[Closed] Like I am only a wall

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 13 Hamis, 2720
Ofi’owapaq, Three Flowers, Thul Ka

The skies opened up as he walked, and by the time Aremu made it into Ofi’owapaq he was dripping wet, every inch of him. He supposed the letter was soaked; he supposed it didn’t matter, much, really, as he hadn’t forgotten the words, or the promise he’d made.

“Is Ada’xa Chibugo pez Kadare available?” Aremu had bowed and offered greetings at the desk, and the human behind it watched him with flinty eyes.

“I cannot say,” the man said, evenly. There was a pause, and then, grudging, “ada’xa.”

Aremu bowed once more. “I shall wait,” he said. He went, and sat himself in one of the chairs. He was aware of the rain water dripping down his back, wet and desperately unpleasant, every inch of him soaked and heavy. He knew, too, that it was settling into the cushion beneath him, that droplets were tumbling down on the carpet beneath.

They tried once to remove him; Aremu politely refused to understand, and sat a little longer.

Chibugo, he thought he’d say, I need your help. I know I am a liar; I do not need you to believe me, only to help me, please. In all the years we crewed together – I do not think you would call me brother. Please; what have I ever asked of you? I do not need your belief, not even your trust; I have never pretended at what I am not. t If you ask me, I shall tell you; I do not know honesty, and I make no claims to it, but there is only me.

Even if I am not enough, there is only me.

He would beg, Aremu thought, sitting there, his face set deep into a frown, if he needed to. What was his pride? What claim did a man like he have to any such thing as pride? He had no honor; whatever pride he clung to, sitting here dripping wet, he should throw into the empty abyss inside him. He swallowed, silently, his throat moving. And if still it was not enough? He did not know what more he could offer.

There were footsteps up the stairs, and Aremu heard a distant sound like knocking.

I promised, Aremu thought he might say. Perhaps it should mean nothing to one such as me; I know what I do not have. I find that it means very much indeed, and I cannot do it alone. He rubbed his face with his hand, the prosthetic tucked beneath the edge of his leg; he pinched his forehead, and eased his hand down, and sat back, empty inside.

“Aremu!” Chibugo came down the stairs, grinning. He was shirtless, his braids loose over his shoulders, and his eyebrows were halfway up the forehead; there was whiskey, Aremu thought, on his breath, or maybe tsenid, or maybe both, neither fresh but sour and lingering from the night before. “Adame, what is it? I didn’t think to see you again before I left.”

Aremu stood; he was dripping wet still, and his chest rose and fell lightly with every breath. He knew he wasn’t quite smiling, a frown all through his forehead, pulling his face tight. “Chibugo,” he began, “I need your help.”

“Of course, poa’xa,” Chibugo’s face was serious, now, too. “Anything you need.” The galdor said. “Come, adame, you’re soaked; let’s get you some dry clothes.”

Morning, 16 Hamis, 2720
Brunnhold

It was no easier the third time than it had been the second, or the first. Aremu crossed beneath the walls in the early morning, and did not dare look up at the height of them. He didn’t think, this time, to imagine throwing himself from the top into the waters below in a desperate bid for freedom, or if he did, he did not linger on it.

He found the tree, as he’d found it before; he climbed the branches and tied a handkerchief, one-handed, and pulled it tight.

Aremu eased back down, then, and drew back, out of sight, listening until the sound of footsteps had faded away. He went, then, to wait at the bench, to sit beneath the cradling branches, as long as he needed to.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

16th of Hamis, 2720 - Just Before Midday | Brunnhold

What had she been expecting, sending off that letter?

Nothing, really. She hadn't thought, only written. Carefully re-written the address on the envelope, because Aremu had given her another. A desperate and thoughtless action. Part of her hoped he never saw it, because she didn't know what it was that she wanted to happen. In all the weeks since, she had time to feel regret. To second-guess and to doubt, anxiety creeping up and choking her.

If he wrote her back to tell her that he could not help, that would be enough. Not to take away the fear, but she would know that she had tried what limited means she had at her disposal and there was something in that.

She hadn't told anyone. She didn't know who to tell, or what to say. Fionn, maybe--but she was afraid, thinking of what her sister had almost done. Would she have hurt him? Aurelie wanted to think not. She wanted, too, to think that her sister wouldn't have hurt her. That she didn't know what Ana had started to cast meant that she couldn't say that with any surety, either.

Aremu's letter came somewhere after she sent her short and desperate note out; too soon, she knew, for the two to be connected. Wishes, he'd written, for her health and her happiness. Descriptions of a city she had never and would never see, and they made no sense to her at all. That had seemed appropriate, and she had very nearly laughed. Aurelie later had one of the candies, and everything in front of her blurred. Sour, but she liked them very much. She would have to write and--

--Ah.

In all the days after, Ana did not return. Aurelie didn't know if that made her grateful or more afraid.

Hamis came in with rain, and the rain stayed. The kitchens had been busy, as they were always busy. Aurelie worked and nobody asked why she was so quiet. Nobody, she thought, even really knew. She could fade away and it wouldn't matter at all. Was that a hurt or a comfort? It rained, and more than once Aurelie stood outside and let it fall over her until not a stitch of her was dry.

The morning of the sixteenth had been the same as every morning. Before and after her birthday. Before and after her sister--they all blurred together, grey and soft. As they all would, with time. She walked from the kitchen, the morning's preparations finished and the afternoon's yet to begin. She turned her head. And she stopped, dead in her tracks. Aurelie turned from the window, from that bright scrap so sodden with rain she had nearly missed it, and she ran.

She hadn't been quiet. It was difficult to be quiet in a garden when your every step squelched underfoot. She could have been more so, assuredly. The whole way hadn't been run, of course. Common sense caught her enough to stop that. But she walked with quickness and purpose, and before long she was in that garden, walking to that bench.

What had she been expecting?

Not this.

Not her friend, sitting there, in a place she could not imagine him wanting to go. Again. Because she had written, there he was. She stood, and she stared, and she didn't know what to say. Water dripped from her hair and onto her shoulders, even though she stood under the shelter of branches.

"Good morning," she managed. She was, truly, otherwise quite at a loss.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 16 Hamis, 2720
Brunnhold

Aremu had found the bench, easily enough. He was not so gifted with directions; his first visit, he had not been sure he would find it at all. It was a different sort of purpose – of duty – which had driven him then. He had made no such promises; he had never pledged to Uzoji to look after Aurelie, nor to hold together his affairs. The other man would never have asked such of him, and Aremu knew he would not have known how to answer, if he had.

No, Aremu thought, standing and looking down at the bench; it was dripping rain here, too, and he had nothing like a suitable coat for Hamis in Brunnhold. His clothing was cut lightly, for Thul Ka rain which dried in the sudden bright flashes of sun between the storms, and he was lucky that he had anything at all dark enough for Anaxi custom. He was soaked through, and he had little expectation of drying soon.

He knew what he would have said, if he let himself know. He would have told Uzoji he was not worthy; he would not have wanted to promise, because he knew how much he lacked. But he had known, then, that this, too, had been left unfinished by the other man, and it had become something Aremu could do to esteem his memory.

Aremu glanced up at the trees; the rain was heavy enough here that water droplets slid through the thick canopy of leaves, sat heavy on the wooden bench below. The branches, too, were damp, but he knew he could climb then, if he needed to. His hand flexed, and gripped the fabric of his pants, and he turned and sat on the edge of the bench, beneath the shade.

There had been no time to send word; there was no method which could have reached her before him. Tsuqeqachye’ki was faster than any passenger carrier, and faster, too, than a mail ship would have been, with all the sorting on either end, and Chibugo had been prepared to leave that same day. He could only hope that she would see the handkerchief; he could only hope that she would come.

And if she did, Aremu thought, looking down at the hand in his lap and the wooden one beside it, he didn’t want her to come to an empty bench. He knew it for a risk – at any moment, someone might come and see him sitting there. He knew, too, that he might be here all day, until dark and perhaps even after. Whatever it was which had made her send that letter – whatever it was which had frightened her, for he thought he could feel the fear in the shaky letters – it might already be too late.

I could not have done better, he wanted to tell her. If he never got the chance, he knew it wouldn’t matter.

With the rain on the leaves above, with no sound but the heavy shushing of it all around and the pattering of droplets, there was no way to know the hour. Aremu did not bother with a pocketwatch, nor to try and count the passage of the minutes. He sat, and if he knew time it was by the rhythms of the rain, by the droplets which seeped through, slowly, and tumbled down to splash on his damp clothing, to trickle down the back of his neck. There was nothing like drying in this damp, steamy place, but he did not shiver.

He heard footsteps before he saw anyone. He did not move, sitting there, still, for all that he knew it might be anyone. But a flash of blue cloth passed beneath the leaves, and she stopped, there, half distant, staring wide-eyed at him. He’d forgotten, or maybe he hadn’t, and she’d changed; he couldn’t have said. There was something different about her from the Aurelie in his memory.

Had she always looked so small?

“Good morning,” Aremu said. He stood up from the bench; he didn’t know what else to do, so he bowed, and then he went to her, and stopped, and did not touch her. He took a deep breath. He had not dared to think so far ahead; to plan for this moment would have been too painful, if it had not come to pass.

Aremu swallowed, and said the only thing he could think of. “I came,” he said, quietly, damp and dripping with rain, the occasional droplets tumbling from the hem of his coat, sliding off the edge of his chin or down the line of his nose. As fast as I could, he didn't say; I'm sorry it wasn't sooner, he didn't say either. “Can I help?”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

16th of Hamis, 2720 - Morning | Brunnhold

What an absolutely ridiculous thing to have started with--good morning? As if he had come for a visit, and not because she had sent a letter she didn't think through enough. Because she had wasted his time. She simply didn't know what else to say. An explanation, probably, would have been helpful. But where to begin?

Ridiculous and mannerless--Aremu stood, and he bowed. Only then did Aurelie think to do the same, movements jerky and scattering water from a nearby shrub when she knocked into it. The water seeped into her shoes, right down to her socks. Aurelie looked up, and then back down and away.

"You did," she agreed, senselessly. She hadn't expected--she hadn't thought. He was very damp, dripping water everywhere. Aurelie frowned, and shifted her weight. "How long...? It's been raining, you must be... Oh!"

She was stalling, of course. Aurelie knew she was. But she still didn't know where to begin, or how to answer the question. At least this she knew the solution to. At least she thought she did. She fished around in the pocket of her pinafore, unthinking, and pulled out a handkerchief. Only to realize as she did so that it too was wet--she hadn't avoided any of the rain either. She had a cloak, for the weather. It was hung up neatly in her room, by the door. Useless.

"Oh." Aurelie bit her lip. She had held her arm out, but she put it back down now. Worried at the damp cloth with a crease between her brows. Somehow she couldn't quite bring herself to look up. There was no sound but the rain, and the sloshing of water when she shifted from foot to foot.

"I don't know," she confessed. A hand came to tuck her hair behind one ear, only to pull it back forward. And again, and again. Her nails were so red now, she noticed. The fingers around them were irritated. Aurelie quickly put the hand back down. "I didn't think--I wasn't sure... I hadn't thought this far ahead."

She hadn't thought Aremu would actually come here, she didn't say. Not because of him, but because she would never have expected that of anyone. She still wasn't even sure why she had asked. Aurelie looked up at last.

"It's my sister. Ana--I think I... mentioned her. Before. She... I..." She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't. She had finished her crying over this weeks ago. Hadn't she? Aurelie didn't look down again, but her eyes were bright. She didn't know yet how to carry on. Aurelie was standing; because she didn't know what else to do, she moved to sit instead on that metal bench and all its flaking paint. Water made it through the leaves, but she was already soaked through. There would be questions, she thought helplessly. She just didn't know how to care.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 16 Hamis, 2720
Brunnhold

Aurelie was soaking wet; it was the second thing he noticed, after the smallness of her. It wasn’t just her size; he had remembered, at least, that she was short and rather slight. He didn’t remember her seeming quite so small; he felt as if she had pulled back into herself, as if the rain had shrunk her down, somehow.

He didn’t really think it was the rain. He didn’t know what it was.

Aremu was frowning; he knew he was frowning. “It doesn’t matter,” he began to say. Aurelie offered him a handkerchief as wet as he was, and Aremu looked down at it. He thought of smiling, but he couldn’t bear it. He almost reached to take the handkerchief, even if he couldn’t see what to do with it, just to try to help. Aurelie lowered her hand before he could, and stood worrying at the cloth with both hands.

She was playing with her hair, tucking a strand behind her ear and worrying it free. Aremu felt an utterly absurd desire to tuck it away for her, and on the heels of it a sharp wave of shame; she wouldn’t want that, he was sure. He’d touched her shoulder, once, but he knew things were different between men and women in Anaxas, and the sort of casual gesture that might go unremarked at home might not be so casual here.

And when was brushing someone’s hair back casual? The shame pricked at him all the more intensely.

Aurelie wasn’t sure. Aremu nodded, slowly, watching her. Her sister, she said, the name Ana like a sharp pant of breath. She went past him and sat on the bench.

It’s wet, Aremu wanted to say, absurdly; but he didn’t know what he could do about it, his jacket too soaked to be any help, and it wasn’t as if she wasn’t already soaked through.

Aremu went, too, and sat; he put himself on her right, his whole left hand soft on the leg of his pants. He hadn’t thought to put his prosthetic away, when he stood earlier; it tucked against his right leg, now, out of sight.

“You’ve mentioned her,” Aremu said cautiously. He was full of questions; he was swarming with them. What happened? Did someone hurt you? Why did you send for me? What happened with Ana? Aurelie was hunched up, drawn into herself, and Aremu frowned over at her, looking down.

He wasn’t sure how to deal with it; with Niccolette, he knew to just sit through the silences, because in time it would all spill out. He’d never had a sister; he’d spent his boyhood with other boys, largely, and he’d never had many female friends, and he felt utterly lost.

And if she had written him because she was alone, because she had no one to talk to and could not bear it? He had come not knowing, Aremu thought.

Carefully, his hand shifted, and hovered over hers. “May I?” Aremu asked softly. If she let him, he would take it, carefully, the calluses on his palm and fingers a match for hers, for all they had them in different places. He didn’t squeeze her hand or stroke his thumb over it; he just held it, lightly. I’m here, he tried to say with it. For all that his skin was wet with the rain, at least he was warm.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Aremu said softly, as if they had all the time in the world, as if each moment wasn’t stolen and dangerous. He smiled at her, as best as he could, although it did not reach the worry in his eyes and the frown on his forehead.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

16th of Hamis, 2720 - Morning| Brunnhold

Aurelie had found some kind of steadiness, in the past few weeks. Or at least she thought she had. An approximation of steadiness, which for her was often more or less the same. If she slept less than she had before, at least she got a head start on work in the morning. So really, Aurelie thought with an edge of the hysterical, the University should thank Ana--Aurelie had never been quite so productive.

Aremu had frowned when she held out that sodden handkerchief, which was sensible and normal of him. Having offered it at all was not, of course. Aurelie should have thought--she should have thought a lot of things. Thought about just what she was asking when she sent that letter, perhaps. Thought about what would happen after she left this bench, because she was soaked through.

She hadn't meant to force him to sit with her when she sat on the bench. It was just that she didn't think she could stand any longer. If she was going to tell him what had happened--and he had come all this way, based on so little, so Aurelie thought she owed at least that much--she didn't think she could do it standing. But Aremu came to sit next to her, and if he weren't just as wet as she was already she might have apologized. Aurelie glanced at him, and then away again.

Aurelie nodded. She couldn't remember now quite what she had said, but she didn't think it had been much. She had never really told anyone all that Ana had said when she came to visit--a year ago, Aurelie realized suddenly. It had been a year of this worry in the back of her mind, the pressure that she didn't understand the source of or know how to mitigate.

They sat in an awkward, damp silence. It was unbearable, in a way. And in another, she found it more bearable than such silence with herself alone. The leaves were still not quite fully unfurled on the branches above them; they would not be until Roalis, really. Just enough of a canopy to keep the worst of it off their faces, but not enough to keep them dry. Aurelie studied them, in lieu of anything better to do with her attention.

Next to her she felt him shift; the hand that hovered over hers was a surprise. She blinked, and she thought to say no. It really didn't seem appropriate. But none of this was appropriate, and she was so tired. Maybe it would make her feel better, she thought somewhat optimistically. Maybe that was what she really needed, and not the enormity of what she knew had perhaps asked for with her letter. Aurelie didn't speak, but she nodded.

Nobody, she thought, really touched her in such a casual way. Not to be friendly, and certainly not to comfort. Fionn maybe counted--but there were so many things tangled there that Aurelie didn't feel quite sure if she thought about it for too long. And besides him, there was only...

...There was only Ana.

What a pathetic thing she was, her voice coming out as a strangled choking. All her resolve undone by a soft voice and a warm hand. By the patient ear of someone who, absurdly, had decided to be her friend. Despite it being of no possible benefit.

"It's very silly. I shouldn't have--I'm sorry if I wasted your time or..." Her other hand curled to a fist and she hunched down as much as she could. "I'm afraid I don't know where to begin. I will--try." Aurelie smiled without any joy in it; she supposed she had meant it to be reassuring.

She picked her way rather slowly through the explanation, offering it in fits and starts. More than she had said before, though she started in a similar place. Ana had come that first time, she explained, and she said why. Brushing over the reality of it without lingering, keeping her hand down and away from her throat. Most importantly, she mentioned Ana's request. When she got to that part, she drew her hand away; somehow, even after all of this, she still felt ashamed that this was nothing she wanted. How stupid that must look.

She mentioned, too, that they'd fought about it--she was careful here not to give the full context, and still felt strange about meeting Niccolette under such circumstances. The whole of it might not have been completely coherent, but she thought she had left in all the important parts.

Until, of course, she came to the end. "I'm afraid of her, I think. I've never--she... There is something unreasonable, and I am afraid of it. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do, so I. Well. I can't let her..." Aurelie stopped, for probably the hundredth time, and she took a breath. There was a point, she thought, but she couldn't quite tease it out. "Like I said, it's all... very silly. I'm sorry." Rain dripped off the end of her nose, and she looked to the side, towards Aremu.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 16 Hamis, 2720
Brunnhold

Her fingers felt cold against his. Aremu had waited until she nodded before taking her small hand in his, and afterwords he just sat, holding it. Her hand was as damp as his; it should have been unpleasant.

Her voice was tight and miserable as she began. Aremu listened, turning to watch her, just a little. She drew her hand away when she spoke of Ana, or rather when she spoke of Ana asking her to leave Brunnhold and come with her. Aremu didn’t try to stop her; he left his hand on the wet bench between them, optimistically, as if she might take it again. She didn’t.

It wasn’t until she came to the end of it that she looked at him. There was rain dripping down her face, or at least Aremu thought it rain; he couldn’t quite be sure. She seemed to have drawn further into herself as she spoke, if such a thing were possible. He thought, absurdly, that it was if she were a balloon and all this the only thing which inflated her, and as if he had caused it to slowly, steadily leak out. He didn’t know what was left behind, what else there was to hold her up with it gone.

“It doesn’t sound silly to me,” Aremu said, quietly, gently. He wasn’t sure if he was calling her a liar; he was grateful, briefly, oddly, that she wasn’t Mugrobi, because he didn’t think she would take it that way. He was grateful, too, that she did not have to sit analyzing whether her own feelings were a lie before she spoke them, and he thought they even more odd.

I can’t let her, Aurelie had said. Aremu wasn’t sure he understood, or maybe he did. It wasn’t a choice between gating and freedom; it was a choice between gating and a half-life, with a person who could see only her emptiness. Put that way, he thought, he could see her choice, though he did not know what he himself would do. Hadn’t he thought he would throw himself from the wall to the water, whatever the odds?

Or was it fear of her diablerie that kept her here? She had called it protection, once, a year ago. Was she dangerous? Did she know? Was it not only herself that she feared for, but her sister?

Why now? Aremu didn’t think he understood that, either. But she was afraid; he could see it on every inch of her pale, tense face, in the dark tired bruises beneath her eyes.

For all she had said, there was still an enormous amount he didn’t understand. Aremu felt as if he were staring at some huge machine, all its parts scattered on the ground, one handed and with no notion where even a single one fit.

He took a deep breath. Aurelie had been looking at him. Why did you write me? He wanted to ask. I thought - he remembered the half-formed plans he had made with Chibugo, and set them aside. There was no space in this for his own feelings; they did not matter in the least.

He tried to think. Ana was Niccolette’s friend; Aurelie knew that. Perhaps she wished him to speak to Niccolette on her behalf, and for Niccolette to speak to Ana. He contemplated the idea with a tight ache in his stomach, full of doubts.

Professor Harper, he thought of saying; if you tell Harper, I imagine he can keep her away from you. Perhaps. Aremu knew that he did not know, but he thought the man would have at least tried.

But Aurelie had written him, Aremu thought, and the weight of it seemed to crush the breath from his lungs. Not Niccolette, not Harper, not any galdor. Him. He had come here, through the walls once more, and here he was. What were these suggestions but shirking? He was the one who had promised her help; hadn’t he meant it?

“What do you want?” It was the only question that mattered, really; he put a soft, firm emphasis on the you, as he asked it. Aremu looked at Aurelie, doing his best to meet her eyes. He knew he was frowning; he couldn’t seem to help it. His hand still sat on the cold metal bench between them, fingers curled lightly against it, as useless as he was.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

16th of Hamis, 2720 - Morning | Brunnhold

There had been a knot somewhere in her heart that she hadn't known she tied until she finished her long, ridiculous story and Aremu told her it didn't sound silly. She should have felt worse, Aurelie thought. If it didn't sound silly, that meant that it wasn't something so easy to brush aside. That maybe there had been some reason to write. If the problem was her own mind, she could have solved it on her own too. Well, maybe not solved. Aurelie had yet to figure out the trick for that one.

There were other people maybe that she could have asked for help before she wrote her shaking, vague letter. She'd not thought of them until after. Professor Moore, maybe, or even Niamh--they both, at least, had more than she did at their disposal. But she would have had to tell them, first. Aurelie hadn't asked them, she hadn't even tried. Hadn't so much as mentioned it. They were good people, and they were kind to her--but they were neither of them friends, and it had been hard enough to spill out her disjointed story now.

The list of people she could call "friend" was short, and a majority of it sat next to her on the bench. Not silly. So what, then, could be done about it?

As she thought that, as if he read her mind, Aremu spoke again. Aurelie looked up, and he was frowning down at her. He frowned, she remembered, quite a lot. It was comforting, in a strange way, that she would remember that much from so brief a meeting and have held on to it. What could be done wasn't the right question--he'd asked the right one, and that was it too. She didn't trust almost anyone else to care about that question much at all.

"A lot of things," Aurelie said automatically. An answer she hadn't known was true until then. If she'd been asked a year ago, what would she have said? Not that, she thought. Until recently, Aurelie thought she would have said she wanted very little. But that wasn't true, and it hadn't been true. She had wanted things then, too--she simply knew better than to think that it mattered. Meeting his eyes was hard, but she tried.

"I want... I want things to be different. I want for her not to have done that, but that's not--I want it to matter what I want. Nngh," Aurelie scrubbed at her eyes. "I'm sorry, that's not what you were asking. I haven't slept well, that's all. I'm sorry, I'll try to--I'm sorry." Aurelie shuddered another breath, and without looking took his hand again. The hand of a friend, she reminded herself. Who wrote her letters and answered her questions and seemed, as far as she could tell, to actually care.

"I'm afraid I will hurt her," she started. "And I am afraid that I can't trust that she won't hurt--other people, around me. I thought--being here kept people I love--safe. From whatever I--" Aurelie shrugged, helplessly. What she couldn't say strangled her.

Aurelie would only ever hurt her sister by accident, a moment she could neither predict nor control. Until last month, she would have thought Lilliana the same. There was a cold, spreading feeling in all of her limbs as she knew that, now, for a lie. And not just her. If Ana had been willing to do that to her, someone she loved--and Aurelie knew, though it seemed impossibly stupid and naive, that Ana loved her still--what would she do to someone else, if she thought it best? To Fionn, most of all?

"I w-want to... N-no I think I--I might n-need to... Leave. Here." There. She had said it, out loud--her voice had shaped the words and put them where some waiting ear could receive them. Her head swam. What a stupid thing to say--but it was the only solution she knew. To this problem, to all of them. Hardly a solution at all. "I'm sorry, that's stupid. That's not a solution, is it? I just don't... know what else..."

If you have a better idea, she begged without speaking, please tell me what it is. Because this is a stupid one, and it's the only one I have.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 16 Hamis, 2720
Brunnhold

Not to have done that, Aremu thought, his frown deepening slightly. He listened, trying to make sense of thoughts he thought Aurelie couldn’t even disentangle herself, as if he could sort through them, somehow, take them in the hand he had and lay them into an order that made sense. This one he marked, somewhere, in his mind, like a bit of pipe colored in bright red instead of black. Not to have asked? She asked, Aremu thought, grimly, a year ago; you were anxious about her, last Dentis, but not afraid.

There is something unreasonable, Aurelie had said.

Don’t apologize, he wanted to say, please. He didn’t; he worried that if he spoke, he’d stem the hesitant flow of words tumbling from her lips, and he thought all that either of them could do, just now, was for her to keep talking. He kept his hand between them, even though he knew better, by now, than to think she’d want to take it.

She did pause, even though he hadn’t spoken, and Aremu waited through it, even though the seconds crept by with unbearable slowness, and it was all he could do not to speak. It won’t help, he reminded himself; you asked her what she wants. That’s what matters, here and now.

Aremu’s frown tightened on his forehead as Aurelie went on. Afraid she would hurt her sister; he nodded, slowly, because he had learned something about the risks that all men and women took of hurting one another, and he didn’t know that he thought, anymore, that the diablerie was so much worse than the rest. I can’t trust, he thought, arranging these words next to ‘not to have done that’ that she won’t hurt other people.

Leave here, Aurelie said, and it was a little louder, and a little firmer, than the other words had been. She stopped afterwards, and Aremu had thought she would take it back. She didn’t, not quite, or so it seemed to him; it seemed to him as if she wanted to take them back, but couldn’t bring herself to it.

Aremu took a deep breath. “I can’t see anything made better by your being here,” he said, very quietly. He swallowed. “But that’s me, and not you. If you wish me to speak to Professor Harper on your behalf, or speak to your sister directly,” he did not suggest Niccolette; he could not quite bring himself to it, “I shall.” He tried to smile at her; he didn’t think it did much, compared to the heavy weight of the frown pulling at his face.

Aremu went on; he didn’t know if he was still breathing, or if that one breath had sustained him, still, this long, through these words and the rest of what he wished to say. He didn’t dare stop for another deep breath, and when the words emerged, he knew he didn’t need to.

“If you wish me to take you away from here,” Aremu said, quietly, firmly, with all the intensity with which he’d promised, seven months ago, to come if called, “I shall.”

I shall try, the Mugrobi wanted to say; I shall do my best, he could have said, instead. He didn’t know if it was a lie; he didn’t know, really, that he could take her away from here. But somehow it seemed the worse lie to qualify, to be precise, when what he really wanted her to believe was that he could. He wanted her to believe it, even if he didn’t; perhaps it would have torn at something inside him, had there been anything to tear.

He didn’t look away; it hurt, but he kept his gaze on Aurelie, with her hands far apart from his, and her shoulders hunched, and her small face tired, from the strain, he understood, of carrying a burden far too heavy alone. I know that, too, he wanted to tell her. I know what it’s like.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

16th of Hamis, 2720 - Morning | Brunnhold

She had run out of things to say eventually. Spun out until she had reached some kind of conclusion. Aurelie realized that she hadn't actually told him what had happened, in as many words as it required, on her birthday. My sister tried to cast on me, she imagined herself saying, I don't know what she was trying to do, because she stopped and I ran away. There wasn't any way for her to lay it out like that; she was grateful that Aremu didn't ask. Just listened with that frown on his face until she had finished as much as she could be.

"Don't!" she gasped, sharply, when he offered to speak to her sister. Or the professor, on her behalf. That wasn't the part of it that made her turn, eyes wide. "Thank you, I mean. I just. I wouldn't want--you..." Aurelie shook her head. She was surprised, somehow, at the strength of her objection.

Take you away from here. Said quietly, just the way he'd promised to come if she asked--and he had. That had seemed no less impossible to her at the time. And yet she went still thinking of it. Was that what she wanted, really? She had said so. And here he was, offering to do it.

Aurelie looked up at the leaves, and then turned her head to look at the walls that surrounded the little garden. Dim in the distance, made dimmer by the curtain of rain. Eleven years, she thought. And she had thought, for most of them, that at least she was safe from what she was. But people had died, barely over one year ago now. Being here had not saved them from that. And being here had not saved any of them from all the other things she was afraid of.

She did not, she realized, want to grow old here. To die here, forgetting what it looked like outside of these walls. And she didn't want to do it at Briarwood Hall, either. To trade one set of walls for another--at least here, it didn't hurt so much when all anyone saw was what she lacked.

Would they, those few people she loved, be safer without her? She tugged on the bracelet at her wrist; the weight of the locket at her neck held her down. Aurelie turned back. Looked up. This was a foolish thing to agree to. Not anything like she would normally do. She tried, didn't she? To be good? To stay in the rules, as much as she could? All of that seemed to have gotten her very little. Certainly not anything she wanted; what little good she had, she wasn't supposed to.

"How?"