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Vai & Co., Pt. 2
Vai & Co., Pt. 2

The end bit stinks!
Yay!

BTW, if you want to play with this bit of weirdness, contact me. (I think the E-mail is working right.)

This is the same as the posting on my LiveJournal, but I plan to delete this storyverse over there, as that journal has gone to calligraphy.
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“What do we do? We should have stopped her.”

“With that Grook? It would have torn us to shreds. You remember what her last one did to Lord Falstrif.”
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“Are you sure that wasn't the first one? Ruby streaked Grooks are horribly rare, and we were here to steal notes for cloning apparatus..”

“Notes she took with her.”

“Think we should say something? We weren't supposed to be in here in the first place.”

“I think we were consorting with the Gods all evening.”

“Sounds good.”

**--**

Thomas has a half brother named Stephan. He shares Thomas' bright red hair and several facial features, but beyond that they are as different as two men can be. Both are Mad. Thomas hates Stephan and everything he believes that Stephan stands for. Mostly Stephan stands for trying to stay sober while enduring military life. He is not in the military because he wants to be, but because his mother's death had left him with no acknowledging family members.

By ancient tradition, all orphans in a district become part of the ruling household, usually as illiterate servants. Stephan was sent out to Guard training at the age of nine, because the housekeeper was afraid that the cook would kill him. His father had merely waved in acquiescence at the suggestion. The boy reminded him too much of the mother, anyway.

It vaguely disturbed Mastus Grimm that his eldest, bastard son was living under his own roof, but he'd be Damned if he was going to pay to educate the boy or deal with the "scandal" associated with such educations. Stephan's parentage was rather blatantly obvious to everyone except the royal wife. Seriph knew, but refused to acknowledge the boy as belonging to her husband.

Stephan showed signs from his twelfth year that he was Mad. As Madness was a gift from the Gods, and couldn't come to a bastard child unless the Gods were very offended, indeed, Mastus decided that there was, in fact, some kind of mistake. Stephan's superiors were convinced that the boy was either properly Mad, or possessed by either God or Demon, and so stayed well clear. Why should they get between the Gods and their intended prey? So Stephan continued his strange behavior, and tried very hard to control his wandering mind.

Unfortunately, not all of the household were as concerned about upsetting the boy. His first mount had been so old that he hadn't lasted three years. At sixteen, Stephan had found himself breaking in a young grook, and receiving a subtle insult from the stable master in the form of a femme mount. Such nonsense had long since ceased to impress the young man. He called her Lucy, after the offenders' daughter, and kept her far away from the stables. His commanders exchanged worried looks when he turned out with this creature, but said nothing.

Most of the household had no particular reason for disliking Stephan aside from the general strangeness of a Mad child. Thomas was a different story, however. Stephan's brother, the Heir, hated him for proving the rumors of their father's faithlessness to all and sundry. And for being too damned clever for an illiterate bastard.

Stephan's reputation was that of a marked and dangerous man at 19.

Thomas has heard the whispers about the older boy since his tenth birthday. On this day, several of his father's military commanders came and actually demanded that the Elder Grimm take his son away from the military school and send him to the Papyrus House. They claimed that Stephan had been told by his commander to keep the opposing team off of a bridge during practice maneuvers, and had therefore built a trebochet out of the bridge. Mastus and his commanders had fought for half the afternoon, and only stopped fighting when Mastus declared that Stephan was not his son, and was not mad, and had therefore not built any such thing. At this point, the commanders had simply looked at each other in a peculiar fashion and walked away. Thomas realized later that this look had frightened him badly.

Mastus was not an evil man. Lustful, yes. Vengeful, certainly. But not evil. So said all the court. Stephan's status as an orphan, however, seemed to put a lie to that “non-evil” status. The woman had died mysteriously just after the boy was born, leaving a highly peculiar series of messages behind.

Stephan had acquired these at the age of eleven, and would not show them to anyone. After all, they were his mothers' work, even if his father refused to give him the education needed to understand it.

**--**

By 2Am, Vai was halfway down the twisting track that led to the old playhouse. She had no idea what the original purpose of the playhouse had been, but she had found it and cleaned it up to play in as a child, so she didn't care. It was a good fifty miles from her families' current home, so she hoped it would do as an overday refuge. She would be there by 4.

**--**

Stephan had taken to wandering at night ever since the guard had been dragged to this forsaken court.

He didn't trust these people in the least, and had no wish to sleep near any of them. Cold men. Colder women. Disdainful children.

And the royals themselves were worse.

So he had taken to riding away when he could to sleep in a little shed that some child of the Peters House had mended and then left to ruin again. Well, it was either a child or some very short adult who cut the table down so that a man's knees wouldn't fit under it. And who liked pictures of strange birds and unicorns playing races.

So, yes, a child. He had found some books in the little forgotten house, and these he dove into with gusto. At first, he had struggled. Fortunately, as he dug through them he found lesson books starting with the very simplest of things. For example, a picture next to a word, or whole sentences written out with pictures above blanks that had been filled out by the owner.

The child had never written its' name in the books here.

This bothered Stephan very much, as he felt that this child should have had enough pride to write out their name at least once.

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3A.M.

Gull was exhausted and cranky. Vai was alternately falling asleep in the saddle and jerking awake at every tiny sound.

Every once in a while, she stifled a sob. The loneliness she had felt for so long was actually getting worse, and she hadn't thought that was possible. Gull was nice, of course, but he wasn't sapient. She had risked a great deal to save him from Falstrif, but despite the amount of time she spent actually talking to him, he couldn't reply.

And then there was the question of how far she would have to go to actually get away. A minor noble of the Glass Court would have little trouble hiding, but she was too close to the throne, and her bloody father had just arranged a marriage for her with an old man.

All Hell was about to break loose. The only comfort to her was that the fear of the pre-flash world prevented the re-introduction of things like radio.

**--**

So close. He had finally mastered the written language enough to tackle the fundamentals in the next set of books. This child hadn't read little religious story books like the housekeepers' sons at the Grimm House. No, this child had been set the tasks expected at the papyrus house. Complex maths. Chemistry. Mechanical theory. The seven dead languages.

He realized that he was horribly jealous of this child. What might he be capable of if he'd been given this sort of lessons as a little boy. If the housekeeper had just let him learn to read!

But there was no going back. What, he should indignantly go back to the woman and demand an apology? He doubted she'd even know him. Besides, it would be far more satisfying for him to just show up at some point with the Princedom that came automatically to the Usefully Mad. So. No 'friends' to offer him drink. No sad eyed Princess Abolith to distract him. Just books and a full belly for the first time in weeks, because Lucy was nearing rut and wasn't interested in the food that the trap had caught.

**--**

"Look. There's our House. Remember? From before we had to move in order to please His Majesty? It looks so small." Gull snorted in reply. He was tired and hungry. He didn't care about human habitations unless they involved food and bedding. Something smelled interesting, however..

"What's that noise for? There aren't any..." But there were. A high, trilling song replied to Gull from the valley. Vai was suddenly terrified. Wild grooks were among the most dangerous creatures anywhere. There weren't supposed to be any left in the area, but she was apparently headed right for one. Or several, if the femme had managed to attract the attention of more than one male.

They were going in the right direction for the playhouse. Vai had a wild thought just before they dove into a thick copse of trees. "Wouldn't it be funny if I went to all this trouble for Gull, only to run away and get killed because of him?"

**--**

"Court you boys quiet like, Lucy. My head's already spinning from the numbers." The answer came in the form of a very deep bellow from the other side of the house. Stephan quietly prayed the little shed and its' stable would hold against whatever males Lucy had attracted.

Then he hears the screams.

From the window, Stephan can see a flash of ruby red and a chalk-white face streak toward Lucy's little enclosure. He does not think. He opens the door and strides forward, believing that Gull will ignore him unless he approaches Lucy.

"Dismount as carefully as you can, and come with me."

"If I dismount, he'll think I'm another male."

"No, princess, if he doesn't think I'm Lucy, he won't think you're him. Most of those stories they tell townies are nonsense. Just hurry. There are bigger suitors, this evening."

She streaks toward the man and they both run into the house.

**--**

"So I ran away. I... I don't know what to say about your Lucy. I'm sure Gull got to her, it's too much to expect that he didn't, and they'll think you helped me if the chicks come out as reds."

"Oh, don't worry about that. He's been in the stable with her for the last hour. The Emerald is still out there, though. He seems very unhappy. Poor old man."

"You seem so calm. They'll kill both of us if they think..."

"If they think that a Silver princess took up with the bastard half-brother of the man who so publicly spurned her? That this couple then ran away when she found out that she was to marry an old man? You underestimate these people. Death is the least of our problems."

"Where did that Emerald come from? There aren't supposed to be any wild grooks left in the area."

"Why, they came from the place we have to learn to inhabit. The land of the unspoken truths that are blatantly obvious. I've lived there for a while, now. Care to join me?"

"What, in you garrison?"

"Of course. All we have to do is dye Gull a boring color."
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