#81 - Like a Bad Tooth

The green room was already coming to seem like a safe place.  No one had invaded to even pick up the night-shirt, though there was a knock on the door almost the moment he closed it behind him.

“Who is it?” He called, listlessly, struggling to not just fall onto the bed, fully clothed.

“Limyé.”

“Scorch you,” Ahrimaz said, but it was without heat and he opened the door without looking and stepped over to sink onto the couch. From there he leaned forward and clamped his hands over his face and sat, still, as Limyé came in.

He closed the door, softly, and picked up the night shirt off the floor, dropping it into a small slot in the wall… ah, obviously, the laundry for smalls.  Ahrimaz was aware of every move he made, however quiet, however soft, as he pulled the bed straight, shaking the feathers out.  The animals scrambled in through their door, at least the dogs did, several times, in and out, panting joyously in his ear though he normally would have knocked any hound on the head with his fist for that sloppy tongue and informality.  He just sat still and tolerated the touch.  Heylia ghosted up and draped herself over the back of the couch. Apparently it was her place.

He shook. He couldn’t stop it. He sat and shook and then froze when he realized he’d lost track of Limyé.  He hadn’t lost track of another person in the room in years.  Then he relaxed.  A footstep.  Too close but he knew where he was. “Ahrimaz.  Shall I take the coat and vest and boots?”

“You’re not Kinouraé, you’re not a body servant, you’re not MY body servant I won’t let you that close I won’t trust you why don’t you people stop TOUCHING ME!”

He was on his feet, fists clenched, but the dogs lying sprawled on the rug hadn’t moved and neither had the blasted cat. He knew he was glaring, close enough to Limyé’s face to feel his warm breath. Scorching, blasting, drowning hells he was close enough almost to touch noses.  “Don’t. Just don’t touch me. Don’t tend me.”  Where in all the flaming, drowning, freezing hells is Kinouraé in this world?  Is he even a valet? Is there such a thing?

Without taking his eyes off Limyé Ahrimaz slowly wiggled out of the coat, working his arms free slowly.  He flung it over his own arm and then worked the buttons of the vest open as well before he sidled toward the wardrobe.  “I can do it myself.”

“I know.  I’m not saying anything about your competence and I’m not trying to take anyone’s place.”

“Good.”

That was enough to let him break his gaze on the Imaryan and hang the coat and vest up himself, peasant work though that was.  The elegant little boot-jack flipped out of the floor… exactly like the one at home and that was enough to send him back down on the floor, hands over his face again.

“I can’t stand it.” He managed to rasp.  “I keep getting my balance and then something hits me, something throws me off.  Everyone’s here but Kinouraé or any of the servants.  The war master is my aunt who in my world was forced to pretend to be my mother.  I found out that the thing I took for a jeweled heart in my friend’s memorial isn’t… it’s a jeweled unborn… and I never knew.  She never told me.  Perhaps she didn’t know? Why? Why?  And… I’ve dreamed of my mother’s death and my aunt’s death and my uncle… Did you know that your beloved Ahrimaz has, probably, in my world executed Rutaçyen and their brother?  Probably for treason of some kind, maybe finding out that he is not me.  Maybe trying to force him into their control.”

He fell silent.  Limyé settled on the rug across from him, shoving dog paws out of the way.  Listening.  But he couldn’t force out another word.

“And now the driving force that drove you out of the cell, into this world, is finished for now?  You’re suddenly without direction and overwhelmed with all of us, hmmm?”

His nod was almost convulsive.

“We will pick up where we left off, then.  You may treat this room the same as if it were the cell downstairs.  I and the others will speak with you, if you permit.  You need only go down to the water rooms at your body’s urging, and to the salle and the arena where your friends are.  The horses who grew used to them are the horses in that barn.  You have only changed the basement room to this one.  After your precipitous run to help your friends, it looks like they will safely be here at least a year now, given that Didara is not going to want to go away from a safe place, in a strange country and continent.”

Again he managed a convulsive nod.  “I… don’t have to speak to anyone… all those people… all those crowds…”

“No. You are as safe here as you were in the cell.  Should you wish I can ask that the family put a lock on the door.”

“No. It’s… it’s all right.  I… don’t want to make one of the children crawl through a dog door to unlock it, should I have an emergency where I cannot.”

“Very sensible of you, Ahrimaz.  Shall I come back with tea?”

“Yes.”  The second word came as if wrenched out of his mouth with armoured fingers, like a bad tooth.  “Please.”