Clitheroe: A BaRKCRound Four: Rheingold

ndi gasped and took off running.

“Andi!” Ryan called after her halfheartedly, then shook his head and grinned. “She’s a pistol, huh honey?”

“Where ever does she get it from?” I answered sarcastically, though I was a bit distracted.

It seemed that everyone had shown up for the big unveiling of town square, but more than that, quite frankly, I was impressed.

I’d commissioned the new town square because I figured we were getting enough people in the town, now, it would be nice to have a spot in the center of it all to gather and meet and greet and stuff. One of my better ideas, I think.

We have four households in Clitheroe now… my family, the Lariels, the Renaisses, and a new peasant woman named Evalyn ne Maeve. Clitheroe was growing pretty rapidly, actually.

I did have an ulterior motive. You can buy “festival food” and “costumes” at the town square, too, under those brilliantly bright awnings. That is to say, you can buy your groceries and all the clothes you’ll ever need here, plus some cheap small electronics like cell phones and MP3 players.

Of course, I won’t be shopping here again. I can’t be seen buying royal robes from under a red awning! This is mostly for the peasants’ benefit. I’ll be shopping for my clothes at Imelda’s posh Silver Bobbin, thank you very much.

I did test these little stores out, though. They work!

“Mommy.”

I turned from the young cashier to see the wide, solemn eyes of my daughter. She fixed me with her straightest look and said, “Can we please go up to the top of the clock tower? I think fairies live in the gears. I saw one.”

I smiled and reached down to brush some dirt off her dress. What had she managed to get into already? “Just give me a moment, dear. I need to make a tiny little speech, and then we can go see if we can find those fairies, okay?”

Andi nodded gravely. “Okay.”

“Well,” I said once everyone was corralled into the festival grounds. “I think that’s everyone. Shall we get started?”

“GERSHINABOP!” Imelda’s young son—Galain? Yeah, Galain—screamed at the top of his lungs.

“The same to you,” I replied seriously. Imelda turned bright red and leaned over to quiet him down. Dienda snickered quietly.

“Well, then.” I glanced to Ryan, who was smiling brightly out at the crowd, soaking in the attention. “Welcome to the new town square,” I said. “But more than that, welcome to Clitheroe!”

“It is now…” I glanced up at the clock tower. “…round four. I can tell that by reading a clock that is programmed to hours and minutes, you see.”

I got some pity laughter out of the crowd. Better than nothing, I guess.

“Well.” I felt like I was repeating myself. “I am very impressed with all of you. I handmade you all, after all, and I picked you out of the rest of the townies for a reason. You have very great potential to be, well, great. So here’s to Clitheroe, and here’s to us, and here’s to permanent peace in our paradisiacal time.”

“Connor,” Imelda hissed in a quiet voice I suspected I wasn’t supposed to hear. “Pay attention to the queen. You’re distracting Shannath.”

“But Mom, who are they?” Shannath, the little girl in the orange dress, demanded.

I remember my first thought being, “That good-for-nothing, razzin’ frazzin’, fetching, flipping, idiotic, feather-brained…” It was in reference to my most irresponsible creation ever over there, but really it could apply to either one of the two gods standing in front of me. Béor, I noticed, was pointedly avoiding eye contact.

I quickly scanned over my extended family. Andi was openly staring, wide-mouthed, at the two intruders, but otherwise, my peasants seemed to be taking their presence relatively well. This wasn’t the first time they’d been faced with a god, after all.

“Hi there,” the dark-winged god said brightly. “Nice party. Good speech, too. I was riveted.”

Béor worked his mouth, then finally looked up towards me with a sheepish expression. “Er, sorry, Keika. He was pretty insistent.”

Time to take control. “Citizens of Clitheroe,” I began, keeping my voice smooth and steady. No need for alarm, this happens all the time, I was trying to convey.

“Ooh, Clitheroe,” the alien god interrupted. “Nice name.”

“Friends,” I continued calmly. “Don’t worry. My godling Béor seems to have brought a guest to visit us. He—”

“My name’s Meslar.” He rose one hand into the air and grinned. “I come in peace. Live long and prosper, Clitheroans.”

Little Shannath tapped her father on the shoulder. “What’s he mean, Dad?”

“What does he mean, Shannath,” Imelda corrected. “Use proper grammar in front of the gods, please.”

Meslar nodded sagely. “I mean to say—”

“Never mind,” I interjected. “Please, calmly return to your homes. I’ll deal with the visitors.” The crowd, I was pleased to see, listened to me and began to disperse.

Béor cleared his throat. “Um, Keika, I—”

I held up a hand, cutting him off. I would deal with him later.

I felt a tug at my clothes, and turned to see my daughter, tears threatening in her eyes. “But, but Mommy… the clock tower… the fairies…” she whispered.

“We’ll come back another day, Andi, promise,” I said. I looked up past her at Ryan. “Take her home, please?”

“Won’t argue this one with you,” he agreed, and came up to take Andi’s hand. She sniffed.

Once my people had left, I turned to the two gods before me, painfully aware that they were both winged and in full god-form, and I had given up all those powers for the next several rounds. Not the way I would prefer to approach dealing with an alien god.

“Why don’t you join me in the garden over there, gentlemen,” I said loftily. “There’s benches and things available for our comfort.”

“Good idea,” Meslar agreed. “Nice place you’ve got here. Atmospheric. Cool rainbows.”

Meslar immediately dropped onto the bench after we had walked over to the other side of the town square. I nodded to him politely and sat primly in the remaining spot, leaving Béor, who trailed slightly behind us, to walk over and sit in the flowers under the tree.

“Now, then,” I said in as queenly a voice as I could muster. It lacked the edge of power it’d had before I gave up immortality, and I missed it now. “Did you need something, Meslar?”

“Yeah, I do,” he said without ceremony. He paused to consider, then said, “You remember me, right?”

“Yes,” I replied promptly. He was a little hard to forget. Meslar lived across the street, as it were, in the Ether Glades. He was only running one world, and it was a place of magic and powerful beings. Also he liked to crash parties.

“Great. And you like me, right?”

“Well enough. Can’t say we know each other all that well, but you seem nice.” I frowned. “Meslar, where is this going?”

Meslar smiled widely. “I want a corner of Clitheroe to house some of my people in. Just a couple of witches, a small werewolf pack, one demigod, maybe a vampire or two. You won’t even notice ‘em.”

I found myself grinning. Béor laughed outright. It wasn’t until Meslar shot him a dirty look that I realized, well, he must be serious.

“No, Meslar,” I said, though it didn’t really even justify an answer.

Meslar’s smile melted. “My people are dying,” he said quietly. “Their magic has been corrupted. The world itself has become toxic. People are mutating, being ripped apart from the inside, being driven mad by their own pain and destroying one another. The only way I can stop it is by finding them a new home. One that isn’t tainted and corrupted.”

“Clitheroe is very young,” Béor put in, his laughter gone. “The magic here is still untapped, and the people are few, inexperienced, and lack any kind of power. But you know that, don’t you?”

“No,” I repeated. “I’m sorry, Meslar. I’m sorry for the suffering of your people and their path to destruction, but I have to agree with Béor. I can’t risk my own people by offering yours shelter.”

Meslar’s eyes hardened. Béor crossed his arms. “Why don’t you make yourself a new world? Shouldn’t be that hard. You’re a god of creation, after all, like Keika here.”

“You clearly aren’t,” Meslar said, his voice cold. “It takes millions of years for worlds to mature enough to hold life. My family will be long gone, their bones practically dust, by the time I have a place ready for them. You haven’t been around for long, have you?”

Béor’s eyes narrowed. “Either way, the answer is still no, Meslar,” I said, figuratively stepping between them. “You’ll have to try somewhere else.”

“Name one other god who has a brand-new world with nigh-infinite room to grow, and I’ll go talk to them,” Meslar challenged. “No. If it isn’t this place, my people will die.”

“This conversation is over.” I stood from the bench, gaining a few feet of height over the alien god. “Béor, please escort Meslar back to his corner of the Ether Glades.”

Meslar stood and joined Béor where he stood under the tree. He nodded to him, then looked to me, face completely still. Still, and dangerous.

“I will protect my own,” he said.

And then both of them were gone.

I sat back down on the bench, feeling the emptiness of the town square around me. My heart ached for the plight of Meslar’s people, but what choice did I have? Welcoming his refugees to my kingdom would almost certainly mean the destruction of my own people.

Still, I felt this ugly guilt. I sat alone for some time before standing and returning home.

It was just past noon when I got back to the castle. Andi was at school, and I found Ryan busily working away at that flower-arranging badge, even though Dienda Renaisse had opened a flower shop at the end of the last round.

“Hey there darling,” he said cheerfully when I opened the door. “How’d it go?”

“Hey, um, would you mind stopping for a moment? I… I think I need a hug.”

And so Keika Rheingold, God-Queen of Clitheroe, Goddess of Life and Creation, Queen of the World and of the Gods, cried on her mortal husband’s shoulder for the death of a world.

Well, that was that, moving on.

I made myself a delicious home-made lunch and had a good think about what I wanted to accomplish this round. Andi would be having her teen birthday on Sunday, which meant we would need to have a coming-of-age ball for her. Not that any of the boys in town were close enough to her age to be teens at the same time, but oh well. Ryan hoped to get his gold flower arranging badge this week. As for me, I wanted to get Queensgold up to rank ten. Specifically, I wanted it up to max rank before Imelda Lariel got the Silver Bobbin up there. I am the queen, after all. I suffer no competition.

The first step to getting Queensgold to rank ten? Chess.

Don’t ask.

Andi came home from school while I was still working away at chess, so Ryan had the privilege of taking her upstairs to teach her how to study. She barely needed the help, of course. My girl is a genius.

After a long afternoon and evening of chess, I was trudging upstairs to bed and heard laughing and shouting from Andi’s room on my way past. I wonder what she could have been doing?

Ryan, the greatest of all kings, not only maxed out his enthusiasm in arts and crafts, but also reached his gold flower arranging badge early Tuesday morning. He set to work making up an inventory full of snapdragons…

…but not before we had a celebratory date.

Really, when you’re married to someone like Ryan, anything is worthy of a celebratory date.

In the course of that date, Ryan gave me a very special gift he’d made while he was slaving away downstairs over that crafting bench.

A bouquet of perfect red roses, my favorite flower. They’re gorgeous—I’m pretty well certain that these are the most flawless roses that will ever grow in Clitheroe ever—and I put them on the end table in the royal bedchamber.

The next morning found Andi and I, in our pajamas, in the bathroom, dancing together with my daughter on my feet. A weird moment to be sure, but not one I’m about to forget any time soon.

I was on my way to visit Queensgold when… this happened.

We hadn’t been planning on having any more princes or princesses, and Ryan and I had thought we were playing it safe on our date yesterday… but I guess not. Well, the more the merrier! My only concern at this point was that Ryan would see it the same way.

I went on to Queensgold anyway. It wasn’t like I was planning on doing any work, after all! I was just going to get the place up to rank ten!

Man, I look a lot more pregnant in this picture than I was.

Step one: placing Ryan’s snapdragons in strategic places around the building.

Step two: setting the price of admission down to $1 an hour.

Painful, that.

And then I opened the place up and sat down to meditate.

Alright, so maybe it’s not the most dignified way to run a business. It might even have been kind of awkward for my customers to play poker with their pregnant god-queen sitting cross-legged on the floor behind them. But hey, if it works!

Well, awkward or not, my being there didn’t seem to bother them that much. Everyone gathered in the upstairs poker room—this picture is one of the slower moments—and practically threw loyalty stars at my feet.

I finally came out of my trance-like meditation when some customer threw the last star. I don’t know who it was; I was, after all, meditating.

I could’ve gone home right away… but who am I to waste a perfectly good opportunity of an outing to Queensgold?

I closed down, set the ticket price back to $9999, and then reopened for business.

Don’t be so surprised by this very bland picture. The open/closed sign was hidden in a nook by the stairs during last round’s remodel. Nice and out of the way.

I couldn’t do much work before becoming totally exhausted (pregnant, you know), but I did manage to get two customers in before I retired to my tent. Good enough… it’s not like we’re really hurting for money at the palace.

Thanks to the snapdragons, those two did stay quite a while, though. I went home with $644,000 in my pocket, which is a little over double what I came with. Mission: success.

Also, I’m slightly amused by seeing the roofs of the other buildings in Clitheroe over the hedges behind Queensgold. Lovely, aren’t they?

When I did finally come home at sunset, Ryan was waiting for me on the front step, arms crossed and an unreadable expression on his face. As I started climbing the steps, he said, “So, I heard from Connor that you’re pregnant.”

Oh. I gulped. “Surprise!” I said, a goofy grin on my face, trying to diffuse the situation.

“We have an awful lot of steps here,” I said, puffing, as I reached the top. Ryan was still standing there, immutable.

When he still didn’t say anything, I sighed and took him by the hand. “Maybe this wasn’t part of the plan, but I’m excited for the new baby.”

“It’s not that,” he said, face finally relaxing into that characteristic easy smile that seemed to be Ryan’s default expression. “It’s just, I shouldn’t have to hear about my own wife’s pregnancy through my best friend, you know? It’s not right.”

“I know. I’m really sorry. I popped on my way to work, but I probably should have gone right home and told you,” I apologized. “I’m sorry.”

Ryan wrapped his arms around me. I couldn’t see his face, but it sounded like he was still smiling when he said, “Think it’ll be a boy this time?”

I made a good choice in kings.

Wednesday was family night. Andi showed us a new song she’d been practicing on the piano, and Ryan and I danced to it. She really is very good. A genius even, you might say. A child prodigy on the piano. And every other subject.

Ryan and I are building up a bit of a collection in front of the unofficial front door (it’s underneath the stairs leading up to the official front door, you know). I’ll have to remember to have these taken upstairs. For now… yeah, can’t be bothered.

“That sounds lovely, Ryan,” I said Thursday morning.

“Thank you,” he replied.

“Mind getting up for a sec?”

“Hold on, let me finish this song.”

“It’s a preeeesent… something you’ve been Wishing for for a very, very long tiiiiime…”

I had a private bathhouse built into the back of the palace walls. It includes a hot tub (which Ryan really had been Wishing for) and a sauna. Eventually I hope to have a large version of something like this opened to the public for everyone to enjoy, but for now, I had this built as a present for Ryan.

He liked it.

Of course he wanted to try it out right away, and of course I couldn’t get in the hot tub or sauna because of the incoming prince or princess. So, I reclined on the royal couch and Ryan relaxed into the warm bubbly water, and we had a good, long chat about nothing important. It was fabulous.

When I established a rudimentary school system for the children of Clitheroe, I of course also put together a special program and curriculum for royal (and any future noble) children. For now they attend classes in the same building, but eventually it would be nice if they were moved out to their own school.

It was finally time to get Andi started in that program as the founding child, so I invited the townie I intended to run it, Alan Evans, over for dinner.

Unfortunately, Ryan and I were napping when he arrived, so Andi greeted him at the door for us.

My precious girl even took the initiative and showed Alan around Godseat Palace (as I’ve chosen to call it—spiffy, am I right?). We haven’t actually had any visitors inside yet, so he was naturally impressed and amazed in appropriate proportions.

Awake, showered, dressed, and fresh from my second pop, I finally met the two at the end of Andi’s tour in the throne room, which was convenient, to say the least. I gave Alan Evans the official title of Royal Headmaster right there.

And then we went downstairs for the hamburgers Ryan had just finished cooking. The dinner was divine.

Over dinner, Headmaster Evans and our little royal family talked over what Andi’s curriculum would be. It was a very serious and completely professional meal.

Friday morning gave us an opportunity for more impromptu family time before Andi was called to school. I love these little moments, don’t you?

And doesn’t the princess look snazzy in her new private education uniform?

I hesitate to call it “royal education” since I plan to include the wealthier sect of the kingdom in the program, so “private” it is. It works.

The baby was a few hours overdue, and I was beginning to worry that all the time I spent meditating at Queensgold earlier in the round had somehow done something to it. But I really didn’t have anything to worry about; I was woken up Friday evening by the little one politely insisting it was ready to leave, thank you very much.

Meet Prince Helyas Rheingold of Clitheroe, the boy Ryan wanted. He’s a blond with royal purple eyes, just like his sister and me, and I adore him.

His [nick]name shall be Lyas, and he shall be my Lyas.

Speaking of Ryan, he did make it upstairs for Lyas’s birth, don’t worry. And he didn’t even hide behind the screen this time—progress!

It wasn’t long after Lyas’s birth that I noticed Andi was sounding exceptionally good at that piano of hers. She was already a genius, of course, but now she’s downright brilliant. I wonder what the change was?

Now that Lyas was born, the first thing Ryan and I did was try out the sauna and hot tub together.

And it was glorious.

My studious girl spent much of this week building her skills, first with the piano and then with these cookbooks I randomly decided to stock on our living room bookshelves. Smartest girl in the kingdom, I’m telling you. Have I mentioned that already?

Andi told me all about the special daddy-daughter dinner she had with Ryan Saturday night. The salmon was delicious, she said, and they talked all about what “best friends” meant and how likely she is to see a penguin in Clitheroe.

Very likely, if you ask me. Almost inevitable, in fact.

Sunday was a very special day for us. Prince Helyas was becoming a toddler (an event both looked forward to and dreaded by his royal parents) and Princess Anduera would be making her curtsy to Clitheroe as a teenager.

And I realized that morning that there was something very important we hadn’t done yet.

“Anduera Rheingold,” I said, marching into her bedroom and placing my hands firmly on my hips. “Why are you not dressed yet?”

Andi broke her staring contest with the wall to glance up at me, confused. “Um… I’m… daydreaming…? We never get dressed on weekends, Mom…”

I cleared my throat. “Never mind that.”

I grinned. “Here I was, getting all excited to take you out hunting for fairies, and you’re still in your pajamas!”

We were in that clock tower and the surrounding town square for hours that day, and Andi’s voice was hoarse from shouting and singing by the end of it. Unfortunately, we didn’t see wing nor hair of any fairy (since, you know, I didn’t actually make any), but that wasn’t really the point of the day, anyway.

Ryan is such a sweetheart. I love him.

With the kingdom scheduled to arrive for Andi’s coming of age party after sundown, the four of us held a quick double-caking so she could be a teenager when they arrived.

My son, Lyas.

And my daughter, Andi.

Doesn’t she just look the part of crown princess? *sniff* My girl is growing up…

Andi was just putting the finishing touches on her outfit, I believe, when her guests started to arrive.

I was actually upstairs with Ryan.

“So…” I said, not sure how to broach the subject. “I hear you’re a king.”

“So they tell me,” he teased, shutting the armoire doors.

“Hm. Funny how you don’t have a crown.”

“You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find one of those things for a man that’s also dignified,” he said. He smiled at the mirror. “I don’t have any dinner in my teeth, do I?”

I smirked. “What if I told you I’d found one?”

“Hm. This thing is…”

“Majestic?” I supplied.

“Heavy,” he said. “And vastly uncomfortable.”

“Andi thought so too,” I sighed. “Well, we really only have to wear these ones for special occasions.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the effort…” Ryan began.

I shrugged. “It does make you look very kingly, you know. Quite regal. I like it with that suit.”

King Ryan and I walked hand-in-hand into a bustling ballroom full of music and children’s laughter.

That laughter was on account of the two boys chatting in the center of the room, and mostly on the part of Darion Renaisse. They seemed to be pointing and laughing at his father Howard, who was well aware of the attention and hamming it up on the dance floor.

Meanwhile, Imelda and Connor Lariel were enjoying some time alone together, their daughter Shannath was staring moodily into the crowd, and Evalyn ne Maeve had parked herself on the couch nearest the stereo. Dienda seemed to be absent… now where could she have gotten off to?

It’s been a long night and I have writer’s cramp from this stupidly long journal entry, so I’ll make this short. Everyone was gathered together, and I personally announced the entrance of…

…her royal highness, the Crown Princess Anduera Rheingold of Clitheroe.

Gosh, that sounds awesome.

Imelda got awfully excited, for some reason. Howard back there looks he just zoned out.

After that I stepped back and let Andi handle her own party. It was a resounding success. She met everyone in the kingdom, including the two boys I was most anxious for her to get to know. They may look significantly younger than she is, but in fact Galain is only a day younger than her, and Darion is only two. It was just unfortunate timing that the divide happened to land between rounds.

She got along with both of them wonderfully, which is great news for my evil plans for next round…

But this round is over, and I can’t begin to tell you just how exhausted I am. First the ball, then three hours writing this extra-long record for this extra-eventful week… I think I’m just about dead at this point.

Until round five, then. …very late in the morning of round five. I’m sleeping in so late.

Signed,

End of the royal Rheingold record of Round Four.