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.