Family Matters
© 2022 by M. Mitch Marmel

Thumbnail art by  tegerio, color by  marmelmm

Part One.

Winterbough:

I don’t know why I bother sometimes.

[Note appended to manuscript: “I don’t know why you bother ever. Nofur knows. Possibly not even your goddess.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Pissy wolfess.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Pissy roebuck.”]

Anyway.

Shortly after I had returned from Eastness where, with help from some strangers, another threat to that recovering realm had been removed with prejudice, I was down at the [Sheaf of Arrows] in Greytor. I thought that with all the stress that comes with Adventuring, a pint or two of plain would go down sweetly.

So I was slumped in the Master’s Chair (a seat I have the sole right to; anyone else will be unceremoniously dumped on the floor – by the Chair, I mean), sipping at my third pint and gazing into the fire, when my ears swiveled at the soft clearing of a throat.

I looked up to see several roebucks standing beside the chair, and the most senior of them whisked off his cap and nodded as a sign of respect.

Would that I could get the same courtesy in my own house.

I looked up at the group and said, “[In day’s adolescence, greeting, fellow roebucks of our small and sweet Vale. Is it so that my own small self may render you collectively a service?]”

“[In day’s adolescence, greetings, Master of Elfhame, and it is the sweet and pure truth that we come to you in a body to tell you one, and possibly not above one, question,]” the leader of the group said diffidently.

Now this caused one of my eyebrows to rise. Asking one question, with the possibility of the answer spawning more questions, filled me with a certain amount of resigned dread. On the other paw, as Master of Elfhame, I was entitled to a pint for each question asked, so there was that. “[Render to the ears of myself thy question, brother Farmer Glade, and those self-same ears shall capture the question ye tell.]”

“[It is well and proper to these aged ears to hear and realize that you are attentive, as a good Master should, and thus it is that I pose the question that has come to us, namely if the First-of-Eldest and your self have determined upon a mate for your son, the Sixth of His Name?]”

As questions go, this was a corker. Westersloe Winterbough the Sixth was my son by my mate Anastasia Rosebush-Aspen and was showing the same general qualities and high spirits of his scapegrace great-grandfather, the notorious Third of His Name.

Granted, I could have told Glade & Co. to stick their noses somewhere else . . .

[Note appended to manuscript: “No, you couldn’t have.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Why the Netherhells not?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: "There isn't a spot in the Shining Land that could take that many big noses in one small spot. You'd have a nasal convergence, and who knows how that would end?"]

[Note appended to manuscript: "Don't you have a trash heap to roll in?"]

Granted, I could have told them to pack it in, but there was an element of truth to the matter that it was a legitimate concern. Admittedly, one far into the future, past the time I would be in my Embrace, but looking forward to the time when Sixth would need an heir to be Master.

“[Good Farmer Glade, may the years rest lightly upon the antlers of yourself, you know well that the choice of a mate for any roebuck in our sweet and small Vale is the sole responsibility of the does, for was it not so that that was how the mate of thyself was acquired, and it is not further the sweet and pure truth that my precious mate the First-of-Eldest has not yet vouchsafed to me the name of the Sixth of His Name’s mate.]”

And with the aforementioned high spirits, any mate for Sixth will get plenty of practice hitting him upside the head with a rolling pin.

Now, there are those in other parts of Faerie who may think that this isn’t exactly fair to the buck, but Elfhame isn’t like any other part of Faerie. Elves Don’t Lie, I’m very glad of that, and I daily thank Fuma for my good fortune in helping revitalize the place. My reply seemed to cause some swiveling of ears as the assembled bucks looked at each other.

“[Thanks of our small selves be yours, Master, for the forthright reply of your gob,]” Glade said, “[but this causes another question.]” I nodded for him to go on (and mentally chalked up another pint-by-right), and he asked, “[The tongue of myself would ask you, Master, what is to be done with she who is seemingly, through what magicks we poor roebucks know not, the Queen of the Raccoons?]”

I winced inwardly. The Raccoon Queen was my maid, Tessie Ring, a buxom and very lively young femme who had earlier decided to steal (well, that might be a bit harsh) the ancient and magickally very potent Regalia that belonged to the Wolf Queen (although saying the wolfess belonged to the Regalia might well have been true – possibly at the same time). Apparently Fuma was teaching the Wolf Queen, who had adopted the name ‘Missy Sage’ for the duration, a lesson in humility. Good luck to the Lady on that score.

[Note appended to manuscript: “Pissy roebuck.”]

Missy had taken her, and my, adopted daughter, Aedith, with her back to Eastness to lead a delegation back here to Elfhame, claiming that she needed to learn humility (see immediately above) in hopes that Fuma would give her the Regalia back.

(The Regalia was still covering the raccoon arse, though.)

Tessie – er, the Raccoon Queen, had also been revealed to be pregnant with Sixth’s child. Apparently he had been able to transmogrify into a raccoon boar, a bit of magic that can be learned either through close observation or venery. It appeared that Tessie had shared her affections between me and my buck-fawn.

Yeah, I’m still trying to process that. With the aid of [Tears of the Trees].

“[Surely it is so that the First-of-Eldest has decreed that the Sixth of His Name shall acknowledge the child as his own, to care for it as a good father should,]” I replied. “[This will not bar Sixth from marrying a doe chosen by the Doe-Moot.]”

“[Surely it is the pure and amazing truth that the Lady has chosen you, Master, for many strange happenstances,]” another buck said in commiseration, and there was a general nodding of heads as the group dispersed.

Don’t I know it. It’s a very good thing that, according to Elfhamian law, my daughter Stella will be the one to inherit all my property, although I do hope that she will at least look after her twin brother, who might become Master of Elfhame after I die.

Stella and Sixth are my only – well, I hate to say “legitimate” offspring, but there it is; I have another son, Dotto, a rather lively but rotund tod-fox, by Zonya Wetcheeks, a Vulpitanian vixen who usually keeps her own counsel, and two adopted daughters, the aforementioned Aedith, a snow-white wolfess (and Wild Priestess of the Light), and Sturmhilde, an equally snow-white snow-fox vixen who was sent to me for safekeeping by a family in the Wild Snows far to the north of Elfhame. Like Aedith, Sturmhilde’s family are all dead; Aedith’s by illness, and Sturmhilde’s under mysterious and Unseelie circumstances.

[Note appended to manuscript: “Did all of you get that? There will be a test later.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Shaddap, wolfess.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “All right, Captain Exposition. What, you’re not going to bore everyone senseless by introducing yourself and bringing everyone up to date?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “First, if they don’t know by now, there’s no hope for them. Second, shaddap.”]

I say that using Elfhamian inheritance law is a very good thing, and it’s the sweet and pure truth. Trying to divide my estate according to inheritance laws in the rest of Mephitist Empire would fatten up conveyancers for years, if not longer.

One week while he was snowed in, my steward Dennis Horne tried to figure it out as mental exercise, and he showed me the result. The chart had so many lines going this way and that that it looked like a feral spider had gotten quite drunk before attempting to spin a web.

Coming up with mates for all my children, legitimate, illegitimate, and adopted, might actually turn out to be easy, though. Chances were good that Sunny and Stormy (Aedith and Sturmhilde, respectively) might find mates among the wolves down in Glenallid, or one of the neighboring villages. Dotto I wasn’t sure about, but whoever married him, it was thought by many, had better have a dab paw at cooking.

I still had to write up my report on what happened in Eastness, and send it down to the Capitals, but I was still trying to sort everything out. How to explain something like Tali and her associates to Marshal Roland, let alone Crown Prince Gawain or His Majesty?

Well, at least I hadn’t broken another throne. Point in my favor.

This ‘Temporal Corps’ were Lowfolk, of course, because they weren’t from the Shining Land and didn’t know Gramerye. Their machines, however; despite Estvan Silverbrush’s contempt for them, they were pretty damned impressive. Even, and Elves Don’t Lie, damned disturbing.

All right, terrifying. Happy?

Either way, the Royal Skunks needed to know, and any information that Tali might impart about the ‘Gaps’ that were currently causing difficulties would go a long way to convincing them of the Temporal Corps’ benign intentions.

And with Missy currently taking the Gates to Eastness with Aedith in tow, I figured that I had a few days’ grace before things started getting hectic again. I drained the remainder of my glass of plain and stood to take the glass back to the bar, pausing to scratch the nose of the transmogrified golden minkess reclining on the mantelpiece.

Siobhan always appreciated that, and was always amused by the fights that still broke out occasionally over whose turn it was to dust her gilded form.

With that, I ventured out into the Elfhame weather to head down to Glenallid. I knew what Tali’s wagon looked like, so I figured that I could find it.

Some conversation was in order before I could start my report, and the walk would help me mentally organize things.

[Note appended to manuscript: “Yeah, good luck with that.”]




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