Project Boussh: News From Home
by Durandir

In a tiny café somewhere in Paris, Llessur Atner, queen in exile, 
slowly sipped her coffee and waited out her days.

It occurred to her, oftener and oftener these days, that she had 
lived too long. She could still recall happiness: her childhood here 
in Paris, her wedding to Enad (so young! such a dear little bride 
she'd made, and he so dashing in the uniform of Dictator), the 
paradise that was Mendellia, the birth of her son; yes, years and 
years of happiness. Perhaps it was, quite simply, too much. One could 
not expect joy to last forever.

If only pain need not last, either. "Fortune, smile once more," she 
sighed; "turn thy wheel."

She'd found her husband's brother likeable at the start: a 
charismatic man, savant, charming without apparently trying to be. 
Eugor had been a friend and she had been pleased to call him brother.

And then Thayer had made his appearance upon the stage of their 
lives. Her son! Even now Llessur smiled to think of it. Surely she 
had not known what joy was till she knew what it was to hold one's 
own baby boy close, to smile down on his sweet laughter, to sing him 
softly to sleep. Only then had she understood all the odd smiles and 
longsuffering sighs of her own mother, all those little things that 
had so perplexed Llessur as a child.

But as much joy as Thayer brought to King Enad and his Queen, in 
equal measure was the chagrin his birth evoked in Eugor. The King's
brother grew more and more distant to the royal family as the Prince 
grew to boyhood. By the time Thayer had finished school, Eugor was 
entirely estranged from his brother.

By the time Thayer had finished his university studies abroad, Enad 
was dead and Eugor was Dictator.

And she, Llessur Queen of Mendellia, was at Eugor's tender mercies. 
She realized now that she had been fortunate that he only exiled her; 
perhaps the memories of their lost friendship forbade him to do 
worse. 

But what little news she heard from Mendellia, these days, made her 
fear for her son. Eugor had never loved Thayer at all; she knew that 
now. There would be no lost friendship there to stay his hand. And 
Thayer was the one restraint on Eugor's otherwise unbridled tyranny.

At least she knew that he was still alive--or had been when last she 
heard from Mendellia. Her waiting-woman Iris was with the Prince now. 
Llessur almost dared to hope--with Iris in his company, surely 
Thayer's chances of survival were much stronger.

But she knew what Eugor Atner was. And so she feared for her son.

Her reverie was interrupted suddenly by the sound of footsteps, and 
Llessur looked up to see her waiting-woman Brangaine hurrying into 
the café.

"Madame! Oh, Madame!" the girl cried, her cheeks flushed red, from 
running or perhaps from excitement. Llessur sat up straighter in her 
chair and raised her chin slowly, then just as slowly, arched one 
delicate eyebrow at Brangaine. The waiting-woman of a queen does not 
*run* into a Paris café.

Brangaine knew that expression of the Queen's. She slowed to a more 
stately--yet still, Llessur noticed, excited--pace and came to stand 
before the Queen, dropping into a quick curtsy.

"Yes, dear, what is it?" Llessur asked calmly.

"Oh Madame," Brangaine began--still breathless. "There is news, 
Madame."

"News?"

"From Mendellia!" The blush was back in the girl's cheeks. From 
excitement, then, no doubt. For Llessur suddenly felt the same 
excited rouge spring to life in her own. But what should be so 
stirring about news from Mendellia? The news from her country was 
mostly depressing, these days.

"From Mendellia," she repeated slowly.

"Yes, Madame!"

"What is it, then?"

"Your son..."

Llessur's heart sank. Was this it, then? The news she'd so feared 
ever since she arrived in Paris? "What of him, Brangaine?"

"...he rules in Mendellia now!"

And then her heart seemed to stop for a moment. Time slowed, then 
reversed; she was a child again in Paris; she was the blushing bride; 
she was the young mother.

And she was, once again, Llessur Atner, queen in exile, in a café of 
Paris. Eyes wide, she took Brangaine's hand and asked, "Rules? 
Thayer? But what of Eugor?"

"Dead," the girl practically danced for delight. "Thayer killed him."

So Enad was revenged. And Thayer, her boy--

Llessur let out the breath that she hadn't known she was holding and 
leaned back in her chair.

"Madame?"

"So it is over. At last, the wheel has turned for us."

"Yes, Madame," said Brangaine uncertainly; poor child hadn't nearly 
the cultural wealth that Llessur was fortunate to have. She made a 
note to see to the girl's further education; one's people ought to 
have every advantage a mistress could afford them. "Lord Thayer," 
Brangaine continued, "has sent word that you are to be pardoned of 
the crimes of which General Atner accused you. And you are to come 
home as soon as you may!"

"As soon as I may." Llessur smiled wistfully. "I never thought, 
Brangaine, that I should live to see this day."

"But you have, Madame!"

"Yes, yes, girl. So I have. Well, then, what are we doing still 
here?" Suddenly, but not at all ungracefully, she stood to her 
feet. "Come; sooner begun, sooner done. Perhaps I have not long to 
live; but I shall see Mendellia once more before the wheel turns 
again. And--my son."

She smiled as she followed Brangaine--briskly, but not running--back 
to the flat they called home. She smiled to think that it would be 
home no longer. Home, now, would again be the Palace where the 
greater part of her joys had passed.