Homelands Pt. 04 Ch. 04

Easy enough to related to that last part.

For Veronica, the Daddy complex didn't manifest itself in a need to have the attention of every guy she laid her eyes on, the way it did for Annie. But she'd had a thing for older men as long as she could remember. When she did date guys her own age, she tended to go for the ones who were used to being told that they were too serious for someone so young. It had never been the nicest, or cutest, or funniest guys that turned her on. It was the mature ones. Or the ones that talked down to her, for all that she hated admitting as much.

No mystery about where that came from.

Yet it wasn't the fact that she could relate to her sister's insecurity that stopped Veronica from being jealous. Nor even that Nick didn't seem to have been too impressed by Annie's antics. Not the way Eric had been. Those things probably should have been sufficient to keep Veronica from being bothered by it all. But it was something else that had her feeling sorry for her sister, when she felt like she had every right to be wishing ill upon her.

The whole family was gathered in the backyard, including their cousins and Aunt Zoey and Uncle Wes, listening to what felt a lot like a college lecture on the Homelands.

And, just like in college, the "students" were mostly more preoccupied with each other than with the material they were supposed to be learning.

That wasn't true of either Veronica or Nick, of course. At least, not to the same degree as everyone else. They sat side by side, and he had his arm around her shoulder. You didn't see that all too often in class. But they were also listening attentively to what their "instructors" had to say, and asking a lot of questions.

Poor Annie, though, was sitting all by herself. And staring her eyes out at Eric.

For his part, Eric was trying to give the impression that he was interested in whatever it was that Olivia was whispering in his ear. Or the way she was rubbing her bare foot against his calves. But he couldn't take his eyes off his mother.

It had taken Veronica a while before she'd noticed that. For the longest time, Eric had been obsessed with their cousin. But apparently that had changed. And quite recently.

Veronica remembered what it was like to stare at Nick the way Annie was staring at Eric. To feel how her sister must have felt just then, seeing that the brother whose affection and attention she yearned for had eyes only for his mother. Only now that she'd broken through with Nick did she allow herself to admit how painful that had been.

That Annie was forced to endure that in public, with no one's arms but her own wrapped around her little body, while Veronica sat beside Nick and Patty and Kurt were holding hands and Olivia was playing footsie with Eric, well, that had to have been the worst day of the poor girl's life. And it was her eighteenth birthday besides.

"Excuse me," Veronica said, planting a soft kiss on Nick's cheek.

He looked at her quizzically as she got up and went to sit beside Annie.

Of course, Nick being Nick, he didn't waste but a second before following her. And he didn't sit down next to her either. He took the hint and sat beside Annie, wrapping his arm around her shoulders the way he had Veronica's.

Annie smiled first at Veronica then Nick. And though it was her brother who got a kiss on the cheek by way of gratitude, Veronica happy enough to see her sister's frown disappear.

Uncle Wes, who had been answering a question Eric wouldn't have needed to ask if he'd been paying closer attention, watched the two of them abandon the picnic table to go keep Annie company. Like her better professors, he didn't miss a beat, but his eyes and his faint smirk told her that she was sharing a private moment with him even as he kept speaking.

There were times that Veronica wished that he was more than an uncle to her. Ultimately, he wasn't quite her type. Blonde guys had never appealed to her the way darker-haired men did. And he was too passive. She got the sense that he was different with Olivia, and so he might have been with her too, if she gave him the chance. But he always seemed like an abandoned puppy looking for someone to take him home whenever he was around Mom-Gee. And so though he was handsome enough, and had the distinguished older gentleman thing working for him big time, he could never fulfil Veronica's fantasies.

She definitely loved the hell out of him as an uncle though. The way nieces were supposed to love their uncles. And the smile he gave her just then as she rudely interrupted his lecture, recognizing why she did it, made her want to give him a big hug.

"So that's what we mean when we say this world isn't real, and why we call it the Playground," Wes finished up.

"Got it," Eric said.

"Any other questions before I get back to the induction ceremony?"

Induction ceremony.

The words made Veronica shudder.

They'd known for some time that this day was coming. And she figured that, besides finally telling them a bit more about their people and their families and their world, the big announcement would be that they were all going to return to the Homelands.

True, neither of her mothers had ever said anything to confirm such a suspicion. But it just seemed like that had to happen.

Convinced as she was that such news was coming though, Veronica had not been prepared for what she was learning now about the ceremony that would welcome them back into the First Court of Summer. Not that she knew much about it yet. The hushed tone with which those who'd been through it spoke about it, though? That said a lot.

If only she'd stolen one of Grandma Flori's earlier diaries, rather than one that covered a period in life well after she'd been initiated, she might have heard of it before. Might have a better idea of what awaited her.

"Yeah, I've got one," Kurt said. Belatedly realizing he already had his father's attention, as well as that of everyone else gathered there, he lowered his hand. "Were you ready for it, when you were in our shoes? Not just the ceremony, but the whole shebang? Returning to the Homelands. Leaving behind the only world you ever knew."

"Oh, now that's a good question," his father said. He turned and looked at his sister, but Mom-Gee offered nothing but a blank look in return. Turning back to Kurt, and the rest of them, Uncle Wes said, "I thought I was. But... well, two of my mother's six children lived long enough to see their kids make this journey. I'm obviously one of them. So I guess I wasn't entirely unprepared. But I'd have gone into it with a whole different mentality if I'd known what awaited me."

A hush fell over the back yard.

"Say what?" Olivia asked.

"No one said anything about that," Eric said.

Veronica and Nick stared at each other, as if Annie wasn't sitting between them.

"What happened to them?" Kurt asked finally. He gave Patty's hand a good squeeze as he did. "These aunts and uncles I never knew I had?"

Uncle Wes sighed. "They flew too close to the flames."

Mom-Gee's lips tightened, and she crossed her arms under her breasts. But she didn't interrupt her brother's account of their family's dark secret.

"What does that mean?" Kurt asked.

Uncle Was ran a hand over his perfect Van Dyke. "The Homelands can be a wonderful place. They can also be deadly. Stay away from politics and everything should be fine though." He hesitated a moment before adding, "Hopefully."

"Hopefully?" Patty gasped.

Veronica's heart was pounding in her chest. She'd been trying to convince her sister that they weren't living in some fairy tale for some time. But she hadn't quite fully internalized that herself, she now realized. Hearing her uncle say these things aloud made all the things she'd read in her grandmother's yellowed old diary real.

"Well, House Moody hasn't feuded with any of the other major houses in some time." He turned and looked at Mom-Gee again. She gestured for him to continue, twirling her fingers impatiently. He gave her a brief nod before doing so. "Not since your aunt married into not one but two of the major houses."

So there it was. Out in the open.

Their mothers had entered into a political marriage. One that had apparently served as an alliance. Established a balance of power among the major houses.

The Veronica who studied history and political science and the Veronica who was descended from a race of immortal sex-crazed demons no longer felt like two different people. She'd never been one of those students who demanded to know how the things she was learning in class were relevant to her daily life. She'd found them fascinating enough in their own right to be worth studying. Yet here she was, finding it a whole lot easier to understand how wars had been ended by arranged marriages throughout history.

She was the product of just such a marriage.

How many of her friends could say that?

"But sometimes the houses do go to war with each other," Uncle Wes continued. "And not always for particularly good reasons."

He paused, and again utter silence reigned.

Annie took one of Veronica's hands in hers and squeezed hard.

When no one took the opportunity to interrupt, Wes said, "If we keep to ourselves, everything should be all right. But I can't lie to you. It's almost certain that you kids will see the brutality that defines our kind nearly as well as the sensuality you've all been enjoying of late. Hopefully you won't see that other side for a good, long time. But if you live long enough, and we all very much hope that you will, you're bound to see it eventually."

We all.

Very much.

Hope.

Veronica's head spun. No one had ever spoken so casually about the possibility of them dying young. Like most people their age, they thought themselves immortal. Unlike most people their age, they actually were. Veronica knew that "immortal" wasn't the same as "invincible." Knew that their kind was no harder to kill than mortals. Just a whole lot less prone to aging, and completely immune to all manner of illnesses. But she'd simply assumed that if she was ever going to die, it wouldn't be for a long time.

That apparently wasn't an assumption her uncle was prepared to make.

"Do we have to?" Patty asked.

"Yeah," Annie added. "Can't we just stay here? You know, opt-out?"

"Fraid it's not that simple," Uncle Wes said.

"We have certain obligations," Mom-Gee added, finally stepping up beside her brother.

"The court agrees to leave families alone while they raise their children, in exchange for their loyalty down the road," Uncle Wes explained. "If we refuse to return and swear our oaths, we'll be seen as enemies of the throne. Then the fate whose mere possibility has us all so concerned would befall us with certainty."

"What obligations?" Nick asked. Veronica wondered how he kept his voice so calm. "What do they want from us? Surely not tax revenue?"

Veronica felt like an idiot for not thinking that herself. She was supposed to be the political scientist, after all.

"Our bodies?" she suggested. "That's it, isn't it? We're to submit to throne. Sexually."

Uncle Wes hesitated.

"Yes," Veronica's mother replied.

It was the first time that Mom-Jay had spoken since this all began.

She gave Wes a look, turned that flat gaze to her wife, then regarded Veronica. "I'm sorry, honey, but yes. The king reserves the right to claim any of his subjects, and to do so whenever he wants. And he'll expect at least one of us to agree to become his vassal. Which means that every time you lie with a partner, he'll siphon off just a little bit of the energy that passes between the two of you. Nothing you'll notice, in all likelihood, but with a few vassals in every House passing energy to His Majesty every time they get busy, his hold on power grows ever more absolute."

And that was what he was really after. She was sure of it. Though the first thing her mother had mentioned was the one that scared her more, she had no doubt that the real reason the king would go to war against them if they refused to return and bend the knee was because he relied upon the steady flow of energy from his vassals to ensure that no one would ever dare challenge his hold on power.

After that, nothing else she heard made much of an impression.

So they'd have to kiss the king's feet. And apparently Phil of House Bravo was even more of a bastard than most kings were. Big deal.

Those harrowing details should have mattered to Veronica. But she was past her saturation point. Her mind could absorb no more.

The same must have went for the others. She noticed her brothers, sisters, and cousins all had glassy eyes, focused off in the distance.

Before long, the parents called the meeting to an end. There was a lot they still needed to hear, but it could wait until they were on the other side.

As they would be, in a matter of hours.