Page 25 of Palaces and other Prisons
Something was definitely up.
Dawson sat in the seat he’d only ever seen people in fancy clothes use, feeling as though he’d just been called to the principal’s office or was about to get yelled at by his boss. Those kinds of meetings never went his way.
“I fucked up the other day, I get it. I have apologized, even though that’s been pointless. I don’t know what else to do.” The words bubbled out of his mouth. “I don’t know what else to say. Is there anything left to say?”
Ul rested his arms on the table, resting the bandaged stump on his hand as if to protect it. He pressed his lips together.
Here it came, the ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ talk, or the ‘I expected better’. Two sides of the same conversation, both of them telling him that he wasn’t enough or hadn’t done enough. Perhaps this time, he had done too much.
“I am thinking,” Ul said in English. He lifted one of his long finger tentacles as if to stop Dawson from speaking, but he couldn’t hold back his gasp of surprise.
“You’ve learnt my language. English.”
Ul tilted his head and frowned. He had no eyebrows to pull together, but if he did, they would be furrowed. “Not as it flows.”
“Fluently. Not fluently. But one thousand times better than I speak your language.” There were occasions where he felt he got the vibe, but as soon as he grasped that, it fractured, and he was left with nothing. It was like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands.
“More days.” He lifted a second finger.
Did that mean in two more days, he would be fluent in English? That was impossible. English wasn’t a language; it was a patchwork blanket of bits of every European language and some that no longer existed.
“How? I’m struggling.” What was the secret that could’ve saved him hours of homework at school?
Ul tapped his chest. “Look for…meaning…not the word.”
Even though he had asked for the names of things, he couldn’t remember them all. But how was he supposed to find the meaning of words without knowing the words? “I don’t understand.”
“I understood your apology. Not from the words. From…” Ul wrinkled his nose as he grimaced.
“My tone of voice?”
Ul shook his head. “Some…” He tapped his chest again. “The meaning.”
He didn’t mean the literal meaning. “Intent? Like the emotion I was trying to convey?”
“Yes.” Ul smiled and relaxed. “I listened much these past days.”
“It felt like you were ignoring me.” Why did he say that? He didn’t want to be bitching to the king, especially when things had been so tense. It wasn’t as if Ul owed him anything.
“That is hard to do. I needed to listen more. And think. And then talk.”
Oh, was this the awkward morning after talk, now that they could actually talk? Not that he expected anything to happen between them. It was obvious it couldn’t. Not in the long-term, but in the short-term, he very much wanted to explore his newfound interest in tentacles. He’d had three days to debate his own sanity.
Is that what Ul had been doing?
He was a king, though; he could have and do whatever he wanted…couldn’t he?
“We don’t need to talk about it.” It had happened, and as much as he’d like a repeat, it wasn’t something he should want. Ul wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met, and not just because he had blue skin and tentacles—maybe that was part of it, but it didn’t explain the attraction that had kept him up at night. And now that Ul spoke English, Dawson wasn’t needed.
His chest was almost crushed by the weight of the realization.
“We do. You do not know my kind. I am krakke, and you are from the same world as the Nosemen.” He pressed his lips together and glanced at the papers on his desk, which included the list of food for the platform. “The storm that brought your oil platform… The sea is different. The floor. The water. Which world are we in?”
It was different talking to Ul now that he understood. All the secrets Dawson had told when no one understood froze on his lips. He was supposed to be negotiating for food, not spouting theories about the destruction of an entire world.
“Your face tells me the truth. Felloi is now in your world.”
Dawson nodded. “Not just the island. There are dragons…” How did he explain planes and helicopters to Ul? Or phones or computers. “The company that owns the platform will send a boat, but the people need food.”
