Chapter Text
Carnivale LeCroux survived the Feywild. It was touch and go, they’d definitely died a few times, but in the end they saved the Arch Fey, got the gold, and paid their debts. They enjoyed a blissful month before the next disaster fell in their laps.
There was a knock at the door. After collecting all the gold from their grand reward, they’d shacked up in a nice townhouse to build out their plan for Carnivale LeCroux Mark II. It was warm and cozy and contained no fey curses, it was perfect. Unfortunately, it was also traceable. Frost opened the door. A tall, thin half-elf woman with a cheery smile stood on the stoop.
“Good morning!” She had long chestnut hair pulled back into an elaborate bun, giant round glasses perched on her nose, and a large leather bag on her hip; Frost could tell behind the cheerful tone she meant business.
“We don’t want it.” Frost goes to shut the door, but the woman’s foot stops it from shutting completely.
“I’m not selling anything! I promise!” Frost looked at the shoe in the doorway, a scuffed black leather loafer. The kind you saw on bureaucrats and bank workers. This would not bode well.
“Good. Then you have no business here. Good bye.”
“I’m here on behalf of my mother! She said it’s very important! Please!” Frost had a soft spot for family, it came from not really having one. Plus she looked very worried, it wouldn’t hurt to hear her out.
“What is it.” the woman immediately rummaged through the leather bag on her hip, sheaths of papers poked out from the top of the bag.
“Oh thank you, thank you! My mother sent me on this very important mission and I can not fail her. Oh, there it is!” She pulls out a piece of parchment. Had Frost been paying attention, he would see the fat red seal on the front that signaled official business. He might’ve been worried. She reads a scrawled note pinned to the parchment. “It says I’m looking for a ‘Gideon Coal’. Is there a Gideon Coal here?” His head tilts.
“Gideon? What do you need with Gideon?” She pushed her glasses up her nose. Frost had to admit she was quite cute in a girl next door kind of way. Her face was unnaturally pink for a human but too light for an elf. Probably an Eladrin parent, the coloring was so unusual.
“This is for him. My mother was very specific!” She pulled out a second parchment, “This one is for uh…” she checked the pinned note, “Kremy LaCroux? Do you know where he is?”
“I don’t know where they are presently. Can I accept them on their behalf?” Her eyes widened.
“No no no no no, it HAS to go to them directly. My mother will know if they aren’t,” she leaned in, “She is a very powerful woman, you do NOT want to get on her bad side.”
“This is all very suspicious. What does your mother want with Kremy and Gideon? Is this about the Feywild?” Unfortunately for the groups luck, Kremy and Gideon entered the room. They were bickering, like always. It was an inconsequential argument over nothing in particular, but the two never ran from a good verbal spar.
“I’m sick of the fucking swamp! Can’t we go somewhere nicer?”
“All my contacts are in Agwe, howre we supposed to build a carnival without capital?”
“We have a dragon’s hoard of gold and magical items, we don’t need capital!”
“I’m not spending MY money on a fucking carnival…” Frost rolled his eyes, but the woman in the doorway was watching intently. Kremy noticed the open door and stranger. He didn’t know why there was a half-elf woman at his door, time to find out. Kremy approaches the woman and offers a hand.
“Whatta do, I’m Kremy LeCroux.” Her eyes bore holes in his soul.
“Kremy LeCroux?”
“Uh that’s what I said, yes.” She smiles and passes him a rolled parchment, his name scrawled and pinned to the roll. “What the fuck is this?” She had moved onto Gideon. Eyes now turned to the fire genasi.
“Are you Gideon Coal?”
“Uh who’s asking?”
“Me. Hello.”
“Uh hi? Yes I’m Gideon.”
“Gideon Coal?”
“That’s my name. Gideon Coal.” She nodded and passed him a much larger roll of parchment. Her face split into a wide grin.
“Fantastic! You’ve been served. Have a nice day!” She disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Kremy dropped the parchment immediately.
“Gid put that down! If you don’t read it it doesn’t count!” Gideon throws the roll on the floor. Frost bent down and picked up the papers.
“That’s not how that works. That was a process server, she’s likely reported that you received the notice.” He examined the seal. It had scales of justice, one side holding an owl the other a flame. Little flowers flourished the wax . He broke it with a claw, sliced neatly down the middle. He read the parchment. Then read it again. He read it one more time to confirm its contents, then ripped open the second parchment. He gets through two sentences before bursting out laughing.
“Oh my GODS!” His usual monotone voice had almost disappeared, “You two are so fucked!” Kremy snatched up a paper.
“Let me see that.” Kremy read the parchment. Then read it again.
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. Read the other one.” Kremy desperately grabbed the other paper. He read it in full.
“Oh no…” Kremy moaned. “Oh good Baron why…”
“What the hell is going on? Anyone gonna fill me in?” Frost composed himself. It took all his psionic training to fully calm. The situation was just so ridiculous.
“You’re being sued. Well it’s more like a class action divorce.” Gideon didn’t know what they meant. Obviously he knew what divorce was, he’d heard plenty of women bemoan their worthless ex husbands. The idea of a class action lawsuit was also vaguely familiar. He was pretty sure he’d heard the term at least. It was all legal shit, not worth his time.
“What’s that mean.”
“Basically all of your wives have decided to collectively divorce you for,” Frost snickered “Spousal abandonment.” Oh. That tracked.
“Is that why Kremy’s freaking out?”
“No that’s the best part; they asked if he wanted to take part in the suit.” Kremy moaned.
“All our assets… all that gold… all that TIME in the fucking Feywild… gone.”
“What do you mean all our assets? I thought you wrote me a prenup?” Kremy was in utter despair. He’d relegated himself to the floor, the grim realization that their future was filled with legalese and settlement discussions had broken him. You couldn’t hire a public defender for a civil suit. A class action lawsuit defense would be expensive. Tack on filing fees, subpoenas, hiring expert witnesses; their fraction of a dragon’s hoard would be gone in no time.
“The prenup only covered Bixsie and Zaxsie. We never had anything worth taking so I never bothered writin’ contracts for the other girls. I don’t think I knew about half of them; There were a lot of names Gid.”
“Including yours.” Muttered Frost. Silence filled the room.
Kremy and Gideon were married. Actually, they were married in three countries and two planes of existence. It was easy. If they needed a distraction, they faked a proposal. Sometimes it led to an actual ceremony. All ironically, of course. Gideon never minded getting married, they had cake at the end.
He thought back to the names. Some of them he’d met, some of them he’d seen walk down the aisle. Eyes full of love and wonder, Gideon tugging at his collar. He really hated wearing a suit. It was funny at the time. All those doe eyed farm girls with romantic notions of marriage flitting around making their special day perfect. Then the wedding would come and go and so would Gid. Kremy would fashion some means of escape or they’d leave in the night. They’d move on like it never happened. It was easy to believe it hadn’t. It was a joke. Ironic.
Morning Frost was a logical guy, it came with the psionic powers. He knew eventually all those sham weddings would come back to bite them in the ass. Wedding after wedding of mostly innocent girls who got wrapped up in the allure of an adventurer. They all came crashing down to Terra firma eventually. He’d help his friends of course but the true irony of the situation was delicious. The group mantra had become “what happens in the Feywild stays in the Feywild”, clearly that was not true.
Kremy picked up the parchment pinned with his name. It was a notice of a class action suit against Gideon offering Kremy the chance to get “justice”. An invitation scrawled in darker ink on the back of the roll. Kremy considered the invite.
Papers filled the table. They’d caught Gricko and Torbek up on the current crisis (Gricko had laughed harder than Frost). Kremy was the only one with experience in law, but his “specialty” lied in criminal. Nothing could prepare them for divorce court.
“What happens if I don’t fight it?”
“You lose all your gold.”
“I thought they only took half. Half a fortune split 27 ways isn’t the end of the world.”
“It doesn’t end there Gid, they’re asking for alimony.”
“What the fuck is alimony?” Frost sighed. It was going to be a long night. Kremy had been unusually quiet.
Gricko knew Kremy was in love with Gideon. All of Avantris knew Kremy was in love with Gideon. Their marriage(s) had been “ironic” but he’d seen how they looked at each other. How inseparable they were. Like everyone around them was scenery to whatever little scheme they’d cooked up. Frost was his best mate, but he still cared about his other friends. Kremy and Gideon only cared about each other. So the wedding(s) were “fake”, their constant bickering wasn’t. Neither was their utter disregard for the lives of the people around them if one was in trouble. Gricko had learned that lesson many times. The alligator man sat at the table, but it didn’t take a psionic cat to tell he was miles away. Gricko wondered.
Kremy wore a ring. Gideon didn’t