Verbal Abuse

“Weird prince-guy.... Hey, creepy man!”

I find myself looking up at another ceiling for the second time in as many days. Though this one appears to be moving. A tad sickeningly.

“You’re not dying, right? Cos I don’t wanna get kicked back to Fishy-mouth if you up and die on me.”

I turn to squint blearily at blurry, beady goose eyes in a dark, white-cheeked head silhouetted against a horrifically bright background. Is that a cliff? Or has the ground tipped on its side?

“Eesh, ya not gonna throw up black stuff everywhere again, either, are ya.” She coils back warily. Wisely.

“Child, stop bothering him. He won’t wake up any sooner with you pecking him every other moment.”

I know that voice. Or at least, I know that it rings warnings in my misty skull. Seelis’s lack of fear as she looks over defiantly is familiar, too, somehow. “Hey, he is awake this time. S’not my fault, neither!”

I attempt to lift my head to look. I also regret it instantly.

“Ya sure you’re not just cursed with a weak tummer?”

“Mngh.”

“What in the lakes are you doing?” A muttering voice approaches like thunder, and light abruptly spears my aching eyes when some sort of curtain whisks back, burning around an impression of wild hair. “Huh, so she’s right this time. You are awake.”

The tone indicates that she’d rather I wasn’t. I briefly close my eyes, swallowing back the sour bite on the back of my tongue. “Meil?”

“Oh, so you do remember me. Do you also remember I’m your spirits-damned healer, too? Or did that slip your mind when you went running off without telling me to damned Fishmouth of all places.” She blurs in and out of focus, but I can still make out every hard line in that familiar strong brick of a face framed by untameable, dark copper hair.

“Did anyone tell you,” I say weakly, “that you have an incandescent kind of beauty?”

That does make her pause for a good, long moment, at least. “Going for the poet awards, are you? You’re not distracting me, Sire Quill.”

“What the hells does incandoosent mean. Are you guys married cos I’m outta here if ya gonna get all lovey.”

My arm winds up as collateral for Meil’s smack, though Sels takes the brunt of her scowl. I pinch the goose’s bill shut for her. “I am sorry.”

“MmMMfMfff!”

“No you’re not. Otherwise you wouldn’t have left Haimilia to tell me you’d left after you were already a league away and I couldn’t drag you back by your ear.”

...Touché. “It was urgent.”

“Grrffggh!”

I shake Sels’s bill. “Only if you promise to behave.”

“I could say a thing or two about behaving,” Meil says as Sels glares at me, but makes not a sound. “So that scar’s given you the ability to sense a fissure from leagues away now, has it?”

I release Sels. “...Eventually.”

Not necessarily accurately, but yes, I could have. Will be able to, one day.

“Eventually?”

Scrubbing her bill with one webbed foot, Sels mutters, “Yeah, cos he’s from the—”

I pinch her bill shut again, and close my eyes. “Think so.”

“MrRRf!”

I hear Meil sigh. “I don’t think I want to ask. Alright, how are you feeling? All of that... whatever you did, at least kept you from bleeding out, but you’re a mess. And you sealed a fissure, on your own, without a companion, so your spirit essence was practically nothing. And you were somehow even skinnier than when you started out, dehydrated— the list goes on.”

“I suppose it won’t surprise you that I feel terrible, then.”

“Good, something about you is within the realm of normalcy. Is there anything in particular you feel like letting me know?” she trots out more aggressively than the situation warrants, in my opinion.

“Bit nauseous. Light hurts.”

“If that’s it, you’re fine,” she diagnoses dismissively. “Let me know if you cough up anything unsavoury, or your thick skull hurts worse than usual. Oh, and your goose says you went and picked her up from Fishmouth. You do know she’s a child, don’t you?”

“She stole my locket. I offered her a ride to Nachisi.”

“You don’t just— she’s not even imprinted on you! You took her away from her father, from her town—”

“Hey, I wanna be here, lady! You know how boring Fishmouth is? Yeah maybe he’s a real smelly fish, but if he gets me outta there I’m good.”

Meil scowls from her to me, and levels her finger. “If she finds out she doesn’t like it there and wants to go back home, you let her. Immediately.”

I am wondering what made her change her mind. Thoughts of adventure? Questions I’ll ask later. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.”

Ξ-Ξϟ†ϟΞ-Ξ

They let me rest, fitfully. Eventually I find out it’s been two days since I collapsed, and the townspeople refused to harbour me or my guard, who were at least given a commoner’s palanquin—a kago—to cart me away. They then met Meil thundering towards Fishmouth, and the rest is history.

“Hey, ya alive yet?”

I open an eye to find Sels’s head snaking around the canvas ceiling to peer down at me.

“Oi, gryphon! This thing’s heavy enough already, get off!” Tokon’s voice calls from the back.

“Hey, I’ve never walked this far before! I’m tired!”

I close my eye again. “At least you’re not using me as a pillow.”

“Whazzat? You mumblin’ death-fever nonsense?”

“I’m quite far from dead, thank you.”

“Great, cos you smell somethin’ bad.”

“In... what way?”

“Sick, demony, low on spirit stuff, kinda old, kinda dead.”

I puff a breath through my nose. “Wonderful description.”

In the silence, beyond the footfalls of my guard, I swear I can hear the sound of hooves and snorting horses, jangling metal buckles and voices. Have we reached the company already? Two days of walking....

“By the way, you want your mementy-thingy back? This thing’s kinda annoying to carry around.” A clinking draws my eyes open to find the locket dangling a hair above my nose. “And I can’t sell it, so. Kinda useless.”

I take it before it drops onto my face. “If you want a rest, why don’t you perch on one of the horses?”

“Eh, I don’t like horses.”

“The horses are perfectly fine around gryphons.”

“It’s alright, sire. We’re nearly there, anyway,” Makolo’s voice drifts from the front.

“Thank the spirits,” Tokon groans. “Hope her ladyship’s got the luxuries with her.”

“No drink until we’re home,” Eruto says sharply. “And no slackening, either.”

“But Nachisi’s a week away, Captain....”

I let my eyes close again. A week of continuous travel to prepare. If Ilempo is at least somewhat aware of what happens, then I can’t rely on things playing out the same way. Not that I was planning to. We’ll have to see how he reacts to what I have in mind.

“Halt! State your purpose!”

“What, don’t recognise us, Ichi? We’ve been slogging up these damn hills for days, put the stinkin’ bow away,” Tokon calls out.

“Our purpose is luggin’ a royal corpse,” Sels adds unhelpfully.

I wave a hand out the side of the kago, just to refute that. “I’m alive, actually.”

“His Imperial Prince-heir?” A bowstring creaks over the approaching grunt of oxen. “My lord, my humblest apologies.”

“Don’t be such a stick up the ass, Ichi, just let us through already. His Imperial Prince-heir’s light as a feather but this thing’s damn heavy!”

If I cared, I’d be less insulted at getting labelled “heavy” than “light”, because it wouldn’t be true. “Apologies accepted. Let dear sister know we’re here, will you?”

Not that I particularly want to see her, but we should get this over with. As the company shouts itself to a sharp halt with only minor protesting from the animals, I ease myself out of the kago.

Unfortunately, I don’t get very far before Meil’s jumped down from her horse and pressing me forcefully back down. “Stay there. I’m not having you collapse again, you idiot.”

“I’m well enough,” I puff, already out of breath. “You can’t carry me the whole way to Nachisi.”

The hard look in her grey eyes says she can and she just might convince sister to make it happen. Same old Meil. “If you’re too weak to ride, then you’ll just have to— why are you smiling?”

“Mm. I’ve missed being mothered to the grave, is all.”

Whatever exasperated spiel is hovering on her lips gets interrupted by sister’s steed trotting up. There’s the piercing stare I’m used to as she dismounts, though her face is too taut to pretend at the emotionless mask she probably thinks she’s affecting. “What has my brother done to himself now?”

“Dear sweet sister,” I greet her warmly, “your concern is touching.”

Meil eyes me. “I think he’s hit his head a great many times.”

“He saved Fishstink from gettin’ eaten by fissure devils,” Sels says above me, and I can practically hear her puffing her chest as she adds, “and I saved him from gettin’ eaten by killin’ one myself. That means I got your Imperial favour, right?”

I raise my eyebrows goosewards. “You almost killed me, as well.”

“Hey! You started it!”

“And... who is this, exactly?” sister asks. “Is this the someone you said you needed to meet?”

She doesn’t sound particularly impressed. Things apparently aren’t much different even four years earlier. “She’s a friend. A very useful one.”

I can feel Meil boring holes in my skull with her eyes, but sister only looks Sels over with a glance that dismisses everything about her, yet reluctantly accepts it because sending her back now would be a hassle. And she’d have to get past me to do it.

She never did care for Sels.

“Then as your responsibility, she can come along with us to the capital.” Sister turns back to her horse. “I trust you’re well enough to make the journey, brother?”

I take advantage of Meil’s distraction to stand. “Perfectly well enough.”