Chapter 3
Walking Billboard
The creche was quiet when I got back, although it wasn't that late, just past the time when Avelthe usually had his afternoon tea and fell asleep on one of the sofas in the front reception room while watching an abayan theatre production.
I'd taken to sitting with him sometimes and letting the language wash over me – Araxis had suggested I put on subtitles, which Avelthe insisted would ruin the experience – but that was fine.
Avelthe had also said before that he didn't care for the way I breathed, so if he was fine with me sitting next to him and working on my language exercises while he napped, I wasn't going to complain.
When I'd learned Standard a decade ago, it was mostly by being punted into the deep end and floundering around, choking on unfamiliar sounds and words and syntax.
This time, I had a tutor; this time, everyone also spoke Standard.
This was like dipping a toe in the baptismal tank instead of being shoved into its frigid waters, so I needed some deeper immersion to remind my brain of the urgency.
I toed off my boots by the door and slipped down the dark central hallway to see if I could track anyone down, but the main reception room was only dimly lit by a wall panel. Empty.
The other, smaller reception room where the kids were often causing chaos of one sort or another – or watching nature documentaries ported over from my wristband – was also conspicuously empty. And the kitchen, where the dining room table sat.
I tapped at my wristband and called up the message interface.
Nothing.
I nudged the display to my calendar, which only said in letters that somehow felt like Araxis's voice Personal Day.
A breath tore free from my throat as I hauled open the fridge to grab one of those little juice cartons the kids were obsessed with.
If a virra showed up early when he didn't have to and no one was around to see it, would he even make a sound?
Or – whatever. So much for proving to Vivith that I could be a helpful member of Creche Thiel.
Although, I reminded myself as I cracked the top of the juice and tipped it back, it was my Personal Day, which meant that Creche Thiel wasn't my creche.
No one was. I was just Sashen Solar, some human with a surplus of credits, a few deep bruises a subdermal knitter couldn't reach, and a lot of vocabulary homework to do.
After checking the rest of the suite and coming up with only more empty rooms, I resigned myself to an afternoon spent alone in a suite that was too big for me to rattle around in while waiting for the meeting that showed up on the calendar in our bedroom, even if it wasn't on my calendar.
I took the time to shower and choose something nice for the meeting – a gauzy shirt with a plunging neckline and little golden chains that were cool against my skin; Araxis had said, when I'd tried it on at the tailor's, that it would look particularly fine under the lights of the Assembly Hall, which was as close to complimenting me as he came these days – before primping and preening a little to make sure that I looked as pretty as I could.
And then I turned my attention to my language homework.
I clicked on the wall display to an abayan drama that Yalrinn was particularly fond of so that the language could cascade through the room while I settled in with vocabulary banks ten and eleven.
And grammar worksheets sixteen through eighteen.
And I tried not to watch the clock, even as the meeting slot crept closer and closer.
It was only when it got close enough to the meeting time that I’d started to get nervous that maybe I'd have to take it all on my own – and what if the Miras diplomat didn't speak Standard, or what if I did something so horribly insulting that they declared Creche Thiel their eternal nemesis, like they did in the abayan dramas – that I finally heard the telltale sounds of my creche-mates returning home.
Before I could stand to go greet them, the door into our room opened and Araxis stepped in, speaking in rapid abayan over his shoulder as Vivith followed a few steps behind.
"You're back," I said – and it sounded a hell of a lot more irritated than I'd intended.
I hastily tapped off the datapad that had been glowing in my hand – I'd made it into the extra extra homework, way beyond what Inmadra had told me to do before we met again – suddenly embarrassed for some reason I couldn't name.
"Sashen. I did not expect –" Araxis began, cutting himself off as he stepped into the room and went to the display. He tapped the feed off, plunging our bedroom into sudden silence. Well, except for the buzz of voices from the hallway. "Did you have a pleasant day?"
Behind him, Vivith fluted out an irritated sound, stepping past Araxis and toward the door into the meeting room, which was open.
They looked back when I stood, stare flicking over me, and I watched something flash – angry – across their angular face as they whirled to shoot a pointed look at Araxis as if trying to communicate with him psychically.
I looked back at him, trying to see if I could find the origin of that expression, but Araxis only smiled at me in a carefully anodyne way, as if he were making small talk at some boring event.
He was dressed in a pale high collared shirt, a formal dark jacket hanging down from his upright shoulders to his hips.
His pants were similarly dark, the ties around his waist a startling burst of gold, the fabric glinting in the dim light.
It was all new, recently tailored. I knew, because I'd gone with him to an abayan shop where I'd also been carefully fitted with a whole array of clothes that Araxis was certain I'd need for meetings and for when we arrived in Xitera.
His crest was braided back, a formal pattern.
I'd learned, in the few weeks I'd been a member of the creche, that braids were practically a language unto themselves and Vivith was a master at the subtle art of communicating through plaits, beads, and tension.
The overall effect tonight meant Araxis looked composed, and carefully so.
I ignored his question. "Where were you?"
"Araxis," said Vivith, sharp. "Come, we should speak before our meeting."
"In a moment," he said, hands tucked behind his back, his ink dark eyes studying me as his eyelids tightened with a sliver of tension.
Vivith made another huffy sound and prowled into the meeting room.
"There was a production of Yedina and the Swordsworn at Celnentann Cultural Centre in Central Ward.
Lauvis of Creche Athal reached out and suggested we attend.
Vivith thought it would be nice to go, and good for the children. We had time before tonight's meeting."
"Oh." Why did my chest feel so hollow? Why did I feel so absolutely sick at the thought of the whole creche – except Egnax, still on our ship – going out for an afternoon of theatre while I skulked around Radiant Ward and did grammar drills?
While I sat here, by myself, waiting for them to come back? "That's – nice."
Araxis's lips twitched, a ghost of a smile.
"I have always found it rather heavy-handed in its moralizing, but we did see some other abaya there who hold positions of significance in their creches, so it was good to make an appearance.
The dancing was certainly lacking, but then I have found my standards in that art form are rather different than they were when I last saw abayan theatre. "
There was, I thought, a compliment in there, but I was too fucking tired to dig it out.
A lot of important people had been there, and yet I hadn't been.
How conspicuous had my absence been? How weird was it that every other member of our creche, few though they may be, had attended except for Araxis's declared virra?
My skin prickled. "I would have gone," I said. "If you'd asked."
Araxis's head tilted more. I watched him swallow, struggling to bite back whatever subvocal was threatening to tear from his throat.
Probably distress. I could feel the expression on my face; I knew how it would make him feel.
"Today was your day off, Sashen," he offered, quiet.
"And the play was in abayan. The offer was made – last minute. "
Was it that he didn't want to bother me, I wondered distantly, or that it had been easier to attend a last minute event without worrying about bringing me along?
Would I know how to behave at a theatrical production?
Would I understand what was happening? Would I make the right comments at intermission, laugh at the right jokes, look at him in the right way?
Or, out in public, would the lustre come off entirely and the truth – that I was out of my league, space trash made valuable only through proximity to Araxis – become clear?
Of course he hadn't invited me. "Is there anything I should know about Creche Miras," I asked around the tightness in my throat, trying not to imagine our entire creche out together, free from their particularly human burden, "before the meeting?"
Araxis's expression tightened again. "You are not working tonight, Sashen. You do not need to be here."
From the meeting room, Vivith said, "As I told you, Araxis, Nishel mentioned after the first act of The Swordsworn that he wishes very much to meet Sashen.
He has apparently been talking at some length about his aspirations of offering for a virra one day; no doubt he wishes to see if it is worth considering a virra who is not abaya or if that would be too… fraught."
The implication in the way they said it was clear: I was a cautionary tale.