It was deep into the night when Sunny woke up with his arm around Lidea’s waist and head pressed into the top of eir spine. He didn’t remember settling himself in that way, but he must have moved in the middle of the night. The bedroom was sparse, with a single floor bed two side tables at the head. There was only one blanket and a couple of old but well-kept pillows. It was still hot at night, so they hadn’t bothered with the blanket. Such close bed-sharing was new, though. They had shared rooms plenty of times. Laid out on the floor within reaching distance.
When faced with a room with a large, shareable pallet, though, their fatigue had taken them. It just seemed easier than trying to come up with some other, more conservative solution. But then again, he’d asked to marry em. Fully intended it unless Lidea raised some actual objection. Sharing a bed with your partner…your spouse…was a normal thing to do. The concept still felt so foreign. So far away.
Something rustled in the main room of the cabin. That’s what had woken him up without realizing it. Now Lidea was doing the same, stirring from sound asleep to wide awake the way they all conditioned themselves to sleep when on the road. Ey realized Sunny’s arm was around em and gave it a little pat on top.
“Probably just Araceli taking off in the middle of the night.” Lidea shifted a little to catch a peek through the curtains. This time, a little crackling cry joined the shuffling. Lidea rolled away, scrambling to eir feet from eir knees. Sunny followed, a little slower to react. Blue sat on a couch in the main room, looking forlorn and confused. He perked up when he spotted them and scrambled over into Lidea’s arms.
“You need to go back to the creche, buddy,” Lidea cooed, unsure if he’d understand em without using sign.
“Not very secure if they let him get out,” Sunny said. “Maybe he’s safer here with us.”
“Yeah. Not like either of us knows where the crèche is.” Lidea considered the ajar front door and wondered how he had made it this far without being caught. Sunny moved over to close it and sighed, looking around for a clock.
“Whatever. Bring him in the room; we can make-“
Someone who knew what they were doing could break a window with less noise than you’d expect, but it was too loud to be covered by the general quiet of the night. It came from the room Araceli had been using. The next sounds were of someone breaking in instead of out. Sunny kneeled down next to where Lidea sat with Blue.
“Which of us is the better fighter?” he whispered.
“You. That training with mercenaries.”
Sunny grumbled. He was lucky he had forgotten to take off his cuffs, because they were the only thing he actually knew how to fight with. On the inside, in the space along his wrist, was a piece of thin-pressed metal. With a flex of magic, he pushed it out and reformed it to flow over his knuckles. He sculpted thick, sharp spikes on top, the kind that could rip into and out of skin with the flow of a well-placed punch.
He crouched as he moved forward, waiting for whoever was on the other side of the curtain to make a move. It was two people talking in low voices in another language he couldn't quite make out. It had the glissando of Traditional Elven but diverted roughly. Two silhouettes paired with the voices, and they shuffled around the room looking for something. Probably Araceli.
Sunny touched the edge of the curtain, moving it to look inside.
He didn't catch what hit him in the chest, but suddenly he was on his back, a sharp metal spike pressing into his shoulder without piercing it. A water elf was above him, narrow eyes flashing angrily in the dark.
"Where is he?" she snapped in Cottа́l.
"Back off!" For all eir protestations to the contrary, Lidea could really throw down when it was time for it. The short staff that was normally just eir magic focus became a bludgeon against the water elf's back. It staggered her, the end of the two-pronged spear slipping off Sunny's shoulder, tearing at it in the process. The water elf swung around, aiming for Lidea and catching eir in the knee. Ey slammed to the ground with a thunk but managed to swing eir body around back toward Sunny, avoiding whatever the next incoming strike might have been.
"Where is he?" the water elf repeated. "Did you help him escape? Did you do something to him?"
"For fuck's sake, Flor." The other water elf emerged from the room, yanking back the first before she struck again.
"Do they look like fighters? And there's a kid here. Come on."
Lidea scooted across the room toward Blue and grabbed him closer, pulling him into eir body. He was shaking but calming down fast now that the fighting had ended.
"If we don't come back with him, we're fucked," said Flor, pulling back up to her full height and stowing her spear away on her back.
"Yeah, well, putting holes in academics isn't going to do that." This water elf was visibly older and leaned against the doorway casually. Both their outfits looked like uniforms, leather plating connected with small metal rings.
"We don't know where he went," Sunny said. "They stashed him here with us last night, but he snuck out at some point. We don't know anything." He moved up into a seated position, favoring the minor wound on his shoulder. Bringing Blue with eir, Lidea moved back to Sunny's side and tried to pull him around to look at the injury. He brushed eir off with a quiet assurance he was fine.
"What did he do, anyway?" Lidea asked. "If he has a warrant, just ask the cydaren to arrest him. This is way too much drama."
"It's what he's not doing," Flor snapped. "He's got a genetic responsibility as upper echelon, and he's skipping out."
"Arranged reproduction," Lidea said.
"Don't have an attitude," the older water elf said. "You're at least a little wood elf. You lot are worse."
"No attitude from me. Just thought we were the only ones this hard stuck on genes. The hit squad's a bit much."
Lidea caught the weird glance that Sunny gave em, but flicked some fingers that they could discuss it later.
The older water elf gave a click of derision.
"You should see how the Corre indige manage themselves when they think the rest of us aren’t looking. The cyndaren have spent the last century controlling for a mostly AB population because the single letters are ‘less
useful.’”
"Yeah, well, we're all monsters, I guess," Lidea said, moving to eir feet. "Can you…go…I guess? Let us get a few more hours of sleep?"
The two chatted with each other for a moment. Flor took off back into the room, moving out through the window again.
“I’ll be staying in case he comes back. You two sleep well.” The older water elf moved back into the room, behind Flor, closing the curtain behind them.
“It’s been barely twenty-four hours since we left the travel station, but it’s felt like a week.” Lidea rolled eir fingers through Sunny’s hair. He mumbled vaguely in reply. Blue had switched favorites to Sunny, and the corrocco wrapped an arm around Sunny’s arm.
Thaetl collected them early. He wasn’t surprised to see Blue had found his way out of the crèche and back to his rescuers. The more they ruminated on it, the apathy about his second disappearance started feeling more unsettling. Thaetl also didn’t seem to care that Araceli was gone and brushed off the story of the other water elves with disinterest.
When brought to the edge of the town again, they re-met Fellerwahl and regaled hir with the story. Ze had a response, but it rang more annoyed than concerned or distressed. The dynamic that underpinned this whole inter-species relationship was simply too complex to take in all at once.
“You called me your fiancé yesterday,” Lidea said. Ey had been running through every conversation since yesterday, looking for hints and clues of how they got to this point, standing on a road outside a cyndaren village. When ey scanned their first meeting with the cyndaren, that piece struck out at em.
“I asked you to marry me and you said yes,” Sunny replied, his body stiff as if he had been caught.
“If I recall, my response was ‘not no,’ which isn’t exactly a ‘yes.’”
“Well, is there something else you can be? Too old to be someone’s boyfriend.”
“Suitor?”
“I don’t…I don’t know. I’ll just say friend until we’re married, then I can say spouse.”
“You’re really just going to push it until I give in.”
“Manifesting.”
“They’re here.” Fellerwahl interrupted.
Blue saw the small group first, broke free, and ran right toward them.
The adult corrocco were Blue’s shape, just expanded to six feet tall from top of head to bottom of feet. The back arms only added another half a foot in height as their proportions filled out. Of the convoy of six, four of them were most likely AB-gendered, fur pattern a more saturated chestnut brown compared to Blue’s flaxen coloration. Two of them were double-A. Huge, one black, one mahogany, slower moving but covering more ground with each lumbering step. They weren’t scary in an active way, too placid looking to start a fight as long as they were allowed their space. You had to watch out for how they ended a fight.
Blue ran up to meet the black one, diving hard into her arms. They chattered and whistled, his probable mother smoothing his fur down with her hands and brushing his head with her chin. She asked him a question, and he pulled her over to where Lidea and Sunny were standing.
Thaetl had a quick conversation with the corrocco woman as she approached, nodded, then turned to them.
“She said it’s easier if I just direct translate. This is Tzi-tzi, the kid’s mother, and she’s eternally grateful for finding her youngest and taking care of him.”
Thaetl extended their introductions to the corrocco. She bowed, and Sunny and Lidea mirrored the motion, neither sure what corrocco customs actually looked like. Lidea, in particular, found emself suddenly overwhelmed with how much ey didn’t actually know about anything.
Tzi-tzi asked them a question, holding out her hand. Thaetl translated.
“She wants to offer you a mark of favor from her…cluster…sorry. I’ve never translated that into Cottа́l before. It’s like a matrilineal grouping.”
“What um…what does that entail?” Lidea asked, being sure to focus eir attention on Tzi-tzi instead of Thaetl. Tzi-zi gestured that Lidea should give her eir hand, and ey obeyed. Tzi-zi drew up Lidea’s sleeve and tapped the interior of eir forearm.
“It’s a magic brand,” she explained through Thaetl. “Invisible to your eyes, but we can see it. It’s proof you’ve done my people a kindness.”
“Favors are currency,” Sunny muttered in Illurian, then held out his arm. Lidea blinked around, thinking, then nodded in agreement.
“We’d be honored,” ey said for the both of them.
Tzi-zi bowed again. Lidea waited for her to pull out some kind of needle or blade. Instead, she extended a clawed finger and set the tip of it to the inside of eir forearm. She drew a delicate shape against her skin, the contact burning as it went. Not too terribly painful. Like touching a hot pan for just a little too long, but the sensation was narrowed down into a pinprick shape.
Then it was done, and Lidea brought eir arm up to eir eyes. Whatever Tzi-zi said to the contrary, ey could vaguely see it: a thin white line that formed an abstract shape of overlapping squares diminishing into a spiral. Even as ey looked at it, though, it faded. Ey pulled a strand of extra magic off eir staff and passed it over the marking with eir other hand. The mark glowed again for a few long beats before fading again. Magic activation — something Lidea was very familiar with.
Sunny turned to em as Tzi-tzi finished his up, studying the design and the process in awe.
Blue slammed into Lidea’s body in a final hug, and Lidea leaned down to return it, giving him a squeeze. He did the same with Sunny, chattering the whole time. Tzi-zi pressed her giant hand to the side of each of their faces, covering them completely, and gave another bow. Then the interaction was done, Tzi-zi grabbing Blue around the waist and hauling him into her side. Thaetl trotted after the group, escorting them back the way they came.
Fedderwahl moved up into their eyeline.
“Those are useful if you ever get stuck in corrocco lands without advanced permission. Storm. Emergency. But don’t press it.”
“Didn’t plan on it,” Lidea said.
“Good. Now get the fuck out of my territory.”
They had traveled at a fast clip for almost an hour before they felt comfortable enough to slow down to properly talk.
“I didn’t know corrocco could use magic,” Sunny said, a slight edge of concern in his voice.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” Lidea admitted. “It makes sense, though, with the level of native ambient magic. Evolution and whatnot.”
“Hm,” Sunny decided. “Even though you physically can’t anymore, have you really never considered having kids?”
Lidea felt the knot form in eir throat, but ey swallowed it down.
“Why?”
“Just you with Blue,” Sunny said.”
“I…uh…” Eir choked. “Wood elves don’t like it when you make a half-elf.”
“Well, yeah.”
“They’re also not overly fond of us reproducing as a whole. So I just…Dad’s side always made me feel like having kids was something I shouldn’t want. Then the decision was taken away from me. So…I don’t know. Fostering and adoption are obvious answers. But I never wanted to do that alone, so I never thought more about it.”
“What if you had someone to raise a child with?” Sunny asked.
Lidea considered him sideways, then reached for his hand, clutching it desperately. Let him sit with the silence as his answer for just a little awhile. At least until ey knew what the shape of that answer looked like.
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