Hadrian's Colony: Epilogue: Elanus POV

 Notes: Oh my goodness, we're...at the end. The end of Hadrian's Colony. Not the end of our guys' story, nowhere close, but over seventy thousand words later, here we are. This was a rough go for our lovers, and the ending isn't a firmly happy resolution in all respects, but I feel confident in their ability to weather whatever comes next. 

And there's a lot coming, and soon. But not immediately! My brain needs a break, so I'll be doing a short story/novella in another genre entirely next, then revisiting these gents after that. Thank you all for reading and sticking it out with me! Life is challenging for a lot of us right now, but you give me something to look forward to every week.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Epilogue: Elanus POV

***

Hadrian’s Colony: Epilogue: Elanus POV

 

Photo by Sebastian Brito 

 

Nothing happened fast on a Drifter ship. Technologically and culturally speaking, speed wasn’t a thing for them. Their lives were measured in milestones—another hydroponic crop harvested, another trade deal made, another piece of their massive ship salvaged or decommissioned. They had loose schedules for everything from maintenance to health services, which was one of the reasons Elanus was so confident he could improve their systems. It wasn’t hard when half the damage was self-inflicted thanks to ignoring component wear and tear until it failed. He promised them results—in hydro-storage and recycling, in heating and cooling, and in diagnostics, and he was going to damn well deliver.

And what he asked for in return? A level of speed that had the Father—the head—of the ship ready to tear his hair out.

“We can’t source a ship that fast!”

“They’re already sourced,” Elanus replied absently as he tweaked the program Catie was putting together for hull integrity diagnostics. One more sensor in this area would be easy to manufacture, and it would cover an entire kilometer of ship that was currently underperforming but would soon be supporting temperature differentials. “You have three in storage.”

Daniel Hammersmith scowled at him. “You shouldn’t have that information. Have you been scanning our ship? Because that goes against the agreement you made when you came on board.”

Elanus didn’t resist the urge to scoff. “I didn’t have to scan anything,” he said. “The families who own those ships came to my people within the hour of us arriving, all looking to make a private deal.”

Hammerhelm’s expression darkened even further. “They don’t have the authority to make deals with outsiders unless I say they can.”

“Which is why I haven’t said yes to any of them,” Elanus replied. “But I will have one of those ships, Father Daniel, and I’ll have it without you dragging my stay here out and getting more concessions from me for using your precious resources, like I haven’t already repaid you fifty times over with the improvements I’m making for you.” He raised his eyes from the screen to look evenly at the Drifter, who looked away after just a second.

“Fine. But fuel is extra.”

Elanus smiled. “Of course it is.”

The truth was, he didn’t care that fuel would cost more. He didn’t care if it cost him as much as everything else they’d paid already, because fueling the ship they ended up with was the key to getting rid of Carlisle, and getting rid of Carlisle was key to getting Kieron back on an even keel.

You had to know him to know how he was being affected by his mother’s continual distance. After Catie’s Regen capacity was refreshed and Kieron broke out of the depression he’d been held in since the rescue, he’d acted almost normal. They’d been on Pinnace for a week and he’d been good for all of it—attentive to the kids, Pol included; conversing with Xilinn and Ryu about what had happened while they’d been separated; sticking close to Elanus when he could and showing him how much he cared in the small, sweet ways Elanus would freely admit he was addicted to.

It didn’t matter that so much of their early relationship was lost to Kieron’s traumatic brain injury; he still held Elanus’s hand whenever they were together for more than thirty seconds. He still laid his palm on his lower back when they walked, the easiest place for him to reach given that Elanus was more than a foot and a half taller than his fiancé. When they slept together—in a bed in guest apartments on Pinnace, which was a nice bit of privacy for all involved after months in close quarters with Catie—he pulled Elanus’s head onto his chest without a second thought. The love was ever-present, demonstrated in big and small ways, and Elanus was confident that he knew as much about how Kieron showed his emotions as Kieron himself did these days.

Which was how he knew the damage with Carlisle went deep. Kieron wasn’t extra sensitive to it because of his injuries, and Carlisle wasn’t extra solicitous of him because of them either. Despite their inability to speak with one another about anything of import, their actions spoke volumes.

Carlisle was quiet, avoidant, and cold. Kieron was quiet, persistent, and cracking under the weight of her disregard more and more every day.

That was why she had to go, before she broke something she had no right to anymore. She knew it, she agreed with Elanus, and as long as he got her a ship she could fly and gave her access to enough credits to do whatever the fuck she wanted, they were clear as far as he was concerned.

It didn’t take long. One conversation wrought a quick inspection of all three ships, Carlisle included in  the process because she was the one who would have to fly the damn thing, and then the trade was made. The ship was stocked, Carlisle was checked one last time and given a clean bill of health, and then…

She left. There was no elaborate goodbye, no heartfelt hugs and promises to meet again in the future. She simply said, “I’ll go, then,” and shook everyone’s hands. Kieron was the only one who got a double hand clasp, and for a second there, as their eyes met, Elanus thought they might have a breakthrough.

But no—Carlisle broke contact first, nodded at Elanus, then walked into her refurbished ship. Five minutes later, she was gone, heading for the closest space lane to do some exploring in the Fringe.

An hour later, Elanus found Kieron in one of the many small observatories, breaks in the outer hull that had been transformed into looking stations with plastisteel and forcefields. It was cold there, very cold—this part of the ship wasn’t well insulated, and when Elanus kissed the top of Kieron’s head as he wrapped him in an embrace, his skin was icy.

He needed to say something, break through the discomfort somehow, but…

“I don’t know whether I should feel happy or not with how it’s all ended.”

Huh, looked like Kieron was going to do the heavy lifting, then. As usual. “You feel how you feel,” Elanus said, not-very-usefully in his opinion, but what else could he say? “You can acknowledge something is for the best without being happy about it.”

“Is that what you think? That her leaving is for the best?”

“Yes.” There was no doubt in his mind. “For both of you. She’s been little better than a slave to a complete madman for most of her life, Kieron. Someone who controlled her every move, who had unreachable expectations of her.”

Kieron flinched. “Do you think I treated her like that? With unreasonable expectations, I mean?”

No, fuck that. “Honey,” Elanus said in what he hoped was a level tone, “You didn’t have any expectations of her, from what I could see. Or if you did, they were minimal at best. And I think that’s part of why it’s better that she left. Not just for her sake, so she can learn about a universe that’s so much bigger than what she’s used to, but so you can figure out how you feel without the pressure of being so careful around her. It’s breathing room, baby. Just some breathing room. It’s not forever.”

I won’t let it be forever.

“Besides,” he went on, “I don’t think Carlisle has quite the right skillset for our next adventure.”

“I don’t know,” Kieron said in a lighter tone than Elanus was expecting. “It might be nice to have a highly trained mercenary on our side when we try to infiltrate Trakta.”

“Ha,” Elanus muttered. “Goes to show what you know about infiltrating xenophobic, religious-right, neo-fascistic societies. You don’t make headway in a place like that with guns.”

“So how are we going to do it, then?”

Elanus kissed the top of Kieron’s head. “With the weight of my charming personality, of course. And a lot of credits.”

Elanus had them to spare, after all, and Trakta was incredibly money-hungry now that it had seceded from the Central System. He knew exactly what buttons to push to get access to the planet, and once he was there, he’d grease the right palms and set things up to get Xilinn’s kids back.

Easy. They were due something being easy for once in the past few years, and this was going to be it. It was.

It had to be.

 

Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards: Chapter 9, Part 1

 Notes: Let's have some memories, shall we? Damn, am I bad at keeping things fluffy. I swear this is going to stay a cozy and low-angst fantasy!

Title: Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards, Ch. 9 Part 1

***

Chapter Nine, Part One

 

Photo by Preston Goff

Take Me To Church

 

To be honest, Hiram almost forgot about the issue of showing up at the Temple of Melemor on Lares. He had a lot of work to do before the next market day, after all; his entire stock was gone, and in the days since then he’d had numerous clients come to his home in hopes of getting more of whatever curative he’d sold them before market day.

“Worked a charm,” the woman who’d come to him all bound up said as he sat with her at his table, dicing prunes. Her name, he learned, was Mistress Erine, and she owned one of the largest flocks of sheep in town. Her world was focused on caring for her family, her sheep, and her herding dogs to the detriment of caring for herself, hence lots of easy-to-carry food to last her the day that led to, well…issues. “Had to spend a whole evening on the latrine, but it was worth it. Now I want to be prepared for next time.”

“You should take dried plums with you when you go to work,” Hiram suggested. “They’ll get you ahead of the problem.”

“They’d be eaten right out of my satchel before I made it ten feet by one of the little ones or their pa,” she said with a shrug. “Medicinal tea, on the other hand, is avoided like the plague.”

“It’ll have the same effect, as long as you’re regular with it,” Hiram said. “Just one cup a night, brewed fairly weak. You can make one sachet last three or four days that way. Or, give me a few more weeks and I’ll have a tincture of this made up that you can add a bit of to water. That might be easier for you in the long run.”

“Very kind of you, Master Emblic.”

He smiled as he handed over a new sachet of tea. “It’s my pleasure.”

It was, too. This was good, simple work that was satisfying to complete and helped build a solid reputation for him in Lollop. It also gave Letty and her brother something to do once the garden was built—he sent them out to forage for rarer ingredients, confident that Esme would watch from a distance to ensure they didn’t get into any tangles they couldn’t handle. They returned with chokecherries, kingslip and queen’s lace, five different kinds of bark, and mistletoe (he discarded the mistletoe immediately), and smiles on their faces after spending hours traipsing through the woods, eating the lunch he packed them and spending time away from their demanding father.

Hiram forgot all about Lares, in fact, until Letty reminded him of it. “We won’t be in tomorrow,” she said as she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. The evening air was beginning to get a bit nippier, and the leaves were beginning to change color. Soon the apples would be ripe for harvesting, and then the squash, and then… “Because of Temple.”

“Oh yes, of course.” Hiram smiled a bit absently at her. “Enjoy it.”

Letty frowned. “I’ll see you there, won’t I? High Priest Velagros has been telling everyone that you’ll be there.”

Shit, right. “Ah.”

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

He sighed. “I did. But I’ll be there.”

Letty paused, fidgeting with the hem of her scarf. “Mistress Tate isn’t happy about it.”

Oh, she must be raising hell in town. Hiram was a bit surprised she hadn’t come to him with her concerns, but odds were she was hoping to handle it without him knowing. Kind of her, as ever, but unnecessary. “If you would do me the kindness of finding Mistress Tate and letting her know not to fret, that I’m perfectly fine with a ritual cleansing, I would appreciate it.”

“I’ll do that,” Letty said. “See you tomorrow morning, then.” She grabbed Rickie by the hand before he managed to dart away, then closed the door behind her.

“Perfectly fine, hmm?”

Hiram rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop.”

“No, I don’t think I will. Melemor isn’t some local pushover you can dodge with cleverness; he’s a major member of the pantheon.”

“I’m not going to dodge him!” Hiram insisted. “I’m just going to show him what I prefer him to focus on.” He scraped up the last of the herbs from his cutting board and poured them into the compost bucket, then put the kettle on. It was time for a cup of tea himself—a very specific one.

“For all that his high priest is a loathsome bottom crawler, Melemor is a god of truthfulness,” Phlox snapped. “He prizes honesty from his worshippers, and a cleansing implies being forced to speak the truth whether you want to or not. If you give yourself away—”

“I won’t,” Hiram insisted. “Look, Melemor is a balancing act—truth, yes, but he’s also a god of healing, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. All I’ve got to do is give him the proper bit to focus on and I’ll be right as rain.” A quick glance at his store of spices showed he’d need to make a special trip upstairs to find what he wanted.

It felt odd to go up to his bedroom while it was still light out. It was a comforting place, but one that had more memories associated with it than the rest of the house. Here was where his former life still shone through, and nowhere was that more obvious than in the special satchel he’d warded to all the hells and back that contained his most magical potion ingredients.

“Psybane, psybane, psybane…ah.” There it was, a thorny, prickly ball of herbs that sported a most arresting shade of blood red. He tried not to be disappointed by finding it.

“Psybane? Are you mad? Do you want to be able to walk tomorrow?”

Phlox was too loud in his ear, and Hiram flicked him irritably as he wrapped some of the thorns in a scrap of cloth and carried it back downstairs. The kettle was bubbling by then, so he took it off the heat, put the psybane in a bowl, and poured the water over it. A minute to steep, no more, or he really wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow. He timed it to the cadence of his own pulse, and then decanted about half the water into a small cup.

“This isn’t smart, Hiram. Just find a spell that can do it.”

“Spells are a bad idea for me, you know that. And so is fighting the tide of the town,” Hiram said, turning with the cup and carrying it back up the stairs. He toed off his house shoes—boots were firmly left by the door—and sat down in the middle of the bed, making sure his pillow was ready behind him. Psybane hit differently every single time, but Hiram hadn’t taken it since he’d left Galenish. He wasn’t sure what it would do to him this time around.

“Hiram…”

He smiled a little. “Are you worried for me, Phlox?”

Phlox sniffed. “Only worried who would find your rotting corpse and take control of me afterward.”

“It’s all right, my dear. I’ll be fine.” He drank the tea down in one long swallow, then—

The psybane grabbed him like a hand to the throat and threw him down into memories. His vision went hazy, then dark, and Hiram’s mental landscape flickered and reformed over and over again. A cave, a dungeon, a barren mountaintop, a fiery plain, a sumptuous bedroom—

“—think you can get away with this?” Andy raged at him. “We need an alliance with the Sharivath, Xerome, and Misha is how we get it! You can’t hide her from me, I’m her father. Where is Misha? Where is my daughter?”

“A marriage alliance to the Sharivath isn’t worth it,” Xerome insisted, unwilling to back down from his enraged lover. He’d done that too much lately, given in to Andy when he should have pushed, should have fought back. He loved the man, but he was getting harder and harder to deal with. “Not for your only child. She doesn’t want that kind of marriage anyway, you know that.”

Andy sneered at him, his handsome features contorted by disdain. “Her wants are secondary to the needs of the kingdom.”

“She is your only heir! Don’t set her up to play second best when anyone she marries ought to be begging for her hand. ”

The blow came out of nowhere, so hard that Xerome fell to the floor from the force of it. He stared up at Andy, incredulous and feeling far more hurt than the strike warranted. There was nothing in Andy’s eyes to show he regretted it, nothing of repentance or shock at his own actions, at hitting the man he professed to love—just anger, anger, anger. “Bring her back before the week is out, or I’ll—”

The scene shifted, dragging him into a new vision. This one was Misha, garbed in a loose black robe and holding perfectly still as Xerome poured a dark, shimmery oil over her head as he spoke an incantation that would hide her from her father, and any other magic user who Andy could hire to do his dirty work. When it was done and he’d wiped her face clean, she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Come with me.”

Xerome shook his head, feeling his limbs tremble. The spell had taken a lot out of him. “I can’t hide myself this way, sweetheart.”

“So choose another spell for yourself.”

“Spells are the whole problem,” he said tiredly, handing over a towel. “I need to turn my magic off for a while, Misha. Your father will try and track me by it, so it’s best I don’t use it for the foreseeable future, other than laying some false trails.” He sighed. “No, we need to go our separate ways, for your own safety.”

Misha grabbed his hand, oil be damned. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over her cheeks. “What about your safety?”

Oh, baby. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m afraid for you.” She bit her lip. “And I’m afraid to be without you. Please, just—isn’t there some way we can stay together?”

And risk her father’s anger turning physical on her? Misha was a fine warrior, but she didn’t have her father’s skill or guile. “No, my love,” he said, squeezing her fingers in his. “I’m so sorry, but this is for the best.”

“It’s just for now, though.” There was still a hint of hope in her voice, and it made his heart clench with self-loathing. “Right? Just for now. You’ll find me later.”

Your father would have to be dead, and he might never die after what I’ve done for him. To him. “I’ll try,” he promised, and it rang false in his mind like a bell, tight like a noose, clawing out of his gut like a—

Hiram rolled onto his side and threw up the remnants of the psybane tea, gasping for breath. He shivered in the wake of his violent visions, and every part of him ached with longing for a life he’d never have again, and people who were lost to him forever. His family, his dearest ones…

“Are you all right?” Phlox asked quietly. “That took a long time, it’s almost dawn.”

It felt like no more than a few minutes…and an eternity. “I’m all right,” Hiram said, his voice rough from dryness. “I just need to settle a bit. Then I’ll clean things up and we can go to the Temple.”

And if this doesn’t work, then I’ll figure something else out on the fly.

 

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

Notes: A few more chapters and we'll be done. Omigosh, friends...what am I going to DO!? I mean, no, I sort of know what I'm going to do, but I pine! I PINE, people!

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

***

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two

 

 Photo by Karsten Weingeart

 

It felt a little unreal to be off of Hadrian’s Colony at last. Not in a “waking up from a nightmare” sort of way—Kieron was very aware of the time they’d spent down there and how crucially it had all gone wrong. It felt more like some part of himself was standing outside his body and observing, cataloguing all the things going on around him and the interactions he wasn’t having. He ought to be happy to be off the planet, and something in him was, but it also felt very distant.

Being with the girls helped. They bantered back and forth, equal parts joyful and irritated to be back together and more than willing to hold off on heavy conversations for now. Lizzie’s intensely accurate firebombing? Ignored. Catie’s near-death experience? Avoided. Both girls having to take far more responsibility for their parents than either Elanus or Kieron wanted? Not even mentioned. Instead they chattered back and forth, verbally and numerically, one-upping each other with stories and using Bobby as a sort of referee.

Bobby loved it. He’d reached a new stage in his mental development down there, going from what Catie had looked at as a bumbling pet to a genuine little brother. Lizzie was delighted to talk to him without all the static and interference caused by the planet, and the three of them got sidetracked into entire conversations in Morse that had the girls giggling and Bobby quivering with laughter. It was sweet to experience them together, to hear them learning each other’s personalities and how to get along and the best ways to poke at each other without causing real harm. They were already like family.

It wasn’t until five standard days into their escape from Hadrian’s Colony that Kieron found an emotional exit from the way he’d isolated himself, and it came in the form of a physical exit by Carlisle. Elanus had told Kieron the plan, Kieron knew he had, but nothing seemed to stick in his head lately. He forgot what was being said just a few minutes after he was told, and he knew it bothered everyone but he genuinely couldn’t do shit for it. Arriving at Pinnace changed that.

Pinnace was a Drifter ship that had worked the same stretch of space, back and forth, for centuries now. They were the closest thing to homesteaders that Drifters could be, a colony of over five thousand people on a ship that looked like a patchwork horror but packed a mean punch when threatened. The families on Pinnace had learned a long time ago that their ship wasn’t going to outrun a pirate crew, so they’d bartered early and often for weapons systems and defenses that could probably fight off an Alliance destroyer if they needed to.

Pinnace was the only waystation along this particular gravitational highway, a sure stop for miners and explorers, and its inhabitants were wily as hell. Listening to Elanus barter with them for access to their medical supplies was like listening in on a peace-treaty negotiation.

“No, we don’t need a Regen tank, we need the baseline ingredients for manufacture, that’s all.”

“You think those are any easier to come by than full-on Regen this far out? You’re outta your mind. Those are reserved for family and emergencies only.”

“Well this qualifies as an emergency.”

“The hell it does. We’ve been tracking you for the last fifteen hours, you’re not broadcasting any distress signals.”

“So fucking sue me if I don’t want to advertise to the universe that we’re in a tough spot. We just escaped from Hadrian’s Colony, you think that was a good time?”

There was a long pause, then… “That’s shipshit.”

“We did.”

“No one gets on or off that hellhole during storm season.”

“I’m not saying it was easy or smart, I’m just saying we did it. And now we need to shore ourselves, and our ships, up before we head on to clearer waters.”

“You’re blasting Ganian idents. That’s Central System crap, we have no use for that currency, so what can you offer us?”

“I can offer you an upgrade of any system on Pinnace with a guarantee of an increase of at least five percent in efficiency.”

Elanus got nothing but laughter back. It took a demonstration by one of the girls on a disconnected platform for the Drifter to take them seriously, but even they had to admit it was a good deal. Efficiency was the lifeblood of a Drifter ship; everything that could be spared, recycled, or upcycled was pursued with relentless focus. Elanus knew how to do that. He even managed to bargain for a ship for Carlisle, which Kieron hadn’t seen coming but wasn’t surprised by. Of course she wanted to get away from them as soon as possible. Of course she wasn’t going to stay.

Coming in to dock was a surreal experience. It should have felt normal; Kieron used to oversee this sort of thing every day back on Cloverleaf Station, he’d watched this thousands of times. Maybe it was the effect of their last landing being Hadrian’s Colony, or maybe it was that they were so close to being around people again—people he liked, their two shiploads combining into one, and people he had no reason to trust—but Kieron’s breathing sped up and his eyes got wet as they neared the space dock.

Elanus noticed but didn’t say anything, playing it safe in a way he had very little experience with. He was afraid of pushing Kieron right now and Kieron got that, he appreciated it. But without a push, he thought he might just hyperventilate before they got hooked up to Pinnace.

When the push came, it came from Carlisle. Kieron heard a stutter, then a gasp turned into tiny, panting breaths, and it took too long for him to realize that she was the one having the panic attack. Before he could think twice about it, he unbuckled from his chair and turned back to the wall where she was strapped in, face pressed into her hands but fingers slitted enough that she could see through them. She  was staring at the viewscreen and shaking so hard he could hear her teeth chatter.

Kieron got up and went over to her, kneeling down in front of her to block her sight of the incoming port. He took one of her hands and placed it on his own chest, using the touch to ground the both of them. “Deep breath,” he said firmly. “Come on now, in. Out.” This was how they’d calmed children back on the Colony; adults who broke down got much rougher treatment, but Kieron didn’t think she’d respond well to being shouted at right now. “In. Out.” Carlisle followed orders, ever the good soldier, and by the time the red docking light turned solid white, she’d managed to catch her breath.

“Thank you,” she whispered, not quite looking him in the eyes.

He’d take it. “You’re welcome.”