Three Twisted Knots

I have been remiss. I haven’t been keeping up very well with this journal, and that means I have to go over things really quickly in order to get caught up. Things may be jumbled up, or out of order, but I promise I’ll try to be better. Combination of yet another major dramatic upheaval and survival training, plus weirdness at home — is there ever not? Anyway. Here is a dump from the last however many weeks I haven’t been writing.

Right after he took me on as his ward, there was this drama with Aoibheann. She wouldn’t tell me what it was about at the time, though I know now she’d been having the same weird dreams Nathaniel and I had been having. Anyway, we — Blaise and me — had a big fight because he went off to save Aoibh from Certain Doom and then I had the impudence to ask questions like, “What the fuck is going on in my life?” Astrid was there, and she completely freaked out because she is an empath and can’t handle strong displays of emotion. I need to study more about this: I thought empaths were meant to be OK with strong displays of emotion; they just felt them. Anyway. I’m barely adopted and Aoibheann has a crisis and has to be rescued, so my new dad goes off to do the rescuing thing, and then we have to take Astrid home because our anger made her pass out or something. Finally we’re alone, and the Prince says, “OK, ask me anything you want.” So I spent the next few hours just asking him questions, some of which he still won’t tell me the answers to. But that’s life.

So my dad is, in addition to being a Prince, also a jailer. Apparently, he is responsible for major criminals and keeping them confined. I don’t understand all of it, but some of his prisoners are permitted to live in the sithen as ordinary fae as long as they don’t get into too much trouble. OK, I can live with that. I don’t want to say too much about it, because these are their stories to tell, but I see Renata in a new light now, and I am looking forward to having some very long conversations with Sia about rules and protocols and histories, as well, when she gets back. There is as always so much to learn. Some criminals just get kept in crystals for eternity, which does not sound like much fun. Others have the possibility of redemption, which I guess makes Blaise a hopeful guy.

Then there is the very weird matter of his past relationship with Aislyn. Any time I tried to ask him about that, he started freaking out. As in, he’d stare into the distance for a minute or two and then just go back to talking — about something else. I figured someone had to have bound him somehow, and that sounded dangerous for everybody. So I asked him, who’s bound you not to talk about this? and he went full fetal on me, could barely breathe, like twitchy seizure land. I didn’t know what to think; I just filed it away. The only coherent sentence he was able to get out before he sent us both to bed was, “Don’t tell Aislyn.” Don’t worry, dude; I’m not in the habit of talking to her.

A couple of nights after that, Nathaniel and I ran into this guy in the tavern who eventually identified himself as Maddoc. He had a coin and wanted to play a game where we had to answer questions if we lost a coin toss or he answered if we won. It was a little bit surreal: I kept losing, and Nathaniel kept winning. It was worth all the weird just to look at the guy: talk about eye candy! Mm, he was lovely and blond and all those things I kind of like in a guy but am generally afraid to seek out because a guy like this would never go for me. Right before he left, Lord Maric’s steward, Ose, came in, wearing a very sharp suit.

Ose reminded me of guys I knew as an undergraduate who never bothered to cut their hair and felt like this made them somehow more attractive to women. This guy? Knew how to say “I am uptight” in about a million different ways, without ever opening his mouth. Was talking about Lord Maric’s desire for Nathaniel and me to work with him on the trade thing. I hedged a bit, but Nathaniel kept going on about what a great assistant I’d make — just as Prince Blaise came in the door looking for me, of course. Then I had to backpedal and explain that of course I hadn’t committed to anything without his permission. I still think Lord Maric is a bit creepy, but I guess if Blaise thinks it’s a good educational opportunity… well, all right. The Prince apparently just wanted to check in, and he left — just as Astrid came in, followed shortly by Ingrid — Nathaniel had to go to bed … wow, either this was the most eventful night ever, or I am really having a memory crisis. I think all this happened on the same day. I kept thinking if only Ingrid and I had a chance to hang out, we could be friends, so I stuck around rather than going off to help Nathaniel with our ongoing art project. As it turned out, this was both a good and a bad thing….

Ingrid wanted nectar, which I couldn’t provide, so I got her some sweet champagne. She was in the most amazing dress ever. As it turns out, she’s been feeling a little left out here, too, as if she doesn’t belong. I put it in my head that I would help, but with all that’s happened since then, I don’t think I’ve done a very good job. Her mother probably thinks I’m a terrible influence, which I guess is good, since if she approved, Ingrid would never want to be friends with me — at least that’s how it always used to work, anyway. We had a drink and a laugh, and I think Ingrid and her mum were fighting but then they weren’t, and then they got ready to go home and I got ready to go say an extended goodnight to Nathaniel.

But as I was trying to leave, the Prince came in and volunteered to walk us all home. He didn’t seem at all pleased about the fact that Ingrid had had one glass of champagne, omg. So rather than getting my time with Nathaniel, I trooped back to the sithen with the seelie scout contingent and tried to be happy about my lot. That was the week I was responsible for the rosebushes. I’d been doing so well the whole time, coming home really late, that kind of thing, but I was a little drunk when we got back to the sithen that night, and I missed some things. Some poison ivy things, actually. I contend that when I get to spend time with Nathaniel after the pub, I’m all sobered up by the time I get back, so my work is better. Blaise did not agree when it was found that more than half the sithen had poison ivy by the time we discovered what I’d neglected to do. So for the next few days I was persona non grata in seelieland. So much for being friends with Ingrid and making everything work out for the best.

This is a really long catchup about a really long day, so I’ll get to more in the next entry.