In Which Severin Gets an Unheralded Interruption

April 16, 1180

"...so, long story short, that's why all future inhabitants of this castle are banned from ever performing surgery on mice with mathematical instruments," concluded CeeCee matter-of-factually, as if her six-year-old mind believed that her uncle had been holding on to every word.

Judging by the profoundly bored look on Sidwein's face, though, Severin guessed this wasn't exactly true. That wasn't a surprise. Sidwein was only about Searle's age, after all, and paid his own son what was perhaps the minimum amount of attention required to call oneself a not-sub-par father; what use could he have possibly had for anyone else's children?

Then again, maybe it was CeeCee's age. She was only two years older than Sidwein's Haldred, after all--and meanwhile, Severin was not only twenty-five years older than his brother, but had two children who were also older than Sidwein and another who was only a couple weeks younger. It might not have occurred to the youngster--to think, the very age Severin himself had been when he'd arrived in Naroni!--that he himself might very well have a six-year-old daughter at the ripe old age of forty-seven. No doubt the Severin of all those years ago wouldn't have taken that realization so well either.

"But lucky for the mouse, Grandmama patched him up nicely and he now lives with Uncle Rifden and Auntie Aerina."

Sidwein squinted in some sort of vague disgust; at its root, Severin found it more amusing than offensive. "Your grandmother does have a certain talent for fixing things."

"Uh-huh. And I'm going to fix things too." CeeCee swayed from side to side in one of those short-lived bouts of childhood excitement that he'd grown used to over the years, what with nine other children ahead of her. "I already fix things. I fixed Roddie and Falidor's mathematics problems just yesterday."

"I... see." Severin suspected he didn't. He wouldn't claim to know his little brother well, having lived another country for the entire duration of the young man's life, but Sidwein had been staying with him long enough to suggest more than a few similarities to Rudolphus, whom Severin did know. Of course, it could have also been CeeCee. Some people just could not wrap their heads around such fully-embraced precocity. "Uh... they didn't bully you into it, did they?"

"Oh, no! They're much too afraid of Mama to bully me." Behind CeeCee's back, Severin nodded to confirm. "Consider it an act of mercy. Neither of them can ever remember what a factorial is."

Sidwein frowned. "Right."

"I know. It's got to be embarrassing for them." CeeCee spun the end of an unruly lock around her finger and sighed. "Anyway, I should probably go talk to Falidor before he leaves, just so I can remind him. See you at supper, Uncle Sidwein."

Severin slouched. "And I've been demoted to desk chair?"

Giggling, CeeCee spun about and beamed. "You too, Papa."

He returned the smile, then watched as she charged from the study, her apparent enthusiasm for correcting her brother at the level that most six-year-old girls reserved for new kittens. The Severin of a quarter-century ago might have preferred to leave a beautiful corpse, but at forty-seven, old age seemed a small price for the chance to see his younger children turn the world upside-down.

"They grow up too quickly."

"Say what you will. A year and a half later and I'm still recovering from that over-long diaper phase."

Not that you were the one actually changing them, I wager, but fair enough. "No one said fatherhood was without its downsides. But you're not going to find a great man or woman anywhere who didn't spend their first couple years shitting indiscriminately."

His brother's nose wrinkled. "You certainly got Father's crudeness."

"And perhaps you ought to thank me for taking it all before you came along," Severin chided with a wink.

"I don't know. Sometimes I think there are benefits to lack of tact."

"Oh?" Brow peaked, Severin leaned forward. He would admit it--he had not been overly impressed with his brother since his arrival, finding him rather dull, maybe even predictable. But it seemed that Sidwein was capable of more startling insight than he might have guessed. "Care to elaborate?"

Sidwein hesitated. Had he not, he might have gotten a word out, but the fact was that he never did, cut off preemptively by Falidor's entrance--his unheralded, unexpected entrance, an entrance that never even bothered with a knock.

"Er, my lord..." Falidor swallowed. Just this once, Severin opted to let the title slide. "We have a bit of a, uh... situation..."

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