Good Company

After an incredibly awkward dinner—for them, at least; personally I found it the best thing I’ve tasted in over a century—I and my companions retire to a much quieter location bereft of petty societal tension.

The horses are much better company, and the straw soft as a futon. Much nicer.

Unfortunately, with Meil’s encouragement, I also ate far too much for my unique bodily constitution, and it could be more comfortable.

“Wow that food was really good,” Sels declares loudly, wickedly, from her perch on the post near my head. “They got good fish here, and their miso’s almost as good as cress. They should get some squid, too.”

I grunt.

“Child, you’re making him turn green as we speak. Stop,” Meil sighs, her hand patting a whiffling horse from the sound. “Is it really that bad?”

“In all honesty. I don’t believe eating the entire table clean, was a good idea after practically nothing, for weeks.” I keep my eyes closed. “Even if my situation were normal.”

“Yep, he’s aboutta chuck. He always talks stiff like this when he’s feeling real sick.”

She’s known me for a week.

“Well, I’ll feel bad lecturing you now.”

“Please do. It’ll keep my mind off it.” A century of not having to deal with the business of digestion has spoiled me. And despite the age-old advice of physicians I’ve proven wrong time and again, walking up to the palace didn’t help.

Meil sighs. “In that case, what is wrong with you? Why would you claim something like that when we don’t even know if it’s true? We did wound Noruaas— you were unconscious, you didn’t see it retreat—”

“The fact it retreated at all should be cause for concern.”

“It was falling apart as it did. That seems like it could be a mortal wound to me.”

“And yet the caverns didn’t collapse.” I pry my eyes open to study the wooden beams of the ceiling. “The ichor was still there, pulsing to its heart. The frissions still tried to stop us escaping— that’s how Ichti died, covering our retreat.”

A pregnant silence follows. “How do you know that?”

“Sister told me some. Some of it I was awake for.”

“Lonn, you were at death’s door. You weren’t awake for any of that. And—” She cuts over me just as I open my mouth “—I don’t care what you’re calling yourself now. I’m not calling you ‘Dyste-Eino’.”

“Dyste, Dys, or Dy works just as well.”

“What about ‘Dolt’?”

“You’ll call me that anyway.” I manage a limp smile.

“In any case, whatever’s going on with you....” Another frustrated sigh. “Is it this ‘curse’? Can you somehow feel that Noruaas is alive through those scars?”

Good question. “I believe I’d know if it died. But I do know it’s still alive— There was a fissure outside Fishmouth. Devil talked to me there, said we’d failed. That it’d— sorry.”

Wet-belching, another unpleasant side-effect of using a digestive system. Seelis leans far away, making a face probably mirroring mine. “Thought brass boots were too high-mighty politeness for burps. I’da thrown a bigger rating if ya didn’t sound like ya were gonna throw up.”

I blow a raspberry for the sake of showing her how polite a former brass boot can be, and because they both look nearly as queasy as I am. “I threw away my brass boots, O vaunted mischievous spirit.”

“...Should we take this outside, so we don’t have to clean up a mess?”

“No. Feeling better.” I thump my chest to iron out the spare air. There won’t be any chasing after disguised devils tonight, that’s certain.

“Hf. Well, then. So you saw a frission, and it talked to you?”

“Ilempo. A general. Or a messenger of his, at least. Just letting me know he’d like to have my head.” The familiar distant sense of sister hovering around the palace comes close enough to let me know she’s definitely headed in my direction, the faint sound of footsteps following a moment later. “Also handily let me know Noruaas is interested in a limb or four. Greetings, lovely little sister. What brings you here?”

Striding in at the mincing pace of imminent murder, she abruptly slows, her taut and tightly-controlled face taking a moment to find me on the straw. That tight control cracks into the hint of a frown. “You look awful.”

I ease myself more upright. “My health isn’t what it used to be.”

A faint twitch, and her expression cools, eyes glancing briefly towards the others. “In body and mind, it seems. I suppose you’ll be happy to know I’ve had to run around half the night to accommodate you and your... rash decision. Which still needs to be officialised.”

“Signing the document and recognising you as heir doesn’t need to be a big ceremony. Father would want to keep it small, anyway, considering the shameful circumstances.” I regard her lazily. “Though I suppose you won’t. Planning a ball, are we?”

She looks at me, and no one but sister has ever been able to pull off that wordless, blank expression that questions my sanity so perfectly. “Are you aware of what you’ve done, at all?”

“I asked him the same thing,” Meil says sourly.

I only smile. Sister’s eyes hold a surprising amount of simmering emotion, frustration first and foremost.

“Well, whatever you think you’re doing, you’ve done it now,” she says at last, turning with a sigh, hands in her sleeves. “I’ve assigned a servant to you. He’ll meet you in your new quarters. Occupy them, and not the stables.”

Ξ-Ξϟ†ϟΞ-Ξ

I wonder if she’s still assigned me Yoive. I’ve missed that ancient shrivelled rat of a personal servant. This glorified dojo I called home throughout the ages became shabby without his slightly cleanliness-obsessed touch to keep it whole.

Sure enough, as we wander over the half-hidden bridge back where the river is more of a deep stream, and along the dark path with only a light-imbuing to prevent every invasive scrubby branch poking an eye, there he hunches in the shadow of the doorway. Squinty-eyed with a face hammered into a permanent leer of a smile, bald head covered only by an eared cap, hands forever twisting and fidgeting beneath his robe’s sleeves, he looks exactly like he’s about to poison every meal I’ll be forced to eat over the next few weeks and stab me in the back the moment I fall asleep.

“Who... is that?” Meil mutters doubtfully behind me as I outpace her.

“Yoive you old rat!” I bow deeply to him, clasping his bony spasming hand with a grin. “How are you?”

He blinks his squinting beady eyes and flaps his mostly-toothless mouth, thin moustache twitching wildly. “I— yes I’m well! I’m very well, many thanks, many thanks. Is this— you are Master Lonni, hmm?”

“More or less.” I remove my sandals, letting him close the sliding door behind us, Meil clearly expecting a stabbing from the way she eyes him. “Is that tea I smell?”

“Oh yes— I brewed a spot—just one kettle. I wasn’t expecting more. Hmm, a lovely little group, yes, lovely.” He wrings his hands rhythmically, smiling with what yellowed teeth remain. “You’ll enjoy it very much, I think.”

Meil all but recoils, turning to me with a baffled frown.

Or perhaps it’s baffled because I’m struggling not to laugh. I admit, I’ve missed this—the open bill on Seelis, Meil on the fringe of pulling out an imbued herb or holy water. It’s the only thing I can say I’m glad to get a chance to see play out all over again.

“Lonn—”

Giving her only an enigmatic smile, I follow Yoive as he shuffles ahead into the small, open room at the little house’s centre.

She catches me in front of the brazier, hissing in my ear, “Where in the world did your sister dig him from? You know him?”

“I have no idea where she found him. But he’s a loyal servant.”

Her expressions are too priceless. The first time she met Yoive was after I’d already been looked after by him for four or so years. I remember her subtly checking every pot and bowl he served for weeks. Though she was also more openly suspicious of sister then.

A wonder that I wasn’t....

“You don’t trust dear sister?” I kneel and accept the teabowl offered.

“She’s always been... ambitious,” Meil mutters, accepting her bowl with a strained smile. “You can never tell what’s going on in her head.”

“Mm.” Did tea always taste like grass? I’ve somehow managed to unadjust myself, I think. “What did she tell you about Greshol?”

She stills for a moment, gazing into her tea. “Only that she died from her wounds before she could tell them anything.” Her eyebrows knot as she brings it to her lips. “It doesn’t sit right with me, though. I asked to see her body, but they’d cremated it. She should have been interred beneath the roots of a young tree, according to gryphon tradition.”

“Hm. Odd, indeed.” Something’s always seemed strange about that incident. I never had the time or need to look into it back then. Now, I think I will. “I’m sorry about Greshol. She was a good friend.”

“And I’m sorry about Arvi.” Her eyes never leave the brazier. “They both deserved better.”

“Yeah, this place has pretty much no gryphons ‘cept old crusty-feathers. It’s kinda sad.” Seelis finally stops staring at Yoive smacking up his tea. “Does anybody even live here?”

“Fewer than there used to be.” Maybe Yoive did poison the tea. I used to like this? “Not so many Gryphon’s Nooks around here, anymore, apart from the Ancient Tree. When did that last produce an egg?”

“You should know— he was your companion.” I have a feeling Meil isn’t going to look at me with anything other than a frown for a long while. “You love dark-green. What’s wrong with you?”

My tastes have shifted a hundred years and a diet of ichor sideways, is all. “Mmgh.”

“He’s lookin’ sick again. I don’t blame him though cos this stuff tastes like a dyin’ tree.”

I set it down, because she’s right, even if Meil looks more pained at that than she has even at my diminished appetite. “You'll be staying at your place?”

“I suppose so.” She sighs. “I don’t know where else I’ll stay.”

“Yoive can set apart an extra room for tonight if you want it.” She spent four years away last time. The house without Greshol in it will be quiet. “Just for the company.”

“Spend the night with a lunatic and his rude little half-adopted goose. You say that like it’s a good alternative,” she says sourly. “But if it means I don’t have to walk back down the mountain again....”

I smile and offer her my unfinished teabowl. “Only the best for us.”