhibited. His lips were a lush deep pink that reminded her of the kind of face that belonged on a doll—sharp cheek bones, high thin nose, and a pointed chin.

Even his pale petal ears were pointed at the tips.

"So.. What, pray tell, is an elf doing on my ship?" Poppy's eyes crinkled with a slight smile.