[Closed] Laughing at the Danger

[Tom Cooke]

The Windward Market District • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

A
nd you, ada’xa?

He didn’t think he’d ever so looked forward to getting lost in a strange city. In his city, maybe, once; he’d relished in getting lost there many times. That was a different kind of lost. He had never hoped to be found in his city.

The Wall of Sheltering Winds loomed over everything here.

He’d glimpsed it first changing between cable car routes; this was the longest he’d ever been on the cars, but there was a comfort to disappearing in the ebb and flow. Iki'fú pez Upos at the turn of the century’d called the cableways the fourth great river of the City. Still he’d stood on the platform between the Dzid’úpit and Dzefúwerez stops and looked up at it, ‘til a laughing arata had asked him if he was lost.

Yes, he had wanted to say, yes, I am.

The Wall was Thul Ka’s largest, and still he’d not been prepared; he still wasn’t prepared, every time he looked up over the wind-ruffled bright tents and the milling crowd. Brunnhold’s red brick walls couldn’t’ve held a candle to it.

It was one of those things that was so big, he thought, it looked almost like a painted backdrop from a play, when you were looking at it afar – from Cinnamon Hill or Aratra or even Nutmeg Hill. He’d missed the passing underneath it on the steamship both times, and he’d been too tired in the coach to notice. In Windward Market, there was no not-noticing; he knew now why it was so called.

Now, the sunset light just barely peeked over it, making a hulking silhouette of it. This time of evening, it cast a deep shadow over the market, but the tangled, busy streets were well-lit by lamps and lanterns. The breeze was cool with the past few days’ rain, and puddles lay thick and glinting in the street. He’d heard there’d been some flooding down by the river, closer to Three Flowers; there were streets in the Gripe that were like rivers.

Here, the air was thick with the smell of kofi; half the stands were brewing it. He’d already had what must’ve been – he’d lost count. Silver trays and silver cups; delicate porcelain cups, traced with florals or tangled vines or black patterns; calypt services immaculately-cleaned of kofi stains from high-class arata kofi har’aq.

... thank you, sir.

The rains have been heavy this week, haven’t they?

He had not asked him to join him, and nor had he seen him take kofi. He had watched him speak with the proprietors of such places, very straight, smiling, his right wrist tucked into his pocket and the soft bulge of a hand in it. He had watched him bow carefully, and take a cup – once – from a supplier’s stall; that was where they’d met, first.

It was good seeing you here, ada’xa.

Of course, sir.

The shadows were deep indeed by the time he stopped getting lost and started getting found. The booksellers’ tent was easy enough to find, vivid crimson in the lamplight; he went in, first, and browsed the books, and even made a purchase, which he tucked into his bag. He asked ada’xa Agi’pate for directions, and the imbala told him the truth; he left the tent and promptly ignored them.

He was wearing a russet amel’iwe today, patterned with curling green vines. His long tunic and trousers were white interspersed with bands of brown shot through with the same green. It was, he thought, less conspicuous, though with his hat tucked under his arm, his bright red hair and pale skin still got some glances.

There was still a blush of pink and orange across the sky when he found the fountain, and it burbled and glinted in the low light. The small square around it, Efi’lilawe, was busy enough; most of those that passed were tall, and he couldn’t pick any familiar faces out of the crowd. He sat himself on the edge of the fountain, looking into the water where he caught the sight of a concord glinting through the gloom. He thought he’d know it when he felt it, that strange feeling he got whenever Aremu was near; he thought he’d know it before he saw him.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Sunset, 13 Loshis, 2720
Windward Market District

Aremu’s hand held his wrist lightly behind his back, the prosthetic tucked into the folds of his gray-green amel’iwe’s drape. “And the úrowoxo cultivar, ada’xa?”

The other imbali grinned. “A tricky varietal,” he sat on the edge of the booth, beneath where during the earlier hours of the convention a heavy covering had kept his wares and beans dry. “Yet those in need of the most tender care in their youth may yet grow up to be well,” his eyebrows raised at Aremu.

“It may often be so,” Aremu agreed with an even smile.

The imbali jiggled his leg, lightly, foot tapping against the ground. “Is not the island soil rich enough for dziwex’tsúye?”

Aremu’s shoulders moved in a light shrug. “Two brothers may yet differ, ada’xa, though they live by one another still. The more popular may not be the better.”

The imbali snorted. “Indeed, ada’xa. An interesting proposition. One who wished to discuss it further might say he can be found in Kofi Tsadi, in the Turtle – say, on the eight?”

“So he might,” Aremu agreed with a smile. He bowed, and tucked his hands back into his pocket. “Until then, may your waves flow smoothly.”

“Ada’xa,” An arata waved at him from a distance. Aremu went over, hand and wrist behind his back once more.

“Ada’xa Afala tells me you are the man on behalf of the Ibutation plantation,” the arata said, glancing him over.

Aremu bowed, deeply, and did not answer with words.

“I am Kafeer pez Dherede,” the arata inclined his head. “When ada’na Niccolette reaches Thul Ka, you may inform her that Dzeq’dzequr found well the samples which were sent.”

Aremu bowed once more. Was it a lie, he wondered, to sign Niccolette’s name to the shipments? He did not think so; the kofi was hers, in the end. The whole of the plantation was.

“Thank you for letting the plantation know,” Aremu said, politely. “May your fortunes follow the Turga in overflowing.”

He bowed again; the arata rose and bowed as well. Aremu glanced up at the sun, and around at the last straggling vendors of the convention. He tucked his hand and wrist into his pocket, the prosthetic a slim bulge against it, and began to make his way away from the gate, deeper into the market, where the slanting shades of the sunset caught roofs and tents, gleamed in metal and glass, and lent everything the dreamy pale gold beauty of its light.

“Is not kofi itself the taste of honor?” He heard one arata say as he passed; he and a human were packing up his booth.

The dura laughed. “Indeed, sir, it is so. A man who prizes his honor,”

“... should so prize his kofi,” the arata finished.

Aremu had thought to let his head empty of thoughts; he thought that if he dwelled too much on what to come, he should turn and go now. It had seemed unbearable not to meet Tom, when last he had seen him; now, he found himself plagued with doubt. Trust me, he had said; yes, Tom had answered.

Trust me, Aremu wanted to now say, in a city where I have not lived for nearly ten years, when your safety and mine depends on it. You may trust me. Was it a lie or the truth? He did not know, even now, what promises were wrapped up in the words they exchanged, and whether he could hold to the intent of his words. I do not want to lie to you, Tom, Aremu wished to say, but I am not sure I know the difference. I cannot, perhaps; this is the lack in me.

He saw him, and he found he could say none of this. The brief glimpse earlier had been no more than a taste; even still, Aremu knew, they needed to be careful. He knew what to expect now; he remembered. There was no surprise at the sight of him in white cloth wrapped through with brown and green, in an amel’iwe lined with vines.

“Sir,” Aremu said with a smile; he bowed, deeply, and he sat beside Tom on the edge of the fountain, just far away that they were not – quite – touching. “The water is full with the flood season,” he said, glancing down over the edge of it, then lifting his gaze back to Tom. He smiled. I have missed you, he wanted to say; it has not been long, but the bed was lonely from the moment you left.

The barest edge of his little finger on his left hand found Tom’s, and settled delicately against it, just long enough to notice.

“I know a short cut through the market, sir,” Aremu said, smiling still. “If you wish.”

[Tom Cooke]

The Windward Market District • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

H
e was still looking down into the water when Aremu came. The sky hadn’t darkened much. There were only a few stars pricking the blanket of oranges and reds and velvety purples. It wasn’t long after twenty-three; the clocks might’ve just struck when he’d sat himself on the edge, and he’d not been sitting there for a quarter of an hour. But the Wall cast its shadow deep, and he saw himself reflected, his ghost-pale face disturbed by ripples.

He felt him first. He might’ve said he wasn’t looking for it; he knew, by now, that would’ve been a lie. It was nothing he could put his finger on, nothing he could pin down. It was the briefest brush of a sensation, something that might’ve been a fish or might’ve been a tangle of algae against the ankle.

The slim, dark shadow of him rose up beside his reflection. Sir, Aremu said, and he was already looking up. Aremu bowed.

He pushed himself up and bowed back. “Ada’xa,” he said quietly.

Aremu sat beside him at the water’s edge, on his left side, with his right arm hidden by the long drape of his amel’iwe. A breeze ran ripples across it, stirring up the smell of water. There was no salt in it, nor the scent of a coming storm, though there might’ve been a hint of rain in the air. He let himself study Aremu’s face for as long as he dared; a not-so-distant wreath of lanterns caught it on one side, and the shadows of his lashes were long as he looked down into the water.

I missed you, he wanted to say. I keep dreaming that I send to you, and it turns out you were never in Thul Ka; I keep dreaming I dreamt it all. You look good in those colors, he wanted to say, his eyes skimming over the lovely folds of washed-out green, grey and soft like sage, and the tan underneath it that matched it so well. But then: you always look good, he’d’ve had to add, just to be honest.

Tom looked away; he knew better than to look too long. “Even this may overflow,” he returned, remembering the phrase from somewhere. He ran his fingers along the stone damp with spray, looking down into the water. He could look as long as he liked at Aremu’s reflection, shadowy though it was.

The brush of his skin was like a charge in the air. The back of his neck prickled with it; a moment more and he thought he’d be struck by lightning.

You had to hold onto something, he’d always heard, something for the current to go through. It’d been the barest brush of Aremu’s smallest finger, and without looking at him, he wanted to slip his hand over his and hold tightly.

Instead, he looked up when Aremu spoke again. The imbala was smiling.

He smiled back slowly. Maybe he was getting used to it, this smile; he thought there’d been a little warmth in it even earlier, among all the stalls and bustle. Can you see me in this? he wondered. He didn’t know what kind of smile was on his face; it ached from smiling so much that evening, and it found familiar grooves.

“That would be most helpful, ada’xa,” he said matter-of-factly, still smiling. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten lost, and I need some help finding myself.” He didn’t linger long; he stood then.

Though he didn’t touch Aremu, he let the hem of his amel’iwe just brush his knee.

They moved easy enough through the crowd, the both of them; there were fewer looks here than in Cinnamon Hill, and even fewer as they split off onto narrower mangrove-root streets. He followed Aremu, quiet but comfortable. The streets still smelled of frying batter and spices and drifts of kofi; Windward was as she'd said, every bit of it, though it ached to think of that now. Where are we going? he never wanted to ask. There was something benny about just being here with him, and about giving the evening over to discovery.

He looked over once or twice, eyes skimming over the set of his back, his soft-lit profile. He knew how Aremu walked in the Rose; he’d long ached to see him here, though he’d never quite hoped.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Sunset, 13 Loshis, 2720
Three Flowers District

Windward Market was the same as Aremu remembered it. He had never known any of the markets of Thul’Amat well enough to see the changes in them, and they were always changing; there were stalls which had been owned by the same family for generations, alongside ones which had seemed to change every time he visited, even when that had been more often than it was now.

He had never gone here as a boy, but they had during his Thul’Amat days, with these friends or those, more for entertainment than for serious shopping. In the months he had lived in Three Flowers, he had come here more often on his days off; for a brief time he had known at least a corner of the market well, had taken kofi in the same stalls in the morning, and eaten his fill of egokiq lamb or chicken, dripping with fat as the vendor shaved free the thin pieces, or uw’úgediq beef, fine diced and waved over the flame, mixed with rich stewed greens or salty white cheese, and wrapped in spongy bread.

With the sinking setting of the sun and the clearing of the skies above, the market was waking to life, though it had not, quite, ever lacked it. They went through busier streets, where they walked side by side amidst the busy crowds, and were not the strangest thing by far. They walked past another fountain, where children ran about laughing and splashing one another, and a holy man recited the haras’turga, his white robes and hair damp with spray, praising Hulali and His floods as he poured the water onto the ground.

From this Aremu looked away, his right wrist tucked into his pocket, and the bulge of the prosthetic against it. On his back, tucked in the curve of his spine, he wore his knife, and as they walked, even in the cooling down of the day, he felt prickles of sweat trickling down from the warmth it lay against him, and was grateful for the reminder.

He knew these streets and paths, even the unfamiliar ones. His body remembered, or perhaps his mind, the curve of a thousand similar streets and the tiny differences between them. Slowly but surely, he led Tom from the edges of Windward Market into Three Flowers.

The differences were subtle at first; the last streets of Windward were more residential than shopping, anyway, and at this hour all streets were full of Mugrobi, talking and laughing. Slowly, kofi houses and uw’úgediq stalls closed in became bars; slowly, the mix of people around them shifted. Here there were Anaxi, Bastian, Hesseans, Hoxian too; they went past a stall selling thick dsoh noodles in bowls of soup, with a crowd of Hoxian crouched around it, eating heartily. They were mostly humans, here, but there were wicks, galdori and imbali enough that he and Tom did not stand out so much, not anymore.

The buildings had a more industrial shape to them; there was more metal, less sandstone and wood, though here at the edges - away from the wharves and shipyards themselves - it was subtle still.

Aremu smiled at Tom, more easily this time, glancing around. “This is Three Flowers,” he said, quietly. They were somewhere between sir and Tom, here; as much as he ached to name the other man, he knew to save such things for the privacy of the night. He’d found a room, after all, at a hotel where they would pay well for privacy, in a corner of the district where no one would look twice at the two of them, even imbali and galdori.

The crowds thinned out as Aremu turned towards the hotel. He stopped, tsking, and glanced sideways at a dura trudging back towards them. “Why the stillness, ada’xa?” Aremu asked in Mugrobi, leaning over and inclining his head.

The human grinned, revealing a mouth of uneven teeth; his gaze flickered over Tom, but whatever he thought didn’t phase him. “Hulali’s will is His own,” he said, cheerfully, in the same language.

Aremu tsked through his teeth, glancing at Tom. “Flooding,” he said after a moment, rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand. He grinned, suddenly, remembering such things from his teenaged runs, when a change in the path had only been a new adventure, only another bend in the river. It was hard to think of it now, with Tom beside him, slim, freckle-faced – his to protect – but he thought, all the same, that this should be something he hadn’t seen.

“Come,” Aremu said, cheerfully, touching Tom’s arm lightly, trying not to let his hand linger – not yet, he told himself like a mantra, not yet – “you will see what the Flood Season means.” He grinned.

They went forward, the last block. What the man meant was obvious; there was a dip in the roads, which normally sloped down into another neighborhood of Three Flowers. Instead, the streets were like a lake, as far as they could see; all the bottom floors were closed off, though the upper floors of the buildings bustled with light, with noise, with life; boards were stretched between rooftops, and even from the ground they could glimpse people wandering between them, tracing their way along narrow walkways.

“We’ll go around,” Aremu said, turning with a smile to Tom. “I’ve somewhere in mind, somewhere we can find each other.”

It was quieter, here; quiet enough, Aremu judged. Not yet, he told himself, but against his better judgment he reached out and took Tom’s hand – just a moment, just a heartbeat of a moment, the two of them and the flood and the life which went on, regardless.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

F
looding, he’d wanted to ask then, half-smiling, when the dura had gone by – flooding what?

He’d thought he knew, when Aremu’d rubbed the back of his neck and gave him that grin. Both his eyebrows had raised halfway up his forehead. Just flooding. It hadn’t been that so much as the grin on Aremu’s face that’d surprised him, and the brush of his hand on his arm, warm through the thin fabric of his sleeve.

“Gracious Lady,” he said, now, looking out over it.

They were far enough out from under the Wall that the waters caught the sunset with every ripple; the last light glistened over the silhouettes of the rooftops, but he saw figures moving round in the shadows of the buildings, out on balconies and landings. Voices called out to each other, echoing strangely over the water. He caught sight of a couple of bochi leaned out of a window, reaching down for something floating in the water, before a long, bright-sleeved arm pulled them both inside.

He looked up, and up, at a handful of men who were working at a walkway between two rooftops. There was long rope with a pulley, and a woman was putting a bundle carefully in a basket, lifting it up to them.

He looked at Aremu, faint surprise lighting up his face. What jolted through him when he felt Aremu’s hand wrap round his and squeeze – fast, and in the shadows between them, but firm – stole his speech; he squeezed the imbala’s hand and smiled, breathless.

Aremu didn’t hold his hand for long; he disentangled their fingers, and they doubled back and circled round, though these streets were still thick with puddles, and the smell of floodwater still filled the air. The crowd was beginning to thicken again, here – maybe especially here, at the edge of the floods, and at the setting of the sun. It was growing darker, and they were lighting lanterns which caught on the steam that drifted from stalls.

One man – mud staining his thick trousers almost up to the knee – was balancing a couple bowls of noodles expertly in his well-muscled arms, taking it away from the stalls and running it back the way they’d come, toward the flooded streets. He shouted something in Mugrobi, and he heard laughter.

The smell of dsoh broth, all ksk’a and scallions, caught him once again. He breathed it in deep, his stomach twisting. They’d been mostly humans earlier, crouched and perched about the stall; there’d been nothing like rhakor there, and plenty of sharp-edged Deftung. A couple of the men had glanced up at the brush of his field, shifting in their soot-stained uniforms, but not long enough for their smiles to falter.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten; he hadn’t thought himself nervous to see Aremu again, but he remembered spending the day in a haze. He thought there was a wind leaping in his heart now, too, for all Aremu’d said.

For all he hadn’t. He hadn’t said sir, he realized, in awhile; he wasn’t sure if he should say ada’xa, here. It’d been something like the slope of Cantile or West-and-Long into Sharkswell; as they moved deeper into the Three Flowers, into the squatter, bulkier shapes of tenements and factories, he seemed to catch fewer and fewer looks. He still wasn’t sure where he stood.

He watched Aremu sometimes, wondering how much he dared to; he couldn’t seem to help it. He had seen him on the isles, among the tsug – that, perhaps, was the closest, though then he’d had the look of a man who knew where his roots were laid, and he’d cherished the way Aremu wore the light and the tangled branches there. He’d seen him a little in the Laus and the port on Dzum, but then, he’d had the look of a man who was balancing on a thread, stiff and beyond afraid.

He felt sorry to think of it, now. Aremu looked over at him, and he didn’t have time to look away; he’d been caught out at his looking.

He smiled crookedly anyway. “This reminds me,” he said quietly. “Though it was nothing quite like this. Great Lady,” he repeated, laughing. They had to move around a gaggle of men, and he let his shoulder brush Aremu’s through their amel’iwe.

He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t seem to stop the words coming out. “Did I ever tell you about the great flood in the Rose? In –” Oh five, he almost said; he caught the eye of a tall Hessean as he passed, then went on, “When I was sixteen.”

Past Aremu, in the gap between two buildings, he could see where an alleyway sloped down into the water; a blue streetlamp glinted off it. He looked back at the imbala, faltering a moment, wondering if he’d misjudged. No, sir, he expected to hear. It would be a privilege to hear of it, sir.

He glanced back around at the busy street. I don’t have a map for this, he wanted to say. I don’t know who I am here; I don’t know who you are here. But he looked back up at Aremu – they were walking close enough, here, he had to look up – and dared a grin.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Three Flowers District

Gracious lady, Tom said, looking at the flooding.

Did it matter what the words were? Tom was looking over it - all of it, his gaze sweeping down from the pooled water streets and up to the balconies, to the rooftops above. Flooding laoso or gracious lady - weren’t they the same thing, in the end?

Aremu had reached out for Tom’s hand before he had had time to think better of it. For a moment, Tom looked at him, slim pale red eyebrows lifting, and Aremu felt a pulse of uncertainty, deep and strange. As if it took a moment, he thought, uneasily, when at last Tom squeezed his hand and smiled.

They went back away from the water, away and around. Aremu tried to gauge the unfamiliar streets and the crowd, to guess at how far the flooding might go.

They walked, close to one another in the crowd which was sometimes thick and sometimes thin. Aremu felt the wash of Tom’s field, sage-soft and slippery, and if it or the color of his hair caught anyone off guard, they moved through it and away, and didn’t stop to learn more.

Aremu glanced over once to see Tom watching him. It was his turn to smile, uncertainly, no more sure what Tom saw than what he did. The light was sinking; they were on the far side of sunset now, and the city was lit by lanterns and the occasional wash of blue phosphor, with the drifting smoke of food stalls and fires washing out into the night.

Great Lady, Tom said, laughing; the hem of his amel’iwe brushed Aremu’s, the soft warmth of his shoulder beneath it. Aremu’s smile sharpened in to a grin, feeling himself on more comfortable ground. Tom glanced up at him, just barely up, and grinned.

“I don’t think so,” Aremu said. He knew he hadn’t; they had never spoken of such things between them as men before. He thought now that neither of them had wanted to bring the past into it, with all its strange pain and vulnerability, with the way it let men see the things which you hid, in addition to the things you didn’t.

They had both been then marked by their pasts, Aremu with what he lacked and the scars that then and now traced him. Tom, then, by his scars, and - Aremu was coming to understand - by all the knowledge he hadn’t had, all the things he had not even known to want.

And now? Aremu smiled, looking at a misplaced curl of pale red, gleaming in the passing lantern light. He could look at this face with desire now; it wasn’t so strange as it had been, once. He did want him; he wanted Tom, and all his strangeness and charm. Like this, still, as he was and would be, with all the secrets of him hidden beneath another man’s skin, and his low deep voice asking Aremu to see them once more.

“Tell me about it?” Aremu asked, softly. “This way.”

He steered them a little further away as Tom spoke, listening to the other man with a smile. The streets were like a map in his head, and he thought he knew the way of it still. They went on, through them, between then buildings as they sank lower and squarer, almost all metal now, gleaming clean in the light.

There was an open warehouse halfway down a nearby block; the crowd of men streamed past them towards it. Both Aremu and Tom heard an enormous roar of voices, raised all together in cheering and laughter; the smell of beer and frying meat washed out.

Aremu glanced down the road, frowning, hesitating; he had meant to go that way, but he thought it better to find another. Just a bend in the river, he reminded himself. He touched Tom lightly on the arm, and set off against the crowd this time, drawing them both towards the shadows at the edge of the walkway, along a line of shuttered warehouse doors.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

H
e was almost sure he hadn’t; he was almost sure they both knew it, too. Aremu grinned back down at him, but still he half wondered why he’d brought it up to begin with. It was his own stirring-up of memories, he supposed; he might as well’ve been an old man, the way he couldn’t seem to help it. He suspected Aremu’d no wish to hear more about a man he couldn’t and would never again have.

Tell me about it? Aremu asked, then, This way, and he drifted on beside him, looking about at the low buildings with their rows of empty windows.

“Every…” He breathed in deep, blew out his cheeks. “Ten, fifteen years, or maybe more, it happens – it hasn’t happened since I was a boy, though I’ve heard the water’s high this year,” he went on. “It’s only the lowest places, though the outside of Sharkswell – where I lived, then – got caught in it, and it looked a lot like that.”

Occasionally, his shoulder brushed Aremu’s. It never lingered; always it could’ve been happenstance, as he shifted his weight on his hip, or as they moved politely out of the way of an oncoming group.

He wondered – not for too long, not really at all. He wondered what it would be like to walk closer to Aremu, if the crowd ever thinned out enough. To walk arm to arm; to rest his head on the other man’s shoulder, against the softness of his amel’iwe and the warmth of his pulse.

The crowd was thickening now like a broth, and fine smells were leaking from somewhere. Seared meat; rich, dark, hoppy brew; wood-smoke. It was noisy, and he spoke in lulls.

Loshis of ‘05 was when he’d first put a man in the Harbor. He couldn’t and wouldn’t speak of it, but he thought Aremu knew something of that kind of first. Perhaps not, he thought, at that age. He wandered away from wondering as they wandered down another street; he thought of Aremu at sixteen, the young man who’d declared his name in what he now knew was Vespe’s Blessing.

And him? “Every day, for the job,” he said, wrapping his amel’iwe closer about him, “I’d have to climb out onto the stairs, and then up a ladder to the roof, and then over and back down. I daresay you’d’ve loved it,” he smiled up briefly, eyes glinting, “but I wasn’t so sure-footed at that age. The Bastians who lived downstairs, they’d send up stew in the evenings; Mama Azarra would always make too much – goodness me.”

He broke off before Aremu touched his arm; he was already looking over the imbala’s shoulder, all the folds of his grey-green amel’iwe edged with light. He saw the silhouettes of moving bodies, of light and steam spilling out from a warehouse not too far ahead. There was a mant swell of laughter and whistling and clapping.

The sharp light caught Aremu’s face frowning. Tom thought he looked older with his face so, all the grim lines carved as if from wood. He thought of something Aremu’d said once, of a certain brittle man he couldn’t picture, except to picture – oddly ashamed, he tucked the thought away, wondering where it’d come from.

“I’d take a bowl to Dee,” he continued softly, turning away from the light, finally, reluctantly, “of an evening. Deirdre, who taught me my letters. She was getting on in years, even then.” His eyes softened a moment; he stirred again, looking over his shoulder, though the watery breeze snatched away all but the faint tatters of the smell, and the noise was like ghosts.

Aremu took them away, onto a darker, sparser warehouse street.

Wouldn’t it be better to stick to the light, to where all the people are? Disappear in the crowd, he wanted to suggest. His stomach ached.

“That looked like a hell of a time.” It wasn’t that he’d meant to ask – he didn’t know what he’d meant to ask. Not too far off, quieter noise leaked out of a bar; the bulky shapes of a few kov stood round outside, wreathed in smoke. “You know these streets well,” he added, quieter, maybe a little sheepish; he smiled crookedly over at Aremu.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Three Flowers District

The silence between his answer and his question stretched on, and Aremu had begun to think Tom wouldn’t fill it. He had begun to think the answer he would get would be a polite brushing off, or an offer to tell him later, perhaps, when they were alone.

Him and me, Aremu thought, looking at Tom, and knowing he did not understand. He knew something of what it was to wear the liar’s mask, to carve his face into a mask of wood and find the place where the edges of truth blurred, to write lies into his skin, beneath all the wood, so if it was ever filed down – if it grew old and crumbled away – all their strangeness should be revealed.

Tom began with a long exhale. He told the story in small pieces, in bits and starts, amidst the soft brushing together of their bodies, the places where their shoulders touched, only just barely. Aremu listened, and tried to weigh it all together, and not worry too much about understanding.

Sharkswell, Tom said, where I lived then. When I was sixteen; for the job. He knew something of how Tom had grown up, a little of his boyhood and a little of the men who had taught him whatever he knew of honor. He remembered Tom, too, white-knuckled on the deck of the Eqe Aqawe a lifetime ago, his thick dark hair coming out of its braid, looking down at Aremu between the gleam of the Rose below and the starlit sky above.

Goodness me, Tom said, in the midst of it.

Aremu glanced over at him, and saw him watching the warehouse. There was another roar of voices and laughing from inside, and a harsh thud.

They went away; they slipped into the darkness instead, slow steps down the road.

Dee, Tom said, soft and a little tender. Aremu watched him look back, towards a place they could not go. A hell of a time, Tom said; Aremu shifted.

“Camel fighting, I think,” Aremu said, evenly. I’ve no taste for it, he wanted to add; once, when I was sixteen, Uzoji and I were looking for entertainment on the border between Windward Market and Three Flowers; we nearly got into a fistfight over a pair of uliams being bought into an arena for a match. We couldn’t do anything for them in the end – we knew it, the both of us – he stopped, when the first blow came on me, instead of him –

The story was strangely tangled in his head, and he didn’t try to find the shape of it.

Sixteen, Aremu wanted to say: sixteen.

“Well enough,” Aremu said; he came closer to Tom in the shadows, their shoulders brushing together. The footsteps behind faded into quiet, turned and veered away.

“Three Flowers and The Pipeworks were where we liked to run, as boys,” Aremu said, quietly, “when we strayed out of Dejai.” He shifted; he went on. Sixteen, he wanted to say. “After Thul’Amat, I lived here for the better part of five months. I worked in one of the airship hangers in the southeast corner,” he gestured, vaguely, though they weren’t heading in remotely the same direction.

It wasn’t home, Aremu wanted to say, too. No more than Cinnamon Hill, no more than the Turtle, no more than Dejai and Thul’Amat. I think you know that about me; I think you knew it the first time we spoke.

They found a busier street, and melted back into the crowds. Aremu’s right wrist was in his pocket, still and always, though his left hand was free. It was all bars here; the scent of beer and tsenid and other, stronger things rose and mixed in the air, loud laughter, soft Mugrobi and harsher Estuan mingling with other, stranger tongues. There weren’t doors so much as openings, the front of warehouses spilling onto the street.

In the midst of one was a drum circle, a handful of men beating rhythms into the night; smoke rose up from bonfires, along with the scent of grilling meat.

Have I ever told you, Aremu wanted to say – have I ever told you –

“I came here first at eighteen,” Aremu said, beneath the drumbeats and the laughter. “There’re rock cliffs for climbing at Thul’Amat, but I…” he went very silent for a moment, and then shook his head, slightly, banishing some strange half-healed ache, “uh, liked... liked it more on the rooftops. Have I ever told you much about the running?”

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

H
uh,” he grunted, though he didn’t look back over his shoulder; there was a prickling up the back of his neck, though he couldn’t’ve said why.

He thought of their long teeth sliding through the bars in Tsaha’ota, curling pink slobbering tongues. Tsuter nanabo. He thought of the prefect’s offer to buy Tseto, and something in him tightened; he set it aside, tucked it away. There was no need to think of it.

They passed the bar, a whiff of familiar tobacco and liquor that made Tom’s dry throat itch. The breeze carried it over strong; he’d not smelled that precise potpourri in weeks, if not perhaps since Anaxas, though he visited such places in his dreams. The warehouse – the camel fighting, if it was, and something in Aremu’s tone made him think he’d not got it wrong – was nothing but a distant clamor, warped strangely by the metal walls of great warehouses.

He glanced over again when Aremu spoke, though in the shadow of the warehouses, he was nothing but a faint-lit profile, a familiar long frown. He couldn’t read his face; he didn’t expect him to go on, as he looked back toward the street. The back of his neck was still prickling.

Aremu moved closer still, quiet. For a moment, he thought – he quieted his mind, strained his ears, but he could hear nothing. A whistle went up a few streets over, and a chorus of shouts.

Aremu spoke again, finally, and he listened, a tentative flicker of a smile on his face. Noises drifted in from busier streets, louder; he looked when Aremu gestured, though he could see nothing but buildings’ long shadows and the bulky shapes of more squat, industrial buildings beyond them. He tried to imagine a flat with smoke drifting out the window, a soot-stained, sweat-slick Aremu working late, years and years ago.

We, Aremu had said; his eyes had skimmed the rooftops, thinking of the runners he’d imagined. Boys, he’d said. Two imbali, Tom remembered, in his year in Dzit’ereq. He wondered about the rest, about lovers, about qinnab in someone’s room. They were hazy faces overlaid with the bare-chested lads he’d seen smoking in Tsed’tsa, with the studious-looking imbala at the book cart. Ared’ur, he thought, then, Tsu’un – were any of them from the Turtle, too? What did they think of you? he wondered, and almost felt guilty for wondering.

He tried to imagine Brunnhold lads running in a place like this, and his mind failed him; his mind failed him often, here. The streets swirled back to life, and he could see Aremu’s face beside him now more clearly. He wasn’t sure what lines the shadows had made in his face; it was smooth now, caught warmly by the lamps. He could feel the vibrations of the drum underfoot, warming through him like a heartbeat.

The back of his neck wasn’t prickling anymore, here, but he wasn’t sure how long it had been since it had stopped. The smell of grilled meat caught him again, and his stomach twisted; he bounced on his toes once to peer over a swath of shoulders and heads, toward the reflections of a fire and the blurring-fast arms of drummers.

Eighteen. He looked at him curiously.

But I, Aremu said, and fell quiet – fair quiet – and Tom watched him keenly. He glanced away when Aremu shook his head.

“A little in Dzoto’otú,” he said, glancing back; Aremu still wasn't smiling, but he was, slow and tentative. For all he’d the sense of something dropped, he warmed, grateful. “I’ve been curious ever since.” His smile warmed, too, and his field. “Tell me about it?”

A chatter of Heshath passed them, and he grinned. Not too far off, he caught sight of a bonfire, dripping silhouettes of lamb on spits and a bar tucked into what might’ve once been a warehouse office.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Three Flowers District

I thought of telling you, once, Aremu wanted to say. I think. I remember thinking about it on the walkways above the Rose, navigating above the ground. Was it before we searched for the blue lights or during? He couldn’t remember. I was too afraid to try to speak to you then, he wanted to say, to really speak. When I did try it was a disaster; I live with the shame of that - of my fear - and I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll be able to set it aside.

Tell me about it, Tom asked now. Aremu had seen him, twisting curiously to watch the drummers, his eyes wandering the crowd; Aremu had seen him twist on his toes, bright-eyed and curious.

“Here,” Aremu said. He took Tom to the edge of it, to where they could stand just barely in the shadows. A man with a rickety wooden table nearby was selling sharbat, gleaming cool in tall clay cups; Aremu handed him a few coins and tucked one against his side, bringing the other back to Tom.

The flavor was hibiscus and orange mingled together, floral and sweet and bright, cooled on the block of ice beneath it, so that sweat trickled down their hands.

“We were all imbali,” Aremu said after a moment. “We rarely spoke of the running, when we weren’t doing it; a friend told me nothing but to meet him on a roof top in Dejai one night. I came to find them, and we went - with no introduction and no warning - we ran across the rooftops and up and down the edges of buildings. There was nothing like rules, except to keep the pace; there was no way to know when or where it would end.”

Aremu took a sip of the sharbat; a little smile came over his face, and he glanced at Tom. “I finished that night, and was sick afterwards in private, where if anyone saw they kept quiet. The next week I met them again. Sometimes we would run through Dejai, but sometimes we would go across the city, late - this too was like a part of it - and to run through the warehouses in three flowers or the pipe works themselves. We found strange and abandoned places; we learned to climb and descend walls, and trace a pathway where none could be seen.”

“We never spoke during it,” Aremu said, quietly, again. He shifted, glancing at Tom. There are no lies in silence, he wanted to say.

“It was four months before I led them for the first time,” Aremu went on, looking over the busy crowd. “It was exhilarating. I spent my days and the rest of my other night studying or working; I... had nothing else like this, nothing where I could simply be, could move without thinking of anything but the next step.”

Aremu took another sip of the sharbat; he glanced at Tom. “We were fools all the same. We broke fingers and toes; we cut ourselves open on rusty metal. We missed jumps, and broke ribs and legs and arms, sometimes cracked and sometimes so the bones went through the skin. We were boys still, and... I think for all of us there was a pressure which we knew no other way of releasing.”

I was always uncomfortable amidst them, Aremu wanted to say. Even then - even at eighteen, nineteen, twenty, even when I was with Efreet, who I’ve never mentioned to you, I was uneasy with it. But not when running; when we ran I knew what to do. Sometimes I could it even sort it out afterwards.

“It was foolish,” Aremu said, quietly, “and perhaps necessary. There were weeks when it seemed all that got me through.” He took another sip of the sharbat, and he smiled a little at Tom. The drumming shifted behind them, the rhythms winding more intricately together; there was a cheerful cry and dancers who came together, stomping on the packed earth floor.

“I don’t know what you must think of it,” Aremu said, a little tentative. I want to, he tried to say, with the way he looked at Tom.