“I wish I was already on it,” Dagan admitted.
Innan’s brow furrowed. “Did something happen?”
Dagan shook his head. “I’ve just been thinking. Maybe I should make my home in some other conservancy.”
It wouldn’t solve all his problems, exactly. He already had a little bit of a reputation with the scouts as a flirt, though it was nothing compared to his reputation in the Black Walnut settlement. But the idea of starting over somewhere new, where no one would think they knew him…
Innan nodded. “It’s a good idea. So long as you don’t end up doing the same thing you’ve done to yourself here.”
Dagan shot them a wary look. “Which is?”
“Allow people to think they’re entitled to your time and attention constantly.”
“Well, you don’t have to say it like that.” Dagan sighed and let his head fall back against the tree.
“I say it with love. Your mother is worried about you, you know. She says you’ve been hiding since you came home. Won’t see your friends. She thinks you’re depressed.”
Dagan grumbled under his breath, “Yes, well, I’m not.”
“I know that. You know that. But does anyone else?”
“If you’re going to pose probing questions and force me to think about myself seriously, Innan, you can just go back to your cave.” Dagan screwed up his face, hoping for a laugh.
He got one, but it was quiet and came with a shake of the head. “Then who would you tell the truth?”
Dagan rolled his eyes but leaned heavily against their shoulder.
“I’ve said it before, you just need to set some boundaries.” Innan clicked their tongue like a disapproving parent.
Dagan said, “Or I could just move. I hear the Mushroom Conservancy settlement is lovely, and it’s right in the middle of the Wood…”
“Or you could move to the caves and live as a hermit with me.”
“But you can’t have two hermits in the same hidey-hole, or they wouldn’t be hermits,” Dagan reasoned.
“Oh, I’m sure I could find you something deep enough into the mountain that you’d never even know I existed.”
“Sounds dreadful. No thank you, darling.”
Innan laughed again.
In spite of himself, Dagan did too. “Fine, I’m slightly…I’m not depressed, exactly. More just itching to get out onto the path. Into the forest.”
“I think you’ll find great things on that path,” Innan replied sagely. “I think you’ll surprise yourself out there.”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” Dagan admitted. “I just want to be good at something other than talking and fucking. I’m starting to get on my own nerves.”
He hadn’t realized that last bit until he said it aloud. Well, fuck. That wasn’t good, was it?
“You’re good at lots of things,” Innan insisted. “Listening, for one. Most people aren’t. And you’ve never gotten on my nerves once.”
“You’re the dearest, kindest friend anyone’s ever had, you know that?” Dagan slumped down and settled his head against Innan’s thigh, then stretched out in the grass.
“Only to you.” They twirled the end of his braid around their fingers. “To others I’m weird and cold and off-putting, with my caves and my earthsinging.”
This wasn’t strictly true. Though lifecasting was a more common skill among residents of the Heart Wood—everyone could do it to some extent, providing they practiced, earthsinging was rare and deeply valued. While lifecasting extended to feeling, understanding, and interpreting the myriad forms of life in a given patch of the wood or water—or anything, really—earthsinging was more specialized. It was sensing and interpreting, sometimes even affecting, the music of the ground itself. The shifting of layers of stone, clay, and soil; the incremental changes that had birthed the intricate collection of caves beneath the mountain, and the ability to speed or slow them as needed. Metal was rare in the Heart Wood. Without people like Innan, they’d have to live without it or trade even more of their most precious luxuries away to the Stone City’s black market to get more.
“Not at all,” Dagan insisted. “And if anyone ever said as much in my presence—”
“Well, of course they wouldn’t.” Innan chuckled again, tickling Dagan’s nose with the end of his braid.
Dagan swatted at it playfully.
“They’re just as worried about you liking them as you are about them liking you,” Innan went on, letting the braid drop. “And the day you finally see that is the day you’ll really be free. Doesn’t matter where you move to or how many times you start over.”
“Oh, very easily said,” Dagan grumbled. “I’m on my nerves again. Tell me about your father. Have you seen him lately?”
Gracefully, Innan allowed him to change the subject. But Dagan could tell from the sharp little glance they sent his way that the conversation would continue later.
*
“We all know Dagan doesn’t need to be reminded of his accomplishments,” Alonza said, holding up both hands to let everyone know they ought to be listening.
The people gathered in the market square quieted and turned toward him, elbowing each other or whispering in anticipation. Dagan just rolled his eyes. Alonza had shown up a half hour late, of course, and decided the party was only just beginning now that he’d arrived. But he had, at least, brought his charming new partner with him.
Innan, leaning against the table next to Dagan, bumped their shoulder against his. “He doesn’t get many opportunities to grandstand, out there at the Head Verder’s house. Let him have it.”
“Fine, fine.” Dagan laughed.
