Page 21 of Thief of Roses
“When does it go back to being pink?”She popped a radish in her mouth and took another drink.
“My tongue stayeth lyke thys.”
She clenched her hand around the goblet, determined not to betray how strange that idea made her feel.When he said he changed, she assumed he morphed or shape-shifted or had fluctuating magical cycles.She did not realize he meant permanent physical changes.
“It is not a bad change,”she assured him, although it was not a good one.“The stories always speak of the Fir’Darl going from idea to physical being because of the cruelties of the world.But I cannot imagine that you had time between two days ago and today to commit many cruelties.”
“Y will tell thee oon day of my manie mysdeeds,”he assured her,“but Y have not knowynglie commytted cruelties yn recent memorie.”
“Are you the Fir’Darl?”
This creature fit the physical description of the god, but for all his brutish ugliness, he did not fit the character.
“Wolde the Fir’Darl knoweth yf he beeth the Fir’Darl?”
“I have never had cause to question that,”she shrugged.“You use magic and look like the Fir’Darl.”
“Y do not know,”he said.“Perhaps I am then.Thou mayest have cause yet to ask me to cloak myself, for gyfts serveth only to further hamper my functionyng or to worsen my aspect.”
“Gifts,”she repeated.Gifts were considered pleasant things.These changes did not sound like pleasant things.Not if they stayed and not if they harmed.
“Gyfts,”he confirmed, this time with a tone that was insistent they be called nothing else.He had the look of one who had been corrected for calling it something else and did not want to see her make the same mistake.
She nodded, assuring him that she got the message.She did not know what game they were playing, but she had seen his glazed-over eyes before and read the fearful insistence in his face now.Whatever game it was, she could guess the stakes were high.
“Speaking of gifts,”she offered, trying to lighten the moment of tension,“I would like to bestow my own gift, although not one like that.I have been calling you Fir’Darl.Since you do not know if you are he, among the Rivani it is,”she blushed,“extremely insulting to call someone the Fir’Darl.”
“I knowe.”
“And you said nothing?!”She threw a radish at him because his quiet, patient acceptance of such a rude gesture on her part made her feel worse.“You’re awful.That ruined all the fun of it.”
“Y apologyse.”He cleared his throat and started anew with a dramatic show of ignorance.“Beeth yt truly?Y had no ydea that thy name for me woldest be anythyng but sweetness and...sunshyne!”
She almost choked on her food.
“Do you have a name you prefer?”
“Nay.Thou sholdest call me what thou wylt and Y wyll answer to yt.”
“Anything?”She laughed.“What if I called you Mouse or Cottingsley or Blight?”
“Anythyng, provideth that thou mooste obvious refferest to me.”
She considered him for a long moment, certain his passivity did not come naturally.Maybe he was just too tired to care.If he was the Fir’Darl, that made him old.Maybe his original name had been lost to time.
“If you think of something you would like, then I will oblige.Until you tell me otherwise, I should like to call you ‘Baró.’”
“Very well thanne.Ys there a reasonne?”
“It’s nicer than Fir’Darl,”she admitted,“and you deserve a better appellation.You have never insulted me or my people, never disparaged us or used slurs for us...”A lump lodged in her throat.“I did not think I would ever know a non-Rivani who did not think of us like dirt.”
“Thou hast shown symylar courtesie.”He spread his clawed hand out on the table for them both to see.“Y am too grotesque for thy world of men that Y must be shut away yn forest prysonne wyth only an occasionnal wanderer to gyve varyationne to my days.Yet the worst thou hast seen fyt to call me ys ‘Fir’Darl.’‘Tis mooste fortunate for me.”
She clung to the word “prison,” but she could not dwell on it, not now, not in the midst of their conversation.It would throw their comfortable rhythm off.
“‘Baró’ does not mean anything derogatory,”she assured him.“And it’s appropriate.It means ‘impressive,’ and you are that indeed.”
“Wouldst thou styll have me call thee Rivani?Or woldest thou prefer thine own name?”
