Oh My, I Messed Up the Story

Chapter 84: Small Talk

Nyla sensed the tension and looked between the two of us. "Right, you said he was your husband. How did the two of you meet?"

Al relaxed fractionally since it had nothing to do with his role in the palace. He even managed a tiny, strained smile. "I first saw her at the seaside dancing carelessly in the waves. Less than five minutes later, she was chewing out a doctor for administering improper first aid. That left quite an impression on me so when I saw her again at a dinner party I couldn't stop staring."

"Yeah, it was weird," I said, elbowing him in the ribs. Taking Nyla's lead to try and lighten the mood was the best course of action.

"Hey, at least I saved you from dancing with someone old enough to be your father," he countered. "I think that earned points in my favor."

I rolled my eyes and whispered conspiratorially to my new ally. "He introduced himself to me as Al right off the bat! Nobody does that! I was baffled enough by that to keep thinking about him after the night ended."

It was the extremely watered down version but it was the truth. Nobility weren't the only ones to have balls around here. The merchant class and even the farmers had dances of their own to meet people and escape a little from the drudgery of their daily lives. That much information wouldn't give us away.

Nyla eyed me curiously after that. "You didn't know his full name when you first met?"

Oops. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say.

"No, I didn't find that out until we had met a few other times." And he had already proposed to me. But there was no need to mention that.

"You two are interesting," she said after a moment of silence. "Don't you think so, Mama?"

Ayana nodded, getting emotional again. I felt sorry for her. It must be really hard meeting your long-lost nephew again and not even knowing who he is or anything about his life. I wanted to nudge Al to tell her the truth but didn't think it was my place.

What could we tell her that wouldn't give away the fact that he was royalty? Given the fact that he vanished during the raids, he had to have been taken by a noble. Knights were usually the second or third sons from noble families who weren't set to inherit titles.

Nobles led pretty cushy lives but nobody was as idle as Al and I were. At least other nobles had jobs of some sort. Even Edmund, my ridiculous brother, had his duties as a second son.

"We play a lot of card games," I hedged. "And go horseback riding when the weather is nice. For fun, I mean. When we have time."

The minimal information I offered pleased Ayana. She continued her line of questioning in a similar vein, not wanting to upset Al further. "What sort of foods do you like? Do you like to read? Do you have any children?"

"Katie has a sweet tooth and has rubbed off on me. We eat a lot of pastries. I do read a lot but prefer being outside. And we don't have children yet," Al replied.

Small talk like this continued for a while. We learned that Ayana had three other children named Nira, Rhea, and Ido. All of them were married but Nira, the youngest, didn't have any children yet. We had seen all of her grandchildren but Rhea's infant son and Ido's two-year-old daughter outside earlier.

The boy who had shown us to the barn was named Jasper. He had two younger sisters named Kari and Brisa.

The Kanta clan tended to favor names that were a bit different than most in Annalaias. For the most part, they sounded more Middle Eastern or African. Most names in Annalaias were old fashioned European ones.

I was no linguist but I had looked up endless lists of baby names out of boredom and curiosity before when one of my coworkers got pregnant. She said she wanted to do something unique but not impossible to spell or pronounce that had a nice meaning. That seemed like a pretty tall order to me but it got me curious about name meanings, hence my random research.

Alamar. Gilded. Al's real name had a pretty cool meaning. Ironically, both Katrina and Catherine meant 'pure' because they came from the same root word. It was the same no matter which name I used.

To me, Alpheus was a character in a book that was quite different from my husband. He didn't look like an Alpheus to me since I met him as Al and always referred to him that way. Finding out that the name he had been born with could also use Al as a nickname was kind of funny.

Another way we were alike. He could be Al as either Alamar or Alpheus like I could be Katie as Katrina or Catherine.

Suddenly I wanted to tell him the truth about methat this was something we shared. But I couldn't do it because of all of the emotional upheaval he was experiencing right now. I had a feeling I was in for an earful when we got home.

I watched him carefully as they talked. He seemed to enjoy hearing what Ayana and Nyla had to say though I could sense turmoil brewing under the surface. Yep. Definitely in for an earful.

Al was obviously doing his best to hold it together for their sakes so it appeared that he liked them. There were so few people in this world he actually liked. Other than me, I was pretty sure the only other people he didn't barely tolerate were Marcy and Edmund.

It was good that he liked them but it also posed a potential problem to our ability to leave Annalaias. If he had something to stay for, he might not want to go anymore. Our departure was supposed to be only a few months away.