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Kiru Athmaza, despite being officially on duty, had managed to get at least one more cup each of the strong sweet tea that she seemed to consider a post-assassination-attempt cure-all into Cala and Deret, and Deret had to admit that he did feel somewhat steadier, and Cala, the hypocrite, was no longer quite so much the colour of old cheese himself, though his hands still shook.
The two of them walked down the hall towards their quarters in silence. What had just happened seemed too large to be spoken of, save in words that neither was quite ready to entrust to the other. Perhaps it was absurd, when each of them had held in his hands tonight the life of their emperor, and thus the life of the other, or perhaps that was the reason why.
Once inside, Deret sat down, or perhaps slumped, into the very same armchair where, a few weeks ago, he had sat while thinking over the discovery that Cala could kill a man with maz so easily that he’d filled the room with potted plants to practice on. And then, there came inexorably into his mind a picture of Dach’osmer Tethimar as a small, pointy-leaved succulent wrapped in crumpled velvet and silk. Once thought, the picture could not be unthought, and Deret pressed his good hand against his mouth to muffle what was almost a shout of laughter, as much reaction to the strain of the night as amusement at the picture, absurd as it was.
"Art thou well, Deret?" Cala asked, and Deret looked up to see that Cala was stooping over him like a very concerned crane, spectacles almost slipping off the end of his nose.
"I am well," he managed, between huffs of laughter. "It is only — when last I sat in this chair, thou hadst just given me a potted plant that thou usedst to practice the revethmaz, and I could not but think of…it sounds absurd. But I could not help but think of…of Dach’osmer Tethimar, only…as a plant." It did sound absurd, when he said it out loud.
It was Cala’s turn to be seized with wild laughter; he stumbled back until he was leaning against an end table, shoulders shaking with mirth. He laughed until there were tears in his eyes. "Merciful goddesses, I needed that," he said, when the laughter had let them both go. "Deret, an I did not know better, I might accuse thee of having a sense of humour."
"Blood loss makes the mind strange, sometimes," Deret said, stiffly.
"Of course," Cala said, but his tone said that he was humouring Deret.
His hands had stopped shaking, though. Deret did not do anything so improper as ask him if he had ever killed a man before; if he had, the question could easily be read as an insult, and if he had not, there was no call for him to dwell on it. "We had best do as the Emperor has told us and go to bed," Deret said, using the plural, not the formal.
They did.
A few days later, their common room mysteriously took to itself a new, living, succulent, and if anyone ever heard Cala refer to it as 'Plant’osmer', they knew better than to ask why.