Etta's House
> “Oh the good God sends us comfort in our harshest times of trial. Oh the good God sends us comfort, in the sea and in the sky. Oh the good God sends us comfort, all we need to do is hear; there’s comfort and there’s hope for us to see another year.”
>
> -from “Be My Hearthstone”, traditional song
yan banner [https://66.media.tumblr.com/3a8e1d12d80117e6afc9f5f48ca78e87/tumblr_pdxwrhUDP41xnm75po1_1280.png]
Yan squeezed herself into the back of the small craft, near a bunched up tarp and boxes that were clasped shut. They weren't locked, but Yan was now here, and alive, entirely on the goodwill of the girl, so she wasn't about to start going through them. She had the soggy ammunition carton in her hand. Miraculously, it had stayed clutched between her teeth through all of the various trials and tribulations that she had endured since the scuffle in the office.
As the boat skipped lightly over the tiny waves, Yan inspected her body for the damage that had surely been done to it. She was coming down off her massive adrenaline rush now, so things were beginning to hurt in full force again. Her broken fingers, which had been jostled significantly, throbbed. She was bruised all over, and had a particularly nasty lump forming on the top of her head where she had hit the stairs. The bottoms of her feet were shredded from running over the sharp rocks on the hillside and along the beach. Her right hand was intensely sore from the muscle strain involved in resisting the Green King's power. Nothing new was broken, though, and she had no life threatening injuries. She had gotten off positively unscathed.
The girl stood at the helm, consulting a screen built into the front of the small boat, and turning the rudder according to what it showed her. She seemed completely indifferent to Yan's presence at the moment, but maybe that was only because she was focused so intently on driving the boat as fast as she could that she had no time to worry about her passenger. She had tossed the gun onto the floor of the boat, and it lay there, among the coils of rope, looking as innocent as it could. Yan wasn't going to touch it. There was a truce between them, now. The girl had saved her life, for no reason that Yan could discern. Thinking about it, the tears rushed to Yan's eyes. She felt overwhelmingly guilty about how she had treated her, and, despite that, the girl had, for some reason, decided to help her. To abandon her own job, possibly her whole life, to help a stranger who had held her at gunpoint. That was… Yan, who had done many difficult things in her life, couldn't imagine herself standing in that girl's cloth shoes and making the same choice. She swiped ineffectively at her eyes with her sore hands and sat silently in the bottom of the boat.
They sailed in silence for hours. The battery powering the engine buzzed and hummed. Eventually, the sun began to come up over the horizon, slipping too-bright fingers through Yan's thick eyelashes. She might have nodded off at one point, but that woke her up, along with the girl shutting off the boat's engine and abandoning her station at the front of the craft. She walked to the back, and pulled on the tarp that was rolled up back there. As she unfurled it and pulled it over their heads and all across the top of the boat, Yan saw that the top of it was a solar panel material that would recharge the battery.
The girl tied it down, and Yan didn't dare move to try to help. She didn't want to mess anything up, and she didn't want to scare the girl either. Once it was all attached, the whole interior of the boat was dim. The water still reflected light up inside, and made dancing patterns on the underside of the tarp, but the immediate glare of the rising sun was gone. It was humid and warm, but hardly any different from the exterior, since the sides were still basically open to allow air to pass through. They wouldn't suffocate. The girl sat down, leaning her head against the steering column, and staring across the boat at Yan. They regarded each other cautiously. The gun was still on the floor between them, but since neither of them had made a move for it this whole time, many hours, they both seemed to understand each other in that regard.
One of them had to be the first to break the silence.
"Thank you," Yan said in Old Imperial, the only language she thought the girl might know. "Thank you for saving me."
The girl said something back in her own language, sounding much calmer than she had earlier.
"Yan." She pointed to herself. They could at least know eachother's names, if nothing else.
"Etta." The girl, Etta, pointed to herself. Yan smiled.
"Nice to meet you, Etta."
Etta said something else, then slowly crawled over to the back of the boat where Yan was. She couldn't really walk because of the tarp. Yan scooted out of her way, careful not to touch her. She opened up one of the latched boxes and pulled out two yellow life jackets, the puffy kind with the thick foam in them. Etta handed one of them to Yan, who took it and inspected it. Her year at the Academy had taken overnight trips to the ocean a few times, so Yan was vaguely familiar with how they were worn. She probably should have been wearing this already, since she didn't know how to swim at all. Yan pulled it over her head and Etta laughed.
She scooted herself back up toward the front of the boat, held up her own life jacket, and put it down on the bottom of the boat. Then she laid down, curled up so that she wasn't kicking the sides of the boat, using the foam as a pillow. They had been on the run all night long. Maybe it was time to sleep, for real. Although she may have closed her eyes and slipped away as the boat skipped over the waves, Yan felt a little reluctant to lay down and sleep now. It felt more vulnerable to be consciously doing it.
Perhaps she was less vulnerable than she had been during her entire imprisonment, but the lack of walls around her, and the entire unknown feeling of this strange new world was making her head spin. Either that or the rocking of the boat on the water, the fact that she hadn't eaten in days, or her swollen head injury from being pushed down the stairs. It could have been any number of things. Slowly, watching Etta, Yan pulled the life jacket back off and laid down on the floor of the boat. Now that both of the women were lying there, staring at each other, neither of them closed their eyes. There was so much that Yan wanted to say to Etta, but none of it was possible, since they didn't speak the same language at all.
Etta closed her eyes first, more willing to trust Yan, apparently. Either that or she was more tired from taking control of steering the boat all night long. Yan watched as the reflected light danced across Etta's face. Asleep, she seemed much more whole, as both sides of her face were equally slack. Yan wondered just what kind of injury she had sustained to her head to make her face like that. She had noticed her limp, too, and the way she favored one hand when doing complicated tasks. From what she knew about serious brain injuries like what had caved the side of Etta’s head in, Etta was probably lucky to have the ability to move that half of her body at all.
Yan nodded off. Since she was unused to having a pillow (her cell didn't have one), she found even the scratchy, stiff fabric of the life jacket to be an improvement. In her dream she walked through her empty white space. Halen was there with her. Why was it always Halen?
"Did you survive?" Halen asked her.
"Did you?"
"The old me didn't," Halen said. "He stayed behind."
"Yeah."
The landscape morphed and shifted away from the blank white, and she was on the boat with Etta. Etta was sitting on the edge, dragging her feet through the water. Yan stood behind her, looking out over the flat, infinite ocean. The sun got in her eyes. The water was clear all the way down to the rocky bottom. Yan had no idea how deep it was. It could have been a meter. It could have been ten thousand.
"Why did you save me?"
"Wouldn't you have done the same?" Etta asked. Here in the dream, she spoke flawless Terlin, Yan's native language. She looked up at Yan over her shoulder. "Would you be able to stand there and let someone suffer?"
"I don't know," Yan said. "I don't know." She felt tears on her cheeks, or maybe it was just the spray of the waves hitting the side of the boat.
"You might want to figure that out. Just in case," Etta said, turning away.
"I'm sorry for what I did," Yan said.
"You did what you had to to survive," Etta said. "And you'll do it again."
In her heart, she wasn't just referring to what she had done to Etta. She was thinking too of that tiny shuttle crammed full of people, and what she and Sid had done to survive. Thinking of it still sent pangs of guilt through her, regardless of what she had thought was necessary at the time, and regardless of what anyone else told her.
"But–"
Etta dived off the side of the boat, swimming down, down, down, infinitely far. Yan reached into the water to grab her and pull her back up, but she started to fall in as well. Her face hit the water, and Yan woke up with a gasp, sitting bolt upright, and hitting her head on the tarp above her.
Etta was still asleep. Yan's mouth was painfully dry. She crawled over to the side of the boat, and stuck her head out stifflythrough the gap in the tarp. The horizon did seem endless, with nothing breaking up the blue-green-white of the waves and the steel-blue of the sky. The sun was about halfway between the horizon and its zenith. Yan, still a little wary from her dream, reached down her hand into the water. It was colder than she expected. She pulled a handful of it up and put it in her mouth. It was salty, but less salty than the ocean water on Emerri. She wondered if it was safe to drink.
The sound of her crawling around the bottom of the boat had awakened Etta, who crawled over to see what Yan was doing. She laughed again, a sound hoarse from sleep, and opened another one of the chests. She pulled out an odd contraption, some sort of water filter, and scooped it down in the ocean, filling up the top reservoir. There was a pump handle on it, and she pressed it to force the water through the filter medium into a lower chamber. She then unscrewed the two halves and offered it to Yan. Yan drank some, amazed at how thirsty she was, but stopped before she drank all of it. She handed it back to Etta, who drank the rest and reassembled the filter, which she passed to Yan. Yan busied herself with pumping more freshwater out of the ocean as Etta unfastened the tarp from above them and rolled it back up toward the back of the boat.
Once the reservoir in the pump was full, Yan set it down. She glanced at Etta, who was consulting the navigation screen at the front of the boat, and decided that it was okay for her to check the rest of the boxes for food. She doubted there would be any, since Etta probably would have pulled that out first thing, but it didn't hurt. Unfortunately, her suspicions were confirmed as she found only miscellaneous boat supplies: rope, flares, a bucket, and other tools that she couldn't identify and didn't want to mess with for fear of breaking. Her stomach had reached the hunger point where it had stopped physically complaining, but food was just about the only thing she could think of. Yan was glad that she had been able to escape when she had, because she doubted that if she had remained in her cell with the drugged food she would have been able to resist eating it.
Etta started up the motor again, and the boat resumed cutting through the water. It was slower than a car, but it was much faster than Yan would have expected, considering its size. Granted, it was hard to judge speed by anything other than the feeling of the wind hitting her face. Yan scooted closer to the front of the boat to watch what Etta was doing. The screen up there showed a simple directional display, with various beacons. Etta simply steered the boat towards one of them. Yan wondered what the satellite situation on this planet was to enable such navigation. There had to be some. Either that or an extensive sea-based beacon relay setup. Satellites seemed easier. There was text on the screen that Yan couldn't read. It wasn't using any of the standard alphabets throughout the Empire, or any of the Old Imperial logograms that Yan could recognize.
Yan had known, on some level, that she wasn't in the Empire anymore, but it was hitting her just how different this world was. She stared out at the flat expanse of water and waited. Etta hummed a little song under her breath, but she must have decided that trying to talk to Yan was more trouble than it was worth because of the language barrier. They sailed on and on. Yan tried to stay focused on the present, but her thoughts slipped back into her past, and she almost wondered if she was dreaming, still in her cell. She tried not to slip back into her daydream space either; it wouldn't be helpful to her, now, and she was worried that if she kept using it she would really be crazy. Something about being cooped up so long had wrecked part of her brain. The lack of walls around her felt unreal, and she still felt like she was being watched by cameras hidden somewhere. No matter how much she tried to breathe and stay focused on the present, those fears kept creeping into her. Maybe that was reasonable, since she was still far from anything she had ever known, and was probably still in danger, but it didn't help anything.
"Yan," Etta said, interrupting her long reverie. She pointed at the horizon, and Yan squinted to see what she was pointing at. Some other landmass was coming into view. At the moment it was just a dark smudge sideways to the setting sun, but it clearly broke up the ever expanding ocean, as soon as it was pointed out to her. Yan sat up straighter in the boat, and Etta gunned the engine, ramping up their speed. She said something in her own language and smiled.
They approached the island, and Yan could see that it was populated, with a few buildings, a pier with boats, farms, a large netted off area in the ocean around one side, and dirt paths. The island was built on a hill or a stubby mountain, so Yan couldn't tell how long the island was. It was several kilometers wide, probably, and it loomed large as they approached. Etta drove the boat handily up to one of the piers, killing the engine and letting the boat drift in and bang on the dock. She hopped out lightly and gestured for Yan to toss her the rope. Yan did so, revealing the gun that was resting in it in the process. She kicked it uncomfortably over to the side of the boat and tried to ignore it. She handed the end of the rope to Etta, who tied the boat to the dock.
Etta jumped back in the boat and gathered up various supplies. She had seen Yan kick the gun away, and she looked at Yan cautiously, then went over, picked it up, unloaded it, and put the gun and ammunition in separate boxes, burying them under the supplies in there and locking them away. Yan stood as still as she could in the bobbing boat and waited for her to finish. Interrupting Etta while she did something like that seemed like an ill advised idea at best, and a dangerous one at worst. Once that was all sorted, Etta climbed out of the boat and held out a hand to hoist out Yan.
They paused there for a moment, Yan looking at her cautiously, but then she accepted, and Etta helped her climb over the side of the boat onto the dock. Yan's broken fingers hurt as she used her left hand to stabilize herself, and her cut feet screamed as they encountered the rough wood. She gritted her teeth and bore it, waiting for the wobbles in her body to subside as she got used to the world not moving underneath her anymore.
The sun was just about to slip below the line of trees that blocked the horizon, and Etta started walking away from the dock, glancing behind her every few seconds to see if Yan was following. There weren't many people out, but it was probably time for the evening meal in most houses. Either that or the boats that were docked, which there were a fair few of, did not represent the total number of boats that called this island (and Yan was fairly certain it was an island, rather than an outcropping of a continent) their home. The road that Etta led her down was basically just a path scraped free of vegetation, leaving the loose, rough rocks behind. It hurt to step on with her bare feet, but Etta's cloth shoes could hardly be doing that much to protect her. Their shadows stretched behind them as they wound their way up the hill.
The sound of crunching gravel and the purr of an electric engine pierced the air, and Etta stopped. A dawning look of fear crossed her face, and she gestured for Yan to first get behind her, then go into the trees. Yan obeyed, practically diving into the undergrowth at the side of the road. She certainly didn't have the expertise to argue with Etta about this. She peered out through the bushes as an open air truck drove past. It honked its horn as it passed Etta, and she plastered half a smile on her face and waved. She waited for a long time before beckoning Yan out of her hiding spot; the sound of the truck faded into the far distance.
"Everything okay?" Yan asked, even though Etta would have no way of telling her. Etta gave a thin smile and they continued on their journey. Luckily, they didn't encounter anyone else on the way: no travelers, no cars, not even a stray dog that would cause a fuss with a stranger. Their destination was on the other side of the first tall hill that lumped towards the beach. The road circled it, but there was a worn footpath that went directly over top, through the trees, that Etta led Yan over. The trees granted privacy, and though Yan's legs were unused to stairs after so long pacing on flat ground, that was worth the sacrifice of going uphill. The lights from nearby buildings faded away behind the greenery, and the sun's last rays crept away, leaving the sky a dusty dark red that slowly faded to black.
The building they headed to was a squat house, built into the side of the hill, with a flat roof covered by some homemade furniture, and a set of wooden steps that went down to the door. It was almost impossible to tell it was a house from the direction they approached in; it was only when they climbed down the steps that the front of the building was revealed. Etta opened the door, wooden with just a screen window, confidently and stepped inside. She held the door open for Yan and closed it behind herself.
"Amma," Etta called out. "Om heidle re." Etta turned to Yan, who was examining the space. Etta's mouth twitched nervously, and she reached over to Yan, ineffectively trying to brush off some of the dried blood and grime that was covering her. Whose blood it even was at this point, Yan didn't particularly know. Probably her own? Maybe from falling down the stairs? Or something? Yan didn't even know. There had been so much going on that she probably had forgotten about half the injuries she had sustained. It could have been Etta's blood, from when Yan elbowed her enough to give her a nosebleed.
The home was clean and airy, with wooden furniture covered with simple woven blankets that resembled Etta's sewn shift in texture. There was a reed rug on the floor surrounding a low table, where a pleasantly scented candle burned. The lights were electric, but few and far between, and Yan noticed several empty sockets where bulbs probably should have been. There was no television, but there was a tablet sitting on the low table. This world was clearly not devoid of technology, but given the rough nature of a lot of it, it seemed to be in somewhat short supply. The whole place gave off a homey feeling, and was clearly designed for maximum air flow.
"Amma?" Etta called out again.
"Etta?" The voice, clearly belonging to an older woman, came from the other room, hidden behind a curtain made of wooden beads. "Blan taver ra, deha?"
"Hei," Etta said, then spat out a bunch of syllables so fast that Yan couldn't even follow the sounds. A running faucet, which Yan hadn't even processed as part of the noise in the house, shut off, and a woman emerged through the beaded curtain. She looked almost identical to Etta, but with wiry grey hair pulled up in a bun, and a face that was as vivacious as it was wrinkled. She was wearing the same style of dress as Etta had, but hers was decorated with little wooden beads along the hems, and it clacked pleasantly as she walked in. The woman didn't even seem to notice Yan, she just walked over to Etta and embraced her, rubbing their cheeks together.
"En wessa ra." The woman wrinkled her face, as though she smelled something disgusting.
"Hei," Etta said. "Amma, an shina roe. Yan." Etta pointed at Yan, who stood awkwardly, watching Etta's interaction with her… mother? Probably.
The woman clapped her hands together and bowed slightly in Yan's direction. Yan, stiffly, mindful of her broken fingers and frozen neck, echoed the gesture.
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"En hashaba ra," Etta's mother said to Yan. Yan didn't know if she should repeat it back, so she just smiled awkwardly. Etta's mother's mouth twitched, perhaps in displeasure, perhaps in confusion, and she turned to Etta. "An wallah roe?"
Essa raised her arms helplessly. "Tappa noe roe ba."
"Ah."
Yan watched the two of them have a conversation. Etta glanced helplessly at Yan as her mother grabbed her gently by the arm and led her off behind the beaded curtain. Yan could still hear what they were saying, but it didn't make much of a difference since she couldn't understand it. She occupied herself by walking around the room, returning to her pacing. Her feet hurt, but that wasn't going to stop her. She got used to the space, a long uninterrupted stretch of floor behind the table, and walked back and forth her usual six steps. Even though she had plenty more space, it was still six steps, hop, turn. The remnant of the chain on her ankle was short enough that it didn't even need her to hop, but she did it anyway. She closed her eyes and blocked out the world.
For once, she wasn't trying to get back to her little daydream space, but that was where she went. Halen was there, walking alongside her, through the endless white expanse with stars above.
"You could imagine a more interesting place, you know," he said.
"That's harder."
"Maybe."
"Think if I imagine food here I'd start feeling less hungry?"
"I'm surprised you're not imagining yourself eating me."
"Don't test your luck."
"I'm a bigger meal than you could handle."
"Store you away for when I hibernate in the winter."
Halen laughed. "I'm sure you'll get to eat soon. This island isn't hurting for greenery. I'm sure that means there's farms somewhere."
"I wish I could understand what's going on."
"You've been in this position before."
"Yeah, and I hate feeling like a kid. I hated not speaking the language as a ten year old, and I hate it now."
"You'll learn."
"I don't want to stay here long enough to."
"How do you think you're going to get off?"
Yan rubbed the back of her neck. Even in this waking dream space, the thick scars in a T on the back of her neck were easily felt. She wondered what they looked like.
"This planet, the pirates obviously visit it sometimes. They're probably like spacers. I could hitch a ride."
"With the face of the most wanted woman in the galaxy?"
"I'm flattered."
"We're all searching for you, back home. On Emerri."
Home. She knew that this Halen was just a figment of her imagination, but hearing him say it still was more comforting than she wanted to admit, even to herself, even here. She might even be lying to herself, only thinking that people were searching for her. For all she knew, they believed her dead. She had to hope, though.
"If I get this chip out, I can change my face."
"You got better at the light trick?" Halen inside her head was really just her voicing her own fears, she reminded herself. No, she hadn't practiced the disguise illusions very much, but she was confident that she could learn, with enough time.
"I might have to do something more permanent than that," Yan said.
"Like what?" Halen asked, but her thoughts were interrupted by someone shaking her shoulder. Yan's eyes snapped open in a panic, and she whirled, but then she saw the warm wooden walls around her and remembered where she was. She wasn't in her cell, just in her mind. Etta looked up at her, concern written plainly on the mobile half of her face.
"Flidr," Etta said, pointing to the table. Her mother was in the room, too, putting down a large bowl and a stack of breads on the short table. It smelled delicious. Yan wondered how long she had been zoned out for, for the mother to have time to make all of this food. Or maybe it was premade and reheated. Yan's sense of time had been utterly destroyed. She didn't know when she would get it back. Etta led her over to the table and sat down cross legged on the floor. Yan sat next to her.
"Clebat mannis ra," Etta's mother said sharply, looking at Yan. Etta sighed and stood, beckoning Yan up. Dismayed and disoriented, Yan followed Etta, who disappeared behind the beaded curtain. Yan ducked through and shivered as all the tiny beads hit her face. It was overstimulating. Etta pointed at the sink, which was more like a faucet over a trough, and Yan washed her hands. They weren't as dirty as they could have been, but there was salt that had dried from the ocean water all over her arms, making a white crust on her skin. Yan puzzled at it for a second before the cool water washed it away.
Etta shut the water off for her as she stood there, staring down at her hands. It startled Yan. She was torn between feeling offended that she was being treated like a baby and concerned that she had zoned out for so long while doing such a simple task. After she ate she would feel better. The pair returned to the kitchen and sat back down. Yan was tall enough that her knees banged the bottom of the table as she sat.
Etta's mother passed out thick fried bread to the three of them, and Yan watched as she and Etta used it to scoop out food from the larger bowl. Yan did the same. It was vegetables in sauce, and it was delicious. It could have been anything and she would have eaten it. She ate so fast and so much that her stomach twisted up and she almost vomited. She kept it down though. All through dinner, Etta and her mother talked in their own language, occasionally casting glances of various types at her. Yan tried to focus on the food and ignore their concerned, angry, frustrated, scheming, tired, long-suffering looks and tones. As they scraped the bottom of the bowl with bread, the conversation wound down. Etta's mother took the dishes and brought them to the kitchen. Yan yawned, feeling weighed down by all the food in her stomach.
She returned to her pacing, like a caged animal, as Etta puttered around the house doing various tasks. She didn't know how long it would be safe here. Obviously not long. The Green King probably knew where Etta's family was, and since Etta had taken her away, it was only natural that someone come looking for them here. The only thing that might cause a delay would be that the Green King needed medical attention on his bullet wound. They wouldn't come after Yan without him, since they probably thought she could use the power unimpeded. That wasn't how Yan would describe her use of the power, but it was more than nothing. She needed to get the chip out. She needed some way to tell Etta that there was a chip.
Yan looked around in the house for a piece of paper and pencil. There wasn't any, but there was the tablet on the table. Its display was in an incomprehensible language, but the large icons arrayed on the side were as clear as they would be on any tablet of Imperial manufacture. Either the design language was universal, which Yan doubted, or there was significant, one-way cross contamination between the Empire and… whatever this civilization was. Yan found the drawing app. With a shaky finger, she sketched out a profile view of her head, and used bright red to indicate the location of the chip. She drew some squiggly radio lines off of it (hopefully that meaning would come across), and a knife on the side, to indicate that it needed to be removed.
yan drawing [https://66.media.tumblr.com/379c0fc44c135b90b429fb1c46db91ba/tumblr_pma93m5Wgy1xnm75po1_640.png]
She hoped the meaning was clear, but the more she looked at it the less confident she was that Etta and her mother would understand. Well, there was at least the chance that Etta knew about the chip. After all, she worked for the Green King. She probably knew a lot about everything that went on. Yan found Etta in the kitchen, scrubbing down the dishes and putting them away. Yan hovered near the beaded entryway and waited for her to finish. She didn't know where her mother had disappeared to. Etta finally realized she was there, and put away the last dish. She turned to Yan, and Yan handed her the tablet. Etta studied it with a frown. She said something in her own language, shook her head slightly, and took the tablet out of the room. Yan followed her, and Etta went through another beaded doorway and down a set of stairs into a cool, stone basement. The whole room reminded Yan of her cell, and she shuddered a little bit. But there was light on the walls, and a woven reed mat on the floor, and a tub where Etta's mother was scrubbing out clothing.
Etta walked to the other side of the tub and started a conversation with her mother, holding up the drawing so that her mother could see it without getting soapy wash water on the tablet. Their conversation was rapid. Eventually, Etta's mother tossed the robe she had been scrubbing into the tub, rinsed her hands off in the faucet, and came over to Yan. She took Yan's chin, and Yan suppressed a shudder. She tried to turn Yan's head, but of course couldn't because of how stiff Yan's neck was. Yan shuffled sideways awkwardly, to let Etta's mother examine the little nook between her jaw and her ear, where the small incision scar was. She ran her fingers over it and a shiver went up Yan's spine.
Etta's mother shook her head and dropped her hand, then said something rapidly to Etta. Etta frowned, then gave Yan a helpless look. Her mother, seeing that, said something else to her. Etta sighed heavily, then beckoned Yan back upstairs. She was glad to be out of the basement. Etta walked over to a nook in the living room, where a series of drawers were inset into the wall. She pulled out a large blanket and shook it out, dropping little packets of something sweet smelling to the ground. Yan helpfully gathered them up and put them back in the drawer. Etta walked toward the back of the house, on the other side of the kitchen, where there were two more beaded curtains and a door. She opened the door, revealing a bathroom with a simple shower and squat toilet. Etta nudged Yan into the bathroom, and pointed at the thin woven towel that hung on the door. The meaning was clear– she needed to clean herself up.
Etta wandered away as Yan did her business. She came out cleaner than she had been in a long time. The soap had smelled strongly of burning wood, which was a smell that Yan found pleasant, and so she was glad that it clung to her as she wrapped herself in the towel. She heard Etta fussing in one of the rooms covered by the beaded curtains, so she entered, bearing her dirty clothes. Etta had laid the blanket down on the floor, over top of some mattress roll. Her own bed was similar, so it wasn't as though Yan was getting the terrible guest bed, just the spare.
Etta said something to her, sounding apologetic, as she fluffed up the pillow. Yan smiled thinly. They had just slept, on the boat, not that long ago, but maybe it was time to start keeping normal human hours, whatever those were.
"It's fine," Yan said. She looked around a little helplessly for where she should put her filthy clothes, and if there was anything other than a towel for her to wear. Etta saw her struggle, and retrieved a dress like the one she was wearing and handed it to Yan, taking her dirty clothes and tossing them into a woven straw basket in the corner. Yan retreated back to the bathroom to put the dress thing on, though undoubtedly Etta had already seen her naked at some point, one of the many times she was passed out. It absolutely didn't fit– it was too wide in the waist and too short in the everywhere else, but it was what it was. At least it covered her body more than it didn't.
Yan hung up her towel and returned to where Etta was. She sat down cross legged on the pad and wrapped the blanket around her. It was nice to have a blanket. She hadn't had one in her cell. Etta sat on her own pad, and the two considered each other once more. They were doing a lot of that, this sitting and staring at each other, as if there was something they could learn from just that. Yan just had to trust that Etta wasn't going to steer her astray.
Etta pulled the cord on the light, plunging them both into darkness. The room had no windows, so it felt just like– it felt just like– Yan focused on the feeling of the blanket around her, and the sound of Etta's soft breathing across the room. She wasn't alone. This was fine.
She laid down, curled up, with her left hand tucked against her chest. It was hard to fall asleep when she didn't feel tired, after a long time where her only sense of time passing was how tired she was at various points. She also felt nervous, as though someone could come through the door at any second. Someone could.
"You can relax," Halen said.
"No, I can't."
"You need the sleep."
"Why won't you go away?"
"You brought me here."
Yan wasn't in her complete mental space, she just heard Halen's voice in her ear, and she mouthed her response back. She hoped that she wasn't going to have to live with this her entire life, however long that was. If she had driven herself crazy, she should be able to drive herself un-crazy, right? Just ignore it. Don't engage. Focus on the real.
"But you needed this," Halen said.
"Not right now."
"You might still."
Yan rolled over, pulling the blanket up to her ears in an attempt to drown it out. It was all in her head.
Yan woke in a bit of a panic, feeling strangled by her blanket. It felt a little too much like someone's hands on her, and she wrestled with it, straining her injured fingers in her panic. Then the soft light from the bulb overhead, and the wooden walls, and the lumpy mattress pad beneath her, and Etta's concerned face all registered in her head. It was all too like that one night on… God, what planet had it even been? Olar. With Iri. A million years ago.
Etta was no Iri, but she helped Yan up, and the smell of something warm and cooked floated in from the kitchen. Etta said something, and pointed Yan to the bathroom. Yan caught her breath from her panic, smiled shakily, and went in and shut the door behind her. It was unfortunate that this house didn't seem to understand the concept of chairs, because there wasn't even a toilet for her to sit and cry on. She cried anyway, and turned on the shower so that Etta and her mother wouldn't hear her.
In some ways, it felt much worse to be reliant on these people's charity than it did to be stuck in her cell. At least, to the extent that it was physically possible, she had control over her own actions, and no moral imperative to treat other people a certain way. It was stressful to be back with people, after so long. Was that crazy?
She let the shower water run over her, until she felt like she had stopped crying. And if her eyes were red still, it didn't particularly matter. She put back on the ill fitting robe dress (more like a tunic) and washed out the gross taste from her mouth.
There was bread and a hot vegetable soup for breakfast. Etta and her mother ate it by drinking the broth from the bowl, and scooping up the chunks with the bread. Yan copied. It wasn't like she could ask for a spoon, when there probably weren't any, and she didn't have the words to, anyway. She felt sullen all through breakfast, resentful of Etta seeing her moment of weakness, no matter how stupid, dumb, ridiculous– of course she had seen her moment of weakness– Etta had been in her room every time she pretended to sleep for–
Yan wanted to smash her head on the wall; the thoughts just kept rolling around in her head.
Etta and her mother kept up a lively conversation. Yan tried to listen to it, just to take her mind off of her own situation. She noticed the way that Etta's dropping face made her words come out more stiffly, more slurred, than her mother's. She noticed the way they looked at her, and the way they looked at eachother. She missed her mother.
It had been a long time since she had thought about that. Yan put her bowl down and ran her right hand over her hair. It was getting a bit too long again, but not long enough to braid by a long shot. She forced her hand back down onto her lap. Not time to think about that.
For some reason, Etta and her mother both seemed to be procrastinating with finishing their breakfast. The hesitancy made her worried. When they could pick over their soups no longer, Etta brought the dishes to the kitchen, and her mother went outside. Yan contemplated following, but though the better of it, since she was still, definitely, a wanted person. And there would be no sense in trying to listen in on whatever she was doing, since Yan couldn't understand anyway. So she followed Etta into the kitchen and helped wash the dishes. They went through those motions painfully slowly as well.
Etta's mother came back in, had a short conversation with Etta, who blanched slightly, and then headed down into the basement. She returned with a long shawl, which she handed to Yan. When Yan didn't do anything with it, she sighed loudly and wrapped the shawl over and around Yan's head in a complicated knot, shading the top of her face. She also pulled out a long woven cloth, similar in material to the dress Yan was wearing, and tied it around Yan's waist. It at least did more to cover up her body than the ill fitting tunic she was wearing did.
All of this was clearly in preparation for going out. A spare pair of the cloth shoes were procured as well, and though Yan's feet were larger than intended, it wasn't as though they had much form to restrict her. She was disguised and dressed, as well as she could be. They would all just have to hope that no one questioned them, because there was no way that Yan was answering any questions. Etta's mother packed a small bag and strapped it to her own back.
Yan really wanted to ask where they were about to go, but they couldn't stay here. It really was only a matter of time before someone came to investigate Etta. It was surprising to Yan that the Green King and his cohort apparently weren't part of some greater organized government. If they were, they surely would have contacted the local authorities on this island, and had them come arrest Etta, even if Yan wasn't around.
Etta's mother ushered them out the door, locking it behind her. They made their way back down the path towards the ocean. Just as before, there were very few people around, but the path looked different in the bright daylight. Yan was sweating profusely after just a few steps out the door. The cloth wrapped around her head was just keeping the humidity in the air trapped on her skin. How the interior of the house had stayed cooler than this, Yan didn't know.
Etta and her mother talked as they walked, but they both walked quickly, and Etta panted a little bit as she tried to keep up. The faster she went, the more pronounced Etta’s odd gait was. Yan was also having her own problems, unused to the floppy cloth shoes and still coping with the destruction that had been wreaked on her feet not so long ago.
There were a few people at the docks, but Etta's mother led Etta and Yan in a path that kept them away from anyone who might try to talk. They passed right by Etta's little boat and went to a different, slightly larger one. This one had a mast with a sail tied down. Actually, Yan didn't know if the boat that Etta had taken away actually belonged to her, or if it was stolen. Didn't matter now. Etta's mother was spry as she prepared the boat for sail. Yan clumsily climbed down into the boat, sitting down in what felt like an unobtrusive corner as Etta untied the ropes from the dock. The two women spoke to eachother in their language, yelling out what sounded like well practiced commands and comments about the state of the little boat. It was oddly reminiscent of being on her family's ship, when she would take the shuttle out. Perhaps there was some deep connection there, between all travelers of sea and sky.
They must not be going on a very long trip, because they hadn't packed any supplies, aside from whatever was currently in the boat and in Etta’s mother’s bag, but Yan had no idea where they were headed. She was glad to get away, though. As the boat lurched away from the dock with the start of its engine and the additional help of the unfurled sail, Yan leaned back and tried to calm the roiling in her stomach. When they were far enough away from shore that she wouldn't be seen, she unwrapped the fabric from her head and let the fresh air and light breeze cool her forehead. The sun glinted off the water. The water glinted off the sides of the boat. The island receded behind them in the distance. If Yan had been able to pray truthfully, she would have said a prayer to hope that Etta and her mother would be able to return to their homes unharmed someday. She had no idea if they would be able to.
They sailed for several hours. This boat was probably both faster and more energy efficient than the other one had been. It required constant effort from Etta and her mother to keep the sail operating at its maximum efficiency. They traded off duties with each other. Yan wanted to volunteer to help, and she mimed the actions that Etta was doing as a way of offering, but Etta had laughed, pointed at Yan's injured left hand, and shook her head. Yan sulked a little at that, unreasonably. She just wanted to feel like less of a burden on them, which she was feeling more of by the second.
"You're not a burden," Halen said. "You're a member of the crew."
"That's what people say, but you know they don't believe it," Yan muttered.
"Even babies are part of the crew."
"They should get a job."
"Not everything is about you and your mother, Yan."
"Aren't you lucky to not have mommy issues." She was getting tired of this Halen-in-her-head. She shook her head to clear it.
Etta looked at her as Yan frowned and talked to herself. Yan snapped out of it and tried to smile up at Etta.
They ate a bit of food that was in storage aboard the boat. Yan operated one of those water pumps to clear out the ocean water. They kept sailing.
Eventually, as the sun was about half a hand's breadth above the horizon, they came to another island. They could see it approaching from far away, both by its dark smudge on the horizon, and by the many, many boats that dashed about the water around it. Buoys littered the place, and Etta's mother took the helm to deftly navigate around them. Buildings, real ones, like a city, stood out against the sides of the island, though none could have been more than ten stories tall. Even a few massive boats stood docked– shipping boats? Cranes hovered above them, but since the sun was on its way out, most of the industrial activity seemed to have ceased. They slipped in to the stream of boats heading in to the docks, and Yan reluctantly pulled the shawl back over her head, knotting it herself at the neck.
They found an empty place to dock the boat, and Etta jumped out to secure it, while her mother found a place to pay the docking fee. Yan climbed wearily out of the boat and onto the dock. Just staying still in the rocking of the boat, under the beating sun, had taken its toll on her. And she hadn't even been the one doing the labor of controlling the sail. Though she was still slightly resentful that she wasn't allowed to at least try helping, she admitted that she was the beneficiary in the situation, and thus should not complain.
Once out of the dock area, it became clear just how different this island was from the other. The streets were paved, and people were everywhere, pushing carts or driving around on little motorized scooters. No big cars, but the amount of foot and small vehicle traffic more than made up for it.
Etta started to look overwhelmed, especially as her unusual face and limp caught people's attention. Yan, feeling compassionate, bumped their shoulders together and held up the edge of her shawl to offer it to Etta. She laughed, and the tension was momentarily broken. She and her mother seemed to know their way around fairly well, or at least they had a specific destination in mind. The streets were lit mainly from the bright lights spilling out of storefronts that lined every avenue. They walked for a long time. Yan's legs, though still wobbly from the boat, were ready for the distance from her many hours of pacing.
The area of the city they eventually came to was less well lit, with fewer storefronts and more residential buildings and what seemed to be offices, all mixed together. The paving on the street was more like cobblestone here, and some of the stones were loose, leaving holes that the few remaining pedestrians simply skirted around. Etta chewed on her lip, and Yan, picking up on her anxiety, looked up at the buildings around them with trepidation. No one spared Yan a second glance, which was good. That was at least one worry off her shoulders– for some reason, no one recognized her here.
Etta's mother stopped in front of a building with a sign out front. The door was locked, but there was a bell and an intercom. She pressed the button for the fourth floor, the top one, and waited for someone to answer. A voice crackled out, and she had a conversation, rapidly, sounding demanding. The other voice gave in with a sigh, and the door clicked open into a dark stairwell. They climbed the stairs. Etta traced her fingers along the wall.
The fourth floor landing was clean, and had one of those woven reed mats out front. Etta knocked on the door, hesitantly. It swung open.