We start with more politics with the NorFed Executive Council before Colour pokes the wrong bear and gets her orders from Aurie. Part of this is fun for me: only by being middle-aged myself could I imagine “old folks” striking up a romance. What I would have considered creepy in my 20s is perfectly normal, now.

When Colour walks out of the meeting, I had to remind myself just how do you get ahold of someone in a tech environment equivalent to the 1970s? We all take our phones for granted. Fortunately, Loup must have realized that, too, so I had him hanging out in the area. We find out why he’s there.

Conclusion tomorrow. With the Henge-talk at the end of this part, I’m now thinking she should get a short story, too.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

An hour into the next day’s meeting, at the part mentioning Kalí’s involvement, Hill pushed his chair back and, shaking his head, went for some more chicory coffee.

“You are welcome to disbelieve anything I say, Councilman,” Jansen said to his back, “but I am telling the truth.”

But not all of it.  I understand without a word from her how the idea of time travel haunts Aurelia.  If she is spooked by it, then I bet the rest of them are.  Spreading that story about will not do anyone help.

With some snacks of jerky and cheese brought in, her story was drawing to a close.

“So it was the joint actions of some of the Russian negotiating team, as well as the extraction force from the imperium, in the effort to nab Lieutenant Patel from that prison, which precipitated the mess our corner of the world finds itself in?” Locknar asked.

“Correct, sir.  Again, so far as I understand.  I listened much but also vast amounts of information go straight into the demi-humans’ heads, which people like us cannot perceive,” she apologized.

“You’ve done your country a great service and I think we have no reason to criticize you,” Marx said with a glare at Hill, reseating himself.  “So the Russian delegation was expelled and a, how to say, tiff developed between Trudeau and Ottawa over what came next?  That’s about when we got some informal feelers from Quebec about whether or not we’d be neutral if they decided to leave Canada.”

“Did they?” Jansen thought about that.  “Yeah, that makes sense.  Have y’all heard anything from the Maritime Provinces?”

“Did you just say ‘y’all’, Miss Jansen?” Hill asked.

“Yes, I did, didn’t I?  Picked it up from down south.  Useful to have a ‘collective you’ in your language,” she smiled just a little.

“To your question,” Marx said, “not anything official, of course.  Admittedly, if Quebec becomes independent, I doubt they would let troops cross their land from Ontario to New Brunswick or Nova Scotia.”

“One interesting thing, though,” Lochnar added, “is we’ve seen a sharp uptick in visitors from both of those places.  No one in official capacity but there have been lots of questions about our new relations with the imperium.  If I had to guess, I’d think there are factions in both provinces thinking that, if they did break away, then it behooves them to have a powerful ally.”

I wonder if that is why Loup is here?  I’ll have to find a polite way to ask him once I’m finished at this meeting.

The remainder of her debriefing was mostly to do with what she could tell them about internal and external politics.  With us being Friend and Ally, that affiliates the Northern Federation to the Polar Alliance.  One of whom, Russia, just absorbed all of central and western Canada.  Jansen reiterated what she had said the day before:  the sense of family and personal loyalty was unlike anything she’d encountered before.

“They won’t even give up on one another just because they can’t have kids,” she quipped, making the three uncomfortable.  “What I appreciated was Aurie’s admission that even Empress Faustina is still new to the whole ‘monarchy’ thing and kinda making it up as she goes.”

“So you do not think they’ll meddle in our internal affairs?” Hill asked.  “And did you just call their regent Aurie?”

“Did I?  I won’t apologize for that.  The young woman took me into her complete confidence, and that included using a familiar name.” She stretched.  “So, no, Councilman, I don’t think they will.  While there are areas governed by the new aristocracy Faustina has created, many cities and smaller areas have elected magistrates.  So long as no one challenges the right of the Hartmanns to rule, they take a very hands-off approach.”

“So the idea of us having our own foreign policy…?” Marx began.

“I’d suggest – and this is just my, personal suggestion – that y’all,” she smiled again, “at least run it past the empress, if not invite her opinion.  Oh, that jogs my memory:  even with the misunderstanding of Crown Prince Edward’s wife, Livia, I think that the Republic of Texas might reach some kind of agreement with the imperium.”

“But they already, like us, have Friend and Ally…” Lochnar began.

“Just from keeping my eyes and ears open, gentlemen,” Jansen interrupted him, “they may incorporate Texas into the imperium with, what’s it called?  Home rule.  They are dangling a huge bribe.”

“Which is?” Hill asked.

“Access to those magic motors and a colony on Mars.”

No one spoke for nearly a quarter minute before Lochnar muttered, “Dear God.  That would make their nation into a superpower.”

“They already are, Councilman,” she corrected.  “One of three on this world and off of it.  Besides those motors, they also have fusion weapons.  Which, recall, they have used.  Aurie, sorry, Aurelia told me she told some Canadian general she threatened to nuke most of Ontario if they harmed that Eloise Patel person.”

Jansen placed her hands on the table before her.

“She was not kidding.  I’ll say it for the third time:  if they like you, they have your back.  If they don’t, your life can be counted in hours.  Was there anything else?”

“Not…at this time, Miss Jansen,” Lochnar said, standing.  “We, and the entire council, may have more questions in the future, but you’ve given us quite a bit to think about.  You are an adornment to our nation.”

She and the two men stood.  Shaking their hands, she saw herself out.

Walking out of the building and looking at the sky:  a slab of slate with a few desultory flakes, Colour mentally kicked herself.  I grew too used to having Aurie there, always aware of everything.  Now, besides my tablet and intermittent wifi in the town center, I have no way to get ahold…

“Such a fierce look for such a woman who looks so young,” Loup said from a bench to her right.  He twice-folded the newspaper he’d been reading and stood.  Not yet having put her gloves on, Colour offered her hand, which he took and rose to his lips.  “Elegant.”

“That does seem to be your go-to description for me, Loup,” smiling all the way to her eyes, being the center of a man’s attention for the first time in a quarter-century.  “I’m sorry if you’re cold; the meeting ran over a little.”

“I’m from further north than where you live, Miss Colour,” he replied with his smile.  “I find this clime almost balmy.  I was at the brewpub just across the river yesterday.  Quite good.”

“Then let’s,” she replied, taking his offered left arm, but pausing them halfway across the short bridge.  He looked at her as she pointed to the banks of the little river.

“When I was a girl, except for the worst winters, the Androscoggin would never freeze,” Colour explained.  “It flows fast here, hence the little hydro plant, and is only a few miles from the sea and the comparative warmth of the Gulf Stream.  Now?  See there?  Ice on either side, about a foot out.  By January, it’ll be covered.”

“We in Quebec,” she noted he did not say Canada, “have to face far worse, dear Colour.”

“I…I know.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes:  the ice sheet.” She shuddered and gave a nervous laugh.  “I was traveling with Aurelia on one of their spaceships, on our way to Nova Scotia.  Seeing it, it scared her.  I didn’t think any of those people ever got scared.”

She turned and tugged him back into motion.

“And speaking of ice, just before we wandered into Canso, that pushy little girl made us bathe in a freezing, ice-encrusted lake.” Her laugh was more genuine now.  “She said she wanted to get laid and somehow already had your friend Jimmy in mind.  All I managed to do was drink too much and pass out on his couch.”

“Ah, Jimmy’s couch,” Loup returned her laugh.  “Never passed out but drank many beers there.  We techs at the spaceport are, well, were, a close-knit group, often sharing drinks and meals in each others’ homes.  As a lobsterman and crabber, Jimmy would always give us the word as to their catch and what might be on sale the next day.  A good man.”

They turned right off the bridge toward what had once been a warehouse and was now a tiny brewery and restaurant.

“And now he is, what to call him?  A prince?” A very complicated laugh from the man she barely knew.  “What is this world we now live in, Elegant Colour?”

“I really don’t know, Loup,” she replied, leaning into him as they came up to the door.  “Down south, they call it the Change.  On some nights, Aurie said some pretty weird things about how they see reality now.”

“Reality is God’s domain.  We, the children, just play in it,” he said, opening the door for her.

Too cold to sit on the deck overlooking the river, they did have a window to look out. 

“Skipping over you bathing in one of our lakes, and how interested that has me,” Loup said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it, not bothering to ask if that was even legal, “why were you and that girl, now a kind of queen, strolling about the edge of the world?”

Where to begin?  No, Aurie taught me that, too.

“She showed up with an army of four legions, just to the south of the Northern Federation.  Our Governing Council picked me, a civilian, to go find out what they were up to…” she began.

Appetizers, salad, beer sampler followed by several more.  She preferred the lighter one and he a smoky malt.  When a waitress attempted to tell him that smoking was not allowed…

“My friend, here,” he pointed with the offending cigarette, “is best friends with the imperium’s family, the Hartmanns.  The only reason your country is still alive.  So, do go away.”

“Wow,” Colour said, nearly snorting her beer out of her nose, “that was not subtle.”

“I can be subtlety itself, but now is not the time,” he replied, wiping his mouth on a napkin as their meal was over.  “And to that, thank you for your stories, both now and yesterday.  You have had an amazing adventure, what?”

“Had?” She laughed and reached down to her satchel, pulling up the little tablet.  “All it takes is for this thing to start howling and flashing and I know that pushy girl will start – yikes!”

She tossed it onto the table, staring at Demi-human Princess Aurelia Hartmann’s image.

“Pushy?  Really, Colour?” the former regent demanded.

“I’m sorry.” She could not but smile at her dear friend.  “But, yes, you are pushy.”

“I’m aware.  I can see from the lens you’re in a restaurant.  With someone?  And how did your debriefings go?” the imperial asked.

“Um,” she looked up to Loup.  “May I?”

He gave a Gallic shrug and lit another cigarette.  Colour picked up the tablet and faced it for a moment to the man before setting it back down.

“He was one of the guys with Jimmy when we met that night.  Ummm…” She watched the other’s eyes flash gold.  “Loup Ypres, electrician.  Originally from Montreal and his family were refugees from the collapse of French Algeria in the Twentieth Century.  Some of them were Separatists; some would say terrorists.  He’s here now to see if it’s safe for Nova Scotia to break away from Rump Canada.”

“He is?” She looked up at him.  “You are?”

Another shrug.

“A relative asked me to, ah, come and look around,” he said, blanking his face.  “I never expected to stumble upon the key to the puzzle.”

“What key?  What puzzle?” Colour asked with a similar blank look.  Aurelia yelled her laughter from the tablet.

“He means you, Friend!  And, I suppose, me, too.  We’re the puzzle and you’re the key.” Aurelia’s eyes suddenly grew sly and her grin was nothing but conspiracy.  “But you are going to be the lock, not the key, in just a little bit.”

“What in the world does that mean!” Colour shouted back at the screen.  She watched this person who killed twenty-seven, some with her hands and mouth, stare at her.

“Dear God, you’re not older at all,” the human barely heard.  “Recall what I said on Val’s deck when I met Jimmy?  That you’ve forgotten how to flirt?  Then here’s an imperial order:  take Loup home.  Aurelia out.”

Not able to move and knowing her face was likely an incandescent red, Colour was frozen.

“I see.  Yes,” he said, stubbing out his cigarette, “pushy.  Are all of them like that?”

“The…the humans in the family seem nice,” she said, thinking of Johnston and a few others, still unable to look up.  “But they are always in such a hurry.  It has to do with how fast they think.”

“Hmm,” was his noncommittal response, waving the waitress over to pay in a mix of NorFed and Canadian currency.

“I can…” she began.

“I thought you were ordered to take me to your home,” he smiled.  “You can do that.”

Like her, he had a borrowed horse, explaining he had come from Halifax on a fishing boat, putting in at Portsmouth further south before working his way up.  Colour did not know that Nova Scotia maintained a small commercial enclave in that recovering town.  She did know from Aurie that the imperium was very interested in getting the naval shipyard working again, to at least a degree.  As it was a part of the Northern Federation, she was comfortable mentioning that to Loup.

“Now why,” he asked as they trotted their mounts southwest, out of Brunswick, “would people with magic spaceships need a navy?”

“I had the same question!” she laughed, glad that, while colder, the sky was clear.  “Aurelia’s answer was, essentially, they cannot be everywhere.  She seemed to think the piracy problem in the North Atlantic was going to get worse and thought we should prepare.”

“Mind you, they do have a Naval Academy, way down south in Mobile, facing the Gulf of Mexico, as well as a green-water navy, not that I know much about it.” She pointed up with her left index finger.  “Before reactionless motors, their attention was to the south and west, not up.  With them claiming the Eastern Seaboard, now they look east, too.”

“And northeast?” he asked as they turned right onto Durham Road and passed under the old highway.  “Your country has their official recognition.  And after that young woman letting my cat out of the bag, we are curious as to what it all might mean for our lands if we, how do you say?  Think less of Ottawa?”

“I admit, when the young general showed up with her army and, to us, outrageous demands, she and I did not have a good start together,” Colour said, now turning left onto a gravel driveway.  “Just like her ordering me to bring you here, that’s my house, just there, so, too, she invited herself over to spend the night.”

She sighed.

“I began to think better of her, but it was a slow process.  The stables are in back, around the left.”

“Please lead the way, Colour,” Loup smiled.  “You have such interesting stories.”

Their animals seen to, rather than the back door to the mud room, Colour led Loup back around to the front, as he was her guest.  Inside under the light of the one struggling bulb on the ceiling, she immediately went to the hearth to start a fire with the wood she had brought in that morning before going to her meeting.

“I hate to impose, Loup, but there’s more wood stacked up next to the other side of the house,” she apologized, striking some matches to the kindling.  “I’ve chopped enough for several days, so don’t worry about bringing too much in.  It’ll get used sooner than later.”

“My pleasure, Colour.  And thank you for having me in.” She looked over her shoulder at his pause.  “To your home.  I shall return in a moment.”

That was just because his first language is French.  That was not a double entendre.  Kindling burning, she added sticks and quarter-cut logs.

He returned with both arms loaded down, kneeling to place them next to her to the left of the fireplace.  Standing and brushing at some of the splinters and leaves, Loup asked to use her toilet.

“My what?” Colour asked.  Oh, French again.  “Bathroom?  Just through the door there into the bedroom, then the other door on your left.”

“Thank you.”

The fire seeming to have caught, she stood as well and went for her kitchen.  With the Canadian former lieutenant in mind, she took down two highball glasses and added about two fingers of her vodka.  No need for ice, until the fire warms up the room, it’s plenty cold.

At that, her guest returned, carrying the comforter from her bed.  Are these people so forward! she thought in some surprise.

“We thought the same thing but came to different solutions,” he said with his smile.  “Perhaps both together can warm us up a bit?”

“Oh, okay.” Why am I thinking such thoughts?  Colour again wondered if Aurelia had done one of those mind-reprogramming things to her she’d seen her do to Miss Patel.  “Then I’ll move two cushions off the couch to we can sit in front of the fireplace without literally freezing our butts off.”

Those in place, she sat to his right as he draped the thick blanket over their shoulders.  Colour handed one of the glasses to Loup.

“What shall we drink to?” she asked.

“Friends.  Old and new.”

A clink and they both took a sip.

“Hmm,” her visitor said thinking about the taste.  “I do not know much about vodka, but this is certainly better than some of the homemade in northeast Nova Scotia.  I’d swear some of those are repurposed de-icer from the spaceport.”

 Colour laughed and took another sip watching Loup do likewise.

“Are you really,” he asked, tilting his head into her personal space, which she didn’t mind with their hips and shoulders already touching under the comforter, “the same woman I saw at Val’s?  And yesterday you claimed to be, what was it, fifty-two?”

“Loup, in the last three months I have seen things most people wouldn’t believe,” she replied, turning her face from his and leaning forward to add some wood to the fire.  “I have seen a modern army on the march, led by a girl; a magic ship which took me into the sky, under the water, and into space.  I watched the same little girl kill twenty-seven men, by herself.  And then it got interesting.”

“I do love,” he said, the side of his head now touching hers, “your stories.  So well told; almost, elegant.”

Having just taken another sip, Colour spat it into the fire in laughter, making it flare up for a moment.

“Stop it, you!” A sip to replace the one spat.  “I met an angel on earth, the one I mentioned why I look younger; she glowed in the dark.  I took baths with one of the four most powerful people on or off this world.  I’ve been privy to politics that I do not even begin to understand.  Finally, for now, I have seen two literal miracles.  Funny that:  me not being a believer.”

She finished the rest of her drink.  At a look, he did, too.

“I believe now.  But I don’t know what.”

“I believe, Colour, it’s my turn to get the drinks!” He stood, laughing.

I have not felt this for nearly thirty years.  Aurie is right:  I’ve forgotten how to flirt.  Flirt?  I’m alone with a man before the fire in my own house.  Be honest with yourself, woman:  you’re falling in love.  After a third of a century.

He returned next to her with no more than what she had first brought.  So he’s not trying to get me drunk.

“This one you call an angel,” he shook his head, “puzzles me.  You said she is the regent’s mother?  Even in the remote Maritimes, we have heard of these demi-humans, but I do not grasp what makes her so unique to you?”

“I don’t get Aurelia’s description of her mother,” Colour admitted, “just that she wasn’t born, she was made.  So much did she love her later husband, Gary, a Machine took a mortal body for that love.”

“Such passion!” His eyes glimmered too close to hers.  “She must be part French!”

“No clue.” She used taking a drink to keep his lips from hers.  Not that I’d mind…  “But how she was made, I don’t even remember the word, the excess ones drift off her.  If they land on living material, they start to regenerate it.  I know her husband did say their cat was thirty years old.”

“And this is what happened to you?  You were close to her and grew younger?” Now it was his turn to lean away and stare into the flames.  “Inconceivable.”

“I’m pretty sure, Loup,” she said, setting her glass to her right and leaning into him, “that word does not apply to that family.”

“All that for love?” Even for a Frenchman, he was amazed, shaking his head while he, too, set his drink down, turning to pull Colour close, kissing her.  He quickly realized the rest of her story must be true as she was not very good at it.

Even after taking moments for gasps of air, it was some minutes before they slightly drew apart.

To be wanted!  To feel like a woman again!  But this is not our way; not our culture…

“Loup?” Her tone was careful.  “Can we finish our drinks and I see you off?  I, uh, I’m very unsure about myself right now.  Do you have to leave soon, that is, about why you are visiting here?”

“My schedule is my own,” he replied, picking his drink back up.  He doesn’t sound mad…

“Then, can you come over tomorrow?  Just before dusk?  There are two things I’d like to show you,” which got a snort from him.  “The first is that I’m a pretty good cook; even a princess has complimented me.”

“And the other?” he asked, finishing his vodka.

“Is me.” I am an old woman and feel like a silly schoolgirl.

“I see.  No.” She froze in emotional horror.  “No, I will see.  Tomorrow.”

Once again, his strong arms about her, they enjoyed one another’s mouths.  Without a word, Loup stood, rewrapped the blanket around her, and saw himself to the door.

“Before dusk, then.  A beautiful time.  It highlights your elegance.”

The door closed behind him.  She didn’t move, hearing him retrieve his mount and start down the gravel path.  Shaking her head, Colour managed to toss several more logs onto the fire.  When she awoke hours later, it was down to embers.  Pushing to her feet, she moved slowly to bed.