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[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
Another Hillside, to the South of the Rose

Gideon had stopped and waited for him. Aremu wasn’t sure if he was surprised by it or not; maybe he was, just a bit.

The question he was surprised by. He glanced down at his arms, and then back at Gideon; it was the fact that it was a question at all that surprised him the most. Aremu swallowed; his throat moved, slightly, behind the collar of his jacket.

“Yeah, the hand,” Aremu said, after a moment. It ached again; he didn’t bother with trying to massage the tension out of his arm again. There didn’t seem to be much of a point.

“I lost it shipside,” Aremu said, after a moment. They were walking through the grass, still; it prickled at the edges of his pant legs, and though he couldn’t quite feel it through the thick fabric, he was aware of it all the same. “It was complicated, it…” He swallowed, silent. “I made a choice,” Aremu said, quietly, into the drifting wind.

“On the ground there’s,” Aremu swallowed, “maybe it’d’ve been possible, but not up in the air.” He didn’t know why he was saying this – not any of it, really. It was all true, and that was absolutely the worst of it. He could still do a good deal of mechanic’s work – so long as he didn’t need to worry about balance, about being pitched around in a storm or fighting off anyone on a deck.

Sometimes he wondered; if he could have found another way, what would have happened? Would Uzoji – would he? There wasn’t any point in looking back, but the past called to him all the same; it crept up from behind him, trailed him like his shadow in the thick grass, slanted off all strange, hints of his shape but different too.

He still wasn’t sure why he’d said it, any of. I made a choice, he’d said, aloud. There were those who knew that; there were some, at least. He’d said the words to himself, and many times; there wasn’t much of a difference between that and saying them aloud to a stranger, or so it felt. There were others he couldn’t have imagined saying it to; he thought of a thin, drawn face, and sad gray eyes, and wondered if he’d ever find the courage for it.

“I still feel it sometimes,” Aremu said, abruptly. “Like it’s haunting me,” he glanced over at Gideon. He didn’t know – he’d wanted it to be a joke, but he didn’t know how to say it like one. My ghost-hand, he wanted to say, but the words crawled into his throat and died, and he couldn’t quite force them out. He thought he shouldn’t have gone there at all; he pressed his wrist deeper into his pocket. It hadn’t sounded funny, said aloud, he didn’t think; he’d meant it to be funny, all the same.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Hillside South of the Rose

Aremu seemed surprised by the question. Peregrine couldn't quite as figure why. Maybe other folks didn't ask--maybe it were as everyone just assumed. Well, shit. He didn't seem to like the questions back in the caves. Weren't those the same? It was all the same to Peregrine, but they supposed they ent never had to live with something like that. Never would, neither. They weren't so keen on broadening horizons that they'd try. Not as yet; maybe when they were bored.

Aremu kept speaking. Peregrine couldn't quite as tell if he wanted any answers from Peregrine. Maybe? But, nah, Peregrine didn't have none to give. Seemed all on the level to them, yeah? Were on an airship, weren't no more. Everyone made all kinds of decisions, when in situations that lost a man part of a limb. Didn't matter what the situation was. Peregrine made them, had made them--lifetimes on lifetimes, Peregrine had made them. Sometimes they were good, sometimes not. That was just the way it went, yeah? They had stopped holding on to them too much.

Peregrine weren't great at speaking, but they seemed to do okay at listening. At least some of the time. It was easier, to take information in than to spit it back out when they had a need for it. Their face stayed impassive--not angry, not judgmental, nothing at all. Just blank and maybe slightly attentive. They nodded, at the notion that it weren't as possible in the air as on the ground. Practicalities and decisions.

There was a bit of silence. Peregrine was content to leave it so, their question answered. Then Aremu spoke again, about being haunted by hands. Peregrine thought about that a moment, running a tongue over their teeth, looking up. Knew all kinds of things about ghosts, they did. They weren't one--weren't that the whole point?--but sometimes they felt that their past faces were. Hanging around them, taller and shorter and thinner and broader and all of them looking right at them. Crawling up out of holes and gaps and lost time. A ghost hand would be a refreshing novelty, they thought.

"Naw," Peregrine said at last, rolling the word around in their mouth. "Ghosts as need unfinished business, don't they? Ent nobody's hand got unfinished business--unless...?" They looked down at Aremu, head cocked to the side like a bird. "Woulda been a real unusual accident. To leave that kind of business." Their tone was serious, and their face was blank. Could have been a joke--they thought, yeah, probably was a joke, hey?--but could have been serious too. Aremu's choice, they thought. Could take it any way he wanted. Didn't bother them none.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
Another Hillside, to the South of the Rose

Gideon had not spoken in some time, Aremu realized, uncomfortably. It hadn’t seemed unnatural a moment ago; the other man had been watching them, and he thought Gideon had nodded, at least once, as if to say – he agreed? He understood? Aremu couldn’t quite have put words to it, though he’d thought he understood.

Now, in the awkward silence that followed what he’d meant as a joke, Aremu pressed his wrist deeper into his pocket and glanced away. The skin of it wasn’t very sensitive and the scar tissue didn’t help, but if he pressed it down hard enough, he could feel the seam of his pocket pressing against him. That helped, sometimes, like a visceral reminder of what wasn’t there. His mind never forgot, but he wondered – he knew – sometimes his body did.

He hadn’t thought he’d get a response. From what Aremu could see out of the corner of his eye, Gideon’s sharp chin was tilted up, as if he were contemplating the sky.

When he spoke, Aremu jerked, startled. He glanced over, surprised; he tried a smile, thinking it was a joke, but Gideon’s face was stone solemn and blank, and his tone even, but for when he’d trailed up, slightly, with his head cocked to the side. Aremu’s smile died before it even quite reached his lips. “No,” he said, after a moment. “I suppose not.”

Not anymore, he could have said. Something in his chest squeezed, tight, and turned over, beginning its work. Maybe it had unfinished business before, he could have said, but that’s gone, now, too. If it’s a ghost, it doesn’t know it should have stopped haunting me by now. His shoulders bunched up; he stopped pressing his wrist so hard into his pocket. His whole arm ached, still – all of him ached, really. The tension had only reminded his shoulder of it. He didn’t shift his forearm, but Aremu rolled his shoulder, all the same, forward and back.

The landscape was as picturesque as it had ever been; the Rose was growing on them, slowly and steadily, although still another hillside. They dipped down, once more, and it vanished behind the hill before them, impossibly out of sight. In the bit of valley, Aremu thought, one could pretend it wasn’t there at all.

For a moment he was seized by the desire to stay here; he’d slept in worse places, he didn’t think a night on the ground would hurt him. He would have, perhaps, but for Niccolette. He couldn’t do that to her, Aremu thought; she would worry. She might deny it, when he came home; she might be furious with him; he knew, though, that she would worry, if he went out to the cliffs, having been stabbed not two weeks ago, and didn’t come home.

“You’re, uh,” Aremu trailed off; he wasn’t sure what he’d meant to say. He couldn’t find the question, if it had been there at all; he glanced away into the descending shadows, instead, and held silent.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Hillside to the South of the Rose

Not a joke then. They didn't ever know until they said things, whether or not they were jokes. Jokes were in the ear of the listener, they thought. That's why it was so hard to figure it out before they spoke, yeah? Because the jokes weren't for Gideon's ears. Peregrine ran their tongue over Gideon's teeth and thought. Nah. Not a joke.

They didn't know as what to say then, as they usually didn't. Aremu had just sort of agreed with them, and there weren't nothing to follow that up with. Maybe it didn't matter and there weren't nothing to say--that was possible as anything. Peregrine was perfectly content to walk along in silence, broken only by the sound of their footsteps and breathing. More company than they usually had, yeah? Beggars can't be choosers, and all that. Of course Peregrine weren't no beggar, and they made plenty of choices. Details.

Soon, they thought, and knew not how soon, they'd be back in the Rose. A funny day, this one. Peregrine hadn't liked most of it, but found themself wishing no holes would eat it up all the same. Holes never seemed to listen to what Peregrine wanted, though. Just ate away at little bits and pieces of them, bold as you please. Awful rude of them.

They came to a little dip in the hills, and then Aremu spoke again. Or started to. Peregrine looked down again, blinked. They had gotten a little better about that--blinking, that is. Still forgot more often than they remembered, of course. But sometimes they remembered to do it without even really having to remember. Like Gideon remembered for them, and thought to be accommodating. Heartwarming, it was. Fair heartwarming.

"Strange?" Peregrine offered helpfully. Seemed as though Aremu had lost the point there, somewhere between the thought and the words making it all out into the air. Strange was what most people said--strange was the kindest thing most folks said, anyways. Sometimes they chose other words. Peregrine chose not to repeat them, on account of how they didn't know nothing about Aremu's sensibilities.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
Another Hillside, to the South of the Rose

Aremu had meant to pick the sentence up again, or to find some alternative. But after he looked away he really wasn’t sure how to go on, and it seemed easier to let it trail off into the wind, as if he hadn’t spoken at all.

Strange, Gideon offered. He didn’t say it harshly or coldly; there wasn’t any sharpness for his tone. He said it, Aremu thought, almost cheerfully? He glanced back at the other man, his eyebrows lifting slightly into the expanse of his forehead. For a moment he didn’t know in the least how to reply.

“I didn’t,” Aremu began, and faltered again. I didn’t mean it like that, he wanted to say. I didn’t say strange, he wanted to insist; if I started to, I didn’t. Gideon was looking down at him with that same blank-neutral face he often had, and Aremu could read nothing particular into it.

“No,” Aremu said after a moment, but it had the reek of a lie about it, and he tasted it bitter on his lips and tongue. What would you do with honor, anyway? He asked himself. His left hand, in his pocket, clenched into a fist.

“That isn’t what I was going to say,” Aremu said, instead, more carefully this time. That, he was almost sure of; sure enough for honesty, wasn’t it? If he didn’t know, could it be a lie? Would he have known, if he had been otherwise? That ached; he had had so many years to grow accustomed, and yet it ached. He could not quite bring himself to think of Brunnhold; he could not quite bring himself to put it aside.

It was one thing for Gideon to call himself strange - and he was, Aremu thought. He was decidedly strange. There were other less kind terms too that one could use: unbalanced, moony, cracked in the water barrel. But to say it aloud in the moment felt oddly like calling him a passive. It was true; it wasn’t the most hurtful term that existed, either, and it might not even be said with malice. But it wasn’t kind, either.

”You’re all right?” Aremu finished the sentence his own way; his voice trailed up at the end. If he couldn’t remember what he’d wanted to say before, was it a lie? He pulled his left hand out, and rubbed it over the back of his head, the short spongy hair which curled close to the scalp there.

That’s what I meant to say, Aremu wanted to add. He was a liar; there was nothing in him to be stained by it. Why not? Why not offer up those words? Gideon hadn’t seemed bothered, though, and he couldn’t bring himself to them; they ached in the back of his jaw where his teeth met, and throbbed all through his head.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Hillside to the South of the Rose

A polite man, Peregrine thought, this Aremu Ediwo. They had offered the adjective--and was fair true, weren't no way around that--and he refuted it. They weren't as sure what he had meant, then, assuming he weren't lying. Didn't as bother them none, to be called strange. They knew what they were--there was something funny about hearing it from folks who didn't even know the half of it. Stranger, they always wanted to say, than you can begin to imagine. A thing so strange you ent never seen one as like me before.

"If y'say so," Peregrine allowed with a jerky little shrug. If that's the line Aremu wanted to take, Peregrine weren't going to argue. If that was truth, then Aremu was strange his own self, anyways. They had never known a Mugrobi man to lie out of kindness; they had known enough scraps from the country to know it weren't unlikely neither. Didn't make no difference, either way. Could only deal with the facts put in front of you, yeah? Peregrine never had been real good at playing at mind reader. Too many potholes inside their own, they thought. Made it fair hard to judge what a normal one was like.

"I ent," they said simply, "but it is fair kind of you to think so." Peregrine didn't smile, on account of how it seemed like a lot of effort and they were tired enough just from the walking and talking and considerations of cutting their own throat. They had not talked to someone this much in months. It was cracking their throat, all this chatter.

As if prompted by the thought, long fingers ran over Gideon's neck in contemplation. Water, they suddenly realized. They hadn't had no water since--since when? Peregrine always had trouble of keeping track of little things like that. Water and food and so on. Hot and cold. All them tiny details that a face needed. Remembered about the salve, but other things--harder to carry around in a pocket, food and drink was. Their head ached.

"Ent the best conversationalist, neither," they said after some silence, "but grateful for the company anyways." They were, they realized, which was something of a surprise. Didn't know as they had wanted it so much--they did, after all, see other folks at work when they went. Weren't quite the same though, they thought. Dock work didn't lend to much idle conversation and they weren't exactly the type to get invited out with the lads after a shift. It was what it was; Peregrine couldn't muster up much sadness about it. A person adjusted, after a while. And a Peregrine adjusted too. After a while.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
Another Hillside, to the South of the Rose

When did it become a lie?

Aremu didn’t understand, at first, with Gideon’s agreement. It was only when the other man told him it was kind did he understand. He hadn’t meant to say he didn’t find the other man strange; he had only meant that he wasn’t going to say it aloud. He had meant to ask a question – if Gideon was doing well – but it had come out strange amidst his hesitation.

Would honor have meant correcting it? What was honesty, here? Did he think Gideon all right? It wasn’t the sort of thing one said, in Mugroba; it was an Anaxi sort of phrase. All right. No, Aremu thought, feeling the ache of it in the pit of his stomach, the slime of it along his tongue, he did not think Gideon was all right.

What would the honorable man do?

What did he wish to do?

It was a brittle thing, honesty, Aremu thought. He turned his face to the wind and said nothing; if the lie of it burned, he swallowed it down and doused. Nothing, he told himself, nothing. He thought of Gideon calling him scrap in the tunnel, and the ache in his chest tightened further.

He could see himself hollow, sometimes; like a shell of a man. Walking, talking, feeling, but empty inside at the core, where it mattered most. Where he should have been full. Well enough; so it was. There was nothing he could do for it; there was no choice but to go on with what he had. He had no honor to stain; there was nothing to be gained from hurting Gideon.

Grateful, Gideon said. The word prickled over Aremu, and tingled strange down his spine. He glanced away once more, tasting the faint distant drifting salt on the breeze, feeling the cold prickle of the wind against his face. “As am I,” Aremu said; there was no lie in these words, whatever it was Gideon thought he agreed with.

Aremu wound, step by step, through the thick heavy grass. In time, his soft footfalls grew heavy, the effort needed to keep them light draining. He was tired; his side ached, and all of his chest, even his legs – his shoulders, his biceps, all the strange places that he had tweaked in the climbing, in the crawling, in the climbing again, in the hauling or elsewhere. His skin prickled beneath his pants, the spots rubbed by the rope protesting the constant walking. His throat was dry, his skin too, as if the salt air and the cold had leeched all the moisture from it.

Aremu breathed in, deeply, and tilted his head back for a moment, watching the gleaming sky overhead. It was not sunset, not yet, but the sun was starting to sink towards the horizon, slowly and steadily. He watched it for a moment, watched the shifting of the day, and turned his gaze back to the path he was picking through the grass.

“Why did you call me scrap?” Aremu said it; he found the words and put them to his lips, and the word didn’t burn as it sometimes did. “In the tunnel.” He didn’t look at Gideon, now; he walked on, his hand and wrist buried deep. He didn’t look at Gideon, still; he walked on, empty inside and aching with it.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Early Evening
A Hillside South of the Rose

There was a funny kind of hesitation after Peregrine said what they said. Maybe they'd read it wrong, or maybe they'd said something that was stranger in the saying than the thinking. Peregrine was tempted to try to puzzle out which it was, but their head ached and their throat was cracked all up and they ent as thought it was worth the effort, in the end.

Aremu agreed with them after a while, and Peregrine made a low rough sort of noise back. Agreement, acknowledgment--something along those lines. A poor conversationalist, indeed. Couldn't even muster up proper words now. It was almost funny, if it weren't as too much effort to laugh.

They continued on. Peregrine started to ache, more and more. Head most of all, making it hard to think around. Still they kept on, as there weren't nothing else for it. They'd make it back, eventually, and maybe they'd as remember water and food and sleep when they got there. Hoped as they would; it was awful when they forgot for so long. They tried not to, tried to take good care of their face and all the other bits and pieces that went with it. Sometimes it was just so hard, yeah? Wearying.

"Eh?" Maybe it was all that aching that made the question so hard to understand. Why? Why had they called Aremu--had they done that? They couldn't as quite remember; the tunnel seemed so far away. They frowned and looked down at Aremu in the dying light. They must have done. If they thought on it, they thought they could remember it, yeah. Somewhere in that dark choking burying dark dark dark--somewhere in the tunnel. Must have said it.

They turned their dark eyes back to the path in front of them, away from the Mugrobi man and his question. Wondered as to what he thought to hear. Seemed awful twisted up about it; Peregrine could almost remember that kind of feeling too. Almost.

"Hadn't noticed before; noticed then." That was truth, but it weren't enough. Even Peregrines knew that. They ran a tongue over Gideon's teeth and thought again. "Ent gonna believe me," they continued, slow and a little far away, "but y'can feel it, yeah? Ent like--ent like a woobly, crawling all over the skin, tryin' to get inside, tryin' to--" Peregrine broke off. Too much, too much. Had to remember--normal folks, didn't as talk like that. Did they? Nah, ne, no. Didn't.

"Just a word. There are worse." Not for what he was, but there were worse things to be. Peregrine knew, Peregrine almost remembered--but they didn't want to remember. Didn't like as to remember, the things that came creeping up to them out of the dark. The light was fading, their head throbbed; worse things to be. Could be a thing like Peregrine, if they weren't the only one.

They thought, maybe, to say they ent meant nothing by it. Was just a word, was just a thing to know what they hadn't before. A sight suddenly revealed, and it had hurt their eyes there in the dark. Weren't no danger, Peregrine wanted to say; safest from Peregrine of all, because they ent never wanted to feel trapped in that kind of tomb again. Didn't know as it would help. A spike of pain when through their head and they hissed, bringing a hand to their temple. Just a word. Just a fact.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
Another Hillside, to the South of the Rose

Noticed then, Gideon said.

Something crawled down Aremu’s spine; something came to a stop deep inside of him.

You can feel it, Gideon said.

Aremu’s breath caught on the edges of his lips. He stopped; he began again. He kept going; he couldn’t think of what to say.

Just a word, Gideon said. Aremu made a half-swallowed sort of noise, one he couldn’t have called a word even generously. He looked away; he looked away from the other man, over the grasses waving in the sea breeze, the light slanting golden, the crisp fall evening just starting to descend.

“Just a word,” Aremu said, quietly. It was true, wasn’t it? Scrap. It was true in the sense that it was how passives were called, here in Anaxas, even if they were lucky to escape the far worse term gated. His hand was fisted tight in his pocket; it was clenched into the fabric, digging in, pulling it taut against his thigh.

“It’s called a nexus,” Aremu said. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t – look back. “What’s… inside me,” his throat moved; an ache throbbed in his stomach and his lungs were tight. He couldn’t look back. He took a deep breath. “I can feel them too, I… didn’t know… humans could.” He dared to finish the sentence, then; he looked over at Gideon, slowly.

He’d stopped moving; they both had. He didn’t know when.

Gideon was rubbing his face with his hand; he’d made a noise, Aremu thought. He wasn’t sure when. He stood, standing there on the wind-rippled grass. Scrap, he thought, dizzily. A scrap of a galdor; the edges, the least important parts, a bit of metal shaving left over. Empty inside or –

Or –

Aremu's throat was very tight; he tried to clear it. He swallowed again; his hand was still gripping the fabric of his pants so tightly his arm shook, digging the seams against the skin almost painfully. He relaxed his hand, slowly; it was an effort. He took it out of his pocket; he wiped it against his coat, and he didn’t know what he was trying to wipe away.

“Can you feel it now?” Aremu asked. He didn’t dare move closer; he didn’t know if he was close enough already. He didn’t think it was like a field – he didn’t know if – he didn’t know. He knew field range; he knew the range at which anyone would know what he was, or rather what he wasn’t. He didn’t know the range of his nexus. His nexus, he thought. He didn’t know why he’d said it to Gideon; he didn’t know that he’d said it aloud before, since, that he’d named it – that he’d called it his.

He looked at Gideon, though, at the cracked in the water barrel man standing not so distant in the grass. He wondered if being – odd – had anything to do with it; he wondered if Gideon listened where other people didn’t, felt things he was told he shouldn’t, and didn’t know to put them aside. The thoughts felt unfair, but he couldn’t shake them. He was shaking, Aremu realized, and he stilled it, and exhaled slowly.

“I thought I was empty,” he said, quietly, into the breeze; he turned away again. “Maybe I am; maybe it doesn't mean anything.”

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Early Evening
A Hillside South of the Rose

They couldn't remember when they'd last ate; couldn't remember when they'd last had water neither. Pain was all in them and it was chasing away that funny happy clam feeling. The Rose had seemed closer, when they'd left. Sun had seemed higher and brighter, the air more refreshing than it was biting. Now it chewed at all the little bits of exposed skin and took all the water from inside their mouth.

Aremu was speaking again, and Peregrine tried to listen. Yeah, just a word. Called it--no, when had that been? No, they'd never been... There was a blink, and Peregrine lost it. No, didn't lose it. The thought left them, squirmed free from their grasp like it didn't want to be held. Sometimes Peregrine had it; sometimes they remembered. Scrap, and was just a word--had just been a word then, in their ear, and they'd been smaller and more afraid then. Hadn't known that Naulas couldn't find them. Made you bold, knowing that.

The pain persisted. So did Aremu's talking. More words, just words--nexus, like it meant something. Didn't know humans could. Shit. Human, human--Gideon was human. No woobly, no glamour even, and certainly no fucking nexus. Shouldn't have noticed. They'd said--but no, it was fine. Fine fine fine. Weren't nobody going to figure them out. Can't figure out something you ent even know is possible, yeah? Right. Already knew that Peregrine was a few cards short of a deck. Weren't no missing that, anyhow.

Peregrine wasn't looking at Aremu, though they thought they could feel his eyes on them. On Gideon, the human man who could sense something he weren't as supposed to. Peregrine had gone still, but Aremu didn't. Aremu moved closer. Peregrine wanted to flinch but they stayed still; Gideon was good then, took over where Peregrine would have skittered away. They nodded sharp, once and then again.

"I can," they said, or maybe it was more of a hiss. Of course they could; they was looking for it, now. Couldn't have found it when they were properly alive--the thought came and the details did not--but they'd been like this a long time. A long, long time. Long enough to learn a thing or two, yeah? Even if they couldn't hold on to all of it. If Aremu was shaking, Peregrine was far too still, except the jerky movement of their head when they'd nodded. They hadn't looked at Aremu, hadn't wanted to, but they did at the last when the man turned away.

"Empty--maybe. Maybe. Dunno. Dunno what it means, just know that it is. Ent never--not even when I was--" Peregrine snapped their teeth together, sharp. Still weren't frowning, weren't smiling. Didn't want to think about this, yeah? Didn't want to remember how they knew. "Dunno nothing about nothing." Thinking about it hurt. Knowing hurt. They didn't want it, nah nah nah.