NOVEL NEXT Book 5, Chapter 3
When Emily got out of her last Final Exam of the semester, she went straight for The Harpy, where we'd all loaded up our stuff and were waiting patiently for her. With our last member aboard, The Harpy took off, and we made way straight to Redwater, cutting through the sky faster than anything else that still flew. If Erica had been older and stronger, perhaps we could've teleported straight there, but as it stood, a trip of only five and a half hours was leagues better than the week-long roadtrip we'd endured getting up there, all those months ago.
To save a bit more time, The Harpy didn't bother landing at Redwater's docks, and I tested out the van's hover modules by simply flying us over the railings and calmly floating down to the streets of Greenwood Village, landing on all four wheels as gently as a mother's kiss. We made quite the visible spectacle of ourselves, being as the van was enameled a bright and shiny cherry red, and when we did land, it was with our families being there to greet us as we all stepped out.
"Catherine!" Napoleon Ironheart yelled as he wrapped me in a hug. "Oh, my sweet little girl, it's been so long! I'm so happy you've figured yourself out at long last, darling."
"Did you know before I did?" I asked, returning the hug.
"Oh, I had no idea," Dad said breezily, as he let go of me and stepped back. "Your mother, however, seemed surprised at the news you weren't already a girl."
"That's not exactly how it happened," Ariel Silver said, stepping up past her husband to give me a hug of her own. "I'd known, and thought it was overdue, was all."
"Volex!" Dad said, as he wrapped her in another hug. "Gods, it's been too long. I missed you!"
"Don't get too attached," Volex said, patting his back. "I'm only here until the semester starts back up again. Someone has to mother these children while they're away from home."
"I know, I know," Dad moped. "But... Cat, are you sure you can't stand to spend a few months without my darling aunt taking care of you?"
"I could do with a hug from my long-lost aunt as well," a black-haired elf woman besides my parents said, smiling wryly.
"Ah, yes," Dad said, letting go of Volex so the next hug could happen. "Catherine, I would like to introduce you to Rebecca Ironheart, my twin sister."
"We were born on the same day, see," Rebecca said. "Myself to Terpsichore, him to Elana. It took until I was forty for Dad to admit that he'd done it on purpose."
"It's nice to meet you," I said. "I've heard stories from Napoleon and Frederick both, and... well. I've also got a message to pass along from your late husband."
The mood dropped nearly instantly.
"I suppose you share my brother's impatience," Rebecca said, closing her eyes. "I... I'm not here for revenge, if that's what you're worried about. What Mario and Silas were doing... Well. When I found out about the piracy, I divorced Mario and left. I tried to convince Silas to come with me, but for once, he took his father's side in the argument rather than mine."
"She came to visit because seeing your name in the newspapers was the first time she had any sign that any other Ironhearts had survived the War," Mom added. "She's been living in Grigia the whole time, and hasn't been following the news out of the Rosewoods very closely over the centuries. Her heart couldn't take it. But..."
"Better late than never," I said. "There's... I don't know. I have mixed feelings, but..." I shook my head. "I've wronged you, Aunt Rebecca, and I intend to correct that injustice before I dare to chew you out for grieving incorrectly."
"Oh?" Rebecca asked, letting go of Volex and stepping closer to me. She was, clearly, a full-blooded elf, judging by her ears, but her curly black hair and softened, rounded features simply didn't naturally occur in full-blooded elves- those were the mark of a half-elf, which I knew for a fact that she'd been born as, because her blood-mother was Terpsichore Ironheart. Nonetheless, a dragon was a shapeshifter, and it was hardly inconceivable that a five hundred year old dragon would figure out a way to change from a half-elf to a full elf, especially if she had ambitions of having children. "What, are you going to give me back the son you killed?"
"That's the idea, yeah," I said.
Rebecca blinked owlishly, visibly surprised.
"Why do people keep saying 'you can't give me back my son'?" Emily asked. "Resurrection has been doable since long before Asklepios' day, and is even more common now."
"Silas is, honestly, kind of a monster," I continued. "I already fully reconstructed his body from all the wounds I had to give him to put him down in the first place, so bringing him back will only take, like, five minutes. The only reason it hasn't happened yet is because, again, he's an asshole and I killed him for a reason, and I figured that I'd want a few older elves around to corral him and make him behave."
"Can we have this conversation inside?" Faith asked, reminding me that other people were also here- including Talia's youngest half-sibling, a seventy year old half-elf half-Irishman named Craig Smith. "It's winter in Redwater, and some of us don't have fancy heating charms woven into every stitch of clothing they own."
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"Right, forgot. C'mon, let's get the kids to bed before they get too cranky."
---
Resurrecting Silas Ironheart was a lot to ask of me, mystically-speaking. As much as The Father was the God of Death, and thus I was in the clergy that was most capable of raising the dead, the simple fact of the matter was that I'd only been a priest for six months now, and even now, completely fresh, I had to push myself to the point of (minor) organ damage in order to drag Silas' soul back from the graveyard and reunite it with his body. Dad was there to fix me back up, taking away the worst of the burnout, but I'd still go to bed sore tonight, and have to lay off the magic tomorrow if I wanted to recover in a timely fashion.
"Silas!" Rebecca cried as her son stirred, and hugged him as soon as he'd lifted himself even slightly off the bed he'd been laid on. "Oh, my sweet little boy, I'm so glad you're back..."
"Welcome home, cousin," I said quietly. "Do you remember your time in the afterlife?"
Silas nodded slightly, wordlessly. "I remember," he said, his voice hoarse from disuse, "meeting Grandmother Terpsichore. She... she had much to say to me. Apparently you've met her as well?"
"I died three times in one day, back in the summer," I said. "Didn't talk to her for long, but she seemed nice."
"She is," Silas said, nodding. "She... She and Grandfather really chewed me out, after you killed me. Had a lot to say about my ambitions."
"I'm not going to pile on anymore, don't worry," I said. "I've already chewed you out plenty."
"Oh go fuck yourself."
"Do you want her to yell at you?" Rebecca asked.
"Mom, she bit my throat out and drank my blood," Silas said. "It's one thing to remind me that she's managed to kill me in a fair fight before, but it's another to do so with a fucking pun."
"She really is related to us," Rebecca said, faintly disgusted.
"Anyhow," I continued. "I'm looking forward to spending the winter holidays with you two, and catching up on three centuries of family drama. However, it is currently eight thirty, and I know for a stone-cold fact that Silas is about to pass the fuck out in five to ten minutes, and I also know that I'm not going to be far behind him. So, for the time being, let's all of us give Aunt Rebecca and her son some privacy, and go to bed. We'll have plenty of time to pester each other in the morning."
"Also, Emily can learn what Catherine's childhood bedroom looks like and start making fun of her for it," Talia added.
Right. Keep forgetting that the family drama has an audience.
"And before I do go, I spoke to Mario," I said. "He said that, if I ever met the two of you, he realized he was wrong. That he finally understood that his Grigian bravado led him astray, and that he should've welcomed a more peaceful future for his son. And... That he's sorry for his foolishness getting you killed, Silas."
"...It was my idea, anyways," Silas murmured. "If you see him again... tell him all is forgiven."
"I will. Goodnight."
---
"Why do you have a three year old calendar on your nightstand?" Emily asked, picking up the calendar in question.
"Well, if you open it and look inside, you might notice there are pictures of naked women in it," I said dryly. "I kept that one specifically because, that year, the people that print these calendars decided to hire an elven model for one of the months."
"But why...?"
"I know this may be hard for you to believe, but up until quite recently, I did in fact have to masturbate," I said. "Talia and I kissed a lot, but our hands stayed above the belt, and that only changed at the end of that whole statue adventure."
My old bedroom was untouched, exactly the way I'd left it all those months ago; not even dust had settled, thanks to the house's cleaning charms. My desk was a bit cluttered- I'd always had trouble keeping it clear, and when I knew I was going off to college, I didn't bother cleaning it up before I went, because I wouldn't be using it anytime soon.
"So that's where I left that book," I muttered, snatching one of the books I'd left on my desk. "Fuck, I was looking for it for weeks before I gave up and bought another copy."
"What is it?" Faith asked.
"Hm? Oh, just a reference manual for common Arcane spellform components," I said, shrugging. "Nice to have on hand, but not exactly a thrilling cover-to-cover read."
The rest of my room was equally cluttered with the detritus of an elf who'd lived here for decades without getting around to learning the important life lesson of getting rid of things you don't need anymore. The only flat surface in my room that was empty was my bookshelf, because I'd loaded all those into my van to take them with me.
"Anyhow," I continued, "I have determined, through the auspices of dimensionalist Wizardry as well as Having Eyes, that we are not all going to be able to sleep in this room, and therefore we will need to spread out to the adjacent guest room that Napoleon Ironheart maintains in his home for exactly this purpose."
"Your old bed isn't that small," Faith protested. "I mean, you managed to squeeze me in, didn't you?"
"That was one of the worst nights of sleep I'd had in months, and has only been surpassed by my dirt nap in a shallow grave," I said dryly. "I'm not picky about who sleeps in which bed- aside from a preference for personally sleeping in my bedroom- but despite the High Elven reputation for polyamory, my parents somehow did not see fit to equip their autistic teenage son with a bed large enough to comfortably hold himself and three women. So, what're we gonna do, girls?"
The answer ended up being "Faith and Catherine get to be mattresses, and Emily and Talia get to be weighted blankets."
Sleeping underneath a beautiful woman with massive breasts who loves you is a pleasant experience, all told, but at the same time, I woke up the next morning with full confidence that I needed to come up with a better solution before I went to sleep again.
It wasn't the worst problem to have, though.