Finally, my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I ran a Legends of the Five Rings tabletop roleplaying campaign in which the Emperor’s carp were both ancient and smarter than any of the PCs. I don’t remember why the joke was so funny. Possibly it wasn’t, but even ridiculous things look funny when you’re trying not to freak out over your prelims.
Silence
I KNEW WHEN I knocked on the door to my mother’s house, with its cheerful wooden plaque painted with a white goose, that my little brother had arrived before me.
For one thing, I heard music, a recording of that viola concerto my mother had liked so much, and which had been performed by my brother’s sire. For another, I heard his laughter. I would have known that laughter anywhere in the heptarchate. If he was laughing, surely things weren’t too bad.
“It’s not locked,” Mother called out. I heard another voice, higher and sharper than hers. My little sister must be visiting as well.
Mother rarely bothered with locks to her living quarters, as opposed to the laboratory buildings where she did her research. I slid the door open, left my shoes by the door, and came in. Nidana had worn knee-high boots. Jedao’s shoes were decidedly unmilitary lavender loafers.
My mother was fussing with a fragrant fruit salad, ruining it past even my brother’s ability to lie about its presentability. I didn’t worry about it being edible, just presentable. She had scared up fruits either dyed or engineered to be Shuos red and a credible gold. I was only mildly surprised that there weren’t juice stains on her cream-colored blouse.
“I don’t see why you felt the need to ruin perfectly good fruit, Mom,” Nidana was saying as she nursed a glass of wine. She hadn’t taken her beige jacket off, although it was warm inside. “Just because Jay joined the faction with the tackiest colors doesn’t mean you have to inflict them on the rest of us.”
“Rodao!” my brother said over Nidana’s voice, coming around from where he had been looking for a clean glass (my mother was as terrible about dishes as she was fanatical about keeping her laboratory gear in top condition). “How are Teia and the girls?”
My brother Jedao was the smaller of us. Growing up, people had occasionally mistaken me for the deadlier one, which was ridiculous. Both Jedao and our younger sister Nidana could flense you at twenty paces with wit alone, and Jedao had always liked to fight. It hadn’t surprised anyone in the family when he wound up in the Kel army.
Right now Jedao was wearing informal civilian garb in violet and gray, a loose, short-sleeved tunic over well-tailored pants. I had the disturbing realization that he looked foreign to me in these clothes rather than the overdecorated Kel uniforms the news clips showed him in.
Jedao was looking at me inquiringly. “The family’s fine,” I said. “The girls are going to ambush you for presents.”
“You spoil those kids horribly,” Nidana said. But she was smiling. She did her share of spoiling, especially if any of my three daughters wanted books.
Jedao grinned at me. “They’re my nieces, Ro. I’m supposed to spoil them. I found the best thing ever on the way here, by the way. I got them toy assassin’s tools.”
Mother had a coughing fit and hastily put down the fruit salad. “You what?” she said.
Nidana was unimpressed. “Jay, is this going to be like the time you brought home the programmable flying toy moths and you had to take them away because of that manufacturing defect and one of them caught on fire and Mareida thought it was the best trick ever and she wanted you to do it again?”
“Nia, just because I kill people for a living doesn’t mean it’s my fault Ro’s kids are bloodthirsty,” Jedao protested. “Besides, they’re safe now. There are no sharp corners, and the kids are old enough not to eat them so I’m not concerned about choking hazards. The toy hairstick is to die for. The crystal on the end turns different colors and it even plays music if you push a button. I had to disable the fake needler because it worked too much like a real one, bad news if you pointed it at anyone’s eyes, but that wasn’t hard.”
“How the hell do you have a toy hairstick?” I demanded, choosing to ignore the bit about the needler. “Isn’t that like having a toy comb? Exactly like a grown-up comb, except the colors?”
“I thought it was cute,” Jedao said defensively.
Nidana shook her head. “I can’t believe your superiors made you a tactical group commander.” At thirty he was young for it, too.
“Stop ragging on him,” Mother said. “Does anyone want fruit salad?”
“I’ll take some,” Jedao said.
Nidana shuddered. “None for me, thanks. Ro?”
“Sure,” I said. The fact that I hadn’t watched its preparation worked in my favor.
“Besides,” Jedao said, turning to me, “the Kel couldn’t find anyone else stupid enough to do the job. It’s mostly paperwork.”
I didn’t believe him. Jedao’s collection of Kel jokes wasn’t as extensive as his collection of Andan jokes, but if I got him started he’d never shut up. Instead, I helped Nidana find clean bowls and let Mother serve me a portion of the dreadful-looking fruit salad.
“How is it?” Mother asked.
There was only one correct answer. “It’s great,” Jedao said before I could say what I thought. Given how infrequently he was on leave, he had more of a vested interest in keeping our mother happy during his visit than I did. Surreptitiously, I set my bowl down on a side table and slid it away from me.
“How drunk do you want to get tonight?” Nidana asked him, eyes sparkling. “I came up with this fantastic new cocktail.”
Jedao eyed her warily. “In that case, I’ll stick to tea. Are you still adding mood-enhancing substances to your drinks?”
“Spoilsport,” she said.
Mother plucked a grape out of her salad and bit into it with great enthusiasm. I was sure I turned green. The grapes, all peeled, had pale flesh with dark traceries so they resembled eyeballs. “So, Jedao,” she said, “when are you going to bring home a nice tame boy?”
Jedao blushed, and I hid a grin. Mother didn’t make any secret of the fact that she wanted a bigger flock of grandchildren so she could fatten them like the geese. Jedao hadn’t been this easy to fluster as a teen. I still remembered the time when he was fifteen and he wanted to impress the Ghirout boy so he hacked the locks on my floater and they went on a ride. He thought he’d gotten away with it until the next afternoon, when I interrupted his make-out session to lecture him on covering his tracks. I always figured he’d gone fox as vengeance.
“I’m not seeing anyone, Mom,” Jedao said in a long-suffering voice. “I don’t care what they say about what we get up to in the military, most of it is very dull.”
“Or is it girls or alts now?” Mother said, ignoring him. “It’s so hard to keep track with you.”
“Mom.” Jedao poured himself a cup of lukewarm tea and made a show of being very interested in it, which fooled no one.