"I look like my mother," Lilia said, tilting her head to look up at his face. To Darc, she looked like a brightly colored weed that no one had ever managed to pluck. A little annoying weed.
"Don't talk to me," he ordered futilely. Darc felt too tired and prickly to deal with her human nonsense. Lilia looked thoughtful, but unafraid.
"I never saw your father, but I imagine in some ways you must resemble him," Lilia said, gently overriding him. In the shadow of the wrecked ship, had salvaged some kindling and firewood and had a decent little campfire going. He watched her impassively from his perch a gaping hole on the dilapidated craft. "You have Lady Nafia's face, though."
She was making a bed for herself out of grass and leaves. Lilia worked methodically, as though she'd done this all before. When he was silent, Lilia began to talk again, piling up leaves for her pillow.
"The first time I did this," she said, as though she wasn't talking to someone who hated her on principle, "Was with my mother and father, when we were first on the run. We couldn't stay anywhere, not even a barn. So we hid ourselves in the forest and made grass beds. We covered ourselves in leaves. And when we woke up . . . we were red and itchy all over! Mother and I became expert herbalists, practically, after that night."
Darc couldn't imagine why she'd think he'd care about her pointless story. He ignored her, and concentrated on the direction the wind was coming from. He'd always been able to tell—he supposed it had something to do with flight. Well, that was lost to him, as was a myriad of other things. Flight might have helped settle him. Now he was stuck on the ground, with Lilia, who stupidly thought he was a kinder person than he was.
"I'm going to forage," she piped up, seeming to have completed her little grass bed. "What do you like?"
He didn't dignify her with a response. Lilia seemed to know exactly what to say, now, to nullify his silent rejections. She was irritating that way.
"Oh, me, too," she said, as though he'd responded. For a moment, he heard some of her rare sarcasm. "I'll see what I can manage, I'll be back in a moment, just wait."
As she disappeared into the jungle, Darc was tempted to disappear and hide, just to see if she'd get angry at last.
Lilia wasn't truly a woman. She was some sort of demon, sent to punish him for murdering Geedo and Densimo and countless others. Darc generally didn't adhere to the old thoughts of heaven or hell, but perhaps the gods were getting back at him. Darc absently touched the mark on his arm and a strange thought crossed his mind suddenly, as the strange ones often did.
The skin, the soft human side of his body was actually tougher than most humans' skin. Well, it made sense—he had to function with himself, scales and claws and all. What was strange was that he hadn't realized this until he led Lilia by the hand through thick underbrush, carving a green cave for them as they went. When he judged that it was time for a rest—by a stream that she tested carefully and drank from voraciously—he'd glanced at his clawed left hand, the one she'd been clinging diligently to and found that it was smeared with blood.
As Darc remembered, when he snuck a glance at her, to see if it truly was hers, she was patiently wrapping a stained strip of yellow cloth over her palm, humming cheerful as she did. Lilia had not once cried out in pain.
..0..
It really is beautiful here, Lilia thought to herself. She'd long since learned to treat her eternity of exile into an extended vacation. It helped her cope. Her father was gone and her mother was dead and she was wearing cast-offs and rags and eating roots, but here she was. On vacation on some exotic isle that she only thought existed in fairy tales, with a man with horns everywhere and who threatened to kill her every time she irritated him.
Well, that was a lot. She was stubborn, more stubborn than him—she was fairly certain of that. If Darc really wanted to kill her, she'd be dead by now. He could shred her flesh just by holding her hand carelessly; she'd tried not to think of it, because she was a well-brought up girl, but it must have been very, very difficult for Lady Nafia to even conceive Darc and his brother. Ah, Kharg. Lilia, an old hand at the concept of cosmic irony, found it remarkable that it was the brother who would gladly feed her to wyverns that rescued her from Dilzweld, time and time again.
Maybe she would be better off if Kharg hated her.
Lilia berated herself for that thought and told herself to be grateful. The spirits had led her to Kharg and Darc both. Kharg meant well, and she'd really be dead if not for Darc. She'd been stupid in Asheeda. Dilzweld soldiers everywhere, Kharg and everyone looking frantically for her—but if she hadn't been stupid in Asheeda, then . . .
Darc would be dead, too. Delma would have killed him eventually, the pink Orcon whose brother he'd apparently killed.
Lilia clambered up onto a big fallen nursing tree and sat between the moss and the saplings. Her hand stung as she pressed it against the rotten bark, the one wrapped in the rag she used for her menstruation. She was lucky that it wasn't her time yet—and besides that, she'd stolen some Dilzweld issue feminine goods that someone had thoughtfully stocked her prison with. She had them crammed into a pouch beneath her clothes. Everything she had was in pouches, except the ortena, which she carried or tied to her red belt.
Her mother had had a rucksack, but Lilia had lost it over the years after her death. Lilia was used to traveling lightly and harshly—why she could match endurance with Darc, in fact—and preferred keeping everything close and small. She stroked the soft moss with her unhurt palm. It was moist and spongy. Maybe she should strip this—it looked like ladypillow moss, actually—and put it in her makeshift bed.
Roots. She was here for roots and grasses and whatever she could find. She slid off of the tree and began to actively search for food. Lilia had a stomach like a knot now, but it still needed its nourishment. She knew that Darc had taken food and some meager supplies from Lady Nafia's home (Lilia had instructed him in what to bring), but it wouldn't last forever. She didn't know how long it would take them to find the Cave of Truth and she was accustomed to making a little go a long, long way.
That's edible, she thought, recognizing an aguba plant, by the fuzzy green fronds. A cluster of specifically shaped mushrooms caught her eye and she almost laughed. Sugar-shrooms, her mother had called them. And that is too, although they don't look it.
Lilia fanned out her sarong and began to pluck the mushrooms from their tree, watching as the spores exploded outward. The aguba was next—she could boil these in Lady Nafia's pot with the potato and half the onion . . . Darc was in charge of carrying things, so she'd gone wild with it.
It was funny how she got excited when she could live halfway like a real person. She sometimes imagined living in a house with a bed and a kitchen on a regular basis and found that the idea was her conception of heaven.
Her red and white sarong was half-filled with edible things when she turned to methodically strip the ladypillow moss from the nurse tree. Completely by chance, she noticed a quiet, unassuming little bug's nest lingering between two large pilant bushes. Swiftly, she strode over to it and paused only for a moment before taking an aguba frond and scooping out a tiny portion of eggs.
..0..
Lilia had been successful, it seemed. She held up her red thing in two hands, humming cheerfully as she went. In the center was a lump of moss and mushrooms—nothing Darc recognized specifically. He wondered if she was going to make him eat boiled moss or if he could just go out and catch one of the creatures he'd seen roaming around.
Lilia marched to her grass bed and picked out handfuls of emerald moss to dump in the bed. She let the rest fall in the grass near the firepit she'd made him dig for her with the dying fire. Her red thing fluttered back to its normal hang and Darc realized, somewhat disgusted with himself, that he'd been specifically watching the white shape of her thigh walking back and forth.
She knelt to dig through the bag full of human things she'd made him carry with them. It wasn't a heavy load, so it was worthless to complain and besides that, it made her more bearable. Lilia set out the pot and the two potatoes and an onion in one line. She found a little pouch, one that she smiled upon looking at—he had no idea what it was—and placed it reverently next to the onion. Inside the pot she had placed two bowls, one of which he assumed was for him.
Lilia looked up at him suddenly and he did not have time to look away. She smiled again when she saw that she had his immediate attention.
"Darc," she said, and it sounded like she was going to ask him to do something for her. "Could you go get some water from the stream?"
She held out the pot by the wooden handle. It was a little bigger than her outstretched hand; puny, really, but it was for convenience reasons. Darc considered flatly refusing, but she'd only ask again until he complied. He slipped off of the broken ship's belly, thick with undergrowth, and took the pot obediently.
There were streams everywhere. All he had to do was follow the sound of water. When he returned, she already had everything all chopped and ready to cook—funny, because he hadn't remembered her putting in a knife in the things she'd made him carry. She must have one on her—but clearly she didn't use it for combat.
Instead of returning to his place on the broken ship, though, he sat cross-legged in the grass, near-ish to her, and observed as she held the pot over her little fire.
When it came to a boil, she looked at him expectantly. "Could you hold it here for me?"
He did so. It wasn't difficult and it would keep her from being anymore irritating. It was almost humiliating how he went along with her little rituals without fuss simply because she would make one. In theory, it was like his bondage to Geedo—but Lilia would whine. Or worse. When he had refused initially to dig Nafia's grave, she'd gone completely silent and wouldn't look at him. Somehow, that was worse. Geedo could have beaten him to a pulp and he still would've resisted in some small way, but all Lilia had to do was stop talking to him.
Lilia put in her little human things—the onion, a white thing, some roots and mushrooms, an orangey powder that he recognized as reddant, something small and dark . . .
"What are you making?" he asked before he could remember he wasn't talking to her. She would be smug.
"I don't know," she said, happily. "We'll find out. Here, you can give it back to me now."
Damn. Damn little human weed. "It's alright," he muttered grudgingly. "I don't mind."
Lilia smiled widely, immensely pleased with herself. She settled into the grass more comfortably, leaning on her knees. As night fell, the fire was quickly becoming the only light—not that there was much light here at midday, as dense as the foliage was.
"My father and I always used to sit around the fire and make up stories," Lilia said cheerfully, playing with her necklace. "Or mother'd teach me the ortena and we'd sing. It wasn't all that bad, you know."
"Good for you," he said gruffly.
"Mother always tried to make sure we had what we needed. Most of the time we didn't have anything hot and sometimes it was really bad, so we ate grass," Lilia recalled dreamily, twisting the jewel at her neck.
"Why would I care about your mother?" he said sharply, trying to get her angry. Maybe if she was mad, she wouldn't talk to him. It was childish to bait her like this, but when he got Delma or Camellia mad, they'd clam up.
"At least I can talk about her," Lilia said softly, her brow folding sadly.
Darc couldn't look at her anymore. He stared at the soup single-mindedly, although he was thinking suddenly of Nafia, his mother. That's who they were really talking about. She'd never really been telling him about her mother—she was telling him what a mother was like.
Crafty little bitch.
"Good for you," he groused.
"Lady Nafia loved you very much," Lilia intoned, in a voice so quiet he almost couldn't hear her.
"How would you know?" Darc said, having not quite given up on making her angry. "She abandoned me."
"My mother gave me the same look when she died," Lilia said, simply.
She was silent for a moment, and suddenly Darc wished that she would talk again. Being silent let him think about things too much. The trees rustled and he could hear the animals and insects and the sound of the little stream, but behind and underneath all that was his mother's last words and the sound of the gunshot she'd taken for him and the grinding of his insides as she took one unaided step after another.
Finally, Lilia began to speak again. "I think I know how you feel, Darc," she said. Even though he had wanted her to talk, now he wanted to strangle her. How dare she assume something like that? "I think I've always known. When my mother died, I hated her for it."
Lilia spoke with such vehemence in her voice that Darc was shocked into looking at her. Her face was clenched tightly in an unfamiliar expression. He'd not believed her capable of any violent emotion.
"I knew it wasn't her fault. It was hard for her, life on the run. I got used to it. I thought, why couldn't she? Why'd she have to leave me with her burdens and her secrets?" Lilia threw up her hands in the air, gesturing pointlessly to illustrate what she had felt. Lilia's voice turned frigid and she scowled more angrily than usual. Her hands were in two small fists.
"And my father was the same—worse, actually, since he ran away from us. To fight back, he said, to get revenge at the people who destroyed our life. I hated him, and mother, for leaving me with their problems and their Great Spirit Stone. I blamed them for leaving me all alone. So that's why I think I know how you feel, Darc. Oh!"
Her soup was overboiling. Served her right.
She leaned over and inside of taking the handle herself, guided his so that the pot rested in the grass. Lilia seemed to have the two bowls and Lady Nafia's strange pouch in an instant. She poured the soup as best as she could, although she seemed dissatisfied with the distribution.
"Darc, could you really quickly go wash this out?" she said, suddenly her normal self and not the bitter woman he'd seen that she could be.
He did. Darc seemed to have given up any pretense of struggle and simply did as she asked. When he came back, she was humming sweetly as she ground some sort of ooze between her fingers into one of the bowls. She grinned as she handed it to him.
"Tonight, we feast!" Lilia said excitedly and raised her bowl to her lips.
It was too hot, and he cursed after burning his tongue. The little weed had the audacity to laugh and blow on hers before she drank the hot broth. He scowled but did the same. It wasn't stunningly delicious—not that he'd been expecting that—but it was much better than he'd anticipated. Darc was the only one of his party that preferred his food to be cooked—Volk and Delma ate meat raw, Camellia . . . ate sunlight or something, and Bebedora didn't eat at all. It was the human part of him, the part that made him violently ill if he tried to be a Deimos.
When the broth was gone, he watched and copied her pick the vegetables and other solids out of the bowl and eat them. It was nice to eat something hot, something he hadn't done since serving Geedo—she liked cooked things too, with her poison Phoenix blood. He'd been very lucky for that. It was strange that he should compare Lilia to the fat old hag; there was nothing poisoned about her.
That was his last thought before he drifted off, simply unable to keep his eye open.
..0..
"Darc?" Lilia asked tentatively, setting aside her empty bowl. She crawled towards him and touched his arm briefly, and pulled back like lightning, in case he awoke. "Darc?"
He didn't. She became bolder and shook him a little, but he didn't stir. Lilia heaved a sigh, releasing the breath she'd been holding nervously and smiled. Assured that he wouldn't wake up, she reached out to arrange him more comfortably, so he wouldn't wake up the next morning with a crick in his neck or a sleeping limb. The armor couldn't be good for sleeping, and after a brief examination, she had it off and sitting with the pot and the left over potato and half an onion.
Lilia didn't like all the scars on him, or the ugly twin nubs on his back, but there was nothing she could do. Lilia had no kind of medical training past the common-sense things and her tiny bit of healing-something that she barely understood, let alone used. She had her herbal remedies and her medicinal tricks, and that worked for her. Lilia smiled. She let him rest as she cleaned up and put out the fire.
Thank the spirits. He was resting. Actually sleeping. And it had only taken a mild poison to do it.
Lilia would not make a habit of this, but she had been so worried. She'd tried not going to sleep until he did on the way here, but her eyes and body betrayed her long before his did and then when she awoke, he'd been awake since before her. It couldn't be healthy. It was almost like pitch around her, but she found Darc and knelt by him. Hesitantly, Lilia extended her hand towards him and her fingertips brushed his nose. She smiled in the dark again, and bent to kiss his brow, like a mother would.
"Sleep well," she murmured. It was the last sound either of them made that night.