Garrett returns to his rooms to pack. The old grain sack in which he moved his things to Xanadu has been replaced by a canvas contraption that Soren called a "duffelbag." The King's trusted advisor had felt that the grain sack was not befitting the royal image. Garrett did have to admit that the duffelbag, with its clips and shoulder straps, was much easier to carry.
Once packed, Garrett sits down to write a couple of notes. He had wanted to offer his congratulations to the happy couple, but their paths had never seemed to cross. Martin and Folly had both been so busy since they'd been back. Short of the perfunctory greetings when they first arrived, he hadn't had a chance to see them.
He starts with the hard one first. Martin. Garrett heaves a dutiful sigh. What to say? It doesn't matter. He's going to be angry no matter what you do, a voice inside prods him. Garrett shakes his head and shoves the voice forcibly out of his mind. "I'm not going to do that anymore," he mutters to himself.
He takes up parchment and pen and begins to write:
Martin:
I wish to offer my congra...
He stops and consults the dictionary which he has permanently borrowed from the library.
...tulations on your upcoming marriage. I wish you both, and your baby, every happiness in your eternal lives together. I'm sorry I haven't seen you in person, but you've been busy and now I'm leaving for Amber this afternoon to serve as a liaison for Father there. In case you haven't heard, I've obtained a master-at-arms to see to my swordsmanship training, so that when the time comes to begin my squireship with you, I will not be quite so green.
I will, of course, return for the wedding. Father has decided that I should be given a deck of trumps, so it will be much easier for me to travel back and forth soon. Good luck with your wedding preparations and let me know if you need me for anything.
Garrett
Garrett rereads the letter and screws up his face, unhappy with the way it came out, but having no idea how to improve it. Finally, he sets it aside and begins the one that brings him more joy.
Dear Folly:
Congratulations! I'm so happy for you on your upcoming marriage. I know how thrilled you must be. And a baby too! You're going to be a wonderful mother. I hope you'll let Uncle Garrett play with his niece or nephew once in a while. I AM experienced with babies, remember.
You're a tough lady to reach recently. I had hoped to have some time to chat with you and catch up, but every time I came by, you were out, and now I'll be leaving to go back to Amber. I asked Father if I could act as a liaison for him there and he agreed. I needed to be put to work somewhere before I went mad with boredom.
I don't know if you've heard, but I now have a master-at-arms. Ash suggested a recently-arrived swordmaster by the name of AbdAllah from some distant shadow. Apparently he has a reputation as a hothead and Ash is hoping he can learn as much from me as I can from him. I'll see what I can do. At any rate, I've worked with him for a few days now and it seems to be a good fit. He'll be coming to Amber with me, too.
Oh, and Father is going to let me have my own deck of Trumps! So it should be easy for me to come back for the wedding. I'll stay in touch with Father to be sure I won't miss it.
Well, good luck with your planning. Let me know if you need me for anything.
Your soon-to-be brother-by-marriage,
Garrett
P.S. Soren gave me one of the acoustic guitars from the studio (there were quite a few down there) and I've been practicing, but I was hoping you could give me a few lessons sometime if we ever have a moment's peace. Keep it in mind, okay? Thanks.
Garrett seals the letters with his nifty new seal (which he promptly packs when he's done) and sends them off with a page, with instructions that no replies will be necessary. Then he clasps on his sword belt, gathers his things and heads off to round up AbdAllah.
After having lunch with his swordmaster, Garrett leads the way to his father's office.
Garrett arrives at Random's office. The door is closed and there are voices within. One voice, actually. Random's. Perhaps he's already trumped Caine to send Garrett through.
Garrett pauses and listens for a moment, assessing the situation. He sets down his duffelbag and turns to AbdAllah. "Wait here," he says, motioning to a bench against the wall of the outer office.
He raps on the door lightly, then opens it a crack and pokes his head in. "Majesty?" he says softly, his unassuming look making it clear he can be waved out or called in as his father sees fit.
Random does not answer. He is looking off into space, not concentrating on the room. He is clearly in trump contact with someone. "Huon? In Danu? Damn, I thought he was messing with Meg, not you. Um, OK, Vere, bring me through. Garrett, tell Martin he's in charge."
The king's left hand reaches outwards, and Garrett catches sight of a red and glittering object on a heavy chain in his right.
"Yessir," Garrett answers crisply, but waits until he sees the rainbow afterglow to leave the office. In the meantime, he mentally commits the information to memory. Huon. In Danu. Messing with Meg, but now messing with Vere. King gone, took Jewel. Martin in charge.
The King disappears in a rainbow glow of coruscating sparks. Garrett notices that it is more purple this time than others he's seen.
Once his father is gone, Garrett strides out of the office, closes the door behind him and retrieves his things. He waves AbdAllah along with him without breaking stride. "There's been a delay, Master AbdAllah," he explains, throwing some genial authority into his voice. "You're dismissed for the nonce. But don't unpack. I'll catch up with you when we're ready."
"Yes, my lord. Shall I stay in the castle?"
"Yes. For now. If the delay will be much longer, I'll let you know."
After dismissing AbdAllah, Garrett goes first to Martin's rooms, running through his mental list of things to tell his brother on the way.
Finding him not at home, Garrett tries the second-most-likely spot - the studio. If Martin's not here, Folly or Soren might be and they could probably direct him further.
Folly rises from her drawing table, stretches, and looks over the work she has done: sketches of Xanadu, figure studies of a certain Rebman cousin, a path through beach dunes. This last she tucks carefully into her sketchbook -- the time to use it will come later.
Now, she has a call to make.
She goes to find Martin.
He's in the studio, playing a guitar they brought back from Texorami, the one he used in all-acoustic Right Hook shows. "Hmm, babe?" he looks up and asks when she finds him.
She crosses and uncrosses her arms in front of her, and smiles. "We still need to talk to Gerard. C'n I borrow your trump?"
"I think I need to be in on this conversation, too," Martin says as he digs his trump case out of his pocket. "We should probably go find a quiet nook somewhere." He glances behind her frowning, as Garrett comes in.
"What's up?" Martin asks.
"Message from Father," Garrett says, keeping his voice calm and level. "He trumped out to Vere in Danu and left you in charge here. There's something going on with someone called 'Huon.' Whatever's happening, it was serious enough for him to take the Jewel with him."
Martin is swearing softly under his breath.
Folly turns to greet Garrett with a smile that morphs quickly into a look of concern as he relays the message. "In Danu," she repeats, and frowns. She looks back at Martin. "We should probably hold off on calling Gerard, then. Not leastwise because your father's best way back here is probably by trumping you."
Martin scowls. "You can call him on your own if you need to. That can only be put off so long. But I may need to tap in on short notice."
Folly nods.
He pulls out his trump deck and starts shuffling through it, looking up at Garrett as he does so. "Dad wants me to teach you how to king it, so you're on duty as of now. You'll shadow me while I do the Regent routine."
Garrett nods once, quashing the urge to say "Yessir." "All right," he replies. "Let me just stow my things over here for the moment."
Folly looks at Garrett with a small smile, and noiselessly mouths, "Good luck."
He smiles back faintly and mouths "Thanks", then moves off to stash his duffelbag in an out-of-the-way corner of the studio. He returns promptly, watching Martin as he awaits his orders.
Martin hands Folly the trump of Gerard and rises from the couch where he was sitting, kissing her on the cheek as he does so. "Good luck, babe. Let me know if you need me."
Then he turns to Garrett. "C'mon. Let's go do this."
Hannah is happy to get back to their room. She gently kicks Gerard out to dinner with their friends, so she can delve into the treasure trove of information she only hopes she can decipher with a little help from the data center.
[She's looking for answers to questions she hasn't been able to answer. I'm going to let her ramble on here at length, but I don't actually expect answers to all these questions. An overview is fine, or however you'd like to do it.]
Where is his spine severed, exactly, and does his paralyzation make sense in regard to that alone? Or is it not? Is it compressed instead? Or both? What is pressing on it/in the way of regeneration? Does he have entire vertebrae shattered? Have vertebrae grown back together incorrectly? How destroyed is the musculature of his back?
His upper back and mid back are in pretty good shape. The area immediately above his hips is where the damage begins. The spine is severed in the sacrum and the sacral vertebrae are smashed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacral_vertebrae)
She thinks she has a good idea of what's happening with his bones, but they're also likely to be the thing that's easiest for her to recognize in these images.
Using the fractured and re-healed bones as her guide, she tries to identify where the arteries keeping his legs alive are, and figure out if there is even anywhere on the feet, legs, or pelvis they might be able to rebreak bone to allow correct healing?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_(anatomy)) Was the pelvis actually shattered into hundreds of pieces, or just dozens? She's extremely concerned about the hips. Have they healed completely out of line? Are there gaps in the bone, sharp edges, are the acetabulum even cups anymore - are the femoral heads where they should be if the joint worked? She's been assuming there is not avascular necrosis (lack of blood feeding bone=bone death) since he's got the bone there, still. She wouldn't be surprised to see signs that he'd 'recovered' from that, though. Is there any cartilage left on these joints? Are the ligaments there at all, or torn in two, or have they repaired themselves? She expects atrophy, at the very least, of ligaments and muscles, but is braced for much worse damage than that.
The pelvis is broken into dozens of pieces. Things are all out of whack on the x-rays, but Hannah thinks they might be able to rebuild the pelvis with enough time using by breaking it and letting it regenerate. That would take a couple of decades, or maybe longer, depending on the number of times they had to break things. It would also be hellishly painful and unpleasant for Gerard.
She looks for secondary causes of nerve paralysis in relation to the pelvis instead of the spine. It may be fixing the spinal column wouldn't be enough to give him a chance at walking.
That's not immediately obvious. The spinal injuries are sufficient.
Organs. She looks at this at a higher level. Are there any reports that simply say how they're functioning? She looks at the images for obvious things, like scar tissue or a double set of kidneys or a liver that's been split in two but is still somehow working. It's clear they've got to be functioning on some level for Gerard to even be alive. Are they enlarged, and is that inflamation or just a result of them having to handle so much more work?
The organs are all present and roughly in place, but they're enlarged and overworked. Hannah's best guess is that they've regenerated. Nerve control is rudimentary to nonexistent for some of them, especially in the pelvic girdle, but Hannah knew that.
She's going to have to let Chew help her get Gerard on the targeted drugs. She knows this, so she doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about it right now. Right now she's trying to figure out how to treat him without adding all the rods or pins or replacement bones and other such craziness these people use that may not let him walk the Pattern.
Hannah is overwhelmed and has to stop at intervals to calm down and make herself not cry.
"Simplify. Simplify," she mutters to herself. "What is life threathening right now? The morphine, and we're working on that as fast as we can."
Are there any bone fragments that are loose that are a threat to arteries or organs? Are there any arteries that look like they're in danger of rupturing (as far as she can tell from how well she can read these things)? Are there any arteries that are compressed that we might be able to free up with some minor surgery?
Gerard has apparently regrown his blood vessels in ways that work in his smashed body. That's the only explanation.
Any dangerous bone fragments have been reabsorbed.
She tapes a piece of paper over the running tally on the data center, and she researches hard what drug therapies they have here that might improve organ function (but especially liver and kidney function) or just make it easier on them for awhile. She's making notes to talk to Chew about that.
Hannah settles in to notes and research, working furiously through the night to compile her questions for tomorrow into some semblance of ordered sanity.
Do they have religions here? She needs a religion to aid her in her cover story. Something about purity, where you aren't allowed to have anything that isn't part of you implanted in your body. Hell, if there aren't religions, there are now. She'll make one up if she has to and act like the doctors are ignorant not to know about it.
There are archaic religions, more like superstitions. Some of the deities have been adopted as logos by corporate divisions and subsidiaries.
Hannah works on all this through the night. At breakfast the next morning, she and Gerard can start discussing the results as she sees them, what she still needs to find out/have explained, and attempt to create a plan of attack.
Hannah encourages Gerard to eat before they start talking. There is brilliant sun above the cloudline, and the clouds are fluffy and white and all-together too cheerful. Hannah puts on her happy face and eats too, just to prove it can be done.
She doesn't ask if he wants the good news first or last. He gets it first. "The good news is, you aren't in immediate danger, so far as I can tell from what they gave me. No bone fragments floating around to cut up your liver or arteries. Looks like the kidneys and all are working, though, hard. They're enlarged, but they're working. Or that may be why they work. I can't tell. But I think we can stick with our original plan of first things first, changing the painkiller over."
She stops to see how he takes this.
Gerard nods at various points in the recitation. He doesn't seem very surprised by the information Hannah has imparted. "What d'ye propose to change to? And what steps do you think should come after?"
"I'm curious as to what Chew comes up with, and if I can actually get him to hand over the formula. I think that's wait and see. Something that only treats the pain effect from where your spine is severed, on, would be my preference. Then we can find out if your kidneys ache, and treat that pain with something lighter. But we'll have to see what they can do that will work cross-shadow. Maybe we can modify."
Gerard nods. "We'll do what we can. If we had one of my brothers, we'd be in better shape with the drugs. I may not be in shape to do the transitions."
"I'll get us one of them if we need one," Hannah insists. "But I should be able to do it now. It just might take a while, with me being careful. Maybe I should practice some more."
She bites her lip and thinks about that for a minute. "After that, I need to Spirit Walk. Because, frankly, I'm not sure what to do next. Your sacral spine is a mess. So there's no damage, except for the organ strain we expected, above the pelvic girdle. Your spine is severed right about where we thought, and perhaps it would have tried to grow back, but it's an obstacle course. Or maybe your body has been too busy with the other things to worry about that yet."
Hannah reaches over the table to take his hand. She squeezes gently and looks into his eyes. "In a universe where anything is possible somewhere, maybe we grow a new pelvic girdle somewhere, out of your own bone, and... transplant. Maybe we find treatments to help clean the debris out of your blood so your kidneys and your liver aren't so strained, and then your body can heal faster. Or maybe we use magic. My only worries with that sort of medicine... How do we keep you unconcious through it? I don't want you awake if I figure out a way to use mage to realign the bones in your pelvis, Gerard."
"Then ye'll have to use magic to put me to sleep, won't ye?" He makes a joke of it, but Gerard is clearly worried. "What exactly do ye plan to do with this Spirit Walking? What do ye think it will tell ye that the medical records you've gotten don't?"
"The problem with Spirit Walking is that sometimes you go for one bit of knowledge and end up finding out something else entirely. But it's part of how I do magical healing. I have to seek answers - I guess, if I was thinking like most people seem to talk about witches, I'd say I have to go 'find' the spell. I don't just 'learn' or know a spell. I have to go learn it from a spirit, or through an experience or a vision. It's not like... there's a book for me. But sometimes spirits know things too. Like if my worrying about your pelvis at all before I worry about your spine is a waste of time, or if I'm right, and I don't want to be giving you nerve function back to an area that today you can only feel as a phantom. See what I mean?" she asks.
Gerard apparently has some acquaintance with magic of this sort, because he nods. 'D'ye plan to do that here, or somewhere else? For I don't know what kinds of magic a body could do in this shadow."
"Oh, no, not here," Hannah says quickly. "I mean to say, this place worries me too much. I thought I'd try it in Xanadu. It's really strong there - may be that it's too strong. But it may be too strong is what we need. If that doesn't work, I may try to get back over to Amber and try it there. I think we need to be very aware of intent, because I think whereever we do the healing, you might end up tied to that place. So ask yourself, whose Pattern do you really want to be walking? Or which kingdom most beholden to? Or, do we need to start looking for people in the family whose magic isn't so tied to the land?"
"I think if we're to make it happen that way, you'll need to do it at Xanadu or Paris. I'll need to think about that." Gerard gives her a thoughtful look. "Were it you, which would you seek out? Or can ye judge without having gone to Paris?"
Hannah smiles. "I can't judge without going. Were it me, how important music is to what I believe about the universe would probably become part of the mix. I don't know how important music is to Corwin, but it's pretty obvious it's important to Random."
Gerard laughs. "Corwin likes music all right."
She shrugs. "But that wouldn't be the only thing. There's so many things about picking a place to be. I've never really done that. Home is where I was raised. Lady Elizabeth's is where I was sent to, and the agricultural school, again, was where I was sent to - and then there weren't a lot of choices in medical schools for women. I picked the one where the most help was... and then I went home. There was never really any thought of going anywhere else. Obligations..." Hannah looks sad. "It all seems very small, now. I felt like I was well traveled, before."
Hannah meets Gerard's eyes. "Pick what you like best, where you'll be happiest, forever. We'll make the help come there, if that's what we have to do. Vivre bien, Gerard."
"I haven't been to Paris, so I don't know how I'll like it either. Maybe we should visit it once we're done here, for both of us to get a feel for it," Gerard muses.
Hannah nods. "And we can see Solace, too. So the plan is what it was, with more stops and even more of a magical lean. And impatient little me needs to remember the right answer is more important than the fast answer.
"I'm going to want to send test medicines ahead to Random and Corwin just to be sure they work in Xanadu and Paris before we start this process. There has to be someone around who will volunteer to be our test hare." Hannah smiles. "Unless you know some folks already that might."
Gerard shakes his head. "There were people injured like this when the castle collapsed, but they're all gone now, lass. I'm sure that if they're building in Paris and Xanadu, they have people with spinal injuries. It's the nature of falling rocks."
Hannah nods grimly. "Indeed. And if it works, it will help them too. Assuming it works, how do we go about getting a big supply? Do we have to go to the black market? I have," she grins again, "a little experience with getting medical supplies on the black market, if that's what we need to do that."
"The black market here will be different from any you've ever dealt with, Hannah. Pay through the nose and get their supplies." Gerard's tone brooks no argument.
And yet, she smiles. "No 'gotiatin'? Come on, now. I think I don't get off easier being a woman, here, the way I read it... and back home, a girl could take advantage of that." The slight twang fades, as does the smile. "But... I'm not keen on being taken advantage of, Gerard. You take away all my fun when there's nothing but dry business to be done. How bad can it be? They've still got to do business."
Gerard shakes his head. "You haven't dealt with the kind of people who sell black market goods in places like this. I have. You won't be getting that experience on my watch, either. They'll kill you as soon as look at you. If I had my legs, I'd do it myself, but I don't. And you won't."
Hannah scowls. "Not even if I just 'pay through the nose'?"
She taps her fingers on the table. "I'm the one who's supposed to be protective of you, not the other way around, here."
Gerard, who undoubtedly has centuries of dealing with willful lasses under his belt, doesn't budge an inch for either the scowling or the reminder. "In things you know more about, you're welcome to do so. In this, I know more, and my judgement stands. Promise me you'll abide by it."
Hannah smiles a little smile. "You make me miss my father, Gerard. I can't promise you that. I don't know what's going to happen next. If I can't get Chew to do what I want, we'll need a supplier. We may have time for us to stay, and for me to make the connections to," she sighs, "do it the highbrow way. But if there isn't time, I'm going to do what I have to do, sir. You'll just have to teach me how not to get killed. Because if you could do it I can do it."
Gerard shakes his head. "If I knew the way to give ye the better part of a millennium's experience with people, to make judgements about who to trust, the knowledge of shadow and substance and your own capacities, I'd do it lass, trust me. But you're, what, fifty or sixty, and ye've been out of your home shadow a few weeks? This place is too different. I'll have one of my nephews come help ye."
That starts her scowling again. "I'm thirty three, and you'll always have a millennium on me, and dear god, is the whole universe biased against women? Do you think I haven't spent my whole life finding ways around being a woman? What can possibly be so different between some scum of the earth thievin' drug trader here who'd just as well kill me and worse, and the ones back home? At least here I can run away a lot better than I could then! I'm not going to over-estimate my capacities. I've been buying drugs the illegal way since I was twenty years old."
Hannah gets well into her rant, crossing her arms over her chest. "You only have to watch one person die who didn't need to for lack of medicine before you tell the law to go to hell. This place is only a little stranger to me than the East was when I was thirteen. I know how bad people can be and I know sometimes deals go sour and there wasn't a thing you could do about it and people die - I know. So if you want to call one of your nephews down here to stand behind me with a big gun and look like he'd just as well kill them, that's fine with me, but don't go thinking you can really protect me, because you can't. No one can. I'm forever crossing boundaries. It's what I do. It's why I'm here."
Gerard's brow furrows and his expression goes all stormy. "You're damn right I can't protect you, but I can do my damnedest make sure you don't go unarmed into a situation that'll kill ye. This isna about the law. It's about the kind of men who break it in a place like this. They're not hungry and lean, and they don't break the law because it's easy to break. When the law is bought, what kind of man breaks it, Hannah?"
Her arms stay crossed and she leans toward him. "That'd be the lawman, then. There's no law on the ground here, I understand that. I never said I'd go unarmed. Je suis trop fut? pour ?tre si stupide. I'd even agreed to take backup, Aho! Dadeha, Wakon'da Xu'be, give me strength. So what kind of compromisin' do you think I'm going to do that doesn't back me right up against promising not to do a thing it scares you for me to do? What else can I promise, except promising not to do it, which I can't?"
"We should find a better Shadow for this," Gerard mutters testily.
"I like how you don't answer any questions. I'm going to get better at that too, and then we'll talk about nothing at all," she comments sourly. "Don't get all... look here, we see what we can get from Chew, and we'll talk before I take off to do anything. I don't know how you expect me to trust your judgement on taking morphine and alcohol when you can't even trust me with procuring drugs."
"I trust ye for things ye know," Gerard growls. "It's for things ye know nothing of that I worry."
"You're making assumptions about what I know and what I don't know, sir. It hasn't been easy for my people, and I've done any number of things maybe a 'lady' shouldn't have to do. What do I need to do to make this less worrisome for you, because I don't need you under any more pressure than you're already under? I need you to focus on getting off the morphine." Hannah uncrosses her arms and reaches across the table for him.
Gerard lets her take his hand. "I don't know how to explain things you don't know, but I know how t'explain black markets. A man goes to one if one of three things be true: he has nae money to buy the thing, he has nae time to wait to get money or buy it, or he has nae way to buy within the law. We dinna care for the law. we're immortal, and money is no object to us. So why take any risk to buy on the black market?"
"We may not be. We may be able to get what we need from Chew. Especially if I tempt or blackmail him with rights to widely distribute what he figures out from all this. But if he is difficult - and since I don't trust Sebastian at all - and if whatever they come up with isn't so customized that we can't just get it - it'd be faster than... what were you thinking? Shifting somewhere else and having the formula analyzed and having stock made?" she asks, squeezing his hand.
Gerard nods. "Aye."
"That may be our best option anyway, depending, but you know, I'm tired of waiting. I'm extremely concerned about the morphine, even this purer sample. I really think it's the first and biggest threat to your health. We could be ignoring it and just trying to get find a healing solution, but then we'd be rushed on that, and it seems like it's better to take our time and get that right, so long as we're not hurting you more in the meantime."
Hannah smiles. "Plus, if you're mind is less drugged, you'll be able to help me even more."
"And I agree, which is another reason I'm not anxious to go to the black market. Grey market sales out of a corporate lab would be one thing, but I'm not sae sure of the quality of the true black market labs in a place like this," Gerard explains.
Hannah bites down hard on her bottom lip before she says, "We need more help. There's no reason someone can't be off getting stock made while we move on to something else. So that's high on the list of priorities immediately following making sure it works in Xanadu or Paris."
Hannah sighs and pulls back, slouching in her chair for just a second before she straightens back up. "How much am I allowed to tell Chew?"
Gerard frowns. "Are ye planning on bringing him back to Am--to Xanadu?"
Hannah shrugs. "I don't know yet. Maybe? But there's a lot I could tell him without ever naming a place. Like, my Uncle Corwin says never to give our blood to anyone else because it'll kill them, so, um... watch out with your experimenting on other things, there, doc, you know?"
Gerard's frown doesn't waver. "If we meddle with him too much, he may end up there anyway. So says Random of these things."
Her brow creases. "That's... uh... hm."
Hannah sits in silent thought. "That has some nice implications, but some not so nice ones too, don't you think?" she eventually asks. "I'm obviously too controlling, because I hate that idea."
The frown breaks into a bit of an involuntary smile, "Or you're one of us, you mean. I mislike it myself, especially if you start telling him things. Unless you mean him to be court physician and put us both out of work."
Hannah bites her lip not to laugh at that. "Maybe you're too close to this family, but ten of us could be healing for years, and it'd still be a mess. Anyway, he's a researcher, not really... he doesn't seem like he's a practical physician. I tried to get him to go down to street level with me and do some streetwork and he wasn't all for it. Seems he's more comfortable with his helping huge portions of the population, but from his distance. Which is when he complained about 'research restrictions' and the like. So, you know, that's our carrot, which is why I'm asking."
"I don't know. I'll have to think about it," Gerard says. Then he gets a very distant look in his eyes. "Who?" he asks.
[Assuming Folly answers]
After a moment, he says, "It's Folly."
Hannah just smiles and sits back. She'll leave if Gerard shoo's her away, but otherwise she's content to listen.
As the contact resolves, there's a pause where Folly is obviously answering. Gerard starts looking a bit confused. "Good news, I hope. Hannah's with me. D'ye want to speak to her as well?"
After a moment's pause, Gerard looks a bit befuddled, and a bit pleased. "Well, ye have my congratulations and my blessing, Folly, but I'd've expected Martin to ask me for your hand himself. Where is he?"
Hannah smiles and raises an eyebrow, but continues to say nothing.
After a pause, Gerard frowns. "One of Dad's by-blows. We assumed he was dead, but we assumed the same about Corwin for many years. They vanished about the same time, come to think of it. What about him?"
Gerard's hand reaches out to Hannah.
Hannah reaches back to take Gerard's hand.
Folly takes Martin's trump of Gerard back to her quarters and settles onto the sofa with her bare feet propped on the coffee table. She takes a few moments to snuggle with the two cats who hop up to greet her, and laughs when she realizes the petting is as much to calm her own nerves as to show affection to her companions.
When the three of them are comfortably arrayed in a splayed pile of fur and purring, she draws forth the card and gazes on the laughing face of her uncle. She smiles back at it, and concentrates.
"Who?" Gerard asks.
"Folly. Hullo, uncle, do you have a few minutes?"
"It's Folly," Gerard says. He's sitting at the remains of a meal in a place that looks vaguely familiar. Modern tech by the look of the clothes. They're very familiar, in fact ....
Folly peers into the contact with a hint of a frown. "I hope I'm not interrupting -- I wanted to let you know that I'd made it back safely to Xanadu, and that... I have some news. And something to ask you."
Gerard looks a bit confused. "Good news, I hope. Hannah's with me. D'ye want to speak to her as well?"
"In a moment," Folly says. "This first bit is... a little bit personal." A tiny smile lifts the corners of her mouth, and her cheeks grow faintly pink. She opens her mouth, hesitates for just a moment as she searches for the right words, but settles on the direct approach:
"I'm pregnant," she says, and her smile grows. "Martin and I would like your permission to get married." She adds, not quite as an afterthought, "His father already knows."
Gerard looks a bit befuddled, and a bit pleased, as he considers that. "Well, ye have my congratulations and my blessing, Folly, but I'd've expected Martin to ask me for your hand himself. Where is he?"
"Well, he's Rebman, you know," she says with a mirthful twinkle of affection, "so we're doing things the other way 'round." More seriously, she continues, "He did mean to be in on this conversation, but he got called away right after I borrowed his trump of you." She pauses, and a hint of worry creeps into her expression. "Do you know someone called 'Huon'?"
Gerard frowns. "One of Dad's by-blows. We assumed he was dead, but we assumed the same about Corwin for many years. They vanished about the same time, come to think of it. What about him?"
Gerard reaches out to someone out of the frame of the trump.
Folly nods as she sees him reach. She pauses to let Hannah join the contact, if she chooses to do so.
Hannah's eyes widen just a second as she smiles big at Folly.
Folly grins back. "Cool, innit?"
Her expression grows more serious and she returns to the topic at hand, now including Hannah as well as Gerard in the rundown. "Here's what I know," she says. "Garrett came down just a few minutes ago. He said the king had just trumped out -- to Vere -- because there's something going on in Danu that has something to do with this Huon person. I don't think he had any more details than that."
Her voice is calm and steady. Hannah may get the impression she's keeping it that way on purpose.
Hannah's smile fades, and she looks at Gerard to see his reaction, squeezing his hand.
"Someone needs to get to the Isles to ward Random. Vere and Robin are well and good, but one of us should be with him." Through the trump connection, Folly can feel her foster-father's frustration. "Who's in charge there?"
"Martin," Folly replies. "He's gone off to do regent-y stuff, but I can find him if you need me to. What does Random need warding from? This Huon person?"
A memory of a conversation with Random tickles the back of Folly's mind. She adds firmly, "I'll call anyone in you tell me to. But you're not going."
Gerard slumps in his wheelchair a little. "I know I canna. And Jules canna either. I dinna know who can go. Where are Bleys and Caine?"
Hannah says nothing, just squeezes Gerard's hand again.
"Dunno," Folly says with an apologetic frown. "I've only been back a couple days, and haven't seen any of your siblings but Syd. I can try to track them down, though. Or maybe I should let you go so you can do it, since you've got a much better sense of what needs to be done than I do...?"
She regards Gerard and Hannah through the trump with a rueful smile. "I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to inject more stress into your trip...."
Hannah shrugs. "Nothing to be done for it. It would have been wrong to keep this news from Gerard."
She looks at Gerard. "Can we do that from here - track them down, and pull it all together? Or do we have to change plans?"
Gerard frowns. His attention is still on Folly, perhaps to hold the trump connection open. "I have my trump deck. Either they'll answer or not. Folly, have ye a trump of yerself now?"
Folly shakes her head. "Not yet, but I could probably get you a sketch in an hour or two. And that would give me something more to do than fret while the king's away." She smiles wryly. "I could let you make the calls, and call you back myself once I've either finished a sketch or have more news. Sound good?"
Hannah's forehead furrows, and she turns very concerned eyes from Gerard back to Folly, slowly down to Folly's bump, then back up to her face.
Noticing Hannah's look, Folly colors; but there's a smile behind her eyes. "Um, yeah," she says softly. "Ask me later."
"That's what we'll do." Gerard says. "I'll wait for your call."
Hannah manages a farewell smile for Folly before letting Gerard's hand go.
Folly nods in farewell. "Take care, both of you," she says. "I'll call back soon."
Then she passes her hand over the card and breaks the contact.
Folly slips the trump of Gerard into her trump case for safekeeping, carefully disengages herself from the snoozing cats, and returns to her drawing table. She finds a smallish piece of paper and writes:
M--
Talked to Gerard. He gives his blessing. [abstract doodle of flowers or fireworks or something, very ecstatic-looking]
Told him what I know about the H. situation -- namely, not much. I think he's going to try to call Bs. Something about finding someone to ward your father.
I'll be calling him back in a watch or so. Send word if there's news.
(Also, he and Hannah looked to be someplace remarkably similar to where we just left. Do you think it's worth warning them about wossname, that Dr. we didn't like?)
Always, [another ecstatic little doodle] F
She finds a page to deliver the note, and then returns to her desk to sketch.
Last modified: 10 November 2006