Thereafter Chapter 10: Let's pour our worries into our cups
In the tenth chapter of Thereafter book 1: The City After the End, our heroes get drunk and shoot the breeze. Alicia shares a melancholic memory about a lost love.
Michael would hesitate to call the alcohol that Lex and Felipe had scavenged “bad.” The content of the various cloudy glass bottles certainly weren’t good, in the realm of taste, but they were not good in the way that the inexpertly brewed moonshine of his youth had been. If nothing else, it was nostalgic, and the part of his brain that cared about that kind of stuff was decently certain the various concoctions weren’t going to make him blind, so that was also a selling point. The fact that Michael kept drinking the cloudy liquid was perhaps grounds for concern, but that was a “later Michael” type of problem.
“You know, I’m going to say it,” Lex said. “Someone has to teach these people to work a still.”
“Oh I don’t know,” Felipe said. “It’s nice and sweet at least.”
“That’s how you know they’re doing it wrong, all that sugar’s supposed to turn into delicious alcohol, not yeast soda.”
“In that case do you mind I take yours?”
“Hands off, devil.”
Michael noticed that the alcohol was making Lex and Felipe chattier, but it had no such effect on him. If anything it pulled him deeper into himself. Now why Alicia was so quiet Michael wasn’t so sure. She’d had a sip to taste, but otherwise hadn’t been indulging. A part of Michael noted that he probably didn’t need to dredge things up at the present. A different part, unfortunately the part in charge, did not know and did not care about what the other part thought about it.
“So Alicia, you were saying about the “Lia situation,” what was all of that about?”
Alicia gave Michael a long look that had him, however briefly, considering fleeing, perhaps even hiding.
“You don’t have to…” He mumbled “If it’s weird. I don’t always know… if it’s weird.”
Something softened in Alicia’s eyes, and Michael would swear that her posture faltered ever so slightly, like she shrugged off a weight she’d been carrying for a long, long time.
“I’ll tell you, since we’re colleagues and all now,” Alicia said “but I swear to God if y’all make a big thing out of this…”
“Oh we would never,” Felipe said, as confident in the lie as Michael had ever heard him.
“Speak for yourself but I will endeavor not to judge you any more harshly than I already do.” Lex added.
Michael found the silence that settled after Lex crying out for his addition, and so he shrugged “My first crush was a Molekin princess, I’m in no position to judge anyone.”
Alica took a deep breath, grabbed a bottle of mostly-clear liquid, tore the cork out with a pop and, between the hearty gulps of moonshine, began telling what was up with the whole Lia Situation
“So you may know Deepspeaker Lia,” Alicia said.
“She of Thereafter Council fame? Looks like she can break me in half? Serious no-nonsense butch?” Lex didn’t quite have hearts in their eyes while recapping, but it wasn’t far from it.
“Yeah,” Alicia said, drawing a breath in through her teeth. “Well, the name Lia is pretty important in Steppeworld, owing to m… owing to someone I knew back when I went there as a kid. The Lia I knew. She was kind of an outcast, like not shunned from the fires or things like that but people were… wary around her. In part it was an attitude thing, and in part it was her eyes.”
“Eyes?” Michael couldn’t help himself from asking, under normal circumstances he’d just let Alicia talk, but apparently drunk Michael was better with backchanneling than sober Michael.
“Yes. She had an… eye thing. Like her iris was part brown, part blue. It’s a different type of heterochromia than the “eyes with two different colors” one. The brown in her eyes looked a bit like a mountain ridge or a flame or something, so the people called her “Fire Eyes.” It wasn’t quite a formal title or anything but it did come up a lot when people gossiped about her, apparently.”
“Ah yes, Gossip. The soundtrack of the empty mind,” Lex said.
“I mean… people gossip, that’s just how it is. Lia said she didn’t mind it, but I honestly believe it was getting to her around the time when she got assigned taking care of the freshest member of the tribe, which of course was yours truly.” Alicia took a deep hit of the bottle, the grimace on her face as she swallowed it down told Michael that she didn’t drink frequently. “It was pretty clear she got the job because she was a bit on the outside. Either because they didn’t think I’d fit in, or because they hoped inducting me would pull Lia into the fold, as it were. I don’t know, but the latter is what happened, kinda.”
“Yeah, didn’t you become a golden child favorite like right away?” Felipe asked.
“Not right away. I was pretty hot-headed back then, didn’t take unfairness lying down. Lia probably thought I was stupid for how many incensed questions about fairness I raised. I didn’t quit though. I got into people’s faces. Demanded to be treated with respect. Got Lia in a bunch of trouble I think, but it was nothing to the trouble I set up for myself.”
Alicia smiled as she told the tale of her mischief and rebellion, Michael suspected she didn’t do so consciously, but the underlying fondness poked through.
“So, it turns out, willful children can be exiled from the tribe, and that was always a threat that hung over the both of us, at least until I demanded to be allowed to do the Trial Of Steel.”
The Trial of Steel, Alicia explained, was a combat trial that marked those who completed it as Warriors of the Tribe. It wasn’t used as a coming-of-age thing, but traditions dictated that being a Warrior had no age limit, and that all warriors had to be treated as full adult members of the clan regardless of their standing and age. Lia had scolded her for demanding such a dangerous resolution to their political woes, but even as they argued, Alicia felt Lia’s perspective on her change. This strange runty girl was perhaps not one of them but the fight in her certainly was of the Steppe.
“So once I made it through the Trial, by the skin of my teeth I may add, things changed… and I mean immediately.”
The night following Alicia’s formal induction into the Warriors of the Tribe, the Dragon Clan raided the tribe’s winter storage. This raid had started as an attempt of the Dragon Clan to raise tribute from the clan elders, but had rapidly escalated as the demands were rebuffed. It was a dire tale, but not an uncommon one. The ravages of the Dragon Clan were quickly creating an unsustainable position out on the steppes, as those who paid the tributes found themselves balancing on the knife’s edge of starvation, and so took to raiding their neighbors and former allies in pure desperation. The Brother Wars, as the period was called, was a time of scarcity and despair, leaving many a tribe so weakened in both body and spirit that they all but rolled over once the Dragon Clan came around to annex them fully.
“Things got kinda tough after that,” Alicia said, a smile in her voice despite the apparent sadness.
“Lia and me would argue a lot, about what’s right to do, about what’s possible to do, that kind of thing, but we always worked towards the same goal…”
“Uniting the tribes against the Dragon Clan?” Michael suggested.
“Bingo!” Alicia pointed at him, or to a point approximately a meter to the left of him. She didn’t slur her speech much, but it was clear that her motor skills weren’t entirely untouched by the drink.
“Bingo point for Mikey. We did get on that, too. I was becoming a warrior of some renown, and Lia, oh Lia she was so damn smart, she could discuss tactics with the warriors and codes of ethics with the elders, and she’d call either a fucking dumbass if they were under the effect of dumbassery. She had our entire supply network mapped out in her head, and she could play the damn thing like a harp. She was the best.”
“Now excuse me if I am stating the obvious here but it sounds like you had quite the crush on her.” Lex’ voice came out a bit dreamy compared to the frankness of their words. Michael noticed that just about everything seemed lighter and more aetherial than they had only an hour ago. He probably should stop drinking now, he thought as he drank of the dark green glass bottle he had come to think of as his.
Alicia’s shoulders and spine stiffened briefly in shock before she allowed herself to resume. When she did, she had a considerable blush to her cheeks.
“No shit I had a crush on her, wouldn’t you? Actually, don’t answer that,”
Lex shrugged, conceding the point.
“But I thought it was… like… one sided, kid stuff. She was… two years older than me I think? That difference felt too big, too scary, I couldn’t have acted on my crush even if I had known.”
“What, that your work wife situationship liked you too? Mother of God what is it with you sapphics?” Felipe sounded equal amounts confused and appalled. This, Michael realized instinctively, were the words of one who had not grown used to the taste of rejection. Michael felt he got it.
“I only realized that last night, after we had defeated the Dragon Thane and the Clan, after we had done all this incredible stuff together. We had restored the Allthing council, we had… yeah the dragon thing, the Dragon Thane was an actual dragon. Like city block-sized, wings as wide as the shadows of the night, scales as hard as hardened steal, fire breath, the whole shebang. We had ended the Brother Wars, from what I’ve heard afterwards we ushered in an era of deep harmony, although the politics got a bit complicated… and through all of this we had been walking around on eggshells stealing glances at each other all starry-eyed.”
Alicia drunk deeply of her bottle, Michael couldn’t quite explain why this act made his own vision blur more, sympathetic intoxication perhaps?
“It’s bullshit, is what it is,” Alicia continued, an answer to a question nobody had asked. “And I didn’t go for it, which is even more bullshit. I told myself that I only realized what Lia had said to me that night, like really said, once I was back home but that’s a lie. I got it, I got it all. I could’ve… it wouldn’t have taken more than a look. A word… a… oh fuck it all.”
Michael blinked, how long had it been quiet? Surely not too long, Lex and Felipe hadn't shut up for more than seconds at a time for hours before this.
“That does sound rough,” Michael said, glad that the drink had dulled the part of his mind that’d recognize how much of a tremendous understatement that was.
“So, the Lia from the council is… what, related to your butch crush?” Lex asked
“No, not the way we’d think of it at least, but they both have the fire eyes. I think that’s why Council Lia is named after my Lia. The way they tell me the story Lia continued on being a really important figure in Steppeworld history. She was the first of the Deepspeakers, a… well calling it “religious order” is perhaps underselling it since the Deep Song is actual magic, but the way they instruct the people in utilizing the Deep Song is certainly a bit Revival Pastor-y in tone and… OK, I’m making a hash out of this, that doesn’t matter…”
“I mean I get it,” Felipe said with a shrug so overwhelmingly casual it even penetrated Michael’s by now profoundly foggy comprehension. “At least The One That Got Away for you is human. Don’t know if you’ve ever checked, but the dating apps don’t allow you to filter for emotionally distant skinny people with shoulder and back muscles you could grate cheese on and wide mighty wings connected to said muscles.”
“Yeah…” Michael said, picking up the thread. “As I said, my crush was a molekin. You don’t find those on Tinder.”
“Wait,” Lex interjected. “Did I hear that right? Felipe wants to fuck a bird?”
“No no no, Felipe wants to fuck a Bird MAN, big difference.”
“Oh yes, Flies-In-Updrafts or whatever.”
“Soars-in-Thermals, get it right you non-binary Jezebel.”
“Yeah yeah Soar-On-Temple, whatever. Did this guy have a cloaca or what?”
“My God, romance isn’t your strong suit is it?” Felipe sighed. “For your information I did not get to a point where I found out. My mother raised a gentleman…”
“You chickened out,” Lex said in a sing-song voice “While you should have been chickening in.”
They all laughed at that. Even Felipe, although there was a certain whiff of Keeping Up Appearances to it as far as Michael could tell.
“Thank you guys,” Alicia said, there was an earnestness to her voice that hadn’t been there before. “I’d kind of forgotten how stressful it is to not talk to people about this stuff.”
“Mhm,” Michael found himself saying. “It’s second nature by now but wow it feels good to just not have to worry about it.”
“Yeah, and you carry around all these experiences that you can’t talk about or people will think you’re out of your mind,” Lex said. “I’d like… realwash some stuff, talk about this friend I had and just not mention he was a wizard or a bird man or whatever.”
A crowd of affirmative “Mh-hms” rose from the exalted in response.
“I was always too worried people would start comparing notes to do that,” Michael admitted. “But looking back I probably didn’t need to worry. Personal anecdotes are kind of in one ear out the other if they’re not your own.”
“Yes,” Felipe concurred. “But here’s to no more Realwashing.”
“To no more Realwashing” They toasted, about as elegant and in sync about it as one can expect from the profoundly inebriated. As Michael tossed back his drink, he crossed the threshold between remembering and forgetting. Like most travelers taking this route, he was entirely unaware that he had done so, and would remain unaware until he awoke in the morning.
Author’s Note: After the intense bummers that has been the last few chapters, I felt it was important to give our exalted heroes a bit of a breather. A chance to be themselves and air some drama that’s old enough to be a relief to talk about rather than a pain. Originally the whole Lia conversation was set up over a fun fact about Steppeworld cultural notions about sexual dynamics, but I decided to save that particular fun fact for later. Perhaps even for book 2, which I’m planning to be from Alicia’s POV unless something huge changes in the interim.