Mother and Child Reunion

They made a curious procession as the boys escorted Raquesis down corridors she hadn't seen in long years. Delmud walked with his arm still locked in her own while Tristan followed behind, but it was Leif who took the lead, constantly glancing back or even outright walking backwards a few steps while he did his best to convey the last eight years of their lives. Crucial details that might have wrenched at her heart were blurred by Leif's steady rain of chatter, but Raquesis decided it was likely for the best. Lord Sigurd's son was now the conquering hero enthroned at Belhalla, all the old villains were dead, and the Prince Ares whom Raquesis doubted was her own nephew beyond any doubt. Except now he was King Ares.

"His Majesty had to return to Agusty," said Delmud when he could get a word in. "He wants to see you there as soon as possible... if you can travel that is, Mother."

"I can travel," she said, sounding a little sharp, perhaps, but her world was a-spin.

And her daughter was married.

"Just wait until you see Nanna, Mother," said Leif, and that mischief showed again in his sparkling eyes.

He really was the most remarkable blend of his true parents- in one moment he looked the image of Cuan in his glory, all reckless élan, and in the next he was Ethlyn all over again with warmth and love radiating like sunshine. She almost wanted him to fall silent, to give her a few moments of peace so she might take stock of it all, but at the same moment she couldn't bring herself to not let Leif prattle on in his way. There was something of the ten-year-old about him even yet... then again, he was only eighteen. Raquesis had come to appreciate how young that truly was.

At last they reached the chamber where Raquesis had received guests during her three-month reign. Raquesis felt a little leap in her heart on seeing Alva's grizzled auburn head. He stood flanked by two guards but was clearly not harmed and the expression on his face upon seeing her alive was transcendent.

"Delmud, please release this man. He has been my support through all of these trials." This couldn't relate the full scope of what Alva had managed before, during, and after their brief rebellion, but Raquesis could tell Delmud of all that in days to come. "Alva, where is Janne?"

"She is healing the wounded," Alva replied as he got to his feet; he'd nearly prostrated himself before her on his release. "They're converting the ballroom into an infirmary."

"Nanna's working there also, Mother." Leif tugged at her hand and fairly dragged her toward the ballroom before Raquesis could ask how many casualties there'd been and if anyone sympathetic to her had fallen.

The ballroom had looked worse, Raquesis thought. There'd been more bodies stacked there at Chagall's final defeat. Raquesis quickly spotted Janne, now engaged in treating a young man's bloodied leg, and she immediately began scanning the room looking for a little blonde girl- and then caught herself, because 'little girl' was entirely the wrong thing to seek. But the young woman of an age with Janne there in the sky-blue gown, the one with hair that was a lighter and brighter shade of yellow than Delmud's...

"Nanna!"

Almost as graceful as a dancer, Raquesis thought as her daughter slowly turned in her direction. Without a dancer's lightness, though— there was a sense of being grounded in her movements, but that might've been related to the obvious curve of Nanna's belly. Raquesis knew better than to have her first exchange of words with Nanna be about that; instead she took her daughter by the shoulders and gazed into Nanna's face. Clear blue eyes looked back at her with a measure of cold disbelief.

"You did end up taller than me. I thought that you'd be." She brushed a stray wisp of golden hair away from Nanna's cheek. "I'd hoped that you'd be."

"Oh, Mother." Nanna blinked once, then twice, and then the tears came spilling over.

"Shh, my baby girl." Raquesis feared for a moment that her daughter had, in her absence, been molded into an ice princess. But no, Nanna was as warm and yielding in her arms as Delmud, and Nanna's tears were just as free in spilling over. Her own eyes stinging from salt, Raquesis cleared her throat enough to whisper, "You still have my ear-rings."

"Father gave them to me when I turned fourteen," Nanna said as she brushed her fingers against one of the pale sapphire droplets. "I still carry the Runesword you left for me."

Pride was flowing through her like a stream of liquid-amber; Raquesis felt it might form a lump in her throat large enough to silence her for the night.

"And I delivered the letter," Nanna added.

"Letter?"

"The one you left me to give to Ares. It took me seven years, but I managed it."

The lump of congealed pride subsided just a little— not that she wasn't proud of Nanna for delivering that letter, as it was a wonderful thing, but the idea of Nanna cherishing her little mission for seven long years reminded Raquesis that her daughter was not, after all, solely herself in miniature.

Nanna sensed something amiss, as she then looked down with those keen blue eyes and asked, "Did they mistreat you, Mother?"

"Well, of course they—" Mid-sentence it occurred to Raquesis what Nanna was truly asking. "No, nothing like that. Threats, yes, but nothing…"

"We can go someplace private if you don't want to talk about it here."

"There's nothing," Raquesis repeated, and she definitely saw now what baby girl Nanna was: a married woman trained in the ways of the healing arts who had likely interviewed other women about mistreatment at the hands of the empire.

At that moment, with the conversation on the edge of a great darkness, Raquesis saw one more familiar figure there in the ballroom, hovering at the edge of the drama. She let go of Nanna.

"Oh, Finn. You were here too? Leif didn't mention it."

The air in the ballroom had a charge to it then, the heavy feeling that came before the strike of high-level thunder magic. Her image of their reunion, should it ever come to pass, had changed its shape many times over their years, and in some way Raquesis was not surprised at all in how it now played out. Finn crossed the room in a few quick strides as though the floor weren't strewn with young men on pallets while Raquesis remained in place, her feet turned to roots. He, too, went down upon one knee in front of her, but this gesture was all grave deliberation despite the dramatic sweep of the white mantle over his shoulder; Finn showed none of Leif's affectionate play or Alva's near-desperate relief. She could feel no warmth from his hands, encased as they were in gloves, and precious little warmth in the dry touch of his lips against her own hand. Raquesis lowered her lashes halfway and made herself smile because she knew in that moment they made a perfect picture, fit for a storybook or a tapestry, the queen and her knight. She knew it, and she knew that he knew it.

Unlike in her fantasies, he did not ask to be forgiven— not now, not yet. Just as well, perhaps, since she wouldn't have to deny him, either by words or silence, in front of their witnesses.

To Be Continued...