Page 56 of Raven's Dawn
As a person, I cared deeply for Iliantha. She was my queen all my life, of course. And she was a beautiful woman, an excellent woman. But she was too passive for her role. It took her far too long to address even the famine on our land, let alone all the other issues. Fifty years ago, she could have gone to Earth, made a contract of some kind with an important government, and started addressing our food problem. Instead, she waited around for the gods to return.
In that regard, I did have to respect Caeda. Unorthodox, she may have been. A bit mad, perhaps. Far too materialistic for my taste.
But no one was starving on the street on our way here.
All that to say, Caeda wasn’t an awful queen. Just not a kind person.
One by one, we introduced ourselves. Caeda was an active audience, poking and prodding for details, harrumphing at answers that didn’t interest her.
Some, she seemed to like more than others. Warren met her with his usual charm, and she ate that shit up.
“And why are you here, Warren Copperfield?” she asked.
“Apparently, I’m a valuable tool. Being able to raise the dead and all.” He sipped from the chalice that a maid had brought out a few moments ago. “Excellent wine, by the way.”
“A necromancer.” Caeda clapped before her face, shimmying her shoulders from side to side. “Excellent. The only ones I’ve met are Angels. You are not. You have a bit of our blood in you, don’t you?”
“Not to my knowledge, but if I smell like one, I believe you.”
“I can’t smell what you are, silly.” She giggled. “Tell me about your friends now.” Caeda gestured to Ezra. “Husband, I presume.”
“Partner,” Ezra answered, taking Warren’s hand atop the table. “We can’t get married back home, so that’s the term we use.”
“Aww, I am sorry to hear that. Humans don’t make a lick of sense to me.” She made a rolling motion, as if to tell Ezra to go on. “A doctor, Iliantha said. What I consider a healer, then?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I will have to pick your brain one of these days.” She smiled wide. “I just love learning.”
“You and I have that in common,” Ezra said. “Being here, learning about this place, it’s been so fascinating for me.”
“I bet it has. I’d be fascinated to learn about your culture as well. Our inflections, they aren’t that different, are they?”
“Yours is closer to what I would call Queen’s English,” he said. “But no, not that different at all. I wonder why that is. Why our accents match one another’s.”
“It’s a fascinating story, actually,” she said. “Many of my people moved to your world a few hundred years ago. From my understanding, they landed in places where our dialects were most common. They adapted to the language there, and either migrated back here by choice or were forced back by Angels. Over time, the accents just began molding. That’s why the old bat over there doesn’t sound quite like we do.” Caeda nodded to Iliantha. “She tries to duplicate it, but it’s not quite right, is it, Iliantha?”
“Everyone’s dialect is influenced by the people they’re around.” Maintaining her regal composure, Iliantha only sipped from her chalice. “It’s not necessarily an attempt to duplicate anything.”
“So she claims.” Caeda laughed, turning to Rain. “And what of you? Who might you be? Any interesting stories?”
“Rain Carter.” She wiped some wine from her lip. “I’m from Minnesota.”
“I must assume that is a place in America.”
“It is, yeah.” She shrugged. “The most interesting thing about me is that I have three partners.” Which wasn’t true, but I saw what Rain was doing. She wanted to learn more about what polyamory was like here, so she was attempting to relate to the queen. “Aside from that, I’m just a Witch. Grew up really poor, didn’t go to college, and lied to humans for a living about their dead loved ones. Said that they were talking from the other side when they weren’t. Gotta pay the bills, you know?”
“Only three?” She looked over us all. “Decent choices, even the leeches, but why only three?”
“She mixes up our names now,” I said. “If she had anymore, she’d probably get hoarse before she got the right one.”
Caeda laughed, pointing at me. “You’re just darling. But I’m not speaking with you right now, so.” She pinched her lips together and tapped them.
Holding up a hand in surrender, I took a gulp from my chalice as well. Stars damn it, was it good. I was too young to drink alcohol when I moved to Earth. Occasionally, I had stolen a sip of my parents’ mead, but I’d always wanted to try Fae wine.
I couldn’t tell which berry it was made from. Although orange in color, it wasn’t citrusy. It almost resembled a strawberry in flavor, but much sweeter. There was an earthy tone as well, like tea.
“Why only three, love?” she asked Rain.