TWO HUNDRED THIRTY: Here-to-There X

 

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Alden decided that hunger wasn’t a good enough reason to brave the pavilion again. Magoob-ith and her partner had looked like they were in the mood for a rematch.

After texting Stuart that he was going to hang out in the garden area until it was time for Leeter-zis’s spell to start, he left the wooden pathway behind to seek out the quietest spot he could find. He walked a spiraling route through the paddle plants, rubbing his nose as he went in an effort to rid himself of the itch he’d had ever since he’d inhaled that smoke.

The number of partiers he encountered dwindled as he approached the outer edges of the garden, and eventually, he passed several empty nooks in a row. The next one, he decided. That will be an out-of-the-way place to wait.

But the next nook he came to was occupied.

Alden stopped beside one of the plants that had hidden the space from his view. The tall paddle had a gouged spot, and it was oozing a thick sap that smelled like apples. He would have found that intriguing if he wasn’t busy taking in the sight of the knight who sat in front of him.

Bithe was alone in the ankle-high grass, one of the garden lamps glowing at his back and a light rod from the siblinghold on the ground by his knee. His hands were cupped in his lap. The vatha that fluttered around them were larger than the ones he’d called to feed the o’odee chicks this morning.

It’s been such a long day for the knights and Stuart. They didn’t get a nap like me.

Alden wanted to convince himself that the look on Bithe’s face was only tiredness. It would be easier to know what to do if it was. Just leave him be; don’t risk upsetting the balance between them. The day had started rough, but Alden thought they were cool with each other now. They’d worked together for hours, fought some toy koobas, and Bithe had come to rescue him from Olget-ovekondo’s company on the train.

Bithe didn’t look tired, though. Or not only tired. The slump of his shoulders and the curve of his mouth…he seemed sad. Worried. He was out here in the quietest part of the garden while his friends enjoyed the party, and he was watching his vatha with a lost expression.

He doesn’t even notice me standing here. I should leave. I don’t know what to say to him if he’s having a sad moment.

“I tried to speak confidently to you and Stu-art’h earlier,” Bithe said in a quiet voice. “About Ryada and Emban. I shouldn’t have. I was wrong.”

Or he definitely notices me standing here. Staring at him.

Alden walked toward him. “Hn’tyon Bithe.”

“Ryada didn’t refuse the deepening when Emban asked her. She told me she was going to, but…she changed her mind. She’s said yes. And Emban is happy.” Bithe was watching the vatha so closely a passerby might have thought he was addressing them instead of Alden. “She changed her mind very quickly. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, does it? I’m sure we’ll all talk about it together tomorrow as a squad.”

Wrong? Alden was on the verge of asking, but something about the way this meeting had occurred and the way Bithe was still gazing at the bugs told him silence was the better option.

“I,” Bithe said after a short while had passed, “am always glad to tell people why I cast aside my surname. But you didn’t ask.”

That felt like an invitation even if he was still talking to his moths. Alden took one more step and sat down across from him. The grass was thick, and the ground here was warmer than the night air. “Why did you cast aside your surname?”

“Because it would have been a source of pride for the father I shared it with to say that he had raised a son toward the path of highest onus. I didn’t want him to have that. Now, for him to speak of me will only make him look foolish. I will find a new name for myself, one shared by another or chosen from deed.”

Is his father not a knight? Or a votary? Stuart had said Emban’s squad was made up of people raised in the Rapports.

“When I was younger, I demanded that he give me to Rapport III. We didn’t live far from the border, and I knew he wasn’t allowed to go there, so it seemed like a solution for getting away from him.” One pale green vatha landed on Bithe’s wrist. “They don’t let parents donate young children to this life anymore, though. So I had to keep sneaking into the Rapport to try to persuade people that I belonged among them. It shouldn’t have worked, but my father said such unkind things about me when a votary returned me to him after my fourth attempt that she changed her mind and decided there might be room in the Rapport for me after all.”

And just like that, Alden found himself with a bunch of questions that he didn’t dare ask a person who had exploded at him for saying the wrong thing this morning.

How awful was Bithe’s father? How did a young child break into a Rapport repeatedly? Did he walk? Or stow away with someone heading in the right direction? And when he got there, did he go to some strange knight’s house and try to move in?

Depending on the answers, Bithe may have been operating dangerously close to 99.9 as an elementary schooler.

“I mostly lived at school after that. I’ve never regretted it, and I got along with many people after a season of <<adjustment>>. But being a member of this squad is the first time I’ve felt that I had a family in years.” His voice strengthened. “If I have a home now, it’s them. My squadmates. I like being in depressing places with them more than I like being on the Mother without them. We’ve kept pace with one another’s growth, and we’re all supposed to be together again soon, traveling with a new mentor knight. I was excited to show them this.”

He held out his hands. Two more vatha had arrived since Alden sat down.

“But Ryada…yesterday, she told me she…isn’t satisfied with her own skill.”

Alden swallowed.

Those were such mild words if you didn’t know what they meant. But Alden did know, and he didn’t think Bithe would be sitting out here, saying this to a human, if Ryada was only mildly dissatisfied.

“I was upset when you said the vatha might be a sign I’d chosen well. I didn’t want you to say it in front of her when she…but what she said to me yesterday must have been a <<fleeting>> storm of emotion. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have agreed to deepen with Emban.”

Bithe sat up straighter. He finally looked at Alden. “I’m only telling you this because of Stu-art’h. You must understand that these things sometimes happen if he still wants you to be his friend even after he becomes a knight.”

Ignoring the implication that Stuart might move on to better friends as soon as he had the chance was easy when Bithe was presenting a more serious problem.

Ryada-bess wouldn’t have said yes to Emban? Didn’t Bithe really mean that she shouldn’t have said yes if she was hiding potentially deadly personal turmoil behind that bright personality of hers?

“Did Ryada…Emban knows she had a bad day yesterday, doesn’t she?” Alden asked.

If Emban knew Ryada was having trouble, then it was fine.

But Emban wasn’t acting like someone who knew the person she hoped to spend her life fighting beside had suffered an existential crisis. Yesterday.

Yesterday was awfully recent.

“There’s no reason to bring it up tonight and spoil the end of the Here-to-There, Ryada said. That makes sense. I’m sure tomorrow she’ll tell Emban, and then we’ll tell our friends that she’s having more difficulty with this affixation than she expected. Seth will know what to say; she’s always calm. And Postor will watch Ryada so closely for the next year that we’ll start to tease him for it.”

I don’t think he’s telling me this so I can be a better friend to Stuart. He’s telling me because whatever Ryada said to him is eating him alive, and he’s trying to convince himself it’s not happening. I’m just the nearest pair of ears.

“It sounds like you’re lucky to have such good squadmates.” Alden said it to fill a gap in their talk while he thought, but it was true. A group of found family Bithe was looking forward to going to bad places with. A calm one, an overprotective one. Emban, who seemed smart and open-minded enough to throw a tiny bit of support Stuart’s way, and Bithe who’d chosen a skill he was in tune with. And of course Ryada-bess.

Ryada who was open and charming, who’d been nice to Alden and taken Stuart seriously. Ryada who’d planned to say “no” or “not right now” to Emban, possibly right up until the moment Emban actually asked her to deepen their authority connection.

Alden knew relatively little about it compared to the knights, but based on what Stuart had said and what he’d observed of Lind-otta and Esh-erdi’s partnership, the hope for something like that had to hold such an attraction. Especially for a person struggling within themselves.

Her lying to Emban is a problem. Is it an urgent problem?

It felt urgent, but when he asked himself what harm there would be in waiting until tomorrow or the next day to give Ryada more time to get her head on straight and tell Emban the truth, he couldn’t see much. The trouble was already underway, and Emban would probably be hurt less by Ryada telling her than by Alden tattling before Ryada had the chance.

Only it’s more like a second chance…

He glanced at Bithe and then away to avoid catching an eye before he knew what else to say.

Was he going to help her hide how she felt from their squad and their mentors?

That might have been the plan. Ryada would say she wasn’t ready to deepen a bond with anyone, Bithe would say nothing, and she’d try to sort herself out behind that smile to keep everyone from being worried.

“When your friends all know,” Alden said cautiously, “it will be easier because you can help her together.”

You have to make sure your friends know.

“Yes.”

Now he goes for the one-word answer.

Wanting an explicit promise from Bithe that he would make sure the secret ended tomorrow might have been unreasonable when the knight was in this mood.

I’m going to have anxiety about whether I should tell and who and when until this is over.

“Maybe we should let Stu know in advance,” he suggested. “So that he can be ready to offer support. Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”

“Emban says Stu-art’h isn’t an <<adept>> keeper of secrets. And he seems to be <<zealous>> in random directions.”

“I don’t think that’s accurate,” said Alden. “He’s bad at lying; that doesn’t mean he can’t keep secrets for a little while. And he’s zealous whenever he’s confident that he’s right. It only seems random because you don’t know what he’s contemplated enough to feel sure about.”

What I’m saying is that he was a hundred percent sure you needed to be told that your words smelled like putrescent wind from your butt this morning, and he’d say it to you again in a heartbeat.

Maybe not after hearing why Bithe had been upset…then again, Alden could imagine Stuart saying almost the same thing even if he did know, just in a different way.

Your words to Alden were putrescent, and I’m sure you don’t want to bring shame to yourself, so I’m informing you to help you.

Then he’d look at Bithe like, “Unshame yourself now. I believe in you!”

“Alden Ryeh-b’t…what is your home like?”

The question caught Alden off guard. Maybe it was meant to. It certainly scattered the next suggestion he was trying to formulate.

Home. Bithe’s home is his squad.

“I moved to a new place this year,” said Alden. “Anesidora. So I don’t…the people I share my living space with at school are waiting until I come back to decorate a tree with me. It’s a holiday tradition. And they let me pick all of the rugs when we were moving in. I think Haoyu is planning to invite me to his family’s house during our winter break from school. Lexi said he was going to do the same, but his parents lost their… ”

Bithe had stood. His vatha were still flying around, but they’d begun to spread out. The knight was frowning.

Did my answer get boring that quickly?

“I thought I heard Uro-bor Elder’s name,” Bithe murmured. “Did you?”

Alden listened. It wasn’t loud out here. A trickling sound came from one of the nooks that had a fountain, and someone was singing a long way off.

“I don’t hear anything. You’ve been taking good care of Uro-bor all day.”

“She reminds me of someone who my father employed to nurture me after I was born. And Olget-ovekondo behaves inappropriately toward her. She cares for him, but earlier today, I thought her son might fight him. I suspect he said something that was an insult to their generations of service when he found out they would be leaving the village.”

Based on the complaints Alden had heard Olget venting during his call on the train, that seemed likely.

“I should have stayed in the pavilion to monitor him,” Bithe said. “But when I found out Ryada had changed her mind and said yes, I needed to think.”

“I’m sure nobody expected you to keep working once the party started. Other than Stu maybe.”

“He insisted I leave him to work alone after the shelf above the bor family stone was blessed.”

“I didn’t get to see that part.” Couldn’t be close to the new wand shelf and the very Artonan rock while blessing was happening. His human vibes were too spooky and mysterious.

“Uro, you’ve seen how…” a voice said from the darkness. “And now…”

Alden joined Bithe on his feet. The voice wasn’t loud, but it must have been raised to reach them.

“I heard it this time.” Alden looked toward the pavilion and to the left, seeing nothing but towering paddle plants and grass. “They must be over—”

Bithe was already striding in that direction.

 

******

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The scene they found was the most uncomfortable one Alden had witnessed all night. Olget-ovekondo knelt beside a bubbling, bowl-shaped fountain. He was rubbing Uro-bor’s thin fingers against his cheek and ignoring her quiet murmurs of, “Stand, stand, Little Olget,” while she fluttered her free hand over the back of his head in a gesture that looked affectionate and nervous at the same time.

Olget was pleading his case to her, and the words definitely weren’t making the way he was wiping his face with her hand seem less weird to Alden.

“Remember when I fixed a <<water tank>>? A few years ago, Uro-bor. Remember? I fixed it because Yodra was so busy. And I’m always the first to notice when someone isn’t <<taking a share>> of the work, aren’t I? I try to get mother to buy the newest equipment. To <<modernize>>! And you remember the nodjee? I wanted her to summon nodjee for <<soil replenishment>>. I was only a child then, but wasn’t I already thinking like your village master?”

“You will build something of your own, won’t you?” Uro-bor said quietly. “Stand, please. You—”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“How will I build without the other wand?” Olget moaned. “At least one of them. I must have one. If you tell Mother you believe I should have it… ”

Alden looked at Bithe, hoping the Artonan would give him some clue about what the situation called for. But he thought Bithe was surprised by the extreme awkwardness going on here, too. The knight had stalked over here, all business until he’d taken a peek through a gap in the plants that walled off the back of this nook. Now he and Alden were both stalled out, watching whatever this was.

Olget’s behavior would have been unsettling if he was human. If anything, it struck Alden as even more so coming from a wizard toward an elderly member of the ordinary class. Maybe they had something like a grandmother and grandson relationship left over from Olget’s childhood, and that made it more complex?

Still.

And Bithe wasn’t giving him any clues beyond a grim frown.

“Mother has so much respect for you, Uro-Uro. And you know how the others pressure her to think less of me. If you tell her that you can’t close your eyes for the last time knowing the wand you’ve accepted might have deprived me of such an important inheritance, then she’ll have to leave me the other one.”

Alden scowled. What an abominable thing to say.

Bithe seemed to think so, too. His fists clenched as he drew himself taller and opened his mouth.

Are we going to bust down this cactus together? Alden thought. Okay. I can follow along.

But before Bithe could punch through a paddle plant and tell Olget to stop demanding that Uro-bor use her impending death to guilt his mother into giving him an object he wanted, a voice called out loudly from what sounded like a couple of nooks over.

“Mother! Mother, an honor for us! Master Leeter-zis requests your company as he prepares his spell!”

Uro-bor’s son appeared. He was a dark-haired man with eyebrows that had an angry arch to them even when he was smiling like he was now. He whisked the old woman away in the same second that Olget made it onto his feet.

It happened so smoothly—a swift bow, a jovial, “You understand a master wizard can’t be kept waiting, don’t you?,” and then Uro-bor was being led off. She was still murmuring, “I know you can build something,” to Olget.