Young Writers Society

“Wait, so she’s just going to let you see your father, after all this time?” Rydone exclaimed.

“Well, there’s a stipulation,” Buck said, taking a sip of the soup Misene had made them. “I have to sail out to their land to meet with him, because he’s not allowed back here. I guess they still don’t quite trust him, which is probably fair enough.”

“How come you’re still here then?” Misene asked, bouncing baby Lucene up and down on his knee. They were sat in his dining room, having a two-course dinner generously prepared by Wailune before he left for work. Misene mostly only had to heat things up. As Buck looked round at him, he added, “It’s nice to see you, of course.”

“Oh, we have to prove ourselves to Alkset first, so that Erson and Pires can get onto the council of monarchs,” Buck explained. “It’s a council made up by the monarchs and nobles of various assorted kingdoms. They sound really cool.”

“Well that’s escalated quickly,” Rydone said, raising an eyebrow. “I thought they all hated us.”

Buck nodded. “At one point, maybe. But they’re giving us a second chance. We just have to prove ourselves.”

“And how do they want you to do that?” Rydone asked. She leaned forward with one elbow on the table, narrowly missing knocking over her soup.

“Actually, they don’t so much want anything from me as from Erson… or Erson’s parents to be precise. Alkset says she wants to understand why they’re so intent on ploughing resources into what seems like a simple border skirmish. And also if they would be amenable to the negotiation of a ceasefire so that whoever it is they are fighting could also join the council,” Buck said. He took a long breath after all that. “She says she would be interested in learning a few songs from me though.”

“Tonight?” Rydone asked. She glanced for the slightest moment at Misene, but he was suddenly absorbed in snuggling the top of Lucene’s head.

Buck sighed. Clearly his discussion with Hilene had taught him nothing. He had barely seen his two friends in his weeks back home. Well, all he could do was try to get back on track now. He smiled. “No, I’m all yours tonight. In fact, would it be okay if I ran across the road and asked if my mum and Victane would like to join us? It’s Mum’s birthday.”

“Of course!” Rydone shouted. She banged her tea against the table but luckily she’d had enough of her soup that it didn’t slosh too far out the bowl.

Buck took a big long slurp of his own soup to finish it off, then sighed contentedly. “Alright, I’ll go get them.”

He headed out behind the pub, around the back of the square to his treehouse. Simone had been persuaded this time to stay at home – he reckoned she’d got something of a fright the day before at the palace, so was happy to sit snugly in her bed. He quickly grabbed the present he’d got for his mum – a nice long shawl with purple and purplish-grey stripes – then doubled back and ran over to Victane’s. He’d been planning on going there after dinner anyway, but with significantly less of a cardio workout. When he got there he found himself slumped against the door as he knocked.

“Hello, Buttane,” Dorrea said as she opened the door.

Buck yelped and nearly collapsed onto her, but he managed to stumble forward up the step and brace himself against the doorway.

“Hi,” he said, panting. He pushed himself upright and stepped further into the warmly lit hallway. He offered her the package, wrapped loosely in very thin paper. Summoning his breath, he exclaimed, “Happy birthday!”

Dorrea grinned and carefully lifted the paper away from the shawl beneath. She let it fall to the floor and held the shawl up so she could see its full length. “Oh, Butty, it’s wonderful! I love long clothes!”

Buck smiled. “I remember.” He had been pretty wrapped up in writing an apology letter to Myal, but he had thought of the day she and Victane brought home their victorious shopping haul.

“Thank you,” she said, kissing him noisily on the top of the head. “Come on in, get yourself a drink.”

“Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to come back with me to see Misene and Rydone?” Buck asked. He got it all out as quick as he could so that she didn’t think for a second he was cancelling on her for palace business or anything. “You don’t have to, of course. Just I haven’t seen them in ages either and they’d love to see you too and I just thought it might be nice like a party and they could get to know Victane and-”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “That sounds great. Come on, let’s go talk to Victane.”

Buck followed her into the dining room, where Victane was sitting with a bottle of something clear and brown, and a few tumblers set out on the placemats. Oops, he hadn’t meant to step on Victane’s plans.

“Vic, Butty’s wondering if we’d like to come along to spend some time with him and his friends? I’ve known them all since they were children – well, except Wailune. And I suppose I’ve never met Lucene but she is a child, of course. Anyway, I think you’d all get on very well indeed.”

Victane grinned. “Saves me the embarrassment of having planned the world’s smallest birthday party. Think they’d like this?” He held up the bottle of alcohol.

“Almost certainly.” Buck nodded vigorously.

“Wonderful!” Victane got to his feet and followed them out the door.

As they were walking along, at a much more reasonable pace than Buck’s frantic sprinting around, Dorrea and Victane finally told him that they were planning on moving in together.

“Oh, that reminds me, I got those glass ducklings to go with the duck jug,” Victane said.

“Fantastic!” Dorrea exclaimed, leaning in towards him. “You remember the duck pond table, Buttane?”

Buck looked off into the distance for a moment. That did ring a bell. He closed his eyes and he could just about remember himself and Dorrea sliding the glass duck figurines in a circle around one massive duck-shaped water jug in the centre of the table. They’d all had names, he thought, but he couldn’t quite remember any of them.

“I remember,” he said. “They were your prize possessions.”

Dorrea nodded. “Yep. And now they are again.” She pulled her new shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Well, joint prize possessions.”

Dorrea and Victane went back to talking about their new house furnishings, or ones they were meaning to pick up. Something about the ducks had prompted a few other memories from Buck’s childhood, so he turned these over in his mind as they walked. Dorrea carefully lining up the books on her shelf, getting a picture to hang at a slightly jaunty angle above the dinner table, buying Buck little wooden toy animals and helping him have them put on little shows. He was so absorbed in the images that sprang up that he was almost sad to reach Misene’s house. But then again, as he knocked on the door, he was sure this would be a wonderful night to add to his collection.

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A/N: If that last line sounds ominous it's really not meant to!