Episode 95: E is for Ever Part 2 (Endymion)

In a heartbeat, between one glance and the next, Endy’s world had turned on its head. When it settled, it was a new season. He could feel the change in him; the natural protectiveness of Eury, the way his everything oriented around her anything.

He knew it was a bond. Some people would dismiss it as just a bond, like there was nothing else beneath it.

Some people were fools, some were envious, some simply didn’t understand. A couple of hours ago, Endy hadn’t understood.

He stood in Eury’s dorm room, which was decorated in two clashing patterns: an orange blanket with paisley designs on one bed and a black and white striped blanket on the other. The walls had a picture of a school band and there was a stack of thick books leaning against the black and white bed.

Her roommate was a girl named Euphemia. Endy toyed with the idea that Eury just liked people with E names. Maybe she chose them so hers wouldn’t stand out so much.

His hand reached toward Eury on its own. He liked how easily he felt the need to be there for her. He’d always wondered how his dad managed it with his mom, and now he knew; it was obvious.

He rested his hand on her waist and told her that he liked the decorations. The colors clashed but the styles matched, in a way.

Her friend, Euphemia, walked in. “Oh,” she said. “My.”

Right. No guys in the girls’ dorms. At least he’d be quick about it. He had better things to do with Eury than embarrass Euphemia or cause teenage girl awkward moments.

Endy struggled in school, when it came to girls. Guys, he got. Teachers, he loved to dissect. But girls…he preferred them one-on-one. A gaggle of girls, usually half or more of them flirting with him, overwhelmed him. And usually the stuff they said, the jokes they made, were lost on Endy.

“Phemia!” Eury said. She hugged her. “This is Endy. Endy, Phemia, my roommate.”

Endy laughed a little. “I’m pretty sure we’ve met before,” he teased Eury.

With about two dozen students per grade level, the palace school was small and intimate. Enough so that Endy couldn’t believe he hadn’t bonded to Eury before now. They’d spent enough time together over the years.

Endy tuned them out and watched their body language. Eury leaned back when she laughed, and Phemia kept sneaking glances at him while he tried not to be obvious that he was watching her, trying to see what Eury liked best about her. If he could find the dynamic of their friendship, he could encourage it so that Eury would always have supports outside of him. His mom had friends that she’d relied on when the divorce happened.

It wasn’t like he wanted to split up with Eury in the future, but if it ever came down to it he wanted her to not be alone.

He tuned back into the conversation when he heard the tone of Phemia’s voice change from awe and amusement to doubt. “Have you told Rose?” she asked Eury.

“Not yet,” she said. “Do you know where she is?” Eury moved toward her desk with a duffel bag and started setting books in it. Her desk was closer to the window, and the angled late-afternoon sunlight caught her skin and glowed amber.

“I can get her for you,” Phemia said. She brushed past Eury on her way out of the room and Endy thought he heard her whisper, “Wow!” as she did.

As soon as she was gone, Eury snicked the door closed. Endy un-snagged the fitted sheet from the corners of her mattress and tied all of her bedding – including a crocheted butterfly – into a sack he’d be able to carry out.

“Do you guys pick your roommates?” he asked Eury. It made a difference, if they didn’t. He usually saw her with Phemia, but until today she’d been someone who usually didn’t talk around him so it wasn’t like he paid a ton of attention to who her friends were.

“Not the first year,” she supplied. She pulled open the top drawer of her dresser and began lifting clothes out and setting them into the duffel bag. “Phemia is my best friend.”

That answered that question.

Maybe it was selfish of him to want her to himself. Carefully, even though he dreaded her response, he offered, “Would you rather stay here?”

It wasn’t like she couldn’t live here and date him.

“No!” she assured him. She took a deep breath and flexed her arms and hands out, calming. “I mean,” she said in a soft tone, “No.”

He laughed and then, because she was so endearing and they were in here alone, he pressed his lips to hers and breathed in the scent of whatever lotion she used on her face.

“Me neither,” he teased.

“I’m excited,” she said. She tugged his lower lip between her teeth. “And Phemia will love the space.”

He kind of forgot who Phemia was. Not in a permanent way, but in a who-gives-a-fuck way. This must be how his brother-in-law Niels felt all the time, but for Endy it was centered only on Euphemia. He kissed more.

They kissed and pressed together so much that he was pretty sure they would be one body by now if it were possible, and that would be disappointing because the more he watched her the more he loved her body. Her expressive eyebrows, the silky blue of her eyes, that amber glow of her skin, the way her curves aligned with his curves when they pressed together…

Someone cleared her throat in the doorway. Phemia. Endy groaned and pulled away from Eury, his hands still on her even as he stepped back.

“Sorry, Euphemia,” he murmured. It was her room; he didn’t have the right to be this frustrated over the intrusion.

“No problem, Endy,” she said. She pranced into the room with a smirk toward Eury and sat cross-legged on her bed.

Another girl – a sixth-form student named Rose, who his parents paid to be a peer advisor in the dorms – leaned against the door frame. “Hey,” she said to Eury. “Phemia said you needed me?”

Eury patted the pink and black duffel bag. “Yeah. I’m moving to the palace.”

Rose looked at Endy, like this headache was all his fault. “With Endymion?”

“Yes,” Eury told her.

Rose crossed her arms. “We don’t allow that.” She looked at Endy again and her eyes strayed from his face to his upper arms, where they settled for a minute.

“It’s okay,” Endy promised her. He knew his parents wouldn’t mind. They’d probably encourage it, because Eury was a genuinely decent person and a good student too. And his mom knew the power the bond hand. “We bonded,” he explained.

Rose did the eyes-glazed-over thing that some people did when the bond came up. Not that Endymion had ever been guilty of that look, like when his parents explained to him about his older sister’s marriage a couple of years ago.

He’d been so protective of her. Someone had stolen her husband, the father of her children. Her husband had cheated on her. Never mind that the thief and lover was her own twin brother, his parents excused, because Acheron had bonded to Spence.

Endy and Acheron weren’t that close. Not in a mean way, but Endy didn’t really care about manicures or leaving the chairs in the dining hall straight. When Acheron had hurt Talise, Endy’s opinion of him had gone from not that close to why does he still live here.

It hadn’t changed since.

But now, even if Endy hated to admit it, he kind of got it. The bond was something outside the ordinary. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Eury had been married when he bonded.

Maybe he’d be a little nicer to Ach, like stop pretending he didn’t exist.

He realized Rose and Eury had been talking, and he refocused on them. His action-based apology to Acheron could wait.

Eury had just told Rose that Delphine could sign for her. He wondered where her parents were. He wondered if his parents needed to sign something too.

“Until then, you’re due by curfew,” Rose warned.

He’d figure out what they needed from a little conversation while they left. He put his arm around Eury’s back. She felt so good, drawn to his side like that. Like the last piece of a puzzle clicking into place.

“Let’s just talk to my parents,” he suggested.
“Can we go?” Eury asked Rose.

Rose extended her arm, pointing down the hall. “And no boys in your room!”

Endy almost laughed. The age distinctions were so different in writing than in practice. “I thought we stopped being boys when we turned sixteen,” he teased Rose.

The words sent a flutter through him. He’d never really thought of himself as a man before. He was just Endy. But for Eury, he wanted to be a man.

Rose laughed. “Out, Endymion.”

“I’ll pack!” Phemia called toward them in the hall. “Do you want to keep your diary?”

“Yes,” Eury said.

“What about -” Phemia started, but Eury cut her off, almost like she was telling her to shut up. “Everything.”

“Got it,” Phemia said before she ducked back into the room.

Eury relaxed against Endy’s side as they walked. He liked that she’d stayed in the nest of his arms. Just the two of them.

Someday, they’d get married. They practically already were.

He wanted to know everything. He leaned his face toward her and murmured, “Why do you need Delphine to sign for your parents?”

“Because when I got accepted into this school, my parents said, ‘Oh, good, we can go do things we want to do now…’ and so seeing them is more of a whim.”

Endy loved his life surrounded by family. What must it be like for her, to be so alone in the world? He was certain the whim she described was her parents’ and not hers. How would she reach them if she needed them? Wiccans had the magic, but a fairy in Eury’s situation wouldn’t.

He hugged her; it was instinctive. She wasn’t alone anymore, and he needed her to know that.

“Does my mom know?” he asked. “If she knows, you’ll be fine.”

“She knows,” she confirmed. “They stop by, and it’s not uncommon. It just happened earlier for me.”

Endy laughed, and Eury reached for his hand and swung it as they walked together. She added, “So, Delphine is my guardian. Almost a quarter of the students are the same.”

“And people wonder why we have a population problem,” he muttered.

One of the things he loved about his life was that he was born sixth in line to the throne. Talise’s four kids bumped him back to tenth in line, and she was pregnant so he’d be twelfth soon. He’d never need to worry about being a reproductive example in the way Talise did.

Still, he wanted kids. Just not right this minute.

He knocked on his parents’ office door and waited.

He had two parents, which some of his older siblings did not. As the oldest pair of twins after his parents had gotten back together, his dad and mom had named them in honor of his dead uncle. Dreya’s name was an obvious tribute, but Endymion’s was more obscure. He hadn’t ever asked for the details, except that his parents thought it was a name his uncle would have chosen.

To Endy, Uncle Drey was the wandering man. He’d heard so many stories of his travels and adventures as a child that it took years for Endy to realize that the burning man in church was his wandering uncle. He’d always assumed Uncle Drey had wandered into death by accident, not that he’d chosen to go there.

Tenth in line also meant Endy wouldn’t ever need to make that kind of choice. Uncle Drey had been zeroth in line. Like Endy’s parents were now.

He absorbed that reality and decided to enjoy their lives and not worry about their futures too much. It wouldn’t do any good to worry without action and Endy liked action.

His mom opened the door. She wore one of her work dresses today, a soft buttery blue that made him want to touch the fabric and see what it felt like, but it had been years since he’d done that kind of thing.

He kept his arm around Eury.

“Good afternoon, Endymion,” she said, with her smaller smile. She had a big smile for the public, but at home she used her small just-for-family smile. “How are you? And your friend.”

“Friend?” Endy asked. He couldn’t help the smirk that crept across his face. His mom, as an ascended Undine queen, could detect bonds. He charged on, assuming she had noticed. “We ran into a little hitch changing her living arrangements. I was hoping you could help.”

“I can,” his mom said. She pressed her hands together. “But Mel should do it. I can have him meet you in Delphine’s office.” She turned and gave a kind of a medium-sized I-don’t-know-you-well-yet smile to Eury. “Welcome to the family,” she said.

Eury tucked herself into Endy’s side a little, probably from nerves, so Endy made circular designs on her back with his thumb. He hoped they were soothing.

“Thank you,” Eury said.

Delphine just happened to be walking down the hall just then. Endy didn’t believe it, which led him to conclude that Rose had tipped her off.

His mom straightened and gave Delphine the biggest smile Endy had ever seen on her face.

Delphine made a pouty-face back. “Why not let every student move into the palace?” she wanted to know. “You have enough rooms.”

In a watered-down version of the tone Talise used that time Fort peed on her face, his mom said, “Hello, Delphine. You don’t like the current arrangement?”

Delphine and his mom exchanged words for a while. Endy had never realized they didn’t like each other. Delphine never taught, so he didn’t know her well and he’d never seen her working with his parents before, but the animosity was obvious.

No wonder his mom had wanted his dad there. He sent out another call by dragon, and got a response back almost immediately that his dad wasn’t even in the realm.

After his mom and Delphine traded condescending options for a while, Endy made the suggestion he’d been sitting on. Neither of them had reached that conclusion yet and it was simple and obvious and would solve everyone’s problems. “Why doesn’t she just change her enrollment status to day student, like mine?” he suggested. “Then her living arrangements won’t matter.”

Eury’s eyes perked a little, probably hopeful. He smiled. The electricity that flashed between them at the idea of living together was intense. He danced some fire in the space between them, a little warm hello just for her.

Delphine, on the other hand, frowned at the suggestion.

“They’re married, by some interpretations,” his mom said. “That seems like a valid reason to make an exception.

A thrill went through him at the idea of being married, to Eury. He knew that functionally it was true. The bond was stronger than any marriage attachment. Look at his parents: His dad never would have left his mom if he’d had a bond to her. He wouldn’t have been capable of falling for another woman. His mom did have the bond, but the gancanagh curse had been stronger.

“They’re not married, by some interpretations,” Delphine countered. “I understand your perspective, but I don’t need twenty other students demanding the same rights.”

“You also don’t feel a need to grant me any favors,” his mom said, short. “Which I’m sure has no influence in this conversation.”

Delphine gave a prim smile worthy of the worst kind of teen girl in Endy’s class. “I’ll refer all questions to you, then?” she threatened.

Endy sighed. He wasn’t sure of the source of the animosity here, but he had a good feeling about what would get Delphine to lay off his mom.

He squeezed Eury against his side in apology. There was a more pleasant way to do this, but this was the easiest way to be together so he went for it: “If it’s that big a deal,” he suggested to Delphine, “why don’t we just get married now?”

His mom tensed a little and then relaxed. She’d probably followed his same thought process, that her kids just liked to be married young apparently. Well, her daughters did. He was her first son to do it. Actually it was just the Drey daughters who married young. The Mel daughters seemed more responsible about things.

He sighed. He didn’t mind breaking the trend, for the sake of ending this idiotic debate. For the sake of having Eury, no holds barred.

Eury glanced up at him, beaming, and nodded her head.

Okay, then. They were engaged. He kissed her, because he couldn’t not, but he kept it tame.

“Would that resolve the issue, Delphine?” his mom asked. “Or would you prefer couples housing options once students reach sixteen.”

Sass. Endy didn’t know his mom had it in her; she was normally so polite. But today her smile kept growing and growing. Endy decided it might eat Delphine if she wasn’t careful.

Delphine tilted her chin upwards, affronted. “I don’t think we need any reproductive accidents during the school years. Marriage would solve the problem.”

His mom looked at his fiance.

“I’m fine with that,” she said in a steady voice. “Yes,” she added with a squeak that betrayed her excitement.

“Would you like a ceremony tonight or to marry now?” his mom asked, looking between them.

Nowwww, his mind and body screamed. Now.

He glanced at Eury to confirm and spoke his words carefully, with conviction, even though his body wanted other things. “Can it be this evening?” he asked. “That would give us time to find her parents too.”

She smiled again, radiating happiness. “I like that idea.”

“I’ll add it to the schedule of events,” his mom promised. Endy felt a little bad about that. The Summer Festival was coming up and the palace was already under strain from planning that.

Still, a wedding ceremony only took a few minutes. Endy didn’t feel too bad about it because who could argue against something good.

“You should go see your father,” his mom said. “And ask for Giana for me. She has a good eye for events.”

Giana. That was weird for Endy, suddenly having someone who was kind of a stepmother. He knew his dad would want her to be involved in whatever wedding planning came up, certainly in the wedding itself.

He nodded his head, as Eury squeezed his hand. He squeezed back. “That’s a good idea,” he agreed. He looked down at Eury. “You know Doctor Zero? He can help you find your parents.”

“Thank you.” she squeezed his hand again and then let go of it. “I have a feeling I won’t see you until tonight?”

It would be a long few hours.

“Probably not,” his mom confirmed. “Do you have any requests?”

Eury. He wanted Eury, and their future together and whatever it brought. “I’m open to anything,” he told Eury.

“We could just follow the Summer Festival theme,” she suggested. “Everything looks so pretty already.”

He loved her, for thinking of his mom’s stressful schedule. “That’s a good idea.” He wanted this night to be perfect for her, as perfect as it could be on such short notice. “Do you have someone to take you shopping? If not, I think my brother in law may be willing.”

Spence had great taste in clothes and loved to shop.

His mom nodded her head and leaned against the door frame, relaxed because she was talking about planning, which she secretly enjoyed even when she complained about it. “Or Giana, Indigo, and I can,” she offered.

“You would?” he couldn’t help the surprise. It hadn’t occurred to him that his mom’s campaign to incorporate Eury into their family would start so soon.

“I would love to,” his mom promised. Her small smile had returned, and he could feel her enthusiasm. But then she turned toward Delphine with a more frustrated tone. “Have you heard from Mel? He should have made it here by now or replied.”

Endy started to explain that his dad was out of the realm, but Delphine’s lips turned down and she muttered darkly, “I thought he went out with is girlfriend.”

Oh, no. He got it. He suddenly got it.

Delphine wanted his dad. Bad. So she treated his mom like dirt, and now she resented Giana too.

His dad would never notice someone so petty. He felt a little bad for her because of that, and then decided he didn’t feel bad for her at all because of the way she treated his mom.

“Would you like to go with us?” his mom offered Endy, “or with Niels maybe? Cay is also free, I believe.”

Cay, one of his older brothers, had good taste in clothes if you were into random pieces of metal, ink inside your skin, and clothes that looked like they’d been used by three generations but cost more than a quality outfit would.

“Niels,” Endy said, “he knows the city better.” He leaned and kissed Eury. He’d never felt so alive. “I’ll see you tonight? Is sunset okay?”

It was, so they parted.

Endy had started the day out as a single guy going to school. He was going to end it married.

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