The beautiful scene of flower field in the morning was altered from usual by fog slowly building hanging with a familiar weight. Mesa, descended the stairs a bit faster then she normally would heading through the kitchen where the day of flowers were beginning.

  The didn’t seem to notice the fog or the significance of it. Mesa grabbed her jacket.

  “What’s wrong Mesa.” Dista breathed stopping in the effortless swirl. Kalana’s head turned and looked at her with a soft concern. Mesa buttoned up her jacket and offered keeping her tone nonplussed.

  “The fog it’s mother’s.”

  Kalana blinked and her father sat up.

  “Eldran?” He asked his tone a bit baffled with a spark of a smile. Mesa ducked out and searched the fog until she found her mother’s plume. Mesa blinked it was moving rather quickly she noted then she caught sight of the water-horse in the distance running in tandem with her mother… No racing her mother in this direction.

  “What going on?” Izzy asked wrapping chubby baby arms around Mesa’s leg.

  “I don’t know.” Mesa offered lips turned down. She glanced to her father whose face paled looking out into the distance.

  “That’s one of the royal steeds.” He blanched brushing his hair back. “What in the world did your mother do now.” He hissed worry not only for the ones here but her mother as well. Mesa looked back at the race. She gently pulled Izzy up into her arms and handed her to Kalana.

  Mesa sucked in a breath and steeled herself heading out toward the race.

  Her mother reached her first and appeared out of the air cutting into her physical form. She whipped Mesa behind her making her feel nauseously weightless. The horse skidded to a stop the storm that was building bouncing off his spelled cloak and her mother seethed a glare at him.

  Mesa the man onto of the steed wasn’t familiar but his structure was recognizable enough.

  His hair was a golden striking yellow, his eyes were even sharper flashes of white and grey. He was beautiful and a dangerous promise of lightening in a human form.

  One of the childless Kinds many nephews. She could only assume.

  “Mesa of the Gershom Morass?” He greeted in a perfectly diplomatic tone using the politest phrasing for the exiled Swamp. Mesa stepped past her mother’s protection and curtsied with a propriety that always surprised those around her. She wasn’t graceful but she knew how to be proper.

  “I am.” She agreed. “What may I owe the pleasure?” She asked. Her mother pulled at her.

  “Mesa we’re going.” Her mother boomed a command. Mesa was surprised at the insistence. It wasn’t uncommon for her mother to be angry or protective but she’d never been one to command her children feeling it was a better lesson to have them make their own decisions with her there to explain the true meaning of their choices. Once they made a decision they knew they had to live with the consequences.

  Mesa straightened and acknowledged her mother’s rage by turning a cool gaze on the man but she wouldn’t leave without knowing what consequences there were.

  “What is going on?” She asked, not trying to hide her mother’s rather rude glares at a noble. She was just happy their wasn’t curses flying. The man slid off his horse petting it’s main.

  “His Royal Highness my Uncle the King, has received news that your mother the leader of Gershom is negotiating a union contract between you and a diplomat of Shan.” He informed in a non-confrontational tone.

  Mesa lifted her chin taking that in. Shan was a Fae kingdom that had been in a sort of glaring almost war with Destorn, her father’s homeland for longer than even her father’s life. Mesa though was not shaken by the information in the least. Mesa smiled at the man and with an ease and flare that rivaled any royalties child.

  “Your grace, If I know anything it is my mother lives by a code. A woman’s bed and union is her own to make. Any such arrangement if in order would have my full and utter understanding and agreement before anything was set in stone. Seeing as I know nothing of this.” She stated looking to her mother for confirmation. Her mother nodded her glaring face being one that most thought to young to have a child of Mesa’s age when in truth she had two even older then Mesa. Her mother jutted out her chin and showed her teeth in a way that couldn’t be construed as anything less then a threat.

  “That is correct. Shan did send a request. You were with your father, and I saw no reason to rush to bombard you with that sort of nonsense. It could wait until you arrived home. Then I received a demand from the Destorn King for my presence or he was going to summon you. I went and he did not take my word.” Her mother hissed with an offense and rage that threatened to level buildings. Mesa calmed some of the actual weather but didn’t see a need to calm her mother’s rage.

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  The man in front of them nodded and had the decency to look chagrined on behalf of his Uncle’s actions. Then he baffled Mesa beyond her first request for a union coming from the enemy Kingdom her father often talked through how he would fight.

  “My Uncle has made an offer to me of somethings I’ve been anticipating for a very long time if I succeed in gaining your favor and offering you a proposal myself.” He offered to her.

  Past to offense her mother’s tight grip on her made more sense. Her mother might not understand the flutters of the heart, or the need for commitment preferring pretty and fleeting but her mother hated anyone thinking they could waltz up to one of her children and thrust such a careless request at them.

  Mesa pushed down her initial bemusement and her flickering frustration grasping at politeness and now the social higher ground she held.

  “Your grace.” She breathed keeping her tone without emotion. “I thank you for riding all the way here, but if this were a proposal with any sincerity in it at all, their would have been an official request not an informal bombardment.” She politely but no less scolded the man. “I have neither been introduced or informed of your identity in any way other than being told you are one of the Kings many, many nephews.” She pointed out with a conversational chuckle at the absurdity. She caught sight of her mother who eased her eyes flashing with respect.

  Her mother had never understood Mesa’s instance to learn the propriety of a noble but the first time she’d seen Mesa cut down a grown adult with the politest but sharpest tongue, without causing a rift for a generation she’d fluttered around Mesa with praise and compliments.

  “It is rather sad when an enemy kingdom handles matters of diplomacy better than the one I have ties too. Rather to show up on the door step of my father’s estate, raising my mother down the country side like my affections and favor are a challenge to be won.” Mesa offered letting the strategic bite fall off her tongue still falling under the blanket of a polite argument. She shifted though so she was smiling but her eyes promised the same rage as her mother.

  The man’s face with each one of her words crumbled in a stronger chagrin. He grimaced and nodded. He glanced back.

  “I do believe that should be the official request.” He offered his confident tone dipping a bit. Another water horse not built for the high rise racing the nobility had, instead for steady days of delivery missives sped frantically down the country side. The horse looked exhausted and the rider a waterfolk looked almost ready to melt to the stress.

  From that point politeness was gone. Mesa stepped away from the man opening his mouth to speak again, slightly hijacking her mother’s mists to more quickly reach the creature and appeared before them both. Then halted. The horse jittered and the waterfolk’s tendril fins that shifted between a blue, grey and yellow looked at her jutting out the missive. She took it holding the man’s gaze.

  “Hush.” She breathed. Wide frantic eyes held hers and started to ease and so did the horse and she stroked it. She was never sure how to classify her magic; it wasn’t quite the uncontrollable command her mother held but it also wasn’t the sparkly seducing charm of her father. “Take your dearest time heading back. If anyone questions you blame it on me, build a tail, tell them I was absolutely horrid.

  The big bubble eyes looked at her immensely grateful clopping away very slowly. Mesa shifted back into the mists. Mesa looked at the sealed envelope with the official seal of the royal family.

  “Mother did you bring the other request?” Mesa asked her not looking at the man who was fidgeting with the reigns of the water horse.

  “Of course.” Her mother insisted raising a hand in a off handed swipe and the sealed envelope appeared between them. Mesa took it and held the two together. The royal man was frowning at her grip on both.

  She curtsied the utmost of social nicety to dismiss him.

  “I have two more days of allotted time with my father and sisters. I will consider these requests but if that time is interrupted again, I will deny any request from the royal family.” Mesa informed. “Also what ever story that page comes up with you will back him in. He deserve a break that he doesn’t need to get lectured for.

  Mesa threaded her arm with her mother’s and headed off.

  She smiled at her flowery family watching over them with a concern that was easing as she smiled at them. She left the pesky thoughts of nobility in her dust.

  When they reached them. Kalana greeted her mother like a dear friend. Her father went to her mother and took her hand kissing the back of it calling her Mistress an almost request to be temporarily under her command. Her mother if she ever chose someone to call her truest love would never pick Mesa’s father but her mother did like her father and did play along with his excitement spending the night with him.

  As a child it had worried Mesa. Mesa adored Kalana and in her mind Kalana and her father were nothing like her mother. And again that wasn’t a bad thing. But she was worried about Kalana getting hurt by it. Kalana had sat down though with one of her little sisters in her arms and chuckled at Mesa’s admitted worry.

  “Lovely, I have no doubt your father and I are forever. My heart if his and his is mine. We decided we would allow each other’s exceptions. His is your mother, who I can’t blame him for and mine are women who look like sun flowers.” She’d winked. Which gave Mesa a very different outlook on Kalana’s flower circle that Mesa maybe didn’t need. But it did reassure her. Love found it’s way to work. How it worked for an individual, and tied into a family.

  When her father finished his praise be on to thee speech to her mother he stepped back flipping back into serious parent mode.

  “What did the royal family want?” He asked her. Mesa let out a huff that had Pina giggling.

  “You only do that when someone’s particularly aggravating.” She sparkled looking giddy to find out exactly what had happened. Mesa let out another huff and raised the letters.

  “It seems I have received my first requests in some of the strangest and a bit insulting ways they could manage. But really I’d rather not think too much on it.” She insisted pocketing hem and reaching out to her sisters. “I only get so much time with you guys. So let’s go and play. Distract me.” She insisted. Her sisters beamed up for the challenge, even as she could feel three sets of concerned parental stares at her back.