The Naked Envoy

"Her name is Magdalena, and she's as close to a goddess of love as you'll find." Ted chuckled as he agreed. He picked up the next question. "She, and we, are naked because we're no longer ashamed of our bodies. They're our bodies, and they're-"

"Perfect!" Magdalena cried out as she threw her arms wide as she passed the threshold. A wave of bliss crashed outwards from her, washing away fear, loneliness, and despair, leaving behind a sense of peace, belonging, and best of all, love.

The reporters and their camera people were gasping and staring at her in wonder. Some were openly weeping with joy and hugging each other. A few managed to keep reporting on the scene for their viewers, but none remained unaffected.

Ted was enthralled by the love emanating from the woman he and Mary Sue were holding. When Magdalena turned her face to look up at him, his heart caught in his chest. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers and felt that bliss rush out to everyone. He pulled back and gazed at her with love radiating from him as well.

He looked up to see Mary Sue grinning at him with a challenge in her eyes. She gently turned Magdalena's chin her way and pressed her lips to the other woman's soft mouth.

Ted gasped as that felt incredible too! He saw their audience was caught up in their rapture as well.

He felt Magdalena pull back from the kiss and begin to giggle. He looked at her then felt her pull him closer until he was face to face with Mary Sue.

"Now, kiss!" Magdalena insisted like an awkward meme.

Ted and Mary Sue grinned at her then aimed a challenging look at each other. Neither was willing to back down, so they moved closer together as Maggie's hand on their backs guided them before her.

When their chests met, both were surprised by how intensely good that felt. Their arms automatically slipped around each other to pull their bodies closer still. They gasped and looked into each other's eyes in wonder before their lips met. Then their worlds exploded into white-hot lightning.

Magdalena basked in the energy being thrown off by her lovers. Looking behind herself, from the expressions of ecstasy on Lita's, Katherine's, Linda's, and Gwen's faces, she knew they were synchronized with the energy as well.

Looking forward, Maggie watched Ted and Mary Sue locked in their kiss and knew she would have many intensely pleasurable nights with them.

For right now, she felt something from her dream bubbling up to the surface of her mind--something she needed to do with all this energy.

Ah!

Looking to her left and right, she saw she had sufficient open space. She closed her eyes as she raised her arms over her head and pressed her palms together. She took a deep breath then pulled her hands apart. Between her arms, a brilliant golden light fanned out and upwards. As her arms pointed lower, the arc of golden light followed until it reached the stone tiles she was standing upon.

From the view of the news crews, Magdalena was standing in the center of a perfect half circle of brilliant gold light. When she stepped forward, the arc remained in place anchored to the stone, but the light connected to her began to stretch with her and vibrate with tension like a drum head.

When she reached the kissing lovers, they each reached out an arm and pulled her into their embrace.

The light suddenly tore away from her and snapped back to the arc, bursting into a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes that challenged the eyes of the observers. It finally settled into a rippling curtain of gold with flecks of silver in it.

Ted and Mary Sue finally came back from the bliss of their kiss and looked down to see Magdalena held against their bodies. She smiled up at them, and they could see she was exhausted but so happy.

Linda, Katherine, Lita, and Gwen rushed around the golden semicircle and to Magdalena's side. Everyone stared back at it.

"What is it?" Lita asked.

Eyes turned to Maggie, but she just shook her head. "Something in my dream from last night told me... how to do that, but not why."

Ted looked at it closely. "It reminds me of a curtain on a stage of some Broadway show. Maybe someone is behind it."

"Or something!" Gwen suggested nervously.

Magdalena gently separated herself from Ted and Mary Sue and turned to face the curtain. She tried to recall the wisps of her dream, looking for clues to who might be behind the curtain. Finally, one phrase popped into her head, and a smile came to her face.

As the others clung to each other, she boldly stepped up to the surface and thrust her hand through the glittering light.

"My lord."

She felt a hand slide against hers, and she closed her fingers around it. Then, she gently pulled and felt the weight of another being, who allowed her to guide them through the curtain.

She stepped back, and a most beautiful being stepped through.

Wearing not a stitch of clothing.

The being was slightly shorter than Ted but was remarkably similar to a human in many ways. Two arms and two legs were connected to a human-shaped torso with a head atop it. This head had luxurious blond hair which flowed down its back to its knees. It also had two large but lovely almond-shaped eyes, separated by what looked like a slim nose and two pointed ears which rose upward and back a good four inches. Below the nose was a sensual mouth that was smiling at them. It seemed to have white bands where human teeth would be. It raised its hand in a friendly gesture to the group standing before them, and they could all see it had three slim fingers, not four.

Another feature that definitively identified the being as male and not human was the organ hanging between its legs. Again, it was slightly smaller than what Ted had on display, but its shape was... intriguing.

Magdalena bowed to the being, but it shook its head.

"You should not bow to me," he said to her with a gentle tone in clear and precise English.

"Are you the one the other voice called my lord?" Magdalena asked, and the male nodded.

"Are you the leader for your people?" she asked, and he nodded once more and smiled.

"Then I should bow to you!" Maggie insisted, but he prevented her once more. She blinked at him in confusion.

He looked into her eyes. "A Queen does not bow to a lord. I'm merely an elected official. You are the savior of our people."

Magdalena suddenly burst into giggles, and the being's smile showed his joy at the sound.

She tilted her head curiously at... "What's your name?" she asked.

"Lord Tigeron," he replied.

She said the name, enjoying its sound, then she looked him in the eye. "How could I be the savior of an entire people? I'm just Maggie!"

The being went down on one knee and pressed his forehead to the back of Magdalena's hand. "You are Envoy for Allithria and Queen to its People. You opened the way and invited me through." He gestured back towards the shimmering curtain.

Ted had worked up his courage. "Are the Allithria your people?" he asked.

"Exactly so," the Lord nodded.

"You have a remarkable grasp of our language for someone from another... world?" Ted continued.

Tigeron smiled with a nod. "We've learned your language from Magdalena's mind. She is our only hope! Allithria is our planet on the other side of an impenetrable dimensional barrier."

"Maybe not quite so impenetrable considering you're here," Gwen offered.

"Only Magdalena has the ability to physically breach the barrier. We could only reach her through her dreams when we found her."

"And you need to leave Allithria because?" Linda asked.

Lord Tigeron nodded seriously. "We've been searching for someone with Magdalena's ability for generations. Ever since we discovered our sun was dying. It grows dim, and our people fade with it. So many have been lost."

Magdalena gasped as she took Tigeron's hands in hers and looked into his eyes. "We must save the People!"

"Yes!" he responded with equal passion.

"How many?" she asked.

"Once our people reached a population of over a billion citizens. Now there are barely more than three million of us left," he said sadly.

Magdalena tried to get her head around that number. "You... you need me to pull three million people through this curtain? One at a time?"

The planetary leader laughed, and the notes of pure joy in the sound lifted their spirits. "No, this opening was just for introductions. We can make a much larger gate to retrieve them in a place that can sustain our population."

Ted turned and looked back at the press as they were being uncharacteristically polite. That's when he noticed they were all pushing at the outer surface of a lightly glowing yellow translucent bubble that had popped up around them at some point. He had another issue that needed addressing first, so he'd ignore the force field bubble... for now.

"Bringing over three million extra-dimensional refugees into an unprepared country will cause... difficulties," he suggested, and Magdalena nodded with concern. Ted continued. "There's the matter of housing and feeding over three million people."

Tigeron smiled at Ted. "We have no need of either, as long as we have access to the rays of your sun. Allithrians don't need support of any kind, other than a place to bask in the wonderful energy it gives freely."

Mary Sue giggled happily. "Your people are solar powered?"

Tigeron grinned and nodded. "We don't consume food or water. We need no shelter as we aren't affected by temperature or weather. Our only preference is to be in a place that receives the most sunlight."

Lita began to laugh, and all eyes turned towards her curiously. She waved her hands before her face as she tried to calm her laughter. She finally managed to get control and nodded. "Before I moved to San Diego, I did some research on places to live that weren't rainy. My parents raised me in London, England, where it rains often, so I desperately wanted sunshine." She pointed eastward. "Roughly one-hundred-and-seventy miles that way is the city of Yuma, Arizona. I read it receives more sunlight than any other place on Earth." Katherine grinned with delight and hugged Lita.

"Yuma's population is somewhere above two-hundred-thousand. So, we're talking about taking roughly the population of San Diego and dropping them in the desert outside a city with a much smaller population. That might not be such a popular idea," Ted suggested. He looked at the alien. "What will your people do, aside from absorbing sunlight?"

"We will build a city but one that needs no connection to your services as we can supply everything we need from the raw materials in the environment and our own minds. We need no building supplies as we do not create structures like yours," he said, gesturing to the office tower behind the light curtain. He bent down and picked up a piece of trash on the step. It was a small aluminum pull tab from a pop can. As they watched, Tigeron focused on the tiny bit of metal, and they saw it melt and reform into a small chip of yellowish metal.

"What... what is this?" Ted asked nervously though his mind already knew.

"You call it gold. I believe your people consider it to have some value?" he asked.

Ted looked to Magdalena in shock, then back to the alien. "That's transmutation! You just changed aluminum into gold? We have no way of doing that, and you just turned trash into one of most valuable--" He suddenly froze as his mind caught a crazy idea. He looked to the alien leader. "Can you change toxic chemicals and minerals into something harmless or useful, like building materials for your city?"

Tigeron nodded. "It's easier than changing the metal."

Ted looked excitedly to Magdalena. "I think I know where they could live and how we could convince the government to accept them!"

Everyone picked up his excitement and enthusiasm as they were all still linked through Magdalena.

She looked to the press, who were becoming frantic to get through the forcefield. Then she saw Shelaine standing off to the side with a grim look on her face... and a monstrously large gun in her hand next to her leg.

"Oh my! Shelaine's mind has spiraled into dangerous territory!" Magdalena exclaimed.

Lord Tigeron looked over at the woman. "Is she carrying a weapon that might cause mortal wounds?"

Magdalena nodded sadly. "I didn't realize she would sink to the level of murder."

Gwen moved closer. "She sees you as a threat. She probably thinks she'll be hailed as a hero for protecting Earth from invaders."

Tigeron shared a surprised look with Gwen, then stared intently at the weapon. "It is disabled."

Magdalena touched his arm. "Can we bring her inside?"

He nodded, and an opening appeared before Shelaine. The woman blinked in surprise then ran inside. The gap snapped closed behind her as she charged up the stairs. The cameras outside were all focused on her as she raised the gun and pointed it at Magdalena, not the alien. She squeezed the trigger again and again, but nothing happened. She finally came to a stop before the woman she'd tried to kill. She grit her teeth and stared at the shorter woman with hate in her eyes.

"Shelaine, why are you so angry?" Maggie asked her.

When the tall blonde said nothing, Tigeron leaned closer to speak to Magdalena. "She has forgotten how to love. She's closed her heart to it."

Magdalena gave the woman a sad expression. "Shelaine, I'm sorry. You have to be willing to open your heart to love to receive it."

"Go to Hell!" the woman spat.

"It feels like you're already there," Magdalena said sadly.

Shelaine yanked her hand back and swung the gun at Maggie's head. Tigeron simply plucked the weapon from her fingers as he gently pulled Magdalena from the path of Shelaine's swing. He looked closely at the hand cannon then handed it back to Shelaine, who flinched.

When the expected blow didn't arrive, she opened her eyes and saw her gun was now gold. She accepted it back and felt her arm drop under its new weight. Her eyes focused on the heavy object in her hand and widened as she realized the value of what she was holding. She finally dragged her eyes up to look at the alien.

"Please do not attempt to harm the Queen of the Allithrian people again. I give you this in good faith that you will find it sufficient compensation for your departure from her life." Shelaine gaped at the heavy solid-gold gun and nodded in stunned silence. Then, she turned and walked back down the stairs. Tigeron opened this side of the forcefield and let the woman pass through, sealing it behind her until she stepped outside and the press surrounded her.

The Leader smiled at Magdalena and the others. "Shall we discuss this plan of obtaining government acceptance for my people?"

Magdalena nodded with a bright smile. She looked to her friends. They had exciting days ahead.

Epilogue

The Allithrian's Palace of Light glowed and sparkled in the midday sun, visible for miles in all directions. Designed to look like a series of enormous flowering vines twisting, tangling, and climbing up from desert sands, it rose into the blue sky to become six, thirty-story towers. At its base, it covered roughly five square miles. It was the world's largest solar collector/concentrator, and it channeled that bright sunlight through every branch and corner of its expansive structure, energizing the three-point-four million Allithrians living within it.

At night, it glowed a soft yellow which, again, could be seen for miles.

The palace was breathtakingly lovely and cost the US government nothing. True to their word, the Allithrian people consumed no resources and had no requirements other than access to sunlight. As Ted had initially proposed to them, their ability to transmute matter paid their way onto the world.

Magdalena sighed and wiggled comfortably on the lounge chair, soaking in the rays of the hot sunlight. A cold droplet of water dripped onto her exposed nipple, causing her to squeak and jolt up to a seated position. She blinked her eyes open and saw Ted's grinning face above her, two tall drinks in his hands, the glasses coated in chilly condensation.

"Oh! I'm sorry. Did I drip on your lovely breast?" he said with an innocent tone.

"You brat!" she scolded him with a grin. He chuckled and handed her one of the mixed drinks. Hers was a Piña Colada, and his was a Singapore Sling. Not exactly breakfast beverages, but it wasn't exactly morning any longer since they'd slept in. Besides, the resort made the most incredible drinks. He turned to sit on his own lounge chair.

Ted yelped as Maggie's cold, wet hand landed on his bare ass. He spun to see her leaning back against her chair as she sipped her drink. She squeaked again as another droplet dripped onto her breast. He grinned as she pouted sweetly.

"One of the trade-offs for being naked all the time," he sighed as his eyes roamed over her body.

A thrill shot through her as she saw his appreciation. They'd had quite the evening last night, and Mary Sue was still in their room sleeping it off.

She smiled at Ted and shook her head once more as she realized how happy she was with the sexy, brilliant man. She looked out across the crystal blue waters the resort was built next to and sighed in bliss.

Ted's suggestion that the Allithrians offer to purify the waters and soil of the Salton Sea for a huge lot of unused land on its east side turned out to be a sweet deal for the US Government. A few simple demonstrations of their transmutation skills were all that was necessary to convince the official Washington delegation and grease the approval process for letting them come to Earth.

Maggie's mind returned to that exhausting and life-changing day when she stood in the empty desert east of the Salton Sea and repeated the ritual for creating the curtain. Ted and Mary Sue once again acted as her amplifier. Lord Tigeron watched in awe as she made a shimmering curtain seven feet tall and a tiny bit more than a mile wide, with her at the center. When she stepped forward to join the lovers, her separation from the light curtain almost took her consciousness. Hugs and kisses from Ted and Mary Sue replenished her, and she faced the curtain with excitement. They were all surprised at how wide the curtain was.

Thrusting her hand through, she felt another take it in a firm grip. Maggie got the sudden impression in that one grip of more people than she could count. The hand gently squeezed when it was ready, and she stepped back, guiding the person through the curtain. But instead of one person breaching the shimmering light, two-thousand, six-hundred-and-fifty stepped through all at once, shoulder to shoulder. Each of them held the hand of their neighbor.

Additionally, each had a hand on their shoulder from the row behind them. Maggie took another step back as the second row of Allithrian's stepped forward onto Earth. She repeated the process, everyone staying in step for hours until every single citizen stepped from the surface of Allithria to Earth. When the last was clear of the curtain, Maggie felt a rush of gratitude pour through the link from the enormous group of refugees from another world. It was emotionally overwhelming, and she collapsed into Ted and Mary Sue's arms.

The day had been... magic!

Her mind returned to the present, and she once again admired the view before her of the pristine lake. The extracted toxic minerals, chemicals, and foreign matter not conducive to a healthy environment were converted into the raw materials the Allithrian's needed to build their home. As the lake was just a collection basin with no outflow, there was a steady stream of new pollutants to be extracted.

The Allithrian's eventually set up purifiers at each inlet to ensure the purified water and soil in the lake stayed that way. Only sail or electric-powered watercraft were allowed on the lake.