Elfhome

49: ELF PRINCESS

The meeting was Tinker’s first real official planned function as an elf princess. Everything else really didn’t count because she had charged ahead without a full thought of the political implications. This time she calculated out maximum strategic impact of every possible detail. She decided on a casual afternoon tea in the courtyard under the peach trees. She would wear the new yellow baby-doll shirt that Cattail Reeds had made her with the shorts she had permanently borrowed off Stormsong. She drilled all morning on the etiquette of pouring tea, not so much so she could do it exactly right but so she could humanize the activity without delivering any grave insult. She talked Lemonseed into creating finger sandwiches using human condiments such as mayonnaise, bread and butter pickles, and Dijon mustard. She wanted to deliver a strong message of “This is Pittsburgh, not the Easternlands.”

And then there was nothing to do but wait on the elfin vagueness of time for “afternoon” to roll around. She should have made it “morning” tea. Luckily, her guest was impossibly early by elf standards.

Apparently Forge’s Hand was taking their unintentional complicity with the Skin Clan hard. His First bowed slightly to Pony without the normal cold stare-down. Forge echoed the humility in his bow to Tinker. It made it a little easier to bow back.

Forge settled uneasily on the cushion. He had the invitation she had sent up the road to him. She had spent an entire hour crafting it. He turned it over and over, as if confused by it.

“You sent this?” He held it out reluctantly, as if he didn’t want her to take it from him. After great deliberation, she had written: Grandpa Forge, come see me this afternoon, your granddaughter, Beloved Tinker of Wind.

She clamped down on the first three snarky things that wanted to come out of her mouth. This was politics. Keeping your mouth shut was part of being smart. “Yes,” she said once she got the impulse for sarcasm under control. “I wanted to talk with you.”

“What do you want of me, Beloved?”

It was weird having someone other than Windwolf, Pony, and Stormsong use that part of her name. It was kind of creepy to have some old guy using it.

“Please, call me Granddaughter.” He looked so hopeful that she had to focus on pouring out the tea. “For most of my life, my cousin was all that I had. There are no words to describe how important he is to me, but I know you understand how I feel about him.”

He bowed his head over his teacup. “I am stunned that you can even speak civilly to me. I would not be able to forgive. .”

She didn’t want to get into a discussion of forgive and forget. Not with the elves demanding truth. “Our family has the capability to love without reservation. The Skin Clan knew that — maybe even bred it into us — and reached out and tried to use it to control us. Both of us. You to take Oilcan, and me to launch a war against the Stone Clan to get him back.”

“You did not fall to them.” Forge’s voice was thick with shame. “I betrayed a child that trusted me.”

She controlled the urge to smack Forge for still thinking of Oilcan as a child. Be happy that he’s ashamed. “It was a close thing. Prince True Flame begged me on bended knee not to throw us into a war, and it made me realize how we were being used. That we’ve been manipulated again and again since the day that Unbounded Brilliance fled Elfhome. We face an ancient enemy who would have us ignore all that is good and reasonable to destroy each other.”

She reached out and took his hand. “We are family. Not Wind Clan and Stone Clan, but family. Do not let the Skin Clan destroy that.”

Forge’s eyes widened as he gazed at her small hand in his large one.

“I know your heart,” she said. “I know that you will be true to it. I want to be able to trust you.”

“I will never betray my grandchildren’s trust again,” Forge promised.

“Thank you, Grandfather.”

After Forge left, Tinker was warned by the sudden appearance of traditional teacakes and fresh tea that Windwolf was returning. The rest of the universe vanished as he swept into the courtyard, his joy at seeing her blazing on his face. They were sprawled on the blanket, her one good hand tangled in his hair, kissing, before she remembered that they had a fairly large audience.

Of course most of their audience was probably overjoyed that their lord and lady were going at it like teenagers. Domestic bliss and all that.

“Tea?” she managed, pushing at Windwolf’s chest.

He gave a warm chuckle but rolled off her to sprawl lazily beside her. Somehow most of the nearly eighty people in their joint household and the extra thirty-some of Poppymeadow’s staff were making themselves invisible. Only their Firsts and Seconds were nearby, standing guard as Shields.

Windwolf stole a teacake and nibbled on it as he watched her pour out tea. “You spoke with Forge?”

“I don’t want Pittsburgh swamped by old hatreds. If you look at who was sent — an old rival, a desperate ex-lover, and an insane mobile howitzer — it’s like someone loaded the dice for war. I’m not going to let them do that to my city. I want Forge as an ally, not an enemy. And I think we should do something with Forest Moss — like find him a sex therapist.”

Windwolf smiled so wide that she wondered if she had said something funny.

“What?” Perhaps it was the sex therapist part; it was kind of weird, but the elf desperately needed something.

“Elfhome dragons are spawned in the roots of mountains. They grow to adult with their wings folded back, out of the way in the tight spaces of their nursery caves. Then one day, they climb out and spread wide their wings and take flight to rule the sky.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve spread your wings, Beloved. I’m enjoying seeing you take flight to rule.”

“So that’s how it is?” Tinker asked when Oilcan came and settled beside her and Thorne Scratch did the sekasha cold-eyed stare-off with Pony. Odd how she hadn’t noticed that little tradition had been missing — until today.

Oilcan grinned sheepishly and then admitted, “I figured she would hit me if I asked her to be my domi.”

“Smart man.” Tinker bumped shoulders with him lightly. “We still good?”

“Always,” Oilcan said.

She wanted to ask him how he felt about the change, but she knew how long it had taken her to just get over plain mad. She’d let him deal with it without having to drag how she felt into the mess. What was important was that no matter how he looked on the outside, he was still mentally the same. He tapped his thigh to some inner rhythm, obviously stringing words together to a song she may never hear.

“Loan me some money,” he said out of the blue.

“Okay.” Normally they swapped money back and forth like it was joint property, but things had changed. “Do you want it on the sly, no strings attached?”

“Nah, I want the strings. Make it all official.”

“Sponsorship?”

He nodded and grinned again. “I need so much to get my enclave up and running — again.”

“Thorne and the kids?” she asked.

“They seem to see it as ‘cousin’ and not ‘the Wind Clan,’ but they’re signed up for the whole shebang.”

She wasn’t sure how things worked between domana, but she didn’t care. Whatever he needed, she was going to see he got it. It turned out ridiculously easy to give it to him, too. It only took one phone call to the president of their bank and bludgeoning the man with her vicereine title, and the money was transferred from her account to Oilcan’s. All the while Oilcan silently laughed at her.“If you need more, let me know. I’ll put the squeeze on Windwolf.” She’d been ignoring how the whole money thing worked — enjoying the opportunity to get whatever she wanted without thinking where the funds were coming from — but she really should start paying attention to that whole mess.

They talked for a while, making plans, just like they always had. Giant plans sketched out with the barest details and a hell of a lot of trust that they both understood what had to be done and would do their part. She couldn’t have done half the things in her life without him beside her. This time, it was his dreams that they were making true.