Episode 109: Talisman (Aadya)

Fun was the night before.

Fun was taking a strange man home to share a stressless night with.

Stress was waking up and realizing she had a bond to the naked man snoring beside her.

It wasn’t what she intended. She was against him, their bodies tangled in the sheets that smelled like passion unfeathered. She felt a bond, intense and deep and vibrating between them in a way she had never experienced before. She didn’t move. She watched the stars in the sky as the sun began to wash away their independent brilliance in its own glow.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go, except nothing felt wrong. Her heart was pounding but she felt drawn back toward him, at ease with his being beside hers.

She rested her hand beneath her chin and watched him sleep. He looked relaxed, in a way she had never seen a man before – a child, perhaps, but not someone she was with in this way. The sheets tangled around his legs and his chest moved with each breath. 

She couldn’t help but smile.

She resisted the urge to wake him up and instead walked over to the bathroom. The sun had begun to cast a low glow across the horizon, which was covered a thin line of orange.

She washed her face and looked at herself in the mirror.

She couldn’t do this. Not to him, not to herself. But she didn’t know why she was, either. Drey had been dead for years. She had promised him she would wait. It was just a promise, to do something that didn’t make any sense. It was a promise though and she hated to go back on her word.

There was no denying that her skin cast a glow, just by thinking of Greg. 

Fun was the night before. Today she had to be Queen Aadya Alandrial. Dreams of being Aadya Laurens were lost to the night. She brushed away the water, left from washing her face, and combed her hair back to form a bun.

She caught herself in the mirror again. After studying her reflection for a moment she let her hair fall in a tumble of waves. She would wear it down, today. She ran her fingers through it as she walked toward the elevator entrance. Inside she found her talisman and held the weight of it in her hands.

She pulled it over her head and used the two strings to tighten it a little. She felt the bond severed, but still there on both ends, blocked by the talisman’s magic. She would have to break his bond, and her own, but she wasn’t there yet. The talisman would help. She walked back to bed, to Greg. 

Greg was sitting up in bed, the sheet carelessly covering very little of him. “You okay?” he asked.

“I am,” she replied. She crawled back into bed and sat in front of him. “How did you sleep?”

His hands found her first, and pulled her against him, pressing the babies between their bodies. His lips found her next, pulling at the part of her that wanted the talisman off. His words found her last, “Better than I have in a long time. What about you?”

He nuzzled her cheek and kissed her ear, his opposite hand running along her neck and jawline.

“The same,” she admitted. She pressed herself toward him, her lips entangling with his and the taste of his sleep. Once his body was back against the pillow and her lips buzzed from the sparks, she kissed down his body, releasing little flames and cool watery licks as she went. Right at his pelvis she blew an icy kiss against his skin. Then, all fire, slid the length of him into her mouth. His back moved just away from the bed and his hands dug into the sheets and blankets. He moaned, low and heady.

She pulled up and away from him and met his silvery eyes with her own. “What do you want to do today?”

“Get to know your doctor a little, and you promised me a flight.”

He pulled her up towards his face, her hips resting against his, and slipped his hand across her chest. His fingers found the talisman and he lifted it away from her. She felt the bond threatening to reform from just the tiniest separation. “This looks interesting. It looks like a reiputa.”

“A what?” she asked, lost in his potency. 

“A carved whale bone.” His hands turned it over and studied the details. “Sometimes I steal from museums. That’s what this is, isn’t it?”

“It was a gift,” she replied. “When Drey died. It has magic in it to prevent me from bonding.”

“It’s old,” he declared. He lifted her hips a little, and moved her onto him. As she sank down onto him they both exhaled. “Your butterfly man wears one too.”

They were talking about Konrad now. She supposed Meldrick would be next.

“His prevents the curse. We have an ink, for a tattoo, that stops it.” She referenced her thigh, where the base of a bear was outlined, slowing up toward the head, trees stretching into the white unfilled space of its silhouette. 

Greg’s hand ran across her skin, sending a shiver up her leg and through her body.

“He doesn’t like tattoos?”

“He has a big butterfly tattooed on his upper back, but he wears the talisman regardless. I think he likes it. Or it reminds him of things. He’s over four thousand and used to it, too.”

There she went, saying too many words to someone who needed many fewer, or other words, not everything that was her life and the people in it and the kingdom she ran. Not her secrets and the intimate details of others.

She couldn’t help it.

He exhaled, perhaps under the same weight of how much she was sharing and how not-queen she was acting once again.

He slid his hands to her hips, and his eyes flickered shut for a moment. She loved the way he looked from that angle: vulnerable, relaxed in most ways, tense in the right ways, his eyes somewhere between flickering shut and focused on her, his hands pressed against her chest.

He felt so good – the bond, his skin, the way they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle without any effort. She moved against him, as best she could with her belly weighing her down, and he helped – moving against her and then pulling her closer.

There was nothing – not one little detail – that didn’t fit with him. Except that Drey was coming home.

She sighed beside him, relaxing in to the crevice of his arm. Drey didn’t matter, next to this. Seventeen years apart. None of it mattered.. “We have a big breakfast.”

Breakfast mattered. This was the big meal, that all her kids paraded their boyfriends or girlfriends through. Perhaps a dinner would matter more, in most cases, but everyone had seen her with Greg. Showing up with him, instead of hiding in their room, mattered.

“Do you wear the necklace for me or for everyone or both?” he asked.

“I… have worn it for five years. since the curse. You felt the bond. It’s strong. but there’s another side to it. It requires fidelity, with death as a consequence.”

The bond didn’t seem to care much for the talisman, as it were, but she hoped it would at least keep at bay the consequences until she was able to break it. 

“So, if you had a bond, and you cheated, you would die? What’s the good of that?”

She shook her head against him, glad she had worn it down. “If I had a bond and you cheated, I would die. But the intensity of it… at sea, it’s how they pick their partner. You both bond and you spend your lives together.”

No questions. No Dreys, ifs, or buts. Forever.

His fingers lifted it from her skin again, and the bond stretched between them, content and full. “That seems like a dangerous thing for a queen to have.” He let it fall against her, and again the link was severed. His brows furrowed as he slid his fingers down her body. “I liked it, but I was pretty into you when it happened too.”

She exhaled. She was a queen. She had a kingdom to care for. She couldn’t do this. Drey. “There’s.”

Her body fell back against the bed and she stared at the glass pane ceiling, towards the place where Drey’s star was held prisoner in the sky, endlessly revolving around another star. 

“There’s,” he repeated. Then, Greg, Mr. Blue, Mr. Irresistible, lifted the talisman from her skin, and held it above her. She sighed as the bond, once again, joined with his half. “No reason for you to be stuck talking to me.”

She breathed in the golden perfection of him and the intensity of the bond, then looked at him, her heart held prisoner in his hand. “The person I’m waiting for… I don’t have any feasible way to explain why I think he’s coming back. If he wasn’t… we could be bonded.”

“Who is it? Why wouldn’t he be back?”

“He’s been dead for nearly seventeen years. He had no body to come back to.”

“Drey,” he stated. The talisman slipped from his hand as he laughed. “You want me to break into the place where magic that can bring people back from the dead, is stored.”

“It’s unrelated. I could ask for it whenever I wanted it. I thought it would be a challenge to take it.”

“It’s going to be a fun puzzle. Will he be at breakfast?”

“No, I don’t even know if he is coming back.”

He laughed again, and pulled her against him. “I meant the doctor.” He kissed her forehead then let her relax against him. “But… is it possible you think he’s coming back because it’s a safe place for you?”

It was a dream, and all things were possible in dreams, but it seemed real. She was as certain as could be that it was real.

But did it matter.

“Are you a safe place for me?” she asked.

It was too loaded of a question too soon, with too little to promise him in return.

He propped himself on his elbow, fixated on her. “I’m a robber and a thief, but I’m an honest one.” He kissed her. “I won’t hurt you.”

She watched him for a moment, and slid her hand through his hair, feeling the soft curls as they curled and stretched under her fingers. 

If she chose him, now, it wouldn’t be much of temporary except if it had to be. She knew that. She knew how strong the bond was, how impossible to escape it would be. 

She let him go, and both her hands found the twine wrapped around her neck, through the talisman. She lifted it from her head.

In a moment, the full force of the bond was back, wrapping them in it’s unbreakable embrace.

“He’ll be at breakfast. His name is Zero.”

“Will we be at breakfast?”

She laughed. It was a poor time to bond to someone. She couldn’t help but absorb every detail of him: his lips and the way they fit together, his nose, his cheekbones, the way his short facial hair covered him so lightly yet so fully. 

She kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around her.

“Yes?” she asked. She wanted to skip breakfast.

She had a bond, and it was an important meal. It would set up the potential for everything else with Greg.

He breathed out, sharp and loud, as he tried to keep his body angled away from her, his hand running down her spine. The combination was uneffective. 

“What is your schedule like today?” he asked.

Aadya wanted to sound like she did meaningful work. The truth was, she sort of wandered around working on things. Meldrick handled laws. She had no care about them, except that once an incident happened. she was glad someone had thought ahead. On her own, without all of the cogs and gears steering her, she was almost useless.

“Today I have to check my office, work on some construction projects, prepare for the festival, and,” she kissed him, “go flying.”

She hoped he enjoyed her vague list. As it stood, she was going to spend most of day forming teams to help her with the projects: Endymion and Eurydice’s apartment, Zach/Rhyss’ beach house in Sylem and apartment, an apartment for Drey, and something with the nursery and her own room.

“And, before I ask, is there anything you need help with?”

His lips trailed kisses down her neck and the warmth of his breath sent shivers down her spine, in opposition to the heat building everywhere he touched. “Need? No,” she replied.

Want, was a different story. She had many wants, such as to spend the day just showing him around and being with him. She wanted to learn more about him. She wanted a day. 

“Having you around would be nice,” she compromised. “Outside of you exploring the palace.” She ran her hand through his hair and turned to kiss him. There would, at some point, be something more than just each other. She wasn’t sure when that would be; she couldn’t remember feeling this way. Even faint physical memories usually showed themselves, but here, with Greg, there was just new.

“Do you have internet? I want to learn as much as I can about this place and about Zero.”

He would learn far more without the internet, just watching everyone and how they interact. 

“Yes. we do,” she said with a grin.

He moved his hand down her body, “What?”

“It’s nothing. Just.”

She could feel it, her skin glowing and her mind hazing with him so close.

“You’re excited.”

It was a statement, more than a question, but she replied regardless, “I am. Very excited.”

“Me too.” He kissed her and moved more against her, more deliberate, more desiring. She was glad he didn’t ask what it was that she was excited about, because of course there was the obvious excitement over him being there, but there was also the excitement of stealing from Zero and somehow flaunting that they broke through his security measures. There was the allure of having someone at the festival – anyone in some capacity, Greg in an intense new category of desire. There was also the excitement that she wouldn’t have to temporarily marry someone. 

Or maybe it would be temporary. She would have to find a way to ask Greg, regardless. He had offered and she needed the marital status to ensure her children were heirs.

Before that moment she had been counting on Drey, and he might be home soon, but. 

Drey. 

She kissed him, and reminded herself this was just fun, for now.

She didn’t hear the door opening, she didn’t notice the pattering of feet across her floor. She did notice, far too late for her own tastes, the face peering at her from the side of the bed.

She froze; her body not moving and her skin forming little crystals.

Landyn smiled, his curly hair floppy atop his head, much like Greg’s. 

She felt Greg slip away from her and turn, just in time for Nash to jump on top of him. “Hi!”

Kids. It was officially morning. There were no more seconds to spend tangled with Greg, alone in each other’s company.

The panic returned. She hoped the kids wouldn’t understand what they were seeing and she searched her mind for an excuse she could use. 

“Nash!” She exclaimed, drawing a blank on everything else. Sparks flew off her skin as he hugged her.

Landyn peered over her to Greg, “am Landyn!”

She exhaled. There was nothing to do but embrace it and hope Greg liked little kids. Nash and Carina were too old to fall for a line like wrestling. Not that it looked like wrestling.

Greg worked on sorting the blankets to ensure he was covered. “Hi,Landyn. You’re awake.”

Merlyn and Eowyn joined the chaos and began having a jumping contest on the bed. 

It was overwhelming in a way Aadya loved. 

“Who are you?” Merlyn asked. “You’re the wedding man.”

Aadya looked at the room of kids, six of them. Her youngest six. “He’s my boyfriend,” she explained. “Like Giana is your dad – Mel’s – girlfriend.”

Carina and Nash, a freckled pale blonde that reminded her of Mel in so many ways, and a straight haired brunette with her own lips and eyes, were and would always be her last Meldrick offspring. 

It was startling to realize.

At least she had the distraction of Merlyn, shouting “I thought I was your boyfriend.”

“You,” she said as she pulled Merlyn by his ankles and pinned him down. “Are my son.”

She blew a giant raspberry on his chest while he tried to wiggle away. Eowyn declared she would save him and started tugging on his arms. 

Aadya let him go, and he and Eowyn fell back toward the foot of the bed. 

Merlyn sat up, deadpan, “But we’re still getting married, right?”

Never, she promised silently. 

Greg laughed, “You have to get engaged first.” He stuck his hand out toward Merlyn. “I’m Greg.”

While Aadya watched Eowyn get ready to pounce, Carina crawled into bed and nestled under her arm. Aadya leaned back against her.

“Good morning,” Aadya whispered. 

Carina’s skin warmed as Eowyn pounced. Her small body pummeled Greg like a boulder and he flattened against the bed.

“GOT YOU!” she exclaimed. 

“Ahhhh! I think you killed me!” he replied.

Eowyn pulled back her dark ringlet curls and closed one eye, tilted her head, then started to saunter off of him. “Nope. Next time.”

Eowyn slid off the bed and yanked Merlyn’s arm. “You left me. It was dark and we could have had fun!”

Deep in Aadya’s mind she thought of Endymion and Eurydice – they had married hours after their bond. The same bond she shared with Greg. Despite Drey – the possibility of him – she had Greg here, bonded. 

“Hold on,” Aadya said, before the two could leave the room. “Greg, this is: Carina and Nash, Merlyn and Eowyn, Rusky and Landyn.”

Rusky came a bit closer and smiled, “Hi-i.”

He picked up Landyn and gave his own warm hello before turning ti Merlyn and Eowyn. “If it was dark, did you find any monsters?”

“Monsters stay in the barn,” Carina declared, her back arched forward so she could see Greg. She looked up at Aadya, “You’re late. Breakfast is going to be late. He’s not daddy or Uncle Konrad.”

“You mean daddy or Uncle Mel,” Eowyn corrected from her own little universe.

Divorce meant the arguments would only get more complicated. Somehow, Talise had managed to make Niels, Spence, and Ach all called dad. Landyn and Ruskyn did but Eowyn had some stubborn streak in her, while Carina was going through a know-it-all phase. 

It didn’t matter, in the end, except at some point she needed to stop accumulating fathers for her children. Her youngest two… She still couldn’t explain. Father five, though. Wicca signified it would be significant.

Divorce was significant. 

“Why don’t you all go find the nursery monster? We will be ready in a few minutes.”

“There’s only one monster?” Merlyn complained. He took Eowyn’s hand, regardless, and declared to the group, “Come on! We can find him.”

Merlyn was a born leader. He would have made an excellent king. Whatever he chose – be suspected he would be great at it.

As the kids funneled out toward the nursery, Nash holding the hands of Rusky and Landyn, Carina leaned closer again. “Is he staying?”

Aadya glanced at Greg, out of the corner of her eye, and smiled, “I think so.”

After one last hug, Carina followed Landyn out of the room and they were alone again. 

“I miss kids,” Greg said. “My youngest is about that age.”

He was a natural with kids, even if his interaction had been brief. No part of him had panicked or sparked, despite fire being new to him. He had just melded with her family.

“We’re trying to find and recover them. We will.” She kissed him, wary of what the commitment would cost her. From the sound of it, the group that had control of his children and Emily were involved in many realms. The more realms a group found themselves in, the more of a threat they were. Aadya didn’t want to entangle her kingdom unnecessarily, but it was becoming necessary; Rhoda, for all her insanity, was someone Drey had told her to trust. Rhoda, for all her insanity, told Nim that the UR was their enemy.

Aadya hated having enemies she didn’t know well. She was okay with having adversaries, such as the sea kingdom, as long as there was a mutual disinterest in war.

“We know where they arel it’s dangerous even for us. Possibly especially for us,” she told Greg.

He leaned back along his arms and smiled, but she could see the worry and the stress. He had been too long without his youngest two. Jay was an adult in this realm, almost adult in his own. Greg had missed his children’s lives. 

“They’re great,” he said.

Her eyes found the door to the nursery. Entangling Greg in her life felt so easy, but she had to be careful. Her children didn’t need a dozen fathers, whoever she married next needed to be the last one until her children were grown. A century at least. 

If there was a next.

The winged babies she was carrying was enough of a disruption. She had yet to encompass how to explain to her children that only two of them had wings because she had spent an afternoon or two with Nell, despite all logic.  

In some ways, being single would be more stable. But the kingdom would want to see her settled, if Meldrick were to settle. 

She turned back to Greg and kissed him. “Most of the rest will be at breakfast. Some are married, some just live elsewhere.”

She wished she had time to be closer to some of them, but it was a choice to have so many children. Nell’s…. It was impossible for her to understand how they would play into her family and her reputation.

While she let her mind wander, Greg asked her how many kids she had.

“32, plus these two,” she admitted. “These will be the only ones with wings.”

Maybe they wouldn’t even have wings.

Greg pulled her against him, laughing into her neck as he kissed her. She raised her left eyebrow, puzzled by his response.

“No,” he said against her skin. “How many of the 32 have kids.”

Her skin heated against him and she pulled away, so she could lie on her back. He followed her, arched over her. “Seven of them.”

She slipped away from him and walked toward her dresser. “I had clothes delivered for you, if you want them. You can see our seamstress today or go shopping too.”

She handed him a folded pile of clothes for him to wear that day. 

“Is there somewhere nearby to shop?” he asked. “All I have is tin, I’ve heard that’s useless here.”

Tin. He had said aluminum the day before. She was certain they were different.

“Dellers.” She pulled a dozen from a drawer and handed them to him. “There are several places.”

He stood too, pants on but tunic waiting on the bed, “I’ll do that, then.”

Greg’s hands slid down her body as his lips melded with her neck. “Sorry we got interrupted. Do you have someone, unless you’re more free than you think you are, who could help me with the shopping and a tour?”

“I.” 

She let a spark pass between their hands, lacing hers in his. She would take him shopping, or meet him there to surprise him, but the tour would be with Spence. He could get to know him and assess things. Spence was a good representation of how Zero handled his own security. 

“I have someone in mind.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Yes.”

Their hands fell apart as he fell onto the bed and bounced a little before settling into the creamy white sheets. “I’m not going.”

He tilted his head toward her, avoiding a grin she could sense beneath the surface. She stepped closer, then leaned toward him. Her belly of babies protested, but she managed to crawl on top of him in a way that didn’t look like she had failed at her first mission of curling alongside him.

“Am I going to need cuffs?” she asked, her hand wrapping around one of his wrists.

More laughter filled the space. “Who is it and why did you get that look on your face?”

Oh, how she loved him for noticing. 

“His name is Spence.” She kissed him. “He is the father of my heir’s first born. He’s engaged to my second born. He’s training to be head of security and running for governor in his realm. And, the father who raised him was Zero.”

She would have just called zero his father, but for the mission he thought the hint that he had two fathers was important for Greg to know. She couldn’t wait to hear what he had found out and see how he planned things.

“Which is your second born?” He asked. “Did I meet her last night?”

Aadya used that moment to turn away from him as she stood again. It was harder than she wanted it to be and she heard him laugh a little in the background. She had no idea what he wanted with a pregnant and divorced queen.

“His name is Acheron.”

There was silence for a moment.

“You know why you have population problems?” he said. “All the men are gay.”

Aadya bit her tongue. “Are you complaining?”

“I’m lucky you were single.” He kissed her, now fully dressed. “Breakfast.”

Aadya looked down at herself. He may have been dressed but she was not. 

“Right. Breakfast.” she stated. She headed to the closet and he followed. The door shut behind them.

“Screw breakfast,” he said, his hands sliding into her hair as he led her closer to him.

He was right. It wasn’t like her, not the persona she cultivated, but screw breakfast.

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