Page 45 of Potions & Pints
Tan smiled gratefully at the news. “Thank you. You make a great healer, you know?”
Dania smiled back. “I know,” she said and laughed.
Tan hesitated for a moment but he had to ask what he’d been wondering since the moment they arrived in Laeve Taesi.
“Is it okay if I stay with Vir until he’s better? Not that I don’t trust you or anything, but I’d like to make sure he wakes up.”
The healer laughed again. “Of course,” she said, smiling another knowing smile. “He’s through here.”
She turned and led Tan through the second seaweed curtain from which she’d emerged earlier and Tan’s eyes suddenly fell upon a sleeping Vir, laid down on a bed of soft coral and woven kelp.
While his sleep up on the beach had looked drugged and heavy though, now the orc appeared peaceful, his green skin, even in the low light, took on a healthy hue, his eyes fluttering lightly with pleasant dreams, his broad chest rising and falling steadily with each new breath.
Dania must have noticed the way Tan was watching him because she pulled up a large, plush chair that appeared to be an enormous living sea anemone.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said softly. “It looks like you might be here a while.”
Tan gave her one last hug.
“It’s good to see you,” he said gently, letting the true beauty of the situation actually touch him.
“It’s good to see you too,” she replied, squeezing back. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
As they pulled away Dania gave one last little laugh before leaving Tan to settle in by Vir’s side.
There was little to do now but sit and wait and as he did, Tan felt something growing in his chest. He thought again to the rule he’d lived his life by — to look out for himself and only himself. But the way he’d panicked when he thought Vir might not make it, the elation he’d felt at seeing Dania again — these were not the actions of a man set apart from the world anymore.
Tan realized with a start that he had suddenly found himself — against all odds, and probably against all that he deserved — with two people he cared about. Two people whose wellbeing mattered more to him than his own. Two people he wanted in his life for a very, very long time.
“How in the world did that happen?” he muttered under his breath. Before him, Vir began to softly snore, his chest rising and falling, rising and falling, as Tan looked on with a smile.
22
Tan had been joking about the seawater being good for him but after a week in Laeve Taesi he was beginning to think it might be true. His gills were beginning to feel more like a part of himself, and less like an unwanted extra that had been tacked onto a shady business deal. He hadn’t yet been asked to contribute officially to the community, but he found himself enjoying the company of the water elves he came across. Even just watching their interactions from afar had been nourishing.
The last time he’d been there he’d been too consumed by grief to really pay attention, but this time he was starting to realize that life down there on the ocean floor wasn’t so different from life on land. And the water elves were really no different from his own people.
It shouldn’t have come as such a shock to him, but he found he was surprised by the notion that all beings were more or less alike. They were more similar than they were different. It made him wonder why the fighting between elf kingdoms had begun in the first place, and why it had gone on for so long.
He told all this to Pili one night as he went to visit him in The Abyss. He’d been doing this every night since he found out it was nothing more than a guarded cave.
“I suppose it’s because we’re sometimes more threatened by peace than we are by war,” Pili replied thoughtfully, the light of a single jellyfish making his face glow an eerie blue. “Maybe that’s why my father is so angry with me. It’s just in our nature to seek conflict.”
But the water elf frowned at his own thought. Tan waited. He had the feeling Pili had more to say.
“But to be honest, I still don’t really understand my father’s ire. I thought he’d be pleased with me, especially for arranging weapons from the Northern Kingdom. We have no real allegiances to anyone, so why should it matter if I set up a treaty? If it means we have weapons in our hands and can avenge my brother's death, then what’s the difference?”
Tan could only shake his head sadly. Since the moment they’d stepped foot in Laeve Taesi, he and Pili had seemed to have overcome the tension that had lain between them. Their visits had started off a little strained, but Tan came to realize he was concerned for the water elf. Even if he didn’t think he could do much to help him.
“I have to admit, it bothers me too,” Tan said, thinking of the chieftain’s furious reception of his son. “But unfortunately I’m not really up on the finer points of water elf politics if they’re not tied to the land elves.”
Pili nodded, sighing into the cool dark water of the cave and Tan suddenly felt very sorry for him.
“I’ll keep an ear out though,” Tan suddenly promised.
As he left the cave that night, he went back to the elves’ grand hall for dinner. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing he’d usually eat but the community had made an effort to prepare fish in a way that suited a land elf’s palate. Dania had also helped him adjust, pointing out the Laeve Taesian dishes that most closely resembled land food. There was even a seaweed he was beginning to like.
As he sat down to eat that night, Vir finally joined them and Tan was ecstatic to see the orc was finally up on his feet again. Tan had been spending the majority of his days in the healing cave, watching as Vir slowly recovered and now, as they greeted each other, Vir leaned over to Tan and Dania, an eager grin on his face.
