//------------------------------// // Emperor of North Pole // Story: A Story of Love (Among Others) // by TheMareWhoSaysNi //------------------------------// I'd been askd to stay here and wait. So I stayed and waited. In the green-room, there was the same restlessness than the only one time I went on a TV set with Soarin. Yet, tonight, I was feeling more than bored. I was scared. Me, Rainbow Dash. Why? Filthy Rich, Soarin's agent, wanted to talk to me and he said it was important. I never met him before and he never asked to see me. It'd been almost a year now that Soarin and I were dating, almost one year since he became famous. And in this amount of time, nothing. Not a word about me, not a question. We were cautious, we did everything right. Each time I tried to check out whether we could have acted badly, I saw nothing. It wasn't planned for me to be here tonight. The previous night, Soarin called me to tell me I had to go to the TV studios, so I could meet his agent. Himself didn't know the reason why. When I'd arrived here, the staff had welcomed me though they never paid attention to me before. I'd been told to go to the green-room number six and to wait for Soarin who wasn't there. I'd sat on the chair I was still on, and I waited. I waited but I didn't know what. No one told me anything. From the ajar door, I could see celebrities passing by and behind them, a whole army with brushes, towels, bottles of water. They got rid of the mics, fixed the haircuts, the makeup, while managers and agents were twisting and turning even more than the assistants. What a strange world. An artist is never alone. Entire shoals of persons are around them, find something to tell them, ask them, order them. I've always been convince this wasn't made for the weaks. You have to be warrior material. Able to swim against the current, in a huge ocean infested with sharks of all kind. Soarin emerged from the mass, a white towel around his neck and a bottle of water in his hands. He didn't smile at me and I saw his throat vibrating. I didn't smile neither and swallowed the same way. "You coming? Mr. Flithy Rich wants to see us right now," he stated with a monotonous voice. "But you... Can't you change clothes first?" "He said right now." When I got off my chair and started to follow him, his back already turned in direction of the now opened wide door, I felt as if I were stared at from behind. Each of my steps were as heavy as a bag of cannonballs. Soarin didn't say a word, only walking around like some cat, his body agile in front of me, like he wasn't as clenched as a boxer's fist. I joined him in a few strides. Still, we didn't utter one word and to act kind of normally, he couldn't stop drinking large water sips from his bottle. I didn't even know where we were going. My hands were damp and even if I wiped them against my jeans, it didn't change a thing. Soarin stopped in front of a door that didn't look any different from the other doors of the studio. Yet my heart was thumping just to think about what was going to be said behind that door. I could see on my boyfriend's face that fear was what was making him so speechless. Holding his bottle, he was trying not to shake. The door opened so suddenly I jolted. The man in front of us wasn't older than forty-five. Black suit, luxury leather shoes, a golden watch at his wrist. A natural authority exudes from him. Black eyes and brown hair. I hated him from the moment I saw him. He scanned me from head to toe, emotionless. His eyes were like ice rolling over me, from my rainbow hair to my horserider boots. Only at the end of his inspection a flimsy smile appeared on his face. A smile that inspired no benevolence or sympathy. "So, this is the young girl our dear Soarin is infatuated with... Nice to finally meet you, Rainbow Dash." "Nice to meet you too." Now if you could go down back to hell and never come back that would be very nice of you, a**hole! His voice had been neutral and I couldn't detect any intention. Yet, I was disturbed by his choice of words. It more or less implied that our story was nothing but a phase, some kind of summertime love, vanishing into thin air as soon as the fall comes. Filthy Rich moved aside, his arms opened to the inside. Though I was expecting to see the usual snake pit, the room was empty of any soul. This surprising absence only increased the lump in my stomach. I walked in with an unseen shyness, daring not to brush anything in case I'd break something, afraid of seeing something I shoudn't see and I could hear my heart still thumping against my chest. The door was closed behind me and made me feel like I had fallen in a trap. He sat on a comfy white sofa in front of which there was a coffee table with glasses of champagne along with sweet potatoe chips. Needless to say that I didn't want to eat or drink that at all. In front of the table, there were two armchairs, white as well. Like two real goofballs (that we were), Soarin and I stayed standing. He slid two of the champagne flutes in front of the armchairs and told us to sit. We obeyed without a word. While he calmly sipped on his own glass, we were still tensed. I discreetly wiped my palms against my pants and still I was unable to get rid of the sweat. Without further ado, Filthy Rich got a tablet out of his bag and put it in front of us. On the screen, there was the web version of a celebrity magazine, with a picture. On the picture, the main cast of "The Greatest Show Off" were out of an autograph session and behind them, in the middle of staff members, my face appeared clearly. "This was published yesterday, late at night. Of course, Soarin is with the others but you can't ignore you got an appearance that draws attention and fans, nowadays, are able to find even the name of former classmates of even members of the staff. Fans nowadays can find whatever they want, as long as they think that's interesting or will get them views and reactions on SNS. If one of them, only one of them, decided she wanted to know who's that girl with the rainbow hair and shows the results of her investigation on the net, this piece of information can totally turn viral in less than a day, and I let you imagine the results..." Suddenly, Soarin's hand grabbed mine. I glanced at him briefly. He was straight and brave but I knew that inside he was like the boat at the end of "Titanic". "Don't worry, I'm not asking you to break up. But I'm trying to limit the damages here. So, Rainbow Dash, from now on, you won't be allowed anymore to come to shows and autograph sessions and movie sets like you did before. And I'd avoid going to the Silk Street loft if I were you. Soarin's schedule is going to be very busy, anyway. He's going to shoot the new movie of the franchise, in New Zealand." Filthy Rich's words finally made perfect sense. He hadn't asked us to break up, of course but he was going to do his best so I wouldn't see him often. I was no fool, I knew distance was what smashed couples. Shooting in a foreign country, with a different time zone... It didn't exactly sound "romance". I lowered my eyes and my free hand grabbed the champagne flute that I drank in one gulp. Beside me, Soarin couldn't let my hand go and squeezed it so much my flesh turned blue. I'd like to leap on the coffee table and gently staple things on Filthy Rich's head. I'd like to kick his butt, to make him cry and recognize I was his master and he would now yield to the every desire of Super Awesome Rainbow Dash. But above everything, I'd like to tell him to f*ck himself and that we didn't have to obey any of his orders because he was a jerk and we no one was obliged to obey to jerks in his kind, and if he could give me his golden watch so I could pay myself a trip to Hollywood and visit Cecil B. DeMille's house, that would be nice. A few minutes later, the conversation was already finished and we left the room. I hadn't said anything I was fantasizing to say and neither had Soarin, who only greeted him with due respect. Tomorrow, around three and a half, he had to be at the bus station and that was going to be the last time I could accompany him.