Tanith Low short story

Tanith sighed. In hiding, again. This wasn’t how a remnant helping to bring about the end of the world should be. In hiding. Hiding. The thought of being so cowardly made her stomach turn. Billy-Ray had proved to be a little distracting for the first few days but her patience was wearing out. So she sent him out to get her another distraction but when he came back with a TV and a Wii console she was certainly surprised. “This, darlin’, will keep that pretty little head of yours entertained for hours.” Tanith stayed where she was, watching Sanguine set up the TV and game. He wasn’t the best with electronics, she thought, bless him. At least he tried.

                Several hours later he finally had the TV on and the console set up, ready to be played. He flicked through the list of games trying to find one he thought he’d be good at. He did love this twisted woman but he wasn’t about to let a girl beat him at a game. His pride couldn’t take another blow like that. He picked the tennis game. Should be easy enough. It just involved swinging his arms back and forth when the virtual ball was on his side of the virtual court. Easy. “Now, darlin’, all you gotta do here is try hit the ball when it goes over to your little player. Got it?” He smiled, and frankly looked like an idiot. Tanith just nodded and did her best to look like she didn’t have a clue what was going on. She was so going to kick his bee-hind for this.

                “Oh, look! I’ve won again!” Tanith laughed innocently and looked at Billy-Ray. “Well done, sweetie..” Sanguine huffed, sitting on the make shift couch. He wanted to give up. His pride was battered and bruised and he couldn’t take any more of her rubbing it in his face. Tanith, however, thought it was hilarious. “Oh come on, Billy-Ray! Don’t give up so easily! I’ll go easy on you in the next round ok?” She winked at him before turning around to face the TV again. Sanguine grunted. “Lets do some of these yoga poses instead!” Tanith suggested. “You know, to relax a little. You seem a little tense, honey.” Tanith smiled at him. Sanguine just scowled and stood beside her.

                “Player two, adjust your centre of gravity. Copy the example shown on screen.” “I swear to god, if this goddam game tells me to adjust my fricken’ centre of gravity one more goddam time..” Sanguine almost snarled at the TV. “Calm down, look. Copy me… Ok no, not like that. What even is that pose.. ? Ok I’ll show you.” Tanith stood up to help Billy-Ray. His anger was incredibly funny and much more entertaining than the actual game. She put both of her hands on his shoulders and pushed him forward so he was almost bent in two. She could feel his muscles straining under her hands, she grinned and kept pushing him to the position that was on screen until she could hear him cursing her under his breath. “Perfect position, player two! Now hold for ten seconds….. Well done. Now onto our new pose.” The game instructed them into a new pose which Tanith perfected with ease, Sanguine on the other hand.. “Tanith..” He said through gritted teeth, balancing on one leg and trying to hold the other up with his left hand, “you’re a cheater. You just adjust your centre of gravity like you do walkin’ on walls and you don’t need to do any of these ridiculous looking poses.” “Oh no Billy-Ray, honey, you look great. Imagine how toned you’ll look when we’re done!” Tanith smiled and held the pose effortlessly. “Player two, adjust your centre of gravity. Copy the example shown on screen.”  Sanguine was starting to twitch at this stage. “Perfect position, player one!”  Sanguine looked at Tanith, but she wasn’t there. He looked up. “You’re on the ceiling, for crying out loud! You practically have no centre of gravity anymore! You’re cheatin-“ “Player two,” the game cut him off, “Please adjust your-“ Before the speaker on the game had time to finish, Sanguine had thrown his Wii remote at the TV with such force that the remote smashed through the screen like it was paper. Tanith pouted and fell to the floor beside him. “Awh, did you really have to go and do that?” She taunted, “Don’t be a sore loser, honey!” Sanguine turned ever so slowly to Tanith, and she tried her hardest to contain her smile but she suspected she was failing horribly and the grin broke across her face. She could see the veins bulge in his forehead. “Don’t like being beaten by a girl, honey?” Tanith knew that was the final straw, but she couldn’t help it! She watched as the muscle around his left eye, the part she could see around the sunglasses, began to twitch. She watched him and his twitching eye disappear into the ground as he loudly called her every name under the sun. That was definitely the most entertaining night she’d had in a while.