Chapter 8

The food tasted strange. Not bad, just strange. We sat on the floor in their living room and ate in silence. It was weird how they, in such a short time, had managed to adapt their flat to something I assumed resembled what their home on the other side had looked like. I could only guess that was the case, though. I had never really seen what it looked like on the inside. After all, Fenrir and I hadn’t gone there as tourists. The light was dim, and colourful pieces of fabric hung from the walls. They always made a special effort to eliminate any sharp edges I’d noticed.

After the meal, An’Ri opened one of the countless boxes of chocolate I had given her. I glanced at Mai’Ri. She seemed to be pleased with this turn of events, but didn’t the silence bother her? Sure, it wasn’t the silence that filled the nights, inviting unwanted thoughts, but it was neither the silence of sharing their strange tea nor watching the sunset. That one felt okay… I sighed.

“You should fill in that form. I can help you.”

She nodded slowly and got up, taking the form from the table and sitting down next to me. She looked at it with a frown.

“What does this mean?”

She pointed to a section in the middle. I blinked.

“No idea…”

It had been a long time since I needed to deal with this crap. Part of being in a front-line unit, ready for deployment to the other side, was that you didn’t need to give a shit about things like this. There was nothing they could do to you that would be worse than what the stinkers did, so the military had turned a blind eye to those breaches of discipline.

Hours passed, and even with the help of my laptop, we weren’t any closer to knowing what section 7B was about. I could always pass the ball to the Major, it had been his idea from the beginning.

“Don’t worry about it, just fill in what you know.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah...”

I put my laptop aside and stretched. Sitting on the floor sucked, and I couldn’t get why they preferred it to the sofa.

“Do you want some tea?”, she asked.

I nodded, and she got up. I watched her curiously as she filled a small ceramic kettle with cold water and added some brown powder from a bag. She placed it on a tray with the now familiar glasses, then came back and set it down in front of us.

An’Ri joined us, sitting on the other side.

“Can we do it together?”, she asked.

Mai’Ri nodded, and both of them put their hands on the kettle, and a sudden flow of Tau filled the air. I tensed instinctively. It was just tea... This is how they warmed it. I tried to push away my uneasiness.

“You can help us too”

She smiled at me.

“Another time..”

I looked away. Even if I had my suit on, I wouldn’t touch Tau just to make a tea. That stuff was dangerous at best, so why take the risk if you could just use a stove?

“You should try”, Mai’Ri said quietly. “It is not good to stop using magic after you get burned”

I frowned. She was right, even we had figured that out.

“I need my suit for it”

She shook her head.

“No, you don’t. It doesn’t take much. You won’t burn yourself, even she can do it.”

She nodded at An’Ri.

“It is good to start with something simple”

An’Ri smiled and gave me an encouraging look. I looked away. Fuck. They didn’t understand.

“Try it…”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because there is no ‘just a bit’, okay!? You blast someone with it, or you stop them from blasting you! That’s it!”

The room fell silent, and I got up and walked out on the balcony. I fucked up. I glanced back inside the flat. Both of them were watching me. Great.

I walked over to my side but hesitated to go back to my flat, and instead leaned against the balustrade. Maybe I just needed some fresh air to calm down. The small gate was wide open, swung against the wall. Had it been a mistake from the beginning?

I heard her soft footsteps, and she came out, leaning against the wall, looking into the night.

“Tea should be ready”, she said quietly.

She glanced at me, trying to judge my reaction. I sighed. If she had come after me, it was probably An’Ri who wanted me to come. But I didn’t understand why. There were plenty of Ta’al in Hakodate, so what was the point of having me around? She had seen Fenrir, she knew who I was, and still…

I glanced at her. She watched me, her tail flickering from side to side with anticipation. I gave her a small nod and walked back to their flat, not daring to meet her eyes. Had she done it only for her sake? Or did she have some other reason? But if so, what?

An’Ri smiled when I came back, and I sat down where I had sat before and accepted the tall glass she passed me. So many questions, but asking any of them would be foolish, considering how things went most of the time between us. I glanced at Mai’Ri. Did she feel the same? I guess so. She kept glancing at me as she sipped her tea, but didn’t say anything. Maybe we weren’t that different, but she did seem different from those other Ta’al I had visited earlier with the Major, who had been terrified of me. She had served in the military, and they hadn’t, but still..

When we had drunk the tea, An’Ri put the glasses and the pot on the tray and carried them to the kitchen. When she came back, she sat down between us. I didn’t know what to do about it. It was weird to have her so close in my space, and her tail brushed against my back a few times, but I didn’t want to fuck up more than I had already done, so I stayed. After some time, I found her presence strangely comforting, so maybe leaving the gate open hadn’t been a mistake in the end…