“That is it young man! I'm both your grandfather and your Count. You may not have to marry on the King’s command but you do on mine! The issue is settled, your marriage is annulled and you'll wed Daria Serge in three months, in their capital city. That's my final word on it!” His posture turned aggressive like he wanted to fight, squared off and stiff, fists clenched tight, knuckles going white.
It didn't really worry Tor, because he'd seen the man fight once. It was a relaxed and fluid thing even in a battle to the death. If he came at him to pat him on the back it would have been scarier. Tor crossed his arms and stood up, just as aggressive, but more passive. After all, you couldn't fight like that, not well.
“Oh?” Tor didn't raise his voice now, instead he let himself seem very, very angry and barley in control.
“What are you going to do if I don't? Kill me? That won't help your little plan at all will it? Daria do you take this corps to be your husband for all eternity? She'd probably like that though, no back talk!” He laughed hollowly, and looked to Rolph as if for support. It couldn't come, his friend still thought their kingdom faced destruction if Tor didn't go along with all this.
“Come on, he only wants to get me down there so he can kill me, or at very best lock me up and forget about me!” That, Tor guessed was the real plan, that and getting his daughter back alive.
Burks told him to shut up, the King suggested that Knight should put the kingdom before himself and Connie wept openly. Rolph got more and more grim the whole time and Varley clutched her arms across her middle as if it hurt physically. Karina kept staring at Lilli and Tor was pretty sure that if she could figure out a way to do it, the girl was going to die before Tor was taken. Possibly before she left the room.
Ali stayed very still, as if trying not to be noticed and so did her mom. A conditioned response to potential violence most likely. If Karen had been that conditioned for sex, what else had that freak of a father been doing to them?
Slowly, over the course of an hour the plan was set. Finally he sat, breathing hard, defeated and probably doomed. When they walked Daria out she smiled, turned to him and spoke loudly enough for the room to hear.
“When I have you back home I'm going to have you castrated and sell your ass on the street to all comers for our wedding night. If you don't bleed out the first time, I'll let you alternate between doing that and sucking cock from then on. We can use your magic clothes to dress you in pretty lacy under things and put you in those fancy whore boots they like here. Doesn't that sound fun? Maybe I won't even sell you, I'll just let people take turns. Yes, that sounds much more like you doesn't it? Just giving your ass away?”
She said it in her serious, crazy voice, not teasing, not threatening, a plan to be followed pure and simple. Tor stared at her. There was nothing to say to that. Crazy just didn't play by the same rules as sane. Most of the time it barley played by rules at all. He shook slightly instead. For once in his life he was actually faking it. The girl didn't scare him at all.
The room was cleared of everyone but the participants in the little talk and Burks carefully packed up the communications device, a science thing that Tor wasn't supposed to understand, but could take some hints from anyway. It was doable by magic too, though talking at a distance was really enough, why did he need to see people all the time? It took too much space for one thing and for him to do it would waste work if not energy.
Once they were alone, and they actually were for once, no spies watched from the walls as far as Tor could tell, Burks grinned at him.
“Not bad. Little sloppy at first, but you picked up the idea soon enough. So did you get the whole thing?” Everyone else stared at the Count but Tor nodded.
“ I think. There are no nuclear weapons, he tried to build some but people in his own system sabotaged them. He's insane, but still has a firm grip on Austra somehow. Denno Brown is being held captive and has been for somewhere between seven and ten years, he isn't sure, what he does know is that he's being kept in the basement of Serges palace.” Tor frowned and looked at the Ancient hard. The man had regressed in age and now looked virtually like Tor did, but a little too tall and wearing green instead of black. The hair was too short, but they had three months to make it match.
“That was a little vague. It would be best if we could narrow that down. Um, then we set the time, three months from now. Now all I have to do is figure out how to go in, free him and get out without the Austrans catching us. I guess, when I start working again that's what I'm doing, figuring out how to get us out.”
Everyone else stared at him now. Rolph was the one that spoke.
“Huh? Um, Tor, the plan is for you to go get married isn't it? And then apparently be turned into a girl and made a whore? Well, not really, they get paid. I'm not sure I know where the rest came from there…”
Burks sat and smiled, their looks matching so closely that first Ali gasped and pointed and then everyone else gasped too, except the King who just nodded.
“I see, so this isn't a marriage at all, it's a rescue mission?”
The Count looked around and nodded, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“Right, Tor and I go and get our brother. That's not too hard to understand, is it?”
Copying what she'd seen Tor do with the obviously insane man earlier, and most likely not to certain everyone hadn't caught the crazy bug, Ali raised her hand. Burks nodded to her gently.
“Yes dear?”
“Um, if the marriage to Lilli isn't real, then are Tor and I still married or not?” She sounded half scared as if the answer depended on her asking the right way.
Burks shrugged.
“Oh, you're still married. You'll stay that way too, Tor can even help get you set up at school and get back to classes. I think the Prince can too, resume school, for now at least. Even Serge won't want to mess things up now. Sorry about all the dramatics, but it would have looked a little strange if Tor got on one knee and begged Daria for her hand, given everything.”
Everyone was happier then, if wrung out by the events of the last hours. Karina ran over and hugged Ali and him, Tor didn't let go of his wife’s hand. He'd managed, somehow, to not lose her yet. He really didn't want her to somehow wonder off. Rolph came and gave them both hugs too, but the rest of the royal family stayed back as if wary or not wanting to intrude. But they were all friends, weren't they?
Why were they acting so… the word that came to mind was guilty, but that couldn't have been right. Tor walked over, nudging everyone else with him, until they stood in front of Varley. When it came to getting information, she was a good place to start.
“What?” He asked, waving his hands gently at the three of them who mainly weren't looking at him.
She got it. Of course she did, she was brilliant after all.
“Tor… we were all willing to trade your life to a madman just to buy time to save our people, the kingdom. Aren't you mad at us? We just sold you to them. I heard what that… thing said! They plan to torture you if not kill you outright. Probably both. I don't think you should go. The Brown man is responsible for Austra and didn't do his job, now they have a monster for a leader. Why should you help him? You don't know him and he isn't really your brother. He was born thousands of years ago!”
She had a point. Still, what else could they have done? If there really were bombs pointed at them like that, he would have had to go anyway. True, then he'd have outfitted as many fighters as possible with the best weapons he could come up with first and destroyed the bombs and their delivery devices, but they would have had to say roughly the same things. Tor knew that.
“Well, you know, later, when I'm trading you lot to the monsters to buy the rest of us time I just expect you all to not get pissy about it, that's all. Plus it worked out well enough this time.” He put his arm over her shoulder, reaching up to do that now, unlike when they'd met and been about the same size, oh those precious weeks. She might be showing he decided, trying not to stare. It was hard to tell with her being clothed and all, this early on.
He really considered asking her to take it off sometime soon, just to look, but realized that his wife was hovering at his elbow. Married, he reminded himself with a happy lift to his spirit at the thought. With all that entailed. Most of it at least. They still hadn't talked about children. That would be a delicate and possibly painful subject. Well, soon he'd do it, but not today. Not that soon. They both deserved a real rest. Not that he was going to get one.
“Burks… we need to get together and actually make a plan. My house tomorrow morning?” It was secure and more, it was home, for now at least.
Burks nodded.
“Indeed.”
