ONE HUNDRED SIXTY: Shiny Water Bugs

 

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“Are you sure—?”

“Stu-art’h,” said Alden, sprinkling a condiment that looked like ashes onto a paper-thin rectangle of raw meatpetal, “if you ask me one more time if I’m sure about ‘weaving a friendship’ with you, I’ll be insulted. I promise I understood the warning and the question.”

Stuart clamped his mouth shut and watched Alden fold the alien vegetable slice over the ash the same way he had when he’d demonstrated.

I bet he hasn’t blinked three times since he came back with the food.

He’d been relieved when Stuart left the cottage to fetch the meal. The Artonan had been gone for almost twenty minutes, collecting all the components of their supper. Or second meal, in Stuart’s case.

His absence had given Alden time to think. For a while, he’d just stood by the learning cushion, staring out the window and asking himself how he would actually deal with caring about someone who might be self-sacrificing to the point of self-destruction.

Stuart was frustratingly unwilling to elaborate on the specifics of the situation until he was completely sure Alden had heard him correctly, but Alden already knew enough to draw the obvious conclusions. For some reason, Stuart’s family and whoever else was included in the “people who know me well” category thought he would die during his first affixation or soon after it.

And he planned to do it anyway.

While he’d gazed out at the trees that sometimes pulled bodies down into the soil, Alden remembered how angry Boe had been, that night by the pinball machine, berating him for not caring enough about how the risks he took affected the people he’d left back at home.

It wasn’t the same, since Alden’s deal with Ro-den had been the product of an hour’s thought, and Stuart’s decision was most likely the product of a whole lifetime’s worth. But he still almost called to apologize to Boe again.

The only reason he didn’t was because it would freak his friend out…and because he couldn’t think of how to be fully honest about his current location without making the freak-out an extended one.

Instead, he’d changed into his t-shirt, slid the cottage door open wide, and dragged the floor table over to it. Fresh air and good weather were the only ideas he had as far as banishing worry from the room went.

He and Stuart sat across from each other now, the dishes spread between them. When Alden looked to his left, he could see the stream at the bottom of the slope.

“We can catch <<shiny water bugs>> and put them in jars if you want,” said Stuart. “There are a lot of them this time of year.”

“Zansees?” Alden tried the new word out.

“A jar full of them makes a decoration for the night. And then you let them go in the morning.”

Alden dropped his alien vegetable creation onto the flat stone Stuart had heated with a spell. While it sizzled, he reached for his favorite thing on the table. They had three different dishes total—the slices, skewers that alternated the peach-colored meatpetal with chewy green blobs, and k’rethkan very similar to the ones he’d eaten on Artona II.

The crispy fried rolls were filled with strips of the vegetable, and just as he remembered, it tasted a lot like steak. With a hint of herbaceous bitterness that enhanced the whole experience.

All the other offerings on the table were condiments. And there were so many of them. He spooned a raspberry jam look-alike onto his k’rethkan and bit into it.

It was jammish. Not raspberry.

Tomato-blueberry, he decided. Like a more interesting ketchup.

“Thank you for getting the meatpetal. It’s delicious.”

Stuart seemed to favor the skewers. Particularly the chewy blobs. They tasted too much like Alden imagined a Christmas candle would if you bit into it, but they smelled great while they were cooking on the rock.

“I didn’t mean to insult you by questioning your sureness,” Stuart said, watching him eat. “Several members of my family mentioned the possibility that…I might not be a qualified interpreter of a human’s <<mood>> and intentions.”

Alden frowned around a giant mouthful of food.

“But they haven’t even spoken to you! Most of them have never said more than a few words to a human. And I have made <<dedicated effort>>.”

Alden swallowed. “Listen, you can’t keep hinting about what they said about me and you being friends in the big living room. I don’t know how to answer if I don’t know what the exact problem is.”

Stuart suddenly felt the need to stare at a little pitcher full of sauce instead of Alden.

Maybe I’ll just rip the bandage off myself.

“From my perspective, the worst thing they could think about me is probably that I’m being nice to you just because I want things from you. That’s not—”

“They don’t think that!” Stuart exclaimed. “Aunt Alis gave you a commendation. They all know you sacrificed your body in protection of Kivb-ee—I have all of her latest messages for you—and if they had <<dared>> to say something so <<an obscenity implying extreme stupidity>> about your character I would have called upon her to describe your every wound to them in detail until they felt shame.”

He intoned the word for shame so darkly that Alden almost felt like he’d done something wrong just by hearing it.

“Not that they shouldn’t feel shame anyway.” Stuart leaned over and blew on the heating rock. The sizzling noises increased in volume.

How did that work? The original spell didn’t involve blowing.

“This morning, I found some of the proper adults in the living room and told them I wanted to invite you to our home. There was a <<tedious>> amount of discussion, but I persuaded them to agree. Then Rel walked past the door and said, ‘You did form Privacy of the House with the Avowed before he left last time, didn’t you, Stu?’

“And I said no. Because you were my guest. And you would be my guest this time.”

“Does ‘guest’ mean something unusual in your house?” Alden asked before he could go on.

“It’s a <<small matter>>. But only a hn’tyon can declare someone a guest in the Rapport,” said Stuart. “Obviously a guest doesn’t have to form a contract for Privacy of the House. That’s for visitors and people <<conducting business>>.”

“Oh…but you’re not—”

“Customarily anyone who has taken all the necessary steps and <<declared intent>> to their family is also welcome to enjoy small privileges like the guest right. In their own house. Usually, you invite your first guest over and everyone greets them warmly, and then after they depart—as long as they were not an <<unworthy>> choice—the highest ranked member of your household who met them says something about how happy they are that your <<wise>> decision-making will <<enrich>> the lives of your fellow knights in the future.”

He turned his skewer, watched it for a little too long, and then looked back up to Alden. “That’s what Father said to Emban anyway. When Emban had her first guest over. Maybe they say something different in other houses.”

Alden remembered how excited Stuart had been to bring the wevvi cart on his previous visit. “Your first guest came in covered in dirt and jumped out the window…”

“When I decided to attend LeafSong, I imagined I would invite my first guest from among my new schoolmates. But after coming to know them better, I didn’t want to bring any of them here.”

“I truly don’t mind swearing not to share your family’s secrets.”

Let’s tattoo me, Alden thought, and reduce a fraction of whatever the objections to me are.

“Of course you don’t mind,” Stuart said. “You are an honorable person. And you will be my friend. So I don’t want us to wear a mark that obligates you to secrecy about my personal weaknesses, sufferings, or mistakes.”

Boe wants a contract. Stuart refuses one.

Actually, though, his reasoning was pretty flattering.

“Besides,” said Stuart, “if you swore to the privacy of every member of the household except for me, they would still be dissatisfied. Apparently some people believe I am too young, <<overwrought>>, and <<at a crossroads>> to choose who I share my own truths with.”

He changed his voice when he said “young”, “overwrought”, and “at a crossroads” significantly enough that Alden could tell three different relatives had spoken the words.

“After Rel asked that, everyone attempted to explain to me that an acquaintanceship with an Avowed had to be managed responsibly. They said maybe I should be monitored by someone other than Evul if I wanted to keep in contact with you, and I started to get <<frustrated>> that they weren’t listening. So I explained more clearly that I hoped this visit would be one of many throughout our lives.”

Alden rescued his ash-seasoned slice before Stuart could blow on the rock again and turn it into actual ash. “That’s a nice thing to hope for. They didn’t like it?”

“I think…before then most of them may have assumed I was still <<making amends>> for my mistakes on the day we met. And that I would naturally stop at some point. When they realized I didn’t view our conversations as a temporary <<project>>, the arguments started.”

The confirmation that the majority of the art’h family considered Alden a very good person but not good serious friend material stung, but not as much as he would have expected. Maybe it was because Stuart was so outraged. Or maybe it was just because Alden had a couple of concerns of his own that he had been ignoring, and he could imagine the adult art’hs having similar ones.

“We live very different lives,” he said while he watched Stuart angrily chew another one of the green blobs. “I doubt many future knights are out there right now becoming close friends with Avowed.”

“No. They aren’t.” He looked toward the stream and beyond it. “Now is the time for them all to focus on strengthening their relationships with each other.”

Alden watched him closely.

Had Stuart wanted other knight-hopefuls for friends and missed out somehow? And then LeafSong had been a bust, too. And now he had brought home a B-rank Rabbit from Earth, one who it probably looked like he had fixated on after a bizarre limb-loss incident.

Maybe his family is just confused.

It was a confusing situation if you hadn’t been one of the two parties involved.

“Did your family mention the power imbalance between us?”

He and Stuart hadn’t touched on it since their first phone call.

“The topic was assaulted at length and from many directions,” said Stuart. “But I assured them you weren’t only talking to me out of politeness, fear, or a sense of duty. And Evul agreed with me when she troubled herself to stop by the living room and add her voice to the discussion.”

“True. I’m talking to you because we have great conversations and it’s fun.”

Alden took a bite so that he could think for a second more. He almost didn’t want to bring up what, to him, was the obvious thing. Maybe it was so obvious that it would be offensive to the Artonan boy. Or maybe it wasn’t clear to Stuart at all, and he’d argue. And then Alden would be having a fight about a personally sensitive topic with someone who was on his way to becoming one of the universe’s protectors at an extraordinary cost.

He swallowed. “I’m just going to say this even though it may not need to be said, because it will be heavy for me if I don’t.”

Stuart paused halfway through pulling a piece of meatpetal off his own skewer.

“It would upset me if you ever summoned me without my permission,” Alden said. “A lot.”

What he wanted was a shocked expression and a wide-eyed Stuart declaring that of course he would never.

He didn’t get it.

Stu-art’h blinked a few times, set his food aside, and looked toward the stream again. While Alden fidgeted in his seat, expecting some kind of answer to come any second, the Artonan continued gazing into the distance with a slight frown. There was an unidentifiable change to his posture that made him look older.

Finally, after an agonizing wait, he said, “I want you to have a life that is free from horror. And free from shitty. And joyful all of the time, not just some of it.”

He’s repeating what I told him I wanted out of life during our last call….I have to stop teaching him English swear words. They sound too strange coming out of his mouth.

“So I would like to promise you that I would never summon you against your will, even in a time of <<dire need>>. But I don’t think the oath I’ve sworn and will swear again allows me to speak that promise truthfully.”

“You don’t think?”

“It doesn’t,” Stuart said more firmly. He looked back at Alden. “Not right now. It’s not a simple contract, where rules are set and I must follow them without <<deviation>>. My interpretation of the most correct action can change. But if Evul were to fall on top of the table right now, <<gruesomely>> injured and only moments from death—-”

“That’s a very specific and dark example.”

“—and if you refused to use your skill on her, but I had the authority to force you to do so, I would. For the good of the Triplanets. Even if you hated me for it and were no longer my friend.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I refused to pick your injured sister up off the meatpetal anyway,” said Alden. “Of course I would do that for you. That’s not really the kind of situation I mean.”

They stared at each other.

“I know what you mean,” said Stuart.

“You do?”

“I was already involved in summoning you without your permission once. It wasn’t my idea, but I was there. And I behaved wrongly toward you in almost every way. I even offered to summon you often in the future. I did mean voluntary summonses, but I still acted as though working for me would naturally be something you wanted to do.”

“I almost forgot that part. You promised to pay me well.”

Stuart blinked. “You almost forgot that part?”

“Yes,” said Alden. “You said it at the same time you introduced the idea of being a Hn’tyon of the Mother Planet, and I was more focused on that. I wasn’t referring to the day with the mishnen, though. I know I like to mention it, but that’s my way of trying to be funny-mean. You’ve apologized. It’s behind us. I don’t think you’re going to feed either of us to an alien animal again. But I…”

Stuart waited patiently while he searched for the right explanation.

“I just wanted you to know that my feelings about being an Avowed are too complicated for a summons to be completely casual to me,” he said. “Especially as a Ryeh-b’t. I realize we’re the casual summons class, and I chose to be one. So that may sound odd. But I want things to be different between me and my friend than they are between me and every other summoner on the Triplanets.”

“I understand.”

“Yes?”

Stuart placed a hand over the center of his own chest.

“Good,” said Alden. “And I understand that you are going to become a knight. And that your family thinks it will be very dangerous and you’ll die. But you think you won’t and you’ll be able to make the universe a better place. And of course I’m not going to wait to see what happens before I decide you’re worth my emotional…” What’s a word that means investment? “…emotional giving.”

The Artonan boy beamed at him.

“Whoever told you they’d rather be sure you’re going to survive before they weave a friendship is a gokoratch,” Alden said.

“Most of them don’t say it like that.” Stuart looked startled. At the word choice, Alden hoped. “Those who are preparing for their own <<first binding>> just feel it’s wisest to exclude me as they deepen their companionships with one another. And a few of the others <<berate>> me so much and try so hard to change my mind that I no longer want to be around them.”

“Gokoratches,” said Alden.

“No, they’re protecting themselves as they prepare for the trial ahead of them. Or their families want them to avoid an <<attachment>> that might end badly. I do see their perspective. I just wasn’t expecting it to happen when I first announced my decision. At the time, I…misunderstood how everyone thought of me.”

So he wasn’t talking about the LeafSong kids at all. He meant the other future knights. The other Rapport adolescents. Probably some of the ones Alden had seen in the vision, wearing the purple coats.

The ones who are choosing the same thing Stuart is.

Still…

“There’s a famous new song on Earth that I think you need to hear,” said Alden. “It applies to this situation. I’ll get my tablet.”

 

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“Let me give her the suitcase now.”

“No.”

“But she’s crying.”

“She’s not crying. She’s <<gurgling>>. Because the last time she gurgled, you came and took the message from her instead of making her perform proper delivery.”

Alden the ryeh-b’t and Alden the Ryeh-b’t gave Stuart pitiful looks.

They’d taken a walk upstream until they reached an area that was out of view of the house and cottages to have their training session. The blue suitcase, which Alden had volunteered as a reward, was just behind him. But Stuart had illusioned the spot it sat in so anything standing there was invisible.

The red ryeh-b’t got so excited every time Alden produced the case.

Now she stood halfway between the two of them, claws gripping the top of a root. She wore a lightweight harness with a tube that could be filled with whatever she was delivering. The trick she was supposed to be learning was a flappy hover, with the message tube turned toward the recipient so that they could take it from her without her landing.

But she didn’t want to flap in place right now.

“Just wait.” Stuart was sitting far enough away that they were raising their voices to talk. He was on his own giant root, on a cushioning spell he’d cast with a chant and a plant that looked like a tangled up dandelion head. He’d produced it from a small belt pouch that was hidden by his tunic. “She’ll do it soon.”

Alden had a cushioning spell, too. It felt like sitting on a marshmallow that was slowly sinking. And it smelled like basil. Alden didn’t know if that was the spell or the plant that had been involved in casting it.

“I have an idea,” he said, grinning across the distance. “Maybe she’ll come to me if I sing.”

Stuart began to purple. “I don’t think the numbers below that video are real! I think it’s a joke you <<brewed>> in the <<sour cauldron>> of your thoughts.”

“Tell me how to get Earth internet here, and I’ll show you how unsour my thought cauldron is. Finlay’s songs are popular. Someone commenting on it ranked our efforts, and they said I was the second most enthusiastic flapper.”