“You’re trying to distract me. I refuse to say another word to you until you take a respite from this ridiculous oxygen-deprivation vigil and come back completely refreshed. I will not be held responsible for the regent of Atlantis keeling over dead.”
“Very well–don’t get your fin in a twist. I think it’s safe to say I can remove it without your little friend pulling any stunts. What did you do to earn his favor?”
And so I recounted the incident with the mermaid bullies and my intervention, and when I finished Coda regarded me with a peculiar wonder.
“You really do have a heart for things, don’t you?”
“Well, I mean…I just think it’s pretty low, picking on the helpless and innocent.” I avoided his gaze, doing my best to play it down to avoid any undue admiration. It wasn’t like I was some noble knightress campaigning on behalf of millions. The hint of adoration creeping into his expression, and the fact that he would do things like hold his breath to stay by my side, were exactly the types of things that made me wonder if there might be a reason for the mermaids to be jealous.
But that was crazy, wasn’t it? The regent of Atlantis crushing on me? Hadn’t he been the one to say it was no great surprise that any man who spotted Vel-Di’yah would fall in love, but the fact that she found she loved one in return was the real crux of the scandal? It would be the reverse, in this case, but the same scenario. Of course it made sense that I would be drawn to him, seductive, glorious siren-man that he was, but for him to find anything extraordinary about the plain mortal that was me was way more farfetched.
Of course there was the voice in the back of my head that sounded an awful lot like Sandy telling me I wasn’t giving myself enough credit. That I was a fierce, strong, lustrous, independent, wondrous woman! That just…didn’t really stand up against immortal beings from myth and legend, somehow.
“Evidently he feels the same,” Coda remarked, eyeing the corner while he peeled off his eel skin.
“Are you calling me helpless and innocent?”
“Well, I don’t know–how many sharks did you fight off before this lump had to jump in and save you? And as for innocent–you tell me.” A wicked gleam burnished his metallic gaze.
Was he–flirting with me? Once again I avoided the pass, frowning at the former remark. “Don’t call him a lump.”
“What would you call him, if not a lump?”
Eh…probably a tumor.
Not the point.
“You’re as bad as me regarding the bubble and the jellyfish. He has a name.”
“Oh? Pray tell.”
“His name is Pastel.”
“Original.” Coda kept a straight face, but was unable to hide the amusement in his gaze.
“Yes, well. I know.” I had no other defense. I had the distinct urge to cross my arms–but of course, couldn’t. “And what would you call him, if not ‘Pastel’?” I turned his recent line of questioning on him.
His mouth curved like the horizon, very slightly, a thoughtful veneer coating his features. “Oh, I don’t know–probably Hatuskadariostus.”
“What?”
“What?”
I pursed my lips, repressing my mirth, and slowly shook my head. “Nothing. It’s a fine name.”
Coda’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You do not seem entirely sincere.”
“Cultural differences,” I dismissed. “But they must not be too severe, given your affinity for reading things like my sincerity.”
“If only I could read your inclination toward…other things.”
I went still, processing his sentence twice. “Other things?” I hardly even dared ask, but he’d been bold enough to blurt it out, so there was no avoiding it.
But after a single awkward, loaded moment, his intensity cracked into a lighthearted expression, like maybe the smoldering look I thought I’d seen had just been a trick of the ever rippling prism-light, a shadow warping across his face. “Other things,” he confirmed. “Like what manner of things a Surface-dweller finds offensive, your willingness to participate in sports–when you’re better, of course.”
Smooth. Very smooth. I peered at him slyly as I answered. “People find a great many things to be offended by above the surface–almost more to the effect of a hobby, than a cultural matter. As for sports–give me anything that involves running, and I’ll kick your finned buttocks.”
He broke into a grin, my sense of humor evidently another thing that did not get lost in translation.
“Cocky, cocky,” he teased. “But if I were you, I might hold off placing any bets. You haven’t seen me run.”
I tried to picture it–succeeded only by way of a vague impression of a limp-limbed, sloppily divided fin flopping in a disarrayed excuse for a straight line until the subject fell on his laboring face–and broke into a laugh. “Well, since I have little to bet with except some mildewing mushrooms stashed away in my turret, I suppose I’ll hold off.”
“Oh, Stargazer. You have far more to bet with than that.”
It was at that point–smile fading as a rush of giddy embers free-fell through my seemingly bottomless stomach–that I became certain all the other innuendos had meant what I thought they did, and those venomous mermaids that had aspired to feed me to the sharks had a valid reason to do so.
Chapter 21
I dozed in the comfort and luxury of the palace to expedite my recovery, until I’d fought off the fatigue and the worst of the debilitating body aches, and the swelling of my leg had gone down. Abraxia and Coda both checked in on me regularly, bringing mollusks and taffy for the reclusive creature determined to haunt the shadows of the angel until I was discharged. My fancy white ball-ensemble was trashed, the train of which I had no desire to lug around on a daily basis any more than Abraxia said I would, and so she offered to devise me something more appropriate for every-day-wear. I requested something black, which may or may not have been inspired by the see-through white underclothes I’d been inconveniently resigned to since wandering unexpectedly into a thriving civilization on the bottom of the ocean. Happy to oblige, she brought me a fairly plain black two-piece, the separate articles of which both laced up on the side as their sole fashionable feature.
My silken tethers were removed not long after Ellien treated me, but I stuck to the chamber designated for my recovery, not wanting to get lost in the intricate network of the fortress or snoop around anywhere I wasn’t welcome.
That didn’t mean I didn’t have the urge to snoop, and I definitely entertained the idea of going exploring to pass the time on more than one occasion, but I resisted.
Through Brax I heard a rumor that Codexious was offering a reward for anyone that came forward with information about who had cast me to the sharks, but no one volunteered even a whisper of intel.
Comforting.
When I swam out of the room where I’d been staying, Pastel detached himself from the corner shadows and spider-crawl-levitated across the chamber in my wake. It was a creepy, hilarious sort of movement, like he was trying to be sly but just looked ridiculous. I cracked an amused grin–half because the motion amused me, half because I was secretly delighted that he chose to follow me in the first place. I didn’t get halfway down the glittering dark hallway without before he reached forward with a long tentacle and sucked himself to my shoulder.
“Oh,” I remarked, caught off-guard by his clinginess. I thought there might have been a chance that he’d stick close by me when I left, at least until we found our way out of the palace and he lost interest, but I hadn’t expected him to make direct contact again. “Well, hello.” Initially I tried to crane my head to look down at him, but his knobby eye was right there, and he huddled shyly closer to my shoulder to shrink away from my face, so I quickly corrected the motion, turning forward again. I just wouldn’t acknowledge him, and we’d get along great.
I didn’t get much farther than that before a shimmery silhouette slithered out of the shadows of an adjoining corridor, barring my path.
“S
he has emerged,” Codexious observed, placing a palm against one wall so my passage was blocked. He did it casually, like he might just be leaning there, but the way he crowded to fill the whole width of the hall and puffed his chest out so he was a formidable barricade told me he had no intention of letting me pass. “With her trusty minion in tow, I see.”
I felt Pastel huddle closer to my neck at the appearance of another being, his spongy flesh pressed to my cheek. A sappy, maternal sensation melted my heart into gloppy little bits.
“Have you just been lingering in the halls outside of my room?” I asked in a half-accusing tone, crooking an eyebrow.
“They are my halls. I will linger in them if that is what pleases me,” Coda responded matter-of-factly.
“Don’t you have…regenty things to attend to?”
“What, like finding a wife? Because I am more encouraged than ever that ‘the one’ is in orbit, after an unidentified candidate or candidates committed arguably the most heinous crimes Atlantis has ever seen, and remains at large, probably one of the lovely ladies that tried to seduce me last aurora in the streets.” I could not have missed his dryness if–well, if we’d been at the bottom of the ocean, totally drenched.
I was happy to see he spoke sarcasm.
“Ah, so it’s one of those days where you’re playing down the responsibilities of the role, in order to lounge about in your opulent staycation resort,” I concluded.
“Nonsense. Somebody has to look after all the invalids.”
“There are so many, after all. Two less, though, because we’re flying the coop.”
“So soon?”
“I’m afraid so. I’m getting a terrible case of cabin fever, smothered in this grubby old hut.” I was trying to keep it lighthearted, but he turned very serious.
“Are you sure, Sayler?”
“Of course I’m sure. I can look after myself. Besides, I have this guy.” I shrugged my shoulder ever so slightly to indicate Pastel. “And Brax said she’d check in on me. I’ll just spend the day fashioning a decent weapon, and then I’ll be good to go.”
“I wish you would stay.” I could tell by his face, he was none too pleased that I couldn’t be convinced to heed his advice, which pretty much amounted to not heeding his command. He had resisted commanding me outright, but probably only because he could tell that I would refuse that, too.
Would I? Come to think of it, I wasn’t actually sure what I would do, in the case of a direct command from the regent of Atlantis. I didn’t necessarily take kindly to being bossed around by any man, but this was a different culture, where royalty meant something. It was debatable exactly what it meant, in his case, and perhaps that was the only reason he bit his tongue and refrained from trying to pull the monarch card with me, because it was a gray area and I knew it and I was Spitfire Splittail, dag nab it.
Or he actually respected me and was fighting the urge to pull rank only for my gratification.
I wish you would stay, his words replayed in my head. Crowded so close to him in the corridor, with his dark, glinting mercury gaze imploring me not to go, I almost wished I would stay, too. But I’d already drawn too much attention to myself.
“I have no interest in becoming any more of a pariah,” I maintained.
I saw him relent. “Very well. If it’s weapons you want, at least allow me to outfit you before you leave.”
“Do you have an armory?” I chuckled. There was no end to the surprises and amenities around this place.
“Of course.”
And so he took me to the armory, and bequeathed to me a beautiful, curved dagger with an abalone blade and what looked like glittering lavender geode dust and crystals inlaid into the silver hilt. Pastel stuck with me the whole way–tumor indeed–and even clung to me for a while once we got back to my turret, as if not realizing that was our final destination. Once he realized we were there to stay, he de-suctioned himself from my shoulder and slunk off to the shadowed edges of the chamber.
“Just make yourself at home, buddy,” I encouraged, heartened by his companionship. At least someone liked me.
Someone besides the regent, that is.
Ahem.
Time for another nap, to avoid thinking about it. There was little else to do until I could use my leg normally again.
I was half afraid I’d wake up chained to the bottom of the ocean again, sharks circling and no one around for miles, but I’d insisted I wasn’t interested in the asylum offered at the palace, so…I’d made my bed, and I would have to sleep in it.
Couldn’t be that hard, to sleep while in fear of being fed to the sharks. Easy-peasy.
Armed with my octopus and abalone relic knife, I settled in for a little catnap, and was grossly unsuccessful.
* * *
Over the next series of auroras, I came to the conclusion that I might as well have stayed in the palace, for how much time Codexious and I spent in each other’s company. It wasn’t my intention, to spend nearly every waking moment with him, but I really did develop a swift case of cabin fever once restricted to my turret, and when along came Coda offering to take me for a tour of the geode caves, or to see the even more astonishing underwater waterfalls, I was helpless to resist.
Of course, stubborn and independent as I was, I tried my best to gimp along beside him, but although he had been the essence of patient with my mortal snail’s pace the first time he’d taken me out, he was not so keen to humor the clip of snot freezing in winter.
“Mm,” he observed, looking pained by the notion of politely letting me set the pace. For an instant he visibly resisted saying anything, but a nano-second later he caved. “Can’t do it, I’m afraid. If you demonstrate your status as a weak, invalid member of your species any longer, I’ll eat you myself. Here, grab on to my shoulders.” Maneuvering so that he was essentially underneath me, back to me, he presented himself as a willing chariot.
A willing, bare-backed, muscle-rippling chariot.
It wasn’t until then that I thought to glance around, looking for Inaja, and found no sign of him. Was it just us again today? How scandalous.
Well, in that case… Don’t mind if I do. If I was able-boded, I might put up more of a fight–then again, he wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t need it–but I really didn’t have it in me to resist this time. Whether because the quest ahead was a daunting task in my wounded state or because those shoulders were actually by definition too irresistible, I didn’t bother distinguishing.
“Fine,” I relented. I let myself sink down so I could slide my hands over his shoulders–sculpted, marble-smooth, warmer than I somehow thought. Inadvertently, I bobbed against him as I settled in for the ride, our bodies knocking gently.
“Ready?”
“I hope this isn’t going to mess up my hair,” I quipped.
“I’m going to ravage your hair, Stargazer.”
And then we were off, my live chariot undulating beneath me and me flying like a flag in his wake. It was an exhilarating method of travel, and I was disappointed when we reached our destination and I had to relinquish my hold on those glorious shoulders.
But only disappointed for an instant, because the geode caves were amazing, and soon I was drunk with wonder and didn’t even have a thought to spare for Coda and his mouth-watering muscles. On the rare occasion that I shot him a glance after that, he seemed drunk with wonder off of me in the same way, that molten glint nestled in his gaze as he admired my childlike, marveling glee. I smiled at him, enchanted, noticing the way the garden of crystals reflected a dazzling, shattered texture in his gaze, turning his silver eyes a fractured, dust-sparkling lavender.
Great, inking Abyss, if I couldn’t have kissed him right then and there, just to taste that cotton-candy memory in the crumbling stardust grottos of the deep.
And if I couldn’t have kissed him again at the underwater waterfalls, where we dived into an intricate network of craters and ledges rushing with velvety, silvery run-off, a funneling geological phenome
non pulling currents of water downward to an underwater river so deep we didn’t even dare go there, lest we couldn’t fight the many layers of currents back up again.
I didn’t kiss him, of course–it was just a silly fantasy. I was neither promiscuous enough nor presumptuous enough, and there was plenty to appease me besides.
When we were done exploring the hidden gems of the ocean around Atlantis, we went back to the palace–that place I was so determined to estrange myself from, at least on the record–and Coda took me to the organ cathedral.
“Was it you?” I asked teasingly, eyeing the illustrious organ, “who called me here from the beginning?”
“I’ve been found out,” he flirted back, slipping out from underneath me as I relinquished my hold on his shoulders. Hopefully no one had seen our little tandem-swimming technique on our way back into the city. Yet as much as I’d claimed I didn’t want to cause a stir by staying in the palace or draw any more attention by keeping his attention, he was the most comforting thing in this world of unknowns and newfound hostility. After all, who else could I trust? Dogga, perhaps, that peace-loving mer-hippie that I would probably never see again, or my new friend Brax. But I already felt like it was enough trouble for her to check in on me as often as she did. Not that she showed any indication of minding–in fact, she’d probably be appalled if I suggested any such thing–but where she didn’t mind, Coda clearly suffered from the opposite of minding.
“Shall I teach you to play?” Coda offered, swirling lazily toward the organ.
“Actually,” I said with a coy little smile, “I already know how.”
Impressed, he turned back to me. “Is that so?”
Well, piano, anyway. But…surely I could charm a decent composition out of this beast, in a similar fashion. I made my slow, languid way over to the instrument, hovering where I could place my fingers lightly on the abalone keys. They were smooth, polished and worn. I imagined how many times Coda’s fingers had rested just here, stroking them gently, and could almost feel the ghost of his touch.
I closed my eyes, taking myself back to my adolescent years when music had opened a new depth inside me. With the first pressing of the keys, nostalgia and euphoria flooded my body. The notes played my heartstrings, releasing a liquid ache through my veins, full of angst and elation.
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