A Fair Fight (15 page)

“
One more question,” Megan said, before the two sidhe started to turn away from one another.

“
And what is that?” Tiernan asked.

“
Did you and your aunt ever like each other?”

“
...What an incredibly human question. I cannot claim there was never any affection between us. But 'liking' is a different thing from needing, isn't it?” Tiernan ran his slightly unnaturally long fingers through his hair as he turned and walked away.

Chapter 21: The Right Kind of Lullaby

Sprites emerged, and Riocard sighed. He looked to Ashling as the Count left one shoulder and she climbed off the other onto the crow's back. “You're leaving me alone with them again?”

“
Sorry, Sir. Gotta stay with Megan.”

“
Why do I never seem to have any fun anymore?”

“
Because you're the king, Sir.”

“
Bye, Dad. Thanks.” And when Riocard vanished into the woods amidst the murmur of sprites, Megan started walking as well.

"Caw, caw."

"Yes, Count, I agree," Ashling said, as Megan, Ashling, and the Count picked their way to a quiet area in the woods, with Justin and Lani pausing to stand guard not far away. "The darkness in the caves probably led to some of the questionable fashion choices."

Megan, amused, glanced at the pixie. "Of all of the things you could say about him, you're critiquing his attempt at military chic?"

Ashling shook her head. "The Count is criticizing his fashion sense, I'm just agreeing. If it were up to me, I'd have plenty to criticize. His manners, his refusal to acknowledge that Rosolino and the Dardi school represented clear advances in fencing technique, his pathological fear of cows, or his slavish devotion to autotune."

Megan stopped. "Wait, what?"

"I know!" Ashling said. "Who doesn't know their Rosolino?"

Megan sighed and tried a different tactic in challenging Ashling's statements. "I didn't see any signs of electricity down there. How would the autotune thing work?"

"It doesn't. Which is part of why he's always so grouchy."

"Of course. You've really been holding that in, haven't you?”

“
Oh yeah. But I trust your father to handle things."

"So, all right, tell me about Queen Mab,” Megan said. “He called her the midwife of dreams or something?"

"Amidst a lot of titles. I'd go into them all, but you know me: I like to get right to the point."

"Of course," Megan said.

"Mab is the most powerful of the smallfolk. She has a squirrel-driven chariot made of spider-silk, grasshopper wings, and all the very best things her squirrels can bring her. Now, granted, squirrels do have a very strange idea of best sometimes. There are reasons so few of them become successful stockbrokers, but they do try hard."

"Wait, squirrels?" Megan asked, remembering the vivid dream she’d had.

"Yeah, squirrels. Ratatosk and his children—and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and third cousins, and...well, you get the idea—can run around between the worlds. She has a lot of work to do, and it beats walking."

"Okay, so as methods of transportation go, that actually sounds pretty reasonable. But even if she's that powerful, how does she handle getting around for all those dreams?"

"Oh, she doesn't need to handle all of them. Just the important ones. The prophetic ones, the big ones. And occasionally the really impressive hot dreams, but those are more of a hobby."

"Are you all right, Megan?" Justin asked, leaving his watchpost to come check on her as she started to settle in.

"Just fine. Trying to figure out if I can get comfortable enough here to try for some really intense dreaming," Megan said.

"It looks like there should be enough room. Would you like my coat for a blanket or pillow?"

"That'd be great, actually. Sure, we did some camping out of necessity on some of the quests, but still not something I'm all that used to."

Justin removed the coat, and offered it over, pausing to give her hand a squeeze. "Good luck."

She smiled, squeezing back. "Thanks, but I'm not even entirely sure what good luck would be. This is probably a pretty stupid thing to do. I mean, first, dealing with yet more faerie things, and inviting one into my head, or my dreams, or something. And for what... to go deal with a bunch of General Inwar's dark reflections?"

"You've managed rather well so far."

"With a lot of help from my friends."

"And we'll always be there." he assured her.

Megan nodded, reluctantly letting go, and started to settle into a spot at the base of a large tree, once she found one with knotholes she supposed might be good for squirrels. Justin returned to his spot standing sentry.

“So you're sure you want to try right now?” Megan asked.

“
This place has a great connection to Mab,” Ashling said. “And there's no time like the present.”

“
Well, I could certainly use the sleep.”

And so Megan sang her standard lullaby until she drifted off mid-line. Scarcely had she done so, however, when she felt tiny hands poking her awake.

“
Ah! What?” Megan asked.

“
Wrong level of sleep,” Ashling said.

“
Did you even give it a minute?” Megan asked.

“
Pixie. I know when I'm going the wrong way.”

“
Okay, so do we try again?”

“
I think we try another lullaby. Get out the book.”

They got out the book, but when Ashling found the page she was thinking of, both their faces fell.

“
Darn,” Megan said. “F#. Do we want to try some other lullabies? There have to be some."

"Sure, there are some. But some of those can lead to the wrong kind of sleep."

“
How wrong? Still not deep enough?”

"Could be plenty deep enough. Like the Sleeping Beauty kind, which I might mention is totally different than the Rip Van Winkle kind. And if you really do ever have to take one or the other, go for Sleeping Beauty. Spinning can be very productive even in the age of modern textiles, and you'd look terrible with a beard. And those are just for starters."

"But none of the other lullabies are going to help me?"

"You're not really looking for a medicinal sleep, or to put hostiles to sleep, or going for a dreamless sleep, or any of that. You want the kind of sleep that takes you right into the deeper dreams. Like the kind that give ancient mystic insight or a proper understanding of Jefferson Airplane."

"So, we need to adapt this song, or find another that will definitely work?"

"As much as I adore Queen Mab and weird dreams, this is not something you want to mess up. Honestly, I'm feeling nervous even adapting it. When that—” Ashling briefly interrupted herself to rattle off her favorite terms for O'Neill in various languages before resuming. “—made fun of your counterspell dirge, it didn't matter, because we didn't care what he thought. Mab is different. In any case, let's try to take the time to do it right."

“
You know,” said Megan. “Sometimes a note can be substituted with overtones. Barbershop quartets do it, Mom says. If you have enough of the right notes, they can sort of manufacture another.”

“
Well, you're the only bard we have right on hand, and that's not really going to work singing by yourself,” Ashling said.

Megan nodded, thought, and smiled slowly. “What about singing with myself? I need to talk to my mom.”

Chapter 22: Harmony

"Mom, can you help me with a project?"

Megan was glad that Lani had intercepted Kerr's cake decorator, who'd attended class on Megan's behalf, before two Megans could come home. Lani could afford to have been 'out sick' that day—had it really been only a day?

"Sure, honey." Sheila seemed rather pleased to be asked. For the first time Megan could remember, she actually set apparent work documents aside—after carefully labeling them with a sticky note. "What do you need help with?"

“
Well, there's this song I want to try, but...” Megan wondered if she should tell her the truth. But no. There was no time to deal with all the fallout and still get help with the song. She blushed. “This is embarrassing, but you know how sometimes it's kind of hard to hit some of those mid-range notes when you switch from chest voice to head voice?”

“
Oh, sweetie, I've thought a couple of times that you might be having issues,” her mother said. “Once or twice, I've heard you cough mid-song. Don't worry. It's very normal.”

“
Yeah,” Megan said sheepishly. The embarrassment didn't have to be faked. Her mother's observation was another reminder that Megan had kept up a lot of surrounding deceptions, maybe longer than she'd needed to. Plus it was embarrassing to have forgotten what songs she couldn't sing. “I'm having trouble with the middle F#. And I was remembering what you said about harmonies and overtones.”

“
Why are you asking me and not the school choir, sweetie?” her mother asked, but she looked very happy that Megan had come to her.

“
Because it's not a good choral song. I want to sing it with myself. Still ready to mess around with the recording software?”

“
Sure!”

Megan went through the song four times, doing her best to have each 'take' pitched to harmonize with the others to compensate for her musical handicap. Her mother did her best to balance coaching her through it with, Megan slowly realized, trying not to stage-mother too hard. After a decade of being afraid of Megan's going near music, her mother was having to try to avoid the other extreme.

Once they had the four versions, Sheila spent a while playing with the software. There were a few glances at the work being left undone next to it, but she remained focused on the project at hand. After some mixing, she shook her head, and asked for what turned out to be four more takes.

The next time around, she seemed satisfied with the results, playing it back for Megan. Even though she was consciously aware that without Bardic magic and intent backing it, it shouldn't have any real effect, Megan struggled to not yawn as it played. She decided to assume that was a good sign.

"I think that's perfect, thank you!"

"You're welcome, honey. Anything else you want to talk about?" Sheila glanced towards her work station and looked back to Megan, concerned. "Besides musical projects, you're keeping up with the rest of your schoolwork, right?"

"Don't worry, Mom. I'm keeping up with everything." Or she was keeping up with the portions she was there for, while hoping that all of the brownies were as good at handling her schoolwork as Kerr was. She felt a little guilty, both for lying to her mother, and for having someone else handling her work, but she was also pretty certain that saving the world ranked ahead of attendance.

"Okay, I'm glad Lani and Justin have been so much help with your homework. Have they decided what they're doing next?"

Megan was pretty sure that it was an attempt to bring up college again without pushing too hard or being too obvious about it. "Lani is going to UW. She looked at a bunch of engineering programs all over the country and could have gotten into any of them, but she wants to stay close to family." At least it was something she could comfortably tell the truth about.

"I know the Kahales are close. It's nice to hear she'll be able to see them whenever she wants." Megan was a little surprised, both at her mother not immediately pushing to get to suggesting they could be roommates, and the slightly wistful tone at mention of families being close.

Megan got up and hugged her mother. "Thank you for the help with the music. I'm not sure what I'm doing yet, but I'll let you know when I am, I promise. But whatever it is, I want to stay close."

Sheila relaxed, and hugged her daughter back. "Thank you, Megan. But you only answered half of the question. Do you know what your young man is going to do? He's getting his GED, right?"

Megan blushed. "I don't know about him being my young man, but things are going okay."

Sheila laughed and shook her head. "You've been dating almost a year. I'm glad things are at least okay."

"Like I said, Mom, he's really old fashioned. And I'm still really okay with that. We're doing pizza pretty regularly. He still isn't sure what to make of the Seattle Art Museum, but he's pretty creative in other ways. Mrs. Kahale's pottery is getting better by good example.”

“
And he's staying there? Staying local.”

“
For the foreseeable future, yes.” Megan had the advantage that her boyfriend couldn't move away because he was also feudally attached to her. “He really fits in at the Kahales.”

“
Good. I'm glad to see you two are doing so well. He's really coming along with the bass. Do...do you two ever...jam a little, when you're at Lani's?”