Madison ran forward to scoop her mother into a hug. The two women shook, sobbing with wordless joy, and held each other as tightly as they could. Eventually Madison could feel her mother weakening, and she reluctantly let go of her to let her sit at the table. She pulled a chair next to her so that her mother could clasp her hands in hers.
"Madison, I was so- where were you? What happened?" Camile wiped a tear from her eye and smiled at her daughter. "I never thought- where have you been?"
"The short version is that I was kidnapped, and I escaped, and I'm here now. The long version is a little crazy." She beamed at her mom. "But how are you? Have you been okay? I've been so worried about you-"
"Worried about me?" Her mom waved a hand in front of her face. "You disappeared for weeks! Nobody could find you, your friends couldn't locate you with magic- you were worried about me?"
"Well, the house-"
Camile squeezed her hand. "Your friends came by and took care of things. Gretchen and Enna especially. Have you told them you're safe?"
"No, I came straight here." Madison took a moment to take in the house- sparkling clean, well stocked with food, in great repair- and something in her shoulders loosened. "I'm so glad you're alright."
"I'm just fine. Your friends even fixed the creaky door hinge, you know the one?"
Madison grinned. "It only took me getting kidnapped for someone to fix it, that thing's been creaking forever. Maybe next time I'll-"
The door in question slammed open, nearly jarring off its well-oiled hinges. In the doorway stood a tall woman, panting with exertion, one hand braced on the door like it was the only thing holding her up. Madison stood and braced herself, magic crackling around her hand, before the figure stepped into the light of the house and she saw her clearly. Her heart swooped at the expression on Enna's face. She almost looked pleading, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, her gaze fixed on Madison with an intensity that raised goosebumps on her skin. "Are you-"
"Enna-" Madison breathed, and couldn't stop herself from taking a step forward.
"You- how did you get home?" Enna asked. She kept looking Madison up and down, like she couldn't quite believe she was real. "Where-"
Madison leaned back against the table, suddenly tired. She waved a hand, and the door shut behind Enna. "It's a really, really long story. But the short version is that the Stranger took me, and then Ulysses and I broke out together."
"Ulysses?" Enna whipped her head around like she was expecting Ulysses to pop out from behind a cabinet. "He's back???"
You're up, bud.
If I must be.
"In a manner of speaking," Ulysses replied, taking control of the body. He turned to Camile and bowed stiffly at the waist. "A pleasure to meet you, ma'am. Madison has told me quite a bit about you."
In the silence that followed, the four of them could have heard a pin drop. Then it was broken all at once by Enna rushing across the floor, inhibitions forgotten, to trap Ulysses in a headlock and gleefully muss his hair. "You motherfucker!!!" she shouted as Ulysses swatted ineffectively at her arm. "You hitched a ride in Madison's brain?"
Camile laughed and rubbed her temples. "Well, I know that isn't my Madison, she would never be that polite to me."
"Mom!" Madison pried herself free of Enna's affections and rolled her eyes. "I ride for days through the plains to get here just for you to say that I'm not polite enough?"
Camile raised her eyebrows at Enna as if to say she's proving my point. Enna, meanwhile, was clearly grappling with the fact that she had just put her ex's body in a headlock, and was standing frozen at the end of the table.
If you ever doubted that she returned your affections-
It's complicated, Ulysses. She and I want different things out of a relationship.
It looks like she sprinted halfway across town to see you. She didn't even take her horse.
Yeah, I have to admit that one's a surprise. She loves that fucking horse.
I've heard love can make-
If you don't shut up you're going back in that ocean.
Enna coughed awkwardly. "So! Is, uh, is this going to be a permanent arrangement, or?"
"Gods, hopefully not," Madison said, sitting down at last. "We were going to-"
At that moment, the door slammed open once again. Madison could see Gretchen, mouth agape, standing behind Baruun, who had apparently done the slamming. Highhill swooped in to land on top of the cabinets. The doorway was not wide, but she could see several other figures trying to crowd their way in behind her best friend. She snorted and stood back up. "Everybody come on in, I only want to have to tell this story once."
It felt like half of Trailsend had crammed into her house. Gretchen was sitting next to Camile at the table, with Eleri perched on her shoulder. Lyle and Sap had hopped up onto the kitchen counters, near where Highhill was perched like a gargoyle on the cabinets. Felix and Iona were sharing the remaining chair with a remarkable agility that made it clear they'd done this before. Enna and Emiel were leaning on the wall, Emiel flushed with silver and staring at Madison like they could pull Ulysses out of her with intensity alone. Baruun and Dany were using their two dogs as backrests on the floor. In the center of it all, Madison did her best to explain the past few weeks.
Ulysses stayed silent through the recounting. He watched Madison's friends through Madison's eyes. Watched them wince as she told them what the Stranger did to her, gasped when she relayed her encounter with the Eshadin, smiled when she took her mother's hand and said how glad she was to be home.
You left out what happened in the plains, he muttered as Eleri began making a breathless "welcome back" speech.
That's between you and me, she replied, accepting a glittery hug from the still-talking pixie.
You've been very generous with your retelling. You made it seem like I was as much a victim of the Stranger as you were.
You kind of are! He could feel her stifle a sigh. Look, Ulysses, I think you fucked up a lot. And I'm not gonna let you off the hook for that. But all that can get sorted out once we get you your body back. For now, all I'm gonna say is that if you could get tricked by goddamn Nikolai into being his guard dog, you didn't stand much of a chance against an evil demigod that's older than time or whatever.
Ouch.
It's either I compartmentalize this into you being easily manipulated, or I decide you're an evil bastard and I kill you myself.
Fair. I'll take stupid over evil. But it's a tough choice.
Was that a joke, Ulysses?
I will never tell.
Once the initial riot of responses had died down, Emiel cleared their throat. "So! How are we getting Ulysses out of there?"
All eyes turned expectantly to Madison, who shrugged. "No clue!"
The peanut gallery groaned. "Listen," she said, "I've made a very intentional effort to never learn a thing about magic. Also I just got kidnapped and brain-tortured and I went through a lot to get back here, so I am officially kicking my feet up and making someone else handle this." A murmur of assent went around the room. Gretchen, holding Camile's hand, spoke up.
"Frelina and Baltic are our best bet, then."
Enna nodded. "Yeah, Cyrus is pretty strong, but I don't think he's up to anything that major yet."
"Cyrus?" Ulysses blurted before Madison could stop him. "That's not the Cyrus, is it?"
"Oh, fuck, I forgot to tell y'all," Enna groaned. "You know how Reynald lives in my bar now?"
Madison and Ulysses nodded.
"Well, we have the full set of Doomlords now. And the Iron Council."
"The Iron Council?" Madison yelled. "The leaders of the Steel Legion, the army that declared war on us like a month ago?"
"Well they're not the leaders anymore," Baruun clarified.
"Can we get back to the three Doomlords that live in your sewer bar?" Ulysses asked, but Madison interrupted with "No, what the hell happened with the Iron Council?"
"Never seen two people in the same body argue before," Felix said dryly, and Iona added "Check that off the bucket list!"
"You might want to ask who happened with the Iron Council!" Baruun said, winking exaggeratedly at Lyle, who Madison noted was for some reason wearing very thick smoked glasses. "Who happened to be shacking up with one of them-"
Emiel stomped their foot to shut Baruun up. "What are we doing to get Ulysses out of there!" Their voice was hard to hear over the rising tide of Sap and Baruun tag-teaming innuendoes towards a protesting Lyle. Highhill let out an earsplitting screech amd dive-bombed Baruun, which made Lady Madeline start barking at her, which set Big Boof off, and soon the very small room was filled with unbearable noise. Madison put her head in her hands.
I really should have expected this.
I can cast Silence, if that helps.
Instead, Madison raised her head. She caught Enna staring at her, eyebrows furrowed, and gave her a beseeching look before Enna could pretend she hadn't been staring. Enna nodded and drew a breath deep into her diaphragm, abs rippling.
"QUIET!!!!!!!"
The roar of people and animals subsided. Madison shouldered her way into the remaining quiet. "Okay! Thank you all for the suggestions and innuendo. I am mentally and physically exhausted, so I am going to go to sleep now. I do want to know what the fuck happened with your, I guess, new friends? But that's gonna wait until tomorrow." She made a shooing motion with her hands. "I love you all dearly, but anyone who isn't related to me or isn't Gretchen is getting kicked out now."
"You heard her!" Enna stood up straight and started herding people out of the door. As people began leaving, Madison caught Enna by the arm.
"We'll talk tomorrow, okay?" Enna's eyes widened and she nodded. Madison could feel her arm muscles flexing under her skin, and she dropped her arm. "Okay. Meet me at Roth's for lunch."
Enna must have warned Roth she was coming. When Madison showed up, there was an entire buffet spread of all of her favorites, presided over by the innkeeper himself. He swept her up in an enormous hug and wept into her hair, and it was only with great difficulty that she managed to convince him she wouldn't disappear if he went to serve the other customers so he would let her sit down with Enna.
"So," Madison said, pointing a fork laden with food at the tiefling, "You need to tell me what the hell you did in the plains. Those Eshadin just gave me a horse! Who is doing great, by the way, you'd like her."
"Yeaaaaaaaaah, so. About that." Enna rubbed the back of her neck and looked away. Was she blushing? "So, I told you we got all three of the Doomlords, right?"
Madison nodded, her mouth full of spiced potatoes.
"Well, one of them- Ivan, the big ol dragonborn- was hiding out in the plains. So we were like ah, sweet, let's just go to the plains and pick him up, Reynald will help! But then Reynald was like-" Enna hunched up her shoulders and pretended to flip her hair out of her eyes- "-noooo, I swore an oath, I can't help take him down, blah blah blah. So we went there anyway. And it turns out he was rounding up all the tribes, like all of them, and putting them in a forced deathmarch to go fight the big evil dragon that's gonna try and kill us all. I told you about that one, right?"
Madison nodded again. "So that's why the quartermaster was so grateful to you specifically. She knew the tribe's resources wouldn't survive the march." She took a thoughtful sip of her cider. "So you took Ivan out and installed a new leader? They kept talking about the King this, the King that. Who the hell did you put in charge?"
Enna grinned sheepishly and spread her arms. "You're lookin' at her."
Madison spit her drink out. "What????"
"Yeah, so, I challenged Ivan to an honor duel, and he couldn't refuse it because it'd make him look like a pussy." She waved a hand around. "You know, classic barbarian stuff. And everyone was like oh Enna don't do this, you're gonna get your ass kicked, he's got two feet on you and he's a Doomlord and I was like no way, I'm gonna kick HIS ass!"
"And you won?" Madison gaped at Enna, meal nearly forgotten. "You beat a Doomlord in a duel?"
"Oh, fuck no." Enna shook her head vigorously. "He for sure beat the shit out of me. I could, like, feel my bones coming out of my skin." Her tone was light, like she was describing what she'd had for lunch yesterday. "It was fucked! I absolutely was gonna die for real. But there was this necklace that Gemma had given me that apparently her dragon god had given her, and it was a cool dragon, and when I was getting fucking pulverized it slipped out of my shirt and he saw it and was like oh no, the error of my ways, and I pinned him while he was distracted and got the win. No idea how that worked, but I'll take cheating over dying any day. So I got everything he'd won in the last year, and that included the leadership of all the tribes. And now I guess I'm the king of the barbarians!"
"Okay. Madison rubbed her temples. "Are you gonna use that power for anything?"
Enna shrugged. "I mostly want bards to write songs about me and how hot I am. And I figure whenever the tribes all meet up at Bildoobaris I can show up and, I dunno, arbitrate disputes? And throw a big feast?"
Madison snorted. "Yeah, that tracks." She took another bite of her meal. When she looked up, Enna was staring at her, a dark flush creeping up on her cheeks. She looked away quickly, but it wasn't like she was particularly subtle. Madison felt a blush of her own beginning. "What's up?" she said, perfectly casually.
"Uh." Enna picked at her roast beef with a fork. "Can, uh, can Ulysses hear us? Like, is it an all the time sharing situation?"
Madison's blush was getting dangerous now. "No, he said he needed to prepare himself for talking to Frelina and Baltic later today. Why?"
"Just curious!" Enna took a swig of her drink and avoided Madison's eyes. "Uh, how was hanging out with Gretchen last night?"
"It was good!" Madison said, a little too loudly. She tightened her grip on her fork and tried to focus. "It was really nice to catch up with her. It really…" Madison sighed and let her shoulders relax. "It really made me feel normal for the first time in weeks."
Enna grinned at her, awkwardness finally subsiding. She toasted her mug of cider towards Madison. "Hell yeah! Whenever you're feeling up to it, you should come party with us. Nothing makes you feel centered like getting a lapdance from Felix."
Madison broke into a laugh. "If I do, I'm making Ulysses experience it too."
"Yes!!!!" Enna punched the air. "It would cure him. His whole sadboy thing would be gone forever."
"Seriously, I've had him moping nonstop in my head for weeks, if we can get him to see one single ass-"
"Felix's ass could move mountains," Enna said solemnly. She maintained the solemnity for about five seconds before seeing Madison desperately trying to hold in a giggle, and the two women dissolved into breathless laughter.
"Gods, I missed you," Madison said before she could stop herself.
Enna's eyes softened. "I missed you too."
Frelina and Baltic's store was, blessedly, less full of people and animals than her house had been. The thanes were all there- Emiel still trying to stare a hole in her head- and Gretchen, of course, who was patting Frelina's back as she cried. "We've been so worried about you two-" she hiccuped, "-and our scrying couldn't find you, and that never happens, oh my goodness I'm just so glad you're safe!"
Baltic placed a hand on her shoulder. Madison was shocked to see a single tear tracking down the dwarf's shaven face. "Glad you're back," he said, and Madison nearly started crying herself at this extravagant display of emotion.
Once everyone had calmed down, Frelina led the group to the back room. She clapped her hands, and little sparks flew off of them. "Alright! So! The business of consciousness extraction is a tricky one, as I'm sure you can guess." She gestured to Madison and Ulysses. "There hasn't been too much bleedthrough, has there?"
Madison stepped back from the controls and let Ulysses take charge. You love this wizard shit, you do this. "Only at first," Ulysses said. He steepled their hands in front of him on the table, and Madison fought the urge to roll their eyes. "When we first escaped, we were nearly overwhelmed by the shared consciousness, but since then we have developed a much better system. It also helps that I have a separate awareness of myself in the mindscape, which feels more like my "real" body." He sighed. "Honestly, it has been nice to escape from the worries of the physical plane. When you get me out, you can just put me in a gem or something."
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Emiel slammed their hands so hard on the table that it knocked over two whimsical hourglasses. Their face was shining with their glowing Aasimar blush, and Madison could feel Ulysses blushing in return. "I draw the line at that, you will be getting Ulysses' body back exactly the way it was."
"Juice up the ass a little!" Enna called from beside them, and low-fived Baruun as Emiel covered their face with their hands and sat back down.
Do you want to talk to them before or after we get your body back?
If he had been corporeal, Ulysses would have been red all the way to his ears. After. Definitely after.
"Anyway," Lyle- who was still wearing those smoked lenses- interjected, "how are we going to get Ulysses a new body?"
"Oh, that part's easy!" Frelina beamed. " If you want the same body, all you have to do is get about ten pounds of flesh from the original. Then we can use various common ingredients for the rest, since the blueprint for growing it will already be present."
"Aye, easy," Baruun drawled. "All we have tae do is break into the Stranger's mansion and hack ten pounds of flesh off his body, and then escape alive. Why didnae we think of that before!" Frelina shot a quick zap of magic towards Baruun, and he winced. "Sorry, Teach."
"We talked about this, Baruun! No pessimism in the planning stages!" Frelina smiled at the people assembled. "Baltic and I can work on the extraction ritual while all of you figure out how to get us that flesh. You're all very talented adventurers! I'm sure you can make some grand plan in no time."
"And we're sure we want to go to all this trouble?" Lyle asked. "Finding a gem would be way easier."
"It is non-negotiable," Emiel hissed, still blushing.
"We're doing all this for a guy who very recently sold us out to the Stranger and Shar!" Lyle glared back at Emiel. "My vote is, put him in a gem like he said. We aren't going to do all this just so you can hook up with him again."
"A gem would be good because then he can still be your boyfriend but he can't sell us out to the evil demons who are trying to end the world very soon!" Eleri added, flitting into Emiel's face. "It would be like being in a long distance relationship except not really because he would be right there but in a gem instead of in a body, but you could still talk and cuddle and do the really important things in a relationship!"
"I'm not dating a gem!" Emiel shouted, swatting at Eleri.
"You could! And it would be a lot easier and also kind of what he deserves for killing the Baron and working with Nikolai and also the Stranger and Shar and all the other very bad people! And how do we know he won't do it again if he isn't in a gem?" Eleri flew up to the top of Lyle's hat and stuck her tongue out at Emiel.
"We aren't putting him in a gem," Baruun said. "Nobody deserves that."
"I agree," Dany said, fidgeting with her sleeve. "Whatever happens, we can't do that to someone."
"Point of order, he did help save Madison's life and get her out of the fucked up hell mansion," Enna added. "My vote is get his ass a real ass."
"Second point of order!" Madison interjected. "He's in my body, and I get final say in what happens to him." She glared at Lyle. "If you don't want to go to the hell mansion with me, then you don't have to. Nobody is making you do anything! But I'm going- by myself if I have to- and I'm getting him his body back!"
The table was silent, staring at Madison. Suddenly embarrassed, she sat back down. She hadn't even realized she'd stood up.
Would you really be willing to do that for me?
"Yes, Ulysses, I would," she said aloud. "I would do that for you. Because it's the right thing to do."
Lyle threw up his hands. "Fine! We break into the eternal demon's stronghold to carve him up like a roasted turkey! It wouldn't be the stupidest thing we've ever done!"
"It's 'we' now?" Gretchen asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You've seen how these idiots make their plans, Gretchen." Lyle jerked an accusing thumb at Enna, who grinned broadly. "I'm not going to let them get killed just so Emiel can make out with a flesh homunculus. If they're doing this stupid heist, I am too."
Author's Notes:
Folks it's all been building up to this! I love ensemble cast, I love eighteen people in a scene. Love explaining things that happened off-screen. I'm having fun here.