The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (116 page)

Alilia couldn’t help but giggle, and Mark looked to her and Talia with surprised realization.  “Hold on, you two are members of The Assembly!  You mean even you two voted against me?!”

“Of course!” Talia giggled as she floated up and kissed him on the tip of his nose.  “We’re almost all monarchists at heart, you know.  Councils are a fine thing for preventing the tyranny of a single despotic sovereign, but we prefer a wise and noble ruler who can get things done without arguing about it all year.  And when we have a monarch who really inspires us and who truly deserves our adulation, it’s a wonderful thing to give it to him.”

“Remember on the first day we met, when you asked Yazadril how elven Princes were chosen?” Alilia teased as she hugged his left thigh and smiled up at him.  “He said;  Generally, if most everyone thinks you can do the job then you’re stuck with it, whether you like it or not!

“And sometimes that’s just the way it is.  Just humor us my love.  It’ll make us happy.”

“If you accept it, and then use your authority to over-ride the vote of The Assembly and abdicate, we’ll just vote to reinstate you again.” Gran laughed.  “We’re prepared to be quite stubborn about it.  Enough of us to carry the vote, anyway.”

He stared at her a moment, and finally shrugged as he shook his head and smiled in surrender.  “All right fine.”

“Good citizens,” Somonik grandly declared, “I give you Markhan Reginus Longstrider the Fifth; Ranger of Finitra, Knight of The High People, Prince of Hilia, Lord of Serminak, Key to The Just Alliance, key to the imminent nexus, and
Governor of Kellaran!!!”

Mark grinned and shook his head as the audience roared again, then just spoke over them.

“Thank you all very much.  I suppose I’m quite flattered, now that I think about it, and so I’ll accept this temporary and completely
honorary
honor.  I give you all my permission to party like Sylvan adolescents in my honor if you so choose, but try to keep the adulation to a minimum.  We’ll probably join you here later for a few dances or some such, but for now I’m going home for lunch.”

The crowd laughed and cheered like drunken fools as he took his family home.

“Surprise!” thousands of happy voices yelled as the group arrived on the patio at Hilia.

“Well its not really a surprise of course, but thanks!” Mark laughed.

“Hey, nice ring Mark!” Holanam teased.

The scene was amazing.  There was a huge banner along the roof of the cottage that read; ‘Congratulations Prince Mark!’  A huge feast was laid out on twelve big tables that took up most of the patio.  It seemed that all the citizens of Hilia and everyone else Mark knew were picnicking on the shallow volcanic slopes around the cottage and its grounds.  All of the males of The Volunteers and about half of The Forty-four were scattered about the lawns, and the female Volunteers and the rest of their children were arriving rapidly.

“Lunch is served!” Sheramiv announced with a grin as she indicated the feast with a wave.  “Though I’m surprised that you still get hungry, my Prince!”

“I do though!” Mark laughed as he took a huge platter and began wandering among the tables as he loaded up with the dishes that caught his fancy at the moment.  “We’ve decided that we’ll keep as many of our mortal attributes as is practical, and having decided it, it’s so, without having to think about it anymore.  And in this case I’m sure glad we did, for when it comes to food, hunger truly is the finest sauce!”

He stopped for a moment and turned to survey his domain and everyone there.  “Thanks for coming everyone!” he called.

“Where were you?” Fire asked as Balen appeared beside her.

“I was off alone with Mark.” Balen replied with a deep blush.  “I mean we weren’t…  You know…  Not this time anyway.  But Mark still makes time for us whenever we want to be with him, and we all wanted to be with him as we watched the Revealing of the tournament today.  Us girls of The Volunteers anyway.  The guys don’t seem to care about sharing him as much, they just like to be with him, so there was only one of Mark here with all of them and some of the kids while he was off in Xervia with you.  But the rest of us had him to ourselves, so to speak.”

She paused as she gazed at Mark with profound and pure adoration.  “It’s so beautiful.  You know, when he’s alone with me, he’s a little bit different than he is at any other time, because he’s with me and he’s reacting to me, and he makes an effort to be exactly the Mark that I want him to be.  I know there’s only one of him, but I still feel like
my
Mark loves me most of all.

“He was cuddling with me as we watched him do that beautiful bowing thing with Talia and Alilia on his hands, and I knew millions of girls all over the world wished they could be one of them at that moment, and I had to laugh because I have it even better than Talia and Alilia.  They’re still used to him being only one person, so they share him all the time.  It would never occur to them to ask him to be two of him, one for each of them, like he is for me.”

“Well for one thing,” Fire laughed as she chose from a gigantic fruit display, “Mother and Alilia love each other almost as much as they love him.  To them, they’re an inseparable trio, so they don’t miss having him to themselves.

“And for another thing, you and the other Volunteers are pretty crazy about him, and I mean that literally.  You were nuts to let Alilia Compel you about it for no reason.  I don’t know how much of what you feel for him is due to the Compulsion and your vows, and how much you’d have felt for him anyway, but that much devotion for anyone isn’t natural.”

“I was absolutely in love with him before my vows and the Compulsion.” Balen smiled.  “And I sure understand how it would seem weird to you, the way we feel about him.  But you have no idea what it’s like to be someone who has no greatness that suddenly gets exposed to true greatness.  When I first met him he couldn’t even use magic yet, he had no possessions or property, he ruled no one, he didn’t even have a home until later that night.  But even then his greatness shone around him like a lighthouse, and I was swept away in it.

“Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m a formidable person in many ways and I have no problem with my self-esteem or anything, but Mark…  Well you’ll just never understand, because you have your own greatness.  You’re not quite up to his level yet, but still, you have no idea what it’s like to meet someone who is so unbelievably more amazing than you are that you become…  Well, devoted, as we of The Devoted are to Mark.”

She paused and considered Fire, and cocked her head as she smiled.  “You’ll have to face the other side of the problem, as he has.  You already have beauty and greatness and fame.  You may not realize it, but I can guarantee that right now there’s thousands of boys, and more than a few men and women and girls, who are completely devoted to you.  They know that there’s almost no chance that they’ll ever even get to meet you, but they can’t help how they feel about you.  And any regular people who’ve never heard of you who are suddenly and intimately exposed to your greatness, as I was when I first met Mark, will have no defenses prepared against the overwhelming emotions that you’ll produce in them.

“I was absolutely defenseless to Mark’s charisma.  Five minutes before I met him I hated him, and when I first saw him I tried to make him look stupid at his own wedding.  And then he turned to me and his eyes met mine and he took my hand, and he made me feel so wonderful that I was lost in him.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.  My life is paradise now, and I have you and Six and Val to thank for it, in many ways.  You gave Mark the Multiple Manifestations spell, and that gave me my very own Mark.  And Quewanak’s meddling, of course.”

“You’re weird.” Fire declared with a laugh.  “Wonderful and adorable, but weird.”

Balen laughed. “Hey, you’re all of those too, my fine little warlock!

“You want to hear something truly weird?  I feel sorry for you, I really do.  I pity you and Val and my own daughter and all the rest of Mark’s female blood relatives, because you’re the only female humanoids in the whole world who will never be able to fall in love with him as I have, and who will never, ever be able to be his lover, as I am.”

“You’re right, that’s truly weird!” Fire laughed.  “But as long as it makes you so happy, I approve wholeheartedly.”

“Thank you.” Balen murmured with another little blush.  “I’m somewhat surprised at how important it is to me, now that I’ve heard you say that.  Some of us worried, you know.  Your mother and Alilia are legitimately married to Mark, and we hoped that you wouldn’t think we would do anything to harm their relationship or their love.  We’d never do anything that could hurt Mark in any way.”

“Stop, please stop!” Fire laughed as she held her open palm and her now-full plate between Balen’s face and herself.  “I’m overdosing on sentimentality here!”

She lowered her plate and smirked.  “You’d better eat fast, because when I’m done eating I’m going to cast a challenge circle and call you into it, and spank you good!  Just to harden you up a little!”

“Oh, you think?” Balen laughed.  “Well I’ll tell you what:  If you’ll remove The Skills of Visinniria, and I mean all the skills you’ve gained from others using her Transference spell, not just the ones you got from her, I’ll gladly take you on in purely physical combat!”

“Done!” Fire laughed, and the two shook on it with their free hands.  “And by the way,” she continued as they made their way to an open space on the second-highest lawn with their lunch, “You’re probably right about how many devoted fans we have, and how devoted they are, and you’re right that I never thought about it before.  But I’m not going to let any of them become as devoted to me as you are to my father.  I’d never allow an uncontrolled Compulsion of loyalty to me to be cast like Alilia did, though to be fair to her there was no predicting what you and the others of The Volunteers did then.  That was pretty crazy, but now that it’s happened once we know to watch out for it.

“Father’s love-life is so complex it’s mind-boggling, and while he seems to be making it work, I’ll never risk going through that.  I may have elven blood, but it’s my human blood that seems to rule that way.  I’ll love one man, and no other.  I’ll share myself with him, and no other.”

“Hmm.” Balen went with a sly smile as they sat down on the lawn to eat.  “You almost sound like you have him picked out already.”

Then she saw the stricken expression that suddenly appeared on Fire’s face.  “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” she said, and trailed off as she realized that she didn’t know what she was being sorry for.

There was a very long and strained silence that passed between them as both of them seemed caught in the gaze of the other, then Fire’s face hardened with determination.

She’d been casting to subtly ensure the privacy of their conversation from the ears and minds around them without giving it very much consideration, but now she ceased that, and spoke in such a sharp tone that it drew the attention of all around her.  “I have, I do have him picked out already, and I am absolutely sick of hiding it!”

She set her plate down and stood.  “It isn’t easy being seven and having many of the feelings of adults, you know!  Especially since in many ways I’m still seven, and I still have many of the normal feelings of seven-year-olds!  And we don’t know what the hell everyone expects of us, we don’t know how much adult behavior the world will accept from us, so we hide what we think everyone else might not accept, but to hell with that!  To hell with anyone who won’t accept me for what I really am!  To hell with anyone who won’t accept the love I share with others!”

She rose above the lawn and floated three meters in the air, and suddenly her tightly-controlled power was obvious to almost everyone there as it gathered with the intensity of her emotions.

The big gathering fell silent as she drew their attention, and she emanated such a palpable aura of danger that many there discreetly cast defensive spells around themselves and the loved ones they were with.

“I don’t give a crap anymore about anyone who’s so mind-locked into their old-fashioned and obsolete attitudes that they might disapprove of my life-choices!  I’m laying the truth bare in front of the whole world, and I’m doing it right now!”

She turned in the air with a sudden motion and met the eyes of Karz, who was still on the patio.  “I declare right now, before everyone, that Karzog is my destined love, the first love of my life, the man I’m going to marry!  It doesn’t matter that he’s a dragon and I’m a half-elven, half-human warlock!  He’s an elf for me whenever I want him to be one, and I’m a dragon for him whenever he wants me to!”

“You just speak your heart girl!” Balen called to her in enthusiastic encouragement.

Fire suddenly assumed the dragon Simulacrum that she’d previously worn only for Karzog, with almost the same coloring as her normal body.

“I love you Karz, I’m declaring it to the world and I don’t care who knows it, and if anyone has any objections about it I will deal with them most severely!”

Karzog Translocated the twenty-one meters that separated them and hugged her with both arms, both legs, both wings, his sinuous neck and his tail.  She did the same to him, which made for a visually confusing tangle of dragon-limbs.

Mark appeared in the air beside them and declared in a determined tone; “I approve of their love wholeheartedly.  Any who disapprove had better not let me hear about them speaking of my daughter’s love-choice in impolite terms, or they will face
my
immediate and personal disapproval.”

Povon and Kragorram appeared in the air above them, and Povon declared; “We stand with Karzog and Fire and Mark in this.  There is no practical reason why Fire and Karzog should not share a deep and profound love, and it’s been building since she was born.  They’re of different races, but that’s irrelevant.  Let none disparage them, or face our wrath.”

In a few fractions of a moment they were joined in their declaration by Talia, Alilia, Six, Val, all of The Volunteers, all of The Forty-four, Silaran, Equemev, Yazadril, Nemia, Hilsith, Dalia, and Bezedil.