Hello-Quickfish. Because-Quickfish. Not-brought. Returned-love. Back-birthed.
Quickfish squints down at it. It’s hard to see now, blurring as the dream begins to end.
‘Fine. Two food. Here.’ He dips his arm back into the bowl of the fountain and it scurries towards him eagerly. Its teeth are so sharp he barely notices them. It purrs contentedly as it feeds and for just a moment he sees it straighten, a little less broken, a little less fragile.
Around them the buildings still send smoke into the scudding sky, the air thick and sweet. The plaza starts to spin as he wakes, the lines and certainties blurring into something softer.
As he pulls away, it protests faintly and he feels a brief pang of guilt.
He can feel a warm chest under him now, a strong arm around his shoulders. The real world is reasserting itself. He glances back at the fountain as he’s pulled away and sees someone else watching him.
The fountain creature hasn’t noticed her.
She’s slight, pale, crooked, her black hair drifting out from a skull more angles than curves. She meets his eyes and raises a finger to lips lifted by a faint smile.
Quickfish wakes to the sound of beating black wings.
21
as you move north, the landscape becomes
not wilder, but looser
the flowers leashed haltingly to the cliffs
the cliffs only reluctantly touching the sky
—What Is Born Beyond Blades, Heartshamer
Strong arms around him. The scratch of stubble on his cheek, and somewhere nearby, the sound of running water.
A clear sky, blue with the first hints of northern ice and a familiar voice in his ear. ‘Bad dreams again Fish?’
Quickfish sits up, rolls his neck, feels fingers start working at the knots and twists in his muscles. He turns to look over one shoulder and smiles.
‘Not bad. Just lively.’ As he says it, he feels his palm ache. Roofkeeper, kneading his shoulders with all the practiced firmness of his stable hand days, smiles a broad, white smile, like the first cut into a new tree.
‘Must be the only time you’re lively then.’ The fingers stop, flick dark hair out of laughing eyes lined with creases, and Quickfish thinks again how very lucky he is.
‘Hold up and I’ll brew up some kind of potion to wake sleepy fish.’
Quickfish scratches his own mousey hair and yawns. ‘Thanks Roof.’
Roofkeeper moves to the remains of their fire and works his magic. A few soft, precise movements and the embers cough out a hot glow. He sets a tin can over the flames, fills it with water from the stream and crushes herbs rapidly between his palms. The smell is incredible, sharp and fresh. Quickfish watches himas he works, his sharp jaw thick now with a good few weeks of road beard, a strong back hunched with care over the bubble and simmer.
Levering himself up from the grass, he walks across and runs his fingers down the thick curve of Roofkeeper’s spine. ‘Put a top on, slut.’
The taller man laughs, spins, tackles him to the grass and kisses him furiously.
‘Typical highborn. Always telling us commoners what to do.’
Roofkeeper grins again, swift and easy. Pins Quickfish under his legs and looks down mockingly. ‘How else may I serve you, Lordling of the Grey Towers?’
Quickfish laughs, a little, but it dies in his throat.
Roofkeeper bites his lip and looks away, out into the forests that sketch the first stage of their climb, a pang of regret skirling around his mind. ‘I’m sorry, Fish. Me and my mouth.’
Quickfish shakes his head, forces a smile on to the lank sadness he feels in his head.
