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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | After the world shatters under the wrath of Deathwing, causing tidal waves and devastation, House Fallon goes about the messy business of picking up the pieces and reassembling the survivors of the house. 16k~ words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Arc: The Shattering
It takes little additional time for Avrenne to direct the household when they return to the House and survey the damage done. Enough is intact to not warrant another immediate evacuation of an unsafe structure; the house has held.
Emelia is tasked with seeing to Otto, and Avrenne calls Priscilla and Lena to her before she proceeds upstairs to Ery's nursery. It's a lovely little room, with sky blue and soft, sandy gold wallpaper that suggests a sunny day at the beach — a connotation that is perhaps less welcome today than most others — with beautiful furniture that speaks not only of wealth but also of a first child.
Avrenne takes a seat on a stiff backed, dark blue wingback chair, and with no fanfare or embarrassment, undoes the zipper of the front of her shirt, frees a breast from her brassiere, and attaches Ery to it. The discontented noises and half-sobs of the infant ceases as she finally, at long last, gets her dinner. She turns a composed expression to Lena, and with no preamble asks, "Miss Coit, may I ask you how many soul shards you have at present?"
"A few dozens," Lena says immediately, and then seems to remember the Lady's fondness for precise numbers. "Twenty-seven. But I can't summon someone if they're already…" dead, she trails off before saying.
Priscilla takes up a standing spot next to Avrenne. "If you try to, and it fails, does it use up a… soul shard?"
"Can you tell the difference between a denial of a summons and if they are unable to accept it, through death or other means?" Avrenne asks a beat after.
"I… yes, and yes," Lena says, her gaze shifting between the two women. "The shard is needed for the ask, whether or not there's an answer. And in the one case, I find the soul. In the other case, they're simply not there to be found."
Avrenne does not nod. In fact, she seems to be moving as little as possible. She is also blinking a little strangely, like she is trying to clear something in her eyes that she can't. "Do you have an amount of people that you wish to use your shards to summon at present?"
"That I would want?" Lena also blinks, mildly confused. "I wouldn't just go summoning people, they might be safer where they are. I… I could call for Ralaea, since her brother's here? She might say no, though, she's not overly fond of magic."
"I would not want to ask you for those shards if you had those you wish to use them for, to ask you to sacrifice summoning your loved ones in exchange for ours. It is your right to see to yours, if you wish to use them so," Avrenne explains. "I would like to call for Ralaea as well. I don't know what is happening in Stormwind, and it is perhaps safer there, but it might not be, and I would rather have the children here if — " A horrible pause, Avrenne's face frozen in her composure, and she does not finish that sentence. "We would be best together, than separated and unknown. If I might ask if we could attempt to summon my ward, Isla Lenaire, first? She is only 16-years-old, and she has no way to protect herself from…" Another pause. "Anything."
Priscilla puts a hand gently on Avrenne's shoulder. There, there.
"Ah, then I should clarify," Lena says, with a touch of concern. She does not clarify about the presence or absence of her own loved ones, but simply continues, "I'll be able to tell if she refuses the summons, but there's a chance she might be fine even if I can't find her. I just don't really know Isla Lenaire all that well, and I've never tried to summon her before. It makes the whole process more difficult, but I do have a pretty good success rate. And I do know her, so that'll help, as well as you two channeling with me and knowing her better. Just, if she doesn't come through, it might not mean the worst, alright?"
"I understand. Captain Tyrrell has explained something about how it works before. I also know that outside forces can interfere, such as with Ironforge's recent lockdown. Isla is a very…open person, and if she is called, and can be reached, I believe she will answer. That is why Priscilla is here. She knows Isla very well, and the rest of those I wish to try to summon here, and it is my hope we will be enough to anchor it."
Priscilla nods. "I'll do my best! Fel magic is still a little mysterious to me."
"That's probably for the best," Lena says, with a faint smile at Priscilla. "And don't worry, it's not enough exposure to harm you with the summons. Really just a light touch, fades away fast."
Avrenne does not seem concerned, at least not about fel exposure. "When you are ready, Miss Coit," Avrenne says, still holding a nursing infant to her breast, as she holds out her other arm in preparation for the summons. She can multitask, she's a working mom.
Lena pulls out a shard and begins the process, quick, precise movements to pull open the shadowy portal and draw in energy from Avrenne and Priscilla. She murmurs, "Isla Lenaire."
Priscilla steps in front of the portal, leaving enough space for somebody to come through, her hands raised. She concentrates on her memories of Isla, starting with the most recent.
Avrenne's anchor point is firm and fixed, and Lena may even be able to feel the connection's strength, and the sense of the arcane behind it. Ery bangs a closed fist against Avrenne's breast, either purposefully or not.
Avrenne's prediction holds true — barely a second after the summons goes through, Isla is crashing out of the portal, a stumbling lurch that is guaranteed to send her into a faceplant onto the golden rugs of Ery's room. She is dressed in an outfit that looks almost identical to Avrenne's, her hair in a wet and chaotically messy bun that has half fallen out of shape, and the crown of her head darkened by blood, but she appears otherwise unharmed.
Priscilla, who knows that Isla is prone to tripping and has prepared for exactly this eventuality, catches her. "Oof!" She takes in Isla's appearance. "You're bleeding?!"
Isla has a moment of disorientation enough that she seems to be unclear of which way is up and which way is down, who is there, where she is. Then she throws herself even more into Priscilla's arms and sobs, speaking into Priscilla's chest.
There are some semi-coherent words that emerge of "Finley" and "dragon" and "dead" and that's all Avrenne needs to look to Lena with urgency. "Miss Coit, quickly — Finley Boutille."
Priscilla examines Isla's scalp as well as she can without water to clean it, gathering Isla to her with one arm and holding the other out towards what will soon be the next portal.
"Finley Boutille," Lena repeats hastily, another person she knows but not well. The shadowy portal yawns open, and Lena presses her lips together as she reaches for a soul…
Lena can possibly feel how hard Avrenne is reaching, a force of personality stronger than her own magic behind it, as Avrenne sets down her part of the anchor.
The soul it is meant for is elusive, difficult to reach, recoils from the touching. It wants neither to be found or to be moved.
And yet, as the summons pulls, there is at last a reluctant, suspicious acceptance, and Finley forms in the room at the portal. He looks even worse than Isla, dressed in that same set of clothes of a shirt and pants. His hair is plastered to his head and he is covered in blood and dust that has been wiped from his face and neck to only some effectiveness that highlights how much worse it must have been if this is what he looks like cleaned up. His attention zeroes in on Isla, and he breathes out an audible sigh. He's definitely not dead, at least.
Lena lets out a breath, and leans with one hand against the wall. The danger adrenaline is starting to wear off, and leaving exhaustion behind it. She nods at Finley. "Safe. Who else, Lady Fallon?"
"Finley," Priscilla says, looking up at him with a relieved smile. "Good. Light, what happened?"
Finley blinks at the room around him first at Priscilla with Isla, then at Avrenne sitting in a chair nursing Ery, and stares at her like he's deeply questioning if he's hallucinating.
Isla just keeps sobbing into Priscilla, speaking too brokenly for it to make sense.
"Avrenne?" Finley sounds a decade younger than he is, and he doesn't hit the ground, but he does step forward and sink down to his knees. After a moment of indecision, he sets his head onto her lap, hands braced against the chair.
Avrenne doesn't hesitate to set her summoning hand down on his head, like a benediction. "Finley?"
He lifts his head, and just looks at her. Whatever she sees in his eyes makes Avrenne's expression go strange and empty.
"No," she says.
"I'm sorry, Avrenne, I'm so sorry, I — Isla was all — " Finley says, dropping his head back down. "There was a tidal wave, the Harbor is gone. And there was a dragon, in the city, a black dragon."
"Ralaea?" Avrenne asks, and Finley shakes his head.
"I don't know," he admits.
"Miss Coit — Ralaea. Try. Please." Avrenne's voice has that strangled quality to it, like she's holding onto some emotion so hard that she's doing damage to herself.
"Ralaea Westwind," Lena says with more confidence, pushing off from the wall and pulling up the portal again. "Don't be stubborn, Rae."
Priscilla reaches out once more. She doesn't know Ralaea as well, but she tries, although now her focus is a little shot. She's looking between Isla and Finley like she needs to be hugging them both and the fact that she cannot is causing some internal errors. Currently Isla is getting the hug.
Avrenne adds in her own call to Ralaea, a mother's touch, come on home now, Ralaea Marie Westwind Fallon, you are needed here now.
Seconds tick by, the soul in question fleeting, drifting in and out like the tide. At first it doesn't seem to register that it is being called to. It drifts through the fingers of the magic like mist, constantly shifting in substance and form.
At last, as the summons is about to fade, something in the soul catches, snagging on the offered hand, and the magic takes hold.
Ralaea appears in the room, already seated, clutching an area just under her ribs where something is lodged. Blood trickles from her lip, where she bit so hard it bled, and her hair is even messier than usual. Her gaze floats around the room, but it's difficult to tell if she is actually seeing anything of her new surroundings.
Priscilla gasps. "Rae!"
Avrenne can't get to her feet, she has both a grown man and an infant in her way, but she does have her voice, and she takes in the information rapidly. "Priscilla — fetch Brother Casker, immediately. Miss Coit — healthstone."
Isla stops her sobbing to turn around at the latest thing that has people shouting, and gasps. "Rae!" She leaves Priscilla — helpfully, in the end — to half purposefully fall to the floor, and put her hands hovering out around Ralaea. "Oh no, no, no, oh no."
Finley twists around to see Ralaea, and says a word he's not supposed to say.
Priscilla rushes out of the room, calling quite loudly, "Brother Casker! Help!"
Lena produces another healthstone and holds it out to Rae.
Ralaea starts to reach for the healthstone, an automatic response to something being offered, even if she can't tell what that something is — maybe it's a hand meant to help her to her feet — but the movement causes her expression to twist in pain, and her hand drops back to her side.
"What do we do?" Isla asks Avrenne, because Avrenne knows things. "It's — she has — "
There are many things Avrenne knows. First Aid to this degree is absolutely not one of them. "We wait for Brother Casker," Avrenne says, with that calm that certainly sounds real. Is it? Who can say.
It isn't a long wait; Casker John strides in almost before Avrenne has finished that sentence. He is still dust-stained and disheveled but the sleeves of his coarse-spun robe have been rolled up and his tattooed hands and forearms have been scrubbed scalding-clean. "What d'ye —" he starts to ask, and then spots Rae himself. "Ah," he says.
Lena steps back to give the priest room.
Priscilla looks relieved when he arrives quickly. She makes her way back into the room, wringing her hands together.
Casker John approaches Rae with his hands out before him, palms open, as though demonstrating he is unarmed. Perhaps he's afraid she will bite him. "All right, there, lass," he tells her. "All right. Will ye let me have a look at it? It won't hurt ye, on my word. Why don't ye tell us what happened, and I'll just have a look, aye? Can ye tell us?"
His tone is soothing. It seems unlikely that he expects a full story from her in her present state; he's just trying to see how coherent she is or is not.
Once again, Ralaea tries to reach for hand shaped thing, and like before, she is forced to give up. "Dra…" she mumbles.
"Dragon!" Isla says, with all the enthusiasm of someone who just figured out the answer to someone's charades game. She breaks down in tears again, this time near Ralaea. "Oh, no, the dragon — it was a black dragon and it was the most horrible thing, and it killed Finley — " That same Finley who is currently very much alive now.
Avrenne jerks in her chair, and looks down at Finley. He isn't looking at Avrenne, and seems to be refusing to now.
"Isla," Avrenne says, her voice steady and firm. "If you do not give Brother Casker room to work, he cannot help Ralaea effectively."
Isla nods helplessly, and flails her hands around Ralaea once more before pushing up to a stand and awkwardly back away into the nearby crib.
Casker pauses at the information about Finley and gives him a mild, searching look before he turns back to Rae. "Aye, then, all right. So let's see."
Lena keeps an eye on Rae and Casker John, but she steps over towards Isla and says in a low voice, "A black dragon? You're sure?"
Isla makes a helpless little sound.
"Yeah. Black, shredded wings, on fire. There was…a tidal wave, in the Harbor, and then a black dragon flew overhead, towards the city center," Finley says from Avrenne's lap. He is not raising his head, and he is not looking at anyone. Do not perceive him. Or how his hands are shaking. "Broke buildings, something wrong with the Park District, I saw it as we ran by it."
Casker meanwhile is examining Rae, moving carefully, drawing aside layers of torn clothing, laying gentle hands around the wound to feel the contours of it even as he channels a steady, soothing Light into her.
At last he steps back and says gently in his gravel-edged voice, "Fall on a fence, then, lass? Bad business. We can set ye to rights and no fear, but it's more than I can do in here right now, I'll need to make ye comfortable, clean the wound, there'll be some blood." He pauses and adds, more to Avrenne this time than Rae, "And we've some cracked ribs. Those are a bad business at the moment, and they'll want time to mend. We mustn't move her too fast or roughly, I don't want anything shifting round her lungs."
Lena takes all this in and leans back against the wall of the room, the exhaustion truly starting to set in.
"Okay. She'll be set to rights," Lena says faintly. "And there's a dragon destroying Stormwind. Okay." She looks at Avrenne with the baby, and for a moment her gaze goes to the scarring on her forearms. Then she shakes her head and looks up to try and meet Avrenne's gaze. "Who else do I need to summon?"
"Finley, is there anyone?" Avrenne asks, gently, but without real hope. She's only double checking.
Finley just shakes his head, and Avrenne closes her eyes for a long blink. "I think that is all for now, thank you. Please, go and rest, Miss Coit. If you need your meal sent up to you, I will have Catrin informed." Avrenne addresses Casker John as she shifts Ery in her arms.
The infant has stopped nursing, and is now completely unconscious, her mouth open slackly. Avrenne zips herself back up, holding Ery against herself. "We can have the bed in Ralaea's room prepared for any necessary surgery, to minimize how often she will need to be moved." She sets her hand on Finley's hair again briefly. "Finley, Mr. Shine is downstairs, will you please let him know the situation with Ralaea."
Finley nods, breathes in a shaky inhale, and gets back to his feet. His face looks a little suspiciously reddened in places, but we'll ignore it. He starts for the door.
"I reckon I can make it down to the kitchen, but thanks," Lena says wearily. "I'll come by to check on you later, Rae… not much I can do now."
She heads for the door after Finley.
"How far from this one is Miss Westwind's room?" asks Casker John, who does not spend a ton of time in the main house in hopes of not getting fired.
Avrenne gives the exact amount of distance, down to the inches (if she has estimated it correctly, of course). "The only other not occupied room between here and there is the West Rose Room." She gives that exact measurement as well, to the same precision. You might suspect she knows exactly how far everything in the house is, like a normal person with a normal relationship to spatial distances. "I don't think it to be a significant distance worth it, knowing that as soon as Ralaea is more fully conscious, she will undoubtedly attempt to return to her room, sound medical advice notwithstanding. I expect it will be best to have her in place within her own room, to forestall the inevitable negotiations of when she would be allowed to move after."
Isla wrings her hands together, and looks back and forth between Avrenne and Casker John. She doesn't know how to help or what to do.
"Isla, there is food and tea downstairs, or will be soon. It would be best to wash up before dinner, and then have something to eat," Avrenne says.
"Oh! Yes — I …yes." Isla doesn't even attempt any curtsey; she just gingerly steps around Ralaea and Casker John to get out the door, looking back at the threshold one more time, distress obvious on her face, before disappearing into the hallway. There is no sound of running through the hall.
"Jo…" Ralaea croaks, leaning forward as if trying to stand.
"Ye stay put," Casker John tells her firmly, and steps in front of her. He sets a heavy hand on her shoulder. "We'll have ye righted soon, but only if ye let us."
Shine appears in the doorway; he has Burren at his shoulder. Apparently he'd deduced from the state of Finley that Something Might Be Up. "Lady Fallon?" he asks courteously, and then he spots Rae. "Miss Westwind," he says, astonished.
Finley is a shadow behind the two footmen.
"Mr. Shine. Brother Casker requires a bed upon which he can perform surgery on Ralaea to remove the…fencing, and her carefully transferred to her bed, sheets that can be removed and sufficient lighting." She pauses, then adds, "We summoned her from Stormwind City. There is a black dragon in the city."
"Was," Finley corrects. His voice sounds a little creaky, and he clears his throat. "It's gone."
"Vanquished?" Avrenne asks, her eyes flicking from Shine to Finley.
"No. Just left. There was a…a dwarf, said it left like 'it left the stove on.' Like maybe it had somewhere else to be, or go, to destroy." Finley looks up, as if maybe just now wondering if they're about to hear the sounds of beating wings.
Burren looks up too.
Shine does not, nor does his expression — which has smoothed back into its usual blandness now that they are back in the house and restored to some semblance of order — change. "I see," he says politely, as though Finley has said he was delayed by a spot of bad weather on the way home.
He turns to Burren. "Fetch one of the cots and some horse blankets." To Casker John he says, "We will lay down blankets on the floor and put her on a cot. Burren and I will carry her on the cot to her own room when you're finished. What else will you need?"
"My kit," says Casker John. "It's in the bag I left downstairs in the hall, when we came in. Boiled water in a clean basin, some clean rags."
Shine nods. "Straightaway." He vanishes on Burren's heels.
Avrenne's eyes follow Shine for a moment, before she turns attention to Ery. The infant remains in her state of deep sleep, and Avrenne stands back up.
There is a barely there wobble, a moment where she seems unsteady, and then stiffens her spine, and continues forward. Ery is still with her, and she holds onto the infant as she makes her way out of the room. "Thank you, Brother Casker."
Casker John bows his head and watches her go. He doesn't take his hand from Rae's shoulder.
Avrenne leaves Siamus' immediate side — if not his metaphorical one — making a direct line to Shine. Her hair is in a different chignon than before (much simpler, and missing the mignonette comb), and she is still in her Run For Her Life clothing, but not the short sleeve shirt top of before; she wears the long sleeved, high collared shirt, for one reason or another. Her face has been washed more thoroughly, no traces of the blood from earlier, and her expression is composed.
"Mr. Shine, if I might have a word?" She sounds no different than if she intends to speak with him about the latest count of bottles of wine in the cellar.
Shine, who has discarded the — much disarranged — footman's livery he wore earlier for the crisis, and is now in casual shirtsleeves, nods a dismissal to Vane and turns to meet Avrenne. "Lady Fallon. Of course."
Vane himself nods respectfully to Avrenne and turns to depart on his business; he is wearing an oiled canvas jacket and heading for the rear foyer and the doors that lead to the terrace and rear gardens, so presumably he is joining either Larabie's salvage efforts back there or Thredd's at the stables.
The first sign that this might be unusual, and not simply a wine bottle check, is that Lady Fallon doesn't simply draw him off to the side and lower her voice — she keeps going, a sweep of movement fully into the next room, and then, most telling of all, she shuts the door behind them.
Uh oh.
Avrenne faces Shine, her hands clasped in front of her. "I have some preliminary news of Stormwind City, from Finley, of what occurred beyond the dragon's attack. It is not good news for House Fallon. I am sorry to tell you that there was a tidal wave there as well, in the Stormwind Harbor, and no one was able to stop it. We have summoned all the survivors."
Shine does not blanch, because Composure, but he does drop a hand to rest his fingertips on the console table beside him: a minor but telling gesture. "I see," he says. The silence might be a moment's courtesy, or it might be a subtle bracing of himself. "How many were the survivors, if I may ask?"
Avrenne steps forward, and either through deliberate choice or reflex, reaches out to him, her hand going to the precise enough place on his left arm of the swallow with a dagger through it — the commemoration for lost comrades — that it cannot be coincidence that she touches him there.
"Three. Isla, Ralaea, and Finley." Her voice is softer, gentler, not the voice of the Duchess, but only Avrenne as he has known her in the quieter hours of the evenings. "I am sorry, Mr. Shine."
Shine's eye widens. "Not — ah." He glances down at his own fingertips where they rest on the table. After a short, pained silence, he says, "I am glad that the children, at least, came away safe."
He looks up at Avrenne again. "Does Fal— the Vice Admiral know?"
"Yes. I told him that I would speak to you of it. As for the rest of the household…" Avrenne makes a suggestion of a shrug, her hand still steady, if light, on his arm. "I expect you may know best of when to tell whom."
Shine nods. He gazes into bleak space for a moment, and then nods again, more heavily. "Aye. I'll — gather the staff before the house retires. And advise them." He glances down again and takes his fingers from the tabletop, rubs them together absently as though he was merely checking that console for dust. (There is no dust.) "The Crofts, Milla and Marten. Cook and the girls will take that hard. Barbour — tides preserve us. How did Fallon take that?"
"Like losing a cornerstone of something he has always had, always known, and now it's gone," Avrenne answers, and there's not only sympathy in her words, but an understanding. "There is also…" She draws a breath, and steps closer, lowering her voice, although there's no one but them in the room, and the door is closed.
"You need to know something about what Siamus did today, how he did it. He spoke of something in the wave, some sort of intelligence, that he made a bargain with, something to keep us all safe here, and I think he worded it in such a way that he didn't speak of the townhouse in the bargain, and blames himself for it."
Shine's expression shifts smoothly from astonishment to wariness. "A bargain? What sort of — and how could he have known? Any of us? Tides below, but give him half a chance and the man would take on himself the blame for the weath—" He pauses. "Well, and I suppose a sage might think to take blame for the weather, and there's the kernel of it. If ye can turn a storm or stop a wave, what else ought ye to be doing that no one asked of ye?" His tone is laced with salt.
"Not only could he have never known, but I don't think there would have even been time, even if he had somehow sensed it or spoken with whatever it was in depth about every nuance of some contract between them. If the tidal wave that hit Stormwind was part of the same as ours, then the townhouse was already long gone, with no one to hold it for the making of the bargain, but you know how he is." It's spoken not with acid, but with admiration, something beloved.
"And really, if I had kept everyone in the same place, and not permitted the visit, then it all might have been avoided in the first place with everyone here," she says, and holds up a hand to forestall any argument. "But it is equally true that I did not know either. Stormwind was supposed to be safe, and I had no compelling reason to keep us all in one place indefinitely." She might still blame herself, but at least she recognizes that the math is not great. "There was a cost for his part of the bargain that he made. It wanted power, and he traded it — his power, as a tidesage."
Shine waits, listening patiently for the end of that sentence, because clearly it does not end there, that makes no sense.
She shakes her head to some unspoken question. "I don't understand it fully, how it happened, or even what could do so. Siamus said that none of it was like usual, that the Tidemother had never spoken to him like that before. But the result is that he has nothing of it left. He cannot hear Her, or the wind or the water, he can't…" Her voice goes unsteady for a word, and she forces it back into place. "He cannot feel any of it. That's what it cost."
Shine drags a disbelieving hand down his face and shakes his head, a slow, unconscious motion, a reflexive denial. "That isn't — tides below, that isn't how any of it — what was he thinking, the madman?" He looks away.
Abruptly it seems as though the string holding him upright has been cut; he staggers slightly and catches himself with both hands on the table this time, his shoulders sagging. "Blood on the water. How did it happen? How is — how is he?"
Avrenne's hands go up to his shoulders in some reflex, almost comically, this much smaller woman with no real upper body strength, holding onto him as if she might genuinely be able to support him. She does seem steady though, at an angle of bracing, her eyes on his face.
"He is Siamus Fallon," she states, like this is as much of an explanation of how he is as who he is, and perhaps even how this happened and what he was thinking. "That man has never once in his life chosen power or personal glory over the well-being of his people, has never once balked at self-sacrifice to his sense of duty. I have no idea how he did it, or why that bargain was demanded of him." There is a pause, and in that silence is an unvoiced yet so loud she might as well have said it.
"But right now, it is as if he has lost a sense he has had all his life. Of all those who know him, I think you understand best what he must be feeling, how strange the world looks and feels to him." Her gaze flicks to the eye patch over his left eye, then back to his single remaining eye. "The others cannot know yet. Not until he is ready to tell them."
"No, aye. Of course." Shine exhales unsteadily and straightens again slowly, as though the weight of decades has fallen across him at once. "They mustn't know. Tides ha' mercy." He lifts a shaky hand to touch his eyepatch. "I'll — shall I go and see to him? Or does he want — ?"
"Normalcy," Avrenne says, raising her hand up to his over his eyepatch, a steady light pressure. "He is downstairs, upright and sure, because if he is, then all must be well and safe." You know how this goes, Shine. The Vice Admiral is Morale. "If we hover around him, no matter our intent, we undermine it." That which is anathema to the Lady Fallon; Siamus is only supported, never contradicted in his decisions.
But, now she has doubled the number of people paying closer attention to Siamus, who could strategically intervene to better support him, if needed.
"And there is something I must ask of you," Avrenne says, drawing herself up slightly, a possibly unconscious movement of someone settling into her body language of a lady of a House. She seems to become aware of her hand over his on his eyepatch, and slowly withdraws it, to set both her hands back down at her waist, clasping them together.
Shine answers her settling into her accustomed posture by doing the same; he is no longer a tired, heartsick friend but the First Footman of House Fallon. "My lady?" he asks her courteously, blandly expectant.
"The household needs a butler, now more than ever, for the leadership of the staff, a fixing steady point and for the purposes of managing the disarrangement," she says, and there is a slight dissonance between her words and tone of formality, and the softer apology on her face. It's the sort of coldness that she offered to Siamus as a wife, to not linger in the tragedy of loss except in private moments, pushing ever onward into management of the House. "You are the best possible choice for the position."
Shine nods. "I had thought that it might… be necessary, aye. I've managed the role in the past when Barbour was… elsewhere." He has never been this much 'elsewhere,' says Shine's expression, but we're just gonna put it that way for now. Barbour's elsewhere. "I'll see to it. If you or the Vice Admiral should have any particular requirements of myself or the staff, please do advise me, Lady Fallon."
"Of course. At the moment, for me only a final tallying list of any items of the House — and the townhouse — that needs immediate replacing, or long term replacing. The rest is…to only keep as much to the routine as possible, and to keep it familiar for the time being." Avrenne sets her shoulders into place. "You do not need to take over the position permanently, if it does not suit. But if it does, we will have Mr. Vane take over your current duties as First Footman, and re-hire from the bottom. If you have any particular options in mind, give the names to Sophie — "
Avrenne stops mid-sentence. She blinks, her mouth moves slightly, like it might form another word, and then doesn't, just hangs open in silence. duchess_esprit.exe has stopped working.
They are doing Normalcy, they are doing Morale, Shine has gotten this memo, and so when the Duchess does not spontaneously reboot, after a moment he supplies very gently, "To Miss Curran? I will have her sent for."
Avrenne sways forward slightly, like she's been winded and trying to catch her breath, both hands pressing hard against her stomach. "Y-yes," she agrees, more air than sound. Tears have filled her eyes dangerously high, and it's taking effort for her to keep them from falling. "Miss Curran." Her lips tremble and she pulls them in, biting down on them painfully.
After a hesitation, Shine lifts his hands and sets them on her shoulders, bracing her as she had braced him a few minutes ago. "Of course, Lady Fallon," he says, even more gently. "I'm sure she'll be glad to be of use to you at a time like this." After a pause, he lowers his voice and says softly, "I'm terribly sorry. She was a very sweet lady."
Avrenne stares at nothing, somewhere in the middle of his chest. "She was my father's secretary," she tells him, hollow voiced, barely audible. "Her mother was my grandfather's. Her grandfather was my great-grandfather's. Another broken line I didn't stop — I didn't — " The words warble dangerously, halt, and she presses the palms of her hands so hard against her eyes that it must be causing her some amount of pain. This, however, appears preferable to actually shedding the tears in her eyes.
In an entirely different voice, low and forced steady she continues, "I will be speaking with Brother Casker about her and Sir Somer's funeral. That is the other list I will need from you, of what arrangements will need to be made for the others, and all potential dealings with the properties left behind to s — Miss Curran." She does not yet remove her hands from her eyes.
Shine does not take his hands from her shoulders. After a moment he squeezes, a light, reassuring pressure. "We'll see it done," he tells her. "Ye saw done for them, years ago — ye bought them years that many others didn't get. And today you and Fallon saw done for us again. We'll see to the rest of it, aye? For the House."
That gets Avrenne to lift her head, some sort of reflex that forces her chin up, shoulders squaring rigidly. The tears have been shoved back into her eyes, and her expression has a wall over it, the cold society Duchess she pretends to be.
"For the House."
Shine nods at her respectfully, and then pauses. "The pair of ye," he says, and shakes his head wearily. "Both determined to save the House ahead of yourselves. I suppose I ought to be thankful after all that you didn't make that portal — and not just because you were right about the city. But no one else could have saved him, either."
Avrenne, for some reason, drops her gaze from his face, holding herself firmly in place. There's a long enough hesitation to imply something is going unspoken, or a decision is being made.
Shine waits patiently, as he does best. It is the expectant footman's manner, that says he knows something else is coming and he is happy to wait for it as long as madame thinks necessary.
Decision made. Avrenne raises her gaze back up. "There is something you should know — no, two things, that you should know. The first is that I will always have a portal and a teleportation stone on my person. When the Scourge caught us, I had nothing. I had never had reason to have either, and it was not an option from my negligence of preparation. I will never make that mistake again. I will always have something." Avrenne pauses, and her fingers move slightly, a reflexive sort of flutter.
"The second is that while I am technically capable of opening a portal, my range and my ability is very limited. From here, I can reach Stormwind, and likely no other at all." Another pause. She's reluctant, it would seem, to say the next. "As for my ability, I can hold a portal open for several seconds, no more, and from experience, there is roughly a one second to one hour equivalent of blowback, where I cannot move from it, or control my body. I have managed two and three seconds before. I drop to the floor and there is nothing I can do but breathe through it. Hypothetically, I might be able to teleport if I held the stone already in hand, and was able to concentrate through the pain, but I have never done so."
In other words, she would have likely simply died, paralyzed by her own magical blowback, after she opened the portal there to the tidal wave, unable to even try to swim or teleport. A little fact she didn't mention before, whoops.
As Avrenne speaks, Shine's air of patient listening drains away; he seems to tense and draw up gradually as though some inner winch is winding tight. By the time she is finished, he is staring at her, faintly ashen, plainly aghast.
"So you could not," he clarifies in his most precise footman's accent, in his mildest tone, "have saved but one or two others, and would have been damned yourself."
"I might have held it open for longer, just this once, but my heart might have given out, and so either way, I would have never survived," she answers. She can't keep looking at him, dropping first her eyes then her head.
"Siamus knew it. That's what he was thinking, when he went to stop it. He had made a promise to keep this place safe, and he knew that he was married to a weak, useless mage." Her tone has gone hollow, a thread of deep venom of self-hatred warping around her voice. "He knew that I could no more stand there with him than the babe in my arms. So it was on him alone to pay the price, to give up his heritage, his connection with his goddess, his senses of the world, to pay for his wife. This is what I have cost him.
"And any moment now he will realize that math, and so it will be best to have another ready to stand by him, when the sight of me becomes unbearable."
She nods, in agreement with her own words perhaps, and turns away from Shine, already sweeping towards the door to leave.
"Lady Fallon," Shine snaps — yes, snaps. "Don't ye dare. Don't ye dare do either of yourselves the disservice either of believing it's truth or believing that he'd ever think it. I know for a fact he didn't mean to marry a mage, and I've little doubt he never would have married a mage if she hadn't been you. Ye came to him with far better qualifications than magic.
"And if ye have a moment's doubt in how he prizes ye, it's because ye never saw him wi' Betsy Grier, or heard him talk of marriage and ladies in all the years since, so ye can't know how high he's been lifted up by ye after how far a fall. Nor did ye sit with him over the nights ye were in labor wi' the child, watching him pace and fret and drink himself stupid. I have almost never, in eighteen years, seen Siamus Fallon frightened, and he was close to panic when he heard ye hurting. He fair threatened your doctor to let him in to ye afterwards.
"Fallon is a savvy strategist and a fine mathematician, and he did the calculus. He's a powerful tidesage; I have little doubt that if it was only himself, he could have seen himself safe through that wave somehow. He didn't because there was something he held worth more than that. If ye don't know which he treasures higher, his power or his wife, then ye only need to look at what he actually chose, and don't ye tell either me or him that it was a wasted sacrifice."
He has raised his voice at this point, but doesn't seem aware of it. It is very much not the tone with which one addresses the duchess who employs one; it is also a tone that may draw notice from others shortly.
"So don't ye believe he'll turn from you. He'll be needing ye now more than ever. And it may be that you're a weak mage, Lady Fallon, but ye were the only person there wi' power and wits enough to save his life, and ye did it. That's not useless."
Avrenne has one response when a man raises his voice to her, which is to turn in place, and step towards him, her eyes blazing a warning, her hands held together tightly in place before her.
"One does not get credit for putting out a fire one has started," Avrenne says, her voice cold and even, deliberately quieter in response to his louder voice. "His life was in danger then because his wife standing there was Avrenne Esprit and not another who might have been able to do something before it came to that point. I know what he valued higher when the time came to choose. He would have never chosen his power, no matter who stood there, wife or no, because his people were there. That he had no choice but to do so himself was because the decision for the wife at his side was made a year ago. I was supposed to be the perfect Lady Fallon. In what possible world would you call this result that?"
There's a shift in her voice, a softening of her tone. "I, too, have seen him frightened, Mr. Shine, despairing. It was in Wintergarde when he feared he had lost his ability to sing to Her forever. And now he has. Like a prophecy, a warning, fulfilled. Because I could still sing to him then, a small woman's voice, with no power behind it, and it was all I had to offer. It's still all I have to offer him, for all he's lost. I am just a woman." She drops her face into her hands, pressing hard against her face once more, the illusion of her size breaking further, shoulders curving inwards.
Shine lifts his gaze briefly toward the ceiling. "Tides give me strength, the pair of ye."
He steps forward and puts his hands gently on Avrenne's bowed shoulders. "Ye can still sing to him now, and if it's all the comfort ye have to offer him, then offer it and see how he reaches for it. And being the perfect Lady Fallon doesn't mean ye solve every trouble before the House yourself, either. It means ye stand with him to see the House through the troubles that come, and there's no lady better suited to that. There's no world without troubles in it, and no one who threaded them all unscathed. Ye meet the tides together." He pauses. "As could be argued ye did."
Shine hesitates, as if weighing something else, and then shakes his head.
Avrenne raises her head, lowers her hands, revealing those same dry eyes, that mask over her expression, her eyes bleak as she shakes her head at Shine.
"You don't see it yet, either," she tells him. "That will change as time goes on. All you need to do is imagine if Lady Fallon had been someone else. To stand with him through anything that comes — that is not so unique an offering that only I could do so. A thousand other women would have done the same. But among those women, some of them would have had more to offer, would have been enough to never make him stand alone and sacrifice what he has. It was I who was not enough. That was my mistake, when I agreed to his betrothal. I thought, in my arrogance, that I was offering something of equal value. I was wrong, and he's paid that price."
She pulls out of his hands, standing at her full unimpressive height, gathering herself back up, tucking every emotion back into place. "I will tell you this — if there is any way to reverse this, to alter that bargain, then I will do it, even if all I can return to him is a fraction of what he's lost. If anyone should end up powerless, it should be me."
Shine regards her with bleak sorrow in his gaze. "As time goes on, aye. The best I can do is pray as time goes on that ye learn better — that the pair of ye learn better. As I can see ye won't hear it from me."
Avrenne turns to the door, to open it. "Just be ready for that moment when he sees it, that is all I ask of you, as a friend. Because I will do many things, Mr. Shine, to see this ledger go from red to black, but the one thing I will not do is abandon him. I promised him a fixed star in the sky, and even if the day comes that he cannot follow it home any longer, I will not break that vow."
She opens the door, and sweeps through it, her mask firmly back in place, to play at Normalcy and Morale, and keep everything else she thinks inside waters too deep to be seen.
It isn't too much later in the evening when there's a knock at Ralaea Westwind's bedroom door. It's followed by a familiar voice, as Lena says quietly, "Rae, you in there?"
"Think so," Ralaea replies on a light exhale. Her breathing is notably shallow, and she stares sullenly at the ceiling as though it is somehow its fault she is like this.
Lena pushes the door open and enters, closing it quietly behind her. She's changed into another dress, a simple one in light blue. The one she was wearing before was entirely too smeared with dirt and soaked with sweat. Lena isn't injured, but she moves with a stiff weariness as she comes to sit by Rae's bedside.
"Glad I got to you in time," Lena says, slumping over a little to rest her elbows on her lap. "It'd be a hell of a thing to see each other through death knights and Lich Kings and then I lose you to fucking fencepost." She pauses. "Well, I guess there was the dragon, too. I take it he was to blame for the stab?"
Ralaea nods. "It was quick. Can't remember everything, just… Dragon, and… I don't know. I lost the ground for a moment." She takes a slow, shallow breath. "Fill me in? How long's it been? What's happened?"
"Not much, it's the same day," Lena says, breathing out a low sigh. "Here… a lot happened here, too. Fallon and his guy came running through the halls telling us to run for it, and we all ran up towards the hills. We didn't get far enough, fast enough. Not enough to get away from the wave. It looked like it was going to kill us all, but then it… stopped. And the earth started tearing itself apart. I damn near fell in, only Bertrand pulled me back. Then we summoned the Fallons, because they were closer in towards the shore and… I don't know what they were doing, but Fallon didn't look great and his wife was all bloody. Then we went back to the house and summoned you."
"A wave," Ralaea repeats. "A killer wave? I've heard stories, but…" She takes another slow breath. "So you almost died to a hole… and I almost died to a fencepost. What's next, a murderous pillow? But everyone's… alright, here?"
"Pillows are only murderous with intent behind them," Lena says with a faint smile. It fades as she adds, "And… mostly. The ones who made it to the hills are alright. If anyone was at the harbor… well… there wouldn't have been any chance to summon."
Ralaea takes that information in, chewing her lip in silence. Then, she tries to sit up. "Jo? Has anyone told Jo? Are we going to mobilize?"
"It's been a rough day," Lena says, drawing in a breath. "I've not sent any mail. Was she in Stormwind? She might know. I'm not sure what we'd mobilize against exactly, yet."
"Dragon's gotta be somewhere," Ralaea says. "Unless it went human on us…"
"Which black dragons have been known to do in Stormwind," Lena says dryly, but then she shakes her head. "It doesn't sound like it was going for subtlety. But also, flying in, flying out. It's not like Sapphiron or Sindragosa, resting in a lair. And… I don't know how widespread the damage is. Is it only the Stormwind area? Even if, there's like to be a lot of people need helping. I couldn't say what Cobalt'll go for first."
"Hope none of us were in Stormwind," Ralaea mumbles. "So much for peace, right? Doubt the dragon will stay gone." She gives up on her attempts to sit up after the first spark of pain.
"Even if we do mobilize, I don't think you can. Not yet," Lena raises her hand to gently hold Rae in the bed. "If the last few years taught us anything, though, I don't think you need to worry about being left out of the chaos. You've had plenty of it already, and there'll be more when you're healed up."
"That's reassuring," Ralaea says dryly. "Hopefully I'm not stuck here long. Might die of boredom next."
"Unless I miss my guess, I'm likely to be here a while as well," Lena says, glancing at the door with a touch of worry, before she turns back to Ralaea. "I can't imagine this is going to help the housing market in Stormwind, and I was already having a time trying to find a place. And with the storms and all lately, there's not much to be done with the fleet. So I'd say we can help keep each other from boredom, but… really the household here's quite lively in any case."
"Well," Ralaea says, "happy to have you. For what it's worth. Keep me updated on Cobalt?"
"I will. I'll keep in touch with the Captain or somebody, so I'll know when we're deployed and where," Lena nods, sitting back a little. "This is… not really how I thought it'd be, after the Lich King. I know the world's not perfect, there would always be more problems, but this is just…" Lena sighs. "How does it feel, for you, knowing he's dead? And the others, the ones you were after."
"It doesn't feel… complete, somehow," Ralaea admits. "Knowing there's ANOTHER one. And the Ebon Blade are still…" She shakes her head. "Like a festering wound, you know? How do you feel about it?"
"The new one is Bolvar Fordragon, though," Lena says in a low voice, then continues in a more conversational tone, "Not even the Lich King could turn him, so maybe it'll be different. And the Ebon Blade… well. I suppose now we'll see where they fit in, without a common enemy. But you're still with Harvey, aren't you?"
"It's…complicated," Ralaea says, scowling. "He's been avoiding me since the trial. And he stopped me from killing Kaela."
"You defeated Kaela," Lena replies, her brow creasing. "Whether you had the killing blow or not, you out-maneuvered her. And… why is he avoiding you? I thought he got exonerated on self-defense or something?"
Ralaea shrugs her shoulders a little and winces. "Got accused of working with her? Whole thing damaged his pride. He's big on pride, you know? Idiot."
Lena nods, resting her chin on one hand. "You'd think with all he's been through, pride would have been one of the things he lost. But he knows we don't think he was working with her? I don't, anyway. I don't really know a whole lot about that whole situation, but I always believed he was Ebon Blade."
"Can't tell him stuff. He doesn't listen. And he's not real well liked anyway," Ralaea sighs. "I still plan to marry him if I have to drag him back."
Lena gives a huff of a laugh. "Men, sometimes. Undead or not. But if he loves you, maybe he'll listen someday. I don't know about him being disliked, by… the other death knights?" She frowns, looking at Ralaea. Did she get that part right?
"Don't know how he gets on with them," Ralaea admits. "I meant Cobalt. The living. To be expected, I guess."
"Ah, the living," Lena falls silent for a moment, the weariness settling further in her eyes. "I don't think any of the death knights can really hope for more than tolerance. He shouldn't take that personally. I mean, I… I hope he understands it's just because of what he is, not who."
"Folks in Cobalt didn't like him before. Before he died, I mean. Ben, at least. And Colson."
"Oh, well. That's not likely to improve with undeath," Lena shrugs slightly. "They'll treat him fairly, though. I'm sure of that. They're both fair people."
Ralaea peers at Lena. "You ever hear more? About your brother?"
Lena shakes her head. "Not with all that's been going on. Haven't had a chance to talk to May yet, so I've no idea how that all came out. Even if he were waiting for me with SI:7 in Stormwind, I don't suppose I could easily get to it now." She takes in a deep breath. "Anyway, wherever he is, whatever he is, we've already avenged him. So there's that."
Avrenne knocks precisely three times on Finley’s door. There’s a mathematical aspect to the sound, like she’s kept the sense of each beat, spaced accordingly.
Finley doesn’t answer for long enough to make someone wonder if he’s going to answer – his room is not large enough for him to have needed that much time to cross it.
“Finley,” Avrenne says, outside the door.
The door opens a breath later, Finley standing on the other side, his head bowed. He’s lost almost two inches off his real height from the way he stands slumped over, looking at the floor. He pauses, then moves out of the way for Avrenne to be able to walk into the room.
She does so in a sweep forward, her steps more in line with what one would expect with a dress, although she remains in her shirt and pants, her hair still up in the simple chignon. Her eyes flick around the room, taking in what has changed, and what has not.
Not much is different. Finley’s room always has the illusion of being sparsely decorated, with almost no personal touches whatsoever, dark browns and small pops of gold here and there of the basics. Avrenne knows better, of course; she knows that he will have stored personal items up under the bed, against the frame. Inside the drawers will be filled with small stashes, hidden amongst the regular outfits. Finley’s hoarding of items often goes unknown, the exterior kept so neatly.
On the bed, rumpled from where he must have been lying on top of it, or possibly beneath the first layer of the duvet, is a very old knife in a sheath. Avrenne sucks in a breath at the sight when her eyes land on it. She recognizes it. Sir Somer’s old knife, the one that she used to cut herself free of her dress eight years ago. The blanket at the bottom of the bed has Sophie’s bizarre embroidery, and it’s been tugged out of its usual place.
Finley closes the door behind Avrenne with a soft click, and stays there, leaning forward to set his head against the wood, refusing to look at her.
“Finley,” Avrenne says again, turning in place, watching him calmly, her hands folded in front of her.
“I’m missing time, Avrenne,” he tells her, as if they were in the middle of a conversation already, something asked.
“I have heard that is common. Missing time, or confused memories.”
“We were running. There were a lot of people on the main street. I remembered – I remembered what you said, about a crowd, with someone like Isla. I took that side street out of the main square, to double back through the mage quarter, out of the crowd. The buildings collapsed, and I got Isla. And then I was on my back, and Isla was yelling at me about being – about being…” Finley can’t finish the sentence, and his voice shakes.
Avrenne steps forward and reaches up to set her hand steadily on Finley’s left shoulder. She can’t reach his head anymore, even like this.
“She knew? Are you sure she didn’t confuse it with being unconscious?”
Finley shakes his head. “There were these…dwarfs, they seemed…one of them seemed sure, he said it. Like he had seen me that way, had gone to get help for it. And Isla was…this wasn’t her just jumping to conclusions, Avrenne. She said I bled on her, and there was…Light, Avrenne, there was so much blood. I think it was my head, the back of it. I think something hit me.” His voice sounds small, and young, and he shrinks down further.
Avrenne gently presses his shoulder, encouraging him to turn. Finley resists it. He doesn’t want her to see him.
“You came back, Finley. Of course you did,” Avrenne says. “Do you recall the name of the dwarf who helped you?” And then she pauses, as she puts Finley’s words in order, examines the order of operations. “Wait a moment – who called you back?”
Finley swallows, a convulsive motion that causes a shudder along his entire body. “Avrenne. I don’t…I don’t know. When I came to, it was just…it was just Isla there. Only her, no one else.”
“She didn’t say who did it? A description of the person at the least, if not remembering her manners to get their name properly,” Avrenne says.
Finley shakes his head. “I didn’t ask her,” he admits. “There was something…she looked strange, Avrenne. I don’t know how to explain it. There was something different. I don’t know what it was.”
“Well, the first thing to do is ask her properly,” Avrenne says. There’s an edge to the tone, something of a scold, that gentles as she continues. “I shall do so, you should be resting.”
“The other two, one was a priest, a…Father Daimhin. The other a paladin, something…Torcaill, I think. They helped us out, after.”
“I will look into them, thank you.”
Finley doesn’t move from the door. There’s a silence that stretches out into an uncomfortable length, and Avrenne sets her hands back together to wait it out.
“I saw it happen. The tidal wave came all the way up to the end of the Stormwind Harbor. I saw what happened to the townhouse. They couldn’t have made it out of there. It’s gone, Avrenne, just…gone. There’s…I don’t know if there’s even gonna be bodies to find.” Finley breathes out in gasps of breaths, his voice going lower as he tries to keep it even. He still hasn’t learned the full trick of it. “Geoff should have made it. He was with us.”
Avrenne holds back a sound, her hand on her chest.
“We were out shopping. Geoff saw the warnings, the things you told us about, the seeing the seabed. There was barely time to get out, and he…he knew it. He told me – he told…” Finley’s voice breaks. “He told me keep the children safe. And then he went to the townhouse.”
Avrenne sways a little in place, her eyes filling with tears she will not shed. “Sophie would have been in the house. He went back for her.”
Finley taps his head against the door. “I should have tried harder to stop him, I just. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I’m not…I’m not you.”
“Finley,” Avrenne says, her tone firm, and she squeezes his shoulder, a more insistent pull now to turn to face her. Finley resists harder. “Not even I could have convinced him. I know that. I have known that since the Fall. Finley, she is – “ She pauses, readjusts. “She was everything to him. One has to know when persuasion simply will not work. One does not fight against the inevitable. One ends up in the same place, only with even less time to work with. I would no more order Sir Somer to leave Sophie than I would tell you to leave Isla behind.”
Even the suggestion, the hypothetical, has Finley clenching his fists in some reflex, an immediate denial on his lips.
“You see?” Avrenne steps closer to the younger man. “Sir Somer’s choice was already made before you saw the warnings. I will not hold you to anything more, only that you did precisely as you should have. You listened to his warning, and you kept Isla safe.”
Finley makes a choked sound, and then covers his mouth to hold back anything more.
“You did so well, Finley. I am very proud of you,” Avrenne says gently. “You should rest. You did what was needed, and you are both back in safe harbor once more. We will keep you safe now.”
It’s somehow the wrong thing to say, as Finley lifts his head again, shaking it harder, and turns to face Avrenne at last. His eyes are red, his cheeks red, and there is anger in his eyes. “What is it going to be this time, then, Your Grace?”
Avrenne flinches.
Finley’s expression shifts, guilt straining against anger, and then he drops his mask down to cover it into a blankness, his eyes still burning.
“You’re done enough for us. I’m not a child anymore, for you to take care of, sacrifice something more for.”
Avrenne draws herself up to her full height, and tips her head. “You are not a child, but you are mine to take care of, Finley. You agreed to it in writing, as much as in spirit. You will be safe here, and Siamus and I will see that done. That is what a House is for. That is what I am for.”
Finley’s eyes go flatter, in some grief and pain, and he opens the door with a butler’s precision, staring hard at Avrenne. “Of course, Your Grace. I’m but your humble servant.”
Avrenne opens her mouth, then closes her lips into a hard line. She steps out of the room, her head held high, her shoulders squared, and a hand held at her waist.
Finley has been in his room, solitary, in the hours since the three rescues from Stormwind arrived. This is not unusual, and not unexpected.
Isla made an appearance, wan and brittle, for food, where she ate things mostly made of sugar or bread, and then snuck away, back up to her room, where she has not been out, and there has been no sign or sound of her doing anything in the house — not a bath, not a haunting of the library, not a trip up to the attic.
And that is unusual, and unexpected.
For all that is late at night, there is a light visible under Isla's door, both in the hallway and in the shared bath of Isla and Priscilla, and that Avrenne has not been by to see it out speaks of Exceptional Circumstances.
Priscilla, now dressed in comfy cozy pink and yellow pajamas, knocks on the door of their shared bathroom. "Isla? Are you in there? The light's on."
There's an unfortunately loud sniffling sound, then a rustling sound of blankets — and a hard thunk as someone hits the floor.
"I'm fine!" Isla yells, probably in response to whether or not she has injured herself. There's a bit of movement, and then a plaintive sound from near the floor. "You can come in. It's open." As usual, Isla has forgotten to lock it.
Priscilla opens the door and steps inside.
Inside, Isla's room is as it ordinarily is, which is to say that it's a bright shock of colors and shapes and sudden interests, a room built with an eye for the full force of the sun and not refined taste.
On the floor, near a broken lamp that Isla has sworn up and down that she will fix (just like her hero, Sintha!), and a little egg-shaped chair with pillows now in complete disarray over the floor is a lump wrapped in the blanket from Isla's bed, tangled up into a cocoon that has trapped her.
Isla raises her head like a caterpillar, tears in her eyes, her hair pulled down and matted across her forehead where she must have washed it and then forgotten to dry it earlier. "Hi, Scilla."
"Hi, Isla." Priscilla shuts the bathroom door and goes to sit down next to the cocoon. "Oh, sweetie."
Isla puts her head down onto the carpet and tries to wiggle her arms free. She actually needs to roll to one side, to open up the corner of the duvet, but here she is.
"I'm fine," she insists. "I was just…reading."
It's a good lie, because with Isla the odds of that being true are very high. But it is also a bad lie, because there is no book anywhere around Isla.
"It was a horrible day. I'd be surprised if anyone were actually fine." Priscilla smiles softly at her. "I'm certainly not fine." She eyes the blanket like she's considering lying down too.
Isla gives a wrenching sort of sob into the carpet, sniffles loudly, then sneezes because she'll pulled some fibers into her nose. She sighs, and rolls onto her back, exhausted from the struggles.
The blankets release her from their tight cocoon.
"I don't know how to rewrite that story," Isla confesses in a small voice. "To make everyone be fine again. I can't do it."
"Bless you." Priscilla sighs. "Do you want to have a sleepover? We can be sad together, and you can tell me the story, and I'll tell you about what happened here, and maybe we can find the good parts."
"Okay." Isla stares up at the ceiling, lips trembling. "Avrenne told me there was a tidal wave here, and Siamus stopped it. The gardens are gone though." She swipes a hand under her nose. "Everyone here lived. That's a good part."
Priscilla lies down on the blanket next to her, pulling a couple of pillows closer. She puts one under her own head and offers the other to Isla. "Mmhm. It was very frightening at first, because we didn't know what we were running from. We got to the hills, and we looked back and we saw the wave looming over the house, frozen, like a picture of the moment before destruction. But it didn't fall. I couldn't see Siamus, because the house was in the way, but in my imagination he was conducting it like music. He made it peel over backwards bit by bit."
Isla punctuates the sentences awkwardly with sniffles. "That's amazing," she says, her voice warbling.
"It was amazing. Like peeling an orange," Priscilla says, raising her hands into the air to gesture. "First the left, and then the center, and then the right - but just a little bit escaped, and it ran around the house and flooded the gardens. But none of us were there. Only Avrenne and Mr. Shine were still close to the house, they were watching Siamus." She does not mention Otto abruptly running back, and she may have forgotten about Brendol altogether. Maybe it makes for a better story this way. "And then… there was an earthquake, and I think Siamus fell into the ocean, but Avrenne saved him. And Mr. Shine called for Lena Coit to summon them with her fel magic, and so we did, and Siamus was wet but still alive, and Avrenne was alive too, and it was very romantic, I thought."
Isla clasps her hands to her chest, staring up at the ceiling with pleading eyes, as if she's asking it to play out this scene for her. There's enough of a sparkle in her expression, little glints of stars in her eyes, to show that it's working.
"He calls her a mermaid sometimes," Isla tells Priscilla. This is not news to Priscilla, but it seems to be an important note for Isla to make at this point. "Avrenne is such a good swimmer." That's not really why he calls her that, but it's okay. "Of course she would have saved him from certain death. She didn't say." No one is terribly surprised by that.
"It's all so magical, like a proper story should be," Isla declares. She has likely not included any of the less magical moments, of nosebleeds and retching. It's all been made glossier, shinier.
Priscilla smiles at Isla. "I might paint it - the part I saw, at least, the wave over the house. Now that it's over, it really does feel like a magical story. But while it was still happening… I was so scared. Birdie told Lena Coit to put a soulstone on Brother Casker, like he thought maybe we were all going to die and Brother Casker would be left all alone to try and call us all back."
Isla goes strangely pale, her hands flying to her mouth, fingers pressing around her lips like she's tried to catch something erupting out of her. Her eyes are wide with fear, and she curls over onto her side, turning first away from Priscilla, and then spinning back over to stare up at her.
"He could do that right? He could, couldn't he? Everyone wouldn't have stayed gone?" Isla doesn't wait for the answers to that before asking, through her fingers, "Have you ever seen it, Scilla? Someone called back, really back, from the dead? I mean seen it, up close?"
"Birdie wouldn't have stayed gone," Priscilla says with slightly misplaced confidence. "I don't know about everybody, though. They say only some people can be brought back at all, and no one knows who at first. They tried to revive Lucy, and it didn't work. I've never seen it myself. But Birdie has."
"Did he ever tell you what it looked like?" Isla asks, searching Priscilla's face like the letter might be written there.
Priscilla furrows her brow, trying to recall. "I think it can change, depending on the resurrector. The priest in his unit - in his old unit, the Scarlet Bride, he said she talks directly to the souls, and then they open their eyes like they've been asleep. But the paladin, Sir Fairbanks, does very flashy resurrections, very bright. Like he has to bathe their bodies in the Light, or something. He said the last time he came back to life, it was his brother Colson who revived him, and he described it like it felt like his soul was reaching out to take Colson's outstretched hand. And then there was a druid, once, who broke apart an acorn and pushed something into a man's chest and a lot of plants grew around his body and then withered and the man opened his eyes."
Isla is very obviously taking mental notes — and visibly embellishing as she goes — and she nods at Priscilla.
"So then it could be like someone rewrote a story in their head, an ending that didn't happen, and it looked like they had the sun in their hands," Isla says, holding her hands out to Priscilla's chest, not touching but near. "Like sunshine caught in your fingers, and your mother smiling at you with your face warm and everyone safe, because you can't be dead on a day like that, you just can't be, and it's not allowed and the sunshine breaks the hold of the shadow of death?"
Wow, that's, uh. That's really specific, even for Isla and her imagination.
"It could be like that, yes. I don't see why it couldn't." Priscilla turns her head to study Isla. "Did that… happen to you?"
Isla shakes her head immediately, and pulls her hands back to herself, scrunching up into a ball. "No," she insists. "It didn't — not me." She stares at her hands. "But I think… I maybe think, that it might possibly could have happened…to Lee." Her voice is very small, a thready little thing. "And I don't… know how."
"'Sunshine caught in your fingers,'" Priscilla murmurs. "That sounds like the Light, Isla. Did you call the Light to bring Finley back?"
Isla shakes her head again, but the look on her face is conflicted. "No? I mean, I didn't…I wasn't calling anything. I just didn't want him to be d-dead. Avrenne — Avrenne asked me if I saw anyone else around, and I…I didn't, but I wasn't looking. I wasn't looking at anyone but Lee, so I don't know. I'm not sure." Isla presses her hands against her chest. "Scilla, I just didn't want him to be dead anymore. If that was enough, wouldn't it work on everyone? Couldn't anyone do it? I didn't ask anything. I didn't pray. I just…demanded that the story change. And it did. And I don't know who did it. It couldn't have been me." Her eyes are large, strangely pleading.
Right, Priscilla? It couldn't have been Isla.
Unless it was.
"I think it could have been," Priscilla says. She reaches over to put a hand on Isla's shoulder. "I don't know why some people are born being able to do magic and some can learn it and some of us can't. And I wish it were a little more… fair. I don't think anyone could do it, no. But maybe you have another secret talent you never knew about."
Isla stares at Priscilla with first bright gratitude, and then it dives into deeper horror. "I thought…I tried a bit, earlier. Just here. I tried to make the sunshine, a-and it didn't work. Scilla," she whispers urgently. "I was relieved. I don't want — if you have magic, you can't just be a normal person, can you? You can't just hope it will go away. You have to use it, don't you? I don't want that. I want to be a normal person. I'm just a normal person." Isla's words dissolve into sobs that cease to have enough stable form to be comprehensible, only jolts of extreme feeling.
"Oh, Isla, sweetie." Priscilla holds her arms out. Look how huggable she is. "Don't be scared. There are plenty of people who can do just a little bit of magic. You can be as normal as you want to be. You might have to have lessons to teach you how to use it safely, but is that so bad?"
Isla’s sobs abruptly halt and she jerks her head up. Only the fact that she hadn't yet gone forward into the Priscilla hug offering saves them from finding out if Isla can use the Light yet to heal a busted chin.
"What? What do you mean 'safely'? It could be dangerous? I could be dangerous? I could hurt someone?" The questions are coming so quickly they are barely distinct sentences, and her voice has hit squeaking levels of high pitched.
Priscilla sighs. "Maybe. But it seems like you could also heal them. Once you learn how." She keeps her arms outstretched.
Isla throws herself into Priscilla. It's only semi-effective, as the lower half of Isla is still in blanket wrap, but it gets the job done enough for a hug.
Priscilla pulls her close, rubbing her back. "You can still be normal, Isla. What you have is potential. But you always had potential. You have a brilliant creative mind. And today you changed the story, didn't you? And Finley is still with us."
Isla hesitates and nods, banging her forehead lightly against Priscilla's collarbone, tears scattering against her skin.
"Nothing is going to be the same again after today, is it?" Isla asks, her voice muffled.
"I think lots of things are going to be the same," Priscilla says softly. "Some things will be different, of course. Dear Sophie… and Sir Somer… and Stormwind will not be the same, and the gardens here are gone."
Priscilla kisses the top of Isla's head. "But the sun will rise, and Avrenne and Siamus will still be terribly in love, and so will Birdie and I, and Birdie will go for a run way too early in the morning, and I will probably miss breakfast but I'll be sure to be at dinner with everyone, and Finley will be trying to pretend he doesn't have any feelings, and all the horses will be back in the stables, and Otto will still want to hold hands, and Ery will still be a grumpy baby. And you, precious sunshine girl, you are going to be brilliant."
The Next Morning
Anyone descending to breakfast at Fallon House the following day could be forgiven for wondering whether they had dreamed the whole tidal wave/dragon business. The dining room is implacably normal, aggressively normal; tidal waves and dragons may do as they please, says the Fallon breakfast table, but they cannot keep the Fallons from their tea, and the world be damned.
Shine, composed and impeccably uniformed as ever, attends at the sideboard, which bears the usual breakfast bounty. If the spread is a little heavier on toast and fruit this morning than it is on fresh-cooked dishes, that is perhaps understandable. There was a tidal wave. And a dragon.
Ery is still upstairs, having already had her breakfast. Emelia is currently having hers, half-dozing in her chair, in the infant's nursery room.
Avrenne arrives downstairs at her usual time, promptly, dressed no longer in her running clothes; she is as aggressively normal as the dining room, in a sweeping navy blue and silver dress with long sleeves and a high collar, her hair up in a perfect chignon and a silver moon comb, silver pearl earrings in her ears, and cosmetics brightening her complexion. It is only a regular Wednesday, yesterday's terror is past, her manner suggests. They carry on.
Her husband is carrying along right beside her, dressed more formally than he usually is for breakfast — there can't possibly be a global crisis if Siamus Fallon took the time to knot his cravat, so everyone remain calm — but carrying the ubiquitous breakfast newspaper under his arm.
The headlines visible behind his sleeve are all in 72-point font. The front page of the paper appears to be all headlines.
He walks Avrenne to her place, lays his newspaper down to the side, at his own place, and then draws her chair out for her.
Avrenne sits properly, reaching for tea. She ignores her plate for now. She'll eat more later, probably.
Finley, Otto, and Isla are nowhere to be seen.
Avrenne may ignore her plate, but Siamus does not, because he's That Guy. He takes her plate and his own and goes to the sideboard.
When he returns, he sets before her a plate which he has adorned with a single piece of toast and some strawberries. It is a no-thank-you helping. His own plate has considerably more bacon on it.
Avrenne drinks more tea than anything, and the food on her plate has at least moved around. A single strawberry was consumed, and maybe she took some bites of toast. The rest remains on the plate, and she is a silent companion next to the Vice Admiral.
Lena comes down not long after, the panic and exhaustion from the previous day largely banished. Her blue dress might be a little bit rumpled, like maybe it was shoved in a bag to run with the evening before. She heads to the sideboard, collecting her fruit and toast, and murmuring 'Good Morning' to Shine, and then she heads to the dining room to join Avrenne and Siamus.
No one is speaking yet, so she doesn't either.
"Miss Coit," Avrenne greets her, in the same polite, if not warm, tone she ordinarily uses with Lena.
"Lady Fallon," Lena answers with the same level of cordiality, smiling at her.
Siamus glances up from his newspaper. He has flipped past the 72-point font on the front page — been there, seen that — and found a financial column, because apparently people are still doing finance at the end of the world. "Miss Coit," he greets Lena warmly. "Did ye rest, I hope?"
"Oh, yes," Lena answers. "I don't think anything in the world or out of it would've woke me. After I saw Ralaea to sleep, of course. She's mending."
"Thank you again for seeing her here. I do not want to imagine what might have befallen her left like that in Stormwind. She has been through more than enough, and now she will be able to recover properly, at home. Isla and Finley might have made their own way eventually, but I am grateful they did not need to. You are truly invaluable, Miss Coit," Avrenne says.
Siamus nods, his gaze steady on Lena.
Lena's eyebrow twitches a little at at home, but she doesn't comment on that. She does say, "I'm happy to have helped. I'm going to send some letters to see if my friends were alright today, maybe also contact Captain Sparkwire. Most of my friends are, you know, mercenaries, so I figured they'd be involved in the helping. Maybe not wanting to get snatched away."
"Will ye let us know what your Captain Sparkwire says, about the state of your people? I won't trouble the woman myself at a time like this, but tell her I hope for the best for Cobalt. I expect I'll see — I hope I'll see Ference at the House, soon enough." Siamus contemplates his newspaper again with an absent frown; he's not actually reading it.
"Yes, I'll let you know when I hear back," Lena nods. "Though likely there'll be some kind of newsletter. A bit surprised there hasn't been one yet, but I suppose she's as shocked as the rest of us."
"I am expecting news from the city, at some point today, assuming those who would contact me are in a position to do so." That's definitely a euphemism for still alive as much as anything. "If I learn anything useful, Miss Coit, I will be certain to pass it along to you as well."
Brendol pokes his head into the room. Relief floods his expression at how normal everything looks. He cautiously enters. Maybe this is the dream.
"Mr. Westwind," Avrenne greets him, her eyes flicking to the young man, and assessment in her glance.
Siamus lowers the newspaper again to smile at Brendol. Pay no attention to the shadows under his eyes; look at his tie. "Good morning, Westwind," he says.
Bren smiles a little, but it's strained. "Good morning, Lady Fallon," he says, and to Siamus, "Sir." The latter address is likely the result of too many struggles with titles and their proper use. "I checked on Rae, she's still asleep though, so I… came here." He glances awkwardly towards the sideboard, then starts inching towards it.
"I expect she needs her rest. It's quite important to eat well after such exertion," Avrenne says, in blatant contrast to her own nibbled plate. Her tone suggests that yesterday was just a bit of exercise, gone a little more intense than usual. "Perhaps you might make her up a plate of what you think she might be best tempted by, and bring it up to her?" And, it goes unsaid, have a reason to not try to come downstairs. And then she deliberately turns her attention back to Siamus, so as to give Brendol the illusion that she isn't watching him and what he puts on his plate.
Bertrand has already gone for his way-too-early-in-the-morning run outdoors, so when he enters the dining room he is wearing running clothes, although the sort meant for exercise rather than fleeing for one's life. His hair is pulled back into a long ponytail. "Hey, good morning," he says to the room at large, approaching the sideboard.
Siamus approves of both early-morning runs and Bertrand in running clothes, and he smiles warmly. "Good morning, Aspenwood."
Avrenne's eyes flick over to Bertrand, and glances behind him, just in case Priscilla is there. "Lord Bertrand."
"Good morning," Lena smiles, and then takes a bite of toast, waiting for everyone to settle with food.
Priscilla is not there. She's probably still asleep. This is not unusual. Dinner is the meal she never misses.
Bertrand loads up a plate with the sort of breakfast a guy who goes for early morning runs might want to eat and brings it to the table, where he takes a seat near Siamus. "Did you sleep any?"
Siamus does not look like he slept any, but he is wearing a tie, so c'mon. "Aye," he says. "Fine. Yourself?" He lays his newspaper down to reach for his teacup. It is time for eight cups of caffeine; this, too, is in fact aggressively normal.
"Enough," Bertrand says, which is Army for 'I can function better on less sleep than the average human being can'. He looks at Siamus' tie, then Avrenne's dress, and then down at his own outfit. "Am I underdressed?"
Brendol panics a little. Is this a dress-up breakfast?
"Certainly not by reasonable standards. I should hope you aren't considering wearing a cravat while out running, Lord Bertrand. I hear it is not ideal for the circulation," Avrenne quips, in an indirect answer to the question.
Bertrand laughs, smoothing his hair back.
Siamus smiles fondly at Avrenne. She does humor. It's so great.
To Bertrand he says, "Not at all, aye. I'm not usually so — but, ye know. Morale, and whatnot. Appearances."
There he goes saying the quiet part out loud. It might not help morale when you tell everyone you're trying to keep their morale up, but. Bertrand's a military man. He gets Morale.
Bren loses a shade of color after all. It's not a dream. He quietly sits down at the table with fruit and toast.
Shine moves around the table with the teapot to fill or refill anyone's cup, as required. And possibly also to distract them from Siamus just saying things.
Lena smiles faintly as Siamus casually undermines morale, but she doesn't speak.
Bertrand nods. He gets it. "Morning," he says to Shine. He's an orange juice in the morning person and not a tea in the morning person, it seems.
"Good morning, sir," says Shine, and bypasses him with the teapot.
Bren stares pleadingly at Shine. Please, sir, do not give him tea and make the nightmare worse.
Shine smiles faintly at Bren and doesn't even offer. He knows, buddy.
The Siamus who descends the stairs an hour or more after breakfast has shed the Morning Morale look in favor of a Grim Reality aesthetic. He's dressed in boots, workman's trousers, and a shirt with its collar undone; he's carrying a waxed-canvas jacket over his arm.
He jogs down the stairs, one hand in his pocket, his gaze distantly preoccupied and his jaw working absently. At the foot of the stairs, he turns toward the corridor that leads back to the small private studies at the rear of the house.
Bertrand, emerging from that corridor, narrowly avoids walking directly into Siamus. He pivots to the side just in time. "Whoa. Hey, Fallon. You got a couple minutes?" He has changed from clothes that are clearly intended for exercise into clothes that can be worn for exercise but were not necessarily made with that purpose in mind, including an olive-colored short-sleeved shirt with a collar that is also not fully buttoned up all the way.
Siamus puts a hand out in that startled, amiable gesture that may mean either whoa, there or hey, sorry and smiles. "Aye, of course. I was heading to the small office to look over some business wi' the staff. Will ye come with me, or would ye rather someplace else?"
"Sure," Bertrand says, and sticks his hands in his pockets. "Anywhere's fine." He turns around to go right back down the hall he just came from, although he lets Siamus lead the way to the right room.
The room to which Siamus leads him is a small study off the rear entrance hall. It is furnished in a style we shall call Nondescript Money, which is to say lots of leather and brass accents, polished walnut furniture, probably a globe and an oil painting of a horse, the usual.
Siamus drops his jacket over the back of the chair at the desk and then goes to the bookcase to select a ledger from the top shelf. "Sit where ye like," he tells Bertrand genially, and turns to set the ledger on the desk.
Bertrand drops into an armchair, crossing his legs at the ankle. "It feels a little surreal to me that this building is still standing. You saved all our lives yesterday, you know. Thank you."
"Ah," says Siamus. He leans on the desk and folds his arms across his chest, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I'd — well, ye hardly owe me thanks. I'm — glad of it, of course. That I was able to — aye."
"I figured you wouldn't want too much of a fuss made about it," Bertrand says with a friendly smile. "So I'll just make a small fuss, privately, and then let it be. Miss Coit got a soulstone on your priest, and I was hoping it wouldn't be needed, and it wasn't. They said you weren't a shaman. A tidesage?"
Siamus is silent a moment, gazing past Bertrand into space, clearly weighing something. But he nods at last. "Aye. It's what — it's a Kul Tiran gift. Part of our… faith. It's in the blood, some few of us."
"If it's a matter of faith, is there someone else I ought to thank as well? A god, or the sea itself? Afraid I don't know much of what's appropriate for an outsider."
"She's — aye, the sea. The Tidemother. She's a bit —" Siamus looks westward, in the direction of the unquiet ocean. "She's… not herself, at the moment. But we've a shrine — there was a shrine, below the cliffs. I've no' been down yet to see what's come of it."
He adjusts his weight awkwardly against the desk. "How is Lady Moore? She bears up brightly, a brave lady, but I know she's had a hell of a time of it."
Bertrand frowns a little. "Not herself… We've killed two Old Gods, now. Makes me wonder if the rest of them are all waking up and paying attention." He shudders. "Scilla says she's fine, but she definitely isn't. Did your wife fill you in on what happened in Stormwind…?"
Siamus wearily lifts a hand to press the lines from his brow. "Aye," he says. "We've — aye, she told me."
He drops his hand to look up at Bertrand again. "Were your people — have ye had a moment to look in on your family, and the vineyards? I should have asked ye sooner, I'm sorry."
"Not yet." Bertrand waves a hand. "I'm headed there today. Soon. Trying not to worry until I can start counting people, y'know?"
Siamus nods. He gives an abrupt, dry laugh. "A sound policy, after the year it's been."
He folds his arms and settles back again. "If there's a thing more that Her Grace or I can do for either of ye, will ye say? Your lady's been a great comfort to Avrenne these last months, I know, and I hate to see her grieve now. It's a pleasure to have the company of the pair of ye; only a bloody shame about the circumstances."
He glances at the study door, looks back at Bertrand. "I heard ye had a fall in Naxxramas. Does she know?"
Bertrand nods. "Mmm. Scilla knows. I write to her… well, about mostly everything. I really appreciate the two of you taking her in. For all that she's an extrovert, she loves living close to nature far more than she ever did in the city."
Siamus smiles faintly. "I'm much the same. Sintha's always preferred the city and the townho– " He cuts himself off abruptly and stares into space.
When he speaks again though, a moment later, his tone is still light and warm, as though there had been no break. "We've been glad to have her. A charming lady, a fine athlete, and a tremendous talent. To be honest, at the rate I've been commissioning her, it was the easiest thing for all of us." He shrugs amicably. "And I recall when I was here for a time over the summer how she looked forward to your letters. Avrenne got her share of news from the north that way." He makes a rueful face. "I ought to be better at writing to Her Grace, myself."
He shifts against the desk and rakes a hand through his hair. "What will ye be doing wi'yourself now that ye've stepped away from the Legion?" In between black dragon attacks and stuff, I guess.
"Lady Sintha," Bertrand says, looking alarmed. "She wasn't there, was she? Yesterday?" He might get around to Siamus' actual question after.
Siamus seems to sag a little, weighing more heavily on the desk's edge now. "She was not, tides be praised. Because she was off wi' the Legion."
"Oh, good." Bertrand tips his head back against the armchair. "Good. Good. It's - I'm sorry about any of the people you had out there. Glad to hear your sister wasn't one of them."
Bertrand straightens up. "Well, after Lucy's funeral, we'll be getting married, and then… Scilla plans on selling her family's Stormwind house. I can't say whether she'll get more or less money for it now, after… well, plenty of folks out of a home, but do they want to stay in a city that was just wrecked? Probably more value in it now. But Scilla's the type to pick someone who needs it more rather than the best financial offer, and I can't hold that against her."
Siamus looks, briefly, like he might hold it against her, but then he decides to let Avrenne tackle that. He has learned about arguing with Priscilla. "She's a generous lady," he agrees neutrally. Generous is good, right? "How long after the funeral d'ye mean to be married? Ye must be passing impatient by now, I imagine."
To be honest, he tries not to imagine.
Bertrand sighs. "I'd marry her today if she'd let me. But she wants a bit more of a fuss than that. We'd found a nice venue in the Park District we were going to go look at, but now…" He shakes his head. "We might just get married in the Vineyard, assuming it isn't all a giant ravine by the time the date rolls around."
"Tides willing," says Siamus, and glances over his shoulder in the direction of his washed-out garden and back property. "Avrenne and I were wed here, first at the —" There's another of those peculiar pauses. "Ah. Well, the terrace is gone now. But aye." He contemplates for a moment. "Your parents were there, I recall. And the twins. As well as Lady Moore, in a yellow dress." That's probably not relevant, and yet Siamus remembers the dress.
"But ye didn't answer, I don't think, as to what ye'll be doing wi'your time now that you're out of the Legion."
"Would have made it if I could." Bertrand rubs at his face and sits up straighter. "I'll have to find work, something where I'm free to come home to Scilla at night. I haven't figured out precisely what that's gonna look like just yet."
Siamus rubs the back of his neck and makes a tired face. "I hate to play the crow, but I expect what with… everything, there will be plenty of uses for a seasoned 7th Legion man around the kingdom."
"Yeah," Bertrand agrees. "Yeah, I bet. I just… gotta be able to come home at the end of the day."
Siamus folds his arms again and considers Betrand. "From a… job?" he says. "Or from yourself, in your head?"
Bertrand touches his forehead and lets out a little laugh. "Physically. It's part of my deal with Scilla." He says 'deal' instead of 'written contract', but there's a sense that to him it might be fundamentally the same thing for Bertrand in this case.
Siamus seems to ponder several things for some time. He is possibly considering — against his own nature — how not to just blurt out some Thoughts he is having, because Avrenne might feel disappointed in him and also one shouldn't criticize a Lady.
"I see," is the statement on which he at last safely settles.
Bertrand smiles and seems to lapse into some sort of daydream while Siamus considers, but he snaps right back when Siamus speaks. "It's… we had an ideal schedule, but that was before Lucy died." He shakes his head. "We need to marry before something happens. That wave could've been it for us."
"Oh, I agree," agrees Siamus. "Ye'll pardon my saying it, as a friend, I hope, but I've thought so for years, man. Have ye… raised it again with her?"
He's not saying they have a priest on the grounds, but they have a priest on the grounds.
Bertrand says, "I should," and stands up immediately. "I should speak to her about it. I do need to find out - about my family. But we could do the legal ceremony first, maybe, and the celebration after. Maybe. If she wants. I should ask her."
"Ye should," Siamus agrees firmly. "See to the business of it, aye? Celebrate afterwards. We've a priest right here, ye know." Okay, so he is saying it. "We should all be making the most wi' the time we've got, in this age, aye? If we've learned nothing else."
Bertrand has already started for the door. He looks over his shoulder and grins at Siamus. "Yeah. Yeah, absolutely."
Siamus smiles back at him, straightens from the desk, and picks up the ledger again. "Good man, Aspenwood. I expect I'll hear from ye later how it came out."
Bertrand snaps off a salute, still grinning. "Absolutely," he says, and ducks out of the office.