The Seduction of Chadwick: Red Riding HoodThe moon struck full and beautiful, shining across the Tir and emphasizing its being beyond the reach of anyone by order of law. A low mist had managed to gather and crept about the walls, perhaps to insinuate itself into the castle. Chadwick paced the cobbles near the main gate, trying to keep the chill off of him with the crimson cloak he'd chosen for that very reason. It would part as he moved, revealing buttons that must've been polished to achieve the luminosity that they had... gleaming like yellow tinged beacons against the virginal white shirt he'd chosen. A gate guard sighed, watching Chadwick look nervous and excited. "Women, is it," the guard inquired when Chadwick was close enough to hear. Chad's features reflected his confusion and he clearly seemed unable to answer this basic question. "I haven't kept you waiting, I hope?" Larissa's voice came from the mists, and she emerged, camouflaged against the night in a black cloak. She threw back the hood, the movement of the cloak in the torchlight revealing a glint of gold beneath. Leaning forward, she gave Chadwick a peck on the cheek. "You look handsome, cousin." "Thank you," he said as he accepted the platonic kiss. "You are very pretty yourself." He offered his arm to her, to escort her to the carriage he'd arranged for the evening out. "Shall we?" "Let's." Larissa accepted his arm, and an unneeded hand-up into the carriage. "I'm ever so glad you could come, Chadwick," she said as she settled into her seat. "It grows so disheartening to have to pretend to callousness, but I needn't dissemble with you." Chadwick looked concerned as he heard these words. He shifted on his seat across from her, closing the carriage door before saying anything. Even though he disapproved of lying, he couldn't hurt his cousin. "I... thank you." Larissa let a flicker of a concerned frown pass over her face as Chadwick's hesitation, but allowed it to pass without comment. He looked out the window of the carriage, which had begun moving out of the gate and toward their destination. "I don't get out very much. I had to skip tea, but I'm sure mother won't mind my visiting with a cousin. How've you been?" "Well enough, I suppose. The seas have been smooth, so business is going well, and no one seems to have caused any diplomatic incidents lately. I was even considering escaping to Whitecliff for a week or so. One can but hope it's not the calm before the storm." She tucked back a strand of hair that had been disordered by the hood of the cloak. "How about you? Have you been entirely wrapped up in the redesign project?" He'd given his attention to her as she spoke, and kept it while he replied. "Pretty much. Mother had me working on the safety features, making sure people don't hurt themselves the way they've been in the past. It turned out to be quite a task, researching the accidents in the castle. Do you know that Corwin was skewered no less than 216 times during adolescent meals? He also took an unprecedented number of stairway falls, spell misfirings, and the tragic tendency of sleeping with his head under his pillow." "No wonder he was so gloomy," Larissa said. "Did anyone else suffer an equal number of...mishaps, or was Corwin just accident-prone?" He thought about it. "The archives have much more information on accidents than the just the ones in the castle. I didn't research all of them, so Corwin might've been safer outside..." Chadwick grinned at the thought of Corwin sleeping outside to avoid accidents, but returned to his serious demeanour shortly. "There were a shocking number of accidental deaths among the staff and visiting dignitaries... I'd be careful if I were you." He grew thoughtful. "Well, under Mandor that number has gotten better." "From anyone else, that would have sounded like a threat," Larissa said, chuckling. "I think, if you want to discover why Corwin had so many problems, you might want to dig deeper. Causal factors can be so difficult to determine from studies without a control group." She outright laughed. Chadwick looked hopelessly lost. "Umm... yes." He watched her laugh with some concern. Maybe some sort of rare laughing disease. Not that this was the first time someone had laughed at something he'd said, but he never meant for it to happen. The carriage proceeded, easing the pace as they entered the city and approached the restaurant. He had to think of some other type of discussion. Something else to talk about. Then he thought: ~What would Flora do?~ It failed him. He simply wasn't his mother. "In the mornings, for breakfast, the faeries used to bring me berries and fresh milk." He wasn't sure where this might lead, but he had to try something. A lesser conversationalist might have been thrown off her stride, but Larissa continued smoothly. "Oh indeed? Always the same berries, or was there some variety? Once, when I was quite small, I refused to eat anything but snapfruit for more than an em-sec...I'm told it turned my skin orange." "An... em-sec?" Chadwick finally had something he might revolve the conversation around, and he intended to pursue it's fullest. Larissa's childhood could easily be full of things he'd never learned of, and he'd be happy to do so as they completed their journey to the restaurant. "Megasecond," Larissa clarified. "A few hours shy of 12 days. Ah, here we are." The carriage drew up before a building either of stone or pale brick, under an awning that was no doubt brightly-colored during the day. The glow of candlelight flickered through the windows. They alit, and a smiling doorman held the door for them, through which appetizing smells drifted. "Have you been here before?" Larissa asked Chadwick as the staff took their cloaks. "They do things with truffles that probably require Sorcery." "Merely alchemy, Madame," the maitre d' said with a smile as he glided up. "If Madame et M'sieur will follow me?" He led them to a table for two, covered in snowy linens and lit by an oil lamp. Larissa ignored the recitation of the specials to glance around the restaurant. No sign yet of Merlin or Morgan, though she recognized a few faces. The maitre d' swapped out with the wine steward after a half bow. "Something white, I think," Larissa said. "Chadwick?" Chadwick was stunned. The atmosphere spoke of the practice of making anything appetizing. They could offer him something they found under a dead tree and the environment would compel him to eat it. "I... I'll have what the lady's having," he responded, directing his voice to the wine steward and hoping that he didn't sound as lost as he was. "Something white, then," Larissa decided. "Dry. If you've anything from that latest shipment from Aegea's Gold Coast, that would be perfect. The Gold Coast is on volcanic soil," she told Chadwick. "Wonderful for grapes. "You didn't tell me what sort of berries the faeries brought you," she finished, with a warm smile. "Oh! I'm sorry... blackberries, mostly. Currants, raspberries, blueberries, schnozberries... when in season they'd bring those. Served with milk, honey optional." He gave a quick look around the restaurant to see what he could, but nothing held his interest, so he returned it to his cousin. "Schnozberries?" Larissa prompted, as though the conversation were interesting. "I've never heard of those. Shadow is vast indeed. Do we import them at all?" When last we left our victim and decoy, they were discussing schnozberries, and the importing thereof to Amber. Chadwick was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a bit at sea: "I... I don't know. I've never checked." He perked up, "what about your childhood." "What about it?" Larissa asked in reply. "It was quite normal for a childhood where I grew up. I'm still not entirely certain where my childhood and an Amberish childhood diverge, never having much interested myself with childrearing. "We measured time in seconds," she said. "I suppose that's different." "Where I grew up, my..." but he stopped and thought about his childhood. Just being Amberite wasn't normal. Getting food delivered to the table wasn't normal... everyone else worked for their food. Having a suit of armor wasn't normal. Every aspect of his childhood and, until recently, adulthood had been abnormal. The smile he'd had melted at this realization. "I don't think my childhood was very normal," he added. "And what of it, if so?" Larissa sipped her wine. "Do any of the appetizers appeal to you?" "The potato wedges," he said simply. "Melted cheese is always good." "Potato wedges it is, then. We'll order, and then we can trade notes on our childhoods." Larissa smiled warmly at Chadwick, then made eye contact with the waiter. The waiter, a lanky, dark-haired fellow with a whisper of a mustache, seemed disappointed at the rather simple choice, but said nothing. With a nod, he was gone. Moments later the wine had arrived, with small glasses of water accompanying them. Chadwick looked at the wine. "Is something wrong?" Larissa stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth. "I... I don't drink very often. Wine and such. *Spirits*," he nodded, as if this explained it all. "Just reflecting on those I left at home." He smiled a bit, and raised his glass to his lips, taking a small sip. "It's a good pun, and an interesting linguistic quirk." Larissa sipped her own wine, and nodded in approval. "There is no magic where I'm from." Chadwick nearly choked. "Excuse me, but... none? Mother spoke of where you were from as an incredibly magical place, full of ships sailing between stars and light that could be hard... are you sure it had no magic?" "Fair point, I suppose." Larissa stared into her wine as though it had answers. "I would have said, when I was growing up, that 'magic' was something that broke physical laws...now, I largely prefer not to think about it." She grinned a bit ruefully at Chadwick. "Flying carpets and whatnot offend something primal in me. I'm a hopeless science chauvinist." Chadwick grew wide-eyed for a moment, and then looked down. "I think I see what you mean. You like concrete rules, right? That everyone can use, without exception? Very noble of you to share." He began to wonder where the potato wedges were. He tried not to be impatient, and he was certain that they hadn't ordered them very long, but he had the feeling that they should be there by now. He shifted in his seat, and then smiled at Larissa. "Could you tell me more about the ships? They sounded very intriguing." "They run on fusion plants," Larissa said. "Which is ramming atoms together to liberate energy. The EM ramscoops collect hydrogen, and the ships accelerate in high-density regions--" She paused to accept the appetizer and scoop some onto her plate. "--And coast in low-density ones. Additionally, the ramfield holds charged particles which act as a solar sail. Effective speed cap on a Trader mainfleet vessel is point-8 cee, while the short-run couriers can get up to point-nine-five cee. "Travel times are about..." Larissa looked off into space "...five years between the closest systems. Fifteen to 20 is more normal, and exploratory craft can be underway for 50 to 100--that is, in subjective time. It's longer as seen from the planetary reference frame. The crew spends most of that time in coldsleep. Duty shifts are usually a couple of years, which is just enough time to get really bored with being on a ship. "Er...did you follow that?" she asked, and forked some potato into her mouth. His eyes widened as she spoke, and his right eye did so more than his left. His expression went from wonder to bewilderment and right out to ~she's crazy~. By the end, though, he had to admit that some of it *had* made sense. "I didn't follow all of it, but I did understand some. If I understand, there's fuel in the space between stars and planets that these ships scoop up some and rams together to make it go." He put some sort of cream on his potato and smiled at it. Clearly this was something of a delicacy for him. "You then travel seas in these ships for years, sleeping most of it off?" He doubted this last bit, but it had made as much sense as he could muster. Larissa nodded. "Not bad. Though I wouldn't call interstellar space 'the seas.' Hmm...you know how there's, ah...less to water than there is to rock, and less to air than to water? There's less to space than to air." She followed her potato with a sip of wine, then made a face and reached for her water glass. He looked to be concentrating, after taking a large bite of potato wedge to give his mouth something to do while he considered her response. Before he could reply, however, she looked as though she'd bitten a lemon. "Are you okay," he asked in alarm. Already she was reaching for the water, and he sought to help her, but he was too late. "I'm fine. Just not especially pleased with this wine and appetizer combination." She gave the potatoes a glare. "Anyway. Spaceships. Faeries. Definitions of 'magic.' The striking dissimilarity of the mundane in different Shadows. I'm sure it all makes sense on some level." "I'm sure," Chadwick said, finishing up a potato wedge. He seemed to have no trouble with the flavor, but he favored the water. He thought about the fact that she was *old*. She really didn't look it, but... hundreds of years? Was that even possible, for a cousin of his to outstrip his own age so completely? "Why do you think I was away from Amber for so long?" "Are you asking me because you have an answer, or because you're searching for an answer?" Larissa's eyes were on her plate as she daubed some of the cream onto her remaining appetizer. "Family is supposed to be important. All of the other folk I knew, with the exception of the fairies and the dragons, thought so. If that's the case, why was I kept from mine? Or why were they kept from me?" Chadwick refrained from eating, waiting for her response without touching his drink. Setting down her fork, Larissa looked at Chadwick in the low light. Something that might have been a grimace flickered across her face. "I don't like to speculate on your mother's motives. They could have been pure--we're a dangerous lot. Or they could have been twisted--our Elders are schemers to the bone." She shook her head. "Have you asked Flora?" "N-no. I tried to, once, but nothing came of it." He looked downcast. "I just thought maybe she'd told you something. I didn't mean that you should guess." "Oh, Chadwick." Larissa covered his hand with hers. "I didn't mean to upset you. But you're here, in Amber, now, with your family, so you can make up for lost time." She smiled encouragingly. "Even if you don't leave the City, there's still much to do and see." He brightened at her kind words. "It is a lovely city, isn't it? Lots of history, and the sunsets are marvelous. Have you been up Kolvir, to the top? Mother says it's absolutely the best... actually, I think she said "bees knees", but I know what she meant." He tucked away the last of the potato wedges with an absolutely wicked amount of cream - all that was left - and looked about for the waiter, who most certainly should have asked about the entree by now. "Oh I think we saunter," said Merlin, waving a dismissal to a waiter. He began to make a leisurely progress towards the table where Larissa and Chadwiock sat, pausing to greet people he knew - a couple of Chaosian gamblers, a prominent whore who was something of a rival to those of the Ramblin' Queen - and one respectable merchant, the father of three hopeful daughters. The man was torn between being flattered at the honour, and concern at attracting such notorious interest towards his daughters. Morgan followed just behind his cousin, interjecting amusing comments into the conversations Merlin had with the people he greeted. Nothing important, just enough to remind people that he was a friend of the king, not a hanger-on. He kept the table where Chadwick and Larissa sat in his peripheral vision, but didn't look directly at them as he and the king slowly neared it. "Chadwick!" said Merlin, his voice warm with pleasure. "Larissa! How wonderful to see you - and how unexpected! Morgan - this is turning out to be an excellent idea of yours." He smiled at them winningly. "Now - don't say that you're so far into your meal that we can't join you. Let's have a cosy family evening, all together. In fact, my treat." Merlin spoke with the easy confidence of one who knew that whoever would be picking up the ultimate bill - Amber taxpayers, fawning hangers-on or exasperated cousins - it wasn't going to be him. Chadwick was completely bulldozed by Merlin's tactic, stammering before finally shrugging and looking toward Larissa for a nod. Larissa gave every indication of surprised pleasure, and rose to greet Merlin and Morgan with pecks on the cheek. "How lovely to see you both." "We, ummm... we've already had appetizers, but your welcome to join us," he said, paying more attention to Merlin than to Morgan. He cleared a bit of space next to himself for any who wanted to sit there. He certainly wasn't going to require Larissa to have either of them sit next to her, unless it was what she wanted. "Oh, I'm certain they can find us a larger table," Larissa said, gesturing to one of the waitstaff, in whose ear she whispered briefly. Whether it was a degree of service provided to all the restaurant's clientele, or merely to kings, the group was soon resettled at a table for four in a corner that afforded both a degree of privacy and a commanding view of the dining room. "Chadwick and I were just discussing things to do in the City," said Larissa, amidst napkin-spreading and menu-scrutinizing. Chadwick was practically dizzy from the change. One moment he was having a pleasant, if somewhat challenging, discussion with his cousin, the next he was seated next to the King at an entirely different table. "I think I'll have the chicken," he mutters into his menu as he tries not to offend the king. He had seemed so annoyed earlier, and Chadwick didn't want to remind him of that. "The sauce sounds perfect for white meat, so it'll be breast for me." Chadwick smiled at this attempt at a pun and looked about for reactions. Morgan smiled fondly at Chadwick when he said this. Merlin looked as though he were about to make a certain response, and then looked at Larissa and decided to eschew it. His lips still twitched though, as he returned to peruse the menu. "You know, even after all this time, I still find some of these dishes sound less than inviting," he said. "Pigs' trotters - I bet they weren't grown in a vat, eh, Larissa?" "Precisely why I'm having the tortellini," Larissa gave Merlin a 'behave yourself' glare over the menu. Merlin gave her a singularly angelic smile in return. "Never liked vat-grown food myself," Morgan said, examining the menu. "Always put me in mind of the Empire's clone farms and secret labs, where they grew all sorts of things best not thought about. Whole slave species, grown to order. Think I'll have the beef and mushrooms, with a red wine sauce, I always like that. Whatever the herbs are that they use here, they give it a taste I've never had anywhere else. Rich and hearty, but with a certain delicacy. Delicious." He smiled at Chadwick again. "Heavier than the chicken, but still very good. If you'd like a taste of mine just ask." Chadwick looked sideways at Larissa before responding to Morgan. "Certainly. Thank you... very kind." There was a decided oddity of taking food off of someone else's plate, even when done correctly, Chadwick felt, but Morgan was one of those people that perhaps it was best to be polite to. Larissa smiled encouragingly back at her cousin. "Drink your wine before it warms up, Chadwick. You and I can split another bottle of white over the meal and leave the red for the interlopers. "And *do* relax. You're not going to offend anyone here. We're all far more practiced at the art than you are," she said with a laugh. "Oh, o-of course," he said as he lowered his menu and squared his shoulders more, giving less the suggestion of a frightened child. "More practiced at a wide range of arts," murmured Merlin. He considered the menu and then tossed it to the hovering waiter. "A steak for me. Rare. Extremely rare. In fact, I'd prefer it moo-ing when it's placed before me. And a green peppercorn sauce. And salad. My usual wine." "And be sure food and drink are sent out to our driver," Morgan added. The business of ordering finished with he turned the full force of his smile of Chadwick. "So," he said. "What are our plans for this evening?" It seemed a general question. "I thought we were just going to have a pleasant dinner, but we could take in a museum... the artist's quarter has some lovely roving displays, even late into the night." Chadwick began to think. He knew so little of the city, but he'd heard of some things he'd wanted to visit, he was sure... nothing else seemed to come to mind... "u-unless there was something else that you might... find..." Merlin's smile was unnerving. "Lovely things in the artists' quarter," Morgan agreed. "It seems a good night for looking at lovely things in pleasant company." "Do we need to go as far as the artists' quarter for that?" asked Merlin thoughtfully. "Isn't there somewhere ... closer?" "Hmmm," Morgan replied. He tapped his fingers on the table in thought, then said, "Rissa? Can you think of anything?" Chadwick watched the others bounce this question around. He was rather fond of the Artists' Quarter and the idea that it was too far for enjoyment was not one that he felt was accurate. How could one stray too far for that kind of value? Merlin gave Larissa his best hopeful puppy look. Well, not quite his best - that would have required several physical shifts. But it was certainly his best while in human form. "Welllllll," she drawled, "there's always our cousin's establishment. We could introduce Chadwick and take in the sights. She's quite the artist herself, Chad. Does lovely portraiture." Larissa smiled happily as though the idea hadn't all along been to bring up this topic. "Does she? I think that'd be lovely! What are her landscapes like, I wonder? Do you think we should stop by the castle? I could get my portfolio and show her some of the things I've done of late..." Chadwick began to ramble on about art, and his love thereof. "That's a great idea!" Morgan exclaimed, cutting into Chadwick's ramblings. "And she's a collector, too. Why, I think some of the loveliest pieces I've ever seen have been at her place!" "Then we must certainly lose no time in taking Chadwick to inspect the collection," said Merlin with enthusiasm. "Who needs food when we can feast our finer instincts instead?" "We can eat there, anyway," Morgan agreed. "I always find something tasty laid before me when I visit." "She cooks as well? I'm stunned that I've never been there," Chadwick said, looking at all of them with curiosity. "Surely such an oversight should be rectified forthwith! Come... let us away!" Chadwick set his menu down firmly and prepared to leave the establishment. "Pay these people, Larissa my sweet," said Merlin, rising elegantly to his feet. "We don't want them to lose out from my cousin's impetuousity. Morgan, can you have the carriage driver dragged away from whatever viands he was about to wolf down? Promise him a tasty morsel at Petra's establishment - I'm sure he'll be eager to drive us there." "So, come along, Chad," he went on, "and you can share with us all the lovely stories you've been telling Larissa." And he tucked his arm through Chadwick's and steered him expeditiously towards the door. Chadwick went willingly, with a smile. He did look back to make sure Larissa was doing well before departing the establishment itself, regaling Morgan with the tale of Skald's appendectomy. Lariss made a gesture at Merlin's back which no one in the restaurant was likely to recognize as unfit for polite company--at least, not in the Draconis Cluster of her home Shadow. "They'll bill Fair Winds," she said, then threw back Chadwick's nearly untouched wine. "So much for getting him drunk," she whispered to Morgan. Morgan grinned at her. "We'll intoxicate him with love," he said. He blew her a kiss. "I'll meet you at the carriage, Rissa." Morgan stopped by the headwaiter's podium on the way out. "No point in wasting food. Have about a quarter portion of every dish separated out," he said, as he took a sheet of gold-edged paper and helped himself to a pen. He dipped it in the inkwell on the podium and began to write, as he continued to give instructions. "Add in one of every one of your deserts. Have one of your staff locate Baroness Solitaire Helgram, and deliver the food, and this note, to her companion." He looked over what he had written, smiled, and then folded it and wrote TANSTAAFL on the outside, and handed it to the headwaiter.* "Our apologies for not being able to stay longer," he said. "No reflection upon the service or the food. Flora's son is rather rusticated, and perhaps this place was a little too sophisticated for him as of yet. We'll bring him back when he's a bit more ... mature." The note reads: To the handsomest fellow in all Amber,
A token of friendship and respect,
From the second handsomest.
(signed) Captain Morgan
PS - Feel free to share with the Baroness, if you are so inclined.
"Hurry up," said Merlin, when Morgan eventually emerged from the restaurant. "You took forever - what were you doing? But it was clear this was a no more than a sulky complaint for he said, the next moment, "I've got an idea. Let's take two phaetons from here and race them down to the harbour. There's a rather nice nattty black high perch phaeton here - it'll go like the devil if I don't overturn it. What do you say? Larissa, do you want to take one as well? Chad, you can ride with me." Morgan eyed the phaeton Merlin had chosen appraisingly, and then begin to consider the other carriages. Chadwick looked wordlessly to Larissa, hoping for support in a situation that looked hopeless... good manners would dictate that he accept the request of his sovereign. That this race might not go down too well with the owner of the phaeton, (or the owners of other vehicles they might be tempted to appropriate), didn't seem to worry Merlin at all. "The answer is, of course, 'no,'" Larissa said with the air of a patient parent explaining to a toddler why one musn't rub applesauce into the upholstery. "Chadwick, don't feel obligated to indulge his bad behavior." She paused with a hand on the door of the royal carriage. "Merlin. You wouldn't want to upset Chadwick on a night when we're supposed to be showing him the City's delights. Would you." Her glare warned him not to let their cousin slip off the hook. Chadwick sagged a little bit in relief and nodded with a smile to Larissa. "You know," Morgan said thoughtfully, "It occurs to me that by now they've undoubtedly put out to sea. They had no reason to hold for us, after all, since they weren't expecting us." He smiled at Merlin. "Maybe we should trump in, instead of wasting the time taking a boat and sailing around looking for them? You have a trump, don't you Merl?" "That would be perfect, I think," Chadwick said with a bit more perk than he felt, still trying to avoid a ride in the Phaetons. He did feel that it might be a bit much for him right now.
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