Bel: Visit even more rainbow drinkers.

"Awesome." He'll probably destroy your reputation, but you don't care anymore. You won't be Ascending; there's no reason to ingratiate yourself to anyone. "Pissing off bluebloods is a talent of yours. Oh, speaking of which, I have something for you. You hated that gold armlet, but maybe this one you'll wear."

It's not wrapped or anything; you figure if you're super casual about it, he won't flush it down the next load gaper he sees just to mess with you. It's a lapis lazuli cylinder seal, ancient and worn, strung on a leather cord. You found it at a lowblood bazaar, and from the price they were charging, the seller didn't know its worth. Hopefully, Erskin won't either. You just de-captchalogue it and drop it into his hand.

 

"Ooh," you say, and hitch yourself on to your side to examine it. It's significantly less gaudy than that dratted gold bangle— simple, even. You collect a little pile of grit and sand, then roll the seal over it and squint at the resulting pattern. It'd be a lot clearer in clay, you'r sure, but you can make out the smudgey shapes of beasts, and squiggles that must be some sort of code.

"What does it say?" you ask.

 

"I don't know, it's an older form of Alternian than the oldest ones I've studied properly. I recognize that bit --" you scrounge up a twig and copy a few symbols bigger and clearer. "Beauty, and this one over here, slaughter, because that's what my name comes from. And that along the bottom is probably 'Honor to the Empress' but it might be 'Honored by the Empress'." You laugh softly and shrug. "It's someone's title seal, and they were a troll, so of course it was about blood and Empire. I think the beasts are both griffins. Griffins fighting. Should've been a griffin and an eagle."

 

You roll the seal along, making a long ribbon of patterns. "It must be thousands-- a hundred thousand-- I don't know. Ancient. Incredible that it's not just a little blue lump."

You find yourself smiling, and switch to stamping a little pyramid of griffin-shaped smudges.

"Incredible," you repeat.

 

"I found it in a bazaar; there are trolls who claim to be doing archaeology, who only plunder tombs and dig up treasure, and trolls who sort of actually do archaeology, in that they document where they found stuff and what else was there. This was sold by the former type, unfortunately. That dialect predates adults leaving the homeworld, though."

 

"There wasn't any such time," you say, "I had that schoolfeed. Or do you mean before anyone went to space? Was there any such time as that?"

You roll the seal over Bel's sweaty stomach, and the dust makes a perfect print. "Ha!"

 

"We're not supposed to know about it, but I kind of thought everyone did anyway. The holes in the history schoolfeeds are pretty obvious."

 

You shrug indifferently and start smudging the dust around on his skin. "There's all sorts of myths and conspiracies, anyway, about everything," you remark. "Would you care to weigh in on whether or not the moons are cakes baked by the empress? Or that lusii are made from stars who fell to the ground? Or that we all used to have wings and tails before some irritable god or other pulled them off? I like that one, I'd look good with wings."

 

"Who wouldn't? But there's a fair bit of evidence for this one, if you know where to look."

 

"You wouldn't look good with wings," you point out. "You're about as aerodynamic as an ablution trap, you great big lump. You should have a tail instead, so I could pull you around by it."

 

"That sounds like an excellent reason not to have a tail," you retort, while getting a good handful of his. Well, his backside, anyway. Then you sit up, getting out some nubcloths and a fresh water bottle. "Okay, I really do have sand in my butt crack now, we need to get cleaned up and go somewhere that has food. Here, make yourself presentable." You try to smack him in the face with a wet hankie, and end up punching him lightly in the nose instead. "Whoops. Sorry."

 

"Oh, I'm sure," you retort, batting at his face. You want nothing more than to have a nice lie-in, it's a beautiful day and this is a thoroughly defensible location, but you're starting to itch. You stand, stretch, loop the little seal-necklace over your head, proceed to scrub yourself roughly doww— ow.

You hitch yourself into an awkward sideways angle, trying to find a reprieve from the itchy bite of grit in your lowest left gillslit. It must not have been knocked anywhere too sensitive till now, but now is certainly a problem— grit's caught and dissolved just fine if you inhale it, but when it pokes in from the outside it lodges in the filaments and bites like the devil. A few grumbling hops and contortions do nothing, and Bel is watching you with some stupid combination of concern and delight, so you grab his arm for balance.

"Here, lowest left, something's in there, get it out," you order him, then take a few deep huffs and stretch open just enough for him to have a look.

 

"Kay," you murmur, putting your glasses on as you lean in to have a look. After a moment, you set your phone to flashlight mode and peer even more closely. "I don't... oh, wait, there it is. It's really tiny. Should I use my fingers, or flush it with water, or what?"

You're being careful not to take advantage of this moment of vulnerability or hurt him unnecessarily during it. That wouldn't be fun, that would be ugly.

 

You look at him, exasperated: you can't talk like this, there's nothing to run over your noise box! he should really know better. You exaggerated, urgent pinching gesture with your claws. His are easily dull enough not to do you any damage, if he doesn't dig in.

 

You nod, and comply, careful not to introduce more dust in the process. Just a couple of seconds, and you sit back on your heels and show him the brittle fleck of dried grass that was troubling him, perched on the tip of your claw. "How's it feel now? Did I get all of it?"

 

You close up— ah, no prickle, excellent—and take a deep breath, then hack a few times and wipe your mouth.

"Yes, much better, thank you," you say. "Might have got in there when I was climbing up and some random prick decided to pick on me." You rattle Bel's head via a horntip in gently stern remonstration, then push off to throw some clothes back on.

 

"Random?" you say mock-indignantly as you put your own clothing back in order. "I'm a very specific prick, I hope. Say, what's the difference between a quillbeast and an officers' mess tent? The quillbeast has pricks on the outside."

You're in wildly high spirits now that you feel like you and he are communicating again, though you'd have a hard time articulating exactly at what point the despairing weight of impenetrable misunderstandings lifted. You hope the situation doesn't recur, because you don't know how you -- or he -- or the both of you -- fixed it. But you no longer feel like he's imminently about to run away and nearly die again. Which is great, because you have had way more than your lifetime's allotment of people you love doing that. Right now he feels solidly alive and resolved to stay that way, and you can relax just a bit.

 

You snicker. "What do you do when a blueblood throws a pin at you? Dive for cover, she's still holding the grenade."

You tug your shirt straight and then rummage in your knapsack modus for a snack.

"How do you drown a blueblood?" You say, mouth full and holding a second chunk of smoked salmon out like a prize.

 

You roll your eyes. You've heard at least six versions of this one. You choose the one he probably thinks would sting you: "Put a mirror at the bottom of the bay." You snatch the salmon and gesture with it as you say, "Why should you go to a seadweller's lawnring sale? To get your stuff back." You take a big bite out of the salmon as if you've earned it, even though you're sure you've heard better seadweller jokes. You're just too hungry to think.

 

You grin appreciatively. "Yes, fair point, but how do you drown your second blueblood? Tell them to go ask the first one if he's alright."

You make a grab for Bel's fish just to annoy him, then settle down after he holds it out of reach and attend to your own.