IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

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[ninefox]

From the cracked, stunned, tender, wondrous look on Jedao's face, Quentin has radically failed to not get his hopes up.

"Quentin," he whispers, hoarse and ragged, hand stroking Quentin's cheek. "Quentin-shei."

[magician_king]

"I wasn't going to tell you until I figured it out, but it felt... dishonest, to let you think I don't want to be with you forever."

He says, hoarsely.

"I mean. I can't promise, anything except that I'll try."

[ninefox]

Jedao kisses him again, hard and desperate and still so, so sweet. When they break apart he hooks his chin over Quentin's shoulder, arms clinging tight.

"I love you," he whispers. He knew - he hoped - that Quentin did want, that it was just a matter of other priorities mattering more, just like Jedao's commitment to the vod'ike, Fives, the war. Now he has a better hope. "I love you so much, Quentin-shei."

[magician_king]

"I love you too."

He says, and hitches his legs around him, with a deep and content yawn, into his hair.

"So tell me about where we're all gonna live when you guys can stop being at war? Because I think I'm going to need you to drop me there ahead of time. I can get shit set up."

[ninefox]

"I've been scoping out several places - we need distributed bases where the little ones can be as safe as we can keep them while the war happens elsewhere. There are a lot of decent rim planets that just want the Senate to fuck off, but there are plenty that are basically one-tyrant hellholes."

As opposed to six-tyrant hellholes, with checks and balances.

"We move in, murder the boss, and then treat with the locals - our strength and their knowledge of the terrain, resources, existing infrastructure. Exactly who goes where in what concentrations depends a lot on who is willing to be more integrationist, we'll only have stability if we can graft the clones onto a people who will genuinely welcome them, who have ways of living not built around war. We'll have to build most of our own barracks, grow at least some of our own food - we can't be a burden on them, we have to be useful partners. But clones can work like anything, we'll rotate in the ones sickest of battle, give them time and proof they can do something else."

He gets animated, sketching it all out. So much depends on unpredictable unknown people. But Jedao can work with people.

"Do you want to be in a city? We're going to need spaceport access, the little skimmers can land anywhere but big troop carriers and shuttle fleets need more than that, and port means city, usually."

[magician_king]

"Why would troop carriers need to access our house?"

He asks, brow furrowing, as his hands run expressive lines down his back, considering what he's saying.

"Wait- do you mean settling the whole clone army on one planet, with like- reasonable access to our house for all of them?"

Because Jesus.

[ninefox]

"Oh, no, definitely not, ten planets minimum, they don't have the death star yet but maybe they'll figure out giant rocks which are way more efficient anyway, but we start with a few and make sure they're secure first. I thought -"

He falters for the first time, swallows. "I mean, I pictured, I can send signal relays from anywhere, just a house out in one of the agricultural bases - settlements - but it doesn't take that long to build a farmhouse, or even a hundred big communal farmhouses, and the - the clan-nation, I guess, will need ports it controls, and I know you're from a city, you love it. We could put our house there if you wanted. That's all."

[magician_king]

"It's going to take that long to build the kind of farmhouse I want to build."

He says, with a snort, carding a hand through Jedao's hair.

"One that balances the needs of each of us, with room for guests, adoptees, and sundry. And we shouldn't just colonize these planets willy nilly. You need to make sustainable settlements with sensible local economies for these men to retire to and start families on. But you guys in particular are going to be called on constantly, so I think we should make sure we live a ways back, and give the place the qualities of like- a monastic pilgrimage. Only when you get there it's all babies and chickens."

[ninefox]

He makes a slight face, because - "I think you and I may have slightly different associations with monks."

Which isn't really the point, but uhhghg, Rahal.

"The trick is going to be places with the right level of existing angry slave populations - ready to remake everything, so we can be part of the new society. Abused enough to want to do it, not too crushed to do it well mostly on their own, with a compatible culture to take the graft, help the clones learn civilian skills in exchange for labor, respect, sovereignty."

Safety they can't promise. But then, in some places, "peace" wasn't safe either.

"Anyway, don't worry about that part. You want to build me a house?"

Flattered, touched, but still slightly bewildered.

[magician_king]

"I don't want to go to war, and I do want to do something useful. I can build us a house."

He says, with a shrug.

"You, me, and Fives. And sundry."

Because there will almost certainly be sundry.

"And I'll probably do the town around it."

[ninefox]

Jedao bites his tongue until he tastes blood. It feels to him like Quentin is asking to marry them - I want to be with you forever - but he knows that's not what it means on Earth, not they way it would be for them.

"Okay," he whispers, kisses Quentin softly. He still feels a little uncertain about it - too much a general not to want to supervise. But he wants, too, what it feels like it means, what it offers. Quentin is right about the demands that will be on them, and Jedao's distant terror that he isn't capable of retirement. It's - a leap of faith, letting Quentin make them place removed. But it's a leap towards - fox and hound, if he makes it - happiness. "Okay."

[magician_king]

"It is, right?"

Checking, because it's occurring to him too, almost as it does to Jedao, that this is actually a lot, and probably a bigger conversation.

"I mean. It was Fives who asked me why I couldn't come home with you both. So I think it is okay. With him. And with me. And maybe with you?"

[ninefox]

He takes a breath, a little shaky but deep and deliberate, then cracks into a tilted grin.

"Darling, I'm really torn right now between making the happiest dragon screeching noises of my life and being a small-minded petty control freak about a town that doesn't exist. Yes. Yes."

[magician_king]

"Okay, let me tell him we've talked about me trying. Trying."

Saying again, and leaning up to press a kiss to his mouth.

"And then we get through the honeymoon period and into addressing our fun moral differences that we are going to have to come to terms with for the sake of a strong future. But that part can wait until after Christmas."

[ninefox]

Jedao shivers in his lap, and kisses him again for confirmation.

(You may now kiss - that's only like what it is. Even if Quentin said honeymoon.)

[magician_king]

He picks him up closer, and folds him protectively in his arms, and lets him know;

"I'm gonna curse the shit out of our house. There'll be passwords and gargoyles and rooms you can only enter if your cause is pure."

Sorry.

[ninefox]

"Nerd," Jedao says, but lovingly, and kisses him again.

[magician_king]

"Yes."

Says Quentin, and cups his face in both hands.

"Sucker. Should have decided to settle down with someone way cooler than me."

[ninefox]

"I'm cool enough for all of us, obviously," he replies, grinning.

[magician_king]

"Yeah, you are."

He says, warm and tender, holding him closer, closing his eyes.

"Do they have books in his world?"

[ninefox]

"Yeah, they have some. I don't know the state of fiction publishing exactly, but the concept exists. You want to infiltrate the Jedi library for me?"

He's joking, but he's not, like, totally joking.

[magician_king]

"Shit. Yes."

He says, perking up.

"I bet they'd let me in if I offered them some of my stuff in exchange."

[ninefox]

"Try and suborn the librarian, she seems like one of the least useless ones," he recommends, pleased at Quentin's excitement.

[magician_king]

"I'm also bringing my own."

FYI.

"Rooms and rooms of bookshelves."

Another one of those things he's going to have to live with.

[ninefox]

"As many as you want," he agrees.