by Ren Curylo
“What kind of fish are you going for?” he asked.
“Catfish,” she said, pointing at a stringer that hung from a metal ring on the edge of the post holding up the dock.
Ársa looked around as he sat beside her. He looked up and down the channel running right in front of the house. “Whose place is this?” he asked.
She looked at him and frowned. “It’s mine,” she said. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I have my own place, too,” he said.
“So I’ve heard,” she said with an acerbic tone.
“Have you now?”
“Yes, Ársa, I have,” she said. “I know about your dalliance that produced your little Fae son.”
“Oh,” Ársa said. “I’m sorry, Moriko. I was a coward and I should have told you.”
“You should have told me lots of things,” she said. “I’m not surprised. It was always my contention that you could not keep that thing in your pants and that’s exactly why I have been reluctant to participate in your peculiar brand of love.”
“I’ve given you much ammunition to make you feel that way, Moriko,” he said. “I don’t blame you for feeling betrayed. But I am truly sorry and if I could go back and not be such a damned fool, I would.”
Moriko grunted. “Well, since we both know that’s one of the things even we cannot do, I guess it’s a safe declaration. One you’ll never let me down about since I’ll never prove it’s a lie.”
“I won’t lie to you, ever again, Moriko, I promise. Even if the truth is ugly and hurts us both.”
“Ársa, spare me,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “We all know that your solution to that one is to neglect to tell me anything.”
“I’m not the one who’s been hiding out down here,” he said.
“I’ve not been hiding, I’ve been screening my calls,” she said. Her tone was serious but she couldn’t keep from smiling, letting him know she had, indeed, been hiding from him.
“Well, Moriko,” Ársa said with a suddenly quiet and serious tone. “I guess since I’m making a new truthful and transparent chapter in our relationship, I had better tell you this.”
“Uh-oh,” she said.
“Chéile is pregnant.”
Moriko’s mouth thinned to a hard, tight line. She didn’t make any sound or move at all even though there was a clear, hard tug on her fishing line. After a few moments, she merely nodded her head.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Moriko said, “Just keep her away from me. I have too much to do with all the forests and all the Fae, to put up with shit out of that crazy bitch.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Moriko, but honestly, I don’t know how I can stop her.”
Moriko snorted derisively.
Ársa said with a slightly indignant tone, “It’s true, Moriko. I don’t know how she’s doing it. She never displayed any real Traveling ability when we assessed her after her Alteration. She uses the transportation room because she’s still not much good at Traveling. I don’t know how she’s managing to find you specifically.”
“Lucky me,” Moriko said.
“And while you may be her most frequent target, you aren’t the only one. She came to Lerien and destroyed the Flower Fae once and she burned out the Elves.”
“I know about those. We have to do something about those attacks on the Fae, Ársa, whether you like it or not. They are my charges, at your request. And I will do whatever I have to do to protect them now that they’re mine, and that includes killing your wife.”
“Hopefully she will be preoccupied for at least the next few months or so.”
Moriko scoffed. “I am sure she can’t wait to hustle her chubbies down here and show off what she’s done.”
Ársa agreed with Moriko but he declined to say so. “Look, Moriko,” he said, touching her gingerly on the arm. “I’m sorry. I was stupid and I should let you kick my ass. I would if I thought it would make you love me again.”
“I love you, Ársa,” she said. “I just don’t trust you.”
“Do you think someday we could be friends again?”
“We never stopped being friends, you idiot. And I never stopped loving you, but we can’t be any more than that. There’s too much to overcome.”
“I understand,” he said. “Does that mean you’ll start obeying my orders and come to Na Réaltaí?”
Moriko laughed. It was more of an abrasive bray than a real laugh. “No,” was all she said.
Ársa nodded. “So where did this place come from?” he asked.
“From you, stupid,” she said. “From you and me and Anoba, it’s the creation of all of us together.”
“We did a good job, didn’t we?”
“I think so, but most people find the swamp pretty dismal.”
“It’s hot and steamy here,” he said. “Is the water swimmable?”
“If you want your penis bitten off by an alligator, I guess it is,” Moriko said.
“Eww,” Ársa said. “I guess I’ll pass. I’ll stay hot and sweaty.”
“Probably a good idea,” she said. “Or you could go back to Na Réaltaí.”
Ignoring her suggestion, Ársa said, “Where did the house come from?”
“I built it,” she said.
“With,” Ársa said, waving his hand around in a similar fashion he had used when he cleared the mud from his boots.
Moriko shook her head. “I physically built it,” she said. “Hammers, nails and saws, the whole thing. Anoba helped me, and so did Oseyan and a few others.”
“I’m impressed,” Ársa said. “When did that happen?” “Over the course of the last year or so,” she said. “Where was I?” he asked, frowning a bit.
“You, my darling, were chasing Elf maidens and making Fae babies,” she said.
“I get the feeling that this place is significant,” he said, choosing to ignore her comment.
“It is,” she said. “This is a replica of my family home in the old world before it began to die. It was one of the first areas flooded by the massive sea storms before the droughts came.”
“You came from…” he paused a moment, choosing his words. “Humble beginnings,” he said at last.
Moriko laughed. “I came from the bayous in the southland,” she said. “I’m a child of the swamp and I won’t apologize to anyone for it.”
Ársa caught her defiant tone and was quick to placate her. “I don’t see that there is anything to apologize for, Moriko. I was surprised. I think most of us have some secrets pertaining to our backgrounds.”
“I hardly think I’m the only one who set out to duplicate my ancestral home, Ársa,” she said.
“No, I suppose you’re not. The home I built on Amalith is a replica of the vacation home we had when Anoba and I were children.”
Moriko nodded. “Our backgrounds were very different.”
“That’s true, but our lives and directions haven’t been.”
Moriko pulled in her fishing line and wrapped it up, securing the hook in her beat up cork before she stood up. “I don’t know about that, Ársa,” she said. “We’ve made some pretty different life choices, you and I.”
Ársa stood up beside her. “I suppose that’s true, but part of mine were made because of the lack of decisions on your part.”
Anger flared on her face and she whipped the pole around, smacking him in the shins with the hard handle of it. “Don’t you dare go blaming me for your poor decisions.” She sidestepped him and jerked her stringer of fish from the water before she stomped furiously down the dock toward the land.
Ársa sighed and rolled his eyes. How stupid can you be? He berated himself for only a moment before he moved to catch up with her. His long legs made up the distance in a few strides. “Moriko,” he said, “I wasn’t blaming you. Let’s call a truce, shall we? Try to be friends at least?”
Moriko threw an ugly glare at him as she set to cleaning her fish on a beat up old
table at the back corner of her house, underneath the elevated floor, beside one of the thick pilings.
Ársa took his knife out from his belt scabbard and used it to help her skin and fillet the fish. After they finished cleaning them, she walked to the edge of the water and dumped the bucket of guts, skins, and bones into the water for the alligators who were delighted to be remembered.
“I’m going inside,” she said, picking up the bowl of fish fillets.
“Do you want me to leave?” Ársa asked. He thought they had been getting along, and far better than he had expected given her level of vitriol.
“If you want to peel potatoes,” she said, “you can stay for dinner.”
“Sure,” he said, brightening at the opportunity. It was a gift he hadn’t expect from her.
She dredged the catfish fillets in cornmeal after salting them and adding a good portion of ground red pepper to them. She fried them in oil while Ársa fried the potatoes. In between watching the skillets of fish, she chopped some onion and pickles, which she mixed with mayonnaise to make a dipping sauce for the fillets.
After they had finished cooking, she poured him a glass of sweetened tea, which she made cold, not with ice, but with her fingertip, lowering the temperature of the liquid in seconds, until it was frosty and just beginning to freeze.
“That’s a convenient talent,” he said. “I always forget you can do that.”
“I can boil the Ifreann out of it, too,” she grinned, biting off a chunk of the steaming fish. “Although, I prefer to do that from outside the container rather than in.”
“It is probably better for the flesh on your fingers that way, Moriko.” Ársa took a bite of his fish fillet and chewed, rolling his eyes in delight. “Hmm,” he said, “this is delicious. I don’t think I’ve ever had fish like this before.”
“This is a family thing,” she said, “it was the way we lived for a hundred generations. Before…” She let her voice dwindle. “You were lucky, though, Ársa,” she said. “You grew up with a real family. By the time I was fifteen, all of my family was gone. I was on my own.”
“I guess we were unique in that way,” he said. “I’m fortunate to have parents still alive when we left. And I’m grateful to have Anoba with me.”
“And you still have your cousins, don’t forget them,” Moriko said.
“I don’t forget them,” he said. “I don’t see as much of Oseyan and Gealach as I would like.”
“You can change that,” Moriko said.
They chatted about his family, past events and future plans while they finished their meal and cleaned up the kitchen.
“I see you have implemented a bit of advanced technology that the mortals didn’t get,” Ársa said, turning a handle and dispensing clean fresh water.
“This is advanced by this world’s standards, perhaps, but barbaric by Na Réaltaí’s. That’s part of the reason I chose this remote location. I wanted lights and water inside my house. I wanted a toilet I could use rather than an outhouse.”
“I thought you enjoyed roughing it,” Ársa said.
“I do,” Moriko said, drying the last dish and putting it away. “I just don’t want to do it all the time. Once in a while, I would like something a bit more comfortable, like a nice hot shower.”
“There’s always…” Ársa said.
“Na Réaltaí,” Moriko said, interrupting him. She shook her head fiercely. “No, thank you. I didn’t like it there before the climate went downhill with the addition of an interloper goddess.”
“I can understand that,” he said. “I don’t like it there myself, sometimes.” He glanced across the room. “Hey is that a music player?”
“It is,” she said.
“May I?”
“Certainly,” she said.
He crossed the room and turned it on. The speakers were terrible, but it was the first music from home he had heard in decades. He turned to her and held his hand out with a smile. “Dance with me?”
Moriko hesitated for a moment before relenting. She placed her hand in his and stepped near him. He took her in his arms and pulled her close as they danced to the slow, soulful music that filled the room.
Imber 13, 763 Na Réaltaí
Chéile Chéile awoke from her nap feeling smug. She was quite happy with the way things had been going lately. She caressed her belly, happy with herself for the tiny life that was growing there, yet too small to feel. Her plan had worked perfectly and the information she had garnered by eavesdropping on Ársa and Oseyan had paid off. Due to their agreement prior to their marriage, she had managed to get pregnant without his active agreement at the time of their copulation.
Otherwise, things had gone better the last couple of months, as well. Ársa was spending more time on Na Réaltaí and had been more attentive to her than he had been for a while. He seemed pleased enough with her condition and asked her if she had chosen a gender at the time. She admitted she did not. She hadn’t realized that was a possibility. Oh, well, next time. Whatever this one is, I’ll choose the opposite next time, now that I know that’s possible just by deciding it.
Chéile sat up in her bed, not the one she shared with Ársa, but her own bed in her own chamber that he had never entered. She pressed a button on the headboard to call Tola, her Seirbhíseach. Within moments, the woman nervously entered her room. That she was terrified of Chéile was evident in her jittery muscle spasms and her darting gaze.
“Yes, miss?” Tola said.
“Bring me some Apple Fizz immediately,” she said. “But you’re,” Tola said, dropping her gaze to Chéile’s
stomach. Chéile narrowed her eyes and lifted her head in a sharp upward nod. “Tola?” she said. After a brief pause, she asked, “Are you questioning my judgment?”
“Of course not, ma’am,” she said. “I’ll get the Apple Fizz right away.”
“Thank you, Tola.”
Tola rushed from the room and returned so quickly, Chéile knew she must have run all the way to the galley. Seirbhíseach couldn’t Travel and there were no internal ports within Na Réaltaí. “Pour me a glass and you can be off the rest of the evening.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tola said, setting the tray with the large decanter and a tall glass on the desk. Her hands shook as she placed it, causing the fine crystal it bore to chitter against the tray. She poured the glass full and handed it to Chéile, being careful not to spill any of the liquid.
“Set the tray on my bedside table. And hand me that silver bowl from the shelf there, and the bottle beside it.” Chéile pointed at the bowl with the carved hands she used for scrying.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tola said. She quickly moved the decanter to the nightstand before turning to the shelf behind the desk to retrieve the bowl and bottle her mistress had requested.
Chéile took them from her and waved at her dismissively. As soon as she was sure the servant was gone, Chéile drained her Apple Fizz and poured another glass. She loved the rush she got from draining a glass of premium Apple Fizz quickly. The next one, she’d sip more slowly and enjoy its divine flavors as she spied on her husband.
She held the ornate bottle of her scrying fluid between her knees and opened it with one hand so she didn’t have to let go of her drink. She poured the liquid into her scrying bowl and set the bottle aside.
She was getting adept at scrying, though mainly on Ársa and Moriko, but she had managed successful scries on a few others as well. The mortals were easy targets for her, for they had no defenses. Today, she wasn’t interested in spying on mortals. Ársa had been gone all day, and she wanted to know where he was and what he was doing. And more importantly, who he was doing it with. She sipped her drink while she cast her scry. It was slow getting started and she was on her third drink before the liquid in her bowl started to ripple.
It seems that something is trying to block me. I seldom have trouble locating Ársa anymore, but Moriko was another matter. Sometimes she went days without being able to lock in on her enough to go
to her. The liquid began to ripple in the bowl and Chéile felt the excitement rise within her.
After a moment, it cleared and she could see a dim image. It was a rundown house in a swamp. She saw the swamp with clarity but could not place where it may be located. She stared at the swamp for several minutes as she drank her Apple Fizz. Nothing happened. In disappointment, she refocused her thoughts and the water rippled again, blurring the swamp scene.
As it focused in, she saw the house again, but this time, she could see the door was open and her view rushed inside the building. It moved swiftly, darting fast enough to make her feel slightly dizzy and a bit nauseated. At first, the view inside was dim, she could hardly see, but as dim rooms in person do, her vision soon adapted. There was a couple, moving sensuously close together, their arms encompassing one another. The female dancer was short and she had her head on her partner’s chest, her arms around his waist. He rested his cheek on the top of her head. His eyes were closed and his expression subliminal. For a moment, she didn’t recognize his face.
She took in her breath in a ragged gasp as she realized that the face, relaxed and almost beautiful, belonged to her husband. Chéile began to shake all over. If she had been standing, her knees would have buckled and dumped her in a heap on the floor.
Chéile watched him lower his hands to Moriko’s bottom and lift her from the floor so that her face was level with his. Moriko wrapped her legs around his waist to help support her weight. She sat on his clasped hands and he held her easily for she was small.
Moriko leaned back slightly to look at his face. He said something Chéile couldn’t hear and the woman in his arms laughed. Ársa said something else and her expression grew serious. She leaned forward, moving her face close to his and Ársa kissed her.
Chéile cried out in spite of her desire not to make a sound. Tola would come in to check on her if she heard the noise. She needed to get the Ifreann out of here before the nosy bitch arrived.
Chéile focused on the couple in the rippling water of her bowl and tried to Travel to them. She failed. She tried again. She felt herself waver and thin and fully expected to disappear from Na Réaltaí. She closed her eyes in anticipation of opening them to find her cheating husband with his whore in his arms.
