Chapter 244: To New Heights
Alexandra Erin on September 2, 2014 in Volume 2 Book 7: Courtly Manners, Volume 2: Sophomore EffortIn Which Glory Proposes Taking Things Up A Few Notches
I tried not to worry too much about what exactly Glory had in mind. After all, there were a lot more things that needed settling or clarifying or working out if we were to move the relationship forward versus if we were ending it or scaling it back… while she’d probably want to retreat to somewhere reasonably private in either case, the balance of probability seemed positive.
That’s what I tried to tell myself, after trying not to dwell on it during the walk back to Oberrad House failed. The results were sort of mixed. I mean, I definitely succeeded in telling myself it… over and over again, because I couldn’t quite believe it.
“Would telling you to relax make any difference?” she asked me when we reached her room.
“Probably more than you would think,” I said.
“Then relax,” she said.
It did help, a little bit.
It was kind of weird given her regal position in middling society, but Glory didn’t have nearly as commanding a tone as Ian did when he was being domly, nor as imperious a tone as Amaranth did when she was giving commands. She said everything in basically the same tone of voice. It wasn’t a tone that brooked much argument, exactly, but since she used the same tone to ask about the weather, it lost some of its impact.
“As you know, the semester’s ending soon,” she said. “I thought it was time we talk about what happens then.”
What did happen then? It was only the first semester, so she shouldn’t be expecting either one of us to be going home… and anyway, “home” for both of us meant the MU campus, at least for the time being. While it was fully within the realm of possibility that I’d finish my degree early. and graduate during the winter, it wouldn’t be this winter… and if Glory was that close to graduating herself, I was pretty sure it would have come up before.
As far as I knew, none of her arrangement with the school would change… I couldn’t imagine she would have accepted anything so short-term. Certainly none of my arrangements with her had specifically been tied to the semester, or any other arbitrary length of time.
“I mean winter break,” she said into the face of my blank stare. “You don’t leave campus for the breaks, do you?”
“Nope,” I said. “I don’t have anywhere to go… it was actually cheaper for me to stay enrolled all summer than it would have been for me to find off-campus housing for a season.”
“But classes aren’t in session during the winter break, she said. “And your friends, your lovers… they all have homes to go to. Your time is unaccounted for.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Are you suggesting that we should stay together during the break?”
“I actually have two sets of thoughts in my head,” she said. “They are mutually exclusive, and they each imply a different status for my relationship.”
“What are they?” I asked.
“In the first scenario, you would act as caretaker for Oberrad House while I go on a winter vacation with the members of my court,” she said. “I can’t very well leave the place empty while we’re all away, can I?”
“I guess not,” I said. “What’s the other scenario?”
“You come with me,” she said.
“What happened to not leaving the place empty?”
“In this scenario, you would help me arrange suitable security before leaving.”
“What exactly do you have planned for a vacation?” I asked. I knew that not only were middling enclaves like the hidden community of Treehome laws unto themselves, they were basically whole self-contained societies… little island cultures scattered across the world. So if she was going to be journeying to some sort of middling resort spot, it wouldn’t be exactly like Treehome, but the things that allowed Treehome to be as dangerous as it was would be true of any middling establishment.
“I was actually thinking of a cruise,” she said.
“…an ocean voyage?” I said, images of mermaids swimming in front of my eyes, their eyes dark and their teeth long and sharp.
“Some day, maybe,” she said. “For now… well, it would take a journey even to get to the ocean from here. We would have to fly to the port for it to be worth it. And my thought was that if we must fly anyway, we might as well book a skyliner.”
“An airship?” I said. “Do you have any idea how unstable those things are?”
“Apparently a lot less so even than when I was born… but yeah, I know they’re not without their risks,” she said. “That’s part of why I want to go on one now, while I’m still young. Older elves, they sort of… ossify. No one wants to travel after they have a few centuries between their ears. Adults get so guarded and fearful about things. ”
“So you want to do it now, while you’re not afraid to die,” I said. “And you want me to come with you.”
“You say it like the plan is to go down in flames,” she said. “Mackenzie, I looked into this before I made the booking. It’s safer than going to college, statistically… it’s much safer than spending four years here.”
“Right, but going to college is essential for becoming an enchanter, which is something I want to do,” I said. “Getting on an airship… isn’t essential to anything..”
“It is essential for going on a cruise with me,” she said. “Is that not something you would want to do?”
“Where would we even go?”
“On a ship. In the sky,” she said. “The specific cruise follows the river south to the gulf, and then circles some of the islands, but in my opinion, it really is the journey, not the destination. At least when a luxury liner is involved.”
“…it takes off from Enwich?” I asked. I couldn’t really imagine the town would warrant cruise ships stopping there, though it was the largest metropolitan area in the immediate region.
“No, we would travel by conventional commuter airship from Prax to the air harbor,” she said.
“And you have already booked this,” I said.
“I made no presumption about your decision… in fact, I hadn’t even thought to extend the offer to you when I devised the trip,” she said. “But as it’s a charter flight out of Prax and I have booked a suite on the skyliner that accommodates four people for just my glorious self, there will be no trouble and minimal expense for me to accommodate you.”
“I was more thinking in terms of how hard it would be to convince you to winter somewhere else,” I said.
“Impossible,” she said. “The money is already spent, and at this point, non-refundable.”
“I thought elves were big into conspicuous consumption,” I said. “What would be more decadent than paying for an extravagant vacation and then not going on it?”
“Paying for an extravagant vacation and going on it,” she said. “Not going on it wouldn’t be decadent at all, it would just be… inefficient austerity.”
“It’s just… I can tell you for sure that I would say yes in a heartbeat if we were just going to hole up in an inn somewhere,” I said.
“For most purposes, that is exactly what we will be doing,” she said. “It will just be an inn with a cruising altitude. You will be sharing my room.”
“I’m not trying to convince you not to go,” I aid. “I just… I want you to understand that if I say no, it’s not because of anything about you, or your relationship, or anything except… well… risk analysis.”
“Then you do understand what I’m offering.”
I thought before answering, because if the answer wasn’t an expensive vacation then I really didn’t know.
And then I did.
She’d booked a four person cabin for herself… if that was all that she could afford, that really showed how expensive luxury air travel must be. But of course, it wouldn’t do for her to share a room with any of her friends… even if their standing was increasingly closer to actual friendship rather than lackeydom, and of course she wouldn’t have stood for an ordinary single berth, either, whatever that constituted.
But she’d invited me to share her cabin.
This was a big deal.
It was huge deal.
She’d told me that each of the two possible plans entailed a different perspective for her re relationship. Being the caretaker for Oberrad House was obviously firmly in the “agent” column. It wouldn’t necessarily mean taking a step back on the personal stuff, but it wasn’t going to advance anything.
Joining her in a floating sky palace for a trip down to the gulf, on the other hand… that was a clear leap forward.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” she said. “I mean, as an affirmative response to understanding, not yes as in assent.”
“Thanks for that bit of a clarification,” I said. “But yes, I think I have the shape of it.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m glad, because… because I’m not sure I could spell it out. Yet.”
“I understand,” I said. “I appreciate… I appreciate that this is progress. But at the same time, it would mean more if you could bring yourself to say it.”
“So… if I put it to you directly, would you say yes?” she said.
“…I would still have the same basic problems with the whole idea,” I said. “It would matter, but I don’t know if it would matter enough to make a difference.”
“I think I could say it, if I knew it would change your mind.”
“My mind isn’t made up,” I said. “And… honestly… that does mean something. I mean, it doesn’t mean as much as you saying it would.”
“Really? I was worried that admitting that I’d say it to change your mind would come off calculating,” she said.
“Maybe if you’d just done it,” I said. “Just come out and said it, thinking it would change my mind… but you’re being honest, and it’s hard to see that as calculating, especially when you know it might look that way. ”
“I’m glad you can see it that way,” she said. “So… you’re not making your mind up any time soon, are you?”
“I… I can’t, Glory,” I said. “If you were leaving for the airfield now and you needed an answer, I would have to say no, but for something that’s still a couple of weeks off? I can think about it, but that’s really all I can do.”
“Well… I don’t for anything wish to rush you, especially after you’ve said that, but I will need an answer soon,” she said. “Because if you’re not available, we’ll have to make alternate arrangements, won’t we?”
“Who… who did you have in mind?” I asked, swallowing.
“I thought I made it clear that you would be expected to find someone.”
“You didn… oh, alternative arrangements to watch the house, if I’m not available to do that,” I said. “If I come with you.”
“Yes,” she said. “What did you think I meant?”
“You don’t want to know what I was thinking.”
So I could make up my mind at the last minute, as long as I was going to be staying on campus… but if I wanted to come with her, I would need to start planning now.
I supposed that would have been the general case regardless… it always took less planning to do nothing. Even if I could have decided right then and there to go with her, it would have been a scramble to get ready in time.
In fact, I realized there might be one obstacle that would take more time than we had to overcome.
“Would I need a passport?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “It’s strictly domestic territories. A lot of us aren’t full citizen-subjects until after we’re of age, so leaving and coming back would be… problematic.”
“I didn’t realize that,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s a whole thing… some elven parents don’t think there’s any reason to involve the law in births, and the Imperium doesn’t really want to be responsible for us, so we can just sort of slide by until we’re grown-ups. It’s not every middling, it really depends on the parents… ones who had a child or two before birth certificates were even a thing are less likely to see the point. Grace and I are paper babies, but about one in five of my people aren’t.”
“Are your parents young?” I asked.
“I don’t know what ‘young’ means, in this context,” she said. “They’re not ancient. I’ve never asked them how old they are… elves don’t go around saying ‘oh, I’m so many years old’, except for those of us who are counting down to being of age. Once we get a century under our belt, the centuries are all anyone cares about.”
“I guess I could see that,” I said.
“One thing you should bear in mind while you’re thinking about it is that you’ve probably got a lot less to be afraid of than anyone else who’d be on the boat,” she said.
“I think I have the same number of thing,” I said. “Thousands and thousands of feet.”
“I mean, though… you couldn’t die from a fall, right? It doesn’t become magical when you fall more than a mile?”
“That wouldn’t make it any more fun to experience,” I said.
“I think the people falling to their deaths would probably disagree.”
“Dying in a disaster isn’t the only thing I’m afraid of,” I said. “Being the only survivor would almost be scarier… I mean, if I’m dead, I don’t have anything to worry about. Alive? With so many grieving families looking for someone… something… to blame it on? Trust me, if a half-demon falls out of the sky in an airship disaster and walks away without a scratch, no one’s going to be in a hurry to crown them a conquering hero.”
“Obviously it was a mistake to mention your survival chances,” Glory said. “Because now I’ve got you planning for a crash, when the more likely contingency is that we have a wonderful time flying about the southern imperial coast.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I said. “Could you… do you have any information about it? Brochures, a weavesite? I think I’ll have an easier time giving the whole idea a fair hearing if I can see some of the pluses instead of just relying on my mind to come up with minuses.”
“You’re looking at one of the biggest pluses,” she said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“For almost anything else, it would be,” I said. “Give me the information, and I’ll think about it.”
“Okay,” she said. “Oh, and… don’t mention this to Grace or Nicki, okay? They don’t know they’re coming.”
“…what, are you abducting them?”
“Of course not! I just haven’t told them every detail of what I have planned, while making certain that they’ll both be available,” she said.
“You told Grace that she’s in charge while you’re away, didn’t you?” I guessed.
“I didn’t use those words, but yes,” Glory said. “She’s equal parts excited and terrified… she’ll be so disappointed and relieved when she finds out it was a ruse, though I think on the balance the joy of being included will win out before we even factor in what she’ll be included in.”
“…that’s going to complicate finding someone else to do the job,” I said. “I mean, ideally, the first time they see the inside of Oberrad House wouldn’t be when you turn the keys over to them.”
“I can tell Grace that you’re recruiting someone to help her,” Glory said. “It would probably take some of the edge off her terror, to believe that she won’t be solely responsible for the house’s safety.”
“That would help,” I said.
“Does that mean you’ll be coming?” she asked.
“…that’s a nice try, my queen,” I said, because I figured she would prefer being flattered more than hearing another apology. “But I meant what I said. I really have to think it over.”
“Oh,” she said.
“What?”
“I just realized what you mean when you say that.”
“What do I mean?” I asked.
“When you say you have to think something over, you mean that you have to talk it over with your council,” she said.
“I guess that’s one way to put it,” I said.
“I hope you’ll make up your own mind in the end.”
“I always do,” I said. “But if you’re afraid they’ll all be against you… well, I think Amaranth will be at worst conflicted, and Steff… well, Steff might actually be more sympathetic than you think.”
“Oh?” she said.
“For now, let me just leave it at that,” I said.
I hadn’t found the right moment to bring up Steff’s request, and I didn’t think this was it… but it was occurring to me that if we were spending several days together with a cabin or a suite or whatever it was called, the time would probably present itself. There was something neat and tidy about putting the matter forward between semesters, anyway.
“I guess that’s all I can do,” she said. “Leave things as they are…. just so long as we don’t leave them too long. I will respect whatever decision you make, but if it comes down to staying here simply because you left it to the last minute, I will not feel respected by your decision.”
“I wouldn’t… I would really regret doing that to you,” I said. “So… I’ll tell you within a week, okay?”
“One week,” she repeated.
“Are you disappointed?”
“No,” she said. “And I promise, I will not be much disappointed either way, knowing that you have taken your time to come to a decision as you so often do, but you have not left it to the fates to decide, as you have so often done. I would be ecstatic if you had told me that yes, of course you will certainly come with me anywhere that I ask… but I’m not sure I would trust that. That would not be you. That would not be my Mackenzie Blaise, and that is what I really want.”
“Then… well… um… that’s what I can give you,” I managed to stammer out, around a mouth full of self-consciousness.
“And that’s all I’ll ask for.”
interesting development here. So Steff for care keeper? Bad idea, ok idea or very bad idea?
In other news I must now find a way to use “inefficient austerity” in day-to-day talk, More tales isn’t loading for me (but that might just be my computer) and my iPhone still lets the main page go blank. Are the last 2 just me?
No. On the occasion that I listen to ToM on my iPhone, the main page does wipe itself out when it finishes loading.
You have to hit cancel before the page finishes. =(
Thanks, I’ll try that.
I think Steff would be the ideal caretaker, she can do a great job and Glory will grant her a boon for her diligent care and we can wrap that arc up with a pretty little bow.
I think she should go. The available record indicates that half-demons who fall out of airships tend to meet their true loves. And in this case, it also counts as meeting Glory half-way.
Statistically speaking, half demons who fall out of airships not only meet their true loves but also get three imperial boons. Funny thing about statistics. . .
Sample sizes of “one” sure are fun, though!
Aidan! Please end up on Aidan’s ship!!! I doubt you’ll let them find out who they are to each other, but I do hope they meet. Somehow. Even living in different countries.
I’m hoping Mack and Aidan meet up and, like, become penpals or something (discrete penpals, in case the post is still monitored). I think what will probably happen is more like Mack will have a brief encounter (conversation, whatever) with a random crewman who we will know from some small hint is actually Aidan.
I wonder if they’ll smell each other.
If only there was any reason for him to be on this ship. However he lives across the sea and no longer works on the big airships.
At the very least, remember the book Amaranth was reading at the beginning of the semester? She could tell Mack what happens to half demons who fall out of the sky by now, surely.
“Trust me, if a half-demon falls out of the sky in an airship disaster and walks away without a scratch, no one’s going to be in a hurry to crown them a conquering hero.”
Nice AE 😉
I literally lol’ed at this part. I bet people thought I was sooo weird. . .
It happens to be true. Aidan didn’t get the Imperial commendation and boons from being the sole survivor. He got it because he made sure other crew got off safely first, if I recall correctly.
You are correct, it’s that fact that he was an airman and kept the ship from exploding as quickly that he got to the position he is in today.
OoC, If I remeber a chapter or two back, didn’t Steff ask Mack to intercede for her interest in getting an interview?/invitation? to join Queen Glory’s Court at Oberrad House?
Yeah, but that’s addressed at the end of this chapter:
Does Mackenzie even know how to say “thank you?”
Also, I really hope this is a setup for her meeting Aidan, but I’m not sure I should hope that, since this seems almost too neatly packaged.
I’ve had the same feeling on all of Macks interactions with Glory: she’s been treating the elf completely ungratefully, and as if only Glory wanted a relationship. The age difference is very clear, and so is the fact this is a young-adult relationship with a teenager, in terms of mentality.
Fantastic. I’ve just finished catching up, I’ve been reading this story for the last month or so, and I love how Mack has grown. However, I do see what Ian was saying, I preferred it when Mack was less focused, so we got the entire year as a continuous story as opposed to the separate stories seem to be getting now, we don’t seem to get much of Amy, Steff, Ian and Two while Mack is focusing on Glory. Just my opinion
An Airship cruise could
Be romantic if no one
Has a falling out
Okay that was a rather more clever one than usual. Props to you.
I doubt she would be soul survivor. Based on the disaster Dan was part of there are “lifeboats” and feather falling charms to be had.
the charm was his personal possession he gave away because he could survive a basejump…but she’d better not be taking up a limited lifeboat seat or parachute when she wouldn’t be harmed in the fall anyway
Steff as keeper…That’s…ummm..Very Distracting. And quite delish as a concept.
Failing that Two or maybe Dee could do it.
Since Mack’s main concern is how the public might react if she was the only survivor of an air disaster, it would make sense if Amaranth came along on this trip. Amaranth can’t be killed as long as her field is safe. Glory has a 4 person cabin, and probably wouldn’t object to sharing it with both Mack and Amaranth, considering how she approved of Grace, Nicki and Amaranth having a threesome.
If AE plans to have some danger in this arc, possibly by having the airship sabotaged by middling elves, then having both Amaranth and Mack onboard would make sense. Amaranth would probably have read everything she could on airships and emergency procedures before she began the trip, so she’d be able to give Mack and Glory some useful advise on how to deal with whatever crisis arose.
The biggest obstacle to Mack going on this trip may be that Ian is certainly going to hate the idea. If he can’t persuade Mack not to go, he may want to go with her, but it would be hard to persuade Glory to let him come.
There’s the obvious issue of “only survivor, except for the one she’s been fucking for years” probably looking even worse. Especially since Khale bolted right before a tsunami on live TV, and it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. A couple more “incidents” like that and the public is probably more likely to drag the nymph down than bring the demon up.
A good reason Dan probably got all that good press is because he actually LOST in his heroism. If I recall correctly he actually lost his previous lover in that accident along with basically everything else he owned and probably a number of friends. Loss like that sells a story way better than any kind of alibi ever could.
On the trip itself, I could see Steff putting up a fight in some circumstances. Harpy cannibalism is way less of a secret than Mermaids, and they have been known to attack airships(thinking about it, didn’t one of the OT imply the two were somehow related?). Since Steff’s done way more time in Harlow and knows a necromancer who dated a harpy she likely has a much richer idea of what could go wrong. Especially given that she’s been to places like Kilrest where unwary travelers aren’t exactly given five star treatment. Ian would probably stop objecting after one conversation about being petty, Steff might being up legitimate safety concerns.
I think the fact that Amaranth is one of the favorite children of the Goddess of Nature would give her a lot of credibility with the public and media. Mother Khale made the fact that Amaranth was important evident to those who are paying attention in the broadcast you mention, and no one wants to offend the Goddess. I think it’s likely that one reason the Goddess made the broadcast was precisely to let certain people know she was paying close attention to what happened to Amaranth.
Again, this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Amaranth being a favorite is nice, provided everyone loves her mother. Obviously they can’t attack a god directly, but the next best way to cause pain? Hurt her children.
Normally nobody would be that stupid or desperate, but a lot of people lost loved ones in the tsunami and any more would open the old wounds in addition to making new ones. People are willing to kill and die over silent gods all the time, one that actually speaks just makes the matter worse.
For us, it’s a dim memory of something we read five years ago as a part of someone’s personal drama. For them, god went up on TV, said hundreds of their deaths basically meant nothing, then instead of warning them about a natural disaster that’d kill thousands instead decided to call out a random nymph most of the show’s audience had never heard of, and that was about a year ago instead of five.
People GENERALLY don’t take well to being told that their lives are basically forfeit and their being of worship considers them barely worth mentioning.
wasn’t it said pretty directly that the reason nobody hurts nymphs is she has a pretty solid track record of being among the most active gods in retribution?
if he lost a lover in the crash i doubt he’d have sleezed onto his future wife immediately after landing in her back yard(hey babe, you a virgin? in that case I’ll be needing two things from you in a very specific order)
It had more to do with him giving away his parachute and running directly twords the only thing on the ship that could harm him(crawling inside the magic engine trying to fix(and failing that staying to monkey around to time the semi-inevitable detonation so it neither wiped out the lifeboats nor fell intact on a town somewhere)and cut his exit close enough to take enchanted shrapnel to the face.
Is anyone else feeling sad that the semester’s almost over and we haven’t seen any of Mack’s classes since the second week or so?
Yes and no, I think we are going to go backtracking and find out a bit about that. If not it’s going to be disappointing.
I mostly want to hear about her adventures in the woods. 🙂
I know! I can’t wait. . . Though I think it’s a week or two down the pipe still.
Yes. (Current arc is really good, but still yes.)
I think it’s more an issue of application than anything else.
Mack’s classes never really struck me as being about the classes themselves, but what she could do with them and who she interacted with. Fighting classes were about Callahan and her own weird agendas and wants, not what forms or techniques Mackenzie happened to learn. Design stuff was less about her learning to paint flames on stuff and more about her dealing with Emily and being friends with Nicki(and avoiding Sooni). Even the enchanting stuff quickly lead into Acanthia’s plans outside of class.
More importantly, they were also about what Mackenzie could DO with her knowledge. She’s made all kinds of neat toys and spells that’ve affected her life and established her character. A perfectly executed or misfired spell can make or break a lot of things and the more she’s capable of the more plates keep spinning. Only now she’s learning tricks from the Owl Turtle Thing and other out of class sources so classes stopped being her only road to doing that. Heck, even the stuff she does learn in class got glossed over, like two weapon fighting.
Yes, but there are some of her classes that she was excited and interested in, and we haven’t gotten to see any of that.
Typo Report
Really not sure what was intended here, but the “re” seems like it may be an artifact that got left in accidentally.
Not sure if this a typo where it should be “things” or if this is exactly the way Mack intended to say it. If the latter, it’s kind of clever.
Noooo meeting Aidan is BAAAAAAAAAAD
Male half demons go into a frenzy and try to kill female half demons, remember?
hes been retired for years…isn’t he some kind of minor nobility now?
Not since she has been taking that anti life potion
I hope that while looking on the ethernet Mack searches for demons involved in aircraft crashes. And on that note, it has been a long time since we have had an OT with Dan, or any OT really.
“I’m not trying to convince you not to go,” I aid. – said?
“Really? I was worried that admitting that I’d say it to change your mind would come off calculating,” she said. – ‘off as calculating’, maybe?
Oooh, Mack has a council. That almost makes her like an elf queen herself. 😛