An Elven Debutante by Caylen McQueen

Author:Caylen McQueen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: steampunk, steampunk romance, civil war romance, romance with elves, fantasy with elves, short story fantasy romance, new fantasy romance books
Publisher: Caylen McQueen
Published: 2022-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The airship's wooden hull crackled as they lifted off. Six giant propellers screamed to life, hurling no less wind than a typhoon. Stelia gripped the railing so hard, her shivering knuckles turned white. It was easy to imagine herself toppling from the airship's deck and plummeting to the world below them.

“He's handsome, isn't he?”

Stelia turned up her nose at the “he” in Megg's question. She was talking about Julian, but it didn't seem like the right time to discuss the lieutenant's good looks—not while they were sailing straight into the sky.

“I'll be honest... I've had a crush on him for the longest time,” Megg revealed. “A big, huge crush. Unfortunately, there are rules that say officers can't fraternize with each other. Believe me, I would fraternize with him if I could. And then I'd do a whole lot more.”

“I don't know why you're telling me this,” Stelia said. “I don't care one bit, you know.”

“Are you sure about that? I could have sworn I caught your eyes drifting in his direction a time or two. From your perspective, I s'pose he might seem like a traitorous arse who captured your father, but you can't deny that he's handsome.” Megg stepped back and scanned Stelia's body from head to toe. “My uniform looks good on you, by the way. It looks way better on you than it ever looked on me.”

Despite the compliment she received, Stelia felt self-conscious about her new clothes. She crossed her arms and turned away from the girl who praised her.

“It looks like it was tailor-made for you, even though it was tailor-made for me,” Megg said. “You've got the bust to fill it out. I've never had a bust.”

“I'm... unaccustomed to wearing breeches,” Stelia admitted. “They're strange. It feels like I've got something squeezing my buttocks at all times.”

The airship stopped ascending when they reached the clouds, and Stelia felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. Her ears were popping, and the air was harder to suck into her lungs, but there was nothing worse than the initial ascension.

“I wish Julian would squeeze my bum,” Megg blurted, and a moment later, her cheeks were flooded with color. “Oops. I shouldn't have said that. I keep forgetting that elven girls and Eastern girls are different from the ladies back home. You're a lot more demure... at least, that's what I've heard.”

“We probably are,” Stelia agreed. “And we don't have female officers in our military. I'm still a bit surprised by that.”

In the corner of her eye, Stelia saw Lieutenant Kojima drifting in their direction. Did she want to talk to him? Did she want to avoid him? She couldn't decide, and she had very little time to make up her mind.

“To be fair, there aren't a lot of us,” Megg said. “I've only met one other lady who had risen to the rank of lieutenant, and you certainly won't see any female admirals. So yeah, things aren't exactly equal in the West either. We've still got a ways to go before true equality is.

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