8. Caras Place #2
Nearly before the words were finished, a group of people at a table next to them rose up and gestured towards their table.
“Now, now, elder,” one of the leaving women said, “you rest yourself here! We’re finished.”
“Thank you so much, dearie. I cannot tell you how much your kindness means to an old woman,” Gran said.
“Will you be all right sitting by yourself while we get the drinks?” The young man said, overly loudly as if the older woman was a bit deaf. There looked to be a smile twitching his lips however.
“Indeed I will. I’ll just close my eyes for a bit,” Gran assured him, patting his arm.
The young man and the girl went to the counter to order drinks while the elderly woman sat down facing her and Cara. She gave Elasha a small smile before closing her eyes just like she said she would.
Elasha couldn’t help but study the lines in the aged face.
It was hard to imagine that Cara’s face might one day look something like this.
She’d care for Cara just the same, but the thought of the other woman becoming frail and ill frightened her.
The thought of Cara dying in less than a century was unthinkable.
It was why many of the Aravae she knew didn’t want to make human friends.
There was too much pain to get such a little return.
But then Cara leaned over and gave Elasha a hug, which banished all such unpleasant thoughts.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” Cara said as she settled down in her chair. “I didn’t expect it with your uncle getting in town last night. I figured I wouldn’t see you for ages.”
Elasha was always stunned by the warmth of Cara’s hugs. There was always an afterglow from them that suffused her body. But mention of Aquilan and why she was able to be here instead of filling the Sun King in on various matters to do with the Empire caused that warmth to dim just a little.
“Oh, well, Uncle Aquilan is not one to be scheduled,” she laughed rather fragilely. “He has his own plans and they don’t necessarily correlate with anyone else’s.”
Did the elderly woman smile at that? Was she listening? But then the woman’s mouth opened and she let out soft wheezes as her chin slumped onto her chest.
She’s asleep! Not listening in!
A worried look crossed Cara’s features at Elasha’s words and she tucked a strand of her curly red hair behind her ear. “Would I be crossing a line if I asked if everything was okay? I mean, I can see that it’s not. But if you don’t want to talk about it I understand.”
They steadfastly did not talk about their families when they were doing friend-time.
And while she didn’t think Cara would divulge anything she was told in confidence to Rohannan, it wasn’t fair to put her in a position to know something politically powerful that she couldn’t share.
And the truth was that the breach between her father and Aquilan was politically powerful.
Elasha was convinced that it would be mended.
But her uncle clearly didn’t see things the same way her father did overall.
Her father had known he wouldn’t and had wanted to control the narrative when Aquilan arrived.
But that hadn’t gone to plan when her uncle had sent her packing and headed to a dwarven tavern.
“Your uncle is very tenderhearted. He always wants things to be fair . But that’s just an illusion,” her father had said.
“But shouldn’t we be striving to treat humans fairly , Father?” she’d asked.
“We should strive to treat them in a way that is best for the whole of the Empire,” he had countered. “We’ve lost blood and treasure helping them, Elasha. Those losses must be made up somehow.”
“Yes, but–”
“Humans will get more than they deserve. Things will be better for them under the Empire than they were before. That they don’t get everything they want does not mean we’re treating them unfairly,” he’d cut her off.
And there was some truth and wisdom in this. It had been ages since the Aravae had gone to war. The loss of lives had been egregious. While those losses could never be truly repaid, they could be offset a little.
Elasha finally shrugged as Cara poured out some fragrant tea into her mug. She cupped her hands around it, relishing the warmth even though it wasn’t cold out. “It’s nothing dire just realizing that as much as I think I’ve changed, I really haven’t.”
Cara lifted a ginger eyebrow. “Well, you’re great how you are.”
Another burst of warmth went through her, but she forced herself to be vague as she answered, “Parts of me are pretty good. But I like things planned out, as you know. Things just haven’t gone the way I wanted them to.”
It was really her father who was the unbending one.
He’d had things planned and her uncle had simply upended the apple art.
But he was the king and a very different person from her father.
The truth was that she rather admired her uncle’s way of doing things even if it did make her slightly uneasy.
What would it be like to simply meet the moment as it was without a ten-step plan and twenty variations if things went wrong?
“I know you’ve put a lot of work into your uncle’s return and you probably had an idea in your head of how you wanted it to go.
It’s understandable to feel a little let down when it doesn’t.
But I’m certain that he appreciates what you’ve done,” Cara said and reached over and patted Elasha’s left hand.
Of course, she’d known what Elasha was really saying.
Elasha clasped that hand for a moment as she smiled back. “You always know the right thing to say.”
Cara snorted and sipped her own tea. “Hardly. I just know you a little bit, because I am like you a little bit.”
“You’re far more relaxed than me!” Elasha protested. “You handle everything here at your cafe and also play a role in running Hope. You are like water. You change your ideas depending on your circumstances.”
Cara shook her head. “My father runs Hope as he likes to remind me. I just brought the tea and coffee.”
“That’s not true!”
“Just like it isn’t true that your father runs things without your help,” Cara pointed out. “Both of our parents don’t seem to see what we do to assist them.”
“Or value it,” Elasha muttered.
Cara bit her lower lip and asked, “Was Vesslan awful to you when Aquilan didn’t come to the palace last night?”
Elasha nodded. She should have known that Cara was aware that Aquilan had stayed at the Dawn. The Separatists had ears everywhere.
“He blamed me for it!” Elasha burst out. “But what was I to do? Sling Aquilan over my shoulder and carry him back to the palace?”
Cara let out a low laugh that skated up Elasha’s spine. “Now that I would have enjoyed seeing.”
“Me, too,” Elasha chuckled. Thinking about what Cara had said about both of them not being valued, she asked, “Are things okay with your father?”
Cara grimaced, but then like Elasha she revealed a little of what was on her mind, “He was in a right state after meeting you on the road. I told him he shouldn’t do it.
I asked him to consider how he would react if someone just roared up and made demands.
But he always seems to believe that everyone else has to behave perfectly while he is an ass. ”
Elasha sighed. “He actually wasn’t that bad.”
A raised eyebrow was her response.
“He just wanted to get his points across without any filter,” Elasha said charitably, which was far different than what she had felt and thought at the time. But meeting with Cara always had her considering other points of view. “I think he was more annoyed that General Baston showed up.”
“The general got to go drinking with Aquilan last night,” Cara said softly. “If my father had played his cards right that could have been him. He could have brought King Aquilan to Hope. But instead he stomped off.”
Elasha wanted to dispute the very idea that Aquilan would have come to Hope to socialize, but then she realized it was quite true.
Her uncle had actually stayed overnight at the Dawn.
He might have actually enjoyed Hope and stayed here .
She answered, “Yes, I think he could have. My uncle… Well, I shouldn’t speak for him. I think–”
“I won’t pass on whatever you say. I know you’re not speaking for him. We’re just talking.”
“And I won’t say anything to anyone either,” Elasha promised her. “Well, I think my uncle wants to hear all sides.”
The old woman’s head was bobbing. She was smiling again. She must be having nice dreams.
Cara’s eyes filled with hope. “If you say that then maybe the stalemate that currently exists will break.”
Elasha wanted that to be true. There had been growing tensions between humanity and the rest of the Empire.
Helping them had brought the disparate people of the Empire together, had shown that they could do wonders if they worked together.
If that ended in humanity pulling away from them then it would tarnish that success.
“We’ll see what happens,” Elasha said. “But that’s not really what’s on my mind though it’s why I can be here today.”
Cara drank more tea and waited for her to speak. Humans were always so quick to talk, but Cara reminded her of some of the older Aravae who used silence to their advantage. Yet Cara used it to show she was listening intently.
“Darcassan went to the ruins last night,” she said carefully. “And he didn’t come home this morning.”
The old woman let out a startled snort. But that was because the young man and girl had returned with drinks. The young woman put a cup before her. She peered down into it suspiciously.
“Is this tea? You know how I feel about tea: water gone wrong!” Gran pronounced.
“No, that’s why we got you coffee , Gran,” the young girl enunciated the word “coffee” carefully as if she thought the old woman wouldn’t know what it was.
“Oh, yes, though this looks a little murky ,” Gran muttered.
“Put some sugar and milk into it,” the young man suggested. “It’ll sweeten it right up.”
Her gaze went back to Cara who had gone very still at her words, but then she abruptly leaned forward as if she were going to leap up from her chair. “Do you want me to ask the scouts if they’ve seen him?”
Elasha had considered this. “I don’t want to make a big thing out of this. He’s done it before, you know?”
Cara nodded. “Yes, but things have been strange in the ruins as of late.”
“Strange how?”
Cara bit her lip again as she considered whether to tell Elasha what she clearly thought of as Separatist business.
“We’re all in danger, Cara, if something is happening in the ruins because of the Under Dark. I’m assuming by strange that’s what you mean,” Elasha said.
“That’s just it, it’s been very quiet,” Cara said. “Too quiet actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can pretty much guarantee where and how many rifts will open during any given week. We’ve been keeping careful track,” Cara said carefully.
Elasha nodded. She had expected nothing less. “We have as well.”
“But your people don’t really go into the ruins as much as we do,” Cara objected with a shake of her head. “Yet those incursions have dropped to near zero.”
Elasha blinked and sat back in her chair. “That should be what we want, but…”
“But. Exactly. It’s not going to happen, right?
The rifts are still going to keep opening and more creatures will come through.
Not hordes of Leviathan maybe, but other things,” Cara agreed.
“Yet there’s nothing . It’s almost as if–and I know that this is going to sound crazy–but as if they’re scared of something.
You know how insects go all quiet when a predator is nearby? ”
Elasha nodded. “You think there’s something scaring off the creatures from coming through?”
Cara nodded. “I do. I just worry about what could do that and if… if it has come through to Earth.”
At that moment, Elasha lifted her head and saw that Gran was staring at her steadily. A chill went down her spine. Had something come through? And had her brother encountered it?