Adarna

Chapter 10

"Thank you," the creature said.

The funny thing about loss is that, like so many other things, it turns up where you least expect it. Days had passed since the creature had nearly accidentally drowned him, and in that time much had happened. Robin carried out a sleep-deprived (and admittedly slightly tipsy) midnight heist to get Finn's looking glass back, after which they had almost dropped it overboard in their triumphant cackling. Finn lost the bandanna he wore around his neck and Freyr, noticing his discomfort, scrounged up fabric from the only the gods knew where and made him a new one. And then, with a little prompting, Dinta fixed the stitching and embroidered on little sea shells to make it wearable. The mood aboard the ship shifted from content to bored, and then to irritable, and the four found themselves spending more time belowdecks and away from the rest of the crew. Despite this, every now and again, Robin would sneak up above deck, chewing away at a strip of bark, and stare out over the horizon. Waiting, searching.

He had lost something two years ago, and had set out to sea to find it again. And now, without warning, an echo of it had found him instead.

The creature's wounds healed rapidly, and Robin had announced that they could probably try to sneak him off the ship later that evening. But then, the 'thank you'.

Robin froze.

The others must have sensed that something was off. They all stopped talking. The words hadn't been in the voice of any of the ship's crew, but Robin would have recognised them anywhere. The warm honey tone, the slight deepness that found itself over the vowels. It haunted him in his dreams, and now it haunted him here, where he never expected to hear it.

His past and his future coming together to hit him in the gut when his guard was down.

"Where did you hear that voice?" he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral. It was a mistake. He could never keep neutral when he was involved. His tone came out strained and chilling.

"Where?" the creature replied.

"Everyone else get out. Now. We need to talk alone."

"Robin, are you sure that's such a good idea—"

"Now."

They left.

Robin locked the door. He stayed there, back pressed against it as he turned to the creature, keeping a large distance between them.

"How do you know that voice?" he asked again, trying to hide the way his voice shook.

The creature stared at him for a long moment. "Do we know each other?" he asked, Char's light and smooth voice dancing around the chamber. Did you two know each other? That was what the creature meant.

But that phrase, it sent him back in time. Char had used that phrase to flirt with him the first time they had bumped into each other. Robin had been hurrying, a raspberry pie in one hand and a letter in the other, cutting through the streets in the hopes that he could finish off his tasks for the day and still make it in time to the small gathering Em had planned out for Rory's birthday. He swerved around the corner, only to crash into someone coming the opposite way. The letter dropped to the street to be trampled under stumbling feet. Raspberry went everywhere, flying up into the air, crumbs and berries showering their hair and red sauce staining their clothes.

Robin had looked up, mortified, then stammered at the sight of the boy in front of him. The boy stared down at him in bafflement, a smile quirking at his lips while crumbs smeared his cheek. They had both been young then, barely sixteen or so in age. And at that point, Robin had never experienced romance. He'd barely had a minute to consider the subject at all. So when the two crashed into each other, the embarrassment and horror of having ruined this person's clothes, along with the overwhelming realisation that wow this person was attractive, sent his cheeks flaring with warmth and he stammered out without thinking, "I am so sorry. But you're so pretty, and I have to go now!"