Chapter 5
“Looks like this is as far as we go for the night,” Eli said, coming to a stop at the crest of the hill. She looked around the landscape; in her mind’s eye, they took shelter under the sprawling branches, there, and tied Spica a safe distance away so he could rest in peace…
“No town?” asked Kotori, peering around them with interest.
“It’s too far, and it doesn’t look like there are any farmsteads either. We’ll have to start camping a bit. Maybe we’ll find some fishermen’s villages along the way.” Eli clicked her tongue, and Spica lumbered onwards with a sigh.
Two days ago, they’d found the first beach, rocky and sparse. The wind coming off the ocean was salt-sharp and snatched at their clothes. Kotori, heedless, wobbled at the edge of the small cliff to track the movements of the small blue crabs. Eli, gut-wrenchingly anxious, told herself over and over again that of all people, Kotori would be the most capable of catching herself on the way down.
Since then. Eli had bartered their way across the remainder of the southern border, where the land jutted out in high cliffs over the seas. She retold stories her grandmother had told her about the traders who wrestled their ships over the land, the creatures that supposedly dwelled in the Fathom-Queen’s strongholds under the waters. “Is there a Fathom-Queen?” she had paused to ask Kotori.
Kotori had only shrugged. “Many gods rule the ocean, the waters, the fish and the sea-storms, but I never met them,” she had said. “I wouldn’t know which you meant. I only delivered messages in the heavens; this is my first time in the human realm.”
Neither a confirmation nor a denial of Eli’s bedtime stories. Eli must have looked disappointed, since Kotori had tacked on, “I’d love to meet a mermaid, though.” Her wings rustled under her cloak; her eyes held a mischievous twinkle. “I think we’d have a lot in common to talk about.”
“You have extra parts, and they have a replaced part. It’s not quite equal,” Eli pointed out.
“Ah, but they’re only extra and replaced to you, Eli.”
“Then humans are just boring, I suppose? Missing parts, can only travel in one type of terrain - “
“Thoughtful,” Kotori had interrupted. “Quick-minded, tough.” She had looked up at Eli with a wistful smile. “Kinder than anyone else who’s spoken to me.”
Eli had to be imagining things. She was Kotori’s guide, her only constant source of human interaction. In her limited experience, of course Kotori would think the best of Eli, whom she depended on. Even if not, there was no sense in alienating her source of human information either.
It shouldn’t matter what Kotori thought of her. Eli would watch over Kotori even if Kotori were the most arrogant, thoughtless and cruel person she had ever met. That was Eli’s duty: to guide and protect the divine messenger as they searched for the rightful ruler. She would carry it through no matter what–as befitted an Ayase.
But that wasn’t the whole truth. It wasn’t duty when Eli taught Kotori how to braid flowers into a bracelet, or when Eli gravely accepted Kotori’s flower crowning and declared it practice. It wasn’t duty when Kotori caught Eli’s hand in a moment of excitement and Eli allowed herself to be tugged along - no, to pick up her pace, to run by Kotori’s side to catch a glimpse of a bird feeding her chicks before she flew away. It most definitely wasn’t duty when Kotori bumped her shoulder against Eli’s as they sat in the shade to eat their midday meal, and Eli bumped back, a gleeful spark kindling somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.
And, somewhere along the line, it began to matter a lot what Kotori thought of Eli.
Did it matter to Kotori, too, what Eli thought of her?
Eli blinked.
Kotori was diligently hauling bedrolls down from Spica, who rolled his eyes but stayed still, mostly thanks to Eli’s hands running soothingly along his neck. She hadn’t even realised Kotori had brought them to a halt.
Kotori saw Eli’s hands stop moving, and smiled at Eli. “Was it a good daydream?”
Heat crept up the back of Eli’s neck. “It wasn’t really daydreaming,” she muttered, embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” Kotori said, too understanding. “We all need time to ourselves every now and then. It must be difficult, stuck with only me for company for so long.”
“I’d never be tired of you!” denied Eli. It was too vehement; Eli’s mouth clicked shut on the explanation that threatened to follow. Too much, too fast. She’d scare Kotori.
Except Kotori, apart from an initial surprised look, only seemed to smile brighter. Kotori must smile more than anybody else in the world.
“Me too,” Kotori said. “You’re too good to me, Eli. Be good to yourself, too.”
And that was all she said before she flitted off into the gathering dusk to hunt for kindling and firewood.
Eli patted Spica as she tied his lead to a tree. “I am good to myself,” she protested to him. “What does she mean?”
Spica did not know, and did not care. He lipped at Eli’s palms, sighed when he found them empty, let his head drop and took root.
“And I’m not too good to her, either,” she told her uninterested audience. When Spica did not seem forthcoming with any answers, Eli shook her head and left him.
She had a meal to cook for them, after all.
When Kotori returned, it was to Eli casting a critical eye over their ingredients. “Half a teaspoon of salt,” she muttered to herself. “I don’t have a teaspoon. Is this enough?”
“What are you doing?” Kotori asked, dropping to her haunches beside Eli and starting to pile the firewood up. Eli started.
“Trying to cook,” she said, abashed, and waved a hand at their soon-to-be dinner. “I thought it’d be nice if we could have a hot meal. It’s colder near the shore, after all.”
Kotori looked from the dried beef strips to Eli, eyes round. “You can cook?”
“Yes.” Then again, Kotori’s main experience with cooking was the seasoned fare of inn cooks who knew their recipes and tools like the back of their hands, so Eli modified, “A little. It won’t be the best you’ve eaten, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t mind, if it’s Eli’s cooking!” Kotori’s eyes gleamed. “Can I watch?”
“O-of course,” said Eli, who strongly did not want Kotori to watch her impending failure.
Since it was, after all, a failure.
“Um,” Eli said twenty minutes later, spoon in her mouth. “Kotori… we’ve still got the bread from this morning, right? You might want to eat that inste- wait, don’t - !”
Kotori was not so easily deterred. Her spoon swooped like a hawk, scooping up a hefty portion of meat and thick stew, which went straight into her mouth before Eli could do more than offer up a prayer to the gods.
“Mmm, delicious,” said Kotori, grinning at Eli before she started heaping the stew into her bowl.
“Wait - but - “ Eli pulled the pot away, ignoring the sear of the hot metal against her fingertips. “It’s not good, you shouldn’t eat it!”
“Yes it is,” Kotori insisted. She scooped up a spoonful of stew and held it out. “Taste again.”
Eli resisted the urge to look around for any eavesdroppers before she leaned forward and let Kotori feed her. At the first mouthful, she shook her head and lifted her hand to cover her mouth to say something. Kotori’s severe look quelled her.
Obediently, she tasted.
It was… serviceable. A little too salted, the meat chunks tough. Unfit for the castle’s dining hall. But she could make it and eat it without thinking on a trip by herself, or with some of the soldiers who also only cared that their food was hot and that there was lots of it.
“You should be eating better food,” she said anyway, because Eli was stubborn and because Kotori deserved the world.
“If you can eat it, then so can I,” answered Kotori, who was just as stubborn. Quietly, but just as. “Be good to yourself too, Eli.”
Kotori swallowed another mouthful of stew, eyes daring Eli to try to stop her. It took a moment of warring with her instincts, but Eli lifted her spoon in defeat and ate.
She had never met somebody who celebrated her failures.
It made her glower gladly at Kotori, who only stuck the spoon in her mouth and waggled the end at Eli impishly. Eli snorted. And then it was all right again; they ate in companionable silence. Eli didn’t even put up a token protest when Kotori whisked the dishes away to the stream, claiming it her responsibility to clean if Eli cooked.
The moon had risen by the time Kotori returned. Eli was building up the fire; spring nights weren’t long, but were longer than summer ones, and the coastal chill was only held at bay by walls.
Kotori shivered dramatically. “The water’s so cold,” she confided in a scandalised tone. Eli laughed and took the dishes from her to lay them out to dry before she returned to rub warmth back into Kotori’s hands.
“It’s a cloudless night,” Eli said, glancing up. “The stars will be beautiful tonight.”
“The stars?”
Kotori followed Eli’s gaze upwards. She inhaled softly.
It was a sight Eli had seen a hundred times before, but they had always spent the night under a roof. Kotori mesmerised by the stars was not a sight Eli had seen.
She wasn’t sure which glowed more wondrously, the night sky or the girl by her side.
Unwilling to ruin the moment, Eli tugged wordless at Kotori’s now warm hands. The starstruck messenger lay down at Eli’s bidding. Together, they stared up at the heavens rotating above them oh-so-slowly.
It was Kotori who broke the silence first. “Flying between them doesn’t even compare,” she whispered, hushed by the weight of the night. “Down here… they’re so beautiful.”
“Flying between?”
“The homes of the gods.” Kotori lifted a hand, caught a star between thumb and index finger. “There, they’re so far apart. It’s… dark, and cold - “ she cut herself off, turned her head to give Eli an apologetic look. “Sorry. It’s not where the human souls go, and it’s kind of lonely. You probably wouldn’t want to hear about those parts of the heavens.”
Eli’s heart flipped in her chest. “Anything you want to tell me, I’d want to hear about,” she said with courage she didn’t feel. “There are people in this country who would kill just to meet you, you know.”
An account of the realm of the gods, straight from one of their messengers. It made her feel as if she should be more religious, to appreciate the impact of it, but…
Kotori regarded her doubtfully. “Are you sure? It’s probably not what you’d want to hear.”
“I want to know more about you,” Eli said truthfully. “Where you came from, what your life was like.” Again, the unfelt courage, a foot held over an abyss: “You already know some things about me. I want to know you, too.”
She could see Kotori wavering. Then Kotori nodded, and started to speak.
Some things weren’t meant for mortal ears.
As Kotori described the land of the gods, beautiful and terrible, Eli heard the words as if from far away. She couldn’t understand. Every word alone, yes, they made sense, but trying to string them into meaning was like trying to knit a scarf with unspun wool. There was a fundamental missing component. It wasn’t meant for her.
For what felt like several long minutes, Eli could feel nothing; but eventually, she became aware of Kotori’s hands on her shoulders. Her pale hair fell around them as she crouched at Eli’s side, eyes terrifyingly bright.
“Eli,” she was saying, high and scared, “Eli, I’m here, you’re here, we’re okay, I’m sorry - “
Eli felt hyper-conscious of her tongue sitting heavy in her mouth. “Kotori,” she managed to say. Kotori’s face broke into relief. The foreign brightness in her eyes welled over, and showed itself for what it was - simple tears.
“You’re crying,” Kotori choked. Her fingers brushed over Eli’s cheeks. Eli could feel the tears slide against her skin.
“You too,” she said numbly. A shiver wracked her. Her skin was horribly alive; above them, the night sky was too large, the stars too bright.
Eli reached up without thinking and pulled Kotori down beside her. Kotori made a muffled sound as she hit the bedroll, but at Eli’s first touch, she wrapped her arms around Eli and clung, covering Eli’s body and holding her to the ground.
The weight soothed Eli. She focused on combing her fingers through the tangles at the ends of Kotori’s hair, on the heartbeat she felt against her shoulder. Kotori whispered apologies as the tears came to a slow halt.
“You didn’t know,” Eli assured her. Her words came slowly; every syllable spoken reminded her of Kotori’s description. She pushed it out of her mind again and again until it was barely louder than an echo, and she could pretend once more that she did not know what the heavens were like. “You didn’t know.”
Kotori nodded and couldn’t stop nodding. “If I’d known, I never would have… I didn’t mean to… Eli, are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah,” said Eli, lying next to Kotori, thinking about not thinking. “I’m alright. We’re alright.”
Long after the tears had dried, neither could find the will to move from their position. The fire burned low, the heat of its embers washing over Eli’s right shoulder; Kotori lay half-draped over the other shoulder, still clutching Eli’s shirt in her hands.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Kotori murmured. Eli couldn’t count the times she had asked. Eli huffed an amused sigh.
“I’m sure. I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“No, I’m sorry for scaring you,” insisted Kotori.
“And I forgive you for scaring me,” Eli said, not for the first time. “Besides, I don’t even- “ she stopped.
Kotori looked up. “You?”
Eli looked at her and felt the uncanny play of magic and the gods at work. “I can’t even remember any of what you told me,” she said.
That night, Eli dreamed, and in her dreams, this was what she remembered.
Kotori was lonely.
The gods were cold, and did not care about their messengers beyond their usefulness.
There was no family left behind; there were few friends, none of them close.
And, the only thing Eli had heard and understood, right before Kotori turned to her and saw what had happened: “I’m glad I’m here now. The view is so much better here.”
In the morning, Eli woke up with pins and needles sparking viciously through her left arm, and an impossible mat of bed-hair that involved two people.
“Morning,” said Kotori quietly, propped up on her elbows and studiously working her way through said mat of bed-hair.
They looked at each other.
The giggles rose uncontrollably in Eli’s chest. She tried to choke them down, but Kotori must’ve seen it in her face, because the next moment they were both wheezing helplessly at the bizarrity of the situation.
The previous night seemed like nothing more than a bad dream, chased away in the light of day. Or maybe this was the dream. If so, Eli never wanted to wake up, not when Kotori was trying to braid their hair together and Eli was too happy to grin.
Their route that day took them along a beach Eli had visited years ago with Alisa and her mother on a rare trip out of the castle. Eli considered the height of the sun in the sky and the length of the walk to the next village.
What was one more night out in the open?
“I want to show you something,” Eli said, still buoyed by the morning’s mischief, and led them down a side path.
Dirt turned to sand under their feet; the trees grew sparser and sparser, until suddenly they were faced with the white glare of the beach and the roar of the waves.
Kotori stood stock still, trying to take it all in at once. “Breathe,” advised Eli, and delighted in the widening of Kotori’s eyes as the salt-scent filled her lungs.
Eli breathed deep too. If she listened closely, she could hear toddler Alisa’s gurgling laugh in the whisper of the ocean.
“It’s…” At a loss for words, Kotori stretched her arms out, as if she could embrace the horizon. Her eyes were fixed where the water bled into the sky, one great blue curve.
If you sailed far enough, you could reach the heavens, one of the castle servants used to like to say. His father had been a sailor, and he carried the Fathom-Queen’s token faithfully in memory of him.
Kotori’s toe scrunched at the sand. “Why aren’t there more people?” she fairly demanded, turning to Eli. “It’s so…”
Eli tried not to laugh. “It’s still too cold to swim, and the big fish don’t come close here, since it’s a shallow beach.”
“Swim?”
“You can if you want, but I’m staying right here,” Eli said with a grin.
“Well, isn’t that boring,” said Kotori decisively, and stripped her top layers off to Eli’s laugh. Her wings stretched free of the tunic’s slits as she padded down the beach from dry to wet sand.
“Don’t go too far!” Eli called, and got an absentminded wave in reply. She led Spica back into the shade and tied him in case she had to do an impromptu rescue.
Kotori seemed to be doing just fine, though. Her happy shriek had Eli tensing until she saw how Kotori was spreading her wings, letting the waves catch her off her feet and wash her up on the shore before she leapt back up and dove back in.
“Try drinking the water!” Eli yelled, because sometimes she was terrible. Kotori trustingly did so. After she was done coughing, she dunked her wings until they dripped, and came beating up the shore with a swan’s righteous fury, determined to return the favour. Eli ran and laughed until her legs and cheeks ached.
All good things had to come to an end, however. The beginning of the end was when Kotori stumbled breathlessly up the shore to dry herself and found the mess she had made of her feathers.
“They’re clumping,” she moaned, distraught as never before. One enormous wing was in her lap as she preened again and again at her flight feathers. “Eli, why are they clumping?”
“Feathers do that if they don’t belong to a duck,” Eli said, trying to keep the giggle-shaking to a minimum.
“Only in the human realm! They have the decency to lie flati n the heavens - oh, no, they’re sticky, Eli why is this happening - “
Eli stammered an excuse about going to find freshwater to help Kotori wash, then made a break for it before the giggles could explode.
Eli came back with three full canteens and the resolve to not laugh. The latter was unneeded, though. Kotori sat cross-legged on the ground, peacefully combing through her feathers, straightening and brushing dried salt out of them.
It looked like a painting, almost. Utterly unreal, a little strange, beautiful nonetheless. Eli felt as if she were spying.
She wanted to help. She wanted to be let into the facade, like no one else had been. More - she wanted to peel away the lovely front to see the Kotori who laughed and cried, who made mistakes, who didn’t know everything.
Kotori looked up and waved her over.
“Need a hand?” Eli said, setting the canteens down by Kotori.
“A little. Could you get the back, right where the feathers start? I can reach it, but I can’t see what I’m doing.” Kotori demonstrated by twisting her hands up behind her back and waving at Eli. Her flexibility was… creepily impressive.
Eli nodded, wetting her fingers with water. “Tell me if I hurt you,” she said, and gingerly touched Kotori’s feathers for the first time.
They were soft as silk. Eli remembered breaking open down pillows in pillow fights with Nozomi and Nico; the feathers that had floated on the air then were nothing compared to these.
“I don’t think as much got onto your back,” Eli said, trying to keep her voice even. Kotori was relying on her for this. She couldn’t fall apart into an easily awed mess.
“Mmh, you’re doing a good job,” Kotori said, focused on her own handful of white. “Just keep smoothing them back along the joint - yes, like that, perfect. Thank you, Eli. I know it must be strange.”
Eli shook her head, even though Kotori couldn’t see. “No, thank you for letting me. They’re beautiful.”
“O-oh.” Kotori’s ears pinkened. “Thank you…”
Without anything to say in return (“You’re welcome?” hah), Eli fell silent too. They worked their way through a maze of feathers.
Who knew a heavenly messenger’s grooming routine could be this mundane?
“How did you know this was here?” Kotori asked eventually. “It wasn’t on the map, I don’t think.”
“My family brought my sister and I here when we were younger. A rare holiday trip.”
“Rare,” repeated Kotori,turning her head to watch Eli expectantly for the rest of the story. Eli let out an affectionate huff; storytime had become more and more frequent.
“My mother had just concluded a trade deal and come home, so she took us off our grandmother for a short holiday. It was our first time seeing the ocean…”
Kotori listened in attentive silence, interrupting only to ask questions. She wanted every detail, big and small. When Eli was finished, she said, “Tell me another?”
Eli told her another. Her first weapons training lesson with the gruff old groundsmaster, in which she thought throwing her sword would be an excellent tactical decision never before attempted. She was six.
(It would have been with her father, but Jin Ayase died without ever seeing his daughters, fighting on Otonokizaka’s borders. All Eli had was the nagging feeling that she had, somehow, failed at grief - but how were you supposed to miss someone you’d never met? So Eli wasn’t qualified to tell stories about the former Lord Seneschal. If Kotori learned about her father, she’d learn it as an outsider listening in on others, just like Eli had.)
The feathers were mostly straightened and dry by the time this story ended; but again, Kotori asked, “Another story?”
Eli searched for one - couldn’t think of an interesting one she hadn’t already told. “I could tell you one of the ones my grandmother used to tell me?” she said, hands slowing awkwardly.
“I’d rather hear one of your own, if you don’t mind. Even one you’ve told before.”
Eli’s hands stilled. “Can I ask why?” she said.
Kotori didn’t move, her wings extended. Then she turned and caught one of Eli’s hands in her own. Melancholy wrote itself across her face, entirely at odds with the way she’d been reacting to Eli’s stories.
She traced a finger over Eli’s sword calluses. “You’re so… well-lived in,” Kotori murmured. “There’s so much in your past. And you can share it.”
Eli could say nothing, eyes riveted to Kotori’s thumb smoothing over and over her skin. To her dismay, Kotori pulled her hands back with a nervous laugh.
“I guess I’m being greedy, aren’t I? Wanting your history instead of my own, even when other humans would want mine. It’s just…”
“Just?” Eli prompted. Daringly, she reached out to take Kotori’s hand again.
Kotori’s gaze flicked down to it. Her eyes went bright; there was a tremble to her jaw. She sniffed, tried for a smile, and said, “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more about me. You’ve told me so much, and now I feel like I know you so much better, but I’m… it was nice, pretending to have a past like that.”
Searching out the small details and guarding them closely; listening so intently that she could repeat Eli’s words as if they were a script. No wonder, when Kotori’s goal wasn’t to know about being human, but to remember being human.
That was something Eli couldn’t let her pretend.
“Listen,” she said, tightening her grip on Kotori’s hands. She was breaking a hundred rules of decorum and she couldn’t care less. “I don’t - I don’t care about your past. Well, I am curious, and I do want to know, but you’re not the same person you were when I met you, and neither am I. To me, this is being human, Kotori. Remaking ourselves every day. Remembering the past, but not playing it out again. Doing our best to think about what we will be, not what we were.”
Kotori was staring at Eli with owlish eyes. Eli immediately wanted to swallow her tongue. “I mean,” she tried, “That’s just. What I think. That I like the Kotori I know right now just fine, no matter how godly or how mortal.”
“Oh,” said Kotori quietly. She looked down at her hand in Eli’s, then back up at Eli. “You like me.”
“Yes,” Eli said, and before she could stop herself, “A lot. More than I should, probably.”
Kotori tipped her head to one side. “Is there a set amount you’re allowed to like me? Is this breaking human rules?”
“No. Yes.” Eli blew at her bangs. She was ridiculous, and Kotori was ridiculous, and she had no idea how this ridiculous situation had happened. “Well, it’s never been done before.”
“This?” Kotori held up their hands, shook them lightly. She was smiling like the sun coming over the horizon, slow but brighter and brighter until Eli could barely look.
“Yes,” Eli managed. “Whatever ‘this’ is.”
“I’m not sure either,” Kotori told her gravely. Her face was very close. Eli couldn’t help noticing the beginning of freckles on her cheekbones. “But that’s okay. We can figure it out together?”
Dumb, Eli nodded. And Kotori was leaning up to catch the end of her nod, their noses were brushing each other, and and and -
It was a little awkward, obviously both of their first kisses. Kotori’s mouth slipped over Eli’s, soft, hesitant; Eli stopped breathing and didn’t remember how to start again, nor did she want to.
There was no fanfare, no birdsong, no divine rush. Just the taste of sea-salt and the quiet rustle of their clothes in the breeze.
To Eli, Kotori was too real to be anything inhuman after that.
In the morning light, Eli and Kotori waged war over the honey jar.
“That’s too much honey,” Kotori insisted. “Your teeth will hurt. I’d know, mine did!”
“If you think this is sweet, you just haven’t experienced chocolate yet.” Eli dumped a liberal amount of honey into her porridge and, just to see Kotori’s face scrunch, stuck the half-full spoonful into her mouth and winked.
Kotori’s nose wrinkled obligingly, but as expected, her attention was diverted by the promise of more information about humans and their strange foods. “What’s chocolate?”
Eli sighed in bliss. “My favourite. The food of the gods, probably.” She blinked. “Actually, do gods even eat?”
“Of course we do, just for fun. We eat…” Kotori trailed off. Eli watched her go far away, honey sliding over her fingers.
“Kotori?” she said, placing a hand on Kotori’s arm. Kotori came back with a furrowed brow.
“I can’t quite remember the taste of ambrosia.” She looked troubled for a moment, but it passed when she saw Eli make her move while she was distracted. “Why are you putting more in? Eli, don’t - “
“You have something on your cheek,” Eli said, and leaned across the inn’s rough-hewn table to drop a kiss on the corner of Kotori’s mouth. Kotori made an honest-to-god squeak, then puffed her cheeks in annoyance at Eli, who only pointed at the spoonful of honey now on Kotori’s bread and laughed.
Eli was happier than she could remember for years.