Epilogue #2
After Fieran had slung his own bag over a shoulder, his twin swords hanging off the side, he held out a hand to her. “I can’t wait to see where you grew up.”
She clasped his fingers, her smile feeling somewhat more genuine and less forced. As long as she focused on showing her home to Fieran, hopefully the coming farewell to it wouldn’t sting so much. “Come on.”
She tugged him from the train and gave him a tour as they meandered through the terminal.
Fieran asked questions and made suitably impressed comments as she pointed out the parked trains, the open-sided buildings to park trains out of the weather, the turntable for turning around both elven trains running on roots and human trains running on metal rails.
Even as they wandered, a train rumbled across the arching metal bridge spanning the Milnissi River, likely holding dwarven raw materials hauled across the Afristani Plains.
The elves, half-elves, trolls, half-trolls, and half-humans, even the occasional full human, bustled between the parked trains, storage sheds, and open-sided buildings grown between the lofty trees. The workers shouted and waved to her, and she and Fieran paused to talk to several of them.
At the far side, they reached the longest building, which held the main office and the large mechanics shop where the more complicated repairs were done.
Beyond that long building, her family’s cottage was grown into a grove of five trees, its sides and roof a living tangle of branches so that it almost looked like a giant, house-shaped beaver dam.
As she and Fieran strolled closer, they had to dodge around more workers hauling in packing crates, already getting started on the work of packing up her family’s belongings.
Inside the main room that filled the entire first floor, her muka and dacha stood in the center of the space, directing workers to set down the crates and what to pack in them.
Pip would have frozen right there in the doorway, but Fieran tugged her to the side before she could get bowled over by two men carrying a crate, who likely wouldn’t have seen her.
Dacha glanced at her before he wound his way through the chaos to reach her side. Even across the room, he likely had seen how close she was to tears.
As Fieran stepped a few paces away, giving them space, Dacha clasped her shoulders.
“I know it is hard to say goodbye. But this change will be good for your muka and me. The western rail terminal was the haven we needed to raise you and your brother in a Tarenhiel that was not ready for a dwarf-elf couple. But it is time to stop hiding here and use our talents in new ways, as you are doing, sena.”
“What your dacha means is that it’s time he started pursuing his dreams and talents again.
” Muka strode forward and grabbed Pip out of Dacha’s elven hug for a squeezing, rib-crushing dwarf hug instead.
“He spent decades here so that I could do my mechanics. It’s time he became Inawenys once again.
And the dwarves need me to learn to be an ambassador as well as a mechanic. ”
When Muka released her, Pip gasped in a deep breath.
Dacha smiled down at Muka a moment before he leaned down and brushed a light kiss on her mouth.
Pip looked away for a moment. Her parents were happy. Yes, they were all mourning having to say farewell to this place, but this change would be good for them as well.
Almost as soon as the war ended, King Weylind offered her dacha the job of the government official in charge of dwarven affairs, which included his prior role as ambassador to the dwarves that he had given up when he married Muka and moved here.
The king of Dalorbor had requested that Muka act as the dwarven ambassador to Tarenhiel, at least temporarily.
On this coming trip to the dwarven mountains, her muka would consult with the king to see if she was going to be the permanent ambassador or if she would instead be aiding the actual ambassador.
Either way, both of her parents were needed in Estyra, although they would continue to travel to the dwarven mountains and to Aldon in Escarland as needed.
They’d spent the past few months training their replacements. But now it was time to pack up their things and clear out this house for new occupants.
“And we were not going to remain here when neither of you would be here.” Muka glanced over her shoulder as Mak joined their huddle.
Mak, too, had decided to move to Estyra now that the army had downsized the Ordnance Corps and he’d been discharged.
With the new airstrip, the resumption of the tourist airships, and the trains, there were plenty of opportunities for a mechanic with his skills and magic.
Muka, too, would find a place to tinker if she grew bored with being an ambassador.
“We are so proud of the both of you.” Dacha rested a hand on Muka’s shoulder as he faced Mak and Pip. “It is time for all four of us to stop hiding and start pursuing our talents and abilities more fully.”
Pip stepped into her family’s group hug, her throat tight again. Perhaps her whole family had outgrown this place. It was time for all of them to move on and establish new lives elsewhere.
Once her family released her, Mak gave Pip a nudge toward where Fieran was loitering at the base of the stairs. “Go on.”
With one last glance at her family, Pip smiled and hurried to Fieran’s side, taking his hand again. The two of them climbed the stairs and reached the small circular landing at the top. Doors led into rooms around the landing.
“That’s the guest room where you’ll be staying.” Pip pointed to a room on the far side of the stairs. Then she headed for the room directly ahead of them. “And this is my room.”
She pushed the door open and stepped inside for the first time since she’d left for training at Fort Linder.
Everything remained as she’d left it. Her quilted bedspread lay pristinely over the mattress on her metal-framed bed, the headboard against the wall by the door.
Curving shelves held a few knickknacks, mostly consisting of various wooden items Mak had made for her throughout the years.
A cupboard next to that held the items of clothing she hadn’t taken along when she joined the mechanics auxiliary while broad windows looked out into the forest, a glint of the river just visible through the trees.
One wall was mostly open and decorated with various posters and artwork she’d collected over the years.
The poster…
Tossing her bag onto her bed without even looking, Pip flung herself across the room and pressed her back to the wall, trying to hide the poster plastered there. Not that she could block it fully. The poster was too large and stuck to the wall too high up.
Fieran laughed and crossed the room at a slow, almost stalking pace. He nudged her gently aside before he regarded the poster with another chuckle. “I had forgotten just how academic Dacha looks in this poster.”
With a sigh, Pip turned to face the poster, standing shoulder to shoulder with Fieran.
The poster was nearly three feet and by two feet. The black-and-white sketch showed Prince Farrendel with a set of goggles on his forehead and a book in his hands, his long hair flowing around him.
Pip groaned and dropped her face in her hands. “This is so embarrassing. I should have gotten rid of this poster years ago. But I guess it’s beyond time to throw it away.” She reached for the poster.
“No, don’t!” Fieran halted her with a hand between her and the poster. “Don’t just rip it up and toss it. This poster meant too much to you. Let’s take it down carefully. At the very least, you can store it rolled in a box so we can take it out to laugh about it and our first meeting.”
Pip released a breath, something easing in her chest. Perhaps she hadn’t been as ready to just pitch it as she’d thought. “Yeah, let’s do that. Linshi.”
Fieran started working at the top corners while she eased the bottom corners from the wall. The tree sap was still rather sticky, given that her dacha had helped her stick this poster here. He’d also laced the paper with his magic to preserve it.
Her younger self, who’d spent so many years staring at that poster and dreaming, would never have believed where she was now. That elf prince who inspired her so much was going to be her dacha someday, and she no longer froze up around him. Most of the time, anyway.
In her bag rested a copy of her hiring contract for her new job at the AMPC.
As Fieran had predicted, the moment the army had downgraded her to the reserves with only the demand of a few weekends and weeks of duty here and there, Lance Marion had presented her with that hiring contract.
Once she and Fieran returned from this trip, she would start the new position, working directly with Lance Marion, Bennett, Louise, and Prince Farrendel.
Until she and Fieran married, she’d room with Louise in the apartment at the AMPC.
Fieran, too, had new orders. The Alliance had, indeed, sent each Flight of the Half-Breed Squadron to its own kingdom, stationing Flight A in Estyra under Rothilion’s command and Flight B in Aldon under Merrik.
Yet the squadron hadn’t been fully disbanded, even if it was stationed in two different places.
Fieran would travel between Estyra and Aldon as needed to oversee the squadron, and he planned for the whole squadron to meet up several times a year to train together.
Rothilion and Merrik, too, would travel back and forth frequently to become familiar with both Flights and consult with Fieran.
The hope of the higher-ups was that the Half-Breed Squadron would continue to train elven pilots and human pilots to work together.