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Quick as minnows in a stream darting from a passing shadow, Oli’s fingers dance over the holes of his flute. The trill vibrating along its slim body slides higher and higher. Each new note is the dip of a toe into cold water; the tinkling of icicles in the depth of winter, until he reaches the peak of its squeaking crescendo. Using the air still in his mouth to keep playing, Oli fumbles for his belt.
At the last possible moment, he drops the tin whistle and shoves the horn between his lips. Right in time with the beat.
Cheers all around. The audience goes wild. The audience, in this case, being half a dozen preschoolers; humans and harengon alike. There’s a boy with the pointy nose and round ears of a rat, too – not that Oli can be sure. With the tourists rolling in by the hundreds every day, he could be from any number of rodent hybrid species. Judging by the ear-bleeding cadence of his excited shrieks, he’s as easily pleased as the others, though.
Overall, the kids are probably the most appreciative listeners Oli’s played for in his life. It’s taking all of his focus to suppress his burgeoning grin enough to finish the tune.
The last note spills into the air, settling and fading against the bustle of the street outside the smithy. Oli, sitting on the windowsill with his legs dangling above the dirt, claps his hands. ‘Your turn, guys. A song for a song, that was our deal.’
One of the girls – a tall, round bundle of joy with curly hair the colour of a bamboo stalk – jumps to her feet, motioning for her two friends, the rat boy and a human with a ponytail and an eyepatch, to do the same. They start stomping together, then begin to sing.
Oli leans into the wooden frame of the window and lets the sounds wash over him. It has become his favourite past-time for the last couple of weeks, to lounge in the sun and listen to the ditties the children of Sanctuary have to teach him while he bides his time until Eddie comes back from whatever errand he’s running that day. It’s nice. Soothing. There’s a rhythm to it Oli, curiously enough, doesn’t hate.
A shout cuts through the passer-bys. The three chanting kids’ heads snap up.
‘Sorry, Oli,’ says the first girl, holding out her hands to pull her friends along. ‘We gotta go.’
‘Wait,’ says Oli. ‘Will you show me the rest next–?’
The children have already run off. Great.
He looks up at the sky. The sun’s starting to dip below the tavern’s roof terrace, casting jagged shadows across the street. He and Eddie are going to have dinner together. They do that most evenings now, actually, but this’ll be the first time they’ll be alone for it. Just him and Eddie, no one else. Speaking of which: there’s no one else. No partner. No perfect harengon man or woman, and Oli’s stomach flutters when he thinks of it, like a whole swarm of butterflies rising from its perch. He practised a new song on Gem’s horn for tonight and maybe–
‘I can teach you.’
Oli jolts. ‘Gah!’
A boy he hasn’t seen before emerges from the group of kids. He’s tanned and tiny, with honey blond curls and a mischievous little smile.
‘If I can play your horn.’
Oli holds it out. ‘Be careful, though. This is a horn of great renown. It even has a name. You guys know it’s pretty rare for a sword to get a name, right? For instruments? Even rarer.’
The boy rises onto his tiptoes and grasps it with chubby, pre-growth-spurt fingers. He brings it to his face for closer inspection. It’s almost funny how big his eyes go when he scans the rows of neatly carved inscriptions circling the mouth.
He puts it to his lips and blows, then giggles when the melodious sound draws glances from passing adults.
‘My papa has one like this, too!’
He whirls on his heel, horn held up high, and books it.
Oli stares.
Then reality kicks in – somewhere low, ouch – and he squeaks. ‘Hey! Give that back!’
The kid’s already gone. The other children hold their bellies, wheezing with laughter.
If Oli climbs back into the smithy and uses the front door, he can probably say goodbye to his horn forever. It’ll just take too long. But if he jumps, it might bust up his almost fully healed leg again. Horn… or leg?
Oli leaps out the window.
The boy was running towards the market, so that’s the direction he heads in.
Colourful banners rustle in the wind. Bodies push against one another in a bubble of foreign conversation. Tourists mill about, hailing form all kinds of places judging by the adornments on their clothes and the spices clinging to their bags. In fact, Oli rarely spots actual citizens of Sanctuary among the crowds any more; they seem to have been swallowed whole by the newcomers.
Oli glimpses a mop of gleaming blond hair and a pale fist holding up Gem’s horn. He throws himself through a gap between two massive stone-born, dodges a taiga villager and ducks under the package-laden arms of an iron golem.
‘Hey! Horn-stealer! Stop!’
The kid does not stop. To be fair, he probably didn’t hear Oli over all of the noise.
They reach the centre of the market: an airy, round plaza with a fountain in the middle that, Eddie once told him, served as a water source for the whole community. Before they installed the pipes.
The boy bounces up to the fountain and climbs its edge, cupping a hand over his eyes to scan the people. His elevated position is great for Oli, because it allows him to charge right at him like an irate bull.
Just as he gets there, though, the kid dives in the direction of a vendor stall. ‘Papa!’
Oli veers off course. ‘Halt!’
‘Papa, look!’
The boy barrels straight into a man absorbed in negotiations with a merchant. He’s a local, going by the robe. He’s bent almost in half across the table of goods, hip cocked out sideways, but at least he seems to be an adult. A reasonable one, who will help Oli talk the kid into giving back his horn.
He doesn’t want to imagine what would happen if he lost Gem’s horn. The last time he mildly annoyed her, it got him a pair of matching broken ankles and a stint in goblin prison.
Ignoring the burning sensation in his lungs, he crosses the remaining few metres. ‘That’s mine. Give it to me!’
The man straightens and turns, face puzzled, and Oli sliding-stops in his tracks like a cowboy’s horse, slips on the gravel and almost kisses the ground, because standing in front of him is Sausage.
Mythical J. Sausage.
A picture flashes through Oli’s mind: an old church under a star-lit sky, a heavy, purple robe, a room full of feathers and his own crooning voice, echoing off the warmly lit stones.
Sausage blinks at him. ‘Um, do I know you?’
Cold drops into Oli’s belly like a block of ice. Another image: Cool air brushes his face; condensation clings to his skin. The ground’s too far away to see and his heart burns with yearning. Oh, how long he waited. How far he searched.
‘S-sausage,’ Oli stammers. ‘It’s– It’s me, O–’
The other’s expression lights up. ‘Oh, did you see my show? Or did we–,’ he leans closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially, ‘– have a little thing going on? I don’t do that any more, because I’m kind of a taken man now, but I’m sure a handsome guy like you won’t have any trouble finding–’
‘Hey, Sausage. Everything alright?’
The low, accented tone hits Oli like a strike of lightning. It whips through him from his hair to his toes, making his spine pinch with electricity. Because this is the one voice he knows even better than Sausage’s; the one voice he’ll recognize across all of space and time, in every world, because this– this is–
He whirls, eyes stinging.
Looking at him with his head tilted to the side, clad in a toga and laced-up sandals, a wreath of finely crafted laurel made out of pure gold resting on his brow, is Joel.
Oli’s breath gets stuck in his throat. What should have been a greeting comes out as a wheeze.
Joel’s holding the blond kid in his arms. The boy’s clutching Oli’s horn to his chest like it might be taken away from him at any second, which, to be fair, is exactly what Oli’s planning to do once he has regained his composure.
‘Oh, there you are,’ says Sausage, walks over and rises onto his tiptoes to press a kiss to Joel’s cheek. ‘This is Joel, my husband.’
–and this cracking noise right here, that’s Oli’s brain breaking clean in half.
‘H-h-husband?!’
‘And the father of my child!’ Sausage beams, then shoots Joel a lewd smirk. ‘Or rather, mother.’
‘Sausage!’
If Oli’s mind weren’t blue-screening already, this would be the straw to snap the camel’s back. Danger, a claxon blares in his head. Do not interact– Don’t, don’t. Don’t!
‘Also,’ Joel barks, ‘We’re not married.’
‘Might as well be.’ Sausage shrugs. ‘By the laws of your land–’
‘The laws don’t apply to gods.’ Joel gestures at Oli. ‘Who’s this?’
Oli blinks rapidly. ‘Oli. My name is Oli.’
‘His name is Oli,’ says Sausage, nodding. He leans into Joel. ‘I think I had a thing with him once, but I don’t quite remember.’
‘No, that’s not– No.’ Oli swishes his tongue around his bone dry mouth in the hopes it’ll make this conversation a little easier. It doesn’t. ‘Do you not– You don’t recognize me? Either of you?’
Both of them peer closer at him. Joel taps his chin.
‘Nope. Have we met before?’
A thousand times in as many different lives. Oli draws a breath and puffs up his chest. ‘Have we met–’
‘My eyes better be deceiving me, Sausage, because that cannot be you returning to Sanctuary without sending word, can it?’
Eddie steps into Oli’s field of view, a shopping basket in the crook of his elbow and a sack thrown over his shoulder that has a painted beetroot on it. From beneath the tears in the fabric, carrot-orange shimmers through.
Sausage lets out a shriek that borders on inhuman. ‘Daddy!’
He throws himself at Eddie, who drops his cargo, catches him in his big hands and twirls him around once, laughing.
Oli, though he was standing perfectly still, stumbles on nothing and nearly careens backwards into the stall of the vendor Sausage was talking to earlier, who’s watching the proceedings with both of his fluffy brown bunny ears fanned out in interest. Joel stops him with a palm on his back before he can land on his ass. The tip of his thumb brushes Oli’s shoulder blade, while his little finger spans all the way towards the edges of his lowest ribs. Void, he’s large.
He might be even bigger than Eddie, Oli’s traitorous mind whispers.
The harengon in question lets go of Sausage and ruffles his hair. ‘Welcome home, mijo.’
Sausage shamelessly leans into the touch. ‘Ah, it’s so good to be here again. I really missed this place.’
‘Whose fault is that?’ Eddie pats his cheek. ‘Don’t stay away for so long next time.’
His eyes flicker to the waiting group. They land on Joel first, probably because he takes up so much space. Eddie scrunches up his whiskers.
Besides Oli, the kid wriggles and twists in Joel’s arms until the man lets him go. He all but bounces off the ground and right into Eddie’s chest.
‘There’s my special little boy!’ The harengon croons, lifting the child above his head and rubbing their noses together. ‘How have you been?’
The kid giggles. ‘I missed you sooo much, abuelo.’
‘Ah, cariño, I missed you, too.’
Eddie kisses the boy’s cheek, the expression on his face softer than Oli’s ever seen it before. The string behind his sternum gives a tug.
As if he’d felt it, too, Eddie’s eyes snap to him. ‘I see you’ve met your patient.’
Sausage gasps. ‘Wait! Are you the guy I found on the shore? I almost didn’t recognize you!’ He spins towards Eddie. ‘I knew leaving him in your care would be the perfect solution. You are a miracle worker.’
The harengon looks away, clears his throat and puts the child down. ‘I assume you just arrived?’
‘We came in on the morning ferry. I took Joel and Hermes up to the house for a few hours, because the little one needed his nap,’ says Sausage, stroking his son’s – what the heck – head.
Hermes ducks, grimacing. ‘I’m not little!’
Sausage rolls his eyes. ‘You get that from your father,’ he mutters. His sunny smile returns immediately. ‘We’re here to get a few supplies – soap, new toothbrushes, the like.’
Eddie perks up. ‘You haven’t eaten yet?’
His and Sausage’s gazes lock.
‘Just a few snacks.’
‘No dinner engagement, either?’
Sausage puts a palm to his hip, cocking it out, deliberately casual. ‘Not yet.’
The air sizzles like a bunch of freshly cut potato wedges in boiling oil. Oli has a sudden urge to brace himself, but doesn’t know for what.
Eddie’s ear twitches sideways. He crosses his arms in front of his chest. ‘Consider yourself engaged. For dinner.’
Sausage narrows his eyes. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
They stare one another down, unmoving. The moment stretches like taffy.
Abruptly, Sausage claps his hands together. He hooks his arm through Joel’s, who, in the meantime, has picked up Hermes, balancing him easily on his hip.
‘We have to go. So much to do, so much to prepare. My place, yeah? Oh, Oli–’
Oli jolts. ‘Yes?’
‘He’ll be at dinner,’ Eddie cuts in.
Sausage’s mouth drops open. He looks from one of them to the other. His lips curl, slow and easy. ‘Oh, he will, will he?’
He snatches Oli’s fingers and shakes them. ‘I guess I’ll see you later. Hasta luego!’
Then he tugs at Joel and pulls him away, ignoring the man’s ‘Hey, wait. What the heck just happened?’
Eddie turns to Oli. ‘I’m sorry, but it seems our evening plans have changed.’
That’s putting it mildly. Sausage is here. Sausage has a son – and is himself, somehow, for some void-forsaken reason, the son of the guy Oli’s been crushing on for the past two months. Also, his best friend in the universe doesn’t remember him. But, worst of all–
Oli sets his jaw, arms akimbo. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he growls. ‘That little rascal stole my horn.’