Western Port, Isla Dzum
The next day he’d managed a little longer, both in the morning and the late afternoon. He’d even sat outside in the heat, head tilted back, feeling the warmth of the sun on his face. The scrapes on his shoulder had closed, only a little tenderness to them, and his head was steadily better, though still more sensitive than he might have liked.
The headaches were gone, or nearly gone. He didn’t, at least, have a headache all the time, and those he did have weren’t nearly as bad as the first few days after the injury. He felt largely like he had before, or at least close enough to it.
The difference was, of course, Aurelie. There had been no going back from that first moment in the cave, when she’d brushed her lips over his; there was even less from the night before, and all they had shared between them after her careful asking. He’d woken with her still wrapped in his arms, and kissed her, and between them they’d lost a little more time, pleasantly wound away into nothingness.
They had planned the trip to Laus Oma two days earlier. Ahura had told him he was a fool to rush, but Aremu had told her that he felt well enough, and he did not wish to keep his life on hold. To Aurelie, he’d said only that he’d let her know if he didn’t feel up to it, when the time came. The time had come, and Aremu felt fine; the slight ache in his head went away with some kofi, and the salt-washed air smelled wonderful when they set out.
It was easy enough to catch a cart from Dzide’rig, rather than walk the full way to Western Port; even better, they were sharing it with yams, rather than fish or chickens. Aremu had sat with his back against a crate of them, his legs stretched out amidst another pile, and his fingers tangled through Aurelie’s.
He wore the prosthetic, today; the straps ran along his arm, hitched at his elbow and shoulder and finally strapped across his chest. They were covered by the soft dark fabric of his shirt; the clean white bandage on his head was covered by the straw hat he wore, nearly a match for Aurelie’s.
“Domea domea, ada’na,” Aremu thanked the driver with a wave; they climbed down at the marketplace of Western Port, busy and bustling with the morning rush. The fish market was winding down – that was the earliest of them – and livestock were crowding in, goats and chickens mostly what was sold. Aremu grinned at Aurelie.
“This way,” he said, his hand touching her arm lightly, squinting up at the clock in the market square. “We’ve half an hour to the next ferry.”
Western Port was more of a town than Dzide’rig; the streets were cobblestoned, at least those in the heart of it, and a tangle of them sprawled out along the meadow above the beach. If it wasn’t quite large enough to get lost in, it was large enough at least that one couldn’t see the western end while standing at the eastern end.
The houses sprawling down to the water were elegant, on the end further from the port; they walked through them, and past the handful of warehouses which lined the place next to the ferry.
“This is where Apadha’s house is,” Aremu said, gesturing up a street. They’d talked about it, by now, her husband with his house in Western Port, his unexpected death at sea nearly two years ago, the house she rented out, the careful nest egg stored for Efere in a bank in Laus Oma, and Apadha’s quiet move back to Dzide’rig.
There wasn’t much else to see; Aremu steadied Aurelie as they went along the gangplank to the ferry, and held the door open to help her inside. The boat rocked, gently, back and forth; the seats were comfortable, carved wood with cushions propped on them. A horn blasted loudly overhead, and on the hour there were shouts outside, and the ferry began to pull away from the shore.
“It’s a little under an hour,” Aremu said, smiling at Aurelie from a seat across. “There’s tea and kofi, if you’d like anything?”
It wasn’t so busy as day they had planned; Aremu wanted to check on the status of the part he’d ordered, and arrange to have it brought to the docks for the afternoon. After that, he’d thought they would go and see something of the town – he wanted very badly to take Aurelie to a bookshop, and perhaps a fabric merchant, to be able to choose something for herself. Otherwise, he thought – otherwise, he supposed, they would let the day go as it would.