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Yasha wasn’t good with keeping track of time once the sun went down, but even she could tell that bedtime had hit the worrying stage. She decided it was time to make some soothing tea. By the time Beau came out of Anri’s bedroom, Yasha had started to consider the foot bath, too.
The tea seemed like it was the right choice. Beau took the mug, then collapsed onto the couch and held the mug on her chest, head back, eyes closed, feet on the coffee table in front of her.
“Anri still overexcited from the visit?” Yasha asked, sitting next to her wife and massaging her arm. A half-grown half-orc was still plenty big, and could have a lot of energy.
“Mmph, yeah. That was part of it,” came the muffled reply.
“I know you were worried that TJ would say something to him.” She said that slowly, hoping to prompt Beau to explain, because Yasha felt horribly out of depth trying to guess.
Beau’s feelings of introducing TJ and her mother to their new adoptee were complicated in a way that Yasha didn’t fully understand. A lot of Beau’s feelings about her family and childhood were out of reach for Yasha, but she tried her best to help Beau out anyway. Beau had been worried about Anri meeting TJ. TJ was a good kid, but kids could see and hear things they didn't understand … and TJ had lived with Beau’s dad for years. Anri knew all about bad adults from his own experience, but might not understand bad parents, and neither Beau nor Yasha wanted to explain that to him just yet.
But Beau just rubbed her eyes and shook her head. “Yeah, no - I mean, kind of, but not anything about my father. Nothing that bad. It’s just… TJ told him about the fire princesses.”
“Okay…” Yasha hoped there was an explanation coming in, because she wasn’t sure if this was a pet or something they’d need to kill or something else.
Beau sighed, then sat up and took a sip of the tea. “It’s a thing. In Kamordah. Celebrating the volcano giving warmth and light to the area - kids dress up in fancy robes and get to wear a wreath with candles and walk through the town bearing gifts in a parade.”
“Ah,” Yasha said, as if that explained anything at all.
“And now Anri wants to be a fire princess.” Beau said in the same way Yasha imagined Beau would say ‘Anri wants to take over the Lionett wine business’, or ‘Anri wants a moorbounder’.
“A flame wreath does sound pretty cool.”
“Yeah, and I don’t really have a good reason to say no. I mean other than the Cobalt Soul apparently having the dish that it might have originated as some sort of worship of an evil goth phoenix-god is buried deep within the Cyrios Mountains. But it’s just.” Beau took another sip of tea, set it down, massaged her hand before continuing. “My father made me be a fire princess.”
“Oh,” and suddenly everything did make more sense.
And that confession was all that was required for the flood gates to open. Beau turned towards Yasha, meeting her eyes for the first time in this conversation. “Yeah. And I fucking hated every second of it. There was more - it was about being the best girly girl you can be, and dressing up in bows and it was a status thing, too. And like, if Anri is into that shit, I guess it’s okay, but the one good thing about being shipped out of Kamordah is not having to deal with any of it again. I went years without ever thinking about it.”
“Yeah. That does sound bad.” Yasha paused to think about what to say. “Maybe we could just try to kill that goth phoenix god instead. Or Fjord could pledge service to it?”
Something comforting seemed out of reach, so she tried a joke. Hopefully it came off as a joke. Hopefully it was funny. She was still bad about saying the right thing, but she was trying to get better. Yasha let out a breath when Beau barked a laugh, then got a little worried when she continued to giggle. It hadn’t been that funny.
Beau eventually caught her breath. “Thanks, I think I needed that. At some point you’ve got to stop tripping over different childhood traumas, right? Eventually you run out?”
Yasha shrugged. Jester’s mom had warned them that raising children might open up old wounds, but it hadn’t bothered Yasha. She didn’t really remember being Anri’s age - her time with her original clan. Their murder would probably be considered trauma in and of itself, but she figured she spent enough time trying to untangle the more recent bouts of mind control and whatever was going on with the Dolorav tribe to be worried about the what came before. And avoiding the mistakes of the Skyspear’s parenting seemed obvious for her - just avoid being a cult leader. Yasha didn’t think she’d be a good cult leader even if she tried, and Beau would probably stop her anyhow.
Plus, her runs through the woods while screaming seemed to work just as well for Anri.
“What’d you tell Anri?” She asked Beau, because she can’t think of anything else to say.
“I said I’d think about it. Maybe he’ll forget about it in a day or two and we’ll not have to worry about it ever again?” Beau gave Yasha the smile that Beau thought said ‘I’m cute, ignore the way I’m messing up’, but really meant something closer to ‘I’m cute and need reassurance’.
Yasha usually took Beau’s lead on parenting. But Beau didn’t know what to do, maybe Yasha needed to be the one to figure it out. Oh. This was scary. Is this what it was always like for Beau? She should give her even more credit.
Yasha thought about it. “Anri mostly just wants the cool fire wreath right? Could we just do that for him?”
“He seemed really into the fancy robes part, too. And maybe some nice ribbons in his hair.”
“Okay, well, could we do something with just those parts, and not the weird goth fire bird or weird girliest competition stuff? I’m sure Jester would help us make something for him, and Caleb might help with the fire crown.”
Beau frowned. “Are we getting Caleb and Jester involved?”
“Should we get someone else involved instead?” She tried to think of other people to get involved, but this didn’t seem like a Pumat job.
“I don’t know - it’s a lot to ask them to deal with my shit.” Beau had her arms crossed and seemed to curl further into herself, but Yasha didn’t understand what there was to be ashamed of.
“I don’t see how it’s different from helping Caleb celebrate the holiday he probably associates with the family he killed, and that went off just fine.”
“Oh, shit. We did do that. Huh. I… I never thought of what we were doing that way.” Beau got the look on her face that happened whenever she realized she’d accidentally offended someone. But it didn’t make much sense to Yasha right now, so she ignored it.
“I mean, we can ask and they’re all free to say no if they want. Though I don’t see how this is worse than asking for help defeating an evil sea god or the Cerberus Assembly”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Beau recovered with a hint of a smile.
They get as far as mentioning the idea to Caleb and a visiting Veth and Yeza before Veth called a team meeting for strategy. She’d gotten really into the idea of strategy meetings since she started up her summer camp, something about sports and cooperation.
It wasn’t more than half an hour before they were all in Nicodranas, and another fifteen minutes to end up in Caleb’s tower. Fjord put himself in charge of watching the kids: partially to get out of a planning session, and partially because of Anri, who had imprinted on the fellow half-orc that had saved him from the orphanage and had a tendency to follow three feet behind him in an astonished daze.
It was horribly cute.
At Veth’s instruction, Caleb had built the room of requirement to have a chalkboard, with a chair for Beau at the front, then two rows of chairs for the rest of the Nein. Caleb added the very Dwendalian stone walls and arched windows himself.
“My apologies, the description sounded so much like a lecture hall at the Soltryce that my brain made a connection,” said Caleb sheepishly as Beau and Yasha approached.
Beau walked in, then looked around with a strange expression on her face. “Man, I don’t know. I’m not the teacher here, and the idea of teaching something on this shit feels … weird.”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, this is very informal, we’re just going to ask you and Anri a few questions separately.” Veth reassured her, then turned and shouted out the door. “Everyone, get in here, sit down in the next thirty seconds, we are on a schedule!”
“What schedule is that?” Caleb said wryly as he walked by, but he sat down accordingly. Jester and Caduceus also filed in, and Yasha took the seat nearest to the front of the class as moral support for Beau.
Veth stood in front of Beau. “You know, I really should get a whistle,” she muttered to herself. Then, she put two fingers in her mouth and managed an impressively shrill sound on her own.
“Okay, team! We are here today to help out Beauregard with her holiday crisis! Beau here is going to give every single detail she can about her childhood, and then we will need to grill her on it! Now, we’ve defeated a sea god, we’ve defeated a city made of meat, we can handle this! There’s no regional celebration that we can’t recreate if we all work together, so are you with me?”
The Nein looked around at each other, and Veth nodded vigorously. “Yes, we’re with you.” said Yeza.
“A little louder!”
“Yes!” shouted the rest of the Nein, but mostly Jester.
“Good enough! Now, Wildmount on three, Wildout on Six, ready?” This apparently meant that Veth was going to count to three, then they’d all shout Wildmount, then continue counting to six and shout Wildout, but Yasha didn’t get that what they were shouting was going to change, so she shouted Wildmount twice. At least she was slightly faster than Cad, who said “oh” a few seconds after.
What followed reminded Yasha of their planning meetings before taking on Lucien, which meant that Yasha was both very anxious and mostly spacing out. She tried her best to concentrate on Beau and silently lend her moral support. But the actual words slipped by her, and it took all of her willpower to not turn around and see what everyone else was doing.
“There’s these spiced saffron buns - not like hot spicy but like you bite into them and you’re like ‘wow, there’s some fancy spices in here’, spiced,” said Beau.
“Cardamom.” said Caduceus sagely, and Yasha could only guess that he was right.
“And the robes,” prompted Veth “You said the robes were important? Jester, thank you for raising your hand - did you want to say anything?”
“Okay, I know you said they were mostly white with a red sash, but I think it’d be fun if there was like… little red berries, and sparkles, and flames around it, and I can ask Anri what else he wants?” Jester looked at Beau for approval.
“Yeah, that sounds great,” said Beau with a shrug.
Veth wrote Jester’s suggestions on the chalkboard, where it joined ‘FANCY YELLOW S BUNS’ and ‘KILL DESIRAT NEXT YEAR’. Then she turned around. “For the wreath, helping out Yeza has taught me a little bit of alchemy myself - we can make the flames even more exciting - they can spark, and maybe have different colors.”
“Should we make sure that the wreath doesn’t actually catch anything on fire? Like Anri?” said Yeza, looking nervous.
“I, ah, I have a few ideas for that,” said Caleb. And then he went into great detail as to what magic could be used. Yasha didn’t really follow it, but she figured Caleb probably had put a lot of thought into how to keep homes from burning.
Eventually all the questions were asked and orange slices were served, so the group adjourned. Beau made a beeline out of the room using all of her available speed. By the time Yasha made it out, Beau was already on the first floor, talking to Fjord in the atrium.
“… fine. Anri and Luc were practicing how to sneak attack. But Anri keeps on shouting ‘sneak attack and then looking for me for approval, so they’re not too hard to spot’,” Fjord said. He was sitting in a very comfortable looking chair reading what looked like a possible sequel to Tusk Love.
“Yeah, that sounds like him.” Beau then shouted up to the balcony, “Anri hon, stop announcing your moves! People can hear you.”
There was some giggling and scuffling on the second floor, but Anri didn’t answer.
“Everything going well?” Fjord closed his book.
Beau shrugged. “Yeah. It’s fine. Jester’s handling the robes, Caduceus is making some buns, everybody’s got a job. Here, I brought you an orange slice.”
“Why, thank you,” Fjord said, taking the orange slice and cupping his hand around it as he took a bite.
“You heading inside? It’s Anri’s turn.”
“No, I think I’ll stay out here.” The orange slice was nearly gone already - any residual juice caught in his hands.
Beau got into her defensive stance - the emotional one, with her arms crossed. Not the one that allowed her to easily catch missiles. “I don’t need babysitting, you know.”
“That’s very true. But I think you might benefit from having a friend - captain to first mate?”
It was then that Yasha became aware of a familiar scuffle of feet, and she turned around and squatted just in time to get an armful of Anri.
“HUG ATTACK!” he shouted. Unfortunately, it was right into her ear. Yasha stood up, holding Anri in place as he swung his legs around her waist.
“Anri, what did I just say about announcing your moves?” Beau shouted from below.
“He waited until after to yell! I told him to!” shouted Luc from a previously unknown location.
“It’s true, he did,” Yasha confirmed.
“You got him?” Beau was craning her neck up to see them both.
“Yeah, I can bring him back.” Yash turned to address Anri’s hair. “We’re going to talk about being a Fire Princess now. Do you want to walk or be carried?”
The top of Anri’s head was still for a second, then he looked up. “Carried,” he said.
Fair enough. Yasha hoisted Anri so he was comfortably on her side, then carried her giggling cargo to the far side of the room. It was only a few minutes before the rest of the Nein returned to the room, and they started the second round of questioning.
This time, Yasha stood by Anri, ready to hold his hand or - shield him, or help him out somehow. Luc took Yasha’s chair. His head barely visible over the table, he offered Anri emotional support in his own way - though his suggestions of explosions and a sneak attack thrown breakfast were gently talked down. It didn’t seem to slow down Anri any, and he talked up a storm about all of the things he’d learned from TJ. Veth dutifully wrote them on the other side of the chalkboard.
Then, there was a week to go, and not much for her to do. The Nein hadn’t wanted to give Beau anything extra to stress out about, but somehow that also stretched, in their mind, to Yasha. That didn’t sit right. She wanted to help as much as the rest of the group, and it wasn’t her trauma they were dealing with. She didn’t want to take any of the jobs that anyone else was given; and she didn’t want to have to hide anything from Beau. Nobody said anything about his hair, though. It had been a while since she’d done more than one or two small, simple plaits near her temple, but she could still braid.
It just happened that Yasha was on bedtime duty the night before … and that Yasha, in all her wisdom, decided not to ask him until then. It somehow seemed bigger than Jester making him a robe or Veth working on the fire wreath or Caleb fireproofing everything.
It was something more about how the Nein were doing all of this to make things easier on Beau, and that was true for Yasha, too. But Yasha wanted to do something for Anri. And this was something Yasha had known from before - and she had wanted to share with her son. It would hurt, a little, if he didn’t want her to do this for him. She wouldn’t blame him, of course - he should be able to choose. But that wouldn’t stop the disappointment.
Mustering all of her courage, she opened the door.
“I’m sleeping!” Anri announced unconvincingly from under the lump in the bed.
“You can be awake a little longer, I just - do you want me to braid your hair tomorrow?” Yasha rubbed Anri’s back through the blankets.
“Like yours?”
“Kind of like mine - the way my tribe used to braid their hair when I was young. I know it’s not the same as what Beau might do for Kamordah, but I don’t think Beau knows how to braid it that way, either.” Yasha wasn’t sure if Kamordans braided hair at all for special occasions. Not braiding hair seemed weird, though.
The lump was still with Anri’s consideration. “I want you to do it.”
She smiled then, love coursing through her, and kissed the top of his head. It would have been okay either way, of course it would have, but she was still glad that she was able to do this for him.
“Okay. But that means you have to get up early, so if you don’t go to sleep soon you’ll be very sleepy tomorrow. Where were we when we last left off?”
“Grumar had made his way through the wastes and was searching for his best friend Shani.”
It was a minor miracle, what with how excited Anri was, but he was out before Grumar had the chance to vanquish the howlers that had stolen his best friend.
Planning on braiding Anri’s hair meant she had to wake up early, too. Beau made a grab for her as Yasha left the bed, and then grunted in disapproval when she let cold air seep under the covers. Anri was somehow unbelievably awake, and had done his best to try to get everything he thought he needed on the bed. Yasha got him to take a seat, fished a comb out from underneath a pillow, and got to work.
It had been years since she’d braided anyone’s hair besides her own - Molly allowed her to braid theirs, from time to time. It felt strange. Anri’s hair fell just above his shoulders and was almost too short to braid in the small woven strips she’d made for the occasion, though she did her best. She decided on a simple braided crown along his head. It would make the wreath sit easier, if nothing else.
“This is what Xhorhas does for Fire Princesses?” Anri asked.
“We didn’t celebrate Fire Princesses in Xhorhas.”
“What days did you celebrate?” Anri said, swerving his head and pulling his hair.
Yasha put her hand on his chin and firmly moved him back into place. “Ah, no - we didn’t - we’d celebrate. A little, but not like specific days. It was more, we got a lot from a hunt, or the weather was turning so we’d be on the move soon so we needed to eat a lot of our stores so we’d have less to carry. Or somebody was getting married or coming of age. We’d do our hair for marriages.”
“Are they coming to visit like TJ?”
“No, they’re all dead.” Yasha said,
Maybe she should have softened that.
Anri didn’t seem to notice. “Were you in the orphanage too? Did Fjord come and save you?”
Her original tribe’s death was simple. The Dolorav tribe - she didn’t have words to explain the Skyspear to him, and what had happened afterwards. Maybe he didn’t have to know that part. It occurred to her suddenly that Anri’s hair was about the length of Zuala’s. Or the length it had been. She’d braided Zuala’s hair this way when they’d gotten married. They never really had the chance to talk about kids - not with all of the hiding. Yasha wondered what she would have made of Anri.
Maybe this was what Jester’s mom was talking about, with children sometimes opening up old wounds. She felt strangely vulnerable now.
“I didn’t meet him until later,” She said, finally. “But yeah, he kind of did. We all saved each other.”
The braiding didn’t take as long as she feared, and then it was time for the beautifully embroidered robes and sash from Jester. They were a little wrinkled from being thrown onto the bed, but Anri still beamed when he looked into the mirror. Caduceus had made the wreath and Veth, the candles. Yasha carefully placed the wreath on Anri’s head - the braids just visible underneath.
“The code word for the magic fireproofing is ‘Una’,” Beau reminded Yasha from the doorway. She had a wicker basket filled with saffron buns and other pastries for Anri. “You ready, bud?”
Anri took one more delighted look in the mirror before nodding and reaching for the sweetroll basket. The first trip down the stairs was the most stressful part, but Anri made his way down carefully, not tripping on his robes even once. It was a good thing that Yeza insisted on fireproofing, though, because Anri’s head was lowered as he concentrated hard on his foot placement on the steps.
“Is this what your fire princess festival was like when you were a kid?” murmured Yasha from the top of the stairs.
“Oh, fuck no. Thank the gods,” Beau said, then went to follow him.
Caleb had set up the tower in their living room the night before - it was easier to house everyone, and much easier to handle cleanup. Yasha worried for a second at the closed tower door, but as Anri approached, it swung open on its own. Beau and Yasha were stepping in themselves just as Anri proudly shouted ‘up!’; a series of cats worriedly followed him to catch the stray pastries that fell. Anri hadn’t quite gotten the handle on holding the basket straight.
One of the cats seemed to be leading him to each door, and one by one, a series of tired-looking members of the Nein made their appearance, took one of the pastries from the basket, and complimented Anri on his robes … and his ability to shout. Then they all made their way down to the dining area for the full breakfast, and Anri sped off to the next door, trailing cats and only a few pastries. Caleb’s magic protection included keeping the wreath on Anri’s head. It meant that the multicolored flames bobbed as he walked.
The kitchen was warm, filled with an amber glow and festooned with holly and lights - friends and family. Sleepy greetings and gratified murmurs for tea and coffee filled the area, and Yasha looked at her wife.
“Not an absolute thing like what it had been when I’d been a kid, and I’m so fucking glad for it” she said, carefully burrowing her way into Yasha’s side as to not spill any coffee. Yasha, out of habit, dropped a kiss into her hair.
And then, Anri, having successfully herded all of the Nein into the room, sensed his time in the spotlight was quickly coming to an end. So he went back to his room and walked down the stairs with an empty basket, then back into the tower, taking the same route to empty rooms as everyone else watched him from below.
In the end, it took three tries and the bribery of a saffron bun to get him to sit down for breakfast.