Princess of the Void ch 5.1 - Conception Party

The big papier mâché statue of Grant Hyde’s wife stares at him with cock-eyed ridicule from across the snowy range. Robin’s-egg blue and half his height, just like the real version.

“I am not doing this,” Grant says.

“We painted the spear,” Vora says. “You have to.”

Grant holds up the spear. It’s been spray-painted his skin tone.

“Is that not what color it is?” Waian asks. “Is that why you’re hesitating?”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Grantyde,” Sykora calls from her place on the suggestively-shaped pair of thrones that have been furnished for them—Grant’s not sure if those twinned seats are supposed to represent boobs or balls. There’s a cloth banner saying PARKING NOTICE: HANGAR BAY FULL cinched around the Princess Margrave’s waist and an inflatable uterus garlanding her neck. “If we get embarrassed, they win. Pierce the palace, mighty warrior!”

“Oh my God. Okay.” Grant hefts the spear to his shoulder. “If I miss, it’s Ajax’s fault.”

Master Sergeant Ajax, Grant’s instructor on all things martial, holds up his hands. “I’m on leave,” he says.

Grant takes a deep breath and backs from the line. He hauls back, takes three bounding steps, and hurls.

The javelin spins through the air, laser-straight, and slams right into the center of the dummy. A great bursting cloud of flower petals, in red and gold and violet, explodes forth from its round bulk. A raucous round of applause from the observers.

“Holy shit,” Waian cries. “Look at that throw.”

Tikani lets out a long sonorous whistle through one of his face tendrils. “How the hell did you do that?”

“I don’t know.” Grant dusts his hands off. “Just naturally gifted, I guess. Nobody on the Pike taught me.”

Ajax gives him a level look.

“You’re on leave,” Grant says, and sits back down on his throne.

Ajax sips his water. “I’ll consider coming back.”

“The palace gate is breached.” Waian tugs the spear out of the fake Sykora. “The line is secured. Tap the motherfucking kegs and let’s all get blotto in front of the pregnant Princess.”

A cheer arises from the waiting audience of friends, family, and crew. With a few exceptions, the crowd is clad in black and scarlet, the colors of the ZKZ Black Pike. The guests troop from the snowy plain outside to the toasty bonfire warmth of the huge cylindrical meetinghouse that hosts the conception party.

A group of enthusiastic crewmates heft up the palanquin that Grant and Sykora sit on, his fine red robe a double-sized match for hers. One of her hands is nested in his; the other follows her usual habit, of late, and rests on her stomach, where the reasons for the celebration have begun their seven-cycle incubation.

“Careful with the entrance,” someone cries. “We’re gonna scrape His Majesty off.”

“It’s a tent,” Grant says. “I’ll be fimmph.” He brushes the canvas flap out of his face.

The partygoers set the Prince and Princess down on their mobile altar and descend on a table laden with delicacies from across the Black Pike sector. Braised and simmered meats in saffron-colored tureens of curry from the Ramex sabsum palaces, charred Alamenko gamefowl that falls from the bone. Quartermaster Kymai has been obsessed of late with a kind of barbecue originating on the world of Tamion called Gradient Cooking; his efforts to install a magma fusion oven were voted down, to his agonized dismay, but even without the concentrated power of a planetary core, he’s come close enough, to Grant’s palette.

There’s a shoal of Northern Sea Eqtoran dishes here, too, glistening wild-caught fish, airy slabs of seed-studded bread, and pickled, rainbow-colored root vegetables. The House of Korak has brought a bevy of sweet and sour berries, imported from distant Kovik.

And then, at a crowned center of the table: some mozzarella sticks. A little piece of Maekyon, courtesy of an inexpert description from Grant and the brilliant Black Pike kitchens.

Tapped kegs imported from across the Black Pike sector flow their fruited and hopped contents into a constantly-circulating field of steins. There are no cater waiters here, at Grant’s quiet request. For all the feasts he’s attended, he’s never gained an appreciation for the silent smiles of submissive tray-bearers.

His friends drink and eat and make bawdy jokes and keep trying to pass Grant phallic dishes that he smilingly declines. He finds Tymar at one of the high-top tables that surrounds the great big bonfire at the meetinghouse’s center, holding a spit over the flames and chatting with Ruaq-nai-Taqa, a petite and slender Eqtoran keeper with a long, frilly cerulean fringe that drapes to her leather-belted waist.

“I’ve adjusted to it,” Tymar says. “Really the thing to get used to is how loud everyone is out here. The monks of Indrik tend towards quietude, I guess. I’m a chatterbox over there. Brother Romik would fall off his chair to hear me described as soft-spoken.”

“You’ve chattered now and then,” says Ruaq. “I’ve heard you. Just gotta prime the pump with some dogma.”

“I need a priest for a bit.” Grant taps Tymar’s shoulder. “Can I steal you?”

“Of course.” Tymar removes his skewer and holds its caramelized contents out to Ruaq, who accepts it cheerfully.

“I’ve been hoping to ask you something,” Grant says, leading his cleric brother-in-law across the carpeted floor. He waves at Sykora as they approach her. She waves back between bites of curry. “Pretty big favor, I’m afraid.”

“None too big for you, Majesty.” Tymar lends Grant a hand climbing back onto the scaffolded palanquin.

Grant settles next to Sykora, who sets her spoon down. “Grantyde and I need someone here who knows the Children of Eqt,” she says. “And someone belonging to the Omnidivine we feel we can trust. We have an enemy who was embedded in the temples. And though her identity is burnt and exposed, now, it’s left an off-taste in my mouth.”

“I think you’ve guessed what we’re asking for by now,” Grant says. “Nobody in your order knows the Eqtorans like you do.”

“If you relocate to the Black Pike sector,” Sykora says, “I want to make you the High Cleric of the Paas system.”

Tymar folds his hands in front of him and purses his lips. Grant can’t see his eyes behind the spindly anticompel glasses he’s wearing, to keep his species’ mind-affecting compulsion at bay. But he knows Tymar to be a prudent and cautious guy.

“And I also wanna give my kids room to choose their faith,” Grant says. “If they want a faith. And you’re the guy I trust to help them through that.”

“I regret very much how infrequent a presence you were in my life, Tymar.” Sykora turns her spoon on its tip against her porny throne’s painted armrest. “I hope that my children can have you closer. I hope you’ll be their uncle. You’d be such a marvelous uncle. But this is a request, not an order.”

“I have to talk to a few people before I decide,” Tymar says, after a few moments of pensive quiet. “My brothers and sisters at Indrik, and a few of my personal deities. And Narika, too.”

A trace of distemper passes through Sykora’s face at the mention of her sister, like she just smelled something off.

“Will you pardon me?” Tymra asks. “And have patience?”

Sykora’s warmth returns quickly. “Of course.”

“Thank you, sister.” Tymar bows. “Really. And you, brother. It’s about time for the pledges. Are you ready?”

Sykora undoes the satirical sash she’s wearing. “Uh huh.”

Grant squirms a little in his seat. He’s getting over his aversion to the center of attention in bits and pieces. “Go ahead.”

Tymar turns to the milling guests and whistles. “All right, people. Up here. This is the actually sacred part.”

Drinks are set aside and chatter quiets.

“Grantyde and Sykora of the Black Pike,” Tymar says. “Stand.”

They stand—Grant on the planks of the palanquin, and Sykora atop her boob-shaped throne.

“Name the citizens you bring into the Empress’s service, that she might know their love and loyalty,” Tymar intones, over the crackling of the flames. “Name them so that she might grant them her love and protection.”

Sykora places a hand on her stomach. “Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar of the Black Pike,” she says, in her Princess voice, loud and stately.

“Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar,” Tymar repeats. He approaches the throne and places his palm against his sister’s stomach. “I pledge to foster your curiosity about the world. I pledge to give what answers I can, and to steer you away as gently as I can from prideful certitude. And I pledge that I will give your parents’ offer serious and sober thought. I wish I could give them an answer immediately; but while I’m serious, I’m not exactly sober.”

A ripple of laughter through the revelers. Tymar smiles and moves aside, nudging a footstool into place for the diminutive Taiikari women celebrants.

“Let’s line up, people,” Waian calls. “Family first. That means the command group.”

A murmuring shuffle ensues. Vora’s up first. She surmounts the stool and mirrors Tymar’s motion putting her hand where his sat. “Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar,” the spectacled majordomo says. “I pledge to shower you with affection and gifts to a degree that makes your mom fear I’ll spoil you. I pledge to educate you in the ways of the peerage you will come to master, lead, and love.”

Hyax is next, her uniform crisp, brocaded and polished, her scarred face solemn and purposeful. “Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar,” she says. “I pledge to keep you safe and sheltered. I pledge that I will lay down my life for yours if called upon.”

“Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar.” Chief Engineer Waian rests her artificial hand on her Princess; Grant sees Sykora shiver a little at the touch of the cold metal. “I pledge to teach you how to be a trio of bonafide voidborn badasses. And how to fly a ship just as soon as your parents decide you’re old enough to let me.” She winks at her mistress. “And I pledge that I’ll babysit you anytime your parents want to get frisky in that big one-room cabin they got up there.”

“I pledge a whole bunch of baby clothes and toys that we have lying around in storage somewhere, I’m sure of it,” says Countess Wenzai of Korak.

“I pledge to teach you how to get a fire going and how to catch a fish,” says Ipqen-mek-Taqa, the big gentle Eqtoran engineer.

“I pledge to actually teach you how to get a fire going cause Qen’s bad at it,” says Ruaq, her wife (and temporary property).

“I pledge to keep your house flying,” Senior Specialist Meena says. Her other hand touches her own belly, which is starting to round out. “And your mama and me are gonna go to all the breathing workshops and stuff together.”

“I pledge to keep watch over your family,” Master Sergeant Ajax says. “And I pledge my children will be as faithful in service to you as I am.”

“Way to show me up, Jaxy,” Meena says.

“I pledge to feed you to the best of my abilities, milords,” Quartermaster Kymai says. “As long as her Majesty hasn’t eliminated my position by the time you are born. The dumplings are so dry. I under-sauced the dumplings horrifically.”

Void Princess Narika of the Glory Banner ascends the stepstool. Her black leather uniform squeaks as she extends her hand to her sister and chiefest rival. A few paces distant, one of her armored marines stands in silent vigil.

“Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar.” She makes eye contact with Sykora’s austere gaze. “I pledge to be as good and present a member of your family as my rivalry with your mother allows me to be.” She steps back and nods to Grant. “Finish us out, Majesty.”

“Don’t tell him what to do,” Sykora says. Grant steps in front of her and gives her a wink. Her icy frown cracks into a shared smile.

Grant takes a deep breath and lays his hand on his wife’s stomach. “Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar,” he says, and his voice cracks on his son’s name.

He forces himself to pause and take another breath. Sykora laces her fingers over his.

“I pledge to be there for every moment,” he recites. “I pledge to take every lesson I ever learned on Maekyon about what to do, and mostly what not to do. I pledge to read and listen and learn everything I can about how to raise Taiikari kids. The good news, I guess, is that I barely picked up anything about how to raise a Maekyonite, so I’m hoping I won’t have too many misconceptions. pledge to try harder at being a dad than I’ve ever tried at anything. I pledge to raise you to be good. I pledge to make the sector you come into a safe and happy place for you to grow.”

Sykora’s sobbing silently into her hand. Grant shifts their held hands to one side and kisses her stomach.

“I pledge that when I meet you, I’ll love you,” he says. “I pledge to love you and your mom forever.”

“Oh, Grant,” Sykora whimpers, her voice high and feathery.

“Kiss her,” Vora yells from the assembly. Grant scoops Sykora into the air as he stands, and kisses her fiercely. A deep gasping inhale from her pushes her little stomach against his and a surge of protective, possessive love tightens his arms around the mother of his children. Her face is sodden with happy tears. Her shoulders shake in his grip.

He kneels, still kissing her, and lowers her back into her seat before he breaks away.

Sykora shakily cups his cheek. “I got tears all over you, dove.”

He kisses her wrist. “Some of it’s me.”

“Enjoy being able to budge her while you can, boss,” Waian says. “Gonna throw your back out trying that.”

Sykora throws her the horns, and they descend back into the crowd, to hugs and kisses on the cheek and slaps on the back. Grant has never had this many people he would call a friend. Never in his life. Almost all of them, he also calls a subject.

When he began his life among the Taiikari, that disturbed him. Now, and moreso every day, he spares it less and less concern. He’s the Prince and these are his subjects. He used to think about how to bridge the gap and get them to treat him like a colleague, how to minimize his title. Now his chief concern is living up to it.

He takes drinks and good-natured ribs and happy greetings in stride, and everyone seems eager to pile all of the above on. One of the sacred rites of the conception party, it seems, is getting the husband shitfaced, and Sykora is as eager a participant in it as any of them. Owing to Grant’s size it’s taking his wife and subjects a lot of effort.

“Hey, Majesty.”

A tug on Grant’s sleeve. He turns, and in his cheery buzz he takes a moment to remember to angle his attention downward. Then a little upward again, as he’s accidentally looked into the copious crocus cleavage of his future business partner, Countess Wenzai of Korak. In his defense it is a large and ostentatiously displayed visual target.

“Me and Tik were about to go stargazing.” Wenzai grins up at him. “We’ve got an autosledge waiting. Do you and Her Majesty want to come along?”

“Uh—sure. I mean, I should ask Sykora.” Grant turns around like a dog chasing its own tail. “Sykora?”

“Hello.” Sykora says it around an Alamenkan wing. “Just let me find a place for this plate and I’ll come along. Got to keep them from kidnapping you.”

“Let’s bring Ajax and Meena,” Tikani says. “The Master Sergeant will go marine supersoldier on us if we try.”

“Capital idea.” Sykora finds a clear spot on a carved table.

Grant chuckles. “All right. They’re nice stars. Let’s get gazing. I can point out some constellations.”

“There’s none that you were born with,” Sykora says.

“I can make some up,” he says.

***

“That’s the Pregnant Princess.” Grant points.

Sykora squints as they crunch across the snow. “Where?”

“By that red milky way squiggle. That’s her face. And then those three stars in there are her heirs.”

“Three, huh?” Wenzai leads the group up the soft, snowy incline of a tree-freckled hill. “Three is an excellent number.

“I’ve got my fingers crossed they’re going to be as well-behaved as yours,” Grant says, as they leave six winding footprint trails across the powder.

Wenzai giggles. “Well-behaved? Ana’s just gotten full-body invisibility down, and she’s a little scampering terror. Try coaxing a buck-naked Taiikari kid off the garden shed roof before you say well-behaved.”

“I know what he’s saying, though,” Tikani says. “Grantyde and I, we have a different rubric to work with. Yours will be like that, too, Majesty. You’ll see. It’s astonishing sometimes. How polite these little gals can be. Despite the day-to-day.”

Wenzai’s tail scoops some snow from the ground and whisks it at her husband.

“I wonder how much Maekyonite attitude they’ll inherit,” Sykora says. “Their father was quite the firebrand for a while. One of the few things I wouldn’t lose sleep over if it wasn’t passed on.”

Grant snorts and ruffles her hair. He feels drunk and happy.

“Have you thought about which will be your first Princess-in-Waiting?” Wenzai asks.

“I like giving it to Aurora to start.” Sykora’s breath billows pale into the dark, back-lit by the increasingly distant autosledge headlamps. “Princess-in-Waiting Aurora. It has a lovely ring.”

Grant raises a brow. “We pick when they’re born?”

“Sure,” Tikani says. “It’s weird to hear about, but it makes sense once the kids arrive. And you can change whenever you like.”

“Ana was the Countess-in-Waiting at first,” Wenzai says. “But she got too anxious about it. She didn’t get why she had to share responsibility for the things Orlo and Mava did. C’mere, Big Muscles.”

Tikani scoops his wife up from the snow and carries her against his hip. “Mava’s taking to it quite well.”

Sykora tsks. “You’re giving my husband agita, Korak.”

“It, uh… it’s not how you’re supposed to raise Maekyonites,” Grant confesses. “Having a favorite.”

“Oh, no. It’s not the same thing as a favorite.” Wenzai’s onyx earrings jangle as she shakes her head. “I don’t have a favorite and Tik’s favorite is Orlo.”

“She’s joking,” Tikani says.

“It’s just that one of them is going to be your heiress, eventually. And not everyone has the temperament for it. I’d have rather been a Lady, to be honest. More time to schmooze and bang my husband. But none of my sisters were willing to take it from me.”

“Jaxy and I are going to do a rotation,” Meena says. “Every second cycle for the first hecto.”

“Do you even need to name one?” Wenzai asks. “I mean, no offense. But you’re not peerage. A lot of the proles I know don’t bother.”

Ajax smirks and bumps his hip into Meena’s shoulder. “That’s what I said. But Meen’s a traditionalist sometimes.”

Meena crosses her arms. “It’s about the principle.”

“Would you prefer that?” Sykora rubs Grant’s forearm. “A rotation, I mean.”

“I’m really not sure what I prefer.” Grant squints into the gathering dark.

“We have time,” Sykora says. “Plenty of time.”

Grant nods in tipsy thought. “I need to read some books about this or something.”

“I have a whole library of them,” Tikani says. “Whatever you need.”

“Thanks, Tik.”

“My pleasure.” Tikani shifts his grip on his wife into a front carry. “It was an eye-opener, raising an alien child. It made me uncover so many differences between Wenzai and I. But there’s no better way to truly understand the way Taiikari are. And the more I understood Wen, the better I liked her.”

Wenzai’s glossy black lips plant a peck on her squidlike husband’s emerald cheek. “Bet you and Sykora will be the same way.”

Ajax has reached the crest of the hill first. The Black Pike marine tilts his head up under the shining roof of the night.

“Pretty,” he remarks.

“Oh, they’re gorgeous,” his little pink wife coos.

Grant wonders which of these stars he’d also see from Maekyon. He imagines all the different night skies his children will see in their lives. The vast gulf between his childhood and theirs. Will he be able to relate to them? Will he be able to raise them how they ought to be?

Then the crunching of Sykora’s boots and the industrious puffs of her breath snap him out of it. He smiles down at his alien wife as she steps to his side and takes his hand. She was his opposite in so many ways, and now she’s the bright star around which his entire life now gratefully revolves.

“You see that blue one?” She points, and he hunkers into the snow to look up at her gesturing mitten. “A little brighter than the rest. Riiiight there.”

He tips his head cheek-to-cheek with hers. “Yep.”

“That’s Qarnaq,” she says. “That’s where we’re headed tomorrow. Your first world. Are you ready?”

He clicks his tongue. “Nope.”

She laughs and scratches his chin. “I’d be worried if you’d said anything else. When I first met you, Majesty, you were overseeing my cell. Now you’ll be overseeing one of my planets.”

He gulps. He feels a little more sober than he did at the foot of the hill.

“Don’t fret, dove, yes?” Sykora’s tail rubs his back over the thick parka he’s wearing. “I know it’s hard not to. But I’ll be there with you. We all will. Your command group.”

He rests his chin on the top of her head. “That doesn’t sound so bad, actually.”

“Not so bad at all.”

“Do you think I can do it?”

“I know you can,” she whispers. “And tomorrow is your first day of proving it.”