When she woke a second time, he was there again.
The bed was strange and the room was dim, but the linen sheet was turned down and she was blessedly cool. This time, she managed a smile, rolling onto her side to face him. He regarded her coolly over the rim of his mug, but his eyes were odd, with an intensity that belied the languid unconcern of his posture. Somehow, that didn't bother her, only amused. It was still incredibly dry, but not as cold as it had been, the cold that numbed fingers and bit off shoots, that had given way to an arid heat that sucked all the moisture away. Her head still felt strange—floaty—but the crackling burn of fatigue had given way to an odd sensation that was unrecognizable, and not wholly internal. She brought up a hand to the offended member, thrilled that it obeyed, and came up short.
"What've they done to me?" she demanded in a half-croak, running both hands through the inch crop that forested her scalp. Her long braid was nowhere to be found.
"Cut your hair," Isas reiterated helpfully. His unrepentant tone made her wary.
Niva pulled the pillow over her head. "My papa'll kill me, he sees me like this," she groaned, words muffled by the cushion.
"You know, Niva, you don't ever have to see your father again, if you don't wish it." Isas' voice was grave now, and she pulled her shield down, baring her eyes to peer at him thoughtfully. "Thought you would burn to a husk," he went on, mumbling apologetically.
"I wasn't sick." she cut in flatly. She couldn't really be angry over it. Anderran was a long way from here, and many women wore their hair short. So what if she shucked childhood customs right and left, like stockings that no longer fit? It wasn't as if she meant to go back. "I wasn't sick," she repeated slowly, puzzling into words the distinction that was so clear in her mind. "I was dead."
He was staring, and she made a stab at extrapolation, but her head was still muzzy and the words got muffed up on the way to her mouth. "Can't drink from the stone, it's too hard, too cold. ...Can't feel the sun here." The room suddenly grew chill and she drew her arms around herself, but the look on Isas' face made her snap her teeth together. She was doing it again. Talking like a plant: that was too easy to do, it seemed, but he didn't care for it, not at all. This time, though, there was a genuine fear in his eyes that left no room for the derision she was used to. She would not apologize, however; she would not be sorry for who—and what—she was, would not be sorry that he could not understand, and she was far too tired to keep a civil tongue. Her surrounding were mostly barren of green life—the gardens lay on the edge of her perception and the deep-reaching roots fell beyond her shaky grasp. Niva felt isolated and uncomfortable with it. The stone of Lightsbridge College seemed the heavier than ever before, all pressing down and boxing her in.
They lapsed into silence as Isas affected not to notice her bout of crazy-talk and she forced her thoughts back into her body. Absently, she ran her hands through her newly shorn hair, building static and not noticing how it stood up on end.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded finally, folding her arms. It was not a far stretch to pull a cross expression over her face. "Why aren't you working?"
Rather than answer, he leaned in, suddenly solicitous. "Is there anything I can get you? Do you want anything?"
She was taken aback by his sudden change in tone more than by the question he avoided, and found herself seriously considering an answer she hadn't known she intended to give. A prickly film of tears sprang up in her eyes and she pulled her knees up by her chin, hugging her legs beneath the sheet for protection. The words were out before she really formed them. "I want to go home."
For one second, he gaped. Then he was composing himself, shoving back his lank, inky hair; he only stuttered a little. "All right." he bobbed his head, assimilating the abrupt change of tack. "All right. I will see what I can do. You'll be on the first Trader caravan north, if I have to hire a palanquin to carry you—!"
Niva threw back her head and laughed; an out-of-control hysterical laugh that cut him off and really did make her sound crazy, a laugh that was as bitter as sheepstongue and tears. In that instant she loved him.
"Isas, I want to go home." she insisted when the fit had passed. She regarded him fondly through the left-over tears. His somewhat bemused expression made him look a dear, sweet idiot. "I want temple bells to wake me up at ungodly hours; I wanted endless rounds of weeding and hoeing in the rain; I want the pressure of selecting a temple for Dedication. I want—" she swallowed convulsively; her mouth was suddenly dry—"I want my little garden by the sea. I want to go home."
She knew she had rendered herself utterly naked before him, but he did not mock her, or shy away from the unspoken insecurity in her doe-brown eyes. Now he was the one insecure as, biting his lip, he leaned across to pat her shoulder. He put his arms around her, for once not awkwardly at all, and she hugged him back.
Isas mussed her short hair from the safety of their embrace. "So do I," he muttered close to her ear. That was an outright lie, Niva knew it, but at that moment, she loved him for it.
"It quite suits you, you know," he remarked suddenly, pulling away to regard her. "The hair."
"Does it?" Niva laughed. "Well. Perhaps I'll keep it." She smothered a recalcitrant giggle behind one slim hand. She leaned forward confidentially and repeated, "My papa would kill me, if he saw me like this."