Chapter Text
His Radiancy - Tor - left, gleeful, and his household watched, hoping. Hoping he would be safe. Hoping he would come back. Hoping, when he came back, he would be able to leave again.
There was no great fanfare at his departure - that would interfere with Tor's desire to be inconspicuous. There was only the four of them, watching their lord walk away, until he turned a corner, and disappeared from view.
"...Well," Rhodin said at last. "My Lord Viceroy, I do believe you're in charge now. Orders?"
Kip cut him a sharp glance and said, "You are perfectly aware of what needs doing in your domain - and I am perfectly aware that His Radiancy gave you orders to be getting on with."
"He did," Ludvic agreed. "First and foremost, to see to your safety."
Kip's usual guard (he was gradually becoming accustomed to having a 'usual guard') had been dismissed while they saw Tor off. Obviously, Rhodin and Ludvic were planning to fill in. "Well," Kip said, "Before I go back to my office - " and take up the reins of the Empire in full - "I intend to visit the gardens. Conju, would you like to join us?"
Conju was still staring out the door, where His Radiancy had disappeared, his posture and expression perfectly controlled as it only was when he was under great strain. "...Yes," he said, after a moment. "Yes, the gardens."
There was, in fact, a specific part of the gardens that Kip intended to visit. The tui tree - his tui tree, that he had brought all the way to Solaara, and planted here with his best hopes it would survive - and survive it had, and grown, and thrived. For years it had been a touchstone, somewhere he could go and remember his home when he couldn't return there, and its growth and health in Solaaran soil had been a kind of promise that he, too, could thrive here.
When they all had returned from the Vangavaye-ve, after the ceremony that had left Kip's heart singing with joy and love and magic, he had visited the tui tree to remind himself that he had not, truly, left the Vangavaye-ve behind. And he had seen a growth on it, shaped almost like a flower bud, but something he had never seen on a tui tree before. Sick at heart, he had sought out one of the gardeners, but all they could tell him was that it had sprouted a week ago and been growing ever since, and that the tree otherwise seemed perfectly healthy. Kip was not so sanguine, and so each day he had come to check the tui tree, and the strange golden bud that was growing on it.
He did not tell his friends why he was leading them to the tui tree - there was no reason to concern them with such a small, irrelevant worry. He simply led them there, along the winding path, Conju by his side and Rhodin and Ludvic behind them. He could not, however, suppress a small exclamation when he saw the tree.
"What's wrong?" Rhodin asked, on alert.
The bud, which had at first been no longer than his thumb, and yesterday perhaps as long as his hand, was now almost three times that size. "That should not be there," Kip said firmly, hurrying forward to the tree. "I don't know if it's a - a parasite, or a disease, or some strange creature disguising itself, but that is not how tui trees grow!" He reached the tree, and put a hand on its trunk, and with a puff of sparkling magic, the bud opened, huge and golden, and inside, curled up impossibly small, was a tiny, naked child.
Kip was no mage like his lord, to understand such things. Nor was he a scholar. He was, however, a man with fifty-nine cousins, which is to say, he had spent a lot of time with children, and a flower was clearly a precarious and uncomfortable sleeping place for a child. Even a magical one. He reached up, and as he did, the child grew, or his hands shrank, as they did when he reached into his writing case, and when he propped the child on his hip, he found the boy was a perfectly ordinary size for a...five year old, perhaps.
The boy's eyes blinked open, a worryingly familiar gold, and fixed on Kip's face. "You are my father, then," he piped up cheerfully. "Hello!"
Kip looked at him. Nearly as dark-skinned as His Radiancy, with a familiar nose and golden eyes, but his smile was the one Kip now saw regularly on Gaudy's face, and his hair had the looser curl of the Mdangs. "Hello," he said. He blinked, then reminded himself of practicalities. Whatever the origin of this child, he would (presumably) need the things other children needed. Clothes, first. Then food. And then...everything else. He turned to Conju. "I don't believe any of us were prepared for an unexpected guest today," he said. "Could I ask you to send someone for some clothes for - " He turned his head back to the child. "My apologies," he said. "My name is Cliopher - Kip - Mdang. Do you have a name?"
The child nodded. "I'm Viau!"
Kip closed his eyes briefly. "An excellent name," he said. "Conju, could you send someone for...those things Viau will need to get to my rooms without attracting too much attention?"
Conju was not a man easily bewildered, thankfully, and with only a raised eyebrow in silent amusement, he disappeared to go find a page.
Kip turned to face his friends. "Viau, this is Rhodin and Ludvic," he explained. "They are good friends of mine, like Conju."
Ludvic's eyes were dancing. Rhodin was grinning. "A pleasure to meet you, Viau," he said. "Kip here is your father?"
Viau nodded. "So you must be my uncles!"
Conju returned with a child-sized robe, a pair of slippers, and Gaudy.
"Oh wow," Gaudy said, when he came close enough to see. "Hi Viau, I'm your Cousin Gaudy."
Viau was not pleased with the slippers, but after a short argument, conceded that slippers could be tolerated if it meant he got put down, and as soon as he was, he ran over to Gaudy to inspect him from a closer distance. "Are you my cousin like Ludvic and Rhodin and Conju are my uncles, or are you my cousin like Kip is my father?" he demanded.
Gaudy looked at Kip. Kip looked back at him, helplessly.
"Well," Gaudy said, "My mother is Kip's brother, so I guess I'm your cousin like Kip is your father."
Viau, it seemed, was here to stay. Or at least, he was not going to immediately disappear. And while Kip longed for His Radiancy's advice on the matter, His Radiancy was not here. Nor was he going to return for some time.
Very well. Kip knelt, heedless of dirt and grass stains. His robe could be cleaned, or it could not. "Viau," he said seriously. "I am afraid I didn't realise you were going to be here, and so I was not prepared to look after you. I am a very busy person, because I have duties to the whole Empire, to make sure it runs well. That means that, most of the day, I will not be able to spend time with you, even though I want to."
Viau's golden eyes were fixed on his, and the child nodded.
"What I would like to do," Kip suggested, "Is for you to live with me in my rooms in the palace, and for me to find someone I trust to help look after you."
"Like my uncles?" Viau guessed.
Kip smiled at him. "I'm sure your uncles will help me," he said, "but they have duties too. What if I asked one of your cousins, someone like Gaudy, to come and live with us and help?" There was almost certainly a procedure for hiring a caretaker for the Viceroy's child. He didn't care. If Viau was his child, an Islander child - and with a name like that, he was certainly Islander - then Kip wanted him to grow up hearing the songs of Vangavaye-ve. And surely, among his many cousins, there was a Mdang for even such a strange occasion as this.
Viau considered the question seriously, then nodded. "That would be alright," he said. "As long as they're interesting."
Kip's eyes glinted with humour, and he could see Gaudy trying not to laugh. "Gaudy and I will do our best to pick someone interesting," he agreed solemnly. "And perhaps Conju will be kind enough to help us until they arrive."
"I suppose I can put off my wine tour for a few weeks," Conju agreed, but Kip could see there was new life in his expression, and new certainty in his posture. More than any of them, his life had been structured around His Radiancy, and they had all worried (Tor not least among them) what he would do after His Radiancy left. And now, like a gift, this small child with lion eyes.
"Thank you, Conju," Kip said, smiling at him. "Now, Viau, when we go inside to get to my rooms, lots of people will be paying attention to me, because they think I'm very important. But even though Gaudy is my cousin, they think he isn't important, and they won't be looking at him so closely. Would you like to walk with Gaudy this time?"
Viau considered that - Kip could see he was going to be a thoughtful child - and walked over to Gaudy, sticking out his hand. Gaudy took it, and the group turned towards the palace.