Hadrian's Colony: Interlude: Carlisle Pt. 1

 Notes: Welp. Here we go, into the emotional resolution. Buckle up, buttercups.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Interlude: Carlisle Pt. 1

***

Interlude: Carlisle: Pt. 1

 

 

Photo by Nazmi Zaim

There was surprisingly little franticness to their rescue. Given that it was being handled by a bunch of civilians, that wasn’t what Carlisle had expected. She’d thought to see tears, breathless exhalations, fear in the eyes of whoever was coming for them.

“Whoever” turned out to be a tall, slender Ganian with overgrown facial hair who walked with a limp and talked at a hundred kilometers a second. He stepped out of the little ship that she remembered from their ill-fated foray…it felt like weeks ago now…and through the pouring rain like he didn’t even feel it. He didn’t say anything to her, just made eye contact, and Carlisle immediately moved off of Kieron.

Elanus Desfontaines picked him up and carried him over to the ship without looking back, and Carlisle thought for a moment that that was it. Maybe things had finally gone too far for her son’s companions to tolerate. Maybe they were finally ready to let her face her fate and get the dying over and done with already.

Then she looked at the flames rising from the compound and knew that, for Kieron’s sake, there was probably nothing they wouldn’t do to keep her alive right now.

Sure enough, Desfontaines came back a minute later. He didn’t pick her up, just got her to her feet and clasped her arm supportively. “Let’s go,” he said, and Carlisle did her best to go. It was hard—the dregs of whatever she’d been drugged with were still in her system, throwing her balance off and leaving her with the urge to retch—but she didn’t have any structural damage that couldn’t wait. She staggered into the ship—the ship with the brain, Kieron had talked a bit about it, like a kid to him, ha. Then she was unceremoniously sat down against a wall and ignored as a bunch of conversations happened all around her.

“Get us away from this shithole, baby, I don’t want to risk any secondary explosions giving you fits,” Desfontaines said as he crouched down beside Kieron on the cot on the floor. The little bot she remembered from last time was with him, sitting by his midsection and purring like some sort of catterpet. With four of them in there, spacing was very tight even though the bot didn’t move, and Carlisle had to shift her legs several times to avoid being stepped on.

“Daddeee, I’m low on Regen,” a voice said over the ship’s speaker. It was a female voice, young, with a strange lilting accent. Carlisle had never quite heard anything like it, and she closed her eyes and sharpened her ears to get a better sense of what was going on.

That’s right. Lull them into a false sense of security. That way you’ll learn what you need to know about them without—

No. Stop. These weren’t enemies, and Carlisle couldn’t think about them that way.

The problem was, she didn’t know how else to think about them. Kieron was their only connection, her poor, fucked up son, and he was currently unconscious. No one else had any reason to like her, especially not after the lengths they’d had to go to to get her out.

“Use what you’ve got on Kieron.”

“But Daddeee…initial scans indicate that…ummmm…” The walls of the ship somehow turned a pale, peachy pink color.

“Don’t worry about it, Catie,” Desfontaines soothed. “Carlisle is very accustomed to dealing with little inconveniences, and we’ll get a fresh infusion for you to produce with from Lizzie in the next twelve hours or so. Kieron first.”

“Kierrron first,” Catie agreed, and that…was that.

It wasn’t that Carlisle disagreed. On the contrary; if she’d been asked for her opinion, she would of course have said that Kieron ought to be given whatever he needed to stabilize him. Carlisle wasn’t sure where his wounds were, but the man hadn’t collapsed for no reason. So she sat there and took it, took the chills that shook her and the pain in what felt like every overworked muscle in her body and the broken bones in her foot and nose and the swelling and inflammation, until the ship was set down once more and said, “He’s beeeetter, Daddy.”

Desfontaines smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Damage report, baby.”

“Deep hematooomas, some superficial cuts that arrre healed now, mild hypooothermia, and severe nerve channel dysregulation in the braaain.”

Dysregulation?

“Shit, I thought we fixed that.”

“I think prolonged stress makes it worse, Daddeeee.”

Desfontaines nodded. “So the only fix is R and R, then.”

“Prolooonged R and R, Daddee.”

“Well. I think we can make that happen, baby.” He smiled at nothing—certainly not at Carlisle. “Make the rest of the Regen available topically, tell everyone upstairs that we’re going to sleep for a while, then get some rest too, okay? You as well, Bobby.”

“Yes, Daddeee.” The lights began to power down, the humming little bot went quiet, and soon it was just Carlisle and Desfontaines looking at each other in a strange, liminal twilight space.

“Undress as far as you’re comfortable,” Desfontaines said before getting up and going to Regen unit.

Carlisle shifted. “I don’t need help with treatment.”

“Did I ask?”

“I’m telling you what I’m comfortable with.”

“Fine.” Desfontaines threw a small, one-shot bottle of Regen cream to her. “Then handle it yourself. Good luck getting the spots on your back.”

Smug son of a bitch. Carlisle stripped down, unafraid of being nude for the first time in…oh, she couldn’t even remember. But if there was one thing she was confident of, it was that her son wouldn’t be in a relationship with a rapist. She was filthy, and debated asking for a towel before Desfontaines threw her one anyway. It was imbued with a cleanser, and did a decent job cleaning and disinfecting before she put the cream on.

Carlisle sighed as the pain finally began to ebb. It wouldn’t do much for her broken bones, but the surface stuff was the more irritating of it all anyway. She squeezed the last few drops out of the tube and used them on the scratches on her face, then startled as Desfontaines said, “Huh. I see it.”

She looked sharply at him, but he appeared as mild as milk, regarding her like she was some sort of science experiment. “See what?”

“The similarity in your features. I was starting to think there was nothing of you in him except your freakish pain tolerance.”

 

Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 7 Pt. 1

 Notes: Let's get cracking to the market, shall we?

Title: Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 7 Pt. 1

***

 

Chapter Seven

 

 

Photo by Viktor Forgacs 

Nest Feathering

 

Over the next several weeks, Hiram’s home went from ramshackle to resplendent. Or, well, perhaps not resplendent in the way he’d once been used to. He’d spent the majority of his adult life that wasn’t on the battlefield living in a palace, after all—not just a palace, the palace.

Vordure Palace, the home of the emperor of Galenish, once the home of the kings of Galenish before the last few generations got imperial ambitions. It was the largest royal palace on the continent, with five levels stretching across a mile of land in the middle of the city, over five hundred rooms and more than a thousand servants to maintain them and their occupants. It was a study in luxury, some chambers made entirely of blue marble contrasting with red lanterns in the ceiling and walls, white gold fixtures and roc-down stuffed cushions. And somehow, despite all its excess, it had managed to be elegant. Beautiful. Home, to Hiram.

Now he was in Lollop, in the former home of Mistress Shore, and he was finally starting to feel like the place truly belonged to him. The few items he’d brought with him were no more than a hint of flavor; no, Hiram was a pack rat through and through. Comfort for him meant coziness, the feeling of being ensconced in reminders of the good—and occasionally bad—things in his life, a warm fire and warmer company. It was more than a few show pieces and clean corners; this house wouldn’t feel right until he’d associated a memory with every cup, every fork, every piece of furniture.

It really wouldn’t feel right until he began to ply his trade, but that was going to take a bit longer to pull off. After all, he couldn’t “assist” his plants in their growth until his time with Letty ran out.

At least she’d stopped bringing her brothers once the heaviest work was done. Jem, for all that he was a snarly teenager, was good at building, and he’d done such a good job on the rabbit hutch that Mercury, the troll Hiram had hired to fix his chicken coop and Mule’s enclosure, asked the boy if he was interested in an apprenticeship.

“Good hands,” Mercury had said in a rare moment of Trollish ebullience. “Good eyes.”

Jem, after a “talk” with his father about how much money he’d be saving the family once they didn’t have to feed him anymore, accepted the offer, and by all accounts seemed much happier living with the trolls. Rickie kept coming, but after a brief chat about responsible child-watching with Esmerelda, she’d agreed to covertly keep the child close to the house while they played their games of cat and mouse. It made Letty happy, since she could keep an eye on her brother, and Rickie was thrilled to spent more time with his “Esme.”

That left Letty, who Hiram was more sure than ever now had a frustrated desire concerning her spark of magic. It was all the more frustrating since she refused to confide in him, instead putting herself to work every morning with a vengeance and going home in the afternoon after discussions that were limited to which plants to put where, for the most part. She’d written off Hiram as unable to help her, and therefore she wouldn’t tell him anything at all. Which—seven gods, what a teenager thing to do. Had he ever been this unreasonable? Surely not.

Well, he still had a month of her labor left. That should be enough time to get some idea of what bent her touch of magic took and whether it really was worth training up. In the meantime, he had plenty to do getting ready for his first Market Day. Just because Hiram’s own herb garden wasn’t up and running didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of opportunity to make concoctions for selling.

The tinctures came first, because those had to steep in alcohol for a while to make the most of their properties. He collected dandelion and burdock root, black walnut husk and echinacea, feverfew and valerian root and half a dozen others and combined them in various measures to get liquid remedies for everything from headaches to parasites to menstrual discomfort.

Next were the salves: salves for dry skin, for infection, for inflammation and pain. Salves for spots and for stress, for hair removal and hair growth, for bunions and boils and bruises.

Finally, he whipped up a few exotic combinations for common household items, just in case people were looking for something different: lavender and ginger shampoos, drops to soothe the eyes before sleep and upon waking, and a batch of soaps with a goat milk base mixed with candied violet and nasturtium petals. They lathered up so fast the bars probably wouldn’t last more than a few weeks, but they smelled divine and left the skin feeling exquisite.

The night before his first Market Day, Tilda came over with a bottle of Jonn’s best cider and a basket full of odds and ends of fabric to help him spruce up his wares. “It’s the least I can do,” she said as she settled in next to him at his new table. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am to see Raileene’s home look so warm and welcoming again. This was a place I cherished for many years, and you’re a good fit for it, Hiram.”

“Am I?” he asked with a little smile, hands already wrist-deep in the basket as he searched for the right texture to wrap around the square-cut bars of soap. His labels were adequate for the jars and bottles, but the soap needed a special touch. “I don’t think many people would agree with you.”

She frowned. “Has someone been giving you trouble?”

“Not…exactly.” He pulled out a length of lilac ribbon and nodded to himself, then reached for the scissors. “I enjoy having guests, and the deliveries have gone quite well for the most part, but everyone who steps foot in this room seems to react the same—wide eyes, dropped jaws, and mumbling. I fear I’m not doing a very good job of making it homey.”

Tilda shook her head. “On the contrary. You’ve made a beautiful home, it’s just not one that a native of Lollop would make for themselves. I daresay you’ve had a sight more visitors than you expected, hmm?”

“I have.” He’d had deliveries he hadn’t ordered—milk and cheese, raw wool in case he wanted to spin and dye it himself (which of course he did) and half a dozen other little things from town that various shopkeepers wanted him to sample. Not to mention the visitors who had no proper business with him but came with food to “welcome him to town” and left with hands over their mouths and glassy eyes.

“Mm, well, you’re the first person to come to this town with a sense of style in ages. Word of your rather unique furnishings has spread, and everyone wants a chance to see it for themselves.”

Hiram frowned. “There’s not much of furnishings here, really. Just the rug and chair.”

“And the rather colorful table. And the tapestries on the wall.”

“Oh, those are hardly noteworthy,” he protested. “Just a few old battle scenes.”

“And the map over the fireplace.”

“A map of the continent! It’s educational!”

“It lists kingdoms that don’t exist anymore,” Tilda pointed out. “In a language very few people in Lollop could speak.”

“It’s a mountain language,” he defended himself. “I grew up speaking it.”

“Yes, in a land so far away most Oribellians have never heard of it.” She shook her head. “Just accept that you’re going to be exciting for a while, and that you didn’t help your cause any by handing out flowers to all your admirers. I’m sure your stall will be absolutely packed tomorrow.”

“Perhaps,” Hiram allowed. “But perhaps not. I’m not entirely sure that the mayor will allow me to set up shop, to be honest.”

Tilda’s gaze sharpened. “Has Uriel threatened you again?”

“Not in so many words, but I’ve received several notices about city taxes that seem to contradict each other,” Hiram said. “I think I’m being set up for problems by not charging the right amount to cover my costs and the taxes that are to be assessed.”

“There’s no city tax levied in such a manner,” Tilda said. “A portion of all proceeds from market sales is collected at the end of the day, but it’s the same ten percent for everyone. Simply keep track of your orders and set aside enough to cover it.”

“That’s not what I was told,” Hiram replied, pausing in his wrapping to fish the notices out and hand them over to Tilda. She took them and began to read, her calm slowly giving way to a scowl. Hiram took a moment to dangle the end of the lilac thread over Knight’s face, tickling his long ear with it. The enormous rabbit, who had apparently decided that being more than a foot from Hiram whenever he was in the house was unacceptable, batted at it lazily with a paw before settling between his legs with a little sigh. “Lazy thing,” he chided the rabbit without heat.

His efforts to get the rabbit to play were forestalled by Tilda’s affronted huff. “This is ridiculous. You’re not representing yourself as a healer, simply an herbalist.”

“And yet I’m said to be selling concoctions that will ‘affect body and mind,’ hence delving into the healing arts,” Hiram said. “And to be fair, he’s not wrong.”

“You’re not associated with a temple!” she protested. “Temples are taxed differently than individual proprietors!”

Hiram shrugged. “I don’t know what to make of it, myself. I was going to ask you about it earlier, but time got away from me.” That and the fact that he really didn’t want to think about it. Numbers irritated Hiram; he was far less interested in the quantitative aspect of running a business than the qualitative.

Tilda glared at the papers like they’d insulted her. “I’ll take this up with the city council,” she said firmly. “If you’ll let me hold onto these, that is.”

“I would appreciate any assistance you can give me,” Hiram assured her as he finished tying a knot around the bar of soap. “What do you think?”

She smiled. “It’s quite lovely. I told you, your shop will be quite popular. Do you already have a ledger for keeping track of sales?”

“Um. Ah.”

“Hiram.” Tilda rolled her eyes. “How did you ever make a living from this before?”

I’ve never had to earn a living like this in my life. I’ve never counted pennies or slips, never had a tax levied on me, never prettied up my wares to give them allure. The things I did for my living changed the fates of nations, and it’s all I can do to look myself in the mirror at times because of that. Yet part of me wishes I’d never left. “I had help before,” was all he said. “But now it’s just me.”

Tilda’s demeanor softened. “Well, then. I’ll assist you tomorrow, if you like. Just this once.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Hiram said softly.

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 Notes: Oooh, fire in the sky! So pretty!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 

 Photo by Mohamed Fsili

“You…” Kieron’s voice died off as he lost his ability to articulate exactly what he was feeling. He could hear the others arguing, Catie squawking and Elanus shouting and Lizzie replying defensively, but he couldn’t say anything because he could see a light in the sky. It was growing larger, and soon enough he could make out individual fireballs splitting off from it, some of them fizzling out but most of them staying close. He felt Carlisle shiver, and lifted her into a more comfortable position in his arms as he watched the fire get closer and closer.

“Kieron, you’ve got to get farther back!”

“It’s all right,” he said as he watched the door to the compound suddenly flare open. He could see the silhouette of people inside of it, saw them taking their first steps outside. The falling fire dimmed that light, and then as the first person stepped through the door, shouting, gun lifted—

The fire struck.

Kieron had never worked as a mercenary. He hadn’t participated in aerial bombardments, he hadn’t been part of strike teams taking out orbital stations, he hadn’t seen a lot of combat. But he was absolutely sure that, without a doubt, this was the most precisely targeted assault that had ever been levied against a stationary facility from space. It hit the center of the base, a few splashes of fuel erupting up and out, but none traveling more than fifty yards before sputtering out.

The fireball dug its way into the weapons cache, which of course Lizzie knew the location of since Bobby had done all that recon work, and consumed the explosives there, incorporating them into its sound and fury without allowing them to randomize the damage. The fire and heat coruscated outward in shades of orange, yellow, and white, coming to a pinnacle just beyond the edge of the compound itself. A second later the fire contracted, burning itself out and focusing the last of its energy on the center once more.

Everyone who came into contact with it died. Everyone, every single person in the base who’d been watching and tormenting and taunting them, was dead now. Tactically dead, strategically nuked from space, to use an ancient Earth term.

And Kieron and Carlisle were fine. He could barely even feel the heat of the fire through the storm that still raged around them.

“Impressive,” Carlisle said, her voice like smoke. “You have—” she coughed. “Good friends.”

“That was my daughter’s doing,” Kieron said, his voice distant even to himself. That was Lizzie, all Lizzie. She must have run the numbers on his survival and found the odds she liked the best, and then—

She’d acted. Without hesitation, without a second thought, and it had saved his life.

And if she’d calculated wrong, she would have killed him.

Kieron shivered, not out of fear for himself but from fear for Lizzie. If things hadn’t gone this way…if she’d ended up being the reason he died instead of the reason he was saved…she would never have forgiven herself. Lizzie was quiet, far quieter than her sister, but she was no less intense in her emotions.

“Kee?” Lizzie’s voice, tentative and soft, cut through the fog in his mind.

“Baby,” he said immediately. “I’m here. I’m all right. You did it.”

“I saw your life sign, but you weren’t saying anything for a while.”

“I was just…” Stunned. Impressed. Afraid. “Surprised, sweetheart.”

“As long as you’re surprised and communicating,” Elanus snapped over the com. “Catie’s on the way around to you, we’ll pick you up in two-point-three minutes. Any damage?”

“No. Not to me,” Kieron amended as he looked at his mother. “But Carlisle is pretty worse for wear.”

“Catie will fix her up in no time.”

The rest of the crew on Lizzie’s line were being awfully silent. “Status report, Ryu,” Kieron said.

“Nothing to report,” he said, sounding just the slightest bit spooked. “We had the payload ready, but I didn’t even know Lizzie had released it until she told you about it. Lizzie…we agreed we’d talk about it before you deployed.”

“I’m sorry! You would have told me not to do it, though, and I didn’t have time to explain my math to you!”

“Your math had a fifty-seven perrrcent chance of being wrrrong!” Catie snapped. “You could have killlled Kieron!”

“I would never kill Kieron! My math was perfect, look at how it all worked out!”

“I’m talking about your varrriables, not your primes!”

“I’ll show you variables!” There was sudden silence on the coms, and Kieron put a hand over his mouth to silence his sudden snort as he realized that his girls were having a math fight. A math fight over the odds of his surviving Lizzie’s intervention. God, he wished he could get Elanus alone right now to talk about this, and preferably share a drink or ten about it.

“Kieron.”

“Mm?” he said to Carlisle.

“I think you’re going into shock.”

“Mm.” He probably was, slumping back onto the ground and maneuvering Carlisle so she was on top of him instead of soaking up the cold directly. Not that the rain wasn’t freezing, but it was better than lying in a puddle.

“Don’t get comfortable,” she said, irritation warring with something else he couldn’t put a name to in her voice. “You don’t have time for this.”

“It’s shock,” he slurred, “not really…controllable.”

“Everything is controllable to a certain extent. Look at what your kid just pulled off.” Her tone of voice made it clear that she was more impressed than judgmental.

“Mm. Kids are hard.”

Carlisle was quiet for a moment, then surprised him with a laugh. “They are,” she agreed. “They’re the hardest thing in the world. Small wonder I did so little when it came to raising you, when you intimidated me so badly.”

“Mm.”

“Kieron, stay awake.”

“I’m awake,” he said.

“Don’t close your eyes.”

“They’re…open. S’just dark out here.” He was tired. More tired than he should be, after such a clean extraction. Carlisle was in far worse shape than he was; there was no reason for him to be this tired while she was wide awake.

“One minute to you,” Elanus said. “Stay awake, Kieron.”

God damn it, he was awake! It was just hard to stay that way, but he’d do it. If Lizzie could predict how to save his life before setting a base on fire, he could do this much.

She could have killed him, but she hadn’t. They were so lucky. Or she was just that good, just that intelligent. It was frightening, to have a kid so intelligent—a kid who was optimized for combat scenarios. How many people would want her, if they knew what she could do? War-based AIs were incredibly expensive tech, notoriously unreliable despite all their models and training, and here was Lizzie predicting payload, survival rates, and compensating for human reactions.

So smart, his girl. Almost too smart for her own good.

“Stay awake, Kieron.”

He hummed.

“I mean it!” Pain erupted in his left arm, but it was a small discomfort when he was already so cold and wet.

“Kee?”

That was Lizzie. He needed to talk to her, to let her know he was all right. He tried to speak, but couldn’t do it. He was too…too…

“Kee?”