Ram had felt like asking him was rubbing salt in the wound, but how could he not ask? If Lan was alive that job would have been his, but there was no question that Storm was next in line, and passing him over would be like punishing him for being in love with the woman Ram was marrying. So he had asked Storm to stand up with him and Storm had simply said, "Of course."
"I would be happy to retrieve the dark and broodin' one."
Aelsong laughed her musical laugh that made everyone want to freeze in place while the pleasure of the sound washed over them.
Baka was delighted that she acknowledged his dry wit with magical sounds that, apparently, only elves could make. "I take it you've met the pilgrim of whom we speak?"
"Oh, aye. He has visited a few times. As you say, beautiful, but broody."
"I'm certain I didn't say beautiful."
Maybe her own feelings of guilt were too close to the surface, but Elora felt defensive about Storm. It sounded to her like they were making fun of him when he was not able to speak for himself. "Well," she began, "say what you will, but, as Kay once put it, someone has to be the grown up. Since I would not be sitting here if that dark and brooding one hadn't saved my life. Twice. I can't help but object that you seem to be having fun at his expense and, more to the point, in his absence."
Aelsong looked stunned. "'Tis misunderstandin' pure and simple. I'm quite fond of Ram's friend."
"Likewise," Baka said, looking unusually sincere, "I meant no disrespect. As you know, I also owe Storm a great debt for... several things including recommending me for the position I now hold. The reprimand is unjust, but stings nonetheless."
Elora smiled brightly. "Okay then. So long as we understand each other. I don't mind retrieving him myself. "
Ram laughed. "Oh! Retrievin' him yourself, is it? Great Paddy in the flesh would no' agree to ride in a vehicle with you at the wheel. You've no' even mastered drivin' on the right hand side of a parkin' lot yet." Elora glared. "O' course I would love to drive you."
"No need," said Song, taking charge in a remarkable imitation of her mother. "Baka, I will go with you to fetch our esteemed guest..." She turned her high beam smile Elora's way. "...whom it is our very great honor to host."
"So. You got your brother's silver tongue as well as his looks and his smile."
"No' at all." Song's mouth curled seductively as she stepped closer to Baka. "My tongue is sweet and pink."
Elora looked at Ram as if to say, "No. Way."
He took her hand in his and laughed softly in response.
Baka looked down at Aelsong with the amused confidence of someone who had been playing the seducer longer and better. "Nothing would please me more than to have your delightful company, but I'm afraid I rented one of those two-seater sports cars."
Song chuckled. "Autos are hardly a problem, em... Do you want to be called Baka?"
He glanced at Elora again. "I've grown accustomed to it. Baka is fine."
"Well, Baka, what do you say? Unless you need to be alone with my brother's friend?"
Baka laughed. "No. I neither need nor wish to be alone with your brother's friend." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "I would much rather be alone with you."
Song responded with the obligatory giggle of a flirtation ritual as she rose from her chair and said goodbye to Ram and Elora. "We've gone to the garage to choose transport."
As she led the way, Baka looked at Elora over his shoulder and grinned. She smiled and gave him a little chest high wave.
What a pleasure it was to see him enjoying life. He deserved it, but unfortunately, didn't believe that.
When Kay's bunch arrived, it suddenly seemed as if the one hundred seventy-five room palace on twelve thousand acres would not be nearly big enough. The Caelian family had migrated to South Texas in the nineteenth century and found it agreeably inhospitable. Berserkers enjoy a good challenge. So they founded an organization to clean up the mess, taking on rowdy itinerants who heartily embraced a get-it-done, no-rules philosophy, and called it the Texas Rangers. Were it not for the early wave of berserkers it seems unlikely that the frontier mix of Comanche, desperados, and javelina could have been subdued so relatively quickly and by so few.
Chaos Caelian was named by his maternal grandmother as was her privilege in berserker society, but had come to be affectionately known as Kay, a nickname bestowed by his teammate Rammel Hawking soon after they'd met. Ram had thought a knight named Kay - like the foster brother of King Arthur from Arthurian legend - was amusing. So Chaos became Sir Kay and it stuck. Even his own parents eventually began calling him Kay.
Yes. Everybody knew the near-giant knight as Kay except for his three older sisters who flatly refused to give up calling him Bubba, never letting him forget for a minute that he was the "baby" of the family. The four youngest Caelian children were close in every way including age, only a year apart. There was a much older brother, but he and their parents almost seemed to comprise a separate family. The three preschool girls started out calling him "brother", but something in the Southeast Texas atmosphere caused that to quickly degenerate into Bubba. And it was clearly not going away.
Their grandmother, sometimes called Evil Gran by those she had named, gave the girls similar hardships to bear. Having inherited the "sight" from her own grandmother, Evil Gran claimed she knew three girls were coming and set out to name them after the Norns, the three keepers of time according to Norse myth. Hence, they were named in order of linear time - past, present, and future: Urda, Verdandia, and Skulda. In a triumph of sibling camaraderie and conspiracy over custom, their names had morphed into something more suitable before they entered kindergarten. Urda became known as "Urz", Verdandia as "Dandie" and Skulda did a triple twist into "Squoozie" which, odd as it was, seemed like a custom fit.
Kay was fond of saying that opening the door to his boyhood home was like going through the wardrobe to the land of "Nornia".
The entire family resembled the popular perception of Vikings: tall, fair haired, fair skinned, with blue eyes, an abundance of athletic ability, and an indomitable desire to know where to plunder the best jewelry. Fortunately the family had accumulated multigenerational wealth in land, cattle, and oil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century so the quest for jewelry did not require going a-viking as it was known in the old days. Kay's sisters were content with the occasional plunder of Gump's, Tiffany, and Cartier.