[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Private Dinner

Genre: Slice of Life

Length: 1500 words

B/D: We (and Sora) get to know Nath a little better.

Her belly is full and her glass not yet empty, a problem she solves with relish. She lets the tastes of the wine dance across her tongue, and enjoys them as they last; she has drunk two glasses tonight, and will allow herself no more this week. In the days after the war, she found drink too strong a temptation, too inviting a pleasure, and there are still small spaces inside of her where the thirst for it lurks, unappeased even by the passage of time.

It is easier to relax in her own home. She has had many homes and many houses over the years, but her taste is for apartments. Small enough not to be lonely, big enough for all her needs. A pocket of the world carved out for her. She couldn’t imagine doing what Suguri did for so long, living alone in such a big house. Opulent it isn’t, but the lacquered floorboards, the plush rugs, the cushions on which she sits and eats each night – they are hers, and soothe her soul.

“Is it really that good?” Sora asks, from a cushion not so very far away. She sits with her legs folded under her, slight and formal. A military habit. Her own glass is full, but for a sip; that was enough to keep her coughing, to wrinkle her nose, and she left the rest alone.

“It isn’t the best wine,” she says, sitting up a little. She has grown too relaxed, she feels, and begun to sprawl out on her cushion like she does when she’s alone. “I used to live near the ruins of some of the old vineyards… destroyed during the war, of course, but every so often somebody would find an intact cellar, and the vintages were phenomenal. A lot of the old knowledge was lost for a while… but this wine isn’t so bad. It’s very lively.”

Sora nods, her eyes luminous with naked curiosity. Tonight it feels as though she has had little but. At first, Nath felt her skin prickle uncomfortably as Sora watched her and the way she did daily tasks with her feet, but there is no malice there, and no judgement. There’s something very childish about the way she watches, and yet she has the long, graceful limbs of an adult; Nath supposes it is Suguri and Hime’s influence. The ancients, it seems, are always the most childish.

“Ah, sorry. I’m rambling. Don’t feel bad – you gave it a chance, which is the important thing. Could you help me with the plates?”

Immediately Sora unfolds herself and scoops up the dinnerware, her movements rigid and efficient. In her heart, she is still the warrior who fought war itself and won, but Nath wonders how much she lost during those long, long years asleep. Her skin is so much paler now, and there is an elven cast to her arms and legs where once there was solid muscle. A fearsome power still lurks inside her, but the implacable strength of the past is gone.

She is, though, an enthusiastic helper. Although Nath has had many years to practice doing things without hands, there are still some tasks she finds bothersome, and cutting food is one of them. She’s never known it to be any different, but with Sora around an arduous chore becomes as easy as showing her where the knife is.

“Hime taught me,” Sora had said as she worked, her left hand pinning a carrot to the worktop, her right hand bringing down the heel of the blade. “I do the chopping most days. Hime cuts herself sometimes, but I don’t.”

The image of Hime with a bandaged finger doesn’t come easily; it seems to belong in a different world. To Nath, Hime has always seemed infuriating in control, breezing past any difficulty with a smile, so it’s odd to picture her actually having trouble with something. But it seems there are many things that she struggles with behind closed doors.

“Thank you for cooking for me,” Sora says as she returns. “It was very good.”

“Really? I bet it was half-cold by the time you were done watching me eat,” Nath jokes. Her voice is warm, honeyed by the alcohol.

“That was very good too. I had never seen somebody use a fork with their feet.”

“It’s not that hard when you get used to it. Don’t ask me to use chopsticks, though,” she replies, and wriggles her toes.

It earns her a chuckle, a little bubble of laughter, precious for its rarity. Sora does not laugh freely, or easily, and always seems vaguely surprised whenever one escapes her. She allows herself to look around the room a little before returning; her eyes linger over the bookshelves, her lips silently mouthing words that Nath can’t make out.

“Do you read these?” she asks, running her fingers along a leather-bound spine.

“Honestly, no,” Nath replies, a little sheepish. She has returned to her cushion; she feels sleepy, perhaps because of the wine. “Most of my library is digital. It’s easier. Books are easy to damage. But I like being around them. They’re from an older world. Most of those books I scavenged.”

Sora doesn’t speak for a moment, lost in her own thoughts. “But you can read?”

“What kind of question is that?” Nath asks. The words have barely escaped her lips before she realises they were the wrong ones. The still, relaxed atmosphere of two friends enjoying dinner is suddenly replaced by something more taught, more clinging.

“I understand when people speak. Mostly,” Sora says, slowly, approaching things from a different angle. “They taught me languages, before the war. So I’d know what the enemy was saying. This language… is descended. From those ones. So I can figure it out. Suguri helps. Her accent is old, so it’s closer to the ones I knew. But the alphabet changed. I can’t read it.”

Nath’s mouth opens, closes again. Of course. She has had ten thousand years to travel the world, to drink wine and rescue books she doesn’t read. But for Sora, those years don’t exist; they are sleep, a great yawning void in the history of her world. How much has the language changed from when she fell? How different is the landscape, the cities and the coasts? When they met again, Sora had been lost. Lost, unable to read the street names, to navigate with a map, in a city that hadn’t existed until she woke.

And when she speaks, there is always a deliberateness, a slowness to it. A moment where it feels like the gears in her head are whirring, before she spits out her result. Nath realises, quietly, that she has barely ever heard Sora use anything but simple words. Well-picked, but simple. How large is the gulf between what Sora feels and what she can express? There are so many questions Nath wants to ask, but how equipped is her friend to answer them?

“Nath,” Sora says, and pads over to her. Her feet are bare; she took off her shoes when she came in, despite Nath telling her she didn’t have to. Despite herself, all Nath can do is look at them; she cannot look her friend in the eye, after being so insensitive, after not realising despite the clues. “Don’t worry.”

She feels Sora’s hand gently touch her head, ruffle her hair a little, and despite herself she is cheered. Of course. Just because she doesn’t have hands doesn’t mean she can’t cook, or read books, or whatever else she wants to do; just because Sora is struggling with the language doesn’t mean they can’t communicate. They just do it a little differently from other people. That’s all.

“Thank you for dinner. You don’t talk about yourself a lot, so it’s interesting when you do. Tell me more about the places you lived next time,” Sora says. Her voice is dreamy and relaxed. “I want to hear what happened in the world while I was away.”

“Mm. I do have some history books. We can read them together next time. You do the pages, and I’ll do the words. I’ll teach you as we go along. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Nath says nothing, but pushes her head against Sora’s hand a little. It’s just an impulse, but Sora takes the hint and drops to one knee to gently hug Nath’s head into her chest.

“Sorry. I’m sleepy. I think I drank too much.”

“Should I go?” Sora asks.

“No.”

“If you say so.”

Nath wonders, as the seconds tick by, if it is the wine that is making her feel so warm, or that is bringing the blood rushing to her cheeks. In her heart of hearts, she knows it isn’t. But if the more she believes it, the less she is embarrassed, and the longer this moment can last. Perhaps, she tells herself, she did drink too much tonight.

But her thirst is for something different.

A/N: How come Hime doesn't have any difficulty with the language? Pick an option:

1: She was on a ship that's meant to go to other planets and settle there. They might have some translation technology to help them interact with natives easier.

2: Suguri has been teaching her, but hasn't gotten around to teaching Sora yet.

3: Magic or god powers or something

I' m going for number three, myself. Also, sorry I haven't updated much -- this month has basically been me writing things, getting halfway finished, then canning them and rewriting them until something stuck.