DUALITY /#Wattys 2021

Chapter 31

After the meeting broke up, Ridley went outside to go running for an hour or so. She had mapped out a path around the cabin that wasn't too rocky or uneven. Reb met her outside after that, and they shot most of the afternoon. Tomorrow, it was practice with the drones, holding Sannah, and after that—the King would introduce her to riding in the luge.

He had constructed himself a luge track at Othala that ran from the castle grounds to the Potomac, and from there Mannaz had dug an escape tunnel that ran under the river to safety.

Just thinking of the escape was enough to make Ridley blush. She would have to lie down between his legs, on top of him. 

If he wasn't so tall, if he wasn't so handsome, if his voice didn't remind her so much of the cashmere she'd rubbed her cheek against in the luxury shops in Midgarde. 

If those eyes weren't so blue. If she didn't know how miserable he was.

If he wasn't so married. To the Queen, who might never make him a real wife again. If she ever had in the first place. What was their early courtship like? Ridley wondered. It had looked so storybook from the news reports on television.

She aimed, she shot, she ran, trying to outrun her thoughts.

They arrived back at the cabin in twilight, crunching down the hill in fallen leaves. "I have a question," she asked Reb.

"What's that?"

"Um, this may seem obvious, but don't we need snow to do this raid? I mean, we're escaping on the King's luge track."

"I wouldn't worry about that," said Reb, in a tone that teased with Come on, ask me.

"Why? You can predict snow when you want it?"

Reb opened the cabin door and an odd chemical smell met Ridley's nose. It reminded her of paint. A stripe of mellow light from within fell across his face, illuminating his conspiratorial smile and wink. "No. Mannaz  can make it snow when it needs it."

"What? How?"

Reb explained it over dinner, although he didn't know the science in detail. The Scrubbers were the most obvious way Mannaz had to control the weather—they prevented the entire earth from growing too hot—but apparently there was more to Mannaz's control of the weather patterns than the obvious. He had been on some missions where an "inopportune" snowfall had made possible a fortuitously timed power outage, a spy mission, or some other escapade. Omitting any identifying details, he regaled everyone with the tales as they ate. Ridley was grateful she didn't have to talk, and she sat as far from the King as she could.

After dinner, she put Sannah to bed and went to take a shower. She walked out into the living room, planning to dry her hair by the fire, when the most unusual, sad, lovely music greeted her. Music in Holstonia was what played on the seven Guild stations, or what the townspeople played on homemade or hand-me-down instruments at gatherings on Friday nights in the square.

She stopped in the hallway and peered around the corner. Next to the fireplace, inside the gates which made up the makeshift playpen, sat the King, long legs folded underneath him. Paints and tiny paintbrushes surrounded him, and he hunched over an old cloth spread on the floor, squinting at the wall. Ridley came around the corner and bent to see what he was painting.

There, on the wall, was half of a new little cartoon character next to the ones that had appeared in the playpen earlier. As she watched, the King dipped his brush in orange paint. He was making a tiny cartoon duck; the orange paint became an expertly formed bill. 

Apparently Sannah had cried while she was showering. Alana sat on the couch bouncing the baby in her lap, talking to Reb, who sat opposite her nursing something reddish in a tiny glass.