Post by Seek on Dec 7, 2010 20:16:16 GMT 10
To: Rowena
Message: Happy Ficmas!
Your santa here. I'm sorry I couldn't deal with the last item on your wishlist, since I wanted to give you the whole set, and I hope you enjoy the gift, and the spirit of the season!
From: Seek
Title: Midwinter Visitors
Rating: PG-13 (Sorry mate, we're both not old enough for an R
)
Wishlist Item: #1. Anything involving the kids (Pirate's Swoop or Conte), preferably with pairings, #2. Dove!fic, #4. Angst or slash...preferably both, #5. Anything set in the Copper Isles
Summary: Liam’s three visitors on two very different Midwinters. The last one is a familiar face, and a bit of a surprise.
No, they aren't the Ghosts of Midwinter Past, Present, and Future. Though you could read it that way.
-
It isn’t Scanra, after all.
It’s the Copper Isles.
It’s Midwinter when Liam first hears the news, from his father. He doesn’t say anything at first. There’s something speaking in his head, he can’t quite be sure of what it is. Father goes on speaking, and Liam is aware he should be paying attention, and part of him is – Copper Isles, the new raka queen, the one half-luarin, and without so much of the ‘crazy blood’ that Father sometimes talks darkly about when mentioning the Copper Isles and their rulers. He wants to ask why it isn’t Scanra but he doesn’t. Where isn’t quite the point.
Liam isn’t quite sure what to think. He said, ‘Yes,’ when his father called him into the dark-paneled study when he was nine, the one that Father always did his work in and where Father talked to them whenever it was something serious. That something usually was about Tortall, and their duty as Contés. Now, he’s not too sure, but it’s too late to say anything, and he supposes he’d be ashamed to anyway.
Kally’d gone and married Kaddar, and she’d give him a stern talking to if he mentioned he had some qualms about the whole thing. Roald wouldn’t lecture him on duty or anything – he was like Mama, he’d just give Liam faintly disappointed looks until Liam feels as if he’s seriously failed.
It’s supposed to be Scanra. Father’s always mentioned Scanra, ever since Liam started to display some kind of aptitude for combat. It doesn’t matter though. The only thing Liam can think of, almost-panicked is this – it’s too soon.
He supposes he could back out. He could say no. It was always different when the idea was there – a distant thought, talks and negotiations that hadn’t quite happened. It was another thing when the marriage treaty had already been all but talked over and drawn up by Tortallan and Copper Islander diplomats. Now he thought he knew how Roald felt, panicked, half-trapped and suffocated, when he’d gotten news of his marriage contract to a Yamani princess. At least, Liam thought, Roald was going to be staying here, in Tortall. He was the crown prince.
“Hey,” Someone says. Liam doesn’t need to look up to see who it is who sits down on the bench at the practice courts, next to him. “Happy Midwinter.” He knows that voice. They’ve spent time together as children, playing, and they’ve spent even longer together as pages. They decided to go for their shield together. Inseparable, the instructors called them, with just a bit of exasperation. Liam-and-Alan. Alan-and-Liam.
He can’t help but feel his mouth quirk in a bit of a smile when Alan says, “Roald said there was a grouch in the indoor practice courts, looking terribly depressed. Bit of a shame too, since it’s Midwinter. So he went to look for a suave and handsome knight willing to serve the Crown.” There’s a bit of a mischievous light in Alan’s green-hazel eyes, the way he says it.
Liam replies, deadpan, “I don’t see him. I think he got lost.” Alan punches him lightly on the arm.
“I’ll go find him, then,” he says, standing up. His teeth flash in a challenging smile. Liam doesn’t think about it – he reaches out and grips Alan’s forearm.
“Stay,” Liam says. It’s a bit of a question, even though he’s never really needed to ask, and he doesn’t think it’ll change anytime soon. Until he goes to the Isles. Isn’t it too much to ask of Alan, if he’ll be headed there? Alan nods and sits back down.
“So,” Alan begins, awkwardly, “I heard about the marriage alliance.”
Liam closes his eyes for a moment, resting his head back against the unyielding stone of the palace walls. Is the news all over Court by now? Corus? There’s a nagging sensation of things inevitably beginning to spiral out of control, and Liam isn’t quite sure what to make of that, except that he doesn’t quite like that feeling. “Yes,” he says aloud, feeling Alan’s gaze on him as the silence grows and Liam doesn’t respond.
“I’d have brought some mulled wine from the kitchens,” Alan adds, “Except I know you don’t hold well with liquor.” He doesn’t add, especially not with the way you look now, but Liam thinks it’s a fair enough guess. He’s vaguely feeling like he might be sick, and he’d probably throw up the wine. And it won’t be good on an empty stomach and besides, he can’t hold his liquor well, he’ll get drunk and then get a hangover the next morning and wake up utterly miserable.
“I guess,” he says. He doesn’t really quite know what to say. He doesn’t quite feel in the mood for Midwinter now. All he can think about is that he’s going to get married. And for the love of the gods, Queen Dovasary Balitang is seven years younger than he is. Alan nudges him.
“When’s it?”
“I don’t know,” Liam says, resisting the urge to put his head in his hands and just sit there, doing nothing. Funny how that’s just one word away from, I don’t care.
Alan looks at him, and raises one blond eyebrow, pointedly. “That’s new,” he mentions, in the kind of tone he’d use to describe the weather.
“Thanks,” Liam mutters, before Alan nudges him.
“Stop grouching,” he says, calmly. “It’s Midwinter, and Roald specifically told me you were forbidden to grouch about the whole arrangement.”
“Serving the Crown?”
“Yes,” Alan replies, “And Sir Alan of Pirate’s Swoop will not fail in his duties.”
“Oh?” Liam asks, just a little sceptically, “And how do you intend to go about it?”
Alan eyes him, and then says, with measured calm, “Like this.” He leans in, and for a moment, Liam breathes in the familiar salt-spray-with-hints-of-cypress, and then Alan is kissing him, deliberately, and Liam wonders if Alan is just a bit drunk and if he can taste traces of spiced wine and maybe something else that he can’t quite place on Alan’s lips. “Midwinter luck, Liam,” he mouths.
At some point, Alan’s hand winds around his back and Liam’s fingers are resting against Alan’s neck, when they finally pull away.
“Have I succeeded?” Alan wants to know, and the mischievous glint in his eyes, the way the smile plays on his lips is almost exactly like his twin, Aly, when she’s up to mayhem. Alan just mostly hides it better.
“I think so,” Liam says, lips burning, and he remembers to breathe.
“Good,” Alan says, wickedly. He stands up to leave. “I should to report my success to Roald, don’t you think?”
This time, Liam’s fingers twine around his, and Liam doesn’t quite let go. “Stay,” he asks, seriously. His brown-hazel eyes don’t leave Alan’s, and when he thinks about it in retrospect, maybe he wasn’t just asking Alan to stay with him in the practice courts.
Alan sits back down. He nods, just once. He doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t need to.
-
Midwinter in the Copper Islands is disconcerting. In Tortall, Midwinter brings with it snowdrifts piled high in the courtyards of the palace, and the next round of Ordeals. There are feasts, great fires, roasted chestnuts, Midwinter buns and kisses, and Corus becomes a garish marketplace, filled with people trying to find gifts. In Midwinter, Corus is a muted white-grey. Rajmuat – there’s no way to really describe it. Rajmuat is a riot of colour. There’s no snow. Dove says that some of the highlands get a little snow in winter, but that’s it. The air is constantly hot and humid.
Liam admits it. He misses Tortall. This is his first Midwinter away from home, and he wonders how Kally stands it. She hasn’t ever come back to Tortall, not since that one visit. Everything in Rajmuat is different, although Liam supposes rationally that he couldn’t quite expect everything to be the same. There are services in the temples of Mithros and the Goddess, although few of the raka attend those. Mostly, they’re off in celebrations, drinking arak (Taybur Sibigat was kind enough to warn him before Liam choked and spluttered on it) and visiting their extended families.
Some of the kinder slave-owning families have given their slaves the day off – but most of them don’t, and Liam isn’t sure what to say about that. Kally, he knows, spends the time arguing with Kaddar about abolishing slavery. He doesn’t like it and he feels the revulsion when he comes across the palace slaves, but as Dove has said and Liam knows (and isn’t she mature for her age?), it’s just not possible to free them all, not without jeopardising the economy and not without estranging a portion of her raka and luarin nobles.
That’s another difference.
And there’s the food. Everything is spicy, and Liam’s learned to keep a glass of water by, for damage control when the inevitable heat starts to explode in his mouth. There’s something called sambal, both spicy and sour at the same time, and he isn’t sure if he’s wincing at the heat or at the limes they squeeze into it. They don’t make Midwinter buns, not in the Copper Islands. There’s some kind of floury crackers, savoury and crunchy, with a whole platter of different sauces to go with them: peanut, sweet, spicy. There’s cakes of chewy sago, dusted liberally with grated coconut, and sweetened with a kind of thick, sticky, brown syrup and Dove looks amused when he takes the first bite and tells him, “Don’t overindulge. You’re going to give yourself a stomach ache.”
“How did you know?” Liam asks, without thinking, and she gives him a wry look.
“You’re not the only one who’s done this before, you know,” she says, amused. She blushes a little, looking slightly embarrassed.
“You did it when you were a child, didn’t you?” he guesses, and Dove grins.
“Yes,” she admits wistfully, “Chenaol always made lovely sago-cakes. I used to sneak into the kitchen at night, with Sarai, to get some.”
“I used to sneak into the kitchens too,” Liam confesses, “Especially around Midwinter. The cooks made these lovely Midwinter buns. I’d sneak in with Alan and get a handful and then we’d find a courtyard, sit there, and eat them and watch the snow fall.”
“It doesn’t snow here,” Dove says. Her eyes sparkle with amusement. “Not often. It’s supposed to snow in some of the highlands, but I’ve never seen snow.” Neither of them talk about Alan. Neither of them talk about Sarai.
“It doesn’t,” Liam agrees. He holds out the platter of sago-cakes in a silent offer, and waits. Dove takes one of them, and bites into it, eyes closed.
“It’s Chenaol’s,” she says confidently, after a while, “Most of the other cooks aren’t that good at sago-cakes. She always puts a bit of coconut in hers.”
“It’s good,” Liam responds. He means it. She shoots him an amused look.
“The food takes a while to get used to.”
“I know,” he says, “Aly told me.”
Dove snorts indelicately. “She still won’t take anything too spicy,” she informs him, “So she’s not quite used to it either.” There is a bit of a pause before she says, hesitantly and haltingly, “There isn’t any snow here. But there are the pavilions, in the palace gardens. They were supposed to be some of the most beautiful in the world, you know, until the Rittevons overthrew the Haiming line.” She would go on, but said nothing else in the end, face upturned, something hopeful in her eyes.
She isn’t Alan, and Liam feels something clench in his chest as he says, “I would love to see them.”
She isn’t Alan.
Dove’s eyes light up. She smiles. It isn’t one of the pleasant, bland smiles he’s gotten when they were first introduced. It’s one of her open smiles that he hasn’t seen too often, not while they’re busy tiptoeing around each other.
“I would love to show you,” she says quietly.
On the way, her fingers slip into his. They’re smaller than Alan’s, and they’re not callused from sword-practice, and there isn’t the hard line of keloid where Alan took a knife wound that never quite healed properly and is always just a little stiff.
All right, Liam thinks, just a little surprised.
He squeezes it lightly, just once, along the way, as she explains to him the history of various sections of the Grey Palace.
-
“You were close, weren’t you?” Dove asks, at one point. She looks away from the wrought, carved wood of the pavilion. The carving is intricate, and if Liam moves his head and looks at them at a certain angle, they almost seem to move.
“Who?” he asks, moving the glowing blue magelight closer so he can inspect the shapes. It gives him a reason not to meet her eyes. There’s something too knowing about them.
“Alan,” she says.
Liam blinks, and extinguishes his Gift. “What about him?” he wants to know, deceptively casual.
She shrugs. “You don’t want to talk?”
“Not particularly,” he says, carefully. “What about you and Sarai?”
“Close,” Dove says, immediately. She frowns slightly. “We are sisters, you know. I just haven’t seen her in a long while. If she hadn’t run…”
Sarai would have been Queen. Liam would have been married to her instead.
“Close,” Liam replies, in answer to her earlier question. He glances away from the pillars, out to the still waters of the pond. At night, the cool breeze sweeps in through the open spaces, taking the edge off the constant Rajmuat humidity. He can appreciate that, he thinks. “We mostly grew up together.”
“Tell me,” she requests.
Liam thinks about it. It’s hard. There are some things about Alan that he isn’t quite sure what to make of, and isn’t quite sure if he wants to share with Dove. They’re secrets, things shared just between the two of them, even if they’ve never quite mentioned some of them. Things like the exact quality of Alan’s hazel-green eyes, the way they glint mischievously when he’s up to something, the way Alan laughs when he’s teasing.
He says, “If you’ll tell me about Sarai.”
“Fair enough,” Dove acknowledges.
Liam speaks. Dove listens, eyes intent. Later, she tells him all about the time when her sister and her slipped out of the household to go riding at night. It was foolish, really, but he doesn’t miss the fondness in her face when she talks about Sarai.
In turn, he tells her about sword practice with Alan, and how Alan is really just terrible at anything with an edge.
In the middle of all of these, she draws closer, so they’re sitting, side by side and then closer still, but not quite touching. Neither of them pull away, even though there’s something awkward about all of this.
-
The third day of Midwinter, Liam goes to the stables to see to Soot and how he’s settling in. That, and that the whole palace seems to be conspiring against him, and after the fifth pointed comment from Aly about the state of the horses and finding Dove and Taybur Sibigat in his path almost anywhere he goes, Liam gives up and thinks that maybe the stables will have much less people around.
They don’t really favour apples in the Copper Islands, and the climate isn’t quite right for them, but a few questions of Taybur and a visit to the kitchens rewarded him with sliced carrots and turnips.
Soot sniffs suspiciously at a proffered turnip slice before taking a bite, staring at him reproachfully. “There’s no use,” Liam says. He isn’t quite sure if Soot can understand him, but everyone’s said that the palace animals are all smarter because of the Wildmage, so it’s worth a go. “It’s what they have here.”
Soot snorts disdainfully. Liam exhales, and decides that he shouldn’t really be arguing with his horse about everything that’s different in the Copper Islands, not when he’s having just as much difficulty adjusting. It’s everything and nothing; it’s the humidity, the pineapples, the starfruit, the steamy jungles, the lack of snow, the different food, Dove, Taybur, Chenaol, Fesgao – it’s everyone and it’s nobody, it’s everyone he misses when he turns one of the unfamiliar corners in the Grey Palace and expects to see Roald there, or maybe Alan.
Alan, Liam thinks, closing his eyes. Soot lips his palm, deciding he’d rather have another turnip treat than nothing at all, and Liam reaches into the pockets of his breeches to produce another slice which his horse devours in one quick, crunching bite.
“Hey,” a familiar voice says, and Liam turns around, reflexively, before his brain can even begin to say it’s impossible. It’s Alan.
It’s Alan.
Alan looks maybe a bit tired. There are dark rings around his green-hazel eyes, and his blond hair is mussed and there’s a few strands of hay clinging all over. He’s in an old tunic, and loose navy blue breeches, boots scuffed. He isn’t carrying his sword.
Alan is here.
Liam finds he’s taken an involuntary step to him. Soot protests and starts nudging him, and Liam fumbles for another turnip piece.
“When did you – how did – “
Alan takes pity on him. “A ship,” he says, smiling wickedly, and holds up his hand when Liam opens his mouth to tell Alan that that’s helpful, at least he knows Alan didn’t fly in by kudarung. “Aly and Dove said that a certain friend would like to have me over for Midwinter. Ma wanted to visit Aly and Nawat but something came up, so I got to play courier.”
Liam doesn’t know if in the next moment, he’s taken another step towards Alan, or if Alan has taken another step towards him. He’s close enough now, for a kiss for Midwinter luck, close enough that Liam can rest his head in the curve where neck meets shoulder and breathe. Alan’s arm curls around his back, solid and reassuringly real, and Liam breathes hay, stable, but salt spray and cypress too.
They’re achingly close enough to kiss. Neither of them do. Liam’s married, now.
“I missed you,” he admits, because this is a quiet stable, with nothing but the sounds of the horses and just the two of them. This is the third night of Midwinter, a time for honesty, a time for almost-family and Alan definitely counts.
“I know,” Alan says. His thumb brushes Liam’s cheek, and then he pulls away. “Care to show me to somewhere more hospitable than a stable?”
“They set this up, didn’t they?” Liam wants to know, “Aly and Dove. They got you to hide in the stables and then took their time trying to direct me here.”
Alan shrugs. “That’s true,” he says, “And mostly because the ship didn’t arrive on time. We were about two days late, and I just took a horse up from the docks to the palace. I was here maybe an hour ago, at most.”
“How long are you planning on staying?” Liam asks.
“I don’t know,” Alan says, “Maybe until the end of Midwinter. Maybe a little longer.”
Stay, Liam wants to command, except that it’s too much to ask from Alan, and this isn’t Tortall any longer. He doesn’t quite know where it will take them if Alan stays, and he isn’t sure if that’s a good thing. There can’t be room for Dove, not when it comes to Alan, and that can’t be fair to her.
It isn’t fair to any of them, not at all. This can’t go anywhere.
So he doesn’t say anything, just lets Alan cup his jaw in his callused, surprisingly gentle hands, and draw him closer.
“Happy Midwinter,” Alan breathes.
No more kisses. But that will have to be enough for the two of them. And Liam thinks, with some surprise, that it may just be.
-
Message: Happy Ficmas!
Your santa here. I'm sorry I couldn't deal with the last item on your wishlist, since I wanted to give you the whole set, and I hope you enjoy the gift, and the spirit of the season!From: Seek
Title: Midwinter Visitors
Rating: PG-13 (Sorry mate, we're both not old enough for an R
)Wishlist Item: #1. Anything involving the kids (Pirate's Swoop or Conte), preferably with pairings, #2. Dove!fic, #4. Angst or slash...preferably both, #5. Anything set in the Copper Isles
Summary: Liam’s three visitors on two very different Midwinters. The last one is a familiar face, and a bit of a surprise.
No, they aren't the Ghosts of Midwinter Past, Present, and Future. Though you could read it that way.
-
It isn’t Scanra, after all.
It’s the Copper Isles.
It’s Midwinter when Liam first hears the news, from his father. He doesn’t say anything at first. There’s something speaking in his head, he can’t quite be sure of what it is. Father goes on speaking, and Liam is aware he should be paying attention, and part of him is – Copper Isles, the new raka queen, the one half-luarin, and without so much of the ‘crazy blood’ that Father sometimes talks darkly about when mentioning the Copper Isles and their rulers. He wants to ask why it isn’t Scanra but he doesn’t. Where isn’t quite the point.
Liam isn’t quite sure what to think. He said, ‘Yes,’ when his father called him into the dark-paneled study when he was nine, the one that Father always did his work in and where Father talked to them whenever it was something serious. That something usually was about Tortall, and their duty as Contés. Now, he’s not too sure, but it’s too late to say anything, and he supposes he’d be ashamed to anyway.
Kally’d gone and married Kaddar, and she’d give him a stern talking to if he mentioned he had some qualms about the whole thing. Roald wouldn’t lecture him on duty or anything – he was like Mama, he’d just give Liam faintly disappointed looks until Liam feels as if he’s seriously failed.
It’s supposed to be Scanra. Father’s always mentioned Scanra, ever since Liam started to display some kind of aptitude for combat. It doesn’t matter though. The only thing Liam can think of, almost-panicked is this – it’s too soon.
He supposes he could back out. He could say no. It was always different when the idea was there – a distant thought, talks and negotiations that hadn’t quite happened. It was another thing when the marriage treaty had already been all but talked over and drawn up by Tortallan and Copper Islander diplomats. Now he thought he knew how Roald felt, panicked, half-trapped and suffocated, when he’d gotten news of his marriage contract to a Yamani princess. At least, Liam thought, Roald was going to be staying here, in Tortall. He was the crown prince.
“Hey,” Someone says. Liam doesn’t need to look up to see who it is who sits down on the bench at the practice courts, next to him. “Happy Midwinter.” He knows that voice. They’ve spent time together as children, playing, and they’ve spent even longer together as pages. They decided to go for their shield together. Inseparable, the instructors called them, with just a bit of exasperation. Liam-and-Alan. Alan-and-Liam.
He can’t help but feel his mouth quirk in a bit of a smile when Alan says, “Roald said there was a grouch in the indoor practice courts, looking terribly depressed. Bit of a shame too, since it’s Midwinter. So he went to look for a suave and handsome knight willing to serve the Crown.” There’s a bit of a mischievous light in Alan’s green-hazel eyes, the way he says it.
Liam replies, deadpan, “I don’t see him. I think he got lost.” Alan punches him lightly on the arm.
“I’ll go find him, then,” he says, standing up. His teeth flash in a challenging smile. Liam doesn’t think about it – he reaches out and grips Alan’s forearm.
“Stay,” Liam says. It’s a bit of a question, even though he’s never really needed to ask, and he doesn’t think it’ll change anytime soon. Until he goes to the Isles. Isn’t it too much to ask of Alan, if he’ll be headed there? Alan nods and sits back down.
“So,” Alan begins, awkwardly, “I heard about the marriage alliance.”
Liam closes his eyes for a moment, resting his head back against the unyielding stone of the palace walls. Is the news all over Court by now? Corus? There’s a nagging sensation of things inevitably beginning to spiral out of control, and Liam isn’t quite sure what to make of that, except that he doesn’t quite like that feeling. “Yes,” he says aloud, feeling Alan’s gaze on him as the silence grows and Liam doesn’t respond.
“I’d have brought some mulled wine from the kitchens,” Alan adds, “Except I know you don’t hold well with liquor.” He doesn’t add, especially not with the way you look now, but Liam thinks it’s a fair enough guess. He’s vaguely feeling like he might be sick, and he’d probably throw up the wine. And it won’t be good on an empty stomach and besides, he can’t hold his liquor well, he’ll get drunk and then get a hangover the next morning and wake up utterly miserable.
“I guess,” he says. He doesn’t really quite know what to say. He doesn’t quite feel in the mood for Midwinter now. All he can think about is that he’s going to get married. And for the love of the gods, Queen Dovasary Balitang is seven years younger than he is. Alan nudges him.
“When’s it?”
“I don’t know,” Liam says, resisting the urge to put his head in his hands and just sit there, doing nothing. Funny how that’s just one word away from, I don’t care.
Alan looks at him, and raises one blond eyebrow, pointedly. “That’s new,” he mentions, in the kind of tone he’d use to describe the weather.
“Thanks,” Liam mutters, before Alan nudges him.
“Stop grouching,” he says, calmly. “It’s Midwinter, and Roald specifically told me you were forbidden to grouch about the whole arrangement.”
“Serving the Crown?”
“Yes,” Alan replies, “And Sir Alan of Pirate’s Swoop will not fail in his duties.”
“Oh?” Liam asks, just a little sceptically, “And how do you intend to go about it?”
Alan eyes him, and then says, with measured calm, “Like this.” He leans in, and for a moment, Liam breathes in the familiar salt-spray-with-hints-of-cypress, and then Alan is kissing him, deliberately, and Liam wonders if Alan is just a bit drunk and if he can taste traces of spiced wine and maybe something else that he can’t quite place on Alan’s lips. “Midwinter luck, Liam,” he mouths.
At some point, Alan’s hand winds around his back and Liam’s fingers are resting against Alan’s neck, when they finally pull away.
“Have I succeeded?” Alan wants to know, and the mischievous glint in his eyes, the way the smile plays on his lips is almost exactly like his twin, Aly, when she’s up to mayhem. Alan just mostly hides it better.
“I think so,” Liam says, lips burning, and he remembers to breathe.
“Good,” Alan says, wickedly. He stands up to leave. “I should to report my success to Roald, don’t you think?”
This time, Liam’s fingers twine around his, and Liam doesn’t quite let go. “Stay,” he asks, seriously. His brown-hazel eyes don’t leave Alan’s, and when he thinks about it in retrospect, maybe he wasn’t just asking Alan to stay with him in the practice courts.
Alan sits back down. He nods, just once. He doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t need to.
-
Midwinter in the Copper Islands is disconcerting. In Tortall, Midwinter brings with it snowdrifts piled high in the courtyards of the palace, and the next round of Ordeals. There are feasts, great fires, roasted chestnuts, Midwinter buns and kisses, and Corus becomes a garish marketplace, filled with people trying to find gifts. In Midwinter, Corus is a muted white-grey. Rajmuat – there’s no way to really describe it. Rajmuat is a riot of colour. There’s no snow. Dove says that some of the highlands get a little snow in winter, but that’s it. The air is constantly hot and humid.
Liam admits it. He misses Tortall. This is his first Midwinter away from home, and he wonders how Kally stands it. She hasn’t ever come back to Tortall, not since that one visit. Everything in Rajmuat is different, although Liam supposes rationally that he couldn’t quite expect everything to be the same. There are services in the temples of Mithros and the Goddess, although few of the raka attend those. Mostly, they’re off in celebrations, drinking arak (Taybur Sibigat was kind enough to warn him before Liam choked and spluttered on it) and visiting their extended families.
Some of the kinder slave-owning families have given their slaves the day off – but most of them don’t, and Liam isn’t sure what to say about that. Kally, he knows, spends the time arguing with Kaddar about abolishing slavery. He doesn’t like it and he feels the revulsion when he comes across the palace slaves, but as Dove has said and Liam knows (and isn’t she mature for her age?), it’s just not possible to free them all, not without jeopardising the economy and not without estranging a portion of her raka and luarin nobles.
That’s another difference.
And there’s the food. Everything is spicy, and Liam’s learned to keep a glass of water by, for damage control when the inevitable heat starts to explode in his mouth. There’s something called sambal, both spicy and sour at the same time, and he isn’t sure if he’s wincing at the heat or at the limes they squeeze into it. They don’t make Midwinter buns, not in the Copper Islands. There’s some kind of floury crackers, savoury and crunchy, with a whole platter of different sauces to go with them: peanut, sweet, spicy. There’s cakes of chewy sago, dusted liberally with grated coconut, and sweetened with a kind of thick, sticky, brown syrup and Dove looks amused when he takes the first bite and tells him, “Don’t overindulge. You’re going to give yourself a stomach ache.”
“How did you know?” Liam asks, without thinking, and she gives him a wry look.
“You’re not the only one who’s done this before, you know,” she says, amused. She blushes a little, looking slightly embarrassed.
“You did it when you were a child, didn’t you?” he guesses, and Dove grins.
“Yes,” she admits wistfully, “Chenaol always made lovely sago-cakes. I used to sneak into the kitchen at night, with Sarai, to get some.”
“I used to sneak into the kitchens too,” Liam confesses, “Especially around Midwinter. The cooks made these lovely Midwinter buns. I’d sneak in with Alan and get a handful and then we’d find a courtyard, sit there, and eat them and watch the snow fall.”
“It doesn’t snow here,” Dove says. Her eyes sparkle with amusement. “Not often. It’s supposed to snow in some of the highlands, but I’ve never seen snow.” Neither of them talk about Alan. Neither of them talk about Sarai.
“It doesn’t,” Liam agrees. He holds out the platter of sago-cakes in a silent offer, and waits. Dove takes one of them, and bites into it, eyes closed.
“It’s Chenaol’s,” she says confidently, after a while, “Most of the other cooks aren’t that good at sago-cakes. She always puts a bit of coconut in hers.”
“It’s good,” Liam responds. He means it. She shoots him an amused look.
“The food takes a while to get used to.”
“I know,” he says, “Aly told me.”
Dove snorts indelicately. “She still won’t take anything too spicy,” she informs him, “So she’s not quite used to it either.” There is a bit of a pause before she says, hesitantly and haltingly, “There isn’t any snow here. But there are the pavilions, in the palace gardens. They were supposed to be some of the most beautiful in the world, you know, until the Rittevons overthrew the Haiming line.” She would go on, but said nothing else in the end, face upturned, something hopeful in her eyes.
She isn’t Alan, and Liam feels something clench in his chest as he says, “I would love to see them.”
She isn’t Alan.
Dove’s eyes light up. She smiles. It isn’t one of the pleasant, bland smiles he’s gotten when they were first introduced. It’s one of her open smiles that he hasn’t seen too often, not while they’re busy tiptoeing around each other.
“I would love to show you,” she says quietly.
On the way, her fingers slip into his. They’re smaller than Alan’s, and they’re not callused from sword-practice, and there isn’t the hard line of keloid where Alan took a knife wound that never quite healed properly and is always just a little stiff.
All right, Liam thinks, just a little surprised.
He squeezes it lightly, just once, along the way, as she explains to him the history of various sections of the Grey Palace.
-
“You were close, weren’t you?” Dove asks, at one point. She looks away from the wrought, carved wood of the pavilion. The carving is intricate, and if Liam moves his head and looks at them at a certain angle, they almost seem to move.
“Who?” he asks, moving the glowing blue magelight closer so he can inspect the shapes. It gives him a reason not to meet her eyes. There’s something too knowing about them.
“Alan,” she says.
Liam blinks, and extinguishes his Gift. “What about him?” he wants to know, deceptively casual.
She shrugs. “You don’t want to talk?”
“Not particularly,” he says, carefully. “What about you and Sarai?”
“Close,” Dove says, immediately. She frowns slightly. “We are sisters, you know. I just haven’t seen her in a long while. If she hadn’t run…”
Sarai would have been Queen. Liam would have been married to her instead.
“Close,” Liam replies, in answer to her earlier question. He glances away from the pillars, out to the still waters of the pond. At night, the cool breeze sweeps in through the open spaces, taking the edge off the constant Rajmuat humidity. He can appreciate that, he thinks. “We mostly grew up together.”
“Tell me,” she requests.
Liam thinks about it. It’s hard. There are some things about Alan that he isn’t quite sure what to make of, and isn’t quite sure if he wants to share with Dove. They’re secrets, things shared just between the two of them, even if they’ve never quite mentioned some of them. Things like the exact quality of Alan’s hazel-green eyes, the way they glint mischievously when he’s up to something, the way Alan laughs when he’s teasing.
He says, “If you’ll tell me about Sarai.”
“Fair enough,” Dove acknowledges.
Liam speaks. Dove listens, eyes intent. Later, she tells him all about the time when her sister and her slipped out of the household to go riding at night. It was foolish, really, but he doesn’t miss the fondness in her face when she talks about Sarai.
In turn, he tells her about sword practice with Alan, and how Alan is really just terrible at anything with an edge.
In the middle of all of these, she draws closer, so they’re sitting, side by side and then closer still, but not quite touching. Neither of them pull away, even though there’s something awkward about all of this.
-
The third day of Midwinter, Liam goes to the stables to see to Soot and how he’s settling in. That, and that the whole palace seems to be conspiring against him, and after the fifth pointed comment from Aly about the state of the horses and finding Dove and Taybur Sibigat in his path almost anywhere he goes, Liam gives up and thinks that maybe the stables will have much less people around.
They don’t really favour apples in the Copper Islands, and the climate isn’t quite right for them, but a few questions of Taybur and a visit to the kitchens rewarded him with sliced carrots and turnips.
Soot sniffs suspiciously at a proffered turnip slice before taking a bite, staring at him reproachfully. “There’s no use,” Liam says. He isn’t quite sure if Soot can understand him, but everyone’s said that the palace animals are all smarter because of the Wildmage, so it’s worth a go. “It’s what they have here.”
Soot snorts disdainfully. Liam exhales, and decides that he shouldn’t really be arguing with his horse about everything that’s different in the Copper Islands, not when he’s having just as much difficulty adjusting. It’s everything and nothing; it’s the humidity, the pineapples, the starfruit, the steamy jungles, the lack of snow, the different food, Dove, Taybur, Chenaol, Fesgao – it’s everyone and it’s nobody, it’s everyone he misses when he turns one of the unfamiliar corners in the Grey Palace and expects to see Roald there, or maybe Alan.
Alan, Liam thinks, closing his eyes. Soot lips his palm, deciding he’d rather have another turnip treat than nothing at all, and Liam reaches into the pockets of his breeches to produce another slice which his horse devours in one quick, crunching bite.
“Hey,” a familiar voice says, and Liam turns around, reflexively, before his brain can even begin to say it’s impossible. It’s Alan.
It’s Alan.
Alan looks maybe a bit tired. There are dark rings around his green-hazel eyes, and his blond hair is mussed and there’s a few strands of hay clinging all over. He’s in an old tunic, and loose navy blue breeches, boots scuffed. He isn’t carrying his sword.
Alan is here.
Liam finds he’s taken an involuntary step to him. Soot protests and starts nudging him, and Liam fumbles for another turnip piece.
“When did you – how did – “
Alan takes pity on him. “A ship,” he says, smiling wickedly, and holds up his hand when Liam opens his mouth to tell Alan that that’s helpful, at least he knows Alan didn’t fly in by kudarung. “Aly and Dove said that a certain friend would like to have me over for Midwinter. Ma wanted to visit Aly and Nawat but something came up, so I got to play courier.”
Liam doesn’t know if in the next moment, he’s taken another step towards Alan, or if Alan has taken another step towards him. He’s close enough now, for a kiss for Midwinter luck, close enough that Liam can rest his head in the curve where neck meets shoulder and breathe. Alan’s arm curls around his back, solid and reassuringly real, and Liam breathes hay, stable, but salt spray and cypress too.
They’re achingly close enough to kiss. Neither of them do. Liam’s married, now.
“I missed you,” he admits, because this is a quiet stable, with nothing but the sounds of the horses and just the two of them. This is the third night of Midwinter, a time for honesty, a time for almost-family and Alan definitely counts.
“I know,” Alan says. His thumb brushes Liam’s cheek, and then he pulls away. “Care to show me to somewhere more hospitable than a stable?”
“They set this up, didn’t they?” Liam wants to know, “Aly and Dove. They got you to hide in the stables and then took their time trying to direct me here.”
Alan shrugs. “That’s true,” he says, “And mostly because the ship didn’t arrive on time. We were about two days late, and I just took a horse up from the docks to the palace. I was here maybe an hour ago, at most.”
“How long are you planning on staying?” Liam asks.
“I don’t know,” Alan says, “Maybe until the end of Midwinter. Maybe a little longer.”
Stay, Liam wants to command, except that it’s too much to ask from Alan, and this isn’t Tortall any longer. He doesn’t quite know where it will take them if Alan stays, and he isn’t sure if that’s a good thing. There can’t be room for Dove, not when it comes to Alan, and that can’t be fair to her.
It isn’t fair to any of them, not at all. This can’t go anywhere.
So he doesn’t say anything, just lets Alan cup his jaw in his callused, surprisingly gentle hands, and draw him closer.
“Happy Midwinter,” Alan breathes.
No more kisses. But that will have to be enough for the two of them. And Liam thinks, with some surprise, that it may just be.
-
