Twisted Destiny

“Ami, are you going to keep taking pictures all the time?” Sam leaned into me as we had arrived at Fort St. Elmo. I had been taking quite a few pictures already, it’s true. But this was such a unique location to be at that I really didn’t want to waste the opportunity to capture much of it on my fancy new camera. “I know you want to use your sister’s gift as much as you can, but don’t forget to also see the surroundings with your own eyes.” 

“I won’t forget.” I smiled and lowered the camera for a moment so I could kiss my girlfriend on the cheek after which I quickly turned the camera around and took a picture of me kissing my girlfriend. “Hehe.” 

Sam rolled her eyes and kissed me again as she softly pushed me ahead of her. 

The Fort was an interesting place to visit, as Aurora had said earlier, there was a pretty big museum set up inside of it mostly revolving around the great siege of Malta but it also went over lesser known parts of it’s history like how it was settled and why… general interesting stuff to get to know. Hilda would definitely have had a blast here if she had been able to come along. As for me, the most fun part was seeing the ancient art artifacts they had discovered. Back home we didn’t really have much of this so it was really cool to see it in real life, albeit with a case of glass in between us. We did have some museums which housed artifacts but most were left behind when the climate shift took a turn for the worse and it was not considered economically viable to recover them. To great dismay of anyone who held culture dear to their heart. 

A poke on my cheek brought me back to Earth as Sam had come to stand next to me to look at the display case I was mindlessly staring at. “What are you thinking about, little dreamer of mine?” 

“Nothing, really…” I chuckled softly. 

“Those are some pretty cool coins, aren’t they?” Sam pointed down into the case where a collection of coins in different metals were displayed. 

“Oh, yeah, they are pretty neat. I think I still prefer the golden Dwargon though.” 

“Isn’t that just because those coins are actually yours to use and hold?” 

“Maybe a little.” Sam rolled her eyes and chuckled. “I’m going to go to that case over there, there seems to be a little display about sports in the ancient times.” 

“I’ll come along!” I hopped after my girlfriend and took her hand so I could tag along. 

Our group slowly moved through the entire museum as I suddenly spotted a prime picture opportunity. “Sam, look at that! Such a beautiful spot!” 

“Ami, watch it!” She replied. 

But before I could turn to pay attention to the imminent danger I was being pointed to, I stumbled over a step I had not seen and pretty much tumbled into the stairway nearby, back first. 

It would have been a pretty nasty fall if I didn’t get caught in someone’s arms. “Hey there, little lady. Are you okay?” 

As I opened my eyes I saw it was Lauren who had caught me in my fall. Aurora was standing right behind her, looking intently at me, I just saw a shade of red fading from her eyes. 

“I was just a bit too slow.” Aurora commented. “Did you get hurt, Amicia?” 

“N-no… I’m fine…” I stuttered as a blush started to form on my cheeks. Lauren had captured me quite strongly as I hung in her arms. “C-c-could you put me down, L-Lauren?” 

Lauren smiled and walked down the remaining steps of the staircase so she could put me down on terra firma. “There you go.” 

“T-thanks.” I kept looking at my savior for a couple of moments until I heard Sam come down the staircase and call for me. 

“Ami, you good?” She asked. 

“Mhmm. Thanks to Lauren.” I nodded and looked back at her, blushing again as she looked straight back at me. 

Aurora, who was standing next to her, tilted her head slightly. “What’s up?” 

Sam scratched her cheek and replied before I could. “Amicia is a bit weak to strong women. And in this match-up, I can’t really compete…” She gestured towards both of our newfound friends. “A war hero and a souped up vampire.” 

“Hey, hold on now, don’t sell yourself short.” Lauren extended her hand. “You aren’t anything to sneeze at either, Sam.” She then poked Sam in the stomach with her robotic hand. “See, hard as steel. Besides, I heard your hand-eye coordination is superb too.” 

“And don’t ask me to play basketball, it’s not going to go great.” Lauren replied. 

“Well, thanks for the compliments I suppose.” I could see that my girlfriend had developed a little bit of a blush too. Partially because of Lauren poking her abs, and partially because of the sudden unexpected compliments she had gotten fired back at her. 

“Hehe.” I chuckled. 

Sam then turned to me. “You should watch where you are going, Ami. You might be part cat and you can heal stuff, but I don’t want you to break anything anyway.” 

“I know, sorry.” I pouted at my girlfriend. 

This made both Lauren and Aurora laugh, putting my attention squarely on them once more. 

“By the way, has anyone ever told you that you two really look alike?” I asked the two strong women in front of me. 

“You think so?” Lauren looked at Aurora. “I suppose we both have brown hair.” 

“Hmmm. Now that you say so…” Emma, who had walked down the stairs behind us, put her finger on her bottom lip. “Lauren does somewhat look like you, but older. Like the grown adult you, before you misunderstand me.” 

“I think I see what you are getting at.” Aurora replied. “I wouldn’t mind having looked like that in the future. Maybe apart from the arm. No offense.” 

“None taken.” Lauren laughed. 

“It looks like Kathy has a little bit of a type.” Luna chuckled as she had rejoined us together with Corelia. “Not that I blame her. Not at all.” 

“Should we continue our museum trip now?” Sam proposed with a smile, taking my hand firmly in hers in the meantime. “Or would you like to go get a drink in that museum café over there?” 

“Might not be a bad idea to drink something.” Lauren admitted. “It is getting hotter by the second and I already feel like I’m melting.” 

“They might have some ice cream too.” Luna mentioned. 

“Ohh. vintage ice, I need to taste that.” Lauren didn’t hesitate for the rest of the group to make a decision. She might have been a bit too used to making the big decisions herself, but then again… we all followed anyway and it wasn’t a bad choice in any way.” 

“Hmm.” Aurora chuckled while we followed along. “I do think I prefer Vintage Red though.” 

“Tsss.” Emma clicked her tongue. “Really now?” 

Aurora shrugged. “You liked it didn’t you, Ria?” 

“Eh.” Ria shrugged as well. 

“Sam?” 

My girlfriend shrugged much the same. 

“Amicia?” Aurora now looked at me. “C’mon, fellow main character, please have my back.” 

“It’s wasn’t too bad. I internally chuckled.” 

“Thank the Goddess.” 

“Why do we say that anyway, ‘thank the Goddess’?” Lauren asked as we got near the museum café.

“I don’t know.” I admitted.

“Me neither, but I like it.” Aurora replied. “Monotheism is overrated and I think I like having a woman as a god.” She then gestured towards me. “I mean… Who wouldn’t prefer that over some old guy in a cloud, right?” 

“Amen.” Sam laughed. 

“Fair enough.” Lauren smiled and pushed open the café door for us. “Ah, good, this thing has air conditioning. I have truely arrived in heaven.” Staying in the religious theme. 

Sadly for Lauren we didn’t stay inside for too long as the rest of us wanted to sit outside in the shade of the parasols. That did make the warmth bearable enough for her in any case. 

As Lauren was the last one to exit the café she was carrying a beer, a vanilla ice cream and another bottle of what looked to be some kind of soda with a couple of plastic cups on top. 

“What’s that?” Luna asked her girlfriend. 

“Good question. The lady behind the counter said it was called Kinnie. Apparently that’s the island’s signature soft drink. She gave it for free for us to taste as she saw that we were foreigners.” 

“I’d like to try it for sure.” Corelia replied happily. 

“Why don’t we all?” Emma proposed. “That was the lady’s entire point, right?” 

Lauren put down the cups on the round table we had claimed and filled each of them with a little bit of the soft drink. “Cheers I’d say.” She then picked up one of them and tipped the drink back. “Hmmm… not to bad. But I’m not a great fan of the aftertaste.” She then took her pint in hand and took a swig from that. “This is way better.” 

We all then continued to taste the strange softdrink in front of us too and I have to say, I wasn’t really a fan… In actuality, it was only Sam and Luna who kind of liked the drink, but overall not a big success. To me it just tasted like medicine… 

Bleh… Luckily I had something else to wash it down with. I'd rather drink fish sauce....