Blood Shaper

Book 6: Chapter 1

Waves crashed against the hull of the Royal Avalon, tossing its occupants about. The storm wasn’t enough to capsize the ship or to send anyone but the most careless overboard, but it wasn’t anything to sneeze at either as it battered the vessel about. Sailors dashed across and below the decks, lashing down everything to make sure objects didn’t break loose, keeping the rigging furled and intact, and ensuring that the powder on the gun deck didn’t get soaked. The storm had brewed up around them suddenly and it was on them before they could change tack and make their escape and the ship hadn’t been properly prepared. Barrels of gunpowder were hustled to the magazine and anyone non essential to keeping them afloat was sent below to dry off.

Kay, King of Avalon, Class Line Progenitor of Blood Manipulation, the first vampire on the world of Torotia, and Lord of Spilled Blood, wasn’t involved in any of that. He’d been below decks in his cabin spending time with Eleniah, his former teacher, current adviser and partner in most things violent, and now girlfriend. The tumultuous events they’d dealt with at her birthplace, the Isle of Sel, capital of the Seramist Isles, had been threatening enough to prompt them to move their relationship from friends with some occasional flirting to something officially romantic. Kay wasn’t sure if the word “girlfriend” was technically correct since he didn’t actually speak the language, but the magical translation provided to him by the System that either managed or secretly ruled over this world used the world girlfriend when it changed people’s speech into English for him, so he wasn’t sweating it.

As the storm raged on and the Royal Avalon was brought to a relative standstill to avoid the worst damage an ocean storm could do to the ship, Kay and Eleniah bunkered down in Kay’s cabin, staying out of the way of anyone rushing to get work done. The shaking and tossing of the boat, exacerbated by the taller waves, made the game of chess they’d been working on ill-advised to continue and Kay quickly packed it away. When that was done he carefully maneuvered his way around the table between two seats and sat down on the couch next to Eleniah.

“What?” He asked, noticing her grin at him.

“Nothing, you just look funny when you’re trying to balance against the waves. Like a drunk clown stumbling through his performance.”

Kay scowled at her theatrically. “Oh? Well if that’s how I look to you I’ll take my stumbling self back to the other couch.”

Eleniah laughed as she yanked him down next to her. “It’s funny to watch anyone without experience stumble around while they get their sea legs. You’re too high tier for it to effect you too much regularly, so a storm like this is the first chance I’ve had to tease you on it.”

“And you’ve been holding out for an opportunity?”

“Of course.”

Kay chuckled and leaned against her. They spent some time just relaxing, chatting occasionally but overall not saying much. In one of the quiet moments, Kay spoke up.

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For being brave and speaking up.” He shifted so he could look her in the eyes. “I’m happy with this, really happy. If you hadn’t said something, if you hadn’t taken the step to see if we could have a relationship like this, I don’t know if I ever would have. I’m trying all the time to live up to the expectations everyone has for me as a leader, including the expectations I have for myself. I’ve always found you attractive, both physically and as a person, but I don’t know if I would have been able to push past the what ifs and concerns about pressuring you with my position or making things weird between us. So thank you, because I’m really happy that we’re here.”

Eleniah gazed back at him. “I… You… Dammit!” She looked away, her cheeks coloring as she blushed. “I’m hundreds of years old and have been in relationships before, I shouldn’t be blushing like a maiden!”

Kay grinned at her, as she huffed and puffed at him.

After a moment she turned back to him. “I’m happy too. I wasn’t planning for things to go this way, but I’m glad they did. I don’t know if we can say that you’d never make a move yourself though, you’re pretty good at going after what you want.”

“Maybe. Outside of having fun with it I don’t think discussing those kinds of hypotheticals is useful, there’s no way to know what would have happened in an alternate time where things went differently. I might have, I might not have.”

“How about hypothetical questions about things that could happen in the future?” Eleniah asked, “Because there’s a topic we should address while we’re alone and are already on a related topic.”

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“Yeah? What’s that? And that’s why I said ‘those kinds of hypotheticals’,” Kay added, “Because planning for the future and things that could happen is important.”

“The future of our relationship. We’re taking things slow, but with our positions we need to look forward on this.”

Kay stilled in response to Eleniah’s serious tone. “Okay.”

“I don’t want to have a fling, or have this be something temporary even if it’s longer than a fling would be. I want a real relationship where we’re planning to go the distance. Is that what you want?”

“Yes it is. It’s to early to talk about marriage, or permanence in any specific form, but that’s the goal.”

“Good.” She smiled and took his hand. “Then we’re on the same page there. We’re dating, but not just to date, we’re seeing if we mesh together with an eye on building this relationship toward marriage in the future.”

“Would it be better to say that we’re courting instead of dating? It makes it sound more formal, in English at least, and it’ll add a little gravitas to the situation that we might need to use, especially with nobles and such.” Kay made a moue of distaste. “Not that I want other people thinking they can poke their noses into our relationship, but they will anyways.”

“That’s a good idea,” She replied, “And is a nice segue into what I was going to say next. What’re your plans for having multiple spouses in the future.”

“I don’t want to.”

Eleniah laughed. “Can you be a little more detailed than that? We’re planning out the future, both our plans and our responses to the plans of others. If someone powerful appears in front of you wanting to marry you off to some connection of theirs to make a bond with you, ‘I don’t want to’ isn’t a good enough answer. It makes you look immature, which isn’t a look a kind can afford most of the time.”

“Alright, I can break it down.” He started listing reasons on his fingers, “The idea of dynastic rule is tempting to me on an individual level, but that’s now how Torotia works, at least not with the System being involved in titles and ruling, I’d have to invest time and effort into making sure any kids I have end up as my heir or replacement, so why not focus on a smaller number of children instead of making a lot of them with multiple women and spending more money trying to make any of them pan out? I also don’t think the affinity theory that’s going around has much merit. The more I hear about it the more it sounds like someone’s trying to create a classist culture using the idea of people being talented as a base, but they’re attaching the idea of ‘talent’ to ‘good breeding’. The proponents seem to be focusing on polygamy as one of their merits, or foundations, or whatever and following that kind of behavior might make people think I’m supporting that theory. Lastly,” He counted off on his third finger, “And this one might not work in your scenario, is that I don’t want to. I’ve never been attracted to the idea of being with multiple partners, outside of teenage sexual desire, and I haven’t changed my mind. It’s hard enough to build a good relationship with one person, let alone multiple. Then there’s the jealousy and arguments that could happen… I could go on and on with all kinds of hypothetical problems that I just don’t want to deal with.”

“I don’t think that’s bad answer to use. Some people will argue that marriage isn’t about love their about connections and alliances.”

“I disagree. There’s no point in getting married to someone just to build an alliance, or to make sure there’s some connection that can’t be broken, because assuming that’s the kind of connection you’re going to make is ridiculous. We’re going to live for hundreds of years, who says a spouse won’t die, or leave, or kill you, or anything else? There are better ways to make alliances, and frankly, I don’t care if anyone disagrees. I want a loving relationship with my one spouse, and that’s what I’m going to have!”

Eleniah leaned in and kissed him lightly, breaking off his tirade. “We’ll need to polish it up a little to be more kingly,” She said after pulling back a hair, “But those are reasonable and workable reasons to not want multiple spouses. It’s not all jealousy and fighting, though. Alahna is quite happy with three husbands.”

“I’m not Alahna-”

“Thank goodness.”

Kay grinned at her. “I’m not Alahna, thank goodness, and what makes her happy isn’t going to be what makes me happy. Without needing an heir of my body to reign after me, the strictures imposed on me for marriage by my role and responsibilities are much smaller than they would have been for a king back on Earth. I’m planning to marry someone, hopefully, when the time comes, that ensures a good connection with another powerful nation, is strong in her own right, and will be a good queen someday. I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do to argue against my choices here.”

Eleniah gave him a pitying look. “Of course they can. There’s always someone that will argue, no matter how reasonable your stance is, because they aren’t getting their way. I happen to agree with you, though, so anyone that tries to tell you you’re wrong can go pound sand.”

They scooted close together, interlacing their fingers as they held hands. “At least no one we care about is going to balk when we tell them.”

“Of course they won’t,” Eleniah snorted, “Amanda’s going to give us looks like she knew this would happen all along, someone’s going to pull out a book of bets on who you’d end up dating first with additional bets on if we get married, and Cindy’s probably going to be all blase about it because she dreamed it was going to happen three years ago.”

“You think someone’s running a book on my dating life? Who?”

“I don’t know who specifically, but once you get enough people together there will be people making bets, and someone’s going to be running the book. It might not be for profit, but someone has to keep track of who bet what with who.”

They debated who it was that was the bookie, but before long Kay’s face trailed into a pensive one as he stared at the wall of the cabin.

“What’s up?”

“I’m worried about home. Some of the stuff in those letters…”

“Don’t worry too much.” She squeezed his hand. “You left very capable people behind to keep things running. Besides, this storm will blow over soon enough, and then we’re only a few days out.”

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