Chapter Text
When Jord turned fifteen, he turned into an idiot.
“I’m not helping with the dishes anymore,” he said, sticking out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout.
Rion levelled a stern look at him. She really wanted to just splash him with dishwater.
“Why not?” she asked instead.
“Talbin says men don’t do the dishes,” he said.
“Huh,” Rion said. “Well, Talbin also told me yesterday that he could best Jaheira in a fight.” There was a pause as Jord visibly warred with his loyalty to the gregarious older boy.
“That… sounds like something he would say,” Jord admitted at last, collapsing into a chair at the table.
“I think you know better than to listen to Talbin,” Rion said. Out of a lack of any other options, she kept washing the dishes as Jord tipped over the small saltshaker and dragged a finger through the grains. “So what’s really gotten into you?”
“Mom does important stuff,” he grumbled. “All we do is lessons, and training, and watching the little ones. Most of them don’t even stay.”
With a flare of temper, Rion gave up on the dishes. She took the chair across from him, standing the saltshaker upright.
“I know what you mean,” she said. “I though you were enjoying the druid stuff, though?”
“I guess,” he said. “It’s just… there’s a lot to memorise. Sometimes it’s really hard.”
“Did you-“ Rion wondered at the wisdom of this, but she had to ask. “Did you ask mom?”
“No,” Jord said, too fast. “Please don’t tell her.” Rion held her hands up.
“Easy, kid,” she said. For once, he didn’t protest the nickname. It still felt a little silly. He was already taller than her, and nearly as grown by the math Jaheira had worked out for them one time.
“She barely wanted me to be a Druid in the first place,” he explained. “She said she was worried I was trying to follow in her footsteps. She said some other stuff, too, about druids finding it hard to be in the city. But this isn’t any of that.”
“Okay,” Rion said. “So.. dishes?”
Jord sighed, burying his face in his hands. Rion fought the urge to warn him not to get salt in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” he growled, muffled. “It’s slimy and fiddly, and I just want to break all the dishes, but we barely even have enough so that’s stupid, I know, I saw Jaheira drinking coffee out of a vase yesterday.”
“Hang on, you what?” Rion said, choking on a laugh. “She could have washed a mug. What in the hells, Mother?”
“She said she was in a hurry. Not the point,” Jord grumbled, and Rion forced the mental image down to examine later.
“Okay,” she said. “What if we switch it up? I’ll let you off the dishes rotation, and you can run bathtimes. You’re better at it than me, anyway.”
“Really?” Jord looked up at her with such enthusiasm that the moodiness melted from his expression and he looked eight again.
“Don’t make me regret it,” she warned sharply, mostly to cover any sappy tremble in her voice. “You’re right, most of the others don’t stick around once the Harpers have saved the day. So we’ll have to be a team.”
“Yeah!” he said. “Just tell me what you need. Besides dishes.” It was sweet, and earnest, but something bitter churned in Rion’s chest. She was still in charge, still handing out the assignments. Of course she was. She had been here the longest. What did she expect?
“All right,” she said. “Want to bring some firewood in for supper?” He jumped to his feet, threw her a truly terrible imitation of a Flaming Fist salute, and rushed out the back door.
Rion turned back to the pile of dishes in the sink.
“The stuff that needs to be done is almost never the stuff anyone will notice you did,” she told it. The dishes (being dishes) did not respond. “Ugh. Sounds like Harper nonsense.”
“Jord is off the dishes rotation,” Rion told Jaheira the next time the two of them are alone together. Jaheira frowned.
“Ah,” she said. “Problem?”
“No,” Rion said. “He’s been reassigned.”
“Quite the commander, aren’t you?” Jaheira asked, and there was just enough humor in her tone that Rion saw red.
“Well, since the real commander can’t be bothered,” she snapped. “I figured I’d better be.” Jaheira just laughed softly, often her response to a barb that hit home. But she mustered a counter, which was good, because Rion didn't want softness today. She wanted to draw blood.
“I can assign a Harper to help with chores, if you wish,” Jaheira offered wryly, and Rion stared at her.
“Sure,” she said. “A stranger, in the house without you. I’m sure that won’t turn out to be a glaring security issue at some point. Seeing as how you’ve managed to piss off half the city and tried to arrest the other half.”
“If the Harpers are popular, we are not doing our job,” Jaheira said, but the retort was automatic. She peered at Rion’s face, as ever more perceptive than Rion wanted. “What is this really about?”
“If you have to drink coffee out of a vase,” Rion said, with what remaining dignity she could muster. “Just wash some fucking dishes.” Jaheira blinked at the venom in her voice, but otherwise held her face still.
“I will admit I was not thinking very clearly at the time,” she said, likely as close as she’d get to admitting that she’d been hurt. Again. “Next time, I will wash the dishes.” She meant it too, was the really annoying part. (But if she took her orders, Rion really was the commander-)
“I- never mind,” she said abruptly. “It’s your fucking house.”
“I did not say that,” Jaheira said, and her deadpan mask slipped a little to show… offense? Concern? Rion was too jittery to tell.
“No, you don’t have to,” Rion said. “I know how lucky I am that you brought me back to Elerrathin's Home, never mind what rich idiot gave you the title to it.” Jaheira’s face shuttered so fast that Rion’s breath caught.
“Do not speak on matters you do not understand,” she snapped. Tears welled instinctively in Rion’s eyes, and she swiped at them angrily with the back of her hand.
“Kick me out, then!” she spat, and spun on her heel. Whatever Jaheira said in reply was lost to her fleeing the room.
“Sweep the lower floor, but leave someone at the exits,” Jaheira said tersely. Her back was to the pond and Rion, but she knew Rion was there. She must have known since Rion had stepped onto the first ward and found it didn’t trigger.
“And watch the windows - I do not want anyone fleeing by wing.” She made a silent, annoyed gesture with one hand - running out of words in the stone’s Sending spell. “Report back.”
She dropped her hand, slipping the stone into a pocket.
“What in the Nine Hells-“ Rion said carefully. “Is this?” She held out the piece of parchment she’d found on her desk that morning as if it was a venomous snake. Jaheira barely glanced at it.
“A writ of property,” she said. “You see, it says there at the top.” A faint smile played about her lips.
“Mother,” Rion snapped. “This is- why would you..? I’m not even of age!”
“Not to the Fist. But by Baldurian law, you technically are,” Jaheira said, which explained exactly nothing.
“Why?” Rion said, stabbing a finger at the paper. Unbidden, her eyes followed the motion and landed on: …gifts this property, whole and entire, to her wards Rion and Jord… Jaheira shrugged.
“I have told you often enough that this place was your home,” she said lightly. “When that proved insufficient, I thought perhaps actions would speak louder than words. I do not want you beholden to me, holding back your true thoughts to earn a place here. Now you can rest easy that if you tire of me, it is your house to do with as you will. Well, yours and your brother’s. It would be within your power to send me away, in fact.”
“This is so…” Rion trailed off. So Jaheira, annoyingly. She went for the next best thing, which would aggravate her mother more. “So sentimental.” Jaheira winced. “You’re saying you went to a Guild lawyer-“ The Guild of Law had the best lawyers, and this had definitely cost Jaheira a pretty penny. “-just so that we would feel like it was safe to talk back to you?”
“There were other benefits,” Jaheira said, unconvincingly. “Someone could have planned to kill me and claim to be a relation from Tethyr, gaining access to my office.”
“Uh huh,” Rion said. “I think you’re getting soft in your advanced age.” Jaheira’s eyes sparked with humor.
“Oh, I am not certain I heard you correctly,” she said. Her face was creased in a slight frown, but her smile was somehow still audible in her voice. “Care to repeat that?”
“Get upstairs, old Harper,” Rion said. “Under my roof, everyone will help with cleaning the house after Jord’s inevitable Bibberbang explosion.” Her heart skipped a beat at the command, definitely a push into uncertain territory. But Jaheira’s face stayed relaxed, with only slight crinkles around her eyes betraying how hard she was working not to smile.
“I see you are determined to make me regret this decision as quickly as possible,” she said, then straightened and snapped off a crisp Harper salute. “Aye aye, saer!”
Rion waited until Jaheira had, in fact, quit her office for the house before she leaned on the wall and looked again at the parchment.
Yet another thing to be in charge of, and she’d nearly lost her mind over it before Jord had read the little slip more carefully than she.
Regarding the property marked on the attached map, known locally as Elerrathin's Home:
Jaheira of Baldur’s Gate, freely and uncoerced, gifts this property whole and entire to her wards Rion and Jord.
This continues an unbroken and verified transfer of ownership through the family of the previous owner, Khalid Elerrathin of Calimshan.
Please update city records accordingly.
Not an apology, exactly, but an explanation. A hint at the loss Jaheira had built herself around. And as she’d said; a guarantee, in the dramatic and self-sacrificial way of the old hero, that she would never kick them out.
Rion folded the small slip of paper carefully and tucked it into her pocket.
From upstairs, there was a bang and then a great deal of shouting.
Rion set her shoulders, and headed back to work.