[Closed] Fill My Lungs

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Morning, 30 Yaris, 2719
The Kitchen, Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Niccolette had not dreamt, not that she knew. For that, she was grateful. She had woken early, to the pink-gray streams of light through the white curtains. She had risen, and wrapped a gray robe over her nightgown, and walked barefoot through the house, out the back door, down a small dirt path – not out towards the cliff, but back, towards the tether. Niccolette had climbed, hand over hand, up the platform, the wind tugging at her hair, teasing the tears from her eyes, whipping her skirt about her legs.

On the top of it, she had sat, arms about her legs, and tucked her chin against her knees. She had watched the sun rise through glittering tears, distant; there had been no space in her for thought. By the time she felt the warmth of the sunrise on her face she was weeping; not hard and fast, not aching, but soft and easy. Kind, Niccolette thought, if tears could be kind. Pink-gold light streamed through the blue haze in the air around her, lighting it up, and Niccolette watched through shuddering breaths. She did not try to meditate; this was not a feeling she wished to take to the mona, to burn out through careful, deliberate focus. She held, instead, a small windswept figure on a platform above the cliffs, until the sun had risen up over the horizon, and the light washing her was pale and yellow, and the heat of the day beginning to build.

When she was ready, Niccolette climbed back down with cold, half-numb hands and went inside. There was a little soft motion from the kitchen, though nothing from upstairs. Niccolette did not go to greet Ahura, but went instead back to her bedroom. She stripped off her husband’s robe and hung it from the door, and left her slip puddled on the ground. She bathed, then, in fiercely hot water, scrubbing the salt air from her hair and skin. She brushed it smooth, watching the motions in the mirror, careful and deliberate.

Niccolette brushed powder lightly over her face, smoothing out the redness about her eyes with a cream; she painted eyeliner on, slow and careful, and added a pale pink color to her lips. She wore one of the loose flowery dresses of the islands, though she chose one with a sash she could pull tight at her waist. The hem just barely brushed the floor, and Niccolette tucked her feet into slippers beneath it. She turned, and faced herself in the mirror beside the door. There was nothing on her face; she found a faint little smile from somewhere inside herself, and offered it up.

Niccolette checked the library first, but she was not too surprised that it was empty. She went to the kitchen, then, drawn by the smell of kofi wavering in the air and the light, cheerful chatter of Ahura’s voice; closer, she could hear the quiet, questioning murmur of a deeper one beneath it. The kitchen was warm, inside; it smelled like coconut and mint and tomato and onion.

Ahura looked up from the stove with a smile. “Good morning, madam,” she said in lilting Estuan. She transferred a hopper out of the pan onto a plate, and covered the stack of them with a soft cloth.

Niccolette smiled at her, and nodded as well to Vauquelin. He was frowning down at one of Ahura’s mortars; there was a pestle in one shaky hand, hovering over mashed fresh coconut.

“Ahura,” Niccolette said, moving into the kitchen. She drew her hair back off her face, winding it in a heavy knot at the back of her head. A few strands draped free in the warm, heavy air; Niccolette did not mind them. She let the loose knot hang down her back. “Would you see to the packing?” Niccolette asked in quiet Mugrobi.

Ahura gave her a look that said she was not in the least fooled. Niccolette found her smile had grown faintly sheepish. The Mugrobi woman cupped her cheek, gently, and gave it a soft little pinch, and then she left the kitchen.

Niccolette glanced at Vauquelin. She went to the stovetop; the irukew pan was heating on the flame, oil gleaming on the surface of it. Niccolette checked the fermented batter, bubbles rising in it; she dipped a spoon into it, and swirled, carefully, deliberately, although she did not really doubt that Ahura had found the correct consistency.

The ladle Ahura had out Niccolette did not like; it gave too much batter, full, and Niccolette had not marked it. She opened the drawers instead, and found the one she preferred, with the little line that Uzoji had nicked in for her with his knife. One of two, Niccolette thought – the other one had been – was – she wondered if it had come apart in the blast, or if it had melted in the heat. She felt a lump rising in her throat, and there was a heat behind her eyes that promised tears. Niccolette took a deep breath, and it caught in her chest – hitched –

The oil bubbled in the pan, and Niccolette sniffled, audibly, and turned back to it. She blinked the tears away, and frowned; she set the ladle down, and lifted the pot, holding it off the heat for a few moments. Then she set it back down, dipped the ladle into the batter, filling it just to the nick, and poured it into the pan. Niccolette lifted the pan again, and swirled it with an even, precise motion of her wrist. Once, twice, and a third time, and she set the pan back down. She took an egg from the basket at the side of the stove, and cracked it precisely into the center of the irukew, and covered the pan.

Niccolette could count the seconds in her mind while speaking, and she did. She turned to Vauquelin, looking at his back. “I owe you an apology,” Niccolette said. She moved past him, and fetched down the small green leaves for the chutney from the ceiling, setting one, two, three, four, five on the counter; she found the peppercorns as well, and poured them one by one into the palm of her hand. She set them down as well in the small bowl Ahura had set out for them, amidst the rest of what the chutney required, and leaned against the counter next to Vauquelin, looking directly at him, her small chin raised.

“I cannot give you one,” Niccolette continued, calmly. She took a deep breath, and shook her head, faintly. “I would not offer you empty words. To give you an apology – it would be as if to say that I would not do it again.” She was quiet, looking at him. “But I would make the same choice, even with all that we know now, and I will not pretend otherwise.” Niccolette met his gaze, and held there. She waited, giving him time to answer, the count for the irukew still ticking away steadily in her head.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kitchen • The Ibutatu Estate

Morning on the 30th of Yaris, 2719

T
he rhythmic click of pestle against mortar was becoming familiar; so was the smell of frying rice flour, the cocktail of spices, the gust and lull of the breeze through the windows. So was the warm, heavy air of the kitchen, the way it eased his joints, despite the faint flush in his cheeks. In a few more hours, an airship would take him back to Vienda, away from the blood and the strangeness and the love of the last few days. And so – everything he looked at, he tried to commit to his memory, to write in the darkest ink his heart could find.

He didn’t know how it’d happened.

That morning, he’d woken to find Aremu beside him, the two of them tangled in each other’s arms. For awhile, he’d known nothing but what he felt, cradling the imbala’s face with his hand, laughing softly into the kisses he laid on his brow. Then, the light’d caught up to him, and it’d caught up to Aremu, too – ’cause he was moving, leaving the sheets behind, pulling on his clothes, and Tom was moving, too, ’cause he knew that look in the other man’s eye.

It’d been a hell of a morning, Aremu climbing out his window like something out of a godsdamn play. Tom’d been sure he’d tear more stitches. There was nothing else to be done; it was too late to take the hallway, with the smell of kofi already drifting up from the kitchen below. There was something funny about it, and something sad, too. But Tom knew Aremu was good at balance.

He didn’t know if Aremu was still asleep in the attic; he couldn’t know. He hadn’t found any more sleep for himself, with everything buzzing round in his head, with the plantation stirring to life around him.

The smell drew him out of bed, aching in every limb, but it wasn’t a bad sort of ache. He didn’t take the coat from the mirror, but it was only because he didn’t think of it. He had a mind only for putting one foot in front of the other, that morning; and those feet, regardless of whose they were, took him down the great stairs, one step at a time, down to the kitchen, to ada’na Ahura.

He wasn’t sure how it’d happened, but he was more grateful for it than he could say. He wasn’t sure, either, what he saw reflected in her eyes. He’d been quiet, at first, ’til she’d given him something to do with his hands. Then he’d talked more, little by little, and it hadn’t hurt so much, the sound of his own voice weaving underneath hers. Not with the melodic lilt of her Mugrobi accent, not with the laughter she spilled out in the air between them occasionally, more precious even than the smell of the fresh coconut she’d given him to crush up for the chutney.

Good morning, madam, Ahura said, and Tom was so busy smelling the frying batter and the coconut, so busy getting his hands to work, that he hadn’t heard her, hadn’t seen her in the corner of his eye. When she asked Ahura to go, he wasn’t sure what to think. He felt more than a little sorry, and maybe a pina manna irritable.

So he only looked, and only briefly, when he felt the brush of her field, strong and sharp and Living. She was stepping up to the stove, and Ahura was nowhere to be seen. The ladle she was dipping in the batter wasn’t the one Ahura’d been using, he noticed.

His lip twitched in something like a smile, if fleetingly; he knew better. But it was a little funny, to watch a galdor cracking an egg. It was still strange to see Niccolette in that airy, colorful dress, too; but it’d been strange enough to see her in Uzoji’s jacket and trousers, and he reckoned she couldn’t surprise him, at this point. She was wearing slippers, at least. He was still barefoot.

If he’d thought she couldn’t surprise him, he was wrong. Hff, breathed the pan, as Niccolette brought the lid to rest on it, and the sizzling was muffled. When she spoke, he was silent. He didn’t have the urge to say don’t apologize, this time. Nor was he mung enough not to know what she was apologizing for. Niccolette didn’t apologize for nothing.

He’d thought, that night, in the warehouse, it was strange enough – but there hadn’t been time or space to think too much on it. Gods, but he swallowed bile to remember it. He led himself away from the smell of blood, from Niccolette’s face smeared with blood and glistening with tears, from Aremu’s head in her lap. The smell of coconut guided him back, but not quite all the way.

If, he thought, if – there was more to it. If, godsdamn it.

You could’ve got Aremu killed, too.

He kept at the coconut, though it was a fair mush by now. His lips were pressed thin and white as the rice flour. When she finished, he paused, the pestle in his hand, and looked up to meet Niccolette’s eye.

She was standing near him, leaned on the counter, watching him. The irukewi sizzled behind her. She was meeting his eye, too.

How, he wondered, suddenly, could she just stand there with her back to the stove? What if it burned? Shit always burnt up the second you turned your back. He shook the thought from his head.

“I understand,” he said after a moment, nodding. He reckoned he’d just about done with the coconut; he cast a glance toward the peppercorns, sucking at a tooth. Then he set down the pestle and gave his hands a stretch. They were shakier than they’d been, and a little red round the knuckles; he flexed them, stretched the stiffness from his wrists, got the blood back flowing.

He rolled his shoulders, then, and after he’d scooped out the white pulp, he took the mortar and pestle over to the sink and went over them with a damp cloth. “And I’m honored,” he went on, slowly, thoughtfully. Honestly. “And grateful. There are empty words enough, where I’m headed.” He looked over at Niccolette, then back down at his work. Putting the peppercorns in the mortar, he began to grind, again. Clack, clack, clack, and underneath it, a soft crackling crunch.

“But for what it’s worth, ada’xa Yesufu’s a tricky bastard, and I let his son draw me out, too,” he offered with a slight shrug, then paused.

I don’t know what choice any of us had, he wanted to say, innocent-like, but he knew it for a lie and an angle. He wanted to know, on one hand; on the other, he wasn’t sure he did. Wasn’t his qalqa, he told himself, but he didn’t know that was true. He’d saved Uzoji’s life, once, and though it’d meant nothing to him then but a job – now, he wasn’t so sure. Honor and doubt were still dancing round in his head. Uzoji was dead, but his rosh was alive. Maybe the obligation didn’t stop there.

Either way, playing the mung was no way to do it. Niccolette hadn’t lied to him, and wouldn’t. It wasn’t fair, to use a lie to draw the truth out of somebody who couldn’t do otherwise.

He was sucking at his tooth again, and holding his breath. He let it out, and turned his head to look Niccolette in the eye again. “You don’t owe me anything, much less an explanation. Even still...” He paused in his pestling, shifting his weight off his hip and leaning one hand against the counter.

He looked at Niccolette for a long moment, tilted his head slightly, and raised one red eyebrow. Then he turned back to the peppercorns.

.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Morning, 30 Yaris, 2719
The Kitchen, Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Honored, Vauquelin said, and grateful. Niccolette’s lips pursed faintly – but he continued, and her face softened, and she met his eyes with a little nod when he looked at her, and then glanced away as he began to grind the peppercorns. The count went on in her head.

When had honor come to mean so much to her? And honesty? How many seconds – how many minutes – how many years in Uzoji’s company? Her hands tightened in the folds of her skirt, and Niccolette knew she was trembling. How long before she had learned not to talk of lies to him, no matter how casually? How long before she had learned not to tell lies before him, even the slightest of well-meant lies?

How long before she had stopped telling lies at all?

There was a soft crackle beneath Vauquelin’s voice. Something about hearing him call Yesufu a tricky bastard in that elegant politician’s drawl made Niccolette smile. She sighed a little, pushing a few strands of hair behind her ear. Even still, Vauquelin said, and he raised his eyebrow at her. Niccolette was silent a long few moments, arms crossed over her chest, fingers tapping lightly against her arms.

She snorted, then, softly, and eased away. Time was up; she uncovered the irukew, coconut-flavored steam wafting up from the stove. Carefully, Niccolette ran a spatula around the edges of it, once, pressing beneath with a light, delicate motion. Then, she brought the spatula to the rightmost edge of the pan, and eased it beneath. Her left hand lifted away the towel, and she placed the irukew delicately next to the rest, and covered them once more.

Another small splash of oil, a count of one second, and Niccolette scooped up another ladle of batter, precisely to the line. She poured it in, picked up the pan, and swirled her wrist one, two, three times, exactly the same motion as before, evening the batter out against the hot sides of the pan. She set it back down, cracked another egg into the center, covered it with the lid, and began to count again.

A tendril of hair was stuck to her forehead. Niccolette ignored it, looking back at Vauquelin. She took the bowl of coconut, and added the leaves she’d pulled down to it; she trimmed a small piece of ginger with a spoon, precisely the length of the top joint of her little finger, and set it down for chopping. She took one hanging red chili from the rustling bunch overhead, and set it out, and added a precisely measured half-spoonful of cumin powder to the mixture, a precisely measured quarter-spoonful of salt, and two heaping, larger spoonfuls of fried yellow lentils, split. She set it back by the mortar.

“Add a third of the pepper, then grind it all together,” Niccolette said, crisply.

She went back to the stove, then; she took the lid off, ran the spatula around the edges of the irukew, and teased it out from the rightmost side. She set it on the stack, and ladled a third into the pan, cracked another egg into the center of it, and covered it once more.

Niccolette stood, then, her hand on the cover. There was a dampness on her face, and she was grateful for the pleasant steam coming off of the pan.

“How much do you know of Uzoji’s death?” Niccolette asked, her voice even and calm, her field as indectal as ever. She glanced over her shoulder at Vauquelin, holding there by the stove. Her left hand still rested on the top of the pot; the golden ring on her finger glittered in the light. If the warmth of the stove bothered her, she gave no sign of it.

She thought of Vauquelin in the warehouse; the frantic, half-pleading note in his voice as he insisted she tend to Aremu. She thought of Aremu; he had buckled against her. She had bruises, still, from where they had hit the ground together, and there was a painful ache in her ribs when she breathed too deep, though she could not know if it was the little assassin’s spell or the fall that had done it. Bruised, she thought; not broken.

Niccolette knew what she had done; she knew what she had risked, and what she had nearly lost. She had not apologized to Aremu either; she knew it would mean nothing if she did. She had cast; she had held him tight in her arms and cast, bearing down to burn out infection in his veins. From the way he had stiffened in her arms, from the tightness that had gripped him and refused to let go, Niccolette knew there had been some, festering in his arm, in his side – she had done it again the next day, with him awake, and watched him grit his teeth through the pain.

Yes, Niccolette thought; she knew the cost well. She watched the incumbent from across the kitchen. Our brother, she thought, her face even and smooth. Our brother.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kitchen • The Ibutatu Estate

Morning on the 30th of Yaris, 2719

J
ust before the muffled sigh of steam – the swell of that benny sizzling, and the strong smell of fried egg – Tom heard Niccolette snort. It drew another little smile up out of him, not half as brief as the first.

He chanced a look. She was swirling the batter round in the skillet. One, two, three purposeful motions of one thin wrist, like a man might cut a throat. She cracked another egg into the irukew with the same deliberation. Tom wasn’t smiling anymore; he was watching with keen interest. The heat and steam from the stove’d brought color to her cheeks and a sheen of sweat to her brow, and a thin tangle of black hair was plastered to her forehead.

For all that, she looked comfortable. Stranger and stranger. Busy at his peppercorns, he didn’t look over again, though he felt her field brush his as she took the bowl of coconut he’d mashed. In the corner of his eye, he could see her collecting the ingredients, whittling off a little wedge of ginger, peering intently at a spoonful of reddish powder, like it had to be just so.

There were a whole bunch of colors in the bowl when she set it back on the counter beside him, yellows and dark greens and browns in there with the coconut. He raised his brows at it; he’d about done with the peppercorns, by the looks of what was in the mortar.

A third of the pepper, Niccolette said then, neatly. Being honest, Tom felt a prickle of unease.

One third.

A sorcerer might divide a spell circle in thirds, inscribe each third clock-wise, as was holy. A sorcerer might measure the spaces between each third to distribute change clauses evenly.

One distributed everything according to some measure; even the tiniest quantitative specification clause (one, perhaps, to circumvent the fact that one was attempting to ward against the undead while being undead) had its own section, laid out and measured in perfect proportion with the rest. Tom had done this before. A man usually had a stick with which to measure; if he’d been doing it long enough, the measurements lived inside him, but he’d better be sure.

This, Tom eyeballed, ’cause he wasn’t making chutney for the mona. He picked a spoon that looked like it might be a third of the pile of pepper, scooped up a slightly generous third, and put it in the bowl. He felt like somebody’d told him once – no such thing as too much pepper.

Nobody’d ever said that. He raised his brows at the pepper in the bowl again,but he couldn’t tell, so he turned to scoop the rest of it out of the mortar and back into its bowl, so he could scoop the coconut vodundun into the mortar and start pestling. Meanwhile, Niccolette had asked him a question. It caught him off guard; after a brief pause, he started, but slowly.

“Not much.” He frowned, remembering when he’d learned of it.

The party was a haze in his memory. It was a dizzy whirl of faces and dresses, and then Niccolette’s tears, and then the vicious sting of disappointment, swallowing everything. He could just faintly taste the brandy clinging to his tongue, his teeth, feel the nauseous slush of it on an empty stomach. It’d been awhile since he’d had anything to drink, and somehow, the thought of twemlaugh in Vienda turned him away from the wanting. Seemed like leagues away from the warm kitchen, with its smells of coconut and frying eggs. From the licorice taste of tsenid, even.

It was, he supposed, though it wouldn’t be so far away tomorrow. His frown deepened. “Since I found out, I’ve heard nothing but that it was an airship accident. But I don’t know,” he admitted slowly, with a sigh.

He hadn’t thought about it. He hadn’t much wanted to picture it, the Eqe Aqawe going down. Midnight in flames. Aremu’d said plenty of missing Uzoji, but he hadn’t said a word about how the galdor’d died.

Nobody ever did.

And what did that have to do with Yesufu? But it was starting to come together in his head, slowly. He paused, wiping a little sweat off his brow. “In this line of work, an accident can mean a lot of things.” The soft crush and squelch of the pestle resumed.

.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Morning, 30 Yaris, 2719
The Kitchen, Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Since I found out, Vauquelin said.

Abruptly, Niccolette couldn’t breathe. And – how is your husband, Ms. Ibtuatu? The room was spinning around her; the light through the kitchen window seemed to catch and shatter and splinter, as if tinkling through cut glass. Her hand tightened on the lid; her breath was uneven in her chest. She could feel it – she could feel it – the memory of the faintest flutter of Aurelien’s field at the edges of her own, Francoise’s movement next to her like a breath being drawn in –

Niccolette felt a prickle of sensation at her hand. She looked down; the edge of her little finger was resting against the lid. She let go, and eased her hand away, slowly, examining it. The skin was reddening. Niccolette frowned, faintly; she touched the fingertips of her other hand against it. It did not feel warm to her. She lowered her hand, slowly.

Niccolette went to the sink, and took a rag; she ran it beneath the cool water, and pressed it delicately against the edge of her finger. There was a pounding in her chest, threatening to rise up through her throat and fill her ears; her head felt light, still, stuffed full of cotton. She blinked until the tears went from her lashes, and cleared her throat.

“Yes,” Niccolette said, quietly. She could hear the churning of the pestle again; she could smell the coconut and the ginger. An accident. She had never called it that, herself. A malfunction, yes. A malfunction – mid-air – those airships, murmured a thousand worried voices, so dangerous. One forgets, with how convenient they are, but caution – “It can.”

Niccolette lowered the wet cloth to the counter next to the stove. She went back to the pan; she ran the spatula around the edge of the irukew, levered it out, and laid it atop the rest. She dipped the ladle into the batter, and poured it into the pan, and rotated it carefully – one, two, three times. There were tears gleaming in her eyes again, and Niccolettte tried to blink them away. Her breath caught in her chest; she cleared her throat, and managed a deep, careful breath, in and out. She set the pan down, and cracked an egg squarely into the middle of it, and covered it again.

Just as precisely, Niccolette picked up the wet cloth, and held it against her finger once more. It was throbbing now, sharply; a prickle of relief ran through her.

“Yesufu wished to speak to me,” Niccolette said. “He told me it concerned Uzoji.” She had picked apart the conversation since, again and again, searching for bits of truth. He had tried to kill her, yes, but he was scarcely the first. She had learned well, these last months and even before, what sort of knowledge such attempts might mean. “He said there was someone other than you he had business with; he said it was fortunate my visit coincided with yours.” She was watching the pot, still, her right hand holding the cloth carefully against her left.

Niccolette turned, then, and looked at Vauquelin. She shook her head, faintly. “I did not know if it was a trap,” Niccolette said, honest. The shimmer of tears was fading; her voice was stronger now. She looked at him, squarely, unrepentant. “If I had, I would have gone all the more gladly.” She flexed her field out to fill the distance between them, covering Vauquelin with sharp, vivid brightness. Her chin held, lifted, and the Bastian took a deep breath. “By Her Deadly Terrors,” Niccolette promised, softly, and let the rest of the oath trail off into silence.

She turned back to the stove, then, although time was not quite up. “I intend to find Yesufu,” Niccolette said, casually. “He ran from me, once his trap was sprung. I do not think it was on his own behalf he wished me dead.” She shrugged. “As you say – in this line of work…”

The Bastan unpeeled the wet cloth from her hand, and set it aside. She found a cool jar tucked in a dark corner, and opened it, breathing in the scent of aloe, and found a small stash of bandages beside. She took the aloe, and spread a bit on her finger, and wrapped a bandage around it – once, twice, a third time. She tucked it in, and went back to the pot, opening the lid.

“Does it interest you?” Niccolette asked, delicately. She ran the spatula around the edge of the irukew, neat and precise. “Are there questions you should like to ask Yesufu?” Niccolette eased the irukew out, and lay it on the pile. She poured more oil into the pan, swirled it gently, waited a moment, and ladled the batter in once more. Gently, she swirled it once, twice, a third time; gently, she cracked another egg into the center, and covered it once more.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kitchen • The Ibutatu Estate

Morning on the 30th of Yaris, 2719

T
he living mona brushed by his field again; the warm air in the kitchen stirred. Niccolette was at the sink. Hushed trickle of water. He glanced over, not a hitch in the even rhythm of the pestle, to see her pressing a rag to her hand. It was too brief of a look to read her face, but Tom thought he saw – he didn’t know. Yes, came a quiet voice, it can.

He hadn’t seen any blood, that tell-tale cherry-red aftermath of a knife slip blooming against a dishrag. Burn, then. His lips were pressed thin again, and he was holding his jaw stiff; he made himself relax. He paused to wipe more sweat from his brow, then resumed.

The galdor set down the rag and went back to the irukewi, and there was quiet, filled up by the chatter of the pestle and the sizzling oil and the plantation waking up outside – distant voices, just starting up. Tom wondered if she’d leave it there; he wouldn’t’ve pressed. There was the pleasant crumpling crack of another egg. Then the soft catching of her breath, and she cleared her throat.

He didn’t say anything as she spoke, and just barely nodded. The rhythm of the pestle stayed even, though his knuckles were getting red, and it was starting to feel like hell, again, to cajole his hand through the motions. Once, his elbow bumped the bandages at his side, and he grunted and winced.

But she was turning to him, then, and he knew he needed to turn and look her in the eye. So he did; he left the pestle where it was, long enough to face her, standing at the stove.

By Her Deadly Terrors, she swore, and lifted up her chin. The breeze stirred a wisp of hair round her head; some of it was slick with sweat, and the light coming in from the window caught her face in bright contrast, bright and sharp as the field she let fill the space between them. It caught one of her eyes, too, hazel-green iris alight with the sun.

I don't doubt it, he wanted to say. I don't doubt you'd've risked everything for him.

The dead aren't gone, not really. They have a damned long reach.

Tom stood in the glow of it. He couldn’t push back with his porven, and he didn’t much want to. He gave her something like a grim smile. He didn’t turn back until she did, and he went back to his work. He heard a shuffling, caught a whiff of aloe.

“He ran,” was the first thing Tom said, a low, husky shudder of a sound. The pestle clattered; he just about lost his grip on it. But he regained it, and the rhythm kept up. “It does,” he said, finally, his voice a little rough. By the time he spoke again, it’d lost its roughness. “Yes. A few questions.”

He didn’t like it much, being a decoy. It made a man feel like – less of a man.

He frowned, listening to Niccolette crack another egg. You know what they say, he thought, though it wasn’t an omelette. “His son ran, too,” he said lightly, easily. “I don’t know that ada’xa Eduxu knows much about any of it, but I’d like to ask him a few questions, too. Nobody seems to know where ada’xa Yesufu’s gone off to.”

The window carried in the rustling of kofi leaves, and then a big gust of wind, easing some of the heat. Tom shut his eyes, ’cause it whisked up the smells of ginger and pepper and coconut from the pestle. He didn’t know how it’d taste, but he thought it smelled just about right. He knew enough about cooking, about hama’s fumbles and successes with Manatse yats from when he was a boch, to know that if it smelled right, that was half the battle.

There was still the other half. If Ahura thought it was rubbish in the end, Tom thought, bemused, he didn’t know how he’d live with himself.

Tom’d about finished crushing up all the benny-smelling things in the bowl. Giving the pestle a rest, he turned to lean against the counter. He could see Niccolette’s profile, framed in steam and sunlight. “I’ll keep my ear to the floor,” he offered, crossing his arms. “The Cycle’s shifting. I’ll be in Thul Ka with the rest of the Vyrdag by Loshis next year; I won’t be surprised if we see more of each other.”

He raised an eyebrow again, then looked askance, at the table he’d sat across from Aremu at the night before. He thought of the clasp of his hand on the heavy wood; he thought of honor and tenderness. He found himself smiling sadly, and shut his eyes.

He could smell frying eggs and rice flour and coconut and spices, and the heat was sinking through his joints, easing his aching muscles. He didn’t know what the future held, but there were worse places you could be.

.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Morning, 30 Yaris, 2719
The Kitchen, Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Niccolette made a little face at Eduxu’s name. There was silence between them for a long moment. The Bastian went to the cabinets, and drew out the plates; she set three out on the table, the fourth held in her hands. She traced her fingertips delicately over the awkwardly painted flowers beneath the lacquer; dzum’ulusa flowers, she thought, aching. They were slightly misshapen things, hand-cast, from Dzum itself. They were more than seven years old now, Niccolette thought, aching; she remembered sitting with Uzoji, sorting through the chipped, scattered plates that were what was left in the plantation house, purchasing more in town on a whim – she remembered Uzoji carrying the heavy bag back on the long walk, remembered how her feet had ached by the end of it, as they arrived home to the setting sun –

Home, Niccolette thought, blinking back the tears again. She set the last plate down, and went to fetch napkins as well. She had time to set them down, and then it was back to the stove. Then – in the icebox, Niccolette found fruit and yogurt juice; she took the heavy pitcher out with both hands, feeling the prick of the cold against her skin. She set it down on the counter, watching the sweat bead against it. She poured four glasses, one by one, and set them out.

There were bowls, too – tomato and mint chutneys, already made. Niccolette set them out, and took out the ladle she liked for tam’oqap; she uncovered the pot on the back of the stove, and spooned it into four bowls, and set them out as well.

“I suspect,” Niccolette said, “that Eduxu will crawl back to Ashu’tei, in time.” She covered the tam’oqap once more, and brushed her hair from her face with her right hard. She set the pot back down, and took the mashed coconut carefully from Vauquelin, spooning it into small bowls with careful, precise motions. She set them out on the table as well, and went back to the stove, uncovering the last of the irukew. She ran the spatula around the edges of it, pried it out, and set it on the stack; she covered them, one last time, and carried the platter to the table, setting them down.

“As for Yesufu,” Niccolette said, her lips pressed faintly together. “He wanted you,” she looked up at Vauquelin, cocking her head delicately to the side. “He has plans,” she said, gently, a note of caution in her voice. “He must. I should not be surprised if Thul Ka proves too tempting for him to resist, in Loshis.”

Niccolette’s hand rested lightly on the back of the chair, her pinky stiff, held away from the rest of it by the bandage; the gold ring nestled softly against the fabric. She smiled, then, but there was nothing kind about it, nothing friendly. “Yes,” she said, quietly. “I believe we shall see more of each other.”

“Go ahead and sit,” Niccolette said. “I shall fetch the others," she brushed her hair back from her face away, wiping away the damp strands. She took a deep breath, looking down at the table. She hesitated, then, looking at the little white bowls, and then back at Vauquelin. She wondered, suddenly, if he had ever cooked before; she wondered that he knew how to use a mortar and pestle, that he had kept at it long enough to finish the work, with his hands stiff and red even in the heat. She wondered that he had cared.

Aremu was stumbling and sleepy-eyed; he had torn four stitches, Niccolette told him, sharply, when she found him with the bandage gone. He had shrugged, and apologized, and Niccolette could not do more than scowl at him. Ahura had followed her up the stairs, and she lectured him brightly all the way down the stairs. Even Niccolette could hear the love in it.

“You shall join us?” Niccolette asked Ahura in Mugrobi as the three of them entered the kitchen. She gestured at the table, at the fourth plate.

Ahura smiled down at it, and then back at Niccolette. She doled out the irukew first, clicking her tongue and shaking her head when Niccolette made to reach for them. Niccolette smiled, easily, through the lump in her throat, and sat. She glanced sharply at Aremu at the faint groan he let out, eyes narrowed and lips slightly pursed. He smiled at her, sheepishly.

“Good morning, sir,” Aremu said to Vauquelin with a smile.

Ahura was lifting the little bowl of coconut chutney to her nose, and breathing in deep. She beamed at Vauquelin, pleased, and nodded. “Very good,” she said in careful Estuan, setting the bowl back down. She sat, and ripped off a piece of her irukew, pressing it between careful fingers. “You still cook good,” she told Niccolette in the same language, and frowned at her. “But you must eat more,” Ahura said, shaking her head solemnly, though her eyes were light.

Niccolette grinned, then, and blinked away a little more wetness in her eyes. She dabbed at them, carefully, with the edges of the napkin, and set it down. She ripped off a piece of the irukew, and dipped it into the tam’oqap. They were crisp and fresh, evenly cooked, with the egg just barely cooked through in the center; the tam’oqap was warm and fragrant. Cane drifted in through the windows, and the gulls called, distant, over the water. Her hand ached in her lap, the burn throbbing and cooled by the aloe all at once.

Home, Niccolette thought, tears prickling again at her eyes. She did not know whether she was sorry or glad to leave; she did not know whether she wished she had never come, or that she was not going. She did not try to know; she took another bite of irukew instead, and did her best to simply be. She was here; whatever would come, Niccolette thought, there were worse places to be. She had known them before; she knew she would know them again. For now, she was here, and she found, too, that she could be glad.