The sun streaming through the windows woke Dio up. Yawning, he shuffled out into the hall. None of the delicious food smells he was accustomed to—bread, jam, maple syrup—were in evidence, and a quick check of the kitchen proved it was empty. There was a clock mounted on the wall—one of the going-away presents Mullin had received from the Silvana. Dio glanced at it and did a double-take.
Ten-fifty? I slept that late? The back door was open. He blinked in the light as he stepped outside.
Behind the house was a small fenced-in area, overgrown with crabgrass and other weeds. Dunya and Alvis were currently attempting, with the aid of heavy gloves and a pair of gardening shears, to remove the worst of the infestation. Alvis was the first to notice him standing there. "Good morning, Dio!"
He looked around curiously. His sleep-addled brain wasn't yet capable of coherent thought, but he managed to acknowledge her. "Morning, Alvis…What are you doing here?"
She beamed. This early in the morning, her good cheer was almost irritating. "We're making a vegetable garden! Well, actually we're just weeding right now, but once that's done we'll be able to plant potatoes and eggplants and all sorts of good things. Aleksander and Nikos will help, too, just as soon as they finish getting dressed."
Dio nodded. That woman's brothers were scared of me at first. I think I made it better, though. "…Can I help?"
Dunya looked from him down to the garden shears she held. On one hand, she wasn't sure he could be trusted with sharp objects. On the other hand…he had been improving recently. "Well, if you think you can use these shears carefully, then sure. Don't cut anything unless I tell you, okay?"
He smiled slightly. "Yes…Dunya?" He paused, obviously thinking hard. "It is Dunya, right?"
The woman in question grinned. "Yeah, that's my name." Yes, she thought, Dio was definitely improving.
&
As the Silvana grew closer to Exile, a sense of anxiety and restlessness began to make itself felt among the passengers. Most of the walls conducted sound well, allowing Luciola and Daphne in their bunks to hear arguments spring up from several rooms away. The infirmary suddenly became crowded with minor casualties—a black eye here, a cut lip there. Even down in the garage, work was undertaken in sullen silence.
Luciola paced the narrow space in between the two sets of bunks in the room. The old woman and her son were visiting family on the floor below, so it was just him and Daphne in the room. She was knitting socks again, and the steady clicking of her needles was all that he heard.
She raised an eyebrow as he passed her again. "I don't know why you're so antsy today. Just another week and we'll be at Exile, and from there I heard it's only a month to the blue planet."
Luciola said nothing. He realized, to his surprise, that he was actually gritting his teeth. She didn't appear to notice and continued idly chattering on. "Your Dio will definitely recognize you when you see him again. If even that old guy Lescius could tell it was you, then someone who was so close to you shouldn't have a problem. Maybe you should stop pacing and go work on some of the vanships or something; it might calm you down a bit and give you something to do. All you have to do is be patient."
Something inside Luciola snapped. He stopped pacing and stood still, like a serpent poised to strike. "Don't tell me that. Everyone tells me to wait, to bide my time, to have patience. I am sick of waiting. Since I was brought back to life I've done nothing but wait. Wait until that—that vanship of yours was fixed, wait to reach the next town, wait to get out of jail, wait for the Silvana to come…And then, when I finally arrive here after flying over half of Anatoray, I learn that my Lord Dio has been on the blue planet the entire time and that all I can do is wait until we reach him." He took a shuddering breath; he felt as though he might explode at any minute. "So do not—ever—tell me to be patient."
While he spoke, Daphne had grown paler and paler, shrinking back against the wall. She was unconsciously wringing her knitting between her hands as she stared at him; her eyes had gone wide with fright. "Luciola…?"
"What? Are you going to tell me to calm down? I am calm. I am perfectly and completely calm." His voice was indeed level, but he was trembling with barely-suppressed frustration. He wanted to strike, to lash out at something.
"No…Luciola, you're bleeding."
For the first time, he became aware of sharp pain in his hands; he had clenched his fists so tightly that his nails drew blood. He blinked and uncurled his fingers, watching his own blood drip down them. In an instant, his fury evaporated. What? Oh…she's right. He sat down heavily on the bunk across from her. "…He was calling for me. After everything Delphine did to him, he was crying out for me. And I failed him. He thinks I'm dead."
She sighed. "There's nothing you could have done. You didn't know where he was, and you couldn't have gotten to him if you did. You will see him again, and when you do…I have every hope that he'll know you out of a crowd of thousands even with Curtos' body."
He prayed that she was right.
&
Dio winced as he straightened up. He had been in the same crouching position for what felt like hours, hacking at a particularly stubborn weed. But through his efforts and those of the rest of the house, the garden was slowly taking shape. It was far too early to plant anything yet, of course. There were still a great deal of weeds and one very thorny shrub to deal with.
Dunya had taken one look at the plant in question and sent for Mullin to handle it with a machete. He and Claus were presently studying it and deciding how to go about getting rid of the thing. Dio had no wish to get his hands any dirtier than they already were, so he stood back and watched from a safe distance.
Mullin scratched his chin, thinking. "Maybe if we lopped off all the branches. That could help."
"We'd have to actually get close to the branches first. Those thorns are so long, it's like a fortress," Claus pointed out.
The older man leaned against the back wall of the house. "It's hot and I'm tired," he grumbled, voicing what they were all thinking. "Can't we just go inside?"
"If we did that, Dunya would chase us back out here once she saw this thing,"—Claus motioned to the bush—"still here. And we'd have to work on something else. And you just know that until we get this done, she'll be making burnt dinners on purpose and you'll be sleeping on the floor."
Bored, Dio wandered over to the object of their complaints, studying it closely. The bush—more like a small tree, really—was roughly half his height and covered all over with vicious-looking thorns. It's just a plant. I don't see what all the fuss is about. "Hmm. Hey, can I borrow your gloves for a bit?"
Mullin blinked. "Um, me?"
Dio hesitated. "Yes, ummm…Mullin! I heard people calling you that…that's your name, right? Mullin Shetland."
He blinked again slowly and handed over the gloves. "Yeah. You have an idea for getting this thing out of here?"
The younger man shrugged. "I'll hold the branches steady. You and Immelmann chop them off."
Several hours later, after a great deal of muttered cursing from Mullin and a few near accidents with the machete, the bush was reduced to a stump in the ground. Dio looked at it hopefully. "Are we done now? I smell Lavie making dinner."
Claus shook his head. "We still have to dig the stump out, or it'll grow back."
He was scratched, dirty, and in serious need of a bath, but as he bent down to help Claus dig, Dio realized he was smiling. This is my home. These…these are my friends. Luciola, I wish you could see me now.
&
Luciola drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Exile had been sighted a few hours ago; the general state of frantic activity had long since subsided. Everything was packed and ready; there was nothing else to do but wait.
Daphne had long since set aside her knitting. She was staring out the tiny porthole window, watching the clouds. "…I can't believe we're finally going to the blue planet. You know, I heard from the lady two doors down that Exile can only land there, and that it's so fast that it can travel millions of miles in a day."
"Hmm."
"What's the matter, Luce?"
He winced. "Please don't call me that."
She shrugged. "Why not? Oh, yeah, I forgot you don't like that name. Can I ask why? I mean, it's a nice nickname."
Luciola shivered. "My name is Luciola. It's the name Lord Dio gave me when we met, and it's the name I've used for almost ten years. My life before him was…not important. He gave me my name and my purpose, and I don't want to change that."
She grinned. "Okay, no nicknames, then. Not unless Dio says so."
He sighed and shook his head. "Please…don't."
"Oh, fine."
There was silence. Something had been bothering Luciola about his traveling companion for the past few days, ever since he had snapped at her. Finally, he decided to just ask. "Miss Daphne, why did you accompany me all this way? You told me you wanted to travel, but you could just as easily have gone your own way at Haliartos once I was on the Silvana."
She sighed and continued to stare out the window. Finally, she spoke. "When I began traveling with you, I wanted to see the world; to gamble at Horizon Cave, eat meals in fancy restaurants, and go places where nobody knew my name. I'm twenty-one years old and I'd never been out of the city before. So now…now I've seen the world, and there's nothing left. Once I get to the blue planet, I'll have a new world to explore, one where everything's not dying."
He was silent, thinking. That's the only reason, then? She only came all this way to see new things… Why does that bother me a little?
Suddenly, she turned to face him. She was smiling. "Plus, your Dio is on the blue planet, isn't he? I got you all this way; I'd feel terrible if I wasn't there to see you two get reunited. I'm kind of a sucker for happy endings. Besides, if it wasn't for me you wouldn't be here…"
There's something wrong with that last sentence. Luciola was careful not to let his doubt show. "Thank you for being my navigator."
She twitched. "…You're welcome."
His eyes narrowed. What is she hiding? She was acting like this when I asked her about Curtos, too. "Miss Daphne…you never told me how Curtos died."
Luciola had never seen anyone try so hard to look innocent and fail, not even when Dio had knocked over an ornate and priceless vase in the Guild palace. Daphne was red-faced and fidgety, refusing to meet his eyes. "Right after I told him I liked him. He stormed out my room and down the stairs to his—and he fell. It wasn't anybody's fault; only, he didn't look where he was going, and the stairs had just been washed, so… I tried to catch him! I tried to grab his arm as he fell…and I missed. There was so much blood…" She trailed off, shaking. "And, you know, he was kind of a jerk, but he was my neighbor and he didn't have anyone else to visit him in the hospital." A tiny smile appeared on her face. "Imagine my surprise when I find you instead."
He didn't quite know what to say. They sat in silence for a few minutes, until the loudspeaker crackled to life and the captain's voice came on.
"Attention, passengers. We will be boarding Exile shortly. Please gather your belongings and proceed to the top level. Crew, stand by for boarding."
Daphne leapt from her seat, beaming. "Exile! We're so close!"
She grabbed his wrist with one hand and swung her bag onto her shoulder. He snatched up his own duffel bag, and they joined the crush of people moving towards the top deck like one single organism. He was squeezed from all sides by the crowd and relentlessly poked and prodded by other people's bags as they all climbed up the stairs to the top.
To Exile, he thought. To a new life, to freedom from the Guild…to you, Lord Dio. I am coming to you.
&
Dio sighed and flopped himself down on his bed. The day had been long.
On the plus side, at least the garden doesn't have any weeds in it anymore. The garden…there won't be any flowers in it. Nothing to remind me of her…of Delphine. I wonder what vegetables would grow well here?
The window was open, letting a warm breeze in. For now, it was still summer. A firefly came in with the breeze, flying in dizzy circles above Dio's head. He giggled and held out a hand. It landed on his finger, allowing him to stare at it.
Another firefly…Luciola, are you trying to tell me something? You don't need to tell me that you're always with me; I know that already. And I know I'll see you again.
The firefly took off, flying around his head one last time before heading out the window. He watched it go, smiling.
