198 A Single Grain of Rice and a Single Drop of Water

Sweat beaded on Luna's fair brow. She sat on the sofa in Tyr's apartment with her hands hovering above a small plate. Today she wore a wide-legged pair of grey ao-ao wool pants and a dark grey turtleneck sweater.

As she meditated, the single drop of water and the single grain of rice that were on the plate glowed with a soft white light. Every day for the next week, these would be the only meals they would allow Aži to eat or drink.

Luna needed to infuse his food with holy magic in order to weaken the demon's hold on him.

Earlier in the day when Tyr ran to her with their wyvern friend, she had been worried it was too late. Aži's usually shiny black scales appeared molted and dull. They flaked off in patches and he barely moved.

Luna scolded the little wyvern for being so careless. It would have been all right to eat the hand if another demon had been involved, but that particular demon's magic had been tied to medicine and disease.

Upon reflection, Aži realized what he did was stupid. The hand did not even taste good. What made the situation worse was that everyone asked him why he did it. It was shameful, and he grew annoyed because he had to listen to their scoldings.

The only positive thing out of this whole nightmare was that he would develop an immunity to the demon's magic when he got better. By doing so, his link with Tyr would give his friend a resistance to it as well.

Luna finished her meditation and her clear green eyes opened. She turned to her brother, who sat in the chair across from her.

"Done," she announced. "I'll serve him his meal, but remember that for the next week, he can't eat or drink anything else."

Tyr nodded silently.

She picked the plate up and made her way to Aži's bedroom, which was connected to the Tyr and Macha's living room. Her hand touched the large door, "You know… You two need to be more careful. I'm going to get married and you haven't had a child yet."

She paused and gave a sigh, realizing her brother's mood was quickly becoming black. "I don't want to sound like Mother, but you don't have an heir and we are the last of the Valois family. Mother would need to rely on Freyr…"

Her words stopped as soon as her brother stood up. He stalked over to her and crossed his arms.

While he did not yell, his voice dripped with a low warning, "Do you really think I intentionally search for trouble? I did what I did because I thought about you and Macha. One day you could have met with those pirates."

He brushed past her, moving towards his bedroom.

In a judgmental tone, he added, "Besides, you make it sound as if Freyr would treat Hrod unwell. Or, do you think he has such a low character as to let her live like a pauper?"

Luna spun around and her eyebrows shot together. "You know I didn't mean it like that! If anything, I would always take care of Mother."

Tyr's shoulders lifted as he gave a shrug. He did not bother looking back as he made his way down the hall.

"Then why bring Hrod up?"

The last person he wanted to hear giving him a lecture about heirs was his sister. She did not even know about how he arranged his will in the case of his untimely demise.

The lands given to his family in trusts by their uncle, the King, would go back to Freyr. That was something he could not change unless he had a son, so he did not bother worrying about it. He also realized Freyr could easily give it to Hrod or Luna if he wanted to after the lands returned to him.

All the other family businesses would be divided between Luna and Hrod. He planned to give Luna some of her inheritance as part of her wedding gift. He would write it in her name, in case anything happened between herself and Krystof.

Since returning from the war, he also arranged for everything he earned on his own, to go to Macha. He did not consider his personal efforts to be something his mother should benefit from and already trusted Macha to continue his vision for the guild.

Luna frowned and entered Aži's bedroom. She did not mean to annoy Tyr, but since she planned her wedding, she pondered about things like heirs and lineages. Now that she was getting married that topic seemed to become more real and important.

The wyvern's room had an indoor fountain that splashed water from the ceiling into a wide pool. He used it as his bath and water fountain. There was also an enormous mouse farm that stood against the far wall which contained all of his pet mice that he raised to eat.

Macha suggested putting it behind a glass so it looked like an ant farm, but with mice. The only other furniture in the room was a hammock that he lay in.

"Aži, remember not to eat or drink anything other than this until I say so. Do you understand?" Luna asked.

His head lulled to the side, and he opened his eyes. "Do you really think I have the energy to hop down from this hammock and grab a drink or a snack?" he thought.

As a reply, he gave a small nod.

She put the grain or rice in his mouth and let him lick the drop of water from the plate. She stood there for a few moments inspecting his temperature and skin.

As she touched him, she tried to offer him words of comfort, "It'll be okay. You'll get better soon, but please exercise a little more caution in the future. I don't want anything to happen to you."

When she left, he closed his eyes. Before drifting off to sleep he thought, "I hate demons, dirty smelly rotten things."

****

Macha brought Laki to the Uma Loch. It was a place that she felt he would be comfortable at and she loved their seafood. The owners recognized her and welcomed her back. They were seated at Tai Shan's favorite table, which had a limited view of the sea.

After they ordered, Laki took a swig of his ale. "So, they called ya Lady Swat. Why would a noble come to a place like this?"

Since Macha offered to pay, he did not hold back and downed the rest of his ale without taking a moment to breathe.

The question had been understandable. Most nobles favored frequenting places that were considered fine dining. She now worried if he would have preferred to eat at a more expensive establishment.

She bit her lower lip, "I like it here. The owners are nice and food is good. I hope you'll like it too, but if you want, we can go elsewhere. I haven't had a chance to bring Tyr here yet..."

Since her last visit the owners started putting crayons on the table so people could doodle on the butcher paper that was used as a tablecloth. Macha picked up a red crayon and started to draw little hearts at the thought of Tyr.

Laki craned his neck slightly to see what she drew. "I don't mind. Seems like a nice enuf place."

He cleared his throat. It still felt weird talking in his native tongue since he went years without it.

"So what's goin' on with you and my nephew? Hrod knows?"

He already heard from his nephew that she was Tyr's girlfriend, but he wanted to learn how much sway this chit had. It would be best to identify just how involved she was with the Valois family.

After taking a sip of her wine, she nodded her head. "Hrod knows. She gave me the airship for my birthday. At first she hated me, but in recent years she's been really helpful and," she paused unsure if using the word she thought of was stretching its definition too much, but used it anyway, "nice."

A loud booming laugh came from Laki. It was the sort of laugh that came up from his belly and shook his whole body. He continued to roar with laughter for a while, slapping the table. The other customers stopped their conversations to stare at the blonde-haired man.

Eventually he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. "Ya don't have ta shit wit me. I know my sis. She ain't the type to like you, sorry."

He got the waitress's attention, "I'll have another!"

"No, she really does approve. To be honest, it surprised me that she warmed up to me so quickly. I'm not going to bother asking her why. In my opinion, it's because her husband died. I personally suspect she's trying to not fight with Tyr so they can mend their relationship."

Laki raised an eyebrow, and thought, "This chit is delusional. My sis would never care about any of that shit."

"So Hymir died? Pity, she won't have a spineless husband ta boss around anymore." He brought a boot up to rest on the seat next to him. "Ya say Tyr doesn't git along well with Hrod?" That was an interesting piece of information.

Macha hesitated. This man was family, so she thought he should show more sadness when hearing about Hymir's death. Her lips twitched, but decided not to say anything.

"I wouldn't say they have the greatest relationship. They had their differences in the past, but both of them have been trying to mend it. I hope eventually they can become close."

The food came and Macha cracked open a crab leg. "What about you? I'm really curious about how you became a pirate. Is it something you can talk about?"