Everyone else stared at him now. Rolph was the one that spoke.
“Huh? Um, Tor, the plan is for you to go get married isn't it? And then apparently be turned into a girl and made a whore? Well, not really, they get paid. I'm not sure I know where the rest came from there…”
Burks sat and smiled, their looks matching so closely that first Ali gasped and pointed and then everyone else gasped too, except the King who just nodded.
“I see, so this isn't a marriage at all, it's a rescue mission?”
The Count looked around and nodded, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“Right, Tor and I go and get our brother. That's not too hard to understand, is it?”
Copying what she'd seen Tor do with the obviously insane man earlier, and most likely not to certain everyone hadn't caught the crazy bug, Ali raised her hand. Burks nodded to her gently.
“Yes dear?”
“Um, if the marriage to Lilli isn't real, then are Tor and I still married or not?” She sounded half scared as if the answer depended on her asking the right way.
Burks shrugged.
“Oh, you're still married. You'll stay that way too, Tor can even help get you set up at school and get back to classes. I think the Prince can too, resume school, for now at least. Even Serge won't want to mess things up now. Sorry about all the dramatics, but it would have looked a little strange if Tor got on one knee and begged Daria for her hand, given everything.”
Everyone was happier then, if wrung out by the events of the last hours. Karina ran over and hugged Ali and him, Tor didn't let go of his wife’s hand. He'd managed, somehow, to not lose her yet. He really didn't want her to somehow wonder off. Rolph came and gave them both hugs too, but the rest of the royal family stayed back as if wary or not wanting to intrude. But they were all friends, weren't they?
Why were they acting so… the word that came to mind was guilty, but that couldn't have been right. Tor walked over, nudging everyone else with him, until they stood in front of Varley. When it came to getting information, she was a good place to start.
“What?” He asked, waving his hands gently at the three of them who mainly weren't looking at him.
She got it. Of course she did, she was brilliant after all.
“Tor… we were all willing to trade your life to a madman just to buy time to save our people, the kingdom. Aren't you mad at us? We just sold you to them. I heard what that… thing said! They plan to torture you if not kill you outright. Probably both. I don't think you should go. The Brown man is responsible for Austra and didn't do his job, now they have a monster for a leader. Why should you help him? You don't know him and he isn't really your brother. He was born thousands of years ago!”
She had a point. Still, what else could they have done? If there really were bombs pointed at them like that, he would have had to go anyway. True, then he'd have outfitted as many fighters as possible with the best weapons he could come up with first and destroyed the bombs and their delivery devices, but they would have had to say roughly the same things. Tor knew that.
“Well, you know, later, when I'm trading you lot to the monsters to buy the rest of us time I just expect you all to not get pissy about it, that's all. Plus it worked out well enough this time.” He put his arm over her shoulder, reaching up to do that now, unlike when they'd met and been about the same size, oh those precious weeks. She might be showing he decided, trying not to stare. It was hard to tell with her being clothed and all, this early on.
He really considered asking her to take it off sometime soon, just to look, but realized that his wife was hovering at his elbow. Married, he reminded himself with a happy lift to his spirit at the thought. With all that entailed. Most of it at least. They still hadn't talked about children. That would be a delicate and possibly painful subject. Well, soon he'd do it, but not today. Not that soon. They both deserved a real rest. Not that he was going to get one.
“Burks… we need to get together and actually make a plan. My house tomorrow morning?” It was secure and more, it was home, for now at least.
Burks nodded.
“Indeed.”
Tor nodded back. It looked to him like it was finally approaching time to finally deal with Austra. There was just so much to do. He needed to set up with Ali at school, try to get back into classes himself and then save Denno Brown from his own people.
For a second he felt amazed that he’d gotten himself into all of this. But thinking about it, he realized something.
He hadn’t.
At almost every turn, the situation seemed to have been set in motion by an Ancient.
Tor decided that was going to need some thought as well, if he ever had the time.
Then, really, he did.
Possibly all the time in the world.