April 10, 2008
The Wedding.
“I love Anunnaki weddings,” Kaezia said, settling into her seat.
Lia looked at her and raised one eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yes. Get some decent alcohol, the proper jewelry, some sappy comments, and enough people who are aware that a wedding is taking place in a room together, and lo, a wedding.” Kaezia pried at the seal on the bottle she’d appropriated. “I’m also glad we seal our bottles with wax, not cork or somesuch. I can open these while drunk; I don’t think I could open a corked bottle sober.”
Lia eyed her friend. “I could make a really nasty comment right now, but you’ve imbibed too much alcohol to appreciate it properly.” Kaezia threw the remains of the wax seal at Lia, who caught it neatly. “Anyway, you’re forgetting something.”
“What’s that?” Kaezia asked.
“A proper Anunnaki wedding also needs someone sober enough to record the event in the Archives.”
Kaezia laughed and nodded towards the couple across the room. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem here. Doesn’t Nathan ever drink alcohol?”
“Only if he’s forced to. He hates the taste.” Lia watched her son for a moment, then stood, pulling a small box out of her pocket. “I’ll be right back.”
Kaezia straightened in her seat. “Down to the serious stuff, eh?”
Lia nodded and strode across the room. Silence fell, and all eyes turned towards Nathan and Ekion, who were eyeing Lia with great suspicion. Lia stopped behind them, draped one arm around each of them, and opened the small box. Two identical ear cuffs, woven of gold and white metals, lay inside.
Lia looked at her son. “I remember the first time I told you about these, when I was explaining the nature of affective jewelry. You were seven, I think. I told you how these cuffs are used to link two people who are in a close positive relationship, and you became very serious and told me that you would have to find someone first.” Lia paused, looking first at Ekion, then back at Nathan. “I think you have.” She squeezed their shoulders, then let go, still holding out the box.
Nathan looked at his mother, then picked up a cuff and slid it on his ear. Ekion did the same, and Lia shut and pocketed the box, surveying her son and son-in-law seriously.
“If I can give you one last bit of motherly advice,” Lia said, unable to suppress a grin, “sex on your wedding night is always better when you’re not too drunk. Off with you.”
With that, Lia strolled back towards Kaezia, who was watching with a bemused expression. “What?” Lia asked.
“I’m trying to decide if that was properly sappy or just evil,” Kaezia replied, nodding at Nathan and Ekion.
Lia turned; Ekion was blushing so hard it showed through his hair, and Nathan was staring with deceptive blankness in her direction. Lia winked, and Nathan glared.
“He got that look from you, I think,” Kaezia said, redirecting Lia’s attention. Mock-seriously she added, “I wish you’d let Teleika come. I’d've liked to see you explain that comment to her.”
Lia glared at her friend, snatched the bottle from the table next to Kaezia, and poured herself a drink.
Chicken Legs.
“So where do you live, anyway?”
Jetta looked up from the herbs she was crushing. “Huh?”
“When you’re not here. Where do you live?”
Jetta tapped her chin with the pestle. “Wherever the house goes, I suppose.”
Kaezia’s eyebrow rose. “Wherever the house decides to go?”
“Yeah. It gets up and wanders around. It has chicken legs, you know.”
“And you got this house where?”
“Oh, from my grandmother,” Jetta said, light glinting off her steel teeth.
Mother Lia.
No one ever really thought the words Liamariye Thaziazhsta and maternal instinct in the same sentence, unless it was with faint bewilderment. If there was one woman who seemed to be the embodiment of everything but motherhood, it was the ruthless, distant, and haughtily irreverent General.
Of course, most people couldn’t imagine her married, either, and the atmosphere at her wedding was one of confusion in general, and pity for her husband. Dag, being Dag, found it all amusing. Lia, typically, ignored the whole thing, though she did find a malicious joy at flashing her wedding ring at people.
I don’t know why everyone was so surprised when news of Lia’s pregnancy spread. What, precisely, did they think she did with her husband? Lia, typically, took the whole thing with her typical equanimity, although it was during this time that her craving for spicy foods led her to create her infamous hot sauce.
Of course, she was far more likely to rip off people’s heads while pregnant, as the ambassador from the Shadowlands came close to finding out personally. It just gave me more of an excuse to keep Lia from doing any diplomatic work. Still, I think everyone was relieved when the baby was finally born.
The first thing I remember about Nathan was that he was so small, especially when cradled in the arms of his seven-foot-tall mother. The second thing I remember was the vicious glare Lia directed my way; it was clear that she was ready to rip the arms off anyone who breathed wrong in her son’s presence. I smirked; all those who thought Lia had no maternal instinct were about to be proven very wrong.
***
Two weeks after Nathan was born, I ran into a haggard Dag in the kitchens. He shot me a tired smile, sat down at a corner counter, and promptly dozed off … or so I thought.
“Every night.”
“What?” I asked, rubbing my sore head. I’d slammed it into the top of the cooler door when he’d spoken.
“Every night, sometime around early morning, Nathan wakes up. Which wakes Lia up. He won’t go back to sleep until she reads to him – so she reads to him. The Encyclopedia of Naval Strategies. Diplomatic Negotiations for Dummies. A Beginner’s Guide to Conquering the World.“
I stared at him. “Are you serious?”
Dag looked at me, his green-brown eyes unusually solemn. “Yes. I don’t know where she gets the books – from her colleagues in the Bard Schools, I suppose. I’ve never heard of most of them.” He rose with a sigh. “She’s starting on The Philosophy of War tonight. I’m off to catch some sleep – I have battle strategies leaking out of my ears.”
“Nathan’s opinion of all this is…?” I asked Dag as he headed for the door.
Dag heaved another sigh. “That’s the galling thing – he’s completely enthralled.”
***
Nathan was the kind of sweet child everyone fell in love with – and he was the kind of child intelligent enough to take advantage of that. By age two, he had the whole castle wrapped around his finger – and everyone knew it, and no one minded. He was also surprisingly good at getting into mischief.
No one was entirely surprised when Lia proved to have a strange intuition concerning her son. Wherever he hid himself, she would find him – easily, without even looking around. Whatever trouble he was involved in, she’d worm him out of – always with a lecture on how to better get away with things. On one memorable occasion, Lia stood on her chair in the middle of a diplomatic conference and dragged Nathan out of the overhead air shaft – all without interrupting her statement. A curious and slightly chagrined Nathan sat on her lap for the rest of the meeting.
People were a bit surprised when Nathan grew up and joined the Healers; he’d never shown much interest in that field. Then again, he has always been a quiet boy. But deep down – or not so deep down, really, but from his core to his surface – he’s always been a kind person. It takes kindness, more than anything else, to be a healer.
Lia stands next to me, watching him leave on his apprenticeship. I look up at her. “He’ll be fine, Lia.”
“Oh, he’ll complete his apprenticeship easily; I have no doubts about him.” Lia pauses, glances at me, then glances back at her departing son. “But my intuition is screaming at me nonetheless.”
I tap her arm. “Let’s go in.”
She gives me a mocking bow. “Yes, your Majesty.”
I whack her harder, unable to avoid noticing the worry that still laces her eyes…
March 13, 2008
Spin.
“And, of course, we must think about what to tell the people,” Senator Esvan said. His eyes flickered briefly to the empty chair at the queen’s right, then to her eyes. Apparently, Kaezia’s warning was evident enough; whatever comment he was going to make died in his throat.
“How do you mean?” asked Senator Ormund. “Surely we cannot go to war without the populace realizing something’s up.”
“I didn’t say hide it,” Esvan said, barely suppressing a note of irritation. “But we have to figure out what to say. We need a pretext the people will buy. We cannot simply tell them that we’re invading an island and starting a war just for the island’s strategic value.”
“You can and you will,” came a deep voice from behind and just above the senator’s head. Esvan practically levitated from his seat as the missing member of the council leaned over his chair back to stare down into his face.
“Excuse me?” he squeaked.
“You want this war. You will tell the people why you want this war. If they disapprove…” A quick shrug followed a sardonic smile. “Well, Senator, you may want to remember that you are here to do their will and not your own.”
A pause. The speaker headed for the door, and Senator Esvan started breathing again. Then: “Oh, and Senator?”
Esvan stared in resignation. “What?”
“It’s not that strategically valuable a location.”
With that, Liamariye Thaziazhsta vanished out the door.
Kaezia suppressed a smile. She might be young, she might still look like a weedy (and unusually effective) scarecrow, but no one could deny that the new general had style.
May 29, 2007
Patterns.
“What are you doing?” Kaezia asked, leaning over her father.
Arawn didn’t even blink. “Watching the Tree grow.”
Kaezia looked askance at the sky, then looked back down at her father. “There’s nothing there.”
Arawn chuckled. “Spare me from world-weary ten-year-olds. Lay down.” He patted the ground next to him.
Kaezia flopped down with all the grace of a sack of grain. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“You’re not supposed to look at anything. You’re just supposed to look. Just … look.”
“Um…” Kaezia stared at the sky until her eyes burned. Nothing, just as she’d thought. She reached up to rub her eyes, but her father grabbed her hands.
“If they’re burning, you’re almost there. Keep looking.” Arawn released her hands and tucked his own back under his head.
Sighing, Kaezia kept looking. Her eyes began to water, and her nose began to itch, and just when she was really, really sure she couldn’t take it anymore … they cleared.
And the world was made of branches. They arched above her, they twined around her, they wove through her, and they were growing.
And then she blinked, and she lost it. The world was just the world again.
Her father was looking at her, his eyes a serious brown she’d never seen before. “Remember that,” he said.
Kaezia nodded.
Together, father and daughter went back inside and went about their lives. But in later years, whenever the Queen could never be found, the Fool always knew where to find her – out in the meadow, watching the sky.
