Deadman

I walked out alone and was worn out by all the conversation. My travel back across the Cut was hard, but it also gave me solitude, and time to breathe. Two things I’d been sorely lacking in since I’d taken on the role of Marshal.

I walked through the streets toward Nico’s house. I found my feet draggin a bit, but there were things I needed to hear from her, and things I thought she may need to hear from me. I’d left her, in a sense, in charge. I’d deputized her, granting her some new abilities and skills that I hoped would allow her to act in my place while I was gone. She could likely have done the job even without what I’d given, but every bit helped. I knew that as well as she did.

Any hesitation I felt as I walked was wiped away by the muttering, pointing, and stares of my fellow deadmen as I walked through Pott’s winding streets. I was used to those, but I had a feeling they might result in conversation if I stayed still for two long, and that was something I preferred to avoid.

I made it to Nico’s house. It managed to be distinct by being undecorated, while all of the domes around it had been painted or carved into intricate designs, patterns, or pictures. One particular standout was right next to hers, with a full scale family portrait on the front of it. Hers however, sat in plain orange-brown. The same shade as the material it had been built with.

I approached the door, and gave it two firm knocks. I heard motion on the other side, and smelled Nico as she got closer to the door, her scent so similar to my own that I’d often been unable to notice her approach when I wasn’t paying attention. The fact that I hadn’t questioned the reason for that up until this point surprised me.

She opened the door, and looked up at me. She was around six feet tall, so I stood a fair bit higher than her. She looked much the same as when I’d left her, but I noticed a fresh scar on her left cheek that hadn’t been there before.

Before I could say or do anything, she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a squeeze hard enough to hurt.

It surprised me. She’d usually given me my space. I wasn’t very good at reciprocating physical affection, and she wasn’t usually the type to give it out, but I did my best to return the gesture.

She stepped back and gestured for me to come inside. “I knew you’d be back safe,” she said as I walked in.

“That makes one of us,” I replied as I moved into her house. It was much the same as I remembered it. A wall of classic books, very different from my own collection of sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks, and art she’d looted from museums on a few of the walls. They’d been shifted slightly, and I noticed a few new books and pieces of art here and there, but it was much the same. The only major change was the massive Ursan fur carpet that now covered the majority of the floor.

She noticed me looking. “I had a trip to the Black Woods. Helped them figure out why the ursans had grown so aggressive. Wound up killing this one in the process.”

I nodded. “They aren’t easy to kill.”

“They are when you drop a heavy enough rock on them.”

I nodded. “Good strategy. Why were they more aggressive?”

“They’re food source was dying. There are massive pits of flesh. They smell a bit like pigs, taste like a mix of things. They grow and spread in the deepest parts of the woods. The ursans rely on them as their primary source of food, but they started dying, and appearing less.”

“Did you fix the problem?”

She shook her head. “There’s no ‘fixing it’. The solution is to kill them until they’re all gone or learn not to attack people.”

“You sound like me.”

“Sometimes…your solution is the best one.”

I nodded and sat there awkwardly for a few moments. I wasn’t sure of how to bring up that we were siblings.

“Coffee?” she asked.

I squinted at her. “Where’d you get it?”

“From Deux.”

“Of course you did.”

“Do you want some or not?”

I sighed. “I do, thank you.”

Nico walked into the kitchen, and I took a seat where she could keep talking to me from the kitchen.

“He’s going to be here in a short while. Wanted to hear about my last trip out. I’ll wait until he gets here for you to tell me what happened to you, and for me to tell you what’s been happening here. I know you wouldn’t enjoy having to tell me twice, and I don’t want to tell you, then Deux about my last trek to Medina.”

“I’m your brother.”

There was a brief pause, I heard water start to boil, then a packet of instant coffee was opened, followed by the pouring of two cups.

Nico stepped out of the kitchen, handed me a mug, and took a seat across from me. “How did you find out?” she asked.

“You knew?” I asked. I wasn’t surprised, necessarily. I’d had a long time to think about all of our past interactions while I made my way back across the Cut. She’d been one of the first people to speak with me when I’d arrived in Pott’s. One of only two to take the time and get to know me. I didn’t blame the other teenagers, they’d lived in Pott’s their entire life, and been raised with one another. I was a stranger, and while they were friendly, I wasn’t exactly making an effort on my own to be amiable. Nico had simply started being in the same places I was. Eating at the same table, sitting with me when I went to watch the undertakers leave, practicing shooting and fighting with me. Deux had followed shortly after, but in his case it would appear that was more because he had a weird taste in friends rather than being a secret sibling.

“I did. Mom had told me about you. Asked me to keep an eye out. When you first arrived and I heard the rumors about you, I thought it may be you. Then I met you, and I knew right away.”

“She asked you to keep an eye out… how kind of her,” I was surprised by the amount of malice dripping from my voice as I spoke.

“She talked about you a lot. It didn’t come easy to her, but she made sure I knew who you were. Leaving you behind broke her heart.”

“Her poor heart… I guess that’s more important than the scars on my back.”

Nico shook her head, her expression a lesson in neutrality that every member of the Honored Dead could take a lesson from. “You can think whatever you’d like about her. Say whatever you want. She’s dead. I’m sure she’d rather you say whatever makes you feel better.”

I made an effort to unclench my teeth. Nico was right, It didn’t matter. She was dead, and what had been done couldn’t be undone. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“I wasn’t sure how to. I was a kid. I did my best.”

I nodded, I didn’t need my lie detector ability to know that was true. In the end, Nico being my sister didn’t change anything. I already would’ve done whatever I could for her even before I knew we were blood. And if she’d died before I knew, it would’ve had the same result as now. A trail of dead and a river of viscera.

I took a long sip of coffee. It was nice, and I paid attention as the heat of it traveled down my throat and into my stomach.

Nico did the same, taking a long sip and looking at the wall where one of her paintings hung, one of a still pond with lilies sitting on them. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, just full of thought and weight that we were both working our way through in our own time. By the time I was at the last sip of my coffee, the reality of how our relationship had changed had seemed to settle on each of us. I took that last sip and savored it, enjoying a flavor I hadn’t been able to experience since I’d begun my journey.

I looked up at her as I finished. “I could do much worse for a sibling.” I managed to say.

She nodded, and I saw a smile touch the corner of her mouth. “That’s true. What if it had turned out that Deux was your brother?”

I stared into my empty coffee cup, pretending as if the thought was doing tremendous damage to me, then managed to look up at her, a smile peeking through my expression to match hers. “In that case, mother almost certainly wouldn’t have taken him with her.”