Chapter Fifty Three

Feasts. Right. Very popular topic of anthropological (and archaeological) discourse. Because, well... they were big. And important. No-one bothered talking about 'oh yes we had a nice lunch of plain bread. One slice of white, one slice of brown, the white slice is like the dessert'. No-one would talk about that, even if it highlighted a culture of abstinence and asceticism, a culture which perhaps placed an emphasis on restraint. Even if it was vital for understanding a culture, no-one was going to tell her about it, no-one from that culture would write it down. Because no-one wanted to show that face of themselves to the world. No, people wrote about that time their best friend put on a feast where he stuffed a quail into a pigeon into a chicken into a duck into a turkey into an ostrich into some mythical beast larger than an ostrich but still a bird. Along with a whole suite of eggs from each of those animals, because to separate the mother from the child... ah, that would be wrong. Oh, and presumably there was a giant truffle. People talk about that. People record it. And you could find the abominable remains years later under a few layers of dirt, so the archaeologists could have a whale of a time as well. Feasts were wonderful, because it was a culture playing into itself, not just tacitly recognising things, but explicitly declaring 'this is what we find important, this is what deserves commemoration, and this is how we're going to do it'.

It was fantastic.

It was awful.

Because Carza hated feasts. Why couldn't they just give her a lot of food and drink and then a quiet room to eat it in? In her view, all major feasts and dinners should be celebrated in one's office. If impossible, then in cubicles in a great hall. Maybe no waiters, that could be awkward... just have big pneumatic tubes, she'd heard about the Court of Salt having an experiment or two with that little field. But apparently her ideas were too genius for the world. Maybe if they got inside the feast-cubicle they'd understand. And then she could pursue her other ideas... barrels of brandy for every scholar. Kitchenettes in each and every office. Cleaners who only came when you were asleep or out, so there was no awkward eye-contact while they cleaned and you lazed around. Also, she had an idea about a little bun with a hole in the middle, then you could mount dozens of them on a pole - and have that pole mounted over her desk. She grabs one, eats it, and another one slides down.

Hull had called her a madwoman.

But they'd see. They'd all see the pleasures of gnawing bread from a pole like an overgrown rodent.

She hated feasts.

Hated noise. Too much light. Too much good humour. She liked drinking, but only in the company of close friends, not the people who had almost bloody well kidnapped her. The others had entered the camp by now, to help prepare the meats they'd brought. They'd only gone and slaughtered an entire bloody horse, with meat so tender it practically slipped off the bone, and spiced with fruit they said was taken from the campaigns in the west, in the deserts where men worshipped stars and trapped their light in crystals. It was delicious, all of it. Down to the last dripping of fat. Their alcohol was rich and damn good. And Carza was getting the feeling that her demigod family were rather poor... that, or this group really wanted to pay them back for their deeds. The point was, they were being treated. And more than that, trusted. The peace banner was still high and proud. And the seven who waited beyond the firelight had come closer, revealing themselves to be... well, the weak. A pair of old men, and five women, one of whom had a child slung over her back. They were trusting the family not to attack - if they did, they'd have an abundance of hostages.

Boot-on-throat indeed.

The horse was roasting over an open fire, and the flames crackled in silence punctuated by only the most occasional conversation. The two groups were staying apart, only exchanging brief pleasantries. How was the weather. How was the ride. How's the season treating you. What are your plans for winter. All functional, practical questions with functional, practical answers that only needed to extend for a few sentences. Mrs Cauldron asked something, though - something to split the silence apart.

"How's the war?"

Ah. The raiding in the west. In the desert. Her son was still out there. The leader hummed uncertainly, but one of the other men spoke quietly. She noticed that he had darker skin than the others - darkened by sunlight, surely. Practically scorched, she could even see places where the sunlight had warped his flesh, like he'd rubbed it against a boiling cauldron for a little while, until he became soft as potter's clay.

"It's... happening. I got back a few months ago, myself. Where these fruit came from, actually. Dried them in the desert. Takes a while to get through the desert, but once you're through you get to these rivers, that's where all the cities are. They build low and wide, stops them sinking into the mud. But they build very wide. Gleam white in the noon, glow when the sun starts to go down. Huge hanging gardens."

He sighed.

"More gold and silk than you can imagine. I was in a bit late, always behind the vanguard. No wives for me, but plenty of things to plunder. Made us rich."

Kani leaned forward, her voice tinged with disgust at being around these people, but also... eager for news from the front. Carza listened while chewing on a piece of bone, gnawing her way through the meat, tearing every little scrap. Horse meat was actually pretty excellent. She knew some of the secretaries loved the idea of having a beautiful horse for their own. Carza never liked them, no urchin did. Horses didn't feel the instinctual urge to go around the cringing urchin. They tended to go over, and the urchin didn't tend to go anywhere at all after that. And now she was eating them, which probably counted as a victory. The nameless creatures she'd huddled with on winter nights in ALD IOM would be so very proud of her...

"And has it been a string of victories? Or have there been losses?"

"Not so many losses, miss. We try our best to survive - no glory in dying, we say. They run out to attack us, we run away, fire arrows at them... they ride on camels, which are slow, or big war-horses, which are fast for about an hour. Then they slow down, and we keep on going. A little while, and their cavalry separates out. A little while longer, and they're far enough for us to surround and pick them off. One man, he tried to march out his army for us... we just fired arrows. Killed his cavalry, and his men just... sat still. Tried to build a camp. They did, then we burned it. They tried to move, and we'd nick their ankles. Commander was paralysed - move and get hurt, stay and get hurt, go home and get executed for cowardice..."

A small smile appeared on his face, but he didn't look particularly happy. Even a little regretful, honestly.

"Nipped them to death. Big army. Almost none got home, not when we speared their water barrels. Fools, the lot of them. Should've stayed home, surrendered. We treat the surrendered ones well."

"And do you win like that? Every time?"

"Usually. I heard the campaign was going further in. Some of the clan-hearts were talking about going to see if there was a sea beyond the rivers, to see the edge of the world. The cities are weak. The people in charge are fat and stupid, inbred too. Their generals plot against each other. Their cities plot against each other. Their people sometimes surrender to us, or run into the cities, which makes them weaker and poorer and hungrier. Eventually, we win."

Carza spoke quietly.

"Do you hold the cities?"

The man blinked.

"Why would we? The cities are ugly and thick. Diseased. Most of the people only have half their teeth... like they line up behind a horse on their twentieth birthday to get a hoof to the jaw. Not for me. Some of us are staying around, to make some money. Heard one clan has taken a contract to guard one of the cities when the rest of us go home... no-one's sure on who that clan actually is, though..."

He shrugged.

"That's how it is. Can't say much else."

Kani almost growled.

"And what about the demigods? What about us? Any news? Nothing reaches us out here."

"...sorry, I have nothing. A couple of demigods were living luck-wells for us during some fights... they strip to the waist and let their skin gleam in the sunlight. Braid their hair with so many bells it's a wonder their necks don't break. Wear gold on their horses - gold, like they're the rulers of those sick little cities... all to shine. All to carry our luck on their backs."

Mrs Cauldron tutted.

"...silly boy, he'll die of heatstroke that way..."

The leader glanced sharply.

"Is your son on campaign?"

"...for a few years, yes."

"I'm sure he'll come back with barrels of wine-pickled gold, and half a dozen wives to drive him mad."

"...is that common?"

"Sometimes. None of us brought back any wives, but then again, we already had some."

The five women hummed, barely paying attention. They seemed as uncomfortable as the 'hosts', eager to get back home and sleep, talk with people they knew and actually liked. Conversation died, and Carza found it interesting to watch them. They were human. The first humans she'd dined with since arriving here. And... she found it odd, how close she felt to the demigods by comparison to the humans. Maybe that meant she was betraying her own kind... maybe. Maybe. Either way, she disliked them. The men were stooped by long years of labour, but their limbs were still strong, corded with muscle under hefty layers of insulating fat. A lifetime of meat and dairy made them broad, stout, and sturdy. The women were similar - Carza had no doubt that she was the most frail person here. And that counted the old men, who still had a remarkable wiry strength to them, even if that strength didn't reach their teeth - most of which were gone. She found it interesting to see the people who were the closest ancestors of the Court of Horn, the Yasa... more so than the demigods and the ancestors.

What she found fascinating was the hints of division, and the overtures of unity. Two species, operating close together. One culture. The peace banner was respected, and she could see the people here observing all the same taboos as their glassy neighbours. They prepared their cauldrons in the same way, they even had the same habit of wiping the rims of their cups clockwise before their first drink, then counter-clockwise when they had concluded each cup of liquor. Like they were unscrewing and re-screwing an invisible lid. Cultural unity, but some insurmountable difference. Some of it she could see. Some of it she could only sense. The mention of the luck-wells they used in the desert... like living totems, really. That was something which could only emerge from a certain level of veneration. An idle thought - rings of experience and worship. This close to the mountains, clans raided one another regardless of how glassy their skin was. But outwards... where the demigods didn't dwell, they might achieve a status of living myth. Of near-divinity.

Earning the title of demigod, then. Remarkable as it was.

Tobok growled out a few words around a mass of meat and sinew.

"Damn fine meat you've got."

The leader nodded gratefully.

"I'm glad you like it. One of our better foals."

"...the women say you talked about the fortunate era ending. That true?"

The conversation darkened.

"It's... partially true, yes. We believe it's ending. All the omens say so. And the winds carry a scent of rot sometimes. They say the Scabrous are ranging a bit further... they say they're coming to see their old haunts. Tour the geoglyphs they built all those years ago. I can't say if that's true, but they're fast - once they start moving, there's really not much chance of stopping them. If you're heading south, you'd best be quick. No telling when they'll start. And it's been too long... they never give us a ride this smooth, always have to let us let our own guard down before they strike."

Carza interrupted, her voice still low and quiet.

"What exactly do the Scabrous do?"

The leader looked at her strangely, as if seeing her for the first time.

"You were mad, last we met."

"I'm a good actress."

"...hm. You look foreign."

"I am. From the east, over the mountains."

Tobok growled again.

"And under our protection. Not some wasteful drifter to be preyed on at will."

"Wasn't going to, I promise. Interesting, though... not met people from that side of the mountains before. Halfway thought there was nothing there at all... but then again, for a while people thought the desert was the end of things, and nothing lay beyond. Then we found those cities, and... well..."

He shrugged.

"Scabrous kill you. When they patrol north, they spread their poison, too. Taint the land. Grass grows thick and hungry - if you see red grass, don't stand in it. Or near it. The stuff's hungry, and it'll bind you up and drain you dry before you can blink. Animals get strange, too... my grandfather managed to capture one, actually. A Scabrous horse. Finest horse he ever had - outlived him, actually. Twice the size of a normal horse, with twice the stamina. Looked unnatural though... and you don't want to die around them. Hungry things. My grandfather died in the saddle, like he wanted. Body didn't drop, though. Just grew into the horse, until the horse could pulse life up into him again. Empty life. Had to drive him out of the camp with flaming brands, apparently. I was a child at the time, but he was a vicious thing... they say people were talking about the predator in the grass that lured people out with human cries... well, that's done and gone. No new tales there for years, must've headed south. They kidnap people more often than not, but that's the same as killing."

An involuntary shiver ran through him.

"They say they've got a red star out there. Stops them having children the normal way... need to go out and capture, then. My grandfather went close to their territory once. It's how he got that horse, actually. Never explained the specifics. Suppose he didn't want to. He said that the Scabrous have a red star, and once upon a time the Scabrous were a people, like any other. Had cities and the like. Normal folk, city-folk, but... well, can't hold that against them. But they could only do that because of their god. A great whale, come up from the Iron Halls under the earth... a great whale that came to swallow the star, because it was poisoning them. Stopped them from thinking properly, made their loins all shrivelled and dead. Bad star, and the sort which hovered close to the ground. Then the whale came up, and swallowed the whole thing. Made it fat and bloated, but stopped the rays from shining. And in its shadow, they build their empire. Until, of course, it all came crashing down."

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He grinned morbidly.

"They say the Scabrous ate their god. Their great whale. They say that for two full years the body of their god twitched with these white worms... reality was, those were legs. The people had burrowed into it like maggots, legs kicking freely as they wormed deeper and deeper and deeper... eating the god from the outside in. Burning it with weapons, drowning it with arrows, doing everything to keep it quiet and stupid while they ate it alive. But they'd forgotten about the star. Had grown fat and greedy in their cities... and the star came out of the body. But this time they'd changed. The star changed the whale, and the whale meat changed the Scabrous. So when the star came out... it changed them again. Made them all wrong. All red and strange. Hungry as anything. Stronger than ten men... able to build bigger and better cities, so big that they could swallow the world... if they weren't too busy drinking pus-wine and devouring the things they breed in the deep places of the corpse. They bring things to the red star, have them change, then they eat the things if the changes made them delicious."

His story had a rambling, disorganised quality to it. Like he was just rattling off ideas as they came to him, as trains of thought led him to new, strange locations, barely connected to the station before. But that made it eerier, at least to her. People told fiction as... fiction. Beginning, middle, end. A building of tension. Mysteries which were resolved by the conclusion. Even bad storytellers still instinctually followed that model. But... telling it like this, it had some of the chaos of reality in it. The randomness. He leaped from one point to another, he rambled, and it made it all seem terribly... historical. Carza shivered. Nonsense. The Scabrous were likely just mutants, with their territory waxing and waning. No idea why the territory they found didn't stay contaminated, but... the point was, this might just be a stable collective of mutants. With no-one to burn them out, they might've just lingered and festered over the years. Even if...

If the story about the red star sounded odd. Too specific.

Wait. Those stones from earlier, forming a shape... geoglyphs. She'd heard of the term, but... no, had she? Hard to remember... but maybe that was one of them. A geoglyph, a line of specially arranged stones. Had the Scabrous made those, before they were... well, like that? Coming back to visit their old creations? Maybe... alright, she had a minor theory. The Scabrous were mutants, that much was obvious. And as mutants, they did... mutant things. Converted others, corroded the landscape, everything. They weren't unbeatable, they were just pointless to fight - kill them, and the landscape was eroded away. Maybe their 'patrols' were just the pulsing frontier of a cluster of mutants fighting incessantly. Not a stable state, just a den of chaos which occasionally bubbled out. Attacking them was pointless, you'd just be mutated yourself - she'd seen no gas masks out here, after all. Likely only folk remedies for contamination. And the landscape around the patrols would be corrupted... only for other mutants to come and harvest that corruption for their own growth. They created chaos, then they cleaned it up, and Founder forbid anyone come close during any stage of that process.

There. She had a theory. It was reasonable, and it didn't require her to accept anything truly terrifying or unbeatable. Everything was operating in systems of rationality and logic.

...and she'd thought the glass-skinned men of the mountains were myths, too.

Nothing was certain.

Conversation subsided... and resumed again, but with more idle small talk, and the omnipresent awkward shuffling that people used to fill up the spaces between questions, answers, more questions... they were taking a short chain and stretching it out until all the links looked ready to break. To be fair, it made eating that horse a sight easier. Because they all wanted to get this over with, and the sooner the food was gone, the sooner the visitors could be on their way.

And an hour later... they were off. Saddled back up, calling back a few ritualised goodbyes. No mention of apologies. The apology had been accepted already, so they had no need to offer more, right? Kani had even allowed them to feast in the camp, that had to mean she forgave them. But as the bowls were cleared, the remaining food added to a perpetually bubbling pot of stew in the centre of the camp, the liquor bottled up and added to the carts... as the last horses departed, Carza found herself on the edge of the camp, looking at Kani.

The steppe was beautiful at night. Impenetrably dark, but the moon turned the edges of the mountains a glimmering silver. Outlined starkly in the gloom. Fireflies rose from the grass, swirling on the breeze. The most efficient way to fly was to be carried by the invisible eddies, and so it seemed like a whole glowing ocean was flowing before them, with its own waves and currents, flowing up and down and left and right, crossing every dimension... animals were snuffling, birds were hunting, the steppe had a second life when the sun went down. When sight failed, and it was safe to come out. When there were no trees to hide under, the night became the greatest source of cover... not that it stopped the birds. Who had piercing shrieks and wide, powerful eyes... enough to see through any kind of dark. Even in this colossal emptiness life could continue. Even out here, the world could eke its way onwards, ignoring humans. No herd could chew all this grass, no camp could burn up the whole steppe... no amount of work could ever clear a fragment of this expanse. It was bigger than humanity, here before, and here after. But unlike the sky, there was life in it. The sky was eternal, but it was dead. Living there was an exception, not a rule. It was the glass ceiling on a little prison, a thin barrier between the world and the beyond. This place was empty, but it was lively in its emptiness and silence.

No wonder the sky was where the dishonoured dead went. They'd be lonely. And cold. And silent. But in the earth, there were things to accompany them. The earth was where people lived - why bother aspiring to the sky, where lungs failed and skin bristled with spines of hoarfrost?

There were cities to the west and to the east. But Carza could see why the people here had never left the steppe. Why they endured in such a precarious world.

Because it was beautiful.

Kani was shivering. Carza didn't think, she just approached - she'd given in to being a friend to her, at this point any 'resistance' was token, pointless, and honestly, a little insulting. She'd killed for Kani, there was no reason to be coy. She moved closer to the girl, probably close to her own age, and stood in silence. She could tell that she wasn't alright, so it was pointless asking. The last time she'd felt that kind of confidence had been around Hull. Eerie to feel it again. A little saddening. Made her wonder if Hull hadn't been unique. If she could have other friends, feel the same way about them, know them like she knew the back of her hand... if Hull hadn't been the end for her, in terms of close friendships. Kani was sardonic, but she was clever - and self-aware, too. Which was lovely for an anthropologist. People like her examined their own actions, their own beliefs, couldn't just let things slide. Introspective, probably born from a solitary childhood. And it made her a damn good partner in this ethnography. The others were good, but they didn't really reflect - 'it's just how it's done' was a common answer to her questions. Kani answered, and then she thought about her answers. Actually engaged with making the ethnography.

Carza was almost wondering if she shouldn't register Kani as 'a potential informant for future scholars in the region'. Maybe it was jealousy, but she'd found Kani, and become friends with her, killed for her, so... well, why should she have to share?

And that sounded like something a lunatic would think.

"Didn't forgive them?"

Kani looked over.

"No. Of course not. They tried to kidnap me, and one of them did it again, almost succeeding. If you hadn't..."

Her eyes had a shimmering, blank quality to them as she became lost in thought, speech becoming an afterthought.

"...I couldn't give him children. He's... not a demigod. Which means I would have no purpose. I would be a slave, and something to seek pleasure with. No children. No greater purpose. No honour to the ancestors... he wouldn't even let me become an ancestor myself. You saw a maniac, I saw someone who would've made my life pointless, and taken away my afterlife too. We can become immortal if we join the ancestors... when we take risks, we gamble with eternity."

Carza peered at her.

She had to ask.

"So you avoid going to the Iron Halls. Everyone else seems resigned to it, but you can avoid it all."

Kani grunted, and swayed slightly.

"...sod it. I'm drunk, and I'm bored, and I don't feel good about my home right now. Sod it. The Iron Halls are where we burn. To die is to sink. To sink is to forget and be forgotten. Sever the ties too quickly, and you can become furious, claw your way back up. Hunt your kinsmen. And if you are remembered forever, the ties will hold you in place, even when you start to forget everything... do not speak of the too-old dead. Do not record your bloodlines beyond the nearest dead. Because the old dead forget what it was like to live. They change. The body rots and becomes soft. The soul, too, can rot. And if you have ties to them, ties of commemoration... it's like hooking a fish, and dragging it up. And only when it comes to the surface do you find that it's a vast, putrid monster that has no care for being eaten - only to consume and sow chaos."

She sighed.

"A clan-heart is a whale. A great beast on whose back you may ride to the Iron Halls. All of you forgotten together. Riding to the place where you forget life, and life forgets you. And you may become an underground sun, burning forever. Rotless. Mortality can rot, and commemoration is a form of morality."

Her skin glittered in the moon.

"But we are different. We can go to the mountains and become greater. Live forever. Know us, forget us... it doesn't matter. We live. There are ancestors who were alive before we came to these lands... so many generations ago there is likely no number that can reckon it."

Her voice didn't sound overly enthusiastic about the prospect.

"...we still forgot them. Once, we had great lists of our families. But they were wrong. Brought bad luck. If an ancestor was dead, our genealogies would bind them and drag them back, old and hungry and devoid of sympathy. They say earthquakes are when that happens - when something vast and old is pulled back to the world. The forgotten dead are peaceful and silent. The unforgotten dead know they have an audience, and will do whatever it takes to keep it. So we burned our lists. All of them. Only started to rebuild a little, carving them in rock so we can't burn them again... we have the records of two hundred winters-worth of ancestors. And we've been here for... thousands."

Carza squeezed her shoulder.

"...I don't forgive them. I don't want to."

"You don't need to."

"The world says I should. The feast says I did."

"Don't forgive them. People have wronged me. Half the time I just... don't forgive them, and eventually I forget about it."

Kralat. Miss vo Larima, a little. Her father, definitely. Her mother, despite her best efforts. That bastard in the treasury, without a doubt. She held grudges, she just didn't put effort into them. Laziness could be a virtue. A lifetime of laziness was one of her highest aspirations.

"Do you want to marry Dog?"

Her back stiffened.

"It's the way of things. His family's good, my family's good, the union will be pleasant. I'll have some children, he'll herd some horses, I will live and die as a thousand generations have done before me. Or, alternatively, I will die young. Or, alternatively, I'll lose everything and become some madwoman on the steppes."

A thought. Something Anthan had said.

"A juju woman."

"What?"

"Juju woman. Wandering. Crazy. Weird. Familiar with the invisible things in the world."

Some of the drunkenness faded from Kani's eyes.

"I wouldn't be weird. Just crazy. Charismatic. Maybe I'll ride around and smack people with a stick while cursing their families, but it'll be fine for me to do it, because it won't mean anything. On account of me not being a... juju woman."

She paused.

"...oh damn, I told you about the Iron Halls, didn't I?"

"...a little."

"Oh, damn. Shouldn't have done that."

"You said 'sod it'. Said you weren't inclined towards this place."

"Sod it? What was I thinking?"

"I don't know."

"I was an idiot."

"Hm."

"Don't agree with me, I was an idiot, now I'm clever and funny and beautiful again. Now come along. I want to smoke a Horn of the Ancestors, so I can be stupid again. Stupid me sounds happier."

Carza bit her lip.

"Would you want to come back with me? Over the mountains."

Kani gave her a hard look.

"What."

"You could. Have a bit of exploring. See if... this is what you want from your life, or if something else comes up."

"...really."

"You might like this place more after some wandering. I like my home more. Much more. Can't wait to get back."

Kani shuffled uncomfortably.

"It's an indecent question."

"You'd be wandering with your cousin, not some stranger."

She shouldn't be saying any of this. None of it. She was being stupid by doing so. It was irresponsible, what she ought to do is leave her here. She could get married, have a raft of screaming children, eat many horses, then go up to the mountains to grow two more arms, two more eyes, and some nasty-looking tusks. And then she could wrestle and wear furs and do all the things those things did when they weren't tormenting innocent travellers for fun. Big mountains. Plenty of room for someone to keep the torch of civilisation burning. Plus, Dog was... she didn't dislike him. But she couldn't see someone like him being with someone like Kani. Kani was her friend, and Dog wasn't. Dog was spiteful and angry, and maybe that came from being in indentured servitude, or maybe it came from some natural unpleasant quality, but the point was... if Kani wasn't going to be happy with him, then Kani should do something else. Carza had been an urchin, but then she'd clawed her way up by any means necessary. Kani had a lifeline now, access to a world where she wouldn't have her tent broken into by a maniac who thought he was owed her because of some lunatic culturally-entrenching raiding practices...

It was stupid. If Carza hadn't shown up, life with Dog would've been fine. And there were a million other risks that travel brought up. Stay still, and she'd be fine. Would live out a long, uneventful life - ideally - and then go up to the mountains. Maybe Carza could make her rich by making her the point-of-call for every traveller who came through the mountains... if those projects ever went anywhere, of course. And maybe she was drunk, that explained a lot...

"Carza, that's very nice of you. But I can't do something that irresponsible. My family require me."

"Your brother-"

"My brother might be dead."

"If he comes back, he'll come back with gold, right? Wives? Prestige? Allies that he fought beside?"

"...presumably."

"So...why not give it some thought. I'm just saying, if you don't like things here, maybe there's other ways of living. Just to give you some choice."

Kani's face became utterly stoic.

"You beastly creature. Infiltrating the beds of a good and honest family, then luring away their strapping daughter to the wilds. There are stories about people like you - but usually they have wonderful eyebrows and impeccable muscles."

Carza scowled. Stupid deadpan humour. Thought she was serious for a moment.

"Oh, shut up. You know what I mean."

"I do. And your eyebrows are passable. Muscles..."

She shrugged.

"We all have our blessings."

"Yep. Some of us are smart and thin. Some of us are pretty and stupid."

"Some of us have many blessings, too. Pretty and smart. And good on horseback. It's a burden I have to bear... with my splendid strength, which I also possess."

Her stoic expression cracked for a moment, and a faint smile crossed her face.

"But for what it's worth, thank you for calling me pretty."

"You're ridiculous."

"And you have ink on your head. You know I tried to wash that off when you arrived?"

Carza paled, and instinctually drew her pistol - to check her reflection in the shining barrel. Was it, was it... oh, it was still here, and intact. No parts had faded or been removed. Good. Good. Kani snorted a quick laugh.

"Don't worry, we didn't succeed. But we thought you'd landed in a pile of mud."

"No, no, it's a tattoo. Through it, the Founder can see. And study alongside us."

"...so you remember your Founder. You don't let him sink."

"No. Never. He'll come back, one day. Can't let him go."

"...how peculiar. How very peculiar. I wonder why we think so differently..."

"You could find out."

Kani shot her another glance.

"Really. Don't be silly. Dog has already committed to marrying me, and I'm not going to insult people. I have a hundred reasons to stay."

Carza shrugged.

"Alright. But it's an option."

"...I'll keep it in mind."

The two lingered in silence. And Carza... legitimately considered the possibility. Beforehand, it was purely negative - stopping her from doing something, protecting her from something. What about the positives? What would it be like? She was funny. Carza did like her, on a personal level. Not quite to the standard Hull had set - someone she could imagine spending the rest of her life with, as a colleague and as a friend (which was about the highest compliment she could give: she would be willing to share an office with someone). But... well, who did come up to that standard? Still, she came... moderately close. Closer than anyone else in her life, besides Melqua. And Melqua was family, she was someone Carza lived with for a good chunk of her life. Melqua was on a standard literally no-one had ever, or likely could ever reach. But again... Kani was funny. She was clever. She had an eye for scholarship, even if she was barely literate in a script that Carza had imported, so, one that no-one else in her country used for communication. And... plus, Carza needed someone at her side. She needed someone to help her out in ALD IOM. Because as complex as her notes were, as intricate as Kani had helped them become, they were still reliant on the assumption that, yes, another species existed beyond the mountains. A species that was humanoid, but deviated in almost every other respect. Even the idea of them being human-like disappeared once they grew up, and obtained extra arms and scent glands. She could see it now - scholar returns after a disastrous expedition. Survival is regarded as a miracle. Ethnography is regarded as a concession to reality, because of course she's gone mad and now she's talking about glass men.

She needed proof. A sample. Someone to validate her findings. Both for herself, and for Hull's memory, for the sacrifices of the entire expedition. Lirana's biography would never be admitted into the Court of Ivory if it was being submitted by an insane scholar, they'd think she made it all up. It'd be tragic, and profoundly unfair. Unfair to her, and unfair to them. She needed someone to come back with her, and out of the whole family, Kani was the only one who might be up to the task. Mrs Cauldron had duties, and wouldn't want to cross. Tobok was old, and might need to go to the mountains to ascend soon. Dog was... giving her looks that she didn't quite trust. And... that was it. The entire family.

Well, excluding Kani's brother. But he might be dead in a distant desert. So she was setting him off the table for now.

Carza hesitated... and said one last thing. The final word.

"For what it's worth, I'd actually enjoy travelling with you."

Kani didn't reply. Simply stared off into the distance. It was nice, looking upon the steppe. Reminded her of falling asleep by the side of ponds in the Court of Ivory... dropping cheaply-printed pamphlets to the floor as she slipped into slumber, pages stained with the butter drippings from crumpets... good memories, albeit usually spent in solitude. But water was calming, and when the wind caught on the grass and flowed across, the entire steppe turned to a green ocean. Painfully beautiful, even at night.

She stared at the mountains, and wondered if she might cross them with Kani at her side.

...and she imagined Kani being gored to death. And abruptly her enthusiasm waned. Just a little.

Just for a moment.

She strode back to the tent, wobbling a little - the alcohol was setting in, combining with the food, and making her sleepy. Kani remained behind to watch the moon for a while. And as she departed, humming an old theme tune to a silly little theatrophone play to herself... someone else watched. Lying in the shadow of a tent. Eyes gleaming. Skin gleaming brighter. Seemingly asleep, and concealed by the darkness, but... quite awake. Quite awake indeed. And in the darkness, as Carza returned from trying to convince Kani to embark on a long journey with her, with not many prospects of return...

Dog watched.

Dog listened.

And Dog understood.

In the darkness, it was impossible to tell if he was scowling... or smiling.