The man's ruddy face turned toward the backdoors to the tavern's kitchens as it opened, the two smaller figures entering the back of the Parakeet earning a wide, bright if slightly surprised smile beneath those thick, dark blonde beard and moustaches. "Ah, it seems my faithless wife and her fly-by-night lover have returned!" he said in a surprisingly soft, deep bass voice, setting down the barrel of rum he'd had perched easily on one massive shoulder, and then holding his arms wide open.

Madeleine laughed, warm, rich music dancing its way between them as she released that purple-clad arm readily and all but leapt into her husband's arms, kissing him wildly. By the door, Antonia lowered her eyes with a small smile of her own, the jaunty little hat tossed to the side as she slipped easily from the man's coat. The velvet cloth over one arm, her grey eyes fell almost demurely to the floor while husband and wife shared a reunion kiss that might have said months apart, not mere hours.

"I'm going to go change - and you do know the two of you make me a touch ill to my stomach, don't you?" she said with a grin, moving past them toward the back stairs, to the tavern's private living quarters.

The big man only guffawed a little while his wife somehow, even with that mahogany skin of hers somehow managed the seeming of a blush. "Luc's abed, Antonia," he said over his wife's head.

"But not sleeping?"

"Aye, you know 'e's not," James replied with a chuckle, one eyebrow cocked in amusement, as if even having to answer such a silly question tickled him. "I think the lad's waiting on a story, from his beloved Tante 'Tonia."

Antonia's face lifted to look to James', the strangest mixture of genuine affection and gratefulness, a great number of deep matters once spoken and now no longer, flashed across her features, a most enigmatic emotion to be found there as she flitted swiftly toward the stairs.

[center]**********[/center]

Just as she'd known would happen, Édouard's tight braids, all undone, had left her own hair a wild ebony lion's mane about her head and down her back. She left it down, pulled back from her face with a thick band of ivory silk tied widely over her forehead and then at the nape of her neck. The dress she wore now was a simple linen, a dove grey that mirrored her eyes, ivory lace about the sleeves and bodice. Antonia knew the way to the small back room well, watching the pale orangey glow flicker just beneath the door with a small, knowing smile. She slipped inside the still unlatched door silently, nothing more than a whisper of skirts and petticoats as she entered, and knelt beside the small pallet bed. The small tallow candle still burned in the capstan-shaped candle holder, warming all within with its faint, gentle glow. 

Antonia knelt by the boy's bed in her skirts, letting her chin fall to her folded her arms as she rested against the surprisingly dear feather mattress. "Bonjour, Luc," she whispered, one hand running lightly along the soft, olive skin of his cheek. 

"Bonjour Tante Antonia," the boy whispered, doing his level best to pretend as if he was only just waking up, just such a sleepy little thing though Antonia knew very well he had done no such thing. He rolled toward the young woman, thick dark curls framing his face like an ebony nimbus. His small fingers crawled over the sheets toward the young woman, reaching to touch the wild softness of her thick hair before he spoke again, running a tendril carefully in what was obviously a long familiar gesture as he played.

Antonia never tired of the realization, the relief, that somehow, some way, Luc was simply so... Perfect. Ten fingers, and ten toes. She knew this very well, she'd counted them over and over again when he was tiny enough to fit so well in her arms. He was no monster, neither tainted nor cursed as she'd feared - only a beautiful baby; a sweet, smart and beautiful boy.

No, she never tired of this realization. Not to her dying day, would she.

"Did Maman tell you I earned a whole gold piece today?" 

Antonia's smile widened as she nodded her head just a little. "Aye, she did."

"She took it away," he pouted.

"Only because she wanted to see it spent on something wondrous, not half a ship's worth of penny candies! Do you know what your Maman and Papa are going to do, Luc? They're going to give you the stars! An instructor to show you how to read the constellations, how to chart and plot and navigate a ship even!"

The little boy's eyes widened with surprise, even a little awe. He didn't have his mother's eyes, Luc didn't, nor even his father's. He had his grandmother's eyes, a rich chocolate brown flecked with amber, like the fairy light of dancing fireflies, and Antonia was content that this be so. "Truly? The heavens, Antonia?" he said with a laugh, a little too loud to keep the pretense he was only just waking. "Where God and the angels live?"

Antonia snickered softly, shaking her head as her traced the outline of his. "Perhaps not quite so far as the Throne of God, sweetling. Though if you should rather be a priest- ?"

"Maman says you're like an angel, always looking out for us," he said swiftly, darting from one thought to the next with all a child's swiftness of mind.

Antonia blinked quickly, eyes wide, and then she laughed. "Oh no, mon petit chou-chou, your Tante Antonia is nothing of the sort! Perhaps better to say, oh... Say... " Her grey eyes darted upward, with a small little smirk. "I am more like a spider in the rafters really. I'm always looking over you, nonetheless."

Luc's nose wrinkled up quickly, those dark eyes crinkled suspiciously. "I don't like spiders," the little boy said with all the certainty a child could muster.

[i]"Don't like spiders?"[/i] Antonia asked, eyes wide with smiling incredulity.

"No. Some of them are poisonous, says Master Andrews. And they can even eat their mates! They've too many eyes, and [i]far[/i] too many legs!"

Antonia laughed. "True, all true... And yet, do you like flies, Luc? Or mosquitoes?"

The little boy's brow furrowed in confusion. "Well... [i]No.[/i] But I don't understand- "

"Why If it weren't for spiders, the world should be crawling and buzzing in flies and mosquitoes! And did you know too, that true, there are the ones that bite, and the ones that eat their own - but they are far, far fewer that do the same among the children of men. Many spiders? Why, the mother will carry her whole brood upon her back for so long as every least one of her babies will need!" Antonia began softly at first, her voice only just beginning that upward spiral Luc knew so well, the warming up to the story yet to come. 

"They've so many eyes, because God wanted them to see far and wide, and so many legs that they should move swiftly. Why, spiders were the world's first and greatest weavers as well, and taught men their arts when men were helpless to think up such genius themselves."

One of Antonia's hands ran lightly over the little boy's fingers, tracing a tiny starfish of sorts about his hand as she spoke, the cant of her words falling easily into a soothing lullaby of words turned images in the candlelight. "Have I never told you before, Luc, the tale of the cunning and wise Anansi the Spider?" she asked, her grey eyes searching that precious face as Luc shook his head [i]'no.'[/i]

"Why, what in the world have I [i]ever[/i] been thinking, not to tell you of him before? Aye!" She knocked herself swiftly in the forehead with her palm, rewarded by Luc's giggles at the sight. "Such an oversight! But never worry, we shall fix [i]that[/i] egregious mistake this very moment! Now! Because without Anansi the spider, there would be no stories at all to tell, in all the world! You see, they were all hoarded up by the sky [i]loa[/i] Nyame, who would not sell them to the great Anansi without a very steep price... "

[center]**********[/center]

"This way, lovely man." Antonia's voice lingered on the dark, thick air of the tavern like a spicy perfume. She knew him very well, this Captain Lightfoot, where he would wish to sit for the best vantage point, ready in an instant - no matter the time or place - for the unexpected. She stood from the seat she knew very well he would wish for his own, pulling the seat to the side for him with a smile.

"Well,[i] mostly[/i] lovely now, I'm afraid," she said with a small teasing smile, her gaze falling over the darkening bruise of his face. "That [i]does[/i] look... Painful. Though it will heal, I'm sure, eventually - which is more than could be said for that once-lovely purple jacket. You really might have cleaned the throwing knife a bit more thoroughly, before returning it. Blood is hell to get out of velvet, you know."