26.2 Fic: Mika Reflection 1

“And when she was only two she got stuck up on the roof, couldn’t get back down. When we finally found her she was a sunburnt mess!”   It was impossible not to smile. She looked like she wanted the earth to swallow her whole. He’d never seen her slump in her chair like that before.   “Mama!” Her voice was muffled by her hands over her no-doubt-burning face. “They don’t want to hear this!”   Beg to differ.   "At least she was small enough to get down easily. How old were you when you got stuck in the vents? Ten? We had to call people to get you out. You smelled like soot for a week."   It was too easy to picture. He’d been dragged home by the ear enough times covered in mud or mothballs, himself. Yanked a couple of kids out of the lower stacks in similar states.   I guess kids are kids everywhere.   "Mint will get rid of it, they said. She'll be fresh as a rose in an hour, they said."   Nah, bicarb for soot, mint’s for garlic. Bicarb’s expensive, though. Soap and time will do the same thing. I guess it doesn’t matter here.   Mirage had crossed her arms in a huff that puffed out her cheeks. She was panning around the table with ‘SAVE ME’ spelled out in her puppy eyes.   If it was anyone else talking...   But her mother had taken the reins of conversation again. Her mother, an eleven-foot-tall actual stormcloud, whose voice was thunder and eyes were lightning.   But who still pestered offspring and their skinny friends to ‘Eat, eat!’ in a way so familiar that his mind was already adding ‘people gonna think I’m starving you, menino espentalo’ before she was finished commanding it.   Mirage had caught his eye, begging for an out as her mother detailed the fraught process of learning to use a glider.   I’m not sure I’m up to contravening your immortal tempest of a mother right now.   He dropped his gaze.   Sorry – make it up to you later.   Someone with a spine shifted the topic, and he went back to ignoring the army ants in his sleeves. Counted triangles in the tablecloth pattern. Their edges gleamed with thread-of-gold stitching, warm in the sunset light, which was iteslf reflecting through coloured glasswork that must have taken a thousand smelts to perfect the shade and shape.   How is anyone supposed to eat over this kind of finery? Do they not know this stuff stains?   He managed it. Carefully. At a pace too slow for their hostess’ satisfaction, but he’d decided to prioritize survival for the moment. The clear plate felt like a victory. One thing done.   Then someone started refilling it.   He opened his mouth to protest, and felt static raising the hairs on his arms. He could feel the storm-stare without looking. He swallowed what he was going to say.   “Abrig- thank you.” It was a mumble.   Static on the edges of his vision. He blinked against it and it dind’t help. It was resolving into fog. Spreading in tendrils.   Oh good, my favourite.   He scratched at an arm before remembering it wouldn’t do anything. Squinted through the fog to see if anyone noticed. Not that he could tell. Tried to resume eating. Some of the infivisible ants had dislodged into the tomatoes.   Not real not real not real.   Sure felt real. Was that actually what they would taste like or was his brain inventing a flavor?   Straight face. Its good. You’re grateful. You do not fucking flinch right now.   Seeds or something, that’s all. This food just has some little seeds in it.   Somehow, he finished it. And immediately moved the plate a few inches away in a bid for mercy.   The others were finishing up, too. Except the boss. Between measured breaths, he wondered whether the Noors knew what they were getting into when they offered to host him for dinner.   But apparently being done eating didn’t mean the end of dinner. Chatter continued over empty plates. The sun sank behind them, tinting the writhing fog a lurid yellow.   Breathe normally. Relax your face. Hands still. Its just a waiting game.   He kept his eyes on the empty plate. Scried for shapes in the residue of dinner. Tracked speakers and counted combinations.   Cri – Julius – Cri – Erik – Cri – Julius - Lydia – Marwa -   Motion in his periphery; Saeldor laid their hand down on the back of his chair.   “You wanna come along, brother?”   “Yea-sure.” He stood up. It was too fast, but who cared. He’d been fighting an urge to run since they flew in, and now at least he could move.   Cri excused herself as well. Said something about wanting to see the gardens, he didn’t pay attention. Something with too many legs was poking around his outer ear like a cat hanging around an open doorway, and he was focusing on reminding himself that no amount of scratching or swiping at the air would dismiss it.   One of the floor-to-almost-ceiling windows along the short wall had a latch on the side of it. Because it was actually a door. He followed Saeldor through it, Cri rearguard and he wished immediately he’d brought his coat. Would’ve been rude, though. Even he knew that.   Cri’s feathers ruffled, doubling her insulation. Saeldor was as exposed as himself, but they only laughed, shaking out their long arms. “Brisk!”   Vaguely, Cypher recalled the firbolg waking them up with snowballs last winter, when the snow came early.   It had been almost the worst way he’d ever woken up, but landing a retaliative headshot had somewhat made up for it. Saeldor had laughed then, too. Talked the whole time they were packing up camp about how they’d be getting the furs out at home, cracking open root cellars and gathering together in kitchens to chop them into big pots of stew, wondering if it would get cold enough to make candy from the sugar maples.   No wonder they didn’t mind a little wind, even if it was ‘brisk.’   So was the pace, automatically with the firbolg setting it. The path wound down from the dining room door around the curve of a gentle hill, where groves of cypress and juniper offered some shelter from the wind, their tops nodding above star-shaped flowers and shrubs that had never wanted for water. They were almost pretty enough to distract from the creeping shadows below them – were those snakes? Worms? He knew without trying that they were cold, wet.   Don’t look.   He started counting colours.   Cri stopped, so so did they. She was crouched on the side of the path, lifting a globe of tiny white flowers and its serrated, dark green leaves gently between her fingers.   “Wayfarer,” she said, warmly.   Saeldor smiled. “These little guys really will grow anywhere, huh?”   If these people want a plant, it doesn’t matter if its suited, he thought, incredulous, They can have people bring soil in, plant or cut down trees to change the light, set up in-ground heating to mimic its seasons. ‘I want that. Make it happen.’   It was unfair and he knew it. Marwa wouldn’t be on good terms with her folks if they were the kind of people to make anything struggle along on life support just for the pleasure of its presence.   All the same, this place explained a lot. No wonder she hadn’t batted an eye when he told her his best chance was a spell that probably didn’t even exist. Had there ever been something she wanted that she couldn’t have? That she couldn’t even imagine having?   Cri had got back up again and Saeldor was pointing out some other familiar faces as they moved along. Botany had never been an interest he shared, but he looked up when someone said ‘black walnut.’   He followed Saeldor’s pointing finger to a shade tree further out on the lawn. Its bark looked like a charcoal sketch against the greenery, unmistakably kin with those growing behind iron fences down Greycastle street.   They made autumn goddamn miserable, gigantic green fruit knocking on the ground and rolling into the street to decay in stinking heaps. Couldn’t walk Rose down that way until city workers finally shovelled the moulding slag into the bay. They were poison to dogs.   Guess it doesn’t matter if you don’t have any.   In a move that would have made more sense if it were an another hallucination, his mind flashed up a visual of Rose bounding across the lawn, tongue lolling out between barks.   Gods, how much would he rather be knocked flat on the cobblestones by that mutt right now.   Childish. Oh, you wanna go home? You miss your puppy dog? Get a damn grip.   He did, though. He wanted to wrap Flint street around himself like a flag, to dig his heels into ground that didn’t have empty air a few dozen feet below it. To hang his coat on the corner of a bed that barely fit in the space, drag an apple crate of books from under it and pick one to revisit. To post up on the corner that faced the window, breathe in the woodsmoke and mothballs, wait for Rose to settle on his feet, her belly moving weight and warmth in a rolling wave over his toes, and scream out loud that he didn’t need a damn thing he didn’t already have.   “Mika?”   Cri had dropped back to walk beside him. Saeldor was quiet, walking ahead, but their backward glance made no attempt to conceal concern.   Get it together. You’re a guest here.   He shrugged, managed a smile. Didn’t try to hide his exhaustion, it was fair to be tired at this point, probably.   “It’s just been a long day.”   “You can say that again, brother.” Saeldor looked around. Their shoulders were loose, the swing back in their arms for the first time since they boarded the Merlin. “Decent place to cap it off, though.”   Cri murmured agreement, but he missed the specifics, frowning.   “It doesn’t bug you?”   Saeldor’s brows lifted. “What doesn’t?”   He gestured at the space – the estate – around them. The obviously-imported flora, the manicured lawns, the thousand unseen hands that planted, built, maintained. The sheer space.   Understanding registered on the paladin’s face, followed by a teacher’s smile.   “Equity isn’t only about things, brother.”   He frowned. Seems like it shouldn’t be unrelated, either.   “You’re not hungry at the moment, right?” the firbolg continued.   He shook his head. He couldn’t imagine a version of their hosts that would have allowed him to leave hungry.   “Me either. Good food. So if I’ve got some snacks in my pocket right now, is that unfair to you?”   “Of course not.”   “What about if I have a lot of snacks. What if I had a five-course meal in my pocket?”   He frowned. “What if Cri was hungry.”   She seemed unruffled at being used as a prop in their thought experiment. She smiled like she already knew the answer.   “Then it would be a good thing she had a friend with a feast in their pocket, wouldn’t it?” Saeldor was watching him mull it over, but only for a moment. Then they turned their eyes front again. “We’ve bumped into a few of the staff at this point – any of them look tired to you? Resentful? Underfed?”   He shook his head. I get it, already.   They let him mull it over.   He knew it was unfair, to levy even an implication of hoarding, greed, tyranny against these people. Just because their house looked like someone rolled the Cat’s manor and the Snake’s castle together didn’t mean the people inside were anything alike. They’d encountered nothing but generosity since arriving.   I still wanna go home. I don’t know how to stand in rooms that big.   He was going to have to figure it out, though. They were almost back to the dining room.   Marwa looked up as they stepped in. “Oh hey guys, I was just going to turn in but you’re welcome to stay if you want!”   “I’m pretty bushed, myself,” Saeldor replied, to his enormous relief.   “It has been a long day,” Cri agreed, “We thank you for your hospitality, the food was lovely, and the company even better.”   “Hear, hear.” Ta’lok was standing, beginning a round of farewell handshakes with Marwa’s parents. “Couldn’t ask for better hosts, thank you for having us.”   Mirage led them back to their rooms. He was grateful for the reviewed directions – this place was big enough to get actually lost in.   He closed the door softly, and looked around.   No one person needs this much space.   The room wasn’t just a room, it was a whole apartment. There was a sitting area, a desk with its own chair, all cushioned, a bed with sheets so smooth they had to have been pressed at some point, a massive balcony flanked with floor-to-ceiling drapes held back with heavy gold ropes, and an ajar door in the south wall that he could see the edge of a bathtub through. It was warm, but he couldn't see a hearth. Focusing a moment, he realized it was coming through the floors.   His backpack was still where he put it, looking pasted onto the finery, slumped at the corner of the bed. He crossed to it for lack of another clear direction. Loosened the drawstring and grabbed his grimoire on autopilot.   Usually the next step was to pick a spot to sit. He’d never done that step in a room that felt like an exhibit before.   Don’t be stupid, you can sit in a chair. Just put it back when you’re done. You can’t stand all night.   He pulled up to the table, and dropped his backpack on the floor next to him. Cringed. Hoped no one was in the room below. Hoped it wasn’t as loud as it felt.   He rummaged. There were options. He’d only got through one of his latest set of library loans. He considered those remaining.   Most of them were covering the fey. If the morning was evidence, his adjustments there could use refining.   He rubbed at the back of his neck, which did nothing to interrupt the vice grip on it.   Breathe, relax, let go. Please.   He set the borrowed copy of Green-Orange Morality – A treatise on the Fey Mindset on the table and started unwinding his grimoire.   He made more notes than he really needed. First few days of a new keyphrase, it was good to work on manual. Get the pattern in his fingers.   Focusing on the page made it easier to tune out the room around him. To forget that the table he was working on had elaborate carvings of roses and ivy along its legs, and probably cost more than all his worldly possessions put together. A table was a table. It had enough room for book and notes and was a height that he could lean on easily.   He was almost feeling normal when there came a knock at the door.