The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

Headless Over Heels; Seth surrenders the red cloth and meets The Blue Ekadao.

“Tell me why,” he said. “Tell me the real reason why and maybe I’ll go hide like you’re asking me to.”

“Fuck you. I don’t know what the fuck you want from me. If this is because I said you weren’t strong—”

“This is because I just found a family and now I want to help keep them alive,” Seth said. “But if you’re honest with me—”

“Honest with you about what?”

“Just say you love me and you’re worried about me, and I’ll hide. I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

“If you go and get your skinny ass killed, then Annalise will—”

“You, Anna. You say it, and I’ll go be the coward you’re pretending I still am.”

“Do you think I like being this?” Anna raked her fingers against her heavy black gambeson. “This evil asshole? I hate being Anna. I want to rip my own fucking head off. It was barely tolerable before your whiny little ass showed up and now it’s torture. So please, Seth, if please is what you want to hear, please take the fucking cloth off and go be safe somewhere and stay out of my sight until I can be the woman you love again.”

“You’re the woman I love right this second.”

“Then please.” Her voice was suddenly so small and unsure. “I can’t. I can’t be like this, when I’m her. I can’t think about how smashed-up Anna is. It’s like when you look at the wound and realize how bad it hurts. I can’t be a person.”

Anna’s not for winning over. She’s a big arsehole cudgel I bash seraphs with. She’s the bits of me I don’t enjoy being. Don’t worry about Anna. She isn’t good for us.

He unwrapped the cloth from his arm and held it out to her. The spiky vitality returned to her; she snatched it from his hand. “Now get the fuck off my wall,” she said. “You want to be useful, you go to the inroad by the square, and you keep a tally of how many more bodies we get.”

“All right,” Seth said. “I see any sorcerers, I’ll send them your way.”

“Good,” she said, and then, like it was an afterthought, “You’re not a coward. That’s true.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re rash.”

“I’ll take that,” Seth said, and left her there in the slowly brightening street.

The horse had a lizard on top of it.

He arrived at Shaheill’s outskirts and exchanged brief words with the clerk at its signpost, who left him her clipboard and departed for her bed with some relief. He didn’t realize how tired he was until the slivering sun peered pryingly above the treetops on the other side of the road. He wasn’t sure how long he stood; he might have microslept between his blinks. He was beginning to consider a catnap slumped against Shaheill’s road sign when a horse and its attendant cloud of dust crested a far hill.

Seth gave his own face a light cuff and tried not to slouch. He traced the horse’s approach and then hit himself again, harder this time, to ensure he was not dreaming.

The horse had a lizard on top of it.

Seth blinked and wiped his eyes. The lizard was still there.

The lizard slowed their ride before Seth and leaned forward in its saddle. Beneath a draping riding cloak of heavy felt, it was unclothed, but lizards usually are, Seth supposed, even if they tend not to bipedalism or equestrianism, for that matter. There was nothing untoward to see on its cream-scaled belly regardless.

“I greet you,” it said, in an unexpectedly smooth and pleasant voice. “I am the Blue Ekadao.”

“Hello,” Seth said, and decided not to point out that the Blue Ekadao was copper-colored, mostly, with bits of green on its forelegs. “I’m Seth il Gutierre. Welcome to sunny Shaheill.”

The Blue Ekadao reached into—his? her? their?—saddlebag and produced a sheaf of papers crowned by the same pink card that had guided the al Ydris clan to Shaheill’s gates. “I received a skywire requiring my presence in Shaheill. I bring my papers and a stamped dictum that I am a Sorcerer Subofficiyant of the Legion, trained in the siege spell. I trust this will ensure remuneration for my time.”

“Yeah,” Seth said. “Probably.”

“Splendid.” The Blue Ekadao climbed from their saddle, tail straight out for balance. “Then I am at your command.”

Seth took her horse’s tether. The beast seemed skittish, and relieved to be rid of its rider. “You’re a sarkanian, aren’t you?”

“I have been told so by those who would know,” the Blue Ekadao said. “And I see no reason they’d lie.”

“You know you’re the first sarkanian I ever met?”

“This is often the case.” Their face did not move the way a mammal’s would. It wore the same toothy grin it had the entire time. “I will tell you then that I am a male sarkanian. I imagine you were wondering. There are very few of us—ten times fewer than our sisters. You are triply blessed this morning. Your first sarkanian, your first sarkanian man, and an accomplished sorcerer.”

“Yes. That is extremely a blessing.” Seth scanned the area by the roadside for an al Ydris or an il Teremi to hand this conversation off to, and came up blank. Just fellow humans, gawking at the unlit and the reptile. “Honestly, you’ve come at the perfect time.”

“I must also tell you that I do not like how humans smell most of the time,” the Blue Ekadao said. “So please keep your distance if possible.”

“Oh.” Seth backed up. “Uh, sorry.”

“It is not your fault. My kind speak through scent as strongly as through words, and humans are incapable of modulating their bouquet. Unless they’ve bathed recently, humans smell deeply offended. Constantly.” He made a chittering noise. “It certainly brings a touch of awkwardness to our communications, no? That was a laugh.”

Seth laughed as well, though this conversation would be feeling awkward if he smelled like poise and peonies. “I can see how it might.”

“I have come here to kill a blackfeather, or die to it.” The Blue Ekadao’s clawed feet scraped the cobblestones. “Pray lead me to where I am needed.”

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...lue-ekadao
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/2385004...r/2558710/