Page 79 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Fifty-Five

A nd this, dear reader, is the part of the story that we call the denouement.

From the French "unknotting", this is the part where—after the resolution to the conflicts occurs, like winning a duel against a sadistic prick, or convincing a queen to read your friend's awesome research—the remaining complexities of the plot unravel.

Nah, fuck it, I'm gonna do it.

First off, not that you care, Simcoe survived.

Yeah, I know. He's sure not as pretty as he once was, so that's something.

And he's not Lieutenant Governor anymore, either.

Dav was terrified that they were gonna make him do the job, which, no thanks.

We just want to spend the rest of our lives farming our little patch and revolutionizing the world.

Thankfully, instead of appointing a new lieutenant governor, the queen let the province of Upper Canada elect their leadership for the first time.

I mean, not the humans… we didn't get a vote.

Not yet . But the dragons voted— all of them, mind you, not just the settlers—and a term of service was placed on the new Lieutenant Governor.

The incumbent was charged with figuring out a way for everyone of legal age regardless of species to vote in the next election, to be held in a few decades.

Convincing a queen to overhaul a whole system of governance may only take one bloody duel and an afternoon with some research papers. But implementing those changes takes a lot longer.

Luckily, dragons live for centuries.

Centuries that Laura doesn't have. Laura confessed to me a few weeks later, one evening under a maple tree she'd helped Dav plant at the farm half a century earlier, that she thought Fynyth was going to be a fine place to die.

Which, fucking tragic, right?

"I'm open-minded," I'd replied hastily. "I'm not gonna get jealous over some spit-swapping if you and Dav want—"

She'd hushed me, thanked me for the offer… and declined it.

"I’m done now, I think," she’d said softly, looking older and grayer already. "I’m ready to go."

"But not too soon, okay?" I begged, kissing her knuckles.

"Not too soon," she’d agreed.

The next thing that happened was the start of The Conversation.

"It's not our job to dictate how reconciliation and repatriation should go," Dav had said, over tea with the queen the day after the duel.

I was so damned proud of him. Especially by how primly he was seated in front of her Majesty.

You'd never know that he'd woken up with an inability to sit down at all .

"That's the same problem all over again: telling the Indigenous dragons what we'll give, what we'll take, and when, and how.

No, it's our duty to open the dialogue and then be silent.

To listen to what the people we've wronged want and need. Not to be high-handed and control it."

The queen had taken his advice to heart, and sought out Onatah's guidance.

Onatah called it The Conversation, in that bluntly subtle way of hers, and it had caught on.

With the help of Indigenous dragons from all over the colonies, they began to map out a plan to reach out to peacefully repatriate territory, and cede control of the land and the people in such a way that no further injustices and insults occurred, and the humans were kept in the dark.

There would come a time, as Pedra had once said, for the whole of humanity to be let in on the truth.

But not until the territories were redistributed, not until the problems inherent in draconic wealth hoarding—food deserts and waste, poverty, unequal access to health care, wage gaps and unethical labor—were repaired.

And like Dav had said, also once upon a time, that could take decades.

Change sometimes has to come slowly to make sure it's done right .

Dav and I ended up staying at St. Ffagan's until the snow began to melt.

We decided that my family didn't need to know literally every gory detail of how, exactly, Dav and I got engaged.

All they knew is that I had popped the question, and Dav had turned into a blubbering, emotional mess and cried for ten minutes on the floor of Whitehall Palace before I got a 'yes' out of him.

So it only made sense to have Mum and the twins join us in Wales for the remainder of the Christmas holidays.

It's not like Paulette and Owain didn't have the space, and Carys was absolutely delighted to be spoiled by the whole Levesque clan.

Mum and Auntie Pattie spent the whole holiday glued at the hip, and Owain, Gem, Stu and I escaped down to The Goat Major every time the dragons got it into their heads to either butt horns, or start wedding planning.

And what about Onatah, to whom we owed so much of our success and happiness?

As Dav promised, as soon as we got back to Canada, the contract they had drawn up to return all but his nesting grounds to her went into effect. And she, in return, had surprised both of us by immediately handing the portion that had been Dav’s marquessate down to her daughter Anwaatin.

Yes, you read that right.

Daughter .

Turns out Onatah has a whole goddamned family of dragons who co-manage her territory, in the Onguiaahra way, and she plays shit close to the vest. So close that I have yet to meet Onatah's Favorite, the gloriously stingy bitch.

I like Anwaatin, and she likes me, and seeing as we're closer in age than I am with Onatah, we spend a lot of time at Beanevolence just talking shit out and sending proposals back to Pedra and the senior adviser teams in both the Scots and British courts.

You know, just casually exchanging texts with royalty.

As you do.

Pedra was immediately offered a place in Elizabeth Regina's hoard, celebrated for her initiative and research ( offered , not simply Collected.) With my Auntie Pattie to guide her, she'd accepted, and immediately became tangled up in consultations, flying all over the world to collect enzyme samples from dragons of all nationalities, ethnicities, and creeds.

Let me see, who else…

Katiya and her fiancé came back from their backpacking trip to find our shared apartment spotless, and me totally moved out.

As well as a brand new sofa in the living room and their rent paid for the next year, because Dav is a goddamned romantic like that.

Mauli seems to have no clue that Anwaatin has started to sniff around them, and I've tried to drop info about what being a Favorite means as often as I can without being obvious.

Dikembe thinks it's hilarious, and Min-soo won't stop batting her eyelashes at me and sighing, absolutely enchanted with k-drama and the romance of it all.

And Hadi.

Well.

Hadi now had not only the permission to sell dragon-roasted coffee again, but a royal seal of approval.

Dav handed the reins over to Anwaatin, who actually is a morning person, so you know, good for her but also, ugh, morning people.

What started as roasting lessons every day slowly petered off to once a week, until Dav bowed out, leaving Anwaatin to labor in service of her new hoard without him.

The return of The Coffee Of The Summer heralded a return of the insane line-ups, and Hadi ended up needing to hire not just a social media manager, but a security gal on weekends who made sure the queue stayed orderly.

Last I heard, the run-off business had boosted the downtown core so much that the BIA had given her an award.

A few corporate folks offered franchise opportunities, but Hadi, the grumpy thing she is, said no.

"The whole point of this 'serving the people' thing," Hadi had said over drinks at the Brass Monkey, "Is that we serve them.

" She sent a glance toward Anwaatin as she said it that made me think that Mauli wasn't the only one being courted.

"Not some McCorporation. This shit's gotta come from the heart, right? "

"Hear hear," Dav had said, and raised a toast to the coffee shop that had brought us all to this point, right here, right now.

And Dav.

My beautiful, selfless, generous Dav.

I'm not going to lie, leaving Beanevolence, and the sense of purpose that he had there, left him bereft in a way he'll never admit to. With me overseeing the farm upgrade and liaising with the courts, and with Sarah taking over most of the wedding planning, Dav was at loose ends.

"Hey, babe," I'd said one morning, shortly after he'd completely given way to Anwaatin. It was just past dawn and he was already dressed and sitting on the end of the bed looking like an abandoned puppy.

"Colin." He'd planted a kiss on me, despite the stale morning breath. "Morning."

"Been up long?"

He'd made a nondescript gesture.

"Sulky pants," I'd said, nudging him with my foot from under the sheets.

"I'm not sulking."

"You're sulking. Go cook me breakfast."

Dav had raised an eyebrow at me. "You know I will be smacked with a spoon if I meddle."

"I didn't say make breakfast. I said cook it."

Dav's eyes had gone wide, and then narrow. "I'll burn your bacon."

"As long as you don't burn the coffee."

Dav had furrowed his eyebrows. "We don't have any green beans."

"Yeah we do." I'd hid my face in the pillow. "I ordered them Saturday. They’re in the pantry. Shoo."

Dav shooed.

It became a habit. Dav now gets up early every morning and roasts coffee and cooks everyone breakfast. It's a start.

Of course the farm renovations aren't going to keep him busy forever.

I'm going to have to find him some charity committees and boards to sit on soon, for his own damn good.

Maybe get him started in local politics, if it's something he's interested in.

He has no desire to be Governor, but 'Lord Mayor of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Alva Tudor' has a nice ring to it. If he wants it.

I'll help him get it.

I'll help him get everything he wants.

Because he's already given me everything I never knew I did.