Life After Death

Quinn: after the party

                 

{Quinn}

It took us the better part of the morning to help Nick clean the manor. The boy had promised to do most of it, but the cousins had dismantled any room he had let them in. It took a while.

Arthur was staying with us for the few days it would take to find his own home. Mikaela seemed torn between wanting them to stay and wanting her home back to some semblance of order. Arthur's children were well behaved, but he had seven of them.

The silver lining was that they all seemed mostly immune to Dinadan, and so he could watch them as we cleaned house.

"I keep telling you," Nick said, pausing a moment from sweeping. "You should get some staff. You would probably not notice they were there and then I wouldn't have to clean after every event."

"Nick, what else do you do with your time?" Mikaela countered. "You make dragons out of my flower beds, and wander around giving life advice. Anyway, I know you can clean up most of this magically. The sweeping is just for effect."

"You would be supporting the economy," Nick tried again. "You don't spend any of the Guerre money or the Seren money. You could bathe in money if you wanted to."

"They pay me," Ryon pointed out. He carried some bowl from the dining room back into the kitchen.

"Which you spend on spices!" Nick shouted as Ryon passed out of hearing range. "Spices! You don't do anything with that money!"

"He's entitled to whatever he wants to buy," I told Nick. "We can buy you some chickens if you're really that lonely."

"Chickens aren't company," he grumbled. "And anyway, Mikaela's father had peacocks before."

"And who knows? Maybe that got him killed," Mikaela shrugged. "You complain too much, Nick. You have us to talk to. I still don't want you near my boys."

"Which doesn't make any sense," Nick pleaded. "I would have had a great time yesterday, but no, I had to hide away and sulk."

"You didn't have to sulk," I pointed out.

"That's not the point; the point is that what kind of effect could I possibly have that would be so detrimental to any of them?"

Mikaela sighed. "Yesterday I saw parts of my family for the first time," she said. "I haven't seen Arthur in years, but I hadn't seen Lionel or Lancelot in months. Most of them think this manor is too strange and too magical for my grandkids to be safe. At least for a while, I want to pretend for them that this place isn't as strange as they give it credit for."

Nick vanished, and for a moment, I thought he was sulking again, but Larachime and Arthur stepped into the room, looking around at the decorations we were pulling down.

"Mom, can't you just shape it all away?" Arthur asked.

"I could," she admitted. "But then the shaping magic would still be here until the end of time, I'd much rather have an actually clean house. How did you sleep?"

"Surprisingly well," our son replied. "It's very strange to be back here. I don't know why I avoided the Torninc for so long."

"Well, at some point you're going to have to talk to Lancelot," I told him. "Your brother is still upset at you, and I can't really blame him."

"He's married with a family, what do I matter now?" Arthur asked.

His wife cut in before I could reply. "Arthur, you were twins. You two were inseparable; I don't think it's fair of you to assume he's at peace with your disappearance."

"I suppose," he grumbled. "Regardless, Dinadan is with the children, can we help?"

I pointed to the fallen broom in the corner, and Larachime helped Mikaela move the platters back to the kitchen. The dining room returned to order in no time; Nick had promised to take care of the rest of the house.

"Is there anything else different since we've been gone?" he asked me.

"Arthur, it's been seven years," I replied. "You've been gone a long time. We didn't sit around moaning your absence. I had work. We were busy."

"I know that, it's just that I didn't expect no one to care," he said. "Mom was the only one with any reaction. Everyone else seemed ambivalent towards me."

Truthfully, I didn't know what to think. I was glad my son was home, but I had more sympathy for Lancelot. He had been left behind, expected to come up with his own identity on his own. Arthur had Larachime.

"Mother, the rooms in this castle move!" a small voice shouted, and a figure skittered into the dining room. He stopped when he realized his mother wasn't in the room.

"Dhaktun, I thought I told you that," Arthur said. "They have moved since I was a kid. Did you lose someone?"

"Why is your son see-through?" I questioned.

At first I thought it was trick of the light, but it was not the case. I could see the opposing wall through the boy.

"I'm dreaming," Dhaktun explained, instead of his father. "This is my dream walking self. This is the future for me."

"How much in the future?" Arthur asked, completely unperturbed.

Mikaela would love this, I thought. This was the kind of thing she would find interesting. I found it very, very weird.

"Just last night, I think," the boy replied. "This place has a lot of magic. I don't normally dream walk in the future. Anyway, I'm going to go play until I wake up. This way, we'll have more even teams. Joshuk and Iminë always try to cheat. Say hello to Mother for me."

The boy ran out just as Mikaela and Larachime came back into the room.

"Dhaktun was here," Arthur told his wife.

"I know, he told me about it this morning," she replied.

The tenses were starting to make my head hurt.

"But the kitchen's clean and this room is clean and we're ready to go to Donlin," she continued. "Or, Arthur, are we ready?"

"I am, sure," he replied, leaning the broom against the wall. "Is it all right to leave the children over here while we head into town?"

"Are you sure you don't want to stay here?" Mikaela suggested. "It's not like we're going to run out of space."

"I think the issue is that we'll need our own place," he admitted. "But thank you for the offer."

"Are you going to walk there?" she asked.

"Mom, I'm a shape shifter, I'll just fly," Arthur called as he and Larachime walked from the room. Mikaela sighed, sitting down at the dining room table.

"I can't believe he's back like nothing happened," she told me. "I don't know what to say to him. 'Hey son, it's been a while, staying for dinner?'" She propped her head on her hands, resting her elbows on the table. "I didn't think I raised anyone to have such a complete disregard for other faeries."

"Mikaela, this is not your fault," I said sternly. "That's like blaming yourself for Dagonet and Nimue. Our children are grown and if they make mistakes, then they have to own up to them. You remember that we were going to retire? Give our positions to our children and travel the world? We could do that still. Adele likes Hazel and Gawain just fine now. Either of them would be perfect on the Cabinet."

"I'm not quite ready to retire yet," she replied. "Not to mention we still have Galahad in the house. Would we just drop everything and return here every month? It's exhausting keeping up with him. And we're running out of options. And so long as Dinadan is in Otherworld, I don't want to leave him alone in this place. It's not his fault that he can't go out into Donlin or Vercyne."

"Something is always going to be keeping ushere," I told her quietly.