Catching up

The Nachtur day ceremony had been solemn, but pleasant, and had taken up most of the previous evening. By the time Kallista and Brenn had gotten back to Vedran, Aleyn and Ardith's house they had been exhausted, especially Kallista, who was still in the final stages of physical recovery. She had slept like the dead and woken well after dawn to find the bed beside her empty.

She rose and dressed, unbelievably thankful to be able to dress herself after having to rely on Brenn for so long. Not that she minded him getting his hands all over her, but for someone so used to being self-sufficient, it was beyond frustrating to have to rely on others for such simple things.

She made her way downstairs and smiled at the household's Goblin Chef, Gorba, as she passed the kitchen area. She found her fiance and two of her three hosts sitting in the library.

"Good morning" She said with a sleepy smile, "Where's Vedran? Don't tell me he's off to work already?"

"Early morning meeting," Aleyn said, in a tone that suggested it wasn't an unusual occurrence. "But he did say he'd be back, hopefully before too long - he wanted to make sure he got to see you." He gestured to some trays of light breakfast foods, pastries and fruit and coffee. "Help yourself, before we finish it all," he teased, in between bites of an apple.

Kallista eyed the pastries greedily and grabbed something that looked to contain more sugar than flour along with a hot cup of coffee.

"Thanks!" she said, "Well, we'll be here all day at least. I mean, it's not like we can do a whole lot of sightseeing with half the city still infested with demons and the other half under construction."

She took a seat next to Brenn on the couch he was reclined on and snuggled against him.

"When do we need to head back to Highmark?" she asked, "You're the one with all the responsibility."

"Well, it's the middle of the session, so I need to get back fairly soon," Brenn apologized, wrapping an arm around his fiance. "But I can portal over in the morning and you can come back whenever you like."

"You'd better get back there by tomorrow," Ardith threatened lightly. "We need your vote on the Trade Equality Act, Brenn. And it'd look pretty bad if one of its sponsors missed the vote." She smiled, turning to their other guest. "Kallista, obviously you're welcome as long as you like. You and Aleyn could look around for some possible temple sites. Or go visit Alia's tavern/inn/casino/whatever you can call that place. Its pretty popular with the troops, from what Agyness and Selgrumel tell me."

"Sounds good to me. There's a building not far from here that I saw from a distance last night. It looks like it used to be an inn or something. It might make a good sacred hostel with some fixing up. And it would be nice to see Alia."

She took an appreciative bite of the sweet pastry.

"How are the kids liking it here?" she asked.

Aleyn grinned. "Oh, they're thrilled. I mean, we've had to enforce the rules about not wandering off a few times, but just having a new place to explore is pretty exciting for them. Although Saiya complained a bit when we told her there wouldn't be any snow here - we've been discussing taking a trip for a week or so to Laekseid just to make sure they get to play in the snow again, since they loved it so much last winter. And because we could all use a vacation," he continued with a bit of a sigh.

"It's a little tricky with Macen," he added. "With the way Vedran and Jacinthe's agreement stands, we've had to make some compromises on how we handle that - taking him back and forth by portal, so far, but maybe we can arrange for him to stay longer at some point. But she's not too pleased with us bringing him here at all, honestly."

"She's not too pleased with us having him at all, you mean," Ardith offered grumpily, taking a sip of coffee.  "Macen, at least, seems happy enough about the situation.  He's always thrilled to see his siblings.  Sometimes I worry how much time Jacinthe gives him with other children."

"Gods, I can't believe he's gonna be three soon. I remember when I first met him he was such a tiny thing. And Mhireen and Saiya are getting bigger too. And pretty soon we'll have Del and thru's kid running around."

She shot half a glance at Brenn before returning to her pastry.

"Gods I feel old now."

"You're not allowed to feel really old until one of the kids gets married," Aleyn said with a smirk. "Or beats you in a fight." He looked back and forth between Brenn and Kallista. "What about you two - any plans?"

Brenn exploded into a coughing fit for a few moments at that, his tea having gone down wrong. He recovered himself soon enough, setting his drink down carefully.

"I, ah, don't think Kallista's in any physical shape to deal with a child, and I'm not in any position for one. I want to be around for my kids' childhoods. You know"

He smiled wearily.

"Someday, though, I'm sure we'll get around to it. We're plenty young yet, Red."

He favored his fiance with a playful wink.

Kallista grinned and leaned her head against Brenn's shoulder.

"Yeah, we've got plenty of time. And there's still so much we both want to do before we get too tied down. Although..." she said teasingly, "You're gona make such a great dad some day."

"Our children are going to be so spoiled," Brenn moaned in mock despair, leaning over to kiss Kallista's horn.

Aleyn chuckled. "They'll be very lucky," he said reassuringly. He glanced over to Ardith, the two of them exchanging a significant look. "Speaking of which... if we're lucky, there might be another one next year or so."

Kallista's face lit up, but then slowly took on a slightly confused look.

'Really?! That's... wait... who's? Like... you two?"

Ardith laughed at that, taking a moment to answer.

"Not that it matters which of us they come from, but no, its Vedran and I who are trying right now. Hopefully it won't be too long, but we'll see. There's no rush, no matter what my Harrowden mother-in-law says."

Ardith stood up with the coffee carafe, stopping to give Aleyn a kiss on the cheek before walking into the kitchen for more coffee.

"That's awesome!" Kallista said with a grin, "You three are gonna have your hands full pretty soon, huh?"

"Technically, at a ratio of one child per parent, our hands already are full," Aleyn said with a wry smile. "Fortunately, Mhireen is big enough that he mostly doesn't need to be held too often, and Saiya would rather walk everywhere anyway, given the choice. And we have lots of help, too," he added. "Kier has been keeping them plenty busy, although the kids did say the other night that they were missing Aunt Tavya. Maybe you can talk her into coming out for a visit, since I haven't had much luck so far," he teased.

"We can give it a shot. She's been pretty busy with her newbeau from higher up the mountain. Estefam, I think his name is. They've gotten pretty serious in the last month or two. She's even dropped all of her other... aquaintances."

Kallista shrugged.

"But you're family, I'm sure she'll be out sooner or later."

"Oh, uh... are you okay with that?" Aleyn asked cautiously. "I mean, are you still friends, or is it kind of ... awkward now?"

Kallista seemed genuinely confused.

"Why would that be awkward? Of course we're still friends. We just don't... you know..."

She made a suggestive gesture with her hands.

"Bang. I mean she's been busy, but I still see her once in a while for drinks and gossip and stuff."

"Okay, well... good to know," Aleyn said, trying not to figure out what that hand gesture was meant to represent. "Sometimes when Tavvy's in a new relationship she can get kind of, uh... focused on that person to the point of ignoring everyone else, so I'm glad to hear you still get to see her now and then. Have you met this guy? She hadn't been seeing him very long when we came out here, so I've only heard bits and pieces."

"No, I haven't met him yet. I just know what she's told me. He's a bureaucrat of some kind. High level tax agent, I think. Seems to do pretty well. There's still a month or two left in the social season, though. Maybe I'll meet him now that I can actually start going to parties and events again."

Aleyn nodded. "Last I heard there were some nebulous plans for him to come to dinner at Mom's house and meet her and the rest of the family -well, some of them at least - but I don't know if that's actually happened, or if so, how it went." He shrugged. "Tavya's boyfriends haven't always, uh, fared well at family dinners. Actually, I can't think of any who made it to a second one. But I wish him luck if they're getting more serious about things. It's hard to imagine her settling down, but maybe this time..."

He stood to grab a piece of bread from the remains of the breakfast food, spreading jam on it before resuming his seat. "So you're feeling better? You seem stronger, since the last time I saw you."

"I feel stronger," Kallista said with a smile, "although I still have a long way to go. I've been trying to work out at the guild hall when I can. I feel like a first level rookie sometimes. Little by little it's coming back to me, though. I should be strong enough to start up my new security job on Brenn's fleet soon."

She gave Brenn's arm a squeeze and leaned over to place a kiss on his cheek.

"Fleet seems like an overstatement; we've got three ships, and that's counting the Highwind," Brenn said affably. "I'd still prefer you try managing the security from Highmark, but I know you're feeling cooped up. I just don't want you getting injured again."