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the--days · 1 year

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So Sweet (To Lose A Friend)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Relationships: Csorwe/Shuthmili, Talasseres & Csorwe

Characters: Csorwe, Talasseres, Shuthmili

Summary: At the end of their respective ropes, the trio meets back up, and decides to work together again.

Read it on Ao3

-------

On the gray, decaying corpse of an alien world, Talessares Charossa sits down, and unpacks his bag, and eats a sandwich.

The wax-paper wrapping has come undone, a little, at one corner, and some of the dead planet's endless, silvery sand has gotten in, and stuck to the ham.

"Yeah," Tal mutters. "That's about fucking right."

He takes a glum bite, planetary corpse-dust crunching between his molars.

His feet are blistered, probably to blood; best not to take his boots off to check.

This was supposed to be a big score– he'd needed it to be a big score. An unplundered temple to some forgotten god, carved into the open mouth of an ancient, cold volcano, on a backwater planet through a backwater gate in this backwater corner of the Echo Maze.

Tal looks up, again, to where an incongruous piece of that selfsame Maze has broken its way through the planet's crumbling sky, and taken an enormous, temple-eradicating bite out of the volcano he had come here to plunder.

The Maze-sky shifts, through the hole in the planet: green, then dusty red, then black and streaked with shooting stars. The strange geometry of it folds and unfolds, an impossible optical illusion; peaks and staircases and corridors looping and disintegrating and looping again. Taking slow, inevitable chunks out of the world.

Tal sighs, and looks away, and takes another bite of his sandwich.

It seems incredible- improbable, really- that things kept going so spectacularly wrong without Csorwe there to screw them up for him. Some sort of– scientific curiosity, or something. A genuine phenomenon. He should call that creepy mage of Csorwe's in to study it, for him.

The thought of the two of them- probably off frolicking somewhere having the time of their damn lives- makes Tal grimace. He drops the sandwich, no longer hungry.

He'll probably regret the loss, later, but– fuck it. No point sitting around here getting sand in his teeth on some dead-end planet when he can be sitting around drinking algae-beer on a dead-end station, instead.

Talessares shoulders his bag, and walks away.

Behind him, bite by bite, the Maze chews the planet down to its rind.

-------

It always amazes Csorwe how little things decay, on dead worlds like this. Shuthmili had explained it to her, once: no maggots, no fungi. Nothing living left to eat the dead.

Things had died, on Oshar. But they had rotted, too, and withered, and been eaten by insects; nothing lasts, desolation is its watchword , all the dry, rotting old words of the dry, rotting old priests of the Unspoken Name.

But the desolation of these ruined worlds is slower, and altogether less full of insects. And so the corpse that comes, shambling, to claw Csorwe's eyes out is in quite good shape, really, as far as hundred-year-old mummies go.

Its hand- tendons and muscles and flexors all intact, nails sharp and strong and yellow as bone- goes to pieces on the blade of Csorwe’s sword, shredding apart, and the corpse; with a flat, unsurprised expression, falls forward, following momentum, and its grinning, unrotting mouth gapes wide, and and snaps shut on Csorwe’s neck.

She sees, before it closes, a black film, smeared across its teeth.

And then— a shock of pain and revulsion and fear, her sword-arm cramped between her chest and the corpse’s, no room to get leverage. The corpse gnawing , like a dog with a bone. The hot rush of blood.

“Gods’ balls!” Csorwe says, clubbing the corpse across the head- it doesn’t notice- and then, “Shuthmili!”

“Csorwe!” Shuthmili calls, immediate; there is the sound of drumming feet, and then the corpse comes apart into ribbons with the sudden, pressure-change lurch of magic. The revenant even looks a little surprised, at the last, falling away to nothing with his eyes wide, mouth flapping open.

Shuthmili has one hand raised, still, behind the unravelling corpse, the light of triumph in her eyes, power rising off her nearly visible, like steam, like smoke.

Nothing living left to eat the dead – except for us , Csorwe thinks, vicious, victorious, and then: oh, shit , as her knees go watery underneath her, blood soaking already through the collar of her shirt, sliding in hot ribbons down her neck.

Shuthmili lurches forward to catch her, and then nearly goes over herself, not up to Csorwe’s weight.

“‘m alright,” Csorwe says, steadying herself. Shuthmili makes a doubtful noise.

“There’s a tooth stuck in your neck. And you’re in some danger of bleeding to death.”

“ And ,” Csorwe says, a little distantly, “this was my last clean shirt.”

Shuthmili makes a sound somewhere between amusement and disgust. Her hands, gauntleted, take gentle hold of Csorwe’s neck, one on either side. Her face screws up in concentration; that little line between her eyebrows, the sharp hawk’s focus in her eyes.

Csorwe looks down at her; lightheaded, fond.

“You have to stop looking at me like that,” Shuthmili says, “or I’m not going to focus on healing you.”

“Sorry.” Csorwe looks away, mouth twitching.

“Put your tendons back together wrong. Tie your jugular into a knot. Very nasty way to die.”

“Sorry!” Csorwe says, fighting now not to laugh, and Shuthmili’s hands- warm through the leather of her gloves- grow warmer still, with magic, and the flesh of Csorwe’s neck knits itself back together.

Csorwe sighs, relieved; but Shuthmili’s hand still lingers, where the wound had been. One thumb moves, slowly, to stroke Csorwe’s jaw.

“Can I look, now?”

“You’re terrible,” Shuthmili says, and smiles, and leans up to kiss her.

Csorwe makes a low, pleased noise in the back of her throat. Raises a hand to thread through Shuthmili’s hair.

And then, of course, the ground beneath them erupts with the grasping hands of a thousand unquiet dead.

Csorwe- as she is fleeing, again , for her life from an army of revenants- reflects that she, as the onetime servant to a god and the current companion of a master practitioner, is probably fairly close to an expert on divinity. Certainly, she knows a thing or two when it comes to magic, and godhood, and miracles– and the fact that things continue to go so consistently and spectacularly wrong without Tal Charossa around to turn them wrong definitely, in her expert opinion, definitely qualifies as the latter.

-------

On Otter Station there is a tall, handsome Osharu man who grows great hydroponic vats of blue seaweed, harvested from some distant ocean-world that Tal has never heard of.

The grow-tanks take up most of the real estate in his cramped little station bar, and the alchemical lanterns catch and filter through the water, casting bluish shadows across the floor.

Whatever time it is by station reckoning, there isn't anyone out drinking yet. Or drinking still. Whatever. More horrible, fluorescent-blue seaweed wine for him.

Tal takes a swig of said wine- it truly is terrible, strangely salty - and leans back against the bar, watching the shadows cast by the swaying kelp.

Another dead end job. Another station bar. Tal has ceased to feel sorry for himself (well. For now. Always room to pick it up again later). Instead, only a sort of floating calm. Maybe the influence of the strange, blue light of the bar, dreamlike. More probably the influence of seaweed wine on an empty stomach.

He thinks, without regret, of his rooms at Sethennai’s manor, and apricot spirits, and the bright, clear sun of Tlaanthothe. He takes another sip of seaweed wine.

Notes of brine-shrimp piss , he thinks, in the voice of one of his dreadful, snooty cousins, and smiles to himself, and drinks again.

Out of the corner of Tal’s eye, there is a silver flash of fishscale admidst the seaweed tanks. He turns in time to catch a glimpse of wide, unblinking eyes, a gaping lamprey mouth.

“Eugh,” Tal says, eloquently, leaning closer to look.

The fish gapes at him, blank horrible eyes throwing back the alchemical light, gleaming. Teeth gleaming, too.

“Eugh,” says Tal, again.

Behind him, someone says, “it’s ten credits for fried fish.”

And Tal turns, incredulous, to stare up at the Osharu barkeep.

The barkeep’s eyes- richest, deepest yellow-gold- crinkle up in a smile. “If he’s bothering you, I mean. Could cook him up. Stop him staring at you.”

He has a pleasant, stationer accent, friendly and broad. Pleasant arms and shoulders, too. Equally broad.

Tal- who has exactly eleven credits left to his name- grins, and leans an arm on the bar. “Ten credits,” he says. “Why not?”

The barkeep’s name is Odrin. The horrid fish fries up surprisingly light and flaky, with a side of the omnipresent station mealworms. Tal views the mealworms with resignation, and Odrin with interest.

Odrin eyes him back, and pours him another glass of seaweed wine, on the house.

“So,” Tal says. “The fish. Is it like, a threat, or what? ‘don’t start a fight in my bar, I’ve got monsters swimming in the fucking kelp tanks’, or something.”

Odrin laughs, and leans up against the barback, no longer even pretending to work. “It's part of the tank system,” he says, and then, after an embarrassed little pause, “it’s a little boring to most people.”

“Lucky for you I love being bored.” Tal grins. Odrin pours him another drink.

The afternoon- or whatever fucking time it is- slides away from him, after that.

Odrin, after a while, turns the bar sign to closed , and sits up on the counter with his impressive arms crossed over his chest- a little too obviously on purpose, but whatever, Tal isn't going to complain- and a glass of his own horrid blue wine.

The wine, in fairness, grows less horrid the more of it you drink.

“-and helps with the nitrogen levels,” Odrin is saying. He wobbles a little as he turns to pour himself another drink, and gestures to pour one for Tal, too.

Tal holds out his glass. “And that’s important,” he says. “Nitrogen, or whatever.”

Odrin has been explaining his hydroponic system for maybe half an hour, now. He’s excited about it, which is sweet, and says words like denitrification and pisciculture without pause even as he grows unsteady on his feet, and he leans in obviously close when he refills Tal’s glass– the solid heat of him, something almost charming in that he seems to think he’s being sly.

And– well. Tal wasn’t expecting to have to pretend to be interested in fish-and-seaweed farming when he first started eying the bartender, but whatever. He has a lot of years of practice nodding along while smart, good-looking men explain shit to him.

He pauses, over the thought, grimacing. The next swallow of wine goes down sour.

Fuck him, anyway , Tal thinks, trying to mean it. Meaning it. Trying to mean it. He probably hasn’t spared you a single fucking thought since you left, he doesn't get to ruin this.

But– oh. Sethennai’s claws had been sunk too deep into Tal for too long not to leave a mark when they tore free.

Something must show on his face. Odrin frowns, trailing off in the middle of some explanation about oxygen levels. He puts a broad, warm hand on Tal’s arm. “Alright there, Talessares?” He says, and his voice is deep and pleasant, and his hand is strong, and Tal could lean across the bar just now and kiss him, and it would be–

“Yeah,” Tal says, mouth still bile-sour. “Fine.”

There is a pause. The hydroponic tanks burble . A fish passes briefly into view, monstrous and hideous and strange.

“Maybe,” Odrin says, “We should call it a night.”

No, Tal wants to say, no, fuck you, and fuck him, he doesn't get to cockblock me from halfway across The Maze—

But he does, of course. Sethenai always got to do whatever he wanted, to Tal. And here he is, the thought of him, still lurking over Tal’s shoulder like the world’s tallest, shittiest ghost, and Tal stands, suddenly exhausted.

“Yeah,” he says. “Another night, maybe.”

The horrible part- the really horrible part- is that Odrin walks him back to the junky little cutter he’s been renting, all gentlemanly concern.

Horrible they way he helps Tal inside, and gets him a glass of water, this wretched kindness, and he is very good-looking, really, and charming, and it isn't that Tal doesn't want him, even, it’s–

“Do you need,” Odrin starts to say, and Tal snaps, sharp,

“I got it. Thanks.” Venom and spite in it, and Odrin takes a step back, a brief flash of surprise on his stupid, handsome face.

And then he swallows it, and smiles. Ducks his head a little, acknowledging. “Of course,” he says. “Well. See you around, I hope.”

“Yeah,” says Tal, hating himself over it. “See you around.”

And Odrin gives Tal another horrible, broad, friendly smile as he goes. The door, shutting behind him, closes off all light.

Tal, alone in the close, dark quarters of the cutter, curses, and lets his head thump back against the wall.

-------

Shuthmili gets the ship’s hatch shut just in time; there is a rattle of undead fists against the Mazewood, the scrabble of nails.

Csorwe thinks, distantly, that they’re going to owe the rental company for the scratches.

The alchemical engines hum and then whine, as she throws the ship into high gear from a dead stop. It jerks, shudders. Starts.

Shuthmili, stumbling as the ship judders into motion, half-falls into the co-pilot’s seat, laughing- a little hysterically but who could blame her- as the ship lifts away. Csorwe finds herself laughing, too.

They touch down just on the other side of the Maze Gate, engine still sputtering and complaining, the metal grate popping with the change in temperature.

Csorwe lets the ship idle, making mental note of fuel expenditure, the distance they still have to travel back to the station. The bite in her neck itches , a little; skinned over at the surface, but crawly and hot beneath.

“Well, captain?” Shuthmili swivels in her chair, to look across at Csorwe. “Are we stranded?”

“Yep,” Csorwe says, blandly. “Better get out and start walking.”

Shuthmili eyes her, for a moment, and then laughs. “You really are terrible,” she says, fond. “You know–”

And then she cuts herself off, looking up at Csorwe, still half-smiling, as Csorwe stands to kiss her, again.

“Got interrupted,” Csorwe says, by way of explanation. “Before.” Shutmili laughs into the base of Csorwe’s neck, her breath ticklish.

Later, they spill their packs out onto the deck of the cutter; the rattle of scroll-cases and ancient bits of pottery and whatever else. Shuthmili winces.

“Sorry,” Csorwe says. “But– hey. Don’t think we broke any of it.”

A centuries old teapot, as if in answer, rolls to face her, the handle cracked off in pieces.

“Well,” Shuthmili says, “much of it.” That hint of squeamish distaste around the corners of her mouth. Csorwe’s heart goes a little funny, that the two of them can spend a year getting chewed on by corpses and getting in fights and the gods knew what else, and Shuthmili could still find it in her to get squeamish over a chip on an old piece of pottery.

Csorwe hums. “Wouldn’t have sold for much, anyway. Those rich collector types want flash.” She sweeps a piece of the pot- an unlovely and unremarkable grey even before its accident- to the side.

“ Flash.” Shuthmili’s nose wrinkles up with a delicate, scholarly disdain. “There’s not– they weren’t flashy , if our readings are anything to go by, but–”

“Rich fucks aren’t doing the readings. Just want to impress their rich fuck friends.” Csorwe turns an old scroll-case over in her hands; decidedly un -flashy, but remarkably intact, for the ruins they’d dragged it out of. “Good condition. This’ll sell, at least.”

Shuthmili jots this down in their logbook. Makes an irritated noise. “I knew a dozen scholars who would have killed for legible, intact writings this old. Do you have any idea–”

She sighs. Runs her thumb over the surface of another bit of old pottery– just as grey and uninspiring as the pot, but at least intact.

Csorwe says, “Could get a good price for a full set. We got others?”

“Just this one.” Shuthmili lays it- delicately, almost lovingly- beside the scroll-case. Sighs, again.

“Shuthmili–”

“I know.”

“They aren’t doing anyone any good turning to dust in some old ruin anyway.”

“I know.” She looks down at their logbook. “At least it’s making us rich, right?”

Csorwe laughs.

They pulled about even, most jobs– she’s looked over that little book at least as much as Shuthmili has. Neat little columns, in her blocky handwriting and Shuthmili’s spidery, scholar’s scrawl. Expenditures and profits, the cost of fuel at different stations, this merchant or that who owed them a discount, or who they owed a debt. Making just enough to refuel and resupply and head away again.

But she says; “Oh right. Year’s time, we’ll be the ones buying gaudy vases looted out of old castles. Can’t wait.”

Shuthmili smiles, a little; her nose does not unwrinkle.

Csorwe makes an inquiring noise. “Nothing important. I only– ‘looting’ .” She looks at their little pile of pilfered artefacts.

“Well. We are .”

“I know.” But there’s something in her tone.

Csorwe scoots to sit next to her. “Suppose we could start killing people instead. Payout’s better.” Their skill sets didn’t lend themselves to many other options.

Suthmili laughs. Does not lean into Csorwe’s side; Csorwe doubles down.

“Meet up with the Boars. They’re always looking for good healers.”

“I’m really better at taking things apart.”

“Always looking for people who are good at that, too.”

Shuthmili does lean into Csorwe, now; warm in the cool dryness of the Maze. Laughs, a little less bitterly. “You just like the haircut.”

“Mm. It’s a consideration.”

The silence sits, just for a while. Their little ship pops as the engine cools; familiar sounds. Csorwe itches at her neck, absently, the skin barely even raised, where the wound had been.

After a moment, Shuthmili turns back to their haul. “Better get the rest of these sorted. I’d rather not sleep on the ship tonight.”

Csorwe hums. Turns back to the work without comment. The world is quiet, except the noises of the both of them working, together, without the need for words.

-------

When Tal wakes up, the inside of his mouth tastes distinctly like Seaweed Wine. Actually, the whole fucking inside of his head tastes like it, filmed over and foul. He spends the first, productive minutes of his day with his head slumped against the ship’s mirror, a circle of fog spreading and melting with his breath.

He runs his tongue across his teeth. His breath smells like one of those ghastly fish has crawled into his mouth to die. Somewhere in his stomach, things begin to churn– and churn more.

He peels himself off of the window just in time to make it out the door and puke over the side of the ship, retching up a horrible, blueish bile.

A dockworker looks up at him with a flat, uncaring regard that is somehow worse than sneering. Tal wipes his mouth and- with the other hand- flips the guy off.

Later, he stands over his maps with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, brushing as looks.

Mysteriously, just staring at the maps does not conjure up another job for him to do– or even a better place to wait around for work to show up.

Tal grunts. Fine then; he isn’t above stealing. But he likes Otter Station. The map, with its healthy stock of little hand-drawn Xs, remind him just how many towns he’s already burned. A cluster of you owe a debt here and you pissed off the guards here , scattered across the Maze and the worlds beyond.

Not that he would get caught, necessarily- he really is pretty fucking good at his job, whatever current circumstances have to say about it- but something in him rebels, a little, against the idea of adding another little X next to Otter. Privately, also, at the idea of that Osharu man- O-whatever-his-name-was- seeing him on a wanted poster, or watching him get hauled off by whatever jumped-up thugs enforced the peace on Otter.

Tal’s eyes unfocus, the lines of his maze-map blurring into green and meaningless squiggles.

Odrin . He’d been called Odrin. His hands had been broad, and warm. He’d had a nice smile.

“Fuck it.” Tal pulls his hands away. The maps, without their weight, curl back on themselves, like the legs of some dead insect.

He could figure things out on the way.

-------

Lamprey station is fit for its name; a sharp and jawless spiral of buildings, set into the open mouth of a crater. The jagged roofs of houses loom up out of the dark, visible first as maze-shine on the tin; a dizzy, kaleidoscopic swirl, reflecting the green-red-black-yellow shifting of the unnatural sky.

Shuthmili stands up on the rail of their cutter, and watches eagerly as they descend into the station’s mouth. She is saying something about the crater; how it might have formed, out here in the dark, with no seismic activity or meteors to speak of, the unchanging un-weather of the Maze.

Csorwe, at the helm, sweats through her shirt. The bite-mark on her neck- faded to a silvery crescent- is searing-hot to the touch, like steel left out in the Tlaanthothe sun.

Shuthmili says, “–old theories about The Maze incorporating parts of the worlds it consumes–” and Csorwe sinks to the deck with a really rather anticlimactic thud , going to her knees before she collapses properly, one hand rising up to cover the wound.

Shuthmili whips around, at the noise. The ship’s engine hums against gravity. The teeth of Lamprey Station grow closer, with no one to steer them clear.

“Csorwe!” Shuthmili takes a lurching step, reaching; there is the automatic, metal-smell of magic, rising to her call.

“Land us first,” Csorwe says, and then passes out, which is really a convenient way to win an argument, if you can manage it.

The next stretch of time skips by in blips and stretches, smearing away. A series of flashes:

There are Shuthmili’s hands, cool against Csorwe’s fevered skin. She is saying something under her breath; an incantation, or a prayer.

There is a conversation with the dockhands that lasts far too long; Csorwe, draped half-unconscious on Shuthmili’s shoulder, is in no state to barter. Somewhere in her foggy mind, she registers being charged a truly outrageous price for docking, opens her mouth to protest, and then does not remember the next few hours.

There is a close, dismal hostel room, and Shuthmili knelt over Csorwe on the single bed. Csorwe says, “M’neck–” and Shuthmili makes a despairing noise, breath hissing out between her teeth. The heat of her, pressed against Csorwe’s stomach, is unbearable. Hurt and disoriented, Csorwe reaches out to pull her closer, anyway.

There is a knife, reopening the wound. A rotting, infection -smell that Csorwe is glad she’s half-unconscious for. The hot, sluicing pain of healing magic, deep healing magic, and Shuthmili’s still-bare hands pressed to Csorwe’s chest, her throat.

“The gloves,” Csorwe says, and then passes out again; not a bad way to lose an argument, either. The last thing she sees, before slipping into the dark, is Shuthmili’s face all twisted up in worry, inches from her own.

-------

“Fuck me.”

The engine of Tal’s rented cutter skips and pops as it burns through the last dregs of fuel.

There is an ozone-smell, sharply alchemical. The ship drifts to a stop, sinking by degrees to the Maze’s floor.

“Absolutely,” Tal says, “absolutely, positively fuck me.”

He pulls up, hard, on the ship’s wheel. The engine gives an embarrassed little cough , and does not otherwise respond to his direction.

Stupid junkyard piece of shit scrap -heap of a fucking cutter. Tal kicks the captain's chair.

This does not help, either, but is at least very satisfying.

On the horizon, the lights of a station glitter; the distant starbursts of alchemical lanterns, jagged peaks of the roofs just visible over the lip of a crater.

“Couldn’t hold out another goddamned hour?” He asks the ship. It makes a sleepy creaking-noise, the wood shrinking as it cools.

The sky turns black, overhead, false strange Maze-night plunging the cutter into momentary darkness. Tal stands at the ship's rail, watching the distant glimmer of the lights.

He’ll start moving— he’ll start moving again in just a fucking second.

The shadow above him shifts, slightly.

Tal looks up.

Stamped against the sky of the Maze, a great hulking tow-ship looms above him. Tal puts his head in his hands, and groans.

Later, his cutter hitched up, and the big tow-barge groaning as it gets back underway, Tal sits in the captain's cabin, trying not to breathe. It is- like most ship cabins- cramped and airless, and consequently absolutely drowning in the smell of her cheap cologne.

Tal fights the urge to cough. He’s been in dust-storms with more breathable air.

The captain- a broad woman who had introduced herself as Rothar - leans forward onto her desk, grinning. “Now then. Can I offer you a drink?”

Tal only just resists the urge to lean back; that’s what the big fucker wanted. And Tal’s better than this goon even on a worse day than this. If the woman wanted a nosefull of his seaweed-breath, more power to her.

“Think I’m good, thanks.”

Not seeing her desired effect, Rothar leans back again, smile falling away a little. “Just trying to be hospitable.”

“Yeah, very fucking hospitable,” Tal says, in what is almost certainly a ruder tone than he should be taking. “And picking up my ship; I’m guessing that’s hospitality too?”

Rothar spreads her hands. “I’m a generous woman.”

“Cute,” Tal says. “What’s the generosity gonna run me?”

“Well, nothing sir, of course. We’re just some good samaritans, helping a fellow out of a jam. That isn’t a crime, last I checked.” She sits back. “Now, if you wanted to pay the favour forward, outta the goodness of your heart—”

Tal puts his head in his hands. “Listen. I’ve fucking run this scam. And I’m actually really, still, incredibly hungover. So if you wouldn't mind just giving me a price—”

The captain laughs, startled. “Gods, you’re a nasty piece of work.”

“Yeah,” Tal says. “Pretty much.”

There is a pause. The air fucking reeks.

The captain says, “Well. Of course it’s illegal to charge anything. Extortion under duress, they call it. But if you care to make a donation— ”

“Sure. How’s this.” Tal digs his last grimy credit out of his pocket. Sets it on the desk with a clack .

“Oh.” The captain's grin is wide, and hungry. “I’m sure you can find more than that. Check between the couch cushions, all that.”

Tal looks at her.

“Or we could leave you here.” Behind her, a grimy window gives a wide view of the echo maze. They've drifted, in the course of talking, farther away from the station, so not even its lights are visible. Impossible to even know what direction it’s in. “Your call, of course, sir.”

Tal rubs the bridge of his nose. Fuck. This had better be the station with those flatbreads.

-------

Csorwe sleeps through the departure date for their next job. Comes-to, groggy and disoriented, in the dim hostel-room, with only foggy memories of the journey there.

Her shirt is wet with sweat; soaked , like she’d been caught out in the rain. The sheets are dark with it; and by the smell, she isn’t the first to have sweated through them, and they hadn’t been washed since the last.

“Shuthmili?” She blinks around in the dark. Pats the bed, beside her; empty. “Shuthmili?”

There is a groan. Csorwe scrubs the crust out of her eyes; the dark lump in the corner of the room resolves into an armchair, with a very wrung-out mage curled buglike on the seat, knees drawn up to her chest.

Her teeth chatter, in that terrible, overtaxed way. “You’re awake.”

“You’re–” Csorwe groans, too, sitting up, one hand going to her neck. The wound is sealed, again, in a more jagged line. The skin is raised beneath her fingers, but not feverish. “Incredible as always. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Shuthmili says, eyes frighteningly wide, pupils dark and huge.

“You eaten?”

Shuthmili shakes her head. There is something hungry and primal in her face, her posture; like an ambush predator, watching its prey creep slowly closer.

“Canteen,” Csorwe suggests. Shuthmili nods. Stands, waveringly, and when Csorwe lunges to help she wobbles, too, knees gone to water.

“What the fuck ,” she offers, stumbling, and the two of them catch each other, lurching drunkenly for a moment before- perilously- they stablizie.

“Bacteria,” Shuthmili supplies, briefly, as they drag each other towards the door. “From the– revenant. Apparently just dormant, not dead. Waiting for a living host to–”

“Eugh,” Csorwe says, not terribly wanting to know more.Shuthmili makes a noise of agreement. Her whole body is shivering; there is just a hint of ichor at her left nostril, crusted black. Csorwe puts a hand to her cheek; clammy. “You pushed too far,” she says.

Shutmili pushes the door open, with her free hand. The alchemical lamps of Lamprey’s lower rungs burn phosphorus and painful into Csorwe’s eyes; she blinks hard, adjusting to the change in light.

“Nothing a little vat food can’t fix,” Shutmili says, voice ragged between the bouts of shivers.

And there is nothing to do for it, except to limp their sorry asses off to the canteen, and hope this is the one with those fried flatbreads; Csorwe can never remember if that’s Lamprey or Moray.

-------

Lamprey’s canteen is a terrible place to be hungry. There is the chemical smell of reheated vat-food; algae and preservatives and insect-protein. Fry-oil. Salt.

Tal hasn't eaten since the fish the night before; his stomach growls. He keeps vigilant watch, an eager eye out for someone to leave a meal at their table, unfinished. Not dignified, but he'd left his pride so far behind at this point he wouldn't know it if he passed it in the street.

Someone gets up to dump a useless, empty tray. Tal looks for a more likely target—

And Csorwe looks back at him across the distance; her eyes that same bright, ugly yellow, her face still puckered up around the old scar.

She looks, Tal is pleased to note, at least as much like shit as he does, a queasy green tinge to her grey skin, sweat stains dark down the back of her shirt. That creepy mage of hers is draped over her shoulder, like usual, jittery and strung-out in exactly the way you might expect someone about to be possessed by a big giant creepy dragon god to be, ichor dark at the base of one nostril.

She meets his eyes, too, pale with surprise. The unlovely light of the canteen pours out over them all, an unflattering, alchemical green.

Ghosts out of the past, the both of them, drifting up from the day Csorwe had asked Tal to run a spear straight through the centre of his life– and Tal had said yes.

A spectre. A haunting.

"Oh," Talessares says, "well. For fucks sake."

“Tal,” Csorwe says, the scar on her lip crinkling as she sneers.

And then- because it’s Tal- things get even worse.

-------

Csorwe is just fishing for the next thing to say, dumb and slow and fuzzy with fever, when a man taps Tal on the shoulder.

Tal jumps, his ears twitching in surprise.

The man says, “Captain Rothar wants a word.”

He’s big, knuckles thick and swollen. Tattoos march up his biceps; tally-marks in dark, straight rows, too many to count.

Tal groans.

Csorwe says, “for fucks sake, Tal, you're in debt to the tow gangs? ”

Tal wheels on her. “Oh, stuff it, ‘ Sorwe . Not all of us have a pet wizard to teleport us back to Station when things go wrong—”

“Well,” Shuthmili says. “I can’t teleport.”

The thug, perhaps feeling a bit neglected, clears his throat. His bicep is as big around as Csorwe’s thigh. “The Captain—” he starts to say.

“Oh, just smash my kneecaps already,” Tal says, in that familiar, sneering drawl. “I don't have the fucking credits.”

Csorwe, sighing, has her knife in her hand before the big guy even registers Tal’s words.

When he does - predictably- he takes an arcing, heavy swing with his fist. It certainly would have knocked Tal on his ass if it connected, but Tal drops under, rolling clear. The thug staggers with momentum, and Csorwe takes advantage, crowding inside his reach with a single, liquid lunge.

He gives a shout of surprise; swiftly stifled, as Csorwe presses the naked blade of her knife to his stomach, huddled close, so no one in the canteen will see. “Why don't you leave that little rat alone? Even payment, for me letting you keep your guts inside you.”

“ Fuck yourself,” the thug says, and uses this opportunity to go in for a headbutt.

Which is fair enough; it had been most of a bluff. Csorwe isn't terribly interested in killing someone in the middle of Lamprey’s canteen.

She goes twisting away from the blow with a grunt, still unsteady on her feet. Her knife scores a long, straight cut across his stomach, blood spattering away as she pulls clear.

While she rights herself, the thug grunts, Tal aiming a kick at the back of his knee hard enough to break bone. The thug goes staggering away, catching himself in a crouch.

Tal sneers. “You make it too easy.”

Csorwe belts her knife. Drives her elbow, hard, into the side of the man's head, and he goes down like a bag of sand; there's an audible thud, as he hits the ground.

Csorwe looks at Tal, for a moment. He’s barely out of breath. His ears pull back, a little, like an affronted cat’s.

“Well,” he says. “Are you gonna check his pockets, or am I?”

They sit, later, at a corner table, Csorwe's coinpurse heavier than it's been for months.

The inevitable cups of horrible, overstepped Stationer tea steam on the table between them, ignored. They eat in ravenous silence, heads bent to their plates. Csorwe looks up, only once, from her food, to see the thug dragging himself out of the canteen, a snail-trail of blood smeared where he’d first fallen.

“Fuck,” Tal says, “Whatever cook they’ve got here is too good for Lamprey.”

Csorwe- who had been about to express a similar sentiment- puts her flatbread down, instead. It steams on her plate, the greasy, hangover-food smell making her mouth water. Heaped with onions and sour cream and crispy, fatty meat, it really is too good for Station food— even if she chooses not to think too deeply about whatever fat, lazy Maze-vermin had almost certainly gone into the fryer for it. If you chopped the meat up fine enough, it hardly mattered what it came from.

She wipes her hands on her pants. Tal grimaces.

“Suppose I’d better thank you for getting your ass in trouble,” she says. “Again. Paid out well.”

Shuthmili looks up, the feral light having gone out of her eyes. “Oh sure. If we’d known they carried this much cash around, we could have started pissing off loan sharks way sooner. Sharp thinking.”

Tal pulls a face at Shuthmili. Csorwe pulls a face at him.

“Yeah, well, you're welcome,” Tal says. “You’re lucky I decided to share.”

“Share nothing. Guy would have broken your fingers for you.”

Tal shrugs, which is as much concession as could be expected from him. “Kneecaps are more classic,” he says. “Didn't look like he had much of an imagination.”

Csorwe makes a disgusted noise. Too hungry and tired to argue, she turns back to her food.

There is another silence.

Tal says, “You look like shit, by the way."

Csorwe wipes her mouth. “You look worse.”

He does, actually. His face is sallow, eyes bloodshot. He looks- and smells - like he hasn’t showered in weeks; greasy, unshaven.

He pushes his tray away. “Well. This has been fun.”

“As usual.” Csorwe crosses her arms. Turns to watch the bustle of the foodcourt, not looking at him.

Shuthmili frowns a little. “Talasseres,” she says.

“Shuthmili.” He gives a sarcastic little wave goodbye. “Enjoy whatever fucking wizard adventures you're off to next. Wouldn’t want to keep you from a job.”

“We don’t, actually,” Shuthmili says. “Have a, um. ‘Wizard adventure’, lined up. A job.”

Csorwe looks up at her, startled. “Shuthmili—”

“Well, we don’t!”

Tal shrugs. Picks at some unidentifiable filth gathered under his nails. “Yeah. Well. Me neither, so.” He stands to go. “Better get a fucking move on.”

Csorwe looks up, to watch him go— he meets her eyes, steadily, unmoving.

They watch each other for what feels like a long time. The alchemical lights pop and fizz, overhead.

Eventually, Csorwe- for a reason she can't quite explain- gestures. “Sit back down, Charossa. Not getting anywhere like that.”

Something moves across Tal’s face that Csorwe can’t quite parse. His mouth pulls sideways; not a smile- not for her- but not a sneer, either. “Yeah. I guess not.”

And sighs, and then- dropping her eyes- pushes his chair back. And he sits; they sit, together.

#the serpent gates #the unspoken name #the thousand eyes #Talasseres being an unmitigated disaster is something that can be so personal to me-#my writing #it's alive!#my stuff #i have not properly written fanfiction in YEARS #or actually finished book 2 of the series yet whoops #i was just thinking about. The.#*them #love this trio

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