Jaycee locks the cafe door. Upstairs, the light is still on.
She walks to the foot of the stairs. “Pa! Did you take yer pills?”
“Yes I did.”
He doesn’t sound grumpy. He didn’t take them.
“Show me,” she says, in that no-nonsense tone, and double-times it upstairs.
When she arrives, Lucius is looking curiously at his one-week plastic pill container. Today’s chamber is still full. “The coffee got cold, so I couldn’t take them,” he says, in that childlike tone that old people use to make excuses.
Always something, innit. “Fine, I’ll get you another cup,” Jaycee promises with a smile.
Outside, there’s a clatter. Jaycee is merely surprised, but Lucius is startled, and has a sword out in the blink of an eye. Not Big X, but the slim epee-like blade he keeps concealed in his cane.
“It’s nothing, Pa, just a raccoon getting in the trash. Ferry will handle 'im.”
They wait, she smiling, him wary. Finally there’s the shrill shriek of a cat, unleashing holy hell on something outside, and the noisy bang-banging of metal on metal as something makes a break from the trash cans.
“See? Feral’s a good cat.” She kisses her father on the forehead. “I’ll get you some coffee, and then you can take your pills.”
Downstairs, Jaycee puts on her apron and starts brewing. The process is familiar, letting her concentrate on more interesting things. That young visitor - what was going on there? Jaycee thinks she heard “AEGIS”, and definitely overheard some of dad’s weird theories about cosmology. Maybe one of the city’s teen supers, or someone associated with them?
The phone buzzes, but it’s not a call or a text. Skype. Ma. Oh, right, the time zone.
Jaycee thumbs the answer button, then sets the phone down on the counter, face up. The cold cup of coffee needs to get poured out, and the cup washed. Lord knows nobody else around here is going to do it. “Hi, Ma!” she says.
“Good morning!” The phrase is in Amharic. Jaycee answers in English. “Good morning, Ma.”
“I can’t see you, daughter.”
“I needed my hands, sorry,” Jaycee explains. Soap plus brush equals clean coffee cup, and she towels it off quickly. “Sorry, Ma, just a second.”
“Is that your mother?” comes Lucius’ voice from upstairs.
Of course, he’s only hard of hearing when I need him to do something, Jaycee thinks wryly. “Yes it is, Pa! Just a second, I’ll be up!” She scoops up the phone with warm, newly dry fingers. “Ma, call me back, we’ll get on the PC upstairs.”
“Just a moment,” her mother cautions, her voice now low and level. “Is he doing alright?”
Jaycee lowers her own voice to match, just in case. “He had a visitor tonight. Grail business. He held it together pretty well. Sounded like he started to wander off a bit near the end. But… yeah.”
The woman on the screen nods. “Your auntie will be there in April. She’ll take care of everything. How’s your Amharic? She’s going to switch back and forth quite a bit. Better brush up. Anyway, I talked to the doctor about this issue. Your father might need a new prescription. Can you take him in, until she gets there?”
“Ma, it’s not just that.” Somehow this turned into a confessional, and Jaycee just lets it slip out. “All he does is hang with his cronies at the coffee shop, an’ all they do is fill his head with nonsense. Chemtrails? NASA is projecting a holographic moon into the sky? And they’re telling him that Big Pharma is trying to poison him, and he needs to buy some herbal nonsense they know about, so he stops taking his pills, and I have to make him do it…”
“It’s okay, sweetie, auntie will take care of that too. Thank you for looking after him.” The woman on screen pauses, uncertain of how much to say. “Your father - and I - have seen much in our lives that is unconventional. At his age, and in his condition, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the merely improbable from the patently untrue. A certain amount of acceptance of claims is required to do his duty. This is the price he is paying for it.”
Silence looms in the air.
“Anyway! I’ll call back in a moment. Love you, sweetie.” Thank god. That was getting awkward.
The transfer from small to large screen is effected, and father and daughter see the image of an older woman, the bright sun and Danakil Desert behind her. “So good to see you both,” the woman enthuses. “You both look well. Sweetie, are you taking care of your father for me?”
Jaycee smiles. “Pa’s doing well.”
“Hello, Ife,” Lucius says. “I’m doing quite well, thanks to both of the beautiful women in my life.”
Ife rolls her eyes at the compliment, but it’s clear she’s touched. “Better make that three. Halima will be there pretty soon, Lucius.”
Lucius pales. “She… She is. Oh yes, we talked about that.” Good. He knows she’s going to keep him on a very short leash. I hope he cleans up his act before then.
The rest of the conversation is merely an exchange of pleasantries and status updates. Ife’s dig in the desert is going well. Archaeology is a slow business - she’ll be there for weeks. Then it’s off to a series of speaking engagements. Then home for some well-earned holiday time.
Finally, though, the talk comes around to a topic that makes Jaycee both happy and angry.
“And how is that young man of yours, sweetie?” Ife asks.
“I don’t have a young man, Ma. If you mean Bill Eddison, he’s Pa’s pupil.” Jaycee sighs.
“I thought he was seeing you?”
That’s it. “God. Ma, he asked me out twice. For coffee. I work in a coffee shop! And he was so graceless about it. No charm, didn’t dress up for it, just popped round after sword practice, all sweaty, like a lost puppy that wanted to adopt me. I’ll date who I like.” If they’d just ask me proper.
None of this seems to have registered with Ife, whose serene smile sails through Jaycee’s stormy waters undisturbed. “Whoever that might be, they’ll be very fortunate, sweetie. Now, may I ask for a few minutes alone with your father?”
Jaycee nods, exchanges goodbyes, and heads back downstairs to the silent and dark cafe. Your mother. Your aunt. Your father. I seem to be the person in charge of everyone in my family. If they’re going to lay the responsibility on me, at least give me a raise.
She hears Lucius come down the stairs after a few minutes. He looks happy, and it seems like he’s ready to give her the Ife Talk.
Back when I was in the SAS… “Yep, it was back when I was in the SAS.”
They dispatched me to rescue the royal family… “I was given a top secret mission, to go rescue key members of the royal family. They were a figurehead by then, of course…”
An evil gathered, on the Mountain of Princes. “An evil force, on the Mountain of Princes, was endangering the country. Britain had a rocky relationship with the country, even before the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement of World War II. But we took warnings of this threat seriously.”
That’s when I got Excalibur. “The sword appeared to me then, in our darkest hour. Several of my mates had fallen. I was low on ammo. It was a godsend, literally.”
I escorted the princess down the hill to the camp. “She was the last surviving heir, you know. There was an archaeological dig at the base of the hill, and we arranged an evacuation from that point…”
Early versions of this story had been very romantic to Jaycee. A lady and her knight, braving dangers, facing some sort of shadowy demonic force (which Lucius, for all his raconteur urges, has still never elaborated upon). Hearing it a dozen times or more has worn down the appeal. But it still pleases him to recite it, and she humors him out of love.
“The archaeological team had just the thing. Their leader, she produced a series of tablets they’d dug up, that contained the incantation…”
Jaycee nods along. It’s like familiar music, you can just put on your headphones and get through your business with it playing in the background.
And that’s how I met your mother. “… and that’s how I met your mother. And ever since then, she’s been digging up relics in the desert, exploring the history there, and I’ve supported her. She’s doing fine, fine work.”
Jaycee smiles. This is traditionally the end of the story. The talk of William Eddison apparently has Lucius thinking past it, however.
“I think your mother imagines that someday, young Eddison will be the one to come rescue you, and escort you to safety.”
Jaycee shrugs. “And then he’ll marry a pretty archaeologist, and my love life will belong to me again?”
Lucius looks surprised. “What? Oh, no no no. I’m sorry. I thought I’d explained. Your mother was the princess. She only became an archaeologist later, after seeing the importance of it first-hand.”
_What? _
The second of three pieces, about a girl whose extraordinary family still has very ordinary needs, and how she meets them. We also learn a little more about Lucius’ origin.
author: Bill G.
url: Community Forums: Masks 31.3 - The Sword in the Scone [Cutscene] | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop