Victor

  The princess leaped to her feet, eyes sparkling, "wind is one of my specialties! Let me show you," she said, with an eager look upon her face, "So, first, I can change the direction and speed - watch!"

  A breeze started, blowing our hair to the left, then it abruptly increased in speed and went the opposite direction. She raised her hands up, causing an even faster updraft - Christ, princess don't do that while wearing a skirt!

  I averted my gaze, turning red in the process. I could not unsee that nor could I erase the knowledge that elves don't wear underwear that I had just inadvertently acquired.

  Finally she threw her hands down and I felt the press of air on my head. I half expected her to start singing "be very quiet, I'm hunting wabbits" after a display like that.

  "Impressive," I said, sincerely.

  She winked, "I'm not remotely done," she said, and began incanting again.

  This time, the winds within the room swirled around like a damn indoor tornado, I gave a start but steadied myself.

  "A teensy whirlwind like that will last about five minutes if I don't concentrate on it…now pay attention to my hair and clothes," suddenly, she cast another spell.

  At first I didn't know what had changed but then I realized that while the winds were still blowing it had no effect whatsoever on her. Oh. I see. She made a bubble of calm air, is that it?

  Calm air?

  Oh. Hell. Yes.

  I immediately leaped forward, placing my hands on her forearms and cried, "can you shape that zone of dead wind in any way you want? Can you?"

  "I-er-I suppose so but um," she looked at my hands, then I yelped and let go of her after having realized what I'd done in my excitement, "pray, don't grovel, I'd have done the same as you were the roles reversed. I've never tried changing the shape before but…the spell does have a shape portion in its incantation so perhaps. What sort of shape did you have in mind?"

  I brought out my sketchbook and drew up what I knew from my knowledge of physics which shape would be the most aerodynamic.

  The princess nodded, and then started concentrating; I had no way of knowing if it was working since wind is somewhat invisible to the naked eye, but soon all of the wind died down and the princess smiled at me.

  "Yes. I was able to change the shape to your specifications."

  "Okay now for the most important part, can the spell move?"

  She nodded, "yeah, I've cast it on a carriage before during a bad storm and I didn't have to do anything special to it except re-cast it after it wore off."

  I clenched my fists and jumped for joy, "yes!"

  This startled the princess of course, so I calmed myself down and explained. "With this, I think we can reduce wind drag to almost nothing. But we'll need to experiment the next time we go anywhere. Obviously, we would have to be going fast enough for the effect to become apparent and be taking a long enough trip for me to notice, but if it works - I should be able to extend the life of this tank of gas by quite a bit."

  She took my hands into hers, eyes closed, with a bright smile on her face, "I'm glad I could help! After all, you did save my life, this is the least I could do for you."

  I was flustered, "Er uh. Thank you very much, your highness. I reckon we've made a lot of progress. How about we pause our lessons and have a coffee break?"

  Her head tilted, "a coffee break?"

  I nodded, "a tradition in my old world. A time for resting, chatting, and recharging. It is a very important ritual. Why, if it weren't for coffee breaks I reckon the entire American economy would collapse! Give me a moment."

  I fished out the French press from my suitcase, pointed far up enough the cylinder to indicate how much coffee grounds we'd need. The princess happily ground up some more beans, and once I was ready she called forth some boiling hot water. Just a few minutes later I had poured out two cups of black ambrosia. That's the way I liked it. Judging by the mutterings coming from outside, I think that our shadowy guards could also smell it.

  Poor guys, maybe I'd offer them a cup too. The princess was practically intoxicated by the aroma, but when she sipped it she found it to be too bitter for her liking; fortunately, we had ample cream and sugar from my breakfast tray. Two lumps and maybe two tablespoons worth of cream. So, the princess likes it sweet and creamy huh?

  Get your mind out of the gutter, pilgrim, the nagging imaginary Duke scolded me. When she sipped it I could hear her elicit a low moan of contentment. Not helping!

  I coughed, "well anyway," I said, changing the subject and putting on airs, "what would you like to talk about, your highness?"

  "Hmm," she thought for a moment and said, "did you have any family back in your world?"

  "Afraid not - my last living relative was my grandfather and he'd been gone for a few years."

  "I am sorry to hear that," said the princess, lowering her eyes.

  "Eh, he lived to the ripe old age of 98 and I'd gotten to spend a lot of time with him before the end. Never had any siblings, parents died when I was real little so grandpa was the one who raised me. So, you said you're the fourth princess of Anaura, does that mean you have three older sisters? You also mentioned a brother before, right?"

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  The princess nodded, "I am the youngest of six. I have three sisters, as you surmised, and two brothers. I'm the closest with the younger of two brothers, Valyrian - we were only born two hundred years apart. I hardly ever see my eldest brother these days since he's being groomed to become the next king.

  My three sisters are Iylestra, Vardrina, and Sylfaena; I get along with them pretty well I suppose, but Sylfie has a job in a far away kingdom as court mage. The others and I have different priorities.."

  "Oh, how so?"

  She pressed down against her thighs, sitting up firmly, "they're content to lead courtly lives, while I want to see the world!"

  I smiled. The adventurous type? I had gotten that impression of her actually. Originally I reckoned she dressed the way she did for discretion while her double wore the princessy stuff, but now here she was in the same outfit as before: hiking boots on her feet, hooded cloak over her shoulders, and a sword hanging from her belt.

  If I'd been more of an RPG nut like Sakamoto I might have been able to give her a class name, I reckoned, but I'd only played a certain famous MMO back in high school.

  "Yeah, I reckon I'd like to do the same," I sighed, "I'd seen a fair bit of my old world, grandpa and me used to take trips all over and then I did more travelling whenever I was in the army, and then more trips when on break from college. I think I'd like to see more of this world, too."

  The princess stared a moment, and said, hesitantly, "by any chance would you," she paused, then her gaze shifted towards my grocery bag and said hastily, "have you aught to eat? I am - er - beginning to feel a bit hungry."

  I got the distinct impression that she wanted to ask something completely different, but only an idiot would press the issue. I mean come on, she knew fully well that I had food so was there really a need to ask? I shared some of my beef jerky, kettle chips, and berries.

  She happily wolfed it all down. Afterwards I offered her one of my precious few soft drinks - oh, she loved that. Sorry your highness, I don't even know if there's kola trees in this world so the odds of having any more made are not so good I reckon.

  Once she was done dowsing her stomach with sugary drink she enquired: "May we go back to you telling me about the equipment you brought, Sir Victor?"

  I nodded, "happy to indulge you, princess." Huh? Why the look of disappointment? Girls are weird no matter what world, I guess. I sat on the sofa, pulled my bags close to my feet and explained my shaving kit and other things with the princess sitting next to me. None of her reactions were noteworthy to most things, but then she found my baseball and started asking questions.

  "What is this for?"

  "It's called a baseball - it's the ball used in a sport. Also called baseball," I brought out the Rangers hat and showed it to her, and of course I let her try it on, "this is the kind of hat they wear while playing. It's considered America's national pastime."

  I went on to explain the rules and the type of equipment used, and talked about my favorite team, the Texas Rangers. I also mentioned that there was a law enforcement agency by the same name with a long history that I'd be glad to tell her all about. I promised to tell her all kinds of stories about Texas sometime. Then it dawned on me that I had some related photos and videos on my smartphone.

  Well, might as well show it off while it still has power. I'd turned it to airplane mode since I didn't have an internet to access, yeah, no social media, no reddit: and nothing of value was lost.

  I was also keeping it off the majority of the time, so this felt like a good occasion to use it. I opened the gallery app, and started to swipe through my photographs. The princess stared with rapt attention.

  "And this is all done without magic? Wow. Usually only an advanced illusionist can create moving images this good!"

  "It's all data - zeroes and ones," I pointed to the camera, "this thing here takes in light reflecting off of objects and records it. Photo means light and graphy means writing of, you see. Here's a short video of the Rangers vs the Angels; we trounced them but the Angels were kind of a meme for how bad they were back then so it wasn't that big a deal. However, this should give you a better idea of how the game is played."

  The princess nodded, and once the video concluded, I continued, "here's me with my army buddies in our baseball uniforms. That's Sedjiwaski our short stop, that's Graham Smith the right-fielder; we called him Cracker because of Graham Crackers, ah I brought some of those you can try later. That's Jose Martinez, the first baseman whom we called Smoky Joe.

  That's Johnny Hogan the left-fielder; since his actual name was already pretty cool-soundin' we didn't give him a nickname. That's Kenny Sakamoto the second baseman; his real name is Kenjiro but everybody calls him Kenny. That stick Graham's leaning against is the bat, probably the best pic of one I have on here."

  She pointed at Graham, "oh, he looks like one of the traders from the southern isles, and," she pointed at Kenny, "this gentleman resembles people from across the Dragon Sea!"

  "Ha, that Kenny, a gentleman? No way. So let's see what else I got here…"

  I don't recall how long we spent laughing and looking at pictures. I spent a great deal of time explaining places, locations, history, and the like. Let's see, I showed her photos of the Alamo and talked at length about Davy Crockett. I showed photos from my trip to Cancun, taking care to skip photos where any swimsuits had gone errant.

  I explained my time in college as a sort of photo essay with commentary; there was one comical photo of me trying to eat a huge burger while plastered. I had pics of DC that I took one 4th of July, I explained the significance of each monument and building. I showed pictures of my failed attempt at the Big Texan challenge; she called me crazy and I didn't disagree.

  She stared in wonder at my collection of photos from Zion, Yellowstone,The Grand Canyon, Paris, Mount Fuji, The Golden Gate Bridge, all places I'd been to and could never take her to visit.

  Wait, why was I thinking along those lines anyway? Shouldn't I like, y'know, be lamenting on not being able to go back? Did I even want to at this point, what with all the fresh air and such? I was just about to open my album of the trip me and grandpa took to see all the castles in Europe when - oh.

  Something occurred to me - at some point while we were looking at pictures, Princess Illiana had gotten really close as she leaned in to look at my smartphone - to the point where I reckoned I could feel the heat radiating from her body. I had finally noticed her dominating my peripheral vision and turned to face her.

  Gah! She was very close, and now I was peering into the very windows of her immortal soul, and her own gaze was piercing deep into the very core of my optic nerve. My face was getting hot, and hers had turned a bright shade of crimson, too.

  Badomp. Drums, drums in the deep of my ribcage. Then she closed her eyes, and I instinctively closed mine, and then - a clarion call rang out; someone was ringing the front doorbell, shattering all that tension like a wrecking ball. Then there was a knock, and someone spoke.

  "Master Vic, your highness," I knew that voice!

  "J-jeff old boy, is that you?"

  "If I presume that to be your own informal way of shortening the name Giofriel, then, yes, sir. His royal majesty is calling a war council and requests your presence. I've taken the liberty of having a meal packed for travel."

  Panicked, the princess jumped back up from the sofa, "ah, pardon me, ere we depart I must needs borrow your water closet," she hastily ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Slumping into the sofa, I let out a heavy sigh. "Saved by the bell," I thought.