[Closed] The Miles Won't Phase Me

[Aremu Ediwo]

Midday, Hamis 18, 2720
The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Shit, Aremu bought, and then, gods flooding damn it. The look of wide-eyes surprise told him he had been right the first time. She clutched at the neckline of her dress and he didn’t look; she was stiff all over. Her gaze went to the thin sheer arms of her dress.

I didn’t mean - Aremu felt his tongue as heavy as lead in his mouth. Shit, he wanted to say. Fuck; I’m a fucking idiot, Aurelie, I’m so sorry - you’re lovely, and I didn’t mean to...

She was apologizing, now, as if she had done something wrong. Aremu shook his head, and didn’t dare to try again, entirely certain he’d somehow get it more wrong if he did. She went very carefully, as if he were some strange enormous engine, dangerous, as if a wrong move would take her hand off.

Nothing you have done or are makes me uncomfortable, Aurelie said. Aremu knew what she meant, but he couldn’t help wincing at it. It was an Anaxi sort of way to speak, imprecise, and the lie of it chafed him, for all she didn’t know it was a lie. You don’t know, he wanted to tell her. You don’t know what I’ve done.

That squeezed at him too, that fear; he had largely put it aside. It was because he was what he was that he had been able to help her, that any of this had been made possible. He knew better than to think that weighed against any of the rest of it. There was no ledger for a man’s life, at least not one like his; there was nothing inside him for the good to hold.

Aremu nodded when Aurelie parroted his words back to him. There was a little smile on her face, more grim and determined than happy.

He smiled too, wryly, twisted at the edges, and he nodded again, accepting her point. He frowned a little, and cleared his throat, and took another sip of tea.

He tried to imagine it. He hadn’t thought of it often in those terms, in a telling way. He tried to, now, and then he shied away from it.

“I actually don’t remember how I got this one,” Aremu offered instead; he turned his arm a little, showing her the burn scar across the back of his wrist, the one that peeked out of the hem of his cuffs.

His voice was more even than he expected, a little amused maybe. “There were a lot of - an engine runs hot when you fly, and, uh, not all repairs can be done on the ground. I’ve burnt myself rather a lot.”

If it’s hot enough, Aremu didn’t say, it doesn’t hurt. Those are the burns to worry about; the ones which you feel aren’t so bad. He didn’t say it. It was something perhaps Niccolette had told him, and something he had learned himself too, along the way.

I’m sorry, he wanted to say, but that too seemed to put too much on her. He owned it, himself, instead; he did not demand that she make it okay, and bestow forgiveness on him. He smiled instead, a little easier than he had before.

“This one,” Aremu said wryly, splaying his hand out and showing her a more faded burn on the edge of his palm, “I actually remember quite well. I was trying to - uh - impress someone, actually,” there was the littlest edge of a grin, now, more genuine, “a long time ago, when I was still at Thul’Amat. My last years there I worked in on airships that the university owns,” Aremu smiled almost fondly down at the burn, with the faintest edge of pain to it.

He glanced back up at Aurelie. “I didn’t watch myself carrying something heavy, and brushed up against red hot metal,” he grimaced, remembering, but it didn’t take away from the smile. “I can tell you she wasn’t very impressed.”

Aremu shrugged, easing. “I don’t think I’ve changed much,” he admitted, quietly, looking at Aurelie. “I don’t know when to put a burden down; I don’t know when something’s too hot for me. I am sorry, Aurelie.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 18, 2720 - Midday | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Oh, she should have kept her mouth shut. Always, wasn't that always true? When had her adding more words ever helped anything? And yet she did it anyway, the way she always did, and Aremu winced as she spoke. Which part? No, it was best to assume that it was all of it. The whole great big mess of it.

At least, and this was a small kind of comfort, when she smiled at the end, he had nodded and smiled back. Not a happy kind of smile, or like anything she'd said made any real difference, but the effort seemed like it mattered. The smile slid away rather quickly, but she thought that was probably fine. It wasn't like it was the real kind, the kind that she was sad to see go.

She hadn't meant now, when she repeated what he'd said on the ship back to her. Aremu probably hadn't meant it with much immediacy either, on reflection, and she had stuttered out the thing anyway. So perhaps that was just the way of it--once prompted, once the door was opened, it was hard not to walk through in some way. Now was as good a time as any likely to come. Here as good a place, standing in the kitchen with a breeze ruffling the curtains and cups of hot, bitter tea between them. Aurelie looked down when he held out his arm and pointed out the one on the back of his wrist.

It was rather large to not remember. Although Aurelie supposed she couldn't remember clearly most of hers--but for a few stand-outs (and she didn't move her hands to her chest or to the inside of her right arm even as she thought this) they were all mundane. Aurelie listened carefully as Aremu went on. As much to the tone and shape of his voice as to the meaning; she heard nothing to make her want to interrupt.

"Repairs in the air!" Aurelie felt her face twist in a funny sort of way. Not quite amused, not quite thrilled, not quite concerned. A mix of all three together, perhaps, each feeling informing the other. She had never seen the engine of an airship, couldn't even begin to imagine it. Hot, he said, and she supposed she pictured it rather like a great stove. Yes, she could see how a problem could be dire enough--immediate enough--that there would be no time to wait until it was safer to do it. She shivered a little, thinking about that kind of danger.

She thought to say something, but couldn't think of what. The moment passed anyway, and then she was looking at one on the edge of his palm. Older, she thought, or at least less obvious. She looked up from the fading mark to see a suggestion of a grin, and Aurelie relaxed muscles she had been holding tight in her back and neck.

Trying to impress someone, he'd said, and she smiled a little too. If he was still at Thul'Amat he would have been--younger than her, perhaps? Aurelie wasn't sure, but she thought so. Assuming it was somewhat like Brunnhold, at least. If she'd been a student, she would have graduated by now. If she'd been... Aurelie turned that thought aside. Young, at least, relatively. The age when doing such a thing seemed impressive. Now her hand did drift to the inside of her arm, and she smiled a little more.

"I can't imagine she would be," Aurelie said with a small laugh. Not as light as it was before, with the sour tamarind flesh making her jaw ache and cutting through her perpetual uncertainty, but not as heavy as a frown either. She held it when Aremu apologized to her, looking down at her face.

She didn't want to say it was all right, although it was. That wasn't quite right. And in her own roundabout sort of way, she was at least trying to be more accurate with what she said. Not just now, not just to Aremu, but generally. At least then she would know that when she made an error, it was in what she said and not the spaces in between thought and communication.

"I have--one like that too," she offered, a little uncertain. She didn't roll up her sleeve, but she tapped the inside of her arm where the oval shape of it could just be made out through the thin fabric. "Although I think the someone I was trying to impress was myself."

"It's--it's fine. I mean, er, well. Hmm. N-no harm was--nothing permanent. D-damage is, ah, a part of... of discovery. Or. Uhm. That sounds rather... Ah. That's to say, we don't know each other terribly well," Aurelie said this as gently as she could, trying not to assume too much in what she was saying. To project too much of her own feeling into the gaps of her understanding. She paused, and took a breath before adding on hopefully, "Yet."

Oh, that sounded like absolute rubbish. Aurelie flushed again, looking down into her cup. She took a sip of tea to distract herself, so focused on avoiding embarrassment she inhaled instead of drank and coughed a little.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Midday, Hamis 18, 2720
The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Aurelie laughed at him, and Aremu exhaled a little in relief, glad she could – glad she had. He’d wanted her too, in truth. He hadn’t minded it so much at the same anyway; it had been at an age when Efreet’s hands on his – through the ache of the burn and her sharp scolding – had been exciting enough to temper any regret he’d felt. She’d insisted on doing the wrapping up, even though he’d thought he could have managed one handed.

It had been a long time ago, Aremu thought.

Aremu looked down at Aurelie’s arm through the sheer sleeve when she pointed. He could just barely see it, a little dark spot that might have been a bruise. He smiled a little when she said she’d been trying to impress herself, nodding, a little ruefully.

We don’t know each other terribly well, Aurelie said, uncertainly. Yet, she added, a little lift at the edge of her voice. Red crept into her cheeks again; she took a little sip of her tea and coughed.

Aremu took his cup too, cradling it in his fingers; they were splayed out long over the sides, curled against it. No, he might have said; we don’t. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Aurelie; there’s a lot you might not want to know. He thought of that, and then he thought further of how selfish that was.

“Yet,” Aremu agreed, a little more firmly than she’d offered it. He smiled at Aurelie, but he couldn't hold it.

“I don’t think I’m…” Aremu swallowed, thinking of mangroves and blood and angry voices, of hurt that had stretched beyond a lifetime, “very easy to get to know.” He said. He grimaced, a little, leaning against the counter still.

You wouldn’t let me, Tom said, then. I was afraid, Aremu wished he could have said back; I am afraid, he thought, looking at Aurelie. I’m afraid that you won’t like what you know, if you know it.

He tried to think of what he could do; he could let her ask questions, he thought, let her - what, try to guess at his secrets? It felt unbearably condescending and even more horrifying, like offering her a shovel in a plot she didn't know was a graveyard. Aremu took a deep breath.

“There is something you should know,” Aremu said. He knew he was frowning again, just a little; he tried to smooth out the wrinkle from his forehead, glancing down at the tea. The bitterness seemed to have come out a little in the waiting, but he didn’t mind too much. He took another sip, and set it down, and he couldn’t quite smile. It had been a nice laugh; he was sorry for what he was going to do to it. At the same time, he didn't think he could have her stay here, unknowing.

What was worse? To burden her now, or for her to feel complicit, later, or horrified? Was it only selfishness that made him want to tell her now, to get the worst out of the way?

He'd thought about it; he'd turned his mind from it, these last days, and refused to think too deeply on it, because there was nothing to be done. Now, he couldn't look away any longer.

Aremu exhaled a little; he shifted against the counter, looking at her. “If you don’t want to stay here,” Aremu said, quietly, “after this, I’ll – sort something out for you. We’ll find a place in Laus Oma, or we’ll – we’ll figure something out. I promise.” He breathed in, deeply, and out again. “I didn’t want to… I used to think lying was only spoken, and that silence was a better way.” He swallowed a little. “But I think – whatever those with honor have to worry about, I… silence feels just as much a lie, to me.” Perhaps, he might have said, it’s only because I am what I am, that I cannot tell the difference. But he knew now that he was stalling.

“We were pirates,” Aremu said, evenly. He looked sideways at Aurelie, his lips pressed thinly together, and then softening. “Uzoji, Niccolette and I – Chibugo as well. For years,” he grimaced. “We robbed mostly smugglers and other pirates, from the air. It was dangerous work, bloody and brutal, and I…”

Aremu shifted, glancing out over the small, well-lit kitchen. “There’s a lot I could say,” he said, finally, quietly. He glanced sideways at Aurelie, and then away once more. “It was the price I paid for flying,” Aremu said, finally, looking across the small, well-lit kitchen. The place where his hand once was ached, and the space where nothing was inside his chest ached too.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 18, 2720 - Midday | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

The firm way Aremu insisted on her more tentative "yet" was good. What followed after, the smile that just wouldn't stay, was much less so.

Aurelie raised her eyebrows. She couldn't tell if that was a joke, or if he'd said that in all sincerity. The latter seemed most likely. Looking back over this conversation--all conversations she'd had with him up until this moment--thinking about it. They had certainly seemed to wind around unexpectedly enough. Aurelie just thought that was more her doing than anything.

The grimace asked her to hold her peace. No joking would help now, and she didn't think it wise to spit out the tangle she knew anything else would become. She held her teacup in her hands and frowned lightly, listeningly. It seemed the sort of statement that was meant to be followed by more, although she couldn't guess where they all led. The cheerful yellow shifted somewhere in the edges of her sight, and the sun came in bright and warm. Standing in the kitchen, he took a deep breath.

"Something I should know?" The confusion of her frown deepened, settling in to the soft lines of her face. More frowning from Aremu, too; she was beginning to think she had imagined the grin, before. The only thing she had to prove to herself that she hadn't was the assurance that she didn't have, really, that vivid an imagination.

Was it the tea? She had left it on too long, and it was more bitter than it should have been. No, that was silly. Nobody sighed like that, shifted like that, to have to tell her that the tea was oversteeped. It was all terribly ominous; Aurelie thought she should be bracing herself for something. But she didn't know what, and felt too tired and emptied out to much guess at it. She set her own cup down now, waiting.

She felt no better as he went on, about finding her somewhere else to stay. There was this cold kind of dread that crept over her where she thought she had nothing in her. That was it, she would have to leave after all. It had only been a few hours--but perhaps she had done something. Not even her own anxious patterns could conjure up what that might be, but that didn't seem to stop herself from fearing it all the same. Silence was just as much a lie, he went on. Aurelie put a hand in her pocket, in order to keep the other loose at her side.

When he got to the point, all the air rushed out of her at once. For a moment, all she felt was relief that she hadn't done something wrong. That faded away quick enough, leaving her only with what was in front of her. He had stopped looking at her directly at some point; she couldn't recall when. Now he glanced at her a final time and then away to the rest of the kitchen.

"I see," she said, mostly because silence seemed unacceptable. Those two words contained very little information; they were just stalling for time. Aurelie found she didn't really know what else to say. Pirates, he'd said--all of them. The price paid for flying.

She should be horrified, she thought. Or at least that seemed to be what Aremu was expecting from her, his face all twisted up as he leaned on the counter. Maybe she would have been, at another time. It was hard to hold on to the thought, in the clean coziness of the kitchen. Standing next to these cheerful, slightly lumpy teacups.

Bloody and brutal. Aurelie wondered if something had broken in her, that she had to repeat that to herself a few times and it didn't seem quite to stick. Had it always been so, or was it Brunnhold that had done it to her? Brutal she had seen; bloody, too. Not in the way he meant, she knew that. It was different. But she had seen it all the same. Aurelie thought of the map of Fionn's back.

Do you know, she wanted to say, that it is more than a lack of choice and freedom behind those walls? That until very, very recently, nobody much cared what happened to any of those blue shadows at all--as long as they didn't have to see it? If golly hands were clean, if golly eyes were turned away... Her mouth pressed into a line. There was no point in saying it. She was the one who had thought it the price of safety for nearly eleven years. Flying seemed no worse a thing to buy.

"That does explain a few things," she offered at last, a thin kind of joke. She studied Aremu's profile and the tight line of his jaw as he looked away from her.

"I don't know what else to... to say to that," she said finally, shoulders slouching down. She felt a little defeated and more tired than she had not that long ago. She ran a hand through her hair, mussing it, then immediately made to sort it back out. "I can... can l-leave if, you'd rather... But I..." Aurelie didn't know where to look, so she chose to look down at the floor. Everything was bright. So very bright.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Midday, Hamis 18, 2720
The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

I see, Aurelie said.

Aremu waited; he thought it was the least he owed her, after all that. He didn’t know what else he should have done. She had a choice, now; she wasn’t trapped in the room with him on an airship anymore. She had a choice, and she needed to know what it was – what he was.

Should he have been more direct? I’ve killed men, he could have said, and women to. No – no children, that I know of. He thought of ships tumbling into the sea; there weren’t many children in the sky, but it was hard to be sure. I wake sometimes feeling as I’m drowning in blood, he could have said; I have dreams of my skin peeling away and there’s so much blood beneath it, and none of it mine.

Perhaps I could have found a balance with it, he didn’t say, if I wasn’t what I was. We have to be careful, Aurelie – more careful than those born whole – because by its nature we don’t know what we lack. We have no honor; we have nothing we can rely on at the center of ourselves. I think the guilt of it holds me together, for all that it feels like it’s tearing me apart.

He didn’t say it; he didn’t think to say it. He had laid enough upon her, even if he hadn’t known how else to manage. He thought she understood; for all that she had spent the last decade plus one in Brunnhold, or maybe even because of it. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that life walled in so would be easy; it wasn’t, he thought grimly, that sort of shelter.

He couldn’t read the thoughts in her silence. He didn’t want to try, but he did all the same. Mostly, he looked away, and tried to prepare himself for it, tried to hear what she might call him – what she might say – in his own imagining of her voice. If she wants to go now, he told himself, I’ll take her to Laus Oma – I’ll go to town, and bring a cart back, so she doesn’t have to be alone with me. There – Aremu grimaced, trying to think. There were risks; she wasn’t here legally. Money, he thought, would put to rest most of them. He had his own savings, the money he had scrounged together slowly and carefully. There was more than there had been; Niccolette paid him well, and he spent very little, living here as he did.

Aremu took a deep breath. If she were silent a minute longer, he told himself, he would offer it outright. If – and then –

She spoke, and it was nothing he had expected. Aremu glanced over, jerking a little, almost frowning. He thought he hadn’t understood, for a moment, because it had sounded almost like a joke. Her shoulders slumped a little, her small face set and drawn; she mussed her hair with small fingers, and then tried to comb it out, and Aremu could nearly have smiled at the sight.

“No,” Aremu said, quietly. “Please don’t.” Shit; his face was warm, now, and he pressed his fingers to it, taking a deep breath, before lowering his hand again. “I’ve not been – very welcoming, I know. But I told you because I want you to stay, and I didn’t – like the idea of you doing it blindly.” He wanted to apologize again; he wanted to go back to a few minutes ago, when she’d been making a face at the tamarind and smiling and it had all been terribly, terribly easy.

There was, Aremu knew, no going back.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Aremu said, finally. He took another deep breath. His shoulders were tight, and aching; the sore on the right one from the strap of his hand all but burned. The place where his right hand used to be ached, too, the tightening of a muscle he couldn't relax. “If you want to ask – now, later, any time – I’ll do my best to answer.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 18, 2720 - Midday | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Aurelie wondered what would happen to her, if Aremu said yes. Yes, he did want her to leave after all. She wasn't so cruel even in her anxiety as to think "sorting something out" wouldn't be, ultimately, fine. So the tired feeling that took all the strength out of her shoulders wasn't fear that she would end up in circumstances dangerous or dreadful. Just that it wouldn't be here, and that it wasn't what she wanted.

The "please", then, quietly from some point above her head, was a surprise. Aurelie still had a hand tangled through the bright red of her hair, making it more of a mess even as she tried to fix it. She paused and looked up, her face uncertain. "No" was shock enough, but "please"? Like it was a request, a favor she might not grant.

She shouldn't smile. This wasn't really a smiling sort of situation. Yet there it was, right on her face. She could feel it. Because he hadn't told her to make her leave; Aremu wanted her to stay. Not just "would allow", but actually "wanted". Oh, she really did need to stop. And she would. She would stop smiling like an absolute fool any moment now. Truly.

"G-good. I'm glad. Er, I mean. Good that you w-want me to, uh. That you don't want, rather, er. Chimes, I'm doing it again. I don't, ah, want to leave. So that's good. We agree." Aurelie cleared her throat, awkward. Joking that she wasn't used to someone wanting her company very much sounded too pathetic, and she didn't think would make any of this better. It was only partially true, anyway. True enough, generally, but not now.

Aremu spoke again after a pause; he took a deep breath, and his face still looked tense. Aurelie wondered if she did have anything to ask, right this moment. Later, maybe. Now? Now she was tired, now she was just happy she didn't have to leave. Now she wanted to sit down at the table and maybe have another cup of tea. And later go to the village, maybe, which she had never seen. The first new town Aurelie would have seen in more than a decade.

She rubbed at her eyes, though, and she thought about it. The smile did fade away a little bit as she did so. There were questions in her mind, but she didn't want to ask them here in the cheerful, bright little kitchen. She had guesses to the answers, and she didn't like them. There were no answers she could think of that would change a thing she had said.

"Did you want another cup of tea?" she asked, instead of anything sensible. "What I would like most, before a-any kinds of questions or... Anything, is to sit, perhaps, and have a second cup. If you don't mind?"

A few cups of tea, she felt, would fix most things. Not all things, but enough of them that she thought... After that, after a little more time, maybe she could ask some of what she wanted to. Or it would seem less important, and she could let it drift away for another time. Reliable, dependable tea.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Midday, Hamis 18, 2720
The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Aremu didn’t know what he’d imagined on Aurelie’s face. He’d let himelf picture the worst, he supposed; frowns, at least, or even tears. He didn’t know what shock and betrayal looked like on her, but he could at least imagine it, and it the doing tore at him.

He didn’t expect a smile. When he brought his courage around and glanced up, that was what he saw; her eyes were bright, and her lips were curled up into a smile.

He didn’t smile – he didn’t think he could – but it was easier than it had been not to frown, or at least not to frown so much. “We do,” Aremu said, after a moment, exhaling a little sigh of relief. Some of the tension went out of his shoulders, though they ached even with the release, as if it hadn’t quite left.

She looked a little more solemn when he went on; he should have left well enough alone a long time ago, Aremu knew, but it seemed to him going halfway through it would be irreparable. Perhaps it should have ruined her smile entirely, but it didn’t, at least, not quite, and he felt absurdly grateful for her good humor, even if he didn’t quite understand it.

“Oh,” Aremu said, and then, “Yes, more tea seems a good idea,” He didn’t quite smile at her, but something softened on his face all the same.

He let her pour the cups; he went himself to the table, and cleaned up the papers, stacking them back carefully into order, tucking them into the ledger and setting it all aside. There were hours of work left to do, he knew, and yet he couldn’t have focused on them any longer, even if Aurelie had left him alone this instant.

By the time he was done, she was carrying two new cups of hot tea to the table. Aremu pulled out a seat for her, uncertain, and then took his cup and his own seat, sitting back down himself. His right wrist came out of his pocket, and rested on his thigh instead; changing the angle helped a good deal with the ache in his shoulder, Aremu thought, grimly. If he kept on like this, his back would hurt for as long as he stayed; he didn’t much like the thought of it.

He had never rolled down his left sleeve; he still didn’t. He’d told her it was all right with him, and he didn’t want to double back on it, or so he told himself. He didn’t want to think that maybe it was the ungainliness of the gesture – he would have to either use his right wrist or to drag his arm against the table. He was, Aremu thought, a fool, but he didn’t want her to watch him do either.

He didn’t offer any more confessions. Instead, Aremu curled his fingers around the little green cup with its unevenly painted flowers, and let it grow a little cooler. Steam whisked off the top of it, although the scent didn’t linger too strongly in the small kitchen with its open windows; the breeze blew it away, and drifted in tsug and the salt breeze, and they all mingled together in a way that Aremu found unexpectedly pleasant, and comfortably homely.

When it was cool enough, he lifted the cup to his mouth and look a little sip of tea, breathing it in, and doing his best to appreciate it a little more this go. If he couldn’t quite smile, still, he thought he could at least manage not to frown.

“Do you like the tea?” Aremu asked after a few moments of silence he had found unexpectedly restful – almost like when their conversation had trickled into quiet the day before, and he’d looked up to find her peacefully dozing. Her hair was still a bit of a mess, soft strands mussed together, and it contributed to the overall impression. Just barely, the edges of his lips twitched at a smile.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 18, 2720 - Midday | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Aremu didn't smile at her suggestion of more tea, but Aurelie beamed. Tea was a task she could perform, both problem and solution in one convenient activity. She went to the teapot to pour new cups while Aremu returned to the table. She could hear a rustle of papers behind her while she did so, coming from the direction of the table. The pouring wasn't complicated or time-consuming, but she took it as a chance to catch her breath all the same.

This had been really quite the afternoon. Aurelie reflected a little on this as she watched each cup fill steadily. Steam rose up and carried the scent of tea into the air. She took a breath in, filling her lungs until she could feel them straining to expand any more, and then exhaled just as slowly. A very strange sort of afternoon. A strange few days, after a stranger month. And it would only get odder, she thought, until all the oddness wasn't so odd anymore.

Pirates, Aurelie thought to herself again, trying to settle in her mind. It wasn't that she felt no surprise, or that she didn't understand why he thought she would be uncomfortable. By all rights, she should be. She could picture some of it, she thought--they had really gotten her out rather smoothly.

She had no romantic notions about what it meant either, not with the way he had twisted all up in telling her. But it was difficult to hold the pictures together at the same time, the person she thought Aremu might have been trying to get her to see and the one who sat next to her while she cried more than she ever had in her life. Pieces of the same whole, but hard to hold at once.

Aurelie picked up the cups. No part of her contemplation changed the reality of the moment, that she was glad she was here. Glad that Aremu was here, and wanted her to be. So she resolved to think on it more later, to be dealt with then. After some more tea. After dinner too, ideally. She turned back to the table and carried both cups over. She took the seat he pulled out for her with a grateful kind of sigh.

While they waited for the tea to cool a little, they just sat. Aremu took his wrist out of his pocket, and Aurelie marked that in her mind. She found she was looking for a pattern, though there might be none to find. She wondered if that had been what he wanted her to ask about most of all; she still didn't know how. He didn't say anything else anyway, and she liked the quiet.

How long had it been since she'd smelled salt in the air like this? A long time, so long. Since she was small, a seaside trip with her family. She barely remembered it. Even the smudgy, faded memory brought a small smile to her face. It was worn around the edges, but that was an ache she'd long ago grown to accept. It would always be gone, no matter what she was or was not. Because they were, because time had passed. But she carried the memory anyway, and if it hurt, she liked it too.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, I do. It's good." She looked over at Aremu's face, drawn out of her reverie by the question. He wasn't smiling, but the frown seemed to have eased off a little. She could picture a smile having been there, at least. The ghost of it maybe hid somewhere--she thought she could almost see one, if she squinted. Tea, she thought, see? A solver of problems, tea.

"It makes me deeply wish for an oven, though," she added with a wider smile. "There are all manner of things I never did get a chance to try making without one, and I'm not sure if they'd work." Good tea always cried out for a good snack to go with it, especially in the afternoon. Especially on warm afternoons with a breeze coming in through the kitchen window, the barest whisper of it ruffling the neatly-stacked edges of the paperwork.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Midday, Hamis 18, 2720
The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Perhaps it was the smile on Aurelie’s face that had made it so easy. It was a sweet sort of smile, Aremu thought. He was coming to know her face a little, he felt. Some of her smiles felt strained at the edges, pasted on, as if she were holding them there with all her strength.

This one didn’t. Whatever fears he might have had, it didn’t fade when he asked his question. He couldn’t quite imagine she was smiling because of him, just now - it didn’t seem possible - but he was glad that at least his presence didn’t mean she couldn’t smile.

It was, Aremu felt, oddly like waiting for punishment; he felt he had set his head in the noose, and was standing with his arms tied behind him, waiting for Aurelie to pull the lever and drop him straight down.

If so, Aremu thought, a little frown creeping onto his face, then he would meet it, and not flinch. The frown smoothed, and he looked at Aurelie once more.

Her smile widened, and he found it a little contagious. Something above the thought of an oven made his stomach clench, and Aremu realized he was rather desperately hungry.

A moment later, his stomach agreed, loudly. Aremu grinned, sheepishly, finding it easier when it snuck up on him. “Do you mind if I make something...?” Aremu asked.

Something sweet, he thought; he couldn’t have said why. Aremu rolled up his right sleeve once more as he went to the pantry, fingers careful with it. Out of sight, he adjusted the sleeve on his left arm too, pushing it up and out of the way.

Aremu fetched wheat and chickpea flours, ghee, and salt; he carried them back out and set it on the counter. He took out a bowl, and settled it into place. He started with those, mixing them together.

“What would you want to make?” Aremu asked, glancing back over his shoulder at Aurelie. He added a little water to the down, and began to knead one handed, bringing the dough together with his hand. He added a sprinkle more water, feeling it with his fingers; when it was smooth and ready, he sent the bowl aside, and draped a kitchen cloth over it.

He found it soothing, making dough; he always had. He did not really measure, not precisely; he knew the proportions he needed from the size of cups he used to take the flour out. The salt and ghee were flexible, and the water he used as needed, feeling the dough with his fingers to see what it called for. He liked the feeling of it taking shape beneath his hand; as always, he went carefully at the end, to avoid overworking it. He knew the feeling, the texture, when it was just right; it was easy to stop there.

If only, Aremu thought wryly, he could learn the same with conversation. He still felt it, that creeping prickling hatchet sense. In time the questions would come; the weight of waiting he would simply have to live with. He had brought this on himself; he could bear the consequences.

Aremu turned back to Aurelie, hesitant, watching her. Would you like to help? He wanted to ask. But she had said she wanted to sit and have her tea; it was the only thing she had asked for.

Aremu smiled at her, instead, and found it easy. He went back into the cabinet instead, emerging with sesame and poppy seeds, with some of the jaggery from their own plants, and with dried coconut. Cardamom and nutmeg he thought would be best for spices, and those too he stacked and carried carefully back into the kitchen.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 18, 2720 - Midday | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Aurelie laughed a little behind her hand when Aremu's stomach growled at the mention of ovens. It was getting on in the afternoon, and aside from the tea and tamarind, neither of them had eaten much since the morning. There was that grin at last. Even sheepish, it relieved Aurelie immensely to see.

"Of course not," Aurelie said with another small, bright laugh. I could make something if you'd like, she almost offered, but she was a little curious. So she stayed seated, content to observe for a time. Food figured so largely into the basis of their friendship and had proven so often a comfortable discussion topic, but Aurelie had never actually seen Aremu make anything. Of course not; she had seen him do very little.

She sat in the chair and sipped at the dark Hessean tea, wondering what he would make. There was a kind of pleasant anticipation in the wondering, such as she hadn't had much chance to feel. He disappeared into the pantry and came back carrying a few things--salt, two kinds of flours (she had been shown them earlier, and couldn't at the moment remember what they were for the life of her), a jar of what she knew to be butter. She hummed in thought as Aremu tossed the question over his shoulder, mixing the things he had fetched together in a bowl.

"For tea? Hmm. I suppose it rather depends," she said thoughtfully, eyes fixed on the kitchen now. There was something appealing about the watching. She didn't usually find it so, watching someone else mix a dough together, but she did now. It was very curious.

"Scones, I think. I was making a violet version for a while--or trying to." There was a touch of embarrassment in her voice and on her face. That had not gone as well as she had hoped, and she had precious little chance to revise the recipe and try again. Allie had eaten them, of course, but they hadn't turned out as she would have liked. "Though something savory, like cheese and chives, sounds good to me too today..."

Aurelie laughed, shaking her head. "Muffins, maybe--if I had time and wanted to do something difficult. They require a bit of extra attention." Aremu had, by then, finished the dough and set it aside with a cloth over the bowl.

When he turned to look at her, he hesitated. Aurelie wondered if she should help. That would be nice, she thought. Her tea was nice, and she was happy to sit and watch. Aremu didn't ask, though, just smiled at her and then went back into the pantry. The smiles were still so unexpected they flustered her, and she lost her chance to offer.

Perhaps that was all right. Aurelie found she was still enjoying just watching, seeing it take shape under Aremu's hand. As he came back from the cabinet, though, she did stand and drift with her cup a little closer. To see a little better, just because she was curious. She stood as close as she thought she could without getting in the way, green eyes skimming over the things Aremu had fetched before they moved back to his face. "What are you making?"