[Closed] Laughing at the Danger

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

T
he grin on Aremu’s face was enough to make him grin back, but it wasn’t just that; it was the memory, too. “That,” he said, “sounds like her.”

Well, Aremu’d said, and he wanted to ask more. Her husband? Or that solemn, proud face of his he’d met. The others on the estate? He must’ve spent hours sitting in the kitchen, watching Ahura cook; she’d spoken a little of her fami. But he felt like he was stepping into a circle he belonged outside of; he was a stranger, he thought, underneath this skin. If ada’na Ahura had known what he was, she’d’ve been horrified.

He was grateful for all Aremu said, still. He nodded, studying Aremu’s crooked smile when he spoke of getting lost and of choice. The other man was stroking his leg, and the curl of his fingers round the inside of his knee sent a little prickle up his spine. To choose when to get lost, he almost said, would be an interesting change of pace, for me. His smile made little lines around his eyes; he thought of the eyo’pili they’d been too busy that night to do.

The question caught him again.

It seemed to him strangely idle, in the midst of all this. Which did he prefer so far, of two places he barely knew? He knew Aremu had a sense of humor, and a damned good one when he wanted to, but – somehow, in spite of the smile, it didn’t seem a light question.

And if it were he couldn’t seem to help taking it as he took all the other man’s questions, turning it over, unfolding it. He smiled at Aremu a moment more, studying his face, then glanced down at his uw’ugediq.

He was absorbed in thinking about it, and he sucked at his tooth. “I don’t know,” he said after a few moments, shaking his head.

He looked up at Aremu, then, tilting his head.

“Do you know that Isla Dzum,” he said, more quiet, “was the first time I ever set foot out of Anaxas?” Something sparked in his eyes, and suddenly the words spilled out before he could catch them and cram them back in. “I was terrified, in the days before I got on the Uccello di Hurte; I was supposed to be calm and collected – politicians travel – but I was terrified –”

In spite of the words, he was smiling; he stroked Aremu’s hand. “And then I woke up with the smell of tsug coming through the window. And kofi, and...” And your voice, he almost said, and stopped himself.

I can never tell you, he thought, how bitter and strange that was. I thought myself a monster. I am one. Even on the ship, with you calling me sir – the memory burned with a funny kind of shame, one he hadn’t felt in a while.

He’d had dreams back then, and not all of them, he thought wryly, were of the sort Aremu had seen. No, he’d had dreams of another nature, and he’d had plenty of them.

You must think of it with shame too, he thought, feeling a laoso tug. You didn’t know me then; I was him to you, then. I was – this. Reading poetry, he thought with a bitter twist in his gut. Was I so obvious the whole time? he wanted to ask. Making eyes at you like –

Whatever spell it was he’d cast on himself, he tried to curl it; he thought he must’ve brailed instead, the way the look on his face faltered for a moment. It was by force of will he kept his hand on Aremu’s, or perhaps the hand was itself the will. The familiar shape of the bones, the warmth of his skin, the soft stroke of his thumb. It came over him like one of those storms, but the hand under his was a reminder.

“To prefer one or the other,” he went on more softly, after a time, “I’d have to know them better, and I wouldn’t – I’d want to find out.” A tiny smile twitched at his lip. “I’d’ve liked to know it better. It was beautiful, Dzum, and the stars – Circle. The city was all I’d ever known then, Aremu. And even what I saw of Laus Oma was like nothing I’d ever seen before.”

He paused, not quite sure if he should’ve said it. I miss it, he wanted to say, and that seemed wrong; I miss it – what, driving you to terror? He was still smiling when he drew away a little, to tear off more flatbread.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Tsoya’tezuq, Three Flowers District

Aremu didn’t know what he’d expected of Tom, what answer he thought he should have gotten. He knew in the silence that followed that it should be serious; had anything, really, ever been light between them? His hand was on Tom’s leg, still, but he nearly thought to draw it away, then, thinking – the other man wasn’t quite smiling anymore, and it didn’t seem as right as it had.

He didn’t; he didn’t, yet, for all that he was still hungry – because, Aremu knew, he was still hungry.

Aremu shook his head slightly when Tom asked his questions; the other man leaned forward, the white in his hair gleaming in the lantern light, looking at Aremu. He was smiling again; his hand shifted on Aremu’s, his thumb stroking softly over his bones and tendons, over all his old scars.

Aremu didn’t know what to say. And I didn’t know, he wanted to say; the shame of it ached. We spoke on the deck – you saved my life in the ship’s engine, I think, or at least my leg – you asked me about the Rose in the tsug grove. You wanted me to see you, and I was blind. And when I saw, I turned away from you; I made myself a mask, and it wasn’t until we were both slippery with blood that I let it slip.

They were both frowning, then. Tom’s hand was still on his, soft and tender; Aremu had thought he’d pull away, and he didn’t know why.

I’m glad, he wanted to say; I’m glad it could be that for you. I shouldn’t be; there’s no call for it. I shouldn’t have been jealous, if you’d been to Florne or Mestigia or Qrieth or where ever it is politicians travel. But I’m glad, all the same; isn’t that silly?

Tom filled in the silence, in a time. His lips twisted, and the tiniest smile caught on them.

“Maybe you could, some time,” Aremu said, uncertainly, as Tom’s hand drew away. He squeezed the other man’s thigh one last time, and drew his hand back to his own flatbread; he ripped off a piece, and held it between his fingers, and looked down at it, and then back at Tom. He drew in breath, and he tried again.

“I’d like it if you came again,” Aremu said, instead, his gaze searching the other man’s face. We never tried eyo’pili, he wanted to say; you saw half a breath of Laus Oma, a glimpse of the city by carriage on the way to Yesufu’s wretched house, and a party we lost to bloody death in the mangroves.

“It’s just me, usually,” Aremu said, after a moment. He wrapped up a bit of the bread. “Most of Roalis is quiet, and the first half of Yaris too. Ahura comes every other day, maybe every third, if I don’t tell her otherwise. There’s weeding, year round, and other work, but other than the harvest it’s quiet enough.”

Niccolette wouldn’t mind, Aremu wanted to say, and couldn’t quite. We’d think of something for Niccolette, he thought to try instead. I’ll lie, if I need to, or maybe we can find a truth to spare me that. I don’t think she’ll ask, Tom, in truth; it’s too farfetched to occur to her.

“I’d like…” Aremu shifted; his jaw caught, and tensed a little, and an ache he hadn’t known he’d carried became sharp, suddenly, sharp enough to cut.

“I’d like to think I’d see you again,” Aremu said, his voice a faint rasp in his throat; he left the bit of bread behind, his hand not quite trembling, but not steady either. “Before next flood season. I’d like you to know I want to,” his gaze searched the other man’s face, and he tried to smile.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

H
e glanced up, surprised. I wasn’t saying I, he wanted to say; I wouldn’t – there was the slightest curl of a smile on Aremu’s lip, and his stomach tightened with guilt. He smiled still, and he hated himself for how he liked those words. Maybe you could, Aremu had said, and squeezed his knee gently. For a second, a strange little hope fluttered through him, a distant, blurry image of Aremu wreathed in tsug branches and light.

I’d like to see you like that again, he wanted to say. Even then, I was grateful; I’d never thought to find out what’d become of you, and yet I was getting to see it firsthand, even through another man’s eyes.

It mingled with other, stranger memories, ones he couldn’t quite hold onto. Pinprick sparks burnt into linen. I wasn’t, he wanted to insist again. The other man was tearing off a bite of flatbread, though he was taking his time. I shouldn’t’ve said it that way, he thought to say. I wouldn’t bring trouble to this place of yours, Aremu, or put you in the position of having to… It was only an idle thought, he wanted to say; it was only a wish. We both know how far those go.

I’d like it if you came again, he said. He glanced up sharply, meeting Aremu’s eyes; he looked from one to the other, back and forth, his brow knitting.

Aremu dabbed at the uw’ugediq again as he went on, and the words sunk in slowly, one at a time. He still didn’t look away. A tentative smile went across his face. He’d torn off a bite of his own flatbread, but he couldn’t seem to eat and listen.

It came together.

For once – for godsdamn once – he thought he understood what Aremu was getting at, even before he’d said it outright; he thought he could see it written clear in the spaces between his words. Just me, Aremu said, usually. He was saying he knew how to do it; he was saying he’d thought about it before. He was saying there was time for them alone. He was saying, in his slow, thoughtful way, that it could be done, that there was hope for the engine.

He glanced down at Aremu’s hand when he left off on the edge of the tin; he thought there was something unsteady in those long, graceful fingers, stiff in the wrist. He was close enough to the other man he felt the tautness – he could see the rigid squaring of his jaw – Aremu wasn’t smiling now, and his shoulders were tight. He couldn’t seem to put the words together with the man who sat before him, the lamplight catching all the lines on his forehead in sharp contrast, like ghosts of a man he’d be someday.

Aremu was looking at him like he was looking for something, like he wasn’t sure what he’d find.

I hope you find it, he thought; I hope you like what you find. He felt a pinch of uncertainty, but he offered him a smile anyway. He left off his own flatbread to reach out and touch his hand. Just for a moment – not for long. “I'm glad to know it,” he said firmly. “I want to see you again, and I want to see the isles again. With you.”

He paused, meeting Aremu’s gaze a moment more, then picked up his bite of flatbread. Why? he wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to call him a liar.

He scooped up some uw’ugediq, then angled for a tricky bit of rice; his smile flickered. He looked down at the tin when he spoke again. “It was, uh – we didn’t get much time,” he said. “I liked it,” he went on quietly, “even before, though I… The festival was beautiful. All those blossoms, and the mangroves in the festival hall.”

That was a hell of a night, he wanted to say. He thought anything he said would be making a joke of all Aremu’s horror. We really went through it, he wanted to say; I really put you through it, more like. None of it seemed right.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Tsoya’tezuq, Three Flowers District

I'm glad, Tom said; I want to.

Aremu felt an odd prickling unease, for all the firmness in the other man’s tone, for all the careful touch of his hand by Tom’s. He didn’t know what he had expected; he had the oddest sense of having asked at the wrong time. Perhaps he should have waited; perhaps it was already too late. Perhaps it was the words that had come out wrong. There was a space, Aremu knew well, between what he thought and how the words emerged, and sometimes it was wide enough that he couldn’t see over the distance of it.

What had he thought Tom would say? It was enough, Aremu thought. I’m glad and I want to; he couldn’t ask for more. He couldn’t ask for an I will; they hadn’t gone far enough in the planning for it, anyway. Tom had responsibilities, Aremu understood. An incumbent, Aremu understood, had responsibilities.

Politicians travel, Tom had said earlier.

There was a long moment when they were only looking at each other, and Aremu couldn’t have said what he saw in Tom, or what Tom saw in him. He smiled, anyway, though it was a hesitant sort of look, and he knew there was an edge of a frown in his forehead.

Aremu’s gaze followed Tom’s down, only a moment or two later. He took up the flatbread again, scooping up greens and cheese to follow the meat, and went back to eating. However else he felt, at least he was hungry; at least he could eat.

“Yes,” Aremu cleared his throat, shifting on the small stool. “It’s lovely,” he said; he glanced up at Tom again. He scarcely remembered the festival hall; they had spoken to Temidire, he thought, the imbala opera singer; he remembered seeing Tsadha, and sending her away. It had been a lot of effort to make it up to her. He didn’t know if he should have bothered, in the end, but she’d wanted his apology more than she had wanted to nurse her sulk.

The night itself was a funny haze of confusion and memory. He remembered racing down the path, knife in hand, seeing Tom – Tom! – struggling in the arm of a much larger man; he remembered plunging beneath the brackish water between the mangrove roots, and losing consciousness there. He remembered shouting at Tom, blood dripping down his arm and through the grooves of his prosthetic hand, all anger and fury with nothing left to keep it contained.

He remembered through a haze the walk down the pier; of the warehouse, he remembered nothing but some half-imagined pain, because he knew something of the spells Niccolette must have cast. He had certainly been awake for enough of them the next day for that pain to have fixed itself in him, such as it could. One could never quite remember the intensity of it; he remembered what it had been like to feel it more than the feeling itself.

“I like Laus Oma,” Aremu said, instead, steering away from the bloody gun Tom had held, the shaky way he had taken off his wedding ring as he waited for Aremu to kill him, the trap that Yesufu and his son had sprung to assassinate him. He smiled a little at Tom; he took another piece of flatbread, and kept at the uw’ugediq.

“The rest of the year’s quieter,” Aremu grinned, thinner than before, but still a grin. “Except perhaps Maltalaan; the rest of Mugroba could learn something from the islands. The beaches are all lined with people, then; there are barrels and boxes and more which float in the harbor or sink to the floor of the Tincta Basta. Sometimes I’ve tried to imagine it, all those offerings spread out in rings around the islands, washed about by the currents.”

We make them, Aremu wanted to say. We imbali, we still make them. The ritual invocations are forbidden to us; we do not dare, and nor would any priest. All the same, we throw what we have into the sea. We’re forgotten by the Circle, I think, and it’s not their attention. Perhaps it’s to keep their gaze turned away; there’s always more which they could take.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

A
remu smiled, but there was a funny edge of bitter to it, he thought, like it’d just turned; like he’d left off too long, and the hope had grown overripe.

Or maybe his wanting had tasted more sour than it should’ve, or the way he’d said it – the way he’d smiled – had given Aremu second thoughts. He wondered if his smile looked like the one he’d given Aremu in the tsug grove, once; all his smiles and grins hung the same way, on this face. I want to, Aremu had said, not I will. A careful truth.

His chest still ached with the hope; he wished he could’ve dug it out. What had he meant by that, then, by his careful talk of how quiet Dzum had been in Roalis and Yaris? I’d like to think I’d see you again, he’d said. And sooner than next flood season –

Aremu shifted, clearing his throat. It’s lovely.

When the other man set back about his food, scooping up the greens and crumbling cheese and folding them in his flatbread, he did, too. He wasn’t sure if he’d misstepped in bringing it up; he was starting to think he’d got his leg stuck in the muck, twisted his ankle over the mangrove roots again. But if it limped for a moment, whatever lay between them, Aremu spoke again, and he was smiling when Tom looked up at him.

He smiled back, tucking back into his uw’ugediq and greens. His stomach had remembered its hunger. The taste of the meat was starting to grow familiar, mingled with the bitter greens and sharp cheese, and whatever else there was, there was comfort in Aremu so close beside him, talking and eating.

He was grinning, and it was good to see that again, too, even if it seemed a little less at home on his face now. “Hundreds of years’ worth of them underneath, too,” he said, still smiling; it wasn’t quite a grin, and it softened at the thought – but more at the thought of Aremu imagining it. He wasn’t sure whether to picture Aremu making an offering himself; he wasn’t sure whether to ask. “Thousands.”

He shifted, taking another mant bite of greens wrapped in flatbread. He wiped his hands off and bent to get his cup, taking a sip; when he set it back down, he smiled at Aremu.

“I’d like to see a quieter Laus Oma, too,” he said, tearing off a little more flatbread. “We –” Could go, he almost said.

Do you spend a lot of time there? he wanted to ask still. What of your life there? I know so little. He was afraid if he found the edges of that curiosity, they’d come peeling back, and he’d drown in the gulf of it.

And her? His smile had slanted coy for just a flicker of a second, when Aremu’d mentioned the Laus. The memory was tinged with regret; he remembered how ada’na Tsadha’s drunk-bright smile had begun to turn. He wanted to ask if all’d gone well with her, after that; he’d wanted to ask for some time.

These roots were even unsteadier footing, and tangled up with other, darker memories.

He had broken off, he realized, and paused too long. His hands were still on his flatbread. He was still smiling, but it felt sad. He couldn’t think of how to play off that we, and he found he didn’t want to.

“I was worried about you then,” he said softly, wiping his hands off. “We don’t – speak much of it, of those days. Before you knew, and then before I knew you knew.” We. It had slipped out; he looked up at Aremu slowly. He didn’t look anywhere else, and he doubted eavesdroppers could make anything of this. “Should we?” It hadn’t slipped out, that time. He searched Aremu’s eyes.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Tsoya’tezuq, Three Flowers District

We, Tom said, and he went silent.

Aremu had been in the midst of a bite, and he hadn’t thought not to take finish it. He chewed, and swallowed, and still Tom hadn’t gone on. Aremu glanced at the other man, feeling the heavy ache of a frown on his brow. He shifted, uneasily, looking at him.

The look on Tom’s face was shifting; it’d been a smile, and it changed at the edges.

I’d like to see it, Tom had said. We.

There weren’t so many places, Aremu thought, it could have gone. I’d like to show you, he wanted to say, but in the wake of the silence it didn’t seem right; he wasn’t sure why Tom had stopped. To avoid the lie? He didn’t like the thought of it; that stung, a bit. He glanced back down at his plate, and tore off another piece of flatbread, and kept eating.

Aremu had found, over the years, that he could eat through nearly anything. He could eat through whispers and glances in the Turtle. He could eat through laughter and mocking comments in a preparatory school cafeteria. He could eat through the stress of exams, through learning himself a fool, through the loss of his hand and what he had thought was the loss of his livelihood.

Nearly anything, Aremu thought.

He kept at it. Tom’s hands were on the flatbread, and he hadn’t taken a bite in a while, and Aremu had not the least idea why.

When he went on, it wasn’t a continuation; it wasn’t anything like what Aremu had expected. Aremu glanced up, looking at him. Before you knew, Tom said, and then before I knew you knew. Aremu’s face tightened, just a little; he frowned. Should we? Tom asked, and he didn’t look away, and Aremu didn’t either.

Why? Aremu wanted to ask. What is there to talk about? My shame, for having seen you so? You told me once –

Aremu cleared his throat, shifting on the stool. He wiped his hand as well, curling his fingers over the edge of the tray. His right wrist rested on the log next to him, the prosthetic tucked against his pants; he could only just feel the pressure of the wooden fingertips through the thin tan fabric.

Aremu found he’d looked down, and he hadn’t meant to. He looked back at Tom; he frowned. “I didn’t think you’d want to,” Aremu said, quietly. He wiped his hand clean again, and shifted, rubbing the back of his neck beneath his amel’iwe. “I was…” he swallowed a little. “Afraid. What I saw was enough to frighten me, but not enough to let me understand, and I… uh… couldn’t think how to ask or how to tell you.”

Aremu shifted. Maybe, he thought, uneasily, he did want to speak of it, selfishly, even though he couldn’t see how his words could do anything but hurt Tom. “I’m sorry,” Aremu said, quietly, looking back down at the platter. “For what I said and did – how I behaved. I’m not proud of… I didn’t understand. I knew it was you, but I couldn’t make sense of it.”

“It, um,” Aremu swallowed. “It didn’t help –” He shifted, and glanced up at Tom. “It takes a lot out of me,” he said, quietly. “The first time I was worse off, and um,” he shifted, and he shook his head. It felt perverse to speak of it at all, let alone to speak of it here; he glanced around, and then looked back down at his tray. His jaw tightened, and he regretted what he had said so far, and he knew, too, better than to try and go on.

He could eat through this too, Aremu thought, grimly; he had before. He knew better than to hope he should never have to do so again.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

I
don’t know,” he said at first, a small frown working its way into the lines of his face. “Back then – I don’t know if I did.” He’d looked down himself; when he looked back up, Aremu’s eyes were back on him. “Or could,” he added.

Or if we could, he added. Bear to talk, or to listen. He’d thought at first it’d been wrong to ask, and now of all times, like pressing on a bandage. A familiar tension had gone through the muscles of Aremu’s face; familiar lines deepened in familiar places, and Aremu’d looked at him, and he hadn’t looked away. The stool had creaked underneath him, and he’d expected to feel the other man shift, to turn a little more away to the right.

But he hadn’t, after all; his eyes had gone down instead. Tom had glanced away too, not sure what to make of it. He still wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Afraid, Aremu said now, and he breathed in deep. He could feel his own lips pressing thin, and he looked at Aremu, resisting the urge to shut his eyes. He nodded slowly instead; he’d already known, or guessed, some of it, but something about hearing it from Aremu’s lips felt – painful, but right.

Do you understand now? he wanted to ask. You know it’s me, Aremu, I know that; but do you understand? Are there still things you don’t know how to say, to ask? Have I left you in the dark, after all this time? There was more he could’ve said, too. The days as he remembered them were a strange twist of worry and loneliness and clawing, hungry bitterness, but it stuck in his throat even now, with all Aremu was saying.

He blinked, shaking his head, but Aremu had moved through the apology. He watched him swallow, and his brows drew together. When Aremu met his eye again, he didn’t understand, at first; then, all at once, he did.

The first time, he said. The back of his neck prickled, all up and down; the hairs on the backs of his arms, too. He felt it before he could think or be angry at himself for feeling it. Back then, on Dzum, he hadn’t known that feeling he’d woken up with, of a weight coming off the back of his mind. With what he’d studied of clairvoyance now, he knew it.

Not that, he almost wanted to say; he wasn’t sure if it was out of concern for Aremu, or out of – he didn’t know. He hadn’t meant… but he had, he supposed. You couldn’t disentangle it from the rest of the roots. It was at the heart of them, and they both knew it.

He caught the flicker of Aremu’s eyes around – past him, over his shoulder – and then down to the tray. Though he didn’t look himself, he inclined his head. The brittle set of his lips had softened. He watched him set back about his food.

“We don’t have to speak of it here,” he said, reaching quickly to lay a hand on Aremu’s knee. It didn’t stay there long, but he managed a smile. He swallowed, and his throat felt thick and a little sore. “I’m sorry, too; I’m not proud of how I was, either.” He swallowed, and his throat felt thick and a little sore. “It’s not easy to speak of, but I think – we should.”

Aremu was eating again, as he always did; something in it reminded him of the way he’d eaten on the Uccello, and he tried to put it out of his head as he started again at his uw’ugediq. After a little while, he smiled again. “You said you used to come to this place?”

He wasn’t sure if Aremu relaxed; he wasn’t sure if it was only that he wanted to see it. When they rose to leave, he was full, almost overfull. He thought there might’ve been some crackling, grumbling unrest in his stomach, but he tasted sweet honey and fenugreek mingling with the spices and the meat.

When they left, Tsoya’tezuq was a light drifting out of the alleyway, and the last whiff of uw’ugediq and fresh flatbread; then it blurred into all the other scents, all the other sounds of the street. He walked close beside Aremu still, and when their talk lulled, he was grateful for the occasional warm brush of his shoulder. The crowd thickened and thinned and thickened and thinned again, like a river and then a trickling stream.

They came to it after a while; these were quieter streets, but he thought he knew it by the stillness.

“Bajea,” muttered the dura, standing with his hands deep in the pocket of his uniform, glowering over the edge, where old stairs zigzagged down to a lower street. They disappeared into the lapping, muddy water, glistening dark in the night.

He jerked at the field behind him; he looked from Aremu to him, his brow furrowing. His eyes settled on Aremu, glinting in the dark, and he said something in Mugrobi; he was surprised to find he understood it. “Tseqi’dzelilaye’s blocked off.”

He looked up, frowning. “Is there other way, ada’xa?” he asked in his heavy Anaxi accent.

The dura raised his brows, glancing back and forth. “It depends on where you want to go,” he said in Estuan, but then frowned and shook his head. “Everything to Aa’dzawapel is bad. If you want to cross, you will be walking a long time.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Three Flowers District

Aremu didn’t think he’d hidden the problem; he hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t, quite, been able to; looking around had been an instinct.

He knew imbala who discussed it; most of them did not know it, even by the age of graduation, but some did. Some learned it early; some – most, he had heard, many times – never learned it. Efreet had not known hers. In those circles, sometimes, in quiet corners at parties or across dinner tables, the question had come up. He had lied, more than once, and said he did not either, then.

To speak of it now in public felt as if he were removing all his clothing – worse, in fact, Aremu thought with a twist of his lips. He would rather have been naked in front of them all, he thought wryly, than to be overheard speaking so, no matter that there was little enough they could learn from what he’d said.

He didn’t know what was on Tom’s face. He didn’t know what it was he felt in Tom’s clairvoyant field, soft all around him, if he felt anything at all. He hadn’t felt the clairvoyant mona, then; he’d felt them by Dentis, the soft beginning brush of them, and now they were all around him, Tom’s field thicker than it had been, and sweeping out a little further than before.

Now, Aremu thought bitterly, Tom might well have understood it better than he did, and Aremu knew already – he knew – that he understood it better than he was meant to. How, he had long wanted to ask, how can it be profane for me to understand what it I do? What it is the mona – the Circle – whatever or whoever – do through me? How can even my knowing of it be wrong?

He had never asked; he doubted the answer would provide anything like solace.

Tom let him off the hook he’d speared himself on; he apologized as well. Aremu looked at him. We should, Tom said. Aremu looked at him still, and then he nodded, slowly. Both of us, he wanted to say, but the words stuck in his throat. In private, he wanted to say, but shame had left his tongue dry, and he thought Tom already knew that.

“Yes,” Aremu’s voice was hoarse when he began again. He cleared his throat. “Yes – this wasn't so far out of my way on my walk home. Sometimes after work...” he went on. They didn’t need much conversation between them, finishing up the last of the meal; Aremu ate, steadily and methodically, until he’d finished the plate, and the drink as well.

They walked, and they went as far as they could together.

Aremu rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. Tom’s Mugrobi had startled him; for all his accent was thick and his grammar painful, he thought, Tom was easy enough to understand. S-sanah’hoolaleh, he thought, again, and his face twitched in a smile; he knew he had no claim to it, but he felt proud all the same.

“Domea domea, ada’xa,” Aremu inclined his head. He glanced around, frowning. It would mean, he thought, doubling back the way they’d com, all the way back past Tsoya’tezuq and around to the other side of Three Flowers entirely. He’d seen the way Tom favored his hip when he rose; he hadn’t meant them to spend all the night exploring the district on foot.

“This way,” Aremu said to Tom, with a little smile; the dura had gone by then, cigarette glowing red in his mouth, disappearing down his own path.

Aremu glanced around, and then led them into one of the warehouses nearby. They went up, a narrow rickety staircase at the wall, and then up another, and another, and at the top Aremu shouldered open a rusty hatch. It was all empty inside, with rusted metal panes here and there, scraps and bits of a history long gone, and damp puddles of rainwater where the roof had begun to leak.

They were on the rooftop, then; it was broad and flat, all metal. From here, the distant hills of Thul Ka gleamed with phosphor; the sky sparkled, more with airships than stars. Not too far, they could see the cluster of lights over the worst of the flooding.

Aremu climbed onto the edge of the rooftop, balancing on the narrow ledge, and glanced around. He went a few steps one way, and then the other, looking at the rooftops and the gleam of lights on the water below.

He hopped down, and he went back to Tom. He went, and he went closer, and he caught the other man’s hand in his, and he bent down and kissed him. He’d meant it as a brief greeting, but he found himself hungry at the touch of Tom’s lips to his; a low noise groaned in his throat, and Aremu leaned deeper into the kiss, his hand curling around Tom’s hip, holding the other man to him.

“I think there's a path to Aa’dzawapel over the rooftops,” Aremu said, pulling away, reluctantly; he was breathing a bit hard, unwilling to separate himself entirely from the other man. “If we want to go that way,” his hand was on Tom’s side, now, his thumb stroking over the other man.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

T
his way, Aremu said.

Even now, with the sky a dark blanket overhead – even as they passed into the shadows of the warehouse – there wasn’t much chill to the night air. The smell of smoke and oil thickened here.

He couldn’t see much. Sometimes the light glinted off a puddle, and he could see shapes: the bones of shelves, rotting pallets. He looked up, before they started up the stairs, and the tiers of walkways that ringed the tall, broad walls. He couldn’t see the rafters for the shadows, or where what light there was, barely any light at all, was coming from.

There’d been a little smile on Aremu’s face; he couldn’t see, but he thought there still might be. All he could see was the shadow of the man on the stairs ahead of him, the soft tan of his clothes and his grey-green amel’iwe drained of color in the dark.

The stairs creaked and shifted under their feet, and he was conscious of the empty air underneath – as always, like the very tip of a riff prickling at the nape of his neck – from the third or fourth step.

His heart wasn’t only hammering because of that. There was a grin on his face now. Aremu had been smiling a little, when he turned; there was something strangely thrilling about this, but – comfortable, too. The soft brush of Aremu’s amel’iwe like a tether.

There had been a little smile on Aremu’s face when he’d spoken Mugrobi, too, in his faltering way. He thought of it as they climbed up and out, suddenly buffeted by a fresh breeze.

Once, he realized, he would’ve thought Aremu’d been laughing at him. Or maybe it’d always been that he wanted to think that, that anything else would’ve been flooding terrifying. Like empty dark underfoot. This time, he’d spoken it for Aremu – it sure as hell hadn’t been for the dura – and the sight of the smile in the corner of his eye had been precious.

Aremu left him to go to the edge. He watched him climb up, balancing himself one-handed on the ledge, his right arm still at his side.

For a moment, it was Aremu on the edge, all the lights of Thul Ka spread out in front of him, limning his shoulders and prickling the edges of his hair. He was a silhouette, but the breeze picked up and rippled the drape of his amel’iwe.

Tom didn’t go to him, not yet; he took a few slow steps closer, strangely – the most achingly familiar feeling – afraid to look over the edge. When Aremu turned and caught him, he wasn’t expecting the kiss, or the strength of it, or the hand that slid around his hip and pulled him in.

It wrested a little grunt from his throat, and he leaned in himself, feeling his heart flutter up. He found the solid muscles of Aremu’s back with one hand, and the bump of a leather strap; for some reason, all he could think was of the straps on the railing of an aeroship, and he smiled against Aremu’s lips. He found the knife in its familiar place, too, and he was still smiling when Aremu pulled away, one eyebrow raised.

He looked down the long flat rooftop. “We do,” he said, squinting, trying to sound thoughtful; he thought it was undercut by his breathlessness. His hand was still on the knife, and he could feel Aremu breathing heavily, too, and the stroke of his thumb.

Godsdamn it, he wanted to say, if you keep that up. It was a mercy, maybe, when the other man finally pulled away – not all the way, but enough to lead him along the rooftop.

This was no run. They made their way slowly across, climbed deftly – Aremu did, anyway; he was careful with his feet in the dark, and he held on tight – down the metal stairs to the walkway between this warehouse and another.

They went around on the inside, this time, past rows of busted windows spilling the lights of Thul Ka in on the dirty metal. There were chitters sometimes in the dark, the sounds of flapping wings, rustlings. When they climbed up onto this rooftop, he thought he saw what Aremu had been looking for over the edge.

The flooding was up to the first or second floor of a tangle of interconnected buildings. It looked, he thought, like it might’ve been a packing plant, all of it – half-drowned, and he wasn’t sure if it was abandoned because of the flooding or if it’d been left off longer ago. There were metal bridges spanning the worst of the flooding, disappearing into buildings on the other side.

Aremu led him to the edge of one, and his breath caught in his throat with the first step; his hand tightened white-knuckled on the railing. He caught the shimmer of distant aeroship balloons first, but then his eyes skittered over the railing, all the way down to the lights sparking on the water, the water lapping against old metal and brick.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Three Flowers District

They went into the depths of the dark; Aremu led Tom along the edge of the rooftop, and they climbed, the both of them, over the edge and onto the metal ledge beyond. From there, Aremu took them down the staircase, and on to the walkway, over to the next building.

From here, Aremu thought, glancing forward, into the packing plant, with the walkways he’d seen gleaming through the open windows. That would take them in to the flooding, at least, and through the worst of it if they were lucky. From there, he thought, he would find a path; one or two more buildings, he guessed, and they’d be on the other side of it, and in to Aa’dzawapel, where it was only a few blocks more.

Aremu was aware of the low burning ache inside of him; he’d felt Tom’s hand lingering on the knife on his back, and seen the grin on the other man’s face, and he knew what they both wanted.

Can you stay? He wanted to ask, now; can you stay? Say you were lost; say you spent the night in the city rather than find your way home. Aremu glanced up at the sky; there were gathering clouds at the horizon, which was good and bad, good for their journey and bad for their cover. He thought of begging; he thought he could. Stay; stay. If it’s only for tonight, stay, and let me hold you while we sleep, and hold me too.

They moved into the meat-packing plant, with its wide, open sides. It was better than Aremu had hoped, the metal walkways grimey but not rusted, at least not as he could gauge by the light which streamed in through the windows. He ran his fingertips over both sides of the railing, feeling tentatively; there was no rust there, at least.

The waters were stagnant, below; that, Aremu knew, was for the best. They were deep enough, too, that if they fell they would be wet, and nothing worse. He didn’t think Tom wanted what was called, half-jokingly, a Three Waters bath, because it left you filthier than when you went in, but he’d at least survive it. Or – Aremu wasn’t sure how to think of such things; he didn’t know enough to say.

Swirling – heavy rushing floodwaters – were worse. They swept you away before you could so much as blink, and there were metal poles enough below. That did not bear thinking about; this wasn’t that sort of crossing.

There was a soft, half-choked noise behind him. Aremu glanced over his shoulder to see Tom trembling still, one hand white-knuckle tight on the railing, his gaze shot down to the water below. He’d gone only a few steps, and he stopped; he turned, and went back. He set his fingers on Tom’s, gently, stroking over him with his thumb.

“Look at me,” Aremu said, softly. This time Tom’s gaze was just barely below his; this time the other man would have to look up, and now down. It was pale red hair, short and a little curly, which gleamed in the pale lights of the city shining down on them, with no more than a glimpse of stars to be seen.

Aremu was smiling, softly; he couldn’t help it. “Hold on to me,” he said, softly; he leaned in and kissed Tom again, not so demandingly this time, but a soft and tender brush between them. He stroked those trembling white knuckles, teasing Tom’s fingers with his until he’d eased the other man’s hand off the railing, until it was wrapped around his instead.

Aremu kissed Tom again, a little more hungrily this time. Not here, he told himself; not yet. He wished he had a second hand, to stroke his hair, to hold the railing for them; his right wrist was tucked in his pocket still, a bulge in the soft fabric of his pants.

“One step at a time,” Aremu said, softly, into Tom’s lips. He squeezed the other man’s hand in his, and took a step backwards along the path, looking only at Tom.