I’ve launched The Ikessar Falcon twice now, and the resounding screams have only increased with each one. The book is relentless and breathless (for some very good reasons) and sometimes I feel bad. And Book 3 is about eight months away which is so much longer than the wait between Book 1 and 2, so…
Here’s my peace offering: a nice, fluffy short story to help cure book hangovers from The Ikessar Falcon.
This segment happens way back in Book 1, when Tali was hiding from Lo Bahn with the Lamangs right after everything turned to shit but before things become significantly much more shitty. There are no spoilers but from an emotional standpoint, it’s probably better to read The Ikessar Falcon first. There’s a certain reveal and it works so much better when you learn it there first. It’s–huh, I don’t want to say it’s canon since obviously it’s never referred to in the books and maybe it makes no sense plot-wise since they had other priorities then. But we do know that Khine and Tali have a certain chemistry, so this could very well have happened. I’ll leave it up to you to decide. 😉
(And if you’re a sucker for pain just skip reading this until you’ve read Book 3.)
Without further adue…adew? ADO…
A Basket of Kittens
“There’s a basket of kittens floating under the bridge,” Khine declared as he walked through the door. “If someone comes with me to help, I think they might still be there.”
Tali blinked at him.
“Khine,” Thao called from the kitchen, “no.”
“We have the space.” Khine indicated the flat with a sweep of his hand.
“We sleep on the floor back-to-back,” Thao hissed. “You are not adopting any more cats.”
“Why the hell not? They can sit on your head.” Khine turned to Tali and flashed her his sweetest smile.
The woman was immune to his charms. “Oh, no,” Tali replied. “I’m not walking into this one. Your sisters have been far too generous to me.”
“But I’m the one who brought you in.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Lord that over my head now, won’t you?”
“I’m the kind of man who uses every advantage to his disposal.”
“And I’m the kind of woman who doesn’t forget a slight, so how about we call it even?”
“Please?”
There was the resounding snap of a carrot being cut in half. The carrot was in Thao’s hands.
“You heard her.” Tali gave her own, grim smile in return.
The immunity only went one way, and he sighed. “What if we just save them?” Khine asked. “We don’t have to take them home. We can just fish them out of the water and then find them a safe spot.”
“I’ve heard this one,” Thao said. “Save them, and then you’re going to say the one with the spot on her cheek is just the cutest, but if we take only one the others will get lonely and—”
“When have I ever done that?”
“Every few months since we moved here!”
He stared at one woman and then the other before sighing. “Very well,” he said, using the saddest voice he could muster. “I guess I can go save them myself.”
“If you drown while doing that, don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” Thao grumbled. “Think of what Inzali will say. You know she won’t shed a single tear.”
He shuffled into his sandals, strode down the staircase, and returned to the street. Just as he was about to sigh a second time, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around to see Tali standing there.
“She sent me to watch you,” Tali said.
He gaped at her. “Ingrate,” he finally mumbled.
She crossed her arms. “I don’t make the rules, Lamang.”
“We’re just saving them,” he said, tapping his chest. “I promise. I’m not planning to sneak one or two in my pockets or anything, even if they are the perfect size for it.”
“Now, if those were puppies…”
“Heartless,” Khine replied. “You’re so heartless.”
They reached the edge of the riverbank. Khine strained his ears and caught the faint mewling coming from the bridge. “They’re still there,” he said brightly. He went running to the edge and peered down. He could see where the basket was caught on the rocks below. “I can’t reach them, and the current’s too strong from the bank. I need someone to hold on to a rope or something so they don’t get washed away when I loosen the rocks.”
“A rope with a hook,” she mused.
“Now you’re talking my language,” he beamed.
“Are you still going on about those damn cats?” a woman called from the other end of the bridge.
Khine rubbed the back of his head and sauntered over to her. She was stirring a jar of fruit juice with tapioca pearls. As he arrived, she scooped juice into a bamboo cup and handed it to him. “Save those, and someone will come by tomorrow with another litter to drown,” she said. “You can’t get them all.”
He thanked her with a quick nod and then turned around to hand Tali the cup. “Would you lend us a rope, dear mistress? We’ll give it back.”
“And a hook,” Tali added, after an initial sip of the juice.
“And a hook,” Khine repeated, with less humour. “If you have any lying around. I can understand if you don’t.”
The vendor reached under her cart and placed a coil of rope and what appeared to be an implement of torture. “The blade is for harvesting grain,” she said, to his look of horror. “My husband is a farmer and I keep it around to protect myself.”
He swallowed. “It works. I felt my insides shrivel up as you spoke.”
“Hurry up and don’t chip it.”
Tali returned the empty cup to the vendor, picked up the blade, and tested it with a swing that was entirely too fast for a woman still recuperating from her injuries. The vendor let out a cackle.
“Gods,” he said, jumping out of the way. “Be careful with that. We’re rescuing kittens, not eviscerating a grown man.”
She gave him an innocent look. “I don’t see any around.”
He grabbed her by the wrist to stop her from cutting him into ribbons and bent over to whisper in her ear. “Really? You’re going for the low blows?”
“I needed to pay you back for the heartless comment,” she said, all sweetness and venom. His insides knotted and for a moment he thought he’d lost all strength in his knees. He watched as she drew back from him to tie the rope around the sickle. Sunlight danced on her hair.
Khine grumbled something under his breath so he could resist the urge to touch it and walked back to the bridge. The kittens were still there, meowing their heartaches for all the world to hear. They provided the appropriate distraction. “We’re going to get you,” he told them.
Tali scoffed behind him. “As if they’d believe you. Move aside.”
“I think there’s space over there if you just—”
She swung the rope and sickle in a circle around her head and flung it under the bridge before he could even finish his thoughts. He screamed. He thought the kittens had stopped meowing and he was afraid to look.
He held his breath for a second. The meowing started again, with increased ferocity.
“I got the basket,” she said. She gave him a look. “Did you think I was going to harm them?”
“I thought they were mincemeat. How did you learn that, anyway?” he asked.
“Sometimes, you get bored, and…”
“You start to throw sharp objects around?”
“I guess you can say that.”
He leaned over the railing again. The sickle was embedded right into the side of the wicker basket, which wasn’t quite enough to dislodge it from the rocks. Tugging it too hard might tear the side of the basket. “Don’t pull too much,” he warned. “We don’t want them tumbling out. I suppose it’s time for me to make my way down there.”
“Remember not to drown,” Tali remarked as he walked back to the street to find a way to the riverbank. “Your sister’s orders.”
“I’ll try to spare her the inconvenience,” he replied through gritted teeth.
The river was swollen to twice the size it normally was, and the resounding roar of the current made his ears tingle. He wiped his face from the spray of water and tried to spot the basket near the rocks. The boulders were very big—there was no clear path to get to the kittens. He couldn’t even hear their meowing from where he stood.
He picked up a stick and tested the water. It was deep. He couldn’t feel the bottom.
“Hey Khine,” Tali called. “You alive?”
“The current’s really strong!” he replied.
“Khine?”
She couldn’t hear him. He sighed and decided the safest way was up the boulders after all. He made a running leap and made it halfway to the top of the biggest one before sliding down. “Shit,” he said, hoping he wasn’t making a spectacle of himself. He didn’t think this would take as long as it was proving to be.
He tried to jump on the boulder again and managed to awkwardly pull himself up. “That’s not so bad,” he began. He glanced up to where Tali was. “If you just hold on for another second—”
His foot slipped.
He didn’t realize what was happening until he felt water all around him. He had fallen straight into the Eanhe. The fear of the current took over his revulsion—in three breaths, it had taken him several lengths down. He started trying to swim forward, but three strokes in and he realized it was going to take all his strength just to get back to the bank.
There was a crash. He was under the river, and Tali had jumped into the water to get him. That was the last thing he remembered.
When Khine opened his eyes again, he was on a sandy bank and there was meowing all around him. He immediately sat up. Tali was lying a few feet away, unconscious, the basket of kittens clasped firmly in one hand.
He shuffled towards her. The first thing he did was count how many kittens there were in the basket. They were all still there. At the sight of him, they all fell silent and stared back at him, wide-eyed. One—a black kitten with white mitts—began to spit at him.
“You’re welcome, you little bastard,” he grumbled, poking the cold, wet nose. He finally turned to Tali. For a moment, he feared the worse. He pressed his fingers against her neck and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt her pulse.
He started to wake her, and then hesitated. She looked so peaceful while sleeping—a far cry from how haunted she seemed when she was awake. He resisted the inclination to smooth the hair on her face. That really wasn’t the sort of thing you did to unconscious women, especially women you just met, especially married women. He had values, too. At least he thought he did. Sometimes, when he looked at her, he couldn’t remember them. A part of him felt like he had known her forever, which was…disconcerting. What the hell was he doing? He thought he’d sworn to himself he would never let another woman make him feel this way and here he was acting like a lovesick boy. You would have thought the cold river water would have driven it all out of you, you idiot. Get ahold of yourself.
A drop of water fell from his hair and onto her forehead. Her eyes opened. She narrowed them.
“Did you just drip sewer water on me?” she asked.
“You are soaked in it,” he reminded her. “You jumped into the river, after all.”
“Because someone was stupid enough to fall into it.”
“That? I did that on purpose.”
She slowly removed her fingers from the basket.
“I’m impressed you held on,” he observed.
“Well, I dislodged them after I jumped, and seeing as to how we took all this trouble to save them in the first place…” She grew serious and quickly peered into the basket with a shadow of concern. “I hope we didn’t lose one.”
“No. We still have all five. Like I said. Very impressive.”
“How far did we travel downriver?”
He looked around. They weren’t in Shang Azi anymore, but the streets looked familiar. “Not that far,” he said. “It’s not a long walk from here.”
“Then let’s pour the kittens on the street and walk back.”
He looked at her, aghast. “Pour—you just don’t pour kittens—”
“You still really want to bring them home?” she asked.
“Look at these little guys. They’re not going to survive a day out there.” He picked up the basket and tickled the calico one with his finger.
Tali sighed. “As long as you explain to your sisters.”
“They’ll give in. They always do.”
They walked down the road side-by-side. Even though she walked about a foot away, his heart started pounding.
Don’t even think about her, he told himself. Think about how you’re drenched and stinking of sewer water. Think of ugly things. Warts. Boils. Lo Bahn.
They passed by a small stream feeding into the river. There was a laundry pump right next to it, set right over a stone platform where people could wash clothes and then beat them on the ground to dry. It was too late in the day and no one was doing laundry. “Might as well wash up here,” he said. “If we came in looking like this, my sisters will laugh.”
“I think that ship has sailed,” Tali replied. But she walked up to the platform and inspected the pump. “How do you…work this thing?”
He grinned. “Just sit under the spout,” he replied. “I’ll take care of the rest. Look, someone even left soap.”
It was her turn to give him a look of disgust.
“Beggars can’t be choosers. Go sit there and take care of that filth.”
Dubiously, she did as he asked. He spat on his hands, rolled up his sleeves, and started to crank the lever. The smell of iron clung to his nostrils. After a few moments that felt like minutes, he started to sweat, and clean water began to pour out.
He turned his gaze away as she washed her hair. Lo Bahn, he thought to himself. Lo Bahn doing a dance, with silk scarves. It really was working.
“Did you think of names already?” she asked, out of nowhere.
Of our children? “I’m sorry?”
“The kittens. They need names.”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I guess you can call the black one Mittens.”
“What about Ranger?”
“Dumpling.”
“Hunter.”
“Sprout.”
“Falchion.”
“What the hell is a falchion?”
“It’s a kind of Kag sword.”
He started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye. “Nothing, I just…”
She got out from under the stream and held the soap out to him. “Your turn,” she said.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“How hard can it be?”
He cranked the lever a bit more. “It’s already started, so just keep the momentum,” he said, before grabbing the soap from her hand and diving under the stream. He wasn’t sure if she could maintain the flow.
To his surprise, she kept it up. He took off his shirt, worked the soap up to a lather, and quickly began to scrub himself. The part where they fell, thankfully, wasn’t the worst the Eanhe had to offer. There were sections near the marketplace that were downright disgusting.
“This isn’t so bad,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“Out here. You make it sound like it’s the worst place in the world sometimes.”
“Between the thieves and the filth and the lack of opportunities…”
“I know,” she continued. “It could be better. And you deserve better. I didn’t say you don’t. But look at that sunset.”
He pushed the hair out of his face and gazed at the horizon. The orange sunlight was reflecting right off the river’s edge. He wasn’t sure he saw what she did, but then she sighed, and suddenly it felt…like he could stare at it longer. Just a little longer, in the hopes he would get close to seeing the world with her eyes. He wanted to sink into the feeling.
The kittens began to meow again.
He stepped out from under the stream and turned to washing his shirt. He wrung the filth out before shrugging it back on. She gave a soft smile, picked the basket up, and walked up the path. “I do think we have names for all of them now,” she said.
“Falchion, Sprout, Hunter, Dumpling, and Ranger?” he asked.
“Or Mittens.”
“I think he’s a Ranger,” he said, peering down into the basket to pick the hissing kitten up. He peered under the tail. “Or she, as it happens. What do you know? You ready to go home, Ranger?”
She spat at him.
When they got back to the street where he lived, he saw Thao standing right outside their door, guarding it with a broomstick. “I knew it,” she said, staring at the basket in his hands. “I knew you wouldn’t listen to reason, so I found a solution that would make us all happy.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Thao whistled. Children appeared from further down the street. There were maybe a dozen in total, or more, all various ages. He recognized their neighbours.
“Oh no,” Tali exclaimed. “She’s hired an army to take you down.” She sounded anything but concerned.
He turned to her, mouth agape.
“I mean—to tickle you to death? I don’t know, but you’re on your own, Lamang.” She kicked her shoes off at the front door and disappeared up the flight of stairs.
“Thank you for the help,” he called. He turned back to Thao. “Now, can you explain what this is all about?”
“They’re here for the kittens,” she said. “I knew you were going to save them no matter what, so here—they’ll get homes and we can all sleep soundly tonight. Make sure there’s only one for each family, Khine, and no more, you hear? I don’t want their mothers making a scene.”
He sighed. “Can I keep at least one?”
“When you get a job,” she said evenly.
He set the basket of kittens on the side of the road and strode forward. “All right children,” he exclaimed. “Line up, and I’m going to start asking questions. I want to make sure these kittens go to the right home. And then maybe afterwards we can ask the nice lady here for some snacks. Do you know she makes the best deep-fried plantains in all of Anzhao?” He turned to Thao and gave her a lopsided grin.
“I’ll go and make some,” she grumbled. “But no more cats, you hear me?”
“I love you too, dear sister.”
“Go to hell, Khine.”
He laughed. The children cheered.
All things considering, it was probably one of the best afternoons he’d had in the city.
