In the Sword and Lady timeline, after
Cya Yells at a Kept which itself followed (but was posted before) Faking it.

“Leo and his Kept are coming over tonight — for dinner and to sleep over.”

Cya said it like she expected it to be nothing, just another day, but her eyes were on Carew and he had no doubt she was gauging his reaction.

She did that, said things without any tone and waited to see what he made of them. Carew still wasn’t sure what he made of that.

“So…” He tried for casual. He almost made it. Leo was still angry at him for the face-punching thing, at least as far as he knew, and, truth be told, he couldn’t blame the guy. It had seemed like a good idea at the time… “Extra lasagna for dinner, then? And I’ll sleep in the guest room — or do you want me to go hang out with Dev?”

Dev was Magnolia’s — not Kept, but might-as-well-be, he called himself her pleasant-revenge lover — and he was just about Carew’s age. They weren’t exactly friends, but they’d been in Addergoole together, the women they lived with were sometimes perplexing, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes wonderful, and they liked the same beers.

“I didn’t say I was kicking you out. It’s a big bed, hon.”

It was. Four of them would probably fill it comfortably. He’d always wondered why she had such a big bed — now, he supposed, he knew. He worked around a lump in his throat and tried to show nothing. “All right, sure. So lasagna?”

“Lasagna’s a good idea. I’ll start on the filling if you start on the noodles.”

He let the companionable working-peace fill the room for a few minutes before coughing. “So, uh, why’s Leo coming over? Over night, I mean. Is that why he’s bringing his Kept?”

“He’s… having a bad week, and I don’t want him left alone.”

“…Oh.”

Lots of stupid things went through Carew’s mind, like Isn’t that what HE has a Kept for? and Is that where you were last night? and If you’re just going to sleep with him — with THEM — what do you need me for? He focused on the noodles and said none of them. It wasn’t his first rodeo.

“What is it?” she asked. Carew swore internally. He didn’t think he’d been showing anything at all.

He cleared his throat and looked away.

Her hand on his shoulder almost made him jump. “It’s okay, Carew. I’d rather know than not know, all right?”

“It’s just… your whole world seems to revolve around him,” he muttered.

“Well… To some degree, yeah. It’s like this, here.”

Here wasn’t an order, but he looked anyway. Her left hand was held out flat at chest-height, marking a level.

“So,” she brought her right hand up, marking a line a little above the left. “There’s my kids. Then crew.” Her right fingers touched her left. “Then Kept—” a little lower on the right, and Carew’s heart did something weird up in his throat “-and then my project, which right now is school,” her hand moved down, “and city,” her hand moved down a bit more. “Except right now, I don’t have any kids in the nest, so,” her left hand moved up a notch, “and Leo’s the only crew in the city with me… So, yeah, my life kind of revolves around him. What?” she asked gently, although Carew had no idea at all what his face was doing. “Haven’t you ever had someone you loved? Or a crew you’d kill for?”

“Yeah…” He worked his throat, fighting with emotions he really, really didn’t want to deal with right now. “Both. But, uh. They were older, and they didn’t come back for me.”

“Well.” She patted his shoulder. “Did you tell them you wanted them to?”

“No, but…” He frowned. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“See, that’s the thing about assumptions. Maybe they assumed you’d come find them. Maybe they got there a few days late.”

“Wouldn’t the school have told them where I was?” He turned back to the lasagne just to have something to do with his hands.

“Well, depends on who they asked, and what mood they were in.” She turned to the food, too, but her eyes were still on him. He could feel them, feel their pressure. “Luke knows, because he’s still not entirely convinced I’m not locking Kept up in a dungeon… non-consensually. But if he told them would depend on if they asked, and if he approves of them, and any number of other factors.”

“Wait.” He put his hands on the counter to steady himself. “You lock Kept up in a dungeon consensually?”

“Well, some of my Kept have been pretty kinky, and so am I and—”

“You never said anything!” He slapped his hands over his mouth, but he’d already said it, and he’d already interrupted her.

Her eyebrows went up. “Now, remember what I was saying about assumptions? And then I went and assumed you weren’t the type. Well.” She patted his ass affectionately. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow night, mm? And this coming weekend, maybe we can talk about Finding your friends and crew.”

Carew swallowed. “Yes, ma’am… thank you, ma’am.” Both of his hands went to his collar. “Thank you, ma’am.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1292989.html. You can comment here or there.

After Cya gets ready for a date and Almost Out the Door for a Date and Trying Again and Blind Dateand Catching Up and Getting to (re-)Know him
and Also Needs a Title
and More Cya Date.
🍽️
They ordered dinner. There was a moment where it looked like Manus expected Cya to order for him; then he coughed and ordered his own food. Something different than she’d have picked; she wondered if he did it out of some residual defiance.

She hoped not. She didn’t want defiant, because defiant meant he was still thinking of her as an authority figure. Domme, maybe. She could definitely get behind (ha) that. But not authority figure in the rest of his life.

“So,” she asked, over delicious white bread that tasted all the better for remembering years where white flour was hard to come by, with a dipping sauce of Cloverleaf-grown olives (one of her proudest accomplishments was that tiny greenhouse orchard). “Tell me more about being a judge-and-diplomat?”

“Well, like I said,” he smiled at her over his wine, “it’s something of just getting people to talk, nothing fancy.”

“Well, give me an example?” she coaxed. It was all in the tone of voice. She didn’t want him thinking anything like orders.

“Okay, so. Couple months ago, Neihart Mountain, it lost two trade caravans headed up to MinuteTown. You know, up in the mountains, that place nobody thought would survive.”

“I remember.” She’d pulled three kids from there the year they thought it would collapse, the three that were the right age to take to Doomsday. The city had stayed standing. The kids had chosen not to go back.

“So, every once in a while, they get it in their head that they need something some other city near them has. And when they do, well, they go attacking. They’re not much better than bandits with a decent home base at this point, and seems like they’re suffering some brain drain. The ones that can get out, the smart ones, tend to leave.”

Cya looked guiltily down at her plate. “We encourage that, on occasion.”

“Good. People that are smart enough to get out of there ought to. Something I figured out a long time ago, Cya. People aren’t required to go down with a ship just because it carried them for a while.” He tapped her nose lightly, then pulled his hand back. When she peeked up at him, he looked mildly worried.

She stuck her tongue out at him so he’d know she wasn’t offended. “So they were raiding Neihart?”

“Trying, at least. But let’s be honest, even if Neihart can take them down with one hand tied behind their collective back – and they can – it’s a drain on resources and it’s demoralizing. So I got myself together a collection of some very terrifying people, a couple former cy’Dougs and ah, couple people you might recognize their names, and had them arm and armor themselves to the teeth, and then they followed me… and I talked.

“I wasn’t just going to bully them, I knew that wouldn’t work. So I brought a wagon of flour and bread and sausage and some of that really good goat cheese, and three baskets of vegetables, and seeds. And Dory Antelevron, she’s a genius with anything planting and she can teach an idiot how to be a genius. She volunteered,” he added. “And I explained to them that what was going to happen was that Dory was going to visit them under guard, and teach them how to not be stupid with their own food stores. And they were, in payment for listening to Dory, going to get a wagon full of food and not get wiped off the map.

“The thing about a cy’Doug with a sword,” he added, with a bright and cheerful smile, “is that you don’t even think can she kill me? You’re mostly thinking how long ‘till my breathing irritates her? They agreed. They were in a damn hurry to agree. And Dory thinks some of what she taught them might even stick.”

“Brilliant.” Cya grinned at him. “Sounds like a fun job.”

🍷

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After Cya gets ready for a date and Almost Out the Door for a Date and Trying Again and Blind Dateand Catching Up and Getting to (re-)Know him
and Also Needs a Title.

Cya reached over the table and tapped Manus on the top of the head. “Okay. Rule one. No pouty faces in public.”

“I thought rule one was ‘don’t attack you?’”

“That’s rule one for Kept. This is rule one for boyfriends.”

“Oh, so there’s a completely different – wait, what?”

Cya waited a moment for him to catch up, one eyebrow raised in her best teacher face. A moment later, he smirked slowly. He always had been one of her smarter Kept.

“So, does that mean pouty faces are fine in private?”

She grinned at him. “You’re clever. Yes. Look, the real rule is – if we’re going to consider dating, then we’re dating as adults.”

“So I can’t expect you to tell me what to do?” She thought he might look a little sad about that one.

So she gave him her best toothy grin, the one she’d been getting a lot of practice with lately. “Oh, I didn’t say that. But that’s for private. We date as adults, we can play as adults if that’s what you want, and once in a while I’ll probably tell you what to do. I mean, I am dictator – ah, Mayor – of a city-state. I can be pretty bossy when I want to be.”

He grinned at her, the sadness clearly gone. “I wouldn’t know anything at all about you being bossy, Miz Mayor. Nothing at all. So – you mean it?”

“I mean it. No sulking in public. It’s ridiculous.” She winked at him, because some part of her was still remembering him three decades ago and wearing her collar, and she wanted to make sure he knew she was teasing.

“No. Uh.” He shook his head, looking flustered. Some part of him might be remembering that, too. “I mean. Uh. Dating? You’re interested? I figured once you saw it was one of your former, um. ‘Kept du Jour’ that you’d be gone.”

“Look, you’re doing what? Being judge and ambassador for a nearby city-state? Look, that’s impressive. It’s impressive for people twice your age and, dead gods, I hope that didn’t sound as condescending to you as it sounded from here.” She ducked her head, realizing she was blushing and wishing she could in good conscience burrow through the floor and run away.

He chuckled. “Look, that’s kind of what I’m worried about.”

“…me being condescending? ‘Cause I don’t think I’m usually that bad to my peers.” Then again, her closest peers were a formerly-insane samurai, a currently-insane goblin, and a cowboy with a fidelity issue.

“No. No, ‘cause I mean, you remember the world Before. You’re got a lot more life experience than I do. Why would you have any interest in, well, me?”

Cya looked at him over her glass for a minute. Then she put her glass down and looked at him a little more. “Something I learned – well, far more recently than I ought to have, I think, is that people grow up at wildly different rates. From the sound of things, you grew up. Me, I grew up about when I finished this city. So… we’re pretty close to on par.

“Besides.” She gave him her brightest smile. “You already know all of my sensitive spots and I already know how to make you squirm.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1290746.html

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After Cya gets ready for a date and Almost Out the Door for a Date and Trying Again and Blind Dateand Catching Up and Getting to (re-)Know him.

Cya looked at Manus over her water. The waitress was hovering nearby; she gestured the woman over and placed her order, let Manus place his. She ordered wine from the local vineyard because she was proud of it (and because there wasn’t that much other wine to be had, although she’d recently opened up trade with a place a couple days’ travel away). He ordered whisky.

“You get why I built it?”

“I thought I knew back then. I mean, it pisses Regine right off. The school, especially. Kids that go from your school to her school – oh, it makes her mad.” He grinned in that way that shared in the schadenfreude of Regine’s anger.

She smiled back, because she had been trying to piss Regine off, although it had been a tertiary goal.

“But I mean, that’s the school. You could’ve built a shell around it and called it good, but you have like a whole nation here.” He sipped his water. “I get it now. I didn’t, then.”

“Yeah.” She looked out the window. There was a park behind the restaurant, and through a decorative screen of ivy, she could see kids playing. “I wanted to build safety.”

“That’s pretty cool, you know.” He cleared his throat. “So. Warwick, he said you were looking for someone to date. I don’t remember… well, you didn’t date before, did you? I guess I might have missed it…

“I didn’t,” she confirmed. “This is, well. It’s a new thing.”

“And… you probably weren’t looking for old Kept.” He looked down at the table.

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