“Love is often both desperate and convenient,” Visola responded. She picked up the dress which was laid out on the bed, and began to undo the clasps on it. She reached out and gently began to peel the layers of blankets away from her daughter. “Here, let me help you get into this.”
Visola helped her daughter to slip out of her nightgown and into the green dress that Callder had chosen. Alcyone felt embarrassed that her shaking hands were so incapable that her mother’s broken fingers were doing what she could not.
“I was supposed to take care of you in your old age,” Alcyone said as Visola adjusted the gown. “This is all wrong. It’s all reversed. You already took care of me once.”
“Maybe your father will beat me until I’m crippled and you’ll still get a chance to take care of me.”
“Mama! That isn’t reassuring.”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Visola said with a smile. “Truth is that I’m the luckiest mother ever to have enough strength to take care of my daughter twice. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”
Alcyone looked at her mother solemnly for a moment before speaking in a pleading voice. “Don’t go, mama. We have been separated for so long. Now after just a few weeks together…”
“I must, Alcie. Trust me on this. Will you help me? Sometime after midnight, pretend like you just discovered I’ve gone missing. Tell them to hold off on their attack, okay? Do anything you can to stop them from attacking Zimovia. They won’t be successful.”
“What if they won’t listen to me?
“They will. Here, stand up sweetie, let me look at you.”
Visola helped her daughter up, and Alcyone’s hands hung loosely at her sides. “Mama, don’t you care about Zuri? She lost her father and Corallyn. If something happens to you, she’s going to lose her mind.”
“No, she won’t. She’s got Trevain to help her through. He’s the perfect devoted boy-toy.”
“Boy-toy!” Alcyone protested, uncomfortable with her son being called this, but then she saw that her mother was smiling. Leave it to Visola to entice a smile out of her even as they prepared for the funeral of her childhood friend.
“You know, mama, I spent so many years regretting ever leaving Adlivun. Now, after what happened to Corallyn, I’m beginning to think that it was for the best. I experienced so many different aspects of life. I have my two boys. Even if I died now, or even if I had died in that asylum… I would have left some mark on the world in my sons. They would carry on something of me in them long after I was gone. What has Corallyn left behind? Nothing.”
“I know how you feel, Alcie.” Visola looked at her daughter lovingly. “I feel the same way about you. If I never did anything good in the world, if I never achieved anything at all, my life still couldn’t have been meaningless because of you. I have tried so hard to hate your dad with a vengeance, but how could I? He gave me you.”
“Anyone can pop out sperm. It doesn’t make him a good person, and you should not allow nostalgia and paternity to stand in your way of fighting this war.”
“Sweetie, I said I couldn’t hate him as much as I would like to. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill him dead as a doornail!” Visola smiled, and then frowned. “What the hell is a doornail? Anyway, Corallyn did leave something behind. Memories. We have her in our memories, and I’ll never forget that crazy kid.”
Alcyone nodded. “I love you mama. Please be careful,” she signed, before reaching out and hugging Visola tightly.
“I love you too, baby,” Visola said, returning the hug with gentle fierceness. She hoped that it would not be the last time she held her daughter. “Let’s go honor Corallyn.”
Alcyone smiled, and began to swim out of the room. She had forgotten how much easier it was to move in water than on land, and she was thrilled that she did not need her mother’s help to move her legs. She felt somehow stronger once she was engaged in the familiar motion of swimming.
When the two women emerged from the room, they were startled by guards rushing through the corridors, swimming past them in a flurry. Visola frowned, sensing that something was wrong. She reached out and drew her daughter closer to her, and swam upwards through the tunnels. The cathedral where the funeral was being held was in a dry room, so it was closer to sea level than the bedchambers. Underwater, tunnels did not need to be perfectly horizontal, and could be positioned at every angle, or even be completely vertical. Visola now navigated one of these vertical hallways, before reaching the intersecting corridor and swimming to the cathedral.
When she entered the room, the first thing she became aware of was the way that Aazuria was shouting orders to guards. Trevain had his head in his hands, and Elandria looked terrified. Queen Amabie had her arms crossed across her chest, and Callder was pacing back and forth restlessly. No one was paying attention to the urn which contained Corallyn’s cremated ashes. Something important was disrupting the private ceremony.
“What’s going on?” Visola asked with puzzlement, as she wiped her wet bangs out of her eyes. “I was only gone for a few minutes.”
Aazuria turned to look at Visola and her daughter. She did not hesitate or break it to them gently; there was no time. “No one can find Sionna,” she said bitterly.
Visola swallowed. She turned to make brief eye contact with her daughter, and saw Alcyone’s worried expression. She looked at Queen Amabie, and saw pity and fear in the woman’s eyes. This was serious. Everyone was assuming the worst.
“Have you asked the infirmary staff?” Alcyone questioned.
“Of course,” Aazuria said with a scowl. “She has been missing since around the time we found Corallyn’s body. We were so distracted by the body parts that we did not realize this.”
“It’s not possible,” Visola said softly. “I pumped up security over a hundred percent after they took Corallyn. I even have the Ningyo warriors standing watch. We’re so heavily guarded that not even the tiniest stray fish can break into Adlivun.”
“Well, evidently someone did,” Queen Amabie said.
“There’s a note,” Naclana said, as he burst into the room.
“What does he want?” Aazuria asked. “Tell me at once. Summarize.”
Naclana lifted his shoulders helplessly. “The same thing he’s been requesting all along; Visola.”
Aazuria exchanged a look with Trevain before turning to gaze at Queen Amabie. Visola walked into the center of the room, and put her hands on her hips.
“We can’t sit on our asses and wait any longer. It’s obviously not working. We need to change things up.” Visola spoke with great forcefulness. “Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going. While I’m gone, Trevain and Aazuria must get married and go through the coronation. It will be good for Adlivun to have a King and Queen again,” Visola said. “You will stop preparing to attack Zimovia at once, and place all our troops in a defensive position. Do you all understand me? Bolster our defenses.”
Aazuria found herself nodding, even though she did not agree with this strategy. At the moment, Visola was too determined. Arguing with her would be futile.
“Trevain will serve as a figurehead commander for our forces,” Visola continued. “I know this seems like a strange decision. Aazuria could do it, but she has a reputation of being a bit soft when it comes to the military. They’ll walk all over her. Trevain has an aura of newness about him—the lost son of Adlivun returning home after fifty years. The only thing better than a general leading the forces is a king.”
“Grandma, I don’t think I can…”
“You will. I’m deputizing you, Trevain,” she told him, conclusively. “You ran a ship—you know how to be in charge. Consider it a promotion from being Captain. I saw your library. I leafed through your books on naval warfare. You have all the knowledge you need to do this.”
“Theory and practice are two very different…”
“Even if you were not my grandson, and even if you were not marrying the princess, I would still ask you to be the Admiral of our fl
eet. We need your modern perspective in our navy. I shot you in the arm. Atargatis blew your boat up, and you’re still standing. You’re tough, grandson. You can inspire this country. Zuri will help you make decisions, and Queen Amabie will be here until things settle down. You won’t be alone.”
Trevain shook his head. “I really don’t…”
“It’s not up for discussion,” Visola said. “I’m going to get my sister back. There is no way that I’m letting her come back in pieces like Corallyn did.”
Aazuria stared at her friend for a moment before beginning to nod slowly. She realized that reasoning with her was impossible. “Okay. I understand, Viso. You have to do what you have to do. I support your decision—I appreciate that you’re willing to sacrifice yourself to save your sister.”
“Thanks, Zuri.” Visola bowed slightly from the waist. “I knew you would understand.”
“Please be safe, Visola,” Aazuria said softly. The princess extended her arms to her friend, and Visola walked forward to embrace her. At the last second, Aazuria shifted her weight and slammed the back of her hand into Visola’s head. It happened so fast that Alcyone barely had time to shriek. The general started falling to the floor, but Aazuria caught her around the waist and gently lowered her.
“Forgive me, my friend,” Aazuria said tenderly, looking down at Visola’s closed eyelids. She turned to the others in the room. “I hate to do this, but I must forfeit Sionna.” She saw in the surprised and incredulous expressions that someone was about to argue with her and she violently gestured to Corallyn’s urn. “I have lost my sister too, but there is no way in any dimension of hell that I am going to let Visola make a martyr of herself on some wild goose chase. Her foolish recklessness is endearing, but this situation calls for patience; and we all know that patience has never been Visola’s strong suit. Am I right?”
“I agree with your decision, Princess Aazuria,” Queen Amabie said, saluting Aazuria and inclining her head ever so slightly. “To protect those we love, we must sometimes use great force.”
Alcyone nodded too as she stared at Visola’s unconscious body. “Thank you, Aazuria. You have saved my mother’s life.”
“Visola’s life was hers to give,” Elandria interjected with hesitating hands. “She deserved the freedom to sacrifice herself if it was her wish! Would you not have done the same for me, Aazuria?”
Aazuria cast her eyes downward and could not respond. She felt a pang of remorse as she looked at Visola’s peaceful expression as she lay on the floor, her red hair spread out all around her.
“This dude is my grandfather, right?” Callder asked. “I just don’t understand how he can do this shit.”
Alcyone moved across the room to sit beside her youngest son, and she slipped her arm around him comfortingly. Meanwhile, Trevain was crouching down over his grandmother, and shaking his head.
“She may have seemed crazy to you, Aazuria, but I really believe she knew what she was doing,” he said crossly. “You told me what a brilliant strategist she is, and what an amazing general. So, why don’t you trust her?”
“Visola is a protector by nature. In the past, she has thrown her body in front of me like a meat-shield. She would happily die for Sionna without thinking twice. I trust Visola with everything, and everyone, except for herself. She just thinks of herself as… as just a tool,” Aazuria said.
“That is correct, my dear. General Ramaris did tell me that she considered her body to little more than a weapon,” Queen Amabie affirmed. “When a friend is in such a self-destructive despair, it becomes our duty to restrain them.”
“If she had any self-respect then she would not have married Vachlan in the first place,” Aazuria said venomously. She looked up at her cousin who was still holding the note he had never gotten a chance to read. “Naclana, see to it that Visola is imprisoned in comfortable quarters.”
“Yes, Princess Aazuria.”
Chapter 9: Tell me Something Good
Trevain rubbed circles into his aching temples. This meeting was not going well.
Aliens. He was sitting around a table with Aazuria and Queen Amabie and the heads of their military, and he felt a bit like he had been abducted by aliens. Superior, honorable female aliens who expected him to learn their language in record time, and lead an attack on another alien race. They expected him to be their hero; their knight in shining armor. He felt like he was melting under the heat of the pressure, which felt like several thousand degrees kelvin.
One of Adlivun’s high-ranking officials, a woman named Mardöll was speaking about the pros and cons of the different types of terrain from which they could launch their attack. Trevain was having difficulty keeping up with her fast moving fingers. Although the meeting was being held in a dry room, the universal sign language was necessary to bridge the language barrier with the Japanese. He was trying to focus, but he kept getting distracted, his thoughts spiraling off into every possible direction other than the one in which they needed to travel.
“Can you explain that last part again, Major Mardöll?” he asked. When she nodded and began to sign, he tried to focus. Greek might have been easier to understand at the moment. He wished he could be like his brother, who was also present at the meeting for some strange reason. Callder had dozed off beside him discreetly—he was one of those strange people who could sleep with their eyes open. Trevain had given up on hitting his brother to keep him awake.
“I see,” Trevain signed when Mardöll had finished explaining. He did not see. He could not stop thinking about his grandmother. He wished that Visola was here to make her lewd and inappropriate jokes, to smile and wink at him in her good-natured way, and to put everyone at utter ease about the situation with her carefree charm, yet serious, intense comportment. When she said she was going to accomplish something—even if it was ridiculous-sounding, and she said it with a giggle and a glimmer of mirth in her eye, he had no doubt whatsoever that she would somehow succeed.
How could someone be so happy-go-lucky and yet so stern and resolute at the same time?
Trevain had never felt so trusting toward anyone else he had ever known; he had never been so compelled to depend on the expertise of someone other than himself. He knew that he was beyond fortunate to have met Visola. Not many men got a chance to meet their grandmother for the first time at the age of fifty, and no man anywhere had a grandmother like his. She was outrageous, yet so noble.
She did not deserve to be in prison.
“You are complicating things, Major Mardöll,” said a woman named Geira who was another respected army official. Trevain could not remember her rank. “The decision is not a difficult one. We train our warriors in the water, and so do the Ningyo. We must approach them from the north, directly through the channel.”
“And where do you think the Clan of Zalcan trains their warriors?” a Japanese warrior named Chikasui asked, raising his eyebrows and wiggling them at Geira.
It bothered Trevain enormously that everyone at the meeting was ignoring the fact that Sionna had been captured. They were writing her off as dead. He wanted to hold on to some small hope that his great-aunt would survive, but all of these experienced aquatic-military-professionals seemed to believe that hope was counterproductive. He realized that Chikasui-with-the-annoying-eyebrows was still speaking.
“They are famous for wrestling with sharks as children, are they not? They wear countless strands of necklaces with shark-tooth-beads to boast of their battles. They consider themselves the kings of the oceans. I say that we approach from land. It puts us closer to the precise location where they are stationed, and it may garner us the element of surprise.”
“It also places us in immediate danger, with an exhausted army. I do not think attacking over land is a good strategy,” signed Mizugiwa, a younger and slightly more timid Ningyo official.
“That is because you are afraid of the land. Incompetent child. It is your fault we lost Yonaguni!” an older man named Kishibe responded spitefully. Trevain
began to rub his temples again. It had been hours. They were not getting anywhere. Visola could have correctly figured out in thirty minutes what it was taking two nations days to agree upon—he was fairly certain that the leaders of both nations would have agreed upon this, if not anything else.
“Boys, boys, be calm,” Queen Amabie signed, before raising a hand to quiet them. “Do not blame one another for that which was beyond our control. We may have lost Yonaguni, but we did not lose our lives.”
“Indeed. We must look to the past without emotion to remember our mistakes and learn from them,” Chikasui signed. “We cannot allow the Clan of Zalcan to win again. Because of them, we were forced to abandon our home and flee like frightened animals. We cannot let them cause further harm to our allies. The warriors of Adlivun came to us in our time of need, and this is how we repay them? Let us work together and focus.”
“I lost my son at Yonaguni.” Kishibe scowled at the other men. “I am more dedicated to this than any of you! For me this is a personal mission of vengeance. What greater cause is there than vengeance? I say we march over land to attack.”
“I agree,” Aazuria signed, “about vengeance, but not about the land. We cannot expect to surprise the enemy since we know that they might have a spy among us. What we can do is position our forces correctly, where they will be strongest and most comfortable: in the water.”
“Thank you, Princess Aazuria,” said Mizugiwa. “Do you see this Kishibe? Women have more sense than you.”
“Gentlemen! Are you karo or are you bickering schoolboys?” Queen Amabie shook her head disapprovingly. “Do you really enjoy disgracing an old woman in a foreign kingdom? In the home of our friends?”
“My deepest apologies, Queen Amabie,” Chikasui began, bowing until his forehead touched the table’s surface.
“Please excuse me,” Trevain signed, as he abruptly stood up. He turned to leave the table and exit the room, ignoring all the correct etiquette of paying respects to the two queens. He was sick of it all. Aazuria looked after him curiously, and also excused herself to follow him.
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