September 22, 2010
On the Ship.
Smooth as butter, the ship slipped out of the harbor and onto the open ocean. Caravaner magic, I thought, grinning. Or mariner magic, I guess.
I glanced at Nathan. He was, typically, staring out at the waves. “How long to the Horn?” I asked.
“Couple’a days,” said someone behind me.
It’s not often someone sneaks up on me, but he was downwind and sea breezes are too salt-laden to carry much. I turned to find a crewman behind me.
“The night navigator,” he said, offering a hand, green snake eyes sharp. Mariners more than anyone are reticent about giving out their names, and that apparently suited him just fine.
He looked Iberian, probably from the Gates, weatherbeaten and scarred. Older than Nathan, but I’m not that good at judging human ages, and there was the added complication of the navigator being rather clearly not fully human. His grip was firm, though, and his stance solid, and in that he reminded me more of Nathan than anyone else I knew.
Well, Nathan on land. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off the sea, and was convulsively gripping the rail.
The navigator, clearly, had noticed. “He okay? Or does he need some ginger?”
“I’m fine,” Nathan said, sharp like he never is except off land.
“He’s not seasick, exactly,” I said. “He’s half landwight.”
One eyebrow quirked up, but the navigator kept silent.
The ship tossed, hit by a wave even mariner magics couldn’t ease entirely, and Nathan’s hands tightened convulsively.
And the navigator, just as I was working myself up to apologize for my ward’s splintering of the railing, tapped up a charm on the underside of the beam. “‘Ll last to the Horn,” he said, shooting me a quick, gap-toothed smile. “‘S an ironwood beat.” And he was gone, moving with deceptive solidity.
I turned back to Nathan, who’d finally torn his gaze away from the sea and was watching the navigator’s progress, slit-eyed, over his shoulder. He turned his sulfurous stare on me.
“Don’t ask me,” I said. “He came out of nowhere.”
Baby.
He was standing by the bar when someone reached over and tucked something into the crook of his arm. He just barely had time to acknowledge that that someone was Liza when he realized the bundle was squirming.
He looked down right as the squirming thing gave a disgruntled wail and stuck its fist in its mouth.
Liza was watching him. “Say hi to your daughter,” she said, eyes twinkling.
He came within inches of dropping the wee girl in shock.
I mean, obviously, I knew she was pregnant, he thought, looking his wife up and down wildly. And, ok, she’s clearly not anymore. And duh, I’m holding our kid.
He looked down at his baby girl, who was slobbering happily all over her fist and watching him with lazy pale snake eyes. She was brown like a nut, he saw, with peach fuzz hair of indeterminate color that seemed more gray than anything else.
“Baaaaaah,” she said, then smiled and went back to gnawing on her hand.
The bartender tapped the counter in front of them. “So, what’ll it be? First drink’s on us, save for the missus, who can drink free all night, ’cause she did the hard work. And the wiggleworm doesn’t get any, she’s too young,” she added with a smile.
This didn’t put out the girl much, and she babbled cheerily in the bartender’s direction.
“So, what’s her name?” he asked after they’d made their requests.
“Inez,” Liza said, grinning.
“Like that crotchety old lady down by the yarn store?”
Liza swatted him. “Yes.”
“You named her after the neighborhood curmudgeon?”
Liza blushed. “I like the name, ok?”
He smiled. “So do I. Sorry I wasn’t here.”
She hit him again. “Come off it. I knew it was likely when I married a sailor. And this way, I didn’t have to deal with you freaking out over the delivery.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t give me that slant-eyed look. You know you would have – I’ve never met a new dad who doesn’t, and you’re high-strung. This one was kinda peaceful, actually, until I called the midwife a devil whore and broke the doctor’s hand.”
He grinned. Then, mock-offended, “I am not high-strung.”
“You totally are.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Pah.”
“Thank you, Inez, same to you.”
Inez chirruped and started gumming on his elbow.
September 21, 2010
A Bit of a Story.
Pandora whistled to herself as she entered Riverbend Park, swinging her lunchbox idly from one hand. Looking around for a place to sit, she spotted a familiar figure by the blasted pine.
“Hey, Martin,” she said. “Long time, no see.” The mariner’s head shot up, dark snake eyes widening, then he waved her over.
A squeal from the dropcloth caught Pandora’s attention. Bright pearly snake eyes caught hers, and a little brown fist waved a celery stalk at her as the tiny girl squealed again. Pandora settled down next to the little girl on a corner of the dropcloth, carefully setting her hard-edged lunchbox away from the waving arms.
“Aren’t you energetic! You must drive your daddy to exhaustion,” Pandora informed the girl, who giggled and squealed and bopped her knee with the celery.
Martin’s face creased in a broad smile. “‘e certainly tries,” he said, catching his daughter’s free hand and plonking a chunk of melon in it. “‘er name is Inez.”
“Inez,” Pandora said, graciously accepting another cheerful bonk from the celery. “That’s a nice name.”
“‘er momma named ‘er. ‘Nez, tongue,” he said, then hissed softly at her look of confusion. Pandora watched, bemused, as the wee girl stuck out her tongue and tapped the melon against it. Inez pulled the melon away and looked it over, brow furrowed.
“What’s going on?” Pandora asked.
Martin, still watching Inez carefully, said, “We’ve got better tongues than you all. ‘m teaching Inez how to know food is good to eat.” He touched a piece of melon to his own tongue, then popped it in his mouth and chewed. Inez watched, then started gumming her own chunk.
“Ah.” Pandora cracked open the lid of her own lunch, and popped a grape in her mouth.
Inez stared, brow furrowed, then squealed and hit her with the celery again.
“What’s up with the celery, anyway?”
“‘e doesn’t like it anymore than I do, but Liza said she had to try it.”
Pandora grinned, then offered a grape to a watching Inez, who tasted it gravely and popped it in her mouth, then grabbed at Pandora’s skirt.
“Hm?” she said, gently disengaging Inez’ hand. She earned another whack from the celery for her troubles. Inez turned red and flailed at Pandora with all four limbs, settling down only when she had one hand wrapped solidly around Pandora’s fingers, one foot twisted in a panel of her skirt, and a lock of Pandora’s hair brushing her nose.
Martin’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. “‘re bright,” he explained, “‘nd all over color. I don’t think ‘e’s ever seen anyone as colorful as you.”
“Hm.” Pandora looked at Inez, who was staring intently at the bright painted nails of her captive hand, then sat up swiftly. Before Inez could do more than look startled, Pandora unwound a long multicolored scarf from her hair and wrapped the gauzy fabric gently around the little girl.
Surprised out of wailing, Inez looked down at the bright cloth wound around her. She wiggled. There was a soft shff as the layers of the long cloth shifted against each other. She stopped, and giggled, and waved her arms. The loose ends of the scarf, draped over her hands, fluttered up and down again like multicolored streamers. Inez watched in openmouthed awe, then waved her hands again, gaping at the floating colors.
Martin snorted a laugh. Pandora grinned, and took a satisfactory bite of sandwich.
She had other scarves.
Oranges.
“I’m not eating it and you can’t make me!“
Heads snapped around at the uncharacteristic outburst, but unusually, Martin didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he was glaring most poisonously at the fruit in Liza’s hand.
Liza looked incredibly confused. “Ok, then,” she said, popping the orange segment in her own mouth. One corner of Martin’s mouth twitched downward in disgust.
Roland started to giggle.
Heads immediately started swiveling back towards the other end of the cafeteria as the giggles turned into outright guffaws.
“Mind sharing the joke?” Beowulf asked, watching in bemusement.
Roland ignored him. “You do know most oranges aren’t bitter, right?” he called, before dissolving into fresh giggles.
If anything, that just soured Martin’s mood further. “‘s what those bastards in Valencia keep saying.”
