[Closed, Mature] Never Felt Like Any Blessing

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 28 Hamis, 2720
The Base of the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

Aremu swam the last stretch to the cliff, and found it with his fingertips. He held on, finding a rock to prop himself against, and glanced back out at the water. Aurelie’s red hair, plastered to her scalp, bobbed just a little ways out behind him, heading steadily and determinedly back towards the rock wall.

Aremu leaned back; the waves buffeted him, and he shifted away them, not letting himself be pressed against the cliff. When he saw the spot he was looking for, he hooked the fingers of his left hand over the spur of rock, and pressed his right elbow against the cliff. He pulled himself up, a little ways and a little more, and sat on a small protrusion of rock, bare feet pressed into the crevices of it to hold himself in place.

The salt-rich water of the Tincta Basta dripped from him; Aremu rubbed his face with his hand, glancing back down at the water once more. The sight of Aurelie swimming so well should have made him smile; it twitched at his lips, and faded a little, the joy of it mixed and muddled by all the rest.

She was doing well; she had never hesitated to get back into the water, even after being so badly buffeted by the waves. She was a good swimmer, he thought, especially given how little time she’d been at it. Yesterday and today they’d ventured up the coast a bit, where the cliff wasn’t too high; the current started to drift north just past them, Aremu knew from experience, and it was mostly being caught in that which he watched for; Aurelie wasn’t nearly experienced enough a swimmer to fight it, though they’d talked through the idea.

There’s little sense in swimming back directly against it, Aremu had said, sitting on the beach chairs with her and glancing over at Aurelie, her fine soft hair stirring in the breeze. The current pulls you away, and your instinct is to turn back the way you want to go. It’s better to choose a new direction; it’ll still pull you, but you’ll get some control back. The most important thing to stay calm, float if you can, and try to keep your head above water.

I’ll be there too, he had wanted to say. Instead, he had smiled at her, for just a moment, before it flickered and faded, and he glanced out over the water once more.

Aremu had swam that morning, and climbed the cliff; he’d been rising before dawn for it nearly every day. It wasn’t hard; sleep seemed to come in fits and starts, and every one of the last days he had been awake by the time that the light was a gray tinge on the distant horizon. He had dove from the cliff, and let the shock of hitting the cold water drive thoughts and dreams from him; he’d swam, every day, and then climbed back up the cliff, tracing a new path each time along the rocky edge.

Some days he’d run, too; they had gotten in the habit of swimming in the mid afternoon, and once or twice afterwards, when Aurelie went back to the house to bathe, he’d dried himself off and changed and thrown himself into the trails, running until he was gasping for breath and all his muscles burning, and then pushing just a little harder.

There was work, too, and plenty of it, to occupy the moments between meals, to occupy the hours after dinner when he could not yet bear to think of sleep. Aurelie sat with him, then, sometimes, as he frowned down at papers and checked ledgers and sent replies and inquiries. The part for repairing the processing shed would be ready in Laus Oma, and he looked forward to it with a desperate sort of intensity, eager for a project into which he could immerse himself.

Aurelie surfaced close to the cliff, clinging to it, and looked up at him; Aremu didn’t know what he saw on her face, just then.

He shifted; he frowned. He glanced out at the horizon; there had been distant clouds to the north, he thought, earlier, and he had thought – but there was no sign of anything strange. The wind shuddered over him, not pulling hard enough to ripple the damp fabric of his shirt, but powerful all the same.

“Another lap?” Aremu asked. He eased himself forward off the rock, dropping back into the water, treading as he waited. Aurelie agreed, and they went off again, out to the small rock they’d picked as a target, and then back towards the cliff.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 28, 2720 - Afternoon | The Base of the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

Swimming was getting easier, just as she had hoped. Aurelie could see Aremu ahead, pulling himself out of the water to wait for her to catch up. Aurelie was getting better, he had told her as much, but she was still much slower. Likely she would always be. Aurelie paused, treading water for a moment to get her bearings and make sure she didn't drift out too far.

The problem with getting better was that the action no longer required so much of her attention. That left room for thought, and thought gave way to concern.

Something had been different in the last handful of days. Since the first time she had gone swimming, something had been not quite right. Aurelie couldn't seem to figure out what it was, but she had the sinking feeling it was her fault. In her mind, she tore that day apart, over and over, trying to find the place where she had been the most wrong. Where was the crack, the misstep she could apologize for? The longer she thought, the less sure she became.

She didn't even know how to ask, should she wrestle the courage to do so. Aremu had been no less kind to her, or any less courteous and thoughtful. Neither did he smile at her so much. She hadn't heard him laugh again, not even once. Not even quietly. And it seemed as though he spent more of his time running or climbing or something similar than he had before. She couldn't be sure; it was possible this was normal, and before had been what was unusual.

Aurelie certainly didn't need him to spend every moment of every day with her, either. That would have been absurd. And she sat with him sometimes, just as she had, while he grimaced at the ledgers and she grimaced at her reading. He never asked her to leave, or indicated she should do so. It just seemed to her that they had maybe spent a little less time together, or rather, that it hadn't felt quite the same. She had suggested, hopefully, that they make cookies again—a different recipe, one of the variations she hadn't gotten a chance to try even though Aremu had written it down for her. And they had done so, and it hadn't been... uncomfortable, precisely. Something just wasn't quite right. With all of this, that was the feeling.

Perhaps there was no problem, and it was all in her mind. Aurelie didn't think so. She just didn't know what it was, or what she had done to cause it. Aurelie thought and thought, and because she was an idiot, she couldn't seem find it. The day had, overall, gone rather well she thought. Embarrassing in places, tense in places, but—it had been a good day, hadn't it? The only thing she could think was that she shouldn't have said what she said about wishing on stars. That had probably been a strange thing to say. Too serious or dour or... Aurelie didn't know.

Or, she thought guiltily, she had made too much of her interest too obvious. That made a certain kind of sense. Aurelie was no great keeper of secrets. Something had likely shown on her face, or she'd lingered too long, or said something which gave her away. Which she could only imagine would make Aremu uncomfortable; if this were so, she wished he would tell her. Then she could promise that whatever she thought, she knew better than to expect anything, and he needn't worry. Bringing it up herself made anxiety twist in her gut, and she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Aurelie broke for air, close to the cliff where Aremu was still sitting and waiting for her. She looked up at him, and knew she couldn't keep all of her thoughts from her face. He looked away, frowning. It dropped through her like a stone, with her mind occupied the way it was. Just don't think about it, she told herself. He frowns all the time. She followed his eyes to the clouds in the distance, and wondered if that was the source of the frown after all. Trouble? She wanted to ask. Her fingers clung to the rock, wet. She didn't say anything.

"Sure," Aurelie agreed with a smile, when he asked if she wanted to do another lap. She was only a little tired. Aurelie had been careful, since the first day, and she knew better than to push herself too hard now. For a moment she clung to the rocky cliff, catching her breath. Then she pushed off, following him out to the point they'd decided on, and tried to think only of that.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 28 Hamis, 2720
The Base of the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

Aurelie smiled at him. Aremu looked back at her, and he thought that he should have smiled, then, back at her. He could feel himself frowning instead.

He pressed off against the rocks with the bottoms of his feet, pushing himself forward into the water; he swam, eating up the distance to the rocks, his head down and his arms and legs moving steadily. He looked up only to breathe, all of him focused on closing the distance to the rock. They’d done this half a dozen times in the last few days; it wasn’t too difficult a stretch, not too long, and he didn’t think there was anything to worry about.

You have to hold on, Aremu told himself. Control, he knew; he needed control. It had worked well enough these last few days, he thought; he hadn’t found himself touching her arm, or her shoulder, or, flooding hell, the back of her neck, as if he didn’t know better, as if he couldn’t help himself. It was hard; it felt like keeping his distance from her, when that was the last he wanted – but it was what she wanted, surely, and if it wasn’t – all the responsibility and guilt burned in him, and he swam as if by going fast enough, he might somehow leave it behind.

Aremu reached the rock and draped his arm over it, steadying himself.

It was dark; that was the first thing he noticed. In the time it had taken him to swim the length, the clouds he thought they didn’t need to worry about yet had come over the cliff. They must have crept up on the other side of the house with the cliff blocking their sight; that understanding didn’t, Aremu thought, help him just now. The wind jerked at him, slapping stinging water in his eyes. Aremu grimaced, glancing around, as the first sheets of rain began to fall.

“Shit!” he scrambled onto the wet rock, toes digging in to hold him steady, searching the path back through the water for Aurelie. He didn’t see her, not for a moment and then another – and then he spotted her, swimming through the water, much further up the cliff than she should have been, as if headed straight out to sea.

Aremu pushed off the rock into the water, making himself into a long line as he dove, and took off through the Tincta Basta towards her, angling himself to where he thought – he hoped – she’d be. The waves were getting stronger and larger, crashing against him, and even he was having trouble swimming through them.

Come on, he thought, Aurelie, come on, just hold on –

Between one break of the waves and the next he was on her, very nearly swimming in to her. Aremu gasped, grabbing hold of her, his arm wrapping around her, holding her to him. “Are you all right?” He asked, almost yelling to be heard over the rain driving against the waves, kicking as shallowly as he could to keep them up at the surface without hitting her. Water splashed into his mouth with the waves, dripping from his eyelashes and his nose and his hair, pulled heavy at the light linen which he, too wore.

A wave crashed through them, sweeping them up; Aremu’s eyes darted up to the cliff, which was much closer than it should’ve been, dark and looming over them. He glanced down at Aurelie, soaking wet and wide-eyed, pressed against his chest.

“We’ve got to – ” The water crashed down over them again; Aremu didn’t know if it was that he wasn’t, after all, strong enough to hold on, or if it was Aurelie’s squirming that did it. Either way, they plunged beneath the water and she came loose from him; he could see it, through the stinging, salty water, her sweeping away, a blur of pale red hair and heavy wet clothing.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

28 Hamis, 2720 - Afternoon | The Base of the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

All of it seemed to change so fast. One moment, the clouds seemed so far away—hardly a threat at all. Aremu was lengths ahead of her, but Aurelie was in no hurry. She would get there in the end. Seemingly in the blink of an eye, the sky was dark, and she wasn't going towards the rock, so much as further and further from it. Rain fell, and the wind picked up. Like the flip of a switch.

Don't panic, she instructed herself. Her mental voice was rather stern; Aurelie found that she wasn't listening. It was hard to see through the rain, and the water tugged, hard, at all the clothes she was wearing. If she could just make it to the rock, or barring that, to any kind of purchase at all...

But there was nothing, and the waves got rougher. It was all she could do to keep herself above the surface, let alone directing herself. What had Aremu said, about the current? Pick a new direction, keep your head above water. This wasn't, she thought with a kind of sick feeling, really the same. She had no better course of action to follow; stay afloat it was. Stay afloat, and hope for something. Anything.

The waves pushed at her, harder and harder. Anything, she thought rather desperately. Anything at all. One broke over her face and she sucked in a mouth full of water, coughing and spluttering. She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, it was to see that the wave had pushed Aremu to her. He grabbed her and pulled her to him. For just a moment she relaxed, even though she could barely hear his voice from over the driving of the rain, even though nothing was remotely better.

"I'm fi—" she tried to shout back, but water splashed into both of their faces and she coughed, nodding instead. What now, what did they do, how did they...? A wave picked them up, higher. Aurelie thought she ought to grab on, tighter than she was. She moved to adjust, thinking to get her arms more firmly around Aremu's chest.

She heard his voice, though not the words of it. Then the water rose up again, smashing down, hard. They were dragged down, under the surface. The current swept through and around them both—Aurelie felt it pull, felt Aremu's hold loosen— She reached out, fingers trying to grab on to the heavy, wet linen of his shirt, to his hand—

"Aremu!" Aurelie's fist closed over nothing but water, and she was pulled down and away. All she saw was driving rain, and waves, and then nothing but darkness.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 28 Hamis, 2720
Inside the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

Aremu dove; he didn’t try to orient himself, didn’t try to go up to the surface and gasp for breath, for all that the wave seemed to have knocked it out of him. All he could see was the drift of Aurelie’s hair; all he could seem to feel was the faint pressure of her tugging at his shirt before his hands slipped away. He kicked, beneath the surface, where although the currents tugged at him the waves were calmer.

He went down, and further down; the skies had darkened overhead, but he dove, and he chased the light which shone through the stormy dark sea and gleamed in her arm.

He felt her; he grabbed hold of her shirt, and wrapped his arms around her, both of them. He kicked again, up, and up, and up, grateful for the years of practice which let him find it without panicking, even as his lungs screamed in protest.

They burst though the surface, to the driving rain and lashing winds; he’d tried to orient them away from the cliffs, but they were still dangerously, dangerous close. Aremu was gasping for breath; Aurelie was spluttering and coughing, clinging to him. He held her with both arms this time as the waves battered at them.

“Hold on,” Aremu said, firmly, looking at her. He took a deep breath, his eyes scanning the cliff. He frowned, looking down at her. “When I tell you, take a deep breath, hold on, and don’t let go. It’s going to be all right, Aurelie.” Just then, he didn’t care if it was a lie; he didn’t care if he couldn’t promise any such thing. There was nothing in him to be stained by it; he could give her this reassurance, Aremu thought, without having to lose anything of himself.

Her arms closed around him, and he felt her hold on; another wave swamped them, and this time they didn’t come apart. They were in the shadow of the cliff now; if he tried to make it back to the beach, Aremu thought grimly, they’d be dashed against the rocks. By himself, he’d’ve climbed and waited it out, or fought the current for distance. With Aurelie –

Aremu didn’t think; he bent his head and kissed her forehead, softly, both of them too wet by the driving rain for it to be anything more than a brush of pressure. “Deep breath!” He said. He felt it; he felt her expand against him, and he wrapped his arms around her, and he dove again.

Aremu held her with one arm, using the other and both legs to steer them; he went towards the cliff, down beneath the surface. He’d spent years swimming and diving in these waters; he knew these cliffs, and he knew where they were along them. He saw it, then, the cave opening just beneath the surface; he took them there, through the darkness and the driving water.

The cave was solidly beneath the surface at high tide, and just above it at the lowest; the ground sloped well up, and it was surprisingly dry inside, with a few rays of light that crept in through strange places in the cliff, such that it was dark, but not pitch black. All he could think now was that there was air – plenty of it – and that they wouldn’t drown, inside.

Aremu felt the wave push him up as he angled for the entrance; bubbles fled his mouth as he felt his back scrape along the rocks at the entrance. The wave receded, and they pushed through, up, onto the wet rocks inside, and the air within. Aremu gasped for breath, still half in the water, his hand and wrist pressing Aurelie up onto the damp, but drier rocks above.

He shifted, and slipped, losing his grasp as he pressed her forward; Aremu slid halfway back out of the opening, his head dropping below the water. He grasped desperately with his fingertips, finding a hold on the rocks; the waves surged again, and his head cracked into the rocks with an audible thump as he lunged forward.

The wave receded, and left him lying utterly still in the shallow, sloped opening of the cave, blood streaming from his head into the salty water all around.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 28, 2720 - Afternoon | Inside the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

Hold on, Aremu said, but Aurelie already was, as tightly as she could. She still nodded, as best as she could between gasping, coughing lungfuls of air and water. She wasn't looking at anything except what was in front of her, and that was only Aremu really. For a moment, she had thought that would be—but it hadn't, and she didn't think there was any room for what-ifs right now. She looked up to see him frowning down at her, an expression so familiar now she thought she might laugh. She was, perhaps, in a bit of shock.

He held her with both of his arms, now. The water tried to pull them apart again, but this time it couldn't. Aurelie clung on as tightly as she could, as that was all she could do now. Somewhere she found the room in her mind to feel guilt; she didn't think he would still be out here if not for her, and her uselessness. The thought didn't linger. This simply wasn't the time for that, either, any more than it was the time for thinking about what might have happened if Aremu weren't here. He was, and she was, and that was all that mattered.

No time for any of this. And yet, her heart still stuttered out a little, for just a moment, when she thought she felt the lightest bit of pressure on her forehead. She took a breath when he told her to after that, deep as she could, and down they went again. Aurelie tried not to think much, and just held on and gave herself over to trust.

Her lungs burned, straining against the lack of air. Aurelie had filled them as best she could before went under. Never before had she been so aware of the limitations of her lung capacity. She felt the jolt as Aremu scraped along the entrance of the cliffside hole he had navigated them to. There was no chance to dwell on it; the water pushed them up, and Aremu pushed her onto the rocks above. She clambered on the damp rock, gasping for air. Then she turned around, holding out her hand.

Aremu slid backwards, and she couldn't see him anymore. Aurelie's heart stopped. The waves surged forward, and she thought she heard beneath them a smacking sound. When the waves pulled back, Aremu was still there, but he was far too still, eyes closed. Aurelie scrambled over, feeling sick. She couldn't see so well in the gloom, but she thought she saw something dark bloom in the water.

"No," she gasped out loud, as if her protest meant anything. As if that one syllable could do anything at all. For a heartbeat or two, her head felt empty. He wasn't moving at all, and there was blood, blood everywhere, what if...? She shook her head and briskly slapped her cheeks. This was hardly the time. Aurelie reached out to pull him upwards, out of the water. To her unspeakable relief, he was still breathing.

He was also rather heavy. Aurelie did her best, hooking her hands under his arms at the shoulder and pulling him backwards. She made as far as she could; he was out of the water, at least, and she didn't think he was likely to slide back in. For want of a better place, she put his head on her knees. That way, at least, she could try to get a decent look at it.

Right then. Aurelie took a breath, steadying herself. It was dark; she didn't know how much looking she could really accomplish. She leaned forward anyway, her hair dripping over his still face. She could feel something warm seeping through the fabric of her clothes; she tried very hard not to think too much about what that meant.

Should she do anything else? Aurelie had no idea whatsoever. Had he swallowed water? Should she turn him over, try to get him to cough it up? The only person she could think of to ask was here in front of her, and he couldn't answer her. Aurelie bit her lip; she wouldn't cry. That wouldn't do either of them any good. He wasn't dead, and that was what mattered right now.

The next step was to get him to open his eyes, she supposed. Or wait for him to do it on his own; she hadn't really much idea how she would force the issue. She touched his cheek, thinking—hadn't she once seen someone slap the face of a student who had fallen unconscious? That seemed different.

"You had better wake up," she said, loudly, though there was no one else to hear her. Her voice was heavy with concern; no point in trying to hide it now. "W-we have more recipes to try, okay? So you have to..."

Oh, she had no idea what to do. None at all. After a moment, she thought she heard him groan; it was, she thought, the most wonderful sound she had ever heard.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 28 Hamis, 2720
Inside the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

There was water dripping on his face, slow, steady splashes of it. Aremu was aware of a light pressure on his cheek, of something firm and damp beneath him. For a moment, in the dark, it was cool and pleasant.

He opened his eyes.

The pain struck him in waves; it wasn’t the light, because there wasn’t much of it; the sounds was only his own breathing, harsh and ragged and groaning, and Aurelie’s stilted breathe above him, and the roar of the storm outside. All he could smell and taste was salt water.

“Aurelie,” Aremu shifted, frowning up at her. She was peering over down at him, her wet hair hanging on either side of her face; in the dark he couldn’t see the color of it, even as bright as it was. Her fingertips were resting delicately on his cheek.

Aremu grunted again, shifting to try to sit up. He got a few inches off of her and stopped, and eased back down, closing his eyes once more. It felt roughly like someone had kicked him in the head - again, Aremu thought, grimacing. He turned his head to the side, away from the stabbing pain at the back of it, and realized abruptly that it was soft, wet fabric beneath his cheek, with something sort of hard beneath it.

Aurelie’s legs, Aremu thought. He knew where he was; he knew where they were. He remembered diving down in to the water, watching her sinking beneath him; he remembered the surface, diving again, coming up in to the cave.

“I think I ought to - to stay still a moment,” Aremu’s voice was a hoarse rasp; his eyes were still closed, and he wasn’t entirely sure how long they had been closed. He opened them again, blearily, trying to look up at her, frowning and squinting to focus. Floods, but his head hurt.

“Are you all right?” Aremu’s hand reached for her; his fingertips found her wrist, his thumb settling on to it, as if he could feel her pulse. He thought, absurdly, of checking her for cracks in the dark, as if he might be able to search her so, to feel her out.

“I’m sorry,” Aremu said. He grimaced, shuttling his eyes again. “We’ll be all right in here, until the storm’s...” the words tasted like mud on his tongue, or maybe blood; he thought he was slurring just a little, or maybe not speaking at all.

“I’m sorry,” Aremu said again, because that was the important part. He’d been distracted - floods, he’d been distracted. She had trusted him, Aremu thought with a deep and painful ache, and he’d let her down. He closed his eyes again; he didn’t deserve to see her lovely freckled face squinting worriedly down at him. He couldn’t make out the freckles very well just now, but he knew a good number of them; he thought he could have found them with his fingertips.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 28, 2720 - Afternoon | Inside the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

Aurelie beamed, even though there wasn't light enough to see it. She had never been quite so happy to hear her own name, she thought, in her life. His voice was ragged, but she could hear it clear enough, even over the sound of the storm that raged outside.

"Oh, be careful if you—" She felt his muscles bunch before he tried to sit up, and she just managed to stop herself from pushing him back down. That would be silly; if he wanted to sit up, if he could sit up, that was good. She shouldn't stop him. Aremu might have been more optimistic than Aurelie on that front; he made it only a few inches, and then settled back onto her lap.

For a long, long moment, he was quiet again, and his eyes were closed. Aurelie was reassured only by the fact that she could feel him breathing. Only slightly, but she was. "I think so too," she told him, voice soft.

Her fingers hovered over his face; now that he was awake, she wasn't sure if he would really want her touching him so much. Enough to be on her lap, she thought. It seemed better that the stone, at least.

He seemed strange, still; fuzzy. That struck her as a bad sign. She could sort of see his face in the near-dark, and he squinted up at her like he couldn't see her without doing so. His voice, too, wasn't right; rasping and thick, like some professor the morning after a St. Grumbles party. He reached for her wrist when he asked if she was all right; Aurelie shifted to clasping his hand. There were worse things just now than the potential awkwardness of holding his hand in the dark.

"I'm fine," she insisted, quite firm. "You don't have to apologize; if you hadn't been there..." Aurelie's voice stuttered to a halt. She hadn't been able to make out the rest of it, but she caught the apology. He repeated it again, and she shook her head. Water dripped from her hair and into his face.

Aremu closed his eyes again then. Should she let him? Aurelie had the most vague of memories of someone once, another passive, when she was very young—she couldn't have been more than eleven, maybe twelve—hitting their head in some accident. Aurelie couldn't remember what had happened. All that stuck out in her mind was that the woman had gone to sleep, and then... never woke up again. Later someone had told her that they shouldn't have let her do that. Keep talking, that's what she should have done.

She thought of that happening now, to Aremu, here on her lap. Just an accident, she thought, but people were so fragile in the end. It had been just an accident, too, when her parents had died. Her heart seized, turned over. Talking, she had to keep him talking. Somehow. Oh, of all the times to be a terrible conversationalist! She hadn't the slightest idea what to say.

Aurelie gave up on her worries about if she should or should not touch him. If he was upset with her, that was fine. That was better than what she was afraid might be the alternative. She put her other hand on the side of his face, gently. "Aremu? Uhm. You have to—I need you to keep talking to me. Uhm. I don't know what about, but, er. Tell me... tell me about something you like. Something you've not told me yet. Anything at all. Please." She squeezed his hand without really noticing, concerned.

Was he still bleeding? She couldn't tell. Head injuries bled rather a lot. Should she check? It was too dark, she thought desperately. How could she see in the dark? She just would have to trust that as long as he was speaking to her, he was well enough to wait out the storm.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 28 Hamis, 2720
Inside the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

Aremu felt fingers on his cheek, cool and a little tentative. He realized he was still holding Aurelie’s hand, too; he thought there was something he ought to do about it, but he wasn’t entirely sure what.

Aremu, Aurelie said. Tell me about something, she said.

Aremu shifted a little again, turning his head so he could look up at her once more. Was she afraid? He couldn’t think; trying to think made the ache worse in his head. Just the movement had sent nausea churning in his stomach, and he felt almost dizzy, even just lying there.

“Mm,” Aremu said. He squeezed her hand back, only just a little, very gentle.

He didn’t know why she was asking it of him, but he wanted to give it to her. He held on to that, and he tried to think through the ache in his head, to find a edge, a corner, a path, anything which he could cling to with his fingertips and manage to follow.

“I don’t - I don’t know...” Aremu began; his voice faltered and trailed off. It was flooding hard to think what he liked, what he had told her. Her legs were warm beneath his head, and her fingertips were still resting on his cheek. It was harder than he expected; he felt as if he were scanning the cliff face and seeing nothing, only sheer walls of stone.

“I like climbing, and cooking, and...” Aremu frowned a little, blinking up at her. “I can’t see any of your freckles just now,” Aremu said, a little petulant. He didn’t let go of her hand. He could see the shape of her face at least, her lips pressed together; she was looking down at him still, and her hair was dripping salt water on his face. He felt as if he were sliding down; he knew better than to give up. He began again, trying once more.

“I like engines,” Aremu said after a moment. He sighed, softly. “They’re plans made real; they fit together. Every piece has a purpose and a function, and you can know what they are when you look at them. You can see it and - and make sense if it.”

“I’ve always liked them,” Aremu went on. “Even when I wasn’t meant to - I got in so much trouble for... they’re dirty, engines. I don’t mind, but it wasn’t allowed, and I...”

“Then,” Aremu went on, unevenly, “I didn’t think anyone would let me work on them. They’re important, and I‘m a liar. They did; and I liked the airship yard. I liked the Eqe Aqawe too, but it was... lost to me even before...”

Aremu sighed just a little, still lying in Aurelie’s lap. “What do you like?” His thumb shifted, and stroked the back of her hand just a little. Beneath the darkness he thought he could feel the nicks of her scars, just barely, between the bones that ran from her knuckles to her wrist; he traced one back, slowly, following the shape of it.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 28, 2720 - Afternoon | Inside the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate

The light pressure on her hand undid a little of the knot of worry in her heart, and tightened a different knot from somewhere else. He should stop moving his head around so much, she thought. That seemed—well, she wasn't really sure if that was good or bad, actually. She was inclined to think it certainly wasn't the former, if not fully the latter.

"Anything at all," she said, and she tried to be encouraging. He'd trailed off; had the question been too hard? It didn't have to be something he liked, she supposed. He could just starting counting, or listing off parts of an engine, or anything at all, as long as he was saying something. She just thought that if they were talking about something good, it might be... better. More absorbing.

He started talking after all, before Aurelie got too worried about it. Climbing, and cooking. She knew both of those things, but would be happy to hear about those, too. Then he frowned—she could feel the muscles of his face move under her hand as much as she could see it in the dark—and blinked up at her. Her...? He sounded, she thought, rather upset about it. Aurelie couldn't imagine why that mattered at this instant; it made her oddly flustered. "W-well they're still, er, there. I promise. Hmm."

Engines—she knew he liked those, too, but she didn't think he had ever said it quite this way. A smile found her, winding through all her fear and concern. The smile fumbled a little in the dark as he went on, but she thought she understood. Perhaps a little too well; she had never gotten in trouble for being dirty, often. But she very rarely was. And there was no one there, she thought to herself, to know if she had been. Only Nurse, and Nurse didn't mind as much as Mother did. A piece of her still hurt to hear it, thinking back to the way he'd talked about the day that spectragram was taken.

It was all past tense, this talk. Now didn't seem like the best time to ask about it, but she wondered. She had wondered before, but not known quite when to bring it up. There had been an opportunity when she first arrived; she hadn't taken it, couldn't have, really. Even before...? They had never talked about it, why he was here running the estate and not on a ship anymore. When things were going well, she didn't want to spoil them. And now, she didn't want to add to it. She settled her hand a little more firmly, not so light as it had been.

"M-me? Oh, I—" Aurelie had an answer, and it scattered from her mind. He must be, she thought, particularly delirious. Perhaps worse off than she thought, because he had started to trace over a scar she knew was on her hand with the pad of his thumb. Her pulse flickered, and she was glad it was too dark to see her blush. She was easily flustered, but that was... Aurelie cleared her throat and tried to answer with as steady a voice as she could manage.

"I like, uhm. Well, cooking of course. And needlework. Er, what else." Aurelie thought, trying to find an answer that was both true and might prompt more discussion. She wasn't the one who had hit her head. Although you'd never know it, the way she found her own thumb was moving slightly back and forth over Aremu's cheek. She stopped when she realized, but she didn't move her hand.

After a second, she smiled again. "Puzzles," she said, laughing at herself a little. "The wooden ones that make a picture in the end. I haven't put one together in years, of course—but when I was a little girl, I loved them. I spent three months putting together one for adults, once. It was a birthday present from my grandmother. There was no picture on the box; it really was very difficult. Ana tried to help me, but I wouldn't let her." The memory was soft, and it ached. No more, really, than it ever had.

"Have you ever put together that sort of puzzle?" Hopefully, this was something he would talk about. He needed to talk, not to listen. She was fairly certain that was how it worked, anyway.