Chapter 35: "Your mission, should you choose to accept it..."
I now have an editor, so you all shouldn't need to put up with my typos and poor/dyslexic editing skills anymore.
:)
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Kendra lay in her hammock looking up at the underside of the Argo's weather deck. Her cheeks ached slightly from smiling so much. She figured that she must've been smiling in her sleep for them to feel like this. She used a bit of mana to heal the over-strained muscles, and then smiled at the necessity of doing so.
"You awake?" Selene called from another hammock.
There were four hammocks in the ladies' area, arranged in a square. Anthiel slept in the forward starboard hammock and Rachel had previously slept in the forward port hammock. That put Selene in the rear starboard hammock and Kendra in the rear port hammock, which had been Alana's at one time apparently.
"Yeah, why?" Kendra leaned out slightly and looked down so she could see the drop-dead gorgeous Brazilian woman, who was doing the same. They slept with their feet facing each other.
"Just curious." She replied. "I've been laying here trying to find my mana for a while now, but I can't even feel it."
"Finding your mana can take a while; it did for me."
"I'll keep at it then." The Brazilian woman sighed. "I just hope I'll be good at something for a change."
The dragon huntress looked up at her. "What do you mean?"
Selene hesitated, then shook her head. "Never mind. Rachel said that there's a theory that a person will have an affinity for the first kind of magic that's used on him. Do you think there's any truth to that?"
"That's an old wives' tale." Kendra shook her head. "However, one of my teachers said that if a person had a strong experience with magic before he learned to manipulate his own mana, he might have an affinity for the magic that was used on him."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, he said it was like baking bread." She explained. "The strong magic pushes the bread into a shape, and then learning to move your mana is like 'baking' the bread so it stays in that shape."
"Interesting." The Brazilian woman mused. She sounded...
Sad?
Disappointed in herself?
"Is something wrong?" Kendra asked.
"I keep getting my ass kicked by Ethan in training, and there's not much I can contribute here besides my sword arm, so I feel kind of useless."
"He's been practicing a lot longer than you have. It'll take time."
"I appear to have a lot of that."
"Oh?"
Selene nodded, then leaned back into her hammock. "Yeah. It'll be a while before we get time to deal with Smithbond and I get to go home." She made a thoughtful sound. "Well, at least I'll get to go home temporarily."
"Yeah, from the sounds of it, the secret government organizations are just as bad on Ethan's world as they are here."
Selene looked up again. "You sound as if you speak from experience."
Kendra hesitated before replying. "I've seen things."
The ex-FBI agent made a thoughtful sound. "I asked Taloni about you a while back, and she said that you said you were a 'problem eliminator'. Sounds pretty first hand to me."
"Fair." Kendra replied. "I hear you were a constable of some kind on Ethan's world. How did you achieve that without knowing the sword?"
"We used guns, and I'm a pretty good shot."
Kendra nodded, remembering that Ethan had described guns when recounting his story. "Well, I can't get a gun for you, but I can certainly teach you how to handle a sword better. In fact..." The dragon huntress looked around the room. "...we can do a little sparring before breakfast down below, since it's important to learn how to fight in an enclosed space. Interested?"
"Absolutely!" Selene replied.
* * *
Beth woke up with Ethan's arms around her and Taloni's gently fluttering wings tickling her back. She giggled and looked at the Fey, who appeared to still be fast asleep.
*Morning angel.* Ethan said with a smile, though she could feel the edge of the dragon through their bond.
*Good morning Dominus.* She thought back as she snuggled closer to him. *I really missed this while you were captured.*
*Me too angel, me too.* He replied. *Fortunately, you should never have to deal with that again.*
*I hope so.* She replied with a sigh. *My father will be really mad that you married more women than just me though, so I'm worried he'll try to separate the others from you. I know they'd hate it as much as I would.*
*Never. Going. To. Happen.* The dragon thought back, and if he'd been speaking it probably would've come out as a growl.
*I'm glad, but he still won't be happy about your other wives.*
*I thought that was legal here?* He replied, a bit of Ethan coming back.
*It is, but--* The blonde stopped as she heard a contented sigh from Ethan's other side. She lifted her head to see Rachel and Alana sleeping in each other's arms, the redhead's back snuggled up to Ethan's. She couldn't see Rachel's face, but Alana looked rapturously content.
She frowned. *Is it just me, or do they look almost... I don't know; like a couple?*
Ethan chuckled. *You finally noticed huh?*
*Wait, 'finally'? This isn't new?*
Ethan outright laughed at that. *Not by a long stretch, but I don't mind. Actually, I think it's kind of cute.*
*Oh.* Was all Beth could think to reply. She vaguely remembered learning that some women liked other women the way women like men, but she'd never met any of them.
Well, apparently she had.
"Hmm?" Rachel yawned as she started stretching, probably woken by Ethan laughing.
"Somfing fny masser?" Taloni mumbled as she also started waking and stretching.
About a minute later, three bleary eyed women were yawning and stretching while Beth enjoyed snuggling with their husband. As usual, Rachel was a bit more reserved about her stretching, and she made sure the sheet was covering her while she did. Ethan retracted his wings and lay on his back, pulling Rachel closer on his left and Beth closer on his right. He looked at his two remaining wives, then frowned.
"Well ladies, we've got this huge new bed, let's see if we can't get everyone snuggled up with the new space."
Alana rolled so she was lower than Rachel and Taloni mirrored her, so the two women were laying with her heads on Ethan's stomach, while the other two were laying their heads on his chest. He reached down as far as he could and managed to sort of get his arms around all four of them.
"Ah, that's better." He sighed looking at all of them.
Beth smiled at him, so incredibly grateful that she was here with him. She found it odd, but she even liked his smooth scales against her skin.
"So, you were about to explain why your dad doesn't like multiple wives." Ethan said to her.
"Yes, so his mother was a second wife." Beth explained. "But his stepfather -- my step-grandfather -- didn't really want to marry her. He was kind of pressured into it because she was his brother's widow, and she needed someone to provide for her after her first husband -- my grandfather -- died."
"I take it she wasn't treated well?" Rachel asked.
"No, she wasn't." Beth nodded sadly. "It really is a shame; Grams is such a nice woman, but she had a hard life and was treated very badly."
"How badly are we talking here?" Ethan asked.
"She was basically made to be a maid, near the level of a slave." The blonde said sadly. "The other wife was treated very well, and so were her kids, but not Grams or her kids. My father and his siblings were basically servants in the house. I once heard Grams saying that the only time he paid any attention to her was when she made a mistake or he wanted sex."
"That's awful." Alana's face fell.
"It doesn't happen often, but I've heard of marriages like that." Rachel said with a similarly sad expression. "The Book of Light is clear that husbands must take care of their wives, and usually a husband is castigated by the community if he doesn't. If he doesn't straighten up, the community will 'correct' him for it."
"Why didn't that happen here?" He asked.
"My step-grandfather was good at hiding it." Beth replied. "Apparently, he would occasionally beat her but make sure the bruises didn't show, and then he would be nice to her in public, but basically ignore her in private. Well, unless he wanted something."
"Oh." Alana cocked her head to one side, like something had just occurred to her. "Your father is worried that'll happen to you because of Ethan and I. He wanted to marry me originally, but he was sort of pressured into marrying you, and your father is worried that Ethan will be like his stepfather."
"I would guess so." Beth nodded. That made a lot of sense, and she kind of knew it somewhere in the back of her mind but hadn't really thought about it consciously.
"Hmm, so I need to convince Lord Borden that I won't treat you like that." Ethan mused.
"I don't think
you
can." Beth replied. "Grams got to be the perfect little actress and she was able to convince anyone that she was madly in love with her abusive husband and was so grateful that he'd married her. I'm not sure anything you or I said would make a difference."
"And I don't suppose anything his other wives said would carry weight either." Rachel added.
"Gram's fellow wife was also pretty mean to her in private, but treated her like a sister in public." Beth shook her head. "So probably not."
"What about Anthiel or Serif?" Taloni asked. "They know you all treat us well master, maybe they could vouch for us?"
"That might help." Beth said. "But I doubt that alone would convince my father. He might assume that Ethan is good at hiding it."
"I mean, I literally fought a necromancer and crossed worlds to bring you back from the dead." Ethan pointed out. "Won't that count for something?"
"Maybe!" Beth exclaimed brightly.
"I wouldn't be so sure." Rachel said as she backed off a bit and propped herself up on her elbows, though the sheets still covered her pretty well. "Things like this aren't usually logical; they're more emotional. If he had a bad experience his entire childhood, it'll color his view of everything without him realizing it."
"Yeah, good point." Ethan frowned, then looked at Beth. "And you don't think that Anthiel or Serif's word would be enough?"
She smiled back into his green, cat-like dragon eyes. "It won't hurt, but I doubt it'll be enough to convince him."
