“Have you been told of the festivities this
evening?” Gregol asked, while a pair of Northern servants collected
bags from the carriage.
“Ambassador Ether says it will be a musical
performance of—” Maka began happily.
The crash of a bag striking the ground
interrupted him.
All heads turned to the source of the sound,
and a few hasty swords were drawn. It was a woman, not much more
than fifty years old but with the beaten, worn features of someone
with a life that had taken far more from her than it had any right
to. She was one of the local servants, a worker at the inn that
would play host to the delegation that evening. The soldiers didn’t
descend upon her, suspecting it was simply the work of twisted
fingers growing too old for the job of a porter, but something in
her expression kept them on guard. Her face was utterly transfixed
with an agonized look of disbelief and joy. She covered her mouth,
and tears began to flow down her face.
The rest of the surrounding crowd was just
beginning to return to their prior activities, the other porters
closing in to gather the bags she had dropped, when she cried
out.
“Emilia!”
She had only been a few steps away from the
group, so when she rushed forward there was no one who could stop
her before she reached Ether. The woman threw her arms around
Ether’s waist, practically sobbing the name over and over
again.
Ether stiffened, her face twisted in
something between disgust and irritation. She might have reacted
the same if a host’s pet had jumped onto her lap without
permission.
Around her the guards weren’t certain what to
do. Each of the servants had been vigorously cleared prior to the
arrival of the envoy. There was no explanation for this.
“Remove yourself…” Ether fumed.
Guards assigned to the envoy backed Maka
away, then began to bark orders to the woman, but she paid them no
heed.
“Emilia, it has been so many years!” she
wept, her face buried in Ether’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you write to
me? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? Will you be staying in
our inn?”
“Unhand the ambassador,” demanded the
guards.
“She can’t hear you. She’s deaf,” explained
the younger of the two porters frantically.
A guard took her by the shoulders and pulled
her aside, placing her head squarely in the woman’s vision. “You
must release the ambassador and step away.”
“Ambassador!” she said, confusion mixing with
her joy. She turned to Ether, backing away as she did. “Of course!
When you told me you were doing something important, I never
imagined it was this! Oh, Emilia, I’m so
proud
of you.” She
reached out her hands. “My own
daughter
, an ambassador!”
“Daughter?” said Maka, gently stepping past
his handlers and placing a hand on Ether’s shoulder. “Is this true?
Is this your mother?”
There was certainly a resemblance. The older
woman had much the same shape to her face, similar eyes, and where
it lingered among the gray, they even had the same hair color. One
could easily call it a family resemblance.
Ether looked to him briefly. “I do not have
time for interruptions. I am certain we are needed inside.”
“Emilia, write to me when you are through!
You must have so much to tell me after all of these years!”
The shapeshifter sent a silent glance in the
old woman’s direction, then paced coldly forward and through the
doors of the inn. Her supposed mother smiled through her tears and
clutched her hands, positively glowing with pride and joy.
“I apologize for that interruption,
Ambassador Maka,” Gregol began. “I would be pleased to tell you
anything you might like to know about—”
“In a moment, Ambassador Gregol,” Maka
said.
The elderly Tresson strutted after Ether with
a spryness that seemed out of place for someone of his age. His
handlers, not expecting the burst of speed, scrambled to catch up.
He passed through the doors of the inn and sought out Ether.
Unlike many of the other inns that had
sheltered the delegation, this one was very simple. Thick plank
walls patched with a muddy plaster held out the wind while a smoky
fire chased away the cold. The main room was cramped even when
empty. With the delegation, who had likely taken every available
room, it would be shoulder to shoulder.
Ether had already had a terse exchange with
the innkeeper and was heading down a narrow hall to her room.
“Ambassador Ether, a moment of your time,”
Maka said, touching her to catch her attention.
She turned. Her face showed no semblance of
any emotions that might have been associated with a reunion with an
estranged mother.
“What is it, Ambassador Maka?”
“If you do not mind, I would like very much
to know why that woman seemed to believe you were her
daughter.”
“She was mistaken.”
“Granted that must be the case, but she
seemed certain. And no one will deny the resemblance.”
Ether’s expression soured ever so slightly.
“I suppose she believes me to be the woman I appear to be.”
Maka furrowed his brow. “I do not
understand.”
“I appear human to you, and so it is natural
to assume that I inherited this appearance from a progenitor. Such
is not the case. I assumed this form when it became clear that my
would-be allies were unwilling or unable to interact with me in my
natural form. The woman who stands before you was a foe. I believe
she was a member of the Alliance Army, and at the time I am quite
certain she had been subverted by a being known as Epidime.”
“So somewhere there is another woman who
appears as you do?”
“No. She was killed as a result of our
clash.”
Maka’s face became serious.
“Did
you
kill that woman’s
daughter?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Ether, to that woman, it matters. She
believes you are her daughter. She believes her daughter is still
alive. What you have given her is false hope. You have drawn up
something she had buried deep, made raw a wound that had begun to
heal.”
“That is not my concern.”
“Ambassador, I submit that it
is
your
concern. At this moment, you are representing your people.”
“These are not my people. These are merely
the residents of the land that I most directly defended in my
opposition to the D’Karon.”
“Regardless, at this moment, you represent
them. And to represent them, you must care about them. That woman’s
spirit is soaring about something that is not so. If you leave her
today without setting her straight, she will live what remains of
her life believing not that her daughter had died in the line of
duty, but that her daughter was alive and well but choosing to
ignore her mother. It will be a life of torture and uncertainty. I
lost a son many years ago. If I were to see him one day and he
behaved as you did, and then he moved on and I never saw him again…
I do not know that I would ever think of anything else but what I
could have done to lose his love for me.”
“What would you have me do? Tell her of her
daughter’s death? From what I’ve seen of mortals, that would crush
her. Despite its inevitability from birth, none of you seem willing
to accept death when it comes.”
“What you do is for you to decide. I cannot
make your decisions for you. I can advise you that this is a matter
that should be handled with care and delicacy. You must be mindful
of her feelings.”
Ether scowled. “Emotion… Few things have
complicated and muddled matters more than emotion.”
Maka nodded. “At times it can cloud the mind,
make matters more difficult. But at other times it is the only
thing that can give us the strength to go on.”
“Ambassadors?” called Gregol, his voice
showcasing the truly impressive anxiety that could be conjured in
him by something as simple as a break to the intended routine.
“In a moment,” Maka called over his shoulder.
He lowered his voice. “You have said that you have no family. This
is a woman who believes you are her family. You have suffered a
loss, and though she does not know it, so has she. This is a pain
shared by you. Perhaps this is a time to explore that.”
“I have diplomatic duties to see to.”
“Gregol and Zuzanna would embrace the
opportunity to take your place for the duration of a meal,” Maka
said.
“I see no value in this.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Consider
it a favor to me then. An act of compromise between our
nations.”
With that, Maka turned to the other Northern
ambassadors, his arms held wide.
“Ambassador Ether has a small matter to
attend to. I wonder if perhaps each of you would care to take her
place. I am certain you will be able replacements for the evening,”
he said.
“Wha—yes! Yes of course!” Gregol practically
sang, an insulting level of relief in his expression as he learned
that he would finally have the ear of the senior ambassador.
Ether was left standing in the hall, her
expression flavored with a simmering anger. This was not a task she
would ever have chosen for herself, but something about being
stepped over, pushed aside, infuriated her. She tried to quell
these emotions as she did with all others. This did little good.
Sweeping away the anger did little more than uncover lingering
feelings that had been haunting her for too long already.
Uncertainty, despair, and a dozen other shifting and confounding
feelings that made it a bit harder to turn her mind to the things
that truly mattered each day. Perhaps it would be useful after all
if there was something else to occupy her mind.
She stepped out into the cold and glanced
about. The gathered crowd of locals and servants had largely
dissipated. The only individual with an apparent link to the inn
and its staff was a young stable boy tasked with finding room for a
dozen horses in a stable built for six.
“You. Were you present when the delegation
arrived?” Ether asked.
Her voice startled the boy, who looked at her
and froze.
“Er… yes, ma’am. Oh! I mean madam. Or…
Guardian?”
Ether flipped her fingers dismissively.
“Did you witness an older woman accost me
upon stepping from the carriage?”
“You mean Celia?”
“I do not know her name, but as I was only
accosted by one woman, I must assume you are correct.”
“I saw her. You… you’re her girl, right?”
Ether’s expression hardened. “Where is that
woman now?”
“I think they’ve got her around back. Washing
linens.”
The shapeshifter nodded and marched stiffly
in the direction he indicated. It never ceased to amaze her how
poorly these creatures handled interactions with their betters.
Stumbling over matters of title. They were children, fools, the lot
of them. Though Maka seemed to have gained some insight into his
fellow humans in his years, Ether could not imagine what the man
hoped she might gain through this interaction.
A damp, musty smell led her to a small shack
behind the inn. At the top of one wall was an ice-encrusted vent
belching steam. She pushed open the door to find a room filled with
a thick, hanging fog. It was quite warm, and where the hot, moist
air met the cold, it was exceedingly unpleasant, but a single
thought was all it took for Ether to whisk away her sensitivity to
such things.
The older woman—Celia, if the stable boy
could be believed—was stirring an enormous cauldron over a roaring
fire. The water was cloudy, and billowing off-white mounds of cloth
floated in it. Similar clothes, mostly underthings and bed linens,
were piled on two tables on the opposite side of the room, and
beside the cauldron a line had been stretched. Washed linens hung
from it, drops of water falling onto an angled plank below them and
running back into the cauldron.
The old woman looked up to the source of the
frigid breeze.
“Emilia!” she said. “Oh, come inside, child.
You mustn’t stand there in the cold! This damp air will be the
death of you!”
“It is of little concern. My business here is
brief,” Ether said.
“Bah, nonsense! You may be an ambassador, but
you’re still my daughter. And there are some things that a mother
always knows best.”
She stepped forward and grasped Ether’s hand,
pulling at the shapeshifter.
“Goodness heavens, Emilia, you’re already
cold as death.”
Ether stepped forward and allowed the woman
to shut the door. The instant the breeze was cut off, the woman
began to fuss with the contents of the tables, trying to neaten the
piles and cover the most glaringly soiled articles.
“Heavens, it is all such a mess. I wish you’d
written, dear. I wish I’d known you were coming. I would have made
some time to meet with you someplace nicer than a musty place like
this. To think, entertaining an ambassador…”
“Madam,” Ether interjected.
“My own daughter an
ambassador.
Was
there a ceremony? There
must
have been! Oh, if only I would
have been able to see it!”
Ether turned Celia to her.
“
Madam!
”
“You mustn’t call me
madam,
dear. I’m
your mother.” Celia gazed at her face and smiled, tears beginning
to roll down her cheeks again. “Oh… oh, there I go again. Come
here, dear.”
She rushed forward and once again threw her
arms around Ether.
“Madam, please,” Ether said, firmly pushing
the woman back. “I am not your daughter.”
Celia cocked her head aside. “But of
course
you are my daughter. It may have been a lifetime
since I last saw you, but I’d know my darling daughter
anywhere.”
“I appear to be your daughter, but I am
not.”
The woman gave Ether a curious look. She then
reached up and brushed some of Ether’s hair aside, revealing a
small dark patch of skin just below the hairline at the back of her
neck.