V3Ch70-Necessary Risks

“Vidalia, are you awake?” Mariella asked quietly.

The slimmer girl’s nude body was pressed close to hers, so that Mariella could feel her heartbeat and her breathing as easily as her own, but it was often surprisingly difficult to tell whether she was awake or asleep. Mariella had initiated intimacy with Tybalt once, thinking that the foxgirl was still sleeping, only to find Vidalia watching them through narrowed eyes when Mariella was nearing her climax. That had been a little awkward.

Now the fire mage had the added impediment of a pregnancy bump in between them, sitting on top of Vidalia’s tail. That made it even harder to feel those telltale signs that might otherwise have revealed whether she was awake or asleep.

But some instinct told her that the foxgirl wasn’t asleep yet.

“Yeah, I’m awake,” Vidalia whispered back. She reached forward, moving ever so slowly, and stroked Mariella’s hair. “We have to be quiet, everyone else is sleeping… but what’s up?”

“When we’re dreaming, could you… take me somewhere?”

“Sure thing, Ella. Wherever you want to go.”

She didn’t ask any questions. The foxgirl was understanding like that, not just with Tybalt, but with all his women - all her co-wives. She didn’t need answers. She just trusted the people she had chosen to share her life with.

That faith had been a great comfort to Mariella over the last several months. Vidalia really believed in her new family, in Tybalt, and in this enterprise, this Kingdom they were building. She could see the future, and she believed.

Even though there had been moments when Mariella wondered if Vidalia was controlling everyone, maneuvering them like puppets on strings, the foxgirl’s unconditional acceptance and absolute faith in this family had shone through any doubts.

So Mariella wanted to tell her why she was asking this favor.

“It’s my Dad,” the fire mage said. “We’re about to go to war with the Kingdom. It’s been a while since we tried to talk to him. Last time didn’t go that well. But it’s been weeks. I’ve been putting it off, but I want to - no, I have to - try again before we’re likely to be pointing swords at each other.”

“You didn’t have to explain,” Vidalia said quietly. “Don’t worry. We’ll find him and talk to him. Just be careful what you say, all right? If you told him something that could put us at risk… Well, you know better than I do how clever your father is supposed to be.”

Mariella nodded slightly. “I do. Thanks.”

“That’s what family is for.”

“Th - I mean, yeah.” Mariella had been about to thank her again.

Family. I still have to get used to that. We are all married to Tybalt now. We’re one unified whole. Even the vampire I don’t really know yet.

“Now sleep.”

Mariella instantly found herself in darkness.

It’s crazy she can do that. She could win almost any fight instantly. Although I guess she tried it on the ancient dragon, and he was just immune.

“Let’s find him…” Vidalia’s gentle voice filled the air around Mariella.

Hopefully Dad’s actually asleep.

Then the black space changed. A new world materialized around Mariella, far from where she was.

She found herself standing atop a hill, two dozen dead bodies in front of her amidst a smoking wreck of a village. Five of the dead wore armor and had weapons either in hand or on the ground around them. From their armor and brown complexions, they appeared to be lower caste Walians. Her father had some Walian armor sets on display at home. Trophies from enemies he had personally slain.

The other dead bodies were Nietian civilians. They appeared to be peasants, largely unarmed and unarmored. One of them had a pitchfork clutched in his dead hand, held tight against the enemies who had struck him down anyway.

Dad is dreaming of a massacre?

She turned her head and saw him, looking down from twenty feet to her right, perched on the same hill, expression contemplative.

“Dad?” she said aloud.

He turned to face her, and his face lightened visibly. His shoulders relaxed as if he had forgotten the grisly scene before them.

“Ella, is that really you? Again?”

She nodded, and then the words started tumbling out, uncontrollable once she got started.

“It is. I… wanted to see you. I got married. I wish you could have been there. I - I’m pregnant. Tybalt and I are going to have a baby. I…”

She wasn’t saying what she had come here to say. It was all the things she had wanted him to hear from her. All the words she had regretted she couldn’t say to any member of her family. They were so far away.

“I’m so happy to see you,” he said.

He walked over and quickly pulled her into his arms.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he added, speaking into the top of her head. “I was so angry… at myself.”

“So was I,” she said. “Are you all right? I saw you were, um, dreaming of some dark things.”

“Oh, I… I’ve just been recalling a skirmish from a week ago. Trying to piece together a pattern of movement. The Walians have been raiding on our southern border, and we’ve been tracking them. It’s hard to draw them into a decisive engagement, though. For a people who love fighting, it’s almost performative. But of course, they know they’re outmatched if it comes to a straight fight right now. This is just one small faction, following the last Emperor’s daughter, trying to demonstrate that she’s a competent war leader. The politics are more important to them than any actual meaningful conquest.”

Right, at some point, Tybalt and Vidalia said that they dreamt of a Walian invasion force moving on the southern border, didn’t they? Dad’s dealing with that?

She felt a swell of relief. The Walian Empire was at the opposite pole of the Kingdom relative to the Salt Waste. Her father had said he would ensure he wasn’t the one sent to deal with Tybalt and his army, but it was one thing to say that and another to see and hear some tangible proof.

He’ll be far away when we overrun the capital.

“I’m glad you’re far away,” she said. “I know that sounds cold, but…”

“Oh, you and your… husband are about to attack the Kingdom directly,” he said, instantly picking up on what she was thinking.

“Um…”

I probably shouldn’t have said that.

He stepped back and looked down at her, worry replacing relief on his face.

“You should run, Ella. You should flee across the sea, you and your husband and as many of the people you care about as you can manage to spirit away. General Caracalla is the one who was dispatched north to deal with you. He’s undefeated, and he’s fought against impossible odds before. It’s the worst luck you and your new family could have run into.”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Mariella said coolly. “Dad, I’m not afraid of the Royal Army. We’ll beat whoever they send our way. We have plenty of resources. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Right. Let’s just enjoy this time together, then.” He frowned. “I should add, I sent your brother with Caracalla. I was hoping… there would be some way he could extract you from trouble.”

“Gods, Dad!” she exclaimed. “We’re probably going to slaughter that whole army! What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that my thickheaded daughter was in over her head and might welcome a rescue by the time things came to a head. And I was hoping, anticipating, that we might have another chat like this where I could tell you to be expecting him.”

She let out a slow sigh through clenched teeth. “That was sweet of you.”

He pulled her closer.

“How are you doing against the Walians?” she asked after a moment, speaking into his shoulder. “You said they’re not willing to be drawn into a straight fight. Are they whittling you down?”

“Hardly. I don’t want to talk about that either, though, anymore than you wanted to talk about your situation.”

“All right… How was Mom doing, last time you saw her?”

They spent the next hour or so avoiding the subjects that would only end in an argument, catching up on family developments, and slowly, delicately, probing at the possibility that they might one day see each other in person again.

“I would dearly like to meet my grandchild,” he said at one point.

“I’ll do everything I can to make sure that Dominic doesn’t wind up a casualty in our upcoming fight,” she said at another point. “We’ll take him prisoner if we have any opportunity.”

But mostly, they avoided those difficult topics.

“You’re lucky,” he said at one point, offhandedly. “The Kingdom has so much more to worry about than a necromancer and the beastfolk up north.”

Wait, did they know Tybalt was a necromancer before? She didn’t think Niet had possessed that information during her last conversation with her father. And she distinctly remembered Tybalt had very carefully avoided revealing what his special class was during that exchange.

“The Walians are a big challenge,” she said, nodding. Waiting to see what else her father might give up.

He looked at her with a calculating expression, like he knew exactly what she was doing. Then he smiled.

“There’s also a horde of ogres on the southeastern frontier with the Discontented Lands,” he said. “If you didn’t already know about that. There are still defenders in the capital, but with armies hunting elusive enemies in three different directions, the remaining forces will be stretched thinly. Such a difficult situation.”

“A challenge… and an opportunity?” Mariella said.

“You might understandably see it that way. I’m just hoping you and the baby get out of all this alive.”

***

General Vespasian Sevenhills stirred from his slumber.

He rose and moved to the opening of his tent before he could forget the dream he’d just been having. The dream that was more than just a dream.

The General poked his head out and saw a man sitting by the fire while another slept nearby.

“Flavius?” Vespasian called.

“Yes, General!” Flavius replied, instantly rising to his feet and snapping to attention.

“At ease. I need a message composed and sent to Enh right away. We must request more troops. The Walians might be trying to lure us into a more committed engagement. These burned villages are more than just a show of force for their own internal politics. They’re a provocation. It’s likely the would-be Empress has more pieces on the board than she has yet shown us.”

“Is that… Will they grant that request, General?” Flavius asked uncertainly. “I don’t mean to question you, it’s just… I believe they only have the First Army there now.”

“We are sometimes overly paranoid about the capital,” Vespasian said as innocuously as he could, concealing his own doubts about this course. “It is far from any border of the country. We are on the frontier. General Pius has as large a force as we do to fight a rabble of ogres, while we’re expected to hold off the Kingdom’s oldest and best fortified enemy. If the Empire were to make a serious move right now, we could be wiped out.”

Flavius’s doubts seemed to clear in an instant.

“Of course, General.” He sat, rustled through a bag for a piece of parchment, and then began writing.

All I’m doing is asking for more troops, Vespasian thought, the words almost a prayer. A simple request, because we don’t know how many enemies we may be facing. Defensible in the event of questioning… or court-martial. The capital has no significant threats bearing down. General Caracalla will have been sent off to face Tybalt by the time my message arrives, but the outcome of that won’t be known.

He hoped he was making the right decision.

I’m going to meet my grandchild, he told himself. We’ll be a family again. I have to keep striving for that. I… have to take some risks.