Transmigrated Teri is an ongoing isekai/portal fantasy series about Teri Graves, an embittered middle-age GenX office lady who gets into a massive car accident and wakes up in the world of the fantasy series she loves to hate, The Allisar Fireborn Chronicles. She knows the characters, she knows the plot, and she knows that its all a massive coma dreamâŚexcept for how nothing is as it should be. Worse? She woke up in the body of the doomed evil stepmother! She escaped a pandemic for this?
Previously: Teri tried to take a nice garden interlude in the story...
The Spring Gala of Castle Luttiron erupted across the castle greens in a riot of color and sound that would have shamed the gods themselves for the modesty of their own celestial celebrations. Thousands of souls pressed together beneath the snap and flutter of bright pennants, the air thick with the intoxicating perfume of roasting meat and new spring grass. At the fieldâs heart, the great maypole rose like a spear thrust at heaven itself, and around it wound the fairest maidens of the Allisarden, their bright hair unbound and streaming, skirts swirling about their ankles as they wove ribbons into patterns of breathtaking intricacy, their laughter like silver bells scattered across the green. Beyond them, iron-clad knights thundered down the jousting lists in a glorious cacophony of splintering lances and screaming crowds, their destriersâ hooves tearing the turf like thunder made flesh. It was the sort of spectacle that made men forget their debts and women forget their sense, and Luttiron, for one magnificent day, forewent manners and etiquette and fear.
~ Allisar Fireborn Chronicles, Book 1: Embers of Destiny
The Spring Gala of Luttiron was, by any measure Teri could apply, an absolute banger.
She had not expected that, despite the somewhat over-the-top descriptions in the first book. Given the people she had met so far, she had expected something dutiful and slightly grim, a performance of festivity rather than the thing itself, the kind of event that existed to be attended rather than enjoyed. What she got instead was hundreds of people, if not a few thousand, in their best clothes spilling across the grounds of Castle Luttiron in the warm spring sunshine, a maypole being enthusiastically attacked by a mixed group of children and adults laughing uproarously, two knights in the middle distance engaged in what appeared to be more of a play fight than a tournament, and the smell of roasting meat coming from every direction. The last point made Theoâs entire existence narrow to a single focused point of longing.
:Donât even think about it,: she warned him, images of a wild dog attacking a food stand running through her mind.
:I am only thinking about it a little,: he said, which was a lie. He was drooling.
From the elevated platform, which was just high enough to see over the crowd, Teri had a view of the whole proceedings that she was choosing to think of as âmanagerialâ and not âsuperfluous attendee.â She did feel very fancy, though, like Olivia de Havilland in Robin Hood, a favorite of her youth on late night television channel WGN. Thinking about it, she realized that was probably the source code for her eventual obsession with the Allisar Fireborn Chronicles.
Theo sniffed disdainfully. :No dogs.:
âRobin Hood did not need a dog,â she clarified, much to the confusion on Robern to her right.
The whole family was sitting on the platform for a change, which was draped in House Allisar colors, with the enchanted bunting blooming cheerful cascades of fabric flowers in the spring breeze (repositioned to tasteful rather than provocative, she was glad to see). Behind them, set up to be taller than any of them, was an empty chair representing Lord Ferdiff Allisar, looking more like a throne than a chair. The fact it was empty was the only reason anyone else was on the platform, though.
Teriâs wheelchair had been replaced with a high-backed chair which was even less comfortable, although Lady Sariat had stuffed it full of pillows. She was grateful no one commented on how she had been carried up the stairs by two burly guardsmen.
Ota was to her left, resplendent in layers of silky cream and gold, burgundy ribbons festooned through the sleeves and around the multiple hems. He was explaining to nobody in particular why the maypole ribbons should have been a deeper shade of rose. Nobody was listening. He didnât seem to require and audience, he just assumed the wold world served that role anyway.
The children wereâ
Well. The children were something.
Ota had happened to the children the previous afternoon like a force of nature. Teri wasnât sure who told him that she was letting the kids attend the full event, but he descended upon them with the manic energy of designer during New York Fashion Week. Robern had emerged in a complex combination of blue, from light sky blue to deep indigo, in tailored layers of vests and robes that made him look approximately four years older and considerably less like someone who could be ignored. Ota kept calling him âYoung Master Allisarâ with evident glee.
Vycette was resplendent in a ladyâs ensemble of green and gold that Teri was fairly certain cost more than her salary had at the university, and was sitting very straight and proper with a smug, self-satisfied expression. Aurguth and Gervyn had somehow gained the upper hand, though, and were both dressed in matching boyâs suits of rusty red and gold, and if it werenât for their height differences one might take them for the twins of the bunch.
Gervyn, though, had lost his formal jacket within the first hour. Nobody knew where it had gone. Theo might have been involved.
:I had nothing to do with that jacket,: Theo said, without being asked.
âMm.â Teri smirked, once again making all the servants (so many servants, were there this many servants in the books, she wondered?) glance nervously at Theo.
She was, against all odds, having a genuinely good time.
That in and of itself was suspicious, and she knew it, but she had decided not to examine it too closely. This was her coma-dream, after all, and if she had not lived long enough to see a live-action version of the books, she was going to enjoy her own version of it. The meat was good, the wine was better, the entertainment was excellent. She had watched a performer do something with fire that would have been a headline act at any renaissance faire sheâd ever attended, and had to physically stop herself from applauding like an excited tourist. At one point she had requested a turkey leg, been met with polite bafflement, and ended up with something on a skewer that she could not identify but tasted extraordinary.
âWhat is a turkey?â Gervyn had asked, appearing at her elbow from nowhere, as he did.
âA large bird,â she said. âFrom very far away. Never mind.â
âIs it magical?â
âRemarkably not.â
He had accepted this with a jerky nod and disappeared again.
Theo watched him go with fond exasperation. :Puppies; so curious about everything!:
She looked out over the grounds and felt, for the first time since she had woken up in Lady Greyrageâs body, relief. Not happiness exactly, given that she assumed she was dying on a hospital bed somewhere, but not her usual low-level simmering frustration. It had to do with the four children on the platform and the way Vycette had just said something to Robern that made him cover a laugh with his hand, and the way Aurguth had grabbed Gervynâs collar thirty seconds ago to stop him climbing over the railing. Again.
She was going to get them through this gala and whatever came next, she decided. She was going to kidnap them, maybe, and take them to Caves of Melifinaar herself. It would be fun.
A runner came through the main gate at a pace that parted the crowd.
He was wearing Allisar liveryâFerdiffâs specific colors, not the familyâsâand he went immediately to the stewardâs position near the platform steps, which was currently occupied by Roos, who had been a quiet and efficient presence at the edge of her awareness all morning. She watched Roos receive the message. Watched his face do absolutely nothing.
He climbed the platform steps and arrived at her side and leaned down slightly and said, very quietly: âLord Allisarâs caravan is two hours out, milady.â
Teri heard the children go still before she fully processed the words. It was the quality of the stillness that snapped her to attention, because it was not the natural pause of people eavesdropping. It was the practiced, instantaneous stillness of people who had learned that certain sounds required immediate immobility. Four children, mid-motion, suddenly statues.
Robernâs slowly hand had come to rest on the platform railing. His knuckles were white.
Vycette had turned to look at Teri with an expression of careful, controlled blankness that was doing a great deal of work.
Aurguth had stopped watching the knights.
Gervyn found his way back to Teriâs side without her seeing him move, and was standing very close to her chair.
Teri looked at their faces and felt the good morning evaporate like dew.
He did this on purpose, she thought. She knew enough about Ferdiff Allisar to know that his paranoia and self-centeredness would do this just to unsettle everyone, to remind them who was in charge. Teri had always thought that fansâ claims that he was a narcissist were over the top, but obviously she had internalized it, if this was her mental version of him.
Theo made a low sound that wasnât quite a growl.
:I donât like him,: he said, and his tone was different from the way he talked about Roos; flatter, and more certain. He had clearly picked up on her thoughts.
âI know,â she said quietly.
She looked at the runner, still waiting below the platform steps. She looked at Roos, who was watching her with that careful, measuring expression she was starting to know too well,then took in the the gala sprawled out before here. It was still going, music still playing, the crowd unknowing and thought about someone like King Henry VIIIâthe most common comparison to Ferdiffâarriving at a party he hated specifically to ruin it for everyone else.
She straightened in her chair.
âThank you, Roos,â she said, at a normal volume, with a composure she did not feel. âPlease ensure the Countâs rooms are prepared.â She glanced at the children, one by one, until she had the attention of all four of them. âWeâll stay here until you have things arranged. We are enjoying the gala.â
Vycette blinked. Robern let go of the railing. Gervyn stared at her in frank disbelief.
âYes, milady,â Roos said, and she noticed, precisely because she was watching for it, that his gaze went briefly, controlled, to Lady Sariat, who was standing three feet away with her hands folded and her face composed and her eyes already moving to the children to check them one by one.
The runner departed. The music continued and below the platform, people continued enjoying the spring gala in blissful ignorance that would end soon enough. The children were not enjoying themselves anymore, too wound up with dread to be at ease, but at least Teri felt she was giving them as much time as she could to prepare for what was ahead. Even she was not looking forward to it.
Damn her brain! She reached down and put her hand on Theoâs head.
:Two hours,: she thought at him.
:I know,: he replied glumly.
She could feel the cold wind of incoming disaster, the way she watched her own family dissolve into chaos whenever her father came home from work angry. Perhaps, she thought, it was the memory of her own childhood that had her constructing this scenario.
Gervyn pressed slightly closer to her chair.
She didnât say anything. Neither did he.
Across from them, someone finally sorted out the maypole tangle, and a ragged cheer went up from the crowd.
NEXT: Danger Arrives
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