#you wet sack of expired milk

[gayvampyr]

i honestly don’t give a flying fuck if a fetus is alive or not, if it’s a human or not, if abortion is “technically murder” or not. i don’t owe anyone else acces to or authority over MY WOMB. even to save a life. it’s the same reason you can’t force someone to donate a kidney to a person in desperate need of a transplant, because it’s your body, so it’s your choice. what will it take to get that through y’all’s thick fuckin skulls

[iihappydaysii]

title: eudaimonia 

rated: e

pairing: john/jamie

summary: To protect baby William, Jamie and Lord John run away with the child to raise him—in the year 2020. The more time they spend together in this new and unusual world, the harder it is for both of them to ignore their growing and changing feelings for one another.

read on ao3

. . .

The day passed slowly, like sap rolling down the trunk of a tree. Jamie dressed in the strange clothes Zoe gave him. A pair of “boxer-briefs” she said, then “jeans-and-a-t-shirt”. Zoe had said that phrase like that, as if it was all one thing, though he imagined it was not. Jamie asked her where the rest of it was. She laughed and said, “Stop worrying about your modesty, Princess. This is how everyone dresses.”  She’d purchased Grey something similar, though the “jeans” were black and the t-shirt grey instead of white. It was simple, minimal, worlds away from the extravagance of the red coat dress he usually wore. Somehow the image evoked good garden soil, the kind that reaped autumn crops. Jamie pushed the thought away furiously.

Ever since Jamie had left Helwater the previous night, he’d been acting on instinct—the way one does in battle. It had been instinct that led Jamie to Grey’s quarters, redcoats not far behind. Maybe a touch of insanity was to blame, as he did not know what he expected Grey to do. But Jamie had found himself pounding like a madman on Grey’s door, in the middle of the night, before he even understood that he was doing it at all.

Jamie explained the situation to the major as quickly and thoroughly as possible, feeling more and more foolish as the story went on. Grey said nothing, which only increased the withering feeling between his ribs. When the redcoats first arrived to apprehend him, Grey had let them into his room. Jamie thought Grey had meant to turn him over, leaving Jamie sorting through ways to kill him and the other soldiers, with a baby in his arms, when one of the soldiers rushed towards Jamie and found himself with Lord John Grey’s pistol to his head.

Had John made that decision as he had made the one to go to him for help? With instinct and a touch of insanity?

“I ordered a pizza,” Zoe said, drawing Jamie from his thoughts. “It’ll be here in thirty minutes or less,” she put the telephone—Claire had explained that one to him— away. “We could watch something.”

Watch? Jamie thought. Watch what? He said nothing though. Second by second, he gained a greater appreciation for what Claire must’ve endured when she first landed in the past. And, unlike him, she was entirely alone.

Jamie followed Zoe out of her frankly wondrous kitchen into the room with the front door, the one they’d first arrived in.

Grey was there by the window, hands around a glass of water, looking outside. “What are those? The machines that keep passing by so quickly?”

“Cars,” Zoe replied. “They’re how we get around here for the most part, instead of horses and carriages.”

With a blink, Grey’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. “How do they work?”

“Hell if I know. I just drive ‘em and don’t ask questions. I could google it.”

“Google?”

Zoe shook her head. “No, never mind. Google is too much for today. We should start with television.” She grabbed a long black rectangle from one of the small tables and pointed it at the flat black something against the wall.

The black transformed to a vibrant array of colors, organized into moving images that emitted sound.

“Dear God in heaven,” Grey said.

Jamie was speechless, simply staring, brow furrowed at the pictures.

“Pretty wild, huh?”

“How does this work?” Grey asked as he had earlier.

“Ask me again when I think you’re ready for Google.”

Jamie found himself desperately wanting to know what or who Google was and why Zoe presumed they would not be “ready for it”, when she’d assumed, wrongly Jamie might add, that they were prepared for this thing called a television.

“Deciding someone’s first television show is far too much responsibility,” Zoe said.

Pointing that rectangle at the pictures, she kept pressing her thumb down and the images would shift, showing one impossible thing after another. Then, suddenly, she stopped and announced that she had an idea. “Netflix.”

Jamie had no idea what Netflix meant, and he was wondering if he’d ever get used to all the new words and concepts this time would hold.

“What would you like to see? Forests, seas, caves, deserts?”

Grey looked over at Jamie, which made Jamie realize he’d been looking over at him already. Neither one of them seemed to know how to answer that question. Did Grey feel as small and ignorant as he did?

“Let’s go with forests,” she eventually said when they did not answer. “That will at least be somewhat familiar.”

The television changed once again, opening up to a vibrant world of deep greens and blues and shocks of violent red. The gentle voice of an unseen man spoke as Jamie felt he were sweeping over the world on the back of an eagle. He stood witness to sight after magnificent sight, each one he’d never even dreamt of seeing.

Again, he was speechless; Grey was not, however. “How do they… how is it possible…” he turned toward Zoe, then answered his own question. “You don’t know.”

It could be magic, Jamie thought, but it seemed this had gone far beyond the realm of magic and had landed among the world of miracles. Would William grow up, as Zoe had done, believing all of this to be so commonplace that he wouldn’t even think to ask how it all worked? Would, could even he himself grow to find this simply usual? No, Jamie found that impossible to fathom.

In silence, they all moved to sit, Grey to a chair by the window and Zoe and Jamie on the sofa. They watched, attention rapt, until a ring sounded throughout the house.

“Pizza’s here.” Zoe jumped up from beside Jamie and went to the door. She opened it and a man in a red shirt was stood on the doorstep. He held a large, flat brown parcel and one of those strange sacks that Zoe had brought home William’s bottles and such in. She thanked the man and took the parcel and the bag, closing the door behind her with her foot. “God, if I’m this hungry, you both must be starving.”

Jamie wouldn’t argue with Zoe. His stomach was empty, but he’d been far hungrier many times in his life and, despite his position, it was almost certain that Grey had felt the same way. Still, the food smelled unusual, but delicious, and when Zoe opened the box, the food was unrecognizable.

She looked over at John, who had just walked in behind them. “Ask me how this is made, I actually know the answer to that.”

He leaned over the top of the box to look down at the “pizza”. “Maybe just explain what it is.”

“Bread, tomato sauce, cheese and meat.”

“Tomatoes are poisonous,” Grey said.

Zoe laughed. “No, they’re acidic. Lead is poisonous and your plates had lead in the them. The acid in the tomatoes makes the lead leach out of the plates.”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly,” Zoe said, pulling one of the pieces from the large circle. She took a bite. “Super delicious and not gonna kill you.” She pulled three plates down from her cabinet and gestured to them. “Have at it, guys. There’s buffalo wings and brownies too.”

“Buffalo don’t have wings,” Jamie said.

“They’re chicken wings. Buffalo is the name of the sauce. It’s named for the town in New York where they were invented.”

“Should I ask about brownies?” Grey said with a small smile.

“Like a dense chocolate cake.”

As they were filling up their plates, Zoe opened up what she’d earlier referred to as a refrigerator and asked, “You guys want something to drink? Uh, looks like I’ve got Sam Adams and some expired almond milk?”

“Who’s Sam Adams?” Grey inquired, looking over at Zoe with his plate balanced in his left hand.

Her eyes darted towards Jamie and she grimaced. “Not sure I should tell him.”

Grey’s brow furrowed.

She pulled two brown bottles out and placed them on the counter. “It’s beer. Named after a revolutionary, fighting for uh the independence of the American colonies from England.” She grabbed a metal instrument out of her drawer and used it to remove the lids on each bottle.

“Like a Jacobite?” Grey said, taking a seat at Zoe’s table.

“Sort of. Except they kick your ass.”

A ruddy flush bloomed across Grey’s cheek and he stiffened. Zoe looked over at Jamie. “Told you I shouldn’t tell him.”

“How?” he asked, blinking.

“The indomitable spirit of the American people. That and intervention from Spain, France and the Netherlands.��

“Claire…” Jamie managed, as he still often struggled to say her name aloud. “She also said something about… it was a strange word… guerrilla tactics.” He sat at the table too, taking an offered bottle of the beer from Zoe.

“There was that too. They learned it from conflicts with the Native Americans.”

Grey hesitated, but he took one of the bottles of beer from Zoe. “This is cold…?”

“One thing at a time,” Zoe replied.

“What are guerrilla tactics?”

“If he ever goes back to his own time, we’re fucked.” Still standing, Zoe took a bite of her own pizza. “It’s basically small groups of soldiers carrying out ambushes, sabotage, hit-and-run maneuvers. It can be pretty effective when you’re up against a larger, less-mobile traditional army. God, I suddenly feel like a traitor.”

“That’s not unlike what you and the Jacobites did the night we met,” Grey said to Jamie.

“How did you two meet?”

“He tried to kill me,” Jamie replied.

Zoe gave Grey a look.

“I did not succeed.” Grey hesitated, but picked up the slice of pizza with his hands as Zoe had done. He took a bite of the pizza and chewed it slowly, brow knitting. “That’s… unusual but quite delicious.”

“It’s all the fat and sodium,” Zoe replied, her mouth full, as she joined them at the table.

Jamie did his best not to judge. He knew Zoe was whip-smart, kind-hearted and an incredibly powerful sorceress, but her lack of manners would sometimes unsettle him. When they’d met in those years after Culloden, when he was Red Jamie and hiding in the woods, she’d saved his life more than once. He respected her even if he never understood the rules she used to govern her life. He would have to meet more people from this time to know if these behaviors were particular to Zoe or if they were widespread. Grey, on the other hand, was almost painfully neat. He carried himself with the rigid posture of an English soldier, his body reaching the floor at controlled yet elegant angles. Jamie had seen him eat before, of course. Each bite he took was always precise, like a reasoned decision.

Jamie returned his attention to his own meal and ate some himself. The texture of the bread and melted cheese slid over his tongue, the flavor enhanced. Everything in this time seemed to be. Louder, more vibrant, desperate for attention.

They’d only finished a portion of their meal ,and Grey was asking Zoe more questions about the man on their bottles of beer, when a loud cry sounded from down the hall where Jamie had laid William down to sleep.

He stood up from the table and walked towards the sound, pushing open the door to the small bedroom. William was a small-bundled freckle in a sea of egg blue linen. Jamie lifted his son—his son—from the bed and stared down at the bairn’s soft pink face.

With a hush, he bounced William in his arms, smiling down at him. The bairn’s face scrunched up and moments later, the putrid stench of shit filled the room. He hurried back to Grey and Zoe in the kitchen. Jamie held the baby out to Zoe.

“The bairn has soiled himself.”

Zoe cringed. “Gross. Change him.”

“Change him?”

“Yeah, I bought diapers.”

“What are diapers?”

With a sigh, Zoe stood up from her chair and walked over to the kitchen counter where the bags from earlier that day still remained. She pulled out a blue box and tore into it. “I’ll tell you how, but you’re doing it.”

It wasn’t that Jamie was particularly disgusted at the thought or that he found himself above it. No, he simply felt inadequate. Men rarely looked after bairns in his time, at least the roles for how they were to look after bairns were more clearly defined. There were the things women were better suited to doing, and the things men were better suited to doing. Though, at the thought, he could almost hear Claire’s judgement. She was far better physician than any man he’d known and that was an occupation supposedly better suited to his sex.

“Come with me,” Zoe said, gesturing with the diaper towards the main room. “You too, John. You’re going to need to know how to do this too.”

Jamie expected Grey to protest or stay seated, but he wiped his mouth with a napkin, then stood to follow them. When he’d come to Grey for help, he hadn’t expected to reach out to Zoe too, for the three of them to end up here. He certainly hadn’t expected that Lord John Grey would be a willing participant in any of this. Maybe, Jamie figured, he should just stop assuming anything of the man. He had not the talent for it.

Zoe laid a plush blanket on the floor, then knelt down beside it. “Lay Will down here. Gently.”

The reminder was unnecessary, but Jamie understood the instinct to protect this fragile creature, so he said nothing, just did as he was told.

Zoe talked Jamie through the steps, as Grey stood behind them with a studious look on his face. She told him about wiping the bairn clean with the disposable wet wipes and about making sure to cover him in a way so he couldn’t piss all over you while you were changing him. And finally, she talked Jamie through attaching the diaper, as she called it, which was constructed of some kind of thick parchment-like material that stuck to itself.

“Who’s that?” Grey asked.

“Who do you mean?”

“The image on the front there.”

Zoe laughed. “That is the most recognizable image in the world. More recognizable than our Lord Jesus Christ. Mickey Mouse.”

“You cannot be serious,” Grey replied.

Zoe stood from where she was crouched and patted Grey’s shoulder as she passed by him. “Welcome to the 21st century.”

A few moments later, Zoe returned with a grey spotted outfit for the bairn. She helped Jamie slip his arms and legs into it, then taught him about zippers before helping him close it up.

“Such a bonnie bairn,” Jamie said, scooping his son up into his arms. He caught a soft look on Grey’s face, a gentleness in his eyes that had this way of setting him at ease, even when Jamie knew he should remain on guard. Grey had not made any advances on him since that day at Ardsmuir. The trouble was that Jamie did not know if Grey’s behavior came from the threat Jamie had made or from a genuine respect for his person. He guessed Grey could’ve taken him when he was tied up on the way to Helwater and there wouldn’t have been much Jamie could’ve done. Grey didn’t however, and Jamie really didn’t believe Grey would do such a thing to anyone who did not want it. Not after what he’d come to know of the man. Even if his... lusts still made Jamie wholly uncomfortable.

They returned to finish their food, Jamie eating one handed.

“Do you think William should visit a physician soon?” Grey asked Zoe.

“Definitely. I’ll need to figure some stuff out first though. In this time you need documents for everything.”

“How do you go about procuring documents? As, of course, we cannot confess where we are truly from.”

“No, we won’t be able to get real documents, but fortunately this won’t be the first time I’ve, um, played a little fast and loose with the law. I know people.”

“People who can forge these documents?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, hopefully. I’ll need a picture of you guys though.” Zoe reached into her pocket and removed a shiny small device. She cradled it in her hand, sliding her finger across it, then held it up towards Grey. “Smile,” she told him. He just furrowed his brow. “Actually, never mind. They don’t let you smile anymore.”

“What is she doing?” Grey spoke from the side of his mouth.

Jamie shook his head, as Zoe pivoted the strange thing towards him and said “Your turn.”

When she finished doing whatever she was doing, she turned the thing towards Grey.

“It’s like looking in a mirror,” he said, turning his head back and forth. “But it’s not following me. That’s unsettling.”

Zoe turned the item towards Jamie, showing him a frozen image of himself, and as much as it pained him, he had to agree with Grey. It was very unsettling.

Once they finished up dinner, Jamie offered to help clean the dishes but Zoe told him there was no need. She opened up the metal box near the sink and just dropped their plates inside. Its insides were already filled with cups, mugs, cutlery and others dishes. She grabbed a small bluish rectangle from her cupboard and dropped it in a compartment.

Zoe shut the door and pressed her finger against the front of the metal box. A tiny green light illuminated on it, followed by the sound of churning water, like a river pounding over rocks.

“Dishwasher,” she said. “Explanation’s in the name.” Zoe paused again, before looking over at Grey, who was disguising a yawn behind his broad hand. “You guys must be totally beat. Willie’s asleep. Though he’ll probably wake up in a few hours for a bottle and for a diaper change, you should sleep too. Say goodbye to your full eight hours though.” Zoe laughed, then frowned. “Shit, I’ve only got the one guest bedroom. The bed’s probably big enough to share though, if you want. It’ll be cozy tonight with Will though. We can go out tomorrow and get a crib.”

Jamie’s mouth was dry as he tried to parse through Zoe’s barrage of words. One guest room. One bed. Sharing. With Grey. His heart was thudding like a rabbit’s foot in his chest. They’d been close, last night in the leaves, but this was different. This was a room with a closed door and a bed. Jamie didn’t want Grey to ever get the wrong idea again, not like he had that night in Ardsmuir. He’d yet to make himself clear again, after coming to Grey for help with Willie. Was it possible that Grey had come here under the impression Jamie would exchange his body as some kind of payment?

“One of you can also sleep on the couch, but you’ll have to argue that out.” Zoe’s words were drawn out, her eyes narrowed.

“I’ll take the couch,” Grey replied, before Jamie had the chance to say anything himself. “I don’t mind.”

The rabbit between Jamie’s ribs settled down at the major’s offer. It seemed he could put the question of John Grey’s intentions away, for tonight at least.

[dunmerofskyrim]

54

Tammunei knelt, back straight and shoulders steep, and fussed at their hair. Little bone comb in their hand, sawing away at knot and tangle like a gardener trying to pull weeds. Same disappointed surprise every time they found one. Same noises too. Laboured silence, concentrative, and sometimes a hiss or squeak of pain as they tried to gnaw through some lock or botched braid, a tangle more obstinate than the rest.

That was Tammunei’s half of the woven mat. Simra’s was scattered and littered. Pens and papers and parchments. Notebook bound in swirl-dyed purple cloth, coarse blotty kreshrag paper inside. His inkstone in its yellow bone box, with wetting brush and dipwater. Posters torn from bounty boards and contracts long expired. He sat amongst it all, legs crossed under him. Elbows on his knees and chin in his hands. Back bent forward and down at a slant.

Books, scrollcase, papers, pens. None of them were in use but they made him feel like he wasn’t making a complete uselessness of himself. He’d rummage amongst them sometimes, checking he still had something he’d all but forgotten till then. He’d look at old records of spendings and gettings until he felt hollow and sick and had to stop thinking about money. He’d sharpened the edge of his sword already, so long and so often it’d likely notch the first chance it got. Action on action and none achieving anything much, in a constant struggle to just be doing enough. Like someone stuck inside, waiting for rain to pass and trying not to let it waste their day. Wasn’t that always the way?

Noor returned somewhere towards noon. Her figure was curled against the wind, wrapped in layers of blankets and the napped hide rainslouch she wore, shawled and bound over her old and age-thin robes. She climbed the last lip of the headland and huddled across the frost-mazed rocks and towards the half-sheltered dip where the yurt sat.

“Blessings.” It came curt. Tammunei’s teeth were grit as they worked the comb.

“And on you.”

“What news?”

Noor walked the last few strides and stood at the corner of the mat beneath the yurt’s awning. A heavy shrug and she stuck out an arm towards the stiff white sky, the hiding ocean, mistbound and muffled to silence. “Cold,” she said, murmuring. The chill had stolen the flex from her mouth. “The wind bites. Anything cruel about the plains, the sea makes tenfold worse.” She troubled to purse her lips and seemed like she might spit.

Tammunei raked up with the comb and stabbed it into their hair, holding a nesty bun there at the top back of their crown. “You’ve been into town?”

“Yes.” She bent and slung off a gathersack, and bundled it to the ground. From her other hand she set down a black clay jar, carry-string muzzled round its sealed mouth. Skull-sized and pot-bellied, no mark on its outside to say what was in it.

“Thought I’d have to go.” Simra hadn’t noticed she’d gone till after she was back. “Usually the way, right?”

“I thought so too, until it became clear that you wouldn’t.” She reached out with a foot and pushed the jar towards Simra. It wobbled, then shunted over, rucking the edge of the mat. “This is for you. The pock-faced Baelathri in the pickle shop said it would put fire back in the belly and spring back in the step.”

“Useful.” Simra bent further, leaning towards the jar till he could hook one of its strings by a finger and pulled it to him. He sniffed at the paper seal on it. Tapped it with a fingernail. The sound was dull and full. He crabbed it onto his lap, between his knees. “What is it?”

“Sweet,” said Noor. “I just got it because it seemed the sort of outland perversion you’re so weak for. Good with rice, the merchant said.”

For all her scathe there was a smile in her tone. Simra felt it prickle unexpected up the back of his scalp. He took the small razor from its hidden-stitched pocket in his jacket and worked to cut open the seal.

“The harbour is full of ships,” Noor continued. “Boats, tying up wherever they can find space. Bumping bellies and sides. It’s a racket.”

“Any bound for Vvardenfell?” said Tammunei.

“I asked. None bound anywhere, so far as I could tell. They’re all waiting.”

A sigh of thick sweet scent rose up from the split paper seal. Garlic, the toasted nut richness of dried hotpeppers, and the sharp fizz of ferment. Simra bent his nose to it. Breathed in then cricked his neck back up. Half-listening before, he gave Noor both his ears now. “Waiting? Well, fuck. They’re Wintering here?”

“That’s not usual for Winter?” Noor’s brows knit. “I had thought . . . on the plain, you pause. Put down roots somewhere secluded. I had thought it would be the same with boats.”

“Not here.” Simra shook his head. “Not on the ordinary. Up towards Blacklight, Solstheim, Skyrim, maybe, and that’s only for the sake of ice. Must be we’re in for a bad one.”

“Winter?” said Tammunei.

“Reckon so. Might be there’s ice on the Vvardenfell coast? Or someone’s put the fear up everyone, foretelling some sort of squall. Anywhere with some sea to it, it’ll have weatherseers, weatherworkers, and they love the attention that comes with forecasting a storm.”

“I can believe either,” said Tammunei.

“Dew on the moor-ropes this morning,” said Simra. “Frozen. Icicles hanging off them. Like glass, like moss.” He’d snapped them off then, jangling and wet, cramming the cold shards into his waterskin with hands that first felt icy, then numb, then curious-warm. Free water was one kindness that came with the Winter months. Easier to harvest a potful of snow than catch the same measure of rain. Easier to snatch dew from the dawn when the dawn’s so cold the dew freezes. Easier than getting water from Branoristown and paying for the privilege. “So yeah — bad Winter? I can believe it.”

“Then we’re stuck here,” said Noor, “same as them.”

“And they’re stuck here same as us,” said Simra. “Think any of those boats you saw had bellies full of grain, Noor?”

“How should I know?”

“Well. If not . . .”

“So little grows here,” said Tammunei. “Branoristown and Tel Branoris. They’re both fed by the mainland?”

“Who knows how the Telvanni feed themselves, but I’d say so, yeah.”

Noor wrinkled her nose and snorted. Almost a chuckle in her voice when she spoke. “Sorry to say, Simra, it looks like you’ll have to share your medicine.”

He looked down into the jar she’d brought up from town. Deep spice-red honey inside, bead-sized bubbles, and a tight pack of cloves, tooth-white. His stomach growled. “We’ll need more than pickled garlic to get through Midwinter here.”

“What do we have?” said Tammunei.

“Hm.” Simra looked over at his notebooks, his papers, like he hoped they’d have an answer to him. “To eat? Let’s see . . .”

He clambered up in a griping of knees that faded as he started to move. Like a scavenger looting over a battlefield’s leavings, all keen eyes and low hopes, he brought out his bags, picked through them, emptied them out onto the mat.

His rolled apron of chitin and steel scales, bound up with its own earth-red sash. A sealed compact of glazed clay and a few twists of dried guljana root for chewing. A pouch of salt and a bone-needle sewing kit in a messy-broidered little wallet of cloth — his own handiwork, in idle moments. A paper-wrapped brick of black fermented tea, half crumbled already into countless kettles, and looking now like something gnawed at.

“Could you make a pot of that?” he said, to either one of the others.

Noor stooped and knelt, and snagged up Simra’s kettle. Paused. “Heat?”

“Fuck . . .” Simra balled his eyes shut and knocked the heel of a palm into his forehead. “Stupid of me. Right. It can wait. That sack of yours — see what you’ve got?”

Looking back to his own things, scattered and rolled across the mat, Simra’s brow furrowed. It was good to have work that needed doing; a spur at his flank or whip at his back. Might be you can’t beat the grey, but there are times where you can forget it. His eyes slid particular over it all. An earthenware jar of preshta-jan, rough and unglazed outside flecked with red where spatters of the oil inside had freckled it. A grubby little bottle of tincture: wickwheat spirit, marshmerrow cores, mammet’s switch, a sickening spoilt-milk colour through the hazy grey glass. A cone of set black sugar, shrunken and irregular with all Simra had scraped from it. A folded paper purse with the last scraps of black hunter’s finder mushrooms he’d not had the heart to finish up — scarce more than crumbs now. All that and the last of the rice.

“Enough for maybe two days if that’s all we’re eating.” Simra groped at the grain sack, guessing at its contents. “Longer if we’ve got things to help it go further. Not a lot longer, but longer.”

“I wasn’t able to buy a lot,” Noor said. “Some ugly roots. Dried crabmeat and smallfish dumplings, I think? Your pickled garlic . . .”

Simra looked at Noor’s offerings. “Huh. Celery root. That’ll bulk rice. Flavour it too. Nice if you’ve got oil to fry it in, which we have, or stew to stew it in, which . . . not so much. The dumplings? Boil them back to life in water and that’s a soup. Well, a soup of sorts, anyway . . .” He remembered Old Ebonheart and Caselif’s ricewater soup. Can’t just call anything ‘broth’ so long as you’ve boiled something in it. Not on the ordinary. But when starving’s at stake, the rules change. Simra’s mouth twitched, following the line of his scar right up to the edge of a nostril. A flicker that might’ve been the start of a smile he’d thought better of, or might’ve been a spark-up of anger.

“I’ll check the edges of the island,” said Tammunei. “Next low tide. Every low tide, maybe.”

“You and everyone else if things’re as bad as they might be,” said Simra. “Guess that’s one way we’ll know what to expect from this Winter. You see poor wretches scraping up barnacles for their breakfast, let me know, alright?”

“Alright.”

“I’ll try town tomorrow,” said Simra. “See what’s for sale to those who ask. Or at least see what the news is on the docks.”

Noor nodded. There was an uncertainty in her face now. Like they were moving into territory strange to her and leaving behind what she knew and knew how to live through. “That tea . . .” she said, sounding like she needed it now.

“Right,” said Simra. He walked from under the awning and into the wind to where their cairnish little hearth was. Rubbed his hands together. Asked for heat.