Chapter Text
Daddy, only Kevin gets to call her father that, because, as son and heir, only Kevin has a relationship with her father. His siblings, being younger and human, do not matter, do not and cannot feature in the annals of glory. They're fed, watered, kept, and treated fairly well, physically, but they're not loved, at least not by their father's side of the family, who abhor humanity as much as her mother's side abhor chojin. They're not loved by their big brother either, as he left and never looked back. Never made contact.
One of these nameless, faceless creatures sits on her too-neat bed in her too-neat public school pulling up her too-neat stockings. Pretty pink stockings and pretty round-toed shoes meant for a much younger girl. She's to attend a party, a celebratory tea party thrown by her father's father at the Earthly seat of his House. What is he celebrating? Kevin. Not that he's been ‘found’ after almost a decade of being lost, no. It's to celebrate him making his wrestling debut. As a heel, of course, in the age-old family tradition.
A long black car scrunches across the gravel of an ivy bricked institution for girls of the upper classes, a heavy back door opening by itself. The chauffeur doesn't look at or speak to her, but sits, glaring at his phone. As she arranges her taffeta skirts across the leather seat she wonders if any of her father's friends will be attending. They don't, usually. Only one visits the house in London, and she never sees him, only hears his incongruently peppy voice when her mother addresses him, their voices drifting away as they approach her father's office, his only true ‘living room’. Just as well, as she wouldn't know what to say or how to behave in front of chojin that aren't of one's family. The chojin in one's family are unpredictable and difficult to deal with as is, always throwing tantrums, and things, around.
The car drifts into the country, down towards the coast, but her mind doesn't drift with it. It can't, her anxiety is too great. She'd rather see her cruel headmistress a thousand times over than see her father, let alone her grandfather. The days of desperately desiring their attention have faded away into pathetic memory, and a love, or need, of isolation has come in their place. What good is seeing them when every instant is filled with disappointment, on both sides? Her father will never be her father in truth, and she'll never be what he wants. Why torture themselves, there are no questions, or hopes, her life is laid out and more easy to follow than an electrical network. Once she's done with X years of school, she'll marry a lesser known member of the royal family, or a younger son of a premier duke, produce 2.1 children destined for a good life, a rich life, and that will be that, her effacement will be complete, just another stub article on Wackypedia.
The castle on the coast is a show piece, a shell, used to emphasise the Clan’s age for when it comes time to self-congratulate. Modern people who have heard of the internet can't really be expected to live permanently in a millennium old hulk of stone whose walls constantly weep as for the thousands slain for its sake. No, that's what the unmoated Georgian and Neoclassical party houses are for. The long slabs of pale or peachy stone with high ceilinged rooms you can get lost in. You can get lost in the castle's twists and turns too, but not in a good way.
The car drifts under the awesome spikes of a triple portcullis, which is no longer lowered except for fun, pulling up to the fortified keep and its massive oak door. Someone is waiting for her, not her mother, who sticks to her husband like a limpet whenever he comes home from work, but a butler, and he's waiting for any and all guests, not just her. At her request he informs her of the general location of every one of her family, and so once she's seen her luggage (because no respectable tea party can be completed in a single day) pass into the hands of footmen, she goes in the opposite direction, leaving the castle and the boom of male voices entirely, travelling beyond the curtain walls into the undulating fields and meadows beyond. It's a beautiful day, bright and sunny, the light intensified by the nearby sea, warm and full of the sound of birds and bugs. She's been here often enough to know where the hidden hidey-holes are, and first you need to enter a belt of woodland, where as a child she used to search for fairies. Secretly, because that kind of frivolity is frowned upon.
Beneath the boughs of oak and elm and beech, thoughts of her infamous brother intrude. Sad, sad thoughts. Even if he did make contact, what would be the point. He must be, he is so different now and even when they were young, she didn't know him. How could she, when he was always kept in another wing of the house, undergoing ‘enviable’ special treatment. There's nothing between them but the watered down bond of blood, and even so, their blood is not of equal quality.
A couple miles beyond the first band of trees one comes to a clearing, not a natural one, but one created by fire. An old set of peasant cottages used to stand here, but now there's only grey ash and black logs of charcoal, the remains of fallen trees. For some reason the clearing never recovered, although the fire happened a long time ago. No matter, no one comes here, not even the birds, so the girl feels able to choose any comfy spot to sit and amuse herself. Picking a large and smooth stone lying beside the stumpy remains of a wall and dusting it off, she plops down and opens her pretty pink notebook, sticking the end of a fuzzy pencil in her mouth. The book is full of scribbles and squiggles, song lyrics and smiley faces. Whatever comes to mind. Or not, as plenty things that aren't as happy as smiley faces come to mind, but they don't get put down. Her pencil lowers, and begins to outline the shape of a helmet.
Who knows how long she spends drawing the face she saw on the TV, but the sun has moved over a few inches when the silence takes on a new flavour. Something, perhaps the minute crack of a twig or shuffle of a stone, makes her look up. Perhaps it's simply the heavy weight of eyes. Her brain, fed on secret fantasy and the fairy stories heard from the other girls on the playground, immediately screams ‘werewolf!’, but that's not it, although the creature is huge, bipedal, dark and threatening. Her eyes tell her brain off, pointing out that the fur is part of a coat, not attached to the creature's body. Also, do you mind? It's clearly a robot.
Actually, it's a robot-man, or cyborg, if you don't want to be weird about it. The man part is the scary thing, as is the fact that he's simply standing a few hundred feet away, the grey-black of his skin and the coal-black of his mask and helmet, shedding unnatural darkness on the rest of him. Her father's best friend, Warsman, her mind declares smugly. Obviously. Had it been evening or night, his glowing red eyes would result in abject terror for her, but it's only early afternoon at most, though why he should be standing in a field of ash by himself is anyone's guess. Chojin are weird. Anyway, it's not her business, so she tries to return to her picture.
Unsuccessfully. His presence is as disturbing as an active volcano emerging in one's garden would be. It hasn't erupted, but it's smoking, and ruining the design. She's heard the tales but not seen the matches, as good girls don't watch modern day gladiators eviscerate each other. Certainly, as Chief Good Guy and most beloved school teacher for the fortieth year running, her father would not be friends with anyone who wasn't an earthbound angel. Her mother says the Russian is a shy little sweetie pie, so that must be true. The infamous Warsman won't act like the bear he resembles, and faces never break character, everyone knows that, so she lowers her eyes back to her page, although they refuse to stay there for any significant length of time. Keep calm, it's just a man, just a man standing, and staring, for no good reason.
Even a man like Warsman can't stand and stare forever, even he must get bored or have enough of looking in through bakery windows, and the goal is not to be a creep. It never is, except when it is. The fifty-something year old young man eventually puts one foot in front of the other, ash puffing up into the air with every step. He moves silently, but the tension he raises in Mother Nature is enough for the girl to track him, sight unseen. The warm air itself flees from before him. The closer he gets, the lower her head dips, till her nose is only a few inches away from her paper.
Had she received any education about anything, she might be more concerned than she is, but ignorance can truly be bliss, and she is not at this point disabused of the notion that a man and a woman are simply two shapes of paper doll. One is born with a skirt pre-attached, and the other is born without such an advantage.
Having spent an hour on preliminary staring, Warsman ends the courting ritual known as the Sulky Walk, by veering off into the woods before he needs say anything to the lone female, leaving behind a trail of expensive man-perfume.
Night falls and the girl makes her way back to the castle, slightly earlier than she would have done had not an ominous human shape appeared within her safe place. The castle, especially the great dining halls, are full of the tipsy and the totally sloshed. Not good. Her chojin relatives move like runaway trains at the most sober of times, and when under the weather the likelihood of injury increases a hundred fold. Her grandfather is especially dangerous, being the biggest locomotive and also permanently lacking a temper, ready to lash out at the smallest provocation. She spots him on his raised dais, engaged in his favourite occupation, that is, bullying her father, who gapes at him like a very young and downtrodden boy. It's not unknown for her grandfather to become physically, and not just verbally, aggressive, so when his violent eyes swing her way, she quickly gets out of there, snatching a pudding from a table on the way out. Up, up, up the winding, cramped stone stairs she goes, to the bedrooms. It's funny but also sad in the pathetic sense that many of the noble side of her family, including her grandfather, can't ascend these stairs, being too built in the body, and too tall. Neither can they fly in through slitty windows. Nope, they have to stay in the old servant's quarters next to the walls.
But there are huge chojin who can ascend those stairs, whether by patience or by being slippery pieces of work, both of which characteristics Warsman possesses, and slowly a strange shadow slides up and across thousand year old stonework. His presence alarms everyone except Robin, Alice and some of the more stalwart dogs, so he mostly keeps to himself, emerging now and then to feast on expensive foodstuffs and exquisite tea, or to unnerve Robin Knight, who would prefer it if he hadn't been invited slash didn't exist. Oh, one can derive a great deal of satisfaction, if not joy, from ruining other people's days.
The girl exits into the mouldy air of the upper floors of the ancient keep, air which she gradually realises is full of a sweet siren song. Faeish music that conjures up visions of dancing through snowy forests after imbibing a lot of potent spirits. Marriage feasts full of silly games. Tea by a roaring fire. Chicken legged huts and women riding in mortars, braining people with pestles. Sable skinning and tiger hunting. Alluring music, it is. Where it is coming from remains unknown and she casts about, trying to use her ears like radio dishes. The suits of oversized armour that stand on either side of every corridor, stare straight ahead at an inanimate counterpart. All but one. Scarlet threads of light follow her from the gloom inside a helmet. She doesn't notice.
The source of the music is not to be found, and she decides it's coming from a room not her own. Curiosity ends at the threshold of another person's door, and the old childish world ends at the threshold of her own as a patriarchal hand of petrifying strength wraps around her thin wrist. It's gentle, in its way, but it will brook no nonsense. When she turns, she discovers Warsman, like a previously submerged crocodile, suddenly lurking right beside her, beady eyes fixed on his prey, one side of his reptilian self seeming to dissolve into a tapestry covered wall. She gets the impression that his jaws would be agape in a grin were it not for the unfortunate implications his smile brings with it. He says nothing, but since she doesn't scream or say anything either, he finds that he needs to explain himself, and for that he revs up his thickest approximation of a Russian accent. “I qhaf prrroposition.”