(2024-10-02) Lads and Boys (A Second Brief Homecoming Part 2)

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Author:	Athena
Summary:	The first orders of business of the day of October 2nd have begun, of seeing to Ralaea's official wardship and the reveal of the twins' gender. Avrenne receives an unexpected letter that adds another item to the business docket. Part TWO of FOUR of A Second Brief Homecoming. 19k~ words.
Rating:	T for Teen

Chain: Siarenne

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crying, pregnancy, babies

Continued from (RATED A)...

At 7 o’clock

It's barely hit 7am when the Lord and Lady Fallon emerge from the Lady's room to start the rest of their day. Some in the House who had witnessed the Vice Admiral's early arrival would be aware that they have likely been up for hours, unless the Lord Fallon used the time until recently for a nap, but no one who knows him would suspect him of doing any such thing.

Avrenne, dressed in a vivid blue silk dress that looks as though it has been made from the precise material as another she once wore that is immortalized in a portrait in Lord Fallon's room, the back and sides done in a dark, sparkling embroidery, that seem to some eyes to be only some interesting geometric shapes — Siamus is the only one who might realize that it has been done up into the pattern of one of the moon snail shells upon his bookcase. She wears gold drop earrings with an interesting impression on them (dill flower, if one was to be specific), and a new necklace of sapphires caught into the shape of a lotus flower. Her wedding ring is on, and her seastalk case left behind in her room, now that the Vice Admiral is no longer on the water.

Her usual routine holds true, otherwise: first to Ery's room to see to a morning feeding, kept brief now, as she brings the 6-month-old down to the breakfast room for the child's semi-solid breakfast, to note how much of the ratio of food-on-baby and food-in-baby has changed (not significantly today), and to obtain her own breakfast of eating for three, and see to her mail. If she seems brighter somehow than she did just the day before and the past weeks, if there's a lingering smile in the corners of her lips that she cannot repress, well, it is likely permitted for the same reason as her hair being left down to flow in a river of gold down her back. For now.

The Vice Admiral himself is dressed in something slightly more casual than his usual at-home business casual: a navy blue waistcoat and trousers and a crisp white shirt, but the waistcoat is unbuttoned and the collar of the shirt undone, its sleeves rolled. There is no cravat, jauntily askew or otherwise. He is tousle-haired and looks to be in uncommonly good cheer. (That is, he's usually in pretty good cheer, but this morning he's actually smiling a for-real smile. He looks like he might start whistling at any moment.)

His own first stop was the breakfast room for his newspaper and the usual four or five cups of tea; he lingered long enough after his wife and daughter joined him to spend some time admiring his fantastic child and how she surely eats solid foods better than any six-month-old child in history has eaten solid foods, and to make her several solemn promises about further time to be spent, walks to be taken, etc., on this visit, which Ery understood not at all. (Siamus is confident, though. She's an uncommon canny child.)

And then he took his leave of both wife and daughter and, in a departure from his own usual routine — which would have sent him up to his office — he wanders outside to stroll toward the stables, hands in his pockets. Oh, no, he really might start whistling cheerfully.

Ralaea, as part of her routine, is outside practicing with her swords, though today it is less practice and more glaring at them on the ground with her arms crossed. She wears her usual long sleeved black shirt and pants. She still doesn't own much else.

Yet. Just wait until Avrenne is legally her guardian. Some things will be changing.

Siamus spots her and his stride catches; he hesitates for a moment, and then alters his course.

He halts still a little distance away to watch her for a moment, smiling faintly. "Are they giving ye trouble?" he calls, and approaches.

Ralaea lifts her head at the sound of his voice, and turns to look at him. "You're back," she says, which doesn't answer the question at all.

"I am," he agrees. "This morning before first light. I'm afraid I woke Her Grace." (He is not afraid of that at all.) He tilts his head and surveys Rae, and his smile softens a little. "How have ye been?"

Ralaea shrugs. "My brother ran away to be a hero. My fiancé finally responded to my letters with an address and nothing else. The Plaguelands are… healing, I guess." That last one is supposed to be a good thing, but it's said in the same tone as the others. "You, uh… deal with the kraken thing?"

Siamus nods gravely. "We did indeed deal wi' the kraken thing. Not me personally, I'm afraid, but your Lieutenant Hazan and his squad. The fleet handled naga."

"He does that, you know. Ben. Handles things that need handling," Ralaea says, scuffing one foot into the ground. "I wish I could've…" She shakes her head. "I wouldn't have been much use, though. Sorry — you didn't come home just to hear me complain. Um. Thanks. For the…" She gestures vaguely. You know. The thing.

Siamus seems to consider for a sardonic moment the suggestion that Ben handles things that need handling. What he says is, "Aye, I can tell that about him."

He studies Rae with a faint smile. "You are very welcome. I thought ye ought to have one. You're one of us." He shrugs a shoulder.

Does he mean a Kul Tiran or a Fallon? Maybe both. Maybe it's immaterial.

After a moment he looks up at the sky and says, "My little sister ran away to be a hero last year. It was vexing. I was vexed. I do the things I do to keep people like her safe. Aye?"

"Yeah, and there's a stupid dragon out there and no one's managed to kill it yet," Ralaea says, pouncing on the less feelings topic. "What do you think's the best weapon to kill a dragon with? Spears? Guns? Maybe one of those night elven glaive launchers except all metal and automatic with a faster reload?"

Siamus folds his arms and considers the question seriously. "I don't think a spear or a gun would do much against the like of that one, unless in vast numbers. Kaldorei glaive-throwers I've little experience of." He hesitates. "I have seen Wildhammer dwarves wi' their stormhammers take dragons out of the sky. A long time ago."

"Alright, so we get a fleet of flying machines, the little ones, for mobility, and we attach a device that can launch stormhammers at twice the speed of a dwarf," Ralaea says. There, dragon problem solved. She glares back down at her swords.

Siamus looks at her swords too. Then he looks at Rae. He studies her. "I am happy to check," he says mildly, "whether the Alliance is developing something like it. I know that a great many people across the Kingdoms and Kalimdor are working on what to do about the dragon. You're right that it needs to be dealt with, and that we will probably need some solution we've not thought of in the past, and it is going to take a great many people time to work out those solutions. Just as it was wi' the Lich King. We knew where he was burrowed, but we had no way of reaching him, and meanwhile he kept sending horrors. We spent a year and close on a hundred thousand lives just trying to get into Icecrown, to reach him in his Citadel. It wasn't a thing one person could have done, or even a talented handful of Cobalts. It took the whole might of the Alliance, the Argents, the Ebon Blade, and the Horde" — that's right, the Horde was there, but they come after the Ebon Blade on the list — "to reach him. It took new technologies and new pacts. It took the lives of men like Bolvar Fordragon. But we did it. In the end, we did. And we'll do it again this time.

"A world-breaking Dragon Aspect is not a problem any one of us, or even a handful of us, will solve after breakfast on a Tuesday morning. It is a problem like the Lich King. But I assure ye that people are taking it as seriously as they took the Lich King, and I have absolutely no doubt that in the end we will take it down just as we did him. It may take some time, as he did. There will be cost, as there was with him. Neither of those things can be helped, I fear. But don't mistake preparation or slow progress for inertia. I've been at war since I was nine years old, Ralaea, and eighty percent of it is waiting. I know it gets under your skin; I've seen it drive men mad. But fighting a wise war means learning when to act and when to wait. We can't just throw men and hammers at a problem as soon as it appears. That's a good way to lose men and hammers."

He pauses. "I'm sorry it's so bloody frustrating. I know it. I've never been good at the waiting myself. But ye learn."

He looks at her weapons on the ground again. "And what's it got to do wi' your swords?”

"I don't care if he's a full dragon or only a part-dragon," Ralaea says, probably confusing the use of the word 'aspect.' "The Company's dealt with one before. One of the dragon-aspects. The blue, magic one. I wasn't… there for that, so I didn't see what they used on him, but if we can kill one, we stand a chance, right? And I didn't say my swords had anything to do with it, but if I had, I might say that if swords won't work on him anyway, then there's no point in keeping this up and I should find a different weapon to use. One that will work on the dragon… thing."

"Of course we have a chance," Siamus agrees. "We have a good chance, if we use it wisely. And whether or not your swords would kill the dragon, they kill plenty of other things, and there are plenty of other things waiting between us and the dragon, aye? Your swords will help to get us there. I wasn't going to kill the Lich King with an entire bloody fleet of ships, for several very real logistical reasons, but I flatter myself that we helped to get the people who did it into place to do it, and eliminated other threats at their backs.

"Am I angry I didn't personally kill the Lich King?" He cants his head and smiles at Rae. "Of course I am. But not all that angry, because it got done and done well, and I know how it works. I know it takes armies. And navies. So I'll be just a little annoyed that the bastard decided to hole up inland, rather than conveniently on a coast somewhere."

After a moment, he shakes his head. "I tell ye I do get weary of inland wars, though. Bloody inconsiderate, if ye ask me." His tone is dry; it's a joke, Rae.

Or, I mean, maybe it's not. This is Siamus talking.

"I bet we could've killed the Lich King with ships," Ralaea says a little too confidently for a field she has zero experience in. "You just line your fleet up along the coast of Icecrown, get these really long range cannons, do the math thing where you predict where the cannonballs are going to land, and make sure no living people are in the way. Probably could've brought the whole Citadel down, and then we wouldn't have to worry about another Lich King."

She once again avoids the swords topic.

Siamus regards her steadily for kind of a long time. His mouth is set in a hard line that bears some resemblance to annoyance, but this being Siamus, it more likely means he is trying Real Hard not to laugh.

At length he clears his throat and says kindly, "I have done the math, I'm afraid. We haven't yet got cannon long-range enough to fire clear across Icecrown. I appreciate your faith in the fleet, though, and I'm sure we're working on it."

Ralaea nods. Yes. Good. Work on it faster. She scuffs her shoe again, avoiding eye contact.

"Did you get the…" She makes a little square with her fingers. Her letter, probably, but she won't say it.

"Aye," he says, and continues to watch her for a moment.

It seems like he might not say anything else, but then he seems to come to some decision. He reaches into the pocket of his waistcoat and takes out a familiar-looking square of cardstock. It has been folded to fit in the waistcoat pocket, and when he unfolds it to show to her, it's clear that it has been folded and unfolded several times before; the creases are worn soft.

"Been in my coat, aboard," he offers in slightly awkward explanation. And then he remembers to add, "Thank ye very much."

He folds it up carefully and puts it back in his pocket.

Ralaea's cheeks flush red, and she shifts from one foot to another. "It's um… because ways and waves look like each other, and sound kind of close, and you're the Lordship, so waves are kind of what you… I remembered the please. And I didn't — I mean, obviously, I didn't paint it myself, I'm not very good at it."

"I did understand it," he says seriously, clasping his hands behind his back. "'Ways' and 'waves.' Clever. And I doubt I could paint worth a damn myself. Never actually tried it." He glances down toward his pocket. "Probably poor form to fold up an original Priscilla Mo— Aspenwood work, but to be honest that wasn't the important bit of it anyway."

"Your Ladyship," Ralaea says experimentally, because if he's the Lordship, he'd obviously have a Ladyship, and who knows how nobles talk anyway, "said you'd be okay with it, so I… I guess I have to write my name somewhere? If you are. Okay with it. I mean, I don't really think she'd be wrong." Her eye contact is tentative, her head slightly lowered because what if Avrenne is wrong somehow? She might also be holding her breath a little.

"That's what I've come back for today," Siamus agrees. His eye contact might also be a little awkward, or, no, that cloud over there does look pretty cool actually, that's probably what he keeps glancing at. "To sign the papers with ye. Well, that and Her Grace's appointment with her doctor." He smiles at little bit. At the cool cloud. "It's a day for family things, aye?"

He contemplates the cloud for another moment in silence. "She's called 'Her Grace,'" he adds; his tone has a note of confidentiality, as though he's imparting a secret rather than correcting her, or as though this is a thing he only found out recently himself. "Because she's a Duchess. Ye can also just call her 'Lady Fallon,' though. Or 'Avrenne,' once you're family." Another pause, and he shakes his head. "And no, she's never wrong."

The use of the word 'family,' and more than once, causes Ralaea to blink, several times, rapidly. She's not crying. Okay, she's definitely crying, but she turns away, back to her swords, to hide it. "You will, right? Teach me?" she asks, fighting to keep her voice from shaking through the high emotions. "It doesn't have to be right now or anything."

"I will teach ye anything ye like, Ralaea," Siamus tells her. He clears his throat. "I'll be very glad to. And if there's anything ye need, ever, at all, ye must tell me or the Duchess. Aye?" There's another slightly-awkward silence and then he adds, possibly to lighten the mood, "And ye'll have to have a horse, naturally."

Ralaea doesn't seem to understand, at first, what is being suggested. "I have a ram, Widow. He's been stabled in the city. I can get…him…" A confused frown invades her face when she realizes she has no idea why she would need her ram right now. She turns back to Siamus questioningly.

He is regarding her, also slightly nonplussed. "Everyone in the family has a horse, aye? They're Fallon horses. I have Siroc, Her Grace has Vesper, Sintha has Mistral, Finley has Levanter…. Just… a horse of your own. To have."

"I've n…" Ralaea's voice breaks and she covers her mouth with a hand, the tears welling up again. "I've never owned a horse…"

"Oh," says Siamus, smoothly. "Well. I —"

What would Avrenne do? Avrenne would pet her hair. Avrenne is not here. Siamus has surreptitiously checked.

What would he do if Ralaea were a Man?

He takes a step closer, reaches out, and pats her on the back, then gives her shoulder a squeeze. There, there. Good lad, Westwind.

Nailed it. He continues to stand there quietly beside her.

"Ye do now," he says. "Well, ye will. When ye've chosen one."

Something in Ralaea seems to pull together, and she takes a deep breath and scrubs at her eyes. "This isn't — I didn't die, right?" she asks, peering up at him. "The dragon didn't kill me, and this isn't just… whatever happens after?"

Oh, no. Now Siamus has to look away again. And that cloud isn't even there anymore. He blinks and shakes his head. "No, no. You're not — everything's well. We're both at home and everything's well." Should he pat her back again? Too much? Yeah, too much; the moment of decision is visible in the slight way he shifts, starts a gesture and stops it. He puts his hands in his pockets instead. "You and I have a number of things in common, I think. So." Where was he going with that? "So that's nice."

"My swords are too heavy," Ralaea blurts. "I got bigger ones after my arms…" she waves a hand. You know, the arm thing. "And that was fine. It was great. But now, ever since the dragon, I haven't been able to use them well. It's been months, and I still can't."

Oh, praise the tides. A swords problem. Okay.

Siamus folds his arms, his brows knit, and regards her seriously. "Ever since the dragon? What — when ye took the injury? To your ribs? Does it still pain ye? D'ye have a whole range of movement otherwise?"

"I can move fine," Ralaea says. "Well. Mostly fine. My core is a little stiff sometimes. It just feels… awkward, swinging them. Like I'm not as fast or coordinated as I was. I've trained every day, but it's not getting better."

Siamus steps toward the swords on the ground and then pauses. "May I…?" he asks, gesturing at the weapons.

Ralaea nods. "Yeah. There's nothing wrong with them, as far as I can tell, but you're welcome to look."

He steps forward to lift one of the swords from the ground; he turns the blade, studies the length of it in the light, swings it experimentally — and with apparent ease. He frowns thoughtfully.

"There's not, right?" Ralaea asks, watching him. "Anything wrong with it? It's just me."

"How tall are ye, Ralaea?" Siamus asks. "How much d'ye weigh?" (He would never ask a Lady any such thing, but he has established that Rae is a Lad.)

Ralaea stares at him. "How'm I supposed to know? Can't you like… do math or something? I'm smaller than you, so you just do math about it or whatever?"

Siamus surveys her. "Well, you're not much taller than the Duchess, so I'd put ye at… five foot three, maybe? And if ye will pardon my estimating, I'd guess a fit weight around one hundred twenty."

He looks down the blade of the sword again, turns it, flexing his wrist. "I am a foot taller than Her Grace, so nearly a foot taller than you. And I have a good sixty pounds on ye. I think the sword is fine." He looks at Rae again, eyebrows raised. "I think it. But for you — Ralaea, there's something wrong wi' the swords. Not wi' you."

He turns the blade to offer it to her hilt-first. "They're too heavy, and the balance will be off for ye. My best guess is that ye were so fired up to get back in the fight when your arms healed that ye got a little more ambitious than ye ought, and it powered ye through for a time. But after the dragon-injury, after your body went to the trouble of healing up all over again, it decided it had had enough of overreach." He regards her gravely. "I know ye for a damned fine swordswoman, Ralaea. There's nothing wrong with ye save the strain ye'll give yourself wi' this. Get yourself your old swords, or a new pair like them. Ye'll be fine."

He hesitates. "D'ye… want new swords?" he asks.

C'mon, Rae, ask the guy for a present, all he wants is to give people presents.

"Well if I can't use these… if smaller swords will fix it, then yeah, I'm going to need new swords," Ralaea says. "I hope that's all it is. I'll probably still keep them, just because I — because memories. I could… I don't know. Store them under the bed."

Siamus nods gravely at her. "Ye can… perhaps not under the bed, aye? For memory's sake, I'd say they deserve better. You and they both. Ye could hang them up somewhere."

Another thought occurs to him. "D'ye have proper storage for your weaponry in the house? A rack or the like? We'll see about new swords for ye straightaway, I'll send word to a man I know in the city." He surveys her. "And Ralaea — I'm sure that's all it is. I've both trained and commanded my share of young marines, and I've seen the like before. Ye overextended, that's all. Get the right blades back in hand and ye'll be in the fight again as fine as ever."

"I don't have a weapon rack, unless you're counting me. Most of the time, my weapons are on me. And if not, they're in the tent. Can I meet the guy you know in the city? Maybe that'll help, if he meets the girl who's going to use the swords. I really… need the right ones." Ralaea bites her lip. "I may have lost us Andorhal."

Siamus stares at her. He starts to speak and then he stares at her some more. "Ralaea," he says sternly, and moves to her to put a hand on her shoulder again. He engages in some visible interior struggle, and then after a hesitation, he puts his other hand on her other shoulder.

Both shoulders! It's nowhere near hug territory, but whew, bold move.

"Ralaea," he says. "Ye did not lose us Andorhal. Ye didn't. We lost Andorhal, we, the Alliance, the commanders, the leadership there. That's always where the fault must rest. Ye never lost an entire battle or an entire city on your own, lass. I promise ye didn't lose us Andorhal, unless ye've been summoning up val'kyr for the Banshee in your spare moments." And then because this is Rae, he adds, "… Which I know ye haven't."

"The commanders, the leadership, they were counting on someone competent," Ralaea argues. "I slowed us all down, I know I did. I had to use my gun because I couldn't handle the swords — and I can use a gun, but definitely not as well. It's slower. If I could've just killed more, then we wouldn't have had to use farmers, and then they wouldn't have been raised against us."

"Why d'ye believe it was you? If anyone there had killed more. If the person beside ye had killed more. If another man there who was feeling a little off hadn't been feeling a little off. I know ye, Ralaea, and I know ye'd never handle the Scourge halfway. The battle didn't hinge on you or any one soldier alone. I know the Ebon in charge of the operation made some… questionable calls. I know no one expected the Banshee to have a flock of val'kyr at her beck. I tell ye there is no way that ye could have made up alone for every other cock-up, every other battlefield surprise, every other wrong call in that fight, even if ye'd been at your fittest. And any commander who'd point blame for the loss of a whole bloody city at a single soldier in his company should be stripped of command for incompetence. And possibly insanity."

Siamus sounds genuinely incensed at this imaginary commander. Perhaps he is thinking of certain Vice Admirals and Admirals he has known.

"What I know as a commander is that a man with a sword who finds he can't use his sword for whatever reason, but rather than quit puts the sword aside and keeps on fighting with whatever else he has? That man is a hell of a fighter, and I'd poach him for my crew if he wasn't already. That's a man any captain would want." He pauses. "… or woman, I mean. That woman."

He regards her seriously. "And if ye ever want training or practice wi' shooting, I can give ye that. Or I'll have Baird see to ye — he's the finest shot on my crew. Any marine worth his salt has to be able to shoot, because ye can't always close ranks at sea. Any of mine can help ye with that, if ye want it." He pats one of her shoulders. "But we'll get ye your proper swords — and aye, ye can meet the smith, of course — and ye'll be back to feeling your best."

Ralaea takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a sigh. "Okay," she says. "Yeah. Okay. But I will do better. I have to. Because…" If there is about to be a moment of Feelings, it is quickly shoved away with, "What about a really high powered cannon attached to one of those big airships? That could kill the dragon, right?"

Whew, we are back to cannons. For a moment it looked like there might be a detour into Feelings.

Siamus lets go of Rae's shoulders to clasp his hands behind his back and look very serious. It can be avoided no longer; it's time to have The Talk.

"The consideration with cannon — wi'guns at all, really, but wi'cannon in particular, what wi'their size and weight — is the amount of recoil you're going to get proportionate to your shot. It's the Third Law of Motion, aye? When ye have a —"

At 9 o’clock

As if this discussion of both physics and maths of martial weaponry is an arcane convocation to summon her, the door to Fallon House opens, and the lady of the house stands in it, a rectangle within the rectangle, hands clasped in front of her. Her watch has been put away, but the time has already been noted for being 8:55am and thus it is time to sign papers at the scheduled 9am.

Avrenne's voice carries easily, the force behind it steady and supported, so that it does sound like shouting at all as she calls, "Siamus. Ralaea. It's nearly 9 o'clock. It would be best to come in, while we have Miss Curran standing by for the paperwork." It's information and a suggestion, but also it's really not.

"Ah," says Siamus. "Best not to keep Her Grace waiting, then. Shall we?"

He is already starting in that direction. Siamus seems very much not to want to keep Her Grace waiting.

Ralaea grabs her swords and hurries after him. "What's Miss Curran have to do with this?" she asks.

"She's my notary," he says over his shoulder to her. "She's licensed by the Kingdom as a legal witness to certain official documents and transactions."

Avrenne steps aside from the doorway to allow for passage back into the house. She's not a large woman unless she stands sideways, but all the same, no one wants to have to squeeze past a largely pregnant woman.

Ralaea's expression has gone completely blank. "Uh…huh," she says. "So the papers need a babysitter?"

Avrenne, hearing this, presses her mouth into a line, and then brushes her hand up by her lips as if she has just noticed she might have a crumb left from breakfast there. "Not quite. It's to do with the matter such as being a witness to a wedding, to say that it did occur and the parties involved who might benefit from the arrangement are not the only ones who can say that it did. She is there to attest that these are the documents that were understood when they were signed, that the people who did so were all us and no one forged our signatures or pretended to be us, and to be certain that no one was coerced. It's a formality, but a necessary one in contracts of this nature, for all who do so. It's nothing specific to our family, only the contract, in other words. If someone were, for example, to claim that we kidnapped you and forced you to sign these papers, or that we had tricked you into them, Miss Curran, through the oaths she has taken, could vouch for the contrary."

Siamus nods. What the Duchess said.

Upstairs in the Vice Admiral's office, Miss Curran sits patiently in one of the hearthside couches, her ankles neatly crossed and her hands clasped in her lap. On the table before her are a stack of official-looking documents with two pens set atop, a small wooden box, and a ledger. She is babysitting the papers.

When Ralaea enters the office, before she's even considered sitting down, she asks, "Can you tell that we're all who we say we are? No one's disguised as anyone? Is that a magic the Kingdom can give you?" She's probably ready to believe whatever Miss Curran tells her.

Avrenne offers up, "I was explaining to Ralaea what the purpose of a notary is in regards to a contract such as this, and how one of those is to be sure that no one has forged the documents with a false signature, or lied about their identity beforehand to falsify the contract." Information and context, it's what the duchess often does even in other times.

Miss Curran has risen to her feet to greet the Duchess and the Vice Admiral. She is dressed in a high-necked navy blue dress with a row of tiny buttons up the bodice, and her dark hair is up in a braided crown. She is not wearing her glasses.

She inclines her head to Avrenne, and then smiles at Ralaea. "It is not a magic the Kingdom can give me, no. I don't believe the Kingdom is able to grant people magic. I, personally, can tell that you are all who you say you are, however."

"Shall we sit, then, ladies?" Siamus ushers Avrenne and Rae both toward the couches with a gesture. Miss Curran resumes her own seat.

Ralaea heads towards one of the couches to sit, her attention still focused on Miss Curran. "So it's magic you came with, then?" she asks.

Avrenne takes her seat with most of her usual elegance, the pregnancy causing only a bit of awkwardness as she folds down to the couch. She tugs her dress into falling in correct folds.

Miss Curran looks to Siamus and raises her eyebrows briefly before smiling at Rae again. "You might say, yes. I know the family very well." She leans forward to busy herself with dividing the documents before her into three neat stacks.

Siamus takes a seat on the couch beside Avrenne.

"And as with most things of this nature, Ralaea, it isn't about infallibility, it's about reducing the margin for the possibility of fraud," Avrenne says, settling her hands in her lap. "You might think of it a little like the tabards of your Company. It's certainly not impossible to recreate by any stretch, anyone with sufficient talent could do so, but it's understood that if a person went out wearing it and claiming they were Cobalt Company, doing bounties and so on under this aegis, they would inevitably be caught, and punished, because word of them would eventually get back to Cobalt Company, especially if they did not act within the Company's code of conduct, but also if they were contacted by the original contractor about that bounty that has no record within the Company. The tabard isn't magical, and won't force a person to tell the truth about their deception, but there are consequences for falsification. So it is that if a person was contracting a mercenary claiming to be of Cobalt Company, they could ask, 'where is your tabard?' and if the person could not produce it, they would have reason to doubt that person's claim of their involvement.

"Thus, most people, when they see the tabard, know and trust that it is accurate and true that the person wearing it is in Cobalt Company. It's not infallible, or magic, but it's a layer of fraud protection. They can reasonably assume that it is true. Miss Curran does not have an infallible ability to determine fraud, but she can attest that to the best of her knowledge, we are all who we claim to be, and that is all this system asks for to reduce the possibility for a false signature or document," Avrenne concludes. "There is always a layer of trust in a person's word with these things, and that is acceptable."

"So that's how no one knew about the black dragon in the Keep?" Ralaea asks. "I heard there was one. And Kaela Mondragon got away with the tabard thing. She stole one from the Ebon Blade, and no one attacked her."

The skin around Avrenne's eyes twitches at the mention of no one knowing about the black dragon in the Keep. Avrenne was one of the many people who did not know, and is likely still very salty about it.

Ralaea glances around the room, assessing everyone present. "I don't have anything to write with."

"I do," says Miss Curran, and reaches for one of the pens laid before her.

"We're in my office," Siamus adds dryly. "I have pens. In case."

"Do you have any further questions, Ralaea," Avrenne asks, before adding, quickly, "about the contract, before we sign?" Best to be specific with Ralaea, before it diverges into a question about if someone could fake a team Deathwing the Destroyer tabard and use it to get in to assassinate him with a really big gun.

Miss Curran lays a set of the documents before each person and waits for Rae's answer before she gives instructions. Or pens.

"Do I just put my name anywhere?" Ralaea asks. She is absolutely prepared to write all over the document.

"No," says Miss Curran firmly. "Let me explain, first. We have three copies of the document here, so that each of you can review it yourself before signing it, to verify that all is as agreed. Then you, Ralaea, may keep one copy for your records, and the Fallons will keep another, and the third will be the one officially signed and notarized for the Kingdom's civic records. Is that clear?" She smiles kindly so as not to suggest she thinks it might still be unclear to Rae.

"And this is the same document as we have discussed already. There have been no alterations," Avrenne adds. Avrenne has gone over it with Ralaea, at least, reading it out loud and attempting to clarify meaning. Did Ralaea retain any understanding of the legal aspects of the document? Who can say.

Siamus picks his copy up, sits back and crosses his legs, and pages through the document. Did he review it already? Undoubtedly. But a man has to set an example.

The look Avrenne gives Siamus through the corner of her eye is more the sort of look one might expect to see when a man does something like put on a white shirt and stand alluringly under a carefully controlled waterfall, running his fingers through his hair, with smooth jazz playing in the background, as she covertly ogles him. Well. Not that covertly.

"Once you're ready, Ralaea, Her Grace will go through it with you and show you where to sign. There are lines for each signature, and the Duchess will show you which is yours. There are also three places with lines in the margins where you are to write your initials to indicate that you've understood all the preceding text." Miss Curran pauses, and then asks, "Do you understand?"

"What am I supposed to do with a bunch of paper?" Ralaea asks. "I don't have any records. Do I need to keep it? I guess it could go under the bed…"

"We will get ye a proper sort of filing box to keep important things in, Ralaea," says Siamus. He pauses. "And a proper weapon rack, as I mentioned. Ye needn't keep storing things under the bed."

Avrenne is snapped out of her Siamus admiring reverie by this horrifying prospect. Y-you would do what with your papers, Ralaea Mairead Westwind Fallon? Weapons are one thing, but one's paperwork?? "And I shall be certain to help you reacquire what paperwork you should have already, including copies of your employment contract with Cobalt Company. As we go forward, I will help teach you more on how to read these particular types of documents, and understand them. It's an acquired skill, even for those who can read, and read well. The language used is specific to contracts to create the necessary specifics for unambiguity of meaning. Most people require a lawyer or other such expert to help them understand what they are signing as well. Even so, it is always important to have the good practice of reading through anything you are about to sign, to be absolutely certain that it is what you think it is. In this case, I will read it through with you, as then it will give me the opportunity to review it at the same time."

"I need the Cobalt Company papers? I think I used them for firestarter," Ralaea admits. "I remember thinking it might turn the fire blue. It didn't. So I'm supposed to keep it in a box… but can the box go under the bed? I don't want to trip on it." She reaches for a pen.

Siamus squints at the opposite wall. He clears his throat. "Ye can… put the box under the bed, if ye like, aye. So long as your papers are together in a safe place, and not collecting dust or… being set on fire. Or the like."

He puts a gentle hand on Avrenne's knee. He probably realizes the effect Rae's recollection has had on her.

Avrenne has genuinely lost a shade of color, and she reaches right back for Siamus' hand, holding onto it like she's heard something deeply unsettling and is steadying her nerves. "It can also go vertical, as a filing cabinet," she says eventually. "You are welcome to see examples on how one stores significant documents here at the house. We have many. The purpose of keeping a record for oneself is that if one ever needed to prove one's side of a contract, one has it. Cobalt Company would not do so, of course, as we know them to be an honorable outfit, but if they were in some hypothetical situation to be taken over by some unscrupulous person, such a person could forge their own document to claim that you agreed to give them 90% of any bounty you take up, and you would have nothing to prove otherwise. It's best practice to retain records when one's livelihood and career is at stake."

Ralaea grumbles something about magic papers, scanning the document for lines to put letters on. "You'd think," she says, stopping about halfway down the page, as indicated by her finger placement, "that whoever thought it was a good idea to change someone's papers would realize that's a good way to get punched."

Siamus tips his head back to contemplate the ceiling.

Avrenne reaches a hand out for the papers. "Here, dearest, if you give those to me and let me read them through with you, I will tell you where you need to sign, as Miss Curran has said. You don't want to sign on just any line you might see, because some of those are for Siamus and myself, and errors are difficult to fix."

Ralaea shrugs and surrenders the papers to Avrenne.

Avrenne relaxes ever so slightly now that the papers are in hand and not about to have random signatures all over the place, or possibly set on fire, or tossed under beds. She taps them lightly together to get them back into neat order, and begins the process of reading the contract out, pausing to summarize each paragraph — for the second time — and then indicating the single lines for Ralaea's signature, and her initials as needed. They can use Ralaea's paperwork copy as a trial run. This is going to go fine.

Tides have mercy.

Some Time Later

Siamus finishes signing the last page and begins the careful process of flipping back through the document to ensure all of the blanks have been duly signed and initialed. Miss Curran opens the small wooden box on the table before her to reveal an ink-sponge and a stamp. When Siamus has finished his final perusal of the papers, he passes them to her, and Miss Curran neatly adds her stamp, and signs and dates the mark. She makes a matching record neatly in her ledger, and then closes up all of her paraphernalia and bends to slip it into the attache case by her feet. She takes the notarized document up last, slides it into a separate folder, and then puts it in the case with the rest.

"Very good," she says. "It will be filed by the end of the day, most likely before noon." She nods at Siamus, and then turns to Rae. "Congratulations, Ralaea, and likewise congratulations to Your Grace, and Vice Admiral, sir."

'Thank you." Avrenne, for her part, has an actually visible pleased flush to her cheeks. Ah, big official contracts signing days, always such a rush. "We shall hold onto your set of papers, Ralaea, until we have your proper filing system in place," she says, as she does just that, setting Ralaea's paperwork into the Fallon's copy pile, and giving it a little pat. Don't worry, little papers, Avrenne will keep you safe. "There we are. Part of the family, properly, officially, and legally." Three of Lady Fallon's favorite words.

"So I can just call you Avrenne now?" Ralaea asks.

Siamus clears his throat and looks at the ceiling again. He didn't exactly tell her that, Your Grace, he swears.

Uh oh. There's a dangerous little wobble of Avrenne's expression, like she might start to — oh, there they are, little tears in her eyes that she's keeping back with an iron grip — she is definitely not crying, goodness, and she clears her own throat, a thready sort of sound. She rises to a stand with a little bit of effort, holding out both arms in an open invitation for a hug.

Siamus rises to his feet as well, and puts his hand gently on the small of Avrenne's back, just for a moment.

"Yes. If you would like, you may call me 'Avrenne,'" she agrees. "I don't take to diminutives of my name, with the sole allowance of Priscilla who you may hear from time to time call me 'Renne,' but that is a privilege she alone has claim to. My wards for the most part call me 'Avrenne,' as their preference, particularly in non-formal company," and there's a peculiar sort of flutter of movement of her fingers as she continues, "but they have always the option of others, as they know, such as 'Mother,' or versions thereof. I will respond to any such as you would prefer to call me along those options."

Miss Curran has gathered her things and risen, so Siamus steps away from his wife and new ward to shake his assistant's hand and open the office door to see her out.

Ralaea does not usually do hugs, something made obvious by her awkward hesitation. The tears, however, seem to make the hug mandatory, as, instead of searching for an escape, she resigns herself to her fate and steps willingly into it. The resulting hug is light, delicate in a way that is at odds with her general attitude, and somewhat brief.

When she steps away again, her gaze travels back to Siamus. "If I can call you mother," she ventures, "does that mean I can call him father? Or is that not how it works?"

Rather than fully release her, Avrenne reaches out and pets Ralaea's hair into place, light little motherly movements as if it's in some disarray and Avrenne is just righting it, as her gaze flicks from Ralaea to Siamus.

Siamus was seeing Miss Curran off and not listening, because that is how he do, and now he closes the office door and turns back to find Rae and Avrenne both looking at him, in the midst of some sort of hug situation. "Beg pardon," he says. "What?"

"Avrenne says I can call her mother," Ralaea repeats. "Can I call you father, then?"

"Oh," says Siamus. "Ah." He looks at Avrenne. Is this a question she knows the answer to?

"Ye can — that is, ah." He shifts his weight and puts his hands in his pockets. "As we're family, I suppose ye may… call me what ye like. Naturally." Was that the correct answer, Avrenne? "If ye don't… feel odd about it. Ye may?"

(Siamus is a man who never called his own father "Father.")

Avrenne gives him an approving smile, and sets her hand lightly once more on Ralaea's head at the top, a mother's benediction, which relies heavily on the Lady Fallon's sense of presence, as she has to reach up several inches to the slightly taller woman. "As the Vice Admiral says. It's to your comfort, not obligation. If you prefer our names, that is equally correct. We are your guardians no matter which names you use for us, that is an unaltering fact." Matter, not form, the third rule of House Fallon after Business First, Feelings Later and Do Some Math About It. She steps away now, starting to sweep across the room to Siamus for his arm.

Siamus moves to meet Avrenne, his other hand extended to Rae. They have done the whole dancing-around-the-hug thing already this morning; he offers her a paternal handshake.

Ralaea accepts the handshake without any hesitation. She's done handshakes. Ben does those too. "I'll do it if my brother ever comes back," she says. "He'll hate it."

But there is something in her expression, the slightest of smiles breaking through the sullen shroud. It's possible she's only using her brother as an excuse.

Avrenne's expression, on the other hand, freezes in place for a beat, a twitch of her fingers barely perceptible on Siamus' arm, and then everything is smooth once more, the Duchess composed and impervious, an unbothered and calm lake without any ripples. "I see." She turns her attention to Siamus, her head moving as if attached to a string on the ceiling that keeps it perfectly elegant. "I should prepare for my physician's visit, but there is something I must discuss with you, Vice Admiral, on a matter to do with the House, if you will accompany me?" Knowing Avrenne this could mean anything from an actual, real matter to it's her, she's the matter to do with the House. He'll find out.

Siamus raises his eyebrows. "You're the lady wi' the agenda for today, Your Grace, and I'm yours to command."

He immediately contravenes this statement by leading Avrenne toward the door. As he opens it once more, he looks back at Rae and smiles. "And don't forget to go by the stables and have a look, aye? Ye can tell me at dinner if ye've made a choice."

"Yeah, I'll… go see," Ralaea says, trying not to have more Feelings about horses. She is mostly successful, at least.

Once inside Avrenne's room, the door is partially shut behind her, as she turns her attention towards her dressing room. Oh, she might really mean to get ready for her appointment. Her hair is still a straight, golden curtain down her back, and this will not do for Company, after all.

"I received an unexpected letter this morning," she starts. Oh, the discussion might also be a real discussion, and not a ruse for "discussing" things. "Do you recall Miss Tabiana Lynds, from Mr. Morningdew's trial?"

"The… that's the guard lass? Was with us in Southshore, looking for Dinnsfield, after hell broke loose?" Siamus wanders after Avrenne and leans in the doorway of her dressing room, hands in his pockets. He does not offer to help her dress; they don't have that kind of time.

Avrenne's at least dressed properly for the visit, all she needs to do is set hair in order, and she takes a seat on her lounge chair, picking up a brush from her side table to begin the process. "Yes. The history of House Morningdew and House Lynds goes back generations. They stood linked together in service, those of House Lynds untitled but of the gentry, who had a tradition of linking a retainer to a child of House Morningdew, birthed at near the same time, to be raised together. Miss Lynds was Mr. Morningdews, an honor that fell to her when House Morningdew did not produce an heir near enough the time as her older sister, the late Taya Lynds, was born. Miss Tabiana Lynds is the sole survivor of her family, and it falls to her, and her alone, to continue any tradition of her House, one made currently difficult to the point of impossible given Mr. Morningdew's state, and that at the moment, legally, his House is no more."

There must be a purpose for this bit of Lordaeron noble family history lesson, and Avrenne at last reveals it. "Miss Lynds contacted me today to offer a proposal of, in the decimation of House Morningdew at present with no known surety of its possible reinstatement given the difficulties that presents, let alone that of a child of it soon, to link House Lynds to House Fallon. Not in hypothetical, but in soon to come practical form, as I am given to understand that she is with child herself, one who would be born near to ours," she says. "And thus the negotiations have some urgency if she is to find a House whose values and traditions align with hers that is currently expecting."

Siamus is silent for a time, his head tilted down, his brows knit in thought.

"A retainer," he says at last. "A Lordaeron custom if ever there was, wi' your… knights and squires and all." He smooths an end of his moustache thoughtfully, gazing into space. "I confess I don't know the custom much. Ye know as a general principle I'm all in favor of the dispossessed keeping their traditions, so I'll beg your pardon for ignorance and hope that ye can catch me up. What does it entail? What kind of… support or sponsorship are we expected to provide? What do we know of the Lynds family beyond their connection with Morningdew? And more to the point, what does Miss Lynds know of House Fallon that she'd be willing to tie her child to it?"

"She knows of me, personally, more than House Fallon," Avrenne answers, as she begins the process of pinning her hair up. "House Esprit was well known beyond myself, of course, but there was a time when it was considered possible that Lor — Mr. Morningdew and I would be wed, and I was evaluated accordingly, for I would be the one who would be providing the child for her own children, and I expect it's what led Miss Lynds to consider me for the first option to approach, as well as my current condition. Miss Lynds, I know for the same reason, beyond what I know of her House's traditions. She was always in attendance with Mr. Morningdew throughout his courtship of me. She is loyal, reserved, and well-mannered, as ever a true scion for her House's beliefs as they ever cast. I expect she has taken into account also some sense of return loyalty for House Fallon standing in our support of Mr. Morningdew, and that Ralaea resides here, with us, as several worthwhile connections to the House she once served that show in action our values.

"A retainer of this nature, as I was given to understand from the outside, would mean we would act in some support of the Lynds, as they would commit all of their progeny to ours, and attempt to match each birth of a child with their own. Each child they pair with will then have their own dedicated protector and in some cases, that protector would have sponsorship to knighthood. I am not aware of the full details of what Miss Lynds will expect or want now, but she is willing, naturally, to come speak with us to negotiate the specifics that will suit each side. Time will be of the essence here, so if it is possible, and you are amenable to hearing her out for her terms, I would send for her today."

She hesitates, and then adds, her tone going delicate, "I was surprised, given what I know of her nature, to hear from her requiring this negotiation in this particular situation already begun, and I gather from the phrasing, as she mentions 'the father,' who she will bring with her to meet with us for discussion and evaluation, rather than 'her husband,' that this was not planned as precisely as she might have done otherwise."

Siamus straightens abruptly from the doorframe and folds his arms, his black gaze gone to flint. He is not at present the icy gentleman who faced Mr. Green in the Harbor all those months ago, but his manner reminds one that he can be. "She's bringing… the father with her. If the matter is outside of wedlock, I suppose the fact he'll show his face is promising, at least. I'll want to know, naturally, what his plans are in all of this. If the only support Miss Lynds can hope for her child is to lay it at the doorstep of a noble House, I must say I'm going to be… displeased."

Avrenne nods her approval, meeting his eyes with her own, and leaning towards him. "I believe you know my own mind on the matter of situations such as these of what his due is, and it has occurred to me to think, beyond what I know of Miss Lynd's own merit, and what I would be inclined to do in ideal circumstances, that her affiliation with a House as powerful as ours would lend her a significant sea wall against censure, and the threat of a storm if the father intends to do little to see to his duty to her and the child." She sets a last pin in her hair, and rises back up with that practiced elegance.

"Truth be told, given what has happened with Sir Somer," she says, and her voice grows temporarily unsteady, a flash of grief running through her hands, before she sets them in a clasp together. "I am inclined to the idea, pending the details of expectations and so on. Should she be able to meet today, shall I schedule it for, oh, say, 1pm? It would allow us to take a luncheon with Ery, and still have plenty of time for discussion with Miss Lynds and the father, and leave us time for ourselves before dinner."

"Aye. One o'clock." Siamus steps forward and offers his hands out for Avrenne's at that uneven recollection of Sir Somer. He studies her face, looking almost severe. What he says, though, gently, is "If you're inclined to the idea, then I'll be inclined likewise for the moment. Ye know I'm disinclined — especially at a time like this — to deny ye anything, my star."

Avrenne sets her hand in his, a smile threatening to break through as she looks up at him fondly. "Asking for an entire House and its traditions of knights and retainers raised up from children to be linked to ours is, at least, a little easier than obtaining ownership of the moons," she teases. "I will reserve judgment until I see and hear for myself what this will entail, and what contract details will be necessary on both sides, if we see the same agreeable course for the future."

At 10 o’clock

Dr. Alma and her assistant Medea are very prompt when they arrive at Fallon House for their visits. Whether or not this is intrinsic to them elsewhere, or only out of awareness of an exacting, wealthy, powerful Duchess as a client is unknown. So it is that at 10 o'clock, Avrenne is in her room, her hair done up neatly in a well-coiffed chignon, resting in a propped up sit on her bed, hands clasped over her belly, waiting attentively for her physician. She has her usual public composure set to her features, but it would take a willful blind eye to ignore the extra brightness to her, the spark that lingers around her mouth, like she might just smile with the slightest provocation.

The physician is dressed as she usually is, with a sensible, soft, and comfortable loose dress suitable for the autumn chill, and a shawl that smells of sage. Her assistant hovers behind her, ghost like, wide eyes in that perpetual sense of startlement. They don't require any escort to be shown where to go, and they both know that the partially open door means they are welcome to come in, and so they do, just a few seconds after the minute hand on Avrenne's very precise pocket watch strikes the hour.

The connecting door between the Duchess' room and her husband's is also ajar. When the clock strikes ten, it is only a few moments after Doctor Alma and her assistant appear that the door opens fully and the Vice Admiral steps in.

He is dressed now for Company and Business, in a neat navy blue suit; his waistcoat is buttoned, there is no sign of a rolled sleeve anywhere, and his cravat is jauntily askew. In one hand he is carrying a sheaf of papers, and in the other, his open pocket-watch.

"It's ten," he announces, apparently to the papers in his hand, at which he is frowning intently. "Are they —"

He looks up, sees the doctor and her assistant, and straightens, snapping the pocket-watch shut. "Ah. Doctor. A pleasure to see ye again."

"Vice Admiral Fallon, likewise, good to see you again," Dr. Alma says placidly. She doesn't have her glasses on at the moment, the pair safely tucked away in a side pocket, but her hair has frizzed a little in the weather. She turns her attention to her patient, executing a dip of a curtsey (her assistant following suit, saying nothing at all). "Your Grace, you're looking very well."

Avrenne bobs her head in answer to both curtsey and comment on her apparent health. "Dr. Alma." She doesn't address the assistant directly. She has learned this is not desired or preferred. "I feel very well. No changes or signs of trouble." Her hand moves off her belly to the side in anticipation, but her eyes flick to Siamus and the papers in his hand.

Dr. Alma nods, withdrawing her own small watch from a pocket as she moves in closer to Avrenne to sit on the edge of the bed, taking Avrenne's hand as offered, fingers on her pulse and turning her hand over to inspect the state of her wrists and fingers. Her assistant follows close behind, coming to hover just by the canopy of the bed. "All the usual questions, Your Grace," she says calmly.

"Either nothing applicable or nothing of note, doctor," Avrenne replies. She has memorized all the questions, and knows her answers ahead of time. Efficiency!

Siamus moves quietly to lean a shoulder against the wall just inside the connecting door, on the far side of Avrenne's nightstand, close enough to see and hear but not close enough to be underfoot in this business among women. He returns to his perusal of papers, though once in a while he flicks a glance up at Avrenne, and each time he does, he smiles faintly before shifting his attention back to his work. He doesn't seem to be smiling at Avrenne so much as smiling because of Avrenne.

The routine business of the check up passes along smoothly, and with a comfortable sort of quiet, Dr. Alma making the occasional approving sound.

Avrenne has to give up on looking over at Siamus halfway through because each time she flicks her eyes over to him and catches him looking at her, her own smile threatens to break free from its composure cage, and twice she seems on the verge of laughter. Ahem. Serious Duchess.

"You're coming along very well, Your Grace. I like everything I am seeing," Dr. Alma says, patting Avrenne's knee as she refastens her measuring string and instruments. She gestures for her assistant to come forward. "Today's the day you wish to know what we can tell of the babies' sexes, yes?"

"That's correct," Avrenne says, resettling herself against her pillows, hands folded over each other. Now, she is allowed to look back to Siamus.

Siamus comes to alert at the moment the doctor said "sexes," and not for the usual reasons. He folds his sheaf of papers absently and sets them on Avrenne's nightstand, then moves around it to the bedside. He offers her his hand.

Medea scoots forward, a hand reaching out to hover over Avrenne's belly a little bit too much like she's cautiously setting it over an open flame and hoping that it doesn't burn her, the Light gathering brightly in her palm.

Avrenne sets her hand in Siamus’, and permits herself a small smile up at him. She looks back at the Light being shone down into her belly with that set of control to her expression, as though nothing at all is unusual or exciting about this particular moment, simply another check that will give her the dubious fruit size of her babies.

Medea's eyes close, and moments pass in silence.

At last, she finally leans over to whisper into Dr. Alma's ear, the Light still shining in her hand. Dr. Alma makes sounds of understanding, little mmhm, mmhm. The Light fades, and Medea fades after it, shrinking back to her spot by the canopy, as Dr. Alma turns her attention to the parents, most of her focus on Avrenne.

"Both babies are doing well, growing at equal amounts both, exactly as we would like to see. No deformities in the hearts or brains or lungs that are detectable at this stage. They are around the size of a good sized papaya, just a little shy of 13 inches and some small amount over a pound each, which is not unexpected given how they have been measuring, and it shows consistent growth, even if they are on the smaller size compared to what Ery was." Come on, lady, get to the good stuff.

Unhurriedly, and undaunted by meta narrators, Dr. Alma continues, "As far as Medea can tell, each twin appears to be a boy."

Siamus’s hand tightens crushingly around Avrenne's, like the helpless, convulsive muscle-response of a man struck by lightning. "Papaya," he repeats, collecting the wrong noun from the doctor's information in his electrified state. He corrects himself in the next moment: "Boy. A boy? Each? Two boys?"

You can tell the man is a gifted mathematician.

It's fine, Avrenne has a list of the twins' measurements from all other previous visits and a curve growth chart for their average growth, and she has noted the latest values to add to and adjust for comparison of predictions for the next size growth, like a normal person.

She seems to take no notice of the tightness of Siamus' grip, holding back onto him with a sure grip of her own as she looks down to her belly with a soft oh, rubbing her free hand over the swell in a light caress. "Two little boys," she says quietly, her voice breaking a little, but everyone is going to ignore that because it's just that pesky pregnancy emotionality cropping up, so it doesn't count. "My little boys."

Dr. Alma nods at Siamus in that slow bob of hers. "Both boys," she confirms. "Medea won't be able to tell if they are identical or not, as I have told Her Grace. That is something we are more likely to know once they are born. They may be identical, or they may be simply as two brothers, just born at the same time. We'll see."

"Boys," Siamus repeats. "Two boys. Brothers."

Give him a minute, ladies.

Avrenne seems more caught up in the fact that they have upped their reality from papayas to the image of two little boys, and she's blinking a little rapidly. It takes her another moment and a clearing of her throat before she speaks again to ask, "You said it was not 100% accurate, the check?"

Dr. Alma makes an assenting sound. "As with the measurements, they are estimations only, as we have discussed, but in this case, it's more likely to be wrong the other way. Sometimes a fetus might seem to be a girl, based on the sense, and on birth be visibly a boy. Everything is very small at this stage," she says frankly, as delicately as possible. "It's less likely to be wrong the other way though, to see and have it not be that way. If she sees them as boys, they almost certainly are, with very little margin for error."

"Two boys," Siamus says again — he's getting there.

He laughs abruptly and lifts Avrenne's hand, bending to kiss it hard. "Avrenne," he says. "Mo ghrà, baile mo chroí, máthair mo pháistí. Two boys."

He lets go of her hand, starts for the door, stops and turns back; he is wild-eyed with elation. "Thank ye," he says. "Thank ye, doctor." And then he turns again to stride for the door.

Wh-where is he going? Siamus?

"You're very welcome," Dr. Alma says serenely, turning her attention back to Avrenne patiently.

Avrenne for her part watches Siamus like a compass pulled inexorably north, and then releases him from her gaze, to regard her physician once more, her attitude of lifted chin one that suggests that whatever the Vice Admiral is doing, it is very normal and correct, not to be questioned, of course.

Dr. Alma wouldn't dream of it. "Do you have any other questions or concerns for me, Your Grace?" she asks instead, as usual.

"No, that is all. Thank you, Dr. Alma," Avrenne says, with that sense of a dismissal.

Dr. Alma rises up, with a bit of creakiness to her joints, the weather making itself known in her knees, and gestures for her assistant (who is still there), making their way to their own exit of the room, moving unhurriedly through the house to see themselves out.

Avrenne waits until they have left the room before she rises up off the bed herself, ensuring her dress is all in proper place, and goes off in search of where her husband went off to, because Avrenne, for one, has no idea where he was going.

Neither does Siamus, to be fair: all he knew was the exhilarated rush that his body translated into action, and now he is stalking around the house, practically vibrating.

The housemaid Lyra, passing Avrenne in the hall, drops into an habitual curtsey — and then, less habitually, says, "Coranaleetion, y'Greece, an two boys."

Apparently Siamus encountered the maid.

Avrenne is visibly — briefly, but visibly — startled by this congratulations of news she has only just recently learned herself, her stride coming up short and eyes flying wide open, but it doesn't take her long to calculate the most probable cause of this equation for the how and why. Her recomposure is swift. She's a canny lady.

She nods appreciatively at Lyra. "Thank you," she says graciously. "Which way was the Vice Admiral headed?"

"Dahnstars, mum," says Lyra. "Affink."

Avrenne nods her thanks and understanding both, sweeping along towards the stairs. On one hand, this is good news because she won't have to climb up the stairs to the third floor, or check the balconies. On the other hand, the downstairs also leads potentially to the outside, and then he'll have free range of the property, the coast, and, if he wanders far enough, the Harbor.

The duchess picks up her pace a little.

The footman Burren is passing through the foyer as the Duchess descends. He pauses to nod respectfully to her, unable to suppress an unfootmanlike smile. "Congratulations, Your Grace. I hear it's to be a pair of lads."

There's no startlement this time, as Lady Fallon takes it in stride. "Yes, thank you," she says smoothly, with a gracious small smile allotted back, looking beyond Burren from where his likely path was, whisking off in that direction as she follows her husband's wake of news to lead it to the man himself.

Siamus is not in the library. On one of the library tables, however, Shine's toolkit and the pieces of some delicate project lie spread on a cloth. Shine himself is nowhere in evidence. The odds are very slim that Shine would abandon his tools and a work in progress for anything less than the fact that the Duchess is having two boys.

The dining room is also empty. However! At the far end of the room, the door to the servants' passage and the kitchen stands open, and voices can be heard from that direction. Specifically, what sounds like a chorus of sailors can be heard from that direction, singing a song that is probably not the sort of thing one should sing at Fallon House in polite company.

Oh, dear, there's also a door to the outside by the kitchen. The Vice Admiral could get out, and then what.

Avrenne steps lightly and swiftly towards the singing, the rustle of her silk dress louder but nowhere near loud enough to register under the song, the half-cape over her left shoulder streaming just a little behind her in the increased drag from her pace.

A pace she is forced to slow as soon as she's within sight of the others in the kitchen.

The others in the kitchen are: Cook and Moirin, who are bustling back and forth at the great wooden table, arranging things onto a tray; Vane and Shine, who are standing on either side of Siamus each with an arm around his shoulders; Siamus, obviously, who is standing between Vane and Shine and… holding… Ery? Oh no, he got into the nursery. The final party in the room is Emelia, who is hanging back in a corner — clearly not wanting to contravene the Vice Admiral — and looking a little panicked.

Ery does not look panicked. Ery is having the time of her life, hanging on to her Papa's cravat with one hand, waving the other small fist in the air, and making joyful hooting noises to accompany the shanty that — actually, that everyone in the kitchen excluding Emelia seems to be singing. (Cook and Moirin are joining in boisterously just at the chorus.)

It is Moirin, naturally, who spots Avrenne first. She snaps her mouth shut halfway through a line of the song, but her gray eyes are still merry. She drops a grinning curtsey to Avrenne and says loudly, "Many congratulations, Your Grace!"

The song falters and trails off unevenly as the whole group turns to look at Avrenne. None of them looks guilty (except Emelia); the general mood remains gleeful good cheer. Siamus himself is still a little wild-eyed, and his air of breathless exuberance suggests he just set a world record in the Fallon House Dash and is now being thronged by fans.

"Your Grace!" he says, as though it is an astonishing stroke of luck to run into Avrenne in her own house. "Joy of my life, I was trying to fetch ye a party. Should ye sit?"

At the question, Vane moves with terrifying alacrity for such a giant man to pick up Cook's rocking chair and set it beside Avrenne.

"Thars on'y so much charclat I got made up," Cook tells Siamus, and wags a wooden spoon at him. "I can do more faranight, if ye can wait yersel that long."

The reason for Emelia's panic (and guilt) is in part that this is usually Ery's naptime, one of the many reasons Avrenne scheduled her doctor appointment for this time. But Avrenne is not about to mention this, or contradict Siamus in the taking up of his own child. Father's Privilege, after all.

Avrenne's brows raise in something between surprise and amusement at the suggestion and sudden proximity of a chair. "I am still quite well for standing, thank you. And thank you for the congratulations, I am pleased by the news as well." She has that air about her, composed as always, but there's that light in her eyes, the twinkle of having thoughts under her self-containment. Her hands are settled in front of her, over the top of her belly in a light clasp, and she regards the room, and Cook's working. "Perhaps then it would be best, in anticipation for tonight's celebration of a party and greater amounts of chocolate, that I might take myself on a walk for my daily exercise." She looks over at Siamus, the invitation to join her unspoken, but there anyway. Does the Vice Admiral want walkies?

Siamus just set a world record in the Fallon House Dash, were you not paying attent— oh. Oh. Yes. Siamus does want a walk for the Duchess's daily exercise.

He turns to thrust Ery at her nanny, immediately takes the child back before Emelia can actually collect her, and kisses the baby soundly on the cheek. Ery screeches happily and tries to grab his face, and Siamus laughingly passes her to Emelia. "Back for ye later, starfish," he tells her, as Emelia tries not to look too pre-exhausted in anticipation.

He crosses the kitchen to Avrenne and offers her his arm. Shine and Vane clap him on the back as he passes each of them, and Shine nods to Avrenne, grinning. "We'll all have proper congratulations to offer ye later, Lady Fallon."

"We put togarra lofly tray," Cook says a little indignantly. "Whar'ma do wi'it now?"

"I'll take it to His Lordship's office," intervenes Moirin. "And when the Duchess is ready, the pair of them can find it there. Will that do, Your Grace?" Her look adds the wordless question: Was the Duchess planning to exercise in the Vice Admiral's office?

Not yet. At this point with Siamus, they'd probably break something, or several somethings, in enthusiasm, and they have guests arriving later who will need the office for Actual Business Purposes.

Avrenne turns her attention to Moirin. "That will suit perfectly, thank you." She gives the room at large a gracious nod, and then raises her hand up at her side in a clear signal for Siamus' escort. "We shall be just around the grounds, while the weather holds." Oh, she really does mean take an actual walk, like, outside and everything. And, well, knowing Avrenne, then likely upstairs for a bit, but that's another exercise that doesn't need explaining to anyone.

Siamus nods to the group at large, his happiness undimmed by the prospect of actually walking, because he is going to walk with his wife who is having two boys, his two boys. He gives Avrenne his arm and a smile. "And where will ye have us go, Your Grace?"

Avrenne sets her hand more intimately over his arm, approaching that point where a formal escort and an arm hug converge. She doesn't manage to contain her answering smile, alight with her own joy. "Well, I am accustomed around this time to taking a trip to the Shrine for you at sea, and it is low tide just now." It is entirely possible that in addition to Ery's nap time, this is another reason why Avrenne chose this time for her doctor's appointment. Efficiency! "We could walk there and back, and use the time to discuss some possibilities for names for the boys." The Boys™️! The extra real babies that aren't just amorphous minnows, but are now Boys.

"Costentyn," says Siamus immediately. "Simon. Eli. Thomas." He may have been thinking about this. He is also, meanwhile, leading Avrenne toward the front door. "Aidan. Daelin. Derek. Eamon." He opens the door to guide her out onto the front porch and down the stairs. "Elliot. Porter. Parrish."

Avrenne absorbs the barrage with that attentiveness of hers, the sense that she is marking them down into some internal ledger as he speaks, a dutiful brain secretary. "Mm," she says as she keeps pace with the Vice Admiral, her little legs moving steadily.

"If we assume that both should have 'Parrish' as their due course, preceding 'Esprit Fallon,' there is the half of it. I think on the hearing of them, I find myself rather fond of the idea of 'Elliot' and 'Eamon' as a pairing of names. And, of course, if we were to take up 'Simon' and, if not 'Costentyn', but 'Shine' as middle names, the boys would have the same initials, which has a nice sort of symmetry to it, for twins, I think. We could do the same, of course, of first names with such as Daelin and Derek, if we did want to avoid 'Ery', 'Elliot', and 'Eamon' for all three beginning with the same letter, but they are likely to all share a year birthday, practically triplets," she muses, in that distracted tone of hers of when she's really half thinking it out loud to herself.

"Elliot Simon and Eamon Shine," Siamus tries out. "Elliot Simon Parrish Esprit Fallon. Eamon Shine Parrish Esprit Fallon." He is silent for a moment, perhaps reflecting on the sound of them, and then he nods decisively. "Aye, I like them. I don't think there's anything wrong wi' three E-names. We were Siamus and Sintha, children of Simon and Saoirse. The Fallons go in for alliteration, apparently." He makes a wry face down at Avrenne. "And ye were an Avrenne, an Abrielle, and an Anton." He pauses, lifts his chin to peer ahead, struck by a thought. "D'ye want an Anton? Elliot Anton? Eamon Anton is too much -on."

There's a strange little flinch on her face, almost a wince, at the suggestion of naming one of her children after her brother, her free hand coming to rest over her belly, like she's protecting them from even hearing it. "No," she says, immediately, a little too quickly, as if to forestall any possible solutions to the -on. "No, I was not especially close with my brother." There's no grief strung through her voice, the threads careful, diplomatic, rather than pained.

"And it is also a tradition along the Esprit line to never directly name a descendant after another, the name must always be partially altered. I, myself, am named after my mother's older sister, who died long before I was born, 'Arienne.' But I — I don't think I should like to do the same for my own children with my brother's name." The brother she almost never speaks of, and doesn't seem inclined to do so now, either.

"If I were to consider another name to add," Avrenne says instead. "I might think of 'Marius,' on behalf of my mother, Mara. And perhaps something like 'Markell,' on behalf of Sophie, for Mercailles." She smooths the material of her dress over her belly.

Siamus gazes down at her for a moment, a line between his brows. "I beg your pardon, my heart," he tells her gently. "I know ye don't speak of the man often. I just — running away wi' myself again, thinking of family names." He gazes ahead again neutrally. "I do like Marius. Elliot Simon Marius and Eamon Shine Markell?"

"I like that," she agrees. She lets a moment of quiet land before she adds, "There's no harm in the mentioning of Anton, only that I don't have the same desire to think of him regularly. He and I were not temperaments or personalities that were compatible. He made my father seem a warm, emotional man in contrast, and for most of my youth I hardly knew Anton at all, such was the gap between our ages. When I came of age, with the knowledge and talents I possessed, he looked upon me as a rival, someone who threatened his position as the successor to my father's business of war, and no reassurances on my part could convince Anton otherwise. He believed in crushing the competition, and it did not make for a comfortable relationship." The strange little squeeze of her hand on his arm suggests she is, very likely, putting it lightly.

"Which twin should be named first with which name, do you think?" Avrenne asks, rather than continue down that particular memory lane.

Siamus is watching her now and doesn't answer at once; his coffee-black gaze is hard to read, as inscrutable as any social mask he might wear.

At length he turns his eyes forward again, blandly. "I think the first one will be Elliot Simon Marius, and the second will be Eamon Shine Markell."

And then he stops dead in the path, looking newly wonderstruck. "It's two boys, Avrenne. Two sons at once. Twin boys, ye give me." He laughs aloud.

His laughter does the trick of banishing the shadows of memory clouding over Avrenne's face, and she smiles anew up at him, her hand moving now with renewed vigor and fondness over her dress. And then a thought strikes her, from something he's said.

"At once, but not quite exactly at the same time. One will be born second," she says, that slightly distracted tone entering her voice, thinking out loud. "Eamon Shine Markell would be a second son. For nearly as many generations as there are the line, House Esprit has always committed a second son to the military. My generation was the only break in the line of it, as there never was another boy after Anton."

"I hope we'll send as many of 'em to the military as will go," Siamus says, because that is how one raises boys. "But we'll see the Esprit tradition borne out, at the least." He nods seriously at her.

The reality of this tradition's weight seems to be hitting the expectant mother in a way that it hasn't before, for all that she's spoken of it in the past as a Due Course that she understood the intellectual reasoning behind, as this is now no longer some Second Son, but the future of the actual tiny baby sharing her body. But Avrenne Esprit Fallon is nothing if not a woman committed to her House, and she nods, breathing in the sea air, and waiting for Siamus to resume their walkies walk to the Shrine.

"There is nothing at all that prevents any number of sons, or daughters for that matter, from joining the military from House Esprit's tradition. Quite a few of the fifth generation of Esprits were part of it, as I recall, one of the larger generations," she says. "I might have done so myself had I proven sufficiently powerful for a battlemage, and had my father approved of it, a second daughter if not a second son."

"Aye," says Siamus, "I recall. And if I may say it, to your father's shame that he'd deprive the military of such a strategist. But the Alliance's loss was House Fallon's gain — which makes it to the good of the Alliance in the end after all." He resumes walking.

Avrenne smiles up at him, a fresh glow, pleased by the compliment, moving her hand off her belly to set it on Siamus' arm. "Should we have an announcement of the news, do you think? Sintha could always mention it in a Milady Moth, if we wanted people to know more widely, and it does save one the trouble of walking up to the high bells of the Stormwind Cathedral to shout it," she says, a playful tease.

Siamus groans and tips his head back to stare at the sky. "Milady Moth. Ye can't ask her to write something in it about us. She'll make up a lot of tales about what… a lecher I am, or how I'm abducting young ladies, or the like. I do believe she took up writing the damned thing because it gave her a credible excuse to slander me." He rubs his forehead wearily with his free hand. "I'm told that the pair of ye have the better idea of how this madness all works, so do as ye will, but if I start to be shunned in decent company, it's on your heads."

He glances down at Avrenne, and his own smile curves reluctantly back to life. "We should announce it, though, aye."

Avrenne laughs, a bright little swirl of warmth like a spiral of honey. "The secret of it, should you wish to know, is in a little bit of human nature for gossip as a means to an end. It's difficult to depend on the spreading of good news through gossip, especially if one is well placed, and those speaking of it are not. People are rarely eager to speak about how someone else has it much better than them. But, people are always so much more willing to speak of something that seems as though it casts a bad light on someone they might see as elevated or better, that makes them feel superior for a moment, to drag them down to a level. That is why she phrases things in such a way as she does, although if one were to think of it a little more, one would realize that it was actually a compliment, and a good thing. That's the cleverness, to hide the pure spun gold among a veneer of mucking straw," she tells him conspiratorially.

"But we don't need to rely on it, in this case, as we have other avenues that will serve just as well. I think we could make a trip to the Harbor at the least, let it be known. Perhaps when the boys arrive, we could even take out a little announcement in your paper, alongside the marriage announcements."

Picture it, Siamus. You're at the breakfast table. You open your newspaper, and it's there in bold print, front page okay, regular mid-pages with the editorials and the like, that House Fallon has succeeded in producing two (2) sons.

Siamus brightens, possibly at the thought of visiting the Harbor with the news; possibly at the thought of seeing it in his morning paper. Possibly both. "Aye," he says. "Aye, all right. We'll do that. The births of Elliot Simon Marius Parrish Esprit Fallon and Eamon Shine Markell Parrish Esprit Fallon." Wow, those are really rollin' off the tongue now.

Speaking of tongue, he stops walking again abruptly to slide his arm around Avrenne's waist, and bends to kiss her emphatically.

Avrenne's laugh, a delighted joy that comes easily today, where it might not have done so in the past few weeks, passes from her lips to his in the kiss, one hand coming up to hold him there against her.

He is smiling against her lips when the kiss ends, and rests his forehead against hers for a moment. "And tonight a celebration, aye? Wi' the children and household." He straightens, his expression turning softer and more somber. "A celebration for all three, it will be: Elliot, Eamon, and Ralaea, aye?"

Avrenne in turn looks a little brighter. "Dear girl," she says fondly. "Tomorrow I'll be sending her to Mr. Latour straightaway for her measurements, and seeing to a proper full wardrobe. I have all the fabrics ready and waiting, they need only the tailoring. The shoes we shall make a trip to a cobbler in Stormwind later this week. And of course, she'll be starting fuller lessons for the basics as befitting a ward of House Fallon. I have the tutors selected, naturally." She had all this time to plan, after all. She just needed the i's dotted and t's crossed that it would be legal for her to manage Ralaea's life.

The prospect of this seems to invigorate the small duchess, but something wistful enters her face. "It's a bit of foolish sentiment, I expect, that I feel pleased to have her as a ward, not only for herself, for her own merit, which is true, but that I had been saying for so many years, 'I have four wards,' that in the months past I always feel a strange sensation every time I recall that I must say 'three.' Now, I can say again, 'four,' and it seems to me a better number for the familiarity and balance of it." Yeah, it's just a like, number math thing, not silly feelings.

Siamus brushes his thumb lightly across her cheek, and then offers her his arm again. "Aye," he says. "A little piece of the world, righted."

He begins to lead her down the path again. They are approaching the treacherous stretch of tide-exposed rocks. "I'm going to send to Steelring in the city and arrange an appointment with him for Ralaea. If ye tell me what day ye mean to go to the cobbler, I can schedule him the same, if you're willing to take her both places. I'd hate to make her wait until I'm back again." He pauses to help Avrenne between two close-set rocks, and then adds, "She needs new swords. Some other items as well. I'll send Steelring the list, he'll know when she gets there what he's to make her."

Avrenne makes her way carefully over the rocks, taking his assistance with gratitude. "I had thought to go on Saturday, but if that is too soon to get an appointment with Steelring on such notice, I can move the cobbler to next week. It isn't urgent, but it needs to be seen to, and with Ralaea, the sooner the better." She makes a considering sound. "I think the new swords might help her feel a bit more productive as well, and get her out of the black mood she's been in. She's been struggling with the slowness of the military response against the dragon aspect, and frustrated with Mr. Westwind's decision to return to his work. Taking some form of action will likely help." You know, what every young girl needs to feel better, action and military hardware.

"Aye, that's what we spoke of this morning before ye fetched us. She's been struggling lately with her sword-work, thought there was something amiss with her. We got it sorted." He is silent for a moment, watching Avrenne's steps, and then he says, "She thought it was her fault we lost Andorhal. Did ye know? The battle, the city. Blamed herself."

Avrenne sighs at it. "Well, you two do have a lot in common," she says. "It's an admirable trait in its pure form, a willingness to always take full responsibility for one's actions, that sometimes goes a little over broad into picking up extra responsibility along the way. I have heard many good soldiers speak of the same thing. The If only I had… after the battlefields and losses pile up into great masses that if they could be used as fortifications, we would have a keep on every crossroads. I am sure hearing it from you that it wasn't her fault or her burden alone to bear will help a great deal in letting her set down the guilt. That kind of guilt can lead to recklessness, and it's always best to nip it in the bud before it blooms too largely."

"Recklessness," Siamus observes dryly, "is Ralaea's native state."

(They do have a lot in common.)

"But not her only course of action. She's capable of controlling her impulses, and she's able to be reasoned with, but one must give her the true why behind those reasonings, and she must believe and understand them to obey them. I'm not certain she would find a place like the army or military comfortable, with the unexplained direct orders, but I expect she fares better with a more informal unit of Cobalt Company. Lord Bertand says they really are not the military in rank discipline and strict chain of command." It's unclear from her tone how much Avrenne approves or disapproves of this. "And recklessness can often be a productive form of decisive problem solving, and there are times when it's a good thing, to see a problem and immediately leap forward with a solution, when there is very little time to have to act, such as in combat with rapid shifts of circumstances, and freezing with indecision would be disaster.

"It's only that she has the opportunity to learn more about how when she does have the luxury of time to consider her choices, she should use it, and slow down to remember that she does not need to come up with a solution as the first thought she can think. It'll help as she has more of a place of safety, and comes to trust in it more, to remember that she is not kept so constantly at war that she considers a time when she's asked to think about what she wants as her tombstone as a 'moment of peace,'" Avrenne says, her voice growing cold in the recollection of that particular tidbit.

"I agree entirely that she's a creature of action and decision, and only wants her reckless edges tempered wi' reason. It's the lack of education and formal military training she's had so far," says Siamus, offering Avrenne a hand up over the next rock, his other hand out to balance and steady her as needed. "She's had a pair of commanders, in Mondragon and Hazan, who seem to make a point of leading by conference or explanation, and she's made them into cults of personality. She needs to learn the reasoning behind strategy, tactics, chain of command for herself so that when she's given an order she can follow it through without waiting for an officer to lay out a personal explanation, or resenting or rebelling when she doesn't get one, and so that in the absence of an order, she can reason her way through a situation on her own without throwing bombs at it. Or waiting for someone to invent cannon that will fire across the whole breadth of Icecrown, mountains and all." He shakes his head wryly. "No one can say she lacks for either grit or imagination."

Avrenne blinks at this very specific example. Oh, dear. "I think perhaps adding some proper physics, and military artillery and other large caliber weapons immediately into the courses of study alongside the basics of reading and writing and mathematics will be a good place to help her understand her possibilities to better put to use the grit and imagination in practical applications," she says diplomatically, in place of gasping in horror or outright laughing at the image of this hypothetical cannon. "She might find it easier to put the basics into practice when it's something she's interested in, after all."

"Bear in mind, Your Grace, that some of the physics may need to wait until she has the rudiments of literacy and mathematics," Siamus says, smiling that half-smile. "Not all of us are mermaids. Naturally we may begin wi' first principles without overmuch difficulty — one hopes — but beyond…." He trails off, and then turns a speculative look on Avrenne. "Have the tutors been apprised of… their prospective pupil's tendencies toward curiosity and away from patience?"

Ha ha what must those traits be like? Siamus wouldn't know.

"Oh, yes, I sent all of them through the obstacles courses of the others, to be sure they would have enough techniques at the ready. Otto with his sometimes odd questions that diverge from anything that one thought the course would take. Isla with her leap first with some answer before one has finished asking the question. And of course Finley did his best to challenge them with if they could guess how he'd interpret an assignment, without telling them how he would do so. Only the tutors who survived all three successfully were kept, and we'll see how they manage with the actual pupil," Avrenne says. She's been planning this for a long time. One might even suspect her of starting to have begun this before Ralaea even agreed to the wardship.

“I would teach her myself as did the others, but I have far less time than I once did to devote to a pupil, and any instructor she has will need to spend significant time on working to undo Ralaea's 'shortcut' mentality for leaning, as they know and have been apprised of, so the best course is tutors who can do so."

Siamus nods, satisfied. "You've been planning this for a long time," he observes with that smile in his voice. "I like a lady with her eye on the horizon."

He escorts Avrenne a few more steps in silence — the shrine is just ahead of them now, the massive table of rock rising to a height over either of their heads — and then he observes, "When Ralaea spoke as she did at the end there — of her brother, of aggravating him — it upset ye."

The observation sobers her, the brightness of her fading back, and she looks around them rather than directly at him. "It's nothing of significance," she begins, which may be the first sign that it's something of Feelings. "It's only that I have been waiting for a long time to be seen in that way, to be called so. The others don't, and they all have their own reasons for it, naturally. For Ralaea to take it up in word, knowing that it will annoy her brother, is not exactly what I had imagined." She squares off her shoulders, as her chin lifts, those signs of her armoring herself in stance.

"And that it would annoy him. I'm rather fond of the boy for himself. So to know that it would be like, well." The distancing sound creeps into her voice. "Like it was with Daisy, before. Even from a young age, she did not like to hear of anyone doing what she felt was a misconstruing of our arrangement, with any of the children. There were, from time to time, well meaning strangers who would see us out, and make assumptions. Small things, 'listen to your mother,' or 'as your mom says.' She would go from this reasonable meekness to flying into something of an indignant anger, rushing to correct them, that I was not their mother, I was their legal guardian. The distance between those two things never permitted to bridge." Avrenne pauses in the recollection, her hand moving to flick her fingers as if brushing the memory away.

"But I made no specifications for Ralaea on what sentiment should or should not be behind the words," she says, with the air of someone who is admitting this one's on me. "She's well within the terms I set. And at least she stated her intention beforehand, so I will know what it means, and I will be accordingly prepared for it, to not misunderstand her use of it. That's all it was."

Siamus tugs her to a halt again. At this rate they will never reach the shrine.

He turns to her and takes her face between his hands to tilt it up in an effort to direct her gaze to his. "Mo chroí," he says seriously. "Do ye remember how it was with us at first, after I came to understand I had a feeling for ye? Do ye recall how hard it was for me to speak plain about it? And ye know how well and deeply I care for my sister, the little monster, plague upon my life. Even if I call her a little monster and plague on my life and she calls me a beast and a jellyfish. I don't recall whether I've ever told Ta that I love her, in so many words, but she knows I do because of how we are. And in part, maybe strangely, because I call her monster.

"It's… harder for some of us to be plain with our sentiments, no matter how frank we may be elsewhere. It's… a different sort of danger.

"Ralaea and I are much alike. She will pretend she hasn't got sentiments, but she began to cry earlier when I told her she should have a horse. She would not have asked whether she might call me 'father' if you're 'mother' unless she was already thinking in those terms. Whether she says it or not, she thinks it, and if she does only ever say it in front of her brother, then her brother's just the excuse. Some people need to come at a feeling sideways."

He pauses. "I have once or twice asked Ta in a letter whether she'd like me to say that I love her, and she always rejects the suggestion in the most vicious terms, but we both understand that I have said it, only veiled by the asking. If Ralaea only calls ye 'mother' at certain times or in certain company, that's only the veil she's using to say the thing."

Avrenne regards him with dark eyed seriousness, raising her hands to set lightly over his. "I am no stranger to the smaller Languages In Between. I know the difference between your Your Grace and Finley's Your Grace no matter that they are the same words. And I realize that for some, it's harder to speak or be spoken to in such direct terms. Did I not recognize what you meant by your smaller admittances? And I know that Finley cannot bear for me to mention my affection for him in any sort of words, while Isla would dry up and wither if she was not reminded of it regularly.

“But it's not that she's using another to call me what you assume she really thinks, it's that she's using a word that I have held quite dear, specifically in a context that she knows will upset someone else I care about, who will be questioning — if not out loud, but in his heart — how I dare take that place, make that claim on something that I had no natural right to. I have had it questioned throughout nearly eight years, and even fully rejected in full, and there it will be as a reminder.

"It would be more alike to if I were to call you 'Shay,' but only in front of Sintha, and not because I had the sense of desire to do so, but because I would know that it would annoy her to have something that she has claimed for herself taken from her. You offered me the name before, but she has said, on more than one occasion, that only she has the right of calling of it for you. Would you call it a veil, knowing that some of my intent was so misdirected at another, and had little to do with you at all?" She shakes her head in a tiny movement. "It was my mistake to present it the way I did, and so it will be. It changes nothing as to how I intend to behave to my own nature, and what I will do to satisfy my own conscience. It doesn't signify anything important."

Siamus bends to kiss her forehead, and lets go of her. "I would argue that it signifies a great deal, in what it means to ye personally, but I'll let it lie and see how it comes along. It's the lass's first day as a Fallon."

He takes her hand and squeezes it gently before turning to resume their course to the rock ahead. "And I love you, ye know, in case I've not said it recently. By 'recently' I mean in the past ten minutes, as I ought to tell ye at least that often."

Her smile brightens back to life, an indulgent little laugh humming through her, and the tail end of it bubbling up enough to make it past her lips with a warm caress of sound. "Oh, you tell me it far more often than every ten minutes. Surely you must know that I hear it all the time, from a hundred different ways, from the tokens of that I wear," she says as she shakes her head now to set the gold earrings in her ears moving, glinting in the sunlight, "to the way you touch me, from your letters, to your bouquets, from the way you speak to me, to the names you call me. The words themselves, 'I love you,' are just another way you say it, one of many. I always know myself to be cherished, respected, and loved."

Siamus releases her hand to touch one of the earrings lightly. "I'm pleased that ye like these so much," he says with extreme gravity. "They express a most earnest sentiment." He catches her hand up again and lifts it to his lips, his eyes gleaming with humor.

"An earnest sentiment so reciprocated that it could become its own property," she teases back. Oh no, math jokes. Does Avrenne even want to make it all the way to the shrine?

"She makes math jokes to me in her dill flower earrings," observes Siamus. "A man might think she doesn't even want to make it all the way to the shrine."

But they are all the way to the shrine, at last, and he lets her move ahead of him so that he can follow her slowly up the rough stone steps that lead to the shrine-rock, his hands hovering near her waist in case of stumbles.

Avrenne is sure-footed as she laughs up the stairs, following a path of the shortest reasonable distance to the shrine with that direct angular way of hers, and a familiarity that speaks of how much she has traveled this route in the past nearly two months. There's no lingering evidence of those trips now, the flowers already long taken.

Siamus, by contrast, hasn't been here at all for the last two months. He moves wordlessly past Avrenne to gaze out toward the sea for a long moment, and then he turns to sink to his knees beside the tide pool and the broken stela.

Avrenne steps in closer to his side, setting a hand on his shoulder. She's quiet for a time, looking over the stela, letting the sea breeze touch along her carefully bound hair, and pick up enough of the cape draping from one shoulder to set it fluttering lightly. As usual, she doesn't seem cold, the weather unable to touch her entirely.

After several moments, she reaches her other hand up to her necklace, rubbing it between two fingers. "Should we make an offering?" she asks, her voice low and soft.

"Aye," he says, and then seems to startle gently. "I didn't bring one," he says with chagrin. He pats his pockets, hesitates. Then he dips his hand into a pocket and lifts out his bone-handled pen knife. He unfolds the blade, spreads his other hand and considers his palm.

The careful sea breeze that flutters Avrenne's cape gusts briefly, tousling Siamus's hair forward into his eyes. Reflexively, he murmurs shhhh, shhh shh, and raises his open hand to rake his tumbled curls back with it instead. The wind drops again.

Avrenne is a woman of probability and statistics, and she looks around her as if checking the world against an internal scoreboard. It's not entirely outside the realm of coincidence that the capricious wind might seem to obey just at this moment, so she says nothing to point it out, the data point marked down into some ledger all the same. Instead she reaches up with both hands to unclasp her necklace, tipping the sapphire lotus pendant off the gold chain onto her palm, offering it out to Siamus between him and the stela. The sapphires are small, within a gold setting, the flower resting on a leaf pad, the entire pendant no larger than a copper coin.

"I have this. I had it made from some of my bathtub sapphires, from the news of the twins. A water flower plucked from one water basin to come to another," she says. She doesn't identify the flower or the Floriography meaning just yet.

Probabilities or not, Siamus doesn't seem even to have registered the moment at all. He is distracted from his original intention now, though, and doubly distracted when he sees Avrenne's intent. "Mo chroí," he says, his expression suffusing with tender, wondering light. He looks from the necklace up to her face. "Will ye? It's a queenly gift."

Avrenne smiles warmly down at him, leaning as much as she might without toppling over, as she holds her offering carefully in place. "It is nothing so precious that I could not bear to part with it." She reaches down with her free hand to touch first his hair, and then his hand considered for an offering, encouraging it upwards towards her. "She knows very well what I always ask of her, what I deny her in having, and I would just as soon not see my favorite necklace, far more precious to me than any stone or metal could ever be, offered in even temporary sacrifice," she tells him, something of a playful tease among the solemnity, as she once more sets his fingers around her throat, her favorite necklace in place of the one she wore.

It takes him a beat to catch her meaning, and then he laughs. His thumb moves gently up and down the line of her pulse. "And ye know that I could never deprive ye of anything, least of all your favorite necklace."

Her eyes twinkle with warmth at the sound of his laugh, and she sighs contentedly in his grasp, her pulse leaping up at his touch, as she strokes a light line down his fingers to his wrist and arm to once again bring her hand to rest on his shoulder. "Here," she says, moving her other hand closer to him to take the pendant from her palm. "Will you make it the offering for us both?"

"As ye like," he says. He lets go of her throat to accept the necklace, snapping his pen knife shut in his other hand and dropping it back into his pocket.

He studies the pendant a moment in his palm. "A water flower," he says, and contemplates this. He looks up at her. "Is it yours? The lotus? I've never seen one."

"Yes, the lotus flower here, and the leaf it would rest on here," she says, tracing a finger over the pendant in illustration, before she straightens back up. "'Eloquence. Rebirth. Resilience.' It was one of the flowers I liked the meaning of most as a child, and when I grew old enough to wear a scent, I begged my mother for one of it, lotus. It took me time to find my favorite version, one that could capture the flower properly, and suit me. I eventually found the right one. The original perfumery was destroyed in the Fall, but I found the perfumer, and he's reestablished himself in Stormwind and supplies it to me."

Siamus laughs: that warm, startled laughter of his that says someone has caught him off-guard and he's delighted about it. "Naturally," he says fondly. "Naturally ye found a refugee perfumer and saw him secured in the city to keep ye in your scent. I'll want the man's name, of course, in case I like to buy ye a gift of it. Ye must tell him he does my favorite work, aye?"

"Jacques Dupont is the name, and the perfumery is under the family name Dupont, although his apprentices are of other families who will take over when the time comes. I purchase from him a white lotus absolute, using the old methods of extraction for the purity, maturity, and depth needed for the flower, to be diluted in water or another oil," she informs him. "I shall be sure to pass on the compliment."

He drops his attention to the pendant again, turning it to admire the stones in the light. "And speaking of pretty work. A queenly gift, bhaile mo chroí, as I said."

He takes her hand and kisses her open palm, and then, still holding her hand, leans forward to lay the little sapphire pendant in the water. The glassy surface of the tide pool shivers and breaks at the disturbance, and for a moment after he withdraws his hand, the sunlight on the little, chasing ripples seems to multiply the glitter of the gems, a dancing sapphire scatter beneath the water. Then it settles, and there is just the little jeweled flower left blooming on the stony bottom of the pool.

She watches the water and the pendant for a moment, smiling at it. "This was the work of another favorite jeweler of mine, Lilia Bethany. She made the necklace I wore for the Thenedain Remembrance Ball of Year 27, the 'Lighthouse Signal' as she called it. This was 'Blue Lotus,' and if it's a queenly gift, it still cannot compare with a blessing and gift of two sons to come." She brushes her hand over the swell of her belly, a slow bell curve of motion.

"Lilia Bethany," Siamus repeats, no reason, just filing that away — he can remember some names — and then he shifts on his knees to lean over and kiss her belly. He puts his hands on her hips and rests the side of his face against her for a reverent moment.

Don't kick your dad in the face, boys. (Twin boys.)

Continued in...