Gratuitous Epilogue : Touchstone Extras (8 page)

I found a towel and
wiped my face unnecessarily, thinking that Maze must be great at
talking people into things, to have managed to convince Alay that
they could have a marriage of convenience. It was no surprise to me
that actually having sex with Maze had given Alay more doubts than
the month or so she'd thought it over beforehand. I doubt anyone
could get into bed with Maze and think that the situation would
stay convenient.

Standing up, I handed
her a second towel. "One thing that's been obvious to me all along
is that everyone in First Squad loves Maze. And that Maze loves
everyone in First Squad. Maybe not the same way he loved Helese,
but maybe not so differently." I smiled. "One other thing I know is
that Mara's going to be annoyed. She expected to be pregnant
already, and now you and Maze are going to be first."

With some doubtful
reassurances about the kids not telling – Sen was very serious
about not gossiping, but if she gets excited she tends to forget –
we split to go have showers. When I came out, I gave Maze a big hug
and congratulated him, and he was still wide-eyed, but pleased. And
very concerned for Alay – after all, she mightn't be Helese, but
I've no doubt he cares about her. He kissed her as well as hugging
her when they went out to freeze on the patio for another talk (and
then I took myself off upstairs so as not to continue treating them
like my own private soap opera).

My replacement
bodyguards are Enma and Bree of Second, who I'm not so close to I
have any trouble not mentioning these developments. But I'm finding
myself more than a little upset. For Maze and Alay, but mainly
about Zan.

Of all the people who
I've thought were interested in Maze, Zan was the only one I was
really hoping would get somewhere with him. My own little OTP. I
was hoping Twelfth would be posted here soon, and that he'd finally
see – oh, I don't know. I wanted both of them to be happy. It seems
an awful thing to me that Maze has apparently decided that he won't
ever be able to move on, that he's settled for some kind of
half-happiness which is just going to make Alay
miserable.

And I want to warn Zan.
I hate the thought of her hearing about this via general gossip.
And if Maze and Alay don't hide that it's a convenience
arrangement, how much worse will that be? I'm writing my diary to
stop myself writing emails.

So
hard. Really
needed to pour all this out so I can manage to not be completely
non-gossipy.

July

Finally

Maze and Alay have made
it official and registered their engagement, sent out invites to an
engagement party and to a wedding in two months, and mentioned that
btw Alay's pregnant. Thankfully, by the time they did this I was
truly glad for them.

It took the whole month
for Alay to decide to go ahead with the marriage part. I'm pretty
sure if she hadn't immediately fallen pregnant, she would have run
a mile from Maze's convenient arrangement. As it was, Maze
scheduled them to be my bodyguards once a week so they could think
about it some more.

The first week they
just talked. Alay seemed like her normal self, but I could tell by
the way Sen kept bringing her cushions that she was finding it
impossibly difficult. Maze was, I think, quietly dismayed that he'd
hurt Alay doing something he'd thought would make them both
happy.

The second week she
looked so tired and drained that not only Maze was worried about
her. Thankfully most of my minders that week were from Fourth, so I
avoided too many awkward conversations. I don't know what broke the
impasse, but that night Alay stayed the whole night in Maze's room,
and while she wasn't exactly cheerful the next morning, she seemed,
I guess, determined to go through with the decision she'd made when
she had herself taken off birth control.

The difference was in
Maze. The third week, on the few occasions I saw him, he seemed
permanently distracted. Almost fidgety. Alay was off at Zurenath
most of the time, assisting with the settlement-seeding, and though
I think he was trying to give her space, Maze shuffled the
assignments so he was assisting at Zurenath as well. The next time
they were playing my minders, they'd gone completely tentative with
each other. Just talking, but watching each other's reactions all
the time. Touching each other's hands.

And the day before
yesterday, the fourth occasion of what Kaoren was by that time
calling
Rendezvous at Arcadia
, Maze was wandering around
stunned and thoughtful, and so very happy. Alay just glowed, and I
didn't need them to tell me that they'd managed to get past any
lingering doubts. In any case they had to go ahead and announce
something soon because anyone seeing them together these past
couple of days couldn't miss their feelings.

Kaoren found the idea
of Maze using our house as romance central tremendously funny, but
both of us are relieved that the secrecy is over with. I had a lot
of fun today – they announced it while the kids were at school and
I had Mara and Ketzaren as bodyguards (or torturers, since they
were forcing me to seriously dodge them or get all bruised from
being tackled) with Lohn watching and making impish comments. When
the invitation arrived by email, Lohn read it first, while Mara and
Ketz were doing their best to push me without swatting me, and Mara
ended up accidentally knocking me onto my ass when Lohn suddenly
yelped out the Taren equivalent of: "Holy shit!"

Ketz picked me up while
Mara gave Lohn a reproachful look, but he just gabbled: "Read your
email, read your email!" and so we did and there was a very sweetly
worded email from Maze and Alay inviting everyone to a party that
night to celebrate their engagement and coming child. I had to
pretend to be preoccupied with my bruised ass so that I could turn
away and hide my grin at their complete dumbstruck
disbelief.

They all opened
channels with Maze and Alay and tried not to sound too amazed while
they gave them their congratulations. I kept quiet, doing the one
thing I'd long planned for when the news came out – sending a
carefully prepared email off to Zan which gave her enough detail so
she would understand the situation. I had written most of the email
over the last month, filling it in with general news along with the
stuff about Maze and Alay, so that it wouldn't be an obvious "I
know you like him but he's taken now" message.

She hasn't replied yet,
and I'm fretting, and feeling guilty for being so pleased for
Alay.

Everyone in First and
Second seems delighted, at least, most of them gathering at my
house on the day of the announcement to have a big gossip session.
Nils all of a sudden pounced on me and asked "How long have you
known?"

"Since Sen greeted Alay
with a joyous cry of 'Baby' about a month ago," I admitted, and he
laughed and said Maze must make more convincing threats about
spankings, and they were all surprised but sort of reassured that
I'd known about it.

The engagement party
was fun. Sen announced that the baby's name was 'Secret' (Katen),
which Maze and Alay thought very sweet, but they're underestimating
how much she means it. The party was at Maze's parents' house,
which I hadn't visited before, and again involved interesting
traditional baked treats. Since it's not picnic or patio weather it
was a tight fit, even though they'd restricted the guest list down
to closest friends and family. Alay got taken off and given a stern
talking to by the rest of her squad. Nils teased Keer about him
having to hurry up and get engaged to one (or all) of the few
remaining Senior Setari still available, and less lightly teased
Zee about getting left behind (he wants to marry her, but she wants
to hold off). I spotted Mara talking a bit sadly to Lohn – it bugs
her a lot that she didn't immediately fall pregnant.

We didn't stay too
long: I did some projections (to explain ice-skating) and we left
the party fairly early to put Sen to bed. And maybe to think about
some of the complexities of being parents ourselves.

Lira might
(technically) be a little younger than Ys (we've settled on next
month as her twelfth birthday), but she's far more physically
developed. I've already bought her training bras, though she
refuses to wear them just yet. Kaoren and I had the funniest
conversation at the party, because we'd both noticed Del (Mara's
nephew) and Lore (Ketzaren's young brother) watching Lira with
unmistakeable interest, and both of us immediately wanted to hide
her away. She is undoubtedly going to have a great many guys after
her, not only because she's getting more and more gorgeous, but
because of the whole tragic Lantaren heroine almost-princess thing.
And she has a certain proud charisma which can be very compelling.
For the moment she's following Ys' lead and being painstakingly
polite and wholly unwelcoming to anyone, male or female, who pushes
to get closer to her, but I don't think that's going to last. She's
perfectly conscious that people think she's beautiful, and enjoys
that, and she's somehow transformed Enna into an admiring follower.
[Lira's actually done Enna a world of good, just because Enna
really wants Lira to like her, and is so absorbed with getting Lira
to accept her that she's distracted from her nightmares and the
overwhelming grief of losing her family.]

But Lira is also a
touch capricious, now that she's no longer isolated and angry. She
constantly shifts her interests, exploring something, growing quite
fascinated by it, then dropping it completely, bored. Art, music,
dancing. Her latest is cooking, and she's still in the very
interested stage of that, but I have no faith in her not dropping
it entirely next week. I don't particularly care – to a degree I
even encourage her to try out as many things as possible – and the
only stricture I place on her is that she has to complete her set
school work, and participate in family activities. But I'm hoping
to teach her to be aware that if she behaves that way with people
she could really hurt them. Perhaps I'm being unjust – she's
remained very firmly Ys' compatriot – and she was lonely long
enough to not
want
to hurt people. But she sometimes doesn't
think things through, and I don't know if she is going to be able
to handle the immense interest she is starting to inspire half so
well as Maze.

Ys is perfectly aware
of social consequences, for all she picks and chooses who to bestow
her compassion upon. She clocked Del and Lore ogling Lira just as
readily as we did, and was very scornful of them as a result. Scorn
is still Ys' default reaction to most things, but that's a cover
for a wider range of responses. Just looking at her reading access
list tells me so much about Ys that I start feeling guilty for
something which I do think is parently-appropriate. I made sure
she's aware I can look, anyway, and I think she decided it was
okay.

Currently she mainly
reads great heaps of history and sciences – lower high school level
for the most part, dipping into more advanced books when she wants
to pursue an explanation of something. She's already more than
equal to handling anything her age level at school can throw at her
and well beyond. Ys is so intelligent I'm surprised she didn't work
out how to read just by looking at an alphabet, and her only
weakness is that the classes are always starting on areas which
she's never studied at all and she has to do catch-up before
handling the current work.

But she also gets
through huge galloping realms of fiction – she allows herself a
novel a day, slotted between school reading, extra reading on the
subjects on her courses, and a thorough review of the newspapers
and interface sites she has bookmarked (all the kids, even Sen, are
incapable of not checking to see what people are saying about them
each day). Her fiction interests range all over the place – she
especially loves Earth fantasy stories and is forcing me to both
keep conjuring up new books to read to her, and also to write up a
proper translation dictionary of Taren to English. Dinner every day
involves me adding a mandatory three words to the dictionary while
we eat, and then answering Ys' cross-examination of the fine detail
of their definitions. Kaoren says it's very useful, and is keeping
up with the lessons as well (Lira, Rye and Sen to a lesser extent),
but none of them can rival Ys, who simply doesn't forget anything
she doesn't want to. She wanted ten words a day, but that would
have made dinner very long.

But along with history
and science she has an absolute soft spot for teen romances and
schoolgirl 'chum' stories about close knit groups of friends
overcoming spite and pettiness. Being brilliant doesn't stop Ys
from being human, and she wants acceptance and romance every bit as
much as I did at her age. The influx of Taren students at the
talent school is helping her get past the way she was raised
(though making clear the education hurdles she'll have to overcome
to catch up), but she's never going to forget being 'three against
the world', and she doesn't trust unknown Nurans at all.

The visits to Isten
Notra are fantastic at cheering her up and giving her an outlet,
but I think she's starting to realise that finding a boy her own
age who even comes close to her intellectually is going to be a
challenge. Sometimes I see her looking at Lira – luminous skin,
masses of waving hair, thick sooty eyelashes, gorgeous features and
the beginnings of curves – and it's obvious she's running a
comparison with her thin figure and inclined-to-be-short hair. I
think in a few years Ys' looks will settle into a not-unattractive
whole, but I know it would have been hard for me to have Lira as a
sister! Fortunately Ys doesn't seem inclined to resent Lira for it
– Lira's far too important to her.