On the walk back to the castle, Conner shifts over to speak to Bleys. "Well, that went about as well as you could hope for." Conner sighs. "I enjoyed your eulogy, Uncle. It was very you and her at the same time." It is clear that Conner has more to say but he falls silent for a moment as if unsure where to begin or if now is the right time.
Bleys nods. "Thank you. One does things for many reasons. You'll note we had quite an audience today."
He doesn't seem averse to talking.
"Indeed. I think I would have preferred a family only memorial followed by one for more general mourners but it not my place to choose the manner of her remembrance." Conner nods. "I am still pondering what statement her half-brother was trying to make. The hub-bub among the nobles seemed to center around what level of wrong the action was."
"Yes. I'm working on shifting perceptions so that it appears bold but risky. Raptor and his son are still friends. I wonder whether he planned this or whether the boy insisted and the Duke made the best of it." Bleys shrugs.
"If their intention was to be noticed, they've succeeded." Conner comments. "Should the event come up in my hearing, I'll back your interpretation." Conner takes a moment to brush some non existent lint from his sleeve. "Moving on to weightier topics, I was wondering if your offer for a crash course in higher mathematics is still good. I'm about to become a new variable in them or perhaps a constant. Either way, I would learn."
"Would you?", says his Uncle, not unkindly. "I'll be in and out of Xanadu over the next weeks, taking care of ... personal matters. Can you contact me by trump, weekly? Oh, and I might need a favor of you. Shouldn't be too arduous."
"Provided I can obtain a Trump of you, I can handle the timing." Conner replies. "There is always the Trump booth of course. I suspect I'll be doing enough popping between Rebma and surface realms for the foreseeable future to handle that. I have a key to cast and Rebma is not the best place for metallurgy." He explains. "As for the favor, is it one you will reveal now or something to spring on me later?" Conner smiles. "I'm fine with the condition either way. I'm just trying to plan my calender."
He smiles in response. "Oh, there's no mystery surrounding it. Deirdre's daughter is looking for a tutor in higher maths. If you're studying under me, part of your tutelage would be to teach her. The 'might' part is that she may not figure out how to 'convince' me to help her learn." Bleys pauses. "She might even be able to help you with your metallurgy."
Conner smiles wide. "She might at that. Well, I am no stranger to see one, do one, teach one. Perhaps I shall approach her with an offer to persuade you to take her on." Conner chuckles. "Spread the favors around a bit so everyone wins."
Bleys smiles back. "Good man. In family dealings, it's wise to be considered magnanimous and generous, because you may find yourself rapidly in need of those good feelings."
It is somehow easier for Celina to find her way about Xanadu's castle than the one in Paris. Even so, she stops several times to admire the view out a window or smell the eddy of a breeze coiling about a door jamb. She has repaired her face, but not her passion. It is a day that will live long in her inner core and will inform her approach to Lucas' funeral in Paris.
At the suite door to Llewella's rooms, she scratches for admittance. She runs her hands once over the greenest black gown she is wearing. Then allows the inner breath to rise up from her toes along her spine. She does not know what news she will find of Rebma, she knows she must ask.
A maid admits Celina, and Llewella steps in from the back, smiling. "Celina! Khela was hoping I'd find news of you here."
Celina smiles quite a bit. Khela's name and the word 'hope' have that affect on her. "Aunt Llewella. I wanted to hear news and while I know that Conner has recently been in the City, it has been too long since we spoke... and so many things have changed."
Celina moves closer, carefully entering Llewella's personal space, making a discreet scan of the room and noting how artfully nothing here draws reflection. She consciously discounts the maid but does temper her words. "I am too long away but have still more duties in Paris before I can return. How is Khela? Has Loreena been handed back to Family with apropos ceremony? You are well I trust?"
"Oh, quite well. Khela misses you, and wishes you would return. Loreena is in a tower, awaiting someone to turn her over to, or her own realization that she should ransom herself."
Llewella pauses. "What happened in Paris with Moire? It sounds as if things went quite badly for her."
"It is unclear what happened," Celina responds. "Moire met with Corwin to talk about the realms of Paris and Rebma. She and I talked, badly, the next day. Then Corwin was pulled off to help Random with Vialle's disappearance. I was Regent of Paris when Lucas was killed making a Trump sketch. The sketch appeared to be of Moire." She sighs. "And Moire slipped from the palace, leaving Carina behind to announce her departure. I've been looking for Moire since then at King Corwin's direction, but we hear she may have fled the realm for parts unknown.
"Solace and the children are all right," Celina finishes. "Lucas died with a mirror shard through his heart."
Llewella nods, as if she was aware of some of it. "Given Martin's experience, I can't blame her. I'd say "look near water", but that's obvious. If she's really fled the realms, I'd expect her to go somewhere she felt safe, or as if she could recruit allies. I'll warn Khela to have the stairs to Paris watched.
"Are you coming home soon?"
"Am I welcome there, Llewella? Or am I a huge problem?" Celina's voice pitches to an intimate level. She keeps her tone as even as possible considering what she must say. "It seems to me I'm a problem for Khela at many levels. It will be hard to hide that I'm related to Moire, if it is not well known already. It will never be hidden that I'm Corwin's daughter. I do not think many will approve of the relationship that Khela and I have had or could continue. It will also appear that she seduced me at a tender age to open the way for her royal return to the city. It is a tawdry story waiting to be used against her as she forms her court."
Celina adds, "And I cannot imagine being as comfortable elsewhere. I shall return to Rebma, if only to answer a few questions for myself. I ...I want to see the Pattern again." She watches Llewella's reactions to her admissions. "Moire did not educate me much when she introduced me to the initiation. I have changed."
Llewella smiles, slightly. "I hope it is in ways that suit you. I have no idea what she was doing with that, but I cannot believe she didn't have a plan. Your Mother is not done with us, by any means."
Celina nods, as if there is no question of that.
"I don't think Khela really cares what anyone thinks about you and about her, or doesn't think it will matter in the aftermath of Huon's attack. While things are still precarious, she has gained at least some forbearance among her new court by being the one who smashed Huon's army while Moire fled. The Divine Right of Victors is a well-known principle. It should provide a certain cushion."
Celina keeps a blank face on this. She has already outgrown the notion of the Divine despite the heady exercise of keeping Khela's company. All such rights are suspect in her mind these days.
"Now all she has to do is consolidate her victory, create a government amongst a hostile bureaucracy and an entrenched nobility with their own agendas, make her sweeping social upheaval into a practical working solution, defend her newly won Kingdom from the former Queen to whom many would still flock, defend the same from the enemy who nearly took it from both of them, and create and maintain relations with her larger, more prosperous neighbors in Xanadu and Avalon."
The Princess breathes in deeply, after her long recitation. "So, to answer your first question, don't think of yourself as a problem at all. Khela hopes you'll be part of the solution."
"That would be sweet," says Celina with some fervor. "Then her mind is not far from my own on this." Celina moves to a nearer distance to her aunt. "I do not have to understand why Khela should not walk the Pattern. However, it seems I should understand better how best the Pattern serves the destiny of Rebma. I survived the Pattern without much training and in spite of much deception. This would imply there is something inherent to my flesh that even my tender will could raise up to pass through the ordeal. I have seen the shadows and walked them and now I'm moving back to where I began." She looks at Llewella. "What sort of promises might I make to get teaching from you on the Pattern strengths? I want to understand more than I do. Does it suffice to love and support Khela? What tasks honor the knowledge I want?"
Llewella holds out her hand, as if calming a current. "I have your word that you will do all in your power to preserve the life of my daughter. That suffices. What do you want to know? Be aware that I am not a scholar of our magics."
Celina reins in her curiosity a bit. "Well, did your skin color...darken when you took the Pattern? I mean, mine has always varied a bit with season, but I was never this dark year round. It's taken some time to realize how different it is. How sensitive it is to ...changes. How does the Rebma Pattern stand different from the old Amber Pattern? Did Oberon have a sister who made the Pattern beneath Rebma? Is that the line of royalty?"
Llewella laughs, not unkindly. "One at a time! Celina, it's only been this year that I knew that Patterns were made things, or that the one in Rebma wasn't a mirror image reflection of Amber's. Mother was notorious for not telling us anything. I think you would have disliked her; she was just like your mother." Her smile fades. "That's why she was so acceptable as Queen. She was Rebma's King Eric."
She takes a deep breath. "My skin used to lighten considerably when I was above the waves for any length of time. It still does, but it takes months. I don't remember anything about my Patternwalk, except that I felt like I was rebuilt block by block during it. It's a testament to your will that you succeeded." She looks away, her face suddenly guarded.
Ah. She fears for her daughter's will because Benedict says Khela should not walk the Pattern. Which bodes ill for the throne. Celina reins back further. She's looking for the match to the Question Dance. Moire as Eric means I am Jerod? How odd. How reflected I am to he. He knows what he knows and I do not.
The Seaward Lass nods. "I feel for you. My walk was..." Celina feels the thrum again in her feet and bones. Her lips feel phantom sparks. "Mother shouldn't have done it that way. Should not have put me on it without explaining." She shakes off the shiver building in her skin. "So the Pattern in Rebma is a unique beauty of its own. So you can do things that the Princes of Amber cannot. Things like.... breathe waters throughout shadow?"
She laughs, almost involuntarily. "Not me! That was Morganthe." The smile disappears again. "I can breathe water if I go walk to shadows where the water is breatheable, and even breathe water where I can breathe water and the people there cannot, but it is an artifact of how I walk shadow, and not unlike the high probability that we will walk to shadows where we can breathe and have gravity when we are above the water.
"Morganthe learned that trick as a bit of sorcery. Or maybe magery."
She pauses. "Your mother may have felt she had no choice but to place you on the pattern. Recall when that was."
Celina frowns. She won't get into an argument over 'may haves' until she knows a lot more about Moire. She wants to but she won't. "So the Pattern of Rebma does not have its own feel and current? Assuming you've walked both the old Amber Pattern and the Rebma one in your experience. I would have thought each was different no matter how similar."
Llewella ignores Celina's physical cues. "Lir, no! I never needed to walk it again." She pauses. "I also got the feeling that it wasn't a one-way communication. The pattern may have been doing more than just causing visions. I never wanted to open myself up to it beyond that first time.
"People who did walk it again have told me that they never walk the same pattern twice, even if it's in the same place, so I don't think you're wrong, but I don't think you're exactly right, either."
She tilts her head, and her hair cascades around her in a chain reaction, setting behind her in a way that would have been very striking underwater. "What are you suggesting?"
"Just a feeling," Celina says softly, "now that I've seen the Pattern of Paris, Xanadu and Rebma they all feel different. Near them my skin reacts differently, like a change in anbaric current. They look different. Certainly from what I've been told, they were made by very different people." She looks at Llewella more directly. "I thought perhaps your mother, or her mother was the mind behind the making of Rebma's Pattern and that might lead to other questions. Different art brings a different change in perceptions."
Llewella shrugs. "Perhaps. She never told me and I never asked. We didn't speak of such things. The past was, by and large, past, and not a matter of pragmatic importance." Llewella pauses. "To the best of my knowledge, my mother didn't have a mother, not that she ever spoke of. She was just ... The Queen."
The older woman stretches. "There's quite a bit that no one living remembers about Rebma any more, and what we don't carve into stone doesn't last below."
"I should say that it is somehow terrible and yet part of the whole I am become to find I do not have a grandmother who has a mother." Celina holds back a wry laugh, but not the large smile. She does not mind letting Llewella know she seeks to be more flexible. "Old Rebma lies mysterious beneath the waves. So be it. But I have a need to question those mysteries. It may not smooth my way for tomorrow and I shall learn to be more pragmatic." Celina thinks, then offers, "What's the most pragmatic thing I can do to help Khela given she is not here to ask?"
"Khela has informed me that she intends to come to Paris. You may ask her there. Until then, try not to let your mother talk your father into anything rash, at least not that he plans to follow up on." Llewella pauses. "Have you spoken to him of her recently?"
Celina growls softly with a frown. Then looks a bit embarrassed because she's never made such a sound before and isn't quite sure she should. She puts a hand over her mouth and her expression smooths. "Ah..." She blinks. "Hardly a conversation, he dictates. Well, yes, he said Moire was being less than 'bright'. He said what was about to happen to her was worse than anything he could do." Celina looks at Llewella. "He asked me to not kill her."
Llewella nods and looks back at her. "Of course he dictates. It's the prerogative of Kings, and the prerogative of Princesses is to determine how close they may walk the line between obedience and rebellion. When you are willing to try the line, you are growing up; when you become confident of it, you are grown.
"I'd recommend honoring his request, but you tell me he asked, which is interesting. I don't know if Moire could produce a death curse, but if she were to, I would not expect it to be easy to live with."
"A death curse?" Celina feels this is something that will get answered if she asks. "As in, 'I spite thee' or something more intrinsic?"
"Usually something more explicit, actually. It's why Caine shot Brand in the throat." Llewella shudders, perhaps for effect. "When we die, or at least when several of my brothers have been killed, they have issued a curse that, across shadow, across continents, and across generations has been effective against their enemies. It is the reason I have so many living brothers."
She pauses. "I don't know if Moire can."
Celina nods slowly, trying to take that in. It's just so huge. Speaking a doom upon your enemies. But then.... "But then what would my father mean when he said that something worse than anything he could do was about to befall Moire?"
Llewella shakes her head. "I cannot say, for I know of nothing worse that can happen to her than to lose her throne and the esteem of her people and her peers. She has outlived all of her lovers, friends, and enemies from her youth and is no longer the hero who brought peace beneath the waves. I pity her, and will do so as long as she safely does not threaten my daughter's realm."
"Ah," is what Celina manages in response. Perhaps because Llewella's sentiment is just too close to her own feelings on the matter. Worse would be.....what? Having it all slip from your grasp despite the power you hold.
"So Aunt Llewella, how would my mother speak so knowingly about the Chaotic eating of people for knowledge and control? She seemed surprised I knew of it and referred to 'our relatives' and even cautioned me about side effects of the process." Celina cannot be bland about it, she looks wary and intrigued. "Did Rebma's royalty breed with Chaos? Would that be why your mother never spoke of ...antecedents? Could it be so?"
She shrugs. "My sister paid attention to those who spoke ill of Queen Clarissa. I doubt she was of that lineage. Could it be? Good luck in finding out, niece. Perhaps your cousin Vere can ask Mother."
"Really?" Celina nods. A shiver passes up her back. Aunt Llewella seems unperturbed by the strangest things.
Celina offers Llewella a clasp of hands. "I shall take my questions to Khela soon. Thank you for your patience. I think things may improve soon."
As the Royal Party enters the castle, and Martin excuses himself for conversations he's none-too-excited about, Folly touches the king's elbow and flashes an old band sign -- technically, "confab in the van," but she has faith that even in the absence of a van they can manage a meeting-place of appropriate privacy and comfort for a friendly but serious chat.
Random nods and, unless Folly indicates that it's urgent, leads the Queen towards the family quarters.
It's less than ten minutes later that a page arrives with a note, in Syd's handwriting. It just says "studio" on it.
Folly pulls the last few pins from her hair -- having hastily changed out of her funeral attire and into something more comfortable -- and sets off at a brisk pace that makes it clear she is anxious to get where she is going.
The studio is dark, and the door is open. As Folly approaches down the hall, she hears an extended drum solo. It's good but it's angry.
She slows as she approaches, listening -- to the rhythm and to the mood behind it. It seeps into her blood and makes her heart speed up.
She slips silently into the studio and pulls the door almost-closed behind her. It casts the studio into near-darkness, but that hardly matters; she knows her way through this space by sound, touch, and instinct.
Her fingers close around a bass-neck, and moments later she's weaving a simple but effective foundation of support for the drums. And the drummer.
After a measure, the drums settle quickly into a split presentation, with the bottom drums providing a solid beat and the top drums and the cymbals being more free and more melodic. It's still highly aggressive and percussive, but it's clear that Folly can either take the melody line or a rhythm line and the drums would work with it. And so would the drummer.
Folly lays out a sparse line, with just enough discordance to match with the aggression of the drums. The tritones and occasional ringing harmonics hint at the screaming guitar solo that would fit perfectly into the empty spaces.
There is no guitar, though: instead, after a few measures of ramping, heart-pounding tension, Folly lets out a wordless vocal wail, clear and instinctive and cathartic, as if the pounding rhythm had reached into her gut and knocked free everything she'd been bottling up, all the pain and sorrow and frustration, and then shaken it until it exploded forth as song.
But then, Syd's drumming always did have that effect on her.
The drumming continues in the dark, along with some harmony beats on -- something metal. Whatever he's hitting, it sound perfect.
The song goes on until the perfect crescendo, and stops. The two of them are in the dark silence for a moment while the ringing goes out of their ears. Years of studio time means they let the silence stretch, allowing the (non-existent) engineer to capture any final harmonics.
Something clicks and electric lights turn on. Random is on the drum throne, catching his breath.
In front of Folly is a music stand with a page of words on it.
"Flora's kid who she thinks is an imposter wants me to have that song played at her brother's funeral. I haven't decided if I should, because it'll make Flora really pissed, but if we decide to, I'd like you to sing it. I'll play the Lyre, which is sorta appropriate, for me, I guess."
Folly smirks.
"Do you think we should?"
"I take it you've concluded she's not an imposter, then -- or at the very least, she's one of us?" Folly asks as she replaces the bass on its stand and reaches for the lyrics sheet. "I haven't met her yet," she adds as she scans the page, "so any opinion from me will be colored mostly by the fact that she's presented herself as Huon's emissary. Which isn't exactly a mark in her favor, I'm afraid."
She looks up from the paper. "What's your read on her?"
Random shrugs. "She's somebody's kid, that's for sure, unless she's Dara. She seems intent on getting in my pants. And she may be able to make us some recording gear."
"Well, at least one of those things is a mark in her favor, anyway." Folly offers up a little smile, a mix of sympathy and wry amusement.
"At least...", he agrees.
There's still a question on the table for her to answer, though, and it's one that seems best contemplated while curled up somewhere comfy; so she picks her way through the instruments and equipment to the large beanbag chair nearest the drum kit. She settles in, leaving enough room beside her that it's clear Random is welcome to join her.
Random opens the beer fridge and grabs two cold ones and joins her on the beanbag, sitting in the opposite direction with his knees near her head.
Folly takes one of the beers, but rather than drink it immediately, she presses the cool bottle to her forehead and neck. She's a bit flushed, probably from all the singing.
She quietly contemplates the words on the paper for a few more moments. "Here's what I think: this part" -- she points to the lines at the bottom of the page, written out in verse -- "seems almost calculated to piss off Flora. The part at the top maybe isn't so bad, but taken as a piece -- together with what you've said about her -- it all leaves me thinking that this is either an active attempt at mischief or malice, or, in the best case, rampant narcissism. You know?" Folly regards Random with a wry smile. "Although I suppose that's just more evidence she's one of us."
Random taps the side of his nose, once, but doesn't interrupt.
She pauses thoughtfully, then continues, "On the one hand, funerals are for the living, not the dead. One hopes that the words and sentiments offered there would give comfort to the bereaved -- and this clearly would not. Certainly not the last part, anyway. On the other hand... you know me. I would not silence any voice raised earnestly with good intentions. And perhaps these are genuinely good intentions, poorly executed."
She looks at the paper again. "You may have a different take on this than I do, but I read these words as being meant earnestly for Lucas, or disingenuously for Flora. Or both. If it's genuinely meant for Lucas, then we should be able to honor Flora's maybe-daughter's request by offering these words and this song up solemnly to his memory and spirit -- even if we do so outside the public ceremony. The main reason to offer any of it publicly, then, would be to acknowledge that you accept, at the very least, her claim to grief." She pauses again, and looks at Random. "The song I think we should offer privately, outside the context of the funeral -- unless you're just really in the mood to piss off Flora. The first part here that looks like a speech, though---" She gestures at the paper. "That, I'm torn on. But I think I'd be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and include it in the service. What do you think?"
"What do I think? I think the battle of Baklava was a hideous mistake. All that delicious pastry, ruined." He lifts his eyebrows, twice, then falls back onto the bag.
Folly pokes the tip of her tongue out at him, good-naturedly, but doesn't otherwise interrupt.
"I think it's likely a moot point because I can't imagine Corwin and Flora having an informal remembrance ceremony like I just did and I have no intention of busking outside my nephew's funeral. It's their gig. We probably need to let 'em have it and then maybe perform this at the afterparty.
"Corwin and I have agreed on that. Big pow-wow to discuss threats. I'm just hoping it goes well. I suppose that means that I hope that there are enough serious threats to keep us from worrying about each other." He shrugs.
"It might make a good intro to the whole 'Oh, and Huon has this ally, and she says she's Flora's dead daughter, and she might well be' portion of the discussion..."
Random lets the sentence tail off and drinks his beer.
Folly ponders that suggestion for a long moment. Then, "Did she provide music to go along with the lyrics, or are we meant to improvise?" she asks. It sounds almost like a non-sequitur, but it's clear to Random she thinks this could have strong bearing on the proper course of action.
Random throws his feet over his head and rolls off the beanbag in a squishy somersault. He picks up the sheet music and brings it to Folly. Sliding in to his former position before it even begins to cool.
Folly takes the music and begins poring over it.
"She helpfully transcribed it for guitar, in case I couldn't play the lyre." Random rolls his eyes. "So now I've got to learn how to play the lyre." He shrugs, then smiles. "On the plus side, maybe she'll start by demanding that we immediately hunt down Moire and storm out when we don't all get up with pitchforks and torches."
"Yeah, one hopes she'd find some way of excusing herself, anyway," Folly replies, taking the antecedent shift in stride, "before all the WAILING and RENDING OF GARMENTS and LAMENTATIONS of their WOMEN--- I mean, have you looked at this?" She gives Random a wide-eyed look as she holds up the sheet music; the 'no-I-mean-really-LOOKED-at-this' is implied. "I might need to take back what I said earlier. The trying to get a rise out of people might not be malicious. It might just be cultural."
Random takes it and reads it. After a moment he laughs, loud and long. "Well, no, I hadn't. Not as such. I looked at the sheet music. She's not a bad hand at notation, except the semiquavers look like quavers. Assuming those aren't demisemiquavers. If only I were breve enough to ask her...
"So, no chorus, no rending, no lamentations," he says, waving the paper. "If this was for Lucas, I think we could probably sing 'Pills of White Mercury' and he'd approve. I may dedicate that to him the next time we all get to play together."
He puts it down. "So, thumbs up or thumbs down. Do we perform it?"
Folly stares at the lyrics sheet still in her hand and chews her lower lip. After a long moment, she nods decisively. "In the interest of inclusion and giving her the benefit of the doubt and all that, I say we do it. However...."
She looks up from the page with a glint of clever mischief in her eyes. "As an improvisationist by nature, I reserve the right to take a modest liberty or two with the lyrics. I won't mess with the tenor of the underlying message of melancholy and comfort, I'll just... file off the word or two that might be taken as a barb. Replace 'mother' by 'family' or 'kinsmen' or somesuch. If she really did mean this earnestly, I'm sure she'd thank us for our thoughtfulness. And if she didn't...." The glint in her eyes goes steely. "She should be grateful we haven't come up with a far worse retaliation for trying to manipulate you like that."
Random blinks slowly. "Sometimes," he says laconically. He sips his beer. "Sometimes I find the best retaliation is to do exactly what is asked of me."
Now it is Folly's turn to laugh. She raises her own beer as if in a toast to his superior logic and takes a swig.
He pauses. "She's pretty bitter about Flora, so I think part of it is spite. But Flora could've found her if she was alive after she lost that shadow she was playing house in, so something doesn't fit." He shrugs. "It'll come out in the wash."
"Interesting," Folly says. She's clearly filing that little tidbit away for later, when she knows enough about the larger story to figure out how it fits. "You know, if you've got a spare lyre around here, I can show you what I know. But---" She lays a hand on his thigh, at least in part to keep him from leaping up immediately to retrieve an instrument; "first I've got one more thing I wanted to talk to you about."
She takes another sip of her beer, perhaps to fortify herself. "Moire. And the Rebman situation in general. What's the official Xanadhavian position?"
"Hmmm," Random says, tapping on her hand. "It's either 'man, I'm glad it's not us!' or 'Hello, Khela, we are hoping for a more enlightened attitude towards the current King of Xanadu and Amber than your predecessor held for most of the last few centuries, how about lifting that suspended sentence and banishment?'"
He finishes his beer, but doesn't move to get another. "Why, are you messed up in it, too?"
"No more so than I absolutely have to be, if I can help it," Folly replies emphatically. "However, you may recall that when last we sat down together, I had an invitation from Moire to come visit her in Rebma, and we talked about extending an invitation to her for the wedding. But, you know, that was before her city was invaded and she went into exile and murdered my cousin. So."
She notices his tapping, blinks at her own hand as if she's not quite sure how it ended up there, and removes it to pick at the label on her beer bottle. "So I was... you know... just kind of--- Are we supporting this Khela person because we like her better, because we think she'd be a better ruler, because we think she has more of a right to rule, or because she happens to be the one holding Rebma at the moment? And if Moire tried to re-take Rebma, whose side would we be on, or would we just stand back and let them have at it and see how the sand settles? And perhaps most importantly, since we're all off to Paris tomorrow, which is where Moire was last seen.... if she accosts me, can I punch her in the face?"
Random pauses. "Hmmm. Yes. But if she were Queen of a foreign country and you had married into our Royal Family, which coincidentally you were also a member of by birth, then it might start a war.
"Now, unlike your cousins, I trust you to pick the right war, because I trust you to get me into the right bar fights. Being a Magical Immortal Superpowered Fairy Princess is a lot like playing at the Brewery Tap on Cheap Beer Night that night the Lancers lost the finals in the last period." He grins wolfishly.
"She started it!" Folly retorts, mock-indignant, though her eyes are twinkling; it's not entirely clear whether she means the Rebman war or the riot in the pub. She reaches out and lightly brushes aside the hair over the spot high on his forehead where he'd still have the scar if he were the sort of regular mortal bloke who got scars; he'd talked her through stitching him up between sets, on the grounds that he was having too much fun to bail and seek actual medical attention. "As I recall," she says, meeting his grin with a lopsided one of her own, "that was the night I formulated my rule about not getting doused with more bodily fluids than I could still identify at the end of the night. Although I suppose that rule mostly argues against getting into wars in Chaos."
"What I recall is Soren and Ash moving forward until they were both in front of you so that if someone charged the stage, they'd be able to intercept. Not our usual stage plot. And Ash saying afterwards that he was sorry he hadn't brought that bass that looked like a giant axe that he won at that poker game in Nahasha."
Folly nods once: she remembers, and she takes his meaning.
He grins. "Remember never to tell Ash how bad he is at poker. He'd never play with me again if he knew."
"You know the secret's safe with me," she says, returning the grin.
Random touches the not-scar himself. "If I hadn't been not-paying-attention, I'd've guessed that you didn't realize that my healing was amazing because you and your mother did the same thing, and then I have no idea what would've happened. But something."
For all that Folly tries very hard not to play 'what-if' with her own past, his words evoke a pang of old memories and long-lost hopes she never could quite bury. But what she says is, "Yeah, I know better than to ask an improvisationalist what he would have done. Or even should have done. But when I think of the infinitude of possible paths from there to here...." She reaches for his hand, perhaps to reassure him, or maybe herself.
He doesn't even look up, but his hand moves to the right place to twine his fingers into hers. His eyes aren't even open.
"Maybe figuring out who I was would have brought me to the attention of your siblings before they were playing more-or-less nicely with each other -- or before I was ready to handle it. Or maybe it would have shifted your trajectory so that you stayed away from Rebma, and Moire's sentence -- but the change in your path meant that the Unicorn decided to give the Jewel to someone else." She offers up a wistful smile. "On balance, I'd say things haven't worked out so badly."
Random grins. "I can't really make that 'uneasy lies the cabbage what the crown sitteth 'pon' drek sound like I mean it, can I? There are things that could be worse, but things that could be better. Ask me again in a thousand years, and we'll see how I'm getting on, and how it's working for everyone else."
"It's a date," Folly agrees with a grin of her own. She curls up a little on the beanbag so that her head rests lightly against the side of his knee, and closes her eyes. Her fingers are still entwined with his; her thumb moves soothingly against the back of his hand.
After a long moment that Folly knows can't last as long as she would like, she nudges his knee with her forehead, cat-like. "C'mon," she murmurs. "Let's make some music."
Random nods. "Guitar, Lyre, or Bagpipes? Mind you, I'll have to learn the Bagpipes if you ask for them..."
"I don't think I have the intestinal fortitude for unpracticed bagpipes just at the moment, thanks," Folly replies with a grin. "I am, however, prepared to risk Pants On Fire..."
She moves with him to find a lyre.
Last modified: 22 May 2010