Homelands Pt. 08 Ch. 04

"That's good, thank you," Titania told them. Then she patted the top of the head suggestively in case they failed to catch her drift.

The two of them set their weapons aside, complied with their queen's order, and then resumed their stances. Just as they had before. All without speaking a word.

"I hope you haven't come to ask for them back," the queen told her guests. "I'm afraid I've grown quite attached to them."

"But I have," Cahill's mother said, iron in her voice. "Them, and my mother."

"Now that's a shame," Titania replied, as though she'd expected no other answer. She gave no indication of noticing the firm voice Clan Walker's matriarch took with her.

Cahill inched closer to his mother. Did she really think the queen would release them, just like that? He could almost hear the command to attack leave the little blonde's lips.

If he moved fast enough, he could probably knock one of the knights down before they got a chance to swing those nightmarish weapons of theirs. The other would still get the chance to spill his entrails though. So he'd have to-

But no such order came. Nor did anyone but him seem surprised by this.

"You know you can't deny me," his mother said, back as straight as ever.

Then he remembered. The queen could no more deny a request from one of her subjects than any other fey could tell an outright lie. That simply wasn't how their kind worked. Nothing was ever simple with them. She could require a grossly imbalanced trade or propose a contest with the odds stacked obscenely in her favor, but she couldn't just refuse his mother and send them on their way, let alone command her knights to chop their heads off.

"But I do so appreciate the reminder," Titania snapped back. The air grew icy cold for a split second, then the queen flashed a toothy smile so sweet it made butterflies appear. "I hope you're better at chess than your sister was."

"Can't say I am," Cahill's mother replied. "But that's besides the point. I'm exercising my right to be represented by a champion."

"Hmph," Titania said, her chest heaving as she snorted.

No doubt she understood what Cahill's mother was after every bit as well as he himself did. She was less worried about her own skills than she was interested in forcing the queen to remain on the sidelines. If she was to rely on a champion, Titania would as well.

Cahill's heart started to race.

The fate of Clan Walker was now in his hands. He'd figured he was there to back his mother's play, not face whatever the queen might throw at them by himself.

Still, what did she have to challenge him with? His arrogant older brother and volatile cousin? However hard the queen had worked to forge their iron into steel, they were still brittle. She'd practically said as much herself. And though he'd spent less time practicing fairy chess than he apparently should have, he was no longer the rank novice that his cousin had once laughed at so hard he'd nearly wet himself. Gallech was the stronger and more patient of the two, but even he wasn't as talented as Seamus. And Seamus was the only one Cahill had never defeated. If the queen named his older brother as her champion, the odds would be in her favor, but Cahill would still stand a chance.

Of course, she didn't name either of them.

Rather, she cleared her throat before starting to sing. As she did, she picked up an Irish accent purer and thicker than Liadan's motley.

Have ye 'eard about the big, strong man? Say "none can do it," ye'll find he can. Have ye 'eard about poor Clan McLore? Well, ye'll be hearin' of them no more. Ye can take all the champions ye've got. Ah've got a lad who'll beat the whole lot.

Before her purple lips pressed together again, her champion appeared at her feet. He was none other than Oberon, the Lord of Valor, Prince of the Ruby Court, and Sword of Dawn. Also, apparently, known as the big, strong man.

Like his mother, Oberon looked exactly like Cahill thought he would, except better. The likeness of him found in chess sets throughout Faerie captured his beauty and his stoicism, but somehow managed to understate the impossible nature of his proportions. And, of course, depicted him in fancier garb than he actually favored. The man standing before Cahill was dressed as simply as could be in a faded pair of blue jeans and a threadbare T-shirt. Unassuming as his outfit was, however, he could never pass for a mortal. Not with that body, nor that strangely mature yet also youthful face.

Though Oberon stood but a few inches shorter than Cahill, his shoulders were nearly as broad, and his waist was several inches narrower. In fact, his waist wasn't much thicker than Fiona's. Slender as he was, though, there was a lot of lean muscle packed onto his diminutive form. He wasn't as built as Gallech, but he was still muscular enough that it might have made sense for songs to be sung about his strength even if those songs only referred to his physical abilities. And Cahill could only imagine the supernatural strength of the queen's favorite son, let alone the command over glamours he must have possessed.

"Don't have to tell you why they're here," Titania said to her son.

"No indeed," he replied in a surprisingly deep bass. He seemed to small, too pretty, to possess such a voice. "Am I to serve as your champion then?"

A bare foot toyed with a lock of his white hair before coming to rest gently on his broad shoulders. "I'd have no other," the queen told him.

Cahill's throat went tight. In spite of everything, he found them...sweet. Sickeningly so, to be sure, but that wasn't the reason he expected to be sickened by the queen. Not after everything he'd heard. After seeing what she'd done to his brother and his cousin and what he imagined she'd done to his aunt and his grandmother.

It was uncomfortable to admit that someone as monstrous as she was could be capable of feeling the affection she obviously felt for her son. He wanted to believe that anyone who could treat her own grandsons like toys was dead inside. Incapable of feeling any attachment to another living thing. But that was clearly not true.

"Not chess again," Oberon said, locking eyes with Cahill. "This one fancies himself gifted with music. Wouldn't it be more fun to beat him at his own game?"

Just as Cahill felt hope stirring inside him, he noticed his mother's Libido go cold.

"Why, yes. Yes, it would," Titania replied. She drummed her feet on her son's shoulders giddily. "Oh, you are too perfect, my love!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Cahill saw his mother's lip curl in disgust.

Himself, he felt nothing but a strange sense of calm. It didn't matter what the Dreamsmyths thought, nor that his mother feared they were right. He was gifted. And his gift was growing stronger. He wasn't sure why or how, but he knew that it was.

Faerie's great prince hadn't stopped staring at him. But those cold, gray eyes conveyed no more confidence than they did doubt. His face was completely expressionless. He might as well have been carved from alabaster, especially with that ultra-fair skin.

"Black, Red, stay here and watch the prisoner," Titania said.

Neither gave any sign of agreement. They didn't need to. Such would only have been required if they were capable of disobeying her.

With that, the Queen of Faerie transported the four of them back to the Dreaming.

They appeared in an Irish pub. An actual one, in Ireland. At least, Cahill assumed as much when he heard the way the patrons spoke.

Gone were their fey forms. Where there had been a horned god and a robed druidess now stood a plainly dressed young man and woman. Oberon and Titania had acquired more conventional proportions. All of their ears had lost their points and their features had grown a little less perfect. The four of them were still attractive enough, but they were no longer impossibly so. The looks they got from those around them were no different than a pair of good-looking mortal couples would have drawn.

Titania had a few words with the owner, who then announced to the bar that the act he'd booked for the night was in the process of selecting a new member. Each of the two hopefuls would play a few songs, and the audience would decide who got to join the band.

There was no band, of course. But that didn't present a problem.

Titania transformed four empty stools into young musicians. Naturally, this drew wide-eyed stares from everyone present. But the queen just smiled, waved, and then proceeded to act as though everything was fine. Because, suddenly, it was. Cahill hadn't even felt her do it, but she'd apparently altered the memories of a few dozen people. Effortlessly.

"You'll play the same songs," she explained to Cahill and Oberon. "Acoustic guitar on some, mandolin on others, and banjo for the last."

"How do we know you won't sabotage his performance?" Cahill's mother asked.

The queen stared flatly at her. "My son won't need any help beating yours."

Cahill was tempted to point out that it wouldn't be hard for people to tell that the band sounded worse with him than Oberon for reasons other than him or Oberon. But that was probably taking too much for granted. He sometimes forgot that there were people who couldn't tell which instruments made what sounds.

Still, he suspected the Lord of Valor would be displeased if his mother denied him a clean victory. For that reason if no other, he said, "Fine. Let's get started."

The band didn't need any time to set up or check their equipment. Titania saw to that the same way she had the lack of a band. So not a minute later, Oberon joined four former stools on stage and started playing some Celtic rock.

He was good. Better than good. But he wasn't great.

Perhaps more importantly, he wasn't trying.

Cahill wasn't sure at first. But then he noticed that Oberon's errors came at regular intervals, and not necessarily during the most difficult parts. Most tellingly, he stared off at nothing while playing correctly, as many musicians did. But every time he was about to flub, he looked Cahill in the eyes for a second or two.

The pattern was so clear that the queen eventually noticed as well.

At least, Cahill assumed she did. First the confident smile fled. Then she began to sweat. Finally, a look of pure fury settled over her face. The mortals didn't know how lucky they were that their insides were still, well, inside. The beer she hadn't really been drinking boiled over and a few nearby bottles exploded, but no one got hurt.

Of course, that she grew angrier and angrier as it became clearer and clearer that Cahill was going to win didn't necessarily mean that she knew Oberon was throwing the contest. But Cahill wouldn't want to be in the prince's shoes after it was all over.

It was a good performance, overall. It wasn't long before people started singing along with the more familiar numbers. After the first set ended, loud applause rang out and a few people offered to buy the band members drinks. Especially the handsome lead singer. But no one said a word to Oberon. No one, especially not Queen Titania.

This bothered him not at all.

"Good luck," he told Cahill as he readied to take the stage for the second set.

"Thanks," he replied awkwardly.

Throughout the first song, his mother spent more time watching Titania than him. But as it became clearer that the queen really wasn't going to undercut the performance, the tension drained away and she even allowed herself a smug smile.

Sometime during the second song, Cahill became part of the music. Nothing more and certainly nothing less. He couldn't have said whether his mother was enjoying herself or not. Titania's rage might or might not have caused more damage. The crowd could well have been singing along. But if any of those things were happening, they were taking place elsewhere. In some physical world that was anathema to his consciousness.

The next thing he knew, he was lowering his banjo and the other members of the band were stepping down off the stage. His ears rang and his vision swam. People were clapping, but it sounded like he was hearing it from under water.

His mother ran up to him and threw her arms around him. As she rained kisses down on him, his skin started to tingle and other parts of him responded in other ways.

"I knew you could do it," she said.

She must have believed her own words, or she couldn't have said them. But the version of events he remembered told a different story. Not that he held it against her.

They stuck around for a little longer. A few people came up to him and told him how good he was. Then came the vote. A few hands went up for Oberon, then more than a dozen did for him. The owner of the bar did his best to inject some drama into the announcement of the winner, but it couldn't have been more anticlimactic. And then the stools were stools once more and no one seemed to remember they'd ever been anything else.

Once they returned to the grove, Queen Titania gave her son a disgusted look, said, "Fetch her," then disappeared.

Just like that.

Oberon left them standing there by the stone wall. While he was gone, Cahill slowly started to process what had just happened. He'd won, but only partly because of how well he'd played. Clan Walker would be whole again because Titania's son wanted it that way.

But why?

"You know he threw the match, right?" Cahill asked his mother.

She looked at him quizzically. "Are you sure?"

He nodded.

"Huh," his mother said. "And you think the queen knows?"

Again he nodded.

"That makes sense," she said, a long pause between each word. Then she nodded to herself, as if just realizing the truth of her own words. "I just thought that you...but it's obvious now that you say it."

Cahill wrapped an arm around his mother's shoulder, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. Worried as she'd been initially, she'd actually convinced herself that his victory came from a level playing field. Absurd as that it was, he found it touching.

Before he could say anything else, the Lord of Valor emerged holding an unconscious woman in his arms. Gallech and Reilly followed at his heels, looking like Gallech and Reilly rather than Red and Black. Dazed and confused, perhaps, but otherwise unharmed.

Actually, they looked better than unharmed. Now that they were out of their armor, Cahill could see the full extent of the changes the queen had wrought. Gallech had grown several inches taller. Reilly had only added an inch or two, but he'd gained a lot of muscle.

Impressive as the changes were, though, they didn't hold Cahill's attention. He was focused on his grandmother and the blood staining her white dress.

The sight sickened Cahill. That he should feel that way only now that she was free did her no good, of course, but he felt it all the same. That, and shame over how long they'd all allowed her to suffer at the queen's hands.

"She's fine," Oberon told Cahill, presumably seeing the concern on his face. "Now."

If the concern in his voice didn't explain everything, the look on his face when he gazed down at the raven-haired beauty did. His grandmother had won the prince's heart.

Cahill flicked his mother's upper arm and jerked his chin towards Oberon. She gave him a small smile before turning her attention back to the prince. Her Libido warmed as she watched Titania's favorite son gaze lovingly down at her mother.

#

Handing Aeife over to her grandson hadn't been easy. Cahill would take good care of her, he knew. But he'd wanted nothing more than to stay with her. To be there when she awoke. To tell her what he'd done and why he'd done it.

But there were several good reasons why he couldn't, not least of which being that she wouldn't want to see his face when she came to. For years, she'd seen him as her tormenter's accomplice and lover. What difference could there be in her mind between him and his mother? If her own flesh and blood explained things to her, that might be a different story. In time, he could go to her and they could talk. but not now.

Besides, he wasn't sure he was ready to do that to his mother anyway. Bad enough he'd taken her captive away from her. That would not be easy for her to forgive, but forgive it she would. But if Oberon chose to couple with the woman? Forget it. His mother would tie him to a tree. Rip his reproductive organs out each and every day. Perhaps worse.

No, he'd just have to take comfort in knowing that Aeife was free and with her loved ones. As had always been the plan.

Pushing aside adolescent fantasies about how the Walker woman might show him her gratitude, Oberon went looking for his mother. His queen. His sun, moon, and stars.

He searched all over Faerie, sending one body each to the Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire Courts. He found no sign of her, though. So he stepped into the Dreaming.

To his great disappointment, but not surprise, he found her in a trashy strip club. The kind where your shoes stick to the floor and you hope that it's because of spilled beer. Where the air starts out heavy with the stench of sweat and smoke and perfume and alcohol and only gets worse as the evening progresses. Half the men wore dirty white tank-tops, known affectionately in certain circles as wife-beaters.

By the looks of it, his mother was just starting her routine. All of her clothes, such as they were, remained on. A few lonely green strips were strewn across the floor of the stage, but not many. His mother rolled her hips while cupping her breasts and jiggling them about, nearly popping out of her tiny little bra.

And her unsuspecting victims took one step closer to death.

It wasn't too late yet. A bit of serendipity in the working of the bladder might spare them. But the longer they sat there, staring, the worse their prospects for survival became. Especially if they traded dollars for a moment's thrill. If she touched them or stared into their eyes for even a moment, they'd be as good as doomed.

Did any get up to relieve themselves, though? To get another drink or take a phone call? Of course not. They sat at the edges of their seats, eyes wide and mouths agape. Their hands clutched at their hearts as the slow cardiac arrest began setting in.

By the time she left the dance floor, their dreams would end. Most every man in the room would leave this particular version of the mortal world.

He'd be spared, of course. But that had as much to do with his mother's refusal to acknowledge his presence as it did his immortality. If not for the way her already excited Libido responded, Oberon might not even have noticed her noticing his entrance.

While she continued destroying lives with her delicious hips and bountiful breasts, he went and made sure he was the first in line for a lap dance. He had a feeling that was the only way he was going to get to speak to her. Then he returned to the stage and enjoyed the rest of her show. And he did enjoy it, sad as it was to see her take out her frustration on the poor souls. Only his mother knew how to work her body like that.

Like every guy in the room, and several of their girlfriends, Oberon ejaculated into his pants twice before his mother finished. It didn't matter that he hadn't touched himself, or that she was doing her best to avoid even looking him in the eye.

When her third song ended and she left the stage, a wave of heart attacks spread across the room. They fell out of their chairs one after another, like a line of dominoes. But because she didn't want them to, no one else noticed. Nor would they until the end of the night.

It wasn't until halfway through the next dancer's set that his mother walked out onto the floor. She wore the tightest little red dress, fishnets, and knee high boots with six inch heels. Her blonde hair, devoid of its usual embellishments, was tied up.