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Updated 02-14-00
Mordred and Morgan le Fey cowered back against the corner as much as they could, hoping to somehow manage to avoid the attention of the Fairy Queen. Mab was fuming. Mab was so incomprehensibly angry that her two minions could just about see the steam blowing off her brain. Her eyes were lit with feverish fire and it felt quite like a can of worms had been opened up into her head. Squirming around, wriggling about, making her mad. Driving her completely out of her mind. She stopped pacing and stared down on the happy little reunion, her long hair snapping like whips in the high wind.
“For as much as I try, I fail,” she hissed. Morgan and Mordred glanced at each other and hoped she was talking to herself. “For as much time and effort that I throw at that brat wizard Merlin, he always succeeds.” She stared down at the sandy beach and screamed suddenly, frustrated, and stalked back to the corner where her minions were huddled together. “WHY?” she shrieked into Morgan’s face. The pony was about ready to reply by wetting all over the floor. “Weak, pathetic wizard that he is! He is nothing but a hand wizard, whereas I—I have infinite power at my beck and call!” She whirled away and lit the room on fire. Morgan and Mordred squealed but didn’t have anywhere to jump back to, but the fire moved away as Mab did. Flames licked along the floor and rushed like water at the Queen’s feet.
the power of fire, the power of land
the magic of water all at my command
She raised her hands above her head and the flames slithered through the air towards her uplifted palms. She held the sphere of fire. It moved like a creature alive, shooting shadows across the walls.
on a whim that I make
I made a mistake
and made Merlin
She was about to release the fireball but caught herself back. She stared down at the beach far below her, and closed her hand into a fist. The flames dissolved into a ghost of smoke. Morgan and her son crawled warily out of their corner to peer out over the edge of the building.
Merlin was hugging his youngest brother, pulling him close and thanking him for everything he did. Everything he ever did.
Mab frowned. Everything Chief ever did— It hit like a lightning strike, and Mab began to laugh. She sat down straight on the floor and howled with maniacal glee that made her two little minions rush back to the cover of their corner.
“That’s it!” she gasped, wiping tears from her eyes. She leaned towards the two with a set of starry bright eyes. “Don’t you see? It wasn’t that brat Merlin who defeated me—of course he couldn’t have, alone. What was I thinking?!” she laughed, pounding her fists on the floor, tears streaming down her face.
Mordred stared at her, his eyes round as a full moon. “It was Chief—” he gasped. “He got Nimue out of the Mansion. He rescued Ribbs from our cage and sent Howie and the Lady of the Lake to rescue Merlin and Al—”
“Precisely, my dear Mordred.” Mab rushed up to him and lifted him off the floor like a rag doll, scaring him absolutely senseless. “That is why you will be king, my brilliant boy!” she crowed, spinning him around and dropping him back into the lap of his mother. Mab stepped close to the edge and looked over, quiet now, with a more focused insanity glowing in her eyes. “That boy is smart. He may not have a fey bone in his body, but he knows how to irritate me.” She shuddered. “Like poison oak.”
Mordred and Morgan le Fey shuddered.
Mab rubbed her palms together slowly, piecing together delicious, delicate puzzles in her mind. My, my, how the pieces fell into place.
“You lost Excalibur?” Chief said, looking shocked.
“Dude, I didn’t mean to, ya know,” Al shrugged. “It just kinda—slipped.”
Chief slapped his forehead. Quarty didn’t quite get the whole Excalibur thing and hadn't ever cared much, but was getting the idea that it shouldn’t be in the clutches of a magical psychopath. “How are we going to get it back?” he asked them.
“Well you know, Q-ball,” Al shouted sarcastically, bouncing from one foot to the other like his tail was on fire, “if we knew that, we wouldn’t have this problem, would we?”
Salty giggled. “Looks like somebody needs his Ritalin!”
Al glared at the sailor unappreciatively. Salty swigged from his bottle.
“Now, now, my young king,” Merlin said soothingly. “We will discover a way.” The wizard didn’t look particularly distressed. Besides the fact that Nimue was hanging on him like a cardigan, braiding small strands of his hair together. He was starting to look like a pretentious hippie.
Chief brushed damp hair back out of his face and fought back the desire to kick Merlin square in the butt. “He’s right, Al,” he smiled stiffly. “Mab’s been beat before. She’s no David Copperfield, that’s for sure.”
Merlin looked at him strangely.
Quarty shook his head, his eyes wide with awe and reverence. “Man, if she was Copperfield, we’d all be in some deep serious shit!”
“Who the hell is David Copperfield?” Merlin snapped.
Quarty was about to explain the glory that was Copperfield when they heard the distinct gibber of flapping french lips somewhere off behind them. They all turned to see Pip approaching, with an all entirely too friendly arm draped around Slugger. The purple lawyer looked like he had completely lost every bit of his mind, and had somehow managed to end up with Pip's beret on his head.
“Bon jour, you big bunch of fruity losers!” Pip squealed happily. He reeked of overpoweringly cheap French champagne, and Slugger looked about ready to rip his throat out and share it with his family.
“Hey, Pipster,” Quarty saluted. “You and Slugger enjoy your hour of quality time?”
“Oui, it was a valuable experience for all involved!” Pip announced grandly.
“Please shoot me,” Slugger begged.
“I have been teaching le joli avocat french!” Pip looked proud of himself. “Go on, joli, show them what you have learned!”
“Yeah, Slugger,” Chief giggled. “Say something romantic!!”
Slugger’s shoulders drooped, defeated, and, fighting with an overwhelming humiliated feeling, he mumbled: “Je prends un lapin chaud dans mon pantalon.”
Nimue, who actually understood french being that she was British Royalty, stared at Slugger incredulously for a brief moment before screaming hysterically with laughter. Quarty looked completely fascinated by her reaction. “Dude,” he said to Slugger. “What the hell did you say?”
The lawyer shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Howie,” Howie said, and everyone looked down at their feet, where the fat little land dwelling killer whale was sitting patiently in the sand.
“Howdy, Howie,” Quarty greeted him. “Howie you?”
“Fine. Howie you?”
“Wonderful, thanks for asking.”
“What’s wrong, Howie?” Chief noticed that the little whale looked nervous. He was tapping his fins on the sand.
“Ribbs is gone,” Howie said simply.
“Ribbs?!” Merlin finally looked a little concerned about something. Everyone suddenly remembered that no one had bothered to tell the wizard that his son had arrived in town. “My bad” looks circulated amongst them. “He’s here?”
Howie gave Merlin an annoyed look. “No, he’s gone.”
“Where did he go, Howie?” Chief asked calmly.
Howie grinned and rolled his eyes skyward. “Ribbs is gone!” he grinned, slapping his fins on the sand. “Gone gone gone gone gone gone—”
“Dammit stop it!” Merlin snapped, and the little whale bit his lip and scrunched up into a little ball on the sand. “Oh—” Merlin began apologetically, as great big teardrops began to spill out of the little whale’s gumdrop eyes. “Oh, now don’t do that—”
Chief bent and scooped Howie out of the sand. “See look what you did you mean old bastard,” he grinned, cuddling Howie and petting his fishy little head. “When the poor little guy was just trying to tell us something important!”
“Howie!” Howie agreed, and snuggled up against Chief affectionately. The little whale blinked his eyes, then frowned, then blinked again, then started screaming incoherently.
“Aw come on Howie,” Chief said reasonably. “Merlin’s not that ugly—” He glanced up, following Howie’s big eyed stare. “AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” he yelped and dove for cover as a fireball plummeted through the sky in their direction. The group of little ponies scattered as it exploded a crater into the sand where they had been loitering. Rivers of fire snaked across the beach, almost as if alive, following rapid, jagged paths and criss-crossing—trapping them in a maze of fire.
“Hey fireman!” Quarty shouted across the flames. “Put it out already!”
Chief pushed himself to his knees and clutched Howie to his chest. “Put it out?!” he shrieked. “It’s sand! It’s wet sand, how could it possibly catch on fire?!”
Quarty gave him a thumbs-up. “Good point!”
Chief looked out above the smokeless fire, shielding his face from the heat. Movement in Willy’s Bar caught his attention, and he stared at all the spectators, who were watching horrified from the safety of the restaurant. He got an idea. He whispered the idea to Howie, then turned to Quarty, who was trapped by the fire beside him. “Q-ball! How’s that throwing arm of yours?”
Quarty looked at him strangely, but said: “Just let me at those god damn Rams!”
Chief dipped Howie like a basketball and tossed a granny-shot over the wall of fire that separated the two big brothers. Quarty made a clean catch and listened as Howie whispered in his ear. His eyes got bright, and he drew back and launched the little whale out over the fire, over the Waterway, and dead center into the spectators watching in Willy’s Bar, knocking a third of them over backwards. They watched Willy’s eyes get big as Howie told them the plan. Willy didn’t like it, but Willy didn’t like anything.
The ponies in the Bar worked together, pushing and pulling, until Willy’s huge cast iron stove was teetering on the edge of the open-faced building. Steamer grabbed a champagne bottle and grandly proclaimed: “I hereby christen it, the USS Cast Iron!” He shattered the bottle on the stove and gave it the final heave it needed to go overboard. A few ponies went with it, and a couple of whales, too. It hit the Waterway and sent a wave crashing out across the beach, which promptly doused the fire and flooded every single house along the shore.
“The USS Cast Iron?” Willy looked skeptically up at Steamer, who shrugged.
Everyone trapped by the fire was dragged along the sand by the backwash of the giant wave as the USS Cast Iron sank to its watery grave. “Cool job, fireman!” Quarty grabbed Chief by the head and delivered a ruthless noogie.
“Holy shit, knock it off!!” Chief squealed.
Merlin lifted Nimue to her feet and helped her swat the minnows out of her hair. “There’s only one who could make fire burn of thin air,” the wizard shouted dramatically.
“Let me guess,” Chief squeezed his eyes shut and plugged his ears with his fingers before shrieking: “QUEEN MAB?!?!”
Merlin glared at his little brother blandly.
“Who the hell is this chick anyway?” Quarty asked, finally expressing a little interest in the story line.
“She's the Fey Queen,” Merlin said.
“Fey? As in Fairy?” Quarty extrapolated. “She’s the Fairy Queen?”
“Yes,” Merlin agreed.
“Troy!!” Quarty squealed at his oldest son, laughing hysterically. “Bow to your Queen!”
“She’s a dangerous entity,” Merlin growled over the irritating giggles of everyone who never took him seriously. “She's far more powerful than any of you could ever imagine!”
Troy spread his arms, shaking water out of his clothes. “I think I’m starting to wrinkle,” he sighed, and Merlin gave up on trying to teach them anything.
These ponies weren't impressed with her magicks. This was no longer the Dark Ages, times when magic was cause for fear and reverence. These ponies—while they feared her a little—in general just ignored her. When she introduced a scuffle, they dealt with it, laughed about it, and continued on with their lives. Amazingly resilient creatures.
Mab hated that.
She wanted them to fear her, dammit, to breathlessly anticipate her every move. She grabbed Ribbs by the hair and lifted him square off his feet, high enough that she could deliver a ruthless glare into his terrified eyes. She held the sword Excalibur intimidatingly close, and the little boy couldn’t decide whether or not to direct his full miserable attention on that sharp gold sword, or on the scary looking hypnotic psychopath who was holding that sharp gold sword. Mab growled, and hissed: “You, brat, will be the first to feel the sting of Excalibur!”
Ribbs tittered a nervous laugh. “Gee, can’t we talk about this? I don’t really taste like bar-b-q, I swear—”
“Silence!” Mab shouted. “I won’t kill you yet. I want your Daddy to watch me do it.” The Fey Queen looked down over the waterlogged town of Quacker County and, without waiting for Mordred or Morgan to follow, leapt from the building. Morgan and her son sighed with relief that the scary old witch was gone and decided to play Connect-Four.
The sand began to tremble under their feet, and a dull rumble gave way to a deafening CRACK as the ground broke open beneath them. They scattered out of the way as a huge slab of earth rocketed towards the sky. Mab landed atop it lightly as it stopped beneath her feet, and she held out both Ribbs and Excalibur like trophies for them all to see.
Nimue clasped her hands over her mouth, horrified. “Oh no!”
“Oh shit,” Chief agreed.
“Merlin!!” Queen Mab screamed, her raspy voice echoing out across the whole county. “I have your destiny in my two hands!”
“Help?” Ribbs squeaked.
Merlin stalked bravely up to the stone slab with a look of firm determination in his eyes. “MAB!!” he screamed, shaking an irate fist at her. “I will see you fade to NOTHING!!”
Everyone sighed, including Mab. He never really let up on that one.
“Dammit Merlin come up with a new one!” Chief shouted, and Merlin glanced back at him quizzically.
Mab rolled her eyes and retraced her train of thought. Assuming the appropriate mad-eyed look, she continued. “Would you prefer me kill him now and let his blood rain down on you?”
“Oh no not more rain,” Troy sighed, wringing out his sopping tail.
“Umm,” Merlin answered eloquently. “What are my other options?”
“Or I could kill you all together!” Mab cackled, laughing with insane glee.
Chief frowned, tired of this crazy bitch, Queen of fairies or no fairies. “What if we never give you that chance?” he shouted at her. He bent and scooped up two chunks of stone that had broken off Mab’s pillar. He tossed one at Quarty and the other at Troy, then cocked his thumbs over his shoulders and ducked. Father and son danced back across the sand and sent the round rocks hurtling through the air.
Mab noticed in time to turn one into dust, but the other smashed into those fingers clutching the sword Excalibur. The Queen shrieked and dropped the sword, sticking the sore appendages in her mouth. The ponies breathlessly watched the sword plummet toward the beach. Al stepped up smoothly and caught the hilt in his hand before the golden blade touched the sand. “Sweet,” he grinned, and held it out triumphantly as all the little ponies and whales of Quacker County began to cheer.
“Oh lovely,” Nimue sighed, hands on hips. “So they save the sword!”
“Look out!” Ribbs shouted from high above them as the increasingly peeved Queen gathered together a powerful bolus of electrical energy. She held the pulsating blue sphere of power above her head with bloody fingers. Static made her hair fly, and shadows made her face stark and severe as she glared down at the heroic group on the beach. With one look at that face, Troy and Howie immediately gave up heroics in favor of running away. Troy grabbed Howie's tail and ducked under the porch of his house as Mab discharged the powerful blast.
Little ponies scattered in all conceivable directions, chased by crackling snakes of blue light. Chief shook the electricity out of his blue mane and noticed it was looking a little darker out. He wondered if it was dinnertime yet. He looked straight and almost peed himself—Mab’s pillar of stone couldn’t withstand that much magic and was toppling over forward, right over where the young fireman had landed.
“Shit, boy!” Quarty shouted at him. “Get your ass moving!”
Chief took the cue and scrambled to his feet, taking off toward Quarty’s house and hoping to beat it’s width since he knew he’d never beat it length-wise. Quarty grabbed his shirt and jerked him around and through the open door of his home as the pillar slammed onto the beach. Chief rolled through the foyer and toppled Troy over, scattering a mess of Quarty’s babies across the floor. Quarty dug himself out of the pile of sand that the pillar had flopped on him and went running along the length of it.
“Where are you going?” Royal Blue shouted, peering around the door after her husband.
Mab had leapt off at the last moment, and landed safely on the ground just beyond the wreckage. With her back towards Quarty, who lunged through the air and snatched Ribbs right out of her hand.
“AAAAAAAAA!!” the little boy screamed as they went rolling through the sand. “I think you scalped me!!”
Quarty grinned up at the little boy, who ended up sitting on his chest. “That’s ok, you’d look cute bald.”
Ribbs rubbed his head and didn’t really think so. Quarty grabbed the boy and rolled out of the way of one of Mab's power blasts. Mab screamed shrilly, frustrated.
Fearing for his son’s safety, Merlin conjured his own blast of electrical energy and sent it rocketing towards the fey queen. It wasn’t nearly as strong as hers, but it still knocked her clean off her feet. He almost looked surprised he had done it, not being one to use his magic for violent purposes, which explained his blatant uselessness in battles such as these. Mab swept gracefully back to her feet, her bracelets ringing together like enchanting little bells.
“Ah, Merlin,” Mab cooed, looking over her startled-eyed wizard playfully. “You finally learn what magic is all about!”
“No,” the wizard said stubbornly, refusing to look at her. “I won’t be like you. I won’t use it to hurt ponies!”
“My, but Merlin,” Mab made a wide sweeping gesture with her bloody hand, forcing Merlin’s eyes to follow, and see the eyes of all his friends. “You’ve already hurt them.”
“Merlin,” Nimue whimpered, clutching Salty’s arm. “Don’t listen to her, Merle!!”
Merlin grit his teeth. “My magic didn’t cause this destruction,” he grated, then shouted: “Yours did!”
Mab shrugged. “Yes, but the absence of yours allowed it to happen. Merlin, my dear boy, my lonely child—” she stepped forward grasped his chin in her hand, forcing his eyes to meet hers and smearing blood across his face. “You’ve tried to beat me again and again,” she hissed, in a voice only he could hear. “You have tried, and each time failed. You will never be as I am, you will never defeat me. And I, I will take your whole life from you this time.” She pushed him back, and he landed on his butt in the sand, looking stunned.
Mab smiled down at him. “You couldn’t save your son. You couldn’t save your lover. You sat back and watched while others did that for you. Any wonder, then, fool, why she falls in love with another man? Deep in your heart, Merlin,” Mab smiled gently, “can you blame her?”
“Stop it.” He closed his eyes. “Stop it, Mab, you can’t beat me this way.”
“Stupid boy, I already have.”
Merlin lowered his head, his eyes still shut, and Mab gathered magic together on her fingertips. Hovered her palm over his head, and blue electricity shimmered across his hair.
Chief propelled himself off the flattened pillar and planted his feet squarely between her shoulder blades, making contact with a delightful thud. All 3 went rolling over each other and ended up in a tangled mess.
“I didn’t need your help!” Merlin shouted angrily as Chief pulled his head out of the sand. The fireman stared at his wizard brother incredulously.
“Oh yeah? That’s not what it looked like from where I was standing.” Chief yanked his brother up off the ground and pushed him up and over the fallen pillar. He tumbled across it and landed safely at the door of Quarty’s house.
“YOU!!” Mab shrieked, emerging out of the sand and turning to find her prey, stalking close. Chief pressed his back against the stone and offered a sheepish, innocent grin. The woman’s face just looked evil. The dark glow of madness made shadowy crevices across her features, and lent her eyes a rabid fire. Electricity pulsed across her body, shivering like snakes, twisting around her arms and legs and crackling in her hair. It occasionally jumped the gap between them and gave Chief a little jolt. “You,” she hissed, close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. “Every path I tread, you are there to block my way. You freed the fair Nimue. You save your friends and family time and again and yet you have no magic seed in your soul!”
Chief shrugged apologetically. “What can I say? I'm a fireman.”
“SILENCE!!” Mab shrieked, slamming her fists into rock on either side of his head. Cracks branched out like rivers in the pillar, and Chief could feel the stone spreading beneath his skin. “Merlin is nothing, Merlin will never defeat me, he is a fool,” Mab spat, inches from Chief’s face. “Even with all the magic I have blessed him with he is nothing but a worthless failure, a hand wizard whose magic is as pointless as his life! But YOU—” Mab screamed. “Who are you? How do you prevail without magic?”
“Some things are worth more than magic, Mab.” Chief shook his head sadly. “Too bad you don’t understand that.” He placed a hand on each of her shoulders, getting a mild zap, and boosted himself up, bounced off her nose and back-flipped onto the stone pillar. Spectators mildly applauded.
“You pretentious weasel!” Mab began shooting power blasts from her fingers like bullets.
“Oh, crap—” Chief danced across the pillar, hopping between the blasts and feeling like the star of some cheap futuristic western drama flick. Mab paused to take a breath and he took off running along the length of the stone. Quarty saw him coming and scrambled for a good hiding place. Ribbs scrambled the other way, just as Chief made a giant leap off the end. His knees buckled in the sand and he rolled to buffer the landing. He got up but had nowhere to go—a beach always ended in water, and the lip of the lake was seething at his feet. He was hardly a match for this witch on land… he knew he had no chance in the water. Especially with her as pissed as she was right now.
“Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!” Mab crowed, with a wide, wild-toothed grin. She slid off the pillar on her hands and feet, moving like a spider, like a predator, approaching her prey in a well-laid trap. “You are a thorn in my side. When you are gone, this county is MINE!!”
“Not while I’m still here, lady!!” a voice shouted off behind her. Irked at the interruption, Mab threw a flat glare back over her shoulder. Chief had to look too. Ballsy…. Stupid, but ballsy.
Quarty had a big damn gun in his hand, with the 3-pointed laser site aimed dead center between her eyes. The captain was flanked by the whole police department (and 2 FBI agents), who each had a gun in hand and who each was aiming that gun directly at the Fairy Queen.
Chief’s jaw fell open like a trap door. “Shit, if you fire all those freaking things, you’ll kill me too!!”
Quarty's eyebrows perked and he grinned his chesire grin. “Then you better duck, fireman.”
Chief belly-flopped into the sand and covered his head with his arms as the deafening mechanical discharge of about 20 guns shattered the air at once. Mab began to laugh. She spread her arms and turned her body into the spray of bullets, laughing hysterically and having a tremendous good time. Bullets ricocheted off her thick hide, sending bystanders screaming for cover. Quarty held up a hand for cease-fire and stared at the woman, just shaking his head.
Mab touched the pillar of stone, and it exploded out in every direction, sending little police ponies right along with it. Most of them landed safely in the Waterway or headfirst in the sand. “Your mortal toys can’t defeat me!” Mab smirked grandly.
Quarty pulled his head out of the sand and gave it a good shake. “Point taken!” he shouted back. “We’ll remember that for our next big shoot-out!”
Mab smiled. “No,” she said mildly. “There is no next time. All of you have failed.” She smoothed her palms together, and white light spilled from between her fingers. She slowly pulled her hands apart and electricity pulsated between each palm like webs of candy. She twisted her hands in counter motion against each other, causing the energy to pop and spark. Lightning snaked along her arms, crackling and smoking as it reached each coiled bracelet… rising in her hair, dancing off the metal wires and jewels worked into her braids.
“Simple boy,” she rasped, in a voice destroyed centuries ago. “Breathe a final breath.”
Chief stood alone on the shore, defiantly, his eyes daring her to bring it on.
“No, Mab,” Merlin whispered, pulling out of Nimue’s white-knuckled grasp. He stood, unnoticed and silent behind her, his eyes closed and his right hand outward seeking. He began to sweat.
And the earth began to grow.
“Seed of magic, be my tree,” he murmured, “and fairy, let my brother be.”
A tiny green leaf pushed its head through the sand, inches from Mab’s foot. Beside it, another leaf emerged, and beside that, another. Their stems became stalks, and the stalks became vines that began to interlace and entwine around and across the legs of the Fairy Queen. Mab was far too engrossed in the workings of her own magicks to realize she was feeding another, until the seeking vines had embraced her hips.
“What—?” she shrieked, as a thick vine draped itself across one shoulder. She twisted her head on her neck, looking back to find sight of her wizard son as the vines encased her hands and arms. “MERLIN!!” she screamed. “Merlin, look at me!”
He kept his eyes gently shut and stayed listening, his right hand reaching. The vines encircled her neck and looped her muzzle, clamping her mouth shut and muffling her desperate shrieks. The vines encased her head and hair, and one last rope concealed her eyes. Once all enclosed in green, the vines died and went brown, and then great leaves exploded out and opened up towards the sky.
“And the rest is silence.” Merlin opened his eyes to see, for the first time, the new tree that grew on their shore. The ponies slowly came out from their safe places to see this thing, this piece of life that grew where no such thing should grow.
Chief ran to his big brother and leapt into his arms, knocking him over into the sand. “Holy shit, that was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen!!” he shouted, and Merlin smiled up at him quietly. Chief stared at his brother’s eyes and felt hot and cold all at once. “You saved my life,” he whispered.
Merlin shook his head. “And you saved mine.”
“Holy shit, dude, is she dead?” The young king Al was poking the tree with Excalibur. Quarty stuck his finger in the boy's ear.
“Knock it off, you don’t want to let her out if she’s not,” Quarty scolded as Al jerked his head away, annoyed.
Chief rolled off his wizard brother and helped him rise. “Is she dead?” Chief whispered.
Merlin shook his head wistfully. “Who knows? Fey creatures live on, as long as we believe in them.”
“Oh, she was real all right,” Al grimaced, backing away from the tree and offering it a nasty look.
The young British princess leapt into Merlin’s arms and kissed him fully on the lips, then spun away from him to throw her arms around his brother. “Oh, you stupid, brave, stupid, stupid man!” she shouted, hugging Chief tight. “I thought you were fish and chips for certain!”
“I love you, Nimue,” Chief said sadly, closing his eyes and holding her tight. It felt so good to hold her close, it felt so warm and right.
Nimue pushed herself away from him, only enough to be able to look into his face. “Oh—” she gasped softly. “Chief, no.”
“I know,” he sighed, and let her go. “I just wish you felt the same.”
Nimue grabbed his hand and held it tight in both of hers. “Oh, Chief, it’s a different kind of love I have for you.”
Chief couldn’t look at her anymore, and couldn’t bear to face the look he imagined in his brother's eyes. Merlin placed his hands gently on Nimue’s shoulders, silencing her, and moved her back.
“Chief,” Merlin began softly, taking his arm. “Nimue has been my one true love for hundreds of years.”
“I know,” Chief whispered, unable to meet his eyes. He clenched his teeth and said: “Why do you think this is so hard? With anyone else—” he took a breath, trying to control the intensity of what he felt. “With anyone else, it would be meaningless.”
Merlin stared at his brother’s face, so hurt and so shamed by these things he thought he shouldn’t feel. He reached and touched his face, and Chief finally looked at him. “You really do love her though, don’t you,” Merlin said sadly.
Chief nodded. “I love her.”
“I’m sorry.”
Chief smiled thinly and shut his eyes. “So am I.”
Merlin took his brother’s face and brought his forehead to his own, and they stood that way in silence, face to face.
“What a bunch of mushy shit!” Salty ripped a vile belch and grabbed Chief by the hair, yanking him back and out of his brother's arms. Salty draped an arm across Chief’s shoulders and pointed into his face. “Me and this hearty bastard are going to go make nice with a bottle of Malibu rum and some sniffers.”
Chief rolled his eyes back. “Sounds good to me.”
Nimue stepped up to take Merlin’s arm and smiled. Ribbs ran and leapt into his Daddy’s arms and the wizard held them both tight, smiling and watching Salty drag the young fireman away.
“That was way too damn exciting,” Salty growled, meandering along with Chief, hopping over debris left by the final battle with Mab. “The most excitement we usually get in a day is when Howie gets sucked into the sewage pipes.” The grubby old sailor laughed hysterically at the mental image and brushed tears away.
“That’s nasty,” Chief grinned. “Where are we going?” They were meandering along past both Willy’s Bar and Salty’s apartment, which were both good places to get tragically, momentously wasted. Unless, of course, Doc Lacey decided it was operation day, at which time it was best to stay as far away from either place as entirely possible.
“Yeah, well, I got a call during all the noise and mess you dogs were making,” Salty chuckled, looking all smug like he had a clever secret. “There’s someone new in town who needs to learn the ropes. And you’re a guy who knows them pretty good.”
Chief looked at him oddly. “Why don’t you do it?”
Salty shrugged. “What rope am I swinging from? The Jack Daniels bungee cord, that’s why, you little jackass.”
Chief laughed. “Ok, ok, I get the point!”
Salty growled good-naturedly and took a hearty swig from his bottle. They were walking along the beach, where the Waterway opened out into the vast blue of the wide lake. In the deeper waters offshore, the riggings of an anchored pirate ship shimmered in the reds and golds of the setting Florida sun. The pirate captain Barnacle was rowing ashore in a tiny white boat, with a large duffel bag that would never make it through customs at his feet, and a young passenger kneeling on the front bench. Chief stopped dead in his tracks. “That’s the new pony?”
Salty scratched his scruffy five-o shadow and nodded. “Yep. Think you can handle it?”
Chief smoothed his hair back and couldn’t do much but stare. She was shielding her eyes with one hand and scanning the shore. She was beautiful. Chief stared at her and didn’t know that something could ever be made quite so perfect, more than once. She was all the colors of that Florida sunset, with bold colors shining in her hair and sky blue skin that was smooth beneath a sleeveless sailor sundress. The girl waved enthusiastically when she caught site of the men waiting on shore.
“Hi, Salty!” she cried, her sweet voice traveling across the gently rolling waves. The old sailor waded into the water to greet her, and Chief found himself following. Her eyes shimmered with fiery colors, sparkling in the last light of day. “Hi Uncle Salty,” the girl leapt out of the boat and into his arms. Salty spun her around and set her gently in shallow water. Chief found himself face to face with her. Her hair was being easily swept by the breeze, and she smoothed it away from her eyes as she gazed back at him.
“Hey Barny,” Salty growled.
“Hey Salty,” Barny growled.
Chief lowered his head a little, smiling sheepishly. “Hi,” he said, and reached to take her hand. He lightly kissed her knuckles, and her cheeks gently colored. “I’m Chief.”
“I know,” she smiled, and planted a quick kiss on his nose. “I’m Bright Eyes. And I think it's time that you showed me the ropes.”
They both grinned, and he led her onto shore as quiet evening fell on Quacker County.
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