§
Rod did not speak to me again until the next day, and it wasn’t until we were over the Tabad. In fact, we were passing the massive mountain called The Giant’s Fortress, where I had previously become involved in struggles between Tabadan tribes, although we were well to the west of it, rather than over the inhabited regions.
As I sat at the controls, maintaining Reia’s course, the prince came forward from the passenger cabin and sat at the little navigator’s table behind my seat. He didn’t speak for quite a while at first, so I stayed silent.
Dilorè and I were rotating the flying duty, by the way. Serera and Dilorè were alternating rest and flying escort, but we were managing to balance Dilorè’s double duty by making her escort and piloting duties half the length of ours. Right now it was Dilorè escorting, me piloting and Serera resting, just slightly over half-way through the flight.
Finally, he stated, “I owe you an apology, My Lady.”
Although I had not been waiting for one, I have occasionally been a guy, and I’m aware that not getting a response from a woman to a statement like that would be heard by a guy as frozen hostility. Since I was flying, I did not turn to speak, but I made sure to respond.
“I will accept an apology if it is offered, Your Highness, but I do not demand one. I understand how difficult my presence is for you.”
I had intended my words as an olive branch, but from his deep sigh, I knew I had managed to communicate something closer to rejection instead.
I tried again. “Rather than an apology, perhaps we should simply forget it and move on.”
“No, I…” he began, stopped, then stated firmly, “My words were insensitive, My Lady. I must apologize for suggesting that you were an outsider.”
“I’ve been an emotional wreck lately, Your Highness. Please don’t take my outburst last night to heart.”
Emotional confusion would be a better description. Mourning for a woman whom I can go visit in my dreams is a difficult situation to process. Not to mention, being asked to give birth out of the blue.
He was silent for a while more, just watching me quietly correcting for cross-winds and other factors.
I actually had a copilot, although Rod couldn’t see her. Sirth was active in my expanded mind, keeping me up-to-date with reports on the conditions from her spirits as I flew, and giving me occasional flying tips. I probably could have turned the piloting itself over to her, since she had a full handle on the mechanics of this craft, but with Rod there, I decided to remain the primary awareness.
Finally, he spoke again. “Nevertheless, I upset you enough that I prevented you from advancing the topic you wanted to discuss with me. Shall we discuss it now?”
Rod was being incredibly careful with his words… Frankly, it sounded like he was trying to channel Ged, rather than being himself. Rod is not a scholarly man like his older brother. He’s smart, and well educated, but he doesn’t carefully choose and parse his words. His statements normally just come right out, letting the chips fall where they may.
It made me feel a little guilty. My indignation last night was clearly the cause, after all.
– Aye, yer both pussyfooting around each other enough to drive a normal woman like me mad, Princess. Seems like that ‘normal Rod’ you described would be a man with more sense. When you just say what you need to say, that’s how it gets said!
I suppressed a laugh at Sirth’s complaint, then nodded. “We can do that, Your Highness.”
“As I recall, it had to do with your… with Deharè.”
I bristled slightly, “It’s valid to call her my mother, Your Highness. She’s the mother of this living woman, all of whose emotional attachments are my own. In every way, I relate to her as my mother.”
“But surely you have a mother of your own.”
Frowning, I pondered how to explain it.
“I have many mothers, Your Highness,” I answered. “Every lifetime, I live a fresh childhood without previous memories, and I receive a new mother. Every one of them is my mother. I certainly had a first mother, but the rest have been of equal importance to me. Including the fairy named Deharè.”
After hearing that, he was quiet again, as he sat in thought and watched me pilot. I could feel his eyes on me. Normally, I would suspect a different motive for his gaze, considering the high exposure of my fairy armor. Right now, I decided to trust that Tiana’s body was the furthest thing from his mind.
He then noted, “And of course, she’s also your… granddaughter, right?”
“From the perspective of my life as Senhion, I am her grandmother,” I confirmed. “You are my great-great-great-grandson, by the way. Not sure if you were aware of that.”
“I… what?”
“Your great-grandfather, the grandfather of Queen Sylphana, is Prince Gelon of Faerie, is he not? I mentioned before that Gelon is my grandson.”
That led to another long pause. Followed by a short bark of bitter laughter.
“I see,” he said. “So I was a real ass when I called you unrelated, wasn’t I?”
I waved it off. “I already agreed that you had your reasons. Why don’t we forget about that?”
He let out a dissatisfied breath, then nodded. “Alright. So, once again, about your mother…”
He left it that way, trailing practically audible ellipses.
I went ahead and told him, in exact detail, what we needed to do, and what kind of time pressure we were facing.
He didn’t interrupt, or ask me any questions, or anything, being uncharacteristically quiet as I explained it. By the end, I had suspicions about his silence.
“You already knew all this, didn’t you?’
“That’s right.”
I guessed, “Lady Serera told you?”
“Yes.”
“Including the part about…” I hesitated for a bit before saying, “a child between you and me?”
He pursed his lips, then nodded. “She did. Although…”
After he bit off his words, I demanded, “Although what?”
“The claim of me being involved, but we do not…”
He again stopped and looked away. “Please forgive me for broaching a crude topic, My Lady.”
“It’s the topic I broached with you the other day.”
“No, you merely discussed your preferences, not the activity.”
I was glad my face was turned away, although Sirth still knew how much it had reddened. I could hear her chuckling in the back of my mind.
“We both understand what you mean to say, so no need to mention the details. Yes, it will not work if we employ the normal means of making a child.”
“And we really could simply hold hands and take care of this right now?”
His words had an air of skepticism. I didn’t blame him.
“It’s not quite that trivial, Your Highness, We would require an uninterrupted period of several minutes, and I would have to do so after summoning Gaia’s Presence.”
He was quiet for a bit. Then he asked, “Is it really true that you are the only choice?
I pressed my lips together. “That’s… Gaia says that I’m the only choice, but I’m planning to ask a few others, anyway.”
“Who else can you ask?”
“The Fairy Queen,” I stated. “And also… my celestial mother, if I can contact her in time.”
He had no reply for a while. Then he commented, “So, as expected, you don’t want to do it.”
I grew annoyed at his ‘just like I thought’ tone and shot him a look over my shoulder.
“Do you not realize that if I’m their mother, my mother and my little sister will be reborn as vampires?”
– Watch yer course, you daft cow! You’ve got the helm!
My head snapped back forward and I corrected the serious yaw I had thrown the craft into, while silently cursing myself for getting emotional again.
“That’s what troubles you about it?” he asked, now sounding amazed.
“Why wouldn’t it?” I snapped.
“I assumed you would object to having a child at your age! As I feel you should object!”
“…. well that, too,” I grumped.
“I did realize that your children would be vampires, My Lady. But I did not expect that it would bother you. Please forgive me.”
“Of course it bothers me!” I retorted.
“But I don’t understand why,” he answered, in a calming voice. Was this really Rod I was talking to?
“What don’t you understand?” I demanded. “If they become my children, they will be monsters!”
I was a little surprised at myself, though. Until this boiled up into my consciousness, I myself hadn’t realized it bothered me. I actually had tears.
After I had been silent a while, Rod spoke again, still in that oddly calm voice.
“The woman I decided to marry was a monster. I proposed to her, or rather, to you, with full understanding that if you let me have children with you, those children would likely also be monsters. So, I fail to see your point.”
Fresh tears surged out of my eyes, and I forcibly blinked them away. Those might have been Tiana’s… no, they were mine, but they were born from Tiana’s love of her family. Hearing her loved one expressing his acceptance of the very thing she hated about herself, was too much for me to fully hold back.
They flowed down my cheeks despite my efforts. I only succeeded in slowing them down. And I didn’t dare use my voice at all.
Damn it, I could explain his unwavering support of her. It was the fairy charm that he had been subjected to, ever since he was a mere toddler and I came into his life. It had bent him, and Ged, and Uncle Owen, and Amelia, to treat even a monster like me preciously.
Perhaps. Or perhaps, Tiana simply grew up to become the woman they would love. They had been immensely important to her, more important than her own self. A fairy born from the seed of Deharè’s could love mortals, and especially humans, immensely. It was Deharè’s peculiarity, her personality distinction from other fairies. Most fairies disdain humans, but she passionately loved them. And Tiana deeply loved the humans she grew up around. She had lovingly made herself as much an object of their affection as she could.
It made her a bit doll-like, lacking the ability to express her own desires, or even realize them. She wrapped herself up in the knight’s dedication to the crown instead, devoted herself to Uncle Owen and his children, rather than seeking her own fairy soul. It was her pride itself.
Even though I lamented her lack of devotion to herself, I treasured her devotion to her family as the legacy she left me. To hear that she was treasured as deeply… There was no stopping the tears.
“You say you have Tiana’s emotions and memories,” he said, his voice slightly rough.
“Yes.”
“I’ll… speak to… that Tiana now. To my Tiana. Perhaps my words will reach her, but I think you should hear them, too.”
I didn’t know how to reply, so I didn’t.
“Deharè loved you, Ti,” he said. “I’m certain she told you that, but maybe you didn’t completely believe it. It’s those damned palace ladies again.”
That confused me. “Huh?”
“When you were young, they would never shut up about how evil your father was. I’m sure it poisoned your mind.”
I didn’t say anything, but I understood what he meant. Tiana grew up deeply ashamed of being the daughter of Egon the Duke of Pendor. Neither Mother nor Owen’s family could have been the source of that self-reproach. One might think Elianora, who has a deep hatred for her grandfather, the man who murdered her father, might be the cause, but… as a vampire herself, she would have made Tiana distinguish between Egon and other vampires, and I’m certain she would have distinguished between Egon and Tiana herself.
“We made them stop, once we knew what was going on, but you probably heard it for years before we noticed. I’m sorry for that.”
“It isn’t something you need to apologize for, Your Highness,” I insisted, growing self-conscious.
“But I do need you to recognize that what you feel about your vampire side is not what we feel. And especially, it’s not what your mother feels.”
I frowned, continuing to feel uncomfortable with the subject. Growing a little testy, I muttered, “What’s the point of telling me this?”
“It’s to clear up something you clearly misunderstand,” he answered.
“What’s that?”
“I know for a fact that your mother loves her fairy vampire daughter. She won’t hate becoming more like you. I’m… very confident about that.”
