Homelands Pt. 04 Ch. 06

Well, maybe not quite. He'd actually come pretty close to fucking it up. But his cousin had changed course, and things had gone smoothly from there.

"Almost time to go back," he said.

"I know," Patty said, hugging herself tight.

She looked so small when she wrapped her arms around her knees like that. She was as cute as a button, though she hated hearing it. She had this thing about the word "cute" that he didn't quite understand.

"What do you suppose this king will be like?" he asked. "Think he'll even look human?"

"He's just one of us," Patty said, a bit dismissively. Perhaps realizing the way she'd sounded, she immediately added, "Or is he? Maybe he looks like a merman. Or maybe he's got a man's body and a fish's head. Wouldn't that be weird?"

Kurt forced a laugh. "You've got such an imagination."

"Hmmmph. Won't you feel sorry when Ariel's father shows up."

It took him a moment to catch the reference.

Disney.

Of course.

He kissed the top of her head. "That I will."

Unfortunately, he couldn't really think of anything else to say. Resisting the temptation to ask her how they would manage being apart for a year taxed his mental abilities too heavily. When he did manage to direct his thoughts elsewhere, they'd fall in the other rut, and he'd find himself replaying their time together on the beach over and over again in his mind, wondering what he could have done differently.

More or less the same must have been true for her, because they fell back into silence again after that. They'd actually barely spoken since they'd come up to the promontory.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

They should be making better use of what little time they had. In a few minutes, they'd have to go back to the beach house. And then they'd all sail over to the main island for the induction ceremony. After that, they'd head back to LA, in what the older generation insisted on calling the Playground. Once there, he'd be forbidden from having sex with anyone but Aunt Gabriela, and Patty wouldn't be allowed to give herself to anyone but Eric. There were so many things they should be saying to each other before that happened.

He just wasn't sure what any of them were.

The only silver lining he saw was that Patty hadn't been paired off with her other brother.

Of course, Kurt felt like an asshole for taking pleasure in that. His cousin would be happier with Nick than Eric. But that was exactly what bothered him. The look she'd gotten, the way her voice had turned all breathless, when she'd told him about her threesome with Nick and Veronica on the trip over. None of them seemed to think there was anything there. Nick and Veronica were something of a couple, as much as any of them were allowed to be. Patty was just sharing something special with them because he'd been busy with his mother. Or so the story went.

Did they all believe that?

He sighed and pushed the thought away.

"It's weird," Patty said. "Half the island seems so foreign. So exotic. Yet the rest of it is just like our world." Her voice was distant. Like she was on autopilot. Making conservation for the sake of making conversation. "That bridge we crossed on our way up here? That was so surreal. And I keep expecting to see that kind of thing everywhere. But I guess it'd be harder to appreciate the little pockets of crazy if they were everywhere, huh?"

"Yeah," Kurt said.

Idiot.

Couldn't he manage something more than a monosyllabic response?

The bridge she was referring to had gone under the river, rather than over. The water rose up off the ground, flowed through the air for a bit, then poured itself back into the riverbed. A few drops seemed to remember that gravity was a thing, but otherwise, it was like the laws of nature were no more strictly enforced than traffic laws in LA.

On the way up here, they'd seen flying fish and birds that swam in the river. Flowers likes of which he could scarcely begin to describe. They even saw a fire-breathing lizard, though they both agreed it couldn't quite be called a dragon. It was no bigger than a salamander, and didn't have any wings. Even so, it had been quite a sight.

But what was there to say about such things? Yeah, they were cool. But talking about them was just a way of not saying what either of them was thinking, wasn't it? And that was worse than the silence.

At least when neither of them spoke, he didn't have to hear the sadness in her voice.

"They're probably wondering where we are," he said after another awkward silence.

"Yeah," she said.

So without another word, they stood up, exchanged an awkward glance, and headed back down the way they'd came. Passed the strange river and exotic flowers and fantastic creatures. Without speaking a word.

When they got back to the beach house, they found everyone gathered outside, waiting for them. Dusk was still a little ways off, but there was apparently a consensus that they should leave early. Kurt understood that to mean that his father thought so, and that neither his wife, his sister, nor his sister's wife had cared to argue.

So they all walked down to the beach and climbed back aboard the yacht.

On the way over, Kurt's father told them about the families that lived on each of the islands as they passed them. There were only four families that were strong enough to contest the throne, but fifteen with their own islands. The rest lived on the main island. All told, about four hundred of their kind belonged to the First Court of Summer.

But at any given time, fewer than fifty could be found in the Homelands. With a few exceptions, everyone spent most of their time in the Playground. It was really on those that were in particularly good standing with the throne who dared to spend much time in Summer. Too likely that Phil would wonder whether they were plotting a coup otherwise.

Kurt wasn't sure whether he was more surprised that there were so many of their kind in the Playground, given that he'd never met or heard of any of them, or by how few of them lived here. The islands seemed mostly empty. It seemed like they could have supported a much larger population.

When he mentioned those observations, his father informed him that each of the two courts of Summer was larger than any of the courts in Autumn, Winter, or Spring. His mother then noted, a bit smugly, that the Eternal Garden of the Sun was larger than both of Summer's courts combined.

It all made Kurt's head spin.

He'd gone from thinking that there was no one in the world with powers like his to thinking that no one outside his family had such powers to thinking that there were countless others like them. Not one of those things had quite been true. They were not unique. But their kind was far from numerous. And every court had its own Playground, though they didn't all call it that. So in any given reflection of the mortal world, there'd be several billion mortals, but only a few hundred immortals. At most.

No wonder he'd never heard of any others.

In a way, it made sense. Their kind wouldn't blend in very well if there were too many of them. But there was something strange to the idea that he'd never met any others before today, would soon be surrounded by them, strangers all, and then after the induction ceremony, would be able to say that he'd met a significant chunk of all of Summer's children.

The trip didn't take very long, for which Kurt was thankful. He couldn't take dreading the induction ceremony any more. And he'd only first heard about it that morning.

So far as Kurt could tell, there was little to distinguish the main island from the others.

According to his father, it was ten times the size of the one that belonged to House Moody. But he'd just have to take his father's word on that. They docked at a stony pier much like the one they'd left behind, and headed for a white sand beach that looked pretty indistinguishable from the one upon which he and Patty had made love earlier.

As they disembarked, Kurt took note of their attire. He hadn't even noticed that, at some point, everyone's clothes had changed. A good deal less skin was showing, but if this was what passed for formal around here, then Summer had just about the loosest dress code that he'd ever heard of. Earlier, every guy had either worn his shirts open or worn none at all. Now, they all wore shorts and short-sleeved shirts, with most of the buttons done up. None of the women wore bikinis anymore, but the dresses and skirts that they'd donned instead left plenty of leg on display. And their necklines were hardly modest.

Compared to the way they'd been dressed when they'd first arrived in Summer, it was all very tame. But Kurt suddenly felt indecent. This was no way to go before a king.

Only then did it really hit him.

This wasn't a dream. Nor a fairy tale. The magical world he'd only recently learned was his family's ancestral home might have been fanciful and beautiful and exotic and located on the far side of nowhere, but it was real. And its king, by all accounts, was ruthless and paranoid. The warnings his father had shared with them back in LA suddenly sounded a whole lot less like the investment advice his father was always giving, or the tips for navigating the job market, than Kurt would have liked them to. Those were things that he might have to worry about someday, but not for a good long while.

The stuff about feuds and family members he'd never met and never would, though?

One wrong move tonight and his life would be forever altered. Or even ended.

He was suddenly having a hard time breathing.

Behind them, the sun was hovering just above the horizon, its bright orange twin burning bright in the ocean below. There was still some time before sunset, but not much. If they hadn't left "early" as his father had suggested, they'd already be on the king's shit list.

His whole life, he'd thought his father worried too much. He wasn't neurotic about it. No one ever got the sense that his father was stressed out. About anything, really. But he was always thinking really far ahead, and accounting for the most unlikely of scenarios.

Yet Kurt now knew that there would no longer be a House Moody if not for his father and his incessant worrying and unnecessary planning.

He had to learn to think like his old man, and quick.

Patty came over and slipped her hand in his. They exchanged warm smiles. No words, but this time, that didn't seem awkward.

It was a short walk from the pier to where they needed to be. Which was just a bit farther up. Not much past where the shoreline turned from stone to white sand.

Kurt had expected that they'd be going to some royal palace, but his father had explained that these ceremonies were always held by the water, where the view of the sun was unobstructed. In fact, he wasn't likely to ever see the royal palace.

That was somehow both disappointing and reassuring. As nervous as Kurt was already, he wasn't sure he could take an actual throne room.

First, he saw the bonfire. Then he noticed the ring of people gathered around it. There were a dozen or so of them. Maybe fifteen. And they were all dressed like he and his family were. Not a pair of pants or a formal gown among them.

That was some relief. Thought not much.

As he got closer, Kurt noticed that there was a strange form atop the pile of burning wood. It took him a moment to realize it was a person, sine whoever it was, they stood motionless. Like they were restrained somehow.

A human sacrifice?

Fuck.

His father had warned him that the Homelands could be brutal, but that was unexpected.

All around him, he heard the others gasping.

"Is he...?" Patty said.

"Burning?" Veronica finished.

"No, that's the king," Kurt's father said.

After a few more steps, it became clear. The mat atop the pyre was not tied to anything. Nor was there even any indication that he felt the heat of the flames licking at his feet. He wasn't so much as sweating. Just standing there, calm as you please.

The king wore a loincloth, a necklace of shark teeth, and a makeshift crown fashioned from starfish and seashells. He was no taller than average, and little more muscular than Kurt. Not even as big as Nick, let alone Eric. If Kurt had to guess, he'd say that the king's skin was closer to bronze than brown. Of course, it was hard to tell, what with the fire bathing him in orange and yellow.

"Welcome," Phil called out.

His voice boomed like those giant speakers at concerts and in dance clubs.

As they drew nearer, the king walked down off the pyre. The flames parted before him, as though afraid to disgrace themselves by touching his royal personage unbidden.

Kurt had to fight the urge to laugh hysterically.

In a room full of ordinary mortals, Phil would have stood out as relatively handsome and uncommonly fit. But in the right setting, he wouldn't even have seemed remarkable by mortal standards. Compared to the ring of subjects surrounding the bonfire, he was completely unremarkable. Kurt certainly wouldn't dare call him unattractive. His toned abs, rounded biceps, strong jaw, narrow waist, and broad shoulders ensured that no one would ever say that of him. But Kurt had certainly expected more.

But then, he'd never seen anyone walk through fire.

Nor had he ever heard a voice that strong, that deep, that authoritative. And when the king's eyes passed over him, however briefly, he felt weak and exposed and inadequate. Though he hadn't noticed it at first, the air shimmered around Phil, the way it did the fire from which he'd just descended. The sand at his feet melted and congealed into glass.

Slowly, Phil held up his hand. Then, without warning, he snapped his fingers.

Such a simple, common gesture. But from the king of Summer, it sounded like a thunderclap. The ground shook and the sea stirred. Kurt noted, to his relief, that he was not the only one who'd given a start at that.

A man and a woman came around from the other side of the bonfire, carrying a chair.

If it was meant to be a throne, it no more looked the part than the king did. In fact, it looked like it had been assembled by a bunch of middle schoolers away at summer camp. The bits of driftwood were bound together with thick, rough hemp, and they fit together at odd angles. Besides the clam shell affixed to the back, which was larger than a man's head, there was no decoration of any kind.

The two set the chair down in the sand, with its back to the fire. They then bowed deeply and rushed back to their positions on the far side of the pyre.

Without a word of acknowledgment, Phil settled down into the chair.

"What a pompous ass," Eric whispered.

Kurt's back went stiff. What was his cousin thinking?

Granted, he hadn't said it very loudly. Kurt had barely heard him, and Eric stood less than six inches behind him, whereas the king was a few feet away. But still. How did they know the king didn't have supernaturally powerful hearing?

If he did, though, he gave no sign of having heard Eric. He simply nodded towards them. If you could even call it a nod. It was the barest dip of his head.

It took Kurt a moment to remember what that meant. But he did remember. He was already on his way to his knees when his father smacked his thigh.

A long minute passed before the king reached out and rolled his hand, bringing the palm skyward. When he did, they all returned to their feet.

They stood in silence after that as the king stared at them, his dark eyes unblinking. His gaze passed from one member of the family to the next without betraying any sort of reaction. His face was as stony as his chiseled torso.

Eventually, Kurt realized that the king was waiting for the sun to set.

It was most of the way there now. Its dying rays were like purple, red, and orange ribbons stretched out across the surface of the water. But a small semicircle still remained. And so long as it did, it would be uncouth to proceed.

It might have been five minutes. Ten at most. But it felt like an hour.

The longer Kurt stared at the king, the more he thought his initial assessment was mistaken. A man didn't need to tower over others, nor be densely packed with muscle, to make an impression. Not when he had a gaze like that, or such an expressionless face. Phil was the type of man who could make the guards at Buckingham Palace seem undisciplined. Perhaps even the kind of man who could withstand Chinese water torture for a decade without so much as flinching.

He might have an infamously short temper, if the stories Kurt's father told were to be believed, but so too was he possessed of remarkable focus and patience. He didn't so much as twitch. Just sat there, still as a statue. Staring at them.

When at last the bonfire was the sole source of resistance to the night, they began.

Phil gestured with a flap of his fingers for them to approach.

One at a time, they went before him, announced their names and the house to which they belonged. They swore fealty first to the king and then to the court's customs. Finally, they kissed his sandy feet before hurrying back to stand with the others, striving to be as still as the king himself had been while they'd all waited for the sun to slowly die.

All of them did so, except his mother. She swore to honor the ways of the people of Summer and to keep their kind hidden from the simulacra of the Playground, but she didn't swear fealty to the king or kiss his feet. In fact, the king rose from his chair, kissed her on the cheek, and announced that he was honored to have a scion of the Eternal Garden of the Most Sacred Sun grace his court with her presence.

Kurt knew his mother wasn't going to have to go through the same rigamarole they did, but he hadn't expected quite that reception.

The parents went first. Then the kids, from oldest to youngest.

When Patty's turn came, Kurt nearly lost it.

Phil made a point of looking her up and down. He'd done much the same with the rest of them, but he'd done so more surreptitiously. The bastard even went so far as to lick his lips. Quite gratuitously. And the way he moaned when Patty kissed his feet? You'd think she was giving him a blowjob or something. His eyes, open wide as eyes could go, followed her as she walked back to join her family.

Kurt's nails dug into his palms, threatening to break the skin. He clenched his jaw so tight he felt sure that his teeth would get stuck together.

Then it was his turn.

As he went to his knees before the king, he defiantly looked up and met Phil's gaze. He should have stared at the sand beneath him. He knew that. He was risking a war. He knew that too. But the way the king had looked at Patty had burned away Kurt's calm composure as sure as the bonfire behind him was consuming the dried wood.

To Kurt's surprise, his small measure of defiance drew no reaction from the king. He regarded Kurt dispassionately. The same way he had everyone but Patty.

It took more force of will than he'd expected to press his lips against Phil's feet.

After Kurt rejoined the others, the king stood up. "The First Court of Summer welcomes back the noble houses of Moody and Hardt," he said. "I am pleased to see the fresh young faces you bring with you, and hope that this new generation does its forebears proud." His eyes focused on Patty. "I ask only that one of them serve as my vassal."

No one said anything.

"Return here a week from now," he said to Patty.

"Y-yes, Your Majesty," Patty said, offering a curtsey.

No, no, no.

Not Patty.

Kurt didn't know how he'd stop it from happening. But he would.

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Scene 8

Setting: The Homelands. The same day as the events in Chapter 4.

POV: Gabriela