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"Pearl is going to blame me for this." Moon fought the urge to retreat to his bower and hide. Maybe he could find some very urgent errand that would take him away from the colony until the whole thing blew over.
Jade's spines twitched in irritation as she paced. "He should never have gone on that visit! Are you sure you didn't encourage him in any way?"
"Yes, I'm sure!" Moon retorted. "Why would I encourage him to do something this crazy?"
"It is extreme, even for you," Chime contributed from his position by the entrance, obviously prepared to retreat if either Jade or Moon turned on him. Moon hissed at him half-heartedly, but kept most of his attention focused on Jade.
"Pearl's not going to care whose idea it was," Moon said. "She's just going to kill me. I'm replaceable."
Jade jerked to a halt and turned to glare at him. "That's not funny."
"I'm not joking! How do you think she's going to react?" Pearl had mellowed over the last few turns, but Moon still worked hard to avoid her temper.
"She won't touch you," Jade said. "No matter how mad she gets. She knows better."
"So she'll just yell at me and never forgive me?"
"Wait," Chime said. "I have an idea."
Both Moon and Jade took several steps towards Chime, who flinched but didn't retreat.
"Well?" Jade said.
Hunched in on himself, his shoulders almost around his ears, Chime offered, "I mean...it just...it can't hurt?"
"What?" Moon said in exasperation.
"Why don't you make Stone tell her?"
***
Jade and Moon lurked outside of Pearl's bower like frightened fledglings, listening to the rumble of Stone's voice. Moon didn't hear Pearl saying anything, which struck him as an especially ominous sign.
Silence fell inside the bower. He looked at Jade, who rippled her spines uncertainly.
"Come in, you cowards," Stone called.
Inside the bower, Pearl reclined on a cushion in her Arbora form, so at least she hadn't shifted out of pure rage. Stone looked irritated, but he was usually irritated by everything, so his mood didn't necessarily imply anything about Pearl's reaction. There was no sign of Ember; he'd probably withdrawn tactfully.
"It's out of the question, of course." Pearl didn't even bother looking up at them from her cup of tea.
Moon exchanged an exasperated glance with Jade. If Pearl was going to pretend that nothing was wrong, this wasn't going to be easy.
"He's very determined," Jade responded. "We can't hold him prisoner."
"I don't care how determined he is. He's not going to leave here and fly all the way to their colony by himself."
"He might," Moon said.
"Then you'll have to make sure he doesn't."
"He's more stubborn than you realize, Pearl," Stone said. "It's in the breeding as much as the raising."
A snarl crept into Pearl's voice. "He is not leaving here to go be a consort to that--"
"Her name," Bitter said as he walked into the bower, "is Consolation."
***
Unlike Thorn, who had put on bulk as he grew, Bitter had never really fleshed out from his fledgling slenderness. By all rights he should have looked cowed, over-matched by Pearl, who was half again his size. But he was calm, not fazed at all by the snarl rumbling through Pearl as she stood to tower over him.
"What Malachite thinks she's doing, indulging those half-Fell and their ridiculous pretense of a court--you should never have gone to visit them."
Bitter had accompanied Jade, Moon, Frost and several warriors on a visit to Opal Night. His inclusion on that trip had been originally Jade's idea, but Moon didn't think this was a good time to remind anyone of that fact. They'd hoped he could conquer some of his shyness by meeting the younger consorts and queens of the court.
While there, Bitter had snuck out and followed Lithe on one of her occasional visits to the half-Fell court. The Opal Night Arbora had helped Consolation and the others learn to act as Raksura, teaching them the skills they needed to survive in the Reaches--farming, weaving, hunting grasseaters.
Moon hadn't worried too much about the unsupervised expedition. In fact, he'd almost welcomed it. Bitter had never disobeyed anyone before, mostly because he'd never done much of anything. He and Thorn had been more and more exposed to the politics of the court, mostly by watching what Moon and Ember did and going on occasional visits to other colonies. But where Thorn showed interest, asking questions and offering suggestions, Bitter was quiet and withdrawn.
There'd been many worried conversations about Bitter, everyone from Stone to Chime to Heart offering an opinion. Moon and Jade had begun considering whether one of the queens from their first clutch might take him as a consort, even a second consort if necessary. If he couldn't be used to strengthen an alliance or make a connection to a new court, maybe he could add some diversity to the Indigo Cloud bloodline.
No one had imagined this possibility.
"It's not a pretense. It's a real court," Bitter said, looking up at Pearl. "That's the way they live."
Pearl scoffed and turned her back on him as she moved to the other side of the bower.
"You know she's not fertile," Stone said. "Is that how you want to spend your life? No clutches, no other Raksura around?"
Bitter had obviously prepared his arguments in advance. "I can have clutches with some of the Arbora here, even one of the queens if you want," Bitter offered. "I thought I could visit them...if you'll allow it."
Jade visibly swelled with rage, spines bristling. "She is not coming here."
"Of course not! I'm not stupid. Neither is she. She'd never get close to Moon."
Jade had obviously never forgiven Consolation for trying to steal Moon, no matter how confused and desperate Consolation had been at the time. Only the fact that the half-Fell had settled in the Western Reaches, almost directly under the supervision of Malachite and Opal Night, had reconciled Jade to their presence.
"They've wanted a consort from the beginning," Jade snapped. "She couldn't get Moon, she probably tried to get one from Opal Night--"
"You think this is some kind of trick? They wanted a consort to teach them, to guide them. Why would they have chosen someone like me? Undersized and weak? Who didn't fly or even speak until a few turns ago?"
Silence fell in the bower for a moment.
"You don't have to do this," Stone said. "You don't have to leave."
"I know," Bitter said. "But you have to let me go."
***
Moon found Bitter in his seldom-used bower on the consorts' level. He normally slept with one of his clutchmates in their bowers, or with some of his Arbora friends. As a result, his bower was dim and a little cold.
From behind, Bitter still looked like a fledgling on the verge of maturity: a little too thin, dark hair a little too long, clothes a little too big. But he turned to face Moon, and the maturity was there in his face and his demeanor.
They'd all made the same mistake, Moon realized. They'd discussed Bitter's future and planned for it, but no one had ever asked Bitter what he wanted. They'd just assumed he would want to stay at Indigo Cloud.
Bitter ran his hands through his hair, more upset than he'd allowed himself to be when confronting Pearl. "Is everyone mad at me?"
Moon opened his arms, and Bitter stepped into them. He hugged Bitter tight for a moment, then drew him down to sit on some cushions. "Not exactly." He hesitated to ask the question, but he had to know. "Did we--is there a reason you want to leave?"
Bitter was silent for a few moments, drawing in deep breaths that Moon could hear in the near-silence of the bower. If he listened closely, he could hear the sounds of warrior and Arbora voices coming up the central well. The underlying hum of activity, the faint scents of warm Raksura bodies, the solidity of the colony tree around them—it was all home to Moon now. A home he'd never thought he'd have.
"You're not like other consorts."
Moon had almost expected it, but hearing it said aloud still felt like a blow.
Seeing Moon tense up in reaction, Bitter rushed to continue. "That's not a bad thing! You're different. So is Shade, so is Stone."
"Stone is a line-grandfather," Moon said, unable to resist pointing out the obvious. "Shade is half-Fell."
"And I was captured by Fell after my court was destroyed and grew up in a court where I wasn't related to anyone but my clutchmates." Bitter shrugged. "None of us are normal, if normal even means anything. So why should I have to do the normal things?"
"But why her?"
"She wants me," Bitter said, as if it was that simple.
"She wants you," Moon repeated. "Fine. It sounds terrifying, but fine. But do you want her? You don't have to go because you think she's the only queen who will ever want you. You don't even have to take a queen."
"Yes, I want her. She's strong, and she's smart, and she tries so hard to be a good queen. I won't just be her consort. I'll be her partner. There's a place for me there."
"There's a place for you here, too. Always." Moon clutched Bitter to him like the fledgling he used to be, remembering that sweet scent and the first time Bitter had spoken to him, rather than whispering to his clutchmates or to Moon's first clutch. He'd felt like it was one more sign that he could actually do what was needed, raise clutches and be the court's First Consort.
Bitter's departure was a blow to that confidence, but maybe it didn't matter how Moon felt about it. Maybe the fact that Bitter was brave enough to leave meant that Moon had done his job well enough.
Bitter's voice was muffled against Moon's shoulder. "Will Pearl let me go?"
"It'll work out," Moon reassured him. "I'll convince Stone, Stone will convince Jade, and Jade will convince Pearl."
"Thank you." Bitter sniffled a little, but Moon pretended not to notice.
***
When word came that the mentors had been wrong about Consolation's infertility, and that Bitter and Consolation had clutched, Moon immediately decided that it was a good time to visit his mother, and was gone before the news reached Pearl.