Interview with Fairivel, Part 3

Part one here.
Part two here.


An oven door clangs open in the kitchen, making us both jump; we’ve been so immersed in the interview we’ve forgotten the world outside. More elves are bustling around the kitchen now, tying on their aprons, staring at us with questions in their eyes. Probably wondering why their Lord is talking to a strange girl and why he’s still at breakfast even though it’s an hour past sunrise.
The baking bread smell multiplies tenfold and I perk up, wanting to gobble down the air. It smells that good. Fairivel grins at me, and it’s that genuine smile that doesn’t reach his cool eyes again. “Laon has quite a treat he fixes up when I ask. Mostly on festival days. I imagine he’ll make it for you. It’s not every day we have a visit from our author.”
My heart begins to shrink with guilt because he’s still not upset with me even though I’ve been sitting here for an hour digging up his most painful secrets. I consider the remaining questions. We’re only about halfway through, which makes me cringe, but the rest of them shouldn’t require such long answers. Probably. “Let’s do some more from Emily next. Do you like to read?”

“Of course! You should see my library. You would love it.”
I wonder briefly if his truthful, vulnerable side has retreated for a break. I’ll ask innocent questions until he’s recovered. Surely no one else would be able to get this much out of him. “I have seen it. I designed it. I have a scene there. Remember –” I stop. No, he wouldn’t remember, because here it hasn’t happened yet.
I know he’s waiting to hear what he should remember, but I’m not about to spoil the end of his story for him. “Do you ride? Do you have a favorite horse? What breed and what color?” I glance up. “Girl likes horses.”
“Evidently.” He gives another absent-looking half-smile and for a moment he looks ordinary. “I love riding almost as much as I love swordplay, and my favorite would have to be my light draft mount, Whisper. He’s a red roan and the loudest horse you’ll ever hear.” A chuckle bursts from him. Soon he’s laughing outright. Some of the kitchen staff stare, but then they smile as he slaps his leg and leans over the table. “Whoever named that horse ought to be sold to the pirates! You should hear him when the groom is late with his feed. Wakes me up all the way on the fifth floor some mornings.”
I laugh with him, my voice sounding like a little girl’s giggle next to his hearty chortle. When we stop, he rubs a hand over his face and picks up his teacup. I scan the list. “What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?”
“Ice…cream?”
“Oh right.” I hiccup from laughing and press a hand over my mouth. “This is fantasy.” I think of ice cream in a cone, ice cream on pie, ice cream on my little sister’s face. Fairivel’s brow furrows in puzzlement. “A treat made with frozen milk,” I explain. “And even if you don’t know what it is, I know your favorite flavor would be vanilla.”
“If you say so.”
“Would you rather be imprisoned or wander in the desert with just enough food and water to keep you from dying?”
“Odd question.”
“Odd people.”
“I suppose so.” He sips his tea and sets the cup back down on the saucer. I can hear the crumbly sound of Laon slicing the new-baked loaves and my stomach flops over, purring.
“Imprisoned. Prisons you can escape from. And we Fairbrows supposedly sunburn easily.” He flashes a smile, so wide and white and playful that for a moment all I can see is his son’s face, staring out at me. I swallow. “Do you have any other siblings?”
“No, it was just us two. We were probably enough for mother, especially. Barron Rey was always too busy to bother with us. Except when he wanted something.”
Laon interrupts, carrying in a little teacup with some of what Fairivel’s drinking and a gilded saucer holding a steaming slice of fresh bread. He sets them down in front of me and smiles, indigo eyes locking on mine for a moment, dusts his hands on his apron, and leaves. I gape at the food he left me.
It’s a slice of steaming bread, yes, but there’s some kind of creamy, brown-flecked yellow sauce oozing from it. Tiny, paper-thin slices of pink apple adorn the top in a delicate fan and a sprig of mint peeks from the center. I pick it up, my fingers tingling, and bite in.
It’s like a carnival in my mouth.
Fairivel is over there rediscovering his own food, but at my incoherent grunt of admiration he chuckles again. “I told you.”
I still can’t say anything. It’s a tart apple and an impossibly sweet, buttery sauce with the hearty burn of cinnamon. The bread is fluffy and soft but still dense enough to keep the sauce from soaking through onto my fingers.
I find myself not wanting to ask Fairivel any difficult questions ever again.
I pull back, my bite half-chewed, wondering if the treat is enchanted. Fairivel whoops with laughter. “Laon!” he calls into the steamy kitchen. “Elizabeth thinks your bread is magic!”
“Ha!” says the cook.
My face burns as hot as the cinnamon and I put the bread down to consult my list again. “What –” I remember the bite in my mouth and swallow, then begin again. “What does your name mean?”
Fairivel eats a forkful of now-cold steamed vegetables and raises his eyebrows at me.
“Right, yes, I don’t know either. Have you ever broken your own standards?”
“Of course I have. Everyone has.”
I stare down at the bread to keep from having to look at him, wondering how long I can make it last. “Any particular example?”
“No,” he says, and takes another bite.
I know there is, but I don’t have time to force it from him. Besides, that could be an interesting scene. I file it away along with the little tidbit about him swirling the stuff in his cup and begin to think that this interview might be useful after all. “Have you ever done anything off the cuff?” He looks confused and I realize it’s a phrase that’s new to him. “Unusual for you.”
“I…tipped over my brother’s boat once,” he says, almost shyly. I take another bite, letting him know by not being ready to ask another question just yet that I want more of this story. “I think I was fifteen, and we were out boating past the coast. Little things, barely big enough for three people. Vytorin and Barron Rey were sitting in one and mother and I were in another, and I had our oars.” A sly smile seems to catch him unawares. “Mother was in the back seat of our boat and I in the front, but Vytorin and Barron Rey were both in the front of their boat. Unbalanced. It didn’t take much of a push to send them over.” He coughs. “Of course they were both furious.”
“I didn’t know you were a prankster.”
“I’m not. That’s why it was…off the bluff?”
“Cuff.”
He nods, but I know he doesn’t understand.
“What was your happiest moment?”
“There were several with Varia,” he says, but doesn’t share. I’m relieved. She freaks me out. “I almost won a tournament once. Just a little too slow. On my tenth birthday I got my first practice sword. I would say that would have to be it.”
Go figure. “Would you ever give up the throne if it meant saving someone or something you care about?”
He looks up and an unnerving hardness comes into his eyes. “No.”
“No?”
“No.” He finishes the last bite of fish slowly, but I know he wants to say more. I nibble on the bread in between.
“There’s too much at stake here to just…give it up. Leave the outcome uncertain. There’s war out in Lalind and I have to protect this country from it. There are too many lives, too much knowledge here to risk. It’s taken us too long to get where we are. No. I wouldn’t give up the throne.”
“I see.” I stare down at the saucer holding my half-eaten slice of bread. It’s white with a thin gold inlay, with eight-pointed stars at four points along the rim.
Fairivel swirls his tea. I wonder how long it would take for all his teacups to get thin at the middle.

Interview with Fairivel, Part 1

I timidly push open the door and peer into the well-lit kitchen of white stone. Several elves in navy blue aprons glance up from their stations at the chopping board, the oven, the washbasin, the counter full of flour and bread dough, and back down again as if I belonged here. I slip in and shut the door. It’s too early for the full staff to be out of bed, but someone had to make Fairivel’s breakfast. Trust him to be an early riser.

“His Highness –” I begin, trying not to squint as a wall hung with copper pans reflects the sunrise into my eyes.
“Back there,” says the elf at the chopping board, pulling another handful of vegetables out of a basket and gesturing with his head. His flaming red braid swings. I turn, peering across the ocean of metal and white stone to what appears to be a breakfast nook with a large bay window. A man silhouetted against the glow of the rising sun picks up a cup, swirls whatever’s inside, and sets it down, turning to look back into the kitchen.
Even though I can’t see his face, I know Lord Fairivel is looking at me.
I set my shoulders back and march across what feels like a mile of white flagstones toward the breakfast nook. A cushioned booth encircles the space inside the bay window (not unlike my favorite booth at the Chinese restaurant – also, incidentally, the only one that seats our whole family) and embroidered blue curtains are tied up with tassels around the spotless glass. Fairivel’s favorite color.


I stop looking at the nook and look at him. My heart gives a little leap, half joy, half nervousness. He’s exactly like my mental picture of him and almost exactly like the picture of Anderson Cooper I stole off the internet. Fair oval face and strong jaw; no beard or mustache; sharp nose and well-made, slightly lined mouth; slanted, steely blue eyes. At once a regal face and an intelligent one, a face to make you respect the man behind it.
He blinks. His polite demeanor takes over and he smiles at me. It’s a wide, even smile, deepening the lines around his mouth – genuine, but his eyes are still probing me. “Elizabeth. How nice to see you here. Won’t you sit down?”
I smile back and sit across the table from him, sinking down into the cushions. He’s taller than me, even sitting, with strong shoulders and long-fingered hands like his son’s. I swallow at the thought. He’s nothing like his son, I remind myself. Not nearly as cruel. Or sarcastic. Just as stubborn, though.
Fairivel raises both eyebrows. I cringe as I realize simultaneously that he can hear my thoughts and that I might have offended him.
Of course he can hear my thoughts. He’s my character.
“Have you eaten?” he says gracefully, trying to put me at ease. It won’t work, because I’ve just remembered the notepad full of questions in my pocket. This is going to be a long interview.
I glance down at his half-finished breakfast – beautifully presented honey-smoked fish and steamed vegetables and a sort of dipping paste, each arranged in a small stoneware bowl of its own – pretty, but unappealing for someone used to pancakes and cereal. I begin to regret basing Laeclan cuisine on Japanese. “I’ll pass.”
This time he only smiles with half his mouth, but somehow it seems bigger. Deeper.
I dig the notepad out of my pocket. My introvert tendencies shouldn’t be showing up with someone I know so well, but they are. “I-I suppose you do know I’m here to interview you.”
“With questions from a slew of young people from a scribe guild, yes?”
“Something like that.” I’m glad I caught him at breakfast; he’ll be the most vulnerable when he’s half asleep. If he ever is half asleep. Come to think of it, he strikes me as one of those people who has no option between full on and out cold.
He gives me a slightly exasperated look. “You’re writing this, aren’t you? You could have ‘caught’ me in the middle of the night if you wanted.”
I shrug. Questions in order, or gentler ones first? I glance at the first question, the one from Hannah about his greatest fear, and wince. Gentler ones first.
Fairivel acts as if he hadn’t heard me and flakes off a piece of fish with his fork. Ever the gentleman.
“All right. We’ll start with questions from Connie. Do you like kittens?”
He coughs in his throat and swallows his bite. I know he’s wondering exactly how many questions like this there are. “Kittens?”
“Kittens,” I confirm.
“They’re…sweet, I suppose. Though there’s not much use for them.” He looks up and I see a little bit of his son in him as he asks, “What, you didn’t want a tragic childhood memory about kittens?”
“Not at the moment,” I say, a smile creeping up on me. “I could give you one if you like.”
“Mmm.”
“All right,” I say quickly, a little embarrassed. “Would you rather sleep in or stay up late?”
“Up late,” he says, without a moment of hesitation. I had a feeling this would be his answer. “You’re wasting daylight with the other option.”
“But you’re more tired if you stay up,” I counter, glad to have found someone who agrees with me about this question, and maybe, just maybe, looking for an answer to my mom when she tells me to go to bed.
“True,” he says, to my disappointment. “You’re sure you don’t want anything to eat?”
“No fish,” I mumble, giving in.
He laughs, and I feel myself blushing. “Laon! Any fresh bread?”
“In a bit, Sire,” calls the cook, plopping the dough back on the counter amid a cloud of flour.
Fairivel nods to me and I grin despite myself. “Sunrise or sunset?”
“It’s the sun either way.”
“Not an answer.”
He skews his lips to one side, thinking. “Sunrise, I suppose. New beginnings and all that.”
I nod, satisfied. “Last question from Connie.” I peek up at him over the top of the notepad and find his bright eyes on me, a couple of silver-blue hairs slipping loose from his braid to drift around his face. “Has anyone ever told you how handsome you are?”
He sits back. I couldn’t catch him off-guard with the kittens, but this…? How strange.
For a minute he just pushes a steamed leaf of what looks like lettuce (but probably isn’t) around his bowl. I suck on my lower lip, uncomfortable because he’s uncomfortable and wondering what it’s like to interview a villain.
“Varia did,” he says gently.
I blink several times. His wife. No wonder. And that’s all the answer I’m likely to get.
The notepad feels suddenly heavy in my hand. I straighten, steeling myself. There are plenty more uncomfortable questions to ask.
I decide this is a good lead-in, so I force out, “Emily wants to know if you ever wonder what happened to her.”
His gaze shifts to the wood grain of the table. “Not often any more. The oddest things make me think of her, though. Anyone with green eyes. Red hair loose in the wind. A certain perfume.” He exhales. “And then when she used to show up out of nowhere, for a day or a month, and then leave, I thought about her then. I don’t know if it was me, or…our child, or if she just didn’t want to be chained down.”
Oh, there’s a lot more to it than that. I force myself not to follow through with that thought. Better not to spoil the third book. “When did you last see her, again?”
“It would be…over twenty years now.”
I start to shake my head until I remember how long elves live. Fairivel in human terms would be at least seventy-four, but elves learn and age slowly.
I’ll bet this is the most he’s told anyone, ever. My chest aches. This isn’t the worst I’ve done to my characters, by far, but meeting the raw pain right in front of you…
Fairivel shoots me a look that means, Are you quite finished with this topic? I am.
I wonder if he’s wishing we’d stayed on the subject of kittens yet.
“No,” he says, and takes another bite of fish.
I frown, wishing he couldn’t pluck information from my head like a bird on a berry bush. “Hannah asks what your greatest fear is.”
He looks at me sideways under lowered eyebrows, knowing why I’m asking this question now. That’s right. I’m opening another old wound. One that’s related to your wife, no less. Two can play this game.
“Loneliness,” he almost snaps.
The table is silent for a moment and I hear Laon open the oven and slide in two pans of bread.
Fairivel sighs. I can’t look at him. “My father died. My brother left. My wife left. My son left. And I’m left here alone.” He snorts. “Except I’m never alone. There are six people in this kitchen and three attendants outside the door and two guards at the end of the hall. Always but never alone. Poetic enough for you?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, kicking myself. I decide I never, ever want to interview a villain. “Greatest weakness?” I blurt, before I can change my mind.
Fairivel glares. “You don’t seem to appreciate the effort I’m going to for you.”
“I appreciate it,” I say, resisting the urge to gulp. This will be research for scenes where he’s angry, I console myself. “Now answer the question.”
“I wish,” he says slowly, as if to someone a little less than all there, “I was better at understanding how people feel. I’m not very good at that, you know.” Yes, I know. “My son, my wife, a couple of the barons I see frequently…I favor logic, and somehow that always ends up offending them.” He casts a pleading glance at me, and I shrug. It’s his personality. I can’t help it that I wrote him this way. Well…I can, but I won’t.

Design!

Just a little middle-of-the-week post to tell y'all to check out my new blog design. Like the header? My mother, beloved Kimberly *chuckle* and I made it this morning. Quite wintry, no? I was inspired by Squeaks' beautiful design over at Hidden Doorways. Check her out too. *waves madly to Squeaks*

I have also been successful in designing some outfits for my Elf/Elvarian dancers to wear at the party in the end of my book. Not the most important thing on my agenda, but *shrug* I'm getting there. I finally settled on a design with a rather blousy cut. Three parts; a jacket, pants, and an undertunic. The pants are cut just above the ankle and the leg slants upward. I was thinking something that wouldn't obstruct movement and something that they wouldn't trip over or step on. The jacket is in the same sort of design, open at the front with embroidery down the right sleeve, while the pants have embroidery down the left leg. I'll upload a pic if you guys want one. ;) Also settled on the colors green/gold for one outfit and crimson/white for the other. (Those represent Iri and Aaron respectively, for those of you who know them.)

While I'm here, let me share a couple of verses that touched my heart this week:

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

No matter how hard we slave over our works, whether they be novels or graphics or a malfunctioning blender, we can always be humbled by the fact that God did it first and best. Since we are created in His image, how much can we achieve by glorifying Him in our works? The best is yet to come.

Elizabeth

Character Discussion No. 2

Chayten: Where is everyone else?

Me: I decided to bring just you in for now, since you're giving me such a hard time. Have at it.

Chayten: Have at what? *leans against a tree, scowling most immaturely*

Me: You know what. And no trees. This is an interrogation.

*trees vanish, and we are in a cold, bare metal room with buzzing fluorescent lights and a single metal chair*

Me: That's more like it.

Chayten: *suddenly sitting in and handcuffed to the chair* That is not fair. *flinches at the lights* Those are too bright.

Me: Glad we agree on something. For those of you who don't know, Chayten is a Tuliran. This explains his sensitivity to the bright lights. *leans comfortably against the wall and smiles* So...what do you want to talk about?

Chayten: *stops jerking on the handcuffs long enough to say* I thought you were in charge of directing this conversation.

Me: Odd. You thought wrong.

Chayten: Shut up. *tugs on the handcuffs again*

Me: As long as you're going to insult me, those aren't going to give. *sigh* Alright. Tell me about your childhood.

*Chayten looks up, golden eyes wide with alarm*

Me: Alright, we don't have to talk about that. How about your stint as a Rider for Klista?

Chayten: You are picking the most painful topics on purpose.

Me: Maybe because you don't have anything that isn't painful to talk about.

Chayten: And whose fault is that?

*silence*

Me: What do you want to talk about?

Chayten: Nothing. Let me go back to the battle.

Me: You deserted!

Chayten: No I did not!

Me: Then what did you do?

Chayten: I... *looks down* I was angry at Arionwyn, and ...

Me: *gently* You can tell me.

Chayten: Afraid. When Lee interfered, I saw her for who she really was. And I knew... I knew that they would not forgive me for what I did, if they ever found out who she was. So I ran.

Me: I see.

Chayten: Can I go now?

Me: No. But we can delay the rest of this for later. This post has gotten far too long.

Chayten: *barely keeping back a whine* Does that mean you will keep me here until you work up enough courage to post again?

Me: I'll let you back into the main dungeon. Be prepared for *heh heh heh* development.

Chayten: Does that mean more fractalling? *cringe*

Me: *grin* Maybe.

Character Discussion No.1

Me: Alright, I promised that I would have conversations with you guys on my blog, so have at it.

*profound silence*

Me: Why is it that you can always find something to say when I want you to be quiet and now you can say nothing?

*Aaron shifts uncomfortably, and Arionwyn looks at the floor*

Me: Alright, fine. We'll all sit here and keep our mouths zipped. See if I care.

Me: *two minutes later, a bit embarrassed* Can't you find anything to talk about? You can even argue for all I care.

Arionwyn: Wh-who's involved?

Me: Involved?

Arionwyn: In the conversation.

Me: All three MCs and some extras. Just you guys for now. Why? You've never been nervous about how many people are talking to you before.

Arionwyn: Before what?

Me: Nevermind. Is it the blog aspect that bothers you? Is that why you won't talk?

Aaron: Well, you never know who's listening. Uh -- reading.

Me: Iri, are you joining?

Iri: I feel...strange.

Aaron: You're in the Void.

Me: Not here.

Arionwyn: Then where is he? What point in the story is this? Is he still a villain? Has he even shot Blaze yet?

Me: Ummmm... I'll have to work on that. *pause* Honestly, do you have to be so difficult?

Arionwyn: I wanna go back to HW and play dodgeball.

Me: No. Aaron, aren't you used to tech and such yet? You have a facebook.

Aaron: You neglect it.

Me: Whatever.

Aaron: Do you have to do another battle?

Me: Are you complaining?

Aaron: No. Just asking.

Me: Yes, I do. It's the only way to vanquish Klista.

Iri: I want to help.

Me: No.

Iri: You never let me do anything.

Me: Oh, shut up.