Jupiter Rising

Chapter Eight - The Rowan age

When I arrived at the nursery I could hear Willow and Jupiter having the most wonderful time. Jupiter had missed her guardian like crazy, and what Willow had promised would be a couple of days, ended up being weeks.

"The Queen" "my guard Jay announced, stamping down his staff.

I stopped in my tracks and regarded him beside me with a confused expression on my face "what was that" I asked.

Jay regarded me with the same look "Announcing your arrival My Queen... as is proper"

"Well... don't" I ask "This isn't a state visit or someone from beyond the Veil. This is my Aunty... and she was born here"

"My apologies my Queen" and he offered a curtesy.

"Rowan" Willow greeted, as I entered the Nursery. She walked over with open arms and the most glorious and heart warming smile upon her lips. "My niece" she greeted, placing a kiss on my cheek "how the day is brighter for seeing you"

"And you Aunty" I return, bending down as Jupiter ran at me with gusto. She sent me falling backward as she hit so hard, and had us in a ball of gowns, and giggling upon the nursery floor in seconds.

"Mama" she greeted, eyes closed with a smile. "Willow is here to stay"

I looked up, trying to breathe from laughing too hard "You will stay"

Willow nodded, offering a reassuring smile. "Jupiter needs me... and I dare say, my Neice does too"

I felt tears forming so quickly that I found myself embarrassed. "I do" I confessed "I really do"

To have her here, finally, back within the Veil, and in Olamoore... it was a childhood dream come true. Willow had been the only adult Fae I knew loved me, as a child, and her loss for me, was the moment my walls went up. She was as close to my own Mother as I could ever get.

Sycamore took years to love, for he didn't show me love in that same way. He didn't know how to be the guardian to a Fae child, and he had never loved anything or anyone. After some years we grew together like a trees limb around an immovable object, winding around it until it became a part of us, whether we liked it or not. Princess Jupiter I had noticed, was already weaving her magic on Sycamore. There was no way in hell he would have ever let me dress him up the way Jupiter had. Whether it was the fear of death Andy offered him, or the fact he now knew how to show his emotions, I wasn't sure, but seeing him with Jupiter it was clear, that he cared about her.

"Where is Sycamore" I asked, noting his absence.

"I told him to take a break, since I am here now" Willow told me.

Jupiter stood back up, and I did the same. "He disappeared in such a flash Mama"

I smiled, a little laugh escaping "I bet"

This was Sycamores first break since Jupiter had arrived, and I highly suspected he was in a bubble bath right now with a jug of wine.

The thought made me think to Andy, and how I wouldn't get to take a bath with her tonight, or perhaps ever again. Had I really pushed her to the point that she declared me once again, a captor?! I never thought this would happen again, and I'm not sure she did either. We had been so happy, but our bubble of wedded bliss had been short lived with the revelations of our daughter's existence and then the creation of Leda. In creating Leda, we had without knowing, started a fire storm that neither of us knew how to control, and so it was consuming us. I wouldn't let it end us, and I couldn't ever have her be beside me as duty only. It would destroy me to have my heart ache for her now for an eternity, knowing and feeling now how her magic is inside of me, and I her. To yearn for her, when she is but a finger tip away from me.