Snakes and Ladders-33

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Snakes and Ladders-33

Chapter 33

I take a ragged breath as I’m sniffing and I’m just honestly so surprised really that he’s acting this way towards me and everything. I was expecting stern and commanding and all sorts of things I guess really I was not expecting an elf, a Sylvan man with hazel eyes and thick long brown hair with really dark brown deeper in and the outside of it lightened by being out in the sun.

I was not expecting him to smell like red clover and the best parts of a sawmill.

I was not expecting the hug like he’s a dad.

You know the type? That guy that’s a dad before he’s a father? That guy that’s way past being just a donor?

Part of me always wanted and wished to be a guy like him when my dysphoria was chilled out enough that I had an idea of the kind of guy that I should really try to be.

And yeah sometimes being like this there was this measure of wanting to somehow be a better man and if I was a better man or person then maybe the way that I feel wouldn’t be as strong, that maybe it wouldn’t hurt so badly and stuff.

Especially for me and where unless there was a medical miracle or something my hopes of transitioning to look even average were kind of nil.

It’s a special kind of hell to feel those things, things that seem like such a huge mountain of hopelessness.

And it’s getting to me now, the release of this pain and stuff that I habitually hold in, have held in and likely still will. I mean it’s this whole getting hugged by a man, Shaya’s father and just…just one of those guys and part of me that never got to be a little girl or even just a woman getting that kind of affection and acceptance from a parent.

It’s cracking my self-control and my barely there composure to me feeling like I’m just a teen again…only in like completely different boots.

I wipe at my eyes and I swear that I feel like a little kid doing it with the bent wrists and everything and I’m trying to wipe them clear with Bhlaze and Falcon there and all and okay well Bhlaze is walking himself to some of those old plantation styled trees that fill the yard here and he settles in under the boughs that are covered in this sort of vine that is covered with lilac like flowers.

I just sort of watch just for a second a blue tinted silvery grey dragon under a grey barked really old wide tree that has these almost lavender colored lilac vines draping everything.

How can I not drink that sight in? It’s not a movie, it’s not art from D&D it’s right there less than thirty feet from where I’m standing and it’s real.

This is my life, this is what it’s become and I’m still amazed and I’m still falling in love with it all.

The commander looks at me until him looking catches my attention and I look to him and I look to the King who smiles and he extends his arm in a sweep-invite towards the house.

And that house is just…

Well it’s not really a house but named that I guess sort of like The White House is named a house back home though really this has more of a Camp David feel to it.

I follow and I look around and I can see people here doing like workmen things and there’s a few guards at posts in a sort of dressed down armor that is light looking fine chain armor under an almost duster long coat and hood and I can see swords and a blaster as well as knives but there doesn’t seem to be that many guards here.

The house itself is huge and a rectangular build from the front at least with that almost light green stone that’s been kissed brownish red by the iron content in the stones and it’s cut block bricks in the style of those old buildings from home like a brownstone before all the regular bricks took everything over.

The windows are warehouse sized old archway windows and some are just windows and some of them are stained glass with pictures of what looks like nature scenes or gods maybe and then we’re headed inside.

I told you that the king’s supposed to be a green mage right? I mean that’s what he’s known for from the things that I’ve sort of heard.

I knew that was plant magic but inside.

It’s all wood.

Okay not all but nearly all of it and that’s ranging from the hardwood floors to the wall paneling and all of the carved and decorative mouldings and I’m not carpenter never really have been for much other than a bit of handiwork and some wood shop but I know what amazing wood grains should look like and what expensive wood work looks like….

This place would just make all the staff from Antiques roadshow fall over in a heart attack or something.

I’ve never seen the details or the finishes or the smells…it smells like somehow there’s still a scent from each of the woods here and then there’s the scent of the plants. The house is filled with plants of all shapes and sizes and they all seem just as purposeful in their own space as anything in a masterful oriental home.

This house and even the scents here and the feel are like so elfin feng-shui.

I mean this is a culture with thousands and thousands of years of experience in things including aesthetics.

And it’s four stories high with an attic and a basement to boot and it’s got to be a couple of hundred feet wide and who knows how long and it’s just.

“This is amazing sire; this is nothing like I’ve known?”

“It’s been a work in progress for a long time Wren; it’s taken me a long time to get it this way.”

“Why here though I mean the palace is on Highwood is it a neutrality thing?”

He’s leading us up stairs and he turns and he walks backwards once we’re on the second floor and he’s still just talking while he’s doing it effortlessly.

“There is that which is always a good thing since the Holylands are a neutral place and the home to all of those that sought to opt out of the republic but more than that Aeselani is actually from this city and she grew up here.”

“Aeselani?”

“Shaya’s mother, The High Queen.”

“Oh…Really?”

He leads us into this kitchen area that’s so intensely lovely with this huge counter that runs along the wall and it’s all framed to look like trees with the under counter doors looking like doors for a house and there’s these wall cabinets that are carved to look like little miniature river dell shaped homes but with the faces of them like the doors all of stained glass and there’s a sink of what looks like brown marble and then a thin bar like island that has all those things and on the opposite to the kitchen side itself there’s chair backed stools.

I have a pang of fantasy ow’s and want’s just seeing it.

And it smells absolutely amazing in here with the scents of bread and herbs but herbs like in soup. He offers a seat to both of us and Falcon pulls out my stool and sort of seats me I smile and just sort of watch the king as he makes coffee with what I think is sort of like a French press or the elven version of it.

I’m usually not a coffee person having burned myself off on it during my trucking days but this is interesting it’s got this center device inside of it where he pours the beans and then puts the lid on and it spins and it grinds the coffee beans and as it’s doing that the water inside comes to a boil and the coffee which is so fine it’s like dust gets infused into the water as it’s grinding and spinning and soon the smell of the coffee is competing with the smell of the food that he’s making.

“That’s amazing, we don’t have anything quite like that at home but we do have coffee.”

“He nods, some things are universal there’s a repeated themes or variations of things that are on many planets that can support life.”

“We only know of Earth.”

“We sylvan’s were refugees, escapees from another elder dimension far before my time and we have always know there was other life through magic and having other beings sharing our once home long ago and then we came here and were sorely introduced to our not so nice neighbors.”

“That would suck.”

“It did, and it might again if Lyam has his ways.”

“Because he’s allying with the C’thull right?”

“Yes exactly, we’re what we call high blood my family and my clan and we came here following our ancestors that originally came here escaping the was that ravaged home. It was the last exodus of our people from there and it had come after tens of thousands of years had passed for us.”

“So to the others you were related by like immigrants.”

He pours the coffee and he goes to an oven and takes out simple looking fresh bread rolls and a dish of hat looks like butter out of a cupboard that is actually one of those disguised fridges. He set’s it out and he pours for us and resumes talking after a first drink and reaching for a roll and Falcon dos the same and so do I.

“Not quite for when my ancestors arrived here the C’thul had enslaved my people’s ancestors and had worked their flesh altering and gene altering magics on them and they took so many of them from here on the holy planet and changed them to suit their wants and needs as they seeded them on the teraformed moons.”

I take a drink of the coffee and it’s dark and robust and has all of these notes of chocolate and fruits but none of the bad flavors that I found wore on me…coffee then chocolate then almost a blackberry sweet finish. It’s really, really good that good I’m drinking it black.

“This is amazing…So, that’s why there are so many ethnics of Sylvan’s here?”

He nods. “Yes and we’re sure that they were patterned and gene grafted from other species as well, the changes are minute and we’re still the same race but try explaining that to the highborn that call themselves The True Borns.”

“And Lyam and all of his are True Borns?”

“Yes. And with his alliance or recruiting of the C’thul to his cause we might see us invaded again.”

“But he doesn’t get that’s insane/”

“He thinks that with us having defeated them in the past that we can do so again but I’m afraid he’s wrong about that.”

“So would I, I mean afraid that is.”

We share a butter knife as we tear into the rolls and it’s this really just good, good white bread sweet dough and really amazing butter but with the coffee it’s just perfect.

“Lyam thinks that if he rules he can use the dark powers he’s using to defeat the C’thul if they turn on him and once he rules here he’ll militarize us and start a war to purify the galaxy.”

“Genocide?”

He nods. “Before all of this Lyam chaffed at the idea of trade with the other races out there, he hated that he wasn’t afforded the respect he thought that we were owed because of our powers and our age as a people.”

“So could he defeat the C’thul?”

“No, Our high born ancestors that came here were very advanced compared to the slaves we had all of the technology and magic and everything we could salvage from our kingdoms and our old universe before coming here. We lost a lot of that during the war with the C’thul we found ourselves in as soon as we were through the portal. We only truly won though by the sacrifices of the slave sylvan races whole died in untold numbers because freedom was in their grasp and they had everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

“So your people were like the catalyst for the rebellion?”

He nods. “Lyam has steadfastly ignored the reality of us not being the mighty race that he thinks we are.”

I nod and eat half a roll and try not to do the yummy eye roll and be serious. I swallow…there’s a lot of people home that think that way too with the different people and different nations and assume that they’re better than everyone else.”

He smiles and holds his cup up symbolically. “As I said some things are universal.”

I like him, I really like him I feel smart and stuff here with him, he doesn’t talk down to me at all and he’s kind and he’s feeding me too.

“We need to find them then and we need to stop them.”

He nods and then pours himself another cup of coffee. “I hear you have a plan to help with that?”

“So your highness have you ever heard of forensic accounting?”

He looks surprised and interested both. “No…but it sounds like something that my son would understand.”

“Which son you have several?”

“Daughters too and daughters-in-bond but I meant Brennan.” He was looking at me as he was saying the part about daughters.

“Sir…you barely know me.”

“’Lani saw into you heart and soul Erendae when she worked her spells to heal you. The spells are very powerful and have a cost one that she was more than willing to pay once she saw the real you.”

(Sniffle.) “But…but…”

He moves over and he hugs me again in that special dad way and I push into it like a pup getting scratched. “It’s magic Wren, and magical things do tend to happen with all of that.”

I nod several times. “I’m sorry it’s just such a huge thing and it’s just so not something that’s even possible home.”

He leads me to his seat at the kitchen island and he goes to the stove and he stirs something in a pot which smells wonderful and it’s just leeks and herbs cooking down and some other bits and he takes out a frying pan and a basket from another bottom cupboard with these small baby potatoes in it and then in no time there is butter and heat and frying potatoes that end up in this thick sort of potato chowder with leeks and ramp? but also rosemary and thyme and black pepper as well as butter and cream.

Sylvan potatoes are a very yellow potato and they are cooked but not soggy and still sort of fluffy inside and the only other major difference is that the rosemary is milder not as strong as home and the butter here I think might be sweeter in that kind of clover fed cattle way.

It’s actually a taste sort of from home way back in my childhood or the rare few places on the road that you’d stop at and they still did everything the old fashioned way.

He cooks and we eat and I start explaining to him how we should be using forensic accounting to track the movements of their supply chains and how we can audit some of these True Borns houses and see what they buy and who eats or drinks what and track the sales of these items.

Because people are people and they have habits and favorites and these are people that live a hell of a long time so you’re bound to actually pick more up rather than less and rich people always think that they can get whatever they want so…

“It might not show us all of them or even most of them but once we do know, and we get Intel on the ones that we do catch with this we can keep eyes and stuff on them for even more information.”

Him and Falcon are nodding the entire time that I’m explaining things and I’m pretty nerved up because as casual as this is it’s still two very much older and two very much more experience people and I’m…

I’m just Wren.

Okay, that thought just made me smile.

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Comments

Just Wren

that made my eyes sting, but in a good way. Such a very good story!
Hugs
Grover

I always think of her

Andrea Lena's picture

when I see the title. I'm so very proud of your talent as well!

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

oh yeah

just Wren you think you have her figured out, she's a daddy's girl. oh what a woman. oh what a kitchen,
great chapter, thanks

Forensic accounting

Hmmmm, where have I heard that before :)

Well yes, follow the money. Pull down the financial base and it will hamper any organization.

Wren's got a daddy now...

Nice, that she can form such a relationship with Shaya's father.

Good idea for finding the bad guys...

Good to see you writing again. :)

Lees

It's a cultural thing if you love your child then you love their

bonded because that's someone that shares a soul with your child now, they're part of them, they're family.

I'm really glad that I can write again free of all the RL crap.
*Great Big Angel Hugs*

Bailey Summers

This chapter shows further

This chapter shows further why the people love their king. He's so down to earth, I mean he's cooking himself rather than having others cook for them, that's awesome.

Big hugs

Lizzie :)

Yule

Bailey's Angel
The Godmother :p

Dorian's that kind of person, and Lilac house is

as close to a country cottage as he's likely ever going to get as High King. Potato leek soup with rosemary's really good too.
*Great Big Angel Hugs*
Bailey, The Godfather:)

Bailey Summers

Family dynamics

Are so very important regardless of gender, but what Wren longs for is perfectly met by the King's love, that he well shared with Wren.
This is a real man, not a boy trying to pass as a man, This chapter really touched my soul, thank you Bailey.

Huggles

Michele

With those with open eyes the world reads like a book

celtgirl_0.gif