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March 2, 1203
"Nato! How's my favorite former housemate?"
It wasn't an answer, but Nato had no more polite a response than a skeptical tilt of the head. In truth, he didn't doubt that he was at the bottom of Falidor's list in that category--and the only reason Falidor wasn't in that same position for him was that he'd made no active efforts to get to know anyone he'd lived with at the university and therefore lacked the data to accurately rank. That, and perhaps that Falidor only annoyed him by virtue of being Falidor, as opposed to someone like Darry who went out of his way to be a pain in the ass.
But whatever Falidor thought of Nato, the idea of an acquaintance he almost never saw dropping by without notice and requesting to see him specifically would have been difficult enough to wrap his head around even if the two of them did have anything in common. "I think we'd both leave this conversation in a better mood if you just got to whatever point you have in coming here."
"Right." Falidor stretched his grimace further, as if that didn't do more harm than good to their current standing. "It's the first Sunday of March."
"So?"
"So... tomorrow's Ditch Day."
"Oh." Of course that would have been a notable occasion for Falidor even after he'd graduated. For Nato--well, he could think of at least one person with influence over Falidor who might have thought he ought to get out more. "Shit. Your brother put you up to dragging me to some drunk-fest on campus, didn't he?"
"To be fair, I think your sister put him up to putting me up to it, but yes."
Nato caught the side of his tongue between his teeth. Shahira, of all people, thinking he needed to party more. More likely Aldhein was just covering his own ass by feigning her involvement. "Falidor, if I wanted to go to those parties, I would have done so when I was still living on campus."
"I know--but now you can go with the smug superiority of a graduate! That sounds rather more your speed to me."
Nato's eye twitched. If Falidor thought that, then he might not have been Falidor's least favorite after all; Falidor was, apparently, a terrible judge of character. "Actually, that sounds like an even bigger waste of time. Aldhein really should have given you some hint about how to bribe or threaten me into going, if either of you care that much whether or not I do."
"He should have, for sure. But now that you mention it, I seem to remember him saying a while back something about how you hit your head during training and you didn't want your mother to find out?"
Well. Fuck me. "...Fine. But I'm not staying long."
NEXT CHAPTER:
February 12, 1203
"Sorry about that," Falidor mumbled as he joined Alina on the bed, each word short and hesitant as fit their insignificance. "I didn't expect that Darry would be here that long."
Alina sighed. She didn't dislike Darry, exactly--or, at least, she didn't want to. Darry had been Falidor's best friend far longer than she'd been Falidor's betrothed, and she didn't want Falidor's life to revolve around her any more than she wanted her own to revolve around him. They would have their couple friends, sure, but she'd still have her own friends and he'd still have his, and--when she looked at it logically--that was not a problem. It was desirable, even. Surely even the most perfect of spouses would have driven each other mad if no facet of their lives were free of the other person!
Darry, however, seemed rather needier than many friends were. There was surely some validity behind that neediness, Alina forced herself to keep in mind, but the fact remained that he had no qualms about showing up unannounced with some myriad of problems he expected Falidor to solve, even if Falidor had no business in solving them and no capability of doing so anyway. When such an occasion landed on one of the very few free days of Alina's senior year? She didn't think her annoyance unjustified.
"Don't get me wrong--I love that you're such a good friend--but I should hope that occasions such as today won't be a frequent fixture of our marriage."
"They won't. Darry will be getting married before we are anyway, and Arydath will be the first line of aid in any Darry-related problem--if she isn't already. But I don't think Arydath would have wanted anything to do with this particular thing.""
Alina raised an eyebrow. Arydath de Cervantes, if her Aunt Riona wasn't seeing similarities that weren't there and Alina's own memories weren't lying, was a woman rather like Alina's own late mother: not lacking in scruples, but not in the slightest inclined toward disinvolvement. If Darry and Falidor assumed that Arydath would say 'no' to whatever the hell they were up to, that was cause for concern. "Mind letting me in on what this particular thing is, and what Darry's roped you into doing about it?"
"I'd rather not, to be honest. I'd like to give you plausible deniability."
Something that Arydath would want nothing to do with, something that Alina was better off not knowing. If she'd been one for tattling, each man would have woken in the morning to find their suspicious mother at the front door. "Well, if that's not the most comforting thing a man ever told his betrothed."
"Well, that and it's... I don't know. I wouldn't help him if I thought anyone was going to get hurt, but it's a bit manipulative, and I'm sure it would be a while before you slept with me again if I told you." He smirked, apparently trying to lighten the mood.
To that, Alina shrugged. "You do know that I'm a Kemorin, right? Besides, sometimes the sex is better when I'm angry with you."
"Then for your sake, I resolve to be much more of a nuisance from now on--but I really don't think you'd approve of this. Especially since you're friends with Darry's sister."
"Aspen? She's more Viridis's friend than she is mine." And why on earth Darry and Falidor would be pulling some scheme on her, she had no idea--but suffice to say that Aspen would be furious. Now there was someone in desperate need of a good lay.
Not that she'd be in any less desperate a state herself if she spent the rest of the day brooding over her betrothed's activities. "You know, it might be worth noting that I'm a little angry with you now."
NEXT CHAPTER:
October 8, 1202
"Couldn't you just cook up one of your diabolical plots? You used to do that all the time when we lived on campus."
That... was not entirely untrue. But said diabolical plots, Falidor had always made sure, never harmed, traumatized, or permanently altered the lives of the targets of said plots. Darry's request differed somewhat. It also differed in another important aspect. "Darry, all of my plots involve getting people black-out drunk. Do you really want your baby sister getting so drunk that she doesn't remember how she woke up with a hangover?"
"If it somehow keeps her from running off to Death Island? Damn right, I do."
"Death Island." Just what this conversation needed: another element of context-free nonsense. Darry must have been spending too much time listening to those damn trees. "What the hell is Death Island?"
"Oh--not common knowledge yet." Darry sighed in relief, or some facsimile of such. Ish. "Good. So... you remember Landus? He married my cousin Lyssa? They're in Carvallon now, since he's stationed there?"
"Sure? All you nobles do kind of look alike--even you 'technically not full nobles'."
"Funny." Darry groaned. "Anyway, he sent this report to Lorn about one of the islands off the coast. There's a convent-run orphanage there, and apparently they're dealing with... an outbreak."
An outbreak. That explained Darry's sudden willingness to accept the idea of a drunken Aspen. "Of... what?"
"Leprosy."
That really explained Darry's sudden willingness to accept the idea of a drunken Aspen. "All right, I think I can fill in the gaps now. I'm guessing Aspen isn't privy to this report, and that you and your father and everyone else who knows about the illness thing wants to keep it that way--because, knowing Aspen, she'll absolutely make a martyr of herself and head out there. So, in the event that she does find out, you want me to... keep her drunk for the rest of her life?"
"All right, when you put it like that, it sounds terrible." And yet, Darry made no effort to phrase it in a better light. "Just... at least she won't die young of fucking leprosy."
"And instead she risks dying of the much-preferable alcoholism. That is, assuming that my betrothed doesn't object to my obsessively providing drinks to another woman."
"Well, I never said it had to be alcohol. You can come up with schemes that don't involve alcohol, right?"
"Darry, my father taught me how to scheme; it's either alcohol, nudity, or unsuspecting animals--or some combination of the above." Falidor indulged himself with a smirk, but it was apparently too much to hope that Darry would find any part of that humorous. "Look, if this isn't going to be public knowledge, I don't know if you need to worry about it too much. Sweet that you'd be willing to risk your sister's respectability to save her life, though. A lot of people have an odd tendency to mix up those priorities, it seems."
NEXT CHAPTER:
