118

--TheirWorld--

Morning came to the sounds of Stella’s muffled grumbling. Something about curtains and the cold, from what little Dassah could understand through the layers of blankets and the thick comforter that cocooned her as she wormed against Dassah’s back. The room was a bit chilly — but only because Stella had taken all blankets away. Pinned against the oddly textured, cream colored wall of her bedroom, Dassah herself had only the edge of a fluffy faux-fur throw, and the warmth that Bahena was giving off at her feet. Peeking up over her shoulder, she saw that the bronze scaled garule woman had indeed found one of the blankets that Dassah kept on the living room sofa. Evidently, neither of them had found Dassah’s habit of keeping the bedroom a near frigid 60 degrees to their tastes, though Bahena didn’t seem to mind the light pouring through the naked window and into her eyelids.

After making a half-hearted attempt to will herself back to sleep, she carefully tried to ease her way out of the bed without disturbing her sleeping friends. She guessed she only managed it because it Stella had armored herself against all disturbances. Happy to put the previous night behind her, Dassah smiled fondly at the two before setting out to accomplish her morning routine of a hot shower and coffee. Unsure of the dietary habits of her friends, she also made sure to do up a good dozen pancakes and a pack of bacon.

Bahena came out not long after, yawning as she mumbled about the good smells in the house. Snitching a piece of bacon off the rack where it was being let to drip off the excess grease, she tossed the whole thing in her mouth and happily chewed away as she eyed the growing stack of pancakes.

“Take what you want, if you’re hungry,” mused Dassah, watching her act like a cat sizing up a mouse. Her pupils were so wide they were practically black.

“Can I steal some of that coffee, too?” Bahena asked.

“That’s what it’s there for.”

After serving herself, Bahena got halfway through her stack of four pancakes drowned in butter and syrup before saying, “Can I… ask you something?”

Eyeing her tentatively, Dassah flipped the last pancake over in the frying pan. “Go ahead.”

“Our last… conflict was… heated,” she said, poking at her meal with her fork. “We’ve already spoken about it, I know, but I’m still curious. You aren’t… the biggest fan, of our kind. Why were you with Sathuren the other night? Being with a drunk garule seems like the very last place you’d want to be.”

Shaking her head, Dassah finished up with the pancakes and grabbed a couple slices of bacon and a pancake for herself before sitting with her. “I’m not sure that there was a good way for that conversation to go, given my state of mind at the time,” winced Dassah. “Of course you’d be concerned — and I don’t even know how drunk he actually was, by the end of it.”

“Oh,” Bahena nodded slowly, staring into her coffee cup with wide eyes. “Quite drunk. I suppose that’s one reason I was so upset. Not that he seemed to think anything of it; says he just lost track. Drakekip River Teas are delicious, but they can sneak up on you — I only heard from him after. It was unfair of me to take that out on you.”

“In his defence, I don’t remember how I got home,” Dassah said. “I suppose I should thank you for that.”

“The doorman was very confused,” Bahena told her with a grin. “I think he was reassured to see that I was one of the police approved people from last night. Sathuren may or may not have thrown up a few times at the gate by the time I’d come back down.”

Dassah let that sink in before chuckling. “Why on earth did he drink that much?”

But Bahena eyed her seriously. “Honestly?” she said, leveling her eyes with Dassah’s. “I don’t really know why, but I think you intimidate him.”

Another moment paused before Dassah broke out laughing. “What?” she asked incredulously. “Me? Intimidate him? Sathuren? Even if we forget the fact that he’s… him, and could talk me into circles ten times over, he’s like, seven feet tall, built like a truck, and he’s got teeth and claws that could shred me to bits. What’s he got to be intimidated by me for?”

“Dassah,” Bahena went blinking. “I don’t know where you get your information from, but garule are omnivores. Our teeth aren’t any sharper than yours. If anything, it’s our jaw strength that you should be afraid of. Also, if we let our claws grow out to be anything resembling usable claws, we’d never be able to type, and that just wouldn’t work in our current state of life. And frankly, I don’t know how you seem to get the idea that him being tall or strong would have any bearing on his insecurities — and trust me, for all that confidence I know he exudes, he has them. He has them, and I’ve seen people around him, time, and time, and time again use them against him.”

In mild shock at the very seriously declaration in response to her clumsy attempt to brush off the concept, Dassah fumbled with the butter and syrup. “T-That’s not really…” she started, trying to put her own insecurities into words. She hadn’t meant for that statement to be about Sathuren, really. She’d meant it to be about herself — but lacking the context of the odd relationship she had with the white and purple garule, she saw Bahena’s train of thought.

Seeing that Dassah wasn’t going to elaborate on her interruption, Bahena leaned back in her chair. Rolling the bowl she’d selected as her coffee cup around in her hands, she continued: “I suppose I should give him more credit than I do, simply for being willing to keep on trying. Throw enough nonsense at the wall, something is bound to stick. A charming theory, to be sure — unless you’re the one that ends up picking up the pieces.”

“I’ve never intended to hurt him, Bahena,” Dassah told her quietly, thinking back on how he’d looked at her the night before as she took to nursing her coffee.

“Heh,” she grunted. “I never said you intended to do anything. Nor do I think you would. But intentions and realities are very different things — and the only way Sathuren could have ever survived to adulthood is by pushing back on every reality he’s ever faced. Being sutak. Going from female to male. Finding a place on the Mother Mountain, though no one ever wanted him there, either. Going to Yidar after kicking back and struggling against the tides that so very much wanted to shove him into the depths of nothingness. Failing again and again and again, but refusing to give up. Lesser people would have died ten times over against what he’s been pitted up against. But intentions? The only thing he’s ever genuinely wanted out of it all is acceptance,” Bahena gave Dassah a sad smile. “You may have every intention of giving that him, Dassah, but at the slightest test — a burst of anger, a vicious snarl; remnants of our instincts to protect, that nature which has been cultivated within us since we were born as garuli — could you accept him? At the slightest flinch, the illusion is broken. Intentions, worthless; actions and reality is all that there is.”

The image of him choosing a place a comfortable distance away from her on purpose floated into focus. Staring out into the crowd, alert and agitated, with lonely shoulders set square as his feathers betrayed his emotions.

“Look, just… for a bit… Can I be Ibraxis? Can I be the guy who doesn’t care about what everyone else here things of me or who I am without…. Scaring this out of you because I’m a stupid dinosaur?”

Her hands gripped the mug tight. Hints of white and dark swirled in the otherwise caramel colored liquid. Bahena wouldn’t — couldn’t have — known how well Dassah knew what she was saying. She might have laughed it off at the time, but she had hurt him. Her very existence seemed to hurt him. The fact that she kept intruding into his life with TheirWorld and Bahena and Grim and everything else — yet still she held onto her childish fears — hurt him. It didn’t matter if she meant to or not.

But then, he always seemed to let her.

And for a moment, she felt his arms around her, holding her as she cried, the feel of his breath against her hair.

Trembling, Dassah asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I care, Dassah,” Bahena told her, leaning forward and putting her hand over hers. “Because I see that you care, and he cares. And for us, friendship is a fight — one worth fighting, if you ask me, but… I don’t want to see either of you starting down a path neither is prepared for.”

After squeezing her hand, Bahena’s sad face went back to her pancakes, soggy, now, after sponging up all the syrup on the plate. She simply added more before digging back in with her knife and fork.

“I’m sorry,” Bahena grumbled miserably. “I feel like I’ve brought down the mood of the whole morning.”

Dassah shook her head. “No,” she went. “I’m glad you talked me…”

Savoring the sweet of the fluffy pancake dripping in syrup, complemented by the saltiness of the accompanying bacon, Dassah wondered just how she would react to a situation like ones Bahena described. She was right. Their TheirWorld identities aside, If a garule ever acted that way toward her, she wouldn’t be able to simply tell herself to stop being afraid. It happened just recently, when Bahena and Sav had their spat in the office. He looked at her wide-eyed in her fear, read it, and reacted to it in a reasonable fashion — but his aggression was focused on Bahena, not Dassah herself.

What if it had been towards her?

How would it have changed?

Absently, her brow furrowed and she took a sip of her coffee.

“If you’re Ibraxis,” she’d told him, “Is it okay for me to be Guin? Brave, fearless Guin who can be at your side without worrying, or overthinking things?”

Stumbling in still wrapped in blankets, Stella peeked in eyeing the food on the table. “Someone’s been busy,” she commented before shedding her many layers and tossing them on the couch. “Don’t mind if I do.” Proceeding to shove bacon in her mouth, she swallowed hard before looking between them. “Okay, who actually died?” she asked, pointing between them nervously.

“It’s my fault,” Bahena said. “I couldn’t let sleeping dogs lay.”

“Lie,” Stella corrected, her eyes narrowing. “About what?”

“Sathuren,” the bronze garule said, finishing her plate. “But it’s fine now.”

“Is it?”

Dassah sighed heavily and played with her fork. “Stella.”

“Yes?”

“You were right.”

It took a moment for the meaning to register, but when it did, the young woman with the peacock colored hair gave a wicked grin. “Oh?”

“Now the question is: What do I do about it?”