Episode 187: Treaties (Tarragon)

Sitting in the interrogation room of his mother and father’s kingdom, it was hard for Tarragon to not stare at the stone walls and wonder if he would regret the day. He had spent most of wondering how to console Camilla and what to say to Annatto once he revived. He’d spent it in his own blood and sweat, training in such a way that made him wonder if his life depended on his success, or if his relief depended on something he had yet to fashion

It was in the later part of the day that events had turned, and he had taken his chance to be the man his son had shut him out for not being.

He’d stood up to Ionia and he’d cost Tara whatever semblance of an existence she had, being caged but at least cared for. The children she carried would, without a doubt, suffer in his abandonment. Basil and little Anisa would suffer as well.

Five lives were sacrificed, and he would feel every tendril of their suffering for as long as they lived. In exchange, Orris and Olida were still free of Ionia’s grasps and they looked healthier than he had ever seen them. Annatto was safe. Camilla and the ten babies she carried were safe for the time being, despite her attempt at harming herself. His secret, that he had ascended dragon, was safe from Ionia. His dragon, with irony red skin with blue hidden beneath each scale, had shown herself before his trial. They had ascended as a team, where no wife was present as queen.

He continued to sit in the conference room, Annatto beside him and alive, until his mother graced him with her presence for the first time in well over sixteen years.

“Tarragon,” she reaffirmed.

He’d heard of her memories being removed, but it was hard to believe the woman before him was his mother. She spoke with strength and she walked not just with the curve of impending life, but with something soft he’d never seen in her before, something near broken.

“Do you accept the terms?” he asked.

“Yes, we do,” she replied with a nod. She sat in the chair opposite his son and him, and looked toward the soft red waves of curls that coated Annatto’s head. He had her hair, just in a different color.

“I’m Aadya,” she introduced.

“Good job, you have a name.” Annatto folded his arms across his chest.

If Tarragon had more say, he would have nudged Annatto. As it stood, Tarragon remained silent.

“It’s not even your real one,” Annatto spit out.

“It’s real enough,” Aadya replied. “I know you’ve struggled, but you are not alone.” She looked toward Tarragon now, and he wasn’t sure if she was going to cry. Her eyes were heavy and looked like they were about to spill over. “Neither of you are.”

It was the first time he had the advantage in a situation and he wasn’t sure what to do with it; he wasn’t sure he wanted to be above her. She was his mother, the woman that had birthed him and sacrificed him.

He sat still in his chair and observed the two: Her in a blue green dress with lace arms, Annatto in a dirty beige tunic and pants.

“Yeah. This is a big improvement on my old life,” Annatto declared through muffled lips. He stared at the table, which was as much a disrespect as Tarragon’s ascension.

Despite his behavior, Aadya stood.

Her skin was lighter than he had remembered it. Years of Titania poisoning his mind to see her skin as a mark against him, years of stories of who his mom truly was: the ruthless princess of the sea. The despondence she bred, for his mother to be someone so soft and pliable.

Aadya opened the door. “Would you like to see what the next phase of your perpetual punishment entails?”

Annatto glanced at the door, his body rising from the metal chair. Aadya waited, until Annatto gave in. “So some self-righteous dragon queen can feel better about kidnapping me from my family?”

Annatto sank back into his chair.

“Would you like to explain, tell me what I’m doing wrong?” Aadya asked. She walked back across the room to sit at the table. The door remained open.

Tarragon wasn’t sure what game she was playing. There must have been guards in the hall. He was curious though, because either she was certain Annatto wouldn’t leave the room or the hallway was clear.

“Then enjoy jail,” she said as she said. “It is your choice.” She turned to face Tarragon.

He had never been so baffled in his life by someone. Perhaps she was just stupid. Being in her presence was disettling; he wished he had time with the guards or the man that had helped him escape.

“Would you like something to eat?” She asked Tarragon.

Even if it was poison, he would survive. “Please.”

Aadya nodded.

“You’re feeding a murderer,” Annatto grumbled. He glanced to Aadya, focused and sharp.

Tarragon wasn’t sure he could ever make up the pain he had caused Annatto or the fear he had instilled in Camilla. Being away from Ionia made it difficult to reconcile himself with someone worthy of either of their forgiveness; he had done those things, and he had done them with a steady hand and the ruthlessness he had been raised for.

Aadya, her shoulders still relaxed and her voice too soft and coddling, said, “You are uniquely the only one in this room who has never committed such a crime.”

“I know.” Annatto spat out.

Aadya stood and straightened her dress, smoothing it around the lives inside of her.

Somewhere, Camilla and Tara carried twelve of his offspring.

At the door, Aadya turned. Her largest tell thus far was her hair, wound against her hand like hands wringing in anxiety. Her eyes were still heavy and she looked more tired.

Part of him wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, to fall into her arms like so many others had done over the years (he had heard she had become big on hugs). Her comforting persona was either an excellent, perfected, act or something genuine and forged through pain.

She was someone Annatto could use in his life, if Tarragon was to choose a new place for him to be raised. Tarragon wanted to raise his son himself, but to know his son would have a life free of the pain and suffering and breeding that had encompassed his life was enough.

As Aadya left the room, Annatto folded his freckled arms onto the table and buried his head into them. “I’m sleeping.”

“You don’t look like you are,” Tarragon pointed out.

“I’m talking about my future, which involves sleep.”

“Annatto,” Tarragon said in the most soothing voice he could muster. It sounded, to his frustration, much like Aadya’s. “I experienced every second of what I put you through, not just through the spell that binds us but because I am your father. I had no other choice. Ionia wants you to hate me, it is her goal.”

“She wants to see our family in power again. You betrayed that.”

So, this was about them leaving. Perhaps he had been wrong to assume Annatto would hate him for the beheading.

“I protected you,” Tarragon said, about the escape. Regardless of Annatto’s loyalties, Ionia had lost Tarragon’s.

Annatto’s fists pounded onto the table. “You killed me!”

He could feel fire welling inside of him, being forced back not just by his will but by some magic that lingered in the room like a heavy perfume. Teenage boys were impossible: Annatto seemed upset about the escape and the pre-escape portions of his life with equal fervor. It seemed as though he would never win this argument, win the respect of Annatto at this juncture in their lives. He was, in so many ways, like his mother. She was beautiful and pale and he had loved her from the moment her hand graced his at the supper table.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Tarragon stated. It was true, but it didn’t make it any less frustrating to state.

“You could have refused to fight like I did,” Annatto proclaimed. “I told her I wouldn’t hurt my dad and she said we’ll see and I didn’t.”

If only Annatto understood language better, understood how much pain Tarragon was in over the damage to their relationship. A fight of swords was only one turn of that phrase, the fight of words now – the uncertainty Annatto felt about Tarragon killing him and taking him away from a future of more pain and more death, was its own sort of application to the phrase. In the end, Ionia was right.

Arguing the point was not worth his time, because it would only frustrate Annatto more.

“The second Camilla became pregnant, your permanent death was sentenced,” he offered instead. “This was the first, and you’re fortunate to be alive again. Did you even bother to speak with the people I told you to seek?”

“What does Camilla have to do with anything?” Annatto demanded to know, still did not know.

“Camilla is carrying heirs to the Salamander and Sylph lines. The Upper Dell Line,” he clarified. “Five sets of identical twins – a powerful wiccan number.”

“She,” he said about Ionia, “does not care about you except your ability to fight. You are my son. The fact that your mother…”

He took a deep breath. “Your mother.”

He swallowed and met Annatto’s eyes, which studied him through thin slants of disgust.

“She was everything to me and nothing to Ionia,” he admitted. “And Ionia made me kill her too. I could not sentence you to that fate.”

“You could have died instead and had some self-respect left.”

If only Ionia worked that way. If only she would punish him for his transgressions, and not his children or wives or others he cared about.

“I tried once,” Tarragon said, his eyes fixed on the large pane of glass across the way. He recounted the last time he had disobeyed Ionia, wanted to leave and caught her eye with his behavior.

“Kana. He was burned in front of me. I would rather behead you by my hand than watch you burn, feel you burn.”

He looked back to Annatto, but there was no connection between their eyes or souls, only words he knew Annatto should hear.

“Hate me,” Tarragon suggested. “At least you are alive to.”

Annatto shook his head, like the words Tarragon offered were pesky flies buzzing around his head.

“For how long? You brought us here.”

“And I negotiated your future without regard for my own. You have a chance to have a life here, to not be the hand that kills a woman you have a bond to. To be more than I am.”

“These are the people that killed your grandparents. Don’t you even care?”

He looked at the glass. He didn’t trust them with his own life, but he trusted them to protect Annatto’s, to have some vision for the future that was brighter than Ionia’s and full of some sort of way forward, some sort of opportunity for Annatto.

“These are the only people that will allow you to see your thousandth birth year.”

Annatto crossed his arms. “I’m sleeping, like I said.”

“What is a family if they only want to use you?” Tarragon posed.

“What is a family if they only let you in because you turned against their enemies?”

An ally with a history, Tarragon supposed.

“It is your right to feel that way,” Tarragon replied. “Enjoy having any rights at all.”

“Are you going to let me exercise them like I feel like?” Annatto snapped. His eyes, though, revealed a level of intrigue. To Tarragon, it was a promising look that someday things may improve, that Annatto may find himself at home here.

“I am,” Tarragon vowed.

“Then let me go home.” Annatto stared at him, challenging.

The door opened to their room and a man filled the entry way. Tarragon looked past Annatto as the head guard, Konrad, walked into the room.

For someone so skilled, he didn’t appear as intimidating as Tarragon had expected. He had large wings that encompassed his back and he wore leather as though he were comfortable. It was a surprise he didn’t squeak with his steps.

He had a long broadsword draped from his waist, which must have been over half his height. His hair was longer as well, nearly reaching his shoulders.

Tarragon preferred the matching rings that hung from either side of his lips to the facial hair the guard opted for: it was cleaner and they hugged his skin, so they made for logical targets for a combatant but were harder to grab than facial hair.

Tarragon addressed Konrad, “I have not yet signed a treaty. I want his freedom, as a stipulation.” He looked to Annatto. “To return to Ionia if he wishes.”

He looked back at Konrad and completed his thoughts aloud, despite the disinterest of both members of his audience: “He is unwanted by her. She will breed him and kill him and bring him back, using anyone he cared about to force his return.”

“We won’t agree to that,” Konrad stated.

Annatto rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair.

“Then I will not sign,” Tarragon declared.

“Alright,” Konrad said. He turned to leave the room, hand on his sword, when Aadya returned with Meldrick.

They each carried a tray of food. Aadya set hers before him and Meldrick set his before Annatto.

“Don’t worry, despite the air in this place the bread is not stale,” Meldick said.

Tarragon let of huff of air escape, a touch amused, before scanning what had been brought to them. The trays were simple: metal trays that would be cool to the touch or warm to the touch, depending on what was carried on them. In this case, the trays were warm. They each had cake with chocolate dripping along the edges and coated in chocolate drops and sprinkled with peppery annatto seeds, a place with a seared white fish fillet adorned with tarragon, pasta and a tomato based sauce, steaming root vegetables, apples coated in oats and what smelled of cinnamon, and a note written in wide script that read: To welcome, not to threaten.

Tarragon let out another huff of a laugh. At least one of them had a sense of humor, both he suspected. It was unexpected to be welcomed in such a way.

“Thank you,” Tarragon said.

Meldrick turned, with his white spiky hair and pale milky skin, to Konrad. “Problem with the treaty?”

“He wants the boy to be allowed to return to Ionia,” Konrad told him.

“Clear the room?” Meldrick asked.

Konrad nodded. “Alright.”

As he did, Aadya picked up his tray and walked to the door. “Come on, Tarragon.”

Tarragon looked back at Annatto, unsure of what Meldrick intended to do to his son. He wanted to protest, but he knew he had given up that right by going there. Whatever happened to Annatto was in his parents’ hands. He hoped they were more gentle than Ionia’s.

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