Buckle Those Swashes 2.0 - Epilogue
Feb. 17th, 2013 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassAnd just because I can't resist a capstone story to end it all off, here's one I wrote this morning. It takes place three years after the events of the last session, on the new continent that was discovered across the sea to the west.
Epilogue
3 Years Later…
“Darling, why did you never tell me my back would hurt this much?” Marietta Gemmanova spent one last precious moment sitting, smoothing her skirt, reluctant to get up.
“You look much better than I did,” said her wife, extending a hand.
Marietta took it and allowed herself to be pulled up, grunting at the unexpected pressure. “That’s only because you can’t see my face,” she retorted.
Annie McGee lifted Marietta’s veil – blue silk today, thin but opaque – and kissed her wife full on the lips. “You will always be beautiful to me.”
Marietta held her tight, angling her so that she stood to the side. She lowered the veil back in place. “Even when I’m so fat I can’t wear a proper corset?”
Annie put a hand on Marietta’s oversized belly. “You’re not fat, dear, you’re pregnant. Try to keep up.”
They walked to the bedroom door. “You’d think we could have timed it better. How am I supposed to go to the vote when I could give birth any minute?”
Annie gave her a wry smile. “Do I need to remind you what I did when I was giving birth?”
Marietta looked at her through the fabric of her veil. “You’ve always been braver than I am. That’s why I married you.”
“And here I thought you married me for my money.”
Marietta laughed, preparing her next retort, when a high voice came to them from the main floor. “Mommy, watch me!”
Marietta and Annie exchanged a glance and started to run. “Why is it,” Marietta panted, “that even after 600 years, those words still make my blood run cold?”
They reached the top of the stairwell, and it was immediately apparent what was about to happen. A servant cleaning the ceiling had left a rope tethered to the chandelier, no doubt for whenever they came back and resumed work. But now the rope was not hanging free, it was angled almost ninety degrees as two small hands grasped it. The body connected to the hands was just short enough fit between the top of the bookcase and the ceiling, and he stood proudly, his eyes gleaming.
“Breanan Anthony McGee, you get down from there right now!” shouted Annie.
“Mommy, look!” Breanan called out. “I can fly!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped off the bookshelf, dropping in a dive towards the floor, barely clearing the heavy table in the middle of the room – though dishes went flying, and a crystal vase shattered as it connected with the toddler’s feet. He let go triumphantly at the end of the arc… and swung directly into the hutch at the far end of the room. The glassware inside tinkled in protest, though Marietta did not hear anything immediately break.
Breanan groaned from the floor next to the hutch. Annie put a hand to her face.
Then Breanan pulled himself up the drawer handles, stood to his full three-and-a-half-foot height, and smiled broadly. “Ta-da!”
Annie’s groan matched her son’s from a moment before. “Your good clothes,” she muttered.
Marietta smiled beneath her veil. “Very nice, Breanan,” she called out. “But you can’t do any more swinging today. We need to go.”
Breanan looked up plaintively at his two mothers. “But I want to swing!”
Marietta and Annie descended the staircase. “We need to make sure he never finds the cannon,” Annie said softly in Old Thean.
“Please,” responded Marietta in the same language, “he’s your son. If he hasn’t blown up the side of the house by his fifth birthday, it’ll be a miracle.”
“When he swings from the chandelier, he’s your son,” retorted Annie.
They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Breanan ran forward, beaming. “Did you see me, Mommy? Did you see how far I went? I bet I could go farther! I bet I could go all the way to the Assembly!”
Annie sighed and took Breanan up in her arms. “Maybe one day,” she said, “but today we have to walk. And be careful you don’t hit Mamma Marietta’s belly or the baby might pop out onto you.”
Marietta gave a sidelong glance under her veil. “Please don’t give him ideas,” she said. “He’s got enough of them already.”
Breanan nodded happily. “I have lots of ideas!” he declared.
Annie took him by the hand and they walked toward the front door. Most of the children would not be coming to the vote, but few people were willing to babysit the tiny ball of energy that was Annie’s son, so it was declared that he would be going with his mothers.
As they passed the library, someone cleared her throat. “I’m not late, am I?” A woman with perfectly coiled hair and a fine gown in the Thean style stepped through the door.
Marietta did not even glance over. “Cutting it a little close,” she answered.
“But the vote has not, in fact, been taken?”
Annie held Breanan tightly by the hand. “We’re on our way there now. You can join us, if you want.”
The newcomer bobbed her head once. “I think I shall.” She fell into step beside her two colonial counterparts.
“I expect the Dauphine is waiting with baited breath to find out the results,” said Annie, with only a touch of bitterness in her voice.
“Her, and others,” replied the Montaignais. “You’ve caused quite the stir back home with this little colony of yours.”
“A city, Lady Jamais,” corrected Marietta, “and this is our home now.”
The Wit of Montaigne wisely chose not to argue with a pregnant Marietta, and changed the subject. “Do you vote for one or for two,” she asked as they reached the foyer.
“One,” said Marietta. “Even if I give birth on the Assembly floor, which I’d very much like to avoid, the baby wouldn’t be able to vote until she’s of age.”
“I can vote!” piped up Breanan.
“No, dear,” said Annie. “Not until you’re older.”
“I want to be older now!”
Annie did not answer him.
They walked out the front door onto the main square of the town. Marietta was pleased with how far they’d come in such a short time. Most of the houses were still wooden – their own being a notable exception – but the square itself was paved with stone, and the Assembly Hall was nearly opulent for a building only two years old.
She felt eyes on her as she waddled across the square. “Do you think they’re taking bets,” she asked Annie as well-dressed men and women passed them. “About when the baby will come?”
“I have five guilder on this afternoon,” said Annie. “I think you’ll wait long enough to see if you’re elected before you do something as crass as bleed all over the Assembly floor.”
Lady Jamais shrugged. “My vote was on last week, early enough that you’d be able to come to Assembly with a newborn babe in your arms and gain the sympathy of everyone who you haven’t already swayed.”
Marietta sighed. “You’re both incorrigible,” she said.
“Can I be inc… incorrible?” asked Breanan, skipping along beside them.
Annie kissed his forehead. “You already are, darling.”
Marietta grunted and held her belly, stopping in the middle of the square. Annie waited, nervously. “What is it?” she asked in a low voice.
Marietta shut her eyes. Her own power had kept the baby from decaying her womb, but there was nothing that could be done about the more usual womanly pains. “Contraction,” she muttered. “You may get your five guilder after all.”
“Please,” said Annie lightheartedly, though Marietta could hear the concern at the edge of her voice, “you have hours yet. It may not happen until tomorrow.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Marietta grunted. She stood up again, breathing hard, and continued walking to the Assembly Hall.
*****
Breanan was not the only child at the Assembly, and he’d quickly found friends to roughhouse with on the front steps, leaving the adults to the business of governing. Marietta sat next to Annie and held her hand, squeezing it occasionally but otherwise giving no sign that she was in early labor.
The faces before her were all ones she knew. The colony wasn’t so big yet to have the anonymity of the cities in Thea; if anything, it reminded her of the medieval towns they’d lived in with their first family. The six hundred men, women, and children that had come with them on the initial voyage aboard the Biancospino and its two sister-vessels had nearly doubled in two years, some by porté but most by ship, braving the huge ocean between Thea and Nuova Terra. Still, a thousand souls, nearly half of them children, was still small enough that everyone could be known, especially by a shrewd politician like a former Vodacce baroness.
“Has everyone cast their ballot?” asked Mr. Kadnikov in roughly accented Avalonian. One of the first decisions of the Assembly had been to choose the language of the land, given that the settlers came from throughout Thea. It had taken only a few weeks to settle on Avalonian, the language of hope.
Nods greeted the question, as hundreds of men and women regarded the pottery tureen beside him, brimming with tiny slips of paper. Mr. Kadnikov’s green eyes flashed. “Then we shall begin the count.”
To either side, men and women leaned in behind him, and Kadnikov’s secretary hovered nearby. “Please record the following votes for the President of the Nuova Terra and the Assembly.”
He pulled out a paper and unfolded it, held it up so that the people behind him could see what was written. “Antoni Kadnikov,” he read out, and was polite enough not to make any comment on his own candidacy.
He drew out another slip of paper. “Marietta Gemmanova,” he read.
Annie McGee leaned in to her wife. “Of course you’ll win,” she said softly. “You’ve played this game longer than any of them.”
Marietta squeezed her hand. “I wouldn’t bet on it,” she said. “I’m not the only one with supporters.”
Mr. Kadnikov held up a third paper. “Annie McGee,” he called out.
Annie shot her wife a glance. “What have you done?” she asked in a low, dangerous voice.
Marietta could feel Lady Jamais’ eyes boring into her back. She smiled beneath her veil. “Please,” she said softly. “No one would trust me as president. I’m Vodacce, darling, and no one’s ever seen my face. But you…” her voice trailed off as she grunted and squeezed Annie’s hand in pain. She let the contraction subside and smiled as Annie’s name was read out again. “You, they love.”
*****
The final count took nearly two hours. There were a few stragglers, with a few votes each – some were suspected of voting for themselves – but four that had any appreciable amount of support. Kadnikov called out their names, though the result was clear before he started speaking, and people were already milling closer to Annie and Marietta’s side of the Assembly hall.
“There are fifty-nine votes for Mathieu Villefort,” said Kadnikov. A few men went over to pat the Montaignais on the back and offer their consolations, along with their congratulations on a fight well fought.
“Sixty-four for Antoni Kadnikov… thank you, thank you…” He grasped the hand of his brother Michail, also a Pyeryem mage of considerable skill, before resuming his announcements.
“One-hundred and three for Marietta Gemmanova,” he announced. Marietta nodded, trying to ignore the fact that the contractions were coming closer now. She was grateful for the veil, so that no one could see her clenching her teeth.
“And four-hundred and twenty-three for Annie McGee!”
The hall went wild in applause. “Speech, speech, speech!” came the cry.
Annie glared at Marietta before she stood up, still holding her wife’s hand. She cleared her throat and the hall quieted. “Thank you,” she started. “I’m… not really sure what to say, and now’s not the time to say it anyway, because my wife is about to become a mother for the first time. If you’ll all excuse me.”
There was a riot in the hall. People clamored for attention. More called for a longer speech, something grand and uplifting. A few grumbled she should follow proper procedure.
Annie pulled Marietta to her feet and they made their way towards the exit, Annie shouldering her way through the throngs of well-wishers and brown-nosers. “You must come back!” called Kadnikov from behind them. “The Assembly has much business before it!”
“I’ll pay you back for this,” said Annie softly, below the roar of the crowd.
Marietta staggered behind her. “I’m sure you will,” she answered. “But not today.”
Epilogue
3 Years Later…
“Darling, why did you never tell me my back would hurt this much?” Marietta Gemmanova spent one last precious moment sitting, smoothing her skirt, reluctant to get up.
“You look much better than I did,” said her wife, extending a hand.
Marietta took it and allowed herself to be pulled up, grunting at the unexpected pressure. “That’s only because you can’t see my face,” she retorted.
Annie McGee lifted Marietta’s veil – blue silk today, thin but opaque – and kissed her wife full on the lips. “You will always be beautiful to me.”
Marietta held her tight, angling her so that she stood to the side. She lowered the veil back in place. “Even when I’m so fat I can’t wear a proper corset?”
Annie put a hand on Marietta’s oversized belly. “You’re not fat, dear, you’re pregnant. Try to keep up.”
They walked to the bedroom door. “You’d think we could have timed it better. How am I supposed to go to the vote when I could give birth any minute?”
Annie gave her a wry smile. “Do I need to remind you what I did when I was giving birth?”
Marietta looked at her through the fabric of her veil. “You’ve always been braver than I am. That’s why I married you.”
“And here I thought you married me for my money.”
Marietta laughed, preparing her next retort, when a high voice came to them from the main floor. “Mommy, watch me!”
Marietta and Annie exchanged a glance and started to run. “Why is it,” Marietta panted, “that even after 600 years, those words still make my blood run cold?”
They reached the top of the stairwell, and it was immediately apparent what was about to happen. A servant cleaning the ceiling had left a rope tethered to the chandelier, no doubt for whenever they came back and resumed work. But now the rope was not hanging free, it was angled almost ninety degrees as two small hands grasped it. The body connected to the hands was just short enough fit between the top of the bookcase and the ceiling, and he stood proudly, his eyes gleaming.
“Breanan Anthony McGee, you get down from there right now!” shouted Annie.
“Mommy, look!” Breanan called out. “I can fly!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped off the bookshelf, dropping in a dive towards the floor, barely clearing the heavy table in the middle of the room – though dishes went flying, and a crystal vase shattered as it connected with the toddler’s feet. He let go triumphantly at the end of the arc… and swung directly into the hutch at the far end of the room. The glassware inside tinkled in protest, though Marietta did not hear anything immediately break.
Breanan groaned from the floor next to the hutch. Annie put a hand to her face.
Then Breanan pulled himself up the drawer handles, stood to his full three-and-a-half-foot height, and smiled broadly. “Ta-da!”
Annie’s groan matched her son’s from a moment before. “Your good clothes,” she muttered.
Marietta smiled beneath her veil. “Very nice, Breanan,” she called out. “But you can’t do any more swinging today. We need to go.”
Breanan looked up plaintively at his two mothers. “But I want to swing!”
Marietta and Annie descended the staircase. “We need to make sure he never finds the cannon,” Annie said softly in Old Thean.
“Please,” responded Marietta in the same language, “he’s your son. If he hasn’t blown up the side of the house by his fifth birthday, it’ll be a miracle.”
“When he swings from the chandelier, he’s your son,” retorted Annie.
They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Breanan ran forward, beaming. “Did you see me, Mommy? Did you see how far I went? I bet I could go farther! I bet I could go all the way to the Assembly!”
Annie sighed and took Breanan up in her arms. “Maybe one day,” she said, “but today we have to walk. And be careful you don’t hit Mamma Marietta’s belly or the baby might pop out onto you.”
Marietta gave a sidelong glance under her veil. “Please don’t give him ideas,” she said. “He’s got enough of them already.”
Breanan nodded happily. “I have lots of ideas!” he declared.
Annie took him by the hand and they walked toward the front door. Most of the children would not be coming to the vote, but few people were willing to babysit the tiny ball of energy that was Annie’s son, so it was declared that he would be going with his mothers.
As they passed the library, someone cleared her throat. “I’m not late, am I?” A woman with perfectly coiled hair and a fine gown in the Thean style stepped through the door.
Marietta did not even glance over. “Cutting it a little close,” she answered.
“But the vote has not, in fact, been taken?”
Annie held Breanan tightly by the hand. “We’re on our way there now. You can join us, if you want.”
The newcomer bobbed her head once. “I think I shall.” She fell into step beside her two colonial counterparts.
“I expect the Dauphine is waiting with baited breath to find out the results,” said Annie, with only a touch of bitterness in her voice.
“Her, and others,” replied the Montaignais. “You’ve caused quite the stir back home with this little colony of yours.”
“A city, Lady Jamais,” corrected Marietta, “and this is our home now.”
The Wit of Montaigne wisely chose not to argue with a pregnant Marietta, and changed the subject. “Do you vote for one or for two,” she asked as they reached the foyer.
“One,” said Marietta. “Even if I give birth on the Assembly floor, which I’d very much like to avoid, the baby wouldn’t be able to vote until she’s of age.”
“I can vote!” piped up Breanan.
“No, dear,” said Annie. “Not until you’re older.”
“I want to be older now!”
Annie did not answer him.
They walked out the front door onto the main square of the town. Marietta was pleased with how far they’d come in such a short time. Most of the houses were still wooden – their own being a notable exception – but the square itself was paved with stone, and the Assembly Hall was nearly opulent for a building only two years old.
She felt eyes on her as she waddled across the square. “Do you think they’re taking bets,” she asked Annie as well-dressed men and women passed them. “About when the baby will come?”
“I have five guilder on this afternoon,” said Annie. “I think you’ll wait long enough to see if you’re elected before you do something as crass as bleed all over the Assembly floor.”
Lady Jamais shrugged. “My vote was on last week, early enough that you’d be able to come to Assembly with a newborn babe in your arms and gain the sympathy of everyone who you haven’t already swayed.”
Marietta sighed. “You’re both incorrigible,” she said.
“Can I be inc… incorrible?” asked Breanan, skipping along beside them.
Annie kissed his forehead. “You already are, darling.”
Marietta grunted and held her belly, stopping in the middle of the square. Annie waited, nervously. “What is it?” she asked in a low voice.
Marietta shut her eyes. Her own power had kept the baby from decaying her womb, but there was nothing that could be done about the more usual womanly pains. “Contraction,” she muttered. “You may get your five guilder after all.”
“Please,” said Annie lightheartedly, though Marietta could hear the concern at the edge of her voice, “you have hours yet. It may not happen until tomorrow.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Marietta grunted. She stood up again, breathing hard, and continued walking to the Assembly Hall.
*****
Breanan was not the only child at the Assembly, and he’d quickly found friends to roughhouse with on the front steps, leaving the adults to the business of governing. Marietta sat next to Annie and held her hand, squeezing it occasionally but otherwise giving no sign that she was in early labor.
The faces before her were all ones she knew. The colony wasn’t so big yet to have the anonymity of the cities in Thea; if anything, it reminded her of the medieval towns they’d lived in with their first family. The six hundred men, women, and children that had come with them on the initial voyage aboard the Biancospino and its two sister-vessels had nearly doubled in two years, some by porté but most by ship, braving the huge ocean between Thea and Nuova Terra. Still, a thousand souls, nearly half of them children, was still small enough that everyone could be known, especially by a shrewd politician like a former Vodacce baroness.
“Has everyone cast their ballot?” asked Mr. Kadnikov in roughly accented Avalonian. One of the first decisions of the Assembly had been to choose the language of the land, given that the settlers came from throughout Thea. It had taken only a few weeks to settle on Avalonian, the language of hope.
Nods greeted the question, as hundreds of men and women regarded the pottery tureen beside him, brimming with tiny slips of paper. Mr. Kadnikov’s green eyes flashed. “Then we shall begin the count.”
To either side, men and women leaned in behind him, and Kadnikov’s secretary hovered nearby. “Please record the following votes for the President of the Nuova Terra and the Assembly.”
He pulled out a paper and unfolded it, held it up so that the people behind him could see what was written. “Antoni Kadnikov,” he read out, and was polite enough not to make any comment on his own candidacy.
He drew out another slip of paper. “Marietta Gemmanova,” he read.
Annie McGee leaned in to her wife. “Of course you’ll win,” she said softly. “You’ve played this game longer than any of them.”
Marietta squeezed her hand. “I wouldn’t bet on it,” she said. “I’m not the only one with supporters.”
Mr. Kadnikov held up a third paper. “Annie McGee,” he called out.
Annie shot her wife a glance. “What have you done?” she asked in a low, dangerous voice.
Marietta could feel Lady Jamais’ eyes boring into her back. She smiled beneath her veil. “Please,” she said softly. “No one would trust me as president. I’m Vodacce, darling, and no one’s ever seen my face. But you…” her voice trailed off as she grunted and squeezed Annie’s hand in pain. She let the contraction subside and smiled as Annie’s name was read out again. “You, they love.”
*****
The final count took nearly two hours. There were a few stragglers, with a few votes each – some were suspected of voting for themselves – but four that had any appreciable amount of support. Kadnikov called out their names, though the result was clear before he started speaking, and people were already milling closer to Annie and Marietta’s side of the Assembly hall.
“There are fifty-nine votes for Mathieu Villefort,” said Kadnikov. A few men went over to pat the Montaignais on the back and offer their consolations, along with their congratulations on a fight well fought.
“Sixty-four for Antoni Kadnikov… thank you, thank you…” He grasped the hand of his brother Michail, also a Pyeryem mage of considerable skill, before resuming his announcements.
“One-hundred and three for Marietta Gemmanova,” he announced. Marietta nodded, trying to ignore the fact that the contractions were coming closer now. She was grateful for the veil, so that no one could see her clenching her teeth.
“And four-hundred and twenty-three for Annie McGee!”
The hall went wild in applause. “Speech, speech, speech!” came the cry.
Annie glared at Marietta before she stood up, still holding her wife’s hand. She cleared her throat and the hall quieted. “Thank you,” she started. “I’m… not really sure what to say, and now’s not the time to say it anyway, because my wife is about to become a mother for the first time. If you’ll all excuse me.”
There was a riot in the hall. People clamored for attention. More called for a longer speech, something grand and uplifting. A few grumbled she should follow proper procedure.
Annie pulled Marietta to her feet and they made their way towards the exit, Annie shouldering her way through the throngs of well-wishers and brown-nosers. “You must come back!” called Kadnikov from behind them. “The Assembly has much business before it!”
“I’ll pay you back for this,” said Annie softly, below the roar of the crowd.
Marietta staggered behind her. “I’m sure you will,” she answered. “But not today.”
