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Jayce turns up some interesting information.
Kiri leaves him in charge of everything and takes Aleko with her. She's closer with Aleko, but Jayce has initiative that Aleko doesn't and is less averse to the idea of running Ardelay business in her absence. Aleko can also draw; he has sketches of the missing prince and can make more.
They cross Soche-Tas, in their own carriage but as part of a merchant convoy that knows the way.
On the far side of Soche-Tas is the little country of Thiyec. Thiyec usually has improbably good weather. People who are less wedded to the culture of Welce than most talk about retiring there.
Thiyec has been getting plenty of rain.
They break off from the convoy and start showing the missing prince's picture to people. People in Thiyec consider nudity no more a remarkable fashion decision than hat-wearing, and it's not a terribly comfortable trip - it doesn't help that only about forty percent of Thiyec's population speaks any Soechin, Kiri's the only one who ever learned Soechin, and nobody in their party knows a lick of Thiyecine.
But eventually, there is a knock on a particular door.
calescent
free-flowing
Well, it's sweet that she'd grieve.
But: "Wouldn't it be better, though? If you had some other prime who lived in Welce and wasn't - me?" Wasn't still sometimes so desperately angry when he thinks about the King of Welce; wouldn't be living under the pressure of that terrible secret; would probably be less inclined to do things like drown themselves just to see if it didn't work.
But: "Wouldn't it be better, though? If you had some other prime who lived in Welce and wasn't - me?" Wasn't still sometimes so desperately angry when he thinks about the King of Welce; wouldn't be living under the pressure of that terrible secret; would probably be less inclined to do things like drown themselves just to see if it didn't work.
free-flowing
"So maybe I'm supposed to go back and be - me - at everybody."
Which he imagines would hit Welchin politics rather like a spring flood, if he went sufficiently unedited on a grand enough scale.
Which he imagines would hit Welchin politics rather like a spring flood, if he went sufficiently unedited on a grand enough scale.
calescent
"I don't assign the primacy inheritance quite enough wit to interpret and obey its will on that scale."
free-flowing
Loel shrugs. "Might be what you get anyway. If I go back."
(He wonders what she'd prefer if he doesn't - him dead and a new prime to be found, or him alive and the coru prime missing from Welce for this generation.)
(He wonders what she'd prefer if he doesn't - him dead and a new prime to be found, or him alive and the coru prime missing from Welce for this generation.)
calescent
"If the Lalindar prime stays missing for an entire generation we can't ratify Isten when the time comes. Will you at least promise that if you don't die in the immediate future you'll come back when the king dies?"
free-flowing
He sighs.
"Yeah. I guess."
He doesn't want to. He wants to live a nice quiet peaceful life in Thiyec with a minimum of politics. But he doesn't want Welce to have to suffer that much for it, and he expects he still won't when the time comes, and it won't be nearly this bad to go back if he does it when King Hector is dead.
"Yeah. I guess."
He doesn't want to. He wants to live a nice quiet peaceful life in Thiyec with a minimum of politics. But he doesn't want Welce to have to suffer that much for it, and he expects he still won't when the time comes, and it won't be nearly this bad to go back if he does it when King Hector is dead.
calescent
"Of course, that's contingent on the Serlast one turning up, and that one I have no leads on."
free-flowing
It's not, on the greater scale, good that there's another prime missing... but it takes some of the pressure off anyway, because even if he let Kiri drag him home with her they would still lack something crucial.
free-flowing
"Thanks."
He appreciates that she's sorry. It doesn't make anything less bad, but it's a nice thing to have along with the bad stuff.
He appreciates that she's sorry. It doesn't make anything less bad, but it's a nice thing to have along with the bad stuff.
free-flowing
"Okay."
He will probably wait until some dark hour of the night when hardly anyone is awake and no one is likely to be near the pond. Being rescued would defeat the purpose of the exercise.
He will probably wait until some dark hour of the night when hardly anyone is awake and no one is likely to be near the pond. Being rescued would defeat the purpose of the exercise.
free-flowing
"How about: because it would solve a lot of my problems if I died," he says.
That's not all of it, but it's the part that comes clearest, the most available to be translated into terms someone else might understand. All together, with the harder parts included, it goes something like this:
He has always been more interested in how he is going to die than when and this experiment, the way he means to do it, is an attractive prospect on that level. He just likes the idea of finding out the hard way whether or not he can breathe water. Finding out that he can't and dying, or finding out that he can and living, both sound better than not trying it at all. And trying it and finding out he can't and being rescued anyway... takes away from that. It would be almost like not having done it in the first place, except it would take away the point of trying it again, because he'd know.
The problems that would be solved by dying won't go away if he tries this and lives. But... it will be different, afterward. He doesn't know what will change but he knows something will. And it won't change if he lets someone rescue him. He will still be looking at this impossible decision that he doesn't quite entirely want to kill himself over, and he won't have a second way to not quite entirely try to kill himself over it.
As it stands, going back would be personally intolerable and staying would fuck over a country, and there are ways to go back that would still more or less fuck over the country, and he doesn't entirely have control of whether or not he'd take one - he is aware of how sharply limited he is when it comes to dealing with anything related to his father. He could go back and flood the Marisi high enough to sweep away the palace, and quite a lot of people would die but King Hector would probably be one of them, protected from prime powers or no - and there will be times when this feels like a great idea. He could go back and kill his father with his bare hands in the middle of court, and there have already been times when that felt like a great idea, and the main thing stopping him was that it would require going back and he would rather just stay in Thiyec.
When he first thought of trying to breathe water, it was irresistibly tempting on just the usual levels - something dangerous that would be a good way to die if it killed him and an amazing experience if it didn't. But now he is more and more convinced that he needs to, for the shift in perspective he can feel waiting for him on the other side. If it doesn't kill him, he will know he is prime, on a level much more personal and immediate than the obvious logic of steady rain in the middle of Thiyec centered on the only birth-blessed Lalindar descendant in the country. And maybe that will be enough to change what feels like a good idea. Maybe it will give him a way to go back and be the coru prime and not have that feel like a fate considerably worse than death.
But trying it and almost dying and then having that death taken away will leave him right back where he started, only without even the hope of making that change. There might be another way to force the same kind of drastic reorientation - there probably is another way. But he can't think of one, and he doesn't think anyone else in the world could know him well enough to come up with one that would work, mindreader or no. And he suspects that the risking his life part is pretty close to necessary. The only other idea he can think of that comes close to the right level of - intensity is probably the best available word for the concept he uses - would be going back to Chialto and talking to his father. Which would be infinitely worse than trying to drown himself, and he's not even sure it would be the right kind of push, and the scale of potential resulting disasters is much, much bigger than the death of one lost prime.
That's not all of it, but it's the part that comes clearest, the most available to be translated into terms someone else might understand. All together, with the harder parts included, it goes something like this:
He has always been more interested in how he is going to die than when and this experiment, the way he means to do it, is an attractive prospect on that level. He just likes the idea of finding out the hard way whether or not he can breathe water. Finding out that he can't and dying, or finding out that he can and living, both sound better than not trying it at all. And trying it and finding out he can't and being rescued anyway... takes away from that. It would be almost like not having done it in the first place, except it would take away the point of trying it again, because he'd know.
The problems that would be solved by dying won't go away if he tries this and lives. But... it will be different, afterward. He doesn't know what will change but he knows something will. And it won't change if he lets someone rescue him. He will still be looking at this impossible decision that he doesn't quite entirely want to kill himself over, and he won't have a second way to not quite entirely try to kill himself over it.
As it stands, going back would be personally intolerable and staying would fuck over a country, and there are ways to go back that would still more or less fuck over the country, and he doesn't entirely have control of whether or not he'd take one - he is aware of how sharply limited he is when it comes to dealing with anything related to his father. He could go back and flood the Marisi high enough to sweep away the palace, and quite a lot of people would die but King Hector would probably be one of them, protected from prime powers or no - and there will be times when this feels like a great idea. He could go back and kill his father with his bare hands in the middle of court, and there have already been times when that felt like a great idea, and the main thing stopping him was that it would require going back and he would rather just stay in Thiyec.
When he first thought of trying to breathe water, it was irresistibly tempting on just the usual levels - something dangerous that would be a good way to die if it killed him and an amazing experience if it didn't. But now he is more and more convinced that he needs to, for the shift in perspective he can feel waiting for him on the other side. If it doesn't kill him, he will know he is prime, on a level much more personal and immediate than the obvious logic of steady rain in the middle of Thiyec centered on the only birth-blessed Lalindar descendant in the country. And maybe that will be enough to change what feels like a good idea. Maybe it will give him a way to go back and be the coru prime and not have that feel like a fate considerably worse than death.
But trying it and almost dying and then having that death taken away will leave him right back where he started, only without even the hope of making that change. There might be another way to force the same kind of drastic reorientation - there probably is another way. But he can't think of one, and he doesn't think anyone else in the world could know him well enough to come up with one that would work, mindreader or no. And he suspects that the risking his life part is pretty close to necessary. The only other idea he can think of that comes close to the right level of - intensity is probably the best available word for the concept he uses - would be going back to Chialto and talking to his father. Which would be infinitely worse than trying to drown himself, and he's not even sure it would be the right kind of push, and the scale of potential resulting disasters is much, much bigger than the death of one lost prime.
calescent
Kiri feels her way through these thoughts, pensive.
"Right," she sighs finally, pushing a wet tendril of hair out of her face. "Facefirst into the pond in the middle of the night for you, then."
"Right," she sighs finally, pushing a wet tendril of hair out of her face. "Facefirst into the pond in the middle of the night for you, then."
liakoura
Aleko reappears from stabling the horses, soaking wet and irritable. "So that's handled. Why couldn't we have gone hunting for a prime who causes interesting cloud formations? Ones that don't rain. That would've been swell. One who settled someplace where people aren't naked all the time and also simultaneously don't want to proposition foreign teenagers, that would've also been swell."
liakoura
"I will have a towel." He drops the luggage he's carrying and takes one. "It's been a long time. You seem to have done okay."