Holiday
Part Fifteen

by Nightfall

"I live here," Xellos corrected, and paused, and explained, "I live here. If you know what I mean."

"I see," Sylphiel said warmly.

Lina teased, "But you wouldn't eat your sweetbread this morning, so they won't let you go to the party, is that it?"

Xellos flopped down on the sofa next to Sylphiel, taking up all of it, and pulled a sad face. "I'm the mad brother," he whispered conspiratorially in her ear, "the one they don't talk about."

"The third brother in the fairy tales?" she asked. "The one who's too simple to chop down the oldest tree in the forest for firewood?"

"The one who wraps all-colored rags around his knees and sits on the mantel above the fireplace and gossips with the cats?" Lina added, coming to lean her elbows on Sylphiel's shoulders.

"That's me!" he chirped.

"That was us, too," Sylphiel said. "And look what happened to us." At their host's questioning expression, she warned him with awful portent, "We had to marry each other. Two professors without a cent to rub between us!"

"So you'd better be a good little boy, and eat your blood pudding," Lina admonished him.

After regarding them with an expression that was oddly affectionate for someone who'd just been introduced, Xellos swung his legs down off the couch and invited, "Sit down, won't you?"

"Thank you," Sylphiel said sedately. "It's good to be home again."

"You would not believe what a long walk we had!" Lina added with emphasis.

Xellos sighed. "It's a shame," he announced vigorously. "I was going to give a party tonight. A real one. It was all planned out and everything. I was going to--well," he finished ruefully, "it was a good idea. It might have been fun."

"Is your brother anything like you?" Sylphiel asked hopefully.

Horrified, Xellos started waving his hands around, his eyes shut on an embarrassed grin as he protested, "Oh, no, no, no! Don't worry, Val's nothing like me!" He stopped waving his hands and peeked out of one eye through splayed fingers as a thought struck him. "Do you mean to tell me you haven't met him yet? Your friend is appallingly negligent. You'd better go down right now and--"

"NO!" Lina yelled, and Sylphiel shook her vigorously. "Oh, no. Definitely no."

"Definitely no," Xellos nodded ruefully, tapping his ear to make sure it still worked, and sprawled backwards onto the couch, letting his head fall back with a satisfied sigh.

"Nope," agreed Lina, and Sylphiel put in a negative noise.

"Nope," Xellos echoed, and a silence of decided inaction settled over the room

It was broken by a jaunty little tune and a series of disgruntled yips. Zelas marched in with a measured stride. She was tootling on her fife, and she'd put her dom boots on over her elegant sandals. Padding behind her was the enormous Fenris, growling and muttering to himself around the handle of a picnic basket full of ice and bottles of champagne. Padding behind him was the creepy butler, carrying a tray with pieces of cheese and fruit impaled by brightly cellophaned toothpicks and surrounded by three kinds of crackers.

"Food!" Lina cried excitedly.

"Zelly!" Xellos exclaimed gleefully, sitting bolt upright, and coughed as his guests gave him funny looks. "My sister, Zelas." The looks didn't go away, although the butler did.

"Thought you could use a little Long Night cheer," she drawled, uncorking two of the bottles and leaning on Fenris.

"What a considerate big sister!" he squealed, jumping up to attack her and Fenris with a double bearhug. When he pulled away and sat back down, the looks had gotten worse.

"Yup. Sweet kid, that's me," his sister agreed smugly, and mentioned, "Your shirt's open."

"Is it?" he asked without concern, slipping the errant buttons back into place without bothering to look down. "These are Lina and Sylphiel. They're friends of Zel's."

"He used to live with us," Sylphiel explained, looking regretfully at the shirt.

"We came to warn his future husband about him," Lina said virtuously. "He always leaves the bathtub all gritty with stone dust."

"A toast to Greyweir," Zelas proposed, pouring them all glasses of champagne and snagging a second bottle for herself. "He needs it. I stand corrected," she said inaccurately, no one else having spoken and she herself at a seventy-degree angle to the ground. "He doesn't need it. He's doing juuuuuuuuuuuust fine."

"What do you mean?" Xellos asked sharply.

She grinned cruelly down at him. "I mean he's doing aaaall right. Having the time of his life. Got his hair tied down and Father's seeing he meets all the important entities."

"Are there important entities downstairs?" Lina asked excitedly.

Calmly, Sylphiel punched her in the arm.

"Hey!" she yelled. "What was that for?"

"We are finished with the prince scam, aren't we, Lina dear?" she said sweetly.

"Eheh," Lina coughed, embarrassed, and looked away.

"Devastatingly important," Xellos said, after he'd decided against wanting to understand that. "That's why I wanted to give a party down here."

Lina lifted her glass. "Mr. Xellos Rubyeye, on Long Night, entertained a small group of very unimportant people."

The girls drained their vessels (Zelas got about halfway down her bottle before she elected to breathe), and Xellos asked, with a plaintive little smile, "May I drink, too?"

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