Partner

Chapter for each story written at work. Now I've got to study least I fail a midterm.

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it!

Read, Review and Enjoy.

*posted in Sequel first. Thanks Shoe for pointing it out to me*



“Where are the others?” Mik asked Mari as he sat at the kitchen table.

Paw was pouring tea for them all and Lillow, for some reason, was pacing between the living room and the kitchen. Not even a day had gone by since Mari’s last visit and she had promised Mik that he could have a few days off before resuming all that bull and trash political talk.

“Upstairs.”

“Up… stairs?”

“With Rel and Muan,” Mari muttered, sitting across from Mik, “turns out. Rel’s father came back for a second go. The government was feeding us loop footage. Which explains Galt’s sudden urge to buy Muan’s services from us. We’ve dealt with it, the cameras are our own again. No, I will not shut them off in here, so stop asking.”

“I didn’t ask,” Mik responded, “Kind of gotten used to the bugs.”

Mari looked pointedly at Paw as the Sidhe served them tea. Paw, in turn, pointedly ignored Mari as he sat down and began pouring honey into his tea. Something the Sidhe had taken to doing more and more, and in larger amounts. It had gotten to the point that they went through a good amount of honey in a day and Paw’s tea was always more honey than tea. But all the Sidhe were doing that. Essuan, if Mik had translated her right, had said that as the ground outside thaws, the Sidhe will eat all the sweet things they could. Something, something, old time tree.

“So. Rel’s father came back and we didn’t know. How’s Rel?”

“By the sounds of it. Fine. He was upset for a moment and it turns out that was why Osht was bleeding from the ear,” the last bit was a mutter as Mari picked up her tea, “we tried asking them but they just said, ‘crazy people worrying about nothing’ and now it’s our fault we didn’t ask.”

“Should have asked if Rel was in danger,” Paw muttered, squeezing the last of the bottle of honey into his tea. Which is what Mik had started taking in his own tea because Paw had dumped the sugar down the laundry shoot. Once the container was empty, Paw set it on the table and picked up his cup to sip it when he noticed Mik staring at him, “oh. Uhm… honey?”

“I’ll drink it without,” Mik responded before turning his attention to Mari, “anything else?”

“Mm,” Mari sighed out, “apparently Koln and Taln are carrying on a relationship?”

“Yes. I thought you knew that.”

“Can’t read that kind of thing. Stupid when it comes to love and sex, remember?” Mari muttered, “if they break up-”

“They won’t,” Mik and Paw said as one.

“How do you two know that? Every couple has rough patches and hard times.”

Paw raised his hand, “Whisper.”

“And I know that the Sidhe wouldn’t let just anyone get anywhere near Taln. Hell, it was probably their idea to hook the two up. What with a paired leader being a happy leader.”

“And controlled leader,” Paw responded.

“Uhhuh. You two are strange, oh,” Mari reached into an inside pocket of her business suit and pulled out an envelope, “Mik, this came for you. From some political sciences major at Ba En Mofvanse University.”

“You screened my mail?”

“You are a high profile politician, Mik, we were just making certain that this person actually existed.”

Mik sighed and opened the letter. It was so unusual to get a hand written, hand mailed letter from someone inside Norash. Ba en Mofvanse was well known for detesting technology, however, and the University, while it allowed some exceptions, made it a requirement that all students learn cursive, short and that all correspondence went through slow mail. He pulled the thick paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. It was a page torn out of an old text, if the fading and yellowing of the page meant anything, and it detailed the punishment for holding or using godsbane. Across the top were scrawled the words ‘you deserve worse.’

“Death threat,” Mik muttered, handing the paper over to a pale Mari, “go ahead and open my mail for me from now on, would you?”

“Will do.”

“And fix that book,” Paw muttered, motioning to the page, “don’t want people to forget what happens when you try to kill the gods. They might up and try it all the time until they succeed or the gods destroy us all.”

“How could you deserve something worse than this?” Mari snapped, “This is the most terrifying, horrific punishment in all our history and you deserve worse? It’s not even possible.”

“Should see what gods do to stupid people after people die,” Paw responded quietly, “or what Paw will do to that one if he catches them.”

In such a calm voice. Like he was commenting on the weather. Mik swallowed hard and picked up his tea cup as something to do, anything to do, besides look at Paw while his lover spoke of torturing someone in such a casual tone.

“Not if I got a hold of him first,” Mari spat.

“Double the security on my mother, please, Mari.”

“Only if you write up a will.”

“I’m not going to die.”

“What if both you and your mother die and there’s no will? You die first, your property and possessions revert to her. Then she dies and it all goes to the state and then what happens to the land you plan to purchase?” Mari asked. “Without a will stating that you want to uphold contracts made while alive, you, and the Sidhe will lose the land.”

“Fine. I’ll write a will.” Mik growled.

“Good,” Mari growled back, “and while you’re at it, don’t open any email accounts, hells, don’t even surf the internet, until I tell you it is safe to do so.”

“Fine. I will.”

“Fine. Good. Then we’re agreed.”

Paw looked between the two people, puzzled as to why they were arguing when neither of them was really mad at the other. Mik gave a small shake of his head when Paw opened his mouth to question them. He could explain later, to Paw, what this meant for both of them.


.