Chapter 21: Chapter 21 – Keyhome

Feeling purged of a lifetime’s mixed resentment and yearning to belong in a place that couldn’t risk being genuine to me, I slept for more than eleven hours.

I wake up ravenous, smelling something amazing. I’d eaten a rather enormous amount of food at dinner, but I’d poured my heart and history out to my companions hour after hour during and afterwards, and then slept for a nigh-impossible length of time; sure as the Void devours, I’m hungry again.

The home that the Home Key opens into has two rooms. They’d moved me at some point from the couch to the bed without waking me up, so I can’t see what was cooking, but the door is open to let the smell in. Amber is asleep, and with a bit of regret and a long, appreciative look, I slip out of bed and into the main room.

Zidanya had cooked… something.

“It’s a traditionally-festive Temple breakfast.” She waves me to the table, smiling a little. “I find myself gladdened that this worked to awaken you.”

“I, uh.” I’m staring, but in my defense, there’s a lot to stare at. She’s dressed in a short wraparound robe, loose and comfortable-looking, rather than in something like what she was wearing at the party, or what she was wearing when she joined us last night. Still, in the soft amber light of the Keyhome her skin practically glows, and there’s a lot of her to take in between the smooth expanses of her thighs, the way the robe cinches in around her waist, and the muscles under the softness of her arms. She sashays as she walks towards me, too, which hammers the point home that looking is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. “I’m glad it worked too.” I manage to get that much out without a stammer. “New skin color?” She’d been paler, at the party, unless it was a trick of contrast with the body paint.

“Food, Magelord.” She stops just outside of arms’ reach, and nods towards the plate I hadn’t even noticed. “I’ll have your honest opinion of it, too. Though I’ll admit I’m gladdened you notice more about me than just the shape of my chest; I’ve a shapeshifter’s talents, though they’re constrained by your strength, given our bond.”

Huh. There’s a lot to unpack there, but I have something higher priority at hand: I direct my attention towards my plate. There’s two slabs of bread there, slabs that look like they’ve been soaked in something and then browned and covered in two different sauces. I cut a careful bite and blink in astonishment; there’s a dozen primary flavors competing for my attention, and it’s sweet, sweet almost to the same degree as the dessert from last night. One of the sauces is, I think, a kind of cheese, and there’s definitely egg in there, and I take another bite and a third as my body informs me that yes, this is exactly what I’m doing right now.

Zidanya spins a chair around and sits, and my eating slows down enough in anticipation of a conversation, at least a little bit.

“I had speech with the lovely Paladin, last eve, after you had enough of pouring a half-century’s sorrows into my bodice.”

“I’m… sorry?” I’m not, not really, but I can’t think of anything else to say. Part of that might be that she’s leaning over the low top of the chair, with the attendant effects, and how the way her legs wrap around the chair’s back pull the already-mid-thigh hem of the robe up higher. “I didn’t mean to, um. Monopolize the evening. Make everything about me.”

Her eyes have narrowed, and she doesn’t sound like she likes my response. “Hornets,” she says with clear displeasure, “in the weeds. How were we to know them, ere you spoke of them? My lord.”

I look away and chew methodically, a sour note in my stomach distracting me from the rich decadence of the food. “I really hope you won’t call me that too often.”

“And it’s my own hope, Magelord, that you might look at me while we speak, rather than away.”

I flush, but there’s more than guilt to the heat when I look back at her, meeting the crystalline emerald of her eyes. “Adam. I’d rather you call me Adam.”

She nods, slowly. “Adam.” Her voice is soft and gentle. “I meant no ill, mean no ill, for all that I did and will tease and make gentle fun. I know you little, and knew you then littler still, and yet it was clear that the solace you found was long-needed.”

“Yeah, well.” I don’t know what to say, so for a while, I don’t say anything. Instead, I focus on the food, transfixed by the textures and flavor. “Thank you,” I say with a sudden realization that I’d been graceless and ungrateful. “Really. For… the comfort, for caring enough to ask, for listening without judgment. Starfire, for the food, dinner and this both.”

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“I’d not say without judgment.” Her voice is just as soft as it was, but there’s no gentleness in it. It’s like hearing an oracle, prophesying about a glacier grinding down a mountain; it’s like doom and the Void coming down to walk the world. “Could I touch their world, there are a number who would smile ne’er again.”

“Then I’m glad you can’t.” I look down at the plate, and push it away with the last two-thirds of a slab of bread still on it. “Vengeance doesn’t make anything better, and that’s all it would be.”

She takes a deep breath, which does fascinating things, and lets it half-out. “She said you’d as lief die as be unkind, even to those who hurt you.”

“That seems about right.” I lever myself out of the chair and walk towards the kitchen. “Does this iteration of the Keyhome have the singleton intake?”

“Second of the bottom row of larger cabinets, counting right facing the sink.”

That’s clear enough for me to find the right place. I pull it out and slide the plate in, remaining food and all. From previous experience, I know that the food will be in a neat package in the oversized refrigerator humming away on the other side of the cabinets, and the plate will show up again at some point in the rest of the cabinets, spotlessly clean.

The Keyhome is pretty amazing, and it’s not afraid to show off, so when I check the fridge the box that the last most-of-a-slab is in has an etching of the heap of food on the side.

“Showoff,” I say, repeating my thoughts, and pat the counter. There’s a sink, soap, and a hand-towel; I busy myself for a moment washing syrup off of my mouth and fingers, enjoying the moment of domesticity, letting the inertia carry for a moment. “How much longer do we have?”

“Just shy on eight hours, though it pains me to not know for certain-sure. We’ve no connection to the Temple, in here, and neither sunlight nor marked candles to do the measuring.” She pauses, and I look over to see her smirking at me from where she’s seated. “Had you some intention for how to pass the time?” There’s a clear invitation in her voice, and I’m not so blind as to miss it, not when she arches her back like she’s doing and smiles like that.

“Runework,” I blurt out, and realize that for all the heat and the tingling desire surging through my body, it’s the truth. “Um. I… yeah, can you look over my magic?”

I blush under her gaze. Her back straightens slowly, and something shifts about her body language and posture. “Your magic,” she says, slowly.

I nod. “You know runework. Amber doesn’t; she can’t tell me what I’m getting wrong or what foundational bits I’m missing. And runework, glyphwork… it’s what I have, here. If my foundation isn’t strong, I have a problem; and it’s not.” It really isn’t, and it really is a problem; I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to pick apart scrolls and Temple glyphs and grab enough verbs to run with thus far, but luck runs out.

“You are… more practical than I had expected.” She’s smiling, so at a guess she’s glad about that. “Come. Sit back down, else you’ll leave me craning my neck.”

“Aren’t you a shapeshifter?” I grin at her, but I’m walking over to drop into the chair across from her regardless. “Seems like you should be able to just… un-crane your neck. Or crane it naturally. Or move your eyes? Wait, maybe you can’t really reroute all of the plumbing and skull shape stuff. I think I’m losing the plot here.”

She snorts in possibly the least elegant sound I’ve heard from her yet. “Easier to shift a neck than the eyes. There’s aught harder than to make a change that touches on the brain, for the mind’s root is there. And not,” she adds with finality, “in the blood, as some say. Sit, sit. The table will serve as a glyph-board.”

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