RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and Seven - Reciprocation

  It would take, winds willing, a few hours to get back to Insmouth. By the time we arrived, I guesstimated that it would be an hour or two past noon. That meant that we’d o have lunch aboard the Beaver Cleaver.

  I left Clive, the harpies and the Scallywags to do the plicated work of flying the airship while I headed down and into the kit to prepare lunch. The only hands that were free were Awen and Amaryllis and... her was all that good at the whole cooking thing.

  I was humming while iing the ingredients we had avaible when Amaryllis moved out of her room and came to stand nearby. She leaned against the frame of the archway leading into the kit. “Do you need help?” she asked.

  I tapped my . “I could use a bit of help, sure,” I said. “I think I’ll be making a big lunch. We might need leftovers for ter. A nice veggie sad, some fried fish, maybe some pe?”

  “That sounds like a big meal,” Amaryllis said as she stood straighter and walked over. “How I help?”

  I eyed her up and down. “You really want to help? With the cooking?”

  “What’s wrong with me wanting to help?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just, well, didn’t figure you for the cooking sort.”

  She huffed. “I learn, ’t I?”

  “Yup! You sure .” I nodded. "Do you want to start by chopping the veggies? I’ll hem cut up into little cubes to start with.”

  “Hmph, fine,” she said.

  I opened a sack of potatoes and another of turnips and then grabbed some purple-skinned carrots ahem all oable where we could start cutting. A big cauldron came , so that we had a pce to toss all the cut veggies.

  I hummed as I found a pair of knives and started w.

  “How are you?” Amaryllis asked. The question sounded a bit strained.

  I blinked and looked up to her. “I’m alright?” I tried.

  She gred at me, huffed a huff that I wasn’t familiar with, a back to chopping up potatoes in... vaguely cube-like shapes. She was trying her best, so I wouldn’t pin. They’d all be mashed up anyway.

  “You... urgh, this isn’t something I’m good at,” Amaryllis whined.

  “You’ll get better,” I said.

  “I’m not talking about the cooking, you dolt.”

  I tilted my head to the side. “Then what are you talking about?”

  Amaryllis tio chop her veggies, she was quiet for a long bit, but it felt like she was w up to something, so I didn’t interrupt her silence. “Broccoli,” she began. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess.”

  “A you’re still smiling, and you’re still worried for everyone, and you’re still doing your best,” she tinued.

  “Uh, yeah, that’s what a good friend does.”

  “Even when I stantly call you an idiot? And when Awen stantly depends on you to be her... pilr, I suppose?”

  I blinked. I didn’t kly where she was going with all of that. “Yes?”

  She huffed, and this time it was a very pin, very frustrated sort of huff. “You’re a... you’re a pain to deal with sometimes, Broccoli Bunch,” she said. “Most people wouldn’t weather all the stuff you’ve been through as well as you have.”

  “Thanks!” I said.

  “No,” Amaryllis said. “It wasn’t a pliment. Well, I do suppose you could take it as one. What I mean is,” she paused, then rubbed a wing under her nose. “You know, I was not always as fident as I am now.”

  I felt like she was trying to say something important without saying it, and in moments like that the best thing a good friend could do was listen. Still, I tinued w on our lunot that it took much attention.

  “When I was younger I was the most timid of my sisters. Clementine be incredible, but she casts a long shadow, and Rosaline has always been Rosaline. Loud and fident and always getting herself into trouble, then flying out of it with a wink and a smile. So... I was the timid ohat started to ge as I got a little older, as I tired of my role in the family and started to...” She squirmed a bit. “Dream. As I started to dream of a future where I was my oy. School helped, it gave me an enviro out of my sisters’ shadows. It gave me harpies from other s to bicker and fight with, and allowed me to spread my wings a little. I don't remember any instantaneous ge, no stark turning point... but bit by bit, I must have been ging. Little victories, building on each other, until without quite realizing it, I'd beore... me. I left the family, took a css that I appreciate more, a off for adventure.”

  “That’s whe?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. That was an experience.”

  “A good one,” I replied.

  She huffed, a very ambivalent, sarcastic huff. “Let’s go with that. My point with that rather trite story is to say that I uand if you’re having difficulty ag as fident as you have been.”

  “Uh,” I said. I don’t think I had any trouble being fident or anything. Still, Amaryllis seemed worried, which was weird. There wasn’t anything to worry about. Sure, the st dungeon had been tough, and we were all a bit tired by the end, but we had won, hadn’t we? “Did you wao tell a story about when I was young too? To make us even.”

  “My goal wasn’t to make us even or anything,” Amaryllis said.

  “You once said that you could tell someone something private, and then expect them to return the favour. Remember? You called it reciprocation.”

  Amaryllis blinked. “You remember that?”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “Um, well, I remember you telling it to me. The details are a bit vague now. It was a while ago.”

  The floor creaked a bit, and when I looked over, it was to find Awen stepping in. She had her hands folded over her tummy and was looking a bit bashful. "Awa, sorry, I kind of ... kind of had my room's door opened and I, ah, might have... overheard. A little."

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  Amaryllis harrumphed. “I suppose.”

  “Do you need help? Or I could go, if you two are having a, ah, moment,” Awen offered.

  I g Amaryllis. Were we having a moment? Weren’t we always having moments?

  “We weren’t,” Amaryllis said. “Now e over here with those stupid human hands of yours and chop these. This knife is not made for a proper taloned hand. I’m going to develop a cri my wrist at this rate.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you were having a hard time. I thought you were just really bad.”

  Amaryllis’s feathers poofed with indignation. “Not just dumb, but rude too,” she said. “Now get on with the story, I’m going to fill the pot with water.”

  “Just about a quarter full,” I said. “As for stories... I don’t know what to tell? My life was very b, you know?”

  “I doubt that,” Amaryllis said.

  “I tell one,” Awen said. “While you think, if you want.”

  “I’d love that!” I cheered.

  Awen smiled as she took her p the table alongside me and started w. “I don’t have very iing stories. Uncle Abraham’s visits were always the most exg thing. Otherwise I’d just spend the day with lessons or practig. I liked pying with different instruments, it was one of the only parts of being a dy that was niot that I could just py anything.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Some instruments aren’t dy-like.” Awen said. “A flute is, a piano is, but a lute or a banjo aren’t. They leave you with unseemly calluses and things like a cello require that the dy put herself in a promising position to py.”

  “Huh?” I asked. “That’s stupid.”

  Awen giggled. “Yes, a little,” she agreed. “But that’s how it is. When I became a meic, my parents were very disappointed, but I was a little too sickly t to a duo ge my css, and all the good, dy-like csses are in dungeons that are somewhat dangerous now, most of them he capital and, well, whenever I heard them talking of moving me over, I’d py sick for a bit.”

  Amaryllis snorted. “Well dohere.”

  Awen looked down. “Ah, thanks. I always wao practice my meical skills, but it’s hard to do that when you’re not allowed. So I teo be very clumsy. I’d break things, then put them back together. Some of the maids and servants were very helpful! They’d bring me some tools and sometimes give me things that o be fixed. Like meical clocks and some devices is. That’s why I was able to keep up a little, and I was always a bit better the ime Uncle Abraham would e around.”

  I pced my knife oable, stepped towards Awen, and engulfed her in a big, rib-creaking hug.

  “Awa?”

  “You do as much meical stuff as you want when you’re with us. Or none. Or if you get some other hobby, you do that as much as you want, alright?” I asked.

  Awen ughed aurhe hug with a good squeeze. “You’re being silly, Broc. I know all that.”

  “Oh,” I said as I loosehe hug. “Well good.” I nodded. “My turn?”

  “Certainly,” Amaryllis said. “Do we put any spices in this?”

  “No, but put it oove. We o set it to a boil so the veggies get mushy. Here, let’s put the rest in too.”

  While the veggies boiled, I started to prepare a bit of sad for the side. Nothing much. Tiny tomatoes, some leafy greens, a few slices of carrot and some oil that I mixed with a few spices and herbs that we had drying on a ra the little pantry.

  “I think... so, you girls know that I like adventure, right?”

  “We noticed,” Amaryllis said. She was sitting up on a bench built into the wall under one of the portholes, a bird enjoying the sun.

  “Right, well I wasn’t always a huge fantasy fan. When I was really young, my parents moved often. I don’t really remember all the pces I’ve lived in. Sometimes we were only in a town for half a year, other times it was a bit longer.”

  “Were your parents traders?” Awen asked. “We had a lot of people like that in Greenshade.”

  “Nah, my dad couldn’t keep a job, nor could my mom, and they both liked moving a lot. We lived in mobile homes and apartments and all sorts of pces. We’d ge provinces every so often too. Anyway, when I was.... Ah, I think I was in grade seven? So I must have been about fourteen, or maybe I was still thirteen? Around that age.”

  “A teenager, barely a juvenile, but not quite,” Amaryllis said. “Old enough to y eggs.”

  “Uh,” I said. I shook my head. “Something like that. So, I’d just moved to this new school. First year of sedary school, so all the students were oo, even though I’d e in half-way into the year, it wasn’t so bad. At least, I’d hoped.”

  “Did you make lots of friends?” Awen asked.

  “Nope. Just o was this boy who didn’t have any friends. He had a stutter, and wasn’t good at sports and stuff. We were in the same csses, and he always sat by the front, which is where I like to sit. We talked a bit and became buddies.”

  “Your first friend?” Amaryllis asked.

  “One of them. He really, really liked books. Fantasy stories, with magid wizards and all sorts of cool stuff. So I started reading those too, and we always had something to talk about.” I felt a little sad as I set the sad aside. “We should start on the fish. Awen, you mash the veggies for me?”

  “Ah, sure.”

  I got a pan out and oiled it, theched the fish from a rune-powered fridge. “Anyway, we moved again that summer. Never saw him again. But I still remember some of those stories. They kept me pany for a long time. I guess I learhat from him.”

  I hummed as the fish fizzled on the snapping and crag oil.

  “Is... that the whole story?” Amaryllis asked.

  “I guess so?”

  Amaryllis stood up and walked right up o me. “I’m going to hug you now. Don’t go thinking anything about it. This is your one hug this week, so enjoy it.”

  “Huh?” I asked.

  But then my protests were drowned in a fluffy, feathery hug.

  ***

  RavensDagger

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