A Kind of Magic

Thirty-Four

Peregrine's eyes lingered on Fiona as she left his side and walked towards her bedroom to help her mother with the luggage. 

The woman was incredible. She took everything in her stride, and nothing of what he had said and done made her judge him, shun him... on the contrary. She seemed to feel an impossible attraction to him, a spell which he was feeling tenfold.

He almost kissed her today, twice, for the old gods' sake! She was a princess, Alaric's daughter, not a woman an errant Highlander could dream about. A man like him couldn't afford to bestow love upon any woman, whether a princess or a peasant girl. A woman in his life would end up like his mother-- a victim of her love, collateral damage in a fight... She had already witnessed one duel too closely a while ago; in the following one he might not be as lucky, and if died, there would be no one to make sure that she survived. 

The only way for him to stay around her, if Alaric permitted, was as her guard and her son's trainer. He hoped she would understand, she had to, after her past experience with a Highlander... Just who was the man, Peregrine wondered, finally setting to making his bag, gathering the laundered pile off his clothes from the sofa.

"Oh, here you are finally, I need your help. We should hurry. I don't think we'll be coming back, so, I suppose they won't mind if you carry your favourite books," Alexandra said, pointing at the set of Harry Potter books tied with a ribbon, sitting on top of Fiona's clothes. "And Freddie's," she added, dropping the large Lord of the Rings book in her own bag.

"I don't think Peregrine has finished reading that," Fiona said, picking the volume up again. "I'll give to him to carry; he and Freddie might read it together on the train."

"Goodness, I can't imagine how it will feel meeting Alaric, and... Emrys, after all these years..." her mum muttered, apparently satisfied with the luggage, letting herself drop on Fiona's bed.

"If you finished, make sure to wear something more comfortable," Fiona said, sitting down on the floor at the foot of the bed after she checked the things her mum had packed for her and Freddie. "I suppose it will be a long journey." She pulled at the hem of her mum's knee-length pencil skirt before she let her hand drop to sleeping Gollum's ears, caressing the dog absentmindedly. He was the exact same colour as Peregrine's dragon... Fiona almost giggled at the weird thought. She should talk to her mother instead of wasting time with fantasies. There was one thing she should know before embarking upon this journey. 

"Mum," she said finally even as Alexandra made her way towards the door, to finish packing her own bag and get changed in Freddie's room. "Alaric... my father... He's married now." 

The words leaving her mouth sounded cruel... but the truth always was. There was no time for sugar coating the reality, though. The sooner her mother understood and accepted it, and made up her mind freely about what she wanted to do, the better. 

Fiona saw her mother's shoulders sag momentarily before she took a deep breath and straightened up again, opening the door.

"Oh well. I thought he might be. It doesn't change anything, though. I won't let you and my only grandson go wherever these three will take you alone. We are family, right? So hurry up, and let us go. Oh, and you better send an email to the hospital and Freddie's school, so they won't come searching for you when you don't turn up tomorrow."

"Thanks for the reminder, mum," Fiona said, digging her phone from the pocket of her jeans, admiring her mother's practicality and resilience. She needed to send a text to Helen, too.

"And... hmm..." Fiona looked at her mother again, deciding that she could also tell her everything so they wouldn't have to have a similar discussion later. "According to Peregrine, Freddie is a Higland Dragon like him. He'll start shifting soon."

Alexandra replied without looking at her daughter. "And this actually surprises me less than Alaric's being married. As I said, I never understood your taste in men and that Lagon of yours..." 

"Enough, mum, please," Fiona begged, pressing her hands over her ears. "Go get changed. Take a pair of my trainers, you can't travel in your heels," she instructed, opening her email app, trying to put together a few words that would not raise suspicions as she typed.

Once everything was done, Fiona looked around the bedroom while she gathered and wound her hair into a low chignon, then closed the  window and drew the curtains. She liked her old and shabby flat; it was all that she had ever needed to feel independent and acceptably happy, and the thought of possibly never walking through its threshold again made her feel nostalgic already. 

With a sigh, she opened the door and let Gollum out of the room before her, following in his wake, Freddie's backpack on her back, her bag slung over one shoulder, the first aid valise hugged to her chest with the book for Peregrine balanced on top. That was all. The thought that ten years of her life, of what she thought worth saving from the past ten years, could be comprised in three bags, not counting Gollum, Freddie, and Mum. All the rest she could leave behind and move on in an unexplored direction with only a faint feeling of nostalgia. She wondered what it said about her...

"Done?" Peregrine suddenly stood in front of her, taking the luggage off her arm, moving it to his own. "Can you carry those?" he asked, nodding to the valise she now adjusted in a way that it hung on her shoulder and the backpack. "If you can, the I can carry your mum's bag too until we meet Gilderoy and Leodhais; they'll help us then."

She only had time to nod as she passed him the Lord of the Rings book, which he, understanding her again without words, put into his satchel when her mother spoke from the front door. "I've never wished so much that you had taken a driving licence and bought a car, Bells."

"I would never have used it enough. Even now, we would never fit in one car, mum."

"That's true. Alright. Let's go. You are responsible for Gollum; he doesn't obey anyone else. Don't forget the leash and the muzzle too, and let's hope he'll be allowed on public transport. He's a scary beast, at first sight at least," Alexandra muttered. 

She exited the flat the moment Peregrine took her bag, and made her way towards the stairs preceded by very excited Gollum while Fiona gathered his things, then, remembering the dog food she had asked Gilderoy to pack ran back into the kitchen and returned with another bag, and finally locked the door. Leaving everything inside as if she would be coming back made the step she was taking feel less enormous. And anyway, just because her mum thought that they would not be returning didn't mean it was true.

Peregrine unzipped her luggage as she met him in the corridor and she slipped Gollum's food inside it, smiling thankfully at the dragon shifter for always anticipating her wishes and actions, and then they descended the gloomy staircase and walked outside into the early afternoon brightened by a brief sunny spell.