#michil

[pitofghosts]

Lost by the border

[pitofghosts]

“Would you stop pouting about it? What’s even the issue?”

Nifemi stood in front of Illarion, hands on her hips. And although Kaifen couldn’t see her face behind her hair, he had the distinct impression that Illarion was on the receiving end of one of her looks. He knew it well; nose wrinkled, lips pursed, eyebrows stern. The realization that that expression wasn’t unique to him was almost magical.

“We’re in Yangshe? You know, the place where some people can just tell if you’re lying?” He glowered up at her, half sulk half glower. Nifemi wasn’t having any of it. She met his eyes and Kaifen sat up a bit straighter, trying to see whatever was playing out between them.

Michil cleared his throat, and when Kaifen looked at him, he had his eyebrows raised. He was either judging him for watching them or amused by it, but either way he’d noticed it. He was being more obvious than he thought.

When Kaifen turned back to their stare down Nifemi was turned around, hands on the back of her head as a desperately angry growl escaped her. Her eyes stopped on Kaifen, and he remembered how it felt to be a child, sneaking around and listening in to meetings he wasn’t supposed to.

He readied some kind of defence against her accusations of staring, but found all of them useless when Nifemi’s eyes turned pleading.

“He’s being ridiculous, right?”

“Oh, absolutely.” The words were out before they even fully registered.

“I am not being ridiculous,” Illarion hissed. All eyes, now including Michil’s, turned onto him. For a second he looked much like a mouse, all wide eyes and telltale nervousness, before he soured. Nostrils floated he looked to Michil. “It’s them that’s ridiculous, yeah? The Yangese?”

Michil threw his hands up. “Don’t drag me into this!”

“Traitor.”

“What did you think would happen?” Nifemi sounded more tired than angry. Kaifen was with her on this one, he couldn’t understand it either. “You’re from Zalizinch—why not just say that?”

Illarion, for once, surprised everyone by not saying anything. He shifted in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back so that his legs stretched out far enough to touch the edge of the carpet.

Nifemi was still appealing to Kaifen for assistance. “What’s that thing your always saying to Saoirse?” The name slapped him. He’d been trying hard not to think about him. Kaifen forced himself not to look at the floor, but his shoulders did pull in. Nifemi’s eyes flickered to the movement, but she pretended to ignore it.

Kaifen thanked her for that.

“To say things with pride?”

Kaifen pulled his sleeves over his hands. He nodded.

“Mind telling that to him?”

Illarion scoffed a laugh. He leaned back in his chair, looked at the sunset through the window. Kaifen couldn’t tell if he was glaring, or simply squinting wth the sun in his eyes. The lighting turned all of him peach.

“I do say things with pride.” That was true. It was one of his few redeeming qualities. “But I don’t know what’s so prideful about coming from Zalizinch.”

The air in the room was arid and stuffed, as if all the dust who had lived there undisturbed for many moons had finally grown tired of their visitors. Nifemi was still pleading with Kaifen, her eyes screaming help me. He pressed his lips together and looked away from her.

“You know.” He fiddled with his sleeve. “He does have a point.”

The room was still once more, nothing but dust floating through sunbeams. Then, slowly, Michil leaned over the table to hold his head in his hands. Nifemi followed suit, burying her face in her hands and letting out another angry groan.

And Illarion, still looking out the window, did what Kaifen could only describe as a pout. He sighed. “Why do you only agree with me when it’s insulting?”

[pitofghosts]

Standing at the apex of their mountain, Kai Fen breathed in the wet morning air. The sky ahead of him melted from black to gentle oranges and pinks, the mountains nothing but green and grey shadows against it. Beside him, Michil shielded his eyes from the rising sun and squinted into it. From behind, the sounds of Illarion’s laboured breathing accompanied by the occasional swear could be heard.

He stumbled up to join them, and after wiping grass from his green-stained knees, he came to join them. He lowered his goggles from his hair to his face and studied the landscape ahead. Kai Fen roamed the shadows of the peaks and outcrops, of the cliffs and streams and lush, newly budded trees. The world was green and fresh and alive.

His lips parted around a shaky gasp. Words died in his throat until he managed out a single, “There.”

Michil tilted his head. “There?”

Kai Fen pointed. Nestled among stone and moss greenery was a temple. It would be easy to glance over if he hadn’t been there before, if he didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. Wood beams carved and painted in spiralling blue, orange, red, green held a roof of golden yellow. Still slick with morning dew, it dripped in honey sunlight.

“Burning Rock Temple,” he breathed.

The place Enshu made her first contact with lowly, unholy humanity. The place where she dipped her fingers and dangled her hair into the soil, let her love and knowledge spread to places that did not deserve it. Kai Fen’s ancestor, a Jin, had been the first man to know her light, her love, the weight of all the great stitched books of her infinite library. They had sat at the edge of a pool of water, Enshu in the form of a woman donned in a cape of owl feathers, and braided their hair together.

It was the holiest place of all of Enyang. Kai Fen had been there once, but was too young and far too spoiled to fully appreciate it. But now the sight of it, the thought of what lay in the mountain’s caverns, drew his breath from his lungs and his heart racing in his chest. His pilgrimage was coming to its end, and if all went well, he would commune with Enshu successfully for the first time in his life by tomorrow evening.

“That’s it,” Illarion breathed. He lifted his chin. “That’s Enyang?”

Kai Fen took a deep, shaking breath. “Yes.” That was Enyang. That was home.

Illarion’s smile bloomed until it was his entire face, his entire body. He shifted his weight from foot to foot with newfound energy and thrust his fists into the air. He let out a shout that ended in a laugh, and his energy contagious, Michil beamed and cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Hello, Enyang!” It seemed right, somehow, that he said it in Vwosi.

The two of them let out a series of excited whoops, but to Kai Fen, their voices were nothing but background noise. Ahead of him stretched nothing but Enyang, nothing but home, nothing but land where setting foot had him not just a fugitive but a traitor. He was a liar setting foot into Enyang once again. He wanted so desperately to step home clean, as nothing but himself, but he’d rather keep his death to the legal and metaphorical variety.

It was lie, or it was death.

The cold, slick unease of understanding slithered up his spine and laid its eel-like body across his neck. His upper lip twitched, and he found the fabric of his sleeves tugged between his hand and thumb.

This wasn’t the same decision his father made, he told himself. It wasn’t.

“We’re in Enyang,” Illarion was saying. “I’m in Enyang! Illarion Gabrikov! I, me, I set foot in Enyang!”

“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Michil teased. “We’ve still got aaaallll that mountain ahead of us.”

“Don’t rob me of this, Diachkovsky.”

Illarion hopped on the balls of his feet and, with a grin and an energy that seemed limitless so long as he was in the mood for it, he took off ahead of them. Michil laughed, went to take off after him, but looked back over his shoulder. His eyes, dark and friendly and sleepy and welcoming and almost always smiling, met his, and Kai Fen wanted them to be the only thing he would ever have to focus on.

But that was something left for the days in between. The days spent looking skyward and naming stars to make sleeping on ground more bearable were behind them now. The days that lay ahead could change everything. Answers to questions that defined his very existence might finally be answered.

He had to breathe.

“Kai Fen.” Michil spoke in joyed urgency. “We did it. We made it to Enyang.”

And Kai Fen made himself smile. It didn’t feel right, but he hoped it looked the part. The closest thing he could have to Saoirse being there with him was to mimic him.

“I smile when I don’t know what to say. It makes people happier and friendlier, it’s all win.”

“We did it,” Kai Fen agreed.

And even though the dead eel of trepidation coiled tighter with each step, Kai Fen followed Michil forward and into Enyang.

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[pitofghosts]

“No. It’s normal. It’s just bad luck.”

[pitofghosts]

Two more days passed, long and dull and uneventful, until they happened across a path in the woods, and following it, across a town. It was hardly anything, just houses, a temple, a small farm, a tavern, and two stores, but it was more than they’d seen since leaving Tobovo. People milled about, a few of them sparing smiles at weary travellers, but mostly, they went ignored. Kai Fen was thankful for that.

Illarion stopped as they neared the tavern. Kai Fen and Michil paused next to him, watched as he swung his bag off his back and down onto one arm. He reached inside and shuffled about until pulling out his coin pouch. “Hey Diachkovsky, what d’ya drink?”

Michil’s face lit up. “Are you buying?”

Illarion made a show of stopping short, dropping his shoulders, and raising his eyes to look at Michil. It was a look that Kai Fen interpreted as saying “Really?”

“Mmmn…. then whatever’s cheapest.” Michil shrugged. “Arak, usually.”

Illarion nodded. “I’ll grab you a bottle, tell you what you owe me.” He spared a look at Kai Fen. “You want something?”

It’d be irresponsible to buy it. He should save his money.

“Medovukha,” he sighed. “Bring me a receipt.” He didn’t trust Illarion not to rip him off.

Illarion clicked his tongue twice against his teeth. Then he was off, heading to the tavern while still trying to get his arm through the other side of his backpack. Kai Fen watched him until Michil chuckled, shook his head in what looked like amusement.

“What a guy,” he murmured. He looked down at Kai Fen. “Wanna see what’s at the store?”

The answer was not a whole lot. As Kai Fen poked through the grains and seeds and animal feeds, he tried not to be too disappointed. He shouldn’t expect a lot from places like this, but he always did. He was just so entirely sick of their food rations. It was all the same thing day in and day out and he wanted for anything different at all. He supposed the medovukha would offer some relief.

“Are you looking for anything specific?” the shop owner asked in Vwosi.

“Food,” he answered. He racked his brain for the Vwosi word for spices, ended up just sending panicked glances around for Michil until managing to catch his eye. Mercifully, he came to rescue. “Spices,” he murmured to him, and Michil translated the word to the shop owner. Kai Fen repeated the word under his breath.

Spetsii. He’d have to remember that.

Taglist (ask to be added or removed): @snowdropwrites @woodhouse-jay @leave-her-a-tome @starrywritingg @theforgottencoolkid @oscarfuckingwilde @purpleshadows1989 @writings-of-a-narwhal

[pitofghosts]

Michil Diachkovsky: Vwosi military defect, three time winner of his town’s fishing derby, and definitely not Kai Fen’s crush

[Reference]

[pitofghosts]

North Node

“He’ll be fine. I was worried I might have given him a concussion, but they won’t know that until he opens his eyes.” He turned his eyes onto Kamkim, an easy smile landing on his face. “What about you, Kamnya? How’s the face?”

Kamnya? That was cute.

“Definitely been better.” Then, after removing the ice and prodding at the skin, he chuckled. “At least I’ll have a cool bruise. And I get to tell everyone about the crazy refugee who attacked me.”

Heila frowned. “Hey.” Kamkim turned to her. “We’re not all that bad.” He looked away just as quickly, although Heila thought she might have been able to see him blush. She leaned towards him, bumping him with her shoulder. “You want more bruises, Kamnya?”

“Careful,” Michil warned. “You’re forgetting that she’s friends with the crazy refugee who attacked you.”

“That’s right.” Heila lightly bumped his arm with her fist. “Say the wrong thing and pow.”

“Are you trying to make me look cool?”

“Look cool?” Michil interjected. He rolled his sleeve up to his elbow and flexed his bicep. He shot the two of them a cheesy, cocky grin. “If you wanted bruises all you ever have to do is ask.”

[pitofghosts]

I’m sorry for so many excerpts from this scene but I didn’t think writing these three interacting would be so cute/funny