The Princess and the Peasant

	And it was as I sat there, thinking about how the last few days played out, that her tail wrapped around my waist. She pressed her chest into my back, practically nibbling on my ear as she apologized for the wait and slid the plastic bowl in front of me.
	“Does this displease you?” She asked quizzically, her head cocked to the side and her ornamental charms dangling and clinking off of one another. I don’t know what drew more looks, the good nine feet of purple tail or the headdress that the (alleged) Princess insisted on wearing around. I wasn’t used to the attention that came along with being in public with one of her kind. Come to think of it, I wasn’t used to much attention at all. I was still quick to calm her concerns.
	“No no, this is fine.” I said with a hastily assembled smile. She beamed back at me before looking down at the bench, confusion playing out on her face. I felt mortified.
	“We can always find somewhere else to sit!” I said quickly. But the (alleged) Princess Chione quickly slid her serpentine body around the bench so that most of her upper body took up most of the bench like it was a reclining loveseat.
	“You see? This is not so bad.” She said triumphantly, turning to look at me again but this time from much, much closer to my own face.
	“Well alright then.” I said clumsily. She didn’t seem to notice or care, too engrossed by the Sunday she had bought for herself.
	“And you are sure this is a food in your country?” She said, gathering a spoonful of whipped cream and cherry.
	“A delicacy where I’m from.” I said with a smile, laughing at my own little joke. On my budget in this economy two ten dollar bowls of ice cream was a treat. Of course, she insisted on paying. That was good enough for her and she began to dig in.
	We had met some two months prior and by luck of the draw found ourselves sitting next to one another in French 102. I was just coming from my 9 AM graduate class on Thucydides and in no mental state to handle human interaction of any kind after a three-hour marathon on the Peloponnesian War and human nature. But Chione quickly warmed up to my presence, finding comfort in someone more inclined to listen to her talk of home and her fifty servants than to talk about anything from this country, most of which she had never heard of or seen before and constantly had to come to me for clarification about. I still remember having to stay late after class to show her how to set up an IPhone on her new computer, which looked to be worth about two months rent from my perspective.
	“And you will put your phone number in my phone correct?” She said excitedly, the silver in her hair and on her head clinking as her head jerked from computer screen to me. Golden eyes shining with an unnerving intensity.
	“Sure I don’t see why not.” I’d said innocently enough. That was about a week ago, and I’d eventually had to ask her to stop texting me at 4 AM because I’d gone over my limit. Poor girl looked crushed and I felt guilty after so I ended up giving her my email address, too. Parahumans were still new to our country and I had to Google what exactly an ‘Apophis’ was, but I shouldn’t have because Chione delighted in telling me the many qualities of her race. Apparently in her country, her mother had led a coup against the government and ruled with a silk glove that hid an iron fist. I had my doubts though because no Saudi-style princess would come to community college.
	Then, it happened.
	“You always look so tired.” She said two mornings ago.
	“Well I’ve got a busy morning before our class.” I said. She shook her head.
	“No. This is not it.” I tried to hide my surprise at the sudden assertiveness.
	“In my country this unacceptable. The royal consort must always have energy! How else will he see to his spouses needs?” She asked, fully expecting an answer to my question.
	“I didn’t know we were dating.” I blurted out with an awkward laugh. I looked around for a lifeline but by then the other students in the vicinity had grown tired of Chione’s questioning, gloating, or criticizing and pointedly ignored the conversation I knew damn good and well they could hear.
	“It is February 18th, 2017.” She said, consulting the screen of her phone for a second.
	“No no, like dating.” I said, digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper.
	“What is dating?” She asked, her thick songlike accent coming out in force any time she had to admit she didn’t know something.
	“You know, like romantic partners.” I said through a blush.
	“Oh!” She said excitedly. Loudly. Heads finally turned. But she did not care in the slightest. She then began to look at me critically, taking in my dirtied blue jeans and neutral black t-shirt. I felt the need to say something, to do something.
	“Would you like to go out sometime?” I said.
	“Yes!” She declared, the word coming out as more of a sound than anything else. And now here we were. Sitting in the park on a sunny afternoon eating ice cream, like a normal regular date. Chione was upset with me for not explaining the concept of ‘brain freeze’ and I was putting my all into suppressing a laugh, which her highness would not have approved of.
	“So why here?” I asked her as a way of distracting from her unpleasantness.
	“What do you mean?” She said, her face scrunched up.
	“I mean why did you choose to come here? I imagine a Princess like yourself could have gone to Paris or London or Hong Kong.”
	“Yes, I could have chosen anywhere I wanted.” She asserted.
	“And I decided I wanted something....normal.” She said after a moment’s hesitation.
	“Here I thought I was rather extraordinary.” I said with a grin. She nodded along with this, throwing me off completely and creating a silence she exploited.
	“Growing up in the court is tiring is all it is.” She said, leaving out words like ‘isolating’ or ‘lonely’. But I could imagine them being there in her mind when she first formed the sentence.
	“I imagine it must be.”
	“But here everything is so exciting! The other day I received an email telling me I could pair something called Hulu to my music account for only $12.99 a month! We do not have things like this in my country.” I had to laugh at that. We continued to chat like this until we had both finished our ice cream, Chione taking joy in the things I took for granted while I reflected on the chasm that sat between us.
	“You must think I’m from another planet.” I said to her when it came time for me to talk.
	“Then it is a good one.” She said quickly, looking at me and smiling warmly. Before I could say anything to that her face lit up even further.
	“Oh! Look there!” She said, jerking my arm up to point at a storefront.
	“Parahuman Apparel?”
	“Let us go inside.” She said, dragging me with a strength I found rather intimidating. I’d never seen so many Parahumans in one place before, and that old image of the dragged-along-boyfriend came to mind almost at once. But as I looked around I couldn’t help but notice two things. 1) The clothing here was rather risqué and 2) the men seemed to be having almost as much fun as the women.
Out of curiosity I picked at a price tag to a dress that looked like it was designed with multiple legged women in mind. I quickly let go of the dress upon seeing the triple digits.
	“You’d have to haggle with them, that stuff is way to expensive.” I said.
	“Haggle?” Chione asked.
	“The art of lowering the price of something through negotiation.” I said sagely.
	“I understand.” She said, nodding deeply. There was something playful about her but before I could figure it out she began dragging me over to the section that looked to be designed with her kind in mind.
	“Do you think this is cute on me?” She asked, holding up a lacey black nightgown.
	“I wouldn’t know!” I said, looking away embarrassed. She giggled at my response and folded it over her arm.
	“Perhaps soon you will.” She said suggestively.
	“Don’t you think you’re moving rather fast?” I asked.
	“My mother and father consummated their marriage three hours after meeting.” She said shamelessly.
	“Come. We will pay.” She said to me while I stood there agape.
	“Yes, My Princess.” I said dramatically.
	“Good.” She linked her arm around mine, evidently pleased with my mock groveling. I think she thought I was being genuine.
There was a rather bored looking woman behind the counter who gingerly took the thin piece of fabric and began to fold it up for packaging.
	“That is going to be $679 dollars Miss.” I suppressed a gasp. But Chione didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. She reached into her bag. She smiled politely, and then in a lilting voice declared for the whole store to hear:
	“You can do better!” My gasp was nothing compared to the collective gasp that went around the tiny store. The woman behind the counter looked from her to me and then back at Chione, looking hard like she was about to suddenly become telekinetic. Chione sighed and said something under her breath I didn’t quite catch before reaching into her purse. Pulling out an ID, she handed it to the now fully alert woman behind the counter who took it and suddenly became very panicked.
	“I’m very sorry Miss Chione! Please forgive me let me get my manager.” She said quickly, running off before I could say anything. I turned to Chione, who was smiling triumphantly and watching the other woman go.
	“Servants should know their place.” She said to my inquisitive look.
	“What was that all about?” I pressed.
	“My family owns this chain of stores.” She said with a toothy grin.
	“Holy shit.” I said under my breath. She giggles at that.
	“So you’re not faking it.”
	“Faking what?” She asked.
	“The whole Princess thing.”
	“I am not! Who thinks this?” She said indignantly, bringing herself up to her full height. She was taller than me and I was 6 foot two. I gulped a little.
	“Everyone figured you weren’t actually royalty.”
	“Everyone?” She asked, deflating a little. I nodded.
	“Did you?” She pressed, taking on a surprisingly sheepish and embarrassed look. The manager came over to throw himself at her mercy though, and I was saved from answering. We paid in silence and exited the store.
	“This has been fun.” I tried. She turned to look at me, the confidence of the previous few hours gone and replaced by something much more vulnerable looking.
	“You do not think this is too much do you?” She said.
	“This what?” I asked. Chione gestured to the headdress and the silver and gold that adorned her body as if that would explain everything.
	“Well do you like it?”
	“I don’t know...” She said.
	“I like it. You should, too.” I said, boldly reaching my arm out to pull her closer to me as we walked. She blushed, tensing for one moment before relaxing in my embrace.
	“I knew you did.” She said, the old confidence reasserting itself.
	“Oh yea?” I said playfully.
	“You could not keep your eyes from me. It was very flattering.”
	"I couldn't?" She nodded.
	"You like to look."
	“Well you’re a beautiful woman. I imagine the boys must line up for you.”
	“They do. But I get to choose.” She said.
	"Whatever will they say about that, a Princess and her peasant lover?" She looked at me slyly from the corner of her reptilian eyes.
	"They will say we are faking it." We laughed at that,her hand finding mine as we continued to walk down the street, into the warm afternoon air.