Chapter 18. Friend

“—and I tried to say I love it, Master Morren, I really did, I was going to say it properly, and a burp came out right in the middle of the word. I got the I lo- out and then the whole thing just, UUUUURP, right there, right in front of all of them, I genuinely thought I was going to die of embarrassment.”

A long low rumble came up out of the stone.

“Hahahah!” I laughed. “And Rael, Rael was on his back on the moss, he couldn’t even speak, he kept trying to say he loves it and then losing it again, and Eydric was laughing too, and even the boy we had just pulled out from under a beast was laughing into his own knees.”

The rumble came again, a little longer this time.

“You know, I think I would do the burp again if it meant I got to drink another one of those.”

I was smiling into the moss in front of my knees, and I was aware, in a slow unhurried way, that I had been talking to this rock for a very long time and had not once wanted to stop.

It was a thing I used to do with Nana.

I would come back from whatever the instructors had put me through that day, and she would be folding linens or polishing something in my room, and she would ask me how it went, and I would sit on the edge of my bed and tell her everything.

She would make small noises at the right moments, and she would laugh at the funny parts, and when I said something foolish she would let the silence be long enough that I would hear it myself, and she would never once tell me I was taking too long.

I had not talked to anyone like that in five years.

“Morren.”

“Mm?”

“Thank you for listening.”

“I have been sitting in moss for longer than your grandfather has been alive, young Howl. I have nothing else to do. But you are welcome.”

I laughed, more quietly this time.

The canopy above the outcrop had gone from green to grey to blue while I hadn’t been paying attention to it, and I could see stars through the gaps now, three or four of them where earlier there had been only leaves.

The air was cooler against the back of my neck. I had no idea how many hours I had been sitting cross-legged in front of Master Morren, but it had been enough for a sunset to happen without me noticing.

“Young Howl.”

“…I know.”

“You have said I know four times.”

“I know.”

“That was five.”

The laugh came up easy. I pushed myself onto my knees and then onto my feet. My legs were stiff enough that I had to brace a hand on the edge of the outcrop to steady myself. Morren waited for me to be upright. He did not hurry me.

“You did well today. Passing that examination, finding your flag the way you did, and coming back here at the end of it to sit with an old stone who asked for nothing and got an afternoon’s company anyway. I am grateful.”

This took me by surprise, and flattered me more than words could place, I felt myself blushing a bit, but I didn’t know what to reply to his praises, so I didn’t say anything.

He let the quiet sit for a few breaths before speaking again, and when he did his voice had gone softer.

“You are good company, young Howl. I have enjoyed this afternoon more than I can properly tell you. I would like to give you a gift before you go.”

I sat up straighter.

“Oh no, please, you don’t have to do that. I didn’t come here expecting anything, I promise.”

I really didn’t, but I was genuinely curious about what he wanted to give me, and the rules I had been drilled in for years were very clear that you turned a gift down at least twice before accepting it out of courtesy, and I could only hope Morren wouldn’t take me at my word and put the offer away.

“I came because I gave you my word, and because I wanted to, and that is more than enough, truly, I—”

“Young Howl.”

Okay. One more polite refusal and then I stop, I swear.

“—I would be grateful just for the afternoon, honestly, I don’t need—”

“Young Howl, I am giving you a spirit’s blessing.”

I stopped mid-sentence.

“…A blessing?!“

“Mm-hm.”

“Like, a spirit’s blessing?!”

“Mm-hm.”

“What’s that?”

The mouth-crease flattened into a perfect line, and Master Morren looked at me, dumbfounded.

“…Why did you look so excited about it a moment ago if you did not know what it was?”

I let a few seconds pass and kept a straight face, but couldn’t contain my laughter in the end.

“I’m joking, I’m joking, of course I know what a blessing is. I’ve read about dozens of them. There’s this spirit in the southern provinces who gave a shepherd boy the ability to hear the thoughts of sheep, which sounds silly until you find out he became the wealthiest wool merchant in the kingdom by the time he was thirty. Oh! Or the one in the old northern chronicles about a river spirit who gave a girl the gift of walking on any surface a single human foot had walked on before, which meant she could cross oceans by following ship routes. Or the famous one about a forest spirit who gave a hunter a sense of direction so true he never got lost a single day for the rest of his life.”

I was gesturing now. I couldn’t help it.

“I used to read these to myself, and I would imagine what I’d ask for if a spirit ever offered me one. I had whole lists, Master Morren. Lists.“

“Is that so?”

“Yes! And every spirit gives a different gift, right?”

“That is, broadly speaking, correct.”

“So what is yours? What do you give?”

Morren’s mouth-crease curled into a smile.

“Come a little closer, young Howl.”

“How close?”

“Closer than you are.”

I scooted forward on my knees until I was almost nose to nose with him. The moss under my hands was cool, and the old stone smell of him was stronger up close, like rain on a forgotten courtyard.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, Master Morren.”

“Close your eyes.”

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I closed them.

“Here it comes.”

Ptooey.

Something wet and surprisingly warm hit me square between the eyes, and I jerked backward so hard I almost toppled onto my back in the leaves. My hands went up on reflex, my palms came away damp, and I sat there blinking at my own fingers with my mouth slightly open and a patch of spirit spit sliding slowly down the bridge of my nose.

“Master Morren.“

“Mhmm?”

“Did you just spit on me?”

“Mm-hm.”

I held very still for a moment, with the spit-patch sliding slow and steady down the bridge of my nose, and tried to assemble my thoughts into a sentence that wouldn’t make this worse.

“Master Morren.”

“Yes?”

“…Have I… have I perhaps offended you in some way?”

I must have done something wrong. Possibly the I’m joking part. Maybe in spirit etiquette it was the equivalent of slapping a host across the face.

“Oh, no, no, young Howl. Quite the opposite. That was the blessing.”

I was so confused.

“…The spit?”

“The blessing.” He corrected.

“The spit was the blessing?”

“The blessing took the form of spit, yes. The spit itself is not magical. Do not be concerned about the hygiene of it.”

The hygiene of it had not, until that exact moment, been a concern. It now was.

I wiped my forehead carefully on the inside of my sleeve and tried to keep my expression somewhere in the neighbourhood of gracious recipient of a great spirit’s gift. The expression I actually had on my face, I suspected, was somewhere closer to boy who has just been pranked.

“…I see,” I said, slowly. “Well, I am honoured, Master Morren. Truly. I will, um. I will treasure it.”

“You don’t see anything yet.”