Kyou Kara Maou : The Pirate Wedding

Summary: Wolfram and Yuuri's second wedding attempt is waylaid by pirates. But – might they still get a child as a wedding gift? Sequel to any of my KKM fanfics so far.

Disclaimer: I have no rights to Kyou Kara Maou, of course.

Please review.

Chapter 2 : Absent Mothers

"Ah! What a glorious afternoon for a cruise!" said Shibuya Miko, Yuuri's mother. And it was – the sky and sea were a perfect blue, iridescent winged fish leaping beside Cheri's yacht. The sun was lowering to what promised to be a stunning sunset, with a light tracing of high cirrus clouds, behind some low islands a few miles off their starboard side. "Uma-chan, we must take cruises more often. Now Shou-chan's in Switzerland, and Yuu-chan is here – it's just the two of us again. When we get back, I'm going to book us a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands and down to Tahiti! A second honeymoon, won't that be fun?"

"Ah…" Yuuri's father Shibuya Shouma – whom only his wife called Uma-chan, or horse-sweetie – looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Perhaps I could get another week off from the bank in six months or so… For Hawaii. Dear, it's several thousand miles of empty ocean from Hawaii to Tahiti…" He avoided mentioning again the many millions of yen he'd just wasted to bankroll Yuuri's wedding party's wardrobe, imported to Shin Makoku from the most exclusive shops of Tokyo. Or that he was bored silly on this or any other cruise.

"Oh, you're such a spoilsport, Uma!" Before this could deteriorate, Cheri emerged from below decks, trailed by Giesela, Murata, Flurin, and Yozak. "Ah! Giesela! The bride's-maid's dress is perfect on you!"

Giesela disagreed vehemently, smiled politely, tripped over her hem, and fell to the deck. Flurin, in a matching pink satin strapless confection, kindly gave her a hand up from one side, Murata on the other. The pink, a delightful companion to Flurin's papery white complexion and lavender hair, looked hideous with Giesela's deep-green locks, and the strapless shoulders showcased the exact cut of her uniform's overshirt and undershirt, in silouettes of darker and lighter brown freckled areas, on a white background.

Just to join in on the dress-up fun, Murata was modeling Yuuri's formal wedding kimono instead of his own. His own, in a pattern Yuuri had picked out for both of them, was an elegant formal heavy black silk men's kimono, affixed with a Murata family crest, with assorted underlayers and ties and sashes of varying shades of purple and red and silvery-sheened patterned black. It looked great on Murata. It had looked great on Yuuri, too. But Miko had arrived in Shin Makoku with only the one Murata-emblazoned copy.

Murata modeled instead Yuuri's last-minute unauthorized replacement kimono – at a price tag that had made the fairly well-to-do Shouma swoon – featuring a pink cherry blossom motif chased in gold and silver on a pink background, with assorted other layers patterned in hot pink and yellow peonies. Murata sensibly wore his own brown men's shoes rather than the traditional white tabi toe-socks and platform sandals that went with the outfit. Keeping pure white tabi white was nearly impossible – they would be donned minutes before the ceremony. "You were right about the make-up, Mama Miko," he said, smiling. "It looks far better with white face-paint." In fact, without the traditional Japanese white-face, the kimono's colors made the traditional Japanese complexion look… downright jaundiced.

"So these dresses match Wolfram's?" inquired Flurin politely, pirouetting to show off the fit for Miko. "I'm not used to wearing a dress that's so…" sexy, slinky, revealing, "…form-fitting." Slender, small-chested Flurin tended to wear huge skirts and puffy blouses.

Wolfram had agreed to a dress to please Miko, and because it sounded like fun. But, no one's fool in the wardrobe department, he'd selected a sexy dress for a short man. The bare lace-up back was scooped down as low as it could go, and below that, ruching fell down the middle to drape the ass, with a poufy bit of tacked-on bustle at front crotch level to shield any telltale bulges. The chest required no breasts at all, but with his mother's standards as a guide, he figured the back lacing and modest two inch cleavage cut, were sufficient support for the women as well. Two slits in front permitted locomotion in a skirt that would otherwise be entirely too narrow, all in a cream-on-cream floral light satin. Wolfram looked gorgeous in it at the store – he took Yuuri's breath away.

"They match the dress Wolfram picked out," said Shouma darkly. "Miko-chan made a substitution there, too…" Wolfram's new wedding dress was pure bright white instead of cream, Miko's ideal of the perfect Western-style wedding dress – a petticoats-and-satin confection out of the antebellum Deep South, wider than it was tall, covering every inch of skin with lace and beads, with a lacy veil that covered the entire thing over again in a tent that trailed the floor to several times Wolfram's height. Miko somewhat arbitrarily decided that Wolfram's bust should be padded to a 38C. Wolfram referred to it as the toadstool costume from hell.

"I imagine Wolfram's dress will match them again by the time his tailor is done with it," said Murata, grinning. Or the tailor will die trying – by his lord's hand. No doubt it would even be dyed to the exact shade of cream Wolfram preferred, or Bielenfeld blue if those dye tests worked better. Or scrapped altogether and Wolfram's dress made to his specifications from fresh cloth. "I wonder if Yuuri is still banished to Greta's bedroom…" Murata considered it somewhat unfair of Wolfram to hold Yuuri responsible for Miko's misdeeds.

"Oh, they shouldn't sleep together right before the wedding anyway," said Miko.

"It's not that they sleep together anyway," insisted Shouri, Yuuri's brother. "Wolfram's his bodyguard. They're wearing white, after all."

"Does white signify something?" asked Cheri, dressed in cherry red. One could see exactly where Wolfram got his ideas regarding judicious use of slits and ruching.

"That they're virgins," insisted Shouri. Shouma rolled his eyes and shook his head at Cheri, to indicate, Don't even try – his denial is still rock-solid. Cheri looked amused.

Giesela, wobbily standing again, decided the first thing that had to go was the shoes. She wanted her sergeant's jackboots, not tiny little stiletto-heeled toys. She took one heel and smashed it to the deck, by 'accident'. "Oh, my! Well, perhaps I'd best wear flats…" She kicked off the useless bits of upholstered plastic immediately.

Flurin giggled discreetly behind her hand, then said, "Actually, Giesela, I think I have the perfect slippers for you. Just a moment…" And to Giesela's deep envy, Flurin pranced effortlessly back belowdecks.

Yozak, dressed for dinner in a narrow flame-colored evening gown and pearls, took pity on her. He said, "Giesela, honey, let me show you how it's done." He held elbows to his sides, lower arms spreading out from there, hands splayed out parallel to the floor to show off his rings, and walked across the deck in front of her, swinging hips to the utmost, moving legs mostly below the knee. "The trick is to picture your center of gravity moving directly forward, your upper body gracefully growing upward from there, shoulders back and down with head held high and proud, and use your hips to propel you along. There, now you try it," he invited, pirouetting to face her again.

Two fingers elegantly pressed to her lips to control laughter, Cheri glided effortlessly in her stiletto heels and tightly ruched slit skirt to the railing to pose between Shouma and Shouri to watch. If Giesela had any sense, she would have watched Cheri as a model, but she was entirely too bemused by the vision of Yozak – Miss Biceps, as Yuuri still called the giant redheaded man sometimes – swinging his hips.

"Yozak, you do realize there are anatomical differences between men and women in the pelvis region," she complained.

"Forget you're a healer or a soldier when you're in that dress, honey," advised Yozak. "Just be – a woman. Wanting the eyes of her very special man watching every swing of her tempting ass." Shouri coughed, Shouma applied himself to his wine, and Cheri nodded. Good advice, actually. Murata, trying every day to be selected as her very special man, eagerly watched every swing of her tempting ass.

"Let me try," said Murata. It took but a single hip swing for him to overbalance and trip. Kimonos do not come equipped with high sexy leg slits to permit locomotion in a skirt that's too narrow for it. One is supposed to shuffle in quick tiny mincing steps without separating thighs or knees at all. Giesela caught him, but tripped on a discarded stiletto heel, and they both fell to the deck, Giesela's generous bust easily escaping its limited structural support, Murata face-first into a wayward breast. "Ah… excuse me," he grinned up at her beatifically. "Thank you for the save."

Blushing furiously, Giesela tucked herself back into the dress and pushed Murata off. Though not, he thought, in an entirely unfriendly way. I'm getting closer every day. This Valkyrie will be mine… He wished he'd be standing at Wolfram's side with Giesela at the wedding, instead of at Yuuri's with Flurin, but the wedding preparations threw them together plenty anyway – the ceremony itself couldn't take more than an hour. A full formal Mazoku wedding – not uncommonly with same-sex couple as centerpiece – featured the entire immediate families of the wedding couple, plus uncoupled man and woman close friends to either side. A crippled ex-trooper of Wolfram's, named Andrei, was coming from Bielenfeld to stand with Giesela.

Just as Murata was making some headway in their mutual assistance at getting up off the deck – actually he was making the most of the opportunity to grope Giesela – there was suddenly a giant CREAK and the ship very quickly slowed to a halt. Had Giesela bothered to watch, she could have seen just how surely and quickly an experienced woman can glide in stiletto heels and tight skirt, as Cheri made a beeline for the helm to consult with the captain.

"We've run aground?" wondered Shouma aloud, to no one in particular. "Surely this is a regular trade route? Navigation should be trivial - we can see how far we are from the islands…" That being, not terribly far. Two ships had just emerged from behind a headland, heading in their direction, running straight downwind, fast.

"Pirates," said Yozak succinctly. "Maybe fifteen minutes." He bolted down the gangway just as Florin came up, brandishing her lovely beaded dove-grey kid-skin flats to loan Giesela.

"Thank you," said Giesela helplessly. She stuff the slippers into her bust, hiked up her ruching into the camouflage bit of front bustle, and bolted down the gangway after Yozak for her sword.

Not that there was any point in getting a sword. Cheri's yacht carried neither troops nor armaments. Their entire fighting force was Giesela, a medic, and Yozak, a spy. Plus whatever weak majutsu the rest of the Mazoku crew could pull together this far from Shin Makoku. The perennial favorite toy of a wind-user – best of all a Maou wind-user, who could use her majutsu at stunning power levels well outside Shin Makoku – Cheri's sailing ship was built for speed. She could outrun any pirate on the seas, in whatever direction she pleased.

Provided, of course, the ship didn't run aground.

"Water," said Shouri suddenly. "I just need to float the boat off the sandbar." A good thought – Shouri too had Maou powers, usable away from Shin Makoku, as Maou in training for Earth, though his were considerably less developed than Cheri's or Yuuri's. He gathered his powers, mounted a wave 10 feet high, and used it to push the ship… forward.

Had he thought to consult with the captain and Cheri before attempting this, of course, he would have been advised that the direction of choice was backward. Shouri's prodigious efforts, in net, shoved the keel six feet deeper into the sandbar, with the ship now tilted slightly uphill. There was never the slightest chance of floating the keel over the sandbar. A boat built to put vast sail to vast wind-power and run like hell, Cheri's yacht had an extraodinarily deep keel for its size.

Cheri returned, with the captain, and petted Shouri soothingly. "It was a good thought, dear. It's a pity the sails can't be rigged to push… that way." She pointed, directly backward. "Could you try it again, please? That way?" He actually managed to raise a 12 foot wave this time, sloshing the decks a bit, with Cheri whipping the wave up a bit with some wind. The ship rocked a bit, and the tilt uphill evened out slightly.

Cheri and the captain looked at each other sadly. "The good news," he said thoughtfully, "is that the tide's about four hours from full. That… a few anchors and the capstan… high tide… might do it." Cheri thoughtfully tucked this information away for future reference.

As Giesela jumped back on deck, brandishing a sword, Cheri patted her shoulder and told her kindly, "Best lay that somewhere out of sight, dear. We'll surrender." At the younger woman's look of dismay, Cheri got firmer, though still in silken tones. "There's no point in getting hurt. We'll look for an opportunity later."

And so Wolfram's mother, Yuuri's entire family, three of the four men and maids of honor, and most of the wardrobe for Yuuri and Wolfram's wedding, waited on a sandbar to surrender to pirates.

-oOo-

Bielenfeld and Gratz were two of the oldest, proudest, purest Mazoku domains of the Ten Aristocrats, drenched in history back to before the founding of Shin Makoku. Bielenfeld especially had a proud tradition of Mazoku souls being reborn locally – once a Bielenfeld, forever a Bielenfeld. In other words, the people at this dinner party had not merely spent all day together floating down a river, nor all their lives in each other's company (and not much of anyone else's) – no, these people had been friends and family together for over four thousand years, give or take a few.

Nevertheless, it was traditional to pretend to meet a new member and welcome him or her into the family, should anyone happen to marry an outsider. Once in a while, such a marriage even succeeded. Though – chances were better if the married couple stayed outside the homeland. Outsiders… didn't tend to be happy there. Military service, on the other hand, was very popular. The placid plantations of Bielenfeld, rising gradually to the mountainous forests and rangelands of Gratz, offered little more in the way of excitement than calving season. Young people with raging hormones escaped to the adventure of the military in droves. They were the most militant domains in all Shin Makoku.

Yuuri and Wolfram arrived at the dining room, resplendant and with plastic smiles affixed, and scoped the scene – two tables, one for adults, one for children. Conrad, smart man, had chosen the children's table –Yuuri should have realized this was one party Conrad should not have been invited to. There were no humans and no half-Mazoku in Bielenfeld and Gratz. Yuuri murmured, "Can I take the children's table first, then we trade?" Wolfram nodded.

In theory, they each had an ally and bridge at their respective tables – Efram, old enough to sit with the adults, but de facto leader of the aristocratic children, and Manfred, the tie that bound all these people to the marrying couple. Efram was missing. Wolfram sent a minion to find and fetch him, but otherwise let Yuuri deal with his own table – ably assisted by nearly one-on-one servers to ride herd on the kids so the adults could ignore them.

After everyone had been hustled into their seats, Manfred raised the expected toast – a speech he'd prepared ahead of time, so it was quite good, and well received, if not particularly heartfelt at the moment of speaking. Applause all around, Wolfram and Yuuri said their prepared speeches in return, and everyone settled down to eat and visit.

Wolfram rightfully drew the tougher audience. He decided to try Yuuri's trick – smile brightly and set the tone for the table, leading the conversation. "So, Chichiue," he tried to project above the babble of twenty-odd adults continuing their four-millenial conversations. "How are things going at the Institute these days?"

"Mm, big demand for counter-houjutsu specialists lately," he replied.

"That's because all this new trade with the humans the Maou's opened up, has more and more Mazoku traveling outside Shin Makoku," added Manfred's uncle Friedrich, ruling Lord of Bielenfeld. Though Manfred by rights should have been holding down the foot of the table opposite the groom, Günter had instead placed Friedrich there, consigning Manfred to a place of no honor at mid-table amongst ex-girlfriends and their husbands. "More and more Mazoku are being targeted. We need to put more effort into defense of our people. I've written you about this," Friedrich accused Wolfram. "Gwendal, has my nephew been presenting my requests properly?"

Gwendal nodded, already thoroughly pissed at being dragged into this dinner party. "We're concerned and looking into it. Let's save that discussion for our meeting after dinner, Lord Friedrich." Friedrich frowned but conceded the point – save military issues for the military leaders, not the family supper.

Grandma Phoebe felt no such compunction. "A Bielenfeld healer was kidnapped just last month – doing humanitarian aid for 'Cabaret' or somesuch human place. They got her daughter, too, and forced her to work for them by threatening her little girl. She was one of your students, wasn't she, Manfred?"

"Annette, yes," agreed Manfred. "…My patient, now."

"Has she spoken yet, Manfred?" inquired Sophie, from Phoebe's right. Günter had given the inseparable pair the place of honor to the groom's right, no doubt from romantic notions of dignified matriarchs. Wolfram made a mental note to have a word with the protocol officer about seating his relatives. Günter's fantasy life could be a royal pain in the ass sometimes. "I heard she hasn't spoken a word since her little girl was raped to death. A child! Human beasts!"

Manfred wasn't about to discuss his patient's recovery. "You heard about that affair here, didn't you, Wolfram?"

"Ah, no," admitted Wolfram, knowing it for an impolitic answer, but stuck with the truth. "But I've been busy preparing for the wedding and the Aristocrats' and allies' summits. Did you hear anything, Gwendal?"

Aldrich, Friedrich Lord Bielenfeld's son, responded before Gwendal could finish chewing. "What the hell's on the agenda for the summits, if not the increasing human predation on Mazoku?"

"We'll distribute an agenda at the beginning of the meeting, of course," placated Wolfram, mentally adding, and increasing human predation on Mazoku just leapt to the top of the list. "Our hope in a lot of these smaller working meetings, building up to the big meetings, is to hone that agenda. You'll attend with your father, I trust?"

"Wolfram, you tell Yuuri," said Phoebe, "that we can't let this kind of thing get out of hand! A century and a half to replace a good Mazoku generation, and only two decades for those humans – they breed like rabbits. Animals!"

"Politics," interjected Manfred. "Let's not talk the family business at dinner, hm? This is a social occasion."

"Quite right, Manfred," said Sophie, mother of the two latest Lords of Gratz. "Say, Wolfram, what's this I hear that you're wearing a dress at your wedding? Manfred, were you aware of this?"

Manfred grimaced. "First I've heard of it, Aunt Sophie…" The table erupted in a general babble, most people discussing whether men should ever wear wedding dresses and asking each other whether they'd already known Wolfram was the bottom of the couple and whether or not it was right to actually proclaim that in public or whether who was which should be kept private. Not one bit interested in wedding dresses, and having assumed all along Wolfram was a bottom, this allowed the unnatural concentration of Lords militant at the foot of the table to return to arguing policy with Gwendal, the Maou's ranking advisor. Manfred, the only person who had a prayer of controlling the table, simply saw no reason to do so. He entered a quiet, fairly serious conversation with the very pregnant Dierdra. Wolfram hoped he didn't know what it was about.

When Grandma Phoebe turned to him and asked, "So, Wolfram, tell me. How is he in bed? Does he give good head?" Wolfram firmly decided there were no problems in his life that decking his grandmother couldn't make worse.

He rose, flipped a limp wrist theatrically, and said, "I never kiss and tell, Grandma." He proceeded to work the table on foot, butting in and visiting with a couple relatives at a time. He'd made it halfway down one side when a guard arrived, escorting a truly pissed off Efram.

Ignoring Wolfram, who indicated his seat at the children's table (currently in an uproar over the discovery that Yuuri was only seventeen), Efram marched directly to Manfred. He announced, "I left a letter for you on your bed from my mother. She hid the letters in my luggage. I opened and read yours. Sue me. Now, may I be excused, without you sending troops after me?"

"Ah… What?" said Manfred, stupefied. "Efram… please sit and eat. Let's talk about… whatever this is… after dinner."

"I'M NOT…" He started too loud, but promptly corrected his tone. "Pardon me. I'm not hungry, Chichiue. Please excuse me, Wolfram." And he stalked back out again.

"Manfred, what ails your brat?" demanded Phoebe. "I've half a mind to go whup him myself!"

"Mm… don't know. Leave him be, Mama." He bent to listen to an urgent whisper from Dierdra, Efram's aunt on his mother's side. He looked alarmed by what he heard. "Mm, actually, maybe I should go… I'm not that hungry, either. My apologies, but will you excuse me, Wolfram?" He rose to leave.

"I'll go, too," said Dierdra, who, without Manfred, was an orphan at the table. Wolfram recalled that her sister, Efram's mother, was from Krist, a tenured professor of magical defense at the Majutsu Institute.

Thus neatly torn three ways by conflicting demands for paternal attention from all three of his sons, Manfred sunk back to his seat, smiling wanly. "Ah… it can wait. You must eat, dear." He bent solicitously to the task of making Dierdra comfortable.

Wolfram came around and squatted between them. "Chichiue? Do you need to go talk to Efram? I'd love a chance to sit and visit with Dierdra." He smiled at her warmly, and she returned the smile gratefully.

"Ah… I shouldn't, but…," Manfred waffled. "Are you sure?" Wolfram nodded, and with apologies all around, Manfred left to read his dread letter from Professor Dionne Zarelle.

In the end, Wolfram spent the rest of his stint getting to know Dierdra Zarelle. He and Yuuri traded tables for only the last ten minutes or so, and then Yuuri simply took over the seat beside Dierdra. They found they both liked her very much indeed. Somehow, despite this crazy zoo of a wedding, Wolfram and Yuuri had accidentally found time to talk to one person they didn't know and both desperately wanted to know.

-oOo-

Yozak carefully peeked out the gangway, then emerged onto the deck, still in his flame-colored evening gown and pearls, though he'd ditched the heels. "What the hell?" he said, mystified.

He'd waited a long time in a gear locker, after the sounds of the pirates taking his friends died away. As the sun set, but before it got too dark to scope out the situation, he'd come out to check. But there was absolutely no one on the ship. Nor was there a sail toward any horizon, just the clump of low islands still lurking beneath the sunset.

He wandered toward the binnacle and studied the charts, but everything was as it should be. They were on a trade route, not the most popular one perhaps, but clearly marked, and the chart read the fathoms. Obviously the captain knew what depth the boat needed. Yet the yacht was unarguably still stuck on a sand bar. Or… something. Yozak frowned.

But that wasn't the immediate problem. The immediate problem was that, as a professional spy, he'd stayed behind to maintain his freedom, to get word to his boss Gwendal where they were. He had no homing pigeons or kohi at his disposal. Why would he? He was headed home, on the fastest courier ship in the world.

This ship was worth huge money – far more than the people and minor jewelry the pirates had taken. And far less dangerous to cash in.

"So where the hell's the prize crew?" Yozak wondered aloud. The seagulls didn't answer.

-oOo-

After hunting an hour, Manfred concluded Efram just didn't want to be found yet. Sadly, he left a note on his son's pillow.

Efram, Please come talk to me – wake me if you have to. You're always welcome in my home, you know that. But if you prefer, I'll help work things out with your mother and stepfather. You had every right to read my letter – I'd like to read yours if I may. I love you, son. Talk to me. Manfred.

Both legs aching from the day's exertions, Manfred found a bottle of wine and a nice quiet balcony off the empty ballroom. Adelbert and company tracked him down there after the military mini-meeting broke up. "Nice spot. Mind if we join you, Manfred?" Manfred waved at empty chairs in invitation. Gwendal dispatched a minion to bring more bottles. "How's Efram?"

"Haven't found him yet," said Manfred. "Hope he hasn't done anything stupid. Yet… Probably just a matter of time."

"Adolescents must be tough," Teodor von Trondheim sympathized. Though the men were all of an age by Mazoku standards, Manfred had started ridiculously young with Wolfram, Cecilie being well over twice his age at the time – Manfred was only a few decades older than Gwendal. Brendan Lord Gratz's kids were younger than Efram, and Ted and Gwendal and Adelbert hadn't started yet.

"Actually, adolescents are my favorite," said Manfred, who'd made a career of teaching them at the Institute. "Little ones want attention all the time, and they're rotten conversationalists. And Wolfram… Well, he's a grown man now, for better or worse, not much to do with me. Not that he ever did." He took a long slow swig of wine.

"He's grown into a fine young man, Manfred," offered Adelbert.

"Yeah, Wolfram's alright," admitted Manfred grudgingly. "His short-cycle princess games can get on my nerves, but he's solid in the long run… Have to say, I think this wedding should wait til the other one's older, but I'm hardly one to talk." Struck by a thought, he chuckled darkly and threw a limp wrist at Adelbert. In a low breathy voice, he mimicked, "'I never kiss and tell, Grandma.' Good lord - wonder how many years' sterling military and diplomatic service, that little bit of bitchery wiped out?"

"All of it," suggested Gwendal in disgust. "Aldrich and Friedrich were wrist-flipping all meeting, damn them."

"Wolfram handled it well," defended Adelbert's younger brother Brendan. "Never a flinch. That comeback about wrist-flipping as riposte practice, hand on his sword hilt, was pretty clever, I thought. He never let Aldrich or Friedrich get to him. He's got a real flair for political spin, too. No offense, Gwendal, but spin's not your forte. Wolfram's smooth."

Gwendal wasn't offended – more than happy to delegate 'spin' and all manner of courtly graces to his baby brother, in fact. "Not a bad role for a Maou's consort, I suppose."

Manfred and Adelbert shared a long sad look – the others didn't know the anguish these two had spent trying to find within themselves a role as Maou's consort, to Cecilie and Suzanna Julia.

"Better him than me," said Manfred viciously, in a tone that would have fooled almost anyone. Adelbert pursed his lips. Each in his own weird way, the lifelong friends so far seemed doomed to being one-woman men. Manfred caught this byplay and scowled. "By the way, Gwendal, I haven't seen Anissina around."

"She'll be back soon with her brother's family," said Gwendal, bristling."Thought you had a date this time around, Manfred."

"I asked her to marry me, she turned me down." Manfred shrugged, clearly not put out by her refusal. "Anissina, though… she's visiting the Institute quite a bit the past couple years. She gets along well there. Brilliant woman… I assume you're dating humans out there in the beyond, Adelbert?"

Adelbert shrugged. "Nothing serious. Had something going a few years back, but… She was a pirate. I thought she'd turned into something else, but... The human-Mazoku trade opened up, and she was just chock full of ideas how to prey on it. I sent her packing."

"Well, that sucks," said Manfred. Gwendal still looked hung up on the Anissina thing. So do something about it, junior. "…Well, let's see, we've already assassinated Wolfram's character. How about the other one?"

"Fine by me," said Adelbert affably, with a pointed glance at Manfred. "I'm already an exiled traitor, after all. I was amused to get a wedding invitation. Gwendal, what exactly is my official status these days?"

"Unspoken amnesty," Gwendal growled. "Don't make an issue of it."

"I think that means you're useful," laughed Ted. "Congratulations, Adelbert."

"Could get dicey at the Ten Aristocrats meeting though…" Brendan said softly. "I'll back you if you want to come, Adelbert, you know that…"

"This summit's gonna be hell," Ted agreed. "Peace with the humans is alright so far as it goes, but ever since Wolfram's… abduction… relations between the Maou and the domain lords have been going downhill again over the human thing. Manfred, maybe you could talk some sense intoYuuri about this? I'm sure Wolfram's trying, but…"

"Me?! What the hell? Gwendal's problem, surely."

"I bet he'd hear you and Adelbert, though, Manfred," said Brendan. "You're outside the lords, but know us like the back of your hand. And sorry, but – you're both intimidating enough to make him listen. Wolfram and Gwendal mean well, but they're bewitched."

"Besotted, for sure," Manfred chuckled. "But count me out. I've got personal business with both of them this week. I don't need politics, too."

Adelbert, however, looked thoughtful. "I'll do it. He'll hear me. Julia within him… she'll hear me. We can't let twenty years ago happen again."

Belatedly, Gwendal got it. Perhaps Yuuri's strange charisma and strength of conviction had bewitched him. Even Wolfram had taken him aside and warned him that increasing Mazoku protection against humans needed to top the summit agendas. These men were serious. The anti-human wars of twenty years ago had torn Shin Makoku apart, destroyed his mother's reign as Maou, laid waste to a generation which still, as Phoebe had pointed out, was a good century or so away from being replaced. And these men were no hot-heads or idiots – they were smart men whose opinions he respected among the most in the kingdom, and they were among his best friends. This was serious indeed.

"…I'd appreciate the help, Adelbert," Gwendal said slowly. "Maybe I have let this get out of hand." Adelbert nodded.

-oOo-

Efram finally found his way to Manfred's room a couple hours before dawn. He left the requested letter on Manfred's nightstand, and started to turn and leave. The letter was actually from his stepfather, telling him to get the hell out of his house.

"Hey, Efram, don't go," said a sleepy Manfred. "C'mere." He held out his arms, looking Efram in the eye through the gloom until Efram caved and fell into his father's embrace.

"I'm sorry, Chichiue…"

"Shh. Nothing to be sorry for. You're a great kid, Efram. And I'd love for you to live with me." Efram twitched in his arms, breaking Manfred's heart. He sighed. "…But I meant it. I know you love your mother and half-sister and half-brother. And that's your home… If you want, I'll try to help you straighten this out. Just know… Well. You're always welcome with me. And Pixie? Don't do anything rash. Don't hurt yourself over some crap from your stepfather. Please?"

"Hahaue's not going to adopt Aunt Dierdra's baby. Is she," sniffed Efram.

"…I don't think I'd agree to that now, no," murmured Manfred. "I doubt it's even an open offer anymore. I suspect… it was the idea of two stepsons that made your stepfather flip out. Son… this may have very little to do with you. Though, that doesn't really make it any better, does it?"

"…I thought he loved me too, Chichiue," Efram sobbed into his chest.

Manfred rubbed his back soothingly. "Hey, it's late. Climb in under the covers, Pixie. You'll be OK. We'll all be fine."

-oOo-

Yeah, yeah, still no pirates. They came and went and we didn't meet any yet. Sorry – but at least all the major components of the plot are in the air. Now let's see if I can juggle them…

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