Discworld: 'After the flood, all the colors came out' by minkhollow
Title: After the flood, all the colors came out
Author: minkhollow
Fandom: Discworld
Pairing/characters: Imp y Celyn/Adrian Turnipseed; past Imp/Susan and Imp/OFC
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Other than Cordelia and her kids? Pratchett's, not mine. I borrow only for fun, not profit.
Prompt: 250. Discworld: Imp Y Celyn (aka Buddy). After the ending of Soul Music, Buddy disappears from the Discworld canon, right when it looked as if he and Susan were about to settle into a romance. Why?
Summary: In the present (just post-Going Postal), Imp returns to Llamedos to catch up with a childhood friend; in the past (ending up a few months post-Hogfather), he comes to terms with certain personal inclinations he couldn't have dealt with if he hadn't left in the first place.
Author's Notes: I've been intrigued by the question of what Imp did (as well as what he remembered, in light of Death's comments that most people would forget the Wacky Musical Hijinks) after his moment of canon for nearly five years now; I think that shows in how massive this fic got. Thanks to gehayi for the beta-read.
(Also: Footnotes are at the end of the scene they're marked in.)
He hadn't been expecting the letter - but then, the whole of Ankh-Morpork's still getting used to Mr. Lipwig's concept of a postal service that actually delivers. And really, it's not the delivery itself that caught Imp off guard so much as the postmark. Llamedos isn't good with new ideas at the best of times,* but apparently, the weight of tradition was nothing when faced with Mr. Lipwig's powers of persuasion.
And the promise of stone-circle stamps, from the looks of things.
In the end, it's just as hard to tell Cordelia no as it ever was, so he makes sure he's got the time and money to make the trip. He dismisses any nervousness about the prospect of going back to Llamedos for the first time in six years with the reasoning that he needn't track down everyone. He's just visiting an old friend - whom he attempted to have a relationship with once, well before certain truths came to light - and the man she ultimately married. And he'll probably draw the same suspicious looks he was getting for years before he left.
Oh, and he might have to deal with his father, which could easily take a nasty turn, considering how well the last time they talked went. Not to mention... other developments.
All right, so he's got every reason to have his doubts about this. But worrying about it won't make it any easier, and Cordelia's too tied down to make the opposite journey.
*And anyway, delivering the mail without it getting soaked beyond legibility would be... a challenge, at the best of times. Evidently, though, it was one Mr. Lipwig felt prepared to deal with.
***
Once Imp got to Quirm, it occurred to him that he couldn't quite remember what circumstances had directed him there - or very much else about the preceding couple of weeks. He decided to worry about that later and concentrate on more pressing matters, starting with the fact that he was alone and unemployed in a city. Going home was out of the question, after all the fuss he'd made about leaving.
Quirm wasn't even remotely as daunting as Ankh-Morpork had been, though it still presented challenges to someone more used to rural life. Fortunately, the owner of the fish and chips shop understood that very well - he'd grown up on the Sto Plains - and so Imp had a job within a matter of days.
He didn't understand, not until much later, why Susan was in such a rush to see him, or why she pretended to be surprised when he introduced himself. But she was nice enough, despite coming off as a bit odd, and Imp appreciated being able to talk to someone nearer his own age. They made arrangements to see each other whenever Susan could get away from school long enough.
***
The rain might be worse than he remembers. It certainly seems worse, anyway, though that could be a side effect of living in a sunnier climate for so long. In any case, the weather's got nothing on the smell - no, make that stench - of wet sheep. Imp's positive Llamedos didn't smell this bad when he was growing up.
It's about a ten-minute walk from the coach station to Cordelia's house; pleasant enough under drier circumstances, no doubt, but by the end of it, he's wishing he'd invested in one of those umbrella things Adrian found in Cunning Artificers. He's just not used to being soaked through, anymore, and he's not sure it was all that fun in the first place.
He absently turns the ring on his left index finger - the rate he's going, that'll be a nervous habit before long - before knocking on the door. Inside of a minute, the door opens, and a small child is staring up at him, frowning a bit.
"Who're you?"
"I'm a friend of your mother's. She asked me to visit."
The child considers this, then turns away from the door and calls, "Mama! There's a man at the door who says he knows you!"
For a split second, Imp's afraid he got the wrong house after all, somehow. But then he hears Cordelia laughing, a couple of rooms away.
"Let him in, Ferris."
"But what if you don't know him?"
"Then I suspect we can handle the situation. But there's no point in making him stand in the rain, in the meantime. I'll be out there in a minute."
Once he's inside, Imp sets his bag down, avails himself of one of the towels within arm's reach of the door, and dries himself off as much as possible. The child stays there until Cordelia comes in, at which point Imp is hanging the towel up to dry.
"Good to see you made it," she says, and moves in for a hug.
"That I did. I can't say I've ever been stared down by such a serious five-year-old before, though."
"He gets it from his father. Are you hungry? I've some dwarf bread in."
"Oh, that would be excellent. Do you know, no one in Ankh-Morpork knows how to soak the stuff properly?"
"What, not even the dwarfs? What do they do with it if they don't eat it?"
Imp shrugs. "Throw it at each other, most of the time." He'll never understand that, but he supposes it has something to do with the location. After all, when one lives in such a soggy place as Llamedos, one learns to appreciate anything with more substance to it than soup.
***
Imp and Susan settled into something like a relationship, in that they had dinner and talked on a fairly regular basis, and as an arrangement it worked out fairly well for some months. Susan had a bit of freedom with her evenings, provided she didn't intend to leave Quirm, and Imp mostly worked during lunch hours.
Some of the initial awkwardness never quite went away, though. Imp suspected that had a lot to do with something that had happened before he got to Quirm; she never wanted to talk about it, and he didn't know how to raise the subject without her prompting. But he'd also taken to watching people, both while at work and during his free time, and it seemed to him that people in Quirm cared far less about the exact nature of one's... close company than people in Llamedos had. Mere observation wasn't enough to put him on the point of saying anything, but it did get him to thinking.
At one of their periodic dinners, they both started to say, "I think we need to talk," after placing their orders, paused, and overlapped again in trying to defer to each other. Once they managed to stop laughing at themselves, Imp told Susan to go first, somewhat relieved that he hadn't been the only one doing a bit of thinking.
Susan hesitated a moment, then said, "It's about... where we stand with each other. I don't know that the current state of things is serving us all that well."
"Nor do I, as it happens. We... both have things that we need to deall with on our own, as best as I can tell."
"How do you mean?"
"There are times when you act llike you know me better than I know mysellf, but you never expllain why. And on the whole, I think you have quite a bit more of yoursellf to come to terms with than I ever have."
"And I suppose you think you've done all the work you need to, is that it?"
Imp shrugged. "No, I'm rather certain I haven't - I didn't get much of a chance to start untill recently. The heart of the matter from my end is, I llike you just fine as a person, but I doubt there's much... further interest to be had, see."
"Oh, I've seen, all right." She sounded more disappointed than upset, which Imp supposed was a small blessing, though he didn't know when she would have been able to take note of his observations.
"I'm sorry."
"No need for you to apologize. It's not as though it's the sort of thing you have any control over." Imp hadn't heard that perspective on matters of preferred close company before, but it did sit better with what he'd seen in Quirm than what he'd heard growing up.
It was funny, but finishing the dinner as nothing more than friends went quite a long way to dispelling that lingering awkwardness.
***
There's very little on the Disc that's quite so satisfying as the crunch of well-soaked dwarf bread. It's the only thing about Llamedos that Imp's missed with any regularity; the only person he's missed to a similar degree is currently across the table from him.
Sure, their attempted relationship didn't work out so well, but they'd been friends for quite a while before that and saw no point in giving that up.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come back for your wedding," Imp says, after he's finished with the dwarf bread.* "There was no way I could have afforded the trip at the time."
"I rather thought that would be the case, but I wouldn't have felt right not inviting you at all. Frankly, I'm surprised it got through to you at all."
"Call it good fortune, I suppose. Anyway, it's likely just as well I couldn't come. I'm sure someone would have objected to my presence."
Cordelia laughs. "It was my wedding, Imp. Anyone who'd objected to the guest list would have been out of there before they could blink. And anyway, I doubt your ability to cause trouble is quite so grand as you think."
"Never mind that I was drawing odd looks at ten just because Da decided not to remarry after my mother died? Never mind that I went into music for the audience more than the other bards? Never mind that row Da and I got into before I left?" Imp hesitates, then decides he might as well go for the big one, while he's at it. "Never mind--"
"Mama!" Ferris' voice cuts in, from the next room. "Meredith took part of my model stone circle and won't give it back!"
"I'm just borrowing it!" a slightly higher voice protests.
Cordelia sighs. "I'd best go sort those two out, if you wouldn't mind pausing for a moment."
"By all means."
After she leaves the room, though, Imp sighs. He doubts the matter's going to work its way into the conversation half so neatly, after that little interruption, and he'd been half hoping for a chance to say something. She's got every right on the Disc to know, and he's... well, mostly certain she won't have a fit. He turns his ring a few times, almost as though he thinks it'll help the situation along.
Before too long, Cordelia comes back into the kitchen, still talking to her children. "Either of you complains about this again, you'll both lose the toy. Understood?" She must get an affirmative answer, since when she turns to face Imp again, she's smiling.
"I do love those two, but sometimes they're such a handful. Anyway - oh, what's that you're fiddling with?"
Left with no other choice, Imp shows her the ring. "It was a present." That's true enough, for all a ring's hardly a typical souvenir from Bes Pelargic, whether it looks like an Agatean dragon or not.
"That's beautiful. Though I think it would best count as a present in two cases, and I know none of your family's traveled enough to find this sort of thing, even if you were still talking to them. That would mean you've found someone. Go on, then, what's his name?"
"...I'm rather certain I never mentioned that aspect of my personal life to you," Imp says, once he manages to stop gaping.
"Of the two of us, I'm the one who said you needed to come to terms with yourself before you would be happy with anyone else."
This is very true; in fact, it was the centerpiece of her reasons for ending their relationship. Imp just wishes he'd realized what it meant in terms of raising the subject quite a bit sooner.
*It's hard to carry on a civil conversation when you can't hear yourself think, let alone anyone else.
***
Imp and Susan continued to see each other for dinner for a while, but on a less consistent basis; Susan's academic schedule was picking up, and they felt no real obligation to the dinners, without the pressures of something like a relationship.
Susan finished school about a year after their romantic break-up, and took a job in Ankh-Morpork - less from financial straits and more so that she had something to do, as she explained it. Without her around to brighten his social prospects, Imp's life settled into a routine: Go to work, narrowly avoid terminal frustration with idiotic customers uncovering the temper he hadn't realized was there, try to write a new song or two, fail to convince anyone to let him play for an audience,* do it all over again.
The routine slowly turned into a lull, and the lull turned into a rut with somewhat more haste. It was getting on time for him to go somewhere else, and see whether he could get somewhere with his music on his own terms - that last bit was particularly important, for all he couldn't say exactly why. He began putting some of his free time toward gauging how quickly he could get out of town and where he might be able to go.
One day a few months after Hogswatch, a large, dark-skinned, boisterous family came into the shop for lunch. One of them - about Imp's own age, as far as he could tell, and wearing a set of robes that might as well have had 'student wizard' written all over them - lingered to pick up the order, giving Imp the sort of regard that usually led to inconvenient questions about his species of origin. He sighed inwardly, and braced himself for the question as he began gathering the family's order.
"This might sound odd," the young man said, when he came back for the second tray, "but have you ever been to Ankh-Morpork?"
Imp had to pause for a moment to avoid answering the question he hadn't, in fact, been asked for a change. "I have. But onlly for a few days, not long enough to do anything interesting." Other than get his harp sat on by a troll, anyway, but that had been fixed; after all, there were people in Ankh-Morpork who could do nearly anything.
"Oh. You looked a bit familiar, is all. I'm probably thinking of someone else. Sorry about that."
"It's not a problem. Better than the usuall question, anyway."
"Dare I ask what that is, or--"
"Adrian! We'd like to eat sometime today, if that's all right with you."
The young man paused, looked at the tray of food still sitting on the counter, and sighed. "How about I get back to you on that one?"
"Are you certain you'd remember it that llong?"
"That's what academia does for you. Leave no question unanswered, and all that."
Adrian did stop by the front counter again, before his family left the shop, and made arrangements to talk to Imp free of anyone else's schedules. It seemed as though his social life was looking up again, for almost the first time since Susan moved away.
*The musical interviews regularly ended before Imp could do more than enter the room, never mind play anything. The prospective employers never seemed to understand it any better than he did, but they all thought letting him have a go would end... badly. Quirm doesn't see quite as much cross-dimensional oddity as Ankh-Morpork, so what does get there tends to leave a bit more of an imprint in its wake.
***
"Well, come on, then. You can't expect me to do without details."
Imp sighs; it seems Cordelia's bull-headed tendencies haven't faded with time. "Before I get to that... I've got a question. If you've known that about me for so long, why didn't you just say something?"
"For one thing, I wasn't at all sure you'd believe me. Secondly, I didn't think you'd be staying here much longer, since you were looking for an audience even then."
"I'll grant you both of those, but you're not done yet. I know you."
Cordelia sighs. "There was also the matter of the consequences. You were having enough trouble from people as it was. I didn't want to see you have to deal with that sort of poor reception as well. I thought if I said something that wouldn't necessarily sink in until after you left... well, it would save you some bother, at least."
"I could have handled it--"
"You say that now, and now it's probably true. But when we were fifteen, I don't think it would have worked out half so well. That kind of stress kills people, sometimes even without the disapproving parties taking matters into their own hands."
"But that mostly applies when someone's caught in the act. Knowing and acting aren't the same thing."
"Even so, you had enough battles ahead of you without that one."
Imp can't really bring himself to argue that point; he did, after all, have making a scene down to an art before he left Llamedos. Next time Cordelia wants to talk, he's likely to see about getting her out to Ankh-Morpork.
He does briefly wonder why she didn't make a fuss at the time, considering the vast amount of precedent in favor of that, but he doesn't ask. It was probably a case of her being too stubborn to think the matter of close company affected his personality, no matter what the rumors said.
"All right then," he finally says. "Details. Which do you want?"
Cordelia glances at the ring again. "Firstly, where on the Disc did that thing come from?"
"Bes Pelargic. Adrian had to go down there for some research, and he thought I could do with a souvenir."
"Academic research, or some other kind?"
"Academic. He's at Unseen University." Technically, Adrian's graduated by now, but one thing Imp's noticed about wizards - in the High Energy Magic building, anyway - is that they never seem to stop learning.
Cordelia raises an eyebrow. "I'd heard wizards had to be celibate?"
Imp just shrugs, figuring his avoidance of the question will be answer enough for her; as far as he and Adrian can tell, the celibacy stipulation really only applies when the potential for children arises.
***
Adrian's family, it transpired, had moved away from Genua nearly two decades ago - apparently, local politics had taken a turn for the strange - and had been working their way across the continent since then. Adrian had ended up at Unseen University partly through natural talent and partly through the chance of his family moving within range, but he quite like both the school and its city, being young enough to still get off the campus occasionally.
He convinced Imp to give Ankh-Morpork a second try, on the grounds that the Musicians' Guild was back in the hands of actual musicians, and as such, Imp likely had enough funding and sensibility to make his way. Aside from the practical concerns attached to the move, they'd come to enjoy their periodic conversations over Adrian's spring holiday, and not only would letters have failed to achieve the same effect, but the postal service was in such a shambles that mail likely wouldn't get through at all. It took a few weeks for Imp to make the necessary preparations, but once he moved, he found Ankh-Morpork rather easier to settle into than it had been on his first attempt.
A month or so after Imp moved, he met an unusually nervous Adrian for one of their usual dinners. Adrian refused to explain what was wrong, though, until they had their food in front of them.
"It's... you know the memory issues you've mentioned?"
Imp nodded. "Despite the apparent contradiction, they're rather hard to forget. What about them?"
Adrian hesitated again. "Skazz found something that's been hanging round the High Energy Magic building for a few years. He thinks it might be connected to your problem - and when I got to thinking about it, the thing's probably from the right time frame."
"And if that were alll, you wouldn't be so worried about mentioning it."
"...You know me too well. We're not sure what might happen to you, if Skazz is right. Hex calculated that you should be fine, and it did get us through Hogswatch all right, but I don't know that I want to take a thinking engine's word for your welfare. If you want to see what happens, anyway - that's up to you, and if you're interested, we'd be best off looking into it at the University. But we'll just let it drop if you'd rather not."
Imp considered the matter though the rest of the meal, and finally decided the chance of learning something useful probably outweighed the risks, especially since the most senior wizards would not be involved.* Neither of them had time to go into the mystery right away, though, so they made arrangements to have a look at the mystery thing a couple of weeks later.
*Having heard stories from Adrian about Ridcully's love of firing crossbow bolts at anything that held still long enough and the Dean's unequaled ability to make a fool of himself, among many others, Imp was far more prepared to trust the students with his safety. At least Ponder would make sure they calculated the exact probability for mayhem before they did anything.
***
"How'd it come about that you met a wizard, anyway?" Cordelia says, as she begins to prepare some tea. "We don't hear much about them out here, but I've gathered they're something of an insular lot."
"Well, they are, mostly. Adrian was still a student at the time, and I don't expect he'd take well to staying in one set of buildings in any case. He was visiting his family in Quirm, before I left there."
"And I suppose he was one of the deciding factors in you leaving?"
Imp does his level best not to blush, but it's difficult, with Cordelia smiling like that. "Quirm was wearing thin anyway, and nothing had happened at that point. But he did convince me to make the move back to Ankh-Morpork, yes."
"You mean to say you went to Ankh-Morpork first?"
"You know how some things seem like a wonderful idea when you're eighteen, and then they turn out not to be? That was one of them."
Cordelia laughs. "I can only imagine. What did you do there?"
Rather than answering directly, Imp goes to the main room and gets his harp out of his bag.
"...Good gods, what did you do to that thing? It looks like a troll sat on it."
"A troll sat on it, is why. Quite by accident, and he paid to have it fixed, otherwise I likely would have been a bit more upset. In any case, he probably helped save my life."
"How did that come about?"
Imp sighs. "Through something else that turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea, as it happens."
***
The box was almost anti-climactic, at first; Imp didn't see what could be so informative or dangerous about a wooden box with two crystal balls connected by a bit of wire in it. But then, the seemingly innocuous often held the greatest dangers, especially in a place like Ankh-Morpork - and that blue smoke coiled in the crystal balls certainly looked ominous.
Adrian and two of his fellow students had brought a couch into the High Energy Magic building, presumably from elsewhere in the University, and set it in front of the thinking engine.
"Hex can tell us if something goes sour, this way," Adrian said. "That and... well, it seems like the sort of thing where you'll want to be sitting down. We'll be doing everything we can to make sure you're not in any real trouble. Are you still sure you want to do this?"
Imp nodded, though he wasn't terribly certain at all, anymore. Still, he'd made it this far, he trusted Adrian with his life and the rest of Mr. Stibbons' students with his well-being, and he did want some answers about that blank space in his memory. It seemed a bit silly to back out now.
"All right. We're here if you need anything." With that, Adrian reached over and plucked the wire between the crystal balls.
A low note sounded, rose in pitch, and turned into a tripping melody that almost had a mocking quality to it.
Well, something within the music resonated, achieving the effect of speech while bypassing Imp's ears entirely. If it isn't my greatest success story and my greatest tragedy, all rolled into one.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," Imp said, not actually sure he was speaking out loud at all.
You'll find you do, I think. You simply haven't wished to remember it badly enough until now. The melody turned into a sudden chord that echoed far more than any sane note should have been able to do - and suddenly, those two weeks Imp had never been able to recall properly, including a few key details about Susan, snapped into place.
"...Pllease don't do that again. It was rather disconcerting."
If you were referring to your memories, I won't have to. The experience ought to stay in your head, this time. If you meant the remainder of my gifts, though... I'm hurt. There was a time when you quite liked me.
"Yes, but I've grown out of that time. I'd rather be known for myself, now, and not thanks to your agency."
I've effectively been ordered not to seek you out again, in any case. You have powerful allies. The music swirled and changed again, becoming something more upbeat, with a trace of wistful undertones. But if you were to start the process again, we could easily prevent her from interfering.
"I don't intend to force Susan to save my llife again, thank you all the same." Having a few words with her, in light of the new information, couldn't hurt, but that was rather different.
The world will remember you, if you do come back. You need only say yes, and all the Disc will speak of your music--
"I don't want to be remembered, just now. I just want to be, and I can't do that on your terms."
The music seemed to snarl, briefly, but before it could add anything else to the conversation, Imp reached out and closed the lid of the box. When he managed to look away from it, he found the High Energy Magic wizards, student and otherwise, watching him with varying amounts of curiosity and concern.
"Well?" Adrian said. "What's the verdict?"
Imp sighed. "Skazz was right. It did hellp. And now that it has, I think it would do the worlld more harm than good."
"Well, I don't think we were planning on getting rid of it, so... hopefully we can keep it away from people. Do you want to stay here for a bit and make sure you're all right, or would you rather go home?"
"I - if I wouldn't be too much of a bother, I think I ought to stay here." He was glad Adrian had offered; the idea honestly hadn't occurred to him, and at the moment, a bit of company sounded like a very good idea. Besides, not-quite-conversations with disembodied musical forces were apparently rather exhausting.
"You're never a bother. Trust me, I wouldn't offer something like that to just anyone."
***
The kettle starts whistling, effectively cutting off Imp's story; Cordelia gets up to take it off the fire and get the tea going in earnest. The pause stretches into a silence that somehow manages not to be awkward; given the barrage of revelations, Imp's not entirely sure how that worked out. Not that he plans to protest the matter.
"Well," Cordelia finally says, as she brings the teapot and cups to the table. "You always did have a habit of speaking before you thought. I'd hope that went some way toward shaking you out of it."
"In a manner of speaking. I didn't remember it to learn from the experience for a few years after the fact."
"Odd. Do you have any idea why?"
"When I finally got Susan to talk about it, she said it was the sort of thing that's better if most people can't pull up the details after the fact. Apparently, Ankh-Morpork gets a lot of those." Imp pours himself a cup of tea. "I don't see why she didn't think she could tell me, at least. Would have been good to know."
"You said she's a bit younger than us, right?"
"Do you think that had something to do with it?"
"It might have. She could have thought it wasn't her information to share, or - oh, you'll be wanting some honey, won't you?" Cordelia gets up, and continues while on her way to the pantry. "Or maybe she thought you would know when you needed to."
"Nearly anything's possible. In some ways, she's very adult."
"And in some ways, no one every finishes growing up. Are the two of you still friends?"
"We haven't seen each other very often since she left school, but we get along fairly well." It helps, Imp thinks, that they've finally cleared the air of interpersonal mysteries, for all neither of them really enjoyed that conversation.
"I'd imagine that serves you both well." Cordelia returns with the honey, hands it to Imp, and sits back down. "So. Is there any news from around here you'd care for?"
"Hard to say. There's not much that's reached Ankh-Morpork, other than something that had the dwarfs rather excited a while back."
"Ah. I can't elaborate on that one, I'm afraid. But there was a bit of a thing a few years ago where some trolls took advantage of a cold snap and had some words with the druids..."
***
It was a frighteningly pleasant experience, waking up to find Adrian on the other side of the bed. Imp didn't remember that development from the night before, so he could only presume Adrian had joined him sometime after he'd fallen asleep. The bed was certainly large enough for two people - yet another case of Unseen University trying to keep people around, at Imp's best guess - so it didn't necessarily mean anything, of course.
On the other hand, the room was large enough that they didn't need to double up by default, so perhaps it did mean something. Either way, Imp suspected he could get used to this all too easily, and if it meant nothing, things could get awkward. He'd had quite enough of awkward before he and Susan broke things off.
They were going to have to talk, whenever Adrian woke up. For that matter, Imp would need to find Susan and talk about a few things with her - why she'd never so much as mentioned the music while they were seeing each other would be favorite, just to start - and he'd really only thought of that to distract himself from the matter at hand, not that it was helping. Gods, why was this so terrifying again, all of a sudden? He'd come to terms with himself before he left Quirm, after all.
Adrian stirred before Imp could get much more lost in thought. "Oh, you're awake. Feeling any better than last night?"
Imp shrugged. "A bit, yes." The morning's predicament had, at least, kept him from worrying about the music too much.
"Good. I'd think if that stuff were going to bother you again, it would have started already - doubt it's got much in the way of patience."
"Probablly. It... said last night that I'd have to be the one to start it over again, and that's not what I want anymore."
"Can't say I blame you. We're talking about stuff that made the senior wizards go completely mental - as opposed to mostly - and... well, figuring things out for yourself is going all right so far, isn't it?"
"I suppose." Imp didn't feel like he'd made enough progress to say things were going well, but he didn't see what good arguing the point would do - especially since he fully intended to make things work out in the long run. An awkward silence settled in and made itself at home.
"So," Adrian finally said, "you're not going to take me sleeping over here as an excuse to get you in bed, are you?"
"Onlly so far as we both needed to sleep." Imp hesitated for a moment, completely at sea regarding the protocol for this sort of discussion, then decided it couldn't hurt to ask. "Why, was that on your mind?"
"...Well, maybe a bit. But mostly you needed sleep, and I was too tired to clear off the sofa, and believe me, if that'd been my main goal you would've been awake for it--"
"Adrian, calm down, it's not a probllem. If anything, it's... quite the opposite. I suspect we oughtn't carry on that quicklly, if anything comes of it, but it's not a problem."
"Oh." For a moment, Imp was afraid the awkward silence was going to make a comeback, but then Adrian smiled. "All right, then. I just didn't want to think I'd scared you off or anything."
***
The rest of the visit goes rather pleasantly; Cordelia's children are lovely, once they get used to having an extra person around the house, and her husband needs no further explanation for Imp's presence than 'old friends catching up.' When the time comes for him to return to Ankh-Morpork, he almost suspects he'll miss the place.
But almost isn't entirely, and that point drives itself home when he gets to the coach station only to find his father there, and obviously waiting for a person rather than transportation. He'd really hoped he could avoid this conversation, but he won't run from it now that he's faced with it. For one thing, if he did that he'd likely miss his ride.
"Hello, Da," he says. "Did Cordelia put you up to this?"
"She mentioned you were in the area. I hadn't thought you'd come back without visiting, if you bothered at all."
"I didn't know whether you'd want to see me, considering how our last conversation went. Anyway, I didn't have much time - I'm going home today."
"You knew she might send me, and yet you didn't try to save her the bother? Bit of a surprise, that. You always were more inclined to listen to your peers than your elders."
Imp sighs. "Da, can we not do this now?"
"Very well. What would you rather be saying?"
Not half as much as he told Cordelia, that much is certain; he'd prefer to get out of Llamedos in one piece, and he knows his father would... take issue, to say the least. But he also knows Cordelia will follow through on this, if she went to the trouble of making them talk, which leaves very little for him to say.
"I'm sorry for my part in our last argument," he finally says. "I've learned enough since then to know we were both partly wrong. But I do think I'm better off for having left, in the long view."
His father considers that, to the point where the silence between them is going on impolite. "Perhaps you're right, in that. Apology accepted." He leaves on that note, without offering an apology of his own - not that Imp was really expecting one. Much as he's had lifelong trouble paying attention to his elders, his father's generation can't bring itself to look to the future.
On the point of listening to his peers before his elders, Imp feels his teenage logic holds firm: There comes a time when, even if your elders are still alive, you're expected to decide things for yourself. Better, in that case, to take in the fresher perspective before you act.
Especially when it comes to personal matters - and at that, the coach pulls up. Imp steps through the fine drizzle,* loads his bag, and gets in himself. Adrian said something about the two of them getting dinner, after he gets back, and he's got a performance lined up for a few days from now.
It'll be good to be home.
*Practically gorgeous weather, by Llamedos standards.
Author: minkhollow
Fandom: Discworld
Pairing/characters: Imp y Celyn/Adrian Turnipseed; past Imp/Susan and Imp/OFC
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Other than Cordelia and her kids? Pratchett's, not mine. I borrow only for fun, not profit.
Prompt: 250. Discworld: Imp Y Celyn (aka Buddy). After the ending of Soul Music, Buddy disappears from the Discworld canon, right when it looked as if he and Susan were about to settle into a romance. Why?
Summary: In the present (just post-Going Postal), Imp returns to Llamedos to catch up with a childhood friend; in the past (ending up a few months post-Hogfather), he comes to terms with certain personal inclinations he couldn't have dealt with if he hadn't left in the first place.
Author's Notes: I've been intrigued by the question of what Imp did (as well as what he remembered, in light of Death's comments that most people would forget the Wacky Musical Hijinks) after his moment of canon for nearly five years now; I think that shows in how massive this fic got. Thanks to gehayi for the beta-read.
(Also: Footnotes are at the end of the scene they're marked in.)
He hadn't been expecting the letter - but then, the whole of Ankh-Morpork's still getting used to Mr. Lipwig's concept of a postal service that actually delivers. And really, it's not the delivery itself that caught Imp off guard so much as the postmark. Llamedos isn't good with new ideas at the best of times,* but apparently, the weight of tradition was nothing when faced with Mr. Lipwig's powers of persuasion.
And the promise of stone-circle stamps, from the looks of things.
In the end, it's just as hard to tell Cordelia no as it ever was, so he makes sure he's got the time and money to make the trip. He dismisses any nervousness about the prospect of going back to Llamedos for the first time in six years with the reasoning that he needn't track down everyone. He's just visiting an old friend - whom he attempted to have a relationship with once, well before certain truths came to light - and the man she ultimately married. And he'll probably draw the same suspicious looks he was getting for years before he left.
Oh, and he might have to deal with his father, which could easily take a nasty turn, considering how well the last time they talked went. Not to mention... other developments.
All right, so he's got every reason to have his doubts about this. But worrying about it won't make it any easier, and Cordelia's too tied down to make the opposite journey.
*And anyway, delivering the mail without it getting soaked beyond legibility would be... a challenge, at the best of times. Evidently, though, it was one Mr. Lipwig felt prepared to deal with.
***
Once Imp got to Quirm, it occurred to him that he couldn't quite remember what circumstances had directed him there - or very much else about the preceding couple of weeks. He decided to worry about that later and concentrate on more pressing matters, starting with the fact that he was alone and unemployed in a city. Going home was out of the question, after all the fuss he'd made about leaving.
Quirm wasn't even remotely as daunting as Ankh-Morpork had been, though it still presented challenges to someone more used to rural life. Fortunately, the owner of the fish and chips shop understood that very well - he'd grown up on the Sto Plains - and so Imp had a job within a matter of days.
He didn't understand, not until much later, why Susan was in such a rush to see him, or why she pretended to be surprised when he introduced himself. But she was nice enough, despite coming off as a bit odd, and Imp appreciated being able to talk to someone nearer his own age. They made arrangements to see each other whenever Susan could get away from school long enough.
***
The rain might be worse than he remembers. It certainly seems worse, anyway, though that could be a side effect of living in a sunnier climate for so long. In any case, the weather's got nothing on the smell - no, make that stench - of wet sheep. Imp's positive Llamedos didn't smell this bad when he was growing up.
It's about a ten-minute walk from the coach station to Cordelia's house; pleasant enough under drier circumstances, no doubt, but by the end of it, he's wishing he'd invested in one of those umbrella things Adrian found in Cunning Artificers. He's just not used to being soaked through, anymore, and he's not sure it was all that fun in the first place.
He absently turns the ring on his left index finger - the rate he's going, that'll be a nervous habit before long - before knocking on the door. Inside of a minute, the door opens, and a small child is staring up at him, frowning a bit.
"Who're you?"
"I'm a friend of your mother's. She asked me to visit."
The child considers this, then turns away from the door and calls, "Mama! There's a man at the door who says he knows you!"
For a split second, Imp's afraid he got the wrong house after all, somehow. But then he hears Cordelia laughing, a couple of rooms away.
"Let him in, Ferris."
"But what if you don't know him?"
"Then I suspect we can handle the situation. But there's no point in making him stand in the rain, in the meantime. I'll be out there in a minute."
Once he's inside, Imp sets his bag down, avails himself of one of the towels within arm's reach of the door, and dries himself off as much as possible. The child stays there until Cordelia comes in, at which point Imp is hanging the towel up to dry.
"Good to see you made it," she says, and moves in for a hug.
"That I did. I can't say I've ever been stared down by such a serious five-year-old before, though."
"He gets it from his father. Are you hungry? I've some dwarf bread in."
"Oh, that would be excellent. Do you know, no one in Ankh-Morpork knows how to soak the stuff properly?"
"What, not even the dwarfs? What do they do with it if they don't eat it?"
Imp shrugs. "Throw it at each other, most of the time." He'll never understand that, but he supposes it has something to do with the location. After all, when one lives in such a soggy place as Llamedos, one learns to appreciate anything with more substance to it than soup.
***
Imp and Susan settled into something like a relationship, in that they had dinner and talked on a fairly regular basis, and as an arrangement it worked out fairly well for some months. Susan had a bit of freedom with her evenings, provided she didn't intend to leave Quirm, and Imp mostly worked during lunch hours.
Some of the initial awkwardness never quite went away, though. Imp suspected that had a lot to do with something that had happened before he got to Quirm; she never wanted to talk about it, and he didn't know how to raise the subject without her prompting. But he'd also taken to watching people, both while at work and during his free time, and it seemed to him that people in Quirm cared far less about the exact nature of one's... close company than people in Llamedos had. Mere observation wasn't enough to put him on the point of saying anything, but it did get him to thinking.
At one of their periodic dinners, they both started to say, "I think we need to talk," after placing their orders, paused, and overlapped again in trying to defer to each other. Once they managed to stop laughing at themselves, Imp told Susan to go first, somewhat relieved that he hadn't been the only one doing a bit of thinking.
Susan hesitated a moment, then said, "It's about... where we stand with each other. I don't know that the current state of things is serving us all that well."
"Nor do I, as it happens. We... both have things that we need to deall with on our own, as best as I can tell."
"How do you mean?"
"There are times when you act llike you know me better than I know mysellf, but you never expllain why. And on the whole, I think you have quite a bit more of yoursellf to come to terms with than I ever have."
"And I suppose you think you've done all the work you need to, is that it?"
Imp shrugged. "No, I'm rather certain I haven't - I didn't get much of a chance to start untill recently. The heart of the matter from my end is, I llike you just fine as a person, but I doubt there's much... further interest to be had, see."
"Oh, I've seen, all right." She sounded more disappointed than upset, which Imp supposed was a small blessing, though he didn't know when she would have been able to take note of his observations.
"I'm sorry."
"No need for you to apologize. It's not as though it's the sort of thing you have any control over." Imp hadn't heard that perspective on matters of preferred close company before, but it did sit better with what he'd seen in Quirm than what he'd heard growing up.
It was funny, but finishing the dinner as nothing more than friends went quite a long way to dispelling that lingering awkwardness.
***
There's very little on the Disc that's quite so satisfying as the crunch of well-soaked dwarf bread. It's the only thing about Llamedos that Imp's missed with any regularity; the only person he's missed to a similar degree is currently across the table from him.
Sure, their attempted relationship didn't work out so well, but they'd been friends for quite a while before that and saw no point in giving that up.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come back for your wedding," Imp says, after he's finished with the dwarf bread.* "There was no way I could have afforded the trip at the time."
"I rather thought that would be the case, but I wouldn't have felt right not inviting you at all. Frankly, I'm surprised it got through to you at all."
"Call it good fortune, I suppose. Anyway, it's likely just as well I couldn't come. I'm sure someone would have objected to my presence."
Cordelia laughs. "It was my wedding, Imp. Anyone who'd objected to the guest list would have been out of there before they could blink. And anyway, I doubt your ability to cause trouble is quite so grand as you think."
"Never mind that I was drawing odd looks at ten just because Da decided not to remarry after my mother died? Never mind that I went into music for the audience more than the other bards? Never mind that row Da and I got into before I left?" Imp hesitates, then decides he might as well go for the big one, while he's at it. "Never mind--"
"Mama!" Ferris' voice cuts in, from the next room. "Meredith took part of my model stone circle and won't give it back!"
"I'm just borrowing it!" a slightly higher voice protests.
Cordelia sighs. "I'd best go sort those two out, if you wouldn't mind pausing for a moment."
"By all means."
After she leaves the room, though, Imp sighs. He doubts the matter's going to work its way into the conversation half so neatly, after that little interruption, and he'd been half hoping for a chance to say something. She's got every right on the Disc to know, and he's... well, mostly certain she won't have a fit. He turns his ring a few times, almost as though he thinks it'll help the situation along.
Before too long, Cordelia comes back into the kitchen, still talking to her children. "Either of you complains about this again, you'll both lose the toy. Understood?" She must get an affirmative answer, since when she turns to face Imp again, she's smiling.
"I do love those two, but sometimes they're such a handful. Anyway - oh, what's that you're fiddling with?"
Left with no other choice, Imp shows her the ring. "It was a present." That's true enough, for all a ring's hardly a typical souvenir from Bes Pelargic, whether it looks like an Agatean dragon or not.
"That's beautiful. Though I think it would best count as a present in two cases, and I know none of your family's traveled enough to find this sort of thing, even if you were still talking to them. That would mean you've found someone. Go on, then, what's his name?"
"...I'm rather certain I never mentioned that aspect of my personal life to you," Imp says, once he manages to stop gaping.
"Of the two of us, I'm the one who said you needed to come to terms with yourself before you would be happy with anyone else."
This is very true; in fact, it was the centerpiece of her reasons for ending their relationship. Imp just wishes he'd realized what it meant in terms of raising the subject quite a bit sooner.
*It's hard to carry on a civil conversation when you can't hear yourself think, let alone anyone else.
***
Imp and Susan continued to see each other for dinner for a while, but on a less consistent basis; Susan's academic schedule was picking up, and they felt no real obligation to the dinners, without the pressures of something like a relationship.
Susan finished school about a year after their romantic break-up, and took a job in Ankh-Morpork - less from financial straits and more so that she had something to do, as she explained it. Without her around to brighten his social prospects, Imp's life settled into a routine: Go to work, narrowly avoid terminal frustration with idiotic customers uncovering the temper he hadn't realized was there, try to write a new song or two, fail to convince anyone to let him play for an audience,* do it all over again.
The routine slowly turned into a lull, and the lull turned into a rut with somewhat more haste. It was getting on time for him to go somewhere else, and see whether he could get somewhere with his music on his own terms - that last bit was particularly important, for all he couldn't say exactly why. He began putting some of his free time toward gauging how quickly he could get out of town and where he might be able to go.
One day a few months after Hogswatch, a large, dark-skinned, boisterous family came into the shop for lunch. One of them - about Imp's own age, as far as he could tell, and wearing a set of robes that might as well have had 'student wizard' written all over them - lingered to pick up the order, giving Imp the sort of regard that usually led to inconvenient questions about his species of origin. He sighed inwardly, and braced himself for the question as he began gathering the family's order.
"This might sound odd," the young man said, when he came back for the second tray, "but have you ever been to Ankh-Morpork?"
Imp had to pause for a moment to avoid answering the question he hadn't, in fact, been asked for a change. "I have. But onlly for a few days, not long enough to do anything interesting." Other than get his harp sat on by a troll, anyway, but that had been fixed; after all, there were people in Ankh-Morpork who could do nearly anything.
"Oh. You looked a bit familiar, is all. I'm probably thinking of someone else. Sorry about that."
"It's not a problem. Better than the usuall question, anyway."
"Dare I ask what that is, or--"
"Adrian! We'd like to eat sometime today, if that's all right with you."
The young man paused, looked at the tray of food still sitting on the counter, and sighed. "How about I get back to you on that one?"
"Are you certain you'd remember it that llong?"
"That's what academia does for you. Leave no question unanswered, and all that."
Adrian did stop by the front counter again, before his family left the shop, and made arrangements to talk to Imp free of anyone else's schedules. It seemed as though his social life was looking up again, for almost the first time since Susan moved away.
*The musical interviews regularly ended before Imp could do more than enter the room, never mind play anything. The prospective employers never seemed to understand it any better than he did, but they all thought letting him have a go would end... badly. Quirm doesn't see quite as much cross-dimensional oddity as Ankh-Morpork, so what does get there tends to leave a bit more of an imprint in its wake.
***
"Well, come on, then. You can't expect me to do without details."
Imp sighs; it seems Cordelia's bull-headed tendencies haven't faded with time. "Before I get to that... I've got a question. If you've known that about me for so long, why didn't you just say something?"
"For one thing, I wasn't at all sure you'd believe me. Secondly, I didn't think you'd be staying here much longer, since you were looking for an audience even then."
"I'll grant you both of those, but you're not done yet. I know you."
Cordelia sighs. "There was also the matter of the consequences. You were having enough trouble from people as it was. I didn't want to see you have to deal with that sort of poor reception as well. I thought if I said something that wouldn't necessarily sink in until after you left... well, it would save you some bother, at least."
"I could have handled it--"
"You say that now, and now it's probably true. But when we were fifteen, I don't think it would have worked out half so well. That kind of stress kills people, sometimes even without the disapproving parties taking matters into their own hands."
"But that mostly applies when someone's caught in the act. Knowing and acting aren't the same thing."
"Even so, you had enough battles ahead of you without that one."
Imp can't really bring himself to argue that point; he did, after all, have making a scene down to an art before he left Llamedos. Next time Cordelia wants to talk, he's likely to see about getting her out to Ankh-Morpork.
He does briefly wonder why she didn't make a fuss at the time, considering the vast amount of precedent in favor of that, but he doesn't ask. It was probably a case of her being too stubborn to think the matter of close company affected his personality, no matter what the rumors said.
"All right then," he finally says. "Details. Which do you want?"
Cordelia glances at the ring again. "Firstly, where on the Disc did that thing come from?"
"Bes Pelargic. Adrian had to go down there for some research, and he thought I could do with a souvenir."
"Academic research, or some other kind?"
"Academic. He's at Unseen University." Technically, Adrian's graduated by now, but one thing Imp's noticed about wizards - in the High Energy Magic building, anyway - is that they never seem to stop learning.
Cordelia raises an eyebrow. "I'd heard wizards had to be celibate?"
Imp just shrugs, figuring his avoidance of the question will be answer enough for her; as far as he and Adrian can tell, the celibacy stipulation really only applies when the potential for children arises.
***
Adrian's family, it transpired, had moved away from Genua nearly two decades ago - apparently, local politics had taken a turn for the strange - and had been working their way across the continent since then. Adrian had ended up at Unseen University partly through natural talent and partly through the chance of his family moving within range, but he quite like both the school and its city, being young enough to still get off the campus occasionally.
He convinced Imp to give Ankh-Morpork a second try, on the grounds that the Musicians' Guild was back in the hands of actual musicians, and as such, Imp likely had enough funding and sensibility to make his way. Aside from the practical concerns attached to the move, they'd come to enjoy their periodic conversations over Adrian's spring holiday, and not only would letters have failed to achieve the same effect, but the postal service was in such a shambles that mail likely wouldn't get through at all. It took a few weeks for Imp to make the necessary preparations, but once he moved, he found Ankh-Morpork rather easier to settle into than it had been on his first attempt.
A month or so after Imp moved, he met an unusually nervous Adrian for one of their usual dinners. Adrian refused to explain what was wrong, though, until they had their food in front of them.
"It's... you know the memory issues you've mentioned?"
Imp nodded. "Despite the apparent contradiction, they're rather hard to forget. What about them?"
Adrian hesitated again. "Skazz found something that's been hanging round the High Energy Magic building for a few years. He thinks it might be connected to your problem - and when I got to thinking about it, the thing's probably from the right time frame."
"And if that were alll, you wouldn't be so worried about mentioning it."
"...You know me too well. We're not sure what might happen to you, if Skazz is right. Hex calculated that you should be fine, and it did get us through Hogswatch all right, but I don't know that I want to take a thinking engine's word for your welfare. If you want to see what happens, anyway - that's up to you, and if you're interested, we'd be best off looking into it at the University. But we'll just let it drop if you'd rather not."
Imp considered the matter though the rest of the meal, and finally decided the chance of learning something useful probably outweighed the risks, especially since the most senior wizards would not be involved.* Neither of them had time to go into the mystery right away, though, so they made arrangements to have a look at the mystery thing a couple of weeks later.
*Having heard stories from Adrian about Ridcully's love of firing crossbow bolts at anything that held still long enough and the Dean's unequaled ability to make a fool of himself, among many others, Imp was far more prepared to trust the students with his safety. At least Ponder would make sure they calculated the exact probability for mayhem before they did anything.
***
"How'd it come about that you met a wizard, anyway?" Cordelia says, as she begins to prepare some tea. "We don't hear much about them out here, but I've gathered they're something of an insular lot."
"Well, they are, mostly. Adrian was still a student at the time, and I don't expect he'd take well to staying in one set of buildings in any case. He was visiting his family in Quirm, before I left there."
"And I suppose he was one of the deciding factors in you leaving?"
Imp does his level best not to blush, but it's difficult, with Cordelia smiling like that. "Quirm was wearing thin anyway, and nothing had happened at that point. But he did convince me to make the move back to Ankh-Morpork, yes."
"You mean to say you went to Ankh-Morpork first?"
"You know how some things seem like a wonderful idea when you're eighteen, and then they turn out not to be? That was one of them."
Cordelia laughs. "I can only imagine. What did you do there?"
Rather than answering directly, Imp goes to the main room and gets his harp out of his bag.
"...Good gods, what did you do to that thing? It looks like a troll sat on it."
"A troll sat on it, is why. Quite by accident, and he paid to have it fixed, otherwise I likely would have been a bit more upset. In any case, he probably helped save my life."
"How did that come about?"
Imp sighs. "Through something else that turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea, as it happens."
***
The box was almost anti-climactic, at first; Imp didn't see what could be so informative or dangerous about a wooden box with two crystal balls connected by a bit of wire in it. But then, the seemingly innocuous often held the greatest dangers, especially in a place like Ankh-Morpork - and that blue smoke coiled in the crystal balls certainly looked ominous.
Adrian and two of his fellow students had brought a couch into the High Energy Magic building, presumably from elsewhere in the University, and set it in front of the thinking engine.
"Hex can tell us if something goes sour, this way," Adrian said. "That and... well, it seems like the sort of thing where you'll want to be sitting down. We'll be doing everything we can to make sure you're not in any real trouble. Are you still sure you want to do this?"
Imp nodded, though he wasn't terribly certain at all, anymore. Still, he'd made it this far, he trusted Adrian with his life and the rest of Mr. Stibbons' students with his well-being, and he did want some answers about that blank space in his memory. It seemed a bit silly to back out now.
"All right. We're here if you need anything." With that, Adrian reached over and plucked the wire between the crystal balls.
A low note sounded, rose in pitch, and turned into a tripping melody that almost had a mocking quality to it.
Well, something within the music resonated, achieving the effect of speech while bypassing Imp's ears entirely. If it isn't my greatest success story and my greatest tragedy, all rolled into one.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," Imp said, not actually sure he was speaking out loud at all.
You'll find you do, I think. You simply haven't wished to remember it badly enough until now. The melody turned into a sudden chord that echoed far more than any sane note should have been able to do - and suddenly, those two weeks Imp had never been able to recall properly, including a few key details about Susan, snapped into place.
"...Pllease don't do that again. It was rather disconcerting."
If you were referring to your memories, I won't have to. The experience ought to stay in your head, this time. If you meant the remainder of my gifts, though... I'm hurt. There was a time when you quite liked me.
"Yes, but I've grown out of that time. I'd rather be known for myself, now, and not thanks to your agency."
I've effectively been ordered not to seek you out again, in any case. You have powerful allies. The music swirled and changed again, becoming something more upbeat, with a trace of wistful undertones. But if you were to start the process again, we could easily prevent her from interfering.
"I don't intend to force Susan to save my llife again, thank you all the same." Having a few words with her, in light of the new information, couldn't hurt, but that was rather different.
The world will remember you, if you do come back. You need only say yes, and all the Disc will speak of your music--
"I don't want to be remembered, just now. I just want to be, and I can't do that on your terms."
The music seemed to snarl, briefly, but before it could add anything else to the conversation, Imp reached out and closed the lid of the box. When he managed to look away from it, he found the High Energy Magic wizards, student and otherwise, watching him with varying amounts of curiosity and concern.
"Well?" Adrian said. "What's the verdict?"
Imp sighed. "Skazz was right. It did hellp. And now that it has, I think it would do the worlld more harm than good."
"Well, I don't think we were planning on getting rid of it, so... hopefully we can keep it away from people. Do you want to stay here for a bit and make sure you're all right, or would you rather go home?"
"I - if I wouldn't be too much of a bother, I think I ought to stay here." He was glad Adrian had offered; the idea honestly hadn't occurred to him, and at the moment, a bit of company sounded like a very good idea. Besides, not-quite-conversations with disembodied musical forces were apparently rather exhausting.
"You're never a bother. Trust me, I wouldn't offer something like that to just anyone."
***
The kettle starts whistling, effectively cutting off Imp's story; Cordelia gets up to take it off the fire and get the tea going in earnest. The pause stretches into a silence that somehow manages not to be awkward; given the barrage of revelations, Imp's not entirely sure how that worked out. Not that he plans to protest the matter.
"Well," Cordelia finally says, as she brings the teapot and cups to the table. "You always did have a habit of speaking before you thought. I'd hope that went some way toward shaking you out of it."
"In a manner of speaking. I didn't remember it to learn from the experience for a few years after the fact."
"Odd. Do you have any idea why?"
"When I finally got Susan to talk about it, she said it was the sort of thing that's better if most people can't pull up the details after the fact. Apparently, Ankh-Morpork gets a lot of those." Imp pours himself a cup of tea. "I don't see why she didn't think she could tell me, at least. Would have been good to know."
"You said she's a bit younger than us, right?"
"Do you think that had something to do with it?"
"It might have. She could have thought it wasn't her information to share, or - oh, you'll be wanting some honey, won't you?" Cordelia gets up, and continues while on her way to the pantry. "Or maybe she thought you would know when you needed to."
"Nearly anything's possible. In some ways, she's very adult."
"And in some ways, no one every finishes growing up. Are the two of you still friends?"
"We haven't seen each other very often since she left school, but we get along fairly well." It helps, Imp thinks, that they've finally cleared the air of interpersonal mysteries, for all neither of them really enjoyed that conversation.
"I'd imagine that serves you both well." Cordelia returns with the honey, hands it to Imp, and sits back down. "So. Is there any news from around here you'd care for?"
"Hard to say. There's not much that's reached Ankh-Morpork, other than something that had the dwarfs rather excited a while back."
"Ah. I can't elaborate on that one, I'm afraid. But there was a bit of a thing a few years ago where some trolls took advantage of a cold snap and had some words with the druids..."
***
It was a frighteningly pleasant experience, waking up to find Adrian on the other side of the bed. Imp didn't remember that development from the night before, so he could only presume Adrian had joined him sometime after he'd fallen asleep. The bed was certainly large enough for two people - yet another case of Unseen University trying to keep people around, at Imp's best guess - so it didn't necessarily mean anything, of course.
On the other hand, the room was large enough that they didn't need to double up by default, so perhaps it did mean something. Either way, Imp suspected he could get used to this all too easily, and if it meant nothing, things could get awkward. He'd had quite enough of awkward before he and Susan broke things off.
They were going to have to talk, whenever Adrian woke up. For that matter, Imp would need to find Susan and talk about a few things with her - why she'd never so much as mentioned the music while they were seeing each other would be favorite, just to start - and he'd really only thought of that to distract himself from the matter at hand, not that it was helping. Gods, why was this so terrifying again, all of a sudden? He'd come to terms with himself before he left Quirm, after all.
Adrian stirred before Imp could get much more lost in thought. "Oh, you're awake. Feeling any better than last night?"
Imp shrugged. "A bit, yes." The morning's predicament had, at least, kept him from worrying about the music too much.
"Good. I'd think if that stuff were going to bother you again, it would have started already - doubt it's got much in the way of patience."
"Probablly. It... said last night that I'd have to be the one to start it over again, and that's not what I want anymore."
"Can't say I blame you. We're talking about stuff that made the senior wizards go completely mental - as opposed to mostly - and... well, figuring things out for yourself is going all right so far, isn't it?"
"I suppose." Imp didn't feel like he'd made enough progress to say things were going well, but he didn't see what good arguing the point would do - especially since he fully intended to make things work out in the long run. An awkward silence settled in and made itself at home.
"So," Adrian finally said, "you're not going to take me sleeping over here as an excuse to get you in bed, are you?"
"Onlly so far as we both needed to sleep." Imp hesitated for a moment, completely at sea regarding the protocol for this sort of discussion, then decided it couldn't hurt to ask. "Why, was that on your mind?"
"...Well, maybe a bit. But mostly you needed sleep, and I was too tired to clear off the sofa, and believe me, if that'd been my main goal you would've been awake for it--"
"Adrian, calm down, it's not a probllem. If anything, it's... quite the opposite. I suspect we oughtn't carry on that quicklly, if anything comes of it, but it's not a problem."
"Oh." For a moment, Imp was afraid the awkward silence was going to make a comeback, but then Adrian smiled. "All right, then. I just didn't want to think I'd scared you off or anything."
***
The rest of the visit goes rather pleasantly; Cordelia's children are lovely, once they get used to having an extra person around the house, and her husband needs no further explanation for Imp's presence than 'old friends catching up.' When the time comes for him to return to Ankh-Morpork, he almost suspects he'll miss the place.
But almost isn't entirely, and that point drives itself home when he gets to the coach station only to find his father there, and obviously waiting for a person rather than transportation. He'd really hoped he could avoid this conversation, but he won't run from it now that he's faced with it. For one thing, if he did that he'd likely miss his ride.
"Hello, Da," he says. "Did Cordelia put you up to this?"
"She mentioned you were in the area. I hadn't thought you'd come back without visiting, if you bothered at all."
"I didn't know whether you'd want to see me, considering how our last conversation went. Anyway, I didn't have much time - I'm going home today."
"You knew she might send me, and yet you didn't try to save her the bother? Bit of a surprise, that. You always were more inclined to listen to your peers than your elders."
Imp sighs. "Da, can we not do this now?"
"Very well. What would you rather be saying?"
Not half as much as he told Cordelia, that much is certain; he'd prefer to get out of Llamedos in one piece, and he knows his father would... take issue, to say the least. But he also knows Cordelia will follow through on this, if she went to the trouble of making them talk, which leaves very little for him to say.
"I'm sorry for my part in our last argument," he finally says. "I've learned enough since then to know we were both partly wrong. But I do think I'm better off for having left, in the long view."
His father considers that, to the point where the silence between them is going on impolite. "Perhaps you're right, in that. Apology accepted." He leaves on that note, without offering an apology of his own - not that Imp was really expecting one. Much as he's had lifelong trouble paying attention to his elders, his father's generation can't bring itself to look to the future.
On the point of listening to his peers before his elders, Imp feels his teenage logic holds firm: There comes a time when, even if your elders are still alive, you're expected to decide things for yourself. Better, in that case, to take in the fresher perspective before you act.
Especially when it comes to personal matters - and at that, the coach pulls up. Imp steps through the fine drizzle,* loads his bag, and gets in himself. Adrian said something about the two of them getting dinner, after he gets back, and he's got a performance lined up for a few days from now.
It'll be good to be home.
*Practically gorgeous weather, by Llamedos standards.