The Tattoo [Chapter 2]

[youcantseeus]

Title: The Tattoo (Chapter 2)
Disclaimer:  This is a work of fanfiction.  The characters and locations (with one or two exceptions) were originally created by Storm Constantine.  I'm just playing with them without her permission.      
Characters: Flick, Seel, Cal, Pell -- as far as pairings go, the main pairing is Seel/Flick, but there are lots of combinations of the four characters listed.

Summary:  Flick attempts to make a statement with a tattoo.  Seel is not pleased.

Author's Note:  I'm pleased to be able to post the second chapter -- thanks so much to everyone who commented on the first chapter and thanks to heartofoshun for being my beta.  You can view previous chapters under the story tag.


The Tattoo: Chapter 2
I awoke the next morning to find the desert sunlight streaming through the window and hitting my face. I rolled over and saw Pell curled up beside me. I couldn’t remember bringing him there, but I wasn’t complaining. Tousled hair and a bare chest was a good look for him. As if aware of my scrutiny, Pell’s eyes fluttered open.

“Wha - what?” he said, sitting up.

“I was having the weirdest dream,” I said. “I dreamed that we went to see a tattoo har.”

Pell looked at me, confused for just a moment. Then his mouth dropped open. “Flick … I don’t think that was a dream,” he said. He reached out and put his hand on my chest and suddenly I was aware of a pain there, like I’d been scratched.

“I - what? Oh God.” I ripped off my shirt. My chest was bandaged. Pell and I looked at one another for a moment and I wondered if my face looked as comical as his. I peeled away the bandage.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I moaned. Even upside down, I could see the small black letters. Seel’s name was etched onto my chest, just above my left nipple.

Pell reached out to comfort me, but at that moment there was a knock. “Flick!” Seel’s voice came through the door. “Open up.” The handle to the door turned. Luckily, it was locked.

“What do we do?” Pell asked in a panicked voice.

I didn’t know what I was going to do, but for the moment I threw on a ratty old T-shirt and answered the door.

Seel was standing there wearing a pair of brown leather trousers and nothing else. His hair was still unbound and cascaded down his shoulders. “Cal and I are ready for breakfast,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. Of course that would be why Seel came to my room. “I’m sort of with somehar right now, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Seel looked behind me and I looked back as well to see Pell lounging on my bed, his eyes so wide that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d fallen out of their sockets and started rolling around the floor. “It’s just Pell. I’m sure that he’s hungry too. Aren’t you, Pell?”

Pell managed a shrug. He looked supremely guilty, but Seel didn’t notice.

“You do realize that Cal and I fasted all day yesterday. We’re completely famished,” Seel said.

“Bread’s in the breadbox. Eggs are in the basket,” I told him without much sympathy.

Seel crossed his arms, lowering his eyebrows in his most intimidating glare. It was the expression that he wore when he asked hara who wanted to come to Saltrock what they would contribute to the community.

“I want pancakes,” he said.

I closed the door in his face.

“Flick!”

“Just give me a minute!” I yelled. Then, I turned to Pell. “Not a word at breakfast, okay?”

“Okay,” Pell agreed. “But when are you going to tell him?”

“I’m not.”

Seel and Cal didn’t bother to put on shirts to come to breakfast. Neither did Pell, actually. Hip-hugging leather trousers with no shirt was the fashionable look at Seel’s kitchen table that morning. I kept watching them, uneasily, as I made the pancake batter. What if they asked me to join them in their state of shirtless abandon?

Cal and Pell started sharing breath which I thought was pretty rude. I brought Cal a plate of pancakes and cleared my throat loudly. I was mortified when he reached out and grabbed my arm. “Why Flick,” he said, sarcastically. “I didn’t even see you there.”

“Let go of me,” I said, pulling away and placing the pancakes on the table in front of him.

“You look lovely today,” Cal went on as if nothing had happened. “That whole grimy blue jeans thing really works for you.” He winked at me.

I tried my best to glare at him, but I was never that good at glaring. The morning kept getting stranger. Cal had never flirted with me before. Usually, he paid very little attention to me at all. Cal was good at sniffing out trouble - I hoped that Pell hadn’t accidentally revealed too much about the prior evening when he shared breath with Cal.

Probably, though, Cal just wanted to draw me into some sort of orgy with him and the others. I wasn’t about to let that happen. Partly because it would just be too weird, but mostly because it might involve me taking off my shirt. The only thing I dreaded more than Seel’s wrath was Cal’s mockery.

Seel was in an exceedingly good mood. Once he got some pancakes in his belly, he started whistling. He walked up behind me and placed his hands on my hips. “Thank you for making me pancakes,” he said in my ear. His voice was teasing, intimate. He so rarely thanked me for anything that I suppose I should have been grateful, but I knew that his good mood was a result of a night of incredible aruna with Cal.

I pulled away ever so slightly. “You’re welcome.” I could not keep the sharpness out of my voice. Seel looked over at Cal who shrugged. Why did they have to choose today to start paying attention to me? I just wanted to go back to being quiet, invisible little Flick. At least, until I could get the tattoo removed.

“You should come to my room later,” Seel said, casually.

A direct invitation. “Pell and I have errands to run in town today,” I told him.

“We do?” Pell asked.

I gave him a significant look and placed my hand over my chest in what I hoped was a discreet fashion. “Yes. Remember?”

“Oh - oh, yeah,” Pell said. “The thing.” He downed his juice as the other two turned their eyes on him.

“What errands could you two possibly have to run in town?” Seel asked. He was suspicious. My tattoo burned a hole in my chest. Very soon, Seel would notice it. He’d somehow be able to see right through my shirt. I knew that this was ridiculous, but that didn’t help alleviate my slightly sick feeling.

“Just errands,” I said.

Cal laughed. “Okay. You two go run your ‘errands’ in town and Seel and I will stay here and run some ‘errands’ of our own.” Cal had apparently decided that “errands” was code for aruna.

Seel laughed, his suspicion dispelled. Thankfully, that was the end of the conversation.

I dragged Pell along with me to Spear’s place. Spear laughed when he saw the two of us standing in his doorway. “Sorry, no refunds,” he said. We followed him inside.

“After that shoddy work?” Pell said. “The letters are crooked!”

Spear inspected his hands. “He kept squirming. You try working on a moving canvas.” By the light of day, he was even more intimidating. I saw that the tattoos on his arms were a swirling bluish-black pattern.

“Listen, I have to get it removed,” I said.

Spear sat down in a chair. His home was filthy; garbage on the floor, dust covering the furniture. “It takes a fairly powerful magical ritual to remove them. That means you’ll need approval.”

“Approval?” My heart fell. “From who?”

“Orien is shaman.”

I tried to picture myself going to Orien and telling him that I’d gotten Seel’s name etched into my skin. I imagined that he’d be disappointed in me and would try not to show it. Orien was a good friend, but he was the last har in the world who would understand getting drunk and having somehar’s name tattooed on my chest. “No. Not Orien,” I said.

Spear grinned. “Well, the only other har who can give approval is Seel …”

“Fuck,” I said. Pell looked at me. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I repeated.

Spear grinned wider. He had a gold tooth.

“Look,” I said, wheedling, “isn’t there some way that you could just - you know - do it anyway?”

The har shrugged. “Hey, usually, I’d say no problem, but I’m not about to get kicked out of Saltrock. I like it here. And I’m already on Seel’s bad side.”

I stood up, forgetting my fear of him in my desperation. “Yeah? Do you realize how much you’ll be on his bad side when he realizes that you tattooed his damn name onto my chest?”

“I don’t think so. I think that’s your problem.”

“Look, Flick, maybe we can talk to Orien,” Pell said, taking my arm and drawing me toward the door.

“You'd better,” Spear said. “Because that thing doesn’t come off until I get the okay.”

“Would a written note work?” Pell asked, sounding like an obnoxious school child.

“Nice try, but no.”

Seel was going to kill me.

“Well, that went well,” Pell said once we were outside, walking the dusty streets of Saltrock.

I made an irritated noise.

“We could talk to Orien,” Pell went on. “Or there’s always Seel.”

I couldn’t tell Seel any of this - he’d hate me or worse - he’d pity at me. He’d tell me callously that he didn’t have those types of feelings for me and that I was an idiot. “Seel? Are you crazy?”

“No,” Pell said and then he hesitated for a moment. “It’s just … he’s not as scary as you think he is. I bet if you just talked to him, he would --”

“He would not understand,” I said. “He’d be furious. You heard him the other night. The last thing he wants is his name tattooed on somehar’s chest.”

Pell shrugged and gave me an exasperated look. “We’ll go see Orien then. We have no other choice.”

The sun was high in the sky and the heat was starting to make me feel sick. The two of us walked to Orien’s house and started pounding on the door. No har answered. Orien had a small porch with a swing. I sat down in the swing and a black and white cat immediately jumped into my lap and started purring. Pell sat down beside me and an orange cat jumped into his lap. We swung in a dejected matter for a few minutes, petting the animals. The cats at Saltrock were very insistent. If you didn’t pet them, they’d dig their claws into your leg. It wasn’t exactly pleasant to hold a big, furry cat in the hot weather.

After a while, we saw Stringer walking by the house and Pell stopped him and asked him if he knew where Orien had gone. “Oh, he’s going to be away for a couple of weeks. I think he’s looking into the illness, trying to find out if it’s spread to other tribes.” I knew that Orien could communicate over distance magically, but it sort of made sense that he’d want to get out and see things for himself.

“A couple of weeks?” I asked.

Stringer shrugged. “That’s what he said. I’d have thought Seel would have told you this.”

“No, he didn’t,” Pell said. Of course, we hadn’t exactly told Seel that we were going over to Orien’s house to attempt to wheedle him into something. “I guess that we might as well go home now, though.” Pell stood up, dumped the cat onto the ground, and took my arm.

He kept a smile frozen on his face as Stringer walked away. Then he turned to me. “You’ll have to tell Seel now, Flick, you’ll just have to.”

--- -- ---
I didn’t tell Seel. I just kept biding my time, hoping that Orien would be back soon, though I still didn’t know how I would pay for the tattoo removal. I went back to Spear and tried to bribe him, but he laughed in my face and informed me that my bribe was less than the normal cost of removing a tattoo.

I went to see Seel in his office. “I need money,” I said.

He didn’t look up from his papers, but he did snort. “Why do you need money?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

He still didn’t look at me. “Fascinating. The answer is no.”

“I seem to recall giving you quite a bit of money when I first came to Saltrock.”

When he finally looked up, his expression was exasperated. “And I seem to recall putting it to good use on things this community vitally needs.”

“Like expensive wall hangings for your house?” I gestured behind him at the colorful tapestry hanging above his head.

“You live here too,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but I didn’t get to pick out any of the furnishings. Despite the fact that it was my money.”

“Is that what this is about?” Seel asked me. “Did you see something in town that you want to buy for the house? Just tell me what it is and I’ll barter for it when I go out tomorrow.”

Something bothered me about this conversation and it wasn’t just the tattoo. There had never been a time when I’d asked Seel for a large amount of money before, but I’d always assumed that if I did, he’d trust me and respect me enough to give it to me. “It’s not something for the house.”

Seel narrowed his eyes. “Then what? Are you thinking of leaving me?”

“No! Why would you say that?”

“Why else would you need the money?”

“I can’t tell you, okay. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

Seel leaned back in his chair. “No. We can’t. The money that you gave Saltrock went into the community coffers and was spent long ago, Flick. I can give you trinkets to barter with or a little bit of cash. If you want any more, you’ll have to tell me what you need it for. Surely that seems reasonable to you.”

It did sound reasonable, but I couldn’t help but feel angry. There had been something creepy about the whole discussion. Seel wouldn’t give me money because he was afraid I might leave him - so his plan to keep me with him was to make me dependent on him for everything.

I walked out of the room. I started to think about what it might be like to leave him. Well, he was the one who brought it up.

I think that Seel must have felt sorry for upsetting me because, while he wasn’t one to apologize, he did make small, peaceful overtures toward me that evening. I hadn’t cleaned house all day and didn’t start dinner until it was almost dark, but he didn’t say anything. He sat down and ate what was put in front of him and even told me it was delicious. It wasn’t.

After dinner, he made me sit beside him on the sofa and he started rubbing my back with one hand, in an absent sort of matter. I was surprised because Cal and Pell were in the room and Seel usually wasn’t affectionate toward me in front of them. Pell kept giving me significant looks. I knew that he was wondering if Seel would find out about my tattoo.

At one point, Cal and Pell went to bed and Seel started kissing my neck. I knew I should stop him, but I hadn’t taken aruna with anyhar since the night of the grissecon and I needed it. “I haven’t seen much of you lately,” he said, his lips against my ear. “I want to fix that.” His hands moved to unbutton my shirt.

“No!” I said, pulling back, instinctively.

“Flick,” Seel said, with a sigh. “Is this still about the grissecon with Cal?”

“What? No. I just --” I took a breath and suddenly, inspiration hit. “I was just remembering when I first came to Saltrock. You lived in tent back then - remember?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So … we used to take aruna wrapped up in your sleeping bag on the floor. In the dark - no electricity and no candles. I sort of liked not being able to see you, but hearing your breathing, your heartbeat, and knowing that you were there.” I realized as I said it, that there was some truth to this statement, although I was mostly just using it as an excuse to take aruna without Seel seeing the tattoo.

“You want to be in the dark?” he asked with half a smile. “But I like looking at you and I like you looking at me. We have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“It isn’t about shame,” I said. “It is about feeling secure with somehar else.”

Seel shrugged. “Well, okay. I guess we can do it that way if you want. My room?”

I smiled at him.

Upstairs, I closed all the curtains so that even the moonlight couldn’t make its way into the room. I clawed my way to the bed and lay down. It was eerie, knowing that Seel was in the same room as me, but not knowing exactly where he was or when he would touch me. After about a minute, I felt the other side of the bed dip and I knew he was sitting beside me. I could feel energy building in my body. When he touched me, I could have died.

It was different in the dark. Not seeing his face, I didn’t have it in the back of the mind that this was the har I’d just argued with about money or dinner or housework. But I didn’t picture myself with somehar else either. There were no visuals, everything was pure feeling, sound, smell, movement. His hands and lips touched me everywhere. It seemed that he lingered a moment too long as he traced his thumb across my tattoo. I thought that the texture of the skin must have been different there. Maybe it was my imagination. I was soume that night, but I felt powerful. It was hard to feel powerful with Seel, even as ouana.

Afterwards, we lay wrapped in one another’s arms. His lips were against my neck and I could feel him smile. “You never tell me things like this anymore,” he said. “You know, things that you like in bed.”

He never asked anymore. “I guess it was different in the beginning,” I said. “You were supposed to be my teacher.”

He rubbed my back. “You can tell me, you know,” he said. “Everyhar has needs … fantasies, even.” His voice was drowsy. I would wait for him to drop off to sleep and then go to my own bed.

When I woke up, it was morning and Seel was rummaging around in his dresser. At first I felt nothing more than a sense of hazy contentment. Then, I remembered the tattoo and my hand flew instinctively to my chest before I realized that I was covered with a blanket.

Seel didn’t seem to sense anything off. “Have you seen my tan leather trousers?” he asked me, piling most of his clothes onto the floor. I’d have to pick those up later.

“I just cleaned them. They should be in the bottom right drawer,” I told him.

He looked some more. “I can’t find them. Get up and help me.”

I stayed where I was, of course. “Wear something else.”

He stood up and looked at me. “Flick! Why are you hiding under that blanket? Are you cold? Suddenly shy?” Before I could answer, he ripped the blanket away.

My hand was still covering my chest, but I could tell that he noticed something was up from the way he bit his lip. “What’s on your chest?” he asked, as if he were trying very hard to keep his voice calm.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Never mind.”

He pointed at me. “It’s not nothing. There are marks there. Or writing.” I looked down and saw that my fingers had failed to cover the better part of the letter “L”.

Figuring that it was no use lying any longer, I slowly uncovered my tattoo. Seel gasped. “Is that real?” He hadn’t exploded yet, but I could tell he was about to.

I nodded. He looked at me for a long moment. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he yelled.

I leaned against his headboard and curled my arms around my knees. “What -- did you think it would be funny?” he continued to rant. “Did you think that I’d be pleased to see that you’d gone and done something so idiotic?” I was quiet. “Answer me,” he snapped.

I shrugged. “I was drunk.”

“You were drunk? You never get drunk. When did you get that - that thing?” He gestured at my tattoo with one hand as if put off by the idea of looking at it.

“The night of the grissecon,” I said, in a small voice.

He looked at me with hard eyes. “Get up,” he said.

“What?”

“Get dressed. We’re going to get that thing removed.”

I crossed my arms protectively over my chest. “No,” I said. I had been longing to get the stupid tattoo removed since I’d got it, but now that Seel was going to make me do it, it felt different.

“Excuse me?”

“I said no. It’s my body. You can’t tell me what to do with it.”

He glared at me. “It’s my name,” he said. “You think I give a damn what you do with your body? For all I care you can tattoo ‘idiot’ across your forehead. But leave me out of it.”

I shook my head and started looking around the floor for my jeans. It was hard to dress with Seel looking at me like he wanted to stab me, but somehow I managed. Seel dressed as well and then he grabbed my arm and led me out of the room.

Cal and Pell were lounging on the sofa downstairs and they both looked at us curiously as we came into the living room. I could tell that they’d heard Seel’s yelling. I hoped that they hadn’t heard that much of it - it was humiliating to be yelled at all the time.

“What’s the problem, lovebirds?” Cal asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Seel said. “Flick just made a mistake and he’s going to fix it.”

Cal’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh really? And what sort of mistake would this be?” He was clearly intrigued. I felt heat rise to my face.

I thought that Seel, in his anger, would tell him, but he didn’t. “None of your business Calanthe,” he snapped.

We walked in silence to Spear’s house. I felt that it was a walk of shame and that hara were coming out of their small, tin houses to look at the idiot who dared to try to get too close to Seel. Of course, this was ridiculous. No har else could have known yet. But that didn’t stop me from feeling as if we were a spectacle. It had to be obvious to observers that Seel was angry, at any rate.

He pounded on the Spear’s door until he was let inside. I immediately went and sat down on the tattoo table, having resigned myself to my fate. “You have to take it off,” Seel said to Spear.

They both looked at me. Spear smirked. I didn’t understand why he seemed to find all this so amusing. “Sure. It’ll cost you, though. He gave me a silver bangle to do the thing. It’ll cost you ten times that to remove it.”

Seel glared at me. “He doesn’t have that much to spend.”

“I’ll bet you do. Unless you want him to be walking around with your name on his chest forever, then I’d suggest that find some because I can’t do it for less than that.”

Seel jerked his head back and his hair hit me in the face. He was a force to be reckoned with when he was angry. “How would you like to get kicked out of Saltrock?” he asked.

Spear crossed his arms. Nothing ever seemed to rattle him. “I was told that if I worked hard and didn’t break any of the rules that I could stay here. Are you telling me that tattooing your name on his chest was breaking the rules?”

Seel stamped one booted foot on the ground. I knew that Spear had him. Seel could act hard, but he would never throw somehar out of Saltrock for something so trivial. He certainly didn’t mind threatening it, but Seel’s bark was worse than his bite. They argued some more before Seel suddenly stomped out of the small house. I shrugged when Spear looked at me and I followed Seel.

He walked swiftly down the narrow streets of Saltrock. I caught up with him and we walked side by side for a while. “God you’re cheap,” I said, finally.

He looked at me furiously. “I wouldn’t give any other har in the community a bucket of silver to spend on tattoo removal, why should I give it to you?”

So now I was just anyhar.

When we got back to the house, Cal met us at the door. That was unusual. “Okay, let’s see it,” he said with a grin.

I crossed my arms protectively over my chest and gave Pell a look. He shrugged. “I had to tell him. He was relentless!”

“I just knew something was up,” Cal said. I walked in the direction of the kitchen in an effort to get away but Cal followed me. “Come on Flick, I’ve got to see it!” he said.

“Not a chance,” I said. I attempted to find something to cook. It was closer to lunchtime than breakfast, but I decided to fry eggs.

Cal threw himself into one of the kitchen chairs. “Seel, make him show me the tattoo,” he whined as Seel walked into the kitchen. This comment was designed to annoy both Seel and myself.

Seel sat down beside Cal, now the picture of calm -- a far cry from how he’d been a few minutes ago. “Mind your own business, Calanthe,” he said.

Cal stood up and walked over to me. He took a berry out of a bowl I’d set out and popped it into his mouth. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that,” he said. “Can I please see it?” He turned the full force of his smile on me and suddenly I wanted to do whatever he asked. Maybe that was what hara meant when they talked about Cal’s charm.

“No,” I told him.

--- -- ---
Seel avoided me for the next few weeks. We saw each other at meals, but otherwise we barely spoke. Sometimes, he would give me a furious look and I would know that he was thinking about the tattoo.

We didn’t take aruna. Once, when I was feeling lonely, I flirted with Seel after dinner. He just gave me a hard look. “Don’t even start,” he said.

“What?” I asked, blushing. Cal and Pell were still lounging around the living space. They were occupied with one another, but they both looked up at Seel’s sharp tone.

“I don’t want to have to look at that - that thing on your chest right now. It’s a real turn off, Flick.”

Cal started laughing. Pell looked from me to Seel. I stormed out of the room. Even if Seel didn’t want to take aruna with me anymore, he didn’t have to be such an ass about it. I sat down at the kitchen table, alone. It was dark, but I didn’t turn on the lights.

Pell was arguing with Seel about me. I could only hear snatches of what they were saying. Pell told Seel that he wasn’t very nice to me. Seel seemed to think that I’d brought it on myself and that he was the wronged party. Seel was genuinely disturbed by the idea of name tattoos - it wasn’t just an excuse to fight.

After awhile, Pell came in and switched on the lights. “He didn’t mean it,” he said, sitting down beside me.

“He did,” I said. I shook my head. “You and Cal must think I’m such a joke,” I said.

Pell took my hand in his. “Don’t be stupid. You’re not a joke, you’re our friend.”

Well, I was Pell’s friend, anyway. Cal did think I was a joke - he had thought it from the moment he met me. His every look seemed to mock me, to tell me that I would never have Seel in the way that he had Seel.

Pell was stroking my hand. “I wouldn’t mind taking aruna with you tonight,” he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “I had fun on the night of the grissecon.”

Pity aruna. Great. “You don’t really want to take aruna with me. You’d rather be with Cal.”

Pell shook his head. “Nah. I can be with Cal anytime. You should make Seel feel like he’s missing something. He takes you for granted because he just assumes that you’ll always be available.”

I rolled my eyes. If Pell was with me, then Cal would just seduce Seel and I’d be the furthest thing from his mind. Still, I was lonely. I took Pell’s face between my hands and shared breath with him and when he pulled away, his lips were full and luscious and his brown eyes seemed huge. Pell was beautiful and we got along so well. Really, he was my best friend. I should have been in love with him and terribly jealous that he was with Cal, but it wasn’t that way with us.

We took aruna in my room. I wondered if Seel was jealous. Probably not. Seel was above jealousy. Afterwards, I noticed that Pell’s face was forlorn as he looked out my window onto the dimly lit streets of the town. “What is it?” I asked him.

He smiled, slightly. “I have to leave Saltrock,” he said.

I sat up. “What do you mean? Why?” If Pell left the town then I would have few close friends here. I suppose that lots of hara considered me a friend, but most of them were like Colt and Stringer and were really Seel’s friends first and my friends only by association. Why would Pell want to leave? Everyhar knew that Saltrock was a safe haven.

“Orien says that I need more caste training and I won’t get it here,” Pell said. “I agree … but I like it here. And the world outside is so messed up right now from what hara say.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I had been so caught up in my stupid tattoo troubles that I hadn’t even noticed that Pell was hurting. “You shouldn’t go. Stay here for a few more years, until things settle down some more.” I didn’t know any more about the world outside than Pell. We had both been incepted at Saltrock, but we’d heard enough from older hara to know that we were lucky.

Pell gave me a half smile and I knew that he wouldn’t stay. I put my arm around him. “You’ll be fine,” I said.

He smiled, tenuously. “Yeah. I guess Cal will be around to watch out for me.”

So Cal would be leaving too. I should have realized immediately, of course. Pell couldn’t go anywhere without Cal; they were a pair. I wouldn’t be that sorry to see Cal leave, but he wasn’t the first har I’d pick to “watch out” for somehar either.

“Seel will be sorry to see you go,” I said. Seel would be devastated at being separated from Cal, refuse to admit it and then become cranky and take it out on me. I thought that maybe I should just leave him. There was communal housing in Saltrock where I could live - not anything as nice as Seel’s house, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Pell rested his chin on his knees. “I know. He’s pretty close to Cal.”

Was there a hint of jealousy there or was it just that I kept expecting it? I still didn’t think that Pell realized just how close Seel and Cal really were, but I wasn’t going to enlighten him after all this time. No matter how close Cal and Seel were, it was obvious that Seel was no competition for Pell in Cal’s mind.

The next few weeks were spent in planning for the big day when Cal and Pell were to leave. Seel was taking them as far as Greenling, a town not far from Saltrock. I would have liked to have gone to Greenling with them myself, but Seel made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t invited and I didn’t feel like arguing with him.

Pell’s dilemma seemed to be that he couldn’t bring many of the belongings that he’d acquired at Saltrock with him. One day, I tried to help him cram leather outfit after leather outfit into his duffle bag, but he couldn’t take very many clothes, not to mention his other possessions. After about an hour of packing, he sat with his belongings spread out beside him, looking at them in a dejected manner.

“Well,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “You really aren’t going to need most of this stuff traveling across the desert anyway. Maybe you should give it to Seel for safekeeping.”

Pell shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “I might as well just get rid of it. Who knows when I’ll be back in Saltrock? You keep my stuff.”

“Me?”

“Sure,” Pell said, with a shrug. “I can’t think of anyhar else I’d like to have it. He picked up a large copper headpiece that I’d seen him wear only once and held it against his hair. “I guess this is too big to take.”

“I guess so,” I said. I hoped that Pell didn’t expect me to actually wear his clothes.

As if reading my thoughts, Pell smiled. “Not really your style is it? Well, you can trade it at the market. Put it toward tattoo removal.”

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “God. That dumb tattoo. I must seem like such an idiot to you.”

“You’re not,” Pell said. I didn’t look at him so he pulled my hands away from my face. “Flick, you’re not. Someday, Seel is going to wake up and realize what he has.”

I sighed and hugged him, but I wasn’t convinced. Why would Seel wake up when it was so much easier to stay asleep?