Episode 175: Procurements (Nell)

Nell needed a multitude of things: his newly remarried to husband, his unborn nephew to be okay, and his sister to be calm. The last was, for the most part, dependent on the nephew situation, which was dependent on Nell racking the recesses of his mind for a way to help her.

Having done so, he found his husband and began the process of completing the list instead of hypothesising how to accomplish so many things on such a busy day.

His children were going to be born soon, as it were.

He inhaled a typhoon of air. His children were going to be born, that day or the next. Aadya was in labor.

Konrad was walking the halls, a job Nell knew was coming to an end. It was funny how being at the end of such a large part of your life made you want to cherish the moments, even if Nell had never loved Konrad’s position. It had been years of hours apart, threats, worries. Soon, Konrad would be just his, to do with their time as they pleased.

He stepped behind Konrad and set his hand on his shoulder. “Excuse me, sir, but I seem to have lost my way.”

Kornad turned and caught Nell’s lips before he could move away. The kiss deepend until their wings were caressing one another and they knew they would need to part ways or find a more private space. Konrad tried to pull away, but Nell wove his fingers through his dark curly hair and kept his face close, their lips dancing for another second before he relinquished his hold.

Konrad, his Comet, cleared his throat. “And yet you made your way home.”

Nell smiled. It had taken time to get accustomed to Konrad’s youthful features; the aged man was the one Nell had met and fallen in love with.

The younger one promised more time together, a third of a lifetime. It left the promise that they would grow together, in this life and onto the next someday.

“I’ve purchased a small house for Cecily,” Konrad stated.

That was news – he was almost certain Konrad was going to avoid addressing Cecily for eternity. He hoped Cecily knew how significant this was.

“Aadya and Talise will be delivering their babies today,” he informed Konrad. As much as he wanted to talk tiny houses, Aadya and Talise and even more importantly Indigo were at the forefront of his mind.

“Alright. Zero suggested it?”

“Greg suggested it, and Zero agreed.”

Nell wasn’t sure how he felt about Greg. He had stolen from them, though Konrad had yet to notice. He was proud and bold and hurting at the same time. He’d taken ahold of Aadya in an encompassing way that worried Nell: he worried Aadya was in too much pain to address her split from Konrad and Meldrick, that she had moved on to the next opportunity too quickly, that she needed more time to heal.

Her joy clouded his concern, in the end.

Today, Nell had bigger things to contemplate: His sister’s potential pain. Indigo was the light of his existence, outside of children and husbands. He’d never felt alone as long as he had her within a continent’s reach.

“My sister is pregnant,” he told Konrad. Not that he needed to know. If someone was female they were probably pregnant at the moment. It was a side thought, though, and he needed to focus.

“There’s a machine her baby can go in, but she needs to be Dragon for a good chance of it working.”

He had found the machines, with Drey, on one of their adventures. They grew woodland animals in them. It was an exciting year.

Konrad agreed to help. Nell led them toward the conference rooms, to go get the machine together.

“Dragon.” Konrad said, mulling the idea from his mind into reality. “Alright.” He opened the conference room door and the two entered the space where movement between realms became free and possible. “Spence keeps some of the loyalty elixir in my office,” He stated.

“Thank you,” Nell replied.

“She may prefer to be loyal to you,” Konrad pointed out.

It was almost undoubtable that Indigo would choose Nell to be loyal to; they were siblings and already loyal to one another.

“It’s her choice,” he replied. If Zero opted to do the elixir, Nell suspected Konrad would be the one doing it with him. “I need to get a machine for her and a few other things,” he stated. He took Konrad’s hand and transported with him to one of the realms he knew had the pods.

“What did Aadya like in her labors with you?” Nell asked.

Konrad laughed. “Soothing touch, occasionally someone to yell at.”

“So mostly Greg.” Nell led them down a crowded street. When they had arrived, no one had batted an eye at them. Now, with a few moments to immerse themselves in the mixed crowd of realm travellers and natives, Nell relaxed.

It amazed him that so many films had futuristic and advanced societies as sterile. Caidlar was well kept, but was well known for their gardens and stone pathways. If anything, it tended toward Elesarian style. Buildings were made of clay and stucco. People walked the streets with satchels draped across their chests and many rode bicycles in the streets. Here, nature was embraced. Natural was embraced. Konrad and Nell stepped inside a building, and the world changed from dusty and full of life to more sterile, more modern. Bright lights lit the room. There was no life in site, except for one shop clerk standing to the side along a wall, speaking to a customer. Nell led Konrad through the display area that was adorned with moving pictures of babies tumbling and cooing.

“And you,” Konrad whispered. “You wouldn’t hide if it was pigs being born.”

Pigs were not as intimidating as Aadya. He was happy to have a few errands to run while she got settled, while Greg had a chance to be her number one in the birthing room. He felt some guilt, making Greg the focal point of the next few hours, but if he was the one for Aadya it would be good for her. If he wasn’t….

He had other things to take care of before he looked more into Greg. He stopped in front of one of the machines. It was a cylinder, angled upward on one side.

“Unless they didn’t want an audience,” he mused. He opened the chamber and looked inside.

As he examined the pod, he felt Konrad’s hand slide against his back. “You can ask her.”

“She requested snow cones.” It meant she wanted him there, more than anything. If she hadn’t made a request, he would have known he should stay away. If she had requested something like an apple, he’d know she wanted him to stop by, but she had requested something that could melt quickly, something that required him to be near.

He would be there for her and for his kids. He never wanted Palila or Rhen to feel like he had forgotten them, neglected them, had anything better to do than be with them and their siblings and family.

His little inner family needed attention.

“Are you alright, after yesterday?” Nell asked.

“I’m sorry about Cecily.” He leaned in and kissed Nell.

Nell heard the shopkeeper wondering if they planned to have a child together.

Nell wondered if they should, while they were procuring machines. It would take most of a year to come to fruition.

“Our kids will be siblings,” Konrad pointed out, his lips brushing Nell’s ear as he pulled away from the kiss. Konrad’s hand slid up the cool white and grey frame of the fake womb. Nell watched each movement, curious if that was a no or just a comment to Nell’s earlier thought.

Having Konrad in his mind again was refreshing. It took out most of the struggle of sharing, it was automatic.

“They will,” he replied. “And I am sorry about Cecily. I had hoped with pixie abilities they would have connected with her. She shouldn’t come between us.”

“She matters, to you,” Konrad said, asked, understood in some way.

“She deserves some level of respect,” Nell pointed out. “It’s not more.”

“The house…” Konrad began.

Nell kissed him. “I love you for.” He shut the lid to the container. If there wasn’t the potential for needing additional units in the future, if they were more easily accessible, they would have procured them. Instead, Nell had brought someone else’s card to pay for the units. It would be paid off in some way. The connection in Caidler often requested services in return for the bills. It was fair, because Nell loved running errands. They tended interesting, and not so dangerous that Nell worried he would come home missing his life or pieces of himself.

Back to the issue at hand. “She is family, to me,” Nell clarified. “Someone you’ve always had with you. Much like Weston, but more annoying.”

Konrad laughed. “Weston… have you seen him recently?”

Nell had not, but he’d heard about his replication of Bentley’s choice – deaging in the hopes of love. “I’ve heard he deaged.”

“Twelve. Ariadne,” Konrad confirmed.

“What do you think of that?”

Nell slid the card across the counter. “Two please.”

The man took the card and slid in in the machine. It was nice to not be judged aloud, despite the fact that Nell could hear the man loudly judging everything about them from Konrad’s leather ensamble to wondering if he could cheat them out of another few thousand Glaudies.

“Hopeful for him,” Kornad said, his eyes locked on the shopkeep. The man’s name tag read Ben.

“Another half of a lifetime together too,” Nell pointed out, about Konrad and him. “I am hopeful, too.”

“Cecily,” he began, his voice carrying the most subtle reduction in disdain for her. “She prefers to sleep in my office, but I thought perhaps once she acclimates to her house perhaps we could move it to the living room.”

“Cecily prefers to avoid you, because she thinks existing hurts you. More than the recent issue.” Ben, the shopkeep, wheeled out one of the pods in front of him and dragged another behind him. He stopped and let them inspect their products. One flip through his mind and Nell knew he was giving them tested, reliable machines. The pay must have made his internal feelings not matter.

Nell respected people who still managed to act differently.around others, despite any thoughts they might have. Pods in hand, he turned to Konrad. “And she doesn’t find you sexually attractive.”

Konrad smiled and took one of the pods. They thanked Ben and left the store together. They didn’t have to take more than a step outside before they could transport.

“I think the children would like her company,” Konrad added.

“They may.” Robert played games with her and he’d caught Ruskyn watching her dance, mesmerized.

“I would enjoy her presence,” Nell admitted. They wheeled the two machines toward the birthing suites they had procured for Zero. With the festival, it had required moving one person but they were easily swayed with one of the gift baskets they had on hand.

“She’s intelligent and skilled with magic. She helps me with animals – another set of eyes,” Nell listed.

“Alright. I’ll work on transitioning her.”

He could tell Konrad had had enough of the Cecily talk, but he decided he needed to say one more thing: “The first thing Cecily ever said to me was ‘Please don’t tell him I exist.’ She begged me.”

As Nell expected, Konrad was done a comment before. They stopped at the rooms and pushed the carts into the middle one, which would serve as Zero’s medical supply room and Indigo room. On either side was another room, one for Aadya and one for Talise today. Soon, the rooms would be filled with a guard duty instead for Indigo’s son.

Nell placed the two pods side by side and the back of the room.

“Was that the last of what you needed?” Konrad asked.

“No.” Nell stepped into Konrad’s personal space and ran his hand up Konrad’s chest. “I need you to know I love you. Not her. If I loved her, she would be carrying my children not Aadya. She gave us Robert, through Magenta. You’re my partner; my forever.”

“Do you love Aadya?”

Too much.

“I don’t buy snow cone machines for just anyone,” he joked. Then he met Konrad’s eyes, colorful pools that shared in the affair.

“Yes,” Nell confessed. He loved Aadya.

“I took her from you.”

“You may find this surprising, but I do not love her anatomical features,” he joked.

Their time in the barn, the two days they had spent confined with one another for most of the day, had been intense and incredible.

He’d accredited his affection to the curse, to duty and obligation, to a multitude of things.

Konrad laughed at his joke and kissed him.

“You’ve taken nothing from me. You’ve given me everything,” Nell said. He let his arms slide around Konrad as their lips melded together.

Yes, he loved Aadya.

No, he didn’t think he was the right person for her. He could love her as deeply, as effectively, from outside of her bed.

As it happened, he did prefer Konrad and men in general. Aadya and Enny had been his two exceptions.

“The same, for you. Always.” Konrad’s eyes closed, and Nell’s followed suit, as they got lost in their minds and their touch.

Nell pulled away first, breathless for a moment.

“Now, about the construction.” Nell moved away, his body aching for more but his mind certain he needed to act in haste.

“Yes?” Konrad asked. “We’ll send an array of minions.”

He meant kids: Aadya and Meldrick’s, their own, others from around the palace. Most of the ones helping were well into adulthood. They would be there, helping Aadya and Talise in the way Nell knew he shouldn’t. They would be there, giving Nell the space to be there for Aadya, and another generation would be born into a family that didn’t make sense most days, but never failed to love one another.

Plus, Nell still needed snow cones.

He led Konrad towards a window. They would fly.

There were many things Nell knew he had, and the ability to face all the mushy feelings surrounding Aadya was not one of them. At least, not for five more minutes.

<- Episode 174 | Episode 176 ->