36. Regrets, Real and Imagined

"You don't have to do this, Avocato."

"I-"

"Yes, he does."

Startled by this interruption, Avocato and Kedi looked at each other, then down at Nikos where he sat sprawled in the snow, resting his legs from their hike.

"What?" demanded Nikos. "We hiked all the way out here for this. Trust me, Kedidi. I'm the one who lives with him. If he doesn't eat that disgusting growth, he's going to wonder all his days what the worst thing on the planet tastes like."

"He did try the spark peppers," Kedi allowed. "But-"

"And dune flies and roasted - what was that thing?"

"Muskeen."

"Standing right here," droned Avocato as his friends discussed his eating habits. As was usual, they ignored him and his presence as they bickered.

"It was a giant salamander! On a spit!"

"That's how you cook them."

"Well, much as you don't eat insects in the Far Reaches, we don't eat amphibians in the Answaar, and for much the same reasons."

Kedi frowned. "Muskeen aren't amphibious."

Nikos growled. "Well, they look like they should be."

"I didn't see him asking to try the spark peppers again!"

"He didn't finish the lizard!"

"That is a weak argument."

"Almost as weak as your excuses."

They happily carried on sniping back and forth, and much as they ignored Avocato, he ignored them as he walked over to the nearest thing the Far Reaches had to a tree - an ugly, stocky, stunted conglomeration of twisted branches that was supposedly an evergreen. They had turned off their helmets, and in the light of Thea and Urd, the colors were distorted. The few needles the growth-he-couldn't-call-a-tree sported looked dark green or black, and what little bark visible was bright red. Most of the bush, which wasn't any taller than Nikos, was covered by a thick layer of growth that looked spongy but was closer to the consistency of freeze-dried leather. The lichen was a sickly gray-green color, and Avocato couldn't imagine ever being so desperate as to bite off a mouthful and try to chew, let alone swallow.

But it wasn't desperation that had landed him here. It was curiosity.

Avocato tugged at a thick cluster of growth, but the lichen was stubborn stuff. By the time he wrestled a leaf off the branch, Nikos and Kedi were throwing snow at each other as each argued his point. If there was a point to their debate. There rarely was, outside of having fun and poking at the oddities of one another's cultures. Carrying on ignoring them, Avocato sniffed the bit of lichen. The cold burned his nose, but he couldn't smell anything outside of the snow.

Well. Nikos did have a point. Several, in fact. Satisfying Avocato's insatiable ("Annoying," corrected Nikos' voice in his head) curiosity was the reason they'd trudged five kilometers through a fresh snowfall. He couldn't not taste the lichen now. Not and be satisfied, or say he'd done it. And he couldn't be a coward and just nibble it. As with the spark pepper powder or swimming or running the ice, it was all or nothing.

He took a deep breath, braced himself, and popped the leaf in his mouth. It was dry and tough and at first, tasteless, but something seemed to activate the moment saliva hit it. Instantly Avocato regretted every life choice that had brought him to this cursed moment. The lichen resisted being chewed with the tenacity of boot leather despite his sharp teeth. The moldy flavor was to bitterness what a spark pepper was to hot. The ale Avocato had been so critical of just yesterday suddenly seemed sweet by comparison. This was an affront to his tongue. It hit his nose, his poor sinuses, the back of his throat. Suddenly everything was leaking and his jaw froze in open rebellion, refusing to chew further. His tail was encased in his snowsuit - otherwise, he knew it would be sticking out straight behind him and every hair on it would be standing at attention. His hands flexed sharply, wanting to grab the taste and throw it far away. He wanted to roll around in the snow in an agony of the uneatable. But it was too late for a rescue.

Avocato closed his eyes, feeling tears squeeze past his lids and freeze to his fur. He wanted desperately to spit it out. But he was the son of a grand lord and an imperial princess. He would not spit. No matter how revolting, how gross, how awful, he would not spit, he would not spit, he would not-

"Bleh!" He spat out the horrific mouthful, spat some more, then stepped back a few feet as if he could escape the rancid taste. "Oh! Oh! Dear goddess, that is revolting!"

Kedi and Nikos broke off their arguing to stare at him.

"Agh!" Avocato almost gagged, still trying to overcome the sickening tang in his mouth. "Euh! How could anyone chew that long enough to find out if it's edible?"

Nikos smiled, the very embodiment of smug superiority as he looked at Kedi and said, "I win, Kotik."

Closing his eyes, Kedi let out a long, low sigh of disappointment. Avocato looked back and forth between them, chest heaving as he panted, his mouth agape as much in distaste as disbelief.

"You bet on whether or not I would eat that - that - Ugh! Excuse me. I'm sorry. I –uck!" He turned his back to spit again, mortified but desperate to exorcise his taste buds.

"There was never a question in my mind. You know what this means, Kotik," said Nikos in an amused tone. He smiled benevolently at Kedi, gesturing grandly at the so-called tree.

Kedi grimaced, then grumbled, then reached out for a taste of the lichen.

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It took a few glasses of ale at Kedi's favorite pub to wash the taste of leathery mold out of their mouths. Nikos celebrated his victory by buying the first round.

"I am not going to brag about this," swore Avocato, downing half his ale in one gulp. For once, the drink tasted good from the start.

"My silence can be bought," Nikos promised, raising his glass. Laughing, Avocato and Kedi saluted in kind, and Avocato gestured for another round.

"I'm never betting on anything ever again when I'm home," vowed Kedi. "It's not worth it."

"I can't believe you thought for a moment he wouldn't try it," said Nikos. He gestured dramatically at his roommate. "This is Avocato, Kedi!"

"Hoped," was the honest reply. "Hoped he'd develop sense."

"As I said," Nikos replied, gesturing again.

"Right here," reminded Avocato, tired of being spoken over like the condiments on the table.

Nikos gave him a knowing look. "Then you'll agree with me."

Avocato opened his mouth to protest, but found he couldn't. Instead, he grumbled and drank more ale.

"So!" Kedi said, slapping the table and changing the topic. "Tomorrow is the market. We are going shopping."

Avocato grinned, knowing perfectly well his friends would protect him from himself and make sure he didn't overpay. He had too much money and too little experience shopping to know the value of anything.

"What for?" demanded Nikos.

"Pearls," said Kedi, raising his ale. "Icewater pearls, for our future wives."

"Starsh willing," breathed Nikos under his breath before draining his glass.

"I'll drink to that," said Avocato, then added, "Brightstar, help her, whomever she may be."

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"Are you going to pack or are you going to sit there dreaming about how that will look against white fur?"

Caught, Nikos dragged his eyes away from the box in his hand. "I'll pack. I just . . . Well, I've never spent so much at once and I'm . . ."

Avocato looked up from where he was folding some clothes. "Regretting it?"

"No! I don't think so. Maybe. I'm . . . frightened . . . I think?"

"That Cordell will love it or hate it?"

"Yes."

He let out a little huff of a laugh. "Nikos, there isn't a woman born who could possibly dislike those pearls. They're magnificent. If that doesn't scream I'm worthy of your daughter, nothing will."

"No matter how nicely you phrase it, I'm still the son of a farmer, Avocato. Cordell is the daughter of an arch lord."

"Give her some credit, Nikos. She's a young lady who knows what she wants. Do you know what she said to me before I visited Vel Pitten, when she gave me that letter for you?"

"Enlighten me."

"I asked what it was about you that piqued her interest. She told me you were the first man close to her age to express so much interest without trying to find out how much she's worth beforehand. Mostly it's men five or eight or ten or thirty years older paying her compliments. And you're the first one to take her interests seriously. That brush my brother sent opened doors, my friend."

"But Catowba knew to send it, not me!"

"Ah! But you followed up and asked the right questions. That you're the son of a farmer is not nearly as important to her as the research you did on ink painting and late period art so you could write her about it and better understand her replies."

"You told her about that?" squeaked Nikos.

"Of course I did. She was thrilled."

Nikos frowned, realizing something. "How . . . old is Cordell?"

Avocato shrugged. "Kedi's age, I think. Not half a year older than us. Not enough to concern yourself over. Oh! You should have heard her go on." He struck a dramatic pose, then another. "She likes your eyes, and how you pronounce her name. She adores how your fur fades from almost black to cream and wants to paint your portrait when she gets better with oils." He began to rattle off all the points Cordell had delighted to dwell upon. "That little smirk when you're amused. The way your ears perk up when you're surprised. The fit of your uniform. The fact that she's taller than you . . . I could go on, but I still have to live with you and I see it every day."

Nikos stared in speechless astonishment to hear his praises sang. In that moment of distraction, Avocato snatched the box from Nikos' hold and held it up to see. Nestled on soft packaging were three splendid icewater pearls. The largest was a perfect drop shape, the two smaller ones round. All three shared the same blue coloring with cloudy gold mottling, and they seemed to glow softly. Nikos and Kedi had bargained long and hard with the merchant before settling on half a piece of the frost lizard hide Nikos had brought to the market, measured exactly and carefully cut. Even Avocato's inexpert eye could tell that was a hefty price, but Kedi assured them Nikos had done very well.

"You almost never see that mottled blue," Kedi had told them when the pearls had caught Nikos' eye. "It's very difficult to achieve, and only the settlement in Far Vladon has been able to grow them like that. Something in their water. Gold with blue is very rare. Gold with green or pink is the usual."

So Nikos had his hard-won prize. Between the pearls and the frost lizard hide and feathers, Avocato assured him he had three rare and valuable tokens for the gifts given to prove his intentions. Where jewelry was not an acceptable gift, jewels were. Avocato, meanwhile, had bought enough loose pearls, one set gray and one set brown, to make rope necklaces for both his mother and sister-in-law. He also bought a set of graduated pearls in the shining black for which the Far Reaches was renowned for his future Lady Cato.

And then Kedi stepped in with gifts for their families: silver gray and black pearls he had grown from his own oysters for Nikos' mother and sisters, enough to make chokers or station necklaces, and for MewMew, a single large, black pearl. To their fathers, he gifted each the shell of an oyster containing several blister pearls – fitting oddities for their collections. Nikos had tried to refuse, but Kedi waved aside all protests, reminding Nikos of his hospitality and the dunefly pins.

Avocato smiled, and he handed the box back to Nikos. "Make that gift eight or nine. She can wear them to the wedding."

Nikos smiled, not entirely convinced. "I admire how casually you say that."

He gave his friend an affectionate shove. "I only say it because it's true."