Ambrosia

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  Everywhere, the runes pulsed in time with the song, the excited energy playing over every tower and hall.

  Agaprei hummed the tune to herself as she happily browsed through the knick-knacks and baubles of the market district, their pointed roofs still frosted from the night’s chill on the leeward side. Over the last few seasons, the godmother had encouraged more and more beastmen to settle in Agadis, and now, the city of Stérno was surprisingly cosmopolitan, lahmians and pygmies going about their morning business amid humans and satyrs.

  She passed by one shop of bone carvings, then backed up. There, amid the hand-carved bears and unicorns was one that caught her eye. A lovely clear pool, cascading into an energetic waterfall. Her eyes went wide with interest.

  Agaprei walked happily down the street, the waterfall carving balanced atop her head. It had been forever since she had any spending money, and she fully planned to take advantage of it. At the edge of the park was a crépe shop run by a griffin, and she ordered the most expensive and gaudy crépe they sold. Dipped in caramel, wrapped in decorative paper, filled with the fluffiest cream and topped with strawberries cut into the shape of roses with mint leaves for stems, and at her insistence, all three kinds of candied sprinkles.

  Her mouth was watering by the time she sat on the park bench, ready to savor the treat. Then she found something brushing against her foot.

  Wiping her mouth, she glanced down and found a stray puppy, yapping for food.

  “Well, hey, little guy. Why aren’t you preparing for war?”

  The puppy looked at her oddly, then yipped again.

  “They won’t let you fight either, huh? Let’s see what I got, shall we?”

  She crossed his legs and sat down next to the puppy. Digging around in her pockets, she pulled out the remains of her sandwich, but when she held it out, the puppy ignored it, his eyes fixed on the dessert in her hand.

  “Ah, I see. You have a refined palette for a stray, don’t you?”

  She broke the crépe in half and gave it to the puppy, who hopped up on her lap and devoured the morsel happily.

  “You know, some people would say that treats like this are too frilly, too soft, and too sweet for a warrior. Personally, I find that view irredeemably narrow-minded. The godmothers and godfathers command their warriors to feast and drink, to fight and to lust. So, really, I’m just being obedient to the commandments by eating this crépe. In fact, it would be a sin not to.”

  The puppy hacked and spit out the crépe, shaking his head in disgust.

  “Everyone’s a critic.”

  She took a bite and savored it deeply, her eyes rolling back in ecstasy. “Oh, that is soooooo good!”

  Agaprei walked happily through the park, the puppy balanced atop her head, the waterfall carving balanced atop the puppy’s head.

  “You know, we sirens have a sense of taste three times as sensitive as that of a human,” she said, smacking her lips. “So, don’t get too used to sharing my sweets, okay?”

  The puppy yipped excitedly.

  They reached the wooden shrine to Lichas, Godfather of Sky and Storms, who encircled the world by night with the black wings of a raven. Agaprei took out a bronze coin and tossed it in for good luck.

  The puppy hopped down as she knelt in worship, clapping her hands together. “Oh, great Lichas, bless my trial next week, bless me with the love of the gods.”

  A shadow fell across her face, causing her to look up.

  “May I help you, mysterious shadow person?”

  Above her stood a stoic enforcer, the brand on Lichas displayed proudly on his neck, his runic axe and shield slung across his broad back.

  “I see you here every day, siren,” he said. “Not even we humans do that. And you show the proper respect when you pray. That is pleasing to Lichas.”

  “It’ll please me more when he answers my prayers,” she said, standing up to dust herself off.

  “It takes more than devotion to become a made-man in a godfather’s familia. If you would ask a favor, you must be willing to respond in kind.”

  She drew a pair of obsidian glass daggers and spun them in her hands. “You don’t ask for respect, you earn it. You grab it by the nose and you take it.”

  The enforcer smiled through his beard, a glint of sunlight catching on a golden tooth. “You got heart, kid. Keep it up and you’ll be a capo in no time.”

  He glanced around at the other humans in the park. “They’re not giving you any trouble for being a beastman, are they? You know we take that stuff pretty seriously nowadays.”

  She chuckled. “Nah, nothing I can’t handle. Though you may want to send someone down to the Minos Champion Academy.”

  “The academy?”

  “Yeah, when I left there were a couple of humans fighting over me. By now they’ll probably need some medical attention.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “Nah, my opinion of most men is so low, they’d have to work extremely hard to disappoint me.”

  “Not a fan of men, eh?”

  “No, it’s not that, I just have standards, that’s all.”

  She adjusted her spectacles and thought for a moment. “For a man to catch my attention, he’d need to be something special. Studious and academic, quiet and reserved. Completely innocuous. A real gentleman.”

  * * *

  “Pull!”

  Storgen pulled back the lever and the catapult, built out of scraps, threw the boulder high into the air above the junkyard. Philiastra held up a long, mauve crystal like a spear and released a bolt of white-hot energy. The blast struck the boulder in the air and it exploded, bits of rubble raining down all around them.

  “Quake and shake! Whooo!” Storgen yelled, jumping up and down and pumping his fists into the air.

  “Rock slayer! I am the rock slayer!” Philiastra cheered.

  “Sudden death to all boulders! Whooo!”

  “Time for a new crystal,” she said, leaning it up against the crate along with the others.

  “Useful thing, this catapult,” Storgen remarked, cranking back the arm.

  “Very useful,” she agreed, grabbing a fresh crystal. “You’ve never had time to help me with my work before.”

  “Well, Ambera’s people are scouring census records all over the empire right now. There’s really nothing I can do to speed up the process, so I figure why not spend the day with you?”

  She smiled. “That’s nice, I like that.”

  Storgen pumped his fist in the air. “Ha! You lose!”

  Her mouth fell open. “Wait, what letter were we on?”

  “X.”

  “Aww, no fair. I always lose at X.”

  “Why?”

  “Zee,” she teased, sticking out her green tongue.

  While he dug up a fresh boulder, she drew a fresh alchemic circle in the ground around her. Once it was energized, she stepped inside with the crystal. She held out her arm and glowing rings of magical circuits appeared on her skin. With a flick they enlarged, and she spun them carefully like tumblers, lining up each sigil and pathway with her trained eye. When they were ready, she slid her hand and they came off like bracelets, coiling their way around the long crystal and branding themselves into its surface.

  “All ready?” he asked with a gleam in his eye.

  “Bonds welded, core heated, ready to test,” she responded, the crystal humming as it charged up.

  “Catapult away!”

  Giddy as a schoolboy, he pulled the lever and the powerful arm made of junk snapped vertical, catapulting the boulder up into the sky. Her aim was dead-on; the blast from the crystal boring through the center of the stone and shattering it into rubble.

  The two cheered and whooped wildly at the display.

  “Destruction!”

  “Explosion!”

  “Fire!”

  “Good shootin’ there, Phili!”

  “How nice of you to notice, kind sir,” she said, giving a deep bow, then setting the tuned crystal
down along with the others.

  “I wanna ask you, what are these for?” he asked, hopping up atop the crate and glancing down at the crystals.

  “Just heating rods for Ambera’s new bathhouse; they needed an alchemist to do the tuning.”

  “Killer heating rods.”

  She laughed. “They won’t be used at full strength in the bathhouse, silly.”

  “I win again.”

  She snapped her fingers. “Blast.”

  He watched her as she took out her sextant and made precise measurements, checked the exact angle of the moon, and adjusted the alchemic circle accordingly.

  “Alchemy draws energy from the motion of the moon and planets,” she explained when she caught him watching. “It was originally developed as an alternative to ambrosia, but it never caught on with the gods. Normally they’d bring in someone from the tower to do this, but since no one was available, they asked me.”

  The subject made him a little uncomfortable, so he tried to steer away from it.

  “Hey Phili, we’re friends, right?”

  “I thought we were.”

  “Heh heh. What I mean is, can I ask you something?”

  She took out her compass and took a precise reading. “Sure, go ahead.”

  He leaned forward. “How come you never use nymph magic?”

  She stopped scratching on her tablet. “Well, I was pretty young when we left my homeland. I hadn’t begun my training yet.”

  He scooted closer. “But, you do have it, right? Like, you were born with it?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, sometimes I’ll use it by accident, but I really don’t have a hold on it. There’s supposed to be a type of moon sprite that acts like a lens and helps my people learn to focus their powers when they’re first learning, but they can only be found over the deep ocean, so that’s not really an option for me.”

  “So, what’s it feel like?”

  She looked at him. “Magic?”

  “Yeah.”

  She tapped her lips in thought. “Hmm.”

  “You do feel it?”

  “Oh yeah, all the time, I just…never thought about it before. I’m not sure how to describe it in words.”

  She set down her instruments and sat cross-legged. “I guess it feels like…okay, imagine you’re floating in water.”

  He frowned. “I don’t really like water.”

  “Oh, that’s right, sorry.”

  “It’s okay, just keep going.”

  “All right, so imagine that every time your heart beats, you send out a little ripple in the water to all the other living things around you, and every time their hearts beat, it sends a ripple back.”

  “But plants don’t have a heartbeat.”

  “Well, it’s more like an oscillation of their lifeforce causing waves in the ether.”

  “Then why didn’t you just say that?”

  “Because I’m trying to dumb it down for you so your tiny little human brain can comprehend.”

  “You spoil me, Phili.”

  “I know.”

  “So, it’s like you’re aware of all the plant life nearby?”

  “Right, that’s a good way of saying it.”

  She closed her eyes and held out her hand. “Like, right now I can feel the tree over there on the other side of that junk pile, even though I can’t see her, and she can feel me as well. I can feel each living grain of pollen in the air, the moss growing on the rocks, the roots running through the ground. The mushrooms working up through the soil right over there, straining to break free.”

  Curious, Storgen scrambled up the junk pile to look beyond.

  “Hey, wow, there is a tree over there. I never noticed it before.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Of course there’s a tree. Why didn’t you believe me?”

  He shrugged. “I like to see things for myself. So, are you talking to her right now?”

  “Not so much talking; it’s not in words, it’s more like feelings, sharing emotions.”

  He looked over at the pleasant little tree. “What is she feeling?”

  Philiastra grew quiet, her eyes becoming distant. “Anger.”

  Storgen looked down. “So, Erolina was right. We humans really aren’t connected to this world. We don’t belong here.”

  He sat down for a while, lost in thought. After a time, Philiastra climbed up and sat beside him.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” she said quietly.

  “Nah, you’re fine,” he said half-heartedly.

  She scooted a little closer. “It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  “What? No way. It’s symmetry. I mean, the Fates fear us, the gods just spitefully use us, the beastmen all despise us, the forests kill us, so in a way I’m kinda glad that the forces of nature reject us, too. There’s comfort in consistency. I mean, if there were a bunch of things that liked humans, I’d get a headache trying to recall which is which. This way, it’s simple, easy to remember. I prefer it that way.”

  She fiddled with her fingers. “Humans have a lot of good qualities too, you know?”

  He chuckled darkly. “Yeah, we breed fast and have short lifespans. You’ll live to be, what? A thousand?”

  “I think twelve hundred is the norm.”

  “Ah, right.”

  “They can also be very kind, and loyal, and compassionate. Sometimes they even save stupid young girls who get into trouble way over their heads, and then they never even complain when those girls forget to say thank you.”

  “That’s oddly specific.”

  Tenderly, she reached over and placed her hand on top of his cast. “Thank you for saving my life, Storge.”

  He looked at her and couldn’t help but smile. Her presence was so soothing, like a warm blanket that she could just wrap around him and keep out the cold.

  “You’re welcome.”

  For a while they sat together in silence, looking out at the harbor beyond, listening to the waves rolling up onto the shore, and the distant rustle of the city. For a while, there wasn’t time; there weren’t chores to be done or tasks to finish, there weren’t taxes to pay or schedules to keep.

  There was just the moment. Now. The simple pleasure of existing. The air in your lungs, and the peace in your heart. The warmth of a friend at your side, the peace that comes with trust, the assurance that here, you need not fear. It was a place without lies and without guile.

  It was the place she created when she was with him.

  He was so reluctant to break the spell that he let it drag on a little longer than he should have.

  “It’s getting on in the day,” he cautioned.

  She gave a sweet little sleepy humm, as if being stirred from a pleasant dream. “Yeah, I better get going soon. I need to get to the café before the lunch rush starts.”

  “Yeah, and if I miss another shift at the pita hut, I’m gonna lose my job.”

  “You’re still working at the pita hut?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  She sat up excitedly. “Hey, I know! You should come by after the lunch rush one of these days. I’ll save you some of the leftovers.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He reached into his pocket and placed something in her hand.

  “What’s this?”

  She opened her hand and found an intricate little carving of a forest nymph.

  “Is this…me?”

  “Yeah, I carved it from that piece of horn they removed from my shoulder.”

  “That’s…kind of gross...”

  She cradled her fingers around it.

  “…and very sweet. Thank you.”

  “Consider it payment for lunch in advance.”

  “Aw, you don’t have to do that. We would have just tossed the leftovers to the dogs otherwise.”

  “It’s always nice to know your place in the pecking order.”

  He became quiet as he looked over his other little carvings. “I think that’s why I like to make
things. I paint, I carve, I build. I even wrote a poem once.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did. It wasn’t very good, though. I guess, I just wanted to create something that belonged. The truth is I’m jealous of you, Phili.”

  “Me?”

  “You belong in this world. You belong in your family. Even here, among the mushrooms and grass growing around the dump, you belong. I don’t even know what that must feel like.”

  He looked out into the horizon. “It must be amazing.”

  “Wait, you think my life has been some kind of rosy picnic?”

  “Well, I…”

  “You think I belong here on Ápinso?”

  “Ah…”

  “Erotan isn’t like Agadis. Everywhere I go, humans look at me with loathing and contempt.”

  “I didn’t…”

  “You think you’re the only one who understands pain? You think you’re the only one who’s lost something dear to them?”

  “I just…”

  She held her hand up to silence him. “No, you shut up. I hate that about you. You’re always got your leaves so folded up in yourself you don’t notice anything or anyone around you. You don’t think about their feelings or what they’ve lost, because the only person you really care about is yourself.”

  Storgen looked at her in shock as she got up and leaped away.

  “Phili, I…”

  He tried to follow her, sliding down the heap and calling out, but she quickly outpaced him, glowing tattoos propelling her from dune to dune as she disappeared from sight.

  Undaunted, Storgen clamored over a hill of junk and slid back down to the catapult, but his pursuit was cut short when he collided with something doughy and sweaty.

  “Goodness!” came a squeaky voice.

  Storgen tumbled and rolled along with what felt like an oversized pillow, landing on his back looking up in the sky. The man he had hit righted himself and stooped over him with thick glasses.

  “Hello, Master Storgen.”

  “Justicar Nyfitsa?”

  “Ah, so there are some things you can remember. Looks like I’ll have to rule out mental unfitness.”

  “How did you find me?”

  The short little man pointed to the catapult. “I followed the explosions.”

  “And you just assumed I’d be behind it?”