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When you first receive Liam’s missive, you are sitting in a financial policy meeting. It’s boring, but you’re required to attend, since you’ve received education in these things that your half-sister has not. You use the letter as an excuse to temporarily remove yourself: it’s from Duke Liam Wilhelmina of Lacramor, our friend and greatest ally, and written in his own hand!
Your cousin’s letter turns out to indeed be of great importance, but not the kind you thought it would be.
Hi Ruby
Primsy had the baby early. Baby’s fine but Primsy’s sick. She asked for you a bunch and I don’t know what’s gonna happen to her or me or the baby but I think whatever happens you should be there
-Liam
PS. It’s a boy. Don’t want to decide name without P’s input
It’s written in the shorthand you taught to him with Jet as kids. Just reading it makes that old wound in your soul ache.
You knew Primsy was expecting. You also knew how difficult childbirth can be for bottled women. But until now, you hadn’t put two and two together. It’s an arduous process for all involved, and if it goes even slightly wrong then the odds lean heavily towards a painful death. Primsy is strong (not to mention a noblewoman, with all the best doctors at the ready), but not much can protect her from this now.
Without P’s input. The implication is one of delirium or coma, or at least extreme pain or weakness. How long did it take for this letter to arrive? Days, a week? You hate to think of Primsy suffering with nothing to do for it.
You don’t return to the meeting. You go to start packing your things, and you tell your half-sister the news over dinner. She looks sorrowful but not terribly upset, ready to offer you comfort at arm’s length. There’s a Beef-clan diplomat, she says, heading back to his homeland in two days. She will make sure Lacramor is his first stop, which means three days’ travel for you.
You are grateful to your half-sister, in her debt as always. You curtsy like an advisor does. You leave her table before dessert is served; you will take it in your room.
You pack light and set sail. Your traveling companion is an elderly piece of brisket, along with his retinue and yours. You have told your maid, a pretty young lemon drop whose family has worked for yours for four generations, of your mission. She gasped and reached out to touch you instinctively, holding your hand as both of you tried not to weep.
You manage to hold it in. You will save the tears for Lacramor, for Primsy’s sickbed or for her casket. Instead, you escape quietly to the deck to feel the cold, whipping wind of the Dairy Sea in your hair. Your shadow is sharp and dark in the Bulb’s great light.
You arrive at port, disembark and find the castle. You’ve rarely seen a place so big so quiet. The only sound you hear, which comes only once in the first hour of your visit, is the scuttling of maids’ feet beneath the floor.
You are brought in to see Liam. He jumps up out of his chair to hug you tight, with no hesitation or thought for decorum. You, as easily as breathing, wrap your own arms around him in return. You stay like that for a long, long moment.
He tells you, his words buried deep in your chest, that Primsy is better - much better than anyone thought would be possible for her. She’s still in and out of consciousness, but her fever broke a couple days ago and it looks like she’s going to be alright.
And in the meantime, Liam’s voice breaks, but his hold on you is steadfast. You feel horrible, but all you want is to escape his embrace. You love him- of course you love your cousin- but you don’t make journeys like this to sit in someone’s arms for hours on end. You realize that a distinct dread has been vibrating in your stomach, and it does not allow you to be still.
You ask to see Primsy, and that feeling of dread alleviates somewhat as you silently walk. Her sickbed is in a faraway corner of the castle that requires quite a bit of effort to reach, which feels inconvenient but you didn’t design this place. As you climb the stairs, as you go up and down like a mind-bending painting you’ve seen, you get the sense that its labyrinthine layout is a little on purpose. Islanders are a roving people, and no Dairyman could stay in a cramped little manor like the ones they have back home in Dulcington.
You would’ve loved to grow up in a castle like this as a kid. Who needs to run away every week when your home has enough secrets to fill your days until you’re grown and married? You can practically picture Jet doing aerials on the stairs.
And suddenly you are grown, not married but somehow grown indeed, standing at the door behind which a girl, younger than you, has risked her life for motherhood. You brace yourself for the vision of Primsy, drained and sallow, with a loosened lid or visible cracks or those horrible brown bandages holding her together…
But you enter and see a mother holding a fussy baby, and somehow that sight is even more horrible than any wound done to the little girl you knew.
She beams when you come in. “Ruby!” she exclaims, voice joyful but steady.
You sit on the bed. She lets you hold the baby, a healthy little piece of peppermint bark. “I want to call him Barclay,” she says with an adoring glance down at him. “Liam says it’s a family name and I think it’s just so beautiful, don’t you?”
You’ve always hated the name on your ancestors, but it has a certain charm for a baby this small. You tell Primsy that. She laughs.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she freely admits, taking her baby back into her arms. “Liam said you might not come, with how bad the weather was - you know it thundered all the time I labored - I was beginning to wonder if he told me you were coming just to get me through the fever. He would, the dear man.”
Liam’s a man now too. It didn’t hit you when you walked in (maybe because of the childish way he greeted you), but he’s a man, married with a child and a slowly-growing beard. It hurts.
You talk a while longer before Primsy falls asleep, baby Barclay in her arms. A maid noiselessly scoops him up and carries him away as he begins to squall. Another one smiles at you.
“D’you know, that’s the longest that Lady Coldbottle’s been awake since the young master was born?”
You haven’t had that kind of connection with another girl (not girls anymore, you remind yourself) in eight years. The kind of love that can keep you sane and happy in mad conditions like these.
You come down to Liam and ask if you can stay a few days longer than you’d agreed on before. He couldn’t care less. You drink what feels like gallons of cream stout with him and the rest of the Dairy Court that evening, disappear back up to the lovely room you’ve been appointed, and begin to quietly write two letters.
To Her Wild Majesty Queen Saccharina of House Frostwhip
I humbly request leave to visit the court of my father and mother, the Emperor and Empress Rocks of the Concord, in the city of Comida. I would prefer to go straight from the Dairy Isles in order to avoid the autumn storms, but if your Majesty wishes otherwise, I must oblige. All is well on the Dairy Sea. The Duchess and Duke send regards to your kingdom.
Ever your happy sister, Princess Ruby Rocks
Dear Mum and Dad,
Can I come see you please? I get it if stuff is weird in Comida and I shouldn’t, but I wrote Saccharina and I think she’ll be fine with not seeing me for a while. I’m in the Dairy Isles seeing Primsy (she and the new baby are alright) and Liam (he says hi), so I can go whenever you say the word. I miss you and I don’t want to go home and I need those pickled blueberries from the Pyramid like I need air.
Love you, Ruby
You have to write your signature in an odd spot, because when you write that you don’t want to go home, a tear that’s been fighting to escape your eye falls onto the page before you can catch it. More tears come, burning and unstoppable. They blur your vision and threaten to tear open your throat to scream. For the first time in weeks, you are totally still, with one singular thought dominating your mind.
I’m not a kid anymore.
More thoughts arrive, flooding with the tears. As you put them in words, they’re a little bit… blunter than they were before. Less likely to kill or wound, and easier to see.
She’s a kid forever.
If I grow up that means I’m leaving her behind.
If I have a life that means I’m growing up.
I can’t grow up.
I have to grow up.
The shadow on the floor is pale in the soft light of the candle. It flickers and sways as you squirm in your seat. It’s not like the shadow that follows you in the harsh Candian summers, which is strong and dark and will not move without you moving. It was comforting in the summer of your youth, something strong to climb into and be protected by.
I am growing up.
But you’re outgrowing the need for solid shadows. You need something that will change as you do, something that you don’t have to keep wiggling inside of to make it fit. You need a life that can hold you as you are.
She would want me to grow up.
You don’t rewrite the letter with the blotch. You have both posted the next morning.
Your half-sister’s response comes in six days: yes, of course you can go to Comida, she’s not going to stop you from seeing your parents. Primsy grows stronger each day, and by the end of the week you’re taking meals with her and Liam in her quarters. Neither of them are the same people they were eight years ago, but why would you expect the personalities of blushing teenagers from parents well into their twenties? There’s something freeing about being in an actual adult friendship; you haven’t had one yet in your half-sister’s court. You find yourself sitting with them for hours, holding their hands with ease, rocking baby Barclay with nothing but joy.
Your parents don’t send a letter back. You worry yours went missing on the journey. Your fears vanish when a boat with a Concordant crest pulls into the harbor. You say quick goodbyes to Liam and Primsy, expecting to be unceremoniously ushered onto the ship and south to Comida. Instead, standing on the ship is your mother, who rushes down to snatch you into her arms. Not for the first time (nor, if you’re being honest with yourself, the second) in the last few weeks, you begin to cry. Gently, she places her hands on your damp cheeks as you realize she hasn’t seen your face in years. You brace for her own realization that you look nothing like Jet anymore.
“You get more beautiful every time I see you,” she says simply, kissing your forehead.
She has dinner with you and the Dairy Court that night (though she remains dry; cream stout is a little strong for an empress’s refined tastes). You leave for Comida the very next morning. Liam wheels Primsy out to the harbor to say proper goodbyes. The three of you hold each other tightly in long hugs that don’t feel nearly long enough.
“Don’t be a stranger, Ruby,” Primsy insists through tears. “You know that you’re welcome here whenever you want.”
Liam nods vigorously. “All you have to do is write, and even if you don’t we absolutely have room.”
You wouldn’t make that kind of work for the maids, but you’ll certainly come back; you have so much of the castle to explore.
The bulb is climbing the sky when you and your mother finally board.
“The voyage won’t be long,” she says. “We’ll almost certainly be on land by the time the autumn storms start.”
Your shadow is unmistakably deep and defined on the floor, but even a few weeks later, it’s lighter and wispier than it was on the ride here.
“Good,” you reply. “I’m glad autumn is coming. It’s been way too bright this summer.”
And you take off, rocking with the boat, into the wind and the waves.