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| Details |
| Author: | inkie |
| Summary: | Shine returns to Lena and Fallon House fresh from the victory over Deathwing. Lena learns that Deathwing isn't the only guy who died. They discuss family both old and new and make plans for an August wedding now that there is surely a quiet summer ahead. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
The Destroyer is dead.
There will be an official dispatch, of course, from Stormwind Keep to Fallon House, but it is hardly necessary. Something happened when the Aspect of Death was slain and lost to the Maelstrom, and everyone who knew that the battle with Deathwing would be today also knows immediately what that change portends. It is as if the world itself has cried out with relief, and the air is sweeter and the earth richer and the sea bluer.
In Stormwind City, an over-excited throng piles down to the harbor and breaks into a city warehouse to liberate a store of Midsummer Festival fireworks for an impromptu (and somewhat chaotic) display over the water, until the guards intervene. (At which point the fireworks show does not end but becomes a more Orderly and Official Exhibition, to appease the crowd but also not set the docks afire.) By the time official dispatches do begin flying out of Stormwind Keep, the city is practically one giant block party.
Even as far south along the coast as Fallon House the shrills and gun-crack reports of the fireworks are audible, and now and again colorful sparks flicker in the sky along the northern horizon. Members of the Fallon household have gradually agglomerated by unspoken understanding on the house's front steps; when the messenger from the Keep does at last arrive urgently on a lathered horse with the news for the Admiral, the Admiral in question is leaning against the wall by the front door in his shirtsleeves, conversing with Finley. No, the conversation is not at all tense; no they are not waiting for anyone anything in particular; they are very Normal and Fine gentlemen just standing on the front porch of their house very quietly vibrating for no reason.
Siamus accepts the messenger's dispatch and confirms the official time of death(wing) for the assembled household, to various uncertain cheers which die off as everyone continues to stand around not waiting for anyone anything in particular.
The messenger reads the room and takes her leave.
Lena waits with the rest of Fallon household, and though she does seem relieved to hear of Deathwing's demise officially, the lines of tension do not vanish from her face. She's waiting, but for something very particular. She's waiting to see who else might have fallen with the Aspect of Death, and who will be returning home afterward.
It is some while later — an uneasy while later, although who's counting? No one here, ha ha, they're fine it's fine — when two horses emerge from the shadows of the forest road to head up the drive. One is a snow-white mare with a brown-haired young woman on her back; the other is a sleek black mare ridden by a familiar one-eyed man.
Siamus immediately drops the conversation with Finley like a hot rock to bound down the steps toward the approaching riders. Finley is not insulted; he has already forgotten about the hot rock and is on Siamus’s heels.
Shine and Rae dismount into a crowd of smiles and reaching arms. Shine accepts hugs and congratulations and shoulder-claps and back-pats in distracted fashion; he is looking over the heads of people around him and directly at Lena. He murmurs his vague excuses and slides out of the welcoming throng to go straight to her, his gaze fixed on the magnetic north of her presence.
Lena stands and stares at Shine, the relief obvious in her eyes. At first, she holds her composure, a quiet, patient woman watching the return of today's heroes of Fallon House. Then the composure breaks, and she rushes to meet him halfway, raising her hands to reach for his shoulders, for the reassurance of touch that he is really here and not some kind of phantom.
Shine is already reaching back for her. He catches her around the waist and bends to kiss her.
It is a searing, passionate kiss; considering the presence of the rest of the household gathered around the horses behind him, it is a shocking display for a man generally so politely reserved with his affections in public. The happy clamor of the group dims somewhat as a few people, at least, fall into startled silence.
Lena is not surprised by the passion — she knows this passion — but there is the slightest surprise in her eyes that they're kissing like this here. It is just a moment, though, and then she is absorbed in the kiss itself, twining her arms around his back and melting against him with a matching intensity. She may often play at being politely reserved, but Lena is not actually shy.
Conversation resumes its normal volume a couple of moments later, possibly because Siamus is giving certain people black-eyed glares.
Shine draws back from Lena reluctantly, his hands still at her waist. "I'm sorry I didn't write ye that we'd won, as I said I would. I thought just turning up myself instead of a letter might be all right." He smiles very faintly; he looks tired. "Shall we go in?"
"I worried," Lena admits, and she keeps her hands on his shoulders. "When we had word Deathwing was defeated, but no word that… it is so good to see you here and safe. Yes, let's go inside."
She takes a step backwards, not letting go. Will they just… walk together into the house like this?
It seems for a moment entirely possible that they might, as Shine steps with her, but his considerably taller height and their stride difference is clearly going to make this awkward. Instead he takes a hand from her waist to draw one of her hands from his shoulder and interlace his fingers with hers so they can walk side-by-side. "I would have written," he says. "Only I was in a world of hurry to get back myself."
At the top of the steps he lets go of her hand so that he can open the door for her. Once she's passed through and he's followed, he catches her hand up immediately again.
Lena seems reluctant to let go of his hand, and reaches to reconnect inside as quickly as he does. Maybe she's remembering other phantoms she's seen, and she wants to make sure he doesn't vanish.
"I understand. And it must've been a chaos there," Lena says, looking up at him searchingly. "After the victory. I saw Rae, of course, but… is everyone else we know alright?"
"Aye," Shine says, tugging her gently toward the stairs, smiling down at her. "Everyone we know. And Ralaea got to put a fencepost in the dragon, so she's pleased as a cat in cream."
His smile fades a little. "Something happened wi'the dragon Aspects I don't… quite understand. They're still dragons but… not Aspects any longer? Gave up their powers, or something? Maybe like Fallon and the tidal wave, I don't know."
Lena gives a brief laugh at the note about the fencepost, but then sobers at the rest of the news. "Gave up their powers? So we went from… four to none? What will that mean for us?"
Shine shakes his head. "I couldn't tell ye. I confess I'm not quite sure what it meant when they were Aspects, apart from they were powerful as hell."
"I'm no dragon expert myself, and there obviously wasn't an Aspect of the fel," Lena says, looking up at him. "Probably for the best, that. They were supposed to be guardians, though, weren't they? It might just mean… things are about to get more difficult for the rest of us, somehow."
Lena glances at the staircase. "Should we get out of the hallway?"
It's true that there are certain activities that are acceptable in any room of Fallon House, but those activities are probably not a great idea when a crowd of people is just on the other side of the door.
Shine draws her toward the stairs again. "Your rooms or mine? Yours, I note, are closer."
"Mine, then," Lena says, nodding firmly. Closer is an important consideration. "Do you need a bath this time?"
He hesitates before answering, as they climb the stairs. "On the one hand, I could do with one. On the other hand, it's a bit of a delay, isn't it?"
"I'd rather not any delays," Lena says, leaning to brush her arm against his side as they walk. "But then, I'm feeling a bit selfish today. I'll be happy with whatever you need, after a thing like that."
"What I need," Shine says quietly, "is you. And I am feeling very selfish."
"Then let's be selfish together," Lena says as they reach the top of the stairs, stepping in front of him and reaching her other hand to take his as she walks backwards toward the door of the Tiragarde Suite.
Shine is drawn willingly after her. He closes the door behind them with his foot so that he doesn't have to let go of her hands. "We might have to miss dinner," he tells her solemnly.
"We can have something sent up later," Lena says. She does not seem particularly concerned about dinner. She stretches up to kiss him again.
TIME PASSES
Shine lies on his side gazing at Lena, drowsy-eyed and smiling. "I missed you," he tells her. (She may have deduced this during that polite timeskip.)
Lena lies next to him, loose-limbed and relaxed, as she trails her fingertips idly down his side. Her gaze is fixed on his face, though, drinking in the details like he'd been gone for months and not weeks.
"I could tell," she says, her own smile drowsily content. "Could you tell how much I missed you?"
His smile widens. "I figured it was either that or ye like me a little."
Lena murmurs with an amused smile, "You've uncovered my secrets, then."
Shine leans forward to kiss her, sliding his fingers into her hair.
She leans into the kiss eagerly, despite all that polite timeskip they just shared together.
When he shifts back again, Shine draws his hand downward through her hair, letting the golden strands slip between his fingers, and then trails light fingertips along her bare arm.
Lena adjusts her position in the bed, moving closer to him. She asks quietly, "How was it, the battle?"
His expression fades and he is quiet for a moment. "It was… complicated. A hell of a fight. The top of Wyrmrest Temple to a skyship to the Maelstrom chasing the bastard down." He pauses. "I can ride a skyship. Did ye know?"
Then he shifts and laughs slightly, deprecatingly. "How would ye have? I didn't. Just didn't think about it, boarding, because catching Deathwing was important. By the time I did think about it, we were — " He shrugs.
"It feels different, doesn't it?" Lena asks, curling one arm around his waist under the covers. "I rode on one in Icecrown. It's not the same swells you'd have at sea. I don't know if that makes a difference for…"
"It must, I suppose," Shine says. He rubs his chest absently with the heel of his hand. "It was… we were on his back for a while there. The lot of us. He was that big. Us chipping away at him like… I don't even know, a school of minnows attacking a shark."
"On his back?" Lena asks, her arm tensing against him. "Did something happen to the airship?"
Shine shakes his head. "Just a question of getting close enough to do him any proper damage at all. With all the armor and so on. Had to parachute down to the bastard and physically pry up armor plates so the orc could use the… soul thing. Dragon Soul."
"Parachuting from an airship to a moving dragon," Lena repeats, a little dazed. "The orc?"
"Thrall," Shine says, like it tastes bad. "The shaman. The dragons needed him to use the Soul-thing, for some reason?"
"Hmm," Lena says, frowning. "I suppose if the dragons trusted him… I'm not certain I would have. He was the Warchief, for all he's known as a shaman now."
"Aye, just so," says Shine, and for a moment there is ice and steel in his gaze.
It fades. "They trusted him, and I suppose he did his bit. Apart from… well, I still don't understand the business at the end, about the Aspects. I… might've missed some of it."
"They had to… give up power to defeat Deathwing?" Lena says, recalling his earlier words. "I wonder if it was all of a thing, like they couldn't end him without ending themselves, in a way. But then, Malygos was slain…"
Shine shakes his head. "Ye'd have to ask… one of the elves might understand it more, maybe. Or Captain Jo, or Miss Fey, or someone."
"Miss Fey — Almeiria?" Lena asks in surprise. "I suppose she was involved in some of the dragon business in Northrend. Is she an expert on the Aspects?"
Shine shrugs his shoulder. "She's an expert on… all kinds of odd business. Certain things about magic, power, so on. I couldn't tell ye, to be honest, but she was there and I'll wager she understands at least twice as much as I do about all the magic business."
"Mm, about the Void, certainly more than either of us, and the Old Gods," Lena says quietly, and then shivers. "In any case, the world's still here, whatever it was the dragons and their orc have done. No matter what's been sacrificed, we continue, and that's well in the end."
"Aye," Shine agrees, and lifts his hand to trace the side of her face, temple to cheekbone and then along her jaw, with a feather-light touch. His dark gaze is abruptly tender. "I am very glad to see you."
"Same to you," Lena says, a faint crease in her brow. "Might should've come to you, as I did in the Highlands. I know we've both got our responsibilities, and I have to cope the same as you, but… I don't know. If you're facing a danger, I feel like… I want to face it with you."
Shine touches his thumb softly to her lips. "I know. I feel the same. If I wasn't — " He falls silent for a moment. "If I could. But I'm glad ye weren't there for this one."
Lena looks at him, that crease deepening slightly. "You're glad I wasn't?"
Shine holds her gaze steadily for a moment. "I died," he says at last, quietly. "Just — they got me back. Obviously."
Lena stops breathing for a moment, just staring at Shine. Then she says quietly, "What happened? Who brought you back?"
Shine's gaze drifts from hers as he tries to recall. "Brannagen. Bran brought me back. We were… on a sort of stone pillar over the Maelstrom, and Deathwing — it was near the end, I think, and he was throwing all kind of hell at us. We had… the dragons had given us some powers.
"The green one, she gave us a thing where we could sort of… shift out of danger and into the Emerald Dream, but it cost her and we could only do it so often. I did it — fighting an elemental, I think? There was… fire all over the ground, the whole of it, and the elementals, and these… fire tentacles.
"Atley was — I don't remember exactly. People were fighting the elementals, and there was fire everywhere and he was in a bad way, and so he dodged into the Emerald Dream. When he came out of it, with the rest of us fighting off the elementals, he tried to get the tentacles' attention. And he did. He still wasn't in a good way, though, and he'd just been and gone from the Dream, couldn't escape again.
"So this tentacle went straight at him, like to punch right through him. And I… got there first."
Lena raises herself up on her elbow, hair falling over her throat as she looks down at Shine, listening to the story.
"You went in the Emerald Dream," she repeats numbly, and then shakes her head. That was not the most important part. "You… saved Dane, from the tentacle?"
Shine nods slowly. "I… think I did, aye? It's what he said, after. It's what I… meant to do, though I confess I did not give it a long debate."
"It sounds like it happened very quickly," Lena says, reaching over to trail her fingertips over his cheek. "Not a lot of time for thought, just action…"
"No," Shine says. "Aye. He'd done a… chancy thing in the fight just before, might've sacrificed himself then, and I thought at the time what a stupid shame it would be. Man's a squad leader, a fine soldier. Two little children at home. So I just… the second time, wi' the tentacle — I just went."
"Did you think you might… deflect it?" Lena asks, studying his face. "Or maybe the healers would keep it from getting you, if you were in a better way than he was, injury-wise."
Shine considers this in silence. "I don't… really know what I thought. I was out of tricks myself. Just thought — not him, and jumped."
Lena doesn't say anything for a long moment, watching Shine's expression.
"You didn't know you could come back, if they called you," Lena says quietly. "I'm glad you did, so glad you did, but… my heart would say not you. We might have little ones of our own, come a few years, and I don't want…"
Lena trails off, resting her head against his chest.
Shine exhales. He wraps an arm around her and holds her silently for a few moments. At length he says, "I'm sorry, Lena. I just… it seemed like a right thing. The kind of fight we were in, a man like Atley's going to protect a lot more people than I am. So I just — " He shrugs gently. "But I've come back to ye. And we will have those little ones. I'm all right. We're all right."
"We're all right," Lena repeats, and then smiles. "You've come back to me. Bran called you back. And you did save Dane, then, so his little ones and his lady won't grieve, and that's all to you. Your bravery. You can't know if he would've been able to come back, either."
Lena stays against his chest, looking away from him, and continues, "When I died, in Icecrown, I didn't have the chance to choose one way or another. It wasn't for anyone, it just happened. I don't know if I could've made the choice."
Shine's arm tightens around her. "You are a very strong, very brave lady. You knew what ye were all in Icecrown to do. Ye chose to be there in the first place, and no one guaranteed you'd be walking away from that hell at all."
"I was there, at least in part, as a debt to the dead," Lena says quietly. "I did choose to be there, and to pay what cost it might take from me. What you did, it was in service to the living. And now…. maybe we won't have more earthquakes and tidal waves and all that, anymore."
Shine laughs self-deprecatingly. "Ah, that's not my doing. I cut some throats, set some explosive charges, took a tentacle through the chest." He shifts restlessly, his hand lifting and then dropping, as if he'd meant to touch his chest again but now there is a Lena in the way. (He does not seem to mind the Lena in the way.) After a moment he adds thoughtfully, "And I rode on a skyship."
He shifts again, stretching more comfortably and adjusting Lena gently with him rather than displacing her. "Did you — "
He falls silent.
"Did I what?" Lena asks, not moving. She's settled where she is — no more tentacles in Shine's chest today.
"Do you remember it?" he asks quietly. "What it was like when you were dead?"
There's another silence before she answers. "A little, yes. My soul didn't go anywhere. It wasn't the plan for us to escape — it was the Lich King. He was gloating, getting ready to dominate us, raise us as his own army." Lena shivers again with the memory. "I just felt… detached. I couldn't touch anything, couldn't do anything, couldn't feel anything. And then it was like there was a hand, pulling me up. Pulling me back into myself."
She pauses again, and then adds, "I don't know if that's usual. Do you remember it?"
"I don't know," Shine admits. "I feel like there was… something. Like a dream? I don't remember it exactly. But I wasn't all gone away, I don't think." he frowns. "I ought to remember it, I think. Ye'd expect it to be memorable."
"I think for some people it is?" Lena says, shifting gently against him. "Some people just think they've taken a knock to the head, and don't even realize what's happened till someone explains. What was your dream like, the part you remember?"
"I was… someplace queer, I remember. I was confused and someone talked with me? Or maybe that was the confusing bit." He is silent again, his brow still knit.
"Someone… talked with you," Lena repeats, a calm curiosity in her tone. "Did you recognize the voice?"
"I can't remember," he says. "I think — " He closes his eye, the furrow in his forehead deepening as he dredges for an elusive memory. "I think they knew me. I remember… not thinking of who I was until they said my name. They knew me."
Lena considers that quietly for a moment. "Could it have been Bran, calling you back? Or do you think it might've been someone from… beyond?"
He takes a few moments to try to fit puzzle pieces of memory back together. "It was a man. I don't think… Bran was behind me. The person I was talking to was in front of me." He opens his eye, looking a little puzzled. "… If that makes sense?"
"So Bran was behind… alive… asking you back," Lena says, raising one hand to gesture like she's setting things in a line. "And the one in front… making sure you remembered who you were."
"Aye," Shine says after a moment. "Aye, that was it. He did know me, and reminded — " He stops abruptly and takes a sharp breath. "He called me Costa. I was Costa, not Shine."
"Costa — like you said in your letter," Lena does raise her head then, turning to meet his gaze. "Uncle Costa you said. Was it someone from Kul Tiras?"
"It would have to be," Shine says, his gaze searching some baffling distant view. "No one here — it's all 'Shine,' unless it's 'Raff,' and that's only Fallon." He's silent, and then: "In the service it was 'Shine' as well. 'Costa' would be… someone from back home, before."
"Do you… prefer being called Costa?" Lena asks, watching his expression. "Or Raff? I've always just gone with Shine, because I thought it's what you wanted."
He focuses on her again and smiles faintly. "You may call me whatever ye like. Maybe not 'ye bastard.' Probably not 'Raff' — that one's just Fallon and it would feel a bit like me calling Lady Sintha 'Ta.' He never called me 'Costa' because that was family and Bridgeport, and he likes to have his own pet names for people."
His smile fades and his gaze slides away again, faintly troubled.
"Maybe I need my own pet name for you, then," Lena says, but then she shakes her head — that's a distraction from the matter at hand. "It could've been an ancestor, then? Family."
"Family," he repeats, and his expression twists slightly in a way Lena hasn't seen before. "Ah, Maddy," he says roughly. "It was Maddy."
"Maddy… your brother?" Lena says, her face paling as she realizes the import of the words. "Oh… Oh no… It doesn't have to mean…"
Shine closes his eye and lifts his hand to rub at it tiredly. "It doesn't, no." He opens his eye again. "Whole thing might have been… a dream. Feels now like a dream. And I've — no way of knowing. Whether it's true or not." There's a heavy silence. "It was Madoc, though."
Lena is silent for a long moment, then she nods. "We can't know… now. But we will, someday. And if it's the worst… I'll grieve with you."
Shine exhales. After a moment he angles his head forward to put his lips briefly to Lena's hair. "Aye," he says. "Aye. Thank you, Lena." He lifts his head and begins to trace his fingertips idly, meditatively over Lena's arm and shoulder. "He'd be… 42 now? Five of those kids are his."
He sighs and stops his finger-tracery to wrap his arm around Lena again. "So I wondered if that was… a thing that happened, is all. If people had dreams. Or if they're not dreams. Or… I don't know what."
"I think… it wasn't a dream, for me, when I heard King Terenas," Lena says, almost reluctantly. "I don't know the science of it, though, how to know if a thing is real when you're dead. There is something past there, though, something real. Something the Lich King held us away from."
Shine is still for a moment, gazing at nothing in the distance again. He nods. "I wonder… who I could ask. If I should ask. Maybe I'll just… let it be, for now, and be glad to be where I am."
"There's time enough to ask," Lena agrees, watching his gaze. "Would you want to talk about him? Maddy? One way or another, I'd like to know your family."
Shine gives the tiniest flinch, as though something's just stung him. "He said that," he says after a moment. "That's a thing he said. To tell ye he's sorry he won't meet ye."
He's quiet again and then says, "Tamsin's his wife. They fish. Good business, they make a good living — run a proper little fleet." Another pause. "Gave me shit as a kid for wanting to go to Proudmoore's, but I know he chipped in some and thought I wouldn't know it."
Lena reaches over to touch his cheek, a flicker of regret in her eyes at the pain. "Sounds like he was proud of you, but maybe not wanted to admit," she says quietly, with a faint smile. "And sounds like a good business — hope the children liked it as well."
"Can't make a living far off the water if you're a Shine," Shine says with a sort of resigned warmth, and then his smile fades a little. It is possible he is recalling his living of the last eight or nine years. "Sister owns a pub but that's down at the docks, so it counts."
"Sounds fair to me," Lena says, still with that same smile, as she trails her hand down his shoulder. "And we live close enough to the water ourselves."
"True enough." His smile warms again. "And there'll be a Mrs. Shine in the fleet."
"There will," Lena nods, her smile brightening. "Keeping the tradition. I bet they'd be proud of you, they could all come see you now."
"They'd be proud to know their sister-in-law. Daughter-in-law. They will be, when they do know her." He continues just to smile at her for a moment, and then says, "Tides, can ye imagine them coming here?"
"Imagining's all I have, for the time being," Lena says, sitting up a little more. "D'you think they would come for a visit, if the ways opened up again? The whole family here in Fallon House, their children playing with the Admirals'? Maybe ours by then. Talk about filling the halls with noise and laughter. And you never know, maybe some of them would take to riding, they visit long enough."
Shine stares at her, looking gently poleaxed. "I have literally never thought of it." He shifts to prop himself on an elbow. "Never did. Fallon — Fallon always came to ours. Back on the isle I mean. I went… twice to his family's place there? But he came to mine for term breaks or holidays… loads of times."
He looks around the elegant room. "I never thought about it. Seems backward."
"Sounds like he was right fond of seeing your family, then," Lena shrugs one shoulder. "Might be he'd enjoy returning the hospitality. I'd guess there ought to be enough room in this place for a big visit like that. Seems like there's suites and rooms to spare."
"Plenty of room, aye." Shine looks around again as though he's making a measure of the rest of the house through the walls. "Don't know what they'd make of it. But he's fond, aye."
His gaze returns to Lena and he lifts a hand to play with the ends of her hair. "My mother will like you. You'll like her. I think."
"Mm? What's she like then?" Lena asks, smiling. "Fond of sailing? Baking? Demonology?"
Shine laughs. "Baking, aye. Demonology, I never asked. She's… I don't know how ye describe your own mother. A practical lady? A sharp lady? Generous. She doesn't take anyone's shite but she sees people, she's good to 'em on their own terms. She was good with Fallon like that." He pauses. "Is. She's good with Fallon like that." Another pause. "My father's the patient one, though," he says wryly. "You would not accuse Kerensa Shine of too much patience."
"She sounds as someone I'd like," Lena says, her eyes looking somewhere distant. "And someone who might adapt, to visit the mainland, if they could get the time away from work." Lena pauses, and adds, "My own mother was… a rather practical woman as well. Strict in some ways, and certainly not one for idleness in herself or others. Wish I could've introduced you, too, but that's the world as it is. I think… I'll like having a mother-in-law."
"I hope ye will. She's had some practice with daughters-in-law by now, so I expect she's gotten good at mother-in-lawing." Shine rests his head back against the pillow again. "I'm sorry not to meet yours."
Lena sighs. "She would've liked you, I bet. Even if she wouldn't have really understood me anymore. It's been a long time since Silverpine."
"Been a long time for a lot of people and a lot of places," Shine observes, drawing his fingers through her hair. "She might've understood. I hope she would have tried to, at least. Why do you think she wouldn't?"
"This is a woman used to scold me for daydreaming and making eyes at boys," Lena says with a laugh. "How would I even start on what I got up to after that? The good and the bad would be equally alien. But maybe you're right. Maybe she'd try. At least she'd be happy to see me 'settling down'."
"She would see you're a fierce lady who's done well for yourself. Ye navigated a stormy course alone and found a fine harbor. I would hope she'd be proud of that." Shine smiles at Lena and traces the line of her cheekbone and then down the curve of her jaw. "She raised a strong girl. And I doubt a few daydreams got in your way. Look at ye here in the house of a Duchess, friends with an Admiral."
"Almost like a daydream itself, that, except that it's real," Lena says, dipping her head to kiss his finger. "Maybe you're right. I've mostly just tried not to think of what my parents or my brothers would have made of my life, because for a long time I didn't think… they'd approve. Maybe they would, now. And I bet yours would be proud, to hear the things you've done."
Shine's smile fades a little. "Ah, what've I done to be proud of since leaving? I was a lieutenant in Proudmoore's Fleet. Then came to the mainland to spend eight years a footman."
He pauses and his brow creases. His mouth twitches.
"I suppose… we did just kill Deathwing."
And then he puts a hand over his eye and starts to laugh.
"You did just kill Deathwing," Lena agrees, giggling. "It doesn't get old, saying that. And even the Admiral and the Duchess will be very well-pleased at that, I imagine. The world should settle, I'd imagine, no more of those wild storms or earthquakes. They've been tangled up in routes and supply chains for months now."
"They'll both be pleased, aye." Shine lowers his hand again. "And the world will settle, and Fallon House back to its usual business again. Which means three new babies before November, most likely." His tone is dry but he's still smiling, his eye bright. He traces the side of Lena's face with his fingertips again. "And a wedding. When? Summer, between our birthdays, we said."
"Maybe August?" Lena suggests. "Split the difference? I still need to hear the answer to whether Fallon will officiate and how, and likely talk to Her Grace about what arrangements are appropriate."
Shine nods equably. "I don't imagine he'll balk to officiate as a sage now." He considers. "We can make him do it on August the 17th."
"August the 17th," Lena nods. "That's a good date for an anniversary. I bet it'll be right warm — we'll need to keep that in mind, planning the dress and the suit. I'm not… sure what I ought to wear. Is there a color you'd prefer on me?"
"Blue," Shine says. "Or pink." Those are the sum total of every color formalwear he has ever seen her in. "Or any ye like. Not black, I suppose, I might take it amiss."
"Not black," Lena accepts with a laugh. "Anyway, it washes out my coloring. It'll be a new dress, too. Something you've never seen me in before. Maybe I'll talk to Lady Cressidha about it?"
Shine fits a hand comfortably behind his head. "That'll be lovely. She does lovely work. I'll have… a suit." He makes a rueful face. "Any preference on your part?"
"Not black for you either," Lena says, looking over at him. "I feel like… it isn't happy enough of a color. If I'm blue, maybe we could match in a way? I know you like to disappear sometimes, but I want you to stand out at our wedding."
"I would not like to disappear at our wedding," Shine says gravely, and then smiles at her. "Blue suit. Easy enough to arrange; fair certain most suits are blue, at least to judge from the parties around here."
"How Alliance of me, then, to favor such. Might be we should ask for golden lions embroidered as well," Lena laughs. "Blue works, though, with both of our coloring."
Shine puts his finger to her lips in a shh gesture. "Don't give Fallon the idea or we'll be golden lions — or silver krakens, more likely — everywhere."
"I wouldn't mind a few decorative krakens," Lena says, her lips quirking. "Or maybe a sea Ancient motif. Should we have some kind of theme for the decorations? Or just… you know… looking nice."
He laughs. "It's your wedding, I'd say ye may choose whatever ye'd like. As it's to be a Tidemother wedding, there will be a certain amount of… oceanic theme. But beyond that, if ye want krakens or lions or lions-and-krakens or for everyone to wear green and carry tambourines, we can arrange it. … Not without a certain amount of resentment, in the latter instance, but we can."
"I'd rather think we'd need to keep Ery away from tambourines for the duration of the wedding," Lena says with a laugh. "She does seem fond of noise, and I'd like us to be able to hear our vows."
Shine smiles at her. "Can you imagine? I'll have to give her a tambourine for her next birthday." He squints thoughtfully. "Or for Fallon's birthday. Who knows? She could accompany him. A musical tidesage duo."
"Can you just imagine? Him singing and her…." Lena shakes an imaginary tambourine in the air. "I trust the Tidemother would know what to make of them both."
"It's probably blasphemous to say I'm not sure even She would know what to make of Lady Ery," says Shine. "Don't tell Fallon I said it." His tone is fond. "She's bound to be a hurricane, that child."
"Maybe sometimes the world needs a hurricane," Lena says, smiling fondly. "Stir things up a bit, let them settle different."
"Well, I hope she'll give us a few years," Shine tells her dryly. "The world's been pretty well-stirred, this last one." He tucks his hand beneath his head again and smiles at her. "Do you want to send down for some dinner? Or do you want to come here again?"
"There's still plenty of time for dinner later," Lena says, leaning over to kiss him.
"I confess I was hoping you'd say that," he murmurs with a smile in his voice, and slides his hand into her hair.