This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/daecrist on 2025-07-01 19:46:53+00:00.
<<First Chapter | <<Previous Chapter
I tried to overcome the nerves that were threatening to twist my gut into a pretzel shape. I mean, my gut was already twisted into all kinds of pretzel shapes, but you know what I mean.
She could sense everything I felt through the link, and right now she probably could feel that I was feeling just a touch nervous.
Nervous wasn't good. Nervous might tip her off that I had ulterior motives. I was just glad that so far it seemed like the link didn't give us the ability to read each other's minds, for all that when we were sparring I could get a good sense of exactly what she was going to do before she did it.
"You want to hold a ball?” she asked.
“A party,” I corrected, trying to look ignorant of this custom. I didn’t want to look like I knew too much about livisk social gatherings. Like I’d been asking around. “I guess a ball is what I'm thinking of. At least when I think of nobility having a party, I think of a ball. It's one of those things that's baked into our fairy tales."
A lot of those stories had balls. From Cinderella to the ancient tale of metal burning wizards who overthrew an empire, but I figured I wasn't going to go into obscure Earth legends with her. For all that they’d been retold time and again.
"Ah, so you mean a Grand Gathering?" she said.
The word sounded slightly odd as she said it. It was one of those things where I could get the gist of the translation, but it was also clear it was one of those words that had a meaning all its own in livisk that I wasn't quite picking up on because I was thinking of it in Terran Standard terms.
Though the more time I spent around Varis, the more I found myself thinking in livisk rather than in Terran Standard, or even Standard Galactic.
That was vaguely worrying.
"A Grand Gathering, yeah," I said. "That sounds like a great idea. You have a bunch of nobility come over to your place and have a big party where you schmooze with them. Is that what you're talking about?"
"Exactly," she said, hitting me with a smile. I also felt like there was something going on there. There was a dangerous sense I suddenly got through the link.
I wasn't sure if that dangerous sense was because this was an inherently dangerous thing for us to do. Having a bunch of nobility coming over to her tower to schmooze seemed like the kind of thing that invited all kinds of trouble. I wondered if it was far more dangerous than I'd imagined when I thought up this plan. Which suddenly didn't seem quite as clever as it had when I came up with it.
I really should’ve spent more time asking Arvie about this and double checking that it was even a good idea, but I'd simply inquired if it was a thing and he’d confirmed it.
"I think that sounds like a wonderful idea," she said, her face splitting into a wide grin. "And the best part is if we announce a Grand Gathering then the empress is going to have to call off her attacks on us until the Grand Gathering has happened. You're a genius, Bill."
Her face was beaming. There was happiness coursing through the link as well. It seemed like I'd just done something terribly clever without realizing I'd done something terribly clever.
"Of course," I said. "We want to get the empress off our back, don't we?"
"That would be wonderful," she said, still smiling and shaking her head. "Have you been talking to Arvie about this? Is that what you've been doing in, in that VIP room?"
"Um, yes? I said.
Was that the entire truth? Definitely not. Was it the truth from a certain point of view? Definitely.
Could telling her the truth from a certain point of view get my ass in a sling if she realized I was telling her the truth from a certain point of view? Most definitely. Was I going to work to make sure she didn't find out I was only telling her the truth from a certain point of view?
Also yes. Mostly because I didn't want to get in an argument with my girlfriend. Though there was the whole potential political fallout thing to consider.
"This is amazing," she said, chuckling and shaking her head. "You've been spending all that time sequestered away with Arvie. I wondered what you were doing when he was split off a shard. I thought you might be working on something that would get me in trouble."
"I'm always working on something that’ll get you in trouble," I said, grinning and figuring it would be best to take refuge in audacity. “Working on overthrowing the empress and all that.”
She threw her head back and let out a laugh. Meanwhile, there was another fighter moving in and trying to fire on us. The shielding let out a low-grade thrum that filled the restaurant.
"Look at the light show, Mommy," the little girl said, clapping and squealing with delight. She had no idea there was a deadly dance going on just on the other side of those shields.
I envied her that.
Finally, Varis stopped laughing.”
"You really do need to be careful about saying things like that.”
“Why?” I asked. "Is the empress going to try and kill me or something?"
I turned to look out the massive window just in time to see one of Varis's fighters blow it out of the skies with a spectacular explosion. I turned back to her. We both looked at one another for the space of a breath, and then we both burst into laughter all over again.
"Good point," she said, wiping a tear from her eye. "But you do realize, of course, that if we're going to have a Grand Gathering then you're going to have to learn how to dance."
I blinked. Okay. I really should have spent more time talking with Arvie about this shit and figuring out exactly what went into having a gathering of the nobility.
"Learn how to dance?" I asked.
"Of course," she said. "But you should be okay with it. We've been sparring long enough that I know you'll be good at it."
"What does sparring have to do with dancing?" I asked, feeling panic rising inside me.
Dealing with an alien monarch who wanted to kill me? That was the kind of thing I could sort of handle. It was the kind of thing I'd been trained for. The idea of somebody trying to kill me was old hat.
Even sparring with somebody was something I was used to. I'd spent plenty of time doing that with the Marines on the Allamaraine, and I'd done a lot of it on Early Warning 72. Mostly because I didn't have time to do much else.
There wasn’t even a lot of paperwork on the Early Warning thanks to its purpose as a mobile barracks for people on their way out.
"Sparring and dancing are closely related," she said, grinning and wagging a finger at me. "And you're good enough at sparring and doing forms that I'm sure you'll be able to transfer those skills laterally."
That panic was really starting to take hold, and there was a sense of amusement coming through the link from Varis. I got the feeling she was enjoying this entirely too much. Enjoying watching me squirm.
That's how I found myself in the sparring room on top of her tower later that day with two livisk I'd never seen before standing there staring between the two of us. I was dressed in a loose-fitting uniform. I was getting a severe look from both of them.
"So this is what I have to work with," the male said, stepping forward and looking me up and down. His inspection said he didn't think what he had to work with was all that great.
"I am Pulastri," he said, his voice a low growl.
It was a stark contrast to the rest of them. He had the body of a dancer, which is to say he looked slim and lithe. At least slim and lithe for a livisk, which meant he still had muscles running all up and down his body. Not quite the same over-the-top look from a livisk warrior, but still a dude who clearly didn’t skip leg day.
And he carried himself with an authority that was intimidating.
"Nice to meet you, Pulastri," I said. "Is that a family name?"
He stared at me. Clearly my humor wasn't working on him. I looked over to Varis and got a roll of the eyes from her.
Okay. Tough crowd, but whatever. I could deal with this.
"I am going to teach you how to comport yourself at a Grand Gathering. You will bring honor upon me, your instructor, and the general who has invited you to the Grand Gathering with her."
"Now, wait just a damn minute," I said. "The Grand Gathering was my idea, not hers."
"And she is the noble in charge of her house, her military, and inviting people to a Grand Gathering at her tower,” he said, slapping his hand against his leg with a report that sounded like an old-fashioned gun with bullets going off. "So you will treat her with the respect she deserves by learning to dance properly."
There was a whip crack to his tone that said things wouldn't go well for yours truly if I didn't bring honor upon Varis and my instructor.
I looked over to the other one. She was stood back a bit from Pulastri. Her chin was lowered, and she was looking away from him.
“What's her deal?" I asked.
She looked up at me, and her cheeks darkened in a blush for a moment. She had short purple hair and the same muscular body I'd come to expect from lady livisk warriors. Then she looked away at a sharp look from Pulastri.
"This is Torens, my assist...
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1lpbfqg/how_i_helped_my_smokin_hot_alien_girlfriend/