Trial by Flame

Chapter 15

Sailing was boring as hell.

Trelisti knew going in that Tellik wasn't the best of company, and that staying on a boat with him for days would probably be annoying. Not Mirtis-and-Elyria level annoying, but still enough to give him a headache.

For the most part, that had proven true. Whenever the waters were calm for more than an hour, Tellik pestered him with useless questions or told stories Trelisti had little interest in. He ignored them at first, but as the hours of nothing but sun and sea dragged on, he found himself closer and closer to entertaining an answer. They'd reached about an hour of peace, so any minute now...

"I was just a boy when I sailed alone for the first time, on a little fishing boat off the coast of In-Jawal." Sure enough, Tellik started speaking, more to the sea than Trelisti at this point. "Or Midjewel, for the Common speakers, named after the beautiful waters nearby. They sparkled like crystals nearly any time of day, to the point where the water looked white sometimes.

"It was actually more of a tourist attraction than anything. Rich nobles like to stay there during the colder season, but our tribe would go there in early summer to teach the youth self-sufficiency. We had to catch a kutjawali—a very fierce fish named after the same place, with sharp, glimmery spikes over its whole body, which would only come close to the shore during that time of year. The first day of training, an adult was to accompany you and teach you the basics of boating, then each day after that you'd go alone, and you couldn't return to the camp until you'd caught one. If you caught one during the training day, you got first pick of that night's dinner, and the rest of the week was a breeze. So naturally, you wanted to catch one early.

"Now, it was the first day, and my paksi Ti'mano—paksi's what we call an uncle—was supposed to mentor me. Something distracted him, and all the other kids were starting to leave. I didn't want all the fish to be scared away, so after watching a couple others, I took the boat on my own. It took a few tries, but I got her windbound, and set course as far as I could go. Much farther than you should go with a boat of that size.

"Oh, you should have seen my paksi's face. He ran up just as I passed the dropoff, shouting, 'Pukuro inte! Ohlo e taya, ed krat ett ari! Stupid boy, get back here now or I'll wring your neck! And perhaps I would've turned back if I knew how, but perhaps not. I think the sea stole my eyes, that day, and my soul with it. So I just kept going.

"Well, sure enough, it didn't go as I planned. I had no bait, for starters, but even catching the fish became less of a worry as I drifted further and further from shore. The coastline was so far that I couldn't see the people anymore, barely even the outlines of our tents, and the other boats were like brown specks on the water. As the sea got rougher, I thought for sure I was going to die."

He quieted under the sound of rolling waves, staring into the distance like it would finish the story for him.

"So? What happened?" asked Trelisti. It wasn't that important to him, but he was tired of hearing the ocean.

Tellik looked surprised, but didn't question it, instead smiling lightly. That, at least, made him more bearable to travel with.

"Another boat came to my rescue," he said, sinking into the memory. "And good for it, because I think I would've capsized if I went any further. It was a boy a little older than myself, who'd already succeeded the year before, named Nada."

He said it differently than the other words—warmer, sweeter, like it was dipped in honey. Trelisti rolled his eyes.

"A lover?" he asked.

Tellik's expression was well worth it.

"I—how did you know?" His face was flustered in an instant, spine rigid. "I...er..."

"It's easy to hear," Trelisti replied, staring away from the scorching sun. "So what happened? A bad breakup?"

Tellik's face dimmed. "Illness. He died two years after we were married."

"Oh."

Trelisti let the water become deafening again, expecting a silence between them to take hold. People didn't tend to talk after moments like that.

"You know," Tellik said quietly, much to Trelisti's surprise. For a moment, he wondered if his head was making the sound up, but Tellik's moving lips were an answer. "Your group...you all don't seem to react to that sort of thing—people like Iryn and I. Why is that?"

Trelisti scrunched his brows. "What?"

Tellik fumbled with a loose rope. "I mean, you don't treat us differently, even after finding out who we love. Why?"

"Are we supposed to?" Trelisti scoffed, straightening up. "That kind of thinking's archaic. It's not like who you're into affects us in any way, and besides—some of us don't fit into the standard box, either."

That caught Tellik really off guard. He tried to hide his surprise and failed miserably. It was only a few seconds before the next question slipped out.

"If I may ask, then," His words were overshadowed by a coming breeze, but it wasn't like they were hard to put together anyway. "Who else in your group is 'outside of the standard box,' as you say?"

Trelisti laughed a little. The way he said it was so old-fashioned.

"Well, there's Quinn, who's into nobody," he answered, leaning one arm on the ship's edge. "And I'm into just about anyone with a nice face. Nobody more than myself, though."

The half-joke at the end left Tellik chuckling, and seemingly reassured. Good, because the last thing he wanted to do was spend the rest of the trip cheering a gloomy navigator.

"As relieved as I am to know that," Tellik said, voice lowering to a warning. "I'll tell you now. It varies by region, but there's a lot of people that aren't generally liked in Te Fehr—aside from the most notable ones, women aren't respected as much in Rosvanii, and it's even worse in Fehr-Abas. The human nobles aren't big on elves, but especially not dark or common. To Rosvanii's credit—and Rosvanii alone—they don't care as much if you're 'out of the box' or not. But you don't want that showing in Khae. And of course, being a foreigner will have its own challenges."

Trelisti picked up on what he was trying to bury, a small poke at Khae's treatment towards him in the midst of every other warning. He didn't bother asking about it, though.

"I'll act how I want to act," Trelisti replied, pulling out a dagger in a fluid movement. "And if they feel the need to try to change it, they can have the alternative."

"That's...one response, I guess," Tellik said with a sigh. "I admire your confidence."

"It's less confidence and more experience." A chill bit through the damp wind as Trelisti tucked his blade away. He looked towards the sky in the front of the ship. "Is that...?"

"A storm, no doubt." Tellik's voice became a grumble. Ahead, the deepest blue of the sky started to churn into grey. "With the wind in the worst direction. I'll see what I can do to avoid it, but it might set us back a little—assuming it doesn't just pull us in entirely."

Trelisti stared uncertainly. "Is the ship even gonna hold up?"

"If we get to the low side in time, you'll barely notice her rocking." Trelisti barely understood what he meant, but judging by the sway he felt even in calm waters, it was an overstatement. "We've caught it early, which is good, but it's moving pretty quickly. I'll have to set us in the right direction now."

"And what happens if we don't get to the low side?" he continued, watching Tellik spring to his feet. He tilted an oar at the back of the ship, then pulled a rope to adjust the sail height.

"In that case," Tellik answered, sending a wink right back to him. "I hope you're a good swimmer."