Heaven is Other Roko INA part 3

The master instructed Shari to dress for the occasion, and so he did, with the best piece of clothing he could scrounge up but which still fit his small frame. It was a cloak that folded into a robe, dyed solid black. It did not have true sleeves; rather the fabric was folded under the sash in order to give the appearance of sleeves. Besides it, he only wore a fresh shenti, because even the night was hot and he wasn't the sort of idiot who would overdress, even for an important occasion.

They walked through the main dining hall, which rang with all the noise and smells that generally accompanied dinner. The hall, filled with a rich warm glow from the heating coils and the overhead chandeliers, was divided into four quadrants, and each quadrant was divided by long serving tables. The centers of these tables had wide pathways for the servers and cooks to walk through, to deliver and refresh all the various kinds of dishes on that dinner's menu. The pathways joined in the middle, which contained elevators that went both up to the kitchens and down to the pantry.

Tonight, the dining hall was packed to the rafters as every one of the two thousand seats were filled by roko who were chatting boisterously or playing board games, or inappropriately running down the aisle to deliver some message to someone they were not seated next to. Some of them may have even been eating. Shari laid his ears down flat and covered them as they passed through; he hated all the noise that accompanied dinner. He could hardly even bear the mingling of food smells, which was some pervasive starchy-fatty amalgam that made his stomach hurt. Usually, he sat alone in the study outside the archive, reading a book; it was part of his routine and he always had trouble when deviating from it.

He found to his initial relief that the place he would be dining, though not completely private, was in the cordoned ring surrounding the central tables, reserved for important discussion of business or politics (not that he desired to engage in either). The area had a low ceiling compared to the dining hall's high vault, and some trick of magic or acoustics caused the noise of the central tables to merely drop to a dull roar. On the other side, an open window let in fresh air and gave a view of the outer hall and the south side of the castle.

They approached a table near to the south-side entrance with two benches occupied by four reynar, three female and one male. The reynar wore non-uniform, though not entirely informal clothing. The male was in a blue sarong, now matched by a silk kerchief around his neck. He turned at their approach.

"Hey!" Said Prince Oda with a mouth full of something, "I know you!"

"Ticks and fleas!" Shari swore. The master smacked him across his ears. Shari winced, and rubbed his head.

"Your highnesses!" The master said, "This is Sharikola, the one I told you about."

Shari bowed at the waist. The reynar, despite being royalty, all stood and bowed in return.

"Now Shari, these are the new representatives of the Lower Court--if you'll remember, Prince Ruliriro was recalled two weeks ago for more important work in the Flying City."

Despite living in the castle of New Haven's capital, Shari did not keep up with politics. He had hardly realized Ruli had been here, much less was already gone, so for all he knew these four had been in New Haven since he first arrived.

"Shari, this is Prince Oda, who ah, knows you?"

"I . . . ran into him on the way to class," Shari said, wincing.

"It's a good thing too, I was half afraid we'd be dining with a stranger!" Oda said, grinning like a mad dog and waving, as though to get Shari's attention. Shari sighed, looking up to his master with a thought of do I really-- and when his master glared at him, he gave a curt bow in return.

"I should remind your highness," Shari said as he stood back up, "our encounter didn't last more than thirty seconds."

Oda grinned, though that was the sole expression that had been on his face since he saw Shari. "Well you're not a stranger now, are you?"

The reynar to his right, who wore a breastplate of steel red-painted armor even at the dinner table, swatted Oda on the nose. It was more symbolic than a real blow, but that at once put Shari at ease. Oda winced and rubbed his nose.

"Shari, this is Princess Leitorato," the master said, furrowing his brow disapprovingly.

Leito did not bow, as was custom, but saluted, banging a fist against her breastplate. "Young historian," she addressed.

Shari felt mixed. He enjoyed military style; in fact he desperately wanted to make such an impression on her that he started to raise his hand, but he changed his mind out of last-moment anxiety and bowed.

"Across from Oda is his twin sister Zureiti," the master said.

Zure did not look precisely like Oda; she looked much more well-kept. Unlike him, her bright-eyed demeanor did not seem to reveal some kind of distressing neurosis, and unlike his messy sarong, she wore a full, clean kimono with a scarf, toned green instead of blue. For being a reynar, she was quite attractive--though Shari preferred longer ears on a female. Much longer. And the wetnose was a bit of a turn-off too.

She bowed slightly. "Good evening, young historian."

Shari's stomach filled with even more anxiety. He bowed, looking away.

"And that next to her is Princess Eririta," the master said.

Eri nodded more than she bowed and said nothing. She was dark-featured, her whole muzzle being black instead of just the small stripes on the sides. She wore a practically-cut boldly-colored silk robe that was bound around the elbows and trousers bound around knees, and was frittered around the chest with creases and folds that serious-minded nobles preferred.

Shari bowed as far as he could go without getting on his knees, too afraid to do any less.

"I apologize I won't be joining you tonight," the master said, "and if Shari is a bother, I apologize for that in advance as well. Just give him a good smack if he gets out of line."

"Sir!" Shari protested. Though the master smiled as though the comment were meant in good humor, it was just another humiliation stacked on top of a depressing evening.

"Come on, longears, we won't bite," Leito said, pointing across the table to the empty space on the bench between Zure and Eri. "Sit down!"

Refusal to such an invitation would have been afforded him if he were not a student--as it was, he was required to do as his master said, and he joined the table, making the whole arrangement feel out of balance. The reynar were all much taller than him; even his ears didn't reach the tops of their heads.

Unlike the usual rabble, nobles, officers and high-ranking guild members did not have to serve themselves from the tables. Rather, servers brought the dishes out; they even paid closer attention to special orders.

The dishes already in front of the reynar were barely touched, and each one was completely different in its style. Oda's plate was covered in halfshell rock oysters and sided with a heavy spiced horseradish paste; Leito had a cut of meat so large it might have been a kangaroo thigh, covered in onions; and Zure had a piece of flatbread covering her plate that was topped with rice and near-pungent soybeans. Eri had nothing in front of her but her goblet.

Shari glanced downward.

"Well, what is it you want?" Oda said, scraping an oyster out of its shell with his bottom row of teeth. He tossed the empty shell into a barrel that sat four feet away, and it landed inside without him even turning to look where it was. "Anything you like; I'll vouch for you."

"I um . . . " Shari said, "well I know they don't make it a lot but my favorite is uh," he felt his ears flush and burn, "just . . . eggplant-zucchini stew."

"Sure, that sounds fine," Oda said, about to call the server.

"And . . . " Shari said before Oda raised his voice, "and, I know this sounds silly . . ."

"Silly?" Zure said, "That's hardly a detriment. Do you know how hard it is to get fermented soybeans around here? These are from my stash."

"Eugh, it's hard enough having to smell them but do you have to talk about them too?" Leito jabbed.

"No, I mean," Shari continued, "I like it when the eggplant is grilled beforehand. I know that's not how it's traditionally done, but . . . rather than visit the dining hall, my father would sometimes cook for us. And that's how he always did it."

"You know . . . " Eri said, holding her goblet up to her mouth and swishing it about, "I might have some of that. It doesn't sound half bad right about now, especially considering the junk you all are eating."

"Hey!" Leito protested, holding up the slab of meat by the bone and balancing the other end in her right palm, "don't lump me in with those two!" She took a large bite directly from its side.

Oda simply smiled, and called the waiter over.

During the ensuing wait, a roden servant in a kitchen apron brought out a silver goblet for Shari, and poured him a heavy wine, half-diluted at most. Shari had drunk wine plenty of times, beer more often, but only on feasts and holidays and diluted so thinly it tasted more like flavored water. He glanced up, noting Oda holding his own empty cup out for the servant, who filled it nearly to the top.

"Come on, take a drink or something; you look like you're carrying a flea-colony," Oda said. He nudged the goblet toward Shari. "It'll help you feel at ease."

Shari sighed deeply. He preferred his thoughts clear, but something told him he'd rather not care so much right now, and he took a drink. The wine was quite thicker and stronger than he anticipated, and he coughed.

"And haven't you had enough for today?" Eri said, her nose pointed at Oda.

"Oh don't even bother," Zure said, "He could drink the entire vineyard and all it would do is turn into piss."

Shari sputtered and spit wine back out and flecking the table with red droplets. Some got into his nose, and given how sticky the wine was, it was not a pleasant sensation. Zure pumped her fist in the air as though she'd scored a game point.

"That's not true," Oda said, "I get hangovers just the same as anyone."

"It's not like anyone could tell," Leio jabbed, "You're the same whether drunk, sober, or with a raging headache."

"I think it reflects well on his character," Zure said.

"Nothing reflects well on Oda's character," Eri said--though oddly, it was without any hint of snobbery. She merely stated it as a fact. "The Upper Court thinks you're an insufferable prat, and they'd rot with mange if they didn't reinforce the fact at every turn."

"Young historian," Leito said, leaning over her hunk of meat pointedly, "what do you think of Prince Oda?"

Shari cast glances between each of them, finding the two faces opposite him to be unsettlingly cheerful.

Shari swallowed. "Er, he's an insufferable prat."

"There you go!" Leio said, "I'll drink to that."

Oda giggled and raised his goblet up, as did the others. Shari did as well, after a moment's hesitation.

"Is dinner conversation always this strange?" Shari asked.

"Well we're usually talking about family matters about now," Eri said, "but we do have a sense of propriety around visitors. What did you think nobles talked about?"

"I dunno. Important things. What would you talk about if my master were here?"

"Oh, the same sort," Eri said. "He is a friend of mine and we haven't had much of a chance to catch up these last two weeks. Everyone's just been so busy."

"But then again, Eri knows everyone," Zure said. That she ate something so rancid without any visible reaction was both unsettling and deeply fascinating to Shari.

"It's our job," Eri said, "so at least one of us has to do it."

"I take offense to that, or would, were it not completely true," Oda said, raising his goblet up again.

Zure snorted and grinned, then clicked her goblet with his when nobody else took the opportunity.

It was about the time that the soup came around, wheeled up in a cart with a whole pot hot and steaming, one bowl poured for Shari and a slightly more substantial one for Eri. Taking in the aroma, Shari's mind wandered back to a warm field in the late afternoon, where he'd taken to wandering every day. The diffuse glow of the sunset told him it had been far too long before he should have gone home, but he was never afraid for himself, because his mother and his father were there. The colors were like the late autumn, and the scent was like the harvest, and absolutely everything he could ever want remained for him safely in a two-room apartment. The sweet embrace and solace and belonging he felt then never matched anything he could find afterward.

And despite that, he felt himself smiling, being among these four just as much as he was imagining himself back home. Perhaps, he thought, it was the wine.