The following day started with a tea party, Cerid’s face splattered haphazardly with makeup and his hair tied in short, sloppy pigtails. He had a hard time denying Calla anything, especially since she’d lost her parents in the epidemic. Cerid’s oldest brother had been her father, and he thought maybe part of why she latched onto him was the resemblance.
“Hey!” Calla looked past Cerid’s shoulder as he served her a plate of apple caramel cookies he’d managed not to burn that morning. “Come here, come play the queen!”
“Pardon?” Dorothea had been walking down the hall with a stack of books in her arms ready to return to the library, and now she jumped to a stop. Cerid briefly registered the titles; so she’d gained an interest in agriculture, hm?
“Calla, Miss Dorothea is busy,” Cerid said, but Dorothea had stepped into the doorway.
“May I?” she asked with a shy smile.
Calla grinned and jumped to her feet, grabbing Dorothea’s hand the second she put the books down. “Can I make you pretty like I did with Uncle Cerid?”
Dorothea smiled at Cerid’s cheeks, caked with red lipstick and glitter. “I’d love that.”
Soon, a very satisfied Calla was sitting with her arms crossed and surveying her handiwork. Dorothea’s hair was tangled up in an array of ribbons and braids, her lips and cheekbones coated in glittery pink gloss and her eyes powdered with ghastly shades of green and blue eyeshadow.
“I feel beautiful,” she laughed. “King Cerid, how does the queen look?”
“Lovely. So lovely I feel her subjects would not be able to properly look upon her,” he said, and the two girls laughed for different reasons.
“Are you married, Queen Dorothea?” Calla asked, watching as Dorothea flinched, blushed and spilled juice from her plastic pink teacup onto her lap.
“I-I’m not,” she mumbled before shaking her head. “But why are you curious, Calla?”
“I heard my grandpa talking about Uncle Cerid. He says he needs to get married soon. So I was thinking he could marry you if you think that would be fun.”
“It might be fun,” Dorothea said delicately, “but that’s stuff for boring adults. What about you, Calla? What do you want to do, besides all the mushy stuff? When I was your age I wanted to fly around the world on a big red balloon.”
This prompted a twenty-minute lecture from Calla about how the world would best be traveled on a yellow balloon for a multitude of reasons that had to do with the sun, birds, tangerines, and other potentially hostile balloon travelers, among other things. Then she had Cerid pick her up to run around the room to simulate this balloon flight, and once bored with this she wanted to play with her stuffed animals. Then it was hide-and-seek in the orchard and flower crowns in the garden.
Morning turned into afternoon before Calla tired of games and had Cerid read her favorite story, a tale of a princess, her pet dragon and her knight, until she was ready to nap. Then he and Dorothea tiptoed out, heading to the library to return the books she’d brought with her originally.
“Thank you,” Cerid said. “She seemed to enjoy that.”
Dorothea laughed. “Kids are exhausting, but that’s part of their charm, too.” She laughed, then paused. “Do you want to get married someday?”
“Yes. But it might take a while to get others to accept that,” Cerid laughed. “What about you? I do not think Calla caught on, but I could tell you were uncomfortable with the subject.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Truth be told, I’d like to someday, but it’s complicated.” She smiled, looking at her feet. “Sorry.”
“Do not apologize. Thank you for telling me.” It meant a lot whenever she let him in. As she was someone dear to Shark, he was naturally concerned for her well-being and happiness too.
“Mm-hm.” She tugged on her hair. “It’s been on my mind a bit, you know? Shark said something to me yesterday about living life to the fullest. But it’s different if your happiness hurts others, isn’t it?”
“I understand your concern on a basic level,” Cerid said, “but if I may… The happiness I seek is something that has been spat upon as dangerous, perverse and incorrect in Sacer for years. So I believe that the things others hate must be questioned, always.” He sighed. “But our situations are not the same. I apologize for stepping out of bounds.”
She looked thoughtful. “Well, but you’re right. Common belief shouldn’t always be accepted immediately… Interesting to hear you say that.”
It didn’t occur to him to ask why she would think so. “I do apologize if Calla bothered you at all. I think she saw a caring woman and remembered her mother, and me being there too, it is just…” He sighed. “She misses her parents.”
“Of course she does.” Dorothea paused. “You’re taught from that young age to shed blood and to hate the enemy.”
“True.” There was a lengthy silence. “And?”
“It’s nothing. Just that a war would be a despicable inheritance for Calla,” she said quietly.
Cerid smiled to reassure her. They had finished putting the books away and were now standing there talking softly in the library’s stillness. “Take heart. We may have inherited this war before we were prepared to face the world, but we will come out on the other side to something brighter.”
“Cerid, do you think… What do you think inheriting a peaceful world really means?”
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“A war won. That is what peace has always meant.”
“I see. Um, do you think…” She wore a weak, uncertain smile. “Do you think people who inherit a peace gained from war can really know what peace means? Do you think they’ll know how to maintain peace when conflict arises?”
“I apologize, but I do not understand what you are trying to say.”
“If I asked you to make a peaceful world without shedding another drop of blood, could you do it? If you say hatred is meant to be questioned, could you turn that way of thinking even towards your enemies?”
The possibility had not once occurred to him. “Are you well, Dorothea?”
She bowed her head and chuckled. “I’m fine. Thanks for entertaining my questions.” In a sudden movement that made him freeze, she leaned forward to kiss his cheek in a chaste, familial gesture. “Take care of Sharkie and yourself, okay?”
“Of course, I…” But she departed like a bird taking flight, not waiting for him to reply. Why the sudden concern, and all these pointed questions?
Was she that uncertain of the future?
*
It wasn’t that Shark minded having so much time alone with Cerid, but they were worried about Thea. She’d been in the library almost all day today besides her play date with Calla and Cerid, wasn’t eating well, and was driving everyone off to have privacy.
“There’s still glitter in it,” they said with a smile as they ran their hands through the damp strands of Cerid’s hair. It was that abysmally late hour where it was safe enough for Shark to sneak over to his room without anyone else in the house noticing. Cinder and Cadby usually stayed up late, and Calla’s schedule could be unpredictable.
“I washed it twice!” he complained, laughing as Shark ruffled his hair. “May I ask you something?”
Shark pushed his hair straight back off his face to kiss his forehead. “Uh-huh?”
“How did you and Dorothea meet?”
“Huh… Well, it’s not really a long or interesting story, but if you’re curious.”
“Please. I wish to hear it.”
There was an intensity in Cerid’s gaze that Shark would never have cared to refuse. The story probably wouldn’t be special to someone from the outside looking in, but Cerid could judge that for himself.
They were two people who had met when they needed one another most. Shark, a deserter fleeing in the dead of night. Dorothea, an orphan with the burden of her home, people and magic. Loneliness made their connection all the more poignant and precious.
She came into their life in a flash. The snow seemed to claw up Shark’s legs while they trudged, a wary and wounded creature, around the village outskirts. What if rejection was all that waited? In leaving Sacer, an irreversible severing had swung down by their own hand. Their family, Cerid, all of those ties were gone. If there wasn’t a place for Shark here, there wouldn’t be one at all. That fear left them balled up in the frozen blanket of white coating the strange land, waiting for something, anything.
For her, it turned out.
They had halfway fallen asleep and halfway passed out, coming close to freezing to death. But when they awoke, Shark met the eyes of a teddy bear big as two pillows placed side-by-side. It stared from its place against the wall, and they screamed. They had heard that such things were found in the lowest floor of the Catacombs. In a moment of pure terror, they were convinced they had been captured somehow, and now punishment was coming.
Hands pushed on their cheeks, turning their face the other direction. Wide eyes met theirs, just as scared as Shark’s. Eyes the color of a dark late-summer sunset. Faintly wavy gray hair framing a young, round and almost eerily pale face. It was a girl who, seeing them awake, let out a relieved breath.
“You’re safe,” she said. “It’s okay. You’re in Sirpo. No one can hurt you here. I promise.”
They knew she would have said those placating words to anyone. In that moment though, someone saying that everything would still be okay despite all they’d lost was exactly what they needed.
They rolled over onto their side, clutched at her hand with their head bowed over it, and sobbed like a child. Their tears dripped down onto her fingers, and, tentative and gradual, she patted their head, then stroked their hair. Safety. That’s what Dorothea was from that moment.
Dorothea was their first connection in Sirpo, and Shark held fast to her even after they became established, got a home and job and other friends. They chatted at her whenever they passed on the street, and they visited to bring her homecooked meals after learning she lived alone.
After a few weeks she became so infuriated with the pestering that she hurled a snowball at their face while Shark was midsentence.
“Leave me alone!” she ordered.
Shark laughed, amused and ready to romp in the snow. The fluffy pureness of it was still so new and otherworldly. “No way!”
Her fury was insistent. “You’ll stay away from me if you know what’s good for you!”
“Ooh, do you have hitmen in your employ? Can I meet them? Can I become one?”
She was almost too befuddled to stay angry, and she gaped for a few seconds. “Can’t you see that I just want to be alone?” she asked, sounding uncertain.
Shark smiled. “No you don’t.”
“Yes I do! You see how everyone treats me! That’s the way it’s supposed to be!” She gestured around them. It was true; no one was even paying them any mind. They ducked their heads and moved on, giving their leader a wide berth to handle her own business. “You need to fall in line with these customs, understand?”
“I’m not going to leave you alone.” They approached, patting her head when they were close enough. “Because I know that a life like that isn’t living at all. It’ll eat you up inside ‘til there’s nothing left. Believe me on this… I just can’t let that happen to someone else, especially not someone who’s shown me kindness.”
“But I… I’ll just end up hurting you…” She too could cry like a child, and she proved it then and there.
“Maybe so, but that’ll be okay too. I can handle at least that much.”
So there it was. Because she was the one to hold their hand on that first day and because they were the one to refuse her isolation, they had been one another’s truest friend for so long.
“Whatever the case,” Shark concluded, “I depended too much on her. It was too easy to just say I could keep following her around for the rest of my life. It’s fine to hold on tight to the hand that saved you for a little while, but that can’t be all there is. Thea and I both know that now.” They laughed. “That’s all. Not very special I know.”
Cerid smiled. “Of course it is special. It is something that belongs to the two of you.”
“Yeah… You’re right.” Shark grinned. “Why so interested anyways?”
“Well, she…is a curious person,” Cerid said slowly. “So I was wondering.”
“Curious? Yeah, I guess that’s a good word for her. Somethin’ happen?”
“Not at all.”
“Well good. She’s basically gonna be your sister-in-law someday.”
Cerid blushed. “It does not do good things for my heart for you to continue to bring up marriage so casually.”
“Trust me, it ain’t casual. I know it’s gonna take a while before we can do it like we wanted, y’know with all the pomp and circumstance, but it wouldn’t hurt to make it official? If you want?”
“True. We see it as something certain, but we have never discussed it this plainly, and…” Cerid’s eyes got as big as the rim of his favorite teacup. “Are you proposing to me?”
“Pretty much.” They toyed with the ring finger of his left hand. “If you want me to, I’d like to put something really nice right here someday.”
“Yes.” Cerid smiled, then grinned, then let out a laugh of complete joy. “I would like that.”
“Then it’s settled.” Shark felt at peace, utterly and blissfully so. They had gained so much, even with all they had lost. Cerid, Dorothea… These precious, irreplaceable people could smother any darkness.