4-45
Posted June 21, 2015 at 09:00 am

Liya had the impression of Vlad in front of them, blending into the thick fog, his cell phone up to his ear. He was arguing with someone, evidently.

"No. Siir era mudh--" he stopped, interrupted, and stubbornly started again in Archipelagan. "No, Officer d'Ubis. Nope. Law says you can take this up with her sponsor. At the Palace, yes."

Yoshi was still glowing from within when Liya looked up at him--the light seemed to literally radiate from under his skin, but it didn't travel far beyond him.

"I'm sorry," Liya mumbled at him. "I dropped your bird thing. Did I break it?"

"Probably not," he answered reassuringly, half-smiling. "It'll turn up."

"Oh," she murmured, eyes dropping. "Okay."

She dreamed briefly of her brothers dozing in green shade. Hawk was turning on the radio. She could not make out their faces.

"Ved yt yd?" Helly said from somewhere nearby. The light was low and warm in the room; Helly and Yoshi were standing over her, Helly with Liya's jacket in one hand, and a mass of damp paper in the other. "A newspaper?"

"Oh, she must have taken that from Shinobu's office. Here--" Yoshi, no longer glowing, reached for the paper. "I'll lay it by the fire. I think she wanted to keep it."

Liya slid back into the green-shade dreams for a bit. The radio was on, burbling about the summer heat. Hawk had put his head down; Emry was yawning. Their heads had smudged, as through she was looking at them through oily glass.

She woke again curled up under the covers, head sunk into her pillow. Yoshi was speaking low, fast, sounding rather distressed.

"Muu, Helly," he was insisting, "Y lu mudh vemd du da hara vam dha sunyqa fadh hara--"

"Oh, Yoshi, relax," Helly answered.

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