Chapter 116. Not My Day

Waking up the next morning is much nicer than going to bed was. All of us were slightly ticked off about the lack of sex last night, soo... Let's just say we caught up on that in the morning. Not too much, for obvious reasons, we still have things to do and sights to see and elves to bedazzle. Though I kinda want to drag them all into bed for the next day or two, now. Oh well, something to do on the airship when we're doing the long flights, I suppose... Still, with all the teasing and pleasing, it is almost noon by the time we're, ahem... publicly acceptable. And kinda ravenous, so Bridgit commandeers the kitchen and sets about making a big dinner. Roxy elects to help her out, leaving Lily-Anne and Moon Unit for my escort. Not that I require escort, I mean, but rather they seem to be kinda certain there will be something amusing to see if they follow me, if I caught their whispers right. Really, girls?

Well, now, let's... huh, now what's going on? A meteor just fell down in the lake?... Don't tell me...

Alright, so the good news is, the sage came back and even didn't ignite on atmo reentry. The bad news is, going to orbit apparently counts as defilement. He didn't quite shred his gears, as far as I can tell, but it goes without saying there's a rocking chair and soothing music in his immediate future, while he gathers up the marbles back into the bag. I receive extremely respectful inquiries from a number of elves present, some of which are still attending to the waterlogged sage mumbling about stars and suns and void and who knows what else.

"...Lady Gillespie, can you please give us some insight into the unfortunate condition of spinner Russell?" - Tamaya finally sums up their questions, as she takes a stock of the situation with aplomb I appreciate from a leader. I can see why she's an undisputed Elder of the Counsel, that kind of wit and quick take is impressive. Five minutes to sort out the half-panicked queries and wild theories, sum up the likely witnesses and formulate the question best suited to garner the needed information in amiable manner... Very good.

"Well..." - I hedge - "His name is Russell? Huh. Peculiar. Anyway, he visited me yesterday and... had a great many questions, let's say it like this. And zeal for posing them far exceeding my tolerance."

Tamaya facepalms and groans. "He outright ignored being told that you'd like to sleep, eat or bathe now and kept begging for "just one more question", I take it?" - she inquires with irritation - "My condolences, lady Gillespie. He never quite grew out of this childish habit, I'm afraid. Will he recover from whatever it was that happened to... actually, can you please just explain what happened to him to begin with?"

I shrug. "He asked a lot of questions about what lies beyond the world." - I tell her simply - "It occurred to me that he would not be bothering me with the questions if he could just go and have a look with his own eyes. So I tossed him just slightly outside of the world to circle around it and come back. I'm sure he has plenty of experiences to speak of. Though, I didn't think just visiting the border would be defiling to quite such a degree. Reasonably sure he would recover, though, given some peace and quiet. He does not seem to be manic, just overwhelmed with the experience."

"...I'm sorry, what?" - she repeats numbly - "He asked too many questions about what's outside the world, so you tossed him out so that he could see with his own eyes?"

I grumble. "Ok, look..." -I begin, as I toss together some basic illusions - "This is Sun. It is our star. The other stars out there are someone else's suns. Other worlds. The place we live on, the planet, is the globe of earth and water and stone and metal and air and other assorted things that rotates around the sun..." I keep my basic lecture on heliocentrism as basic as possible, because I can smell the frying venison on the air, and I'm getting hangry. Is the 'hold Alyssa up from simple pleasures' going to be a running gag while I'm in Evergreens? Anyway, I point out the clump representing the planet - "Here is where we are. It rotates around the sun in an ellipse and around its own axis. Axial rotation is what gives us day and night, orbital rotation is what gives us summer and winter." Finally, I trace a narrow circle around the planet - "And this is where Russell went last night. Barely a glimpse around, all things considered."

"..."

"Dear?" - Moon Unit pipes up when the silence becomes awkward - "Maybe ease up a little on revelations? Look, everyone's stunned."

Tamaya, thankfully, picks this moment to cough and shake her head. "...I... see." - she drawls faintly - "This is very... I just... But... And... Wait, but... or... sooooo... Oh! Well. Well, merde!" She pokes at the clumps representing other planets in this solar system. Different from Sol by a lot, by the way. We are currently on the second planet from the sun, and the first one is something closer to Mercury than Venus in conditions, but the size of Mars and has two tiny moons. We are immediately followed by an asteroid belt that is big enough that I suspect it's whole two planets' worth of asteroid, then there is a trio of gas giants on the outer orbits, two of which have rings, and the outermost one seems to be very Neptune-like by my observations. We completely lack any planets that resemble Pluto, Mars or Jupiter, tho. On the plus side, I'll have nearby and robust asteroid mining when I get to space exploration stages. On the minus, no good planets for colonization in our own system. Though, depending on the richness of belts and gas giants, it might be immediately feasible to start construction of ringworld or Dyson sphere... But I'm kind of digressing, this is in FAR future, if we ever reach those heights of advancement. Lofty dreams, Alyssa, lofty dreams... But damn, it's probably hella convenient to live in Kardashev class two civilization. Or even class three, if we ever work out the universal matter-energy manipulation... I mean, I can do that right now, but I don't want to become a civilization by myself. I want to lounge around in a post-scarcity society that does not require me poking the "improve things for everyone" button every five nanoseconds.

Aaanyway, back to our muttons... Tamaya walks off muttering things under her nose, and by the looks of it, her current sentiments are shared by many people present. And some are still standing there looking dazed. Come on, the heliocentric theory is NOT a revelation, I read about it in the Academy library before, I know I did!

"Well now, are you upending astrology today, Alyssa?" - Lily-Anne offers - "At this rate, I might as well ask of my father to just gather all the wise men in the Champagne for a quick seminar about the principles of the world. Might save time for you, actually."

"Lily-Anne..." - I plead - "Please don't. They'll get offended and attempt to "educate" me instead, I'll get angry and toss half of them into orbit, and probably eat the heads of the remainder."

Moon Unit gives a full-body shudder when I mention the last one. "And she MEANS it, Lily." - she whispers quickly - "So please don't give her ideas? Please? She already ate Tybalt's head in front of the whole Counsel, I so don't want to see Alyssa do it again."

"Wait, what!?" - Lily-Anne yelps - "As in like, literally ate someone's head!? Alyssa, what the fuck?"

"In my defense, he brought in a corpse of a guy who just shot me six times before that and tried to say that me shooting back once is a murder." - I retort - "It was just self-defense in the most practical way available."

"By. Eating. Someone's. HEAD!?" - she is getting progressively louder with each word.

"To be entirely fair, our lore does explicitly stipulate Tools of Gods eat the heads of people daring to obstruct their efforts..." - Moon Unit explains with a wince - "So doing it once in front of everyone actually made for some good proof Alyssa is who she is. Still, I'd very much rather NOT see my wife eat someone's head again, if it is at all feasible. Please?"

"...Eat. Heads." - Lily-Anne repeats numbly - "Why!?"

"Several reasons. Primo, because it's absolutely terrifying to everyone else and thus makes them much less inclined to be difficult just for the sake of seeing if they might coerce some concession out of me." - I explain with a sigh - "Secundo, because it's a quick and reliable way to deal with someone dangerous. Finally, tertio - because if I do this, I get to peruse the most recent memories the person in question had. What was on their mind, more or less."

She shakes her head and leans to Moon Unit. "Welp." - she proffers bleakly - "Our dear wife is apparently a man-eating monster sometimes. I'm concerned how little I am concerned about that."

"I prefer eldritch abomination, actuall... WATCH OUT!" - I begin, smoothly transitioning from banter to shoving Moon Unit and Lily-Anne to the side, as I see someone lunging for them from the opposite side. They both start to yelp, turning to see what alarmed me while still stumbling. Time dilation at hundred and twenty eight, by the way. I bat the dagger downwards, in the process probably dislocating the wrist holding it, consider the trajectory of the stabbing, come to the conclusion that it was aimed straight for Moon Unit's liver, become volcanically angry and bite the head of the would-be murderer off. And cringe. Her memories are straight-up unadulterated madness. A descendant of a clan infamous for women being shoggoth whisperers, apparently, and her sole reason for attacking Moon Unit was the inane conviction that her rightful place was "usurped" and that I would have rejoiced if she were to kill Moon Unit and step in herself.

"...aaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" - Lily-Anne sums up her resulting feelings on the topic, as she flinches away from the corpse falling over. I...sigh. Burp. Bow my head. "I'm just having no luck here." - I complain to no one in particular.

___

Lily-Anne is not cool with it. At all. She is sitting on the bed with her knees to her chest, hugging herself and shivering under the blanket. Weirdly enough, my presence is not actually considered a hindrance, and she actively, if feebly, insists I stick around and hold her while she's setting her nerves down. Weird. I really really really REALLY need to try and amp down on monstrous behavior while within wife eyesight. Bridgit and Roxolane are next to us, clicking their tongues in concern. Roxy is slowly rubbing Lily-Anne's back, while Bridgit is giving her sips of warm tea with a splash of whiskey from the cup little by little. Moon Unit is next to me, leaning on me. And sipping a small bottle of rose tincture, while at it.

"What happened?" - Roxolane ventures after a moment of compassionate silence. Lily-Anne hiccups. "SSsomeone tttried to ssstab Mmmmooon aaaand Aly-aly...aa... eeet heeed... Fueeeee!" - she offers, hiccuping and stumbling over the words as she does.

"Alyssa did what?" - Roxolane repeats in confusion.

"Alyssa pushed me out of the way and bit the head off my would-be murderer." - Moon Unit proffers bluntly, her own voice having a bit of tremor to it.

"And I'm terribly sorry about doing that." - I state firmly - "It was a snap decision, and in retrospect I should have knocked her down and used more traditional interrogation methods. Moon Unit, Lily-Anne, I sincerely apologize."

Lily-Anne somehow finds enough magnanimousness in herself to pat my hand. "I, iiii, oh gods..." - she warbles, as she leans on me and starts crying for real - "Thaaaawhawhat was soooo scaaary!"

Mea culpa, girls. Mea culpa.