15. Leela #3
Leela flopped onto her bed that evening.
They had gifted her a beautiful room with a four-poster bed against the furthest wall, a wardrobe full of clothes, and a tiny weapons rack in the corner.
A grand carpet intertwined with the Flames along the edging sat in the middle of the room, with a small fireplace set off by a velvet couch and a coffee table.
Hema said the entire ship was better than the den.
Leela rolled over and stared at the ceiling of the four-poster bed. A drawing of the Flames sat in two intertwined circles. One side showed the Flames from the Awakening, the other showed the Flames of the Netherworld. In the center sat a blue gem.
The elixir of immortality. The thing the Flames had fought over for years and eventually ripped the realms apart to get to.
I think you forget we are more than tales, mortal, the Viperess murmured.
Oh?
Tales are the things mortals have formed so they can connect with us on a more personal level. We are more than tales. We are alive. We are beings born from the world, same as you were. When the world was split from the egg, the yolk split into the galaxy to create us.
We are more than a tale. We are you.
I understand that.
She flicked her tail, hitting the side of Leela’s skull.
Do you? You mortals use our carcasses to defeat the monsters.
You use us in your tales when someone does something horrendous, claiming it is our fault that someone has turned out this way.
Condemning us as though it is our fault because we are a part of greater beings.
You all act as if it is all our fault.
Isn’t it? It was you who split the realms apart.
It was also mortals who ruined the Flames, the Viperess hissed.
Leela shook her head. She was too tired to argue with the voice in her head.
So she got up and wandered out onto the deck to get some air.
After navigating through the red halls of the ship, she managed to find the door leading upstairs.
The cold wind nipped at Leela’s ankles and swept comfortingly across her face.
She reveled in it, as the humidity underneath the deck stifled her.
She tilted her head to the billions of stars splitting the dark purple and navy misted night and breathed.
“A beautiful night.”
Leela didn’t need to turn to know who it was. “I enjoy nights. It’s quiet.”
“The thing about being a Vessel. Your brain is never quiet.”
Leela glanced at Rajesh leaning on the banister beside her. The wind twirled his curls, flying them behind him as his gentle brown eyes found hers.
“My brain has never been quiet,” Leela said. “Regardless of the Viperess.”
“Oh, I remember.”
Leela frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I remember. Did you want me to say it in old Nihikian?”
Leela ground her teeth. Rajesh had finally come out of the angry swell he’d put himself in from the past few days and was back to his normal, arrogant, and opinionated self. Lucky, Leela remembered how to deal with the endless sarcasm.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the railing. “Why not. Might help you brush up your skills.”
“I remember Nihikian perfectly fine, little damiji.”
Leela raised her brow. “Little damiji?”
“You do have a Viperess inside of you. Figured a new nickname was warranted.”
“Huh. Fine, little picku.”
“I think you’d find it’s not that small,” Rajesh said, standing tall and shoving his hands into his pockets.
“We are still talking about the Scorpion, right?”
Rajesh’s lip twitched. “Right.”
Leela turned to the dunes, trying to hide the blush creeping over her cheeks at the thought of him in that way. “What’s the plan, now?”
“Haven’t we discussed it enough?”
“I need to hear it again,” Leela said. Or get off this uncomfortable topic.
Rajesh ran a hand through his curls. “We try to find the artifacts. We can pick up the search from where I left off. I feel like I was close to finding the wish-fulfilling tree. Iravan told me before we left that it could be between the mountain peaks in Kithium, but I will confirm that with the Scorpion.”
“And why the wish-fulfilling tree and not any of the other items?”
“Because the tree grants your deepest desires, damiji.”
Leela gave him a look. “Are we seriously going with that nickname?”
He shrugged. “Got something better to call you?”
“I think I’d rather like bitch face, like that year you continued to call me that.”
“Not asshat?” he said. “Or have you moved on from that phrase?”
“No.” Leela stuck her chin up. “I still use that phrase to call people who are actually asshats, asshats.”
“You know you never explained that term to me.”
“And I never needed to, asshat.”
Rajesh chuckled, soft and hearty. “Just like old times.”
Leela’s gut rolled. “I don’t want it like old times.”
She hated that it was, indeed, like old times. They were slipping back into their usual gripes and ease of conversation, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to move on. It almost felt like she was forgetting it all. Forgetting about the Viperess wanting to kill him. Forgetting their qualms.
Patience, she warned. Viperesses strike at the precise moment.
“Is it better to hate you?”
“Would that not be easier?” Leela said. “Then if I do kill you, or the Viperess does, then I don’t have to feel too guilty, and you don’t have to still be in love with me.”
Rajesh’s fingers paled against the railing. “Who said I was still in love, damiji?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
He answered so bluntly that it hurt. Leela bit the inside of her cheek and turned to the moons as they rose in their glorious peaks.
It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did, but her heart twisted with a distant ache of the time when they were just Rajesh and Leela, passing their ceremony days and preparing for a lifelong time of happiness.
When Leela couldn’t wait to see Rajesh after a hard day in the fields.
“Sure.” Leela pushed off the railing, preparing to leave. “Glad we clarified that.”
“I told you I can’t,” Rajesh said, stepping in front of her. “You know why. But doesn’t that mean we can’t talk like old friends? We were friends first, remember?”
“Friends turned lovers, and somehow I don’t think I can step back in time,” Leela said, flashing him her hardest glare. “I can’t just forget and move on, Rajesh. Not when… Not when we were…”
Rajesh stepped back and glanced at the ground. “I understand.”
“Do you? Because I can’t do it. I refuse to act like nothing has happened. Not in the last seven years. Not in the last six. Not even in the last few days. Because if I do, then I lose you all over again.”
Rajesh held her gaze. The light-heartedness in his eyes peeled back, and a sharpness took hold instead.
Good. It meant Leela didn’t need to see the expression she had fallen for. It meant she could hate him more than she could love him. She needed distance from Rajesh in more ways than one.
“Deal then,” Rajesh said, tone dismissive. “We agree to hate one another.”
“Deal.”
Without another word, she turned on her heel and rushed back to her room where she screamed into her pillows.