Homelands Pt. 03 Ch. 01

When we were done, we sat in silence for a time.

Then Iva said, "I can't believe I haven't seen you in almost two years, and now I won't see you again for who knows how long."

"Two years?"

"Well, maybe more like one and a half. Something like that. Why? How long did you think you were gone?"

Damn. My kids would be of age soon.

Would I be here when the time came? Or would I still be in the Shadowed Glade?

"A few months," I replied.

"Where'd you go?"

I shrugged. "Here and there. Don't really feel like talking about it just now. I wish it hadn't been so long, but I guess we do what we must."

"More like we do what we want, and then live with the consequences," she said.

I chuckled. "Too fucking true."

We sat in silence for a moment.

"You know, I can't figure that cousin of yours out."

"Brianna?"

I had three others. And it was probably high time I paid them a visit. But of course I knew they weren't the ones she meant.

Iva nodded. "She's been so sweet. Of course, my mother is convinced she's just playing me for a fool. But I'm not so sure." She sighed. "I mean, that woman sees threats everywhere she looks these days. It's getting old."

"Do you think it was a mistake, letting her-" I began.

At the same time, Iva said, "She deserves a second chance."

I smiled. "You're right, of course. Besides, if she does try something, she's no match for you. Not anymore. Right?"

"Hope not," Iva said.

I raised an eyebrow. "You're practically as strong as your mother at this point, no?"

She shrugged. "Sure. But strength isn't everything. The real question is whether Brianna wants the throne back worse than I want to keep it."

"Fair enough. So how badly do you want to keep the throne?"

"I'm not sure I love it. But I think what I'm doing is, well, I don't want to say important. Too pretentious. But Daphne wants to meet me, and-"

"Daphne?" I whistled.

My aunt looked away, but there was no mistaking the grin on her lips. "Yeah, well. So. I'm certainly not getting bored with it all, that's for sure."

"What have you done that's got her attention?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Nothing I guess." Iva met my eyes, hesitantly, then tried to deflect my gaze with a bat of her hand. "It's nothing personal, Frank. But I can't. My mother would kill me if I discussed that kind of stuff with you. You understand, don't you? I mean, she might be crazy, but she knows what she's doing. A lot better than I do."

"Yeah, I get it," I said.

"Don't do that," Iva said, sliding up close to me and nuzzling my neck.

"Do what?" I asked, laying my free hand on the small of her back. "I can't help that I don't love it. But I do get it. And you're right. You need her." I sighed. "You ever get her to tell you that secret? The thing she regrets?"

"Not yet, but I think I'm wearing her down," Iva said.

"Maybe when I get back you can tell me," I said. "Been wondering for some time."

My aunt kissed me softly on the lips. "Maybe," she said.

"So, what can you tell me about my mother?" I asked.

Iva went stiff.

"I know, I know," I said. "If you weren't about to send me away, I might be willing to put off asking about her until later. But you can't really expect me to-"

"Suppose not, no," Iva said, with a sigh. "She's back. And she didn't come back alone."

My heart raced. For a moment, I remembered the last time I'd been with her, and the moment where it had felt like something impossible had happened. At the time, I'd thought I'd read her mind. But what if it had been something else? What if...?

"A child?" I asked.

Iva's head jerked back a little. "What? No, I'm talking about her brother. Your uncle."

"Oh. Right. Bobby," I said.

She ran a hand down my arm lightly. "He's actually really nice, you know. You'd like him. If you weren't so clearly determined to hate his guts before laying eyes on him."

"Oh, and I suppose you'd be really open to the idea that they're terrible for each other, huh? You're not hoping that I'll move on now or anything?"

She waved the comment away. "You didn't really think she'd have his child, right?"

No, not his.

"I mean, I know jealousy can make people think crazy things," Iva continued.

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking," I said.

"That's just not something we do," Iva said. "There are lines even we depraved, incestuous, hedonistic sex demons won't cross."

"I get it, I get it," I said with a laugh. "How about we stop naming all the reasons it was a stupid question for me to ask and get back to telling me how my mother's doing?"

Iva offered a faint smile of sympathy. "I've honestly never seen her happier."

I didn't feel like I'd been kicked in the gut, but I should have. Or maybe I should've been happy for her. I don't know. But I should have felt something.

I couldn't though. I was simply too stunned.

#

"There's really no faster way there?" Sean moaned. Again.

"There's really no way to shut you up?" I asked.

Mel snickered at that.

"Frank," Wendy said, laying a hand on my arm.

I still hadn't gotten used to hearing her call me that. No matter how many times I had insisted that she needn't do so, she'd called me Your Majesty, or Your Grace, or some other lofty appellation, the whole time she'd served me.

But I was no longer king. Nor she prime minister.

We were both essentially outcasts now, however much Iva had tried to dress it up.

I softened my voice as I said to my nephew, "As Wendy has explained, we could try something more direct, but there are good reasons not to."

"You mean you're not sure you're strong enough to 'port us into a world you've never been to before," he said. It was most pointedly not asked as a question.

The way he referred to teleporting only added to my fear that none of this was quite real to my niece and nephew.

But then, had I been any different when I'd first discovered all of this? And was it just the fact that I saw myself in them, Mel especially, that had me on edge?

Well, in truth, there were important differences as well. My nephew had his father's intellectual curiosity. Which was to say, virtually none. Mel was more like me in that respect, but unlike me, she was patiently learning all that she could of our world. Maybe she didn't show the proper reverence over certain customs, but I couldn't say she was as quick to try to take control of a world she didn't understand as I had been.

"It's not a matter of strength," Wendy interjected. "If you have any doubts in your mind, if you start to wonder," she had been saying, when I touched the small of her back. The words stopped flowing out of her mouth.

"The appropriate thing to do is present ourselves formally," I said. "This is one of the oldest and most powerful courts. We don't want to risk offending them."

"I get that," Sean said. "I just wish there was a faster way."

I sighed, but couldn't really disagree with him. Perhaps on the return trip, we'd take the more direct route. But, for now, we traveled by rail.

When Brianna had first taken the throne, she'd kept us all in the Homelands for a time after her coronation. But she'd eventually decided to send us back. When she had, she'd sent us back by rail. She'd also both laid a heavy veil upon us and put us to sleep, so I scarcely remembered it. But it was coming back to me now.

The train station was perhaps the part I remembered best. Then, as now, we'd stood on a concrete platform that floated in a sea of nothingness. Entirely too reminiscent of the world in which Brianna had been imprisoned.

If one expected to find tracks below the platform, one would be disappointed.

It was only when a light fog rolled in and we saw lights dancing within that this changed. At least, I assumed that at that point, it actually did. Truthfully, I never actually saw any train tracks. But the flashes of light appearing at regular intervals were pretty suggestive.

A few seconds later, the train rolled up to the platform, silently, and came to stop.

"Creepy," Sean said. "You hear that?" he asked Mel.

"Hear what?"

"Exactly."

Wendy and I smiled at each other. Briefly. She looked away quickly enough though.

The four of us filed into the single car. Inside, it was four times as large as it appeared to be on the outside. Rather than rows of hard-backed seats, there was a king sized bed, a mini bar, and a table with a booth, like you'd find in a restaurant. Windows in front, back, and along one side, allowed us to look outside. But the far wall was steel, like the rest of the car, and had a flat screen television embedded in it.

Mel and Sean insisted that we watch some stupid comedy. Wendy and I deferred. We tried paying attention to it for their sake, but it was too painful. For her part, Mel seemed to find her brother's overly enthusiastic enjoyment a lot funnier than the movie itself.

Eventually, though, even they lost interest in the movie, and made their way to bed.

"Aren't you going to join them?" Wendy asked me.

Her question seemed to answer the one I'd been about to ask. I tried to hide my disappointment. "Nah. Those two crazy lovebirds deserve some time alone."

Wendy nodded. "So what have you been up to? I've asked Her Majesty, but she doesn't seem to want to talk about you."

"Nothing, really," I said. "Hiding. Wallowing. Self-loathing. Fun times."

The brunette offered a faint smile, just enough to show her dimples. "You've missed out on some serious craziness. I sometimes long for the quiet days of your reign. But I wouldn't really want to go back. Even though it would mean being prime minister again."

I did my best to hide my reaction by raising my glass of Scotch to my lips. Perhaps I hadn't made the best king. And it wasn't like I'd ever thought there was, or wanted there to be, anything between me and Wendy. But if not for me, she'd still be the youngest daughter of an all but forgotten house.

That said, something about Wendy's words only intensified my desire for Iva. I'd hardly been able to handle what were apparently quiet and placid times. My aunt had seemed a little weary the night before, sure, but she was obviously handling things well if she inspired such a reaction from Wendy even after getting the woman removed from office.

Then, of course, there was the small matter of Daphne wanting to meet her in person.

Grandma Kaitlin undoubtedly deserved some of the credit. Perhaps most of it, when it came to whatever policy changes had attracted Daphne's attention. But if that was all there was to the story, I couldn't imagine that Wendy would have had the look in her eyes that she'd had just a moment ago.

I tried to pry more information out of Wendy. No such luck though.

"We Samhills haven't got much left, but we've still got our pride," she said.

I knew more than a few nobles who might take issue with that characterization of House Samhill, but I didn't argue. I suspected even Wendy had her doubts about the veracity of that particular statement. But it wasn't her pride that had impressed me back when I'd assumed the throne, and I doubted that was what Iva saw in her either.

Having failed to get her to fill me in on the goings-on at court, I asked her what she knew about the Shadowed Glade of the Moon.

"Little enough," she said. "They're the oldest of the courts. Older than time, if you believe some of the more creative accounts. Them, and, of course, the Eternal Garden of the Sun. As long as there's been the one, there was the other. They've fought no fewer than seven great wars. For some time now, though, they've had an uneasy truce. Granted, some individual houses within one court will wage war with some specific house in the other, over some private insult, real or imagined. But, officially, the courts remain at peace."

I gestured for her to continue.

Wendy shrugged. "One old tome I found claimed that the moonlit folk are the inspiration for mortal beliefs in fallen angels and demons. With their sunlit cousins, of course, being angels. But I'm not sure about that. There's little enough evidence anywhere to suggest the Eternal Garden of the Sun bears anything but a passing resemblance to Judeo-Christian conceptions of heaven, or that its inhabitants recognize, let alone claim to serve, any power higher than themselves. And I don't believe the two ever shared a court."

I pondered that for a bit. "My Lily was a lot of things, but she was no demon."

"Right. But, in fairness," Wendy said, "mortals are prone to simplifying things. And, supposedly, the sunlit folk want nothing so much as to be worshipped, while the moonlit prefer to be feared. So I guess it's not such a stretch that the former would be thought of as resplendent and majestic beings, and the latter somewhat more nightmarish."

Nightmarish was the very word I'd used to describe one of Lily's preferred visages.

"Anything else?"

"Well, I guess you've already gathered that the moonlit folk invest every bit as much effort into honing their skills for combat as they do bedroom play," Wendy said. "Only Summer and Winter are even half as violent." Her lips curled as she said, "They say that Daphne has dozens of kids, all by her brothers. Besides the Second Wintry Court, which is hers, the others are ruled by whichever son or daughter defeats all the others. Successions are rarely settled in bed, the way ours are."

"Her children are...I thought that was just about the only taboo we have left?"

"It is, throughout most of the Homelands. Was in Winter too, before Daphne took power. But who's going to tell her what she can and can't do?"

"Fair enough," I said. "So, tell me more about how to use our powers for combat."

Wendy smacked my wrist. "You'd know better than I would. I'm a bookworm. I can tell you what people have reportedly done. But how? I don't even know how the queen does half the things she does." With a blush, she hurriedly added, "Or how you do. Obviously."

I laughed. "Right."

Just as I was going to say that it would be plenty useful to hear what people had done, Mel climbed out of bed and came over to us.

"You two need to stop talking," she said. "You're distracting me. Besides, we could really use the company."

"I don't know," Wendy said.

"Come on," I said. "It will be like old times."

She stared flatly at me. In the "old times," we hadn't had any foursomes. In fact, besides me going down on her most every day, we hadn't done much of anything. Between that and the way she'd been talking about Iva, it finally occurred to me. And I felt like a complete fool for not seeing it sooner.

"Mel, sweetie, have you figured out how to wear two bodies yet?" I asked.

My niece nodded and split herself in two.

"How about you two stay here," I said, taking Wendy's hand and putting it in one of Mel's. Then I took the other Mel by the hand and started towards the bed. "And we'll see if you can still handle both me and Sean."

#

Sean stood beside me at the front of the car. Wendy and Mel were still going at it, but my niece had worn her brother out, and I'd decided that meant it was time for me to take a break too. Otherwise, some delicate egos might get bruised.

We stared out into an unending black sea, an emptiness broken only by the column of fog that preceded the train. For a while, neither of us spoke. We just watched the green and blue bursts heralding our advance. They were nearly as hypnotic as a good fire.

After a time, Sean said, "Why is Wendy with us?"

"Your sister's not going to get distracted, don't worry," I said with a laugh.

"I'm not worried about that," he said. "I don't care if she wants to eat a boxed lunch from time to time." He scratched the back of his head. "I mean, except for her, this feels like the kind of thing where, whether we come back or not, it's a win for the throne. I don't get the impression that the queen sees the former prime minister as expendable though."

Maybe he didn't take after his father quite as much as I thought.

"The Shadow would be glad not to see your or me or your sister return, true enough. And she's the real reason the three of us are here. But it was the queen's idea to send Wendy with us. And, unlike my grandmother, Iva would actually like to see all of us return."

"Are you sure about that?" he asked.

I started to laugh dismissively, but the sound died off. Like a car engine stalling in the peak of winter. Maybe he had a point.

"I think so," I said.

Sean shrugged. "I never even knew Uncle Dom. And Dad did say he could be a real dick. But still. If it had been my brother, I'm not sure I'd be so fond of the queen."

"It's not like I wasn't sad. I just...." I could see in his eyes that nothing I could say would make sense to him. Whether that was because Iva wasn't family to him or that he was picturing how he'd react if someone Devoured Mel rather than some hypothetical brother, I wasn't sure. "It's complicated."

"You know I'm not a teenager anymore, right? I know what that really means."

"Okay, smartass," I said with a laugh. "I'll concede that I don't know my aunt as well as I sometimes like to think I do. But I still feel pretty confident saying that she didn't send us here in the hopes that we'd get into trouble we couldn't get out of."

"I guess we'll find out soon," he said, jerking his chin out ahead of him. "Something's up ahead. Guessing that's it."

We were heading downhill, which felt strange, seeing as there was no hill. All the same, up ahead, the track started to curve downward, and the court clearly lay beneath us.

From here, it looked like nothing so much as a silvery crescent moon itself.

"I'll go tell the girls to clean up and get dressed," he said.

"Best do."

I wasn't sure if I should switch into something less modern. Like everyone in my family, I'd grown up in a world patterned after the late twentieth century of the mortal world. If what Wendy said was true, some of the moonlit folk were older than human civilization itself. If they'd picked up mortal customs somewhere along the way, it seemed unlikely that they'd dress in the same fashion as we did in the Autumnal Courts.

But what else was I to do? Dress in the garb of Ancient Greece, only to find that they favored Roman fashion? Don the armor of Medieval lord and find they were obsessed with Victorian England? In the end, I opted for the kind of expensive Italian silk suits that had always looked better on my father than they ever would on me.

By the time the others joined me at the front window, the Shadowed Glade of the Moon loomed large ahead of us. I'd taken it for a single crescent shaped island, but I saw now that it was in fact an archipelago. The islands were mostly rock, but there were thick forests on the larger islands. Each had at least one castle, the smallest of which was three times the size of any the mortal world had ever seen.

The main island was rimmed with trees, but the center was cleared out, and that clearing contained a miniature city. The population couldn't have been much more than a thousand. Still, there was nothing in Autumn that came close to resembling a proper city.

Tall buildings of glass and steel, buildings that would not have looked out of place in a small American city, stood shoulder to shoulder with palaces carved from marble and slate and granite. The streets looked to be paved with blue slate, with sidewalks that might have been pure silver. The lamp posts definitely were.

Cars without wheels and wagons drawn by ghostly steeds filled the streets. The skies were busier still. Some of the city's denizens had leathery wings, others feathery appendages. Still others flew without any wings at all.

"Psh, whatever," Sean said. "You can fly like that, can't you Uncle Frank?"