High school graduations are a strange affair. A largely ceremonial end to the teenage phase of a person’s life where one’s achievements are laid out and then celebrated with your closest friends; to be looked back at as the best time of your life many years later.

 FDR’s graduation ceremonies always took place out in the open and the school’s own football field was used to house the event with a makeshift stage made for the annual event. It was reusable which was always appealing when it came to balancing the school’s budget.

With that, Alvin ought to have known better when it came to his own graduation. His life in high school had been rather unremarkable until the last few months when Cassie entered his life. He remembered being a solitary person , not even a wallflower was an apt description.

  Prom marked his first and last school event and if not for his heroics at the track final, most of the school would not even known he existed. He knew few people beyond Wendy’s and her quartet, his track team and finally, Cassie and her inner circle. These were the people who knew him but only Wendy and Cassie knew him best of all. They had seen him at his highest and lowest and that was all he needed right now for graduation ,being with the two girls.

 “ Mum didn’t want to come. Actually, I don’t even think she knows you’re graduating,” Wendy said in an apologetic tone. Alvin chuckled mirthlessly. Of course she didn’t or rather wouldn’t come for this. She had no emotional investment in his life at all. Why bother showing up for this after all that?

 It didn’t bother him much, Patricia would probably rain on his parade with her stormy demeanour as it was. All he needed was Wendy who was eyeing him since Alvin was now in his bright blue graduation robes. They were a little long for him, dragging against the floor but it didn’t matter.

 “ It suits you,” Wendy remarked with one finger on her chin, gauging his fashion sense.

 “This thing? It itches.” As if right on cue, Alvin moved to scratch an itch on his outer thigh. These robes were always loaned to the student for their graduation. It certainly beat buying them for the exorbitant price of one hundred dollars; no point splurging so much for something you’d only use once.

 “ Heh, next year will be my turn to wear these scratchy things,” she rubbed her hand against his the sleeve, noting its rough texture. She had done tied her back in a simple ponytail while wearing a sleeveless dress that showed off her toned and slightly muscular arms.

  “ Have you seen Cassie? Or even my track buddies” Alvin looked around for them, expecting to show up. He had come earlier than the expected time but even so, there had to be at least a few of them around.

 “ Hey Alvin!” Alvin turned in the direction of the loud and boisterous voice to see Kelvin back. His crew cut had lost the neat look it had a month prior, his blonde hair drooping down the sides of his head. Behind him were Timothy, sporting a broad grin on his face as the two boys surrounded him.

 “ Hey Wendy,” Kelvin flashed his winning smile at her. She smiled back at him, offering a polite greeting in response. They didn’t talk much although she had seen him looking every now and then. She didn’t mind, he was attractive.

 “ You look good, been working out?”

   “Yeah I have, got to keep in shape for wrestling or the bigger girls will flatten you,” Wendy chuckled, flexing her right bicep. It bulged out a fair bit, doubling in size which took Kelvin by surprise.

“ Wow…” That was all he could say. She may have been nine feet tall but that was still on the smaller side for Amazons as they could do up to fifteen feet. Even then there were rumours of larger ones as there was this myth going around about an eighteen foot Amazon in Russia working as an enforcer for the Russian mafia.

 “ Say, I don’t have plans for dinner. Perhaps you and I could have dinner together?”

 Alvin mouthed ‘wow’ to Timothy who gave him a knowing look as they watched Kelvin flirting with Wendy.

 “ I…” Wendy glanced at Alvin, forgetting her own brother was right there. This was very ballsy from him, most boys wouldn’t do this when a girl’s brother was there, especially not the sister of his friend. Alvin nodded, he didn’t have anything against Kelvin plus his    

“ I think that’s a good idea,” Wendy accepted his dinner date quickly.

 “ So this is it huh? The end of the line for us?” Timothy asked the two boys.

  “ I can’t say I know if it's the end of it or the start of something new. It feels alright though, being here with you guys,” Wendy said as she looked down at all three of them.

 “ Hah, maybe you are right. It's about being with the people you love. We should get to our seats soon, maybe sit close to the front so Cassie can see us.”

“ Aww…..” Timothy lightly nudged Alvin’s cheek with his knuckle.

 “ Of course we’ll make sure your hot valedictorian girlfriend can see you. What are bros for?”

 *********

  Cassie paced around backstage nervously, mumbling her speech to herself as her parents sat with her, her father Paul sitting between Karen’s legs where the fabric of her dress formed a little concave hammock for him.

 “ Don’t worry dear, you’ll be fine. Everyone knows you didn’t have enough time to write a speech. I think you’re actually .” Both he and Karen chuckled, Cassie giving a little smile as proof she had heard her father’s attempt at dialing back on the tension.

 “ I don’t want to slip up or actually slip and fall when they ask me to give the speech,” Cassie answered back, her mind only dwelling on her valedictorian. SATs she could handle, she had revised for them so many times she was practically reciting the answers during the exam itself.

Valedictorian was something else entirely as an admin error meant she was only given two hours notice instead of the standard seventy two hours. It was an open secret who would be getting it but Cassie was never the type to count unhatched chickens , putting off writing off any speech until the school actually informed her of it.

   She continued pacing , her feet making the occasional screech as her converse sneakers scraped against the wooden floor. She had already spent two hours in the bathroom getting ready, a good ten minutes spent trying every shade of lipstick she owned before she settled on a deep rouge.

  Having put so much thought into her personal hygiene, she wasn’t going to let something like a lack of a speech get to her.

 “ You’ll be fine Cassandra. You don’t have to make a long winding speech , sometimes a brief speech will be good enough. Especially if you have nothing much to say.”

  “ I...I could do that,” Cassie smiled appreciatively at Karen for the advice.

  She looked back at her pad where a couple of paragraphs had been hastily typed out. Her finger hovered over the backspace button before gently tapping it repeatedly before she changed her mind; she held it down and watched as the words disappeared to leave a white blank space.

 “ I can do better than that, I’ll wing it,” Cassie said to her parents.

  “ Don’t tell us,” Paul said quickly. He smiled proudly at Cassie, she had given them every reason to feel so on this day. Never one to give them a lot of trouble,she stayed in school and was too cool for drugs. She circumvented the terrible teenage years and used her drive and intelligence to achieve academic excellence on top of her feats with the cheerleading team. It helped that Cassie never let them know about her own problems but given how things turned out, she wasn't wrong to do so.

*************

 “ Sorry,” Wendy said to the annoyed parents and students as she shuffled past them. Her muscular thighs brushed against them, the stadium’s non-Titan section flooded with students and their families.

 She was annoyed with having to squeeze through the crowd but also due to sudden influx of people about half an hour before the event started, turning a vacuous still  stadium into a can of sardines. Why everyone decided to synchronise their arrival times was a total conundrum to her, it just made it a hot sweaty mess of things, worse when summer was upon them.

 “ I cannot believe the crowd here, I’m sitting with a Titan next time,” Wendy grumbled to Alvin.

  “ Maybe Katharine would let me sit with her when she graduates,” she referred to Alvin’s acquaintance.

  Alvin chuckled mirthfully, “ It's your graduation next year, you can sit wherever you want.”

  Wendy wanted to answer but at that moment, Principal Eleanor stepped on to the makeshift stage. She tapped the microphone twice, producing two deep booms emitted by the sound system. If anyone wasn’t giving their full attention to the stage, they were now. Her deep blue eyes scanned the audience, a thin smile on her lips as she saw each and every of her senior students.

 She greeted the audience, pouring praise on the achievements of the cohort, the standard words used at every graduation. It wasn’t empty praise, this was not a gang of delinquents or thugs. Eleanor was not one to sugar coat or hold back on criticism, she always cut straight to the point.

Alvin listened, half his mind on the speech while the other half scanned the Titan side for Cassie, they were supposed to head back to her place for some chill time after this.

  He expected his principal’s speech to last at least another five minutes before he got to hear from his favourite person. To his surprise though, she brought it to a close eighty seconds later.

 “ Now before we commence with the cap throwing , let's hear a few words from this year’s valedictorian, Cassandra Gissel!”

The entire student seemed to spring to life, clapping and cheering ecstatically as Cassie strode out from the back of the stage, giving a little wave to her peers in appreciation of the cheers.

 “Thank you,” she said to Principal Eleanor who nodded politely. Cassie turned back to the crowd, speaking into the thin microphone.

 “ So here we are, all of us finally wearing these stuffy robes.” A few jolly laughs could be heard among the crowd.

  “ It's the end of high school but it's not the end for us. It's the beginning of a long journey; a journey I hope we’ll embark on together. From college to the office and beyond, we’re going on an adventure. Where we’ll end up no one knows but I know that it’ll be something you will want to tell your grandkids about when you’re old and wrinkled.”

Cassie stopped to breathe, very pleased with her performance so far. She hadn’t stuttered, mispronounced or slipped up so far. Still, she didn’t want to keep people waiting too long. Looking at their half asleep and impatient faces, they wanted to celebrate now and not a moment later. She decided she would give it to them.

“I’m not going to give a lecture , don’t you worry. Just remember these words: Wherever life takes us from here, know that it's the greatest adventure you’ll ever go on!”

She pumped her fist in the air and right on cue, hundreds of senior students stood up and threw their caps in the air, celebrating the end of their high school journey.

Over at Alvin’s side, he hugged Wendy’s hips, embracing his sister lovingly like a brother.

 “ Aww…” Wendy cooed as she returned the hug.

 “ Congratulations on surviving high school,”she complimented him..

“ I’ll miss you in college, you’re the only person in the house I can talk to right now.”

 Alvin let go of Wendy, looking up at her, a little concerned but he had faith things would turn out okay.

 “ Give yourself some time, you definitely won’t be BFFs with your mother so soon. Besides, I’m going to Tannhauser and it's about 30 minutes by bus. Less if Cassie walks me there.”

 Wendy chuckled, “ Heard you gave up a scholarship at Princeton just to be with your lovebird.”

 “ Actually I still got one, Tannhauser never offered me one because they didn’t think I’d accept. So I’ll still be on a sports scholarship in the end.”

 Wendy laughed, trust Alvin to come up with a solution that always worked out in the end.

  “ Let’s go find Cassie before her fans swarm her.”

*****************

“Cassie, this is my cousin Katerina. She’s Russian, old Russian. ” Nadya said with more enthusiasm than Cassie was accustomed to.

 After her speech, Cassie had excused herself to go and see Nadya and bask in the warmth of their graduation. She hadn’t expected one of her enigmatic family members to actually be present.

 Cassie directed her eyes at the slim, beautiful Russian woman standing before her. Not quite as tall as Nadya who loomed over the other Titans she was a couple of feet shorter than Cassie. Still above the average height for a Titan. Even so, she projected a presence that could dominate even the largest of Titans. Cassie was further impressed by Katerina’s clothes, a creamy silk blouse that seemed so delicate it could tear at the slightest mishap and an off white skirt that stopped just above her knees. All of the complemented her glowing complexion along with her amber eyes and hair.

 Katerina smiled back at Cassie, “ Good morning Cassie.” Cassie noted her Russian accent but not your average one, this one was not as strong and had an aristocratic tone to it.

 Cassie shook her hand, feeling the firm but controlled grip. The woman was definitely Old Russian, the kind that could trace her roots back to Russian nobility.Judging by how she carried herself, she was likely to be a Russian noble. She was aware that Nadya’s mother had ties but all that seemed so distant. Katerina brought all of that here.

 “ What brings you all the way here to America?” Cassie asked. Come to think of it, she had never exactly seen Nadya’s maternal side before. Nadya never talked about them apart from a brief mention after her annual vacation in Russia.

 “ Business mostly but I couldn’t resist dropping by to visit my favourite cousin’s graduation. I’m told it's a milestone in the life of an American teenager,” she said in a very refined and controlled manner.

 Yep, Cassie thought to herself, this woman probably knew the Tsarina. Hell, she could probably be the Tsarina.

  “Yeah it is,” she tittered.

   “ Hey girls!” Alvin’s voice suddenly entered the conversation. The three Titan women looked down at their feet, Alvin and Wendy both there.

   Cassie nearly jumped back, surprised to see her boyfriend and his sister right there.

 “Goodness Al, you scared me!” Cassie placed a hand over her chest to steady her pulsing heart.She picked up Alvin and Wendy as social etiquette demanded smaller sizes be at least chest level when in a conversations with Titans.

 “ Sorry about that. Hi Nadya and you are….” He fell silent as he saw Katerina. Like Cassie, he felt her presence as her eyes  focused on him. She wasn’t shooting daggers at him but her gaze could stop monsters in their tracks if she ever chose to engage one in a staring contest.

“ Katerina,” she replied swiftly.

“ I’m Alvin and this is my sister Wendy.” Wendy gave a  wave and friendly smile.

 “ Alvin’s my boyfriend. He and I will be studying at Tannhauser this fall,” Cassie interjected. Katerina seemed to be surprised by this but also impressed by the comment.

 “ Good school, I’d consider sending my children there if I were a mother. I wish Nadya were there since I’m due to give a few lectures in the fall.”

She leaned in towards Alvin, Alvin watching her sultry lips as they parted, her voice having a captivating aspect he found rather lovely.

“ Perhaps we may bump into each other there. Don’t be shy to say hello, I’ve heard plenty of you two from Nadya. We could have coffee or something like that,” Katerina said, not concerned about the minutia of any possible socialising with them.

 As these types of conversations go, the three of them soon said their goodbyes to Nadya and Katerina before moving off out of the school and back to Cassie’s house for relaxation. However, at least one of them was still fixated on Nadya’s family, Cassie in particular.

 She was still thinking about it when they were in her room and sitting at her desk.

 “ You think she’s one of those women with titles, palaces and gets to go to balls every year?”

 “ Yeah,” Wendy nodded. She hadn’t said much but she could tell Katerina was no ordinary woman.

 “ You should marry Nadya if you and Alvin don’t work out. Then you can be Cassie, Duchess of New York!” Wendy shouted, pretending to hold a scepter and commanding people.

 “ I’d totally support that but only if you let me come over and be your secret lover,” Alvin added to Wendy’s idea.

 “ I’ll remember to invite you to our wedding,” Cassie said sarcastically before breaking out into laughter.

“ Anyway, let's not talk about mysterious Russian women, we have a whole day ahead of us. Things are just getting started….”

 Just as well Cassie and company were all looking forward to the future filled with hope and optimism because over at Alvin’s place, Patricia was currently confused and unaware of what had happened.

 “ Alvin? Wendy?” She called out to them as she sat in the kitchen, looking around for some sign of life in the house. Where had they gone, she wondered to herself. It was summer, they were supposed to be off from school and at home sleeping in or generally lazing about somewhere.

She scratched her head, looking down at her bathrobe as she called out again.Where had those two gone?

“Oh well, back to sleep,” she decided as she trudged out of the kitchen and back to the bedroom. Job hunting was for weekday Patricia, not weekend Patricia.

***********

Author’s note: This takes place a few months after the rest of this chapter, in case you’re wondering when it happens.

************

“It’s finally here!” Jamila held the package she received proudly over her head in an over the top pose.

 “ It's just a book,” Nadya replied, her usual surly self when around her friends.

“ You’re not from the Middle East so of course it's just a book,” said Olivia, Jamila’s cousin and older than her by about seven years. She was a little taller than her, a couple of inches compared in a relative sense.

 Nadya shook her head at Olivia, having come over for a short stayover with Jamila. She was also from Lebanon but was much fairer than Jamila who seemed to keep a regular tan going.

Her eyes were a slightly darker brown than that of Jamila’s, her black hair straight and fell neatly down the side of her head , ending just above the small of her back. Clean cut and organised unlike Jamila’s frizzier hair.

 “ This is a classic,” Jamila continued as she set the package down, wrapped in brown wrapping paper with a string to tied in a simple knot.She pulled away at it, revealing a paperback book, large words written on the cover which was a rich shade of blue.

 “ Updated to fit the times. You know how it's like over there? It's not like here, over there women call the shots and this ancient tale has been given a new coat of paint,” Jamila thrust it into Nadya’s arms.

 She held it, admiring the gold lettering on the front.

 “ One Thousand and One Nights? I read about it, some author decided to rewrite everything. Now the women are Titans , it's like a gender reversal. Is it any good?” Nadya’s nose scrunched up. She wasn’t fond of fairy tales, which is what she thought of the book. She liked darker fare, ones where magic and goodness didn’t win for the stupid reason that good always triumphs.

“ Sacrilegious!” Olivia huffed before whispering something to Jamila in Arabic, something which Nadya did not understand. Jamila whispered something back to her before they both giggled like a pair of twelve year olds.

 “ What?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t something bad.

 “Let us read it to you,show you the magic of Arabia,” Olivia suggested as they pulled Nadya towards the couch. Nadya didn’t resist, she had no excuse to be elsewhere. Cassie was out seeing her cousin who had some man trouble and as for Alvin? He was apparently with her although what good he could do was beyond her.

 “ I guess it can’t hurt. There better be a graphic sex scene inside or no one will enjoy it,” Nadya half joked.

 “ I’m not spoiling anything,” Jamila answered as she flipped to the first page before reading aloud.

“Once upon a time in the kingdom of…”