Sweet Waters, King’s Court
he night air smelled like the tang of the Tincta Basta, sharp rainy season winds whisking the sea brine up through the streets of the Rose. Uzoji breathed in it all in, let it fill his lungs, and grinned at the rasp of it. He held on the edges of Quarter Fords, hands in the pocket of his coat, and nudged Aremu with his elbow.
“Hulali’s balls, what a city,” Uzoji said, cheerfully.
“The Rose?” Aremu glanced around. Uzoji knew what he saw - a heap of garbage on the edge of the sidewalk, the beggars coughing in the damp, dingy gray and tan laundry flapping on a line from a window above. “You have been on the ground too long.”
Uzoji laughed, sliding his hands from his pockets, and slapped his oldest friend on the back. “Ahhh, it’s no Thul Ka, I know it.” He said, smiling, breathing in deep the faint distant reek of fish, the sharp sour scent of ale, the subtle earthy smell of sea-warped wood, mingling together in a strange perfume. “But the Rose has a certain charm all her own. All the same, I look forward to seeing her from above again.”
Aremu grinned at that. “The Eqe Aqawe has missed you,” he said, cheerfully. “We all have.”
“Ah, well,” Uzoji said. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you in the Islands, poa’na.”
Aremu shook his head. “I did what I could,” he said. “I am hardly the man to -“
“No one better,” Uzoji said, turning to the imbala fully now. He could not let Aremu get through the sentence; he could not hear the lie on his friend’s lips. He reached out, and clasped Aremu’s forearm with his hand, scarred skin glittering in the lamplight. “There is no man in the world I trust more.” Uzoji said, firmly.
Aremu held still a long moment, and nodded. He clasped Uzoji’s arm in return, and grinned, and said nothing more.
They chased the edges of lilting conversation through the streets of the Rose, laughter mingling with more serious talk, the last details that needed doing before the next day’s flight. Uzoji was as glad of them as he was of this last night out, this send-off - whether for himself or the Rose, he was not so sure. He had never doubted he would fly again, not from the very moment he knew he had not drowned in his own blood at the end of the last year, but the long months of cramped confinement and recovery had felt interminable. He had pushed his limits - slow and steady, stretching them as far as they would go, always stopping just shy of the point where they would snap. Slowly, slowly, he had rebuilt himself, with hard and patient effort. Slowly, slowly, he would continue to do the work that needed doing; he would not begrudge himself any of it.
But by the Circle, it was flooding good to be ready to fly again! He felt it - Niccolette felt it - Aremu felt it, and Chibugo and Willie too, both of the other pilots and his wife even now aboard the Eqe Aqawe, making her ready. And in the morning, Uzoji would grasp the smooth wood of the wheel, would speak the monite to light the gas, and would soar through the sky once more. He could not but grin to think of it, his heart already light in his chest.
“Here,” Uzoji said, draping his arm across Aremu’s shoulders and steering him towards the warped wooden door. He held it open for the other Mugrobi, and followed after him, the two slender dark men winding easily through the crowd whose low murmurs filled the air, making their way to the bar.
“Two shots of wildfire,” Uzoji leaned across the bar and grinned, coins clinking against the wood.
Aremu glanced around the crowded bar, shoulders tense beneath the sharp cut of his jacket.
“Don’t worry,” Uzoji said, quietly, switching to Mugrobi, low-voice and easy. “Those who can know won’t mind.” He nodded at the barkeeper as the man slid two small glasses of gleaming orange liquid across the bar.
“I would not choose Anaxas,” Aremu responded in the same language, adjusting his sleeves and turning back to Uzoji.
Uzoji grinned, and shrugged. “May His waters not run too smooth,” he said, lifting his shot glass.
Aremu clinked his against it. “May His currents always guide you well,” he said, and the two men drank. Uzoji laughed aloud, shaking his head against the burn of it, and grinned, wild and fierce.