i will cut the dragon's feet

PHERES DYSSEU | 9 SWEEPS / 19 YEARS OLD

scimitar academy grounds, ghoulisar

“Okay, but you have to tell me,” Kit protests, “why are you in the fountain, of all places?”

The water here is deep enough to hit your knees. If you sit down, it brushes at your chest, right where gills would be - and you know, because you’ve been lounging around in it all evening, since the moons first came up and it was safe enough to come outside. The Scimitar Institute has a pool somewhere on campus, but the water’s chlorinated there. It stings when you swim in it.

The fountain in this abandoned courtyard is all fresh water, clear and familiar as the air above. You’d discovered early on that no one ever comes to this corner of the campus to notice you splashing around in it, and you’ve taken to lounging around in it all that you want, on the nights that you’re free. You can hold your breathe, close your eyes and just lean back in the water, letting the air stream out of your lungs one bubble at a time like you’re a pupa back in the desert.

It’s just the moonlight on your skin, the water rushing through your ears, and no around except you. You’ve sat for hours like this, coming up only as long as it takes to refill your lungs. It’s the best thing you’ve ever done, and it’s the most peaceful thing you’ve ever done; it’s only ever you out here, in this courtyard full of vines and neglect.. and Kit, when she’d finally made her way over and hauled you up with a yelp.

Now your curls are dripping streams, little thunks of droplets that pop as they hit the surface. There’s water rolling down your face, collecting on the edges of your lashes, and the wind feels like it’s dragging on every pore in your skin. Everything feels.. so much more than it usually does right now, from the pulse of the water around you as you sit here, even down to the colours of the trees hanging down around you.

When’s the last time that you felt like this?

You always feel amazing in the water. But not like this.

Kit’s waiting for a proper answer. She thought you drowned, you think, judging from the way she’d looked at you, and oh - you should be guilty, but you can’t muster anything more than this bubbling exhilaration. She’s worried you’d drown.

If you ever breathed in, would the water keep you? The idea of drowning seems so foreign to you, for all that Sipara’s feared it since the first time she’d seen you sink below the tide. It wouldn’t. It couldn’t, you think, hurt you more than the air in your lungs.

Can you drown? Lu doesn’t think you can drown. You’ve never worried about drowning, not ever, not once, and sometimes it feels like you’ve spent more time in the water than you ever have on land. Sometimes it feels like you belong here, more than you ever have on land, and maybe that thought should stick, but it doesn’t.

Rmeros drowned, but -

- when was the last time you thought about your signmate?

“I love you,” you blurt out, and, oh, you’re laughing.

(Perigees. Perigees and perigees, and you’re not him, and you don’t think you could ever drown.)

Kit blinks at you. “Oh. Oh, wow.” Another long blink, but her mouth’s creeping up in a smile, even as she hooks a hand behind her neck. Her smile keeps widening, like she can’t help it: “- um. Are you okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine. I just, ah -” Your breath catches when you exhale, all at once, but it’s not uneven. It’s as steady as it’s ever been. “I love you,” you repeat, firm, and her eyes widen. “I’m.. you’re amazing, miss London, and you’re brilliant, and.. ah. If I didn’t know you, my life would be so much more dreadful. But I do, and I love you, and I just -”

“You should know,” you say, as her fang bites into her lip, and there’s water all around you, and it feels like everything around you’s been stripped down to the things most important you; the water, and her eyes. “It’s not fair, that I ever thought you shouldn’t. Everyone should know, I think, and.. oh, it’s a shame they don’t.”

“Oh, wow, Pheres. Um. Well! I love you, first of all, and second of all, I think,” she says, wry, “maybe you’re being a little silly, but -” and then you’re reaching up to tug her in. Hooking your hand around her head, you tug her down, and she laughs right in your face, half a protest - then she’s falling forward anyway, one hand braced against the bottom of the fountain as her feet catch on the edge.

The kiss is clumsy. It’s stupid. Her nose bumps into yours, her teeth clinking against yours, and - oh, it’s nothing like your books, or the movies, or anything even close to dignified. It’s silly, and soppy, and it’s her, in a way that sends warmth pulsing through you. It’s Meukit, in a thousand different ways you could never even try to explain, and it’s..

.. you, really. It’s the both of you, through and through.

“Okay, um - I’m sorry, but we’re not going to drown in here,” Kit finally says when she pulls away. “And I think, if we stay, that’s what’ll happen.” This is such a dreadful position the both of you are in: her half-sprawled into the water and half-sprawled over you, one arm hooked around your neck like that’s the only thing keeping you from sinking in entirely. Her lips are blue as she beams at you, slightly chapped along the edges. The cerulean in her cheeks is blotchy, as uneven as the colour in her eyes, and with the way you’ve ruined her hair, she looks seven.

A sweep ago, you’d have died before you ever dated someone as young as seven. “And, um -” And she even sounds seven, a laugh catching at the edge of her voice, the slightest edge of an adolescense’s break: “- neither should you.”

When you titter, your voice blurring into hers, you don’t sound much older. If someone looked at the two of you, half-toppled in the fountain, water dripping from your clothes and red and blue all over, they might not even know you’re much older than seven -

But you aren’t, and for once, the thought doesn’t make you want to peel away layers until you’re something better.

If you were a cusp - if Lu is right - then maybe things would be different. Maybe Kit wouldn’t be in the water with you, water dripping down her chin, her brows knit like you’re the stupidest person she’s ever met, her mouth twisted like you’re the best person she’s ever met.

But Kit loves you right now, and you think she’d love you regardless.

“Maybe I wouldn’t drown,” you offer, bright, rubbing your nose against hers, and her fingers are cold when they lace through yours, but her grip’s strong.

“Maybe not,” she says, warm, as she pulls you up, “but let’s not try it out.”

You think you could love you, too.

You kick at the furrows in the ground where his horns scraped, dubious, and he laughs.

When Kit had offered to teach you how to dance, this is not what you’d imagined. You’d pictured the cleared floor of his hiveblock, with open windows and music and just enough alcohol to make things more entertaining then mortifying. You’d brought the alcohol, even!

Now it rests morosely in the shadow of the hivestem, with sand collecting on the bottles rims. You’d barely been past the central archway when Kit had tumbled down the stairs. “Pheres!” he’d said, beaming, and you hadn’t the heart to stop him when he’d hauled you around back instead.

(And when he turned to look at you, just to make sure it was fine - well, you hadn’t the heart to correct him then, either.)

It’d taken one look at the courtyard, milling with lusii doing their best to crop the scraggly weeds lower, to decide you’d rather do this sober. It isn’t as if it’s been hard! You can do the.. waving, and the hip-pivotting, and all the other things Kit’s shown you. They don’t take skill, really, and you know how to dance, no matter what Emerel says. (No matter what Sipara says: as if she’s got room to talk about elbows, when she leads everything with her damn hips.) You’ve been able to perform all the moves, with only the slightest mis-steps.

Until now. Your palms are resting flat on the ground, and your horns, uncapped, are scarce inches from the sand. That isn’t the problem, though, not really. The problem is in how the ground is tipping up at you, and your horns are doing their best to drag you down to meet it.

“That’s why you keep your chin up! But, uh.” Kit rubs at his neck, his grin lopsided. “If you don’t want to,” he says, “you don’t have to! We can just -”

“Oh, no. You’re not escaping your offer that easily, I’m afraid,” you say, glancing up at him. The way he brightens is gratifying!

It almost wins out over your uncertainty. Almost. There’s a crick in your neck that’s only getting worse with each passing moment you stand like this. “I said I’d try it, didn’t I? But. Ah.”

“You’re not going to let me fall, are you? Because,” you say slowly, “I’m willing to try, but, ah, I’m not especially keen on falling on my face.”

“That seems a little painful, Kit. And perhaps cracking a horn or two is perfectly fine in your case - which isn’t to say you should, mind, they’re lovely, it’d be a dreadful waste - but I’ve got two sets of horns to hit on the way down. In addition to my nose.”

The thought makes you pull up. It’s a relief! But you can’t even pay much attention to that, not when you’re reaching up to your face, distressed.

“I can’t fall and break my nose, can I? Is that a risk, if I fall? Because I don’t have anything to set it, Kit, and I don’t want –”

He catches your wrist. “I promise I won’t let you fall,” he says, seriously enough that you almost miss the mocking quirk to his grin. “I’ll hold your legs the entire time. Okay?”

When you nod, he moves his hand to your neck. It’s less of a push and more of a suggestion, but you bend all the same. “It’s just like a flip, but you’re holding still. You can do it!”

“But if you can’t,” he says, glib, “then I’ll let you kick me in the face. How’s that?”

Then he grabs your knees, and lifts.