“I don’t know.” Dagan rolled his eyes. “To be nice?”
“Sounds like one of the burning hells,” Hen said.
“Oh, it was. It is.” But Dagan laughed as if nothing could’ve been funnier to him. “I told you it was pathetic. Now that I’ve told you how I am at home, what do you think of me?”
“I think…” Hen considered him seriously. “You’re full of contradictions. Like a maze, yourself.”
Dagan’s eyelashes fluttered for a moment. His mouth opened. Then shut.
Hen flushed, suddenly concerned that he’d said something stupid and hurtful. “Sorry. I—I didn’t mean—”
“No, please.” Dagan leaned forward and touched Hen’s foot with two fingers.
Somehow, the gentle contact stilled the nervousness building in Hen’s chest.
“It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t what I expected you to say,” Dagan continued after a moment. “It was nice. Truly nice, not fake-nice, like being a coward and saying you’re trying to spare other peoples’ feelings.”
“Was it? Nice?” Hen wondered.
“Well, not every man wants to be called complex and mysterious. I certainly never imagined I could be.” Dagan laughed and lifted his gaze to the willow branches again. “But I like it. Very much.”
“Oh. Good.” Hen cleared his throat and glanced away. “Also, you’re not a coward. You’re just a pushover. It’s different.”
“That is less nice.” Dagan swatted at his foot, that time, but laughed out loud. “Even if it is true.”
*
Hendrik spent the afternoon floating again, until he was sure he had the hang of it. Surrender might not come naturally to him, but, contrary to his own expectations, he could be taught. As night crept back into the forest, Hen stole back into the copse of oak trees and helped himself to another, even quicker orgasm. He hoped very much he hadn’t lost all that control he’d built up, making sure Kass got his first all those years. But then again, it didn’t matter, since his hand didn’t much care.
When they stretched out on the blanket for dinner, Hen was more relaxed and comfortable than he could remember being in…well, a long time. Certainly, since he’d come to the dark forest, scared and lost and alone. They shared oatcakes—a particularly lovely, fluffy delicacy—and apricot preserves from Dagan’s pack that night, lit by a single, tiny candle. The drooping fronds of the willow tree barred the sliver of moonlight entry to the cozy little camp.
Hendrik didn’t want to leave tomorrow. But the Blue Bird was corrupted, and the Heart Wood was in danger, and Dagan had a job to do. Hen was used to not mattering, and yet, this didn’t feel quite like that. The last twenty-four hours, easy and forgetful, had been all for him, at his request. It had been his, and he was grateful.
It was pure misfortune then that Dagan should choose this moment of gratitude to say, “Now, you tell me something embarrassing about yourself.”
Hen, around a mouthful of oatcake, asked, “What? Why?”
“Because I told you what a silly little bitch I was back home last moon, that’s why.” Dagan popped the last of his cake and preserves into his mouth pointedly.
“Okay.” Hendrik had to think about this, though. The mood had been so light, so companionable all day. All two days, actually. And, “All my stories are so awful.”
“I still want to know them.” Dagan set aside his bowl and wrapped his arms around his bare shins, resting his pointed little chin on one knee. Curled up like that, he looked so small, so young, so sweet.
Could they really be the same age? Hen felt like he must look a hundred years old next to Dagan’s fresh face and smile.
Hendrik finished up the preserves, which of course made him think of Kass’s love for honeyed, dried apricots. the ultimate luxury for the pampered Stone City elite. It still hurt a little, thinking of him alive and happy. But more than that, it made Hen smile.
“I used to talk to Kass,” Hen admitted after another silent moment. “When I first came to the wood. Days after he was dead.”
Dagan’s smile softened. “Did you really? In your head?”
“Out loud,” Hen said with a helpless little laugh. “I don’t know if I was lonely or if I missed him or if part of me was trying to pretend he wasn’t gone. But I did it all the time, at first.”
“Did it help?”
“Yeah. I think it did. I mean, I’m not dead, so it must’ve, right?”
Dagan nodded and leaned back, stretching his legs out before him. “What did you talk to him about?”
“Everything. Where to find fresh water. How to spear a sea-insect. How awful my little sleeping-shelter was.” Hen chuckled. “It sounds even sadder when I say it aloud.”
“I don’t think so,” Dagan replied easily. “After Helen’s partner died, there were a lot of things she regretted never saying to him. She wrote him letters.”
“Did it help?”
Dagan nodded. “She says so.”
“I thought I was disordered for it. I guess I was.”
“Disordered. That’s like madness, right?”
“I think so.”
“Grief is a kind of madness. So is love, I hear.” Dagan smiled. “But without them, what are we? Just trees, talking about sugar and water and reproduction schedules. We were made for more than that.”
“You think so?” And Hen found, to his own eternal surprise, that he really, really hoped it was true.
When was the last time he’d hoped for anything?
