HMS Valediction

Chapter 22.4

From another bin, I find rows of brown boots. Matching my foot up to a pair and slipping them over a pair of fresh socks, I feel infinitely better. I splash water on my face without looking at the mirror. I don't want to see who will be staring back at me. I scrub off what I hope is most of the dirt and blood without re-opening my sutures and quickly escape.

Nuna waits outside. "Feeling better, Miss Lorn?"

I cringe. "Call me Janika."

"Jan-eek-a," she tests out in her silky accent. "Very beautiful. How could I doubt such a beautiful name would be given to such a beautiful woman."

My throat is so dry. "Isn't Teeno expecting us?"

"Of course."

The passageways are not opulently decorated. They're clean, sleek, a streamlined form of beauty I'm not used to. It's the kind of aesthetic I'd appreciate when watching the surface of a placid lake at midnight. It's regal in its lack of detail. We ascend a grand staircase, the white metal railings with blue crystal walls reflect my face back at me wherever I turn. It's as if the whole ship is trying to get me to take a hard look at myself.

We traverse another deck and finally arrive at two enormous doors.

"After you," Nuna steps to the side and pushes the door open.

She smells like citrus. A whiff of it takes me spiraling through my memories — ones I was too empty to recall earlier in the locker room. A vivid image of Dean appears in the orange grove and the days we'd spend under the trees. I feel the juicy mist of the fruit as he splits it in half for us to share.

The doors slide to the side and I'm met with a room bedecked with treasure.

Teeno stands in its center, his arms open. "There they are! Come! Sit. Let's have a chat."

Accents. All of them are so different. They make a quilt of language, a variety of intonations for the different people I meet. Teeno speaks like Knuckles. Very similar, but yet so different. Knuckles' version is harsher, angrier in comparison to Teeno's flighty, crisper words. Nuna sounds nothing like them. Her version is a flavor unlike anything I've heard before. It's a spice I'm not used to.

The room twinkles like Teeno. His jacket, the medals, the buttons, the lights, the glass features dangling from the walls like melting candle wax made of crystal raindrops. It's so opulent. So unnecessary. There's a lot about Teeno that also feels someone excessive. Maybe he had a hand in designing the ship.

Or maybe he had none. Maybe I'm thinking too hard about these things. I know ARC10 is not exactly the best representation of its commander.

I pick at a clump of dried blood under my chin and run my tongue over the grainy film over my unbrushed teeth and switch my weight from one let to the other to alleviate the soreness in my hips.

Or maybe it is.

"Follow me." Teeno spins around on the silver heel of his polished blue boots and struts up a set of stairs to an upper deck of the room. We're wasting so much time getting through this playboy's cabin.

Four plush chairs form a square. They face each other, a silver table between two. Behind one set is the deck below. Behind the other, the universe. An enormous window encompasses the entire wall of his cabin. In the corner, is a large wooden cabinet stocked with crystal decanters filled with what I know to be liquor.

Not Junk Juice. Actual. Liquor.

Teeno pours the brown liquid the consistency of a gem into beautiful, clear glasses. He offers it to me.