Chapter Text
Three years later
“Fabulous ceremony!” Lord Bolger exclaimed. “You outdid yourself this time, my friend.” He thumped Nigel very heartily on the back.
Nigel smiled the tolerant smile of a man who was prepared to sleep for at least a week as soon as he was permitted to leave.
He consoled himself that the queens looked even more tired than he did—but of course that was hardly a fair comparison. New parents were always exhausted, no matter how royal they might be. Especially since the queen consort had categorically refused a wet nurse.
Nigel heard a chorus of high-pitched sounds and only barely ducked out of the way in time as a stream of children ran past. The sounds briefly resolved themselves into the queen consort’s nieces screaming “New cousin! New cousin! New cousin!” and then faded into the general hubbub again.
He made significant eye contact with Emily, who had also nearly been bowled over. He could always count on her for pleasantly dry and acerbic conversations at these sorts of events.
Then, disaster struck, in the form of Margery Rivers with several glasses of rather lethal punch under her belt. Nigel debated, briefly, being a good friend. But in the end, self-preservation won out.
He slid behind a column just in time to ensure that Magister Rivers had to content herself with buttonholing only one deeply tired and uninterested professional, plus an innocent bystander (a peek from behind his column revealed that Serena also seemed to have been caught in Margery’s net).
Emily flashed him a murderous glare when she spotted him tiptoeing away toward the exit. He could just hear Margery Rivers' voice, even louder than usual thanks to the punch, rising above the general chatter.
“Didn’t I say they would produce the most marvelous heirs? Fire magic in the royal family! And it was all thanks to my intervention, of course. The silly things would have gone on pining forever, but it just took a little nudge in the right direction!”
A few minutes later, Nigel smiled at his dressing room mirror and silently toasted himself on a successful escape, a successful presentation of the royal heir, and a successful intervention with two very important people he was proud to call his friends.
Then, with a profound sense of accomplishment—and an even more profound sense of being off his feet for the first time in eighteen hours—Nigel Kipling went to bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.