Ch: 142 Havin’ A Wonderful Time
Can a bath be both relaxing and stressful? Illuminating and confusing? Yes. Jaspreet gobbled up the little ones’ attention leaving not a scrap behind. They were currently engaged in telling her the most frightful tale of how they helped fight off a zombie horde, with: “Booty shaking dance music!”, as Amy described it.
The rest of the troupe were evasive, or even downright secretive when pressed on details about Gary or Shai, referring any questions to those two.
“...Yes, I said a genital demon of truly incredible size… My father should have sent our full report, along with his own briefing materials with his initial packet...” She frowned her golden brows at him. “We will get you a copy of that briefing packet when we get to Wheatford.”
“Belen and his ‘briefings’… I wish I had read the whole thing… It seems so unbelievable, though less so in the face of these retainers of yours.” He said softly. “The big one is terrifying.”
“Oh, no! Tallum is a dear… just don’t get on the bad side of his sister Shai, or her man.” Solange said from the edge of the pool, as she slipped in the water with Axio.
The bodyguards still silently standing by, rattled as they snapped to attention. The beautiful, tiny woman seemed deeply wise and ancient, somehow… Her companion sent Abed halfway up the edge of the pool in surprise and no small fright.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I had met you already… I have met so many new mortals today. The feelings you are experiencing are very natural, they are your body’s way of telling you I am steeped in death.” His skull face smiled kindly.
“Just breathe your way through… until you stop breathing, anyway… that’s my little joke.”
Tawny slipped between the duke and the terrible little mushroom man with the grinning skull face. “Axio darling, Poor duke Abed has had a trying evening. Let’s give him some space for a while.” She turned her golden regard back to the pale and shaken duke.
“Axio was mentioned in detail in those briefings you did not fully read. He is a spirit of death and decay, and also my good friend and ally. Likewise there are a number of dryads and other fae entities taking active roles in what my friend Gary described to you. I hesitate to repeat that this was all…”
It was at this point that Abed Mubarak, duke of Shiraz, discovered that it was impossible to drown oneself in Gary’s pool.
#
“She really likes kids… the little turds wear me right out.” Gary muttered to the duke as he passed the pipe.
Jaspreet had all three little ones around her, telling tales of their wild exploits.
“Oh ho! You have told me so many fanciful stories, I will have to share one that I just found, it’s called ‘The Jungle Book’ Isn’t that fun? I will read it to you when I put you to bed!”
“We finished that one… we’re in ‘Winnie The Pooh’ now, Gary does the voices real good.” Rio chirped happily, as they followed her upstairs.
“You will have to show me the way… I’m new here!” Jaspreet slipped right into the kid’s little circle and was part of the crowd already.
Gary handed the pipe up to Limerick, seated on the edge, dangling his bare feet and shanks in the pool. “I really am sorry you got bewitched on my doorstep… We will figure out how to make it up to you. A person’s mind is their own.”
“Wait… you influence people all the time!” Becky laughed and pointed, cause she’s mean.
“S’different. I just move the booties, you gotta find the One on your own. How ya gonna do it if ya really don’ wanna dance?” He asked, through a cloud of sweet smelling smoke.
“Dance? I’d love to!” Jaspreet sang happily from the doorway.
Shai sat up straight and snapped her full attention to the guest at the door. “Dinae mind an I do! Gary, get yer lazy behind up, ye must get these other behinds in motion.”
“Aww, sweetie, I just got baked, the kids are in bed, you really do love me!” He cheered as he leapt from the pool and draped a robe around himself.
“I gotta go warm up the band, it’s been a long few days, I haven’t tuned up since the zombie battle!”
The mad fellow scampered off, dressing and departing so swiftly it was impossible to determine just how he dressed himself; one leg at a time surely…
In moments, only the lilting melody he was whistling remained, lingering on the steamy air.
“Hae ye a good stretch and warmup, tis late we’ll dance a wee mite ‘ere bed, we must all travel on the morrow. Yea?” Shai did not so much ask, as instruct, she went on to make her point clearly.
“This be a decent house wi children under the roof, tis nae some all night dance hall, filled wi disreputable characters an dark doings…”
A quiet cacophony arose from the common room, as any number of instruments began tuning, running scales and warming up.
“Fie…” She muttered in defeat.
#
Jaspreet and Abed spun into the sofa, gasping for breath while the band played on, continuing those sweet swaying songs.
The duke and his lady had never heard the like before, nor felt anything similar to the wild thundering bass and drum, driving the ten piece band of robed musicians.
A man in a strange blue suit wielded a conductor’s baton with vigor, flogging the air to encourage his shadowed players. Upstage, a slim, almost ephemeral middle aged man opened his mouth and unleashed a splendid, soaring voice into the room.
I don't give a hoot, give my cares the boot,
All the world is in rhyme!
Living in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight,
Having a wonderful time!
I go swimming with pretty women
And I find life is divine!
Swimming in the sunlight, swimming in the moonlight,
Having a glorious time!
Dannyl, Shai and Becky were still twirling and swaying along, stepping in complex forms that the others had no hope of emulating. As the music wound down, each robed and hooded musician hung his instrument back on the wall, slipped behind the pianoforte and off stage silently.
Eventually, only the portly man at the keyboard, the singer and conductor remained.
“Thanks guys… I’m tapped out. Cab, Fats, you guys never let me down… Bing, baby, you’re still amazing.”
The madman was looking pale and wan. He’d abandoned the dancefloor three songs in, sagging onto a sofa near the fire.
The three strange men bowed theatrically, before also slipping behind the large instrument. One by one they vanished into some hidden stage entrance in its shadow.
“I’m nearly tapped…” He began.
The poor thing was interrupted by the arrival of a one eyed woman and her mustachioed escort.
“Keep playing boy, you aren’t done yet. We encamped early, Khan and I let you have a break, because we care… But I haven’t finished sweating you boy. Everything is cultivation.”
“You gave me a break cause you two needed a nap.” He grumbled, while pulling a strange looking instrument from nowhere at all.
“Sweet, Shai is nae finished dancing yet, boy of mine. Get tae picking. I’d have summat nae too slow ere bedtime.”
“As you wish…” He said, in that infuriating and tender way, with that sweet sad smile…
His thumb hammered up and down in a steady, simple beat, while his fingers danced and skipped across the strings, unleashing a small storm of music, rising from the couch.
Deep within my heart lies a melody,
A song of old San Antone.
He sang a sweet, twangy style of music unknown to the exhausted lord and lady, but it moved them back onto the floor, attempting to follow Shai’s steps.
Where in dreams I live with a memory,
Beneath the stars all alone.
Well, it was there I found beside the Alamo,
Enchantment strange as the blue up above…
For that moonlit pass that only he would know,
Still hears my broken song of love.
Moon in all your splendor, known only to my heart,
Call back my rose, rose of San Antone!
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Lips so sweet and tender, like petals fallin' apart…
As the music slowed, Luna clapped loudly at him, snapping her fingers. “Keep playing duckling, everything is culti…-”
"Cultivate lower expectations Luna, I’m out of juice for the evening.” He snapped in a strange mixture of fondly cranky exhaustion. The strange boy slipped his instrument away behind himself and took Shai by the hand.
“Bedtime gang… you can stay up, but I’m out. Always finish on Patsy Cline… I’m taking this young lady with me!” He pulled at her, rudely tugging her close, while she continued to dance and spin.
With a dip of her hip, she was manhandling him by an earlobe. “Nae, I’ll be taking thee upstairs!” She snapped in mocking ferocity.
The young couple drifted away, pawing at each other, while arguing cheerily about who was seducing or carrying off the other.
“They really are a lot to deal with…” Tawny sighed, from her place on the loveseat with Liam. “Come along Liam… We also have a busy day and much travel ahead.”
Becky and Dannyl collapsed into the newly vacated seat, as their friends went off to bed. “If your grace wishes, we can find accommodations for yourself and the lady Jaspreet… in whatever configuration you wish.” The young woman offered with a smile.
“We have quarters on the Water Lotus. I must ask… your secretive friend Gary… what house was he part of, before becoming orphaned?” Abed asked, while a mortified Jaspreet swatted him on the shoulder in outrage.
“Hush woman, I know it’s rude… Duke’s prerogative!”
“House Ward, your grace, a family of musicians and makers of musical instruments. He is as common as any of us… and perhaps, even more thoroughly orphaned.” She replied enigmatically, still smiling.
“How then…” The duke demanded, just a little hotly. “How does he justify behaving so in the presence of his betters?”
“When next you meet him, perhaps he will explain in detail, your grace. I suggest you ask him in exactly those terms… for maximum clarity.” She answered blandly, still displaying those charming dimples and that wild twinkle in her eye.
“Sweet Becky, my darling Mubsie’ is very thoroughly caught up in the trappings of rank and privilege. Unhealthily so, I fear. I blame his grandfather’s influence, the manipulative old goat.” Jaspreet scolded her man obliquely, while Dannyl snickered quietly to himself.
“I had the privilege of roaming the temples and streets of my home unsupervised, unlike my poor darling duke.”
Becky nodded with a sad smile. “Gary doesn’t understand your grace’s rank, nor can he wield the finer points of etiquette. He comes from a distant land with a very different culture, my lady, your grace.” She answered smoothly.
“If it helps, he deals both insult and kindness open-handedly, without regard for rank…”
“He says they cut the heads off all their nobles where he comes from, centuries ago. They even built a machine for it…” Dannyl added in, helpfully.
“Thanks brother… That was super useful; oh look, a sketchpad!” Becky chimed, tossing a bound sheaf of oversized paper and a box of colored wax pieces onto the low tea table.
“I’m not a simpleton, Becky. You can’t simply toss art supplies and expect me to hush up…” He complained.
“Then why are you already sketching?” She asked, setting up an entertaining and obviously rehearsed quarrel.
“Cause I only need half my brain to argue with you…”
“Well, half a brain is more than you usually supply, so hey…”
While the two sleepy, stoned nobles watched the kids squabble, the small ginger boy sketched out a remarkable image.
A tall man in dull red lobster armor, his face obscured by a hideous insectile mask, stood before a vast bottle containing a preserved corpse. The thing was drawn in a silly, childlike style, despite the content of the work. The bright, cheery colors of the corpse and environment set out the murky red lobster armored man as different, other…
All around the happy, bottled cadaver, pudgy, pastel zombies loomed, reaching hands grasping at the figure. The lobster armored man passed out thin fluted glasses, filled from the corpse bottle, as though he were tending bar at a busy tavern of the dead.
“I’m going to call it ‘Midnight At The Oasis; Unhappy Hour’, Is that too on the nose?” The young ginger artist chimed from the floor, where he was happily scribbling away.
“Gary was telling me about something called a tiki bar… I think that is the direction this is going…” He mused, then sang a short snippet of a strange song, softly and sweetly.
I saw a werewolf,
Drinkin’ a pina colada at Trader Vic’s,
And his hair was perfect…
Awoooo!
#
Back aboard Water Lotus, they curled together in his stateroom, enjoying the afterglow of a very long, strange evening.
“You could fuss to Leopold about his vassal’s manners, or you could accept that he is an eccentric pet of young Tawny.” The woman was very reasonable… and she was scratching between his shoulder blades in tiny, random circles.
“I dearly love my niece and would hate to see her pet punished for such minor slights… we did intrude on their lodgings.” She purred, while nibbling on his throat.
“Very well, but speak to Tawny… I cannot allow behavior like that in public, should we encounter that boy again. I am the duke of my people, their honor is also mine to carry.”
“Yes, yes, my love. I’ve seen this from time to time in my work at the orphanage. As their time of indenture approaches, some orphans become despondent, or aggressive… a few see no future at all and become fatalistic. Perhaps that is what is at work here.”
She sighed deeply onto his hair, warming the ducal earlobe pleasantly.
“He sees five years of indenture as a death sentence… What has he to fear from any punishment that must, by law, arise after that ordeal?”
“The survival rate for indentured Adventurers bears that out… but his fate is none of my making. It’s the law.” Abed complained softly, while gently tickling the curve of her lower back, in a way that made her wiggle delightfully.
“Very well, I will forgive his slights… if you forgive mine, tonight…” He murmured quietly, before making her gasp, giggle and wiggle even more.
#
The duke and his lady watched the inn recede slowly as Water Lotus sailed upstream, tacking across the wide, almost lake. The soft glow of the garden lamps in that vast plume of steam remained, long after the lovely place vanished from sight.
“We must visit that place again on our return trip… that is the finest inn I have ever seen.” She announced with absolute finality.
“The service was impeccable.” He muttered, I will absolutely try to hire some of their staff away…” He finished his tea and stood. “I’m off to see the captain my dear, I wish to reach Wheatford quickly.”
“I’m sorry, your grace, I can’t tell you anything about that inn… It wasn’t there last time I sailed this way, nor were there hotsprings. Just a silt island with a nice lawn.” He said, shifting uncomfortably.
“I was quite surprised, but it seemed so lively.”
“Interesting…” The duke muttered, suddenly in a foul mood. “Make all possible haste, I wish to dock as soon as we may.”
“Three days my duke, we cannot improve on that safely.” His apologetic tone and lowered head failed to move the duke.
“So be it. As quickly as we can… safely.” He grumbled.
#
“Can we improve on that safely, to make it a bit quicker… Can we change the ring mounts to improve the weight ratio?” Gary asked his big friend and tiny mage.
“Already working on ‘Mark Two’, as you call it. The prototype is on your bench… needs that new inscription and some balancing.” Ivy said cheerfully.
“You’re up early… and super chipper too…” Gary mumbled, as his coffee started things going. Before long the tapping and whistling started, as his gifts crept in from the shadows.
“Luna started me cultivating, I spent an hour strapped into your spinny thing under the waterfall…” She sang happily.
“You didn’t puke? I always feel woozy.” Gary kept the beat going, passing it off to Tallum at the clamp, filing a motor mount down.
“I never said it was spinning… right Tallumz?” She purred.
“Gods… is there anything in the house you two haven’t freaknastied on? Amy’s ballpit only made it two hours. I’m glad I can just vanish the balls and conjure new ones…” His complaints lacked any conviction or weight, as he started grinning at his brother and sister.
#
The whole crew hit the road at second bell, trotting out onto the causeway in good order. Gary sat the driver’s bench on the cart, while Becky tried the bike, with the new motor and throttle.
“Woooo!” Just a few cranks of the pedals and Becky had the machine whizzing up and down the causeway at a brisk canter.
“This thing is crazy!” Her voice doppler shifted as she rode by, accompanied only by the quiet whirr of the hard tires on the clay road surface.
“She’s so much lighter than me, it takes a lot less to get her up to speed.” Gary sang over his viol, doing a little freestyle bluegrass fiddlin’ in D.
“You guys are too little for big kids bikes…” He soothed the suddenly very attentive kids in the cart bed. “We are already working on that, just wait till we get home.”
“Gary, Ye will nae be putting my wee ones on yer mad machines.” Shai said very firmly.
“We’ll work up to it slowly, love. We’ll go over every step… together.” He soothed her with a sweet melody that tasted of birdsong and spring breezes. “I’m gonna call this ‘Riding For Home’...” He mumbled softly. “Needs a minor turn after the bridge…”
After that she had no clue what he was mumbling and liked it that way just fine.
They came down off a rise and rejoined the river, finding Water Lotus a quarter mile behind them and losing ground rapidly. Ivy winced as she caught the scent of their poor overworked Windworkers and Waterguides.
Beating even that streamlined hull upstream was tough in spring. The water was high and the current strong, once in they were in the channel above the joining of the waters.
“Poor schmucks…” Gary was still working on that new melody, occasionally wandering into a strange ‘showtune’ or ‘pop’ song whenever the mood struck.
Wheatford’s lights came into view as the sun fell behind them. A late and short lunch, followed by a picnic dinner and bedtime in the cart for the little ones, let them get all the way to their little plot by the river, just across the bridge from the market.
Eighth was long past as Gary and Shai summoned home, by the waterside.
“Two days hard riding, in one long day… The horses are barely tired, I feel like taking a run in the moonlight…” Herlick grumbled, as she headed for the bath. “If I have to ride on a ‘normal’ troop again it’s going to be a shock to the system.”
Morning in Wheatford came like the chiming of a bell, sweet, clear and bright. No fog, just a few scraps of mist over the river and the familiar garden orchard shining with dew.
“I was thinkin’, let’s keep the workshop here… I like being by the water and among the trees. We’re right here by the dock and market wards anyway.” He mumbled over breakfast with the family. “I’m gonna miss having all the kids in my pool though.”
“Fie, we shall experiment, an we finish reporting in wi the guild. Tis summat more we kin try wi mine an thine betwixt. I hae the spirit of Water tapping at the threshold, askin fer Contract. I mayhap kin sign articles soon, then we shall see what develops in me!” She kissed him and spun away, bringing Becky a mug of sweet, honeyed tea.
“I’m feeling it too, can’t tell yet, but someone is calling me, out in the void.” Becky sighed. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”
#
Debrief and after action reports with the guild were more than a formality, but less invasive than a rectal exam. After a solid half hour of filling out forms, they hit the streets for some fun.
“Ye an Becky must take the wee ones fer some time in the market, Liam an Dannyl will be wi thee. I hae an errand in the market ward, Tallum will be wi me; nae wandering alone.”
The two giant redheads broke off for the market ward, while the others made themselves at home in the orphanage, in a very distracting tumult of excited kids and teens.
The impromptu party that erupted, took up most of the morning. Only Becky and the kids noticed when Gary slipped away, to the far side of the admin building with his homemade panflute from the mangrove swamp.
Reeds Of Stillwater, pipes/flute, spiritual/etheric enchanted instrument, unranked. Elemental affinities: Wind, Water. Quality, fair.
When played in proximity to a source of etheric energy, instrument grants a bonus to player’s proficiency.
Spells, gifts or other magical effects gain bonus to effect, area and duration when empowered through instrument.
He sat in the dry, dusty end of the Plains Of Supervision, named for its treeless expanse and the administration office looming nearby. Slowly he played in the quiet of midmorning, piping so softly hardly anyone heard, with mortal ears.
Plumeria strolled up and sat down beside him, looking much more comfortable in her original doll body and once more, close to her entire tree.
“I see what you are up to deadma… Gary. I will not interrupt, I simply wish to observe, I’m told none can see what appears, until it is formed fully and in the world…”
He shrugged and continued, almost whispering the melody he had been working on. The tannic, summer smell of sun warmed oaks and ripening blackberries slowly filled the barren expanse, as a slippery wind stirred the loose soil into a small dust cloud.
A small flock of starlings darted across the sky, singing his tune wildly as the dust settled on the short cropped, verdant lawn. A single ring of titanic, yellowed quartz boulders surrounded about two acre’s expanse of lush garden and a wide, steaming pool.
Shai’s roundhouse nestled in the corner, looking cozy among the fruit trees and berry bushes.
“These standing stones, boy… thirty two of them… why do they look like gigantic human teeth?” She asked, looking highly skeptical. “From above this would present the aspect of a wide, gaping mouth.”
“I dunno, Just something that felt right… putting the pool in the open maw of the land feels good. Proper. Satisfying.” He murmured softly, still whispering into his pipes. When plumeria looked back, changing and bathing facilities had appeared, entered through the gap between the giant front teeth.
“You are very odd… even by the standards of those long forgotten days, when men knew nothing of ironmongery and stood far closer to nature and the soil.” she sighed, snuggling in beside him in a camp chair built for one.
“Among those folk, you would have been considered a very druidy druid… Even your brethren might have called you a ‘dirt humping treehugger’, if they saw this.”
#