Raven waits until the others have departed before she says wryly, "Keep forgetting how many folks I haven't met yet. You know Jerod and I were sent to Gateway, sir?"
Gerard nods. "Aye, to make clear the Royal Displeasure that the current rulers are under because they cooperated with Huon. Jerod hasn't reported a failure so I assume it mostly went well. And you seem to have found Brita and brought her home as well."
Raven nods. "We ran into Brita and Weyland when we got there. They were traveling together, and I gather he was planning to explain to those in power in Gateway that he wasn't too happy about what they did with Marius. So we joined forces. Brita and I picked up the kid that came in with us while we were still getting things going, and he knew the mage Harper - and honestly, sir, it's turned into us helping remove the three that were in charge so the old guard can take back over at this point." She pauses, then continues wryly, "Kinda loudly, messily helping. Dexamene's a statue after we chased her and some Chaos beast around, and one of the others was standing on a building that got blown up pretty handily by Weyland, so she's out of play. Third one's got some kind of army of the dead, and that's the one we still need to deal with. Kid came to us as we were getting ready to do that. Said he could see the future and that we needed more of a real army than the Weir or the dead'd be threatening Xanadu and Rebma next. Not sure how much any one of us believes him, but it can't just be ignored, so Jerod said it was time to ask for advice, and here we are."
"It's a good thing Edan's been raising an army, then," is the first thing out of Gerard's mouth. "And there's always Bleys to summon an army or three from Shadow. I'm glad you brought him back; sounds as if we'll have to question him before or after the family meeting, or during. As for Gateway, I'd rather have Harper and her lot in charge than the ones that helped Huon attack Marius. If you don't know all that story, I can tell you, but it's a bit stomach-churning and it'll wait until after dinner."
Raven snorts. "Considering how he looked when I ran across him, can't say I'm surprised it's an ugly story," she says dryly. "I don't think I've got the whole of it, and I'd like to. Can't help but wonder if some of it might explain why the Vale ran across a tidal wave full of bodies right before we finally found Gateway and Marius." She pauses, scowling briefly. "And I wish I hadn't thought about how those may be in that army of the dead by now. Thing is, sir - I know just enough about Weyland right now that I've got to ask... I know we couldn't shift him easily if he didn't want to go, but is it safe to have left him with only the Gateway mages to keep an eye on him?"
Gerard makes a face at the mention of a tidal wave of bodies, but doesn't comment on it, and again at the mention of Marius' fate. But it's Weyland that really seems to trouble him. He takes three bites from his plate while thinking of an answer, visibly. "I don't know that it's safe to leave Weyland alone without a relative or three to keep him in line. But the truth is I'm not sure the lot of you could keep him in line anyroad. So you've done what you can, and if he wants vengeance for Marius, it's not on you and Jerod and Brita that you couldn't keep him from taking it.
Raven nods at that.
"As for Marius--do you know what happened to Martin during the war?"
Gerard’s expression shifts for a moment and he tightens and winces, as if in pain.
After a moment's hesitation for an internal battle between 'should I ask if he's ok' and 'clearly not ok, in a chair, maybe this is normal-ish', Raven takes a quick bite of her food and shakes her head. "Starting to wonder if I should take bets on what happens first, sir," she says dryly. "If I catch up on what everybody else seems to know, or if I run out of ways to say no to questions like that. Anything I can get you?"
Gerard thinks about that question slowly and looks round at the group with Edan and Paige and Hannah and Ossian. Then there's another wince and Gerard visibly grits his teeth for a brief time, but it passes and his attention turns back to Raven. "No, lad, but thank you for offering.
"Anyroad, Martin. Was one of the few of your generation whom all my brothers and sisters knew about, and because his father didn't care much for him--changed now, obviously--he was a target." Gerard lowers his voice. "My brother Brand worked out that he could erase the Pattern using family blood, and he chose Martin because he didn't think anyone would come looking for him. Huon was involved more or less with a similar kind of thing where Marius is concerned. Brand is dead; Huon is alive but under royal disfavor. And you can see why."
Raven frowns. "Aye, but - " she starts, and then pauses. "Seems like two different punishments for the same thing, sir."
"Huon took amnesty from Random. I'm told by those who were there--I wasn't a witness--that Brand didn't when he lost his battle with the rest of the family, despite Random begging him to. Maybe it's Brand's example that led Huon to take it.
"I still think he'll go after Bleys in the end, even though Bleys was just doing what Dad told him when he took Huon into exile." Gerard sounds resigned about that. Whatever was troubling Gerard before, he seems to have recovered somewhat from it.
That makes sense to Raven, so she nods again. "If you don't mind, sir - what's been going on here? Besides why we're all gathering, I mean."
"Not so much," he says. "Lots of building and expanding in the city, trade ships coming in that would have gone to Amber. Random's been busy with that. The two knightly orders, Ruby and Lamp, have been preparing for war, though. Low-key, but that's what they're doing. I don't know when Random means us to go, but it's clear we will, and probably against the Klybesians."
Lark and Swanhilde fly back down the hallway toward the dining room on the back of Uncle Garrett. Just outside the door, Garrett hoists the child down to the floor and squats in front of her.
"So. Before we go in, just lettin' you know...it's Family. There's Rules. I'll need to you stick close to me until your mum comes down, all right? You hungry?" He takes one small hand in his own and quirks an inquiring eyebrow toward the door to ask if she's ready to enter.
Lark nods. "Yes! We fought zombies all morning before Mama came and I didn't get any lunch, just a couple of sandwiches and an apple." She pulls on the door, but not very effectively. "Who's here? Mama showed me everybody's pictures, but never let me talk to them."
Garrett cringes at her description of events as Lark turns to the door. "Uncle Gerard and Uncle Corwin were here when I left," he says, rising to help her with the door. "And lots of cousins. Hannah and Edan and Paige. Vere and Robin. Jerod, Brita and a few others. More may have arrived after I left. Let's see." He swings the door open wide, ready to chase her if she bolts inside.
To Garrett she says "please identify our cousins, I don't know 'em all." Her voice is still childish, and it is striking coming from someone being so mature.
The door opens and anyone who looks that way sees Garrett following a small girl, dressed in a white, frilly dress that doesn't fit her very well.
She approaches Gerard and bows. "Your Highness, I am Prince Martin's daughter Lorelei. My father will be returning soon and my mother sent me here with my Uncle."
Gerard chuckles. "We're just family, Lorelei. You can call me Uncle Gerard. If you’re hungry, run along and make up a plate." Gerard looks at Garrett. Gerard is only unreadable when he wants to be. It's pretty clear he wants to know where Folly and Martin are.
[Across the room,] Celina continues to follow along with summaries and updates directed at Fletcher. She excuses herself when the gents pause, and goes to the food table and refreshes her bubbling ginger drink. Coming back, she takes the time to wave at Lark with a big smile. She points to herself and then Lark and then gives herself a big hug. With no voice, she mouths, 'talk later' and returns to Conner's table.
Garrett nods at Lark and adds, "Come back here when you're done."
Once Lark is off, Garrett turns back to Gerard, with a polite smile to Raven in apology for interrupting. "Folly took a few moments to look for her mother. She should be joining us shortly. As for Martin..."
Garrett's brows furrow in concern. He glances at Raven, but obviously she's family or she wouldn't be here. "That's more problematic, he continues. "When Folly trumped me, she asked me to bring a number of people through. They appeared to be household staff or other friends of the family. Including Solange." He looks up briefly to see if Solange made it in...
Gerard's expression makes it obvious she did, and he glances to where she's sitting ensconced on the sofa with Hannah.
...then Garrett returns to his explanation. "She said he was still there, covering the rear and...'taking care of things.' Some of the same names keep coming up. Folly talked about 'zombies'. And Klybesians."
Gerard looks at Raven, picking up the thread of their conversation, "Almost definitely against the Klybesians."
Raven snorts. "Aye, I'd say so."
Then, "Did he say whose Trump he meant to use when he was finished with whatever he's doing?" This question is for Garrett.
And that being the part of the conversation that Raven isn't directly involved in, she doesn't have anything to add.
"Folly didn't say," Garrett replies, shaking his head. "Though she did say that if he doesn't show up by the family meeting tomorrow morning, she'll trump him. I would hope that if things got bad, he'd call one of the big guns, but," he shrugs, looking concerned, "this is Martin."
"Aye, well, if we need to send someone to pull his fat out of the fire, we will," Gerard says with a sigh. "But I'll keep myself available to bring him in should he call for me. Raven, if he needs a hand, will you be available to go fetch him back, if you've got no other duties?"
"Aye, sir," Raven says immediately - immediately enough that it's probably Navy reflex kicking in. And then she adds, "So far's I know, the only thing on my plate is heading back to Gateway and that mess."
"We'll hope he turns up tomorrow so it's not an issue. Garrett, did you leave a plate round here somewhere? You should get something to eat, too. Sitting with me means a lot of waiting time as everyone reports in," he says ruefully, for all that he's managed to make a thorough dent in his own plate even with all the talking.
"I'm fine, Uncle. Thank you," Garrett replies. To Raven, he asks, "What's happening in Gateway? I've heard bits and pieces, but not in any particular order. Sounds like you were on the ground there?"
"Overthrowing the new folks that've been making a mess trying to run the place, putting the old ones back in charge," Raven answers, "and apparently there's a load of walking dead in the bay. First two're pretty much a ball Jerod, Brita, and I got rolling. Well, and Weyland. The last's not something we knew about until right before we came in."
Gerard is just listening at this point since he’s already had the highlights.
"That sounds like what Martin was dealing with too," Garrett says. He blows out a breath, grimacing, and rakes a hand through his hair roughly. He glances over at his niece before speaking.
"Well, there's naught to do about it tonight, I reckon," he sighs. "I'm starting to get an inkling of what the family meeting might be about though."
While Edan is gathering, a small child comes up to the sidebar. She is pushing a chair and hops up on it, where she can survey the food.
She picks up a plate and begins loading it with meat and pastries.
For a five year old, she’s very skilled with a knife.
She sees him looking at her, and says "Hello. You're Cousin Edan. I'm Lorelei." The plate is getting piled higher and is in danger of being overloaded.
The corner of Edan's mouth quirks upward. He decides to only interfere with the stack, or for that matter the chair, if it goes over the tipping point. "Hello. You are my cousin? I don't recall seeing you before. Who are your parents?"
She smiles, and spears a few more pieces of ham to keep the sausage from rolling off the tiny mountain of food. "Father is Prince Martin of Xanadu, Rebma, and Amber. Mama is Folly." She pauses. "Princess Folly," she says, more sure of herself. "You're Edan, whose father is Bleys and whose mother is... July? I'm sorry, Mama didn't have a flash card for your mother."
She looks at his plate of fruits and vegetables. "You should try the bacon. Dad says it's even better here than in San Lucien."
Flash card. Of course. "Very close. My mother was Julnar, the Firemaid, whose father claimed to be the Padishah of all the Afriti. I don't think I know this San Lucien." He catches Hannah's look from across the room, gives her a slow smile. "Would you like to meet some more cousins?" he says as an aside to Lorelei. "Hannah and I may leave soon to get ready for the dance, but Ossian and Paige and Solange are there, too."
"Oh, I know Auntie Solange. Can you carry my plate, please, Cousin Edan?" She hops down and heads straight for Solange without seeing if Edan is following.
Hannah sits, again, when Edan goes fetching. She glances from Paige to Ossian, blushing a little. "If I don't let him do something, he'll feel left out."
"How nice of him to make room for me," says Solange, who's come with her plate to speak to Hannah. "Paige, Ossian, hello! And Hannah, look at you--looks like I was called back just in time." She leans over to give her sister a hug.
"I am so glad. Paige and I were on your trail... wherever did you go after the space station? Paige, uh, may have disabled it." Hannah smirks.
"It was temporary, I'm sure," the redhead retorts.
"Sit down." Hannah happily motions to Edan's seat.
Ossian smiles "I'm so glad you're back.
"Although there is a sad beauty in the slowly dispersing family."
"And a nervous awe as said gatherings reach critical mass," Paige agrees.
Solange is clearly fresh from the field and not in a skirt, so she manages to arrange herself next to Hannah on the sofa without spilling anything from her plate. "No kidding," Solange says to Paige. "I wasn't going to come until Folly got Martin to agree. He's getting a zombie head so Aunt Fiona and your dad can take a look at it and figure out what we're dealing with.
"And I went back to Lauderdale through an indirect route. That was where we found the zombies." Solange flashes a grin at Ossian. "Your volcano idea might be useful for dealing with them--anyhow I hope they're not coming here anytime soon." Which leads her to Hannah and "--how soon is the baby coming? It looks like I arrived just in time."
"As soon as they get tired of being so cramped, I imagine. Yesterday would have been nice. We will see if this child wants to try to sneak into the family meeting. What is a zombie? " Hannah asks.
Ossian just grins back and shakes his head. "Sounds like we need all hands."
Solange gives Hannah a look that the others read as mild distress, but she stows it and answers the question, flat and practical. "In legend they're undead things that keep going by eating brains. These are--Martin thinks maybe they have some kind of highly contagious disease and we're immune to it. But they look and act like legendary zombies and if they bite someone who isn't one of us, that person becomes a zombie.
"Martin says there were stories like that in San Lucien, but I found them in Lauderdale and they spread to San Lucien from there. They may have followed us across Shadow. We're not sure. The head is so Fiona can do forensic sorcery and see what we're dealing with."
"How did I miss news about zombies?" the Warden asks. "Is this along the lines of headshots only, sever the spinal cord, sort of zombie killing? Or are we looking at something more like the voudoun of my birth?" Paige is already mentally running through what she needs to tell her Rangers.
Ossian frowns. "Sounds ugly." The he listens. Better know how to kill those things.
Hannah is half distracted watching Edan and the little swan. She nods though, also interested in how one kills dead things.
Solange does a sort of headshake and shrug to Paige's questions. "We've been burning them because that seems the most reliable way to stop whatever it is from spreading. We haven't tried sewing their mouths shut or anything; there are just too many of them. But if you torch them, they do stop coming after you and trying to eat you."
Ossian nods. "Really, this sounds ugly. Volcano would be suitable, although my idea of a volcano had quite another point."
At this point a five-year-old in a swan dress comes running up and straight into Solange's side. "Hello Auntie Solange! I've been meeting cousins."
Solange looks at the girl who she last saw reloading weapons for her father. "Hello, Lark. Where's your mother, sweetheart?"
Lark shrugs. "I dunno," she replies.
Solange forbears from rolling her eyes at the literalness of the pre-school set. "Did she say where she was going?"
"Oh, she's looking for Grandma." Lark turns to Hannah. "You're making a baby!" she says, in the kind of voice that carries to every single person in the room. She's very pleased, whether with Hannah for making the baby or with herself for figuring it out. Probably both.
Hannah grins at this, and responds in the same excited, projecting tone. "I am!" She motions for the child to come over closer, if she'd like. In her more normal tone she says, "You are a cignet, not a lark. My surname means raven. I think perhaps the papa is a phoenix." She motions to Edan. "So I am unsure what kind of bird the child is. I only know it is likely to squawk and want to be fed all the time."
Paige covers her mouth as she recognizes the dress and makes the logical leap. When she removes her hand, it reveals a warm smile if somewhat sad near the eyes. "So you plan on chewing their food for them, like a proper momma-bird?" she asks.
The redhead makes a face at Lark, suggesting that such an act seems gross to even adults, then offers her a wink.
Edan returns, two plates in hand, and does a fair job of getting things passed out. He flashes a smile a Solange and elects to stand, looking like he'd prefer to listen in on the conversation for the moment.
Lark politely thanks Edan for the plate and puts it down where she can start eating bacon. She continues to be unimpressed by Hannah's plate of fruits.
Lark manages to swallow before speaking, but it's a close-run thing. "Aunt Paige, do baby birds really eat barf? Is Aunt 'Nah gonna have a baby or a bird?"
Hannah looks at Paige to see what other delightful things she has to tell Lark.
"When most of the desert tribes in my home had been gathered, several of the more talented artists got together to make a commemorative statue," Edan says. "Pressed sand held together with an acidic foam, so only semi-permanent. It was a statue of me riding Aramsham. The sand there being glassy and sparkly, the statue became a favored roost for the local birds. The mess was beyond belief." He chews on a piece of fruit off Hannah's plate, pretending to completely ignore the reactions of the listeners.
Ossian laughs. He has been busy with a piece of paper. Now he places his creation carefully on the edge of Lark's plate. It's a paper bird that looks like some kind of predatory parrot. He pulls the tail of the bird, and it stoops forward and opens it's beak. "It's yours if you like it. It's name is Munchontoes."
Hannah giggles before she can stop herself. "Munchontoes. It is a worthy name."
Lark shoves her bacon into the bird's paper beak. "Munch on bacon!" she retorts and literally slides to the ground laughing. She pops back up quickly and joins the bird in eating more of the decidedly non-vegan, decidedly haram foodstuff. Edan is glad his troops are not nearby.
She almost waits until her mouth isn't full to say "Thank you, Cousin Ocean."
There comes a polite cough beside Lilly and Corwin. A tall woman, dressed in a man's suit - all dapper shadows and crisp lines - stands to their right.
"Excuse me, sire," Silhouette says, holding a filled plate. "Is this seat taken?"
She offers Lilly a polite, almost apologetic smile.
Lilly offers a polite nod in return. Perhaps this cousin will offer a bit of intrigue, she thinks to herself as she nibbles at her food.
"Of course," says Corwin, coming to his feet like a gentleman, even if Silhouette is hardly the girly miss he needs to help into a chair because of her oversized petticoats and full skirt. "Family is always welcome. Lilly, have you met Silhouette? It seems she might be Flora's long-thought-dead daughter. Silhouette, this is Lilly, Benedict's youngest.
"And," he adds to Silhouette, "when we're en famille, you should call me Uncle."
"That may be difficult, but I shall try...Uncle," Silhouette says, taking her seat. "Thank you for your kindness."
She smiles over to Lilly, "A pleasure to meet you, cousin."
"Mine as well," Lilly returns the smile. "Do you normally make your home in Paris, Sihouette?"
Silhouette shakes her head, "Normally, I reside in Rebma and only visited Paris on the rare occasion. More out of a courtesy to our dear Uncle than lack of willingness." She smiles softly, then adds in explanation, "Paris is not large enough for my mother and I."
Lilly nods. While she is grateful for the positive relationship with her father, she understands the shadow their parents can cast.
"Flora isn't convinced Silhouette is her daughter--she believes her daughter died," Corwin explains to Lily. "But Silhouette is a proven initiate, so she's of the blood, and so she's also welcome in Paris regardless of her ancestry. At some point we'll pry out of Flora what happened to her daughter and then we'll settle all of this. If she's been deceived about her daughter, we need to know that, and if someone has gone to the effort to falsify Silhouette's memory, we need to know that too." His expression darkens, as if the idea of memory tampering is particularly upsetting to him. "But that's no topic for table. Silhouette, what have you been up to of late?"
The arrival of Garrett pulls Lilly's attention away for a moment. A look of unease crosses her features but she quickly recovers and turns her attention back to Silhouette and Corwin. "Yes. I would love to hear your story. I have been away with my father and am trying to get caught up with family affairs."
"Dress-making and spy-work," Silhouette says in a gentle monotone. She smiles, "No. Not an attempt at humor, I assure you. Queen Celina has requested I take up less... militaristic engineering projects." She nods to Lily, "Generally, I forge and sell weapons. But the Queen believes this is a suitable penance for my involvement with the attack on Rebma. So, I weave and fashion dresses for Rebman socialites."
A conspiratorial wink, "That said dresses could stop small-arms fire is contrary to the point."
She leans back, "As for the spy-work, well, I suppose Ossian and I should speak to you after dinner, sire... Uncle, I mean."
"I'll be around through the night and I expect I'll be awake through most of it. Perhaps after Edan's event, if you and Ossian are both available, I can take whatever report you two have to offer?" Corwin suggests.
Lilly thinks this is how her father would handle a sensitive report that he didn't want everyone in the room to hear.
Silhouette dips her head, "I look forward to it. I would also ask your advice on certain matters."
She smiles at Lilly, "Are you and Garrett close? He was one of the first people to greet me into the Family."
Corwin waits for Lilly's response.
Lilly bites her bottom lip, pausing a moment to look at Garrett again. "We were," she answers quietly then turns back to Silhouette "Perhaps we will be again. It has been a little while and we have been out of contact." Again a pause as she tries to decide how to broach her true concern on the subject. "Is that his child?" she asks slowly choosing the direct approach.
Silhouette leans back in her chair, bemused. "The child? I do not believe so. Nor did he mention one when I encountered him, initially. He did not strike me as the fatherly sort." She smiles softly, "Not yet, anyway."
Corwin, as is often the case, appears blind to the nuances. "I don't think so. I'm fairly certain Random would have mentioned it if Garrett had a child, even one he was acknowledging now." He's still working his way through the problem. "I suppose it could be part of the family news he means to tell all of us."
Lilly nods. "I suppose we will find out. Still, Garrett was well aware of my father's warnings against procreation." She smiles and adds, "And those were not the warnings of an over protective father. Benedict truly believes that it is dangerous for the family to continue to proliferate."
Silhouette raises a brow, "Truly? An intriguing viewpoint to take. Is it because of the peculiarities of our bloodline?"
"We're heavy on the universe; we tend to drag toward each other in Shadow," Corwin says, though he knows they both know that. "But we also need to be careful because it's clear someone knows how to use our blood against us. Children are vulnerable and they can be used as leverage against us. In that way, I can understand why Benedict thinks we shouldn't."
"There have been moments when I thought he might be implying something more than that. But he did not care to elaborate. My father is not the most talkative of the brothers," Lilly says with just the hint of humor.
"He wasn't that talkative with me and I am one of the brothers," Corwin says, a smile gathering at the corners of his mouth. "He's been around a long time and knows a lot of things even I don't know, so maybe he does have some idea. Or maybe he's exaggerating because he thinks none of us can take care of ourselves." He pauses for a moment and looks around the room at all of his siblings' children. "With Ben, it could be either,” he adds.
Silhouette nods faintly, "Perhaps his views are somewhat justified considering the number of Cuckoos - as it were - we leave behind. There is no guarantee who might discover and care for our offspring. Thus, the troubles we are currently having with the monks. We are, in essence, providing the enemy with hostages - even if we are ignorant of their existence." She offers a faint smile, " I worry for Ossian and what may await him, yet unseen."
The smile grows, "That said, amass Enlightenment without having someone to pass it down to is rather foolish, yes?"
Corwin takes a look around the room. "Perhaps, but I don't think that's an immediate concern. There's only one child in this room and one on the way, but I can think of at least a half-dozen children of the blood who aren't here off the top of my head. I suspect there are more we don't know of. Even if they can't all take the Pattern, we're not without a legacy. And we don't die of old age as far as we can tell, so the old won't make way for the new unless we keep on with the habit of killing each other, which I, for one, would like to avoid."
Silhouette follows his gaze, as if looking for someone specific. She dips her head, "And Shadow is not expansive enough for all of us, I suppose. Things could be come quite crowded, as it were." She considers for a moment, "Have we considered actively searching for lost eggs, though? Our enemies seem to be. Perhaps it would be in our best interest to engage in such a venture."
"Perhaps," Lilly replies. "I imagine that might be quite a difficult undertaking as there are an infinite number of places to search. Though, Uncle, you might have a point. A family gathering such as this might be enough to draw some of the lost, if there are lost, to us. We are creating quite the flame by putting so many of us in one place. Our enemies may look to take advantage of that. I think I shall forgo fancy dress tonight in favor of something more functional."
"Fancy dress that accommodates a sword belt is always appropriate," Corwin, who is something of a fashion plate himself even if not in the Lucasian manner, opines to Lilly.
"You truly should come to my shop, where function is form," Silhouette says. "I'm certain I could dress you divinely, yet allow you to maintain the utmost combat efficiency."
He turns back to Silhouette. "I don't think it's that simple. They searched for me for years. Decades, even. Found my Shadows but not me, not until Flora ran into me by accident. She might have been drawn to the same shadow by the fact of my presence, but she wasn't explicitly looking for anyone. Finding Dad's kids by looking in Shadow is probably a fool's errand, unfortunately."
"Intriguing," Silhouette says, setting her finished plate aside. "If what you are saying is correct, we are much like the ship upon the sea. The wake it leaves is far more evident than the vessel itself."
She smiles slightly, "That may explain how Huon came upon me as well."
"Not exactly like that. You can't see the wake. Imagine you had your eyes closed and you were walking through a wheat field. If I went first and knocked down a bunch of stalks, it would be easier to follow me, and end up where I was. Once you understand how it works, you can feel our influence in Shadow. The catch is, it's just whatever and whoever is Real, so it's a place some relative is, or maybe was. Or maybe you're the one staying in one place and then the broken stalks lead to you.
"Clarissa's brood study this kind of thing. They call it higher math. I'm not sure they actually know any more than the rest of us or if they just have numbers and variables to prove what the rest of us learn through applied experience." Corwin grins at Lilly and Silhouette to draw them in on the joke.
"A good slide-ruler can conquer the Universe just as well as any sword," Silhouette quips, sharing Corwin's grin. "I think I would most enjoy the company of Clarissa's get. Numbers are far too dear to me. I fear if I hadn't become an weapons-smith, I would have been an accountant. I'm not certain which would have been worse." The smile grows.
"Your analogy makes perfect sense. Thank you," she says, pausing. With a tilt of her head, she adds, "However, to expand upon it, I wonder if our Adversary is the farmer preparing to reap the harvest. To them, we seem but bundles to be collected."
"It's not the collecting I'm worried about. It's what they want to do with the bundles. Scientific dabbling in Amberite physiology doesn't end well in a lot of cases, and raising children to send against us, if that is what they're doing, doesn't seem to end well either," Corwin says. "Nor did it work for the Courts. But I'm sure this will be on the agenda for tomorrow, and if it's not, we'll put it there."
Silhouette nods, "Excellent. I look forward to the discussion. But, as you say, that is for another time. On to other important matters." She gives him a serious look, "Will you allow me at least one dance during the celebrations?"
Corwin smiles. "If it permits that kind of dancing, of course."
Silhouette smiles warmly, an emotion most rare on her cold lips. "Then I do hope the events will allow such."
"Dancing." Lilly breaks her thoughtful silence. "I had not considered dancing. Dueling perhaps. But not dancing. These types of festivities always make me uncomfortable. It reminds me of my childhood in not the best of ways. I never really understood that you were supposed to take down the boys who said mean things while dancing. It gained me quite a reputation."
Silhouette chuckles softly, "In some cultures I've encountered, dancing and dueling are interchangeable. Perhaps you can employ both and begin a new family tradition... if not a scandal. Celebrations are incomplete without at least one scandal."
"I get the feeling that the kind of dancing Edan intends on may be more to Lilly's taste than, well, let's say Flora's." Corwin grins. "Something about a lot of drums being acquired, was what I heard. Military 'dances' are often about exhibiting martial skill. Demonstrating courtship value is secondary."
Silhouette chuckles brightly, "Then I believe this shall be a most delightful evening, indeed."
She sets her empty glass aside and begins pushing back from the table. "The matters we discussed can wait until the morning. For now, if you'd be most kind to escort us this evening? I believe the night would be easier for all, if we walked in on your arm. Perhaps not my mother, but for the remainder of the Family at least."
She pauses and then grins impishly, "Besides, it is only right and fair that the best dressed people here enter at the same time, yes?"
Lilly smiles at her companions. "I think I have a date with my fellow knights. It's been too long and we most definitely have plotting to do but I will look forward to seeing you both there." The girl rises to her feet to take her leave. "Good evening to you both."
Last modified: 14 August 2017