Inheritance

I. Prelude

Angeline touched the waist of her dress: barely concealed beneath the soft primrose velvet was a faint swell. “Timmy?”

He looked up from his newspaper for a moment. “Yes?”

She swallowed. “I think I’m pregnant.”

 

It didn’t take nine months to arrange the wedding.

 

II. Roses For Love

It’s the very same room where, two decades later, the more romantic approach to matters occurs.

Artemis was down on one knee; with this, he was at eye level his intended.

No words were exchanged, no cries of excitement nor protests of the impossibility of the match. After all, this was meant to be…

 

It was later that they sit down to discuss matters, after a thorough exploration of human-fairy interaction.

“I’ve had someone before,” Holly started. She didn’t feel awkward or ashamed: she spoke the truth, pure and simple, just as she always had and always would. “A child, I mean.”

Artemis stirred his cup of tea thoughtfully. “Most humans have had several by your age, and even grandchildren; to be frank, I’m not surprised.”

Holly chucked him on the shoulder lightly. “It’s not that simple. I was training to be an LEP officer; if they had even bothered to check the hospital records, I would have been out of Traffic for sure, let alone Recon!”

Artemis frowned. “They don’t have abortions in Haven? Or at least contraceptives.”

Holly shook her head. “We’re no less casual about sex Underground—it’s just that for a fairy it’s considerably harder to get pregnant than for you humans. Personally, I think it’s how little time we’re allowed on surface, but try explaining that pet theory to Foaly. Also, as a culture we’re encouraged to have as many children as possible; contraceptives are almost nonexistent, and abortions are close to taboo. The system is set up to support single mothers: when someone does manage to get knocked up, Haven will pay for the mother’s every living expense, just so it can have another citizen to pay taxes.” She smiled bitterly. “So desperate not to be outdone by you humans.”

“But you didn’t want to stay at home,” Artemis finished, ignoring her last comment. “You wanted to go into the LEP, not sit at home and nurse an unplanned child.”

Holly nodded. “Mum took care of her. Government paid complete support, I could move on with my career, as long as I stepped carefully and kept the hospital records away from the wrong people.” She rocked back and forth in her chair, then added, “I visited her, of course. And when my mum died, Rose—that’s her name, mum suggested it—went into hydroponics gardening. Just like my mum…”

Artemis nodded slowly. In the parlor, silence reigned for a while, the rising sun twinkling gently through the window; Holly would have to migrate deeper into the bowels of Fowl Manor soon. “Do you know who the father was?

For the first time in the conversation, Holly looked ashamed. “Did—did you ever wonder—”

Artemis leaned forward. He knew it was rude to be so curious on such a delicate manner; but she was his fiancé, after all. He felt entitled to know. “Yes?”

Holly swallowed. “You see, my scores weren’t quite good enough to get me into the LEP Academy—”

 

Largely through the efforts of Holly and Artemis, the fairy government had become less paranoid in their interactions with humans—at least, with certain humans. Rose was allowed to move in; on the surface, with imperfect soil, polluted air, acidic water and UV-saturated sunlight, she could grow flowers that were greatly prized by Haven florists—as long as she worked during the night, and within the confines of Fowl Manor.

Artemis had no trouble with this. His adopted daughter had fortunately not inherited Root’s famous temperament and red face, though her certain fondness for (Cuban) cigars had to be restrained to the outdoors. Many nights would find her smoking on the balcony with his father, enjoying a beautiful night; others, tending to her flowers with his mother, their shadows cast long and dark across the moon-washed gardens of the Manor, sometimes racing and sometimes twining, their laughter echoing soft and sweet. And in the morning, there were always flowers in the Manor…

Artemis smiled into his cup of tea. Sometimes, he regretted that he had forsaken crime for a family life; but this was not one of those times.
III. Queer Happenings

It took more than nine months; but young love can hardly restrain itself, especially whenever it came to bothersome things like contraceptives.

It took all of two years for Holly to carry the child to term, due to the difference in fairy gestation periods. This also being the first (known) mud fairy to be born in many centuries, the event was closely watched by Haven’s tabloid media culture, though Butler’s efforts kept the more embarrassing pictures out of the news.

Initially, Holly wanted to name the child after her father; then Artemis, being male and furthermore a Fowl, of course had a better idea.

“Artemis,” Artemis said. “Artemis the Third.”

Holly considered this briefly, then nodded. “Fine. But I get to name the next one.”

That way, he couldn’t protest when she named it Ginkgo.

Much to Artemis’ dislike, everyone referred to his son as ‘Izzy’. He didn’t even let his wife call him ‘Arty’…

 

They were a family until Izzy turned one.

They were all there, gathered around Izzy’s ridiculously large cake (which contained enough icing to intoxicate a small country.) Everyone was talking about everything except Izzy himself, who was busy identifying fractal patterns in the ceiling.

Eventually, Holly noticed his behavior, or lack of, and frowned. “Honestly, why does he do that? Stares at the ceiling, whenever we put him there. Won’t even eat his food.” She gestured towards the cake. “Rose honey, can you get him some Gerbers? Maybe there’s too much frosting…imagine, an infant disliking sugar…”

“Arty used to do the same thing,” Angeline said nostalgically. “Stared at the ceiling for hours on end. If he hadn’t started playing piano around that time, I would have thought something was wrong… he’d play, just for the three of us… never said a word…” She trailed off, wistful. Her brown eyes were soft.

Timmy laughed. “The more, the merrier!” he cried, eagerly cutting off a slice of cake.  “Nothing wrong with a big family.”

Angeline’s eyes flashed, all softness gone. “But you would say that.”

Artemis, who had been gingerly applying himself to the cake, looked up, confused. His parents never really fought; he knew this was unusual amongst couples married for a long time, considering the accumulation of wrongs, but it was so. He had always just assumed them to be better than the statistics…

…as if anyone could be anything less than human.

Timmy’s eyes crinkled. “What do you mean?”

Something in Angeline appeared to snap, and she whirled around to face Timmy head on. “You, whenever some younger, prettier female comes into the household, you always cling to them. I’m not pretty enough anymore, am I Timmy? I’ve got wrinkles and scars and sags, so you’re off to find a new one, someone else for you to wear out like a—like a doll, once you break it you just buy another one at the store. We’re rich, don’t you know? The pretty ones always like your money—don’t think I haven’t seen you with her—”

Holly shook her head, her eyes wide and sincere. “Angeline, I swear, I never—”

“No, not you,” Angeline snapped, and pointed. “Her.”

Rose stood in the doorway, baby food in one hand, spoon in the other.

The Fowls have a certain knack for dignity in the oddest of situations; it comes with the wealth. Timmy stood up straight, dusted the cake speckles from his suit, and enunciated clearly: “Hypocrite.”

Angeline’s smile curved to scimitar sharpness. “What do you mean by that?”

Timmy leaned in towards Angeline. “I’ve seen you.”

“Seen what?”

Timmy’s eyes danced malevolently. “Don’t play innocent with me, Ange. We’ve been married for decades, or have you forgotten that?—do you think I’ve forgotten what it was like? Or perhaps you think Rose and I are more subtle—Why, you’ve been sneaking out in the garden at night, and you come back all tumbled. You say that you’ve been out gardening with Rose, but you know as well as I that she was always with me…”

Angeline stood straighter, taller, prouder. “At least I don’t seduce children.”

“Pardon ma’am,” Rose interrupted, spooning the baby food into Izzy’s unresponsive mouth with all the serenity of the eye of a hurricane, “but I believe I’m actually about as old as you.”

“And at least I don’t seduce my employees,” Timmy snapped back.

Butler looked rather startled, like a partridge about to fly.

Angeline stared for a moment, then began laughing, pealing like triumphant church bells, or a clear waterfall. “Butler? Oh, please Timmy, if you’re going to accuse me of infidelity at least choose someone whose tastes run with the correct gender!”

Timmy’s eyes bulged. “But—I saw—”

“You saw two faraway silhouettes in a garden.” Angeline cackled. “Any other guesses? Any at all?”

No one said a word.

After a moment’s awkward silence, she turned. “Won’t you come out now, dear?”

Rose dropped the jar of babyfood; Holly’s hand fell to where she had once worn her Neutrino 2000; Artemis choked on the frosting.

There in the doorway stood Opal Koboi.

Timmy, being entirely unaware of the significance of any world class villains other than his former self, was the first to manage speach. “Well, here I suppose the word ‘hypocrite’ reaches a whole new degree, considering your utter devotion to the Church and its morals—”

Angeline threw her head back and laughed, and walked over towards Opal. Despite the size difference, they appeared surprisingly well matched at this moment: bitter expressions with faces sharpened and hardened by fruitless lives, dark eyes flashing, pale faces twisted with loathing. “I don’t see how a bunch of sheltered old men have any right to tell women how to live their lives—”

“—or to lose them,” Holly interrupted, her eyes fixed squarely on Opal. “Any minute now, the LEP are going to be here looking for you and we are going to turn you over so you can rot in Howler’s Peak for a few thousand years.”

Opal’s own smile did not falter. “How do you think I was able to join mon ange for so many trysts uncaptured?” She flicked her glittering black hair behind a shoulder. “Of course, a genius such as myself could have probably found a way, but your oh-so-precious government decided to make it easy for me.”

Artemis looked at Opal with narrowed eyes. “I think you should explain yourself.”

“Over cake,” Rose added.

 

So they did.

After Holly had left Haven to marry Artemis, the liberals had finally managed to claim several seats on the Council. Amongst other reforms, they believed that the criminals that the LEP just tossed into Howler’s Peak could be turned into productive members of society. Opal, for all her notoriety, had been chosen as a test case. She had resumed control of Koboi Laboraties. “Howler’s Peak, at the very least, gave me a decade to consider the problem of stupid people,” Opal explained, “and I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to develop more invasive recreational technology to keep them out of my business.”

Having turned her infamy to popularity in a mere year, Opal turned to more pressing concerns, like wiping Artemis Fowl off the face of the planet.

“She was plotting your assassination when I first found her,” Angeline said, her eyes soft at the memory. “How she jumped!”

At first, Opal had used mesmer to extract information on Fowl Manor from Angeline, but gradually she came to realize that she preferred just talking to her, who if not prodigal, still possessed the sharp wit and aristocratic elegance that had first attracted the attention of Timmy.

“The first time we kissed—”

The simultaneous looks of horror stopped Angeline, ever tactful, from continuing further.

“At least,” Opal said in the awkward silence, “I’m not planning on assassinating anyone anymore.”

 

In the silence of consideration, it was Timmy who spoke first. “I think it goes unspoken that a divorce is in the works?”

Angeline nodded. “I’ve had the papers in my bureau for years.”

Timmy turned to Rose. “Then in light of my status as a bachelor—Rose, I know this is not the most romantic time, but will you marry me?”

Artemis and Holly stood up in outrage; Izzy gurgled from the floor. “She’s—”

“—as old as he is,” Rose said quietly. A flush worked its way into her face as everyone turned to look at her. Folding her hands in her lap, she looked into Timmy’s eyes. “Perhaps I will not be the wife Angeline—was, but you make me happy, and that is more than what I can say regarding most males in the world. I will marry you, if my parents will have it.”

Artemis slumped back into his chair, thoroughly flabbergasted. All the times he had seen them on the balcony smoking cigars together, he had thought it family bonding, not—

Holly scratched her head. “Well, if he makes you happy, then I’m happy.” She scowled, a habit she had picked up from her husband. “As long as you don’t ever refer to me as ‘daughter in-law’.”

Artemis rubbed his forehead. “As I understand it, the Booke forbids physical relations with blood relatives; and as they’re not technically of the same blood, I honestly can’t find any rational reason to say no.”

Timmy stood, beaming. “Excellent!”

Opal leaned over and whispered into Angeline’s ear; Angeline turned to her in shock. “We’ve been over this before: no you may not kill either of them!”

IV. These Precious Things

Perhaps the problem of fairy infertility does lie with them living away from the surface, Artemis mused, looking at his granddaughter—or step-sister. .

However, the argument at hand quickly drew him from his thoughts: what to name the newest addition to the Fowl family.

The father—Timmy—was thoroughly set on the name ‘Artemis’, and Rose seemed inclined to agree, just to end the argument and not risk the baby’s displeasure. However, Artemis himself wasn’t too keen on the idea: four Artemises—Artemii?—in the family seemed a bit much, even for tradition’s sake.

“It’s my child,” Timmy said calmly, barely even looking away from Rose, who was rocking the baby in her arms. “You have no bearing on our decision.”

Artemis’ hands raked through his hair. “This—this cheapens the name!”

Timmy’s eyes flashed with anger. “Because it’s my child?”

“No!” Artemis paced the room. Holly watched, amused, from her chair; whereas most people became less emotional as they aged. Artemis had done the opposite. “Just—four of us?”

“She doesn’t need to be called Artemis,” Rose said absently from her chair. “How’s ‘Missy’?”

Timmy seemed inclined to agree, but Artemis stared. “Didn’t we have a cat named Missy once? For the mice?”

Timmy nodded; this sounded like agreement. Artemis was a cat person, something to do with the way they strutted about.

But Artemis continued. “Isn’t that the one that you said you gave to grandmère since she was lonely in France, but was actually buried behind the tool shed after you ran it over with the car?”

The baby gurgled.

Timmy shot an accusing glare at Butler, who had been standing by the door in his usual protective stance. “I told you—”

Artemis waved his hand. “I might have been a distraught six-year-old, but I was still a genius. There was a red smear on the driveway for weeks afterward, and freshly turned dirt in my favorite hiding place from Mother’s friends. Add this to your obvious lie, and it was simple to puzzle out.”

Timmy looked helplessly at Holly. “Can’t you do something about that husband of yours?”

“Yeah,” Holly said, and looked at Timmy. “Just promise him that you won’t run over the baby.”

 

The terrible two, as Missy and Izzy quickly became known as, terrorized the household in every manner, crawling and soon running around the Manor with the intent of knocking over every rare Ming dynasty vase and tearing down every 15^th century tapestry and chipping every Greek statuette and—

Suffice to say, the two sets of parents had their hands full.

So when Opal and Angeline returned from their extended honeymoon with two children of their own, the reception was less than enthusiastic.

Holly stared with open dislike. “How did you manage this? Both of you unfaithful at the same time?”

“Izzy dismantled her Neutrino to see how it worked,” Rose explained. “‘Boom’.”

Opal smiled. “Of course. Well, Angeline and I had decided that we wanted a family of our own, but due to the nature of our relationship, children would be rather difficult.”

Timmy snorted into a newspaper.

Opal ignored him. “Me, being the genius that I am, of course figured out a way.”

“One X chromosome from each of you for each child,” Artemis interrupted. “We lowly humans have been speculating on that for years. Not that difficult.”

Angeline shot him a scathing glare, and pulled Opal onto her lap. “Opal was the first to do it, though,” Angeline cooed into her ear, “my smart little truffle.”

Opal purred.

Most present looked onto the scene with mixed horror. With two mixed species marriages and two offspring in the household, there was much pulling-onto-laps, but Angeline and Opal would perhaps always be the oddity in an admittedly eccentric house.

“What did you name them?” Rose asked, attempting to be polite.

Angeline made a clucking sound in the back of her throat; through the door spilled the two girls, already walking. When they had assembled before their parents, Opal asked, “Names?”

“Precious,” said the first one.

“Potch,” said the second.

“Two varieties of opal,” Artemis whispered to the confused Holly. And then, louder: “They appear… around four years of age? How is that possible?”

Unless you had them before the cat got out of the bag, Holly added silently.

“We decided to use a growth hormone to accelerate them through infanthood,” Opal explained. “We weren’t too interested in the goo-goo-gah-gah phase, see.”

Artemis frowned. “But the time spent as an infant is important to the developing brain and—”

Opal cocked her head, smiling. “Do you honestly think I would let any children of mine have diminished cognitive abilities? A demonstration, perhaps.” She turned towards the twins. “World capitals, please.”

Each of them began the tirade in perfect unison.

Artemis seemed unimpressed. “Oh, please. Geniuses such as ourselves could do that from the cradle.”

Opal smile broadened. “World capitals, in the local language of the countries, pronounced backwards, sorted by GDP.”

Without hesitation, they modified their recitation accordingly.

Artemis was now impressed. He hadn’t been able to do that until he was five.

i:

Um. I'm not really a funny person. I hope this can garner a few laughs, though; the first sections are just setting the stage, but they still exist. Anyway, it's good for me to try something I'm terrible at from time to time, especially when it's for someone besides myself. OH. And a big fat hug to Brighty, who so kindly help me come up with the concept (based around "I'm My Own Grandpa"), listened to me whine and read through and picked at it a bit and was just generally awesome..

So, er... um. Comments? Do I phail? Too serious? Maybe wishing happy birthday to Linwen?