Kerr blushed, shuffling foot to foot a little. "Oh, sorry about that, Majesty. Yes."
"Kerr, we're friends first. Just Megan is okay in here, really." She'd done the reminder a dozen times, but never really minded.
"Okay, Megan. Lunch is ready."
Chapter 3: A Moment
They sat in the small dining room between Megan's suite and the one that had been her father's. Kerr set similar plates in front of each of them.
Megan looked at hers: the hamburger steak, the fried egg, the two scoops of rice, and the macaroni salad.
"This is Mrs. K's Saturday-afternoon loco moco."
The brownie nearly glowed. "Yep." A pause. "Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"Well, a few customizations. By person, for one thing." Kerr gestured to the table, and Megan noted that was true. She and Lani had what appeared to be an exact replica of Kalea Kahale's most consistently competent creative endeavor. Cassia's plate was devoid of anything that required a utensil more complex than the point of a knife. Ashling had plenty of rice but no macaroni salad."
"Don't like macaroni salad, Ashling?"
"I find it suspicious."
"Suspicious? Is it because of the bit of sugar?"
"I actually put less sugar," Kerr admitted.
"It's not the sugar," said the pixie. "It's the macaroni. Smacks of Yankee sympathies."
Megan tried to think of a good response, to encourage the very Ashling line of conversation. The pixie had been quiet, morose, and atypically literal for a long time after her father's death. Just as she'd started to show signs of her old self, there'd been the Halloween Dance, her father's usual return to the throne, and a lot had started over.
Before she could think of something, the door opened again. Justin made his way in, removing his Seahawks cap, setting it aside, with apologies for being late. Megan and Lani exchanged worried glances as he went to wash up. He was late even more rarely than Lani.
He returned, taking his typical place at Megan's side, starting in on his plate quietly.
“Justin, where were you?” Megan asked.
“Stables.”
“Okay, um, why?”
“I was tending to the Dullahan's horse and a couple of the unicorns."
“...The Dullahan's unstoppable death horse? Sparks when it snorts? That horse?”
“Yes. And a couple of the chariot steeds."
“When is taking care of those your job?”
“It's not. I just wanted to.”
“Okay, you just hadn't mentioned any horse-related issues at breakfast. Just went to do your security things.”
“I thought of it after patrolling the East wing. It was something familiar. Something soothing. I just needed a moment. A little something normal."
Cassia stabbed at another piece of the steak with her knife, tearing off a piece. "Nothing normal about this place," she muttered.
"Something like that," Justin agreed.
"Don't think we're talking about the same thing," Cassia said. "I swear, I'd punch someone for a good tavern brawl about now."
“Isn't that how you normally get a tav...?” but Megan didn't follow through. Instead, her eyes flitted from Cassia to Justin and back. She remembered another time, years ago, when Cassia had been discussing the satyr methods of stress management—and how they related to her personal relationships. “Break down and let it all out, you know? But the sidhe aren't like that. They're always on. Always. It's not one wild moment. Get too wrapped up in them, and you'll never just get a moment again. Not ever. There's a reason 'fae-touched' used to mean 'crazy.' Too much time with a sidhe will burn a person out."
Justin had needed a moment.
Megan reached out a hand, setting it on Justin's wrist, abandoning any comments on tavern brawls. "Okay, you were tending the horses. You're good at that. Are you okay?"
Justin relaxed a little, but only a little. "I will be fine, Megan. Thank you."
She wanted to be relieved by the words, but he'd been so tense for so long, and his tired expression reminded her far too much of her mother's during all of the years before the Goblin Market. "Okay," she finally managed, not sounding very convinced, but letting it be for now.
Kerr disappeared for a couple more minutes, coming back with bowls of meat for Jude and Maxwell, and a smaller bowl for the Count that looked to Megan sort of like trail mix, if one switched out the raisins for beetles and grasshoppers. Then Kerr joined them, taking a seat next to Lani.
They ate in silence for several minutes, before Justin asked, “So, Lani, how's school?” Megan smiled. Just like him to go for more normality, even if he was here, helping tend to unicorns and hellhorses.
“School is not until January. That's what matters about school right now. I'll cross bridges in January.”
That sounded wrong. Megan herself... she couldn't imagine studying right now, not even illustration and graphic design, the previously considered opportunity to be respectable doing what she loved. But being an engineer was so intrinsic to Lani, she'd stayed the course.
“Is … is it not going well? I mean...” Megan trailed off instead of saying what she was thinking. How can it not be going well? It has to be going well so it's worth months without Lani!
“It's going fine. It's what I needed. It's normal. It's new ways to think even if no one goes to sleep. It's... human. Solid.”
Megan listened, understanding, after all the various things Lani had been through. But the cold crept back into her stomach. Had Lani needed a moment, a bunch of moments? Away from her? That couldn't be it. She and Lani'd been inseparable since kindergarten. Menehune had to be immune to sidhe-burnout... or did they? Maybe their childhood didn't count. Megan did more magic now.... She shook her head to clear it. “Okay, good, but I'm guessing there's a 'but' in there.”
Lani smiled. “Yep. The 'but' is if there's something more than just doing a little work crew reinforcement, if you're going to actually come up with something to try, I'm going to have your back—and possibly your trebuchet.”
"Well, okay, I'll think about it, but..." Megan said, hesitating, unsure how to say she had no idea what to even start doing that wasn't already being done.
"As if there was any doubt, I'm with Lani. Lead the way, I'll be there with you," Justin said.
"Well sure, but..." Megan started again.
This time, Megan was interrupted by Kerr reaching out to take Lani's hand. “Just tell us what you need done, Majesty.”
"But..."
"So you've got his sword, her pen, and Kerr's ingredients. There are so many things of mine I could offer up right now, but I'd probably have to check with my girlfriend first." Cassia grinned. "It's been a fun ride so far, so all right, me and the boys will stay on for another round."
"Caw, caw."
Megan sighed, looking to Ashling, who was still picking at a piece of fruit. "I'm assuming that means, even if none of you know what the plan is, because there isn't one, the Count is in too?"
Ashling shook her head. "The Count says he's pondering a stretch as a brooding loner, before he joins the team effort after a couple of solo projects. That's big right now. But we're going to have a long talk about that."
Megan couldn't help but smile. "Because you want to make sure he understands that Hollywood tropes don't always translate perfectly into Spanish language cinema?"
Ashling looked at the Count. "See? She gets it."
"Caw."
"He will take your point under serious consideration. But while he's thinking about it..."
"Caw."
"Right, while he's brooding over it stylishly, you know I'm with you."
Megan looked around the table. "Okay, I get it. You're all with me. But right now, you don't even know what that involves. I don't even know. My last plan against the Fomoire didn't exactly go well."
"Neither did anyone's plans. We know there's no guarantees," Lani said.
"Sure, but I don't want to get anyone killed because I made a mistake. I mean, o
kay, sure, I disagree with a lot of things, but Inwar has been preparing for this for a long time. I didn't even know Fomoire were a thing three years ago."
There was a knock at the door, and before anyone could even say anything, it opened to reveal General Inwar himself, looking as usual as if he should be slaying dragons or demons at any moment.
“Highness,” he said. “Please excuse the interruption.” In the corner of her eye, Megan saw Justin frown.
“General,” she said. “We were just finishing lunch.”
He nodded. “I was hoping to ask you, on behalf of the seers, for a few minutes with Sir Justin. They wish to test their calibrations via the presence of the Claiomh Solais.”
“Justin, is that okay with you?” Megan asked.
“Certainly, Majesty,” he answered, standing and making a point of bowing to Megan before turning to follow Inwar.
Chapter 4: Moving Pictures
After lunch, Megan sat alone in her room of the castle, watching her painting as butterflies and leaves alike swirled in the Autumn winds of the moving picture. She found herself humming one of her favorite inspiration songs, music rising and falling with the imagined sound of the winds. Somewhere in the swirls of yellow and red leaves, black and orange butterflies, and tumbling thoughts in an array of shades, an idea came to her. She sat in silence for a minute more, then rose. "I'm sorry guys," she addressed the butterflies. "I don't think you're the picture I need right now."
She walked out of her room and made her way through the castle. She was familiar enough with the halls that the low-lying fog that swirled through them each Fall and Winter barely bothered her anymore. The vast works of violent artwork drew barely a glance. The feasting halls were mostly quiet. For most of the year, with so many guests and a much more rigid schedule of fortification and training, the feasts had given way to mess hall atmospheres, with units of engineers, soldiers, or scouting parties coming in in groups, eating, and returning to work.
The tone of the artwork lightened as she left the Unseelie wing for the central Ballroom.
The room had seen use in the seasonal rituals, and occasionally for large-scale diplomatic occasions, such as welcoming important guests come to discuss bringing more troops in for the alliance.
Most days, though, it was quiet, the vast chamber, and its throne left empty.
She walked through the echoing space and past the dais, to the back wall, where her masterpiece decorated the Ballroom. Normally, the place was left as it had been for centuries, aside from the occasional repair. After her father's death, though, no one had even tried to tell the Queen no when she brought her supplies in, and started painting a stretch of the back wall.
The scene memorialized Riocard and Orlaith, the two central figures dancing without ever quite touching, as the seasons spun around them. Riocard's feet were ringed with swirling fog, while leaves and snowflakes danced around him as entourage. His expression was especially perfect, with the characteristic smirk marking the features, and his coal-black locks lifted from his shoulders in the motion of the dance. His ice-blue eyes were met with Orlaith's sunset gaze, highlighted by the red of her hair. The Seelie Queen's side of the painting had the faint golden glow of the Faerie sunlight, inundating everything. Green grass and thorned berry bushes encroached on the dance, with wildflowers springing up to mark Orlaith's footprints carefully laid out in the pattern of the intricate steps of the dance at each season's turn.
Megan remembered painting them—sort of. The memorial service had been held some time after the battle, to make sure as many as possible could attend. Megan had created the mural in a haze, between briefings and drills, while the healers continued to patch people up and engineers started to dig in. Then they'd had the wake, when it really was all over but the screaming. Megan had enjoyed the screaming more than she'd thought. So had her mother. It had been the first and only time Sheila O'Reilly had set foot across worlds: to give Ric a raw, cathartic sendoff. It had been important.
Tiernan stood in front of Orlaith's portrait. He'd set an apple in one of the niches in the wall. At one time, the various recesses had been used as perches or dance floors by the smallfolk. Now, most of the ones along the back wall were full of candles, dried flowers, or other small memorials to Riocard, Orlaith, and the other fallen. There were fewer now than in May. Some of the denizens of An Teach Deiridh had longer memories than others.
"He puts apples by his buddies' burial mound, too," Megan muttered.
"Old-school offering for the dead," Ashling commented from Megan's shoulder.
"I've been reading some of Mr. Subtle's stuff again. He said that apples are an old-school offering by humans to the sidhe."
"They were. But that's because we've died once already," Ashling explained readily. "Full-blooded faeries are all living our afterlives."
"Uh-huh. And how does that square with the 'evolved from baby laughter' theory, the 'stewards of the gods' theory, the 'descendants of the gods' theory, and all the rest?" The pixie had given Megan plenty of explanations these past two years.
"Less squares. More roots."
"Okay then." Megan wasn't going to interfere with Ashling's being Ashling. Not in the shadow of her father's portrait.
Instead, she walked over to Tiernan. He nodded.
"Majesty."
"Majesty."
"At least we're on good terms with each other. Only our friends seem to call us that."
"Not all my friends call me that," Megan insisted.
"Well, you have more of them than I."
She let things be silent for a while. "At the memorial service," she said, finally. "You said, once there was the screaming, that it was done."
"It was, in important senses. They say the goddess Brigid invented keening because it was so essential to let go. To not let the ties that bind drag the living along. Goodness knows she had to do enough of it."
"Right, she lost a kid .... Dad said. At Mag Tuired?"
He nodded. "Yes. Just before Mag Tuired, technically. One of her sons tried to kill the others on his father's behalf. Take out the Gods' smiths, ruin their support. That is the story, at least."
"Her husband was Fomoire?"
"Bres was half, and he was always closer to the Fomoire, even when he had power among the Gods."
"How did that marriage ever seem like a good idea?" Megan asked.
"Sometimes, people want peace."
"And her kids ended up killing each other. Gosh." She looked at the murals. "But, anyway, if it's all let go at the funeral, why apples?"
Tiernan drew himself up. "You're born into family. You die into family." He sounded like he was reciting something, but unlike his past petty xenophobic rants, this sounded...different. "And they deserve something."
"Do you... feel bad?" Megan asked, watching his eyes. "Because she only reinstated you because she had to?"
"She didn't have to."
"Everybody says this place only recognizes blood of the line."
"You can form or link a bloodline without genetics. There are ceremonies. Family works a lot of ways. If she really only cared about succession, she had plenty of ways to replace me."
"So you don't feel ba—"
"I feel much worse."
Uncertain of how to respond to that, Megan found herself staring at Tiernan's hair. Most of it was still as white as his sickly-pale skin, but since his coming to An Teach Deiridh, the red streak was getting wider and slowly being joined by others. Maybe someday he'd be a redhead again, like his aunt—and like the Goddess, and like Megan.
Tiernan had started talking again. “There are things I did that she never knew about. Things part of me feels I should undo, out of respect for her decisions, but I'm stopped by my responsibilities to others and... and because it is still so difficult to trust the Northman.”
Megan sighed internally at Tiernan's being his stereotypical self...and then reminded herself that she didn't fully trust Inwar's priorities either. Agreeing with Tiernan
about that was somewhat uncomfortable.
“Well, she definitely tried to make up,” she said. “Got you the suit and all.”
“Yes, as you have your father's armor,” Tiernan said. “Our last gifts, as it were.”
Ashling's voice suddenly piped up again. "What about the second-to-last?"
Tiernan's dark eyes narrowed. “I don't recall any second-to-last gifts.”
“Not for you,” Ashling acknowledged offhandedly, “But the King kept up an end of the gift exchange when Megan gave him the cauldron.”
“I believe her Majesty then inherited the cauldron, so—”
“—but she's right. I never did pick up that bookmark. Botticelli, he said. Where do you suppose it is?”
“Well, it's like the old routine: 'Where do you hide a flower? In a garden. Where do you hide a corpse? On a battlefield. Where do you hide a book? In a library.”
“... Are you sure the punchline is supposed to be in that order? Nevermind. Okay.” Megan nodded to Tiernan. “Good to see you, Majesty.”
“And you.”
Chapter 5: Perfect Sense
Megan sang the little song that unlocked the door to her Father's suite. As soon as they entered the room, The Count flew up to settle onto the windowsill while Ashling, unusually quiet, remained settled on Megan's shoulder.
“Why didn't he go to the statue over the door?” Megan asked. The crow had perched there whenever he could for two years.
“The Count's too depressed for Poe.”
That was worrying. Megan looked around.
Her father's room had gone nearly untouched, evidenced both by the layer of dust over everything, and the tiny pixie and crow footprints in some of the dust on the bookshelves. Megan had left the briarmail in its case since the most recent Dance, unable to bear wearing it again. The room was still in its former state of organized chaos, more cluttered than actually messy. There were clear paths through everything, making particularly certain that every book on the array of shelves could be reached.
The only part of the room that was kept entirely clear was the space around her father's favorite painting. It might not move the way the leaves and butterflies painting in Megan's room did, but it managed to be nearly as lifelike anyway.
All's Fair (Fair Folk Chronicles Book 4) Page 2