Work Text:
It’s after lessons, Tsarra having gone off to do Boring Grown-Up Stuff involving books about things that El is interested in but that don’t even have pictures, with lots of words and diagrams that don’t make sense, when Rhei does something unspeakably awful.
One of Grandmum’s friends has come to visit, Chania Softwinter, which means needing to wear real clothes (a dress today, ‘cos dresses are at least more bearable, and anyway, today is a Girl Day and Rhei got El to put the braids in her hair for it), sitting on the sofa and drinking tea out of the fancy china cups and eating teeny tiny sandwiches of the sort that are very boring, ‘cos this is what Mum calls the cost of admission – meaning, if Rhei wants the dessert that’s going to go with it (strawberry pudding; she saw it being made this morning and managed to convince the master of kitchens to let her lick the spoon), she has to sit through the dull parts, and that means Chania cooing over how cute Lieren is, in her dress that matches Mum’s. It’s purple today, the color of the grapes on the vines outside, growing on the trellis that El says they really ought to do something about, the one that’s outside the Wardskeeper’s cottage, ‘cos El is the Wardskeeper and sometimes when Rhei is very good she is invited to their cottage.
Rhei is not cute, because Rhei doesn’t want to be cute. Rhei wants to be ferocious, maybe, or interesting, or good at swimming, the way Dad is. Rhei would much rather be in the kitchens with him, eating a bowl of curry (the spicy yellow stuff that makes her nose run and leaves her teary-eyed, even though it’s still not as hot as Dad likes it), but Dad’s not going to get any of the strawberry pud, because it’s meant to be eaten by Mum and El with Grandmum and Chania Softwinter, so.
She sits on the edge of her chair, kicking her feet and eating the bland sandwiches and listening to Chania coo over Lieren, and feels very cross.
Perhaps it is this crossness that leads to what happens later, for it is a rainy indoors day, and lessons were all dull, and Rhei is already in a bad temper when Chania says:
“She looks just like you” – meaning, Lieren looks just like Mum.
Lieren beams, ‘cos she’s pleased about it, while Mum laughs and touches the top of her head in a way that makes Rhei ache, and says that both of them took after Dad.
“I know, I just meant –”
The grownups keep talking. Strawberry pud is not forthcoming, and Rhei begins to despair of getting it. Lieren hums, her teacup in both her hands, feet kicking happily. She has little purple slippers on that match her dress, that match what Mum is wearing. Rhei is not wearing purple, because she doesn’t want to look like a bunch of grapes. She doesn’t have slippers on, and her dress has no lace or ruffles, the way Lieren’s does, ‘cos they’re not practical, they’re awful and itchy, and while she’s sure that Lieren’s got frilly knickers on (because she’d all but begged Mum for ‘em), Rhei has nothing underneath her dress, because frilly knickers are silly when you live half in the lake, or so Dad has said.
“I was wondering,” Chania says, then something directed at El, who smiles and shakes their head without saying anything.
“We haven’t any plans yet,” Mum says. “We’re talking about…”
It’s stuff about the seashore, seeing if they can go out to the Imagined Glory again, the inn that Dad likes. He’s taken Rhei there once – more than once, he says, except she was a baby the first two times, and so she doesn't remember and it doesn’t count. Dad likes it ‘cos he can dive right over the side, into the ocean, something he taught Rhei how to do too, going right into the deep water without hesitation, all the way down to where the sea-cucumbers and other interesting things live, watching them, deeper down that they can get in the Triton neighborhoods of Winter’s Edge.
Rhei thinks about this as she waits for strawberry pud, legs swinging, and so distracted she is, lost in the daydream about what they will do when they go back (just her and Dad, clearly, ‘cos Lieren won’t want to, she never wants to do anything fun, and she always gets upset that in the ocean she can’t wear a swimsuit, Mum gets worried about her breathing through her gills with all the ruffles and says no) that she nearly misses the next part.
“Of course, that depends entirely on Rhei and if we can get her to wear clothes long enough.” Grandmum, who is weird about the dresses sometimes. “Stars, I can’t imagine she’ll wish to –”
Mum says something sharp to Grandmum – “Mum, not in front of guests” – but the damage is done. Lieren looks up, beaming at everyone over her teacup as she says:
“I like wearing nice dresses, Grammie.”
“That’s nice, sweetheart,” Mum says. “That’s not –”
“Lieren would do fine,” Grandmum says. “But I do worry about Rhei, Mal – I don’t know that she would enjoy it.”
“It is a wonder that Rhei is your child, Mal, and not Lieren,” Chania Softwinter says, laughing. “I suppose she did take after Ben.”
El’s mouth gets that set to it that means they’re not happy, the way they do any time parentage is brought up, for Lieren’s lip is beginning to wobble. She’s little and still weird about Mum and El, which one is her blood mum.
“We try not to joke about that,” they say. Their voice has a note to it that Rhei doesn’t recognize, something sharp. “We all love them, and Mal is Mum to both of them.”
“Oh, I know, I only meant –”
“Mal is my mum,” Lieren says, very cross. “I am her kid.”
“I meant –”
El shakes their head. The kitchen staff bring in the strawberry pud, but it doesn’t matter; what had started as grownup nonsense she’d had to distract herself from has turned into something awful.
“May I please be excused?” she asks. She can always get dessert later, if the master of the kitchens is in. Dad might still be there, too – having luncheon by himself at the table there, talking to the staff. He likes talking to them, and Rhei does too.
“You don’t want dessert?” Chania Softwinter seems astonished by this. “What an odd child. Are you sure, Mal…?”
“You are excused,” El says, interrupting her. “Lieren, too.”
“Mummy, I don’t want to –”
“Listen to El,” says Mum. “Go to the kitchens, darling – they’ll give you dessert there.”
Lieren pouts, but she doesn’t fight, the way Rhei might’ve. She sighs deeply, setting her teacup down, and slides off the sofa, making for the door.
It’s when they’re both in the hallway outside the sitting room that it happens. Lieren is still pouting, lip out and wobbling, as she says: “Mummy is my mum.”
Rhei, who is still cross, for Lieren had been complimented on being a little lady, in a way that no one ever compliments her about being good at swimming or clever with her letters, will struggle later to explain why, but in the moment, all she knows is that she feels awful and that it’s not fair that Lieren doesn’t feel awful too, and so it is that she says (knowing full well it will make it worse):
“Mum isn’t your mum, El is your mum. You don’t even look like Mum.”
Lieren stares at her, too astonished to say anything, and so she continues: “You only look like El.”
She knows even as she says it that she’s gone too far. Lieren is a baby, a whole year younger than her, and she doesn’t understand parentage or how blood doesn’t mean anything, not really. She looks at Rhei, the lip wobbling turning into full-blown wailing as she starts to sob about hurt feelings.
Rhei watches her cry, realizing that she’s gone too far, and bites her lip, wondering what she ought to do. This was too far, and she regretted it as soon as it came out, not that she can take it back.
They’re not very far down the hallway. Lieren continues to sob, tears rolling down her cheeks. The parlor door is open, and first Mum and then El come around the corner, followed by Grandmum and Chania Softwinter.
“Lieren?” Mum looks confused. “Sweetheart, what‘s wrong?”
Lieren, still wailing, points at Rhei, and in that moment she knows she has two choices: she can admit what happened (what Dad would encourage, probably, because he’s been trying to teach her about honor and making good choices, living up to both her surnames, Haichen and Ilizana), or she can run.
“That child,” says Chania Softwinter, shaking her head. “I can’t imagine what she did.”
This is too much. Bad enough that she’ll have to fess up to it later; worse still if she has to admit to it and apologize in front of Chania Softwinter. Rhei takes off down the hallway, running for the kitchens, not out the front door (the way the grownups will expect, probably), but down and out through the door the butcher makes deliveries at, out across the estate in the driving rain, out to El’s cottage, where she hopes no one will come to look for her.
Rhei runs across the estate, slipping in the mud on the way to the cottage and falling, bruising her knees. She can hear the grownups calling for her, but she’s not interested in talking to them, not when she knows they’re probably busy trying to comfort Lieren and are only dragging her back for an apology she doesn’t want to give. She hides when she hears them coming, scampering beneath bushes and into little hidey-holes she hasn’t showed anyone yet, asking the wards to hide her as she ducks underneath branches and hides beneath rosebushes, scrambling through the gardens toward El's cottage. The wards oblige her, humming, because she's Dad's kid, sure, and he's estate lord, but she's also Mum's kid, half an Ilizana, and the wards are meant to respond to the Ilizanas in their time of need.
She reaches the cottage as the rain becomes truly unbearable, no longer heavy but whipped up by the wind, driving into her skin like needles, until (even used to the cold as she is, for she’s half-Triton), she begins to feel miserable.
The front door is locked. Rhei huddles under the grape arbor, the vines heavy with fruit, wet with the falling rain. They’re almost ripe, very fat and purple. It’s fall. In a few days it will be time for everyone to pay a visit to the vineyards, El and Dad asking if anyone wants to go, riding out on horseback, never asking Rhei to do more than wear pants (for riding without anything on at all is unpleasant). The vintner and her wife are nice, and they don’t mind that Rhei has lots of questions about wine and where it goes, answering for her and showing her on the map. They think she’s clever, and they know she’s an Ilizana as well as being half-Dad’s.
She is still snuffling, feeling very sorry for herself, when El comes walking up. They’ve got their traveling cloak thrown on over their gown. They look at her, sighing softly as they approach.
“There’s an extra key hidden under the flowerpot,” they say quietly. “Come along, my water-baby – let’s get out of the rain.”
They unlatch the door with magic, ‘cos it’s El, and get her settled in front of the fireplace. Another wave of their hand and a word of power, and there’s a crackling fire, throwing heat over her right away. Her gown is ruined, her knees are bruised and her plaits are scraggly – she’s sad and scrubby and feels absolutely awful, and she knows without them saying so that El is mad at her.
“Hot cocoa?” they ask. “I think there is still milk in the larder – and I know I’ve cocoa powder somewhere.”
Hot cocoa feels like more than Rhei deserves. She shakes her head.
“Well, I suppose I shall make hot cocoa for me,” says El, hanging their cloak on the hook next to the door. “And if you would like some, who am I to say no?”
She shivers, sitting in the chair before the fire, too miserable for words, but one of the nice things about El is that they never ask that Rhei talks when she doesn’t want to. They hum, getting down a saucepan and pulling milk from their larder, finding cocoa powder and a packet of marshmallows, heating the milk til it begins to steam as Rhei dries in front of the fire, Sending a message to Mum as they whisk it together, something about how they’ve found her and she’s fine, she’s with them and everything will be all right, not that Rhei can believe them. It’s when it’s finished – Rhei can smell it, chocolate and vanilla and a little bit of cinnamon, the way only El makes it, with the marshmallows she knows they bought in Winter’s Edge, for they are shaped like rabbits – that she finally feels like she might be able to talk.
“I don’t deserve hot cocoa, I don’t think,” she admits.
They pour it into two mugs anyway, topping each with a marshmallow and handing one to her. “I don’t think it’s a matter of deserving,” they say, settling on the chair opposite hers. “I want you to have a mug to help you warm up.”
Rhei sneezes, miserable, and reluctantly takes the mug. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” they say. “Hot cocoa, and we’ll get you out of your wet gown. Poor thing – it’s seen better days.”
They sit with her, sipping at their own mug, foam from the melted marshmallow sticking to their upper lip, not speaking, until:
“El,” she says, her stomach doing flip-flops, sure she’s going to throw up. “If Mum won’t let me back in the house, can I stay out here?”
They set their mug down. It’s empty, unlike Rhei’s, which she hasn’t touched yet, ‘cos she’s as nauseous as she’s ever been, sure she’s going to be sick. “Why do you think your mum wouldn’t let you back in the house?”
“Because,” she says, all in a rush. “I hurt Lieren’s feelings, and I ran away, and Dad’s been teaching me about honor and he says to be a Haichen or an Ilizana I’ve got to be honorable and that wasn’t honorable and now I don’t know if I’m either.”
El looks thoughtful. “Even very good people may not be kind all the time,” they say. “Or act perfectly honorably. One bad decision doesn’t make you a scoundrel, Rhei, and even if you were, your mum loves you. So does your dad, and so do I. No one’s going to toss you out of the house, love.”
The tears that have been prickling at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill, slip down her cheeks, splashing on the front of her still-drying gown. “Oh,” she croaks. “I guess that’s good.”
El stands up from their chair, walking over to where she is sitting and taking her mug from her again. “This will keep,” she says. “My poor water-baby. Did you think we would stop loving you because you had a bad day?”
It has been a very bad day, one of the worst Rhei can ever remember having. She nods slowly, for talking is hard around the lump in her throat.
El kisses the top of her head, setting her mug on one of their side tables, atop a book that says it is about Warding and Abjuration, something very dull and grown-up. “Come along,” they say. “I’m going to run us a bath to warm up and clean up, for you’re covered in mud, and hot water cures most ills.”
Hot water cures most ills is an El-ism that they say frequently, about everything from being too cold to feeling despondent (as Mum puts it). Rhei certainly feels despondent (or how Mum had explained it: small and sad and awful), and she’s certainly willing to believe them. She takes their hand as they offer it to her, following them to the washroom. They start the tub filling, not adding anything to the water (for El understands, as Lieren doesn’t, what makes her sneeze), and helps her tug her wet dress off, dropping it with a plop on the floor.
“We’ll see if the master of the wardrobe can fix it,” they say, for they do recognize that it is a dress that Rhei likes, sometimes, and would probably prefer not to leave a sad lump covered in mud and with a rip near the hem. “Until then, come on.”
Rhei pops into the tub as El gets undressed, too, taking off their gown and shift before unpinning their plaits, letting their hair hang down their back in two long tails. It’s long enough to sit on, Mum says, which Rhei forgets except when they do this, for even in the lake, El keeps it pinned up. They slide into the tub beside her, letting her settle against their chest as they enter the water, putting an arm over her, their fingers coming down to stroke at her bruised knees. One of them is not only bruised but split, with a nasty gash that Rhei can’t remember happening.
“Shall I?” they ask.
Rhei nods, still despondent, tears rolling down her cheeks as El carefully casts the charms first to clean her skin, then to heal her, removing their bruises and wounds as though they’d never happened. They have said they’ll teach Rhei how to do this, too, if she wants, because they love her and want her to be able to take care of herself. Mum says this is how El shows they love people: taking care of them, teaching them things.
El still loves me, she thinks, snuffling. Even if I’m awful.
“Better?” they ask, as the last of the magic fades.
Another nod.
“Steady on, good heart,” they say, pulling her against their body, holding them as she lets the hateful tears roll down her face. “Better out than in, as your mum says.”
She twists, clinging to them in the bath, her face buried in their shoulder as she sobs, letting out every bad feeling from the day: the boredom from lessons, the awful things Chania Softwinter had said, Grandmum’s note about clothes, Lieren being celebrated for being ladylike and cute and certainly Mum’s child (the implication being that Rhei is not, for she is not ladylike or cute or anything good, of course), and the awful things she’d said to Lieren in retaliation. El pets her hair as she cries, until she is done, slowly snuffling and hiccuping but not sobbing, or not anymore, then:
“Do you want to talk, or would you rather have hot cocoa in the bath?”
Rhei sniffles, blinking. “Is that allowed?”
“It’s my cottage,” says El, smiling. “I decide what’s allowed, and I say it is. The mug is enchanted to keep it just the right temperature – do you want it?”
She takes a deep breath. “Yes, please?”
“All right. You’ll have to let go of me, though.”
Rhei lets go, El rising from the bath and wrapping a towel about themself, walking out to the sitting area and coming back with their mug, the marshmallow rabbit half-melted from the heat of the chocolate, handing it to them before they climb back in.
“Let’s stay out here tonight,” they say, as though it’s an ordinary sleepover night, the way Rhei is sometimes allowed to. “I’ll Send to your mum again.”
There’s another lump in her throat. “Really?”
“Unless you’d rather go back to the house,” they say. “If you’d rather sleep in your own bed…?”
She shakes her head.
“Then we’ll stay out here,” they say. “You’ll have to have my cooking, I’m afraid, but there is bread and cheese for us to make toasties, and I’ve apples, too. Let’s both of us get cleaned up, and we’ll go back out in front of the fire, shall we?”
“All right,” she says, then: “El? When Grandmum was – when she was talking about me, about dresses – what did she mean?” This is one of the things that makes her squirm, wondering if Grandmum – who she thought understood, once she was old enough to talk about it, how awful clothes feel sometimes – perhaps doesn’t understand at all.
El sighs softly. “There is a – children’s troupe coming to Winter’s Edge,” they say. At the confused look Rhei must give them, they smile. “Performers – acrobats and aerial artists. They’ll be putting on a show at the theater. Your grandmum thinks you’ll like it, but it would require having to wear fancier clothes than you can usually stand.”
This is very interesting. “Aerial artists?”
“They do jumps and tricks,” El says. “Tumbling and twists in the air.”
“I want to go!”
“Yes,” they say, smiling. “But it would require fancy clothes – a dress or a suit, something like what your dad wears when he has to go into the city for Council meetings.”
She's seen Dad’s get-ups – loose trousers with a waistcoat, button-down shirts. They’re colorful and soft, but even Dad (who does not find clothing as hateful and restrictive as Rhei does at times) looks as though he’d rather wiggle out of them, and he takes them off as soon as he gets back from Council each time. “Oh.”
“You see why Grandmum might have been worried,” they say. “Your mum didn’t want to talk about it in front of Chania Softwinter – and we all see how well that turned out.”
“I don’t like her,” she admits. “I wouldn’t have come down except there was pudding.”
“I don’t like her either,” says El. “And neither does your mum. She won’t be invited back.”
“Why was she invited to start with?”
El’s smile falters. “She is one of my cousins,” they say. “She’s involved in the Aid Society your mum heads. She – wished to help Auntie Serai with a project.”
“At your old house?” Rhei has been a few times, always with Auntie Serai and Mum, never with El. “So we invited her to tea?”
“To be polite,” El says. “We shan’t again.”
“Oh.”
“Mmmhm.” They shift in the tub, reaching for Rhei’s plaits. “All right, my water-baby. Let’s get these cleaned, and then we’ll go back out to the fire, and I’ll teach you to play a card-game I think you will like.”
El knows many games, most of which are very fun and not babyish at all, the way most of the ones she has to play with Lieren are. “What’s it called?”
“Spit,” they say, laughing at the astonished face Rhei makes. “It’s not a very polite game, but it’s fun. I taught your mum to play it when she was pregnant with you.”
This brings up another point, namely: “El, am I Mum’s kid?”
They smile. “Yes,” they say. “You have your mum’s hair, and her ears – and her temper. You also have her strong sense of justice, and wanting things to be fair, and you love desserts as much as she does, and games and a good bath.”
“Oh.” She feels as though she’s going to cry again, though she doesn’t. “I suppose that’s all right, then.”
“Yes,” they say. “Now, shall we wash your hair, and teach you Spit? Your mum will want to play with you, if you’re any good at it.”
She takes a deep breath. “Yes, all right,” she says. “And I will apologize to Lieren later.”
“I knew you would.” El undoes her plaits. “That’s another way you’re like your mum, you know.”
“What?”
“You’re both very quick to admit when you’re wrong, and try to set things right.”
“Well,” she says again. “All right, then.”
El washes her hair, and then the two of them put on dressing-gowns (El having kept one at the cottage that is in her size, something that Rhei did not realize but that makes her feel warm, deep down, when she realizes it), sitting before the fire in front of a folding table they pull from somewhere in storage, dealing cards and teaching her the rules. They play for a while, until El is sure she’s got it, and then they switch to other games – cribbage, mostly, for Mum taught her how to play it and Rhei has been very interested in it. They don’t have a board, but El brings down paper from somewhere and they write their scores down. Rhei wins as often as they lose, and it’s very cozy.
Night falls, and they make cheese toasties and eat apples before the fire, until it is late enough that even Rhei is certain that it is time to go to bed, then:
“Can we go to the lake tomorrow?”
“If it’s not terribly rainy,” El says, washing the cheese toastie plates and putting them in the dish rack to drain. “A little drizzle is fine, but I am not waterproof as you are, Rhei.”
“No,” she says. “I know.” She bites her lip, thinking of how to say what she wants to, what she’s hoping to reveal to them, since today was important and El has given her something important, too. “Can you keep a secret, El?”
They pull the stopper for the sink, looking up at her. “If it’s not something that’s dangerous, love, I can.”
“It’s not dangerous.”
“Then, yes,” they say. “I won’t tell anyone.”
She shuffles the cards, thinking about how to explain it. “There’s a frog,” she says finally. “In the lake. He’s very wise. I think you’d like him.”
“A frog,” they say, smiling. “All right.”
“He’s immortal.”
“An immortal frog?”
“That means he can’t die,” she explains. “He told me so. He’s – there’s a little – I guess it’s a cave, if you’re a frog, but it’s not really – it’s more like a hollow spot, in the lake bed, and he lives there, and he comes out sometimes and talks to me, and he reminds me of you, ‘cos he’s wise, and he said – he said he knows you’re Wardskeeper, and he can tell I’m Mum’s kid, because I look like her, even if I favor Dad.”
“An immortal frog who lives in a cave in the lake,” says El. They blink. “All right, I suppose. We’ll go down tomorrow and meet him. Will I need to get in the lake?”
“No,” she says. “I think if I tell him you’re coming, he’ll come up to talk to you. He’s not very – he reminds me of Granddad Invis.”
El laughs. “I…see,” they say. “All right; I suppose I shall meet him when you introduce us. He talks, you said? Out loud?”
“He’s immortal – he learned how.” She sighs. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you.” They put the last of the dishes in the rack, crossing the room to come put the table away, banking the fire. “Are you sleeping in my bed, or yours?”
“I’m sleeping with you,” she says, cross. “You don’t believe me – you’ll see.”
“I suppose I shall,” they say cheerfully. “Let’s brush teeth and wash our faces, then off to sleep. Yes?”
“Yes.”
El leads her back to the washroom, producing a toothbrush for her, brushing their teeth as she does hers, both of them sharing the basin to wash their faces after they’ve finished, and then off to the bedroom, crawling into their bed, Rhei shedding her dressing gown while El pulls on pyjamas, for Mum says they run cold.
“Lake in the morning,” they say, settling in before they command the lights to lower. “And then back to the house, and we will apologize to Lieren, and talk to Mum, for she’s not worried, but she will have missed you, for you are her Pearl too, and she will forgive you for running away when you explain and say you are sorry.”
Rhei snuggles against them. “All right,” she says. “But the frog first.”
“Frog first,” El agrees. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
“El?” she says, before they can drift off.
“Yes, Rhei?”
“I know I’m not your baby, but –”
They shift in the dark, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Not by blood,” they say softly. “But blood is not all that matters, Rhei. You are my water-baby.”
“Oh.” She snuggles against them. “I was just going to say – I love you, El.”
“I love you too, Rhei. Lake – and frog – in the morning. I’ll keep your secret.”
Lake in the morning, and the frog, who will talk to El, if she asks nicely, and then in to the house, to set things right with Lieren, who is weird but still her sister, and then talking to Mum, and maybe, just maybe, if she’s lucky, there will be strawberry pudding left.
I hope the master of the kitchens saved me some, even though I wasn't honorable, she thinks – the last thing she thinks, before she drifts off.