[Closed] Chance Encounters (Tom)

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719 | Late Morning
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

The young woman couldn’t say why her mother’s words had upset her so much. Although she hadn’t been merely upset but sickened as well. It was difficult to quantify what was going on in her head, it didn’t feel entirely conscious but rather as if something hovered under the surface. Then again, it might not be something that thought could measure but rather something more abstract, a gut feeling, something instinctual. Had it been her mother’s words or something behind them that had triggered her gut-roiling response? She didn’t know and she was hardly in the place to analyse what had done this to her, not when she was trying to desperately cling to what little breakfast she’d managed to consume. Well, that and she was trying to set one foot in front of the other without tripping over.

She didn’t want to cry and she didn’t want to panic, but both sensations warred within her as the desire to vomit struggled within her. Actually both emotional responses were entirely as a result of that nausea because she was scared, really quite scared and she didn’t want to be throwing up right now in a strange place with no one to support her, no one to provide comfort while she felt certain that she was going to die.

Drezda had felt the brief tangle of their fields but hadn’t registered the significance of that, or anticipated that Tom would follow her. Obviously she sensed him before he caught her elbow but she couldn’t turn to confront him, couldn’t do much of anything to react to him honestly without risking redecorating her surroundings, probably the raen’s shoes as well. There might have been a tiny bit of puzzlement, even in her discombobulated state, about the field that approached before he caught her elbow but the Hoxian wouldn’t have been able to place the cause of her confusion. It was just Tom with his broken field, same as it had been for months except that it felt different somehow.

She shrugged off the tingle of intuition, as she had so often done when her passive servants unsettled her on some level. The young woman was good at ignoring things that didn’t make logical sense at the best of time, but she had other concerns right now.

“Tom! Mm...” she managed weakly, not able to keep talking for fear that that would be the undoing of her.

It was so hot, a furnace heat within her body that made her want to faint. If it hadn’t been Roalis then she would have known for certain that it went hand in hand with her physical condition, a further indicator of what was coming, whereas now she couldn’t be sure. She wanted to strip off the thin layers that she was wearing, to take off her skin if it would let that heat dissipate and give her some relief from how faint she was feeling, how dizzy, how sick.

Her pride was nowhere to be found and decorum was the last thing from her mind as well as she allowed the man to lead her to the door of the water closet, only detaching him once they were there so that he wouldn’t inadvertently hamper her movements. The door she left open, more concerned with running cool water, turning the faucet and allowing the stream to flow for a few seconds before dipping her hands in it. Weak, almost boneless fingers pressed together to form a less porous receptacle as she brought the liquid up and splashed it in her face, panting as she waited for the heat and the nausea to recede.

“D-D-Don’t leave m-m-me!” she pleaded, her voice small and high, the young woman on the edge of sobbing as she gripped the edge of the wash basin. She had no plans of getting sick there but then she had no plans to get sick anywhere if she could avoid it.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Try to do everything slowly, focus more on the slowness than the depth of the breath, that’s what she had to do. The diplomat had to not panic. She couldn’t start panicking. Honestly, there were so many things that she didn’t want to do right now and it was a struggle to keep them all from happening. She didn’t want to moan or weep or whimper as her body shook like an aspen in the wind, shoulders hunched forward.

Drezda shut her eyes, praying silently but fervently to the Circle, especially to Bash whose aspect she wished to embody. The mountain was strong, firm, grounded; it didn’t fall apart at the slightest thing. She made no movement to shut the door, never indicated that she wanted it shut in fact, especially given that she wanted Tom’s presence to persist. If he wanted to he could cram in here with her, although it would neither be comfortable nor seemly. In truth, it was what she wanted, not wanting any space between them, not when he could be rubbing her back and telling her that everything would be all right. In this moment, she would accept such a touch from anyone be they galdor or human, stranger or friend, so long as she wasn’t alone.

“I’m s-sorry,” she whined, feeling something shift inside her. The poor woman didn’t know what she was apologising for precisely. She staggered from the basin to the lavatory, falling to her knees before she released a sound between a croak and a retching. Her body heaved briefly and then her shoulders slumped as nothing more happened, the young woman exhaling in relief. She was clammy now, still trembling but now her skin seemed icy to her as she passed a hand over her damp forehead. Drezda rose slowly.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, the reason seeming more apparent to her this time. What a fool she must seem, how pathetic. She’d almost fallen to pieces at the prospect of throwing up, had fallen to pieces in the first place because of her mother’s words.

“It’s not you. It’s not what you are, not-” she waved a hand as if that would do all the talking for her. “Just the way she- I th-th-think I like them less the m-m-more I hear. The Hexxos, I mean. It just sounds so… so…”

The diplomat shuddered and it had nothing to do with her clammy state.

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

T
om could see a thin sheen of sweat on Drezda’s brow, and her pale cheeks looked flushed. He cast one glance back at Ksjta, seated alone at their table, but there wasn’t time or space to think of it. It was easier by far, with his arm through Drezda’s, to focus on leading her tottering to the water closet. In this, leastways, he could be solid. The rush of words from Ksjta’s painted lips were unfolding themselves in the back of his mind, and he was terrified to understand them.

It was quieter as they tucked themselves into the shady little alcove underneath the stairs. Drezda disentangled herself from him and went immediately to the half-open door. He let her; he looked after her for a moment, standing just outside the closet, then glanced back over the common room, then looked back at her.

He started to say something, but it was barely audible over the splash of water in the basin. His brow furrowed. She was throwing cool water over her face, and then gripping the sides of the washbasin, the knuckles of her thin hands bone-white.

Tom hesitated, half-turning; he thought to leave her to her business, being the sort of business it was. He wasn’t sure where he’d go, being honest. He reckoned he didn’t have much of a choice but to find the table with Ksjta again. He thought of the half-eaten crusty bread and cheese and cold cuts, and none of it seemed too appetizing, now, despite his growing headache.

Drezda’s voice yanked him back. It was more of a whimper than a plea; her voice was high and thin. Tom wasn’t sure what to say, but his brow furrowed. He couldn’t see her face, but he could see the thin shape of her bent back through the fabric of her blouse, her breath sharp and uneven. She looked about to weep. “I won’t,” he promised, a little hoarsely. His glance flicked over the tight dark space again. He didn’t know if he was supposed to go to her, or let her be, or —

With an abrupt, awkward nod, Tom leaned himself up against the wall just outside. I’m sorry, he heard her say weakly from inside. “Don’t worry about it,” he fumbled back, even quieter and more than a little uselessly. He heard a grumble and a gag, a dry empty croak. A wince flickered across his face; he shut his eyes a moment.

When he opened them, he found them settled on the golly lass in taffeta across the common room. He sucked at a tooth. She was peering curiously at him, and at the shaded alcove beside him.

Tom frowned at her, narrowing his eyes. She absorbed herself fair quick in her paper again. Crossing his arms, Tom rested his head back against the wall, but he didn’t shut his eyes again. He skimmed what he could see of the common room, but he met nobody’s eyes.

Another apology drew him back to Drezda. He heard a shuffle, and he couldn’t hear any more gagging, so he turned back, moving to stand in the doorway. Drezda’d gathered herself back to her feet, but she still looked like shit, he thought; despite the carefully-applied powder, her eyes looked a pina puffy.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tom repeated, this time a little firmer. He uncrossed his arms, studying her face as she spoke.

His frown deepened. He saw the shivers run through her; he knew them for what they were, he thought. He was touched, still, at her reassurance.

He nodded. “No,” he said softly, “no, I think I understand. Hells.” He stepped a little over the threshold — he wasn’t sure he ought to, but he did anyway — he reached in and touched her arm, gentle-like, to guide her back out of the closet and into the alcove, if she’d let him. “It sounds — uh — I understand.”

Biting his lip, he looked down at the floor, at the line where the shadows of the stairwell met the sharp morning light that trickled in through the windows across the way. The sight bothered him, though he couldn’t’ve said why; he couldn’t shake it. Everything bothered him. Despite Drezda’s reassurance, he didn’t want to look her in the eye. What you are, she’d said. What I am. Tom let the words settle through him, shutting his eyes.

“I don’t know, Drez. I don’t much like them, either. And I don’t much like that I’m – tied to them, in a way, whether I like it or not.” With a sigh, he managed to look up at her. He offered her a smile; it was a grim smile, and it didn’t last long. “The Vessels… it’s awfully young, to ask somebody to make a decision like that.” He met her eyes, then, and hesitated. “You don’t have to answer, and I won’t ask again,” he said more gently. “But what’s going on here?”

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719 | Late Morning
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

Tom kept some distance between them but he promised he wouldn’t leave and he kept his word. She’d known he was still nearby without having to look, his porven overlapping somewhat with her fully expanded field; she had been in no position to maintain polite restraint. Only now that her crisis was over and she was able to look at him did she realise that he had kept enough distance to allow her to retain some dignity. Apparently, he didn’t realise that she didn’t have any left, not anymore, certainly not with him. In truth, the diplomat had probably lost what dignity she had back in Loshis when she’d vomited in her lap in front of him. Actually, everything about their last encounter at her house had been undignified, everything he’d seen, everything she’d said and done but it was sweet that he was trying. It was an illusion that anything about her could be dignified in his presence.

As she got unsteadily to her feet, the young woman was aware that he’d come closer, filling most of the narrow doorway, shielding her from view — perhaps only unintentionally. Drezda found herself scrutinising him, searching for judgment that probably should have been there or pity, which was perhaps understandable, but both things that she hoped not to find in his gaze; she didn’t find them there. If anything, he seemed more concerned and sympathetic towards the Hoxian, and the corner of her mouth twitched up, amused in spite of the situation because he studied her as intently as she studied him. So like her to show mirth at a time like this — gallows humour.

A hand found the back of her head, fingers probing carefully to see if the knot of her hair had been undone or strands displaced but she appeared to have held up well, at least in terms of appearance, which was something in her favour. If it hadn’t been for the tears in her mother’s eyes, she might have thought that her acceptable external appearance wouldn’t be enough, not given the circumstances she’d departed under, emotions clearly fraying. However, in this instance, she thought she’d get a pass; Ksjta Tzacks could hardly judge her on this occasion. The thought of her mother sent another shiver through her, mind skittering away from something that it did not yet want to face, the diplomat allowing certain thoughts to slide back into the shadows where they belonged—where she wished they could stay.

The raen drew nearer, offering a gently guiding hand, which she accepted, albeit she didn’t make any move to leave the alcove. It might be strange to onlookers but she didn’t have a pressing desire to be back in full view of everyone’s curious eyes. Any such display would have drawn looks but the fact that she was Hoxian and evidently showing something that her people weren’t known for must make her a fascinating subject indeed. As if her people were actually devoid of emotion! Of course, it wasn’t them that she wanted to avoid, or not just them. Drezda Ecks was not yet ready to return to that table to sit across from her mother and act as if nothing had happened. Oh, she might try to tell herself that nothing had happened beyond her own emotional outburst but she had felt the undercurrents, had had suspicions form and solidify while she sat there, no matter how much she might want to deny it.

The poet’s daughter suspected things.

She didn’t know what to say to Tom, didn’t know how to express what she was feeling without actually having to face it herself. More than that, it felt as if… well, it felt as if he wasn’t supposed to be included in this but at the same time, how could he not be? Surely Ksjta’s reaction was enough to have elicited certain thoughts in him as well, even if he didn’t know her. Even if he hadn’t grown up with her and never thought to ask, never thought to suspect, had not even had sufficient curiosity in recent times to seek more information about the Hexxos and her mother’s former role in it. She didn’t know if she was shamed or distressed. She didn’t know what she was.

It was her companion who broke the deadlock, he who brought her thoughts kicking and screaming into the light with his musings and then his question. Her brows pulled together, mouth turning downwards and her gaze pulled down with it at his comment about the Vessels. It certainly was young, terribly young. If she thought about it, really thought about it then she could calculate what age Ksjta had been when she had Rhozdr and-

Black eyes found his grey ones at that unfortunate question before the onyx irises turned upwards, seeming to study something above their heads although they saw nothing.

“I don’t know. Well, no, what I mean is… I don’t know for certain, I just- I had a feeling and I acted on it and then it-it-it grew stronger and I-” she broke off, eyes dropping to her feet as she leaned back against the wall with a sigh. Her posture drooped, the young woman feeling the weight of weariness and knowledge on her shoulders even as blue tones deeper into her field, even as she drew it to her loosely.

“I never thought to ask. When I was younger, I wasn’t interested at all. I didn’t want to know about what she’d been and while no one ever said it, I always got the impression that people thought the Hexxos were strange… and more than a little frightening but even now…”

She laughed softly, the sound humourless and with a bitter edge.

“I saw Ezre’s tattoos and I know hers so well, knew the differences between them but I never- And she’s always so careful with her emotions so when you asked about- I knew you’d hit something close. Stone me down, I probably sensed it when she touched her ear- She’s always had this-this-this—I don’t know what to call it. She’s always been big on sacrifice and giving herself for the good of others but she- the poetry has never been enough, she’s always-”

She broke off again, biting her lip. She was close to tears now, something subtly tight in her abdomen that she wasn’t sure was better than the roiling nausea that had come before it.

Her eyes rose, the shadow of the alcove making her dark irises appear deeper, especially when she gave a particular little tilt of her head. A wobbly smile found its way to her lips as her monic aura grew equally tremulous.

“She met my father young, you know. Before she finished school. She was… young.”

Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to suggest it aloud but it was writ large in her head and no doubt visible in the words that she had shaped around it.

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

Y
oung,” Tom repeated. His voice was just a quiet scrape, barely-audible. He chewed at his gum thoughtfully, looking down at the stone floor, at that line of light and dark between the alcove under the stairs and the common room. He ran a hand over his jaw, frowning, the furrow of his brow deepening.

He hadn’t done much, as she’d spoken. He’d stayed quiet to let her finish, and until she had, there’d been nothing to say. Once she’d let him guide her back out of the water closet, he’d found his place against the wall again and crossed his arms.

He’d watched her, off-and-on, when he’d thought it wouldn’t be too much; he’d studied her face. I had a feeling and I acted on it, she’d said. He’d nodded once, abruptly. And she’d unfolded it, piece by piece, with each word – some firm; some shaky; some fumbling – not just the truth of Ksjta Tzacks, but the strange dark space between Drezda Ecks and her mother. Tom had been worried and guilty and touched, all at once, to be privy to it.

And then they stood together in the alcove, knowing. A Vessel. That was what Drezda couldn’t say, and Tom sure as hell wouldn’t say it for her. He didn’t know what he’d say, but he wasn’t going to say that.

It was hard to find balance here. Hard to settle on just one thing, one bird in the flock, with his mind’s eye; it kept jumping round, and his chest was tight and aching with the effort. Rightaway he pictured Ksjta, the guilty poetess, but as a young lass, all marked up where she’d been raised to be a shell for somebody else; he couldn’t say it was any wonder a kov could whisk somebody away. All that guilt, the aftermath. All that sacrifice, in exchange for the one she couldn’t make.

That’s why, he realized with crystal clarity, she’s spent the whole time at breakfast with her daughter talking to me, a stranger. But no raen was a stranger to a Hexx. Fucking hell. He had to shut his eyes for a moment. Anger fluttered through the nerves under his left eye, made the muscles jump.

He thought of the Hexx they’d left sitting at the table with cold cuts and cheese, and the thought of picturing the look on her face, rhakor or not, was just too godsdamn much for him. He thought of what it all meant to him – and that was too much, too.

By the time he opened his eyes, he’d taken a deep breath and smoothed his expression out, much as he could. He looked at Drezda; his brow was still knit with worry. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t’ve been so godsdamn hamfisted,” he said softly.

I’m sorry, he couldn’t bring himself to say. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do it again, with all that he was, with all that he ached to know more of the place where his kind were accepted, no matter how he felt about the Hexxos. His eyes flicked over Drezda, and he was sharply aware of her field at the edges of his porven; he’d felt the deepening blue, and now he felt every shiver that ran through the mona. He’d seen it more uncontrolled than this, once, in Loshis, but even this was a surprise.

And then the shaky smile. She looked like she was teetering on the edge of tears. He hesitated, but then he thought of the way she’d squeezed his hand under the table and looped her arm through his to go down the stairs. He moved closer and laid a hand on her back.

“She’s your umah.” He lowered his voice. “It’s not fair, but it’s not your fault you didn’t know. None of this is your fault.” A pause, then a sigh. There was more he could’ve said, then. It’s not easy, growing up with a ma who’s got more secrets, more scars, than you’ll ever know – but he couldn’t imagine Drezda’d welcome the comparison.

He couldn’t quite manage to be bitter about it, this time. It was hard to see in the shadows of the alcove; even then, he could tell she looked like hell. Her hair was still up and neat, and that was saying something.

“You need fresh air?” he asked. He wasn’t sure what to do about Ksjta, but – one thing at a time.

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719 | Late Morning
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

Tom was quiet as she spoke, so calm and controlled in comparison to her. Yes, he certainly mulled over her words but he wasn’t growing emotional, was he? Then again, Ksjta Tzacks had nothing to do with him really, she wasn’t his umah but it must still be odd knowing that the poet had once been someone ready to accept a soul like his own. Thinking about it made her shudder, unease clawing its way across her skin as she thought about having her mother replaced. Except that if she had gone through with it then Drezda would never have met the person she knew now — or thought she’d known. Logic told her that it wouldn’t have made much difference to her, not really but her thought processes weren’t logical at the moment. Instead, she found herself looking at Tom as Anatole, albeit briefly, as she considered what it must be like for his family, the people around him to see him so changed and yet not understand how drastic it truly was; they had no idea of what a raen was. For a brief moment, she felt sympathy for the kin of the now-deceased Incumbent as she imagined what it would be like if her own mother was replaced now. If it wasn’t for the persistence of many familiar things, she might have believed that such a swap had taken place already while she’d been in Anaxas and-

Her hands balled in the material of her skirt, the young woman sucking in air as the alcove beneath the stairs seemed stuffy and suffocating. She couldn’t go thinking like that. She couldn’t afford to have such- such- such frankly perverse thoughts! Her mother hadn’t been replaced and raen weren’t… they weren’t perverse. She didn’t have issues with what Tom was but then the body he inhabited hadn’t contained a soul to which she had close ties. If it had been her mother that he’d taken, the diplomat didn’t know that she could have been quite so understanding. But she didn’t know, she’d never know.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered, not entirely certain if she was responding to the train of thoughts or to his comment about being hamfisted. The material of her skirt was twisted in a fashion that was sure to cause crumpling but she couldn’t stop herself. Her teeth pressed into her lower lip, rolling the flesh back and forth beneath them, on the edge of pain as her mind whirred and she did her best to clog up the gears so it would stop.

“She is my umah… yes,” she responded, sighing forlornly. “I just… I took so much for granted or… not for granted but I… She was simply there and I wasn’t interested. There were… there were signs, Tom, and I never-”

She broke off, expression twisting into one of disgust at the prospect of fresh air.

“It’s Roalis in Anaxas. The air isn’t fresh, i-it’s awful! You’d think I’d be used to it by now but…”

She sighed, glancing back in the direction of the dining area, wiggling her lip again before her teeth settled on a point just inside it. She forced her fists to unfurl and carefully smoothed out her skirt and sighed again, taking a step in the direction of the exit.

“We can’t keep hovering outside a water closet though and I… there’s something I want to talk about before… before I…”

The airy wave of a hand indicated the dining room with her mother within it before she led the way outside.

There was a little terrace to the back of the hotel, offering somewhere to sit outside and giving an air of seclusion with a series of trellises with plants clambering up them and some strategically placed and carefully constrained bushes in large pots. The Hoxian led the way to a small cast iron table, seating herself so that she would be able to see back the way that they’d come. She didn’t relax once seated, although the chairs matched the table and so didn’t encourage comfort. She perched, placing her feet on the ground in a way that prevented her heels from touching it as if to facilitate flight. Her hands fluttered over her hair again, idly fanning at her neck, which had already begun beading with fresh sweat before settling them together in her lap. At least, it was somewhat shaded here but the fiery Roalis sun still worried her, especially as it might darken her skin.

“I can- I think I can trust you, Tom, but if I ever hear it back, I-I-I’ll vehemently deny it,” she threatened feebly, a tremor in her voice as she gazed down at her hands. She could feel herself shaking, her legs feeling particularly weak as she rested on her toes, the muscles feeling as if they should go into a state of collapse. Her nerves seemed to shake within her in time to the anxious beat of her heart.

“I- Before I knew wh-wh-what you were, I think I mentioned divine p-p-punishment to you. About passives in Hox,” Drezda began, raising her gaze nervously to his face before it darted to check out the doorway back inside. No one to eavesdrop, it was safe.

“We think that if you do s-s-something wrong then the Circle p-p-punish you and it’s passed down through bl-bl-blood. A curse of the bl-blood. I believe that I… that I have it b-b-because my sister-”

She broke off, gaze twisting away as her face twisted into something ugly and conflicted. A violent ripple of distress went through her field before she seemed to rein herself in, her visage smoothing before the monic aura did. She turned her attention back to him.

“My mother… she said it was her fault. She… she said she hadn’t had enough f-f-faith and I always thought… I always thought it was just… j-j-just because she turned her back on the Hexxos but…”

She squirmed, a more subtle ripple passing through her field this time although it had shifted to the darker shades of the colour spectrum. The young woman cleared her throat softly.

“I never- I didn’t ask what she meant b-b-because first they lied and s-s-said that Tsia had d-d-died and I was more- And then I was f-f-furious when I found out they’d l-l-lied but also a bit gl-gl-glad because they always l-l-liked her better and I-”

A hand shot up to wipe away tears hastily before they had a chance to properly fall.

“She used to always say that she’d f-f-failed in her duty. And b-before I knew the truth and thought Tsia was d-d-dead, she used to say that it sh-should have been her.”

She heaved in air, feeling the warmth of it in her lungs, not getting relief even as her chest moved up and down like a bellows.

“S-S-So you see… the signs… they were there. I was just… I was just bl-bl-blind and selfish and a f-f-fool!”

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

T
om thought the air was fine enough to breathe in Roalis; his lip twitched. He didn’t quite smile, but it was halfway there. He knew better than to roll his eyes, but being honest, it was a damned relief to hear something like that out of Drezda Ecks – it sounded so very Drezda, Tom thought, even despite her shattered composure.

He nodded, frowning, with one last glance back toward the common room. “No, better not,” he murmured.

White taffeta had her delicate red nose buried in the newspaper again; all he could see was the pile of coppery braids on her head, catching the light from the window. But he reckoned the second he turned his back, that nose’d come right out of the newspaper, and hers wouldn’t be the only pair of eyes sneaking furtive glances at the pair by the lavatory.

And if those eyes made Tom feel pinned, he couldn’t imagine how Drezda must’ve felt. She waved a pale hand and he nodded, following her in the other direction, through the shaded corridor past the stairs.

When Drezda pushed open the back door, the Roalis breeze that hit him was a relief like nothing else. The terrace was shaded, but Tom thought you could feel the touch of the sun in the air, in the smell of everything, warm and bright. It shivered through the vines that rustled up and down the trellises; it dappled the wavering leaves.

As he followed Drezda to the table, he breathed it in deep. The little terrace was full of the smell of the hot sun on the stone pavement in the courtyard, the waft of sweet blooming things and bitter-green sap.

And just-baked bread, and things sautéed in butter. Tom’s stomach ached; his head still hurt, too. He thought tentatively he was starting to get back his appetite. He thought ruefully of the bread and cheese and cold cuts left untouched on the table. He wondered if Ksjta had snuck any while they were gone.

Drezda was perched on the seat opposite him, stiff-backed and tense, like she expected she’d have to dodge a blow. Tom sank a little more gratefully into his seat, even though it wasn’t fair comfortable; it was a relief to take the weight off his hip, more of one than he’d realized.

At the threat, he opened his mouth, brow furrowing. He didn’t say anything, though. He shut it slowly, and frowned, and nodded his head once.

And then he listened.

Being honest, he didn’t make much sense of it, at first. The words came out of Drezda in a wild tangle; she was stumbling over them, getting her own tongue twisted up on them. As she spoke, the perceptive mona around them got heavier and darker, filled up like burgeoning rain clouds.

Your sister, Tom almost prompted her, once, when she’d stopped to palm away a few tears roughly. Your sister — what? What about Tsia?

It felt like she was telling a story out of order, putting together a puzzle wrong. Your mother, the curse, the Hexxos, your sister. Oes, Ksjta, he understood; he’d’ve had to be downright mung not to, by now. But what did Tsia have to do with it? Not dead, after all? There was a gap in the middle, and Drezda wasn’t putting in the pieces, as if it were just too unbearable to say aloud.

Drezda went quiet, then, her chest heaving.

What could happen to a young galdor that was worse than dying?

Why would you lie and tell a lass her sister was dead?

Tom’s lips pressed thin, white-thin. “It’s not your fault,” was all he could say, right away. “It’s not…”

He chewed at his gum, glancing away, toward the empty courtyard. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. They slid between his fingers; they fluttered out into the air, and he lost them.

He didn’t know what was done about it, in Hox. Did they send them to Frecksat, just like they were sent to Brunnhold? He tried to remember if Ezre’d said anything about it. Nothing, he thought, except — the absence, maybe, was remarkable. Ezre, he knew, insisted on washing his own clothes, on keeping his own quarters clean.

He didn’t think they were servants in Frecksat, and he didn’t think they had a community of their own, like imbali. Imbali, he thought, and a little shiver went through him. Old memories.

“I don’t know about curses or blood,” he offered, very softly. “Being what I am, I can’t blame her, or… judge her, for the decision she made. If that’s what she believes, that her bloodline’s cursed, I can’t — that’s her belief, but…”

He opened his eyes and looked at Drezda. He didn’t think he ought to ask any of those questions. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was done with them, in Hox.

But he knew that Drezda didn’t look so good. There was a sheen of sweat on Drezda’s forehead already, and her breath was still labored, as if she were drowning in the Roalis air. “None of this ought to be on you, Drez. I meant every word I said, the first time we talked about this. And you shouldn’t’ve… you were just a lass.”

Tentatively, remembering how Drezda had laid a hand on his knee, he laid his hand on the top of the table, palm-up.

“None of what happened to your sister or your mother was your fault,” he said, more firmly. “And whatever Ksjta-vumein is saying, or feeling, back there — none of that’s your fault, either.”

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719 | Late Morning
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

The air wasn’t any better out here than it had been outside the water closet. All right, perhaps that was something of an exaggeration but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. Inside, the air had seemed stuffier because they were confined; there was no such confinement here. Instead, it was the season that did it, the warmth carried on the breeze so that even that didn’t offer much in the way of relief. It didn’t agree with her right now, didn’t seem to contain the life-sustaining particles that she needed so badly, especially now while she was in distress. It might have reminded her of the thinner air of home if it hadn’t been for the fact that what she breathed in here was like fire by comparison to Frecks. There the air was sharp and chilled, each breath cutting a path down to one’s lungs but it was clean. Yes, it could leave you feeling lightheaded, especially if you were used to more air but it seemed to bring clarity, even when your senses felt as if they were teetering over a precipice. There was enough air here but it dulled her senses and made her feel weak. Even after all her time in Anaxas, the summer was hellish to her.

During her first year in Anaxas, she had genuinely questioned whether her skin might slough off in the heat of the summer and dry seasons and that was even after having had a chance to acclimatise to the warming conditions in the seasons preceding them. Compared to Hox, many of the months here were warmer but even then, none were as hellish as Roalis and Yaris. Circle bless her mother, for while Drezda had had cooler months to acclimatise to the temperature and the atmospheric difference, Ksjta had left what she had thought of as warm weather straight into the fire of Anaxi summer with its thick, burning air. It was little wonder that the woman had basically been confined to her room during the first week of her visit to her daughter.

Her poor suffering mother. Simply thinking about her made the diplomat want to bury her face in her hands and wail while tears poured forth.

Not her fault?

She might not have made her mother’s choice on her behalf, she might not have cursed her sister with passivity but godsbedamned, she had certainly contributed to a great deal of her umah’s suffering and she had had many chances to see what was right in front of her if she hadn’t spent so many years being a selfish, self-pitying creature trying to run away from everything that didn’t suit her. The poet was here now because of her eldest daughter and all of this… None of this would be in discussion now if it wasn’t for Drezda then the woman’s rhakor wouldn’t have been shaken so violently in front of a stranger, she wouldn’t have been suffering in this summer hellscape, wouldn’t have even served up the truth about Tsia if the diplomat hadn’t forced it from her and-

What exactly wasn’t her fault? Hadn’t she been cruel? And a fool?

Her face found its way into her hands, the young woman releasing something between a sigh and a groan as the man properly found his voice and began to talk as if he understood it all and could give her absolution but there was so much that he didn’t know, so much that she wasn’t even sure that she could tell him as she shook her head in denial.

When she managed to uncover her face at last, she found his hand palm up on the table and she stared at it without comprehension. Slowly, her onyx eyes found his face, dark pools red-rimmed now, tiny blood vessels branching away like hundreds of scarlet lightning bolts.

“Tom, I- Of course, I think I’m cursed, it’s not just- A passive is- They’re so rare in Hox, Tom, and they’re such a source of shame but- It’s not about wh-wh-what she did, or how I’m cursed. There’s definitely wrongness, all three of us touched by it, but it’s n-n-not about Tsia or m-m-me or Rhozdr. My umah said enough b-b-but I didn’t listen!” she explained, voice cracking in despair and frustration.

Fingers rubbed up the side of her face, their tips stirring hair at her temple on that side so that she was left with a small cloud of dark, wispy strands.

“I could have gotten answers. I was in the position to ask questions.”

And then she laughed, high and jittery and oddly cruel.

“Oh a lass I may have been but I did something, Tom. Oh I did something!” she sneered, mouth twisting grotesquely. It wasn’t aimed at him, no. It was for herself. Was she an innocent? No, she absolutely wasn’t.

“I went home after I graduated, Tom. I went home and I used my gods given gifts to make my mother talk to me. Oh she didn’t want to tell me that Tsia was alive, she didn’t want to tell me what she was but I didn’t give her the choice. I wasn’t gentle about it, Tom! I just reached into her head and pulled! I didn’t care if it hurt, I didn’t care what else might come loose, I just took the ability to lie away from her so that when I asked, she had to tell me. Who does that to their mother, Tom? Who fucking does that?”

Her voice had risen to a frightening pitch, trembling hands set on the table where they attempted to find some grip there to steady her but they seemed boneless; the iron was left vibrating. Her field was vibrating too, awash with blue for the most part but blooming spots of reds and purples like livid bruises. A manic giggle came out followed by a tearful hiccup as streams ran down her cheeks, cutting through the cosmetics designed to hide the bags under her eyes, the bruises revealed unevenly.

“I could have asked wh-whatever I wanted. I didn’t care about her. I didn’t care about Tsia. I j-j-just violated her because I knew she’d lied to me — the bitch! L-Left my mother sobbing on the floor b-b-because I could. And she… she… sh-sh-she said I should have been the one. I sh-sh-shouldn’t have magic when I’d do… do… d-d-d-d-d-”

The sound juddered out of her but it wasn’t going anywhere, her ability to speak breaking down as she curled in on herself, her field radiating shame as she bowed her head towards the table, arms shifting to cradle and protect it from the metal surface as a spitting susurrus escaped her.

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

W
hen Drezda took her head out of her hands, she looked at his hand as if she’d not a clue what he meant by it. He kept it there anyway; he’d made the offer, and godsdamn him, he wasn’t going to retract it. Jaw set, lips pressed thin, he met her eyes as they lifted slowly to his face.

A long moment passed. Some blood in her eye’d broke, and he could see the wispy branches of it crowding round her dark irises.

Another barrage of words came stumbling out of her mouth, then. Tom huffed softly, lips twisting, but he didn’t interrupt her. As she went on, her voice cracked; his brow furrowed, and he studied her face more closely. His glance flicked – briefly – to where she’d rustled a few wild wisps of hair out of place, more and more as the words tumbled out, picking up speed.

The laugh cracked through his ears, shrill and fraying over top of the soft birdsong and the muffled chatter of the common room. A flinch flickered across his face. His lips were pressed so thin they were white, but he kept his hand on the table, palm up.

Then the tide broke: his face went slack, and he opened his mouth, though it wasn’t to speak. He remembered to shut it only after a few seconds.

A laoso chill crawled across his skin, in spite of the summer heat. He could feel it on every inch of him; he wasn’t sure if it was him, or the wild stirring in the air around him, overpowering even his porven with its livid shift. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth, glistening white.

He’d heard tell of such things as a lad, oes. Gollies who could pluck the truth right out of you, who could twist your tongue until they got what they wanted. Some of them didn’t have to make you speak, he knew. Perceptive mona, all around him, pressing close. He’d forgot the way Ecks’ field had made his skin crawl when they’d first met – somehow, he’d forgot – and he found himself thinking of Mme Trevisani’s, and he swallowed a painful lump.

He thought he’d known what he felt, seeing Ksjta treat her daughter so cruel at the table. But now he saw more in the poetess’ silences, in her averted eyes.

Drezda giggled. His eyes came back into focus on her. Her face was slick with a mess of tears and foundation. Underneath her eyes looked bruised. It reminded him of the morning she’d called on him in Loshis.

She was stuttering so bad she couldn’t speak, and so she didn’t, fumbling into silence. She was cradling her head in her hands.

Who fucking does that? He could still hear the word violated bubbling up out of her. But he’d made an offer and a promise – he’d promised he’d be in her corner. And for as little as he knew about perceptive vodundun, he knew something about hurt.

The only man that ever loved me, he thought, I don’t know how thin I wore him; he didn’t deserve me at the bottom of the bottle, the weeping and the threats.

Tom looked down at the cast iron table; his hand found its pair in his lap. He didn’t know what to say for a long moment, so he stayed quiet.

“I was sixteen in twenty-seven five. That was the year the Rose flooded,” he offered very quietly, “and the year I first killed somebody. I was reminding a birdshark in Lionshead to pay up to the man I worked for.” His lip twitched. “His father came at me – he was an old man, see, and half my size. It wasn’t hard.”

He looked up at Drezda. He didn’t try to push down the warm prickling in his eyes, though he blinked the blurry out of them and took a deep breath.

The blurry came back, sure enough. “Drezda, I don’t know,” he said, his voice even quieter, and strained. “I don’t know about who should have magic, or who shouldn’t be alive – who am I to talk –”

His breath caught; a shudder went through him. He had to master himself, shutting his eyes. When he opened them, a tear darted down his cheek. He didn’t make to wipe it away.

“You were angry, and you’d been lied to, and you – you lashed out with what you had, like a fighter swinging a fist – how were you to know anything but that you were hurt? Too hurt to care what you should’ve been seeing?” His voice broke. “Are you still the lass who did that, Drezda?”

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719 | Late Morning
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

What she revealed to him, it was the sort of thing that should alter her in his eyes. It was in the past, sure, but it gave some insight into her heart — further insight. The man already knew some things about her, more than she perhaps would have liked, far more than most people got to see. The raen already knew certain truths about her, the pockets of darkness that hid within the valves and chambers of her heart. Hadn’t he seen her prejudice, the hate for what he had been — a human — aimed in his direction? Hadn’t he seen her disgust at knowing that someone who had once been human had taken on a galdor body? The diplomat didn’t know if she was making an exception in his case because he wasn’t what she had come to expect of humankind, but she didn’t think that all her thoughts on the race that her kind helped to subjugate could have been completely overturned overnight courtesy of some perspective from her mother. Surely, he didn’t believe that all that feeling had been purged simply because she had chosen to treat him differently. Was the face that she wore for him now not worse because of how it would change if she was confronted with some random human on the street? After all, the very night that they had first met, hadn’t she been torturing a human man simply because she could?

Yes, there was darkness in her, he couldn’t be blind to it. Tom had to know that she had something cruel and depraved within her because he had caught a glimpse of it and heard inferences about it from her own lips and even then, there were so many things that she’d done that he didn’t know about. This new information shouldn’t make much of a difference in light of that but she felt that it would — and should.

She had just proven that she was capable of the same cruelty against her own kind, the same wanton disregard for another’s privacy and safety that she would have — and often had — shown to a member of the lower races. An even more damning piece of information was the fact that she would have done such a thing to her own mother. Surely, that was a line that could be universally understood as one that you should not cross. In hindsight, she knew just how perverse what she had done had been.

Hindsight was often a bitter thing, rarely stretching to bittersweet; this dose was particularly biting.

The Hoxian had registered the change on his face, the slackening in what she assumed was shock. Maybe it was her imagination but he seemed paler, his skin grey-tinged. It might have been a trick of the light, the way that the shadows of leaves dappled his face, leeched it of warmth and colour and life — monochrome. His eyes were flat too, lacking the depth that emotion would give them, unseeing but her own gaze glanced off him.

Horrified. He was horrified.

And then he was staring at her, really looking at her as she laughed and the diplomat found his attention a special sort of agony. The raen was scrutinising her and she could understand. Godsdamnit, she knew that he was judging her. How could he not? How could he not judge her negatively, harshly?

The young woman didn’t need to look at him directly to feel the weight of his gaze, to sense what could only be hatred, disgust, horror. And so the emotions bubbled out of her, things brought to the fore as a result of recent events with her mother showing up as she had and there had been so much strain on her recently, the vast majority of it internal. Drezda had corked it up and it had built up inside her, volatile and ready to be set off. Everything this morning… well, it had all been shaken up and the pressure was too much so now out it came. Tears bubbled out hot and fast in spite of what she might have wished.

She sniffled, inhaling in a shuddering manner but even so, she managed to hear her companion when he began to speak. The Hoxian pressed her fist against her lips, dark eyes rising to his face. She tried to quieten herself because from the words she’d heard, she didn’t know where he was going. She hiccuped into her fist, eyes round and wet as she thought, He’s not much older than I am.

The thought floated lazily across her mind, oddly detached. The next thought that came was a lot sharper, striking home this time as she gave a little twitch.

When he killed.

When he’d first killed.

How many times had he killed? What had he-

The tears stilled from plain shock, onyx eyes meeting his grey ones, which were watering too. Oh no, now he was going to cry. What a morning, just the two of them crying on the patio of a hotel in the Stacks, one hungover and the other having thrown up.

They were some pair.

What he’d just told her though… it wasn’t comparable to what she’d done. Actually, she couldn’t compare them at all. Murder should be worse — in theory — but it hadn’t been premeditated. It sounded as if he’d killed him almost by mistake. Accidental death probably didn’t make it better but she could- Drezda thought that she understood. And he’d killed Anatole obviously but that was different. Did it make what she’d done better though?

Drezda felt almost guilty now, as if she’d brought up a minor concern while he had bigger things to deal with.

And then he kept talking and what he was getting at clicked in her mind. Lashed out, yes, that’s what he’d done. That was why he’d drawn the comparison and it was that fact that had made her diminish the seriousness of his crime in her own head. Except that she didn’t have that to fall back on. A whimper escaped her, even as she shook her head. Sniffling again, she wiped at her eyes, only irritating them further as blotchiness began to set in. She needed to wash her face but she hadn’t considered that yet. It was a triviality at the moment, although it’d no doubt seem like a rather big deal in the near future.

“No, Tom, I- it wasn’t- I d-d-didn’t lash out. I pl-pl-planned it, you see. It’s not an easy bit of magic and I- Even before I graduated, it was in my mind, a r-r-reason to improve so that I’d be able to… to...”

Her gaze dropped, the heels of her hands pressed into her sockets as if to stop the flow. She twisted them slightly, smearing around the moisture before looking at him again, the young woman appearing weary, shoulders slumped low. There was solemnity there, crying abated for the time being although it had left its mark, and she stared at him mutely.

His final words had given her more to consider, something she hadn’t thought of before, not recently anyway. Was she the same woman who had done that? It hadn’t been that many years ago but change was an inevitable thing, of course a person wasn’t precisely the same as they’d been before. Life happened, every experience shaping and altering as surely as time inevitably left its fingerprints on one’s body. Even so, a year ago, she probably could have replied in the affirmative. Now though…

“I don’t know… I’ve changed but I… I don’t know if I’ve changed that way,” she responded honestly, her stare moving over the ageing politician before her. “Can you s-s-say that you’re nothing like… like the teenager who k-k-killed in oh-five? I got worse…”

She managed to keep “Did you?” from her lips but the question was in the air between them, the shape of it in what had been voiced aloud.

Her hand cane to rest on the table and her focus with it, fingertips idly tracing the patterns wrought in the iron. “A lot has changed I suppose. I’m more jaded, more bitter, more… lonely but… less inclined to be- I wouldn’t do that to Ksjta now. N-n-not to my umah.”

Shoulders somehow slumped further, the tension that had initially been in her body having evaporated now. She no longer perched on the edge of her seat but had leaned back, posture in a calamitous state as many bones seemed to have been sucked from her body; she seemed incapable of sitting straight but in truth, she was merely unwilling.

A short laugh left her, nothing like the crazed one that she’d let loose not so long ago. This one was sad, the misery heavy in a gesture that was so frequently associated with mirth.

“Some breakfast this has turned out to be. I’m sure if you could reverse the sands, you’d hole up in your room until there was no sign of either of us. A failed Hexxos turned poet and an overly emotional failure posing as a politician. Such excellent company,” Drezda remarked dryly.

She chanced her legs but found them wobbly, seating herself again hardly before she’d had a chance to make much of a start on departing.

“I should probably return to my room and just- I can’t go back in like this. Not in front of everyone. And I’m sure you don’t- There’s no reason you couldn’t go b-back although I’d understand if you d-d-didn’t. M-M-Maybe better to avoid these sorts of interactions in p-p-public.”

She stared at her hands, field pulsing softly around her, blue-grey and almost puffy as if it had been crying too.

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

H
e was already shaking his head slowly at I planned it, but he stopped and listened anyway. And he waited, silent, as she held her head again, as if holding together the pieces of herself.

He knew it was different; he wasn’t a mung. He’d been half-surprised she hadn’t recoiled in horror from him, for all she’d admitted to. One was the premeditated act of a galdor; unsettling, violating, oes, but elegant. The other was plain brutality. He remembered what Drezda thought of plowfeet.

Her eyes had gone round and wet, and she’d hiccuped once, but she’d said nothing. And when she’d spoken, it was as if –

He sniffed deeply, swabbing away the wetness in one eye with his fingertips. He took one shuddering breath, then another, willing himself to even out. No, he wanted to say flatly. Don’t you understand? I went there to beat someone half to death, he wanted to insist. I’d been preparing for it for years, too. I just killed the wrong man. Do you know how many kov I’ve killed? Do you know how many were pointless, just like that?

He found her dark eyes on him again, and he swallowed thickly. She turned the question back on him, and it didn’t come as a surprise. Her laugh settled into his bones, an old, familiar ache.

His eyes budded with more tears, but he smiled crookedly through them, raising his eyebrows.

More jaded, more bitter, more lonely.

“Don’t talk to me about an overly emotional failure posing as a politician,” he put in dryly. His brow furrowed as he took in the slump of her shoulders, deeper and deeper. Like somebody’d rested an anchor on them. “No, Drez, no,” he added softly.

He felt the gentle pulse of her field; he felt the soft blue shuddering through the particles in the air, tasted the sadness on his breath.

Being honest, he wasn’t sure what he’d’ve rather done with his day. He’d’ve staggered down at some point for yats, though nothing so elaborate as what Tzacks’d ordered; he’d’ve probably brought some bread and cheese back up to his room and eaten it in the quiet dark, then cracked open another bottle of whisky. His copy of Brellos pez Hirtka was in one of the balcony chairs, and he reckoned when the sun was low enough, and he was drunk enough, he’d’ve gone out and read.

He rubbed his eyes again. “I can’t say I’m nothing like him.” Leaning on the table, he propped his head on a fist. “I don’t look much like him,” he added, smile twitching. “I changed. I got worse. Less sloppy, maybe; crueler. I grew into a very cruel man, and I don’t think I learned a thing from it.”

The heat and the echoes of sunlight were kind, and he felt as if every inch of him had been wrung. He sagged with it. For all his head split, he thought he could’ve crawled out to the courtyard and lain in the sunlit grass, soaking up the warmth.

“And I don’t know what pretending to be Anatole Vauquelin has done to me,” he went on; he pressed through a new shakiness in his voice, a feeling of pulling the bandage off a wound. “I’ve picked up his accent; I’ve learned how to talk like him. I respond to his name, and I say the things he’d say. And even when I’m alone, I look like him, and I feel like him. I’ve turned into somebody completely different. Worse, yes; better, I don’t know.”

He glanced down at the cast-iron; he found it hard to meet her eye. He found it hard to believe he’d said any of it out loud. He glanced away, studying a fall of sunlit ivy. “But I don’t think it’s so easy to be cruel,” he said softly, “if the fact that I’ve chosen to stay in this shape tells you anything. I suspect we’ve both gotten soft.”

The blueshift was light and thin, tender like hitching breath.

“If you’d like company,” he offered, “I wouldn’t mind some, myself. I’d planned on going right back to the bottle. Perhaps a thrilling night of weeping and Mugrobi poetry.” He looked back at her and smiled again. “It’s not easy, being alone with somebody you don’t much like.”