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Marjoram was good at reading people. It had been drilled into her from a young age – how a person walks, carries themselves, how they tilt their head, how they wear their clothes. How to tell if someone is lying or acting. It was her job. It was her life.
June was different to anyone she’d ever met. She remembered, a long time ago, Madeira’s older brother mentioning his betrothed, a kind, demure girl he had met only a handful of times, and never for long. The person he described did not match the woman she traveled with. The clothes June wore indicated mourning and nothing more. Her gait was steady but had the slight limp of a person wearing a heavy prosthetic. The metal mask she wore gave away no features, her voice flat and deep. When she took it off, her face bore little expression. The skin on the right side of her face was scarred and pulled tight over reconstructed bone, trying to recreate the face she had before the explosion. When she frowned, only one eyebrow really furrowed.
She knew her fixation on June was unnatural. Marjoram had tried to ignore it, over and over again. She’d read a book, a long time ago, as a girl, not yet a dancer. A noblewoman and her maid were always together and never strayed from each other's presence. While many of the characters around them paid no mind, the author focused especially on these two characters and emphasized their closeness heavily. She hadn’t thought about it in a long time. She hadn’t felt this way before, at least, not since Camellia. She didn’t know what the word was. Maybe it was jealousy, maybe she’d loved Madeira’s older brother and hated the woman he died marrying. Maybe it was anger. Maybe it was repulsion, an uncanny valley, seeing a dead body move. It was almost magnetic.
The small talk in the carriage had slightly picked up. Soma and Madeira were discussing stopping for the day. Marjoram looked out the window. The sky was gray, but the shadows of the trees loomed a little darker and the gray had gone from cinder block to more of a slate color.
June looked over at her. “Mae, have you washed up yet?”
Marjoram shook her head.
“Neither have I,” June said. “I need help standing in the river. Will you come with me?”
Marjoram nodded, and followed her out of the carriage. June, rummaging in the back, took three small bottles of liquids of various viscosity, a bar of soap, and a small towel from her suitcase. She pulled her hair down from its tight bun, and it fanned and curled around her shoulders.. Since she’d lost hair in the accident, parts of her scalp had been plugged with impressively thin and curly copper wire. Marjoram wondered if it would rust in water.
“I have a question,” Marjoram said, stashing her pack and blanket in the back of the carriage, careful to avoid June’s things.
“Yeah?” June was picking out clothes from a bag, throwing them on top of her suitcase or to the side with seemingly no pattern.
“If you needed help removing your prosthetic, why did you ask me? Instead of Soma?”
June took a breath that was not quite a huff but had an annoyed air to it. “I don’t want to be studied right now.”
Marjoram nodded.
June started walking towards the river. Marjoram followed, her clothes bag and a bar of soap in hand, three steps behind. They were in a good spot to stop. It was a nice wooded area that offered seclusion without being completely cut off from a water source. The water was clear and not cloudy, and the stones were small and smooth.
Marjoram took off her belt, her shoes, her shawl, and her overdress. She took off her thick socks and stood in an inch of water, feeling the pebbles underneath her feet. Her bloomers fluttered in the wind. June was a few feet away from her, shoes knocked off, still taking off her overclothes. She took off her mask, slowly, and placed it in her bag. To Marjoram’s shock, she started taking off her underclothes as well, quickly pulling her slipover skirts off. Marjoram looked away quickly, and waded farther into the river, still in her own underclothes. She began washing her face as she heard subtle metal sounds clinking as she heard June shift her weight as she took off her prosthetic leg. Then she remembered why she was in the river in the first place and quickly waded back to the shore where June was sitting, almost hugging her knees, unbuckling the straps of her metal leg. When she finished undoing the final strap, she pulled her thigh out from the socket of the prosthetic and shifted away. Marjoram gently carried the prosthetic leg away from the water, placing it softly with the bag while June started removing her prosthetic forearm. Marjoram took the forearm and put it in her bag with the metal mask as June started shifting herself into the water. She began washing her hair with her hand as Marjoram waded back into the water, careful to not look at June or her body, suddenly self-aware. For some reason, although she was used to seeing bodies, the thought of looking at June’s made her nervous.
“Are you going to take your clothes off?” June asked, preoccupied with washing her left arm.
Marjoram shrugged, then, realizing June wasn’t looking at her, said “Do I really need to?”
June looked confused. “Don’t you need to be clean? You’re probably covered in sweat and dirt from all the tracking you’ve been doing lately.”
“Do I smell bad?” Marjoram asked, knitting her eyebrows together.
“I mean, I don’t really think about it,” June said. “I just don’t think you can bathe yourself properly while wearing clothes.” She paused for a second. “Plus, we should probably try to wash the clothes.”
Marjoram nodded. Her face felt hot as she walked to the shore, unbuttoning her bra down the front and quickly slipping off her bloomers, wet and heavy with water. She practically ran back into the water. She quickly started scrubbing at her body with her bar of soap.
As she took a handful of suds and raised it to her head, June said, “Hey.”
Marjoram turned to look at her.
She looked mildly confused. “Are you about to wash your hair with that soap?”
Marjoram felt equally mildly confused, but she nodded slowly.
June sighed. “Mae. Come here.”
Marjoram obliged quietly. June motioned for her to sit in front of her, and when she did, she put her legs on each side of Marjoram’s body. She felt like throwing up. While they’d been physically close before, this felt weird and different and almost nauseating.
“I can’t believe Novistrans use the same soap for their hair and body and face,” June sighed, handing a bottle of somewhat thin liquid to Marjoram and motioning for her to open it. “No wonder your hair looks like that.”
“Like what?” Marjoram squeezed liquid into June’s open hand.
June gave a noncommittal shrug before putting her hand into Marjoram’s hair. “It just looks like you might want to try this, is all.”
June started working soap into Marjoram’s scalp. Her touch was lukewarm. Not cold, but not warm, either, and her hand felt strong. Marjoram slightly relaxed to the touch. She couldn’t remember the last time she let someone else touch her like this. It felt nice. It felt good. She didn’t know why she felt such intense feelings – dislike?-- towards June or why she still felt nauseous even when nothing was wrong. If she disliked her so much, why was she letting June wash her hair? Her dad hadn’t done that for her since she was a small, small child. She wanted to be friends with June. She didn’t want there to be animosity between them.
“Go rinse your hair,” June told her, snapping Marjoram out of her thoughts. She went deeper into the river, dipping underwater to try to coax all the soap out along with her weird thoughts. When she was done, June handed her another bottle– a thick, unmoving paste concoction. She quickly ran it through her hair and felt it smooth. When she handed the bottle back to June, their fingers brushed.
“Thank you,” Marjoram said, then went to rinse her hair again.
—
Afterwards, they washed their clothes in the river and hung them to dry. Both of them put on chemises and ate dried venison and apples. Marjoram’s hair felt soft and silky, and it fell down in slight waves instead of limply hanging straight like it normally did. Madeira took care of the horses that night, and Marjoram had caught a glimpse of him petting the neck of one of them. The sun was starting to set, Marjoram guessed, by how the shadows from the trees stretched. She helped June fit her forearm back on. She built a fire as June strapped together her metal leg. She rolled out her blanket to camp on the ground.
“Can I lay with you?” June asked. Her voice was suddenly quieter than it had ever been.
“Yes,” Marjoram said, also quietly. As June sat beside her, she sharpened a hunting knife, trying to distract herself from the buzzing in her brain. She wished she went hunting today; she wished she was doing something productive like skinning the hide from a deer or cooking meat over the fire. Anything but this quiet with June.
Marjoram knew there was something between her and June. She knew June could feel it too, even though she would never say it. Marjoram didn’t know the word she was looking for. But Marjoram also knew that if she said it, that June would shut down, she would run, they would never speak of it again and they would never be close again. And Marjoram would be left alone again. So she elected to stay quiet. Even if June called her Mae and washed her hair and grabbed her hand when the carriage bumped too hard.
She looked over and before she could remember to put her mask back on, Marjoram studied June’s face. Dark brown skin, grayed by death. Stretched and stitched together. Her strong nose and soft jaw. Her narrow eyes and her heart shaped face. Her hair, back to its normal messy bun. Her solid black right eyeball, clearly meant for some kind of doll or automaton, surrounded by heavy but healed over scarring. Her left eye, yellow-gold and flickering in the fire. Her facial expression was completely indiscernible. She was completely a mystery but she was, after everything, still incredibly beautiful.
She made eye contact with Marjoram. “What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Marjoram said, and she turned to continue sharpening her knife.