Episode 161: Weston Chat (Konrad)

Following the unexpected remarriage to Nell, and the visit to the barn loft to revel in each other, Konrad found himself alone and in need of advice.

Cecily, he could plan for to an extent, but with the marriage to Nell resolidified he wanted to talk to Weston about what the best course would be.

And he had a message to pass along, from Bentley.

He made his way to Zero in the quiet of the empty palace, with all the revelers outside enjoying an unseasonably cool day. It was a day for gentle breezes and warm patches of sun, more than sunburns and drink stands in every corner of the garden.

Zero and Indigo sat together indoors, doing some sort of wooden puzzle with Silas and conversing quietly, from what he could see when Zero opened the door to their apartment.

Zero joined him in the hall.

“Have you got any of those unique travel packs which find a person rather than a place?” he asked. He wasn’t sure which corner of the realm Weston found himself in currently, but he disliked the headache of finding him the slow way.

“I do,” Zero said. He began a paced walk down the hall toward his exterior office door. “Anything important?” he asked.

“Visiting a friend who travels,” Konrad responded. He suspected from that alone, that Zero would have a guess at who he visited. Who, but perhaps not why.

“Good luck,” Zero told him. He unlocked the door and walked into the tidy and sterile space.

“Thank you, same to you,” Konrad said. He hesitated in the doorway, unsure why he paused.

“What’s on your mind?” Zero asked after a beat.

He was uncertain. Something pressured him to want to stay and talk to Zero. Nothing important, more that they were brothers in law and their lives were stressful.

“Dragon magic and old secrets,” Konrad stated. He knew that was vague, unjustly so given the level at which he trusted Zero.

“If you need to talk, I’m here,” Zero offered.

“Tonight, perhaps,” Konrad said. An evening out with Zero, before the attack, might be healthy. Konrad felt too spread thin, too much as though he strained to catch up from the effects of the magic worked against him.
Not yet: Zero had none of the answers which Konrad sought from Weston.

Konrad transported to Weston’s side: Fireside at dusk, with a blue-white mountain tall behind them, a pine forest around them, the cool high-altitude meadow unexpected after the air of the Dells.

Konrad was under dressed.

Beside the fire, Weston had prepared two fallen logs for seating. Salmon, from the smell of it, smoked above the flames.

Weston looked up from his perch. “Good evening, Dad,” he said.

Konrad surveyed the mountain, the shape of the peak, the fact of snow in June. “The Chatkas,” he stated. “I never know where I’ll find you.” He stepped forward as Weston stood, and hugged him. His son. It had been too long.

“How are you?” he asked Weston.

“Well,” Weston assured him. “You?”

He was certain that Weston knew why he’d come, which meant he asked only as a formality. “I had a question, which you may not care to answer,” Konrad said, needlessly.

“Have a seat,” Weston requested. Konrad claimed the log which Weston had not previously used, and waited while Weston brought him a portion of the smoked salmon.

“I have a gift for you as well.” Konrad bit into the salmon – a bit dry for his taste, but aside of that well-flavored.

“Let’s start with the gift,” Weston teased. “I’d rather have it than know it was taken away because of this conversation.”

He sat and took his own measure of salmon, and for a moment, just the two of them in the firelight, it was like old times.

It had only been twenty years. I would be easy enough, at any point, for Konrad to take up the old ways which bound them so tidily together.

Nell had no place in that life. He had children coming soon, a mess of a relationship with Rylena to repair. Konrad had his own children now, impossible as it seemed.

Change had turned the tide of Konrad’s life, upheaved it. If the missive Bentley slid under Konrad’s door in the night held true, change had come for Weston.

Konrad passed him a little thumb piano, metal prongs of different length designed to mark different pitches when struck. Through Konrad’s musical knowledge, which was admittedly basic, he gathered that the piano covered only a small range of notes.

Still, it would suffice for simple tunes. Old tunes, sung around campfires in other lifetimes.

“I thought you might like something to brighten your evenings when you travel alone,” he told Weston. Or, more likely, a conversation starter.

“Thank you,” Weston said. He tested a half dozen notes on the thing and then played the chorus to Billy McHugh. They were of the same mind: Old tunes, old times. Perhaps the recent revelations had them both missing Khale.

“Which topic first?” Weston nudged him.

“Cecily,” Konrad said. He had little need for Weston to be distracted about his own future before they’d settled Konrad’s past.

“Why the sudden interest?” Wetson asked, with a sudden interest of his own, in the fire. “Aside from the near death.” He sighed. “Nevermind. I have known about her long enough to irritate you.”

Konrad couldn’t help but smile at Weston’s choice of the word irritate. He would have known that it failed to describe.

But then…they had got through their biggest trial millennia ago. There was nothing left to be said which could change things between them in any substantial way.

“Since the beginning,” Konrad accused, gentle. “You would have known when I failed to die the first time.”

“She told me you would come back. I met her just before your trial.” Weston’s eyes locked onto the fire, the memories. “She saved you.”

Konrad could still feel that first wound. All his time of hunger in the Aorimaan Isles, he’d never felt a pain like that, which went through him and blurred out his will to live.

He’d experienced it since, by choosing to do battle, but it had never touched him as that first time had, knowing Khale endured the same.

“Did she ask you to withhold?” he demanded.

“Yes.”

A three-thousand-year secret.

Poor Weston.

He’d been a boy when he’d carried the weight of Konrad’s anger and grief. Cecily should never have put the burden of such a secret on him as well, she ought to have faced Konrad’s fury rather than been a coward.

“Because we – she – arrived too late to save Khale,” Weston explained. “She thought you’d never forgive her for saving just you, or for saving you instead.”

He might have, if he’d known what he knew now.

In those days – and they were many in number – he was unwilling to listen about anything related to Khale’s death.

It was his own fault. Not Khale’s death, specifically, but the need for Cecily to hide, the fathomless anger he’d inflicted on Weston for having such a useless magic…all of that, was his own failure.

He hoped he measured a better person, these days.

He wanted to be done with his life’s work and find a new vocation. Music, perhaps. Wandering with Nell. Peace.

“What topic next?” Weston asked.

He hadn’t finished with Cecily yet. “Which is the better course: Set her free or establish the line? Or both, in reverse order?”

The crackling fire consumed the silence as Weston sifted through thoughts. “It depends on if you want more than Robert. He’s Dragon. Though if she establishes the line with someone else that adds genetic diversity.”

There were better ways to add to Robert’s sibling count, than finding it in himself to look at Cecily as anything more than the woman who let his Khale die.

His mind wandered over the curves of another woman, shared by Nell in his dreams, pale and orange and vivacious.

She’d found a new love for herself; perhaps a healthier love.

He turned his focus back to Cecily. “Can it be done, freeing her?” he asked Weston.

“The bigger question is: Is it worth the cost?” Weston clarified.

“Which is what?”

He wondered what price he would pay, to be rid of her.

If it wouldn’t work, if the price was too much, he would make peace and move on. He would have to, for Nell’s sake.

“A few things,” Weston explained. “You’ll need Landyn or Rusky, or a new heir, to marry her.” From the way he said the names, it was clear which his luck thought would make the better match. “You’ll also need to conquer the temple of the sidhe. Or barter their price for her freedom. In her case, it requires you to take on kingship.”

So much for peace.

Konrad disliked the idea of more questions along this vein. He’d need to settle this decision with Nell, not with Weston. “Alright. What of this new man, Greg?”

“He stole from you,” Weston laughed. “Otherwise, he’s good for the kingdom and Aadya.”

No.

When had he robbed Konrad? How had he failed to notice?

He had more to investigate, on his return to the palace.

“And the attack?” he asked.

“Happening,” Weston confirmed, as though Konrad might not already know.

“I have a message from Bentley as well,” Konrad stated. It was the easy part of his visit, the change that belonged to someone else rather than more struggles for Konrad.

Weston held up his index finger. “A moment first.” He was quiet, sifting, and then he said, “If you convince Nell to honor his kingship, you would not need to conquer anything.”

Nell and his kingship.

Ideally, with Rylena’s son Feidhelm ascended in Keshmar, Rylena might have come to the Dells, come home to Nell if not Konrad, and established a second pixie colony there. Instead, she’d met a Keshmari prince and pledged marriage to another Keshmari prince and tangled herself in a net that thoroughly excluded any chance of her reestablishing her marriage to Nell.

Konrad would not put that on Nell, in order to remove his own pest. If it came to taking a kingship, Konrad would shoulder it.

“The message?” Weston asked.

Konrad drew in a breath and set his gaze so that he might observe Weston’s reaction. “He says that he agrees with you about M. And he hopes you’ll entertain the future Dragon line.”

If Weston reacted, Konrad missed it. His perceptive abilities hadn’t waned significantly, so he suspected Weston didn’t react.

That in itself was a reaction of sorts.

“If you see him,” Weston requested in a measured tone, “remind him that I prefer to date within my millennium.”

“He hardly made that deadline himself,” Konrad reminded him, amused. Bentley had wandered for decades, centuries, before he stumbled on Shea and made her his home and future queen.

“We’ll see, then,” Weston said. He began the brief statement smiling, but by the end nothing remained in his tone save wist.

“What is it?” Konrad pried, as only a father had a right to.

Weston’s eyes returned to the fire. “I’ll entertain her. I’m not sure I’m ready.”

Weston had a better idea of who it was than Konrad, but if he wanted to share he would have. Time, and space, he needed.

“I’m not sure I am,” Konrad confessed. Three thousand years of solitude, with only his son as a traveling companion, only to be devoured by an incomprehensible attachment to a man whose behaviors he hardly understood.

“Take your time,” he told Weston. “Don’t let anyone pressure you.”

It was the same advice Weston gave him, when Nell had first become a possibility.
“Or anything,” Weston grumbled, referencing his luck magic. He glanced again in Konrad’s direction. “You’re retiring soon, I can see?”

Was he?

He could feel the vein within himself, eager for something different; new. Ready to be done with the lifestyle and settle with Nell. It would be its own sort of challenge.

“I’d like to,” he admitted, more to himself than to Weston. “I’m not sure what I’d do afterword.”

“Take time with Nell,” Weston suggested. “You’ll still be needed.”

Still needed. Odd that it was both a relief and a burden. To be needed, wanted…he wasn’t confident he’d earned that after everything. To have it there was a reward for a lifetime of effort and love that went unnoticed by most he’d offered it to.

On the other hand… “At some point I’d prefer my debt to the well-being of others, to be settled.”

Weston smiled. “Perhaps next month, when Khale comes home.”

Konrad’s head snapped up. “What?”

“He’ll be home following the attack. After he deals with his end of it.”

Khale, home. It mirrored what Aadya said of Drey. And Nell had said they were together. His Khale, Nell’s Drey. There was an elegant sort of parity to it.

What would he say to him?

How would he justify his existence.

“If you want him alive,” Weston continued, “you’ll have to allow the attack. Remove a spell or two from the palace. The attack will not cause long-term harm. It’s good.”

“You want me to sabotage the protections on the palace?” he iterated. The time, effort, that Zero put into the protections. To simply sweep them away would be a flagrant disregard to everyone involved in the attack and the man who worked so diligently to protect them.

“What good can come of it,” he argued.

Khale and Drey returned from the dead, at what price.

What would Konrad say to Khale. How could he face him, after all this time alive while Khale was not?

“Khale,” Weston said, as though that was an inducement. “Over a hundred new Dragon heirs. A fleet of dragons for upcoming altercations. Your health. Drey. Three special boys. Greg’s sons. A long list of things. New allies, too.”

“Alright.” He could find no argument against a list so substantial. “I’ll take down the stronger wards.”

Khale back, for his own sake, would be good. Khale back, for Konrad…what would he say to him?

“And the new realm is a good idea,” Weston declared.

Zero’s idea. “He seems to be full of them,” Konrad mused. “He won’t be happy about this.”

“Don’t tell him. Let him be confused. He may develop an ego if left unchecked. Talise and Niels will need help.”

Weston might have luck, but Konrad had memories: Of Zero, lost when faced with the reality of his son who turned out not to be dead; Of Zero, uncertain in how to reach Spence.

Konrad was a measurer of men, and he saw no risk of Zero developing an ego in the coming months. His failure to protect Indigo would challenge him enough.

“I don’t want him to doubt his ability to protect his family either,” Konrad argued. If Zero was included in the decision, if he could be made to see that the benefits would outweigh the losses, it would not twist his need to protect. He would feel that he had served well and done the job that needed to be done.

“Then tell him, and remember it was your idea,” Weston said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’ll be confident in your choice.” Weston stood and began tamping out the fire. “I have one last request: Can you replace the pregnancy prevention tea with some other tea?”

“What for?” It was unexpected, to say the least.

Weston grinned. “A few accidental pregnancies won’t hurt anyone.”

The question was, would they need a dragon army later, or did Weston foresee a need for comfort, the sort of comfort a replacement pregnancy would provide.

Nell wasn’t likely to lose his children, so far along, but Indigo was hardly pregnant at all and Talise was somewhere in the middle.

Alright. Talise would be far too stubborn to allow a pregnancy on its own. If she lost these babies, she would need the affirmation that a new pregnancy, of Niels’s, would provide.

“Letting Zakili go won’t, either,” he reminded Weston.

“Perhaps,” Weston murmured.

The pair of them regarded the fire, the past. Above seven hundred years, he’d held onto Zakili, to her place in his life.

It had been an ugly time: A plague, in Teca. Their own children and grandchildren sick with an illness that proved fatal in nearly all cases. Weston, begging her not to go. Her, insisting that she needed to be with their son.

Weston, telling her she wouldn’t survive it.

Her, saying she didn’t care.

The weeks of silence after her departure, the moment Weston’s face crumpled when his luck told him she’d fallen ill, again when his luck told him she’d died.

Asking him to let her go was another matter altogether: It wasn’t about him releasing Zakili to the past, as Konrad had learned to do with Khale; it was about trusting someone new.

A new girl, a new life. New opportunities.

“Aadya has been in an unusual mood this week,” he commented, a hand resting on his own face to indicate that he meant her deaging him. Beginning anew would benefit Weston, lure him into optimism and love again. “You’re welcome at the festival.”

“Care to give me a ride?” he asked, more casual than his shoulders showed him to be. “I was going to take a boat home.”

Home, as though Weston had one. The pair of them shared, until recently, a lifestyle forged in homelessness.

Konrad’s home was Nell. He disliked that Weston found himself alone. Wouldn’t it complete things, if Weston found himself at home in the Dells, with a Dragon princess?

“Alright,” he said. He stood and began the work of gathering Weston’s scant belongings into a rucksack. “Will you help this coming week?”

“Yes,” Weston promised. He stood as well, slid the thumb piano into the bag before he removed the stakes from his tent. “If she deages me, I’ll blame Bentley. He thinks he doesn’t have the same luck as me, but his grand prophecy to find me someone will require all kinds of luck.”

Konrad gazed at him. The tension, behind the humor. “And deaging, I believe.” Weston would want things to progress on their own, innocently. Their ages would need to match.

“Are you mad about Cecily?” Weston asked, as they worked together to roll his bedding into the most compact bundle they could manage.

Konrad met Weston’s eyes. “I think she put you in an impossible place.” Expecting a child to lie, on behalf of a grown woman. It was unconscionable. “”We – Nell and I – have never disagreed the way we do about her.”

A smirk passed over Weston’s face. Konrad wondered what he knew and chose to conceal, and then decided that this was why he’d asked to have the luck removed. He preferred to feel as though he had so manner of say in the outcome of his own life.

“Possibly because he talks to her,” Weston teased. “Possibly because of Robert.”

Robert.

He had nothing to do with Cecily. Mags delivered him, as a gift to them, half Nell and half Konrad, an impossible child which was theirs in the way that natural children were of their parents.

“What about Robert?” Konrad demanded.

“She was the one that stole your genetics, from your bed I assume, and brought them to Magenta.”

It changed nothing. Was Robert meant, in some way, to make amends for Khale?

One more question, before Weston arrived at the festival and became distracted by Ariadne or whoever else was on the cusp of consuming his future.

“Why Rusky or Landyn, for Cecily? Why not Robert or Merlyn?”

Weston laughed. “They’re already taken. Eowyn too.”

They absolutely were not. No child of his would endure any sort of arrangement, luck-based or otherwise.

“By whom?” he asked.

“A little girl will decide that,” Weston goaded. “On a whim.”

No. He’d got rid of his luck magic. He wouldn’t pry. Weston seemed unconcerned, which meant that whatever path Robert, Merlyn, and Eowyn chose, they chose for themselves.

He clinched the final buckle on Weston’s bag and offered his hand. “Are you ready.”

Weston looked toward the peak for a moment, no doubt gathering his thoughts. “I am,” he said, at last.

Konrad transported him home.

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