Heart Rot

❼ - SEVEN

It actually would have been nice to have Tliichpil available today, though, he thought as he pushed back through the screen, body quietly aching. He hadn't had to pick up his adze in a very long time, but now that the weather had dried he had ought to get ahead on trimming poles and splitting logs to dry. The poles he would need to rebuild their quail enclosure had to be shaped when they were green and left to cure. It would have been half the amount of work if she had just given him the brother who was folded up against the wall working a spindle for her.

To tease him, he groaned and stretched luxuriously. "Would have appreciated your help."

Tliichpil rolled his eyes and tucked his spinning into Lotlixya's closest textile basket. He stood up and rolled out an ankle.

Lotlixya stood too and did the same, then quickly peeked at the pot sitting next to the hearth. "Catli!" she called. "Talzi! Come in!"

Comalpo heard the noise of their scurrying feet quickly pulled up outside the rear door, a hissed "Lotli says we have to wash our hands!", and the spilling of water from its hanging gourd before Catlitla and Talzalhi appeared, still dirt-speckled from where Lotlixya had them playing in her garden. Talzalhi left a small trail of murky-water droplets as he went over to Tliichpil.

"Up!" he chirped. "Up!"

Tliichpil brought his hand to his chin and pursed his lips, mock-considering. "Well," he said, "I don't know. That wasn't a very polite way of asking..."

"Please!"

He laughed and reached down, hauling him up onto his hip. Talzalhi wrapped himself around Tliichpil's middle like a marmoset, little fists pulling at the back of his tunic. Tliichpil reached around with one hand and ruffled his hair, then kissed him performatively on the forehead. "You're my favourite little brother, you know that?"

"What about me?" Catlitla ran over and grabbed onto one of his legs. "I thought I was your favourite!"

"Yes, you're my favourite littlest sister too."

"Even more favourite than Nochci?"

"Definitely. She's only my favourite middle sister."

She giggled. "Tell us a story, Pila?" she begged, pulling at him.

"Yes!" added Talzalhi. "Story! Please!"

Tliichpil looked over her head to Lotlixya, who nodded. "Still be a little while," she said. "You've time."

He dropped down to a crouch against the wall, resettling Talzalhi on his lap. Catlitla curled herself down by his knee. "Listen," he began, "and you shall hear a story. Once there lived, in a village very like this one, a -"

Lotlixya set down her spoon and arched her back catlike away from the hearth.

"Getting hot?" Comalpo asked her.

"Yeah." She stood, stretched, and shifted over to the wall. With a delighted squeak, Catlitla hopped up, ran over, and plunked herself down into her place, stretching out her little fingers towards the coals. She was right at that age where fire was amazingly interesting, and where Lotlixya and Tliichpil had to keep warning her away from playing with it too much. Privately, Comalpo thought it would probably be a more educational experience to let her burn herself once, and then she would remember.

Lotlixya twiddled with a fringe on the tapestry hanging behind her. It had been made by her own mother's mother, and then passed down to her mother, and finally to her. Heavy with work, wool, and beads, it took pride of place on their northern wall, depicting the two moons even closer than they passed in their closest approach in the sky, for here they overlapped - Yeri, larger and yellower like okoi fruit, his face with the single bright scar, and Ina his sister, who kept the cycle of the months, only two-thirds the size and ashen grey. They all knew it would go with Lotlixya when she married. They also all faintly regretted that fact.