Ten chapters! Wheee! Slightly shorter chapter this time, but this is what I had on the outline for this chapter, so this is what you get.
Thanks for the typo-catching from everyone, especially regarding Cana's last name. I'll need to go back and fix those. "Alberona" is not exactly in the standard Open Office spellcheck dictionary, but maybe I need to add it.
Cana sent Gildarts back to Fairy Tail on a train that evening, but stayed with Bacchus out of a feeling of obligation as his girlfriend since he was wounded. Also, she hadn't seen him in a few days and she missed him, even if she'd never admit it out loud.
They ate a light dinner at Quattro Cerberus - she was glad, and grateful, that it was not served in dog food bowls as she'd initially feared it might be - and then made their way a few blocks down the street to Bacchus's apartment. They left Diana at the guild.
"Diana doesn't live with you?" Cana asked, trying not to sound too nosy.
"Naw," Bacchus said easily. He was still clutching an ice pack to his head where Gildarts had beaned him. "I'd probably be a bad influence on her if she did."
She glanced sideways at him, unable to disagree with that. But the questions inside her still burned and lingered.
After a few moments, he finally volunteered more information on his own. "Diana is still new to the guild, and she wanted to stay in the girl's dormitory. There are so few girls in our guild - we've got a reputation for rough masculinity, after all - and she thought it would be fun to live with them instead."
That made sense. "Ah, yeah, when I was a kid I moved into Fairy Hills as well, although I didn't have anywhere else I could have stayed." Gildarts had a home in Magnolia, but Cana's fear of rejection had prevented her from outing herself as a rightful inhabitant of that house. And once she joined the guild, even before she developed her unique take on card magic, it had been easy enough to do odd jobs for the guild members to earn her keep. A delivery here, an errand there, and as long as she was careful she'd been able to pay her Fairy Hills rent. Aside from the time in Tenrou Island, she'd never missed a deadline for it either.
They reached a very nice house - no mere apartment, this was a full-sized multi-story townhouse - and Cana did another double take at Bacchus. This home probably cost a small fortune for him each month if he was renting it.
"Do you have any room mates at all?"
"Nope." He turned the key to the door, and opened it up to reveal a tidy, Spartan living space. "I like my solitude."
She stood in the foyer of the town house, noting the zen-like decor - all black and whites and wood - with carefully chosen touches of color in a few places. She grinned when she saw that a lot of the furniture was made out of recycled sake barrels. The other furniture all looked new and high quality. He must have hired an interior decorator.
"Make yourself at home," he said, gesturing toward the black leather couch. "I'm going to go dump this ice pack in the sink."
Feeling a bit self-conscious, she sat on the luxurious couch, and set her purse on the sake barrel coffee table. She liked his home. It seemed to reflect him a lot.
He returned a few moments later, and plopped down on the couch next to her unceremoniously.
"So, what do you thing of Chez Bacchus?" he asked with a grin, spreading his arms wide, raising one of his jaggy eyebrows in invitation.
"It's cleaner than I expected for a bachelor pad," she answered evenly, with a smirk.
"Hah! You've found me out. I'm a closet neat-freak." He then placed one hand on her knee, and Cana had a feeling that if she had worn a skirt instead of her capri pants, that wandering hand would be trying to make its way up her thigh.
"So," she said, watching his hand, fascinated by it. The back of it was crossed with tiny scars over the ropy tendons. "I've been meaning to ask you something."
"Oh?"
She took a deep breath. Now or never. "Since you met my father, would it be all right for me to meet your parents? That is, assuming they are still alive, or that you get along with them..."
The hand stilled.
"Oh, they're very much still alive," he said, a little too easily. "And I get along with them as well as any young man in Fiore could be expected to."
She sensed the hesitation at the end of his sentence.
"But...?" she prompted, looking at him earnestly. She was glad to know they were still around, but he looked distinctly uncomfortable at the subject.
"But if you meet them, they will assume we are getting married." He grinned a huge grin then.
She recoiled a little.
"But we've only been dating for a little under two weeks!"
"Eh, it's a cultural thing," he said with a shrug. "Can't be helped. If I bring a woman home to meet them, they'll start planning for a wedding in a month."
The sour expression on her face made him relax and laugh again. "No worries, Wild Thing. I won't take you there unless you're ready to go."
Remembering Levy's research, and thinking of "cultural things," she took a different tack to unpeeling the mystery of Bacchus.
"Your family is from Quon, right?"
He nodded.
"How did they end up here in Fiore?"
The grin faded a bit, and his face was serious. "That," he said softly, "is a very long story. And I guess I can tell you." He reached over to stroke her hair. "But for that tale, I'm going to need a stiff drink. I'll be right back."
She watched as he left again to go to the kitchen area, tucked behind the sparsely furnished dining area. She had a feeling that he did not bring other people here often, not even other women. There was only one chair at the dining room table, with another three neatly lining the walls of that room, perhaps if he did ever have company. She was secretly pleased to be an exception to his routine.
He returned quickly with two shot glasses and a crystal bottle filled with a clear liquid - presumably alcohol - with lemon rinds floating in it, perfectly preserved. He set all this on the coffee table, next to her purse, and poured each of them a glass.
She could smell the alcohol, and she eyed the glass nervously. This was no amateur's shot.
"Illegal moonshine from the Pergrande Kingdom," he explained. "Alcohol is outlawed there, and yet their black market produces some of the most amazing stuff." He lifted the shot glass and tossed the alcohol back neatly. Cana followed suit, and she almost spit it back out. Her throat was on fire and her eyes were watering. The liquor was almost pure alcohol!
She started half laughing, half coughing at the unexpected flavoring. It was strong, but tasty. There was just a hint of lemons among the burning bright molasses flavor.
"That's got to be at least a hundred and fifty proof," she said once she had recovered, her voice hoarse.
"Hundred and sixty, estimated. And it has a few other chemicals in it besides the alcohol, I think. It's made from sugar beets." He refilled his shot glass, and tipped the bottle toward her. "Want another?"
She nodded, never one to back down from a challenge involving alcohol.
She caved five shots later, leaning against the back of the couch, the world spinning. "Let's see, at 80% alcohol, if I've had seven two-ounce shots, that's fourteen ounces... ten? Eleven and a half?" Her brain was too fuzzy to do the math. Whatever "other chemicals" they'd added to that vile drink, it was probably outlawed for a reason.
Bacchus was also done, and he also leaned back. "I needed that," he said, closing his eyes and yawning.
"Hey, don't fall asleep on me just yet," she slurred, poking him. "You promised to tell me about your family."
He kept his eyes closed, but began to talk in a slow voice.
"What I am about to say... we have never said to anyone in this town. Not even the guild knows."
She sat up, the hair on her scalp prickling in anticipation.
"My great-grandfather is the Emperor of Quon."
Cana felt her jaw drop open in astonishment. Was she so drunk that she was hearing things? No, he had definitely said what she heard him say. She propped herself up with her arm on the couch, and said nothing, wanting to let him continue uninterrupted.
"My mother is a matrilineal princess; her mother was a daughter of the Emperor and his first wife. My father is of the noble house of Du. They were matched when she was only a few years old, and he five or six. They were married right away, as is the custom for the royal family, and then she was sent to my father's house to be raised among them."
Cana couldn't help but shudder at the thought of children being married to each other. The concept would have been alien in Fiore. Even among her mother's people, where they married young, children were allowed to grow freely until they started to show interest in the opposite sex on their own time.
She processed the rest of what he said. "So if your mother is the granddaughter of the emperor, you're not in line for the throne, are you?"
"Heh, that's not even on the table. I'm the male heir of the Du family before anything else." He shrugged. "I wouldn't want that job anyway. The heir apparent to the throne of Quon, third in line, is a distant cousin." Bacchus stared at the ceiling, probably thinking of the relatives on the other side of the planet. "Patrilineal descent male great-grandson of the emperor. Sheng Li. Nice guy, so I've heard." He reached down and poured himself another shot, and downed it quickly. "We've never met, although he was married to my sister Venus when she was a year old."
Cana drew in a breath. Her instincts told her that they'd reach the heart of the matter now. She waited for the other shoe to drop.
"My great-grandfather arranged the match, and wanted her to move in with the royal family, even though she was just a baby." Suddenly Bacchus grinned. "My mother refused and fought him like wild animal. She wasn't letting go of her only daughter..." He started to tick off on his fingers. "You see, I'm the eldest... she had me when she was fourteen, and apparently I nearly killed her in the process. It took another nine years before she could bear another child - that would be Venus - and after that it's been daughters non stop. But she didn't know that at the time of the marriage between Venus and Sheng Li." He sighed happily. "The feud between my mother and her grandfather was legendary. He made her so angry she destroyed an entire wing of the palace in her rage." He set the shot glass down with some finality. "And she made him so angry he exiled our entire family."
He pointed to the tattoos under his eyes, looking at Cana again finally. "This is the mark of exile. We all bear it, even Venus. Only the younger ones who were born once we arrived in Fiore, like Diana, have no marks."
Cana knew that her jaw was still open from before, but she couldn't help it. Her cards had all been right - the Hierophant was the Emperor of Quon. The High Priestess was likely his mother. The rift in his family was deep, but also old. Once again, her cards had predicted this situation with eerie accuracy.
But even she couldn't have guessed at such a deep and terrible family drama.
"How long as you been exiled?" she asked gently.
"Twenty one years." He was staring at the wall now. "Since I was nine years old. We arrived with little but the clothes on our backs, although my father's family still supports us since he wasn't stripped of his title." He grimaced. "My mother got her wish - we have Venus, the bride of the heir to the throne of Quon - and have had her ever since. We can't go back until Mother apologizes to the emperor, and she refuses."
Her heart broke for the boy who'd been ripped from his home and country, and brought to this place, where he probably didn't even speak the language. Still, he seemed to have made the best of it. He was one of the strongest mages in his guild, and certainly didn't seem to be hurting for money or material comforts.
This time, she placed her hand on his leg, in a gesture of solidarity. She too had had to leave her childhood home and find a new world at a painfully young age. She too had kept the origin of her family a secret, even though her father was often close enough for her to touch.
"So, yeah. That's the whole story, Wild Thing. Me and little Diana are the only ones who are part of the guild scene; Venus's magic isn't suited for battle, and we'd all be beheaded if something happened to her. Minerva, Vesta, and Ceres think that Quattro Cerberus is full of stinky men and want no part of it."
Cana suppressed a laugh; she had to guess them between the ages of twelve and fifteen, with attitudes like that.
"Maybe they should join Fairy Tail instead," she teased.
His eyes twinkled. "Hey! That's not a bad idea, Wild Thing."
"What about their names? And yours." She cocked her head to one side, dying to ask hundreds more questions but not even sure where to begin with her scrambled mind.
"Ah, my birth name was Yun Qi Du. Venus was Jia Li. After our exile, my mother had our names changed for the registry in Fiore, probably to spite her grandfather. Unfortunately, the only Western names she knew were from mythology..."
"So you were the only two born there?"
"Yeah. But Fiore is the only country Venus has ever known, just like the little ones." He closed his eyes again, and Cana felt the room spinning herself. Even if they were both Level Four MUIs, that just referred to their control over their magic when they were this insanely drunk. The rest of their physiology was not immune to its effects.
If she really wanted to sober up and go home to Magnolia, she still had the lacrima ball from Susan in her purse. But Cana did not want to lose the effects of the alcohol so fast, even if she had gone over the top with that moonshine. Vile stuff.
She also wanted to stay here with Bacchus, who had just told her a story that had cost him a lot of emotional energy. He needed her here right now.
So instead, she curled up next to him, letting the mild poison course through her body, letting him know how much she appreciate him sharing his family's tragedy with her.
The both fell asleep on the couch, holding hands.
The morning sun was bright, streaming in from the windows of his living room.
Cana was not used to waking up next to a man she hadn't slept with. Okay, they'd been sleeping on the couch, but they had both been so wasted from that moonshine that sex hadn't even been an option. They were both completely clothed. At some point during the night, he'd stretched out along its length, and she was tucked under his arm on top of him.
She yawned and stretched, then winced as her muscles cramped up from being in the awkward position all night. Ugh. She needed an Irish coffee and a shower.
She patted his cheek gently to wake him up. She had to smile at the look of fuzzy surprise in his eyes upon seeing her face.
Oh, this was fun. She could definitely get used to waking up that face every morning. Why had she run away the first time? Oh, right. Because she was a coward.
"Good morning," she said in a deliberately smoky voice.
His sense of time and space finally clicked and he grinned back at her. "Morning, Wild Thing. That moonshine is something else, isn't it?"
She studied that face, finally understanding the heavy weight he bore on his shoulders, symbolized by those pebbly tattoos under his eyes.
It was time for Cana to stop being a coward. Too many times she let opportunities slip past because she was afraid to take that first step. No more.
"I'd like to meet your parents after all," she said, and kissed him on the lips before he could protest. "If they try to get us married off the next day because of it, though, I reserve the right to run away again."
He laughed, blinking, still trying to wake up.
"Okay, Wild Thing. Lets plan for dinner this Friday." He stroked her hair in a gesture that was becoming achingly familiar. "I'll meet you at the train station here in Dogwood."
Bacchus, Venus, Diana, Ceres, Vesta, and Minerva are all Roman gods and goddesses.