[Closed] Don't Need My Blood

[Tom Cooke]

Tsúri’uhem Practice Field • Thul'amat

Evening on the 33rd of Loshis, 2720

S
ummer-weight. He looked suspiciously at the green cloth, maybe a little lighter than his lightest Anaxi frockcoat, the furrow of his brow deepening. Whose summer? he could’ve asked, but he reckoned they both knew the answer. He was thinking there were probably a few more layers underneath her coat than Isu’fo’s, if he knew anything about ladies’ dress. (He knew a surprising amount about ladies’ dress for the kind of man he was; though perhaps not, having grown up in a tumble hut.)

The snort had thrummed warm through him; he couldn’t’ve said why. It hadn’t brought the smile back to his face, but it’d softened something of the frown.

He was careful not to glance up at her hair when she touched it again. He said nothing of losing, either, for all it made him think of. He didn’t think she’d welcome the attention, or his input on it, for that matter, either.

Still, his frown twisted at the edges when she admitted she’d not eaten, and he looked away at the same moment she did, at the shadows the sun shafted over the courtyard.

“It does not do,” he said, with a shrug to mirror hers, “to go dueling on an empty stomach.” He’d a strange sort of feeling rattling through him, creeping along his spine, like he’d said something like those words before.

He shrugged again, shoving the memory back down inside him. He glanced back at her, sharp, raising an eyebrow when she spoke again.

He was still holding Mircalla, he realized; he ran his fingers over the cover, shifted it in his hands, held on still. Give it to her and go, some part of him said, and you’ll be cut free.

He glanced up at the sky, then back over and up at her. “I happen to know a place,” he said, careful to keep his tone as light as hers. He didn’t smile; he wasn’t frowning anymore, either. “Not too far a walk from here, in Dejai Point. Should be open for a while yet.”

He hesitated, turning. The last of the Brunnhold team were filtering back out into the gardens; he felt a twinge, spotting a lass with thick, straight auburn hair disappear behind a spill of greenery, a grin on her face. She was talking intently to another of the lads. She cast only one crisp, bright-blue glance over her shoulder at Cerise and her father before she went.

A lopsided kind of smile crept to his face. He looked over at her again, patted the cover of the book, and offered it to her. “But I think you could catch up with them. If you wanted, still,” he said.

I didn’t think, he wanted to say. Before I showed up. At least, he thought to joke, I didn’t run up and throw my arms around you, like…

“If this overcooked vegetable hasn’t embarrassed you too badly,” he cracked instead, still smiling lopsidedly, not quite able to laugh. He wasn’t sure what this was, but it felt damned strange.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Tsúri’uhem Practice Field, Thul'amat
Loshis 33, 2720 - Evening

"It does not do", he said, still not smiling at her--but not frowning, either. It was still strange after all this time, seeing her expression and gesture both reflected back at her. She snorted at that too, part of a smile pulling at part of her face. Never all the way, that seemed to be how it was between them now. Cerise was too hot and tired to think on what that meant, or if it was better or worse.

Cerise opened her mouth to respond when she saw him glance over her shoulder at the retreating backs of the rest of the team. They were going--somewhere, Cerise couldn't remember. The same place they'd gone the night before, most like; maybe somewhere new? Green-uniformed and familiar. Cerise couldn't figure out why he was staring the way he was.

Then he smiled and handed her the book, after all. Easy and, she thought, final. She took it, the half a smile dropping from her face. Down it continued until there was none of it left and a frown had replaced it entirely. Her fingers ran over Mircalla's cover too, just to give them something to do. It wasn't like every bump and edge wasn't well familiar to her by now.

"You don't have to... I see them every day. We're a bit stuck together. I never said I wanted... I thought..." Cerise trailed off. She hadn't known he was coming today; if you'd asked, she had no expectations to disappoint. And yet here she was. Cerise tucked the book under her arm and fixed her attention somewhere over her father's shoulder. Fine. She was wrong. Had been wrong, over and over again. Likely she would continue to be wrong every day until she returned to the cycle.

"Nevermind. You haven't embarrassed me--it takes more than showing up in unflattering colors to do that." She prodded again at her scalp with the ends of her fingers. Whatever she had thought was wrong, and that was fine. He'd only come to return her book, and that was fine too. She wanted to ask what he'd thought of the story by the end, but it was exhausting, suddenly, to feel like she wasn't worth spending time with on her own merits.

That, too, was fine. Expected, at least.

"Maybe some other time, then, I guess. Since..." she lied. There would be no other time. This was the best it had ever been, and it wasn't enough. Cerise shook her head and then winced. One day, she was just going to cut it all off. That, too, was a lie. "I should probably let Sish out anyway. I had to leave her behind, in a sort of crate... thing. She's not very happy about it."

It wasn't raining now, but the air was thick with it. Too much godsdamn rain, here and at home. She'd had enough. Cerise looked up briefly, and then away. She still hadn't left.

[Tom Cooke]

Tsúri’uhem Practice Field • Thul'amat

Evening on the 33rd of Loshis, 2720

S
he’d been smiling; he’d thought maybe – but it was gone, chin lifted and eyes somewhere past him, like she’d already moved on. He swallowed a tightness he’d not known was in his throat and nodded, unable to wrangle his face out of its dignified, distant politican’s frown. A bit stuck together, she’d said. I thought…

I thought, too, he wanted to say. He cleared his throat just a pina, barely-audible, looking down sharply at the ground. A pair of uniform shoes, just dusted with sand, and his own bony, freckled feet, trussed up in sandal straps. He felt flooding ridiculous. He looked back up at her, this time with something like a tight, thin smile on his face.

Unflattering colors. He should’ve smiled, shot back something just as clever. He couldn’t think of anything. His smile wasn’t his own, anyway; he thought maybe the muscles were remembering an expression they’d had, once, except he knew that for a lie, too.

Best to let her go. She kept patting at that monster of a braid; he reckoned she’d go somewhere quiet, tear it down bit by bit and a mant manna hair with it. And he, with the book gone and plenty else to do, had work to get back to. This’d been wrong in the first place; to add more wrongs to it wouldn’t make it right.

He caught her glance up at him. He told himself couldn’t read that narrow, pale face, with its faint beginnings of lines, smooth and expressionless now. He told himself he didn’t know the way that face looked disgruntled, smoothing it over underneath flat, cold grey eyes. He told himself he didn’t know that faint hook at the edge of its thin lips.

“Some other –” He broke off, and his own frown twisted.

His lip twitched, and he couldn’t help the melting of it; he didn’t know whether he was smiling or frowning even deeper, or if it was something entirely different on his face, something he’d never seen in the mirror.

He glanced at the book where she’d tucked it under her arm, and then back at her face. He didn’t look away, even as she did; he studied her face. “Hells, that’s it?” His brows went up. “Do you think, young lady” – it was a smile, now, if a twitching sad one – “you’re off the hook so easily? If you don’t have dinner with them, you’ll have dinner with me, but I’m making sure you have dinner.”

The words had tripped off his tongue before he half knew what to do with them. Because you won’t, he thought, surprised at the tightening in his throat again; I don’t know you too well, but something tells me, after that, you won’t. He cleared his throat, glancing down the colonnade, toward the gate.

“If you want to pick Sish up, I’ll come along. Crate’s no place for a drake,” he added, softer, “and I don’t think they’ll have a problem with a miraan. Besides, we have – a lot to talk about. He smiled, a little more sheepish. “You can tell your friends your boring old Incumbent father’s forced you to spend the evening with him.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Tsúri’uhem Practice Field, Thul'amat
Loshis 33, 2720 - Evening

She felt fair stupid, standing there after she said she'd go. After she'd gotten her book back and it seemed her answer to a question she hadn't yet asked. Cerise tried to find the anger that she always leaned on, but it felt scoured out of her. Enough for the match, and then there was very little left. She was so clocking furious, all the time--it wore her down, sometimes.

Her father started to speak and he choked it off with a frown she didn't need to see to know was there. It was always there; they shared that, too. Something tilted in his expression, but she'd not seen it before and didn't know what it meant. Except, probably, that she should go. Leave the tomato to his important vegetal business, she supposed.

So it was hard to keep the surprise off of her face when he spoke again. Was that it? She looked up, tearing her eyes away from the soft sand beneath her feet. And his wretched sandals, that looked terrible, because all of this was terrible. There was a smile on his face, and she was confused all over again. The rest of it was so... So completely, ridiculously...

...Parental, she guessed. She didn't really know, but she got the impression it went that way sometimes. Like some kind of clucking mother hen, worried over her eating habits. Since when did Anatole Vauquelin care if she did or did not eat dinner? When had anyone been concerned with how much or how little Cerise ate, or when? A smile twitched at her face that she thought to fight, but in the end let it bloom without reservation.

"Well, since you insist." Cerise huffed, but the smile didn't leave her. There was a funny kind of pricking on the back of her neck, thinking of the picture of the man Diana had described to her, in bits and pieces. Comparing that picture to this one, tutting at her for not eating enough. Letting her go pick up Sish. No, not just letting--encouraging. Like he liked the miraan. And comparing that picture, too, to what she knew of her father. It all jumbled up, and she couldn't figure it out.

Cerise choked on a joke about the quality and quantity of her friends; she'd made that one already, and didn't think it bore repeating. If he wanted to think she had more of those than she did, that was fine. She wondered if he'd noticed just what she'd spent a not-insignificant chunk of his money on, just last month. It had almost felt like a test, though she'd not thought about it so clearly at the time, of if Incumbent Vauquelin would put his money where his mouth was, when it came to Emiel. There'd been nothing to test, before. Bethas, she thought, had been a very strange month.

"I'll change into something less--wool, too, if you don't mind waiting." Did they have a lot to talk about? That was never good, by the rules she knew. Very little about this seemed to fit in that playbook. She wondered, but didn't press it. Just led the way back to her yet-more-borrowed room where Sish was waiting to be let out.

[Tom Cooke]

Tsúri’uhem Practice Field • Thul'amat

Evening on the 33rd of Loshis, 2720

H
e wasn’t expecting the smile; he wasn’t expecting it in the least. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her smile like this.

It started out a twitch of the lip. You could’ve mistaken it for a sneer, he thought – the thought gave him a sinking feeling somewhere inside, in a place he did not wish to dwell on – at first. The sneer still hung about it, just a little, as it broadened and brightened; the lines were all still there. But there was something else, too. Her grey eyes didn’t look so flat or cold, maybe.

She had a narrow, keen sort of smile, never a whit less sharp than her sneer. Somehow, that didn’t sit so ill with him, this time. He thought it looked strangely familiar; he told himself he couldn’t’ve said why.

He was smiling back. “And I do,” he put in, “insist,” not even playing at gravity anymore, and on the edge of a laugh.

He nodded, and let her lead the way out of the practice field.

He was grateful for her guidance. He looked about him at the long shadows of the hedgerows and the branches’ tangling trees; here, the sun barely breached between the tall buildings and among the greenery, and low gold phosphor lamps were beginning to stand out against the gloom. The sound of chatter and laughter echoed through the gardens, and they passed the brush of fields – mostly clairvoyant – here and there.

For all he’d gotten to Tsúri’uhem by himself, he hadn’t been sure exactly how he’d get back. He knew they were somewhere at the edge of Ire’dzosat, and he remembered following this path, or one that looked very much like it, a couple of weeks ago. He supposed he’d recognize Tsed’tsa when they got to Deja Point, if nothing else; he suspected they had the duelists in some neighborhood there, close to Thul’amat as possible without being on campus proper.

Less wool, he’d thought, looking askance at her. Not a whit less sharp or straight-backed or imperious, but – layers, he thought again, and all that green wool. They’re not like they are in Anaxas here, he wanted to say; it’s not a scandal, for a lass to dress lighter. There’s a tailor – but he knew better.

And her hair, curls bobbing and slipping the braid as she moved beside him. He thought again, and held his tongue again.

He glanced over at it, when he could; he thought he understood what she’d been trying to do, and where the streams’d got so crossed and tangled up they’d stopped being a braid and started being something else. It was a mistake you could make with straight hair as much as curly, and everything in-between. It must’ve, he knew now, been painful. Give her a headache, if it wasn’t already.

“How do you like it here?” he asked instead of everything he was thinking, looking ahead, chin up and back straight as they walked. “So far,” he added, glancing over; he was smiling a little, still, but only just.

There was, of course, the matter of the bill. He’d gotten it immediately upon his return to Thul Ka. So, he imagined saying, easy enough, you’ve done time now, have you? It was flooding absurd.

He said nothing of it, not yet; best not put her on the defensive. “Sish been enjoying the heat?” he asked instead, clasping his hands in the small of his back.

He wasn’t sure when he’d made the habit; it was something she’d taught him a long time ago, a habit of the dead Incumbent’s. Wasn't sure if it was his, now, or somewhere in-between.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

En Route From the Practice Fields, Thul'Amat
Loshis 33, 2720 - Evening

Well, since he insisted, then. Cerise hadn't realized she was smiling so much until it was returned, and she didn't know what to do with that. So she left it where it was, and led the way away from the practice field without another word on the subject.

Truthfully, she barely knew how to get where she was going. She had made sure to take the same route every time, even though she thought it was likely there were faster or more direct paths to take. Possibly more interesting as well, her eyes catching all sorts of things in the corners she might have wanted to investigate. But she had deviated once, yesterday, and gotten hopelessly lost. Maybe she wouldn't have minded if she weren't already barely keeping solid form, or if Sish weren't waiting.

Sometimes they'd pass by someone else, student or faculty, and Cerise did find herself envying her father and his poor fashion choices. Poor for him; they seemed natural enough on everyone else. There was just something strange about seeing him--any Incumbent, but especially this one--in anything other than expensive Anaxi suits. It made this whole experience seem even more surreal.

There were two other girls in their group of ten. The three of them and a couple of the boys on the team had joked about going to some tailor or another. Cerise had thought them serious and wouldn't have minded, but they had all looked vaguely scandalized by the thought played out for real. So she'd have to go on her own, if she did so at all--which was to be expected. That was, in the end, how she did most things. Just didn't seem worth it for only two weeks. Besides, she was busy.

"I am not so used to have to swim through my air," she said at first. She glanced down at her father sidelong; there was the hint of a smile still. That surprised her again; normally she'd done something to drop it off by now. "But it's certainly been different. I haven't had the chance to see much outside of..." Cerise gestured broadly with a pale hand at their surroundings. The school. Mostly the practice fields. A few places to eat, near to where they were staying. That, honestly, had been about it so far.

She could tell he kept looking at her hair. Yes, she wanted to say, I know. I know how it looks; you don't understand. But it was off her neck, and that was what mattered--at the time. She would have to devise a better system, because clearly this one wasn't working. It was too lopsided, too heavy, and it didn't even keep it all together. On top of all of that, it seemed to get tangled somehow without her doing much to it, and she got impatient taking it back down. That was proving painful, too.

"Sish absolutely loves it," Cerise confirmed with a broad grin. "She has spent a large portion of our trip thus far sunning herself on the windowsill when it's out. I don't know how she will cope when we're back in Anaxas in a few weeks." Her golden companion had seemed undeterred by the humidity, and Cerise envied her, too. All the heat made her skin more sensitive than usual to Sish's tiny claws, so she had been encouraging her to fly about rather than rest on her shoulders. The problem was, the whole of the city was new to both of them, and if Sish bolted off... Cerise had contemplated getting some sort of lead for her, but it seemed cruel to tie her down. A solution had yet to present itself.

The trip had not been too long, between the practice fields and where the team was staying. They had all of them rather descended upon a small hotel, although the accompanying faculty had some of them decided to stay elsewhere. Not that Cerise could blame them--for many of the team, it was their first time abroad without their parents' watchful eyes. It had gone somewhat to their heads, really.

"Now you get to see what your generous financial contributions went towards." Cerise gestured broadly with a pale hand, her grin glittering and sharp. Their accommodations had been really more generous than she had expected, somehow; the benefits of being a group of only ten, she supposed. She was on the third floor, a little corner suite. Cerise took the stairs two at a time as was her habit, more looking forward to the prospect of at least splashing her face with water and letting Sish out than she was concerned for how the bouncing around pulled on her hair.

[Tom Cooke]

Dzeqar’ameh • Dejai Point

Evening on the 33rd of Loshis, 2720

H
e laughed, full and deep. “It wasn’t this humid in Bethas, when I got here,” he admitted.

Mostly, he listened; there wasn’t much to say, at first, and he didn’t want to bowl her over. Outside of? he thought of asking, watching the sweep of her pale hand. Thul’amat? Dejai? She trailed off, soon enough. The path curved around under rustling, tangled branches; the greenery was becoming a cacophony of bugs and the first burbling calls of night-birds.

He thought of the lass with the straight coppery hair, bag slung over her shoulder and coat collar half-unbuttoned, chatting with the tall, well-built Bastian-looking boy. It’d only been three days, but none of them would be in Thul Ka for long, he thought; the way Brunnhold was, he couldn’t imagine a gaggle of young duelists not grabbing every chance they could to take the cablecars down to Windward or even the Turtle. Hell, there were plenty of places to get into trouble in Dejai Point.

And Cerise Vauquelin, no less. Maybe there was shit she wasn’t telling her da; there was almost certainly – he thought again of the charge he’d gotten from Bethas – shit she wasn’t telling her da.

He caught her grin, when he looked over. He grinned back. “Poor Sish,” he said. “Won’t be long ‘til summer, by then, at least. If you can call what we’ve got in Anaxas summer.”

I’ve looked forward to seeing her, he almost added. He wasn’t sure why, but it’d almost slipped out of his mouth unbidden. Was it the truth? He looked down at the stones, at her shoes and his, blurry in the gloaming. Soft laughter echoed from somewhere.

Most of the walk passed as a blur. The crowd in Tsed’tsa was thickening like a broth, and they skirted its edge, winding down one of the many side streets in Deja Point. It wasn’t too far off the thoroughfare, in the end, nor too far from Thul’amat campus; you could almost see the trees in the gardens over the walls.

Dzeqar’ameh looked to him like a proper hotel, unlike the Crocus’ Stem. It rather sprawled, he thought as they passed through the gates; the doors were opaque, patterned glass, and threw swirls of colorful light over the waxed floor of the lobby. On the far end, past the stairs, there was a hearth and a circle of low tables and seats set out for kofi har’aq. The desk was unattended; the lobby was empty.

“Gracious me,” he murmured, both eyebrows shooting up as he looked around. “Suppose duelists live in style, unlike us coarse politicians.” Cerise was grinning at him again, sharp-toothed and bright, pale grey eyes glinting.

He couldn’t help smiling back, for all generous financial contributions had been asking for it. He wondered if she was needling him; he wondered if she knew the payment almost hadn’t gone through, on account of his absence – that the bank had thrown a fit, until he’d assured them the cheque was written on his instruction, and that it was all a misunderstanding.

Further, off down a side corridor, he caught a glimpse of lights and rows of bottles, of a laughing man in bright clothing garnishing a cocktail for a flushed-looking Anaxi with salt-and-pepper hair. His eyes lingered. He’d thought to stay downstairs in the lobby while she went up; he swallowed dryly and followed her up the stairs instead.

He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t winded by now. Cerise launched herself up like a drake, and his hand shook on the smooth calypt banister. “Slow down – if you would,” he said halfway to the second storey, smiling tightly; Anatole’s voice came out quieter and rougher than he’d meant it to.

Brushing round pale green strings of pearls, he followed her stiffly down a corridor lined with gold phosphor.

“A suite,” he laughed, a little breathless, looking at the gilt room number. He raised his brows at her. “Sish having fun with the upholstery?”

The walk up had displaced more of Cerise’s braid. He saw a few curls sliding down her neck, now, and spilling out on one side; he couldn’t follow the lines of the braid anymore, but he still thought he knew where you’d start to tease it apart, if you were trying to be gentle.

He thought – but he didn’t say anything, in the end. He suspected she’d tear it down no matter what he said, maybe because of whatever he said, and it didn’t feel right to draw attention to it. “I’ll wait out here,” he said, a little sheepishly. He rested a hand on the wall.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Dzeqar’ameh, Dejai Point
Loshis 33, 2720 - Evening

"Lucky you," Cerise snorted, but there was very little irritation in it. The heat was backing away, at least, as the sun retreated as well. Not much, but a little. Unless that was just a trick of her perception, willing herself to see the shift in hour as a shift in temperature too. A change that wasn't really there.

Poor Sish indeed. "Anaxi summer is a poor substitute, but she'll just have to make do. The team travels in the summer, at least. All kinds of new things for her to put in her mouth before I can take them from her." Talking about Sish was easy, at least. She could hold her voice light and the smile on her face. Even the crowd didn't wipe it off for more than a moment or two, though she snapped a growl at someone who collided with her shoulder particularly painfully once.

Cerise had seen very little of the city; little, even, of Thul'Amat. But she could tell from her father's reaction that she was right to have been surprised by their accommodations. Less different than hotels at home, all told, than she'd initially expected. But she had liked the doors, and the crowding of potted plants in the lobby. Sish had liked them also, but she had been given strict instructions to keep the miraan inside her crate in the hotel if she couldn't be kept away from them. Cerise had compromised by holding her close and sort of rushing through the lobby to her room, these last few days. It had worked. Mostly.

She didn't think it the best idea to mention that there was another bill coming, for the damage to what had once been a rather impressive ornamental tree. He'd see it sooner or later. She had not, admittedly, any idea of what this all cost. Not even the plant.

"Why Father, we're the future of Anaxas. Of course we should be treated accordingly. Also," she added with a quirk of her eyebrows, "there aren't so many of us as there are of you." Cerise didn't pause to wonder if he would rather wait in the lobby or at the bar, all her attention focused on the stairs and her goal of that corner room.

So focused, she had forgotten--she tossed a glance back over her shoulder, but she had slowed down. When she turned her head away again, face out of sight, she frowned. A worried little crease between her eyebrows and around her mouth.

"That is the reason for the crate," she admitted when they came to the door of her room. Which wasn't to say she hadn't tried. Just that Cerise had been faster to rescue the furniture than the greenery. That had perhaps been a mistake; in retrospect, one seemed easier to replace than the other. Chalk it up to experience, she supposed. She nodded, and disappeared inside.

When she re-emerged, Cerise had splashed her face and neck with water and dried it, though not particularly thoroughly. She had changed, too, from the green wool of her uniform into a summer calico skirt, red, and the lightest blouse she owned. It was not, really, light enough. Her hair had been rearranged as well, although hastily and not much better than it had been before. There clearly had been a struggle, and it ended in a draw. The weight, at least, had been redistributed. She clasped Sish in her arms, a squirming bundle of scales and feathers.

"We should--oww, stop that!--probably leave, ah, quickly. She likes the lobby a little too much." She raised her eyebrows, and Sish hit her on the chin with the top of her golden head.

[Tom Cooke]

Dzeqar’ameh • Dejai Point

Evening on the 33rd of Loshis, 2720

H
e clicked his teeth, raising an eyebrow. “In that case,” he muttered. He didn’t try to look past Cerise as she went through to her suite; nor’d he open the door, nor’d he follow her, though he rather thought – if this whole crate situation had already been sorted – some damage had already been done.

The thought of Sish all boxed up bothered him some way he didn’t know where to put. He leaned himself up against the wall outside, looking up and down the empty hall.

The gold phosphor was soft on the eyes, but he was already beginning to feel the thrum of a headache; it’d been awhile, he realized, since he’d eaten, too. He felt strangely empty-handed without Mircalla, as if he’d given over to her his purpose in coming, the only thing about this night that made the first lick of sense.

He was resting his head back against the smooth wood, trying not to listen too close. There was a thump, and a scoff, and the sound of a curse grated between teeth. A wince flickered across his face. His scalp prickled; he resisted the urge to reach up and touch it.

When she came back out, all he could look at was the squirming bundle of limbs in her arms, flashing gold. He was smiling widely before he could help it; when Cerise spoke, he looked up at her, past the pointy snout that was ramming itself against her jaw, and grinned.

“Good idea,” he said, and laughed again; it came easy as it’d come before, and he wasn’t sure where to put that, either.

She’d fixed her hair a little; it bobbed less, at least, on the way down the stairs, though the problem there was mostly wrangling Sish. There wasn’t much to say, with her occupied so and him holding all his breathlessness behind tight-pursed lips, holding his hand steady on the calypt and his chin raised.

But he looked; he tried to follow the trickling streams of hair over each other. Some thicker than others, some tight enough to pull the hair glossy-straight and some loose enough to spill fraying curls. It would hurt in the long run, if she kept manhandling it like like she was trying to choke a kov.

He mostly looked at his sandals, and at the smooth colorful tile on the steps. There was clinking and clattering and very soft laughter from the bar, now; he wasn’t sure how long he had waited – it hadn’t been long – but the hour had turned over as it always does, and he could smell now-familiar frying scents, hear the mingling of soft Mugrobi and Anaxi voices both.

He remembered well enough what she’d said about Sish and the lobby. There was a woman at the desk, now, and he caught the flaring of wide dark eyes as they moved briskly by. He kept up the pace, hems swishing round his ankles; Sish squirming and chittering on his other side, he flashed the concierge a bright smile.

He let out his breath finally on the way through the doors. “You were right,” he laughed. “Best she doesn’t discover the bar.”

The words tasted funny on his tongue. They’d slowed down, moving out through the gates and back to the quiet street in Dejai Point. The sky was much darker overhead, with the first stars pricking through the tapestry, barely visible over all the lights in Thul Ka.

I assume there are bills coming, he wanted to joke, looking over at her. The sight of her sharp, narrow profile sent another jolt through him, but it wasn’t so bad this time; something about the loose curl tickling the back of her neck, something about the drake. It was a different sort of feeling that sank through him, something like guilt and something like qalqa. He looked down at the walk, his smile fading.

“That was a steep enough fee,” he said, “from the precinct house, back in Bethas.” He looked over at her, up from under furrowed brows. “Should I know anything about that?”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Dzeqar’ameh, Dejai Point
Loshis 33, 2720 - Evening

While she had been inside, she had tucked Mircalla into her things. Carefully, wrapping it in a skirt she'd thought to wear--this seemed more important. For a moment she stared at it, wondering if it would have been better to take it back out and keep it with her. Like if the book was out of her sight, if they were freed of that excuse, something bad would happen.

Angry, Diana had said, and afraid. Cerise put the book in her luggage and closed the case.

Letting Sish out of her crate had been something of a relief. Cerise hated to leave her there, but she hated the idea of her flying off in a city she didn't know while Cerise was distracted by practice even more. One made Sish disgruntled and lonely; the other could lead to the miraan being lost or hurt, somewhere out of Cerise's reach. If they were at home, if she weren't already looking at a bright cushion with a few jagged marks in the silk, Cerise would have given her the whole run of the room. Sish wouldn't have liked that much either, but it would have been better.

Her father had laughed when she came back out, Sish thrashing around in her arms. Cerise found she was a little relieved, and she didn't know what she had been worried about. They headed back down the stairs as quickly as they could, and Sish chattered the whole way. More than once, that long feathered whip of a tail had hit one or both of them. Cerise was, after all, rather occupied with all her other limbs and could only contain so much.

The smell of frying things washed over her when they approached the lobby. Cerise had been prepared for a night to herself and hadn't really thought much about eating. Now that they were walking through it at this hour, she found she had more hunger than she would have said. He smiled at the woman behind the desk; Cerise caught her eye, but she didn't smile. They'd had that conversation already, and she rather thought it didn't bear repeating. Better to just leave quickly and solve the problem that way.

When the doors closed behind them, Cerise let her hold on Sish loosen. At once, the miraan launched herself out of the student's arms to land on a nearby tree, chattering angrily down at them both. "She would be a terrible drunk," Cerise agreed with a grin.

They moved on and Cerise kept half an eye on Sish as she followed along after. The sky was dark with the fullness of night now, but Dejai Point was bright enough she could keep that glint of gold in sight whenever she looked. It was still, Cerise thought grimly, too clocking hot.

"Ah. Yes. That." No guilt showed on her face, or in her field either. Because, of course, she felt none. The question was a fair one, and she might have expected it. That is, if she ever expected any sort of interest in her comings and goings at all. She still didn't. That he kept showing it remained confusing. Of course he asked about this one, though--the bail really had been quite high.

"Don't worry, I didn't murder anyone," she offered as a cheerful non-explanation. Although, she added to the inside of her head, she had at least hit someone. Most of it hadn't been her action, just her fault--her presence as catalyst. Her mistake. That she had fixed, as much as she could, with his money. Well, she thought, wasn't that fair? Maybe if he hadn't done what he had, threatened the godsdamn bar--the thing he couldn't, conveniently, remember--he would have saved himself some money in the long run.

She could have told him of course, that she'd done nothing but pay for it. That it hadn't been her in jail. She had his promise, his assurance, that he wouldn't interfere. In a hypothetical situation, at the time, where she ever saw Emiel again. At the time, she'd told him there was no chance and it didn't matter. At the time, that had been true. But no matter what strange thing had changed, in him and between them, she didn't trust that promise. She couldn't take that risk.

"So no. I don't know that you should." She shrugged, a look on her face daring him to press the point and see what happened.