[Closed] Chance Encounters (Tom)

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719
Certainly Sometime After Midday
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

Her headspace was an odd one, the woman preoccupied with his nearness and the alienation from her own face. Another common thread between them, unlikely though it might seem. As a raen inhabiting a body into which he hadn’t been born, it made sense that the face he wore would be alien to him but what was her excuse? Even as she made her peculiar joke about exchanging their current faces for new ones, Drezda was fully aware that Tom was capable of doing precisely that, albeit at the cost of another’s life. It could hardly be regarded as being made in good taste but her companion took no offence. In fact, he embraced it, going so far as to declare his advantage with a kind of macabre delight. Perhaps it was catching but truthfully, the Hoxian had long held an affinity for gallows humour.

“I would have to take somebody else’s — as would you — but it would be rather messy for me, wouldn’t it? I could certainly slice someone’s face off and I suppose if my Living Conversation was good enough, I could… graft it...” she commented almost dreamily, the corner of her mouth tilting up ever so slightly. For a moment, it was clear that she was genuinely thinking about it. Leastwise, she considered how one could replace one visage with another, possibly all in one piece — with the mona’s good graces. Even that would be a mask, one of living flesh but no less false.

Drezda sighed. Her mouth twitched into some semblance of chagrin flashed momentarily in his direction before she looked away, dwelling dismally on the prospect of one’s face being a reflection of one’s soul. Bash give her strength, she didn’t like to imagine what that would be like! She found it difficult to believe that the resultant countenance would be a pleasant one. That was something to be shrugged off, ideally never to be considered again because damn, she didn’t need to wonder about the state of her soul; her thought processes had been weighty enough this morning without piling some more on top.

Obviously the answer was more wine. The problem was that the wine was growing scarce and the diplomat was possibly a bit tipsy. At least, when she moved her head, her surroundings blurred a bit at the edges and she’d felt ready to giggle at the thought of defacing people.

The young woman was feeling things more keenly, which hardly seemed possible given the intensity with which she’d been experiencing emotions thus far this morning. The urge to giggle before, an urge to sob at the possible state of her soul and now a twisting anxiety that gave way to misery as she considered the nature of her relationship with the raen.

Regardless of what was going on in this room between them right now, whatever that weirdness was, she didn’t truly know what sort of relationship they had. Hell, the diplomat wasn’t entirely sure why they were together in his room, not because she had an issue with being here — how odd that was — but rather bewildered by why he had wanted her here. Evidence pointed to the fact that Tom liked her for some reason and Drezda couldn’t imagine how that could be.

If she hadn’t been sliding over the edge of sobriety, the Hoxian might not have asked him if they were friends.

The food arrived at the worst possible time. If it had arrived just a little earlier than perhaps she wouldn’t have voiced her question at all and could have been distracted by sustenance and whatever else floated into her head. If it had arrived just a few moments later than she might have gotten an answer out of Tom and her mind might- Well, not be set at ease precisely but it might have settled her somewhat. Instead, the woman was left on the end of the bed with a bottle propped up on her knee while her eyes followed proceedings without any real interest.

Gods only knew what the human thought of the scene but for all her talk of how this might seem to others, Drezda found that she didn’t particularly care after all. Instead, she discovered that she only cared about being left alone again. However, when they got their privacy, her companion seemed more concerned with the soup.

“Yes, it makes sense in Anaxas… other places as well, I suppose. It wouldn’t be pleasant at home,” the Hoxian pointed out indifferently, shrugging before she settled for finishing off the Nassalan. Her breath hummed musically in the bottle’s empty confines, a pathetic score for her attempts to shake some final drops of moisture from it when more didn’t appear to be forthcoming. At last, she gave up. She dropped the vessel onto the bed where it rolled dully on its side as the mattress shifted beneath her, settling against the heap of bedclothes. It received a brief glare — as if it was to blame for being empty — before she disregarded it and turned her attention back to Tom, who had recalled her question after all — not that that was immediately apparent.

Her eyes widened and fixed on his face, the diplomat more than a little alarmed about why the man would mention a fistfight. Did the raen want to get into a physical altercation with her? Tattoos? Passed out in alleyways?

When he said the word ‘friendship’, understanding dawned but it was so ludicrous! There was a shriek of laughter — high, incredulous and unfettered — and it made the Hoxian jolt in surprise. It took her a moment to cop that the sound had emanated from her own mouth, particularly shocking because it had sounded so wild and free, totally unlike her usually restrained mirth when she permitted its release.

“Well if those are your measures...”

She regarded him dubiously, wondering if this was a human sort of standard (Don’t start thinking about him in human terms or you’ll go absolutely moony.) or some peculiarity of his sex. Yes, men did seem to get up to… antics and those sorts of experiences seemed to shape their friendships. Honestly, she didn’t really know what other women did when it came to friendships. Other Hoxians formed attachments, it wasn’t as if her people couldn’t but some of her most important formative years had been in a strange kingdom with strange people who were wildly different from what she’d come to expect of her peers. Instead of embracing them, she had walled herself off to keep them at bay and then of course, when she’d returned to Hox, she’d managed to carry some taint of where she’d been and she didn’t fit anymore.

If she could be said to have ever fit in at home…

Slowly she rose, hair still sweeping across her face and obscuring her expression, gaze aimed downwards as she considered what he’d said.

“I thought it went without saying...”

Had she managed to sound as if she was entirely off her orbit by asking? Quite possibly. He’d believed it to be obvious so what did say about her view on the matter? Could friendship really be so alien to her that she couldn’t recognise it when it was literally staring her in the face, gentle sympathy in those grey eyes?

She stared at the spread of food, nothing striking her as appealing but she went to work on the bread anyway, reasoning that it would help to soak up some of the alcohol and balance her somewhat. She prepared a slice of it for herself, spreading an exceptionally soft cheese over its surface and topping it with salmon, leaning on the table beside her companion. She took a bite, chewing without any real pleasure, grimacing. While one hand was obviously occupied with feeding herself, the woman had made an unconscious effort to cross her arms, her other hand gripping the other arm at the crook. If she hadn’t been eating, Drezda would probably have been almost hugging herself, an elbow clasped in each hand. If someone were to suggest that her body language was defensive and self-comforting then the Hoxian would have denied it coldly.

“I don’t know, Tom,” she admitted quietly, taking another bite of her repast, taking time to digest his query a little more. After a few moments, she shook her head.

“I thought I could- I honestly can’t remember knowing that someone was my friend. I had my siblings and then I had… acquaintances at school. In Frecksat and in Brunnhold, I never grew particularly close to anyone, not even…”

Colour crept into her cheeks, wincing subtly before tilting her face slightly away. No, she shouldn’t say that aloud, the word ‘lover’ didn’t need to cross her lips. They hadn’t really been friends, no matter how close they had technically been, how much they had shared with one another. Even then, she had kept enough of herself closed off.

Onyx eyes flicked from side to side, her breathing quickening as she tried and failed to think of anyone who could be said to have seen enough to-

She thought of Rhys Valentin witnessing her self-wounding after a disastrous duel and flinched. He’d seen more than most but he certainly hadn’t been a friend, not then and not now, even though she had gone out of her way to rescue him after she’d found him beaten bloody in that alleyway in Uptown. The same could be said of Charity who was his wife now, the former D’Arthe someone for whom she had shown care in the past as well as in more recent years. No, they hadn’t been her friends.

She thought of Khymarah and was caught unawares by the constriction in her chest, bread balanced precariously as she pressed her forearm over her heart with a grimace. Damn, she hadn’t expected that to make her feel anything after all these months but then she had shared her scars with the woman, had-

The diplomat gulped. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out, not even a whisper. She closed it again, trying to moisten her tongue before she tried again.

“Someone who has seen more than… more than others. Someone who I’ve allowed to see- There are things about me that you’ve seen or that you know that I haven’t- Not even my lovers have-”

Her mouth snapped shut, the colour in her face heightening further, the Hoxian feeling the flush creeping down her throat.

Releasing her elbow, she slid a finger under her neckline to circulate more air. She started brushing crumbs off her blouse, taking the time to finish off her bread before she spoke again.

“Yes, I suppose it is obvious, isn’t it? You are my friend — or my worst enemy,” she joked weakly, her smile wobbly, fragile. She bit her lip to stop the expression shaking apart.

“Maybe that’s it. A friend is someone who knows enough about you to destroy you. I suppose I… I meet that criterion for you as well.”

Drezda gazed at him soberly, a finger delicately cleaning the corners of her lips.

“Not that I would. I suppose that’s it too. I wouldn’t choose to use what I know against you. And if you can say the same about me then I think that really is proof that you aren’t like him. He would have destroyed me. Toibin Madden would as well.”

She shifted her gaze to the floor, quietly horrified by the idea and somewhat ashamed to have said such a thing, the mere suggestion of it in relation to Tom feeling like a betrayal.

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

H
e’d been looking away, when she’d spoken; he hadn’t looked back at her, not since she’d said it. He’d swallowed a lump in his throat, mouth twisting down, brittle. He’d thought about it as the natt wheeled in the cart, set the tureen and the platters and the carafe on the table. It was only when he left he looked back over his shoulder at Drezda, lifting the lid on the soup and sniffing.

He smiled, at least, at her reply. With the sun warming the carpet and the breeze carrying summer smells, it was hard to imagine a place like Hox. “I suspect it wouldn’t be,” he murmured, fetching a bowl for himself and ladling out soup into it.

He couldn’t’ve said why his jaw tightened when he felt the brush of her field at his back. Some of what had been whirling about his mind had been allowed to settle; he still couldn’t fit it all together, figure out what shapes it took. The perceptive mona were calmer than they’d been before, but he could still feel them unsettled, stirring with blushes of blue-shift and buzzing irritation, tender pink something-or-other, slurring together tipsy-like. His own porven buzzed against it, soft and unfocused.

Still, he didn’t step away like his nerves told him to. Her shriek of laughter caught him while he was pouring wine, and the carafe clinked against the glass.

If those are my measures, he thought, what? Easing back against the table, he couldn’t look at her for a long moment. He reckoned he’d got a laugh out of her – in this hell of a mood, whatever it was – which had rather been the point. He couldn’t’ve said why he felt discontented; his head was buzzing, disordered like his porven.

The bowl of soup still on the table behind him, he took a long draught of wine. He half finished the generous glass. He breathed in sharply through his nose, shutting his eyes and tilting his head back. The drapes ruffled, and somewhere there were chimes; Drezda went on, and he listened.

Must’ve been lonely, he thought and didn’t say. He’d had friends wherever he went, or leastways kov he called friends. Some – most – of them would’ve slid a riff between his ribs at a moment’s notice. He thought she might’ve had that sort of friend at Frecksat, probably a few times over; he reckoned she was probably right not to call them friends. Not even, she said, and he wondered what word came next. He thought he might’ve been able to guess.

He heard her crunch through a bite of bread, chewing.

I don’t know the first thing about you, he wanted to protest, and you’ve never even seen my face. When the word slipped out of her mouth, he looked at her sidelong, his brow furrowed. Her posture, he noticed for the first time, was curled inward; her face was as scarlet as it had been seated, flushed again. Must’ve been this heat, he thought, oddly detached, a funny anxiety still rattling round in his stomach. He watched her tug at her collar, brush crumbs off her blouse.

He finished the glass quick-like, then took up his bowl of soup. The smell of cucumber and parsley was benny; he took a bite, and the coolness of it gave him a shiver. “Something to be said for this cold soup shit,” he mumbled through it, then swallowed and shrugged.

He smiled down into the speckled green. “That’s a hell of a way to put it,” he added, “but – I – thank you.” He could feel her dark eyes on his face, sober and thoughtful.

When he looked over, she was looking at the ground. It tickled at something inside him to hear of it; it warmed him, somehow, for all else he felt, to think she knew he wouldn’t turn on her.

“I suspect that’s the difference between a friend and a lover, eh?” His mouth turned brittle. He turned to pour more wine, then offered her the carafe, if she’d take it. “A friend and a lover can both destroy you; a friend won’t, but you never know about the lovers.” He laughed abruptly, then took another drink. “I had enough of them, I suppose. Only one I really – trusted –”

He broke off, swallowing dryly. The weight of the glass in his hand was comforting. He felt slurry, pleasant-slurry, but there was something oddly tense about the haze of it, this time. The drink never helped with a tight-wound heart.

Or a loose tongue. “What do I know?” he murmured. “I haven’t had one since…”

He squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t sure why this was spilling out; she had enough to trouble her.

“Did you – is that how it seems to you?” he asked anyway, looking at her again, frowning intently. He blinked. “The – the – grafting on someone’s… I know it’s flooding grotesque, all of it, but I – I’m alive in – it’s not like a puppet, I can feel…” He sighed, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Epaemo, Drez.”

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719
Certainly Sometime After Midday
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

The Hoxian was all sorts of self-conscious this morning — this afternoon? — and the way he quietly accepted her words, not commenting but simply listening only added to it. She could never say that Tom had ever failed to give her his complete attention. Whenever she spoke, she never doubted that he took in every word and while it was pleasant in a way, it was something to which she was undeniably unaccustomed. It did her no favours, failing to remedy the flush of her face, something which she couldn’t put down to the day’s heat or the effects of the alcohol — not solely anyway.

Eating had provided something of a distraction and she might be moving away from sobriety but nonetheless, she was keen to follow his example by drinking more. She’d eaten a morsel, which should surely count for something; it should make more drinking permissible. It probably wasn’t enough to soak up all of the alcohol that she’d imbibed thus far but she was more than willing to justify it anyway, especially when Tom had started back on the stuff. They were back to glasses now, she noticed, the man apparently choosing to appear civilised instead of simply drinking straight from the carafe as he had been willing to do with the bottle.

She’d been able to bide her time a little with small actions, minute distractions to give the man a chance to think and respond to her — anything to prevent her from dwelling on the deepening pause. The woman had begun to fear that she’d have to say something further as any hope of a response seemed unlikely as he took up his soup, but he chose to make a comment once he’d had the first taste — a comment about the soup.

Her face remained largely immobile aside from the black pools of her eyes appearing ready to overflow their sockets. She’d said all that she had and yet he had chosen to mention… soup. The diplomat had no delusions that he’d chosen to ignore her speech, recognising that he was biding his time as she might have done in his position. What bothered her was that he kept putting off his response, seconds ticking away as he contemplated his words, making her worry that her words had been even worse than she’d supposed. Why else would he choose to mention something inane before responding to her directly?

“I’m… glad that you’re enjoying it,” Drezda replied stiffly, her voice more expressive than her face, a note of puzzled skepticism, a slight rise at the end as if questioning her own remark as it came out of her mouth. Her field moved as if to caprise his porven, flinching back almost immediately as she brushed its disorder. It didn’t feel as strange as it once had done but it still wasn’t normal or truly golly at any rate. But of course, it wasn’t golly and she didn’t know if it would ever be like that given his raen nature.

Her gaze settled on the floor, the notion of staring at him while he ate making her feel acutely uncomfortable. She probably should eat more but nothing appealed in spite of the niggling sensation of hunger in her largely empty belly. Besides, if she drank enough then that sensation would fade away.

A hell of a way to put it. What? Her definition of friendship, she supposed and no doubt to him it sounded as peculiar as his own description of it had sounded to her. It was an oddly neutral answer despite the thanks though. If it hadn’t been for the smile, she wouldn’t have been sure that the last had been genuinely meant, probably assuming that the man had wanted to say something on the matter but still finding that words failed.

Her gaze rose slowly as his next words, her posture guarded, eyes wary instead of darting around uncertainly as they wanted to do. Was there a queer sort of punchline coming? Had she said something that sounded obvious to him and she herself hadn’t picked up on? Some line in the sand that delineated friend and lover? His expression didn’t suggest anything humorous was forthcoming but her own dark and bitter humour was often foreshadowed by such a visage so she couldn’t be too sure.

He passed the carafe to her and she took it gingerly. Taking a glass for herself, she pinned its base to the table with her hand as if expecting it to make an escape if she didn’t keep it there. Her other hand wrapped around the carafe while she poured out a generous amount of wine, the carafe clinking steadily against the glass as she did so. The clinking seemed too loud, only growing louder as her self-consciousness made her hand tremble further.

The abrupt laugh was so like one that she might have made herself that she was struck briefly by how similar their sense of humour was, how inclined they both were to laugh bitterly or find mirth in perverse scenarios. For the most part, her focus was on his words, part of her mind whirling around one snippet and becoming stuck on it, unable to dislodge it from the echo chamber of her recall as her blush darkened anew.

“I had enough of them, I suppose.”

Such a flyaway remark and yet it smacked of promiscuity, the woman wrestling with the idea of someone moving so freely between lovers. It didn’t help that her imagination conjured up some fuzzy but highly evocative images of men together that left her feeling hot and cold at turns as revulsion and embarrassment warped within her. The mona in her field writhed.

“I-I-I wouldn’t know, n-n-not having had-”

Her mouth shut abruptly and she brought the rim of the glass to her lips to halt any foolish words that might spill out when she opened it again. She damn near inhaled the wine, dashing down more than half its contents in a few glugging gulps. She was nowhere near drunk enough to say that but she’d been too busy having visions of-

The glass was separated from her lips, making a downward journey before Tom’s next words so she couldn’t use the thing as a shield.

“Mountain swallow my body whole!” she spat in Deftung before she could think about it, consonants rattling from her mouth like pebbles bouncing off the aforementioned mountain at the onset of an avalanche. Despite the force of the ejaculation, it had a sombre, almost prayerful sound to it.

Her eyes slitted, lines radiating from them as if in pain.

“My apologies, I didn’t- it just- I mean that you don’t have to tell me about your…your”

A hand waved in the air, eyes shutting tight as she sought for an appropriate word — a euphemism — so that she didn’t have to say it.

“Your affairs,” the Hoxian finished, feeling ready to scream. That absolutely was not the right word considering the context.

She wasn’t squeamish, she wasn’t prudish, she just didn’t want to be having this conversation with this man and in this place and in this moment. It was simply mortifying. And stone her down, she was still thinking about him having had enough.

The galdor groaned, splaying her fingers across her brow so that they formed something of a visor.

“Sorry, I just- I’m not unsympathetic and I-I’m sure that you’ve had other concerns since you- I just- I can’t compare de-definitions anyway and hm.”

Bash give her strength! Her embarrassment was going to boil her alive in her own skin. The heat! The sooner they got away from this subject the better and what could be further away from it than grafting people’s faces onto your own?

“I don’t think that- What you do doesn’t seem like- I just meant that if I wanted a new face then I’d have to… do it… that way. And it’s not just a face for you, it’s the whole… thing,” she explained with an eloquence aided by gesturing at his form. She glanced at her hand and hid it behind her back in a sheepish gesture.

“I didn’t mean to suggest- I don’t think it’s puppetry or… well, I suppose it is but in the sense that we all have bodies that are puppeted by the mind or the soul or… whatever. We aren’t precisely our bodies.”

With a shrug, she drank more of her wine before setting it to one side and throwing her eye over the array of food without enthusiasm.

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

M
y affairs,” he repeated, with every bit of Anatole’s deep drawl.

The snarl-rasp of Deftung had caught him speechless, the glass halfway to his lips.

At first, he wanted to – he wasn’t sure what. The drink was making his head all slurry, and not unwinding his nerves a bit. He couldn’t look at her, with her eyes narrowed in disgust. My apologies, she’d said.

I didn’t say anything risqué, he wanted to protest. I didn’t get into specifics. They’d talked of it, him and her, and he’d supposed – well, she’d brought up lovers to begin with – but maybe, he thought sourly, she didn’t want to think of him like that, given who he looked like. It wasn’t as if he was that sort of man anymore, anyway. It wasn’t as if he was much of a man anymore at all.

He remembered the shake of her hands as she poured the wine. It wasn’t much better than his, and he at least had the excuse of what manner of thing he was. He thought again, slower.

Not having had, she’d begun to say, before she’d broken off. He’d never thought of her as – well. The word inexperienced had a strange ring to it; he put it away, clearing his throat awkwardly. When he could bear to look back up at her, it was to find her face scarlet.

Boemo, he wanted to say, shrugging. He thought the Tek might offend her; a whole mant manna shit was offending her, it seemed like. Maybe offending, too, was the wrong word. He’d the tickling sense of not knowing all of what was going on.

Instead, he just inclined his head and took a sip of wine himself. When he could bear to look back up at her, it was to find her face scarlet. She gestured at him.

“The whole,” he repeated, “thing.” The word thing came out like tar, clinging. His skin prickled. You’re right, Drez, it’s a bit more than a face.

Fuck it. He downed the rest of his glass, swallowing the too-sweet wine with a twist of his lips, then reached for the carafe to pour more.

Odd connection to make, he thought. But he didn’t know; with him sitting here in another man’s flesh, he supposed face-grafting wasn’t the oddest think to bring up. Everything was rather upside-down, and Drezda Ecks was a strange enough bird herself.

“Well, I don’t know.” His words were starting to turn slushy at the edges. He’d the feeling of speaking looser, slower, though he still enunciated fair well; he always had. Some of the Rose’s broadness was creeping into the vowels, into the swing and tilt of the consonants.

“Are you, then, Drez?”

He clicked his teeth irritatedly, waved a hand. “What you said,” he said. “Your body. Listen, once – once, I felt like my body was me. I was… strong, and I worked for it. I was a good six and a half feet, and I spent all those awkward years as a lad growing into it myself. I felt –”

Attractive. He thought of the way she’d jumped earlier. Your affairs, he remembered. He licked his lips, looking down. His teeth were grit tight. He wasn’t sure why it kept coming back to that. It’d been a long time since he’d got drunk around somebody he trusted to talk to.

It wasn’t that he wanted, he thought; he didn’t want anymore, he wasn’t capable of wanting. It wasn’t in him. Dead and cold, he was. Or else it was somebody else out there, and him in here, and neither of them could agree on what they wanted, so how could they want? How could they be wanted? How could they want to be wanted?

He didn’t think Drezda felt the same way; he wasn’t sure why he was trying to explain. They could talk about feeling different on the inside than you were on the outside, but he was puppeting a corpse. It would always be different, and she’d no wish to hear about the laoso specifics of his – condition.

The whole damn thing, he thought, sighing. She’d turned back and was looking over brunch; he couldn’t bring himself to think about the food.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last, puffing out his cheeks. He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m usually better at this. It’s just disturbing, is all, being like – this. I’ve never really talked about it before, not the details. Everything’s so fucked, now, and upside-down, I don’t know how to be…”

Normal? Right side up? Close to anybody? The last thing, he thought she understood.

He wasn’t sure how to finish that. Scratching his head, he finished off his glass. He was getting well and truly drunk. He supposed that had been the intent, but he wasn’t sure it had worked out quite like he’d meant it to.

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719
Certainly Sometime After Midday
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

She’d known that it was the wrong word the moment she’d spoken it but hearing it echoed back made it more painful. The drawl didn’t help either, that particular tone one that she’d heard a tad too often in situations that she would prefer to forget. For all their differences, she couldn’t help but hear Anatole in him and that was deeply unsettling. In combination with the repetition of her own ill-chosen words, it gave her every reason to wince.

“I didn’t mean affairs as in-”

She broke off to sigh deeply, eyes flicking shut as she considered how ill-advised it might be to continue in that vein.

Forget it, she told herself. Pretend you never said it. Pretend that this topic was never broached.

Her teeth found purchase in her bottom lip, face tilting downwards as her dark eyes darted up to his, bashful and apologetic. It was difficult to keep her focus there, her awkwardness making it difficult to keep her attention on him. This wasn’t a good time for eye contact — not at all — for either of them. This morning, the diplomat appeared to have a particular penchant for putting her foot in her mouth, and it didn’t seem as if she would be taking it out any time soon. Worse actually, the man was exposing wounds to her and she had decided to repay his trust by pouring salt into them again and again. Unfortunately, Drezda couldn’t say that it was a condition unique to this day because she’d been doing a good job of hurting him since… well, potentially since the day they’d met but certainly during their last few encounters.

She’d theorised that friends had the ability to destroy you, Tom had suggested that they wouldn’t do it but was she proving that they could also cause a great deal of pain? Or was it possible that she was just a very poor example of a friend? No, the Hoxian was inclined to adhere to the poor example theory, this being her after all. It was bitterly ironic really. She’d spent so long keeping others at a distance by causing pain and insult that now it appeared to have become second nature to her. She didn’t seem capable of doing anything else now even if she wished to do so and right now, the last thing she wanted to do was drive him away.

Her companion was getting drunk, his speech growing slushy but it was doing nothing to soften his edges. Conversely, they seemed to be growing sharper, the man incredibly prickly — understandable given how flippant she’d just sounded about his nature.

The Hoxian sighed, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Tom… I didn’t intend to sound so…” she trailed off, fingers splaying further apart and pressing hard into the corners of her eyes. She didn’t know if it was the external pressure or her emotions bubbling up that made tears well against her fingertips. She didn’t know if she was upset or angry, but she hadn’t had enough to drink to deal with this. Or maybe she’d had too much. Honestly, it probably didn’t matter; no doubt she’d have been frustrated either way and just as much of a fuck-up.

His mood was readily discerned and slurring or not, the change in his accent was also all too apparent. This was his natural speech, something that was coming out because he wasn’t holding onto his manufactured identity as tightly. But it hadn’t been her intention to make him this way, to strike a nerve as she surely must have done. Blame couldn’t be pinned on her for not having the right words!

However, the diplomat had fallen mute in light of the information that he was providing, the knowledge of his former height making her look up and up, trying to imagine such a towering stature and having to suppress a shudder. The thought of it horrified her and she couldn’t deny that it was deeply rooted in the fact that it was a human height and while she knew what he had been and reasoned that she had to come to terms with it, the knowledge didn’t make the task any easier.

Awkward discomfort seemed to take root between them, neither quite sure how to handle this situation, especially as the raen seemed to battle with verbally tearing her a new one and burying his head in his hands at the nature of his existence. She drank more wine, all too happy to damn near finish it, reaching for the carafe to add more to the low volume that remained swilling in the swell of the glass.

“Look, Tom, I wasn’t trying to sound- to be disrespectful. I haven’t grown up knowing that people like you exist, I don’t have my mother’s understanding and her fancy words and her- her- her way!,” Drezda explained, setting the carafe down a tad too hard on the table, its thud on the table an echoing boom in her ears. Her hands began to move as she spoke, the newly topped up wine still clasped in her hand and flirting with the glass’s rim every time she sent it sloshing up to it; she didn’t seem to notice.

“I can’t say the right thing and the more I try to fix it, the worse I make it. I can’t do right for doing wrong and you getting all… all…”

The wave of her hand sent liquid spilling over the top to splash onto her skin. It drew her attention, earning a puzzled frown before she brought her hand to her lips and slurped loudly at the spillage.

No sense in wasting good wine.

“I’m insensitive and I try to turn things back to me and I don’t- I haven’t all this deep spiritual learning to draw on, Tom. I’m probably not going to understand and you probably shouldn’t bother. This sort of conversation isn’t for me, I’m not… I’m not capable. Just call me a bitch. It’s the truth and you might feel better,” she pointed out with a hiccup and a half-shrug. She took another generous sip and then set her drink down. The young woman plucked up some of the bread and instead of eating it, she began to pick it apart with her fingers, dark gaze fixed on her task.

“Don’t listen to my attempts to phil- philosozi-zi- philosofi- speculate and make sense of this,” she added, a wrinkle appearing between her brows as she tried and failed to pronounce ‘philosophise’. She was irritated that her tongue seemed to be failing her.

“I’m a poet, not a theologian. Not Hexxos either. I’ve only got metaphors and- and- I can’t do this, that’s the truth of it! I don’t know what I am! I don’t know what my body is to me! I’m in here and I’ve tried — I’ve tried. I can’t make it… I can’t make it fit.”

She frowned at her bread, which had been mainly reduced to fine breadcrumbs, and seemed to see what she was doing for the first time. With a sigh, she began to sweep crumbs from the table into the upturned cup of her palm.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I’m not… I’m not trying to make light of anything. I’m not… I’m not helping. I’m sorry.”

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

H
e saw it in the corner of his eye, the way she lifted her chin, the way her eyes went up. Your kind, he got the funny urge to say, your kind get that tall in Gior – it’s not like I was a flooding monster, or something. He didn’t know how he’d thought she’d take it; he wasn’t sure he’d thought at all. He wasn’t thinking very much now, being honest.

He tried to think when it’d rounded the bend, when it’d started hurtling south. What the floods, anyway? An hour ago, maybe more, they were holding hands under the table across from Ksjta; a half-hour ago, they were sitting on the bed, talking easy-like, or as easy-like as either of them got.

He’d found it easy, once, talking. He’d’ve known what to do. He still knew what to do, he thought, only none of it was working right here. Every word he said seemed to make her face even redder, ‘til he could almost feel the flush in her field about her. Now, she’d broken off apologizing; she was taking a long drink of wine, almost draining her glass.

And now she was a rush of words.

He’d been looking sullenly down into his own glass, trying to figure how much of Anatole’s face he could see warped in the white wine. Now, he looked up abruptly. He opened his mouth; it hung open for a long time as he watched her, as he drank in what he could. He blinked, left eye twitching, when the carafe came down on the tablecloth. Slow down, he thought to say, but it was laughable; he’d no wish to be a hypocrite. His eyes darted occasionally down at her glass, watching the wine jump to the rim, watching it arc back and curl and splash and toss little glittering droplets.

You getting all, all – All what? he wanted to protest, grunting in his throat. But she’d broken off to slurp spilt wine off her thumb, like it was the most natural thing to do.

His mouth shut with a quiet click. He swallowed. She continued, more spilling out of her like the wine; he blinked, watching, listening, wondering if he ought to – he didn’t know. Offer her a kerchief? Bitch, she said – he blinked again, startled – then set down her glass, then took up a piece of bread and began tearing at it with her fingers.

It was when she’d calmed that he pieced his thoughts together, watching her sweep a few crusty crumbs off the table into her palm; he thought of her cleaning up his washstand, putting his razor and soap in their places, and his brow furrowed.

“You don’t have to – help, dove,” he said. The word slipped out; he’d meant it to be soothing, but he glanced away, pressing his lips thin.

His head was swimming. It was hard to think what to say, when he wasn’t sure what the problem was. He knew he’d done something; he knew he’d come out harsh – maybe it was this face, this flooding awful voice – maybe it was just him, after all. He’d never had much more than the manners of a banderwolf; you could cover it up with golly-talk as much as you wanted, but he was still a beast.

He started to pick up his glass, then paused, his hand on the top. The smell of the soup and the cooling bread and the smoked salmon did little else but turn his stomach, now. “I don’t have much spiritual learning, either,” he went on, “and if I wanted Ksjta, I’d be down there talking to her. She treats me like a – I don’t know, but not like a man. You treat me like a man. I don’t want to call you a –”

He shook his head, hand jumping away from the glass as if burned. He didn’t want more to drink, either.

“It was you I wanted to – to speculate with,” he offered, trying a smile; it came out lopsided, and he just pictured another sneer. “Neither of us can make it fit,” he said, frowning, “but you don’t have to make anything fit, here. I know it doesn’t fit.”

What can I do? he wanted to ask, as he’d asked her once, a long time ago. He wasn’t sure there was an answer. Do you want to talk about it? No, you don’t, he thought – not about this, not about love, not about the weather; and every time I remind you of who I used to be, you…

He scratched the back of his neck. He looked down at the carafe again, thinking how light it had looked when she’d set it down. He thought, too, of how much she’d drunk just in the past – five, ten minutes? She was drunk enough already, he thought, and none of that had hit her yet.

Careful, he took a small step forward, though he reached carefully so that they didn’t brush; he put a hand on the bulb of her glass. “Maybe we should give it a break,” he said, looking at her; he couldn’t keep the worry off his face, this time. “I don’t know that it’s making any of this any easier.”

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719
After Midday
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

She pushed breadcrumbs with the side of her hand, trying to drive them to her upturned palm but finding that many of the fine particulates stuck to her skin. Not only did she have a certain damp stickiness from the wine she’d spilled on herself but a light dew on the surface from the heat of the day. She was cooler in here than she’d been outside and cooler than she would have been if the drapes were open but she was still overly warm. It was Roalis in this godsbedamned kingdom so it couldn’t be helped but it was something which she’d rather not have to suffer.

She was running her fingers swiftly over the places where crumbs had gathered in order to dislodge them, black eyes darting swiftly to his face as he spoke.

Dove? Had he really called her that? Drezda didn’t know how it made her feel, the word soft and tender from his lips, soothing and placating. Her teeth pressed into her lower lip to steady the beginning of a wobble.

She returned her attention to the task of cleaning up her mess but she couldn’t manage to keep her gaze away from him, finding it creeping back to him again and again as she waited for more. The diplomat couldn’t help eyeing him expectantly, albeit nervously, her field holding a low current as she waited to see if his mood had altered, or if she’d misunderstood something over the past number of minutes. He didn’t seem sharp anymore, but there was definitely some agitation there, the way his gaze had shifted away so their eyes wouldn’t inadvertently meet, a certain restlessness in his actions that she didn’t know how to interpret.

Had she rubbed him up the wrong way again? She’d been trying to apologise. She hadn’t intended to gloss over everything ill-advised that she’d said but she’d tried to explain any seeming insensitivity on her part. It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t discuss the sort of spiritual metaphysics that her companion seemed interested in; it was the only reason she’d brought up her mother and the Hexxos.

She dusted her palms free of crumbs, letting them drop onto one of the platters, frowning at the needless mess that she’d made. The fact that she’d wasted it didn’t occur to her, hardly worthy of concern for the Hoxian. Taking up her glass again, she peered at its volume with a mix of bewilderment and chagrin before swallowing a mouthful.

So much for only having one drink.

“I know what you mean. Umah — Mother — has a tendency of treating some people abstractly as if they’re a concept rather than a person with feelings,” the diplomat responded flatly, trying to decipher an odd thrill that had gone through her when Tom had said that she treated him like a man. Why should a shiver have gone through her — a frankly delicious little tremor — over such a plain statement? And whatever did he mean by it?

It was the choice of ‘man’ rather than ‘person’, she thought. She hadn’t thought to say anything else aloud, ‘person’ seeming suitably neutral and acceptable, whereas calling him a man felt far more… personal somehow. Of course it was ridiculous, especially given that he hadn’t said anything contrary to what she herself had thought. Yet Drezda felt inclined to wiggle where she sat, her face apparently stuck in a permanent state of blush at this point. In truth, it wasn’t extreme, just a soft rouge shadowing her cheekbones in the muted summer light.

Peering into her wine glass, the young woman risked a glance in his direction, not raising her head but simply sliding her gaze so that she was looking at him shyly.

Speculating. Had that been his intention? She hadn’t known what the point of the conversational direction had been but she supposed that it made sense — he should have anticipated the potential for it to go poorly though.

“No, I didn’t mean- I was saying that my body doesn’t fit and-”

The Hoxian broke off, a frustrated breath hissing out from between her teeth. She shook her head and took another drink before setting her glass down firmly. “It doesn’t matter what I meant. Pretend that I… didn’t say anything about it,” Drezda added resignedly, thinking better of it and raising the glass again. She’d intended to down the rest of its contents, even as the world took on more of a sway, her vision of it bright at the edges but his hand on the vessel stopped her.

It had been quite a few minutes since she had looked him full in the face — since she’d looked at him properly. He was worried about her, the way it etched into his features unmistakeable. It created all manner of anxious little creases and yet it made his face seem softer somehow. His lips didn’t have the appearance of a knife edge anymore, lacking that thin bloodlessness as he betrayed his concern.

Without looking away from him, she gently pulled the glass back and set it down blindly, fingers finding the edge of the cart and sliding inwards to solidity. With her fingers freed, it was all too easy for her hands to come together so that she could pick absently at a thumbnail. The fingers of one hand shifted to trace the length of her own thumb, the woman attempting to ground herself even as she felt more inclined to fidget.

She was nervous, restless. That low current persisted in her field, mona humming with a sense of expectation despite the galdor having no notion what might happen next. It was the lack of knowledge that buzzed through her, unsettling her while the alcohol she’d consumed began to make itself known as it churned through her bloodstream. It was diluting everything, softening her view as sharp lines grew gently fuzzy as their edges were worn away by her lack of sobriety.

“I’m fine, Tom. You don’t have to worry about… I know I said I’d only have one drink…” the diplomat explained, laughing at herself. Her own speech was getting somewhat slushy now, the syllables smoothing out in a way that only seemed possible in Estuan. “But I’m okay. It’s not… not helping.”

She moved to pat his cheek in the same manner that one might pat another’s hand, except that she paused once it was in contact with his skin, simply resting there. Incredibly soft but then he had shaved. Yet she still found it a wonder as she followed the line of his jaw, a small smile curving her lips as her focus shifted from his eyes to her own wandering hand. If he didn’t stop her then she’d let it settle with his chin cupped in her palm, her thumb stroking lightly out from the corner of his mouth as if brushing something off it. In some strange part of her mind, she was trying to brush away the worry lines.

The diplomat didn’t fully register how close she’d gotten, her body leaning gradually towards his like a sunflower seeking the sun. It was probably a shock for him to find himself in such a position. It would be a shock to her too — afterwards.

The woman found herself leaning in all the way, an instinct driving her to press her lips to his, gentle and lingering for a seemingly infinite moment. She rocked back on her heels, black eyes wide as she thought about an action that had come so naturally to her. Her lips moved soundlessly, the woman trying to come to terms with it in her own head.

“I uh… I don’t know why… I don’t even like men,” she whispered, strained and confused. Her lips pressed together, wobbling minutely, tears poised delicately on lower lids.

She’d been thinking about him differently for the last little while so the thought of kissing him hadn’t been strange — except that it had been.

“I’m sorry. Maybe… maybe I’ve had enough…”

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

I
t’s n–”

I understood what you meant, he wanted to say; I only meant you didn’t have to – he didn’t know where to go with the thought – I only meant I know what you are isn’t what I’m looking at, in the same way you know what I am isn’t this, isn’t this, isn’t, isn’t, is…

Her face was fair close to his. That was what he could understand, first. That her her eyes seemed bigger than they had, and so he couldn’t look anywhere else. Some lagging and limping part of his head was worried she’d not get the glass to set down on the table. Some other part felt impotently angry, like maybe he’d grab the glass away from her and dash it on the floor and tell her she was killing herself like he had, once, a long time ago, when he’d drunk too much and fallen asleep.

Then they slipped away too. The words concept and feelings and person and man clung to the inside of his skull. Drezda’s fingers were soft and warm on his cheek; they hadn’t left. He wondered idly if she was trying to brush away a crumb from the corner of his lips. His lips tingled.

She was leaning up a little, not quite on her toes. Her blouse was brushing his shirt; she was warm. He was frozen, something icy filling up his limbs. There were two spots of color on her cheeks and she was shutting her eyes, fringe of lashes dark on her pale skin. He blinked and squeezed his eyes shut when she kissed him.

It wasn’t for long; his lips never parted.

There was no wanting, here. Or not much. There was as much, more, fear, rabbit caught in coach wheels.

He missed being kissed, very much; for a split-second he wanted to tilt his head and lean in, slide his other hand through the hair of whoever was kissing him, kiss the way he used to. He felt tears budding in his eyes and fear mixing with a horrible, bitter sadness in his stomach.

“I don’t –” Anatole’s deep voice cracked and fluttered off someplace. His lips moved; he didn’t jerk back rightaway. He steadied himself on the table, and all the fine silverware rattled, and he knocked Drezda’s wine glass over with his hand. He grabbed for the stem. The leftover wine slopped over onto the floor; he righted it just before he fumbled it off the edge.

He was looking down at the messy spread of platter and tureen and saucer and favors. He looked slowly back up at Drezda’s face, his own blank and slack and fair pale.

Her lips trembled and her eyes glistened. She was still looking at him; he reached up to touch his face, to make sure it was still – his stomach sank to the basement, flipped over, and he swallowed a gag. He felt the familiar cheekbones underneath his fingertips, the thin lips, the lines, the raised bump of a freckle here or there.

A kiss, he remembered somewhere, a kiss’d turned a frog back into – a kiss, and the beauty should’ve turned the beast – he was getting them mixed up; he couldn’t remember…

His fingers curled into the skin, nails biting; his hand came away shaking violently. “Drez – Drezda,” came Anatole’s voice, choked.

Too drunk. There was wine splattered and pooling on the tile, dripping from the table. He skimmed it with his eyes, then glanced back up at Drezda, swallowing tightly in his throat.

He backed up a step, fingers tracing the edge of the table. “I’d never force you,” he said, “I’m not that kind of – I don’t want that way, anymore. I’m not that kind of man. I’m not… capable…”

His breath hitched in his throat. Another sob, and another. He turned his face away, blocking it with a shaky hand. With his other he took up a cloth napkin and knelt to start mopping up the spilt wine. He didn’t know what else to say; it was all he could do. His head was empty.

[Drezda Ecks]

Roalis 67, 2719
After Midday
Sub Rosa Hotel, The Stacks

.

The diplomat’s fingers crept slowly and almost automatically to her lips, touching them with a mix of disbelief and wonder. Her fingertips brushed lightly across her mouth, half-surprised to find that it felt the same as always. It had been so much the same except that it had obviously been entirely out of the ordinary and therefore not the same at all.

She had never kissed a man before and she hadn’t expected something utterly horrifying or shocking to occur but she had really believed that there would be some difference.

Why was there no difference?

Her lips felt no different than they had before, same old lips, albeit a little wet from wine. The tingling sensation was fading and it hadn’t been a harbinger of something like her mouth melting off her face. It hadn’t been an ill omen of any sort in fact. Nothing had gone wrong except that everything had.

She’d fucking kissed him, hadn’t she?

There was nothing right about that!

That she had done such a thing to Tom, knowing his proclivities… It was little wonder that he seemed ready to fall over and set everything rattling as he tried to steady himself. She heard the liquid splatter but she didn’t look, didn’t check to see what else had fallen foul of her stupid, unthinking-

Had he gone grey or was that her imagination? In a man of his age- In the body of a man of that age, could such a shock drive him to a heart attack? A stroke? Anatole had never seemed terribly unhealthy but you never knew what was going on inside a body until-

She could feel the sob crawling up her throat but it seemed to have gotten stuck, lodging there so that she struggled to breathe around it, a lump that refused to budge as her breathing hitched and gasped. Her hand found the base of her throat, grasping it briefly as if she would throttle herself before it drifted lower, clutching at her collar, twisting the material in a white-knuckled hold. She wanted to apologise again but she couldn’t get the words out. Drezda couldn’t even make her mouth move, the blasted thing giving every indication that it would never move again, lips held fast together now — utterly immobile.

Had she been hot before? Not anymore. Cold seemed to have taken root in her lips and was spreading outwards, the rest of her face gradually becoming fixed as well. Maybe she was turning to stone, maybe this was what she’d been expecting after all, the consequence of having kissed him — a man, a raen, a friend.

She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t cry, she couldn’t express — the Hoxian could only stare.

He took a step back as if out of fear of her, which she understood of course, but he spoke in a way that made it seem as if it was done out of fear for her.

Force? She didn’t understand. In another circumstance, her forehead would probably have creased, the onyx eyes darkening as her brows tugged down to shade them but not this time; her face remained smooth and impassive, tears still clinging to her eyelashes. The sense of chill had dug into her back, trailing and taking possession of her spine and the perspiration on her skin had grown cold.

At last, the Perceptive shivered and her field shivered with her, the dissociation that had begun to take hold splintering. She shook again, more violently, and this time, it didn’t stop. She slammed back into full awareness of herself and her face crumpled as the mona around her writhed in agitation. The hand at her throat moved up to her mouth, fingers clawing and tugging at it. It appeared that she was going to pull her bottom lip off. A whimper escaped her and something deeper and more sustained built in her vocal cords, issuing forth as a deep, wounded moan before a sob cracked it.

“Tom… I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head, rubbing at a teary eye with the back of a hand. “I’m so sorry... I did that to you.”

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, eyes downcast as she took in hitching breaths, trying to steady her voice so she could explain this — if she could explain this. Poor Drezda couldn’t make sense of this in her own head.

“I don’t know why- I was thinking about this since- I don’t know why I wanted to-”

She gestured vaguely to her lips, unable to find the word ‘kiss’.

It was her turn to take a step back, to tilt her body towards his own and learn what had precipitated his change of direction. For the first time, she discovered the mess that he’d made. She stared at the splash of wine uncomprehendingly for a few seconds before she realised what she was looking at, her regret faint but there. It wouldn’t have been good for her to keep drinking now but even so she felt its loss — a waste.

“Oh… well I-”

With nothing intelligent to say on the matter, she took slightly unsteady steps back to the bed and half-collapsed, half-sat on it. She found herself tilting backwards and discovered that it was easier to fall on her back rather than trying to fight gravity. Her eyes closed against the gentle but nauseating movement of her surroundings. Things still rocked a bit as if she was on a boat with the gentle movements of waves beneath her instead of a rather solid and stable mattress.

It was a bit easier when she wasn’t looking at him, stinging eyes closed while the salt of tears dried on her cheeks. Everything was easier but still so clocking confusing. It was easier to tackle his own odd words though rather than attempting to decipher her own peculiar behaviour and its motivations.

“Force me t’what, Tom?” she asked thickly.

.

[Tom Cooke]

Sub Rosa Hotel • The Stacks

Bearably Early on the 67th of Roalis, 2719

S
he had looked horrified.

He kept skimming it over in his head. Her fingertips on her lips, almost drained of color. His own were prickling; the whole of him was prickling, his muscles stiff and clenched. He tried to push away the thoughts – tried – but he couldn’t help thinking what it must’ve been like, the press of his lips against hers, the tilt of his face, the taste of his breath. He tried to imagine being kissed by – kissing – him –

His hands were clammy and warm. The napkin wasn’t soaking up the spilt wine. The cloth was dripping with it, but he was just moving the gleaming streaks of it round on the floorboards; it was still dripping from the edge of the table, tap tap tap. His hands were sticky with it.

He heard the sound she made. It was like the groaning of a ship coming apart in a storm. He felt it go through her field, too, though he couldn’t read it; all he could taste was the wild frenzy of his porven, the lingering sweetness of the wine on her lips. His eyes were swimming with floaters, and he thought they could’ve been the mona. In her field, in his; he couldn’t tell them apart. They were blushing blue and red and dark like a bruise, and he felt them like a bruise against his skin.

She was apologizing.

He didn’t look up at first; his hands froze on the napkin, trembling and damp. He couldn’t look at them either. Slowly he looked up, his heart jumping and aching in his throat. One of her hands, pale as a winter sky but rosy at the knuckles and the joints, was pressed to her mouth. As if in fear, he thought.

Fear of him, he thought. If he could’ve drawn his porven underneath his skin, he would’ve. It spilled out round him wild as ever. He got to his feet then, folding the wet napkin as best he could, delicate and precise as you like with his shaky hands. He laid it on top of the table among the plates and glasses and patted it once with his fingertips as if for safekeeping.

Wanted to? he mouthed, confusion in all the creases of his face. She was looking at him now, looking at him and the mess he’d made. He couldn’t read her face.

She didn’t give him time; she tottered back to the bed. He thought she was going to sit; he worried she might weep. He stayed where he was, and he did not follow. She eased herself down on the edge and looked for all the world like a young sailor stepping back onto land from his first voyage. She laid back against his rumpled bedclothes. Her hair spread tangled among his books of poetry.

In the light from the window, still flickering with the ruffling curtains, he could see the glistening tear-tracks drying on her cheeks. Her eyes were shut.

He didn’t understand the question at first. He should’ve known, he thought. He should’ve known. “Don’t worry about it,” he said very softly, sharply aware of the slurring of his words. The world felt grating harsh; the drink hadn’t softened it, but merely lay atop it, like a tangle of brush he had to pick his way through to do anything at all.

Almost without thinking, he poured out a glass of water from the pitcher. He gave her a wide berth round his messy bed, then set the glass on the side table, still with its upturned empty lowball and scattering of coins.

“There’s – try to – try to drink that,” he said, his voice hoarse. She didn’t move; her eyes were shut, the expression on her face feather-soft. She looked sick, he thought. He nodded, swallowing sorely again. “I won’t, uh – I won’t – I’ll find a place in the Stacks, eh? Try to get some sleep; I promise I won’t be back, I…”

It was all tangled up in his head. None of it made sense. He tugged his jacket and waistcoat on almost haphazardly, and he didn’t spare a glance at the uncovered mirror as he went. He thought for a moment – terrified – he’d have to go past Ksjta in the lobby. The whole morning had turned nightmare: the warm breeze that whispered down the hall, tugging through his tousled hair, might’ve been like fire against his traitor skin.

But he found the back stairwell, slipped down the hall and found his way through the kitchen. He nearly bumped into a maid, who yelped at the sight of him. Then he was out into the back alley, fumbling Anatole’s cigarettes out of the inside pocket of his jacket. He dropped one match trying to light it, then gave up on the pursuit.

He wouldn’t go back to the Plover, he thought – he didn’t know where – someplace with good strong drink, he thought, someplace where nobody knew him for a monster.

Monster, he thought. There was something comforting about the word, this time. If he thought it enough, he found he could wear it almost like an armor. It made his reflection in the mirror make sense. Monster, he thought again, and again. It was purpose and identity; he thought of nothing else, and could not bear to think of her, or what he had done to her.