Episode 21: Barbecue (Aadya)

Aadya’s progression toward the barbecue felt like a march. She tried to let her feet move more freely, but it was destined to be a march. 

It was the eighteenth birthday of the her oldest children with Drey, on the day that made a mockery of both his memory and the god Maelchor. They were distinct to her, in the opposite way to most things which blurred together in a mixture of feeling and memory. 

It should have been a happy day, but it loomed as a reminder of watching her son die. Of Meldrick, the man she had thought so little of, working to revive him, and the first screams echoing through the room, met with Talise’s own wailing.

Mel didn’t deserve the life he was living; silently aware of her attachment to another.

Her march halted in the kitchen, where she tasted the frosting off of the insane eighteen-tier cake Meldrick had brought into existence through some form of willpower and possibly magic. It filled the kitchen and sat on a wooden cart. Two smaller cakes sat side-by-side in pans, coated in purple frosting that glittered for Talise and another white cake with grey diamonds crossed in red – argyle – for Acheron.

She smoothed the frosting where she had sampled from, and it blended in with the chaos of strokes. The cake was made with love, not finesse. She and Meldrick made each child’s cake every year, and she had been up late into the night with him. He insisted eighteen was a significant number in some realms and deserved the monstrosity of a cake. 

He had also been caught talking to Nell earlier in the week, and she suspected it was related.

“Stealing the frosting off your own children’s cake?” Meldrick said.

Aadya turned to look and saw him leaning against the doorframe from the staircase that led to the dining hall. He stood and walked over, swiping his own sample as he did. “How are you?”

Miserable. 

He deserved so much more. She needed to find a way to resolve her feelings for Konrad. 

Aadya slid her arm around Meldrick and pressed her body against his, the curve of her growing belly nestled between them. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest. 

The infinite knot made itself known. 

She had to pick one, not be with both. 

She loved them both, for different reasons.

Meldrick held her, in the way that he always knew when she needed comfort. He was always there, a step ahead of every emotion she felt.

She pulled herself away from him and slid her arms from his waist to around his neck. 

“I love you,” she said – innocently and without obligation.

He slid his hands down her sides and lifted her. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her toward a counter. 

He was intoxicating. 

Meldrick’s right hand slipped away from her as he kissed her, then she felt the weight of something on her leg. 

She pulled away.

“Happy birth day,” he said. His lips met hers again and his eyes were lit.

It was her other favorite tradition, third to the cakes and family coming home to celebrate birthdays; Meldrick gave her a chocolate truffle, from out of realm, for each child’s birthday. She wasn’t sure why, aside from he had explained a hundred times it was because he admired her strength. 

Laboring beside him was almost easy, aside from the pain. 

She opened the box as he waited, eager for her to see his latest gift. Beneath the copper ribbon and layers of sage paper was a soft blue ball covered in big round sprinkles. She bit into the truffle, which revealed a deep red center. It was as divine as every other, and the colors held a special meaning for Talise and Acheron, both of whom had names with water meanings. River of sorrow for her son born dead and beautiful water for her daughter.

She passed the other half of the truffle to Meldrick, not because she didn’t want it (she hoped he had an entire box in their bedroom) but because he had raised his brother’s children without a hint of preference toward his own. 

The knot twisted itself inside her. She knew there was only one logical outcome, because over five years and four children nothing more had come of being with Konrad.

It was just the togetherness she couldn’t figure out how to let go of. She loved Konrad, and her emotions ran deep into her past.

Still, the outcome was inevitable. Meldrick deserved loyalty.

“Are we wheeling this out?” She asked.

“I thought we’d let Nell. He has a few finishing decorations he would like to add.”

She hopped off the counter and kissed him, then took his hand to join the celebration that she could hear was well underway outside.

She didn’t have a solution ready to initiate yet, but she had Meldrick’s hand and she knew his heart.

Giving her own up was the fight. 

Aadya slipped her arms around his shoulders and kissed Mel. He was her husband; the most important person in her universe aside from her kids. She let herself relax into him, into the sweet lingering taste of chocolate and sugar.

She could feel his heartbeat, likes waves rolling across the water from his body to hers – her water shared between them and their shared fire as it wicked across the surface. She felt them settle into a rhythm – kiss for kiss and beat for beat. 

Her entire body sighed in the relief of his arms. Mel, in all the seriousness he put out as a front, was capable of satisfying her with nothing more than a few stolen moments of a kiss.

Before she was ready, he picked her up and twirled her around, until he set her down slowly, so that her feet could find the floor and their balance (which were mutually exclusive at the time). He kissed her again, and this time he left her with the tingling sensation of a storm of microscopic sparks across her lips.

She didn’t want to go to the party.

She had to go to the party.

Maybe she wanted to go, just not yet.

They stepped out through the double doors that led to the lower level of the balcony the party was being held at. With the palace hovering above the rift, the bonfire was contained in a large stone fire pit that was built below the deck level by two feet and had edges that were two and half feet tall. It was her favorite place to hide in the evening. It was only accessible through the kitchens or the family centric living space of the palace. Guests were rare, though welcome if they found it.

Konrad walked across the patio toward the edge where Nell was hovering. Konrad’s matching wings fluttered as they embraced, Nell more so falling on top of Konrad until he decided to let his feet find the stone floor.

She groaned to herself. She had just been enraptured in Mel, and not five minutes later detracted by Konrad. She knew the gancanagh spell had been resolved; it was her own stubbornness, refusing to let him go, that caused her eye to stray.

It was annoying. 

Meldrick tugged at her arm to bring her focus back. Also, to stop her from running Acheron over.

His eyes met hers and she smiled, a little guilty and a lot sorry. 

He ran his hand up her back before parting ways to hug Talise then Acheron.

“Happy Birthday,” Meldrick said to them. 

Aadya stepped forward to hug both as well. “Happy birthday,” she echoed. 

When she stepped back, she felt a hand on her back.

She had, still whelmed and oblivious, backed into Konrad’s hand, that seemed to be stationed to stop her from toppling over Merlyn. Merlyn growled.

“You look happy,” She said mostly toward Talise and Ach, before she turned and tickled Merlyn. 

Merlyn growled again, the most eager to respond to the vortex of awkward Aadya was creating and sucking their small group into.

Happy birthday, let me just make it a little more family like and awkward. Would you like a pet tiger? He may return to his four-year old human form at any moment.

Aadya sparked a little as Konrad’s hand fell away from her. 

The desert heat was designed for fire fairies to swelter in misery without causing others to notice their emotional state, as much as if they lived somewhere a little cooler.

Why had she made the desert so lush. Sure, it meant food. 

It also meant vortexes of awkward.

“Thank you,” Talise replied, to the happy comment.

She tried to regroup herself from the comment she was no almost sure was directed at Konrad. Annoyance wasn’t the way to end things. She shouldn’t have even been annoyed, with Meldrick beside her. After the kitchen.

The knot made her want to leave the room and enjoy the excuse of morning sickness. Unfortunately no one that mattered would stomach that lie without some form of knowing look.

Spence came up from behind Ach and wrapped his arms around Ach’s shoulders. Ach froze and shrunk a little, then settled into Spence after the warmth of a kiss.

“Thanks,” Ach said to Aadya as well.

“Are you going to tell them?” Spence asked Ach.

As Ach churned, Eowyn, with her dark ringlets and tan skin, came up and toppled her twin, Merlyn, over.

“Did you ask yet?” she beamed, eager.

Merlyn pushed back and they tumbled across the stone floor for a few moments.

Unless one of them screamed, Aadya had learned to not interrupt their wrestling matches. It seemed to work for them, as a way to show that they loved each other.

Ach’s face, in the span of her distraction, had turned the color of a beet.

He looked like a water balloon about to explode. 

“We got engaged and we adopted two kids and Spence is running for governor of Sylem and thanks. For,” he rambled in one almost incoherent slosh of words fueled by fire.

His face was the deepest shade of red, bordering purple, that had painted him dead upon his birth.

Aadya’s heart pounded with the memory, and Mel leaned across her to disrupt her vision.

“I’m going to get a drink, would you like one?” he asked.

She wanted, desperately, more of those truffles.

“Yes, please.” she responded. The beating slowed as her hearing improved, second by second.

“Congratulations,” Meldrick said as he left their circle.

Konrad was gone too.

She was a ship without anchor.

Mel wouldn’t have left her if the threat were real. She focused on her fire and the irrational explosions it made her more prone to. It wouldn’t have bothered her, but she had the birth on her mind already.

She took a deep breath and hugged Ach. They were two ships at sea, and she would always be an anchor for Ach before she lost herself in emotion.

“Congratulations,” she smiled. 

In retrospect, he was her son and it was obvious to her if not everyone.

“I just had a day,” Talise said. “Nothing spectacular news wise.”

Niels whispered as he wrapped his arm around her back and whispered in her ear. She jumped a little.

“Yet?” Talise replied. IT looked like she meant to whisper it so Aadya redirected her attention toward Meldrick. He was making his way across the balcony with two drinks and three tag alongs: Merlyn, Eowyn, and Niobe. 

Still hungry for whatever had brought him to her in the first place, Merlyn looked up at Aadya, “I didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what?” Aadya asked as an amused grin forced its way past Meldrick’s hardened defenses. 

“I didn’t do nothing. Nothing. That’s what,” he said before looking back at Mel to growl.

Aadya studied the three of them – Niobe with her legs crossed and one hand behind her back and her eyes locked on ground, Eowyn with her dark ringlets and a chunk of cake in her hair, and Merlyn with a large grin plastered across his face and the creamy yellow frosting of the monster cake smeared across his nose, spinning in circles. The frosting was like the sun – obvious despite his attempt to hide it with motion.

“You know,” Aadya started, “Only people who tasted the cake already can have more cake. It’s too bad you didn’t try it.” She turned back to Talise, Ach, Spence, and Niels in the hopes that one of the three would speak up.

Eowyn pulled on her dress, “So I can have cake?”

Aadya laughed a little, “So you tried the cake?”

“No we ate it,” Merlyn stated. 

Meldrick passed her drink over, icy cold and refreshing, “they were going to ask, but they decided the cake was too big for anyone to notice. They had the same idea as you.”

Miniata looked at Meldrick, her eyes wide, “Mom had some?”

Meldrick ruffled her hair. “Unfortunately, her must-taste-to-eat rule may mean everyone here gets some cake.”

Miniata folded her arms. 

Eowyn turned to Merlyn, “Want to climb it now?”

“Not so fast,” Meldrick said. “No climbing the cake.”

Eowyn’s eyes turned into pools of tears.

“We were gonna leave tracks for you to hunt us,” Merlyn defended, as though it was some sort of logical reason to let them climb the cake. 

“No climbing the cake,” Nell said at the exact moment as Aadya. He scooped Merlyn up and placed him on his shoulders, then tilted his head toward him, “How about you show me how strong you are? I need to wheel that whole cake out here and get it up that staircase.”

Eowyn scrambled toward the staircase, “I’m stronger!”

Nell walked off and it was back down to Meldrick, Niobe, Miniata, and… yet another group of twins looking for some sort of permission to do something they knew they shouldn’t be doing. Meldrick turned to greet Nash and Cassie. 

As they sorted out each crisis, the group began to quiet and thick clouds formed overhead to darken the space. 

From the stairway they had taken, a glow rose and separated into thirty-six (she assumed) candles. Each flickered in the twilight of the summoned storm.

Music began. Aadya looked over and saw Chainksull Death playing something eloquent and breathtaking. It had to be Eddie’s creation; he tended to be the most capable of composing complex pieces. Even Niels had made passing comments to Eddie’s brilliance. 

Their usual music was loud and full of moods. Aadya was never sure if she liked it or not, and it mostly depended on her current state. Tonight, she was enraptured by it. 

Talise’s skin glowed with the cake. 

Part of Aadya had hoped her children would wait until they were through their first few centuries to find a permanent relationship, but it was impossible to wish they hadn’t met the people that made them happy. Acheron, even more than Talise, was clearly in love. Tonight she challenged that observation. 

Niels was without a doubt the perfect match for her daughter. 

As Nell slowed his progression, to bring the cart to a halt in front of Talise and Acheron, the music shifted into the birthday song of Babylon. 

The crowd began to sing, because like a born leader Niels had spread his cultural habits to the Dells without a sign of protest. He was family.

Upon their names, half the candles glowed for each.

She wished Drey could be here to celebrate with them. She hadn’t spent much of her life with him, but his children deserved to know him. It was the hardest part of losing him. Though, she had loved him too. To see their children celebrate another birthday, to see their lives changing and their passions surface, was a delight she knew could not be replaced. It was, at the end of the day, one of the reasons she had agreed to be the one to test the gancanagh curse out.

Anyone else and Konrad may have spent his life with one child. She had seen the way he looked at children, the way Nell and him were with all of hers.

What had truly convinced her that the risks, and the outcome, were worthwhile was a conversation she had with Nell only months prior to agreeing.

She had found him in the barn, where he often was playing with one of his many pets, after a late flight on Apa. A well had burst in town and her fortune enjoyed torturing her with trips down wells to refresh her somewhat overcome fear of them.

Regardless,  she had come across Nell in the barn and they had talked for a few hours about life and Rylena. Nell was married to Rylena, but he had raised her too. They had been married shortly before Rylena’s father died, in a hasty service as the last living parent of either line.

Upon his death, Nell had raised her himself. He was only eleven and she was two. 

The point was, Nell had admitted to her that he wished he could give Konrad the experience of raising a child. 

In his own joking way, he had blatantly asked her to help.

The gancanagh curse, and the allies they gained through providing gancanagh the ability to live freely off the island without killing women, was worth it on its own.

The freedom to be close to Konrad and the four children they shared was also a good motivator. 

Though he had phrased it as a joke, Aadya knew in the way that their friendship had strengthened, that he was grateful for Merlyn, Eowyn, Ruskyn, and Landyn. 

Without a desire for insanity, four was a good number of children.

She would have stopped, or at least slowed her pace to every two centuries not years, if it weren’t for the dire need to encourage more reproduction within the Dells. Many of the villagers would wait to have kids, and had died. There were a large number of very old fairies and a small number of villagers under five-thousand. 

Meldrick leaned in as the song concluded and whispered, “thinking about anything important?”

Aadya grinned, “Not even a little.”

“Aadya,” he warned, playfully, as he stepped closer to her. His nose brushed against hers.

Her mind scrambled for something amusing to share, instead of her reproduction habits or untwining with Konrad.

“Aadya,” he repeated as his hand slipped behind her back.

“I was thinking…” she still had no ideas. “About… surprising you in a month.”

At least she had given herself a month to think of something.

“Are you okay?” Aadya heard Ach say. 

The sky was bright again, and she tried to look around Mel. He blocked her view, teasing.

“What happened?” She asked him.

He shrugged, then reached behind himself and presented her with a chunk of cake.

Aadya peered around him, and half of the cake was missing. Acheron was clean, and had a napkin held out to Talise. Talise was covered.

“Happy birthday? I got eaten…” Ach said.

Talise, at least, laughed.

“Thanks, Ach.” Talise said as she took the napkin.

Landyn began painting with the frosting, all over Eowyn’s face.

“Is there more cake or was that it?” Ach asked.

She was right, at least, that Meldrick had plotted with Nell.

Now the shielding her from the cake and the extra cakes made sense. All the pieces, eventually, fit together when it came to Mel. She could have thought more into it before but she enjoyed finding out as it happened.

“That was not the only cake,” Aadya said as she shook her head, with a smile, at Mel. He licked his finger clean and smiled.

She loved his games. 

As she walked past Nell, she shot him a knowing look too.

“You had extra cake,” he defended.

Merlyn was lying in the carnage with his arms spread, moving them up and down.

Aadya brought out the personalized cakes – marble with raspberry filling for Talise, coated in purple, and chocolate for Ach, coated in argyle. 

When she returned, Mel was talking to Spence.

She loved his casual acceptance of his relationship with Ach. She had seen Ach struggle with telling him, but Mel had only been accepting. His gift, an in home spa with twin manicure and pedicure stations, was almost guaranteed to be exactly what Ach wanted. 

“You were going to train under him?” Meldrick asked. 

“I still plan to,” Spence replied.

It was a relief to hear, because she knew Konrad wanted to focus on other things. 

“I can only be governor for a decade or two, before my lifespan comes up… they’ll want longevity. Can we do that? For every citizen of Sylem?”

Aadya’s head tilted as she took in Spence and his idea. At least it sounded like an idea.

She furrowed her brow then glanced at Mel. Her rock.

Mel, unfortunately, looked as befuddled as she felt. 

“By the way,” Spence said to break the tension, “the kids are Salamander.”

Aadya’s cheeks puffed.

Spence, as it turned out, had horrible taste in distraction.

By the way, I know where Mel got you those truffles and I have a box of them, would have been better.

She would not let her craving overpower her.

Spence wanted to give longevity to Sylem and was raising Salamander babies.

Where did he get Salamander babies?

He was wrong

“What?” she asked.

This time, her anchor reached for her hand and rooted her in his love and stability. 

Ach, king of piercing awkward, answered: “Orris asked if he was allowed to change or not. We haven’t actually seen them do it, but-”

“How,” she interrupted.

Tarragon had never been accounted for.

“Enjoy the party,” Meldrick insisted. “The mystery can wait for tomorrow.”

No it could not. 

“Thank you for telling us,” Meldrick said.

Tarragon. 

She had never met him, and she hated not knowing him – not even his face.

She started to spiral into what-ifs and hows and plots involving the breeding of her son. 

It was a stretch, but … she couldn’t handle the idea that she had a child so awful he burned his daughter to avoid the family.

“Sure,” Aadya said, about the longevity. “If you want to truly bind the realms. Talise’s heir is your son.”

Mel squeezed her hand and sent a wave of soothing heat between them. 

Spence lit up, “Really?”

“Yes,” Meldrick replied. 

Amoret, her seven year old daughter that was something between an angel and a ninja, did backflips across the balcony to them. “This is the worst birthday ever. When I turn 18 I want a cool party.”

It wasn’t the worst birthday, but it was up high on the list of most unsettling. 

Still, the evening hadn’t ended.

Aadya parted ways with the Spence and led Meldrick off, toward the edge of the balcony.

Meldrick nuzzled his face against her, and ended it caress with a kiss on the temple, “It’s okay, Aadya.”

She turned to look at him, her eyes wide and watery, “What does this mean?”

“Tarragon may still be out there. We’ve done everything we can to find him.”

Aadya looked back over the balcony, at the gardens below and the expanse of Upper Dell. He was right, there was nothing they could do except wait and see, and perhaps talk to Orris and Olida once they had healed.

Aadya rubbed her face, and Meldrick wrapped his arm around her waist.

Tarragon – their son – was probably out there. 

Suddenly, her problems with Konrad and Meldrick didn’t feel as big. She needed them both, but at the end of the day her heart was already in the hands it belonged to.

Aadya rest her head against his and enjoyed the various noises behind them and the faint sound of water beneath them, from the rift.

“I love you,” Meldrick whispered into her hair, along with another kiss. “All of you.” 

His right hand crossed his body and rested on her belly. 

It was only a moment to themselves, but it spanned a thousand years of feeling. She didn’t need the memories – she was herself when she was with him. He knew her from the moment they met, before she had lost a single memory, and he had loved her through it all.

He would be there, they would find Tarragon, and they would survive this struggle. They would find Nim and Soren too, and their babies. And they would find Terren. Too many children were missing.

They were family; Dragons never forgot family.

<- Episode 20 | Episode 22 ->