[Closed] Laughing at the Danger

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

A
remu wasn’t long. He watched him take the two cups; he could see it even with his back turned, the way he deftly tucked one under his arm with his hand, the way he took the other. The trail of his amel’iwe rippled; his right arm hadn’t moved.

He took the cup curiously, catching a whiff of something citrus-sweet and floral. He’d wondered – but it was sharbat, and he smiled warmly at Aremu, taking a sip. It eased the ache in his stomach, though he was no less hungry to hear the other man speak. He’d kept him waiting again, he thought, and when Aremu began, it was all the more sweet for it.

He listened; he didn’t look away, not at the smell of grilling meat, not at the laughter and the drums. He watched Aremu’s face intently. Sometimes, Tom’s eyes widened; sometimes, his eyebrow twitched, or his lip pulled in something that was almost a wistful smile.

In the end, Aremu took another sip of sharbat, and he smiled a little. He smiled back, taking a sip of his own. I don’t know what you must think of it, he offered, his dark eyes lingering.

His smile softened. He thought about it, sucking a tooth, looking down for a few moments into his cup.

I think it sounds like you, he thought, every bit of it, and I – mung, soppy chroveshit was all that wanted to come out of his mouth first, and he’d’ve meant every bit of it.

Strange, silent rooftop meetings, blazing over rooftops in Dejai, scrambling up pipeworks, through empty windows or crumbling cracks in walls. You finished even the first time, he thought, sick or not; you kept up. He tried to imagine Aremu leading them, feeling out the cracks and corners of these streets like an engine, fitting them together and finding ways around.

It wasn’t the thought of contorted, broken limbs, or even, in the spaces between Aremu’s words, the implication of worse; that – the thought of the lads making this choice, wordless, ‘til the wells in them ran dry – that he understood. It was the thought of missing jumps that sent a chill skittering its legs down his spine. Of falling through the empty dark air, twisting, nothing to grab onto. He dreamt of falling sometimes; he realized, with a soft smile, Aremu knew that, and he remembered when they’d spoken of it.

We talked more than I give us our dues for, he thought, even the way we were back then. He looked over at Aremu, still smiling.

“It sounds like what fighting was for me, as a lad,” he said after a moment. “No – no,” he said, shaking his head, “not just like it. It doesn’t sound quite like anything I’ve ever done.”

The drumbeats picked up. A woman in green had broken off to dance by herself, lit flickering warm by the bonfire; a ring of onlookers was clapping rhythmically, and she was grinning, white teeth flashing. She missed a step and stumbled and dissolved into laughter. She did a shot when a lad brought one for her, coughing and laughing and clapping, and let herself be pulled back into the rest of the dancing.

He was grinning when he looked back over at Aremu, all the long, sloping angles of the imbala’s face limned orange and red and gold. “But the… moving,” he said, and forgot himself a little more, the voice he spoke with, the face Aremu was looking at. “The way you’re nothing but the moving, and for a time, everything makes sense. You don’t need to speak of it; the moving’s – the moving’s like a tongue. An old, old tongue.”

He breathed in deep; he couldn’t seem to stop looking at Aremu, couldn’t seem to get enough of imagining it. He wasn’t quite grinning, not anymore, and he felt soft and sharp all at once. The reflected light glinted orange in Aremu’s eyes.

“The pain, even, all those cuts and bruises and broken bones. Broken noses.” His smile slanted mischievous. I know where you got some of those scars, he thought, remembering how he’d wondered so, the first night they’d ever been together.

We spoke of reflections, once, in men’s eyes; we spoke of a man losing himself and finding himself, too. We don’t ever speak of those times. He’d stuck his foot in his mouth in the tsug grove, once – it was hard to even think about that – he could still feel the reverb of Aremu’s what were you thinking, and it ached.

But he shifted, now, looking at him, and his smile came easy. His sharbat was cool and sweating with the condensation, dripping on the packed earth and on his hand; the taste in his mouth was sweet. “Letting off that steam,” he said. “I think I’d’ve said you were losing yourself in the running, once – I don’t know. Were you finding yourself, you think?”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Three Flowers District

Tom made him wait, then, just a little while, but he was smiling, and Aremu found he was smiling too. He didn’t fill anything into the silence, anything but the sweet bright taste of orange and the earthy floral of hibiscus, anything but the way the lines around Tom’s eyes creased upwards when he smiled so, anything but the heavy rhythms of the drums and the smell of smoke which curled all around them.

An old, old tongue, Tom said, and Aremu grinned, suddenly. Tom wasn’t, not quite; it was something softer and more tender on his face, just now. They looked at one another, and here, at least, Aremu didn’t find it so difficult to let the rest of it slip away for a few moments. Broken noses, Tom said, and in the shadow of sharp, fine Anaxi features and a curl of short cut red hair Aremu felt as if he could see the shape of a blunt nose, and hear the whisper of a breathy voice; the lantern light gleamed over them, and traced its own shapes on Tom’s face, making patterns where scars had once been.

Aremu nodded; he smiled too. He turned his right arm, glancing down, though beneath the long sleeve they couldn’t see any of the lines which traced his forearms. This one, he might have said, and this one too. “I was proud of such pain, such bruises, even the scars,” he said, quietly, thinking of lips which had trailed along the edges of dark swollen skin, traced ribs and dark curling hair to find the place where the hurting could be born.

“They were a reminder,” Aremu said, a faint little smile on his face. He didn’t look down at his right wrist; it throbbed in his pocket, and something tightened in his chest. “I knew what else I was when I saw them – what I was capable of.”

He exhaled, long and slow. Tom was smiling at him, still, with something like understanding. He had thought Tom would understand, if he let himself hope; perhaps he had been a little afraid, still. Perhaps he always would be, to bear himself before the other man. He had never understood those who could do it without fear.

“Finding isn’t a bad word for it,” Aremu said, frowning thoughtfully. The sharbat was sweating along the edges of his hand. He wanted badly to close the last of the space between them, badly enough that it ached somewhere in the pit of his stomach, a hunger deeper than that which he should have felt. “Or maybe…” he shook his head a little. “Purifying, perhaps,” he said with a little grimace, “as if – for the duration – all the rest was burned out of me, and I could search through what was left without…”

“It’s not quite the same,” Aremu went on, “and I try to be a little more sensible these days, but diving from the cliffs and climbing back up then is… with both of them,” Aremu glanced up at Tom, and tried not to look at the soft red hair, short – too short, Aremu thought, to braid, not that a man with one had could braid, anyway. Perhaps – he didn’t know; he had never tried. The words what I was capable of still stung, no less for having spoken them himself. And other things, he had thought to say, but he brushed past the words without waiting for them.

“Finding the pattern and following it helps me – get lost, or get found, or purify myself,” Aremu said, with a sheepish grin. “Do you think it matters what we call it?” He shifted; he set the sherbet back on a crate, and reached out and stroked his thumb over Tom’s arm, brushing condensation against his shirt sleeve. We, he had said, and he knew what he meant by it.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

H
e looked down at the long line of his arm, the shadows shifting over tan fabric as he turned it. If he’d closed his eyes, he thought he could’ve felt them under his fingertips – the ones that were old, now, a decade old, just whispers of roughness or smoothness drawn out on Aremu’s skin. He knew which ones were older than others; he had guesses, and the thought of it made him strangely giddy.

He wished he could touch the other man. They had never, in a place like this; that wish – that ache – was as old as any Tom had ever had, and it had nothing to do with his face, or what either of them were. He’d often wondered what it would be like, to kiss someone in the middle of a festival or on the street.

A reminder, Aremu said; he looked up at his face, and thought the smile on those lips was crooked, like he’d tasted something sour. He wasn’t sure what his own looked like.

What I was capable of, he said. He didn’t look down. In the corner of his eye, he could see the shadow between the hem of his sleeve and the pocket of his trousers.

“Yes,” he said quietly, shifting a little closer. The bonfire blazed high; the lights flickered in Aremu’s eyes. Aremu’s chest rose and fell once – very deep – and his smile softened still.

It’s so, he wanted to say; I remember all of them, mine. Sometimes I wish I could draw them on me with a pen, except for the one I have, the one that reminds me of you. It didn’t make me feel capable then, but what you said – I remember.

Maybe it’s something, to be capable of wanting to live.

Sometimes all of me feels like a scar, he wanted to say, every inch of me, where something grew over what used to be. I can feel it, still, the way I used to be. Sometimes the old scars ache; they’re in my mind, but they ache anyway.

He’d said none of it, when Aremu went on. He thought Aremu might’ve understood, and in the same breath he thought himself a damned fool for it; he searched the other man’s face, and he wasn’t sure. It was easier to settle into the quiet rhythm of his voice, and that frown that dimpled his cheeks and darkened the shadows underneath his eyes.

“Purifying,” he murmured. All the rest? What was left? He thought he understood – he felt it, anyway – but he still wanted to ask, What was left? What did you find? What do we – What does any man find?

He shivered, smiling, thinking of the cliffs on Dzum. Time softened the memory. I think of you diving, he wanted to say, so damned often; sometimes I sit in my study and wonder if you’re doing it, across the sea, or climbing back up that sheer cliff face, and I try to imagine what the foam feels like.

Sensible. When was the last time he’d touched a kettlebell? Practiced with his fists? “When I meditate, sometimes, I...” he said, thinking of it with a crooked sort of smile, thinking of holding Aremu amid all the circles in the hotel room. Aremu was shifting to put his clay cup aside.

Do you think it matters what we call it?

We, he’d said. Aremu touched his arm; his thumb was cold from the sharbat, and he could feel it through his sleeve, rippling leiraflesh all over him. He looked up at Aremu, faint surprise on his face, and then a soft smile. Aremu’s thumb left a dark patch of wetness against the crisp white, like a ghost. “Maybe not,” he said softly. Aremu was closer, now, and he almost – every word you choose, he wanted to say, it always mattered to me; that’s what matters – “When you –”

His arm darted out suddenly, and he found a thin wrist in his fingers. “Bajea!” cried a boch’s voice.

“Lad,” he said, still looking in Aremu’s eyes. But they broke apart, then.

He was small, though old enough to’ve had an eddle, if he’d been arata or wika. His narrow bare chest heaved, his hems dirt-stained. Tom didn’t hold him long enough he struggled; he let go, holding up his hands to show the lad his palms.

The buckle on his satchel was undone. “You’ve a good hand, lad,” Tom said, and grinned suddenly.

“Orozem,” mumbled the lad, shrugging, glancing at Aremu.

He was gone before he could say anything else; Tom looked after him, running a hand through his hair and scratching his scalp. He looked back at Aremu, raising his brows. His stomach let out a rumble, then, and he almost laughed.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 13 Loshis, 2720
Three Flowers District

When I meditate, Tom said. He hadn’t finished it, but Aremu thought he could trace the path it would have taken, after all. He thought he understood; but then, Aremu thought wryly, he had thought he understood many times before, and he knew now that he had been wrong, many times before, perhaps more than even he knew, at least where Tom was concerned.

All the same, he thought, this time - this time he knew.

Aremu did not think of it often, the night in Dentis which had seemed like a dream. He remembered it, if he let himself, coming from the bathtub with Tom and following him into the lines of the spell circle, sitting in the middle of all that dizzying chalk scratching out much which he could never understand.

He thought of fear and trust, of doubt and honor, and he remembered the taste of it all, bitter sweet before their parting not long after. He thought of Tom looking at him from the bath, the air smelling of oranges - the memory made him smile a little more at the taste of his tongue - inviting him in.

I don’t know if it was right, Aremu had wanted to say since, what we did then. If it wasn’t wrong, at least, then why - why - I know the ability to judge is a part of what I lack. I learned that in Thul Ka well enough. He had made his protests; Tom had made his judgments. Who was he to argue, then or now? How could he?

It didn’t matter. No, Aremu thought, the lie twisting in his stomach. No, it did matter and always would. But he drew closer to Tom all the same, his fingers on the other man’s sleeve, as if here in the shadows they could forget all the rest.

Tom’s quick sharp movement caught him off-guard; Aremu’s hand shot back and was at his back before he had time to think of it. He raised his eyebrows at the young boy Tom had by the wrist, and watched him go.

Aremu looked back at Tom, and grinned. You still have the knack, he wanted to say, and he knew it for cruel. Foreigner, he thought of translating, but he wasn’t sure if it was his place, here and now. The other man’s stomach growled, and Aremu couldn’t quite have said why, but he laughed, softly and easily, and hoped Tom would understand. All strange and all familiar, he thought through it, looking at the ghost of the man he had once known, and the man he still did.

He remembered it; he remembered it all. He knew he would not forget even a moment of the dream, not the echo of his own voice, not the ward drawn in blood, not the hands which had gone from Tom’s to Tom’s, not the face of a monster in the mirror, looking at him through Tom’s flat gray eyes. Him, Aremu thought suddenly, with an odd twist of understanding, and the deeper ache of tenderness.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” Aremu suggested. He took the last of his sharbat and drank it, then set the cup down once more. “There’s a place not far,” he shifted off the crates, easing away from the drummers and the dancing, from the lights and smoke and laughter, and glancing back at Tom with a smile, expecting him to follow.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

A
remu was grinning back at him, and for a moment, there was nothing but it. He felt warm inside, and the lights seemed softer, though he knew there was nothing in his cup but cordial. Then came the hama koketa’s grumble, and to his surprise the other man laughed; and the surprise yanked more laughter out of him, tumbling out light and easy alongside Aremu’s. He’d heard it before, Aremu laughing, but it was precious every time.

He took another sip of sharbat when his stomach flipped over and twisted, sweet and thick against the ache.

“Ah,” he laughed, “that’s a fine idea.” Aremu shifted, the crate creaking as he drank the last of his sharbat. Tom finished off his, but he watched the other man set the empty clay cup behind him, the hem of his sleeve slipping up his wrist, the light glistening on the edge of a familiar scar. It flickered warm across the bones of his hand, the long fingers.

He thought there was still a spot of condensation on his sleeve, where Aremu had touched it. He wondered if he might reach out and take his hand. It was dark here, just at the limits of the bonfire’s light – dark enough – but Aremu pushed off the crates and drifted away, until at the edge of his field he cast a familiar smile over his shoulder.

He faltered for a moment. He didn’t look at the dancing silhouettes, or linger too long on the smell of grilled meat. Let’s go, he wanted to say, let’s go back – d’you dance? I want to feel the life here; places like this used to be mine.

But Aremu’s smile was soft, and his eyes glittered. It isn’t yours, is it, this place? Not like that, he thought, smiling back. Is any place yours, among these people, or at Thul’amat, or on the isles?

He thought with a pang he might’ve known the answer. What do you dream of now? he’d wanted to ask, all the same, for a very long time.

He wanted to take Aremu’s hand and let the other man lead him, but walking beside him, with the occasional warm brush of his shoulder, was enough.

It was a quieter street, low rooftops crouching amid the towering tenements and hulking warehouses in the streets around. He could see the shapes of the mooring masts above all of it, amid the blurry clouds and the stars you couldn’t quite make out in the city, even if they shined a little brighter here than in Nutmeg Hill or Windward. This street was more bars and restaurants, with a few food stalls set along the streets, spilling out smells and steam.

It was into a nook between two repurposed warehouses that Aremu took him, quieter except for the low mumble of conversation.

The awning was stretched over the narrow way, with low lanterns hung on ropes and scattered tables. There were screens set here and there, as if to mark off where the joint ended and the street began. The tiny building looked barely big enough for the cooks, much less seating; the smells spilled out into the street, rice and that familiar blend of spices, greens, and another, tangier smell he couldn’t place.

It was a healthy crowd, if a scattered one; there was a small line. If the tired-looking, uniformed imbala next in line glanced over his shoulder at the brush of his field, and his eyes widened slightly at the rest, it was only for a moment.

“What is this place?” he asked quietly, smiling over at Aremu. The sign hung over the window was in Mugrobi; tsoya’tezuq was written underneath it in very faded Estuan.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Tom laughed too, a soft low echo of his, his eyes wide and soft.

Tom followed him, when he moved away, with only a moment’s delay between them. Aremu glanced back in the midst of it, smiling, even before he left the softness of the other man’s field. They went beside one another, shoulders occasionally brushing; the soft fold of Aremu’s amel’iwe brushed against Tom’s, and he thought with a pang that the two fabrics looked well together.

The drumbeats faded in the distance, and the smell of alcohol too. Hunger turned over hollow in Aremu’s stomach; he’d had lunch before the convention, at least, egg rolled in flatbread that he’d eaten one-handed, making his way across Windward Market. He had no booth this year, but he was beginning to think of next year, and the next after; he was beginning to think of coffee processed and bagged, with the Ibutatu name stamped across it.

You’d have liked this, he wanted to say to Uzoji; it lives in your name.

Tsoya’tezuq was where he had remembered, for all they had come at it from a different angle. Aremu was met with a faint rush of relief; from here, he know where to find the hotel, and he knew where to find himself, as well. He didn’t know how to break this journey up, not quite; he was met with the sense of leading them both across rooftops, up and down crumbled walls, with nothing but his eye to tell him whether he – whether they – could make the jump.

“It's a place I used to go,” Aremu said with a smile for Tom; they were together in the line, and if a few glances came their way, no one lingered on anything but the hanging beef behind the counter, gleaming pale red. He caught the eye of the imbala before then, and inclined his head with the slightest motion of his chin; the man glanced away, though the tightness of his shoulders didn’t shift.

I thought you would like, Aremu wanted to say, the food and seeing both. I wanted to show it to you.

“They make uw’úgediq, marinated beef which is chopped very fine and served almost raw,” Aremu’s fingers rested delicately on Tom’s forearm, just heavily enough to let Tom feel the pressure of his hand.

At the front of the line they received metal tins, half full of beef, the other half split between thin chopped sauteed greens and crumbled white cheese; two rolled up pieces of spongy ahú’arip flatbread were laid on top, and a small metal cup filled with a thick brown liquid. Aremu balanced his between his hip and the counter, fishing out coins from his pocket to pay, his right forearm holding it in place with the slightest pressure.

There were stools spread throughout the inside of the restaurant, and spilling into the alleyway outside; Aremu took Tom there, where the faintest hint of night sky gleamed overhead between the crack in the buildings. It was well-dark by now, though no stars peeped through the lights in this part of Three Flowers.

Aremu sat on a stool, close enough to Tom that their knees brushed together; he didn’t shy away from the other man. “This is a drink made with fenugreek and honey,” Aremu said, smiling at Tom, the platter resting on his knees. He swirled the cup lightly, letting Tom see the thick consistency, and the hint of foam at the top.

“How have you been?” Aremu asked, softly. They weren’t quite alone, not here, but the air was full of the sound of hands tearing at ahu’arip, of men and women chewing, of low conversation. He thought they could slip into it, easily, more easily than on the street, with the wall of the alley at their backs, and the warm weight of food on his knees.

Aremu ripped off a piece of the flatbread himself, and wrapped up a bite of the minced meat, mixing it with the greens and cheese. He ate; it tasted very much like he remembered, Aremu thought with a funny ache, after a long day of hot engine work, with his hands and all the rest of him aching in a way he had been grateful for, and the uncertainty of it all not more than he could bear.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

U
w’úgediq. Aremu’s touch lingered on his arm; he’d known not to take the other man’s hand, but his smile’d warmed, all the same. His eyes skimmed over the sheaves of hanging meat behind the counter, over the broad dura chopping it up in the back, the lanternlight sparking off his bald head. He glanced over – once – at Aremu, deftly balancing the tray with his hip, amel’iwe rippling soft grey-green as he found his pocket.

Out in the alleyway, sounds from the street leaked in. He sank onto his stool with a tired grunt; it had been a long walk, he realized, from sunset in Windward to dark skies above Three Flowers. He’d only barely taken the pressure off his hip on the crates, and he was grateful to rest, now. He realized he hadn’t a damned clue where Tsoya’tezuq was, how far they’d come or how far they’d yet to go. The map of Thul Ka in his head was dark, and trust was, for once, a warm sort of feeling.

The imbala from earlier was crouched at some distance with a couple of other men, all of them eating hungrily. There was low, scratchy laughter from somewhere inside at intervals, and the smell of tobacco – not smoke, but the cling of it, sinking into the stools and into the dry, cool wall of the alleyway.

And Aremu settled down fair close beside him, such that he could feel the warmth coming off the other man and the tray in his lap; such that their knees brushed.

He couldn’t bring himself to shy away. He leaned closer, peering into Aremu’s cup, glancing at his own; he smiled and took a sip, nutty and sweet.

The question caught him; he blinked, not quite sure – at first – how to answer it. Aremu was tearing off a piece of his flatbread, again with that deft one-handed motion. He thought Aremu must have asked it of him before, but he couldn’t’ve said how he’d replied, or what Aremu might’ve said, either. How are you, he remembered asking. And you? Good – bad – strange.

Strange, he thought to say, I’ve been strange. He scrambled to think: say something about the offices; say something about the Vyrdag. He already had. He couldn’t say what he wanted to, which was, It’s been hard, going back to the hotel room every night, not knowing. How are you? would’ve been easier. Well, tonight. Very well.

And you? What are your days like? he remembered.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, pausing to suck a tooth. He tore off some flatbread himself. “These past months, they seem like years. And yet – everything’s still new, somehow.” He glanced over at Aremu’s tin, then scooped up some of the meat himself, curious, and the greens and the cheese. “I’d like to think I’m steadier. I’ve got a better appetite, anyway.”

He grinned uncertainly. He doesn’t want to know, he thought; you were who you were then, and you are who you are now, all that messy, monstrous shit aside. “I never knew I’d be here.” I never thought, he wanted to say – “I never knew we’d be here,” he added tentatively.

If he hesitated before he took a bite, he didn’t let it stop him. It was, indeed, raw – or very nearly. But there was a tanginess to it that mixed well with the spices, and even better with the bitter of the greens and the tartness of the cheese.

He took another bite, then another, eating hungrily. He was conscious of the other man’s movements, the way they stirred the air against him. It wasn’t that he’d never been close to him before, but –

He smiled, taking another sip, bending to set the cup back down. “How have you been?” he asked, then, thinking of the cliffs again, “How – how are things on the isle?” His smile went crooked; he looked at Aremu curiously. “You said there were heavy rains; I’ve been trying to picture it, and I can’t. It was so mild...”

He trailed off. So mild, he’d wanted to say, when I was there. When I was there, he thought, and felt a strange twist inside, like a knot of mangrove roots. He smiled anyway before he set about his food again.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

For a few moments, Aremu ate and listened. For all he’d eaten before, he was hungry – he was always hungry, he thought with a little amused twist of a smile – and he doubted Tom’s words with a ravenous appetite.

A better appetite, Tom said, and something went strange in his grin, like a note which didn’t match the rest, a faltering in the dance. Aremu watched him, and his smile faltered a little, a crease of uncertainty coming into his forehead. Tom went on, through it, picking up the path once more.

“I didn’t either,” Aremu agreed, then, slowly – about as tentative as the other man had been, “I’m glad we are.” I wanted it, he couldn’t say; I knew it was selfish of me then, to want to tear you up from all you knew, but I wanted it even then. Not, perhaps, when you stood on the deck of the Eqe Aqawe and told me it was all you ever knew, but later – when you smoothed junia on my cuts and I woke in your arms, when you held me as I told you my secrets, even if I couldn’t be grateful for it then – I wanted this, Tom, and I still do. So much has changed, but that hasn’t.

Aremu wrapped up another bite of the food, and then another; he didn’t eat urgently, but he did – as always – eat methodically, with an intensity to it. In the corner, the imbala said something to the men he was with; they laughed, and when he glanced back down Aremu saw them look at one another, and then all three back at their food once more.

Tom bent to set the cup back down; it brought him close to Aremu, close enough that he could’ve bent over and kissed the other man.

Tom asked how he’d been; Aremu frowned a little, thinking of the last strange week, the belonging not-belonging. Alone, he wanted to say, at night; thinking of you, he wanted to say. It’s strange here too, for me; I don’t know quite when it became so. But well, too, he might have said; I’ve been walking the city at all hours, when I have the time, and I’ve been grateful for every step.

The isle, Tom said, and Aremu glanced up at him. He blinked.

“It’s mild in Yaris,” Aremu said, without thinking. He hesitated, then, glancing up at Tom. It was so mild, the other man had said; surely he meant –

He didn’t know quite how to go back, and so instead he went forward. “It’s mild most of the year, as if it saves up all that furious strength for just a few storms. It rains often enough, but it’s mostly mild rain – soft, sort of drifting. Then there are a few storms when… it’s like being up in the air, even though the ground is beneath you. The rain seems to come from all angles; you can’t see more than a few feet in front of you for the thickness of the clouds. It’s like the whole world's a storm, for a little while.”

“We had one of those in Ophus, a rather bad stretch,” Aremu said with a faint grimace. Unthinkingly, he rotated his left shoulder, tilting his head right to stretch it out. He glanced at Tom, catching himself. “The best thing to do is to leave everything and just… bear it,” Aremu said, a little frown on his forehead. “I’ve never been good at that.”

“Laus Oma was hard hit as well,” Aremu said, frowning. “Half the warehouses were underwater for a week; the mangroves were in it up to the branches, or so I heard afterwards.”

“During the Flood season,” Aremu went on, “usually, it’s more mild; we might have one such or two such in the entire season. I’m hoping – well. There’s nothing to do but fix that which breaks,” he shifted; he reached between them in the darkness of the alleyway, and set his hand on Tom’s leg for just a moment, stroking softly with his thumb. He smiled at the other man, soft and a little tender.

[Tom Cooke]

The Three Flowers • Thul Ka

Evening on the 13th of Loshis, 2720

I
’m glad we are, he had said, then: It’s mild in Yaris. As if thoughtless.

He didn’t pause; he didn’t look up, dabbing at more soft red beef with his flatbread, balancing the tin on his skinny knees. In the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Aremu hesitate, and he felt the other man’s eyes on him. He couldn’t make out his expression, but he felt them there, lingering for a half-second, before he continued.

You remember, he thought. It wasn’t the wind sweeping the white drapes and Aremu climbing out into the crisp morning that he thought of; it was the strong smell of tsug, and then –

Epaemo, he remembered scraping out of his throat, epaemo. It’d been a lovely morning, with the breeze curling sea-smell up from the cliffside, and he had been breathless, his back aching with Aremu’s arm over his shoulder. He remembered reaching out with his hand and Aremu nearly scrambling off the cliffside.

But Aremu continued, his voice – warm, thoughtful, even. He smiled up; he listened. “I saw rain like that, at the edge of the desert, drifting – like a mist.” He looked at Aremu, his eyes widening. “I’ve never seen a storm on an airship,” he admitted, both eyebrows shooting up.

He knew what it made him think of, and he didn’t much like it. Cold, blind, grasping about for shelter; grey. One of those in Ophus, Aremu said, and he studied the other man’s face, his brow knitting. The other man shifted like he’d gotten a beating, and before he caught himself, he glanced down at his shoulder.

He met his eye again, and – before he could help it, there was a crooked, wry smile creeping across his face, even with Aremu frowning stormy as the rains he spoke of.

No, you never have been, he wanted to say, with an unexpected swell of warmth. If he didn’t say it, it was only because he thought it was in his eyes already.

It soon faded to a thoughtful frown. The mangroves, Aremu said, and something prickled up and down his spine. Laus Oma – he wasn’t sure if – but there was no weight behind it, no more than any man spoke of such things with.

“How is ada’na Ahura?” he asked, and he found the question came out easy, like any question between men. His voice softened on the name. And the others, he wanted to ask – he wasn’t sure if he should, or if he could.

They’d never much spoken of such things. Anyone you know in Laus Oma, he almost said. He’d never brought himself to ask about the Eqe Aqawe before, and now – he wasn’t sure. D’you keep company? he wanted to ask, and couldn’t bring himself to it. What’s it like, living there in that great, creaking house, so full of light? Niccolette comes and goes, but apart from her – apart from Ahura, and all of them – is it just you?

When he went on, Aremu smiled a little, and Tom found his hand warm on his knee, thumb stroking gently.

“I don’t know much about this qalqa, but it makes sense to me,” he said quietly, and – wiped off his hand, and reached to set it atop Aremu’s, pressing it. “Are you missing them? The isles,” he said, his smile warming to his eyes. Other than your qalqa, Aremu, other than your duty, he wanted to say. It’ll be hard, even to leave such a qalqa for a while. To bear it, and then fix it in the aftermath.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Aremu tried to picture it again: Tom in the midst of the dunes, swaying on the back of a camel, with sheets of rain falling in the distance. He found it a little easier this time, if no less strange. He wanted to ask, he found; they’d spoken of the scars but not the rest of it, not the faded bruise on Tom’s cheek, now gone entirely, which he’d kissed around the edges of, teasing and light, like he might have once.

“I don’t know that you’d want to,” Aremu said with a smile when Tom spoke of a storm on an airship; it was the other man’s white-knuckle grip he thought of then. He thought, too, of Tom lying on his back on the Uccello di Hurte, feet crossed at the ankles, hands together on his chest, staring intently up at the stars and reciting poetry snatched away by the wind. Now, the image made him smile, just a little more.

“She’s well,” Aremu grinned. “She was worried I wouldn’t have enough to eat in Thul Ka; she threatened to feed me twice as much as usual before I came.”

You didn’t meet her family, Aremu wanted to say. He realized with an odd jolt it wasn’t entirely correct; he remembered, still, dragging himself up the stairs with his arm over Ulofo’s shoulders, Ahura’s husband half lifting him up each step. It was a hazy sort of memory, not as clear as the sharp images of Tom’s mind, and it came with an odd wave of remembered despair mingled with horror.

Just now, with Tom’s hand lightly atop his, and the feeling of his warm leg beneath Aremu’s hand, it didn’t quite fit; he couldn’t place it.

He could have said it all the same; he found the edges of it, as it to pry them up. Ahura’s family is well, too, he might have said; they didn’t flood in the storm, they’re raised up enough that they were safe, and no trees fell too close to them. You remember Ulofo – there’s her daughter Apadha, a widow, and her grandson Efere, who turned four last year. He didn’t remember how Ulofo must have looked at Tom; he could imagine. He didn’t know if it was tender; he didn’t want to press, not here, not now.

His thumb stroked, gently, along the top of Tom’s legs; his fingers were curled around to the inside of his thigh, low down close to his knee.

Aremu shifted a little, thoughtfully, when Tom asked if he missed the isles. He was smiling, still, his hand on Tom’s leg. “It’s good to be away, I think,” Aremu said, glancing up at Tom. “But I do miss it. There, I only get lost when I want to. It’s not for me to choose, here, always, but perhaps that's not such a bad thing,” his head shook, ever so slightly; his smile went a little crooked at the end, though it was no less tender.

Aremu shifted. Would you want to come visit again? Someday? He wanted to ask; he couldn’t quite find the courage. What do you think of, Tom, when you think of the isles? It is the beach and the drifting dzum’ulsa petals? Is it the cliffside and the water below sparkling in the morning sun? Is it the mangroves, thick with vines and flowers?

You could, he wanted to say; surely you could. It would be easy there, Tom; there are days when even Ahura doesn’t stop by, this time of year. Just us, the beach and the stars; would you want that?

“Which do you prefer so far?” Aremu asked instead, not sure in the least what answer he wanted. Thul Ka, he thought, surely; even he would probably have answered so, though perhaps it was only because he didn’t know what truth was.