It is slow at first, make no mistake about it. Eva was not being falsely modest; she genuinely has no idea how to ride. They have to teach her, the cowboy and the too-solemn little girl, and they do. Here, slide your feet all the way forward. Are the straps too short? Too long? Hold the bridle gently. Squeeze with your knees to turn the horse. Use the bridle only if you must, and leave it loose, give Cadillac her head. There, you have it.
By the time they ride out over the range, the sun is halfway to the horizon, and surely Eva's younger children would have long since grown bored and exhausted. Ellie, though, is a tenacious, patient sort, and her long wait pays off. Calden leads them out over the land, which he knows as well as his own skin. It's a relentlessly hot day, but he takes them east to the little river that forms the eastern border of the ranch, and there in the shade and the relative coolness of the water-loving trees they ride for -- miles, really, nearly all the way to the northern border.
By and large it's a hard land. Dry, sere, and more scrub than pasture, it's land too rough for farming, and very nearly too rough for ranching. In some parts of the country, a cow-calf pair only needs a single acre. Here, the ratio is closer to twenty-five, thirty acres to a pair. Small wonder, then, that they hardly ever catch sight of Calden's herd, which, though nearly four hundred strong, seems entirely dwarfed by the magnitude of the land they exist on.
Most of the ranch is flat, but near the north end there's a small bluff. That's where Calden takes his guests, eventually: riding up to the windswept ridge to look out over the ranch. And, beyond it: the great sweep of the eastern plains; the jagged teeth of the Rockies.
Rough land. Rugged land. Suits him as he suits it.
--
It is nearly sunset by the time they return, and the light has turned orange-red, throwing their shadows long and rippling across the land. The horses are tired, and they are tired, sunbeaten, windworn. Calden says he'll take the horses in and sends Eva and her girl ahead into the house, where they wash off the dust of the trail and re-meet the ranchhands. Paul, Jimmy, Ian, they remind Eva and her family goodnaturedly, all cousins to Calden. Jimmy picks Eva's older boy up, puts him on his shoulders. Ian squats down to talk shop with Ellie, asking her about her ride, her boots, whether or not she believes they're real cowboys now.
Dinner's a hearty affair: red meat, red wine, potatoes, vegetable soup. There are ten of them, so they gather around that enormous table that could probably squeeze another four or five in. Calden's home is a striking juxtaposition of the rustic and the modern. The table is long, glossy and dark, lit from above by gleaming halogens that march spot-lighting down its length. The plates are sturdy stoneware, though, the silverware hefty, the steak knives enormous and serrated.
The sky is pitch-black by the time they finish their meal. The stars are brilliant, almost innumerable this far from the city. The children are sent to bed, and the adults gather around the enormous hearth in the great room where, despite the heat of summer outside, Calden can't resist building a small fire. Just doesn't feel right without it, he says. They pour brandy and scotch. They crack nuts between their knuckles and dump the shells into a large glass bowl. They talk, and talk, and talk, and one by one they peel off: the ranch hands leaving first, claiming the excuse of an early morning. Then Calden's father, having socialized enough for a day or perhaps a year. Eva's mother-in-law, finally,
until it's just the two of them. Calden in an armchair, tipping another finger's worth of scotch into his tumbler, then holding the bottle up in offering.
The house around them is dark, quiet, settling for the night. The structure has been built and rebuilt and renovated and remodeled so many times over the years that it no longer bears any resemblance to the original house Calden's great-great-grandfather built here -- but the old foundation is still there, somewhere below. And now, as the night deepens, the weight of the years and the traditions and the ancestries that have woven through this house can finally and subtly be felt.
Éva Illésházy"Ellie could not stop talking about the how much she enjoyed the ride, today." Éva murmurs, her voice quiet over the crackling fire. I expect she's still talking about it in her sleep, and will be regaling us with her storied exploits as a ranchhand for months to come. Mr. White says - will probably be as ubiquitous a phrase as but mom in our house."
The flash of a smile. It is precise, not lazy, but more relaxed than most of her expressions. It is rare that Éva drinks without thinking about where she is, and with whom, and whether she should have another. It is rare for her to pour herself more than a glass of wine, or a single Scotch, but tonight all she has to do is wander to the guest suite downstairs and after riding the land for hours, she has few fears about monsters blundering through the dark towards them.
Foolish, perhaps, but the illusory feeling of security is so rare these days that she will savor as Ellie savored ever new experience on their afternoon ride. Perhaps, most particularly, her ability to be an expert, to instruct her mother solemnly, with Calden's guidance and endorsement, in the most basic of horse riding skills.
So she tips up her own glass to Calden as he offers the Scotch, and watches as he pours, firelight reflecting in her dark eyes.
"I can see why you came back," she tells him. "You belong to the land as much as it belongs to you. Perhaps more than it belongs to you."
For all the scorching heat of the day, the summer is leaving and leaving in its wake nights with more bite to the air than one ever really remembers until autumn comes round again. So the fire Calden kindled in the fireplace seems more than right, as the adults begin to peel off, one by one by one, but welcome.
"I can't tell you what a welcome change it is from the city, right now, too. I've been looking into the history of the Cold Crescent building? And from here, with the land and the stars and the fire and the Scotch. It all seems so unreal."
Calden WhiteThe drink accepted is poured with the effortless ease of a true Fianna: the neck of the bottle just barely tapping the lip of the glass; the amber liquid slipping out like silk. He lifts the bottle after a finger or two of scotch, mindful of his guest's self-control. The bottle thumps quietly down on the floor by Calden's chair, and he lifts his tumbler to peer at the flames through the whisky.
"Belonging to the land more than the land belongs to us," he muses. "Isn't that the ideal of our people?"
And he looks over at her as she continues. A welcome change in the city, she calls it, and his smile is wry and knowing. Of course it's knowing: it's how he feels every time, leaving the city behind for the open plains. For all his business savvy, for all that his home is modern and, in its own way, quite luxurious, Calden's way of living is pre-industrial. It's nearly pre-agrarian.
"The one downside," he says, "is that when you have a place like this to retreat to, calm and peaceful and untouched by war, it's easy to forget that there is a war going on. I admire you sometimes. It's not that I don't want to help, but ... I never seem to step up quite the same way you do, or with such conviction and determination."
Éva IllésházyThat has her breathing out a quiet breath that is half-a-laugh. Head tipped back, turning against the spine of the chair, following not the pattern of the flames against the heart, but of the starlight sweeping in through those two stories of windows looking out over the dark sweep of the high plains.
"Mmm, and what is the war being fought for except good people living on the land and in harmony with it? I don't think there's anything to admire. We have our roles, and we perform them. I suppose, in some ways, the way they do. Though our own are rather more nebulous, and rather less well defined."
The Scotch is in her hands, she holds it negligently, a bit thoughtlessly, but then lifts it up and takes a measured, savoring sip. Breathes out, not precisely a sigh, but -
"For my part, I wanted so little to do with the Nation when I was younger. I never ran from them - you can't really run from my tribe - but I, did the tasks they asked me, when they asked me, and no more than that.
"Then, Ellie. One look at her. I kept thinking - what if she's one of them? I had always resented their intrusions into my life. Then I started think about them differently.
"All the things they are called to do. All the sacrifices they are called to make, when they're so very young.
"And how unfair that is.
"And how they do it anyway.
"And I've no doubt that you do your part." A lift of her glass in quiet, steady toast. " - in hospitality if nothing more."
Calden White"I wouldn't dream," Calden replies, unfurling his arm to tap his glass against Eva's, "of sullying the good name of Stag with poor hospitality."
They drink. The fire, small though it is in that enormous hearth that could very nearly hold a bonfire, crackles and pops. The rest of the house is still. The children and the elders have fallen asleep in their various rooms, in their various beds, under their various covers. They, the adults in the narrowest since of the word: they remain. It feels a little like tradition, like ritual.
"Is she?" he asks quietly. "Garou, I mean."
Éva IllésházyShe favors him with a sideslanting though genuine smile when he taps his glass against hers. The fire moves in her eyes and draws her gaze back to it, inexorably. Other than the two of them, it is the only thing moving in the room.
Éva draws in a breath, through her nose rather than her mouth, considering her answer.
"Andraj thought she was," a thoughtful upward lilt of her head. That smile takes on the musing gold of memory. " - though before we met, or I should say, before he met her, I had no idea."
Calden White"I wouldn't be surprised if she is," he replies. "She has a boldness to her. And a sort of ... stillness. I wouldn't be disappointed, either, if she wasn't. She's a great kid. Makes me want one of my own," and then he smiles, lopsided: he makes it sound like kids were something to be picked up at the store, along with roombas and plasma TVs.
"What was your Andraj like?"
Éva Illésházy"I'll let you borrow her for the odd weekend, in that case. Maybe a week in the summertime." Here her expression veers immediately wry, with a quickening energy that belies her superficial laziness. Laughs, as she says, " - call it a test drive."
Then her eyes cut away from him again, as he asks about 'her' Andraj. Not to the small fire in the great hearth, but once more to the rafters, the dark, reflective windows high above. "He was ten years younger than me. 'Proud,'" - and the quote marks are audible, framed by an arched brow and a certain tone, "of my professional success. Proud. I have no doubt, by the way, that he thought I should be flattered by the sentiment.
"Shadow Lord and a Philodox. Arrogant. certain. Often intractable, even in the smallest matters. He also loved Ellie from the moment he met her, and we had - " a pause, musing, distant. Fond, with an undercurrent of grief that has softened with time, but has not disappeared, " - an understanding, in the end."
Silent, then, she takes another mouthful of Scotch, drops her eyes from above to below, glancing at him again.
"What about you? Have you - "
And the question is deliberately open-ended.
Calden WhiteCalden laughs aloud, there: a test drive. And then he quiets again, sipping his scotch as Eva tells him about -- well; not quite the love of her life, perhaps, but her bedmate and housemate and everything-mate, mate, of many years. At least five. Perhaps more.
The grief has mellowed with time, like wine. It has become something to be mused over by a fireside.
For the second time tonight, Calden asks another question before he answers the one meant for him. It is gently spoken, but it is still, perhaps, a bit of salt on an old wound. At the least, it is -- so very Fianna of him to ask:
"Did he love you?"
Éva IllésházyThe question demands a moment's thought, which has her brows drawn together and the distance in her gaze changing to a different sort of distance, with different rules and a different sort of gravity.
In the end, she says,
"I don't know," which is true. She doesn't know. By then, her eyes are on him once more. Remarkably clear and unflinchingly direct. "I suppose he did."
Calden WhiteThat brings an odd, tender little smile to Calden's mouth. He drains the last of his scotch; thinks about it, and then pours -- just a little more.
Tops hers off too, if she wants it.
"I hope he did," he says. "Your tribe has a reputation for hardness and pragmatism, but you were his mate and the mother of his cubs. That's got to count for something.
"As for me," it's a new thread picked up, accompanied by a fanning of his left hand. Broad palm, long fingers, a workman's hand. Big, capable, not elegant in the least. No ring, he shows her, though it's symbolic at best: they both know it's a rare match in the Nation that requires signals so human as rings and papers.
"No mate to date," he continues, "Garou or otherwise. I would admit to scandalous flings and trysts worthy of my tribe's reputation, but a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell. And even if I weren't a gentleman, the truth is my history is fairly tame. I blame it on the remoteness of my living situation.
"But in all honesty, I avoided attachment purposefully to some degree when I was younger. Perhaps for the same reasons you wanted little to do with the Nation. It was never quite resentment, but -- at the time I really didn't want to be snapped up by some seventeen-year-old Galliard who still believed in Disney romances and listened to Britney Spears, who had a teenage girl's emotional stability," a wry smile -- "and the ability to turn into a nine-foot tower of doom."
A small pause, here. Long enough for a small sip.
"There is someone, though. I'm a little embarrassed to say this because it'll make my hospitality look full of ulterior motives, but I met her because she shared my roof for a night. She is, ironically enough, also ten years my junior." A longer pause. "I like her. I like her quite a bit. But she's of the royal tribe, and you know how they are about their matchmaking. So I don't really know where this is headed."
Éva IllésházyÉva has accepted another splash of Calden's Scotch, no more. She feels warm and rather more relaxed than she has allowed herself to feel in quiet some time, and allows herself to save the moment, staring down rather idly over the surface of the liquid in ehr glass.
She does glance up when he shoes off that hand, without a wedding ring. She does not wear one tonight, and although Andraj went through with a legal adoption of Ellie, he put no such ring on her finger.
Though she does wear one, from time to time and especially when traveling, which she purchased for herself, and for reasons of her own.
"Things go where you steer them, Calden," she returns at last, still staring down at her Scotch until she says his name. Glances up then, the spark of the firelight in her eyes, that wry twist to her elegant mouth once more. "That's one of the secrets of the practice of law. And probably even horseback riding."
Lifts up her glass and tips it toward him again. "To your royal. Whom you like quite a bit. May things go where you steer them."
Calden WhiteAnother huff of laughter there: "You pick up fast."
He does not immediately meet her glass. He holds his in reserve a moment, half-lifted. "And what should I toast for you?"
Éva Illésházy"That they all grow up," she returns, her eyes dropping from his face, but not her attention. " - but not before I'm ready to let go."
Calden WhiteShe can see he understands: immediately, intimately, not just the words but the meaning, all the layers of it. His glass clinks against hers, a crisp little sound amidst all the warm silence of his home.
"To your children," he says, quiet and simple.
Éva IllésházyÉva smiles, and her smile has all of the warmth of nostalgia and none of its false romance. No, none. The expression in her eyes is essential and necessary as marrow, as blood, as bone.
Then it softens, but only at the edges, and she tips her head forward and returns, quiet,
"To them all."
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