by Chant, Zoe
"Do you want something?" she asked shortly.
She made the mistake of looking up as she said it. Without meaning to, she caught his eyes, and she saw her answer there. You. Forever. Always.
She tore her gaze away, and picked up two coffee cups with a hand that trembled so hard that the cups clinked together.
She ought to make him leave. There was no good reason to let him stay. Her revenge plan had been utterly foolish. The only person she had trapped was herself.
Instead, she thrust the cups at him. "You can wash these. Have you ever washed a dish in your life?"
"I do know the technique," he said solemnly.
There was a break room downstairs so that she didn't have to run up and down three flights of stairs with the coffee things and other refreshments, so she left him there, washing dishes, while she went to put the records away. Occasionally she could hear soft clinking and the sound of running water. It was oddly companionable, a feeling she could have easily relaxed into, if she hadn't had to keep reminding herself not to.
It was just ... strange, having him casually in her space in such a domestic way. They had never done anything like this before. Their courtship had been a dazzling, romantic whirlwind of moonlight trysts and hot sex. She had looked back on it as the great love of her life, and only now realized that they'd never really gotten to do any normal couple things. They'd never cooked together, or lounged around in pajamas reading books with their feet tangled together, or argued over whose turn it was to clean the bathroom, or ...
Her eyes filled with tears. She fiercely blinked them away, realized she'd misfiled a record, and slipped it carefully into its proper slot.
And they would never do any of those things, because they were no longer mates and were never going to be. Play-acting at it now would only hurt both of them.
She marched into the break room with fierce, renewed determination to simply throw him out. And then she was brought up short at the actual sight of him, shirtsleeves rolled up, dish suds on his arms, head bent as he diligently dried a mug on a dish towel.
It was not precisely sexy (although, she had to face it, Heikon couldn't stop being sexy if he tried) as it was vulnerable. In this moment he was not the dragon clanlord; he was just a man, and she had the feeling that very few people had ever seen him like this.
She broke the moment by clearing her throat.
Heikon looked up, and a warm smile spread across his face; it was all she could do not to respond in kind. He let the water out of the sink and carefully wiped around the edges of it with the towel. "Dishes are done," he said. "Do you have any other tasks for me?"
Once again, her nice, tidy train of thought derailed. "What? I'm not—what do you think this is, one of those fairy tales where I give you three impossible tasks and you complete them and I take you back?"
His smile returned, touched with a hint of play. "If that's what we're doing, you're going to have to make the next one a lot harder."
"It's not what we're doing!"
The playful look faded, and she was instantly sorry. She bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything.
And then she did think of something.
One of the toilets in the downstairs public rest rooms was out of order. She'd been meaning to call a plumber about it, but with one thing and another kept forgetting to do it during business hours.
So he wanted to help out, did he.
"How are you at fixing toilets?" she asked sweetly.
Heikon stared at her, as if the words hadn't registered. "I'm sorry?" he said after a moment.
"Toilets. We have a broken toilet. I need someone to fix it. Do you think you can do that without breaking it even more badly?"
Heikon cleared his throat. "I was thinking, er ... catching you a rare sort of antelope, bringing back a special flower from a distant mountain, that sort of thing."
"You wanted to help. I have something you can do to help. Of course," she added, "if you're no good with toilets, I can call someone. Or just do it myself."
That had an effect, as she'd hoped. "No, no, of course I can do it," Heikon said, sounding none too sure about that.
Heikon caught completely off guard was ... definitely not adorable in the slightest. She wasn't even going to think it.
"This way, then," she said, managing to keep her smile on the inside, for the most part. "I'll show you where the tools are."
Heikon
This was impossible. How did people do this kind of thing? Normal humans, even!
Heikon had gotten himself through the process of dismantling the toilet by reminding himself that small, weak humans took toilets apart every day, so certainly a dragon could do it. It wasn't even a disgusting process. He'd had visions of ... well ... something far worse than this, but the actual problem (Esme had explained) was just that the toilet kept running all the time, wasting water, so she'd shut off the water to it and marked the stall out of order.
"I think it's probably just a matter of replacing a gasket," she'd said matter-of-factly after showing him to the broken toilet and handing him a toolbox. "I just haven't gotten around to tearing it down to find out. If I don't have the right parts to fix it, let me know and I'll order them."
Heikon was still trying to wrap his head around the idea of his elegant, stylish mate fixing toilets. Fortunately he had managed not to say so—she would probably have whomped him in the head with one of the wrenches in the toolbox—but from the withering look she gave him, she had apparently read it on his face anyway.
"It's amazing the things you learn how to do when there's no one around to help you with it," she'd said, and stomped off.
So here he was with a mostly dismantled toilet and a strong suspicion that going and asking her for help would constitute failure.
We could be out hunting, his dragon grumbled.
Unless you're going to tell me how to fix this, shut up.
He'd taken off his suit jacket and slung it over the top of the stall, but even so he had a feeling that these clothes were never going to be the same again. It wasn't that things were filthy, exactly—at least not as much so as he had imagined. Actually, Esme's restrooms were very clean and tidy, as these things went. Still, he couldn't believe he was on his knees in a human restroom, wrestling with a toilet.
He held up a rubber piece, as if staring at it could help him figure out what it did. How did he get himself into these things? How did toilets even work?
Maybe he could just ... call a plumber and not tell her. Yes, that was a good idea.
Except she would almost certainly find out, and then she'd think even less of him than she already did, if that was possible.
Perhaps he could call someone. Someone who might know how to fix toilets. Someone in the Aerie must know, surely. One of the younger members of the family, the ones who had been raised in an era with indoor plumbing. Someone who would be discreet and trustworthy.
He stuck his head out of the stall to make sure Esme wasn't lingering around to hear this, and then called Reive.
"Uncle!" Reive said in surprise. There was the sound of childish giggling in the background; Reive must be babysitting some of the clan children at the moment. He'd always been good with them. "Will you be back to the Aerie tonight?"
"Probably not," Heikon said, gazing at the scatter of toilet parts spread around him. "Do you ... er ... know anything about fixing toilets?"
There was a long silence. "Toilets," Reive said.
"Yes."
"How on Earth did you go from wooing your mate to that?"
"I am impressing her by fixing her toilet."
It was obvious from Reive's tone that he was trying not to laugh. "The fact that you're calling me to ask for help would suggest it's not going well."
"It's going perfectly well," Heikon said defensively. "Aside from a few minor issues."
"Such as?"
Such as having no idea what I'm doing. "Do you know how to fix a toilet or not? I assume it's a sk
ill of the young."
"Have you tried Google?"
"If I wanted to use the Googles, I would have used the Googles," Heikon snapped, refusing to admit that while he had vaguely heard of these Googles, he had never used them and wasn't entirely sure how.
There was a slight choking sound on the other end of the line. "Okay," Reive said after a minute, taking a deep breath that had only the slightest hitch in it. "I'll text you some pictures, okay?"
"I knew you were the one to ask," Heikon said.
"Though it would help if you'd tell me exactly what's wrong."
"If I knew what was wrong, I wouldn't have had to call you."
Another brief silence, and then Reive said, "Hang on. I'll call you back."
With that, he ended the call.
"You can't just hang up on your clanlord, boy!" Heikon snapped at the phone.
He heard the clicking of Esme's heels just in time to put down the phone, pick up the wrench, and try to look like he was doing something useful.
"How's it going in here?" Esme said, poking her head into the stall.
"Oh, perfectly well, thank you." Heikon gave the wrench a casual twist on whatever it was currently attached to. There was a clunk. He hoped that wasn't bad. "As you can see, I'm quite busy. Fixing your toilet."
"So I see," Esme said wryly. "Well ... I've finished setting up for tomorrow's classes, so I'm going upstairs to my apartment. Though I could wait down here if you're not going to be long. Do you expect to be much longer?"
"No, of course not," Heikon said, and then the part of the pipe he'd hooked the wrench onto fell off. "Er ... perhaps just a little bit longer."
"Yes," she said, the corners of her mouth dimpling briefly before it flattened out with a determined air. "In that case ..." She hesitated for a moment, then held out her hand with a small piece of paper clutched between her fingers. "I'm going to lock up, but this is the security code to the outside doors. Punch the code into the keypad by the door, and then you have thirty seconds to open the door or it'll re-arm."
Her fingers brushed over his, warm and soft, as he took it from her. A gesture of trust, he thought. That meant something, didn't it?
For a bare instant longer, after the paper left her fingers, her hand continued to hang in the air, as if she wanted to reach after it and take his hand again. Then she pulled it back with a certain air of decisive firmness, as if reining herself in. "And turn off the lights when you leave," she said, and turned on her heel and strode out with quick, clicking steps.
Going upstairs. To her apartment.
He firmly attempted to eject any and all thoughts of Esme in her apartment. And yet, it was impossible not to picture her, as if their connection of twenty years ago had left him with the ability to feel her—as if he could feel the distance between them stretching out again, step by step. He told himself it was his imagination; even the mate bond was not quite that precise. And yet, he could see her, in his mind's eye. Walking up the stairs. Opening the door. Perhaps taking off her shoes, perhaps pouring herself a glass of wine. He couldn't quite picture the surroundings, but he could picture her, pulling out the pins holding up her long hair so it could tumble down her back—the way it used to tumble when he would unpin it in the Aerie, long red-gold waves spilling through his hands—
It was probably just as well his phone interrupted his fantasies at that moment. It was Reive calling back.
"Okay, Uncle, did you get the text I sent you?"
"Yes," Heikon said promptly, and fumbled with his phone trying to figure out how to get to the texts without hanging up. For some reason Reive had texted him a picture of an incomprehensible pile of ... no wait, that was a toilet, partly dismantled.
"Go ahead and put the phone on speaker so we can talk while you do this," Reive said.
"Are you ... taking apart one of the toilets in the Aerie?"
"Yes," Reive said, "so let's finish this quickly, before Aunt Anjelica comes in and sees what I'm doing." There was a high-pitched childish giggle in the background. "No, Feo, go play with your sister. Ow! No, not that—okay, hold this for me, will you?"
Now it was Heikon's turn to try not to laugh. "Sounds like you have help."
"Tell me about it. Just a second, I'll give you a picture."
Another text came in a minute later. There was a chubby little boy with dark curls clutching a wrench in his hand, and a tiny pink and gold dragon crawling up onto the toilet tank: Feodran and his sister Pixie. They were Reive's cousins once or twice removed; at this point Heikon almost needed a scorepad and paper to work out the various relationships between his ever-growing clan of grandkids and grandnieces/nephews and their cousins and their cousins' cousins and so forth.
"Anyway," Reive said, "I've got things pulled apart, as you can see, so I can walk you through the repairs you need to do. Go ahead and text me a picture of what's happening on your end."
Heikon fumbled with the phone again, thinking as he did so that this modern technology was hard to use, but really kind of useful.
* * *
He wasn't sure, in the end, exactly how long it took, and there was a pause halfway through when Reive had to go put two sleepy little dragons to bed, but eventually there was a neatly reconstructed toilet in front of him. It flushed. It didn't leak. It looked perfect.
"Thank you," Heikon said sincerely.
"Anything I can do to help out the clanlord, right?"
They had ended up using a video chat app—Reive had walked Heikon through this, too—so they could see what each other were doing without having to send pictures back and forth. Which meant that Heikon could see Reive now, sleepy-looking and relaxed, sitting on the bathroom floor with his back against the wall. When Reive had taken a break to put the kids away, he'd also grabbed a beer; it was beside him on the floor, half empty.
"It's a lot better than some things I've had to do for the clan," Reive added, and Heikon felt a twinge of guilt. "I mean, given the choice between fixing toilets or going out as one of the clan enforcers ..." He hesitated and looked off at nothing, rather than at the phone resting on his knees. "If the clan needs me, I'll do it. But ... this is nice. A quiet life, where the worst things I have to worry about are cleaning up little-kid messes and taking apart toilets."
There was really nothing Heikon could think to say to that. He thought, once again, of Reive as Heikon had last seen him before twenty years of exile: a bright-eyed, laughing teenager, who had gloried in shifting into his copper-and-red dragon.
Twenty years of living under Braun's rule of terror in the mountain had turned him into this quiet, brooding young man. It would have been worse for Reive than for many others in the mountain, because Braun, the ringleader of the conspiracy against Heikon, was Reive's grandfather, and his father had also been among the conspirators. Against them, Reive had had no choice. They had taken him, trained him, taught him to kill.
Reive had been one of the first allies Heikon had gained in the mountain when he'd come back from exile. "Please," Reive had said—begged, almost. "I'm on your side. I want to help you—"
* * *
"—take them down."
They were deep in the bowels of the tunnels beneath the mountains. Heikon knew these tunnels better than anyone else; he had dug them, or had them dug. No one else now living remembered all the ways in and out of the mountain, not even Braun, which meant that no one could keep him out, even if his brother ruled the clan with claws of iron.
Still, he had expected that sooner or later he would meet guards. He didn't want to hurt anyone, if he could help it. If they were outsiders he would have killed them without mercy, but these were his own people, his own family. He believed that only a few of them were on Braun's side. Somehow he had to sort out the traitors from the rest.
He didn't recognize Reive at first, this tall, strong young man in black, greatly changed from the boy Heikon remembered. But Reive remembered him.
In front of Heikon, Reive went to his knees and bowed his
dark-haired head. He was dressed in black leathers for riding or fighting, but his hands were empty of weapons, resting loosely beside his knees on the tunnel's stone floor.
"I swear my allegiance to you," Reive said quietly. "I renounce my grandfather and father. If you don't believe me, kill me here and now."
"I believe you." Heikon took him by the arm and helped him up.
Reive refused to meet his eyes. "I've done terrible things, Uncle," he said quietly. "You don't want to know the things they've made me do."
"It doesn't matter now. All that matters is that you are sworn to me now, and I will take my mountain back."
Yes. Reive had been one of the first.
* * *
But I didn't repay your loyalty well, did I, nephew? Heikon thought, looking at Reive's tired face on the phone's small screen. When he took back control of the mountain from his brother two years ago, he had been in need of trained enforcers that he could trust, particularly those who knew something about the world outside the mountain. Whenever he needed someone to go on a mission for him, to fight or spy, Reive had been one of the first he'd turned to. And Reive was good at it.
It had never occurred to him that Reive might crave a quiet life.
"What do you want, nephew?" he asked gently.
Reive gave a soft laugh, rolling his head against the wall. "You know, right now, I think it's just this. Taking care of the kids. Living in the mountain. Taking apart toilets. Oh, sure, I'd love to find my mate, but I've got hundreds of years to do that." He tilted his head, looking down at the phone screen again, his dark eyes serious. "You brought peace to us, Uncle. With my grandfather and father dead, there won't be any more fighting, and we can finally restore the mountain to what it was meant to be."
"Yes," Heikon said quietly. "Good night, Reive."
"Good night, Uncle."
Heikon broke the connection and held the phone for a moment, curled loosely in his hand.