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  Now, he was sitting in the middle of a possibly royal sitting room, with his hind end on a rug he probably couldn't have bought with a year's salary, wishing he was home, that he'd never come. Thinking that all that he'd guessed about Jahir's life before had been a fantasy. He'd created some fiction that Jahir had lived a life very like someone in the Alliance; more rural perhaps, a little quieter. But not... this entire alien philosophy, complete with hatred of strangers and contempt for change. Xenophobia had been, in his mind, more like mild distaste. A preference, like enjoying ice cream more than cake. Not the kind of thing that created political rifts so divisive they could induce civil war.

  It felt very bad, being this wrong. He could not help but wonder how much trouble his wrongful assumptions would create.

  Unsettled, Vasiht'h went to the bed chamber to begin plucking pillows off the monumental bed. The wedding was tomorrow. Surely he could get through one day here without overmuch offense and go home, where it was safe. For them both.

  Vasiht'h woke from confused dreams of someone playing the lute to... the actual sound of lutesong, softened by the mindline's melancholy. He didn't rise immediately. The makeshift bed had been unexpectedly comfortable, and he had been tired enough from the long journey that he'd slept through dinner. Lifting his head, he glimpsed the bed: the blankets had been mussed, so at least his partner had slept also. But the lute...

  He'd known Jahir could play piano, but it had somehow never occurred to him that his friend might know more than one instrument. How many skills had his much-older friend learned... and forgotten? Before Vasiht'h had ever been born?

  His pelt twitched with unease. Something must have leaked through the line because the playing stopped. A few moments later, Jahir appeared at the door. "Ready for breakfast?"

  Vasiht'h's stomach growled. He grimaced. "I guess that's a yes. Do I have to wear something special? Do I have time to wash?"

  "No and yes, respectively," Jahir said. "We eat breakfast informally... there'll be no one there but close family. Actually, there might be no one there but us. It's not a sit-down affair, more of a catch-as-you-can."

  "Oh," Vasiht'h said, relieved. "In that case... I'm all for it. Give me a minute and I'll be ready."

  This time, less surprised by the wealth of the house, Vasiht'h noticed other things: its silence, for he heard almost nothing, no talk, no electronics, no music... nothing he might have expected. It was also empty, his partner's boots on the marble steps echoing as they went down the stairs. He saw no other people, despite the breadth of the halls and the many doors they passed. How many Eldritch lived in this palace? Where were they?

  He was so perplexed that he didn't notice how long it took to reach the kitchen. He had been expecting a warm and cozy place, small, intimate. Like a kitchen in a book. Or barring that, something sterile and functional, like their own kitchen at home. Naturally, they crossed a threshold into a vaulted chamber with enormous windows lining an entire wall, two separate niches for tables, both round, and a center island so long Vasiht'h could have fed his entire family at it.

  The Eldritch cooks? Servants? However, were strangely comforting. They were not dressed in stunning silks and magnificent velvets, nor did they have a prince's ransom in jewels studding their hair like the garden-party attendees. They wore aprons over clothes with the simplicity of livery in blue and silver; the women had single braids down their backs or pinned into unadorned buns, and the men had their hair cropped or tied into short clubs. If they gave each other rather more space than Vasiht'h thought normal... well, they were touch-espers in a race that found that ability unpleasant.

  Their entrance caused a great pause in the work. Through the mindline, the translation of Jahir's greeting was something like 'good morning' flavored with a downward grade that made Vasiht'h feel as if he should brace his paws. While Jahir continued the exchange—something about how long it had been since his last visit and other niceties—Vasiht'h poked the mindline until he got some reason for the feeling: something about proper polite speech to servants being different than to other peers in the nobility. He made a face, glad he didn't have to learn Eldren.

  "So, ready for breakfast?" Jahir said in Universal, perching on a stool at the end of the island.

  "Absolutely," Vasiht'h said. He watched the bustle. "So these are... um... employees?"

  "Family retainers," Jahir said. "Most of them have been working for us for generations."

  "Generations!"

  "It's good work, if you can get it," Jahir said, "being household staff. If you can secure such a position, you can expect your son or daughter to inherit it, and so on. Your family will have food and shelter and a stipend and the assurance of that continuing for as long as you and your descendants provide good service."

  Vasiht'h stared at the basket of rolls a young girl placed in front of them with a shy smile. "I... can't imagine it."

  "Our economy's a bit odd," Jahir said, with such irony Vasiht'h tasted metal salts in his mouth. He licked his teeth and reached for a roll.

  "What is the day going to be like then?" Vasiht'h said, to change the subject and defuse the potential for more bad tastes. "I mean, schedule-wise. I don't know anything about Eldritch weddings." He made a face. "I don't even know much about Glaseahn weddings, to be honest. Except that everyone wears bells."

  "Bells?" Jahir said, amused.

  "Something about honoring the goddess and blessing the union with fertility and happiness," Vasiht'h said.

  One of the cooks arrived, setting a platter in arm's reach: strips of meat fragrant with strange spices wound around thin yellow sticks and decorated with citrus slices, a selection of other mysterious fruits: slices of pale peach melons and berries of various sizes and colors. More of the rolls with a plate of white butter, sweating in the kitchen's warmth. The young girl brought a tea pot and a pitcher of ice water.

  "Heavy for breakfast," Vasiht'h said, trying one of the meat slices. It was a peculiar experience: his palate insisted he had never had anything like it before while the mindline insisted it was familiar and comfortable. "I would have thought you subsisted on flowers and moonbeams, the way everyone around here looks."

  "Breakfast is the heavy meal of the day for the servants," Jahir said. "And we're eating in the kitchen. The heavy meal of the day for us is usually lunch. And the looks have less to do with the food and more to do with the gravity here, and the fact that if you're not riding a horse somewhere, you're walking." He leaned back as he buttered a roll, one elbow on the island. "Anyway, the wedding. In a few hours there will be a reception for the wedding party and attendants—the bride and groom will be absent, by custom. Everyone will retire after that to eat lunch and then to dress and prepare for the wedding, which is at dusk. The ceremony itself is about an hour long. Then there's another reception, which this time the bride and groom get to attend, and everyone else who's come. That'll last until very late at night, unless there's significant acrimony."

  "And all I have to do is..."

  "Mingle at the party and watch the ceremony," Jahir said. "And then we can head home."

  "Sounds do-able," Vasiht'h said, and dug into breakfast. He couldn't tell if he liked it because it was good or if he liked it because Jahir did, but he was willing to work with either.

  His willingness evaporated the moment he espied the great hall through the broad arched doorway later that morning; if the mirrors and chandeliers were not dazzling enough, the number of Eldritch would have sufficed. Their identical skin and hair color made them appear distressingly like multiples of a similar doll, and their sumptuous raiment put them far above someone of his rather unremarkable provenance. He marveled that just looking at them he could feel the aura of contempt and privilege they exuded; that he could tell, just by that glimpse, that he wouldn't be welcome.

  At the dismay that flooded the mindline, Jahir went to a knee before him, resting his gloved hands on Vasiht'h's shoulders. In a way, that made it worse: he'd never seen his
partner dressed as a... well, a native. The court coat Jahir wore was velvet, dyed a powder-blue at the flared skirt that gradually darkened to sapphire at the collar, no doubt to set off the white cravat with its unicorn pin. There were strands of opals and sapphires in slim silver chains worked into tiny braids in Jahir's hair, and Vasiht'h had no doubt they were real. He even had a sword, complete with decorative scabbard; the coat had some kind of slit to permit it. The Eldritch looked like something out of a storybook, and seeing the man Vasiht'h had worked alongside for years looking so... alien... was uncomfortably like waking up next to a stranger.

  "You don't have to do this," Jahir murmured, his voice mingling with the hum of conversation from the room. Through the mindline, Vasiht'h felt a softness, like a blanket. "I don't expect it."

  "Will... I be able to talk with anyone?" Vasiht'h asked. He'd been invited; it seemed rude to not make an appearance. "I mean, do they understand Universal?"

  "Some of them," Jahir said. "It's more likely that my family will. They'll be the ones with the unicorn device on them somewhere, as a brooch or a necklace, and many of them will have blue or silver on them. The visiting family's colors are green and electrum, and their device is a centicore... like a hooved lion."

  "I'll try it," Vasiht'h said before he could lose his nerve. "But if it gets too hard..."

  "By all means," Jahir said. "I will have to stay—that is my duty as the son of the house. But if you become uncomfortable, you needn't."

  "All right," Vasiht'h said, squaring his shoulders. He drew in a breath. "Let's go."

  Jahir nodded and rose smoothly. Together they walked just within the threshold where the Eldritch stopped; Vasiht'h did also, perplexed. And then a man in the house's livery announced them, and mangled his name in the process.

  All conversation ceased.

  /O goddess,/ Vasiht'h whispered.

  /Strength, arii,/ Jahir murmured back, and waited a heartbeat so the room could look its fill before striding into it. Vasiht'h hurried after him, tucking his wings close against his back and trying not to notice the stares and the hissing whispers he couldn't understand. He found himself regretting his vest: it was his nicest, a dark red embroidered with birds and stylized clouds edging the bottom all the way to the back where the clouds entwined in an abstract representation of Aksivaht'h's breath. But now that he was surrounded by these incredibly over-dressed people, he suddenly wished he had used the more formal sari he'd been reserving for the ceremony itself.

  "Hello, my son," Jeasa said, joining them. She spoke in Universal, but Vasiht'h noted she didn't take Jahir's hands. Perhaps such a gesture was too intimate—or outré—for the company they were in. "Did you pass the night well?"

  "Very," Jahir said.

  "And you?" Jeasa asked Vasiht'h, smiling.

  "Ah... well enough, thank you," Vasiht'h said. "We did a little improvising for a bed."

  "Oh, I am glad," she said. "And thank you for joining us. I know it's difficult when you don't speak the language."

  Relaxing a little, Vasiht'h said, "Ah, it's my pleasure, ma'am."

  "And what," a voice behind them said, the translated words echoing down the mindline tinged with ice and contempt so thick it dripped acid, "is this? I thought this was a civilized gathering."

  Jeasa looked over Vasiht'h's head and answered, and Jahir's translation of her voice gave it a quality that felt like winter air, biting the inside of his nose. "This is my son's companion, Carisil."

  "What is it?" the woman said, sweeping in front of them to look. She was taller than Jeasa, with a face of severe, and—Vasiht'h thought—unfair beauty. She was gowned in peacock green, and there was so much fabric in her skirt that he could only wonder how much it had cost just to swath the woman's narrow hips. "A pet of some kind?"

  Jeasa began with some heat, "That is no pet—"

  Jahir held up a hand, and his words tasted like steel under Vasiht'h's tongue, and the feel of it was so alien that it took him a moment to realize his friend was being condescending. Was capable of condescension, something Vasiht'h had never in his life heard from him. "Gently, mother. I am certain it is ignorance, no more. After all, not all families have access to the education and expensive equipment we do."

  "We have the means," the woman sniffed. "We merely do not spend it on such... things." She looked at Vasiht'h with narrowed eyes.

  "I'm glad the Alliance was spared," Vasiht'h muttered.

  The woman gasped. "Why, it—"

  "—speaks, I know," Vasiht'h said. He sighed and folded his arms. "So shocking."

  "This is the mother of the groom," Jahir said in Universal, his voice careless but the mindline rich with disgust.

  "Really," the woman was saying to Jeasa, the words lagging as Jahir's attention did, "there is no call for a... display... of this... vulgarity. This is a solemn occasion."

  "I will not hear one of my guests spoken of in this way," Jeasa answered, voice growing stern.

  "First you invite a known reprobate to the ceremony, knowing what a bad example she would be to a virgin bride," the woman replied. "Now this? Is there no end to the... eccentricity... of your household?"

  /Am I really going to cause this much trouble?/ Vasiht'h asked, appalled at how quickly the situation was spiraling out of control.

  Jahir hesitated before answering. /Your presence here is...unusual./

  /How unusual?/ Vasiht'h asked, acidly.

  /You might be the first alien these people have ever seen,/ Jahir answered, wry like sour oranges.

  Vasiht'h's claws flexed, nearly visible. He glanced around the party; the conversation had resumed, but only in quick whispers. Everyone was either staring at them, or standing in a way that they could stare without being obvious. /This was a bad idea. Me even coming was a bad idea./

  /Arii—/

  /No arguing,/ Vasiht'h said, torn between disgust and humiliation, and not understanding either. Fine state for a therapist, he thought to himself, and it was one of the first times he could remember that he actively blocked a thought from his friend.

  And that scared him.

  /I'm leaving,/ he said curtly, his mind-voice edged.

  /All right,/ Jahir said. No anger, no surprise. Somehow, the blanket-soft understanding made it worse. Vasiht'h turned his back on all of them and marched out, his back stiff from the tail all the way up the humanoid spine to his neck. And he kept marching all the way into the halls, where he found himself shaking. He squelched the mindline until it was nothing but a murmur in the back of his head and set off, wondering where he would go to escape an entire planetful of Eldritch, when he didn't even know how to get out of the house.

  Angry, he stopped in front of one of the house's servants. "Where's the exit?" he asked boldly, expecting nothing.

  So he was startled when the man answered, in accented but polite Universal, "Continue down this hall, please, and follow the corridors that broaden."

  This he did, then, quicker and quicker until he found he was almost running when he reached the foyer and plunged outside into the light. He didn't stop moving either, until he was part of the way up the road. Stopping to look back over his shoulder, he found the manor exactly as it should have been; not on fire, not exploding, not doing any of the things he felt it should be to reflect how disordered his emotional state was. It remained, implacable, expensive, too large, like an indictment of him for being content with normal things, mundane things like a little apartment, a quiet practice... and an alien friend.

  Vasiht'h sighed, shoulders drooping. He didn't want to go back. But going forward—he looked that way.

  ...and saw, unexpectedly, a child on a pony and a woman strolling alongside with a parasol. The woman, he saw when she turned her face to answer a question, was Sediryl.

  Why not, he thought. At least she knows a language I can speak. So he trotted toward them, and when he was close enough, called, "Is this... um... walking party open?"

  Sediryl and the child both looked back at him.<
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  The child squealed. "A Glaseah a Glaseah a real Glaseah!"

  Sediryl laughed. "I think that's a 'yes you can join us'," she said. "Come along, arii. Us strangefolk need to stick together, mm?"

  Surprised by the child's reaction, Vasiht'h joined them and glanced at her. She was a cute thing; somehow he'd thought Eldritch children would look like their parents, born snooty and perfect. But she had a snub nose and a friendly smile and eyes too large for the face she was still growing into, and while she wore finery that Vasiht'h found appallingly expensive to be subjected bareback to a pony-ride, she was already grubby in a way that was charmingly normal for a little girl.

  "You speak Universal?" he asked her cautiously.

  "Yes," she answered, lifting her chin. "I'm a Galare. We all speak Universal."

  "I see," Vasiht'h murmured.

  "This," Sediryl said, strolling up to flank him on the other side, "is Juzie, the bride."

  "The... bride?" Vasiht'h said. "Uh... Eldritch... bodies... age differently? Than humanoid?"

  "Oh, no," Sediryl said cheerfully, twirling the parasol and kicking up the hem of her skirt as she walked. "She's as young as she looks. Horrifying, isn't it?"

  "Mother and Aunt said I'm not to do anything I don't want to do until I feel old enough," the girl added.

  For a moment, Vasiht'h couldn't speak. He wanted to press his hands to his head to keep it from throbbing, but didn't want to offend either of them. "So... wait. If you're the bride, where are you going?"

  "The wedding's not for hours!" the girl said. "I want to go to the commons to buy some candy. While I'm still single."

  "And she needed a chaperone, of course," Sediryl said.

  The girl giggled. "Luckily no one saw us leave, or they would have had fits."

  "Because... you're not supposed to be going?" Vasiht'h guessed.

  "Because I'm a completely unsuitable guardian," Sediryl said. "And there's not a soul among our guests who doesn't know that." She grinned, all teeth. "My behavior was so absolutely scandalous that I have been the talk of the courts for years."