"Uncle Andreas?"

Topaz, on his loveseat, was close enough to hear the almost-stifled sigh as Lord Andreas lowered the book he was searching through. "Yes?"

Given that this was Lord Elias' fourth interruption today, all of them variations of "I'm bored!" and it wasn't much past lunch, Topaz wondered when his Lord's temper was going to fray.

"I dug out my old Playstation from downstairs like you said and hooked it up to the TV." His sigh suggested martyrdom. "The games I liked then are mostly pretty lame, but it's better than nothing. I mean, how do you guys live with no Internet or..."

"We have dial-up," Lord Andreas said. "That's what's available in this area currently, and it's enough for its purposes." Topaz had heard him repeat variations of that frequently over the past couple of days, getting shorter each time. "What would you like, Elias? I do have work to do."

"It's Saturday, don't you ever take a day off?"

"When I have no urgent work to do, yes. What would you like?"

"These games mostly suck less with someone else to play them with. Xen's upstairs playing with her new toy, and you and Mom are busy. Can I have your sensitive for a while?"

Lady Xenia's 'new toy' was, in fact, Zephyr, currently a living version of a Barbie doll right down to the unlikely curves and gravity-proof breasts, though at least Lady Phyllida hadn't done anything weird like making his skin—or should that be her skin?—look plastic or anything. Lady Xenia had spent last night, between homework and supper and finally going to bed, playing with Zephyr's now hip-length blonde hair, and had progressed this morning to practising her rudimentary illusion abilities by creating the appearance of clothing. Zephyr tolerated it with more grace than Topaz was sure he would have, even though there was really no choice but to submit to it. At least it was keeping Lady Xenia quiet and busy.

Lord Andreas glanced at Topaz, and nodded. "Go ahead. Have fun." He sounded less carefully controlled, more indulgent.

"Cool. Well? Come on, already!"

Topaz uncoiled from his usual position and followed the younger mage to the living room.

"You ever play any games?" Lord Elias asked, the scorn in his voice suggesting that he was expecting a negative answer.

"Some, in arcades, my Lord," Topaz said, keeping his tone carefully docile.

Lord Elias rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, welcome to the twenty-first century. Although a Playstation2 barely qualifies. You see anything you know how to play?"

Topaz warily flipped through the small plastic storage bin of games. A couple he recognized, most he didn't.

Hm, Mortal Kombat. He was used to an earlier version, with arcade controls rather than console ones, but it was the most familiar of the lot, which was what he'd been told to look for.

"Mortal Kombat, my Lord?"

"Yeah, okay." Lord Elias actually looked moderately interested. "We can just goof around for a bit so you can get used to the controls. I haven't played in a while so I need to remember."

"Yes, my Lord. Thank you."

Lord Elias sat on the edge of the couch; Topaz stayed on the floor, though he figured he could get away with sitting cross-legged instead of kneeling.

The scornful look came back when Topaz chose Sonya Blade, a female Special Forces fighter; he chose, for himself, Raiden, who was a thunder god with a variety of blatantly magical moves. No big surprise, really.

"Don't get any stupid ideas like throwing the game by picking a character I can beat too easy," Lord Elias said. "That's going to be boring."

"No, my Lord. I'm used to Sonya. I'm not trying to lose."

"All right, then. But I want this to be a challenge."

"Yes, my Lord."

"I don't know why he doesn't turn you into a girl and leave you that way for real. That's the first thing I'm going to do when I have a sensitive."

"That's up to Lord Andreas, my Lord. And up to you." He wouldn't be the first, from what Topaz had seen. It hadn't been long enough that he didn't still find shapechanging uncomfortable and nerve-wracking, and he tried not to think too much about what his Lord might do—although compared to what he'd seen at family and social gatherings, Lord Andreas had mild tastes. Unless it was just more of that kindness, meant to give him some time to get used to it before getting more creative...

Sonya's strengths lay not with flashy tricks, but with speed and agility. That meant she was often underestimated, but in the hands of someone with the reflexes and coordination to use her well, she could be extremely effective.

They messed around a bit, Topaz learning what moves Sonya had in this version of the game and how to translate what he knew onto a different controller. He made what notes he could about what Lord Elias was concentrating on, and found as he'd rather expected that the young mage seemed fond of the flashy electrical and teleport moves at the expense of basic combat technique.

A lifetime ago, he'd lurked in arcades, watching for young men out with a girlfriend or a group of friends, ones who were winning and easy to manipulate into wagering on a game, with Lila variably his girlfriend or flirting with his opponent, depending on the circumstances. They'd found Mortal Kombat one of the best for that.

Don't think about Lila.

She wouldn't even know you anymore, anyway.

More time would have been better, but he could see Lord Elias starting to get impatient. He'd just have to work out the rest on the fly. "My Lord?" he said tentatively, when they finished that session. "I think I can keep from boring you."

"Good." Lord Elias started a new game. "I really hope you can. So far you kinda suck at this."

"I'll try, my Lord."

He did manage to keep from being a punching bag, even with Lord Elias pounding on him mercilessly, but continued to puzzle out what worked best. As he caught on, the tide of the game began to turn, and Lord Elias' chiding over a string of victories, by an increasingly narrow margin, became a frown and some muttered cursing. The frown deepened into a scowl and the cursing went silent in fierce concentration, as Topaz began to win enough rounds to make each match's conclusion much less certain.

The first time Topaz' Sonya won two out of three rounds and killed his Raiden, he threw Topaz an incredulous look that was about half shock.

"Luck," he said curtly. "You can't do it again."

Feeling a tingle of pleasure and confidence he hadn't experienced in months, Topaz did so. And a third time as well, this time, with the game's trademark gore, gleefully removing Raiden's heart and then his arm and beating him with it.

"What the fuck?" Lord Elias tossed his controller on the floor, twisted to glower at Topaz. "How the fuck did you do that? You could hardly play it when we started!"

"I learn fast, my Lord."

"No one learns that fast!" The rising volume of his voice made Topaz cringe: angry mage equalled bad thing, no matter who that mage was. He dropped the controller, pulled in on himself, shifted position into the submissively kneeling crouch that would make him as small a target as possible for whatever limited protection that might be.

None, really. Lord Elias stood up, came a step closer, then another, easily within arm's length though he made no attempt at contact. The proximity itself felt like a threat, every bit as much as the torrent of words.

That momentary satisfaction of being able, even vicariously, to thump with impunity on a mage and win was scant comfort. Lord Andreas was going to be angry that he'd upset Lord Elias, and if nothing else, this was yet another interruption in his work.

"Elias?" Lord Andreas said from the doorway. "What I'm hearing doesn't sound like playing a game. Would you care to tell me why you're verbally abusing Topaz? And you will please back at least two steps farther away from my sensitive instead of looming over him like that."

Topaz closed his eyes, felt sick and cold. Any hope that his own Lord wouldn't be disturbed or drawn into this had just vanished. And of course if it came down to the word of a mage against the word of a sensitive, he was certain to be the one who lost.

He wasn't sure what else he could have done, though. Try to play hard enough to keep Lord Elias challenged without winning? That would have required a level of skill with this game's dynamics he just didn't have. So what on Earth was I supposed to do? How could I possibly have won, or at least not lost, in this whole mess? This isn't fair! Pull me out of what passed for a life, tell me I have to obey mages, then get pissed off at me when I try my best? What was I supposed to do?

Even if the whole situation had been impossible, he nonetheless knew with miserable certainty that he'd failed his Lord and his Lord would be displeased with him, for not keeping his nephew happily occupied and out of the way. It might be easier to bear if he thought his Lord would just hit him or punish him and let it go—and that he was thinking that only made the resentment worse.

"He beat me," Lord Elias said angrily, though he did obediently retreat the requested distance, which was at least some relief even if it was eclipsed by his own Lord's thinly-masked annoyance. "He started off acting like he didn't know what he was doing, and then just turned around and started beating me every time!"

"Did you tell him to let you win?"

"Of course not. That would be boring!"

"So you told him to give you a challenge?"

"Well, yeah!"

"And he gave you what you asked for?"

"I... he wasn't supposed to start winning every game!"

"So there was a maximum percentage of games he was allowed to win?"

"I think he lied to me about not knowing the game very well! He was trying to make me look stupid! He's just a sensitive, he can't be that good! He has to have been cheating somehow!"

"Topaz," Lord Andreas said. "Have you ever played that game before?"

"Not on a Playstation, my Lord," Topaz said meekly. "Only in an arcade. I did play it a lot there. The controls are different and the special moves are different."

"But you're familiar with another version of the same game. Elias, did you ask him that beforehand?"

"Yeah," Lord Elias said. "It would take forever for it to be fun if he had to learn one from nothing. I told him to find one he knows."

"Topaz. Did you, in any way, deceive Elias, or cheat, or otherwise win unfairly?"

"No, my Lord!" Topaz said vehemently. "I wouldn't...!" Lord Andreas' raised hand cut him off, and he bit his lower lip hard.

"So, Elias, he did what you said and told you which game he's familiar with, and he applied what he knows from another version to this one to give you a challenge, as you told him to do. And when he picked it up successfully enough to start winning, you got angry at him for it."

"I..."

"Does that cover the facts?"

"Well, yeah, I guess." The answer came out only reluctantly.

"Has Topaz acted in any way inappropriate in anything he has done or said?"

"Well, no, not technically, but he cheated or something!"

Lord Andreas nodded. "You're on your own for the rest of the day." Lord Elias, in disbelief, opened his mouth to protest, but Lord Andreas continued right over him, without changing the level tone at all. "And if you want to have someone to play against tomorrow, you can apologize to Topaz for scolding him for doing exactly what you told him to do, and you can ask if he would like to play further around his other responsibilities, which will be his choice. Stop there before you even finish saying that. Whose household is this?"

"Yours," Lord Elias said sullenly.

"Unless Topaz behaves in a way that is inappropriate towards a mage, he is my sensitive in my household, which you are also currently in, and I determine what's right. No sensitive can learn how to please their mage if the rules are changed on them and they're in trouble for doing as they're told to do. It's an impossible trap and it's unfair. Think about how you'd feel if you were told to do something and then punished for doing it. Topaz, come on, up you get and come with me. No more games today."

"Yes, my Lord," Topaz said softly, rising quickly and falling into place at his Lord's heels back to his office.

"You look frightened," Lord Andreas said, his voice unexpectedly gentle, one hand resting on the corner of his desk for support. "Do you honestly think I'd be angry with you when you didn't do anything wrong?"

"I... I don't know whether I did anything wrong, my Lord." It came out almost as low as a whisper. "You were disturbed again because of it."

"Not because of anything you did. You did as he asked." He sighed. "I had hoped you might be able to have some fun playing for a while. I wonder if I was that bad at that age. We can hope he'll grow out of it. Ah well. Come here."

Nervously, Topaz obeyed.

Lord Andreas gave him a brief affectionate kiss and ran a hand through his hair. "I will not allow you to be treated unfairly. Please believe that."

"Yes, my Lord." He tried not to shiver, the relief that he hadn't failed swamped by the flood of warm reassurance that his Lord was pleased with him.

Had, in fact, taken his part against another mage.

Right then, he understood why Veritas had loved their mutual master, even while he hated the fact that it mattered to him beyond his own immediate safety.

"You're mine, and I will protect you as much as I possibly can." Another sigh. "Now. I do need to get this finished. Supper will take Zephyr longer since it's for six, not four. Suppose you go remind him of that and maybe help out, hm? If Xenia argues, tell her I said so." A flash of humour crept into his voice. "They may think the world revolves around them, but I don't believe either is likely to interrupt Phyllida when she's working unless they feel like being exiled outside and told to amuse themselves out there. I imagine he could use a break."

"Thank you, my Lord." It might actually be good to be away from his Lord for a bit, to let his chaotic feelings settle down.

Lady Xenia sulked over losing her toy, but didn't argue; she just went to the children's shared bedroom to read.

In the kitchen, Zephyr gave Topaz a quick kiss and a smile of thanks.

Topaz shrugged. "Lord Andreas' idea. But I'm glad he thought of it. Very bad?"

Zephyr sighed, gave him a one-shoulder half-shrug and a rueful look that said as clearly as words, could be worse. His—her—expression turned questioning, blonde eyebrows raised.

"Lord Elias got angry that I beat him at Mortal Kombat. Lord Andreas made him leave me alone and said he can't have me to play with any more today. He wasn't mad at me."

Zephyr shook her head, not surprised; thick blonde hair fell forward over a bare shoulder, and she rolled her eyes and headed for the basket on the counter that held a variety of small useful items including hair elastics.

"And if he wants to play tomorrow, he has to apologize to me." That was probably not going to make Lord Elias any better disposed towards him. "And Lord Andreas said it's my choice whether I want to."

Zephyr nodded, gathering up her hair with both hands, a heavy-duty elastic in one.

"I probably don't want to. But I'll do it anyway. 'Cause otherwise, he'll keep bothering Lord Andreas all day."

Another nod. Zephyr wrapped the elastic firmly around the ponytail, and came back to him. It was a little distracting having her look like that, but it wasn't the first time Lady Phyllida had made Zephyr be a girl, although it was uncommon; more just that she did look an awful lot like a doll brought to life. She pressed a kiss just in front of his ear and whispered, "Exactly." Briskly, she strode across the kitchen to the fridge and opened the door to rummage inside, beckoning him over so she could hand him a variety of vegetables from it.

Exactly? What did she mean, exactly?

Lady Xenia wandering into the kitchen in search of a drink interrupted the discussion, and once she was satisfied and left with her glass of juice, they concentrated on making supper and another of Topaz' sporadic cooking lessons. Deeper questions could wait. Right now, they just needed to get through this visit with their mages minimally inconvenienced by it.