Archive of Our Own ^beta

“What’s she doing here?” Essek says as he opens the door to the safehouse.

“A hello to you, too,” Verin says. The ‘she’ in question, an extremely pointy teenaged elf (who also happens to be his mother) rolls her eyes and walks through the door.

Essek turns to consider Deirta - or whatever she’s going by these days - for a moment. She’s inspecting the place. He’s about to get protective on Caleb’s behalf, but then he notices her attention is on the wards. Essek’s been out of Rosohna for a little while, but she appears to be wearing the sort of clothes that he’d expect a middle aged shopkeeper to wear. Maybe that’s what’s in style these days among the young and hip, or that’s what she got smuggled out in.

“I thought our father was taking her in?”

Verin blew out an aggravated breath. “The man formerly known as out father was called away on urgent textile business, apparently. And I’m the only member who is not interested in committing treason or hiding from the government, so I can’t take her. So that means she stays with you. Now, can you call your boyfriend to give me a ride home?”

“He is not my boyfriend.” Essek still can’t help himself.

“Not with that attitude he’s not.” Verin has a familiar shit eating grin on his face, and Essek feels a rush of affection. “It’s the safest place to keep her, for now. This isn’t going to be long term - nobody wants that - so sit tight and try to avoid killing each other.

Essek smiles through the hurt. It’s not that he particularly wants to spend time with his mother - he just doesn’t want to be reminded that the feeling is so obvious, and so obviously mutual. “Caleb will be here soon, so you do not have to be missed.”

Caleb would have been notified when someone unexpected entered the safehouse, but Essek chooses to not explain it to him.

Verin’s smile mirrors Essek’s own for a second - which is to say, it must not be very convincing. “Oh yeah, of course. Hey, have you thought of how you are going to introduce them?”

A bolt of fear washes over Essek. He’d never thought this situation was enough of a possibility to even be afraid of it.

He nervously cleans and summons some unseen servants to prepare a room for his mother, while the woman in question continues to inspect every inch of the space and his brother gets comfortable annoyingly easily. Thankfully, it really is not that long before Caleb arrives.

“Umavi, it is a great honor to meet your acquaintance,” Caleb says, dipping in for what is almost a full bow. Essek could explain how and why that amount of depth is not necessary for someone who does not follow the Luxon, but Caleb means well and he looks good when he is in his professor’s clothes and aiming for chivalry.

“It would be wise to keep it to Xandi for now,” his mother says, somehow still sounding authoritative while looking in need of a good meal. “I’m glad to meet you - are you responsible for the foundations on this demiplane? I recognize the warding and the temporal-spacial enchantments as being much like Essek’s enchantments, but the foundations themselves seem strange.”

“They were a joint effort, but I took the lead with the foundational spells, ja,” Caleb says, glancing over to Essek. It’s clear that he had not expected to talk arcane theory with Essek’s mother. To be fair, neither did Essek.

“I didn’t know you would recognize my work. You never seemed to have much of an interest in magic before.” Essek feels strangely touched and suspicious. Had she sifted through his old notes and developed enough interest in the arcane after his death? If so, had it been grief or had it been a criminal investigation? He had never seen her cast so much as a Dancing Light before.

His mother glances over at him, a look filled with disappointment that is instantly familiar. “I have studied magic for long enough to understand the your little flourishes,” she says, a little dryly. “But seeing as you were already flaunting your heresy whenever you had a chance, I didn’t think it smart to encourage you further.”

It’s going to be a long few weeks of cohabitation.

In truth, it’s a little over two months before he sees … not his father. The man had discarded that title as much as they had both discarded the Thelyss name. In this life he had never had any relation to Essek, and who was he to tell the man he needed to keep his relations from his past lives? Only his son, but if the man no longer feels any sort of paternal affection towards him - what was he supposed to do?

He’ll call him Dantrag, then.

Dantrag activates the Sending Stone one day to announce his availability, and Essek puts Jester in charge of getting him to the safehouse. It’s for safety, he tells himself. If someone sees them together, they might make a connection. It also keeps Dantrag away from him for a few extra minutes, that’s just a bonus.

The problem with telling Jester is that everyone knows, and Jester and Veth demand the chance to send her off ‘in style’. Apparently that means a party in the tower, with food and gifts and talking Veth out of suggesting matching tattoos.

He’s glad that he thought to tell his mother before arranging for Dantrag’s retrieval, otherwise she would have had to learn from a somewhat incomprehensible Sending. As it is, she had only asked for a timeline, nodded, and started to take down the meager decorations in her room.

There’s a feeling of loss, and the understanding that their paths might not cross again, at least not for a while. But Essek had not expected to see her again after he’d left the Dynasty, all those years ago, and he still had a few days with her. It was still unthinkable to admit feelings to her, even after any sort expectation of perfection had been thoroughly erased.

Plus, it’s not like she would admit anything to him.

He teleports the safehouse to Rumblecusp for the goodbye, leaving the evening before and letting his mother walk along the beach alone in a disguise. He watches her from a distance as he pretends to read a book. It’s partially out of safety, but mostly out of curiosity. Even after two months, he finds himself endlessly curious at these glimpses of who she is when she’s not his mother, not the Umavi.

Maybe they would have liked each other if they hadn’t loved each other, if they hadn’t hurt each other so badly.

There’s some bioluminescent creatures off the beach - plankton or shrimp or something. Essek certainly isn’t getting close enough to find out. But his mother delights in wading in and skimming her fingers across the tops of the waves and watching the trailing lights appear. She meets his eyes once and smiles, and Essek is transported back to his childhood - some moment where he’d thought he was being more clever than he’d managed.

Dawn comes quickly. They barely have time to trance before the hoards arrive.

Jester and Dantrag show up late, so by the time that they appear, his mother and Veth have already demolished Yasha’s fried roaches and started arm wrestling. Jester makes a beeline to them once she sees what they’re doing, only acknowledging Essek long enough for a quick hug and shoving a box in his direction. Dantrag looks on at the chaos with amusement.

“Veth - the halfling - talked her into that. I do not know how,” Essek said, explaining in Undercommon. He hands Jester’s box over to one of the tower cats, who puts it in a pile. You would think this group was completely unaware of how to be on the run.

Dantrag puts a bottle of wine in a conveniently placed bucket of ice, only for Beau to immediately take it out to inspect it. She gives her grudging approval before putting it back in.

“Did Veth suggest that maybe Xandi not be good at it?” Dantrag asked. Essek only shrugged in response.

“It’s the best way to get her to do anything - suggest that she might have a hidden talent for something, or tell her that she can’t do anything - she’ll work twice as hard to prove you wrong.” Dantrag sees an opening for one of the remaining canapés and takes it, barely stopping to chew. “It’s how I got her message to you - according to Abrianna, she’s always been this way, so you can’t even blame it on her being an Umavi.”

“Huh.” Essek recategorizes some of his memories, looking for evidence. It might explain some things.

“So if you’re wondering where you get it from, there you go,” Dantrag says, and either ignores or doesn’t catch Essek’s stab at irritation at him. “How’s she been doing otherwise?”

“Why don’t you ask her?” Essek can’t keep the edge out of his voice, but he also isn’t going to try too hard.

“Because she would rather die than admit that she can’t handle anything. Again, like yourself.”

The rest of the Nein have pointed this out to him too often for him to not acknowledge it as true.

“She’s friends with Veth. It’s not just a fascination with someone unlike the Court, and it’s not just competitions - she’s actually friends. They bonded over some gossip about Sunbreaker Olomon that I do not wish to ever recall again.”

Essek needs to tell this to someone who understood how strange this was - who knew her before. But Dantrag only smiles and laughs.

“It is kind of you to let them all say goodbye to each other. I’ve talked to some cousins that can take her in, but it will be a big change.”

“Have you talked to her about it?” Essek asks, in part out of affection for his mother, in part out of irritation at his former father.

“What else is she going to do? You don’t want her to spend the rest of this life hiding in her guest house, do you?”

In truth, he doesn’t. They still grate against each other on a good day. But he wishes they were people that could get along now, at least.

“It should still be her choice. She likes to be the one to decide,” Essek says, finally.

Beau makes an assenting grunt behind him, and Essek realizes he’s not being as subtle as he’d hoped. Even with the amount of space in the tower and the language barrier - they’d gotten loud, and plenty of the people gathered here have the means to understand them.

And of course, the subject of conversation understood Undercommon perfectly.

When he turns to find his mother, she’s paying attention to something that Yasha is telling her. But something about her posture is too studied and purposeful - it makes him believe she heard every word.

He extricates himself from Dantrag and finds a reason to talk to Fjord, who is otherwise trying to avoid every cat but still get to the food. The rest of the party passes, thankfully, and it is late by the time that people float upwards towards their respective bedrooms.

His mother is the last to approach him.

“Dantrag and I will be leaving early in the morning. I approve of his plan, at least for now,” she says, in the tones of an imperial edict.

“I wish you safe travels,” Essek says, leaning back on politeness.

“Jester gifted me one half of a sending stone. I’m sure you’ll find she’s hidden the second one somewhere in your house. I’ll be in touch.” She gives him a second to recover from his surprise. “Thank you for standing up for me, whatever the reason.”

“It was … nice. To have the chance to know you better.” He says, his voice thickening despite himself. It’s not enough to cover what he feels right now. His anger and hurt is still there - it’s just there are other notes to it now, too.

“You too. I missed you,” she admits, then straightens. “I will be in touch, when I can. And I’m sure your friends won’t let me go missing for too long.”

“You should be off to bed, if you’re leaving so early. You’re a teenager again, you’ll need to trance longer.”

“Honestly, it’s quite annoying,” she says lightly. “It will be very early - do not feel like you need to see us out.”

Essek nods, then heads upstairs so he doesn’t have to see his mother walk away. He stays in his bedroom as he hears them leave the next morning to avoid saying goodbye. Instead, he thinks about who they might be when they meet again.