WHAT: A 50-year-old Laurence wakes up in the wrong dimension and Lan Xichen worries about what happened to his husband WHERE: The Dragon Covert WHEN: First day of the timeslip plot WARNINGS: Nothing too bad, some angst STATUS: Complete
Laurence was, generally, enjoying retirement. He enjoyed spending his days with Tenzing, working on the garden and tending to the estate – work he was well-suited to, having watched his mother do it so often in his childhood. He was near enough to Loch Laggan that he could often go and visit, and Temeraire never scrupled a flight to Wollaton Hall to visit his mother and his brother, or to London when he wished to drag Tenzing to the opera or the symphony. Temeraire, too, enjoyed his position as a member of Parliament, and he and Perscitia had made massive strides for dragon rights these last few years, which Laurence could only be proud for. Laurence had never cared for a life of politics, but he saw it as a pleasure as well as a duty whenever he spoke to Temeraire’s bills at the social engagements he attended.
Tenzing had a sense for whenever Laurence would get restless, when he’d long for the days when his days were filled with the tasks demanded by the Navy or by the Aerial Corps, and somehow would always manage to find some job or task for the two of them to undertake, sometimes within the borders of Scotland or the wider United Kingdom, and other times taking them off to the mainland for a time. It was rarely unpleasant work, and Laurence enjoyed the opportunity to break up the monotony of his everyday life.
There were no such tasks now, and when he awoke, he did so with the idea that he’d rise, see to his flower beds and vegetable gardens, perhaps read a review of the newest opera at the Royal Opera House and decide if he wished to make a trip down there.
He knew there was something wrong even before he opened his eyes. There was a warm weight on his chest, an arm, not his own, slung across his stomach. For one brief moment, Laurence wondered if it was Tenzing, and quickly dismissed the thought, taking care not to examine the first assumption too closely.
He opened his eyes. He was not, in fact, in his own chambers. There was something familiar about the bones of the room, of the way the windows sat and of wooden beams of the ceiling, but the decorations, the silk drapings and the paintings, were all unfamiliar to him.
As was the head of black hair resting his chest. He didn’t recognize the handsome man, could not recall how he’d wound up in his bed. There’d been an engagement at the Viscount Falkland’s manor, but Laurence had only a few glasses of wine, not enough to make him drunk, and he recalled quite clearly returning home that evening with Temeraire and Tenzing. Even if he hadn’t, Laurence couldn’t understand how he’d have ended up in this situation at all. He had never in his life gone home like this with anyone he’d never met, especially not a man. He could make no sense of it, no sense of it at all.
He slid out from under him, trying to be careful not to wake him. He dressed for sleep, which only served to confuse him further, and began looking through the room for his clothes, or, at the very least, clothing that it would be appropriate to leave in if he could find none of his own. He recognized nothing.
Behind him, there was a faint rustle of fabric, followed by a low, warm voice.
“Mm, is it not too early to rise on a day off? Come back to bed.”
The man Laurence had woken up half underneath was propped up on one elbow now, his thin silk sleeping robe falling off one shoulder. The early morning sunlight cast a golden glow over his skin that matched the softness in his sleepy smile. He was a perfect picture of elegant dishabille, and apparently entirely unbothered by waking up this way.
Laurence stiffened, straightening from where he’d been shifting through queer-looking clothes, looking for something that looked even remotely familiar. It was strange enough to be found in such a position, one which Laurence couldn’t have begun to explain, but to be addressed so in such a familiar manner was not to be borne.
He spun to the man, shoulders back. Anyone who might have known him well might have noticed the moment where he was taken back completely by the man’s beauty; his strong jaw, and the way the sunlight fell on his bared shoulder. Surely no man should waken first thing in the morning looking so perfectly composed. His hair alone seemed to defy all reason, with how it cascaded like silk to pool at his elbow on the bed. Laurence resisted the urge to raise a hand to his own hair, the blond shot through with gray, and undoubtedly still dishevelled from sleep.
It was only a moment, short enough that one would have missed it if they blinked, before he composed himself again, drawing himself to his full height and trying not to feel a fool doing so in his nightshirt.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked. “Who the devil are you?”
It was only then that Lan Xichen finished the process of waking up. Being asked—quite rudely, he thought—who he was by his own husband acted a bit like a bucket of cold water thrown over his head. A fraction of a second after that, Lan Xichen began to put the other pieces together: the threads of hair that had gone from golden to ash, the faint lines on his face, the indignant expression on his face. He was unmistakably Laurence, handsome as ever regardless of his age, but he was also clearly not Lan Xichen’s husband.
Vallo, it would appear, was once again up to something.
“I beg your pardon,” Lan Xichen said, and gave the best approximation of a bow that he could manage from the bed. “I am Lan Xichen. Do you know where or when you are?”
“William Laurence,” Laurence introduced himself, still stiff, but much of the anger he’d felt had disappeared when the man had changed his demeanor and at his questions, and he was left only with the awkwardness of the situation. He tried not to think of how strange it was to be asked when he was.
He pulled his gaze from the man to glance out the window. There was something familiar about the shape of the window, he was sure of it, but it was only when he let himself focus on the landscape outside of it that it finally fell into place. That was eminently more familiar to Laurence than the room itself was; he’d only been stationed at Loch Laggan for nine months, but he’d visited far more often in peace times.
Of course, knowing where he was only raised more questions. He couldn’t imagine that the Corps would allow any of their aviators to decorate their rooms in such a way. He couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to arrive at the barracks in the first place. It made so little sense that Laurence was forced to step closer to the window just to be sure that he wasn’t mistaken.
“We are at Loch Laggan,” he said, and felt a small measure of pride at how little uncertainty he’d allowed to creep into his voice. Despite the compromising position he found himself in, he had no desire to let this man know just how disconcerted he found all of this. “It is May, 1823.”
Lan Xichen greeted that answer with a noncommittal “Mm.” That was the right time of year, at least. It was just two hundred years off, which meant…what? That Lan Xichen’s own Laurence had been replaced by one who had come directly from his own world, but several years later? What a mess!
But Lan Xichen had not spent his entire life training to clean up messes and solve problems for all and sundry only to throw it all out now. He took himself up from the bed, automatically reaching for the ribbon waiting on the nightstand. The little ornament was meant to remind him of self-control, and he had a feeling he would need it more than usual today.
“I will remove myself from the room and allow you to dress in peace,” Lan Xichen said. He gave a very proper Chinese-style bow, as polite as if he were fully dressed himself. “I think you may find the explanation of your situation more bearable with trousers on.”
Laurence felt at once relieved and wretched. No doubt he would feel more even-keeled wearing trousers and a neckcloth, but it still felt ungracious to drive the man from his own chambers. He hadn't been sure how or why he'd come to be here in the first place, but there was nothing in Lan Xichen's manner that made Laurence believe that he'd thought that Laurence had come here from anything less but his free will.
"Thank you," he managed. And then, embarrassed, he added, "I don't seem to know what's come of my own clothing. Will you tell me where it is, or what I might wear in lieu of it?"
“I cannot say what became of your clothing, but you may take whatever you wish from the wardrobe on the left,” Lan Xichen said. “You typically–”
Well, no, this Laurence did not typically wear what would be found in the wardrobe on the left. Nor would he think of it as his wardrobe. Lan Xichen mentally took three steps backward and attempted to regroup. What would a Laurence freshly arrived in Vallo need to know to get dressed?
“You will find that the trousers are fastened quite differently, and that neckties have changed such that you will not be able to tie one exactly as you are accustomed to, but I believe you will manage well enough to get you out to–” Lan Xichen stopped himself before his habitual use of the Chinese familiar address he typically gave the dragon, even though it meant carefully stepping through each syllable of the English name. “To Temeraire’s pavilion.”
There was something Laurence was missing. He’d known that from the start, and yet every hint dropped to him since he’d woken up had only managed to confuse the issue further. He groped ineffectively after them, and managed to make only a larger tangle of it as a whole.
He was unlikely to be walking to Tenzing’s estates, where Temeraire’s pavilion was located. While both Loch Laggan and the estate were both located in Scotland, it was a four day ride by horseback from one to the other. Lan Xichen must have meant that Temeraire had taken one of the pavilions that had been built on the training grounds.
Laurence felt his shoulders relax, a little, glad to hear that Temeraire, at least, was here. If he could make no other sense of this morning, there was that, at least, and perhaps Temeraire could discreetly fill him in. There’d been no remarkable problems with his memory since the unfortunate experience in Japan more than a decade ago, but he was beginning to grow worried that he’d lost some days.
No. More than some days; it would have taken a significant lapse for him to wind up in the position he’d found himself in. He couldn’t even begin to trace the series of events that led him here. But Temeraire… Temeraire would help.
“I thank you for the generosity, Lan Xichen,” he said, returning the bow. “I’ll be out shortly, I’m sure.”
The clothing itself was rather easy to figure it. Much simpler than the usual garb that he wore, and it very nearly fit him perfectly. It was certainly tailored to his height, which he thought was a lucky turn – Lan Xichen had seemed several inches taller than he was, and if it was a little loose, built for a man more heavily muscled than he was, it wasn’t so large on him to make him feel foolish or shabbily dressed. He didn’t recognize the cut of the suit, not really, but it seemed sharp enough, especially so once he pulled on a jacket and tied a neck cloth. He took another moment in the mirror to tidy his hair and tie it into a queue, and studied his reflection in the mirror.
He ran his hand over his cheek, noting that he could have used a shave that morning, but the stubble was only a day old and would keep. He’d not intrude so far to beg a razor.
He didn’t know how to treat with Lan Xichen. There was no mistaken how they’d woken. He’d slept side by side with men before, when necessary in the field, but that was not what that had been, especially not when Loch Laggan typically had empty rooms aplenty for any aviators that needed to overnight. He could not remember waking so entwined with even Jane. Lan Xichen had not been startled by that, though he had seemed so by Laurence’s reaction.
He peered deeper into the mirror, but his reflection showed no great passage of time. He prodded his head, front to back, but found no sore spots, and he’d neither felt nor saw any sign of injury when he’d gotten dressed. And it was during this examination when he first noticed, truly noticed, the ring that sat on the fourth finger of his left hand. He stared at it, dumbly, for a long moment before he was able to convince himself that staring at it would help nothing.
No, he needed to speak to Temeraire.
“I hope that I was not too rude this morning,” Laurence said when he finally stepped out of the room and found Lan Xichen again, and wondered how far to make his apologies. That something was amiss was only too clear to him, likely to the other man as well, but he wasn’t yet sure he wanted to share just how much was wrong.
“Not at all,” Lan Xichen assured him. He was coiffed and dressed properly now; the time Laurence took had been just enough for Lan Xichen to snatch a set of robes from where they hung to dry after laundering and to put his hair up and ribbon on.
It was actually very upsetting to have his husband snatched away and replaced with a stranger who shared his face, but facing adversity with equanimity was one of Lan Xichen’s most practiced skills. He would not place his feelings about the situation on the shoulders of an innocent party. He would remain calm and do what needed to be done for Laurence, see to it that Temeraire was not too upset, and save whatever feelings he had for when he was able to talk to Prompto. With any luck, Lan Xichen prayed, he would soon learn that this was indeed simply another case of Vallo’s unpredictable magic and that his husband would soon be returned to him. In the meantime he would ignore the panicking voice in the back of his mind that insisted that of course it had all been too good to be true and accordingly would be taken from him like all other happiness he had ever claimed. He could ignore the pain, too, of having to put on his polished public persona for his Will.
“Would you prefer that I explain matters immediately, or would you rather see Temeraire first?” Lan Xichen asked. He said the dragon’s name in that same somewhat stilted way, mindful of each individual syllable to get them all out correctly.
Laurence’s steps faltered at Lan Xichen’s question, and he shot him an astonished glance. It wasn’t that Laurence thought he’d done an especially good job of hiding his confusion, quite the contrary, but the idea that Lan Xichen thought he knew the cause of it, and would offer to explain, took him aback. He wasn’t sure if he would have preferred Lan Xichen to continue to pretend that there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary for Laurence’s behaviour or not.
He thought about it, and then thought of Temeraire’s possible reaction if he found that Laurence had, possibly, lost his memories again. It would be best if he had enough information that he could assure the dragon not to worry more than necessary. He hoped that the amount of worry necessary wouldn’t be too much.
“If you would, please.”
“It is complicated, and much of it will not make sense to you, but I will do my best,” Lan Xichen replied, calm and steady as always. He had never had to explain Vallo to anyone from the very beginning before, much less to the man his husband would have become without him, but he would make the attempt. “You are in the habit of considering that the only worlds are heaven and earth, but there are in fact many others. You are in one of them, a land called Vallo, where people and places from many worlds have been gathered together. No one here knows precisely why or how this has happened, but…” He shrugged elegantly as he paused. “Here we are.”
There. That was the beginning. He would let Laurence deal with that before adding the part about his other self.
Ah. So Laurence was dealing with a madman then.
At least, that was what he tried to tell himself. It was the only explanation that made any sense. Other worlds and magic simply didn’t exist. There was bound to be a rational explanation for what was happening, for how this man seemed to know things about him. Magic was not rational.
“I see,” Laurence said, and resumed his walk down the hall. There was something unnerving about the walk, too, and he puzzled over it as he went. It didn’t take long to dawn on him: the halls of Loch Laggan were usually teeming with Aviators and the servants who worked there. It wasn’t until he was looking for a servant to ask for a cup of coffee to be prepared that he realized how much he had been looking forward to at least something normal. He strained his ears for the sound of aviators playing in the games room, or of the sound of drills being conducted outside. But all there was was the gentle tread of his and Lan Xichen’s footsteps down the hall, and the birdsong out the windows.
“How long have you been residing at Loch Laggan?” Laurence asked after a time, if only to break the silence. “Are you an aviator?”
Lan Xichen couldn’t help but smile at being asked such an absurd question. He considered his answer as they walked past the remodeled library, with its large windows for Temeraire and smart organization and the addition of Lan Xichen’s own personal collection of books and scrolls.
“I have lived here for several months, and though I am not an aviator, Temeraire would probably say that I belong to him now. You see…”
Now the much more complicated part of the explanation. Lan Xichen knew Laurence was humoring him and being polite, but he still needed to know the truth. There was no telling, after all, how long it would take for the Laurence’s to be returned to their respective homes.
“We have had a William Laurence here for more than a year, and he came here from the year 1810. I expected to wake up beside him this morning, so it would seem stranger than normal magic is afoot.”
Laurence looked askance at Lan Xichen, unable to keep the incredulity from his face despite his best efforts. But his eye was caught by the early morning light flooding into the library.
Laurence had never spent much time in the library at Loch Laggan; if pressed, he couldn't say how the shelves were arranged or what books were housed there. But he knew the large, hinged window hadn't been there the last time he had been, and he certainly knew he hadn't had his imperial robes displayed on a mannequin near it. Those he had stored safely tucked away in some corner of the estate, far from sight.
His hand fell again to the ring on his finger and then, quite unbidden, he glanced at Lan Xichen's hand to find its mate. Just last year John and Augustine had had something like a wedding, secret and illegal though it was, where they'd exchanged small tokens of their esteem for one another. Nothing so obvious as wedding rings, but something that surreptitiously marked them as belonging to one another.
But no, this whole situation was absurd. Magic didn't exist. Parallel worlds didn't exist. It wasn't possible that he'd been here the night before, more than a decade younger and married.
"I should like to see Temeraire now, I think," Laurence said faintly.
Lan Xichen politely inclined his head and swept toward the exit just past the library. “This way.”
Outside it became more obvious that this was Loch Laggen, but not the Loch Laggen of Scotland in 1823. Vallo’s strange, cobbled-together landscape was evident in every direction, including the mountain that Cloud Recesses sat atop and the vast forest containing all its magical strangeness. And of course, just a short ways from the main building, where once there was nothing but lawn, now there was a very fine pavilion in the Chinese style–no plain affair for a working military dragon, but a proper home for one who attended university.
“Good morning, A-Xiang,” Lan Xichen said as they reached what amounted to conversational distance when speaking with a dragon. “We have a strange situation again.”
Temeraire yawned widely as he sensed the two men approaching; he was of course already awake, had only been resting his eyes before his morning flight, not being lazy at all. He thought he might quite like to go fishing, but there was no harm in waiting until the sun was a little higher. “Oh?” he replied curiously, his great head swinging around as Laurence and Lan Xichen entered the pavilion. “Again? Well, it is Tuesday, I expect.” He felt quite proud of this little joke, some of the humour of his human friends having rubbed off a little. “Is it demons? I haven’t had a good battle in a while - at least, one that was not against a lot of stupid birds. Not that I want there to be demons,” he added quickly, “but I would quite like to pay them back for damaging my eye - Laurence, are you quite all right?” There was something odd about the way Laurence moved, some hesitancy in his manner to which Temeraire’s senses were highly attuned.
Laurence couldn’t hide the relief he felt when he saw Temeraire’s great form against the unfamiliar horizon. Loch Laggan may have changed, decorated in a way that spoke more to a private dwelling than a military training barracks, and the skyline was wholly unfamiliar, but there was no mistaking Temeraire, and so long as he had the dragon at his side, he thought there was little that would be too strange for him to handle.
That was, at least, until that great head turned toward them. Laurence managed, only narrowly, to avoid crying out. “Temeraire? Good God, what’s happened?” he asked, and nearly jogged his way across the flagstones, overtaking Lan Xichen to hasten to Temeraire’s side. “Come, bring your head down. Let me see it. Does it bother you much?”
From a distance, Temeraire’s wounded eye looked healed but still new. He was no surgeon, nothing like, but he would feel better once he’d had a proper look himself.
“Oh,” Temeraire murmured, low, as he realised at least this much; Laurence had lost some of his memory again. He exchanged glances with Lan Xichen, but he thought the man would not look concerned if the whole city was lit on fire. “I am perfectly well, Laurence, do not worry,” he said, lowering his muzzle to sniff Laurence’s hair. There did not appear to be blood, which was comforting at least. Peering closer, he began to see the details that Lan Xichen had seen right away. He let Laurence touch him where the thick scar pinched the corner of his eye closed. The injury had left him with less peripheral vision on that side, but he scarcely noticed it anymore. “You are older,” he realised aloud. He gave Lan Huan a look. “Your strange situation may be somewhat understated,” he told him.
“I apologize,” Lan Xichen replied with a short but solemn bow. “I had hoped to explain more before we were carried away. This William Laurence comes from 1823. He remembers thirteen more years on Earth, but nothing of Vallo. As for what has become of the William Laurence I know, I cannot say. I hope to find some manner of answers on the network, but I have not yet had the opportunity to look.”
“Oh dear,” Temeraire said, low. He found himself torn between sympathy and intense curiosity. That meant that Laurence had ten years worth of memory from home that he, Temeraire, did not. He was full of questions right away, but if that also meant that Laurence did not remember Vallo, it was no wonder he appeared so distressed. “I suppose it is happening all over,” he surmised. “Like when I was old, that time. Except I still remembered being here.” He nudged Laurence for comfort. “Do not worry, Laurence. It will be all right, once we have explained properly, and you have had breakfast.”
Laurence felt a flash of annoyance at what felt like Temeraire and this Lan Xichen fellow talking about him over his head, but he stifled it. It was hardly their fault, and he could recognize it for what it was: it recalled too vividly the months following the disastrous shipwreck off the coast of Japan when he’d lost his memories. When everyone had known something that he could not comprehend, and spoke around and above him, dancing around the issue.
Except, of course, neither Lan Xichen nor Temeraire were skirting around some taboo topic. No, now they spoke quite openly, and yet he had no more comprehension now than he did then.
He straightened from his inspection of Temeraire’s eye – the wound was clearly some months old by now, and had healed as well as could be expected: better, perhaps, though it was impossible to say without having seen the original wound, and as much as he wished to question Temeraire on what had happened, or if it still bothered him, he recognized this was neither the time nor place. But more than the mysterious range of mountains that had appeared on the horizon, or the strange man whose bed he’d woken in, or any of the more subtle differences that Laurence had made note of, Temeraire’s wound proved to him that things were not as they should be.
“Yes, an explanation would be most appreciated. And breakfast and a cup of strong coffee, I think,” he said, resting a hand on Temeraire’s muzzle and taking what small comfort he could from that. “I did not see a man on our way out,” he added to Lan Xichen. “I suppose there must be someone in the kitchens? I will go fetch them, if you’ll allow.”
Someone in the kitchens was usually Laurence, these days. This Laurence, Lan Xichen imagined, had not spent a year or two learning to cook, and he would find their coffee maker a mystery. It would likely be best to leave him in Temeraire’s company.
“With only the three of us in residence here, we manage without any kitchen help,” Lan Xichen said. “Stay here; I will make coffee and—” No, he would not make breakfast, because anything he would make would likely not suit this Laurence who probably hadn’t eaten Chinese food in years and would expect meat to be part of any breakfast he had.
“I will arrange for breakfast,” he concluded instead. “A day such as this is deserving of the indulgence of a delivery service.”
Laurence couldn’t understand the idea of breakfast being delivered, but he felt enough of the fool as it were, and for now, he’d not question it. What Laurence had truly wanted was a moment to himself amidst all of this, but, perhaps, a moment alone with Temeraire, where he could ask what questions he could without fear of embarrassing himself in front of the handsome stranger who he was possibly married to.
“If you would be so kind,” Laurence said after a moment’s consideration. “I don’t mean to be an imposition, but I suppose you’re better equipped than me to deal with such a thing.”
“It is no trouble at all,” Lan Xichen replied. He was troubled, certainly, but not by taking care of coffee and breakfast. A moment alone, to breathe and to check the network for similar issues, would surely do him good. If nothing else, it would be a few minutes in which he did not have to maintain a facade of perfect serenity. “I will return,” he concluded, and gave another polite bow before turning to go back to the building.
If Temeraire’s dragon face could wince, it might have. He would be the first to admit that he wasn’t exactly well versed in the intricacies of human behaviour or language, but even he could recognise a seismic shift. “You must not be quite so stiff, Laurence,” he murmured, once he thought Lan Xichen was out of earshot. “You are married, after all, and you are going to hurt Lan Huan’s feelings, even if you do not mean to.”
Laurence grimaced and looked over his shoulder at the retreating Lan Xichen. Temeraire’s quiet asides were rarely as quiet as he wished them to be, but if Lan Xichen had heard, he hadn’t made any gesture over it.
He took his usual position on Temeraire’s forearm, and ran a hand over his face. “I do not know him,” he said after a moment. “And I certainly never married him. I do feel a lout, really. But I can’t pretend to an affection I do not feel; that would turn me into a liar and a fraud. I don’t wish to cause him any undue pain, but … Oh Temeraire, I don’t know what I’m to do. This is all so strange to me. Have we truly been here for long enough for me to have married?”
And more than that, for Temeraire to have approved the marriage?
“Well, you have,” Temeraire clarified. “I have been here only half the time. You met Lan Huan before I arrived, and you were married a month or so ago. It was a very lovely ceremony,” he said wistfully, examining Laurence as he spoke. “There are lots of things that are different here,” he said, in an attempt to be helpful. “There are not many other dragons at all, but the technology is much advanced, and people are not silly about whether one is male or female or somewhere between. Overall I find it better; at least from a societal perspective.”
“No, I suppose they mustn’t be, if we were married quite openly.” Open enough to wear matching wedding rings. He wondered how it would feel, to have been married only a month ago and to have your husband snatched away from you in every way that mattered. “It feels like Japan all over again,” he admitted.
At least, from the way Temeraire and Lan Xichen talked about it, Laurence didn’t have to worry about the stability of his mind. He knew that forgetting Temeraire had caused the dragon a great deal of pain, and wondered what he could have done to spare the dragon some of that pain. If he’d been able to separate himself further from Temeraire, if they hadn’t all been stuck shipboard, would it have made things easier? He’d been amnestic for nearly half a year, but it seemed like Lan Xichen and Temeraire believed this would be over soon.
“I should like you to show me this world, and all the things that you’ve come to enjoy,” he said at length. “But right now, I would like your advice. You were once nearly in the same situation that Lan Xichen is in. What would you have me do?”
Temeraire couldn’t help being pleased that Laurence remembered Japan, now, and not only because he had been told about it. He had to fight the urge to ask his own questions. “Well, that was very upsetting,” he admitted, feeling another pang of sympathy for Lan Huan. “And I was not allowed to say anything that might make it worse for you - although this time you have not hit your head, so probably it does not matter. Oh!” His head darted up as he had, in his opinion, a brilliant idea. “I know - do you have your phone?”
"My phone?" Laurence asked: he didn't know the word. But he patted his jacket, and there, in his pocket, was a slender rectangle which seemed to be some sort of strange, black metal covered in glass. "Is this what you mean?"
“Yes,” Temeraire said, now wondering how he was going to explain phones. “It is a… device for communication,” he said, “and other things as well, but you will see. It has all the messages you have written while you were here - like letters but shorter and much quicker; I will show you how, and you can read them in your own words, and then it will be like you explaining to yourself what you have done the last year and more.” He nodded, quite self-satisfied with this solution.
“Yes, you’ll have to walk me through it when you tell me of this place,” Laurence resolved after a moment, and slipped the phone back into his pocket. There was enough to think about now without working out how to use new technology on top of it.
He didn’t like to think of the fact that he’d apparently been here for some time without Temeraire; he’d always thought that wherever they’d go, they’d go together. He resolved to think only of the fact that Temeraire had found him.
“I’m glad you’re here now; I do not want to think of waking up in this situation without knowing I could find you.” He hesitated. “You are happy here, aren’t you, dear heart?”
Temeraire certainly seemed warm when he’d spoken of Vallo so far, and he seemed very fond of Lan Xichen. But Temeraire sometimes hid his true feelings on a thing for Laurence’s sake, and while Laurence could normally pick up on it, he did not fully trust his powers of perception currently.
“Oh, very,” Temeraire was quick to assure. “There are not many dragons here at all, but I have made many friends, and I am going to university, and sometimes there is a good battle, although I have not fought anything but geese for a while.” He rather wished now he had not mentioned the demons, he did not wish to worry Laurence unduly. He considered whether he ought to explain about his amulet, but maybe that would be too much to take in at the moment. “Emily was here for a while, but then she left again,” he said. “Oh, and your mother, too.” He hesitated, and then, no longer able to hold back the dam of questions, went on: “Are they all well, at home? And the rest of the crew? And Tharkay? And Iskierka? And have you heard from Ning and the Emperor?”
Laurence blinked. Emily would undoubtedly do well here in Vallo; she adjusted to strange situations with remarkable grace, far more than he could ever manage. But it must have been a shock to his mother. He wondered if she’d fared well. Before he had a chance to ask, however, Temeraire expressed his own litany of questions. That, at least, was familiar. He settled more comfortably, smiling at his dragon.
“Everyone is doing quite well. Iskierka has settled a little, though she still does better when there’s battles to fight and prizes to take. She and John have recently been sent to Africa; there’s been some trouble there with the Ashanti Empire involving a captured serviceman. Tenzing is doing quite well. He is a most accommodating host.” He smiled, a little. Tenzing would no doubt scowl at hearing himself be called a host. He’d not been pleased with the title from the start, but after nearly ten years living together he no longer masked his feelings on the title; Laurence avoided the term when he could, but he’d not forgotten that he and Temeraire were permitted to live there by Tenzing’s good graces, and that should Tenzing ever decide he’d had enough of them, Laurence would not overstay his welcome. “The three of us went and visited China some five years ago, in the year eighteen. Ning seems to have settled in quite well; I think that Emperor Mianning has had a good influence on her. That, and age, I suppose.”
He’d worried, a little, that Ning would be too much of a handful, but the Emperor had seemed to have no complaints, though Laurence was very aware that even if he had, he’d not take Laurence into his confidences. “Ning had made some comments of coming to visit us in England if she had the chance, but luckily nothing’s come of that. I don’t think that Parliament would know what to do with her, even if you and Perscitia and the other dragon ministers managed the whole thing.” The human ministers had learned to bend a little, but he doubted they’d bend far enough to welcome her how she’d expect to be welcomed. “Tenzing’s been wanting to visit the Americas sometime in the near future. He’s been speaking to Perscitia about spending some time with the Devereaux, Pickman, and Wampanoag Trading Company.”
Laurence couldn’t say how he felt about it. If Tenzing was to get a thorough idea of how the company operated, the trip would likely take years. He would do what he would, of course, and Laurence wouldn’t interfere, but he’d grown accustomed to his presence. He’d not asked Laurence to go with him. Even if he did, Laurence was unlikely to go: Temeraire was plenty busy with Parliament and it was an impossibility that he’d be able to come, and while they’d sometimes spent weeks apart from one another when Parliament was in session, they’d still been able to correspond regularly through the courier services, and a handful of weeks and a few hundred miles was nothing when compared to having years and an ocean between them.
“Oh, I would like to see the Americas,” Temeraire sighed. It was very strange to hear about events which had taken place in the future, and he would one day be sure to experience, in fact and not only in theory. He understood now a little better how Laurence must feel, although it was not as though being married was bad news, like Riley’s death, or exile from England. He felt stubbornly satisfied that all that had been settled now, and Laurence was quite safe and happy even if they were not in the Corps anymore. “Thank you, Laurence,” he said, low, nuzzling him. “I am very pleased to have the news, and very glad you are here, as well.”