WHO: James, Faihan, and Elisa WHEN: May 16 (Morning) WHERE: La Estrella Hotel, Taboga Town SUMMARY: Feefee is still processing the Titus reveal and wondering about his qualifications as a leader; James is just trying to get Elisa to eat some breakfast. CW: Self-doubt. Hints of Depression.
He wasn't sitting in the banquet area. After the night before, after the revelations of the meeting...
Eating in that room...
So he sat listening to the rain fall from a covered deck on the side of the hotel. After dark, it had been a bar, looking out onto the beach, but now, first thing in the morning, it had a gloomy, abandoned look to it—with only a few people like Faihan making use of the open air seating.
A bit of rain was coming in under the awning, speckling his skin and the table and the piece of untouched toast on his plate. Faihan had brought a book with him, though he was not reading it, and so it, too, was accumulating dampness with everything else around him. He was staring into space, doing his best to avoid any particular thought. Waiting, maybe. Paused in low-battery mode.
He heard the little girl's voice, but didn't turn—didn't connect the soft trill of youth with any person here among them. He continued to regard the rain, greying against its backdrop, like he might soon lose all color himself and disappear into it.
“Please, just eat your breakfast…”
James’s voice was thin and tight, exhaustion weighing every syllable. Next to her, Elisa sat (or fidgeted rather) looking equally sour with sleeplessness. The toddler was red in the cheeks and looked on the verge of a tantrum. She had not been comfortable. Or, perhaps, not secure. This place was not her home. These people, mostly strangers, were not her safe, familiar world. Her mother had been coming and going and leaving her with Tia Maria on and off for what seemed days now. And when she was home, she was haggard, impatient, snappish, distracted and like someone else.
“Please, mija,” James was saying again, a fracture at the edge of her voice. “Please…”
But Elisa would not, or could not, and was on her feet again instead, sliding with a shrill little grunt to the floor, and hurrying halfway across the deck before James grabbed her and swung her up into her arms.
“Where are you—oh,” she added, breathless, “good morning, B-Faihan.”
His attention moved—slipped—from the bars of grey to the little girl, regarding her without realizing her until her feet were back off the ground, and she was in her mothers arms again. It took him a moment to recall his own name; somehow, he had expected to hear “Badr.”
There was no gold, nor green, in his eyes in this life. They were deep brown, where even the warmer caramel tones might be missed, perceived by the layman’s eye as brown-black. But they were softer and more present. He was smaller, but the bulk of him was greater. The ephemeral accents that made it easy for Badr to look like the voice of a god…had resolved into a quiet, steadfast humanity within Faihan’s features.
But his was also the face of someone who still sometimes forgot how to smile.
He forgot to now even, blinking as he took in the furious toddler and the wisps of hair and reddened cheeks of a frustrated mother.
“James,” he said, working hard not to call her Cinna. “I forgot…” (You are a mother.) “Waiting…to hear what we will do next?” He asked, still regarding the child. “But…we’re in good hands now. You already know that though—from before.”
His eyes were on Elisa, and for a moment so were James'. The toddler was still squirming, though her fit had been momentarily diverted, distracted by the unexpected attention of a stranger.
"And whose are those?" James asked, a little breathless and red-faced herself. If she was as cool and unflappable as her otherworld counterpart, she was also far more earthy, a swimmer with something of a mountain in her flinty blue eyes. So that even her frustration felt steady, as she readjusted the child against her and forced a half-pleasant smile onto her lips.
She had tried to follow him the other night. She had seen the pain, the way he took flight, and for a moment he'd been almost familiar to her. But he had been intercepted by his Prince, and so James, watching for only a moment to be sure, had left them.
"Hands, I mean. We seem to be punted here and there, from one fearless leader to another, these days." There was only a hint of ice in it; the rest was matter-of-fact. "Elisa," she added, and the girl squirmed again. "This is Mummy's friend, Faihan." In her arms, the child regarded him, though she seemed to be pretending not to.
"Hi Elisa," he said, sitting up straighter and waving his fingers. Badr had had a lot of experience with children. When he, himself, was only a child, he and Zuya had been tasked with various birth rites, including presenting newborns to the village. He could remember fragments of that child Badr's thoughts, about how heavy babies were, about how hard it must have been to carry one inside your body... A worry that, as he grew older and stronger, he forgot about. As a child, he'd been a little scared to perform it, but as an adolescent, he felt a great deal of pride in the role and...too, perhaps a special connection. As though this act had strengthened the bond between him and the child—between Chosen of Song and villager... It gave him what he thought Elpis must have felt: a certain parental affection for the people of Simurgh—though he was younger than the great majority of the people in his charge.
But Faihan had only held children a few times when visiting cousins in his teenage years back in Canada. There were many cousins, and some of the older ones had had toddler-aged kids by the time he was 15 or 16. He had felt shy around them. Generally speaking, he had fostered a quiet anxiety about being surrounded by family at that age, as though if he was not perpetually mindful, they would realize that he was gay. It had felt like a very big and unwieldy secret in those years. Something he could not quite disguise gracefully enough to prevent everyone from noticing it, and so causing him a constant, clumsy self-awareness that...perhaps explained some of his personality now.
His thoughts had meandered to strange places, but they circled back around. In this life, Faihan was not sure what to do with babies or small children. They made him paranoid somehow, like they would see through him, know all the things he didn't want people to know, and in their innocent manner...reveal those things to the world. Indeed, the way he regarded Elisa gave one the impression of a small deer having stumbled upon a bear.
He turned his gaze away from Elisa to James. Elisa had distracted him, and so he had to pause and rewind to recall what James had been saying. He looked away.
"I'm not a prince, or an ancient savior," Faihan remarked, smiling mirthlessly. "I'm just a baker—and I have many fears. So really, you're only just now getting fearless leaders."
"I would say fear is rather a useful trait in a leader." James shrugged. She hadn't really thought of Faihan as their leader before anyway. Nor, she realized, had she thought of Badr as one when she had been a girl growing up in Simurgh, in that other life. Not really. So it had been something of a surprise to be told they were being handed off from one set of hands to another. Faihan, like Badr before him, was a beacon; he was the light (or a song) that guided his people. He had shown them something. It had never been what he told them to do, or where he placed them on the board, what maneuvers he'd devised. No, it was about what he represented, the example he offered when none of the rest of them seemed to have any idea how to weather what they were going through.
She thought they still had need of that now. Princes and ancient saviors were all well and good, but this was more than mere tactics.
"Fear can act as a powerful compass," James added with something wicked flashing sickle-like behind her eyes. "As is...hope."
His brow furrowed, dark eyes skating away for a moment. "Maybe it is...or can be. Maybe," he agreed, looking down at the buckling cover of the poetry book. "I think...it was... I was.." He pressed his palm over the cover, trying to smooth it out again. He opened his mouth, a sound of air moving through his teeth, but no words. Again, a web formed in his brow. "Why was it...back then? It was because you knew he knew what he was doing...wasn't it? That's why...?"
She had interrupted him. For a moment, James felt a thrill of shame, glancing briefly between the book he was reading and her squirming toddler, then back again. They were not as close as they had been back then. They were not close at all. She had no right to his time, especially when he had been stretched so thing these days as it was.
But she did need to speak to him. She needed him to know she still believed in him. For whatever reason, and however she could. Perhaps there was something of Cinna in her yet, who loved him. He and Zuya had been the only really family that girl had ever known.
And maybe this was a sort of family too. Something she hadn't found yet in this life, even now.
But she furrowed her brow a moment, considering the question, as she set Elisa down beside her, still holding her by the hand. "What was what?" she started. "Who? Do you mean the Dark Knight? Because I'm afraid, Faihan, I knew nothing back then. I was simply angry. And afraid. And I...suppose I believed in something bigger than myself." She glanced at her girl again. "I'm not sure whether I'm at all the same person you remember, however."
"I'm not sure I am either," he agreed. "I want to believe that's for the best. But who can really say if it is or isn't." He bit back a sigh, his lower lip sinking between his teeth. His dark eyes floated away again, lost in thoughts of another world—trying very hard to not be lost in what-ifs that involved screaming and fear and pain and... He reached for his drink, sitting up straight rather suddenly.
"I always had the impression that Titus thought Gaius would make a better ruler... Though Gaius only ever assumed that role when he couldn't do things by himself. I guess he and I..." I, not Badr, but Faihan, "...are alike in that way." He paused, considering, and then amended. "I don't know that Badr ever had the luxury of considering that kind of thing. It was just his job. Until..." He blinked slowly and shook his head. "There is a part of me that would like to do the same now," he said, casting his gaze into the thick of foggy rain beyond the awning. "Not because I think I will learn something, or find some kind of secret that will save the day. Well, I did say we are not the same."
His eyes were dark. Not the shimmering eyes she remembered. And, though Faihan was more familiar to James in this lifetime, it still unnerved her.
What had time done to her sweet brother?
It seemed unfair.
It seemed…cruel.
She handed a cup of juice down to Elisa to distract her. “This question of rulers,” she sighed. She didn’t care who their leader was going to be, only what should be done next. And, as far as James could see it, they needed morale even more than they needed direction at this point. “We wouldn’t have made it even this far without you, you know. Like it or not, you’re needed here.”
His eyes moved through a complex set of patterns, maybe conveying confusion, possibly guilt, a little fear, a little hope, and then flattening out again.
"Someone would have risen to the occasion. Everyone here is competent and brave. If I hadn't done it, someone would have figured out next steps. Maybe even you." He glanced up, his mouth quirking, but failing to smile. "Badr always thought...that Cinna knew what to do, that she understood...everything on a deeper level than he could. For all his love of books and learning...he was always a little jealous of how adept she was."
“I have other concerns,” she mused with a quick but clear glance down at Elisa, now sipping from her cup and glaring upward at the stranger. “I wouldn’t have been any good at minding an entire party of heroes.”
In this life, or in the last, James thought. She had been too distracted then too, but by less important things. Things that had felt profound but that now seemed to James hollow and insignificant. In the grand scheme, what did dragons really matter?
“Cinna was headstrong and a zealot,” she said. “She believed in her ideals, but held very little in her heart for the humanity she claimed to fight for.” James sighed, gave a slight shrug. “I think you…perhaps not Badr—perhaps his life was not so broadly textured, until the end—but I think perhaps you know what it means to care, and to want. To really want. And in that is a certain depth of understanding about this life most of us will never quite achieve.”
What a curious thing she was saying. Faihan could not easily grasp it, not in that moment—half-damp with rain and still bogged down with last night's grief. He felt like the meaning fell through holes in him, formed by days of being stretched too thin. He snatched at them and failed to collect their meaning. At least at this time. This complicated idea of want. Badr had brazenly declared it his motto on leaving Serenitas. Some stupid monologue about selfishness being a form of hope. It was the kind of thing a 12-year-old would suggest, and it still baffled Faihan that he had believed in something like that so thoroughly.
But want seemed to be important to a human life. It seemed to have some sort of attachment to...maybe to hope. He wasn't sure. He could not say, under morning light, any better than he could say in the dark the night before what exactly hope was. He picked up his book, rubbing the cover on his shirt to dry it.
"I'm worried...that in both of these lives...I'm a little overly inclined towards wanting. Wanting is good when it's in service to others, but...when it's in service to yourself, I'm not sure it isn't more about selfishness than...caring?" He brow furrowed as he tried a last ditch effort to discern the depth of the meaning in her words.
James's eyes had narrowed again in confusion. "Badr wanted for his ideals. You want for yourself, maybe, and for those who are your friends and loved ones. This, as I see it, is more genuine. More true. I fail to see what is truly selfish about either of those things, only that Badr was perhaps more naive than you are now."
Straightening, James lifted Elisa again, who had begun to babble about breakfast. "You are less naive, which I think perhaps means you are given more easily to despair than he ever could be, because you can see the faults in things more clearly. But I think this also enriches your ability to care. With that comes further despair, of course. Such is the way of things. It is always a cycle. But despair... and...enduring despair is the very definition of hope, of the best kind of hope: a hope that is not just idealistic, but that is hardworking and generative."
Faihan lifted his head, his eyes finally fully focusing on her–becoming intent on her as she spoke. He was quiet for a very long moment after she finished. Probably for far longer than a toddler would like. He had not heard it described like that before, though. He finally looked away, his fingers brushing the side of his neck...such a Badr-like gesture, intrinsically shy.
Finally, he looked again to her, though his eyes remained lowered, his lashes brushing over his cheeks, which had not turned pink, but which did seem warmer than before.
"She didn't like the breakfast...did she? I can show you a trick." He looked from James to Elisa. "A magic trick."
James was silent for a long moment too. For too long. Elisa fidgeting, looking up to her mother, waiting for some kind of permission to find out more about this so-called “magic trick.”
But James was somewhere else: in a dappled wood. Laughing with another girl and a boy, watching him demure and look away. So shy, so proud and yet modest at once. It was the essence of something important, something she’d forgotten even before the end of the last life.
James cleared her throat. “Go on,” she said, glancing down. Elisa was not hers by blood. And sometimes James remembered that with a pang of guilt. Other times it was with only warmth. Right now it was some mix of both. The child didn’t resemble her in anyway.
Well, except maybe in mannerism.
The little girl, having been given permission from her mother to pursue this offer, schooled her features into something serious.
“What?” she said, in a voice that was meant to sound cool and indifferent, but in her high voice still sounded eager.
"Have you ever eaten stardust?" Faihan asked, moving to stand, glancing at James. "It's said that people who eat stardust toast...get to make a special wish."
There was a glint in Elisa’s eyes, despite the way she tried to look unimpressed.
James smiled, though.
“You know the secret?” she said with sudden enthusiasm, then bent to scoop Elisa into her arms. “Stardust toast is a very magical and special thing. From mummy’s homeland.”
Elisa began to look more impressed. She peered at Faihan, shook her head, then nodded.
“I thought I saw a few ingredients inside. Should we have a look?”
The girl nodded, staring between Faihan and her mother in astonishment.
Thank you, James mouthed silently with a smile.
Faihan smiled back, a little wryly. It was, after all, only cinnamon toast, but, “Okay. You seem like someone who knows how to keep a secret, so I’ll tell you and only you the spell to wake the stardust from the sugar…”
(Little sparkle in a jar, I won’t tell just who you are; So wake for me upon this dish, And grant for me this single wish.)