84 — Dearest Friend

“I never actually considered what a raven could do to a man! Sheam, they’re terrifying! And that’s to say nothing for the hounds, which came as no surprise, of course, but that horse! Emmett is… incredible.”

We were back on the rooftop terrace of the cantina, having an evening drink in the hours before sunset. Nate was speaking so quickly I could scarcely keep up. It had been two full days and a half, and they couldn’t stop thinking about their solo adventure. I didn’t blame them.

I, on the other hand, couldn't stop thinking about how much Emmett’s nurse — my nurse, now — would scold me for being out of bed and on my feet. I was very thankful to Emmett for loaning me his favorite crutch. 

I had to, though. I had enjoyed my lazy day with my family yesterday. Now, I had a Circle to run. I wasn’t well enough to return to it, but I had a com’ask, and had covertly bargained with Nate to have some of my binders and dossiers delivered to my sickbed.

“So what you’re saying is,” I began, ”You’re glad Emmett is on our side? Is this an, I told you so, or?”

“Oh, goodness, my dear friend, I recall that conversation very differently. Wasn’t it you who convinced me to give Emmett a chance?”

I laughed, but then cried out in pain. “Fuck, this rib,” I complained. “Stop being funny, Nate! I can’t tell if you’re teasing me or genuinely misremembering. No, you liked Emmett, but hated Greg. I think that—” I winced from pain again. “You know what, it doesn’t matter.”

They smiled. “Indeed… and worry not, I shall take great pains to be absolutely humorless for the duration of our interactions.” They winked.

I scrunched my nose up. “Speaking of humorless topics — any intel on Jossimer?” I asked, cautious against ruining the mood, but needing to know.

“Well, his mansion is deserted. Not a whiff of entourage on the premise. However, I must say, it doesn't appear that they were taken off guard. If they had all de-manifested at once there would have been something amiss. A job half done, a broom left dropped to the floor. I suspect that the Benefactor used his apparent death as an opportunity to go into hiding. For what purpose? I can't yet say. But, we shall remain watchful.”

I took a long breath to settle my nerves. “Hopefully it's a cover for him to distance himself from the delegation, but I doubt it.”

“Speaking of that man's knack for survival…” Nate craned their neck, looking over my plethora of bandages, face crossed with concern. “I don't understand why you make yourself suffer, Sheam. You too can project yourself into a new body. Why keep this damaged one?”

“And be like the Benefactors?” I replied harshly. 

Nate seemed immediately taken aback. “Ah, I am sorry — I had forgotten that—”

“No, I’m sorry for snapping at you,” I said pleadingly, and then took a deep breath.

I had already tried to explain, badly, to Kaite. She didn’t really understand, but did understand that it was important to me, and relented. Then she made a joke about putting more of her blood into me.

“I can’t stop thinking about it, ever since Delphiné told me how the Benefactors lived forever. I can’t stop thinking that every time I make a new body for myself, that’s another potential Flo, or someone entirely different, I am snuffing out of existence to inhabit their vessel. It sickens me.”

“Sheam, dear friend, that is not how it works,” they said urgently.

I wanted to shoot back with, how would you know? But I stopped myself. I took a long breath instead.

“Living beings, like Flo, and Jaegré before her, manifested through their progenitor's intention that they have the potential for self actualization. Randall had done it by accident — you on purpose. The yous that you have thus far created were all done so with the intentionality of being you.”

I let out a breath. “How can you be so sure?”

Nate smiled apologetically. “I suppose I can’t be. I can only speak from experience, and observation. Please, Sheam, do not feel you are somehow a murderer for conjuring up a new set of flesh, bones, and organs for yourself.”

I softened. “Honestly, I think it’s more than just the fear of being like the Benefactors. I've grown… attached to this body? We've been through a lot. I think I want to keep it for a while, as long as I can, anyway.”

“Promise me, if you’re ever in immediate mortal danger—”

“If what Delphiné said is true, I won’t be able to help it. It’s a sort of involuntary reflex, I guess?” I took a drink, and added with a grin, “You know, being a bit banged up gives Emmett and me a lot to talk about, and I like talking with Emmett.”

Nate seemed to surrender, but I continued to ramble on. “Kaite says I am going to have some absolutely stunning scars. I just hope she doesn’t go out and get a few more of her own to keep up. She and I have also been brainstorming ideas for a cane, should I find that I need one. I’d want something a bit fancier than average, you know? It has to match the top-hat. Also, Rémi has certainly raised the bar on ostentatious looks, hasn’t she? I need to keep up.”

They had grown quiet, rolling their empty beer glass between their fingers. I sensed that they weren’t listening.

“Still with me, dear friend?” I prodded.

“Yes!” they began with a start. “I— uh, yes. I had been meaning to ask, do you want to talk about what happened with Del—”

“Nope!” I said definitively, and then stared out anxiously over the rooftops of Rivton. “I intend to bottle up this traumatic experience forever. I am sure that won’t have any long term consequences for my mental wellbeing. Yes, that is absolutely my plan.” I then took one last gulp, finishing my drink.

Nate was chuckling. “Very well, very well, my dear,” they said, and then glanced at the stairs which lead down to the bar. “I suppose they’ve forgotten about us. My round?”

I nodded. “Yes. Actually, when you’re back, there is something I wanted to ask you about, if you’re up for it. This is also a sort of, may I ask you a question, type deal. Say no, if the answer is no.”

“How could I not be devastatingly intrigued? Very well, I shall return promptly!”

They kept their promise, and two fresh, tall pints were on the terrace rail table. “So? Ask, ask!”

I smiled softly, and began gently, but with a bit of whimsy. “So, the mustache — you used to fuss over it non-stop. Then, poof. Next, I noticed Tony calling you Nat. Very cute. Jaegré is acting like he knows what's up, but won’t say a word. So, I’m going there — I’m curious. What’s up?”

“Ah!” they exclaimed anxiously, taken completely off-guard. “Clearly you’ve had enough, I’m returning these to the bar!” They made a big show of bringing our two glasses of beer back downstairs, only to stop short, turn around, and return to their stool, face red, and warm with an awkward smile.

“Like I said, you don’t need to say any—”

“Certainly, people as close as Tony and I are, we always end up shortening one another’s name, right?”

“Right, but if I may make a pedantic observation,” I said with a glimmer in my eye, “Nat isn’t really any shorter than Nate when you say it out loud.”

“If we’re getting pedantic now, I am afraid I can no longer hold back. Sheam, my word, there are far too many ex-sounds in the name Luxexumbra! It is a phonetic travesty!”

I snorted, and stifled a laugh, nearly getting beer into my nose. “Nate, no longer hold back, my ass. That's literally the first thing you said to me when I pitched the name to you. Since when are you not an unrelenting pedant?”

I let them laugh for a moment, and felt their anxiety slipping away. Still, I wanted to offer them an out. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe I was pushing too hard. “Like I said, no explanation needed. Just let me know the name you’d like me to use.”

They took a long drink. “Oh, goodness, Nat, I suppose? That way you don’t need to twist your sentences into knots trying to avoid rhyming my name with Kaite’s—”

“Oh yeah? What happens if Kaite begins going by Kat?” I confronted, grinning.

“Oh no — has she said she was goin—?”

“No, it’s a joke, silly goof,” I said, tapping their nose.

They stared off at the horizon for a moment, like I had been doing. They looked anxious, but happy. They seemed to try to say something several times, and after several false starts, they went with, “It is short for something, but it’s not Nathan.”

I just smiled, watching them. They seemed to be waiting for me to say something. “May I ask what it is short fo—”

“Natalie,” they shot in quickly, hand covering their beet-red face. 

I slipped off my stool and wrapped them in a big, tight hug. “Nice to re-meet you, Natalie — my dearest, oldest friend.”

 

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SHEAM 

the epilogues

seven such tales

and now, at long last, our truest selves

by Dana Nightingale

 

 

 

 

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Natalie was crying quietly, and trying to say something, but getting all choked up. I held them for a moment before letting go, slipping back up onto my stool, and giving them a moment longer.

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” they began.

“Not a thing to be sorry about!” I corrected. “You talk about it when you’re ready to talk about it. Hell, how long did I spend unable to tell you that I was Sheam?”

“It’s just, I was so awful when you were trying to tell me, but also, you’re kind of… oh fish — a role model?”

“On how to get a cry in at least once a day?” I said with a broad grin. It took all of my strength to not laugh. I could only stand so much pain today.

“You know what I mean!” They insisted. “And Emmett, too. Oh, goodness — Jaer is a child, and he came to it as if it was the most logical thing in the world! You all seem to have figured out exactly who you were so quickly. And then there’s me, so proud of my quick wit, and yet I’m so confused.

“And I hate feeling confused! I am used to having all of the answers. I am used to getting there before everyone else. You called me out on it once, remember? If I am not the most quick witted person in the room, I don’t know who I am.”

“It sounds to me, like you’re Nat.” I said, and kissed their forehead.

They laughed. “Yes, but, am I a woman? I am quite sure I am not a man — but am I something else? I don’t know. I don’t know how to know.”

“This is something you and I can spend a lot of time talking about,” I said, rubbing their shoulder. “Emmett too. But right now, our drinks are getting warm. Let’s toast to being Natalie, and figuring it out slow.”

We did just that.

After a long drink, more words came. “I’m still only attracted to men,” they blurted out. 

I choked, and winced, unable to contain the laugher that was sending pain coursing through my cracked rib. “Fuck! Nat! What— I mean, of course you would be! Why wouldn’t you—”

They winced apologetically. “I just thought… you know I harbored quite the feelings for you, once upon a time. And Tony… he used to also say the same; only attracted to men. So when I told him, honestly quite by accident really — it happened during the confinement period. Well, by accident I mean I got very drunk one night.”

They took a breath to steady themselves.

“I told him and I was terrified that it would be over. Just like how — goodness it feels so awful to say it like this — just like how I was no longer attracted to you in the same way after you became, well, the you that you are now.”

“And thank goodness. Nat, I am pretty sure having a third girlfriend would actually kill me.” I said with a satisfied grin. “But, go on.”

“Well, Tony said, ‘forget the whole, only attracted to men, thing.’ He said he couldn’t imagine not feeling attracted to me, no matter what I went by, no matter what I looked like.”

I quietly put an arm around Natalie and squeezed their far shoulder. “That is so incredibly sweet, and so like Tony. Take it slow. Don’t put any pressure on yourself, or on him. Things come as they come. It’s all about changes, right? That’s what people like us do.” 

Natalie nodded. “We change.”