Chapter 18
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The terror of compliments and small talk.
“I was beginning to think you didn’t want to learn how to fish.” Laumon laughs, leading me down the bank toward the beach, his trusty fishing rod propped over his shoulder and a bucket of writhing conquests in his other hand.
“W-what? Don’t be silly.” I laugh, too, and watch a crab scuttle across the white sand into a hole. Oh, if only I could be that crab.
Earlier, after my journal blackmailed me into getting on top of the quest I’d been neglecting by refusing to press my stolen Samson petal unless I did, I found Laumon fishing at one of the rivers that cuts through the Ridge.
The fishing spot is somewhat off the beaten path, but exactly where my mental schedule said he’d be.
With more and more reality coming to light each day, knowing everyone’s schedules by heart is starting to make me feel like a stalker, but it’s not like it’s my fault.
I didn’t know I was studying the behaviors of actual people.
As we pass the new beach house, Neptun exits, smiles at us, and waves.
I wave back, because I’m kind like that, and not a crab, which is somehow devolving into a more depressing fact by the minute.
“Careful of the hook,” Laumon says, somehow having retrieved a wooden rod to thrust into my hands while I was waving and mourning my human flesh.
Hooboy.
I’m not looking forward to this experience with the realism mod active.
What are we going to talk about while we’re standing on the beach, hoping our lines don’t tangle or I get a wormy hook in me? The weather?
When Laumon’s attention lifts toward the pristine clouds lazing across the azure sky, I tense.
Please no.
Not the weather for real.
Come on, Laumontite. Be more interesting than a secondary mineral in basalt. I beg.
With zero context, he offers me a gentle smile and turns up the beach. I follow, trying to hold my fishing pole over my shoulder like he is, grateful only that I had the foresight not to wear my cute lemon pocket dress today. I’m in my starter khakis, ready to cover them in fish guts, probably.
Ready as I’ll ever be, anyway.
My heart dunks into my toes as an inlet stuffed full of splinters comes into view.
My legs stop working.
The fishing pole sags right off my shoulder, tip landing in the sand.
A chill pours down my spine, as though it’s not beyond mid spring and sun isn’t boring into my light-colored hair.
“This is where our home got stuck,” Laumon murmurs, breaking the eerie static in my head.
“Very little survived. But we’re lucky. So lucky.
Lazul mandated an evacuation to his manor, and he wouldn’t let anyone laugh off his urgency.
Nep and I grumbled when he made us bring as much as we could carry all the way up to his place before the rain started, but if he hadn’t…
” A broken chuckle leaves Laumon. “Well, we’d have had barely anything.
He had everyone in town bring things to safety, just in case the streets flooded, and they did at least three inches, but Chrysa’s flour and sugar reserves were in his parlor, all the general store food took up his guest room…
We barely had any space to move, and we all slept on whatever floor we could find, but we all made it through with enough to manage in the aftermath, too. ”
So that’s why Lazul offered me the farmhouse instead of a guest room. I showed up barely after the storm, when his home still would have been filled with the town’s things.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” I whisper. “I’m… I’m so grateful that Lazul knew what he was doing. Knew it was more than a little rain.”
Laumon nods. “He pays attention, and he knows us. I’m sure he could tell there was something different about this storm than others from the way Slate mentioned it to him.
He’s a good lord. Best I’ve ever had. And he’s been frantic these past few weeks, trying to get us all back to our normal.
For a minute there, we didn’t know if Mimet would be able to make it back to us for the entire season, or if she was even okay at all.
She spends a lot of time on the roads, and if she were in the wrong place at the wrong time, her entire camp may have been swept away.
” He blows out a breath and swings away from the wreckage.
The wreckage that was never in the game.
Because this entire section of the beach wasn’t in the game.
Laumon whispers, “You never think something like this will happen where you can reach it. It’s always just a storybook plot device, something you hear rumors of from traders at fishing towns.
You don’t think about how it will affect you when suddenly you’re one of the survivors.
” His voice breaks, so he clears his throat.
“Sorry. I asked you if you wanted to learn to fish, not witness a breakdown.”
“It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot. I’m happy to listen, if you need me to.”
He smiles. “You’re very sweet, Citrus. But this really isn’t what I wanted to say to you today.
I’m grateful for you, for all your help, for the supplies you’ve gotten for everyone, for the work you’ve been putting in all over town.
Having you around has helped us a lot. I wanted you to know that you’re appreciated. ”
My heart twists, and I have no idea what to say. “I haven’t done all that much. Most of my time lately has been waiting for Samson to help me look for a topaz in the mines so we can get the elevator back up and running.”
He laughs, lifting his pole. “Right, so all you’ve been doing is using that fancy void bag of yours to bring much-needed ores in from the mines, and all I’ve been doing is catching fish.
Don’t undermine your worth. I’ve seen the fresh produce at Muskov and Kaolin’s, and I know where that comes from. ”
My face heats. I forgot that I’ve been keeping my crops rotated and dropping the excess Samson and I don’t cook up off with Kaolin, hoping that it’ll be used before it goes bad. “That’s more of a…hobby…that I do. While I wait for Samson to buddy system with me in the mines.”
“Last night, your ‘hobby’ put a plate full of fresh veggies on a table I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t supplied Gabbro with the wood to make it, so.”
The silence.
It burns.
I fix my gaze firmly off him. “So anyway…fishing?”
“Fishing.” He laughs. “My favorite spot is out this way.”
Glad to no longer be talking about me, I trail after him, hoping that once the horror of skewering a worm is past, maybe we’ll talk about something peaceful.
Like…deboning a fish.