44. Chime and First in the Reaches

Note:  If you haven't read The Harbors of the Sun yet, this may be a little spoilery.

Chime said under his breath, "I can't believe I agreed to this."

He had underestimated First's hearing ability. Sitting a few paces away, the half-Raksuran dakti said, "You can't believe you're in danger." He jerked his head toward the center of the platform, where Malachite stood. "If anyone is in danger here, I think it will be me."

He had a point. And Chime had to admit, he really didn't believe he was in danger. His objection was the same old objection, the one everyone was tired of, including him. Chime said, "I'm not a mentor. I can't help you."

"Neither am I," First agreed. "Perhaps that's why they sent you."

Chime held back a hiss. They were meeting with representatives of the half-Fell flight on a neutral platform, in the green shadow of the Reaches' late afternoon. A scatter of Indigo Cloud and Opal Night warriors guarded the platform from the branches above, and watched the dakti and the two kethel who had come to the meeting. It helped a little that one of the kethel was actually Kethel; he was at least a familiar presence.

Chime told First, "You already advise your queen. I don't know what else I can tell you about that."

First seemed undaunted. He was in his groundling form, with coppery skin and light curly hair, and a slight build like a young Arbora. Except Chime didn't think First was nearly as young as he looked. First said, "How do you advise your queen?" 

Chime swallowed back the impulse to say that his opinion wasn't worth anything because he couldn't scry anymore. It wasn't true, but he had pretended to believe it for a long time, a comforting lie that said any failing on his part was because of his change to warrior. He said, "By telling her what I think."

"Really." First tilted his brows. "The Arbora explained how to make food plants grow on the platforms. It's simple. We do the right things to the ground and the plants will grow, we just have to keep trying until we get it right. Advising the queen is not like that."

Chime lifted his face to the cooling breeze. He didn't want to be an ass about this, but he seemed to be doing it anyway. And his reluctance wasn't First's fault. "It isn't easy to describe. You have to use your best judgment. I assume you're already doing that since you don't want to advise her to do things that might get your whole court -- flight -- killed. You have to...try to separate out what you want her to do, and think about what would be best for everyone."

First didn't reply immediately, flicking at the flowergrass with one finger. "I didn't advise her to go to the Raksura. She wanted to try to speak to your queens on the boat. I thought you would never listen. If your queens hadn't come to us, we would never have got our tree."

Chime frowned slowly. All right, now I think I see why he wants to talk. First clearly considered the incident a failure on his part. From what Chime understood, finding an empty colony tree in the Reaches had been the goal of the half-Raksuran members of the flight from the time their consort sire had told them about it. "Were you afraid? Of us, I mean, and that's why you didn't want her to try to talk to us?"

"Yes. We made so many mistakes." First flicked a nervous look at Chime, as if suddenly recalling that one of those mistakes had been trying to steal Moon. Chime kept his expression blank. The only way to prevent those mistakes, to keep the half-Fell from going back to eating groundlings, to save Malachite the trouble of slaughtering all of them, was to keep answering their questions. First added, "It seemed like one more."

Chime tried to think what he would have done in First's position. He might have given the same advice. No, he definitely would have. It was Malachite who had gone to talk to the half-Fell flight, Jade accompanying her because she thought Malachite intended to either scout their position or fight them.  No one could have anticipated what Malachite would decide to do. Chime had never been able to tell if she made her decisions on impulse or if her thinking was seven steps ahead of everyone else's.  "I've made mistakes. Fear is...fear is hard. We have fear to keep us from doing stupid things. Not that it always works. With warriors it hardly ever works, it seems like. But... You need experience to learn when to listen to fear and when not to."

First said, "Ah," and frowned. "So it is like growing food plants."

"Sort of. Except harder."