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About a year after heading out on their first voyage, Jester and Fjord put into port in Nicodranas and Jester spends all her spells inviting the rest of the Nein to a reunion. Essek, for his part, has not been back to Nicodranas since the party that marked the moment he completely lost control of his life. He remembers very little of the city itself, aside from the blinding glare of the sunlight off the ocean. He does not relish the thought of returning, but the idea of disappointing Jester after a year apart is absolutely unacceptable. He tells her that he’ll be there without giving himself a chance to overthink it.
He does send a message of his own shortly afterward, offering to provide transportation if any of the Nein need it – for old times’ sake.
He receives a swift reply of, “No, it’s okay, Caduceus still has his lighthouse thing and Caleb’s getting everybody else. They’re all in the Empire these days. See… you… soon…. BYE~!”
He has no idea what “lighthouse thing” means in this context, but he decides to save himself the spells and simply ask her when he sees her next.
---
The reunion is taking place, of course, at the Lavish Chateau, which has seen a new coat of paint since last they were there. The Nein had come together for breakfast and caught up with tears and hugs and stories. Afterward, they split up to pursue various interests around the city, with a plan to return to the Chateau that evening for supper.
Fjord and Caduceus took a walk to the Mother’s Lighthouse, a shrine to the Wildmother that Essek quickly learns is the “lighthouse thing” Jester mentioned; Yasha is catching up with Kingsley, or Mollymauk, or whatever name their pirate friend is going by now; and Caleb has gone to the beach with Veth and her family. Essek doesn’t begrudge them time spent together, he knows how deeply Caleb longs for his friend when they are parted, but he does feel rather at loose ends. Going to the beach by day is about the most unpleasant thing he can imagine. Fortunately, the Chateau is closed to the public for the afternoon, so Essek is not obliged to be in disguise the whole time.
Beau and Essek are the only ones who remain at the breakfast table – Beau finishing off the leftover bacon from everyone’s plates, and Essek nursing a cup of tea and trying to look like he belongs there. He asks how her work dismantling the assembly is going, and listens with a small, half-curled smile as she enthusiastically catches him up on how many government officials she has gotten removed from power.
Beau notices first when their hostess approaches and her words trail off. “Don’t stop your conversation on my account,” Marion says, “I just wanted to be sure you have everything you need. It’s wonderful to see you again, Beauregard. Ah, and you must be Essek! It is a pleasure to meet you, Essek. I have heard so much about you from my Sapphire, I almost feel I know you already.”
Essek stands, takes the hand she elegantly offers him and bows over it politely. Beau notices that his awkward, lopsided grin is gone, replaced instantly by the pleasant, accommodating courtier’s mask he wore with them in the early days. Watching him slip back into it feels strange, almost indecent, like seeing some part of him she knows he would rather she not see.
“The pleasure is mine, Ms. Lavorre. I thank you for so graciously inviting me into your home.”
“Call me Marion, please. Any friend of my Jester’s is always welcome here.”
As if summoned by her name, Jester’s head appears, poking out of Marion’s room on the second floor as she calls “Mama! I brought you a present from Marquet, come see!”
The adoration in Marion’s voice is obvious as she calls back “In a moment, my darling! I can’t wait.” She nods a gracious farewell to both Beau and Essek, but as she turns to go, she pauses, having remembered something.
“Ah, and Essek – I know the sunlight can be painful for you. I’ve instructed the staff to leave the windows in your room shuttered, but if there’s anything else we can do to make you comfortable, please don’t hesitate to ask.” She smiles, pats his hand gently, and sweeps back upstairs before Essek can do more than blink in response.
When Marion heads off, Beau notices that Essek looks a bit like someone just punched him in the gut. Normally Beau would chalk that up to being overwhelmed by Marion’s beauty, but she’s pretty sure Essek’s interest in women (or, really, in anyone besides awkward ginger wizards) is basically nil. She runs their conversation back in her mind and realizes where the problem is with an uncomfortable jolt of empathy.
That’s about when Essek snaps out of it and notices that she’s staring at him.
“Yes?”
“Nothing, it’s just - you had this look on your face and I recognized it, is all.”
“What look?” Essek sounds affronted by the very idea that he may have displayed emotions accidentally.
Beau rolls her eyes.
“The ‘mommy and daddy didn’t love me and now I don’t know how to handle talking to parents that are actually good’ look. I’ve seen it before.” She doesn’t mention that mostly, she’s seen it on her own face in the mirror. She suspects he knows anyway; she’s mentioned her father’s trial to him before.
Essek looks surprised, and a little offended.
“I never said my mother didn’t love me.”
Beau notes that he doesn’t dispute the claim for his father, and tucks that information away for another time. She remembers that he’d mentioned something similar once, after several glasses of wine. Beau shrugs.
“I dunno, man, that’s just what it looked like, based on how you were looking at Marion.”
“I… it’s…” Essek seems to be struggling to find the right words, and with a small sound of frustration, he slips into Undercommon.
“It’s not that my mother didn’t love me. She did – she does. It’s just that she is Umavi.”
Beau pauses, wondering if maybe she’s missing some nuance in her understanding of the language. “Okay, you’re going to need to explain that one. I thought an Umavi was just, like, the leaders of the dens.”
“You’re not wrong, but you’ll find that there are very few political titles in the Dynasty that do not also carry a religious meaning. It’s not that Umavi means “leader of the den;” rather, she is entitled to lead because she is Umavi. It refers to a person who has lived enough consecuted lifetimes that they have divined their souls’ ‘true purpose.’” Essek actually does air quotes at that last bit. “There are very few such individuals. My mother is one of them. The Queen is another.”
Beau can tell that if she lets him divert the conversation into another criticism of all the problems with the Dynasty’s theocracy, he’ll never return to the original question. So she nudges, just a bit:
“Okay, so why does being an Umavi mean she doesn’t love her kids?”
“It doesn’t!” Essek gives an annoyed little scoff. “I didn’t say that. She… she loves me the same way she loves… everything and everyone. As a piece of the world imbued with, with the divine grace of the Luxon’s light. She is filled with love.
But I am…” Essek sighs, and his shoulders droop. He begins looking at the table as though he could find the right words hidden in the grain of the wood. “Well, you know me. I am, and have always been, a selfish creature. I… resented… that I wasn’t special to her in some way. She loves her children exactly the same way, and to the same degree, that she loves every new soul in our Den. Every new soul in the Dynasty, even. And to a child, being loved the same as everyone else felt very much like not being loved at all.
I spent… a very long time trying to find some way to earn some special portion of her attention, her affection. It took – almost to the end of my first century to realize it was impossible. Nothing I did could ever be “enough,” because it wasn’t about me at all. It’s just the way she is. I think it was the first time I had to accept that there were things I couldn’t do, that no matter how brilliant and accomplished I became there were some things that I would never reach.” He laughs at himself, a little unkindly. “I had at that point already solved several supposedly-impossible dunamantic theorems, and I suppose I had assumed I could do the same with my mother.
The way she loves is… unconditional, but impersonal. Maybe she wasn’t always that way. Perhaps in her first lifetime, she loved her children the way an ordinary person does, but she – she just knows so much. She has seen so much. And she is… perfect.”
It looks like it takes some effort, but finally Essek looks up at Beau again.
“You see, Beauregard, this is where the theological and political implications of the Umavi come in. Her status as Umavi, and therefore as the matriarch of our Den, requires that she be perfect – or at least, perfectly herself, whatever that means. Fully self-actualized, I suppose. She is, by definition, the best possible version of herself at all times. There is nothing wrong with the ways she loves, it is literally divine, and to suggest otherwise is both political self-sabotage and potentially blasphemous.
And so, in my youth I concluded that if her love is perfect, there must be something terribly wrong with me, that it’s not enough.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting your mom to pay attention to you, dude. That’s, like, practically universal.”
“Yes, I – I realize that now, I am just trying to – trying to convey the, the thought process I had, as a child. The logic of it.”
Beau pictures a younger version of Essek, trying to “solve” his emotions like a mathematical proof, and coming up with the logical conclusion that there was something intrinsically wrong with the way he wanted to be loved.
Completely unbidden, a memory pops into her mind – when she was about twelve, and one of their maids fell ill, and sent her pretty teenage daughter to the Lionett household in her stead. She remembers wanting, more than anything, for the girl to notice her, and she remembers the sudden conviction she had that her father would be angry if he knew. Or if not angry, disappointed – and that would be worse.
It’s not the same, she thinks. Obviously, it’s not the same. But all it does is remind her of the number of ways in which she finds Essek personally relatable (many) and how uncomfortable it makes her (very).
Essek has steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, a habit Beau has learned to recognize as his being deep in thought. Finally, he nods in the direction of the staircase, and the door Marion had entered.
“I expected her to be gracious and kind and pleasant to be around. Her entire livelihood depends on being the sort of person people enjoy spending time with. I did not expect…” He shakes his head, struggling to articulate his thoughts in a way he finds satisfactory. He tries again.
“If… if you were to be invited to dine with Umavi Thelyss, she would be good to you. She would be good to you because that is how she treats people, generally, and she would be good to you because you were guests in her home. She would likely treat you and the Nein with especial generosity, because you are the ones who returned a beacon and facilitated the end of a war. The fact that you are… personal friends to one of her sons would not factor into that in any way.
I simply… I didn’t expect it, is all.”
Beau hesitates, because she doesn’t think she’s the one who should be having this conversation. This is the sort of thing Caduceus is good at, she thinks, or maybe Caleb and their weird wizard bond. But she’s the one here right now, and she doesn’t think Essek is likely to be willing to return to this topic again.
“Look, Essek—I know we give you a hard time about, you know, caring about our opinion more than the people that got hurt from your decisions. But, like, you know that’s normal, right? Everybody – or, I dunno, almost everybody – cares more about the people they know than about strangers. Most people will prioritize the people they care about. Or, like, the people that the people they care about care about. We didn’t come to Xorhas because we wanted to end the war, we came because Veth wanted to find her husband. And we didn’t decide to fuck up Trent Ikithon because he’s a shithead – I mean, he is a shithead, but we only got involved because we care about Caleb. Maybe that’s wrong, maybe I should care just as much about Astrid and Eadwulf and all the other kids that got fucked up by him, but I don’t. I care about Caleb more.”
Essek looks doubtful.
“You care. I’ve watched you, interviewing them. You’re very kind.”
“I mean, yeah, of course I care, they were kids and they got taken advantage of and twisted around and hurt until they broke, of course I care. But if somebody lined them up - somebody with power, I mean, like a god or something – if someone lined them all up, Caleb, Astrid, Eadwulf and all the rest and said ‘Here’s all the people Trent Ikithon fucked up; one of them gets to go free and have a life and a future and the others have to go to jail forever,’ I’d pick Caleb. Like, it wouldn’t even be a question. Some of those people are probably still kids, not even done with their training, but I’d still pick Caleb, and I wouldn’t even feel bad about it. ‘Cause he’s my family, and I love him.”
“Of course.” A pause. “…I would as well, if that was unclear.”
“No, I got you. Don’t tell him we had this conversation though, it’d just upset him.”
Essek looks genuinely distressed at the thought of Caleb hearing about this thought experiment and hastens to agree.
“I would not. I will not. You have my word.”
“Cool. ‘Cause you know what he’s like, he’d be all ‘I don’t deserve to be treated differently from them, I’m just as bad.’” Beau snorts. “‘Deserve.’ Like it’s even about deserving.”
Essek frowns thoughtfully. “He does, though. Objectively, he has done more to right the wrongs of this world than any of them.”
“Right, but it – it doesn’t matter. It’d still be him, either way.” Beau catches herself leaning forward across the table like that’d make him understand the point better, and consciously pulls herself back. Tries not to get too much into his personal bubble, because she’s not trying to make him uncomfortable, really. Instead she leans back in her chair and crosses her arms in that way that emphasizes how buff she is. “Okay, maybe you’re too into Caleb to get my point.” Essek opens his mouth as if to argue her choice of words but she just keeps talking, a little louder. He's still too polite and soft-spoken to keep talking over her. “Look, it works like that with you, too. If somebody held you up, along with some other traitor who did something just as bad – or, no, something slightly less bad, even. You and someone who’s just a sliiiightly better person than you.”
Essek winces, but Beau doesn’t let up.
“Yeah, they’re just a little better in all the ways. The thing they did was slightly less terrible, and slightly fewer people got hurt. They felt a little bit worse about it, a little bit sooner – if somebody took that person and put you guys side by said and said, ‘which one of these gets a second chance?’ We’d pick you. Even if the other guy ‘deserved’ it more, even if he’s objectively a better person. We’d pick you, ‘cause you’re our friend.”
When she looks over, Essek is sitting with his hands steepled in front of his mouth again, but she doesn’t think it’s because he’s thinking, this time. She thinks probably he’s trying to hide his expression. It’s not really working, though, because she can still see the top half of his face, and his eyes are all misty and he keeps blinking rapidly.
She very considerately pretends not to notice. She takes a minute to try and balance her chair on just its two back legs and gives him a bit to put himself back together before she says anything else. By the time she glances over, he looks like the Shadowhand again. He’s looking at her like he expects her to say something else, and she realizes she’s gotten a little off track.
She clears her throat and says, “Anyway.
My point is, it’s not a bad thing to care more about your family than about some randos you never met. It’s kind of messed up not to. ‘Your kids not being special to you’ doesn’t sound like enlightenment, it just sounds fucked up.”
Essek smiles thinly. “Yes, well – it is one of many points upon which I disagreed with her, ah, dogma, shall we say. But as I said – it’s not something one says out loud. Especially as a new soul.” His laugh sounds brittle. “I certainly didn’t have the audacity to go up to her and say, ‘Ah, excuse me, Umavi, I know you were present at the literal birth of our civilization, when the Bright Queen first led our people to the light and out of the shackles of the Betrayers, but I think you’re wrong about the Luxon. And let me tell you about all my incredibly heretical theories about your god, while we’re here.’”
Beau snorts. Essek looks gratified to have made a successful joke. After a moment or two, though, he continues with a familiar bitterness in his tone.
“She would be kind about it, though. That’s the worst part, is that she would be kind about it. If I were to tell her my objections, it would not be anger that she felt, but pity. She is perfect, and she very charitably pities all those who are not, who have not had their purposes revealed to them as she has.”
“She sounds like a piece of work.”
“Ah – I am not familiar with this idiom. I like the sound of it, though. ‘A piece of work.’”
Beau lets him change the subject and gives him a brief definition for the phrase. When the rest of the Nein rejoin them after the better part of an hour, they’re trading aphorisms back and forth, translating between Common and Undercommon and chuckling as they try to find phrases with equivalent meanings across languages. Soon Caleb has begun contributing Zemnian proverbs, with a predictable focus on those with a feline theme, and Jester chimes in with a few in Infernal (which are completely devoid of cats, and therefore largely disappointing to Caleb).
The conversation meanders: what Luc is learning in school, the places Fjord and Jester have been, the stray kitten Caleb has adopted. Beau keeps one eye on Essek and is pleased to note that his smile – all awkward and lopsided and Essek – remains in evidence all night.