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Mr. Grey heard a voice; muffled through the bandage bundling his head. “So basically, all of the tourists escaped; dispersed through the land. I’d say that’s success; new potential insurgents, all over Prestige. Woohoo woohoo hah!”
The strange signoff and enthusiasm of the deep voice, broken by a teenager’s squeaks, sounded familiar. Mr. Grey placed it as the same voice he’d heard shouting over the quarry battle din. Mr. Grey turned his head in the voice’s direction. To no effect - the bandages plunged his vision in ink.
Not quite to no effect. Behind him Honeydew said, “Hold still. Whoever wrapped you made it tighter than a miser’s purse strings.” She twisted his head forward.
Mr. Grey said, “Sorry.” He’d heard anger in her voice. He held off saying all he wanted. There might be, in the sightless space, any number of listening strangers.
Mr. Grey felt something hairy rub his leg, and a huge beast’s hot breath buffet his face. Mr. Grey held his own. He waited until the creature moved off with muffled stomps. He asked, “Where exactly are we?”
The young voice answered. “You discombobulated? No surprise in that. I heard you got nailed. During the dodgeball event. Throw them hard enough, and those things are rocks. That’s what I’ve heard anyway. I’ve never thrown one.”
Honeydew yanked the bandages. Mr. Grey said, “I wasn’t conscious of it.”
“Will we be stuck here long?” asked Honeydew.
“Not comfortable?” asked the young man.
“No.”
“It’s got something though. Like, a rugged feel. The great outdoors, but inside!”
“Except for stuffy air, and grime, and wild animals. Otherwise sure, it’s got something,” Honeydew jerked Mr. Grey’s head while attacking a knot in the bandages. The headwrap cut off Mr. Grey’s sense of smell, but each mouthful of air seemed somehow filthier after her description. He took shallow breaths.
“Once that bright fish gets closer, we’ll make our next move. You could come along.”
Honeydew clicked as an auditory shrug. Mr. Grey heard a deep, rumbly clearing of a nearby throat, followed by Tom’s voice. “We’d be happy to come with.”
Mr. Grey hastened to add, “After a short conference. That’s, if you don’t mind?” Mr. Grey tried to hint at a desire for privacy. Whatever huge beast had breathed on Mr. Grey circled in the space. He heard its heavy footfalls, doubly muffled by the bandages and what sounded like a padded floor. Mr. Grey wanted out of that space; with its unseen beast, and its unknown occupants. He wanted a moment alone with Honeydew. To reassure her he’d not taken the hard blow personally; in fact, to say how light his injuries seemed, especially since they’d forwarded her infirmary scheme; even if, in the end, they’d only escaped with rebellious help.
Mr. Grey hinted, it seemed, with too much subtlety. The young man remained. He said, “Trust me, you wanna come with. Jodee’s, like, awesome. For us wanderers, she cracked open Glory Days.”
“I could tell you weren’t from here,” said Mr. Grey.
“Did the accent betray me?”
“Well, it’s just like Tom’s.” Mr. Grey heard a congested grunt of acknowledgement. He went on, “Can I ask about Jodee? About what she’s done?”
“How have you not heard? ‘The Legend of Jodee Coats’?”
Mr. Grey blindly braced.
The young man went on. “A proud, unruly daughter. Condemned to gift shops, to look without touch, to living not-existing; while only a kid. In great Glory Days; under gun and guard and fish; she came, a tourist. But she dreamed greatly: the end of the Odormoats, entering ruins, touching artifacts. ‘Jodee Coats: Liberator’, revealer of lore! Partisan Leader! When she finishes her quest, we shall mingle, free! Hoorah hoorah YAY!”
The deep, young voice concluded with an incongruous, childish shriek. Honeydew had stopped for the story. She resumed unwrapping after an uncaring click. Mr. Grey said, “Well that’s a little clearer. So she’s looting tombs? For ancient relics?”
“No no no no no, Jodee wants open bubbles! She opened Panache; broke the Defense Force. Tourists mingle with locals. Next will be Prestige,” Mr. Grey heard a rustle of robe, as of the young man swinging his arm. “Then Antiquity, then Pluck.”
“Isn’t that dangerous though? Breaking Odormoats. Mixing stranger smells. What of the feral odors?”
“Jodee says that’s a king’s lie. I believe in her. I’ve stood next to her, and her smell never bit me.”
Mr. Grey said, “If you’re absolutely sure…” Honeydew had, by this point, wrestled enough wrap away from his ears that Mr. Grey heard the young man’s enthusiasm, even if he couldn’t see the waving hands and awestruck face. The man’s illicit motives fazed Mr. Grey, but not as much as the new sounds he heard. Mr. Grey distinguished a forceful, snorting breath. It must have belonged to the prowling, monstrous creature. Not even creature - creature-s, Mr. Grey realized. Sets of what must have been enormous lungs huffed air in and out from several sides. Mr. Grey filled the blackness before his eyes with images of a damp, gloomy cave; lousy with bears.
“If there’s nothing else,” added Mr. Grey, not in his steadiest voice.
Honeydew pulled his head to one side then the other. She said, “I’m trying, okay? Do it yourself if you think it’s faster.”
“Oh sorry I meant: nothing with Jodee’s story.”
“There’s tons and tons else!” cut in the young man. His voice came from the void directly before Mr. Grey. Soft and warm hands suddenly enfolded Mr. Grey’s dry right one. He left it in their grasp out of courtesy. The young man carried on, gripping Mr. Grey’s fingers for emphasis. “You just need to be convinced, like lots of tourists. That’s why we came here. For Jodee’s Casus Belli!”
“What’s Casus Belli?” asked Tom.
“A right to make war,” the other three answered in unison: Honeydew quickly, Mr. Grey hesitantly, the young man with zeal.
Mr. Grey asked, “You need a legal decree?” An icy centipede scaled his vertebrae; lumbar to cervical. A fear that these partisans had taken Honeydew, Tom, and himself for forced labor. That Mr. Grey would be pressed to file their legal forms.
“No no no no no,” the young man’s voice reassured him, rubbing his grey fingers. “There’s easier ways. Prestige has a great, wise seer; a temple nearby. We came here to ask: ‘Where is found the Golden Lure?’”
The young man waited for someone to ask, ‘what is the Golden Lure’. Tom obliged. The Young man answered, “A gift from the great fishes; it makes kings and queens. Jodee will be queen; Candlehead himself serves her!”
The young man waited for someone to ask, ‘who is Candlehead’. Mr. Grey felt he could guess. Mr. Grey’s fingers hurt in the young man’s hopeful grip, however, so Mr. grey obliged.
The Young man answered; not loosening his grip on Mr. Grey’s hand, but squeezing tighter and tighter as he spoke. His voice oozed with awe as he told them of the great Candlehead; an enchanter of legend, here in Glory Days. Some called him demifish, son of Blob Fish. Others said the blobfish cursed him, but granted power over music. One story told how Candlehead had earned his bronze Bagpipes - which played without blowing - by winning them off a pipkin stoat in a vow of silence contest. The young man said he couldn’t split truth from legend. But if even half or a quarter were true, Candlehead surpassed every grand enchanter in Wine Medo.
Honeydew pulled sharply as the young man threw careless fractions. The young man twisted Mr. Grey’s fingers. Mr. Grey said, “That’s fascinating,” in his usual un-fascinated tone. He added, “But now if there’s nothing else…”
Mr. Grey stretched his fingers as the young man’s hands loosed his own. He heard a sulky note enter the impassioned voice. “You should see Jodee. If you did you’d be convinced. Join us on our quest,” he started again with sudden, renewed zeal. “Bring friends and fiddle; enchantment’s always helpful!”
“I’m not sure-” Mr. Grey began.
“At least to the temple, man,” interrupted the young man. He’d obviously become familiar with accents beyond Wine Medo; he grasped Mr. Grey’s words before the thought’s finish, as Tom never could. “It’s a great wonder, or so they told me. A proof of Sun Fish glory. Super worth seeing.”
Tom’s voice answered again, before Mr. Grey. “We’d be happy to come with.”
Mr. Grey tried to speak. Honeydew stopped him. She yelled, “OH FORGET IT!” She dug her fingers beneath the bandages lining his skull, took them in her fists, and yanked them apart.
The light flashed onto Mr. Grey’s eyes. He blinked in metronome time. Gradually, an image resolved itself. The young man stood in front. He wore a Wine Medo robe; a bunched lower half patterned in leaves, with two vines rising like suspenders to his shoulders, blooming in rose flowers. The youth held one hand raised against his chest in a solemn fist, clutching a careworn, cloth visa. In the far corners of the boxy room, Mr. Grey saw the beasts he’d heard lumbering. They stood in piles of straw.
They were cowsowhorses. Mr. Grey was in a barn.
Honeydew and Tom walked to either side of Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey stood. While holding visa to chest, the young fellow, to Mr. Grey’s surprise, reached out his other arm. He offered Mr. Grey a proper, courteous handshake, and said, “Just call me Nuggets.”
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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