amberdreams (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amberdreams) wrote2018-02-28 12:41 pm
amberdreams) wrote2018-02-28 12:41 pm
Entry tags:
Speculative fiction anthology - free download! And fic.
Many moons ago the little writing community on here called 
12mowrimo decided to have a go at some original fiction. We produced this anthology of short stories, called Dust. I've got a story in there, and there are some other authors I'm sure you'll recognise.
I missed the launch due to personal circumstances and then forgot all about it. But if you are like sci-fi and fantasy you'll enjoy reading these. As the blurb says: An anthology of science fiction and fantasy—of fairies and angels and ill sisters and sentient dust, worlds of water-breathers and sky people, of prisoners and genetically altered outliers, and a colony on the moon. These tales explore themes of love and hate, loss and recovery, life and death, and good and evil. Seven authors, seven unique takes on the human condition.
Click HERE to go to Smashwords and download the e-book!
I'll put my own story here for convenience.
Word count: ~7000
Warnings: Contains both Het and M/M relationships but no actual sex happens.
Summary: A fairy story or a love story, call it what you will. This is the tale of two siblings and a stranger who found that love at first sight isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Today we know space dust can be created in several ways, but that most of it came from supernovae. It’s the way of the universe. Cosmic creation, death and rebirth came from the heart of a star, and life shows us daily how love can work in exactly the same way.
:::
Pelagos was an ocean world. The name came from an ancient language, so old nobody on the planet remembered its origin. But the tales said Pelagos meant sea, and sure enough, Seth Knight’s world was more than eighty per cent salt water, and it was beautiful. Seth loved the ever-changing colours of the sea, and he loved all the vagaries of the weather, just as he loved the wildness of the Sea Folk that inhabited its oceans. Seth’s folk seemed dull in comparison, tied to the solidity of the land. Seth was especially fond of Sea Folk music, and one Diver musician in particular, a young man called Jed.
Jed’s real name was Jerzediameric, but nobody, not even the Sea Folk who visited Knight’s bar, called him that. Jed would laugh and say his full name sounded like an unpleasant medicine, while Seth secretly reckoned it sounded like a precious gem. It suited Jed’s eyes, Seth thought, which were sometimes green, sometimes blue, but always dark with promises never spoken, let alone kept.
“That Diver’s too pretty. All that long girly hair and those pink lips,” Dermot told Seth, his mouth downturned in constant disapproval when it came to Jed. “You can’t trust a man who can’t grow a beard.” Dermot stroked his own ginger whiskers to prove the point. Seth shook his head. His friend was inordinately proud of the ridiculous chin fuzz he’d cultivated since Sally Knight once casually mentioned she quite liked men with facial hair.
“Jed’s not pretty, he’s beautiful,” Seth nearly retorted, but he restrained himself. Instead he jumped to defending Jed’s people. Safer ground. More neutral. Less revealing.
“You’d trust none of the men-folk of the Sea, then, as you know they don’t have much by way of facial hair,” Seth countered, but with a tolerant smile, because he knew Dermot was speaking out of misplaced jealousy, not racial prejudice. His childhood comrade was simply afraid this newcomer would spoil their friendship. Neighbours from birth, Seth and Dermot had grown up together in Thalassa Town, playing on the beaches, sailing out onto the wide coastal waters to catch fish, getting into trouble climbing the fences round the space port to get closer to the exotic craft that landed there. They’d even built this bar and restaurant together when they graduated from school and Seth’s Da died, leaving him a considerable lump sum to invest how he saw fit. Sure, they rubbed each other up the wrong way sometimes, but they were close as brothers, and that wasn’t going to change. Not if Seth had anything to do with it anyways.
Seth’s sister now, Sally was different. Sally shone gold where Seth was brown as the earth out back where he grew his vegetables. Everyone said it was hard to believe Seth and Sally sprung from the same seed, and Seth agreed. Sally burned hot and gave off too many sparks, always angry, always restless, always wanting more than life could give. Not that Seth didn’t yearn too, but his wanting was quiet, a deep-sea current, while Sally’s was loud and bright and forceful like the great waterfall that tumbled down the mountainsides of Le Guin Island. Sally’s wants were like to crush a man if he wasn’t careful, Seth would warn his friends, because he could see it coming. He loved his sister dearly, but she was trouble with a capital T. Seth kept an eye on Dermot especially. His best friend had lit a candle at Sally’s altar when he was but eleven and Sally only seven, and kept it burning ever since. Seth did his best, but if a man was determined to have his heart broken, there was nothing Seth could do about it.
Because there was the other thing, the one that made Seth keep his own longings secret, and that caused Dermot to nurse an even stronger resentment of the Sea Folk. The young Diver Jed was head over nethers in love with Seth’s little sister, and Sally sparkled in Jed’s company.
:::
Seth looked up and smiled at him as Jed ducked through the door to Knights’, all ready for his shift. Sure, Seth had a smile that lit up a room. Jed reckoned this was at least half the reason the little bar-cum-eatery was so popular, because its proprietor created such a friendly atmosphere just by being there. Then Jed got an eyeful of old sour-face himself, Dermot Reilly, glaring at him from behind the counter, and winced inwardly. Jed berated himself for hunching and once safely through the low doorway he straightened up to his full height, which was considerable. Centuries of living buoyed up in water had allowed the Sea Folk to grow some extra inches on those who stayed on land. It might have been petty, but in the face of Dermot’s seeming never-ending dislike Jed wasn’t above making use of any genetic advantages he had.
Jed was tall all right, but kind of willowy, all lean lines and long muscles. Unsurprisingly, his was a swimmers build, with broad shoulders and slim hips. Being on land was bearable, but Jed was constantly aware of the weight of the air pressing down on every inch of his pale skin, just like he was all too aware of the power of the sunlight to cause damage to that vulnerable skin without the protective filtering of the sea water. Seth once compared Jed to one of those white marble statues outside the City Hall and Sally had laughed until Seth blushed and busied himself with the washing up. Jed didn’t know if that laugh was a good thing or not. Sally was hard to read, she shone so bright. Full of stardust, that one, Toothless Norton would say, from where he propped up the bar night and day, every moon-cycle since Jed had been working there.
Jed had fallen hard from when he’d first caught sight of Sally. He had been lazing in the warm shallows not far off Le Guin’s shores, while Sally had been out on a fishing trip with her brother and his best friend, though Jed hadn’t known that dynamic at the time, of course.
All he’d known was that a girl whose hair shone like the sun, and whose smile glinted like the shoals of silverfish that swam in the shallows, had netted his heart surer than the competent strong hands of her brother had netted the many grumps and occasional mossback Jed had watched the three Earthers catch that day.
Jed had no choice but to follow after this girl, even though he didn’t know her name, no choice at all. He’d turned his back on the sea, paying no heed to the arguments of his parents, or the anger of his big brother, or the sadness of his own little sister.
“You’re leaving everything you know to chase some dust-grubbing female who doesn’t even know you exist! How can you turn your back on your home, your heritage, on us - and all for a stranger?” His brother Halazedekiel had shouted at Jed’s back as Jed had tossed his watertight bag up onto the Sea Folk landing stage in Thalassa Town harbour, then hauled himself after.
“We are all made of the same dirt and dust, you know, Hal,” Jed had replied, with an awkward shrug. He’d already been feeling the additional burden of gravity settling on his shoulders. “You should remember that when you are swimming through our halls.”
“Maybe, Jed, maybe. But just remember we are also made of water, and that is where you belong.” Halazedekiel had said, before sinking back under the waves.
In silence Jed had changed into his land clothes inside the Sea Folk way station set at the edge of the jetty. He’d been disinclined to exchange chitchat with the eager young guppy who’d been manning the station that day, still disturbed as he was by his brother’s parting words. This felt completely different from the first time he’d left the sea to live on land while he completed his studies, as so many young Sea Folk did. Then he’d had the blessing and good wishes of all his family, and many Diver friends had accompanied him to Le Guin College. Now he was older, if not wiser, at the lofty age of twenty-three, and all alone. As he’d walked along the boardwalk towards the yellow lights of Thalassa Town, intensely aware of the drying touch of air and the chafe of unfamiliar cloth on his skin, he’d wondered bitterly how his brother could think he would ever forget his origins.
And yet some of Halazedekiel’s forebodings had proved well founded. When Jed stepped over the threshold of Knights’ Diner Bar, clutching the Help Wanted card he’d found on the notice board just outside the Star Port arrivals area, at least one strand of the net that bound him to the sea did get forgotten.
Jed hadn’t noticed the fraying of the net, distracted as he had been by his good fortune.
Hal was so wrong, Jed had thought, delight filling his heart. Already Fate had intervened, leading him straight to the very place he wanted to be. Because there, behind the bar, caught in the prosaic act of serving a large bald guy, was the very person Jed had left his old life behind to find. Everything Jed wanted, the promise that held all his hopes and dreams, was dancing there in the sky-blue of Sally Knight’s eyes. Clearly it was serendipity.
Nothing had happened since that day to make Jed change his mind.
:::
“Do you believe in love at first sight?”
Seth rolled his eyes at Jed’s question, but that didn’t stop him listening in to the discussion that followed. Big Mike shook his shiny bald pate and declared that love at first sight was a myth that only happened in fairy stories. Jed grinned and mock-punched Mike’s granite bicep.
“Hah! Maybe for an ugly fly-rink head like you, Mike, but for some folk less cynical, things are different.”
“Of course there’s such a thing as love at first sight.” Surprisingly, this supportive declaration came from Toothless Norton, who promptly launched into a long rambling tale about a young fisherman and his beloved. It was only when Toothless got near halfway through the story that his incredulous audience realised his narration was autobiographical. It was much too hard for anyone to imagine a time when Norton had teeth, let alone that he was ever as youthful as the hero of his tale. For sure Toothless Norton had been born old.
Seth wiped the counter down and smiled as the debate raged round Knights’. This kind of buzz had been happening a lot since Jed first walked through their doors only one moon ago. It had turned out the young Diver had a talent for talking as well as singing, and both were good for Seth’s business.
Seth glanced out of the window where Selene, the smaller of Pelagos’ two moons, was tossed up like a shiny silver coin against the dark navy sky. Luna, Selene’s larger companion, was a mere sliver low on the horizon, where she’d been full when Jed had arrived in Thalassos. Seth couldn’t believe how easily the young Diver had settled into the routine of the bar, fitting into place like the missing note in a tune Seth hadn’t even realised had incomplete harmonies.
Speaking of tunes, as he passed by Seth stroked the smooth belly of his guitar where it hung on the wall, ready for what had become Seth’s favourite part of every evening. Soon it would be time to get her down and make some music. Jed’s new song was going to be a hit with this crowd tonight, Seth was sure, though he wasn’t sure it would win the one heart he knew Jed had set his sights on. His smile faded when his gaze landed on his little sister. Sally waltzed out of the kitchen; plates piled high with tonight’s chef’s specials - steaming fillets of mossback. Inevitably, his eye was drawn back to Jed, as it always was, and he watched Jed watch Sally with a look of such naked longing on his face it kind of broke Seth’s heart. Seth hoped the expression on his own face didn’t mirror that of the lovesick young Diver, though he rather feared it might.
The debate was still waxing loud and strong, and Seth was passing the time polishing empty glasses while he listened in his usual silence. Seth was startled out of his reverie when Angel chipped in, her gravelly voice pitched low just for him to hear.
“Your Da fell in love at first sight, you know,” Angel said. The old woman sat at the same table near the back of the room every day, though she rarely joined in any of the social life of the bar. Sometimes Dermot would complain, saying the weatherworn woman’s silent scrutiny made customers uncomfortable, but Seth kind of liked having her there. Angel had fished with his Da a long time ago, before she’d been forced to retire after a hawser snapped and took half her hand with it. A one-handed fisherman was a liability, Angel would always say, without a hint of the bitterness Seth knew he’d feel were he in her boots. Her habitual presence was like part of his Da was still there, watching over his children.
It was rare for Angel to move once she was safely ensconced in her corner, let alone speak, yet here she was, leaning across the bar talking about his parents. She gave a low chuckle at Seth’s surprised expression.
“No need to look so horrified, boy. It was with your mother, of course, but you knew that much, didn’t you?”
Sally put her tray down on the counter and slid in next to Seth. Without thinking about it, he pulled her closer, sliding his arm round her slim waist. It was good she was hearing this too. They had both been young when they lost their mother, but Seth had the advantage of three years over his sister. Those three years made all the difference in the memories of their childhood, and Seth was lucky enough have some tiny moments to cherish, like the scent of his mother’s skin and the way her hair had caught the sunlight just like Sally’s. But both of them were pathetically eager to hear anything at all. Danil Knight had never talked about his wife, shutting down every time her name was mentioned, and after a while Seth had stopped asking, seeing how their father’s face would become pinched with pain.
“No, Da would never tell us anything about how they met,” Sally said, and Seth winced inwardly at the bitterness in her voice. It made him want to hug the hurt away, but he knew that Sally would say she was too old for that sort of comfort any more, even though she was leaning into him right now. “What do you know, Angel?”
“Aye, he was close-mouthed as a flatfish, your father. Well, I was there when Danil first saw Theia. She was on shore leave from the Space Station, with a party of drunken Airheads, much like that shoal of guppies over there.” Angel gestured towards the group of Sky Folk who’d taken over a couple of tables by the door, but neither of the Knights were looking, too taken aback by Angel’s inadvertent revelation that their mother had been a Spacer. Seth barely heard the rest of Angel’s brief story, the sea foam of details merely washing over him. He didn’t register how Sally had ducked out from under his arm with a look that Seth later (too late) recognised as a decision vindicated, or that is was the careless, beaming smile she threw at Jed that made the Diver’s face light up like the sun had just come out. Seth was too distracted by seeing a look on Jed’s face that made Seth’s heart swoop to join his head in a fish boiler of commotion. How could their Da never have told them that important piece of information about their heritage? And why couldn’t Seth put his feelings for Jed aside, when he knew full well they would never come to anything?
So though blindness wasn’t usually one of Seth’s failings, a kind of darkness overtook him now.
Seth turned away quickly, grateful for the distraction from his thoughts when a guy from the small but rowdy party of Sky Folk loudly demanded a fresh round of drinks to go with their food. No doubt they’d be mafficking out on the streets of Thalassa Town when they finally spilled out of Knights’ at closing time. Fortunately, that wouldn’t be Seth’s problem.
“Coming right up, sir,” Seth said, professional smile firmly back in place. Pouring ale helped steady his heart. The last thing he wanted was to be seen as the interfering, overprotective older brother. Stepping in between the person he loved the most in this world and the person he thought could be the love of his life was only going to tear him apart. Besides, practical common sense told him that he couldn’t be in love with Jed. He’d only known the lad for matter of days, after all. He was being overdramatic, ridiculous, behaving like a star struck teenager. As for the news that Theia Knight had been Sky Folk not Land Folk, in the wider scheme of things, did it really matter? It didn’t change the fact she was long gone.
Seth breathed deep and let it all go.
“What about you, Seth?” Jed was leaning on the bar, ready for their musical interlude but keen to squeeze out an answer to the knotty question of the evening. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“Nah,” Seth said, as he picked up his guitar. “It’s just a myth. It’s about as real as the stories about Old Earth, or the Leviathan that lives at the centre of Pelagos.”
Seth’s grin was real when Jed and Toothless Norton howled in outrage and pelted him with bar-nuts.
:::
For all his resolve about keeping his distance, Seth couldn’t say no to Jed when he begged Seth to help him find a house.
“Are you sure you really want a land-place?” Seth said, as they trawled through the info-screens full of properties here on Le Guin. They’d narrowed their search to the main island of the archipelago, Jed having decided early on that Sally would never be persuaded to live anywhere smaller than Thalassa Town, and there being no larger settlements on any of Pelagos’ smaller islands. “Isn’t it a bit…permanent?”
Jed gave Seth a dark look that made Seth’s stomach churn uncomfortably, like it was full of live dinks.
“I’m not going back, if that’s what you mean.” Jed said. “When I came ashore I made this my life. I don’t intend breaking my word.”
“You promised someone you’d stay here?” Seth knew it was none of his business, but it just slipped out. Jed didn’t seem to mind; just brushed his shaggy black hair from his face so Seth could marvel anew at the way those long thick lashes shadowed his eyes. Jed nodded.
“Yeah. I promised myself,” he said.
:::
The place Jed bought in the end was more of a beach hut than a house, in truth. It was right on the edge of Thalassa Town, where the sand dunes heaped up in tall mounds and the only sounds were the waves, and the wind rustling through the marragrass. The amber glow-lights of the town didn’t reach this far out, and at night the place was lit only by moonlight and starlight.
Seth loved it. He half wished he’d bought it himself. The peace, the isolation, the shabbiness of the pale weatherworn wood, he loved it all. Seth even loved Jed’s enthusiasm for the whole enterprise; despite knowing the ultimate aim was for someone else to live there at Jed’s side, not him. Seth could only hope Sally would feel the same when Jed finally made his proposal. He wanted both of them to be happy, though the thought of them together made his heart hurt.
When Jed asked him to help with the renovations, he couldn’t refuse. The moons waxed and waned, months passed.
The two men spent most of their spare time sawing and hammering, sanding and painting. Seth was a single step closer to drowning every minute he dallied with Jed, even as their friendship grew stronger. In between the working on Jed’s beach house and working at Knights’, Seth took the greatest pleasure in two facts – that Jed seemed to enjoy his company and even seek him out, and that the music that the two of them made together was getting better and better. The customers in the bar seemed to agree, as Knights’ was getting busier and busier on music nights as word spread.
Even the Sky Folk were attending on a more regular basis, whereas previously they’d tended to hang out in the Space Port bars.
Later, Seth blamed himself for what happened. He really should have seen the storm coming.
:::
Jed was almost as excited about showing Seth the ring as he was about finally asking Sally to marry him. If Seth’s smile was a little strained when he opened the small red velvet box and saw what nestled inside, Jed didn’t notice.
“I’m cooking a meal for you both. Then we are going to show her the house, Seth, and afterwards, I’m going to ask her.”
“Are you sure you want me there? I’ll feel like a fish out of water…”
Jed wouldn’t listen to Seth’s feeble protests, only grinned when his friend caved, as Seth always did when Jed asked for favours. Jed didn’t examine too closely why he wanted Seth to be there. After all, Seth was Sally’s family as well as Jed’s best friend, so it was only right he should be present for this important moment.
In addition to house renovation skills, Jed had been teaching himself to cook with the help of old Chazzer, who ran the Knights’ kitchens. So he was fairly confident the meal he served up would be edible. Even so, his hands were shaking when he brought out the serving dish with the longfin steaks. Chaz had showed him how to decorate the skinned fish with slivers of almonds so they looked like scales, and the dish was garnished with green and purple fennel. Jed couldn’t have been more relieved when Sally greeted the food with delight, and he couldn’t help exchanging a proud grin with Seth.
The meal went swimmingly after that. Conversation flowed easy as sea currents, and the room was warm with candlelight (Seth’s suggestion). So Jed was relaxed and happy and was in no way prepared for what came after.
“Sally, let me show you around the house,” Jed offered after the three had sat for a few moments in replete and contented silence, empty plates pushed away and wine glasses half full.
“I’ll clear up and wash the dishes,” Seth said, his chair scraping as he stood.
“I’ll help,” Sally said, then laughed when Seth and Jed both said no in perfect time. “You two,” she said, smiling tolerantly. “I swear you were separated at birth.”
“Let Jed show you his home, Sal. He’s put a lot of work into this place, the least you can do is look around it.”
So Sally allowed Jed to take her hand and show her the home he planned to share with her. It didn’t take long. It was a small house, single storied. Cosy, Jed had liked to think while he was shoulder to shoulder with Seth, painting. But now, as Jed moved away from the dappled amber and shadows of the candlelit living room he felt his skin grow colder and colder. Sally’s hand pulled out of his and she looked around in silence at the smooth sanded wooden floors, the walls hung with sculptures of driftwood in shapes that had reminded Jed of home, the sea-sheep wool rugs. Her quiet was scaring him, and the fear only seemed to deepen when he opened the final door to the room that was to be their bedroom.
He fingered the red velvet box deep in his pocket.
“What do you think?”
Sally didn’t turn around and her tone was hard to read.
“It’s very nice,” she said. Jed stared at the double bed he’d piled high with white pillows and a deep red comforter and tried to guess what was in Sally’s mind. He couldn’t. Unlike her brother, Sally was closed as a clamshell to Jed.
“Come and see the outside,” Jed said in an attempt to break the tension, and was relieved when she nodded. He followed her out onto the porch that ran along the front of the building, then down the steps onto the sand. He followed as she continued walking down to the water’s edge, and stopped when she did, looking out over the gentle sea. Luna was nearly full, while Selene was on the wane, but both moons were bright, gilding twin silver paths over the waves. The night was fragrant with the scent of salt and Jed had to fight down a momentary pang of homesickness. Jed pulled the box out of his pocket, flipped it open with trembling fingers and fell to his knees by Sally’s feet.
“Sally Knight, will you marry me?”
For a brief moment, Jed was full of hope. Sally reached out and took the ring out, though she had locked her gaze with his and never glanced at the golden band.
“You built this house for me?” Sally said, her voice almost a whisper to begin with, barely audible above the breeze and the susurrus of the waves lapping at the sand. Jed opened his mouth but Sally didn’t give him a chance to reply, gaining volume as she ignited with indignation.
“You thought I’d want to live in a shack by the sea, miles from civilisation? You never even asked me what I wanted, or whether I loved you.” Jed stared in a growing numbness at the look of horror that was burgeoning on Sally’s lovely features; distorting them into something raw and ugly he’d never seen before.
“Well, I can tell you now, I have plans. And they don’t include marriage, or even staying here on Pelagos. I am going to fly, Jerzediameric.” The use of his full name hit Jed like a blow.
“I have my qualifications and I am going to join the Sky Corps. I was going to give Seth the news tomorrow, because I leave at the next full moon. But you, you do this to me? To my brother? I can’t believe the arrogance, the thoughtlessness, the lies, the very podsnappery…” Words seemed to fail her, though Jed was already rocked back on his heels by her delivery. Finally, she seemed to remember what she held in her hand. She looked down at Jed’s ring, the token of his esteem, of his love, with an expression that appeared to Jed to be full of scorn and anger and, strangely, betrayal.
She whirled around and threw the ring as far and as hard as she could, into the ocean’s darkness. As Jed cried out in denial, she said something that at the time seemed incomprehensible, a non sequitur.
“And just what were you going to tell Seth, if I’d said yes?”
:::
At work the next day Jed was like a wounded sea dog, all sad dark eyes and wanting to do nothing but hide in a dark corner. Seth was actually surprised that Jed hadn’t just jumped straight back into the sea never to return, but for some reason, the young Diver was still here, nursing his distress in silence. Seth supposed it was a good thing Jed had turned up at the bar, he’d half expected the Diver to stay locked up in his beach hut by the shore. Seth could almost taste Jed’s pain, but several things prevented him from stepping in to offer comfort to his friend. First was his never-to-be-spoken, barely supressed desire for Jed, which filled him with guilt, because that part of him was glad Sally didn’t want Jed after all. But combined with that was the constant feeling of responsibility that at least part of Jed’s pain was Seth’s fault. Sally’s brightness was her own, but those sharp, brittle edges? Those were because Seth couldn’t fill the gaps; smooth the way enough for his little sister when their Da had followed their mother and left them orphans. He was the older brother, and how she turned out? Well, that was down to him.
Then there was the added layer of guilt, together with pain of his own, that he hadn’t noticed earlier how Sally had been drifting away from them. How could he have failed to see her discontent?
So Seth took the slightly easier path and went to take care of Sally.
Sally was packing her bags when Seth knocked and entered her bedroom. She glanced up and grinned at him, and some of his own heart-pain eased. It was hard to hold onto his malaise in the face of her happiness. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a few questions.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning, Sal?” Seth couldn’t quite keep the hurt out of his voice and winced when Sally’s face fell. She sighed.
“Because I thought you wouldn’t understand. I thought Da’s wishes for me meant more to you than my own.” Seth opened his mouth to protest, but Sally smiled sadly, shutting him up with one raised finger pressed to his lips. She slipped her arms around him and he allowed some of the tension in his body to ease. There was forgiveness and apology all wrapped up in that embrace, Seth knew.
“Hey, big brother, I was wrong, I know. I should have told you, but you seemed so happy, all wrapped up with your music, and in your renovations project with Jed.”
Seth pulled away at the thought of Jed. Distraction was the way out of that ever-present downward spiral, so he started helping fold her clothes, passing each item to Sally to pack.
“And I’d thought that it wouldn’t matter too much, when I left, because you had Jed to keep you happy. Then that stupid skinny-dipper goes and pulls this crazy stunt, and messes everything up.”
Seth’s breath caught and he paused, arm outstretched in the act of handing over a shirt or something, he didn’t know what.
“What do you mean?” Seth tried to say, but Sally stared him down. She was always too clever for him.
“Come on, Seth. You know you are in love with him, and he with you.”
Seth didn’t deny the former, couldn’t lie about that, even if he thought he could get away with a lie in the face of Sally’s piercing blue gaze. He was on firmer ground with refuting the latter, though.
“But he loves you, Sal. He’s been pining for you since the first moment he set eyes on you. Everything he’s done here has been for you. He didn’t ask me to marry him, he asked you.”
Sally laughed. “He’s deluded, more like. He doesn’t love me, just the idea of me. The boy is an incurable romantic, in love with love. Once I’m gone, he’ll see it, I’m certain sure. The person he is in love with is you, Seth.”
Seth wanted so much to believe this was true; the hope hurt almost as much as the thought of Sally leaving.
:::
In the days that followed, Jed stopped going to the bar. Sally was still there but as distant as if she’d already put a few stars between them, and Jed couldn’t bear it. Jed returned to his empty beach house and didn’t emerge again. For the first time since he’d moved in, the location’s remoteness felt lonely rather than comforting. He sat and listened to the sea through the walls. It was simultaneously a consolation and a source of ennui. Sometimes when the wind rose, and the tide was high, he could almost believe he was back home. He’d open his eyes and be pierced anew when he was greeted by the sight of bleached wood walls instead of carved stone, and a driftwood-framed picture instead of his baby sister’s flesh and blood smile.
He opened his mouth, tasted emptiness on his tongue. Everything was too dry here. The air parched his skin, his lungs were filled with sand, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to move from where he was sat, legs outstretched, back propped against the closed door. He should go outside, go down to the water and swim away, but something unknown and unseen was holding him here. He was tied with invisible seaweed strands to this house he and Seth had built.
He remembered eating and drinking a few times since Sally had left, he thought. But that was a day or two ago now, and he wasn’t sure when the last time was that anything had passed his lips. Sally had exploded his dreams in a supernova, and all that was left of Jed was a slow dispersing cloud of cosmic dust. Perhaps one day his core would coalesce and be whole again, but he couldn’t envisage it.
Hal wouldn’t have allowed Jed to slump in this self-indulgent heap of self-pity, but Hal was far away with his sea dogs, tending their shoals of grumps and silverfish, keeping the Sea Folk’s food sources safe from marauding firecrackers and the occasional barrie. There was an ancient word for the depths of homesickness and heartsickness Jed had fallen into. Hiraeth. Jed knew that was where he was, but had sunk so far into it; he didn’t know how to swim out.
When the banging on the door came, Jed was almost glad to be physically shaken by the vibrating wood, because he hadn’t been able to find the least spark inside himself to get moving again.
Seth - of course it was Seth - pushed the door open against Jed’s dead weight, and forced his way inside.
“Great Luna, man, look at the state of you. Angel told me five days was enough time to mourn a love that never was, and she was right. About the mourning at least. What are you trying to do to yourself? You’ve changed from a proud young Diver to a measly pinhead in less than a week!”
Jed thought privately that Seth wasn’t looking so bright and shiny himself, but said nothing. He meekly submitted when his friend pulled him to his feet, and stood there swaying like a ship’s mast in a rough sea while Seth bustled around. Seth disappeared for a moment then was back in a blink, grasping Jed’s shoulders and turning him around.
“Come on, you need a shower first, then some food. You smell like whale breath.”
Jed felt compelled to agree with that assessment. In fact, he probably stank worse than that, more like the rotting entrails of gutted grumps that had been left out in the sun too long. He stripped quickly and let Seth help him into the shower. He wasn’t embarrassed being nude in front of his friend; Sea Folk spent most of their time naked unless they were on land. No, his blushes were for the dirt that caked his skin and the way his hair was all matted and lank. He hadn’t wanted Seth to see him brought so low.
“I must be a sight fit to make a stuffed fish laugh,” Jed mumbled, surprising a snort of amusement from Seth, who didn’t comment further, just handed Jed the soap and left him to it.
When Jed finally emerged from the refreshing waters, he was feeling almost himself again. Not only being clean but rehydrated made the world of difference. He was still a little unsteady on his feet, and the growling of his stomach told him there was good reason for that. When he walked through to the living room, Seth was seated at the table where they’d eaten that fateful meal before his proposal. Jed half expected to feel a fresh pang of anguish at the memory, but all he could think was how desperate he was to eat that big hunk of warm bread and strong cheese Seth had laid out for him.
He was halfway through eating the food when Seth started talking. “So. Sally’s gone chasing her stars,” he said, looking warily at Jed from beneath lowered lashes as if he was afraid Jed was going to burst into tears or something. Instead Jed was thinking it was strange he’d never noticed how thick and dark Seth’s eyelashes were before now. Or how warm the brown of his eyes was. Then immediately following that thought was a kind of wonderment that Sally being out of reach didn’t hurt more than it did. But that was a good thing, wasn’t it?
“We’re missing you at Knights’,” Seth continued, sounding hesitant. “Are you coming back to work or…we didn’t know if perhaps you’d be going home?”
Jed swallowed a mouthful of cheese and shook his head. His own decisiveness surprised him, but he was filled with certainty.
“This is my home now,” he said.
:::
Seth wouldn’t have said he was happy, but he’d found a kind of equilibrium in his new routine. Jed was back at the bar, and the two of them still made sweet music together most nights which drew in plenty of punters, old and new, Star-chasers and land-grubbers and even the occasional Skinny-dipper from Jed’s old home. But they weren’t writing new songs, not since Sally left, and Jed was still subdued compared to his previous outgoing self. Still, the twin moons waxed and waned and Seth’s tiny fishing boat of life chugged on.
Jed expanded his repertoire from serving tables and bar tending to help Chazzer in the kitchen, and he did every task with the same bland cheerful dedication. Seth couldn’t understand why he still felt his own heart had broken. He couldn’t fathom why Jed was still here. Though Seth was missing Sally something fierce, she was in touch almost daily via the sky-net, so it wasn’t like she was totally gone from his life. No, this was something deeper, and Seth was too much of a coward to delve down to see if he could solve it. Everything got easier with time, right? He would just wait this out. His heart would mend, Jed’s heart would mend, and everything would be fine. Nobody had died, after all.
Some days were worse than others, and on the bad days, Seth would find himself somehow always in the kitchen when Jed was behind the bar, or vice versa. Those days they’d barely exchange two words all day, then play an hour or two of the most heart-wrenching music. On nights like that, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
“When are you two fools going to pull your nets in together instead of fishing alone?” Angel asked him after one such session, pale blue eyes flashing with irritation through her tears, but Seth pretended he didn’t know what she was talking about, while Jed slipped away into the kitchens to escape.
Then fate took a hand.
Seth walked into the kitchen when Jed was gutting fish, only to find his friend standing as if frozen, with one hand still stuck inside the mossback’s entrails. He was staring at something held between the finger and thumb of his other hand. There was such a strange look on Jed’s face; Seth was drawn to look closer at the object his friend was holding. He couldn’t quite make it out, just that the small object was bloody and glittered.
“What is it, Jed? What’s wrong?” Seth touched Jed’s arm, and the Diver started. Jed wrenched his gaze away from the mystery object to stare down at Seth, reminding him how much taller the Diver was when he bothered to stand tall. Seth was mesmerised afresh by Jed’s eyes, all the moods of the sea held in a single glance. Although by now Seth had thought he could read Jed’s face easier than an info-screen, he was baffled.
“Wait right here, don’t move.” Jed commanded.
Seth stood, somewhat fishlike with his mouth hung open, as Jed rushed over to the sink and frantically started scrubbing at his hands and presumably at the mystery find. Always business-like, Chazzer gave Seth a shrug and carried on chopping vegetables.
It was probably less than a minute though it felt like an age before Jed was back in front of Seth, and was grabbing both Seth’s hands in his, words spilling out like emptying a net of silverfish onto a deck.
“Sally was right. I’ve been a fool, a pinhead full of podsnappery, too blind to see what was right in front of me.” Jed let go of Seth’s left hand to wave something shiny and yellow in front of his face. “Well now the sea’s given me a second chance, and I want to do it right this time.”
Seth finally focussed on the object and realised what it was. A ring. Surely it couldn’t be the same ring Jed had bought for Sally, the one she’d flung into the ocean. That was just ridiculous. Impossible. The odds against it being found must have been a million to one…Seth tuned back in and realised Jed was still talking.
“What?” Seth said, bemused. “Say that again.”
Jed was smiling though his eyes shimmered with unshed tears as he pressed the cold wet ring into Seth’s palm and closed his fingers round it.
“I said, I love you, Seth Knight. I want you to keep this ring and if you ever feel you can love me back, you can return it to me and I can get it made larger…”
Seth remembered the touch of Sally’s finger on his lips shutting up his foolishness. He considered it a kindness to do the same for Jed. Silencing him with a finger-tip-touch, Seth took hold of Jed’s right hand and slid the ring onto his little finger.
“I guess we are fools together, then, because I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you, you idiot.” Seth said.
Chazzer snorted.
“’Bout time.”
:::
From her dimly lit corner in the bar, Angel watched her boys dance around each other’s orbits, occasionally sliding in close to bump shoulders or hips together, sometimes pausing to linger in long passionate kisses that elicited much whistling and laughter from the regulars. Even Dermot was happy now; in part from seeing his old friend so full of light and joy, but most from nursing close to his chest the last sky-call from Sally, where she’d confessed she missed him.
Angel’s craggy face widened into a satisfied smile. Sometimes, all space dust needed was a little encouragement in the right direction before binding its core together to form the heart of a new star.
::: FIN :::
12mowrimo decided to have a go at some original fiction. We produced this anthology of short stories, called Dust. I've got a story in there, and there are some other authors I'm sure you'll recognise.I missed the launch due to personal circumstances and then forgot all about it. But if you are like sci-fi and fantasy you'll enjoy reading these. As the blurb says: An anthology of science fiction and fantasy—of fairies and angels and ill sisters and sentient dust, worlds of water-breathers and sky people, of prisoners and genetically altered outliers, and a colony on the moon. These tales explore themes of love and hate, loss and recovery, life and death, and good and evil. Seven authors, seven unique takes on the human condition.
Click HERE to go to Smashwords and download the e-book!
I'll put my own story here for convenience.
Word count: ~7000
Warnings: Contains both Het and M/M relationships but no actual sex happens.
Summary: A fairy story or a love story, call it what you will. This is the tale of two siblings and a stranger who found that love at first sight isn't all it's cracked up to be.
One in a Million Motes of Dust
Today we know space dust can be created in several ways, but that most of it came from supernovae. It’s the way of the universe. Cosmic creation, death and rebirth came from the heart of a star, and life shows us daily how love can work in exactly the same way.
:One in a Million Motes of Dust
Today we know space dust can be created in several ways, but that most of it came from supernovae. It’s the way of the universe. Cosmic creation, death and rebirth came from the heart of a star, and life shows us daily how love can work in exactly the same way.
:::
Pelagos was an ocean world. The name came from an ancient language, so old nobody on the planet remembered its origin. But the tales said Pelagos meant sea, and sure enough, Seth Knight’s world was more than eighty per cent salt water, and it was beautiful. Seth loved the ever-changing colours of the sea, and he loved all the vagaries of the weather, just as he loved the wildness of the Sea Folk that inhabited its oceans. Seth’s folk seemed dull in comparison, tied to the solidity of the land. Seth was especially fond of Sea Folk music, and one Diver musician in particular, a young man called Jed.
Jed’s real name was Jerzediameric, but nobody, not even the Sea Folk who visited Knight’s bar, called him that. Jed would laugh and say his full name sounded like an unpleasant medicine, while Seth secretly reckoned it sounded like a precious gem. It suited Jed’s eyes, Seth thought, which were sometimes green, sometimes blue, but always dark with promises never spoken, let alone kept.
“That Diver’s too pretty. All that long girly hair and those pink lips,” Dermot told Seth, his mouth downturned in constant disapproval when it came to Jed. “You can’t trust a man who can’t grow a beard.” Dermot stroked his own ginger whiskers to prove the point. Seth shook his head. His friend was inordinately proud of the ridiculous chin fuzz he’d cultivated since Sally Knight once casually mentioned she quite liked men with facial hair.
“Jed’s not pretty, he’s beautiful,” Seth nearly retorted, but he restrained himself. Instead he jumped to defending Jed’s people. Safer ground. More neutral. Less revealing.
“You’d trust none of the men-folk of the Sea, then, as you know they don’t have much by way of facial hair,” Seth countered, but with a tolerant smile, because he knew Dermot was speaking out of misplaced jealousy, not racial prejudice. His childhood comrade was simply afraid this newcomer would spoil their friendship. Neighbours from birth, Seth and Dermot had grown up together in Thalassa Town, playing on the beaches, sailing out onto the wide coastal waters to catch fish, getting into trouble climbing the fences round the space port to get closer to the exotic craft that landed there. They’d even built this bar and restaurant together when they graduated from school and Seth’s Da died, leaving him a considerable lump sum to invest how he saw fit. Sure, they rubbed each other up the wrong way sometimes, but they were close as brothers, and that wasn’t going to change. Not if Seth had anything to do with it anyways.
Seth’s sister now, Sally was different. Sally shone gold where Seth was brown as the earth out back where he grew his vegetables. Everyone said it was hard to believe Seth and Sally sprung from the same seed, and Seth agreed. Sally burned hot and gave off too many sparks, always angry, always restless, always wanting more than life could give. Not that Seth didn’t yearn too, but his wanting was quiet, a deep-sea current, while Sally’s was loud and bright and forceful like the great waterfall that tumbled down the mountainsides of Le Guin Island. Sally’s wants were like to crush a man if he wasn’t careful, Seth would warn his friends, because he could see it coming. He loved his sister dearly, but she was trouble with a capital T. Seth kept an eye on Dermot especially. His best friend had lit a candle at Sally’s altar when he was but eleven and Sally only seven, and kept it burning ever since. Seth did his best, but if a man was determined to have his heart broken, there was nothing Seth could do about it.
Because there was the other thing, the one that made Seth keep his own longings secret, and that caused Dermot to nurse an even stronger resentment of the Sea Folk. The young Diver Jed was head over nethers in love with Seth’s little sister, and Sally sparkled in Jed’s company.
:::
Seth looked up and smiled at him as Jed ducked through the door to Knights’, all ready for his shift. Sure, Seth had a smile that lit up a room. Jed reckoned this was at least half the reason the little bar-cum-eatery was so popular, because its proprietor created such a friendly atmosphere just by being there. Then Jed got an eyeful of old sour-face himself, Dermot Reilly, glaring at him from behind the counter, and winced inwardly. Jed berated himself for hunching and once safely through the low doorway he straightened up to his full height, which was considerable. Centuries of living buoyed up in water had allowed the Sea Folk to grow some extra inches on those who stayed on land. It might have been petty, but in the face of Dermot’s seeming never-ending dislike Jed wasn’t above making use of any genetic advantages he had.
Jed was tall all right, but kind of willowy, all lean lines and long muscles. Unsurprisingly, his was a swimmers build, with broad shoulders and slim hips. Being on land was bearable, but Jed was constantly aware of the weight of the air pressing down on every inch of his pale skin, just like he was all too aware of the power of the sunlight to cause damage to that vulnerable skin without the protective filtering of the sea water. Seth once compared Jed to one of those white marble statues outside the City Hall and Sally had laughed until Seth blushed and busied himself with the washing up. Jed didn’t know if that laugh was a good thing or not. Sally was hard to read, she shone so bright. Full of stardust, that one, Toothless Norton would say, from where he propped up the bar night and day, every moon-cycle since Jed had been working there.
Jed had fallen hard from when he’d first caught sight of Sally. He had been lazing in the warm shallows not far off Le Guin’s shores, while Sally had been out on a fishing trip with her brother and his best friend, though Jed hadn’t known that dynamic at the time, of course.
All he’d known was that a girl whose hair shone like the sun, and whose smile glinted like the shoals of silverfish that swam in the shallows, had netted his heart surer than the competent strong hands of her brother had netted the many grumps and occasional mossback Jed had watched the three Earthers catch that day.
Jed had no choice but to follow after this girl, even though he didn’t know her name, no choice at all. He’d turned his back on the sea, paying no heed to the arguments of his parents, or the anger of his big brother, or the sadness of his own little sister.
“You’re leaving everything you know to chase some dust-grubbing female who doesn’t even know you exist! How can you turn your back on your home, your heritage, on us - and all for a stranger?” His brother Halazedekiel had shouted at Jed’s back as Jed had tossed his watertight bag up onto the Sea Folk landing stage in Thalassa Town harbour, then hauled himself after.
“We are all made of the same dirt and dust, you know, Hal,” Jed had replied, with an awkward shrug. He’d already been feeling the additional burden of gravity settling on his shoulders. “You should remember that when you are swimming through our halls.”
“Maybe, Jed, maybe. But just remember we are also made of water, and that is where you belong.” Halazedekiel had said, before sinking back under the waves.
In silence Jed had changed into his land clothes inside the Sea Folk way station set at the edge of the jetty. He’d been disinclined to exchange chitchat with the eager young guppy who’d been manning the station that day, still disturbed as he was by his brother’s parting words. This felt completely different from the first time he’d left the sea to live on land while he completed his studies, as so many young Sea Folk did. Then he’d had the blessing and good wishes of all his family, and many Diver friends had accompanied him to Le Guin College. Now he was older, if not wiser, at the lofty age of twenty-three, and all alone. As he’d walked along the boardwalk towards the yellow lights of Thalassa Town, intensely aware of the drying touch of air and the chafe of unfamiliar cloth on his skin, he’d wondered bitterly how his brother could think he would ever forget his origins.
And yet some of Halazedekiel’s forebodings had proved well founded. When Jed stepped over the threshold of Knights’ Diner Bar, clutching the Help Wanted card he’d found on the notice board just outside the Star Port arrivals area, at least one strand of the net that bound him to the sea did get forgotten.
Jed hadn’t noticed the fraying of the net, distracted as he had been by his good fortune.
Hal was so wrong, Jed had thought, delight filling his heart. Already Fate had intervened, leading him straight to the very place he wanted to be. Because there, behind the bar, caught in the prosaic act of serving a large bald guy, was the very person Jed had left his old life behind to find. Everything Jed wanted, the promise that held all his hopes and dreams, was dancing there in the sky-blue of Sally Knight’s eyes. Clearly it was serendipity.
Nothing had happened since that day to make Jed change his mind.
:::
“Do you believe in love at first sight?”
Seth rolled his eyes at Jed’s question, but that didn’t stop him listening in to the discussion that followed. Big Mike shook his shiny bald pate and declared that love at first sight was a myth that only happened in fairy stories. Jed grinned and mock-punched Mike’s granite bicep.
“Hah! Maybe for an ugly fly-rink head like you, Mike, but for some folk less cynical, things are different.”
“Of course there’s such a thing as love at first sight.” Surprisingly, this supportive declaration came from Toothless Norton, who promptly launched into a long rambling tale about a young fisherman and his beloved. It was only when Toothless got near halfway through the story that his incredulous audience realised his narration was autobiographical. It was much too hard for anyone to imagine a time when Norton had teeth, let alone that he was ever as youthful as the hero of his tale. For sure Toothless Norton had been born old.
Seth wiped the counter down and smiled as the debate raged round Knights’. This kind of buzz had been happening a lot since Jed first walked through their doors only one moon ago. It had turned out the young Diver had a talent for talking as well as singing, and both were good for Seth’s business.
Seth glanced out of the window where Selene, the smaller of Pelagos’ two moons, was tossed up like a shiny silver coin against the dark navy sky. Luna, Selene’s larger companion, was a mere sliver low on the horizon, where she’d been full when Jed had arrived in Thalassos. Seth couldn’t believe how easily the young Diver had settled into the routine of the bar, fitting into place like the missing note in a tune Seth hadn’t even realised had incomplete harmonies.
Speaking of tunes, as he passed by Seth stroked the smooth belly of his guitar where it hung on the wall, ready for what had become Seth’s favourite part of every evening. Soon it would be time to get her down and make some music. Jed’s new song was going to be a hit with this crowd tonight, Seth was sure, though he wasn’t sure it would win the one heart he knew Jed had set his sights on. His smile faded when his gaze landed on his little sister. Sally waltzed out of the kitchen; plates piled high with tonight’s chef’s specials - steaming fillets of mossback. Inevitably, his eye was drawn back to Jed, as it always was, and he watched Jed watch Sally with a look of such naked longing on his face it kind of broke Seth’s heart. Seth hoped the expression on his own face didn’t mirror that of the lovesick young Diver, though he rather feared it might.
The debate was still waxing loud and strong, and Seth was passing the time polishing empty glasses while he listened in his usual silence. Seth was startled out of his reverie when Angel chipped in, her gravelly voice pitched low just for him to hear.
“Your Da fell in love at first sight, you know,” Angel said. The old woman sat at the same table near the back of the room every day, though she rarely joined in any of the social life of the bar. Sometimes Dermot would complain, saying the weatherworn woman’s silent scrutiny made customers uncomfortable, but Seth kind of liked having her there. Angel had fished with his Da a long time ago, before she’d been forced to retire after a hawser snapped and took half her hand with it. A one-handed fisherman was a liability, Angel would always say, without a hint of the bitterness Seth knew he’d feel were he in her boots. Her habitual presence was like part of his Da was still there, watching over his children.
It was rare for Angel to move once she was safely ensconced in her corner, let alone speak, yet here she was, leaning across the bar talking about his parents. She gave a low chuckle at Seth’s surprised expression.
“No need to look so horrified, boy. It was with your mother, of course, but you knew that much, didn’t you?”
Sally put her tray down on the counter and slid in next to Seth. Without thinking about it, he pulled her closer, sliding his arm round her slim waist. It was good she was hearing this too. They had both been young when they lost their mother, but Seth had the advantage of three years over his sister. Those three years made all the difference in the memories of their childhood, and Seth was lucky enough have some tiny moments to cherish, like the scent of his mother’s skin and the way her hair had caught the sunlight just like Sally’s. But both of them were pathetically eager to hear anything at all. Danil Knight had never talked about his wife, shutting down every time her name was mentioned, and after a while Seth had stopped asking, seeing how their father’s face would become pinched with pain.
“No, Da would never tell us anything about how they met,” Sally said, and Seth winced inwardly at the bitterness in her voice. It made him want to hug the hurt away, but he knew that Sally would say she was too old for that sort of comfort any more, even though she was leaning into him right now. “What do you know, Angel?”
“Aye, he was close-mouthed as a flatfish, your father. Well, I was there when Danil first saw Theia. She was on shore leave from the Space Station, with a party of drunken Airheads, much like that shoal of guppies over there.” Angel gestured towards the group of Sky Folk who’d taken over a couple of tables by the door, but neither of the Knights were looking, too taken aback by Angel’s inadvertent revelation that their mother had been a Spacer. Seth barely heard the rest of Angel’s brief story, the sea foam of details merely washing over him. He didn’t register how Sally had ducked out from under his arm with a look that Seth later (too late) recognised as a decision vindicated, or that is was the careless, beaming smile she threw at Jed that made the Diver’s face light up like the sun had just come out. Seth was too distracted by seeing a look on Jed’s face that made Seth’s heart swoop to join his head in a fish boiler of commotion. How could their Da never have told them that important piece of information about their heritage? And why couldn’t Seth put his feelings for Jed aside, when he knew full well they would never come to anything?
So though blindness wasn’t usually one of Seth’s failings, a kind of darkness overtook him now.
Seth turned away quickly, grateful for the distraction from his thoughts when a guy from the small but rowdy party of Sky Folk loudly demanded a fresh round of drinks to go with their food. No doubt they’d be mafficking out on the streets of Thalassa Town when they finally spilled out of Knights’ at closing time. Fortunately, that wouldn’t be Seth’s problem.
“Coming right up, sir,” Seth said, professional smile firmly back in place. Pouring ale helped steady his heart. The last thing he wanted was to be seen as the interfering, overprotective older brother. Stepping in between the person he loved the most in this world and the person he thought could be the love of his life was only going to tear him apart. Besides, practical common sense told him that he couldn’t be in love with Jed. He’d only known the lad for matter of days, after all. He was being overdramatic, ridiculous, behaving like a star struck teenager. As for the news that Theia Knight had been Sky Folk not Land Folk, in the wider scheme of things, did it really matter? It didn’t change the fact she was long gone.
Seth breathed deep and let it all go.
“What about you, Seth?” Jed was leaning on the bar, ready for their musical interlude but keen to squeeze out an answer to the knotty question of the evening. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“Nah,” Seth said, as he picked up his guitar. “It’s just a myth. It’s about as real as the stories about Old Earth, or the Leviathan that lives at the centre of Pelagos.”
Seth’s grin was real when Jed and Toothless Norton howled in outrage and pelted him with bar-nuts.
:::
For all his resolve about keeping his distance, Seth couldn’t say no to Jed when he begged Seth to help him find a house.
“Are you sure you really want a land-place?” Seth said, as they trawled through the info-screens full of properties here on Le Guin. They’d narrowed their search to the main island of the archipelago, Jed having decided early on that Sally would never be persuaded to live anywhere smaller than Thalassa Town, and there being no larger settlements on any of Pelagos’ smaller islands. “Isn’t it a bit…permanent?”
Jed gave Seth a dark look that made Seth’s stomach churn uncomfortably, like it was full of live dinks.
“I’m not going back, if that’s what you mean.” Jed said. “When I came ashore I made this my life. I don’t intend breaking my word.”
“You promised someone you’d stay here?” Seth knew it was none of his business, but it just slipped out. Jed didn’t seem to mind; just brushed his shaggy black hair from his face so Seth could marvel anew at the way those long thick lashes shadowed his eyes. Jed nodded.
“Yeah. I promised myself,” he said.
:::
The place Jed bought in the end was more of a beach hut than a house, in truth. It was right on the edge of Thalassa Town, where the sand dunes heaped up in tall mounds and the only sounds were the waves, and the wind rustling through the marragrass. The amber glow-lights of the town didn’t reach this far out, and at night the place was lit only by moonlight and starlight.
Seth loved it. He half wished he’d bought it himself. The peace, the isolation, the shabbiness of the pale weatherworn wood, he loved it all. Seth even loved Jed’s enthusiasm for the whole enterprise; despite knowing the ultimate aim was for someone else to live there at Jed’s side, not him. Seth could only hope Sally would feel the same when Jed finally made his proposal. He wanted both of them to be happy, though the thought of them together made his heart hurt.
When Jed asked him to help with the renovations, he couldn’t refuse. The moons waxed and waned, months passed.
The two men spent most of their spare time sawing and hammering, sanding and painting. Seth was a single step closer to drowning every minute he dallied with Jed, even as their friendship grew stronger. In between the working on Jed’s beach house and working at Knights’, Seth took the greatest pleasure in two facts – that Jed seemed to enjoy his company and even seek him out, and that the music that the two of them made together was getting better and better. The customers in the bar seemed to agree, as Knights’ was getting busier and busier on music nights as word spread.
Even the Sky Folk were attending on a more regular basis, whereas previously they’d tended to hang out in the Space Port bars.
Later, Seth blamed himself for what happened. He really should have seen the storm coming.
:::
Jed was almost as excited about showing Seth the ring as he was about finally asking Sally to marry him. If Seth’s smile was a little strained when he opened the small red velvet box and saw what nestled inside, Jed didn’t notice.
“I’m cooking a meal for you both. Then we are going to show her the house, Seth, and afterwards, I’m going to ask her.”
“Are you sure you want me there? I’ll feel like a fish out of water…”
Jed wouldn’t listen to Seth’s feeble protests, only grinned when his friend caved, as Seth always did when Jed asked for favours. Jed didn’t examine too closely why he wanted Seth to be there. After all, Seth was Sally’s family as well as Jed’s best friend, so it was only right he should be present for this important moment.
In addition to house renovation skills, Jed had been teaching himself to cook with the help of old Chazzer, who ran the Knights’ kitchens. So he was fairly confident the meal he served up would be edible. Even so, his hands were shaking when he brought out the serving dish with the longfin steaks. Chaz had showed him how to decorate the skinned fish with slivers of almonds so they looked like scales, and the dish was garnished with green and purple fennel. Jed couldn’t have been more relieved when Sally greeted the food with delight, and he couldn’t help exchanging a proud grin with Seth.
The meal went swimmingly after that. Conversation flowed easy as sea currents, and the room was warm with candlelight (Seth’s suggestion). So Jed was relaxed and happy and was in no way prepared for what came after.
“Sally, let me show you around the house,” Jed offered after the three had sat for a few moments in replete and contented silence, empty plates pushed away and wine glasses half full.
“I’ll clear up and wash the dishes,” Seth said, his chair scraping as he stood.
“I’ll help,” Sally said, then laughed when Seth and Jed both said no in perfect time. “You two,” she said, smiling tolerantly. “I swear you were separated at birth.”
“Let Jed show you his home, Sal. He’s put a lot of work into this place, the least you can do is look around it.”
So Sally allowed Jed to take her hand and show her the home he planned to share with her. It didn’t take long. It was a small house, single storied. Cosy, Jed had liked to think while he was shoulder to shoulder with Seth, painting. But now, as Jed moved away from the dappled amber and shadows of the candlelit living room he felt his skin grow colder and colder. Sally’s hand pulled out of his and she looked around in silence at the smooth sanded wooden floors, the walls hung with sculptures of driftwood in shapes that had reminded Jed of home, the sea-sheep wool rugs. Her quiet was scaring him, and the fear only seemed to deepen when he opened the final door to the room that was to be their bedroom.
He fingered the red velvet box deep in his pocket.
“What do you think?”
Sally didn’t turn around and her tone was hard to read.
“It’s very nice,” she said. Jed stared at the double bed he’d piled high with white pillows and a deep red comforter and tried to guess what was in Sally’s mind. He couldn’t. Unlike her brother, Sally was closed as a clamshell to Jed.
“Come and see the outside,” Jed said in an attempt to break the tension, and was relieved when she nodded. He followed her out onto the porch that ran along the front of the building, then down the steps onto the sand. He followed as she continued walking down to the water’s edge, and stopped when she did, looking out over the gentle sea. Luna was nearly full, while Selene was on the wane, but both moons were bright, gilding twin silver paths over the waves. The night was fragrant with the scent of salt and Jed had to fight down a momentary pang of homesickness. Jed pulled the box out of his pocket, flipped it open with trembling fingers and fell to his knees by Sally’s feet.
“Sally Knight, will you marry me?”
For a brief moment, Jed was full of hope. Sally reached out and took the ring out, though she had locked her gaze with his and never glanced at the golden band.
“You built this house for me?” Sally said, her voice almost a whisper to begin with, barely audible above the breeze and the susurrus of the waves lapping at the sand. Jed opened his mouth but Sally didn’t give him a chance to reply, gaining volume as she ignited with indignation.
“You thought I’d want to live in a shack by the sea, miles from civilisation? You never even asked me what I wanted, or whether I loved you.” Jed stared in a growing numbness at the look of horror that was burgeoning on Sally’s lovely features; distorting them into something raw and ugly he’d never seen before.
“Well, I can tell you now, I have plans. And they don’t include marriage, or even staying here on Pelagos. I am going to fly, Jerzediameric.” The use of his full name hit Jed like a blow.
“I have my qualifications and I am going to join the Sky Corps. I was going to give Seth the news tomorrow, because I leave at the next full moon. But you, you do this to me? To my brother? I can’t believe the arrogance, the thoughtlessness, the lies, the very podsnappery…” Words seemed to fail her, though Jed was already rocked back on his heels by her delivery. Finally, she seemed to remember what she held in her hand. She looked down at Jed’s ring, the token of his esteem, of his love, with an expression that appeared to Jed to be full of scorn and anger and, strangely, betrayal.
She whirled around and threw the ring as far and as hard as she could, into the ocean’s darkness. As Jed cried out in denial, she said something that at the time seemed incomprehensible, a non sequitur.
“And just what were you going to tell Seth, if I’d said yes?”
:::
At work the next day Jed was like a wounded sea dog, all sad dark eyes and wanting to do nothing but hide in a dark corner. Seth was actually surprised that Jed hadn’t just jumped straight back into the sea never to return, but for some reason, the young Diver was still here, nursing his distress in silence. Seth supposed it was a good thing Jed had turned up at the bar, he’d half expected the Diver to stay locked up in his beach hut by the shore. Seth could almost taste Jed’s pain, but several things prevented him from stepping in to offer comfort to his friend. First was his never-to-be-spoken, barely supressed desire for Jed, which filled him with guilt, because that part of him was glad Sally didn’t want Jed after all. But combined with that was the constant feeling of responsibility that at least part of Jed’s pain was Seth’s fault. Sally’s brightness was her own, but those sharp, brittle edges? Those were because Seth couldn’t fill the gaps; smooth the way enough for his little sister when their Da had followed their mother and left them orphans. He was the older brother, and how she turned out? Well, that was down to him.
Then there was the added layer of guilt, together with pain of his own, that he hadn’t noticed earlier how Sally had been drifting away from them. How could he have failed to see her discontent?
So Seth took the slightly easier path and went to take care of Sally.
Sally was packing her bags when Seth knocked and entered her bedroom. She glanced up and grinned at him, and some of his own heart-pain eased. It was hard to hold onto his malaise in the face of her happiness. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a few questions.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning, Sal?” Seth couldn’t quite keep the hurt out of his voice and winced when Sally’s face fell. She sighed.
“Because I thought you wouldn’t understand. I thought Da’s wishes for me meant more to you than my own.” Seth opened his mouth to protest, but Sally smiled sadly, shutting him up with one raised finger pressed to his lips. She slipped her arms around him and he allowed some of the tension in his body to ease. There was forgiveness and apology all wrapped up in that embrace, Seth knew.
“Hey, big brother, I was wrong, I know. I should have told you, but you seemed so happy, all wrapped up with your music, and in your renovations project with Jed.”
Seth pulled away at the thought of Jed. Distraction was the way out of that ever-present downward spiral, so he started helping fold her clothes, passing each item to Sally to pack.
“And I’d thought that it wouldn’t matter too much, when I left, because you had Jed to keep you happy. Then that stupid skinny-dipper goes and pulls this crazy stunt, and messes everything up.”
Seth’s breath caught and he paused, arm outstretched in the act of handing over a shirt or something, he didn’t know what.
“What do you mean?” Seth tried to say, but Sally stared him down. She was always too clever for him.
“Come on, Seth. You know you are in love with him, and he with you.”
Seth didn’t deny the former, couldn’t lie about that, even if he thought he could get away with a lie in the face of Sally’s piercing blue gaze. He was on firmer ground with refuting the latter, though.
“But he loves you, Sal. He’s been pining for you since the first moment he set eyes on you. Everything he’s done here has been for you. He didn’t ask me to marry him, he asked you.”
Sally laughed. “He’s deluded, more like. He doesn’t love me, just the idea of me. The boy is an incurable romantic, in love with love. Once I’m gone, he’ll see it, I’m certain sure. The person he is in love with is you, Seth.”
Seth wanted so much to believe this was true; the hope hurt almost as much as the thought of Sally leaving.
:::
In the days that followed, Jed stopped going to the bar. Sally was still there but as distant as if she’d already put a few stars between them, and Jed couldn’t bear it. Jed returned to his empty beach house and didn’t emerge again. For the first time since he’d moved in, the location’s remoteness felt lonely rather than comforting. He sat and listened to the sea through the walls. It was simultaneously a consolation and a source of ennui. Sometimes when the wind rose, and the tide was high, he could almost believe he was back home. He’d open his eyes and be pierced anew when he was greeted by the sight of bleached wood walls instead of carved stone, and a driftwood-framed picture instead of his baby sister’s flesh and blood smile.
He opened his mouth, tasted emptiness on his tongue. Everything was too dry here. The air parched his skin, his lungs were filled with sand, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to move from where he was sat, legs outstretched, back propped against the closed door. He should go outside, go down to the water and swim away, but something unknown and unseen was holding him here. He was tied with invisible seaweed strands to this house he and Seth had built.
He remembered eating and drinking a few times since Sally had left, he thought. But that was a day or two ago now, and he wasn’t sure when the last time was that anything had passed his lips. Sally had exploded his dreams in a supernova, and all that was left of Jed was a slow dispersing cloud of cosmic dust. Perhaps one day his core would coalesce and be whole again, but he couldn’t envisage it.
Hal wouldn’t have allowed Jed to slump in this self-indulgent heap of self-pity, but Hal was far away with his sea dogs, tending their shoals of grumps and silverfish, keeping the Sea Folk’s food sources safe from marauding firecrackers and the occasional barrie. There was an ancient word for the depths of homesickness and heartsickness Jed had fallen into. Hiraeth. Jed knew that was where he was, but had sunk so far into it; he didn’t know how to swim out.
When the banging on the door came, Jed was almost glad to be physically shaken by the vibrating wood, because he hadn’t been able to find the least spark inside himself to get moving again.
Seth - of course it was Seth - pushed the door open against Jed’s dead weight, and forced his way inside.
“Great Luna, man, look at the state of you. Angel told me five days was enough time to mourn a love that never was, and she was right. About the mourning at least. What are you trying to do to yourself? You’ve changed from a proud young Diver to a measly pinhead in less than a week!”
Jed thought privately that Seth wasn’t looking so bright and shiny himself, but said nothing. He meekly submitted when his friend pulled him to his feet, and stood there swaying like a ship’s mast in a rough sea while Seth bustled around. Seth disappeared for a moment then was back in a blink, grasping Jed’s shoulders and turning him around.
“Come on, you need a shower first, then some food. You smell like whale breath.”
Jed felt compelled to agree with that assessment. In fact, he probably stank worse than that, more like the rotting entrails of gutted grumps that had been left out in the sun too long. He stripped quickly and let Seth help him into the shower. He wasn’t embarrassed being nude in front of his friend; Sea Folk spent most of their time naked unless they were on land. No, his blushes were for the dirt that caked his skin and the way his hair was all matted and lank. He hadn’t wanted Seth to see him brought so low.
“I must be a sight fit to make a stuffed fish laugh,” Jed mumbled, surprising a snort of amusement from Seth, who didn’t comment further, just handed Jed the soap and left him to it.
When Jed finally emerged from the refreshing waters, he was feeling almost himself again. Not only being clean but rehydrated made the world of difference. He was still a little unsteady on his feet, and the growling of his stomach told him there was good reason for that. When he walked through to the living room, Seth was seated at the table where they’d eaten that fateful meal before his proposal. Jed half expected to feel a fresh pang of anguish at the memory, but all he could think was how desperate he was to eat that big hunk of warm bread and strong cheese Seth had laid out for him.
He was halfway through eating the food when Seth started talking. “So. Sally’s gone chasing her stars,” he said, looking warily at Jed from beneath lowered lashes as if he was afraid Jed was going to burst into tears or something. Instead Jed was thinking it was strange he’d never noticed how thick and dark Seth’s eyelashes were before now. Or how warm the brown of his eyes was. Then immediately following that thought was a kind of wonderment that Sally being out of reach didn’t hurt more than it did. But that was a good thing, wasn’t it?
“We’re missing you at Knights’,” Seth continued, sounding hesitant. “Are you coming back to work or…we didn’t know if perhaps you’d be going home?”
Jed swallowed a mouthful of cheese and shook his head. His own decisiveness surprised him, but he was filled with certainty.
“This is my home now,” he said.
:::
Seth wouldn’t have said he was happy, but he’d found a kind of equilibrium in his new routine. Jed was back at the bar, and the two of them still made sweet music together most nights which drew in plenty of punters, old and new, Star-chasers and land-grubbers and even the occasional Skinny-dipper from Jed’s old home. But they weren’t writing new songs, not since Sally left, and Jed was still subdued compared to his previous outgoing self. Still, the twin moons waxed and waned and Seth’s tiny fishing boat of life chugged on.
Jed expanded his repertoire from serving tables and bar tending to help Chazzer in the kitchen, and he did every task with the same bland cheerful dedication. Seth couldn’t understand why he still felt his own heart had broken. He couldn’t fathom why Jed was still here. Though Seth was missing Sally something fierce, she was in touch almost daily via the sky-net, so it wasn’t like she was totally gone from his life. No, this was something deeper, and Seth was too much of a coward to delve down to see if he could solve it. Everything got easier with time, right? He would just wait this out. His heart would mend, Jed’s heart would mend, and everything would be fine. Nobody had died, after all.
Some days were worse than others, and on the bad days, Seth would find himself somehow always in the kitchen when Jed was behind the bar, or vice versa. Those days they’d barely exchange two words all day, then play an hour or two of the most heart-wrenching music. On nights like that, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
“When are you two fools going to pull your nets in together instead of fishing alone?” Angel asked him after one such session, pale blue eyes flashing with irritation through her tears, but Seth pretended he didn’t know what she was talking about, while Jed slipped away into the kitchens to escape.
Then fate took a hand.
Seth walked into the kitchen when Jed was gutting fish, only to find his friend standing as if frozen, with one hand still stuck inside the mossback’s entrails. He was staring at something held between the finger and thumb of his other hand. There was such a strange look on Jed’s face; Seth was drawn to look closer at the object his friend was holding. He couldn’t quite make it out, just that the small object was bloody and glittered.
“What is it, Jed? What’s wrong?” Seth touched Jed’s arm, and the Diver started. Jed wrenched his gaze away from the mystery object to stare down at Seth, reminding him how much taller the Diver was when he bothered to stand tall. Seth was mesmerised afresh by Jed’s eyes, all the moods of the sea held in a single glance. Although by now Seth had thought he could read Jed’s face easier than an info-screen, he was baffled.
“Wait right here, don’t move.” Jed commanded.
Seth stood, somewhat fishlike with his mouth hung open, as Jed rushed over to the sink and frantically started scrubbing at his hands and presumably at the mystery find. Always business-like, Chazzer gave Seth a shrug and carried on chopping vegetables.
It was probably less than a minute though it felt like an age before Jed was back in front of Seth, and was grabbing both Seth’s hands in his, words spilling out like emptying a net of silverfish onto a deck.
“Sally was right. I’ve been a fool, a pinhead full of podsnappery, too blind to see what was right in front of me.” Jed let go of Seth’s left hand to wave something shiny and yellow in front of his face. “Well now the sea’s given me a second chance, and I want to do it right this time.”
Seth finally focussed on the object and realised what it was. A ring. Surely it couldn’t be the same ring Jed had bought for Sally, the one she’d flung into the ocean. That was just ridiculous. Impossible. The odds against it being found must have been a million to one…Seth tuned back in and realised Jed was still talking.
“What?” Seth said, bemused. “Say that again.”
Jed was smiling though his eyes shimmered with unshed tears as he pressed the cold wet ring into Seth’s palm and closed his fingers round it.
“I said, I love you, Seth Knight. I want you to keep this ring and if you ever feel you can love me back, you can return it to me and I can get it made larger…”
Seth remembered the touch of Sally’s finger on his lips shutting up his foolishness. He considered it a kindness to do the same for Jed. Silencing him with a finger-tip-touch, Seth took hold of Jed’s right hand and slid the ring onto his little finger.
“I guess we are fools together, then, because I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you, you idiot.” Seth said.
Chazzer snorted.
“’Bout time.”
:::
From her dimly lit corner in the bar, Angel watched her boys dance around each other’s orbits, occasionally sliding in close to bump shoulders or hips together, sometimes pausing to linger in long passionate kisses that elicited much whistling and laughter from the regulars. Even Dermot was happy now; in part from seeing his old friend so full of light and joy, but most from nursing close to his chest the last sky-call from Sally, where she’d confessed she missed him.
Angel’s craggy face widened into a satisfied smile. Sometimes, all space dust needed was a little encouragement in the right direction before binding its core together to form the heart of a new star.
::: FIN :::