"Kan, quit it!" B'atz cried, clinging to Izamna as Kan jumped up and down on the edge of Gannet's water disc. Gannet struggled to hold the disc steady - it wasn't subject to the same forces of torque that a solid plank would be, but being water, it wanted to flow, to respond to motion. He'd told the water to let the three kids stand on it, to hold still for them even as it floated above the ground. It was a testament to the depth of relationship between himself and the element that it would behave so unnaturally at his request. He could feel it, circling inside its magical constraints, wishing to splatter, to disperse, to follow its inevitable, gravitational path.
Gannet, like the water he was made from, craved motion. It had been two weeks in Kas Selvess after flight return from Bosaadak - the longest he'd stayed in one place in years. Even during his longer shore leaves, he'd jumped from tavern to tavern, performing for new crowds, sleeping in new beds. Despite the recent victory at the work camp, this stillness felt like stagnation.
The floating disc crept forward, unable for all its internal motion to travel quickly through the air. The movement was too unnatural, and though Gannet and Kan both wished it could make for a faster ride, the disc couldn't move even as quickly as a person walked. If only Gannet could move over the forest ground as quickly as a swift stream, or a tugging riptide. That would be real freedom.
He didn't notice Korash approaching until they sat beside him. He was dismayed to see that the dark patches under their eyes had remained - not only had they not slept that first night, after the celebration, but it seemed they hadn't gone to sleep since.
"Alright," he called, lowering the disc to the ground and letting it trickle back into the stream despite the kids' protests. "Time to go make yourselves useful. How about the three of you gather some spices for dinner tonight?" Once B'atz, Kan, and Izamna had run off, Gannet turned tack to Korash.
They were looking, not at Gannet, but at their work. They'd been carving for days now - if not a mask, then a weapon, or armor, or something else that their people would need to take Bosaadak back. The proximity of Korash working beside Gannet was familiar now: close, but not quite touching. Korash had not yet closed that last bit of distance, and Gannet had quietly decided that they, being new in their body, should be the one to make the call.
"A month," Korash said after a moment. "We can make what we need in that time. It's a simple plan. We take the city. We oust the necromancer. With good fortune, the Haskal sees what's gone wrong, and we can begin to put it right."
Gannet clicked their tongue thoughtfully. For as much of a troublemaker as they liked to be, the thought of full-blown revolution terrified them. If the going ever got really bad, Gannet's modus operandi had been to get out while he could. But he knew Korash wouldn't leave Bosaa in a scrape, and he wouldn't insult them by suggesting it.
Still, there was one matter he needed settled. "What if the Haskal doesn't see reason?" he asked.
Korash scrunched their eyes unhappily. "I serve the Haskal," they said. "But I serve Bosaadak first."
Gannet nodded, put their hand out, palm up, in the space between them. Korash handed them a carving knife and a thin bar of Seka wood.
The pair of them got to work peeling thin strips of wood off their respective planks. These, Korash had explained, would be woven together and dried, creating a light but very hard breastplate for a refugee warrior. Gannet watched the hardwood curl off into a strip, amazed by how much the people of Bosaa had learned to do with what their island gave them.
"You could do it," he said quietly.
One of Korash's eyes turned to look at Gannet. "Do what?"
"Lead them. If you need to, I mean."
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
"Let's hope. But if it does. We need to be ready for that possibility."
"We?"
Gannet blushed a deep blue; the humidity around them heated up with embarrassment. "You need to be ready," they said.
Korash licked their eye, then turned it back to their work. "More's the pity," they said. "If you really think I ought to put myself forward as a politician, I could use the support of a legendary hero."
Gannet knew what Korash was doing, dodging a subject they didn't want to talk about by turning to one that Gannet didn't want to talk about. It was working.
"I can't stay," he said.
Korash didn't respond, but scrunched their eyes again.
Gannet peeled a long strip of Seka wood, set it on the ground beside him. "You're like a tree," he said after a moment. "Strong, and supportive, and rooted. Your vitality comes from this place. From how much you love this place. You could be a leader here because it's here. It's a part of you. I'm not like that."
"Hmm. And what are you like?"
Gannet cut a sideways look at Korash. He set down his carving knife and lifted a thin column of water out of the stream, let it coil up his arm and around his body. "Water is always a current," he said. "Even when it looks like it's sitting still, it's always going somewhere. Down the river, or into the air, or across the ocean. It has to. That's its - my - vitality. It's a part of me, as much as Bosaa is a part of you." He set his hand on the ground, let the water trickle back into the stream.
Korash put down their own tools, slow and deliberate. "When you return to your Harpies," he said, "tell them that Koumazot is in their debt. You freed my people, and saved a sacred grove. No matter what happens after this, your heroism won't be quickly forgotten." If they felt the heat of Gannet's embarrassment, they ignored it.
Gannet closed his eyes. He imagined speeding through the forest on his hover disc, dodging trees and vines and animals, until he reached the sea. He imagined the vastness of it, the openness, the spray in his face as he skimmed the waves. He imagined the disc dissolving under his feet, falling in and dissolving himself, dispersing in the cycle of heat and rainfall and rivers. Perpetual motion, around and around and around. He imagined some bit of him in the clouds, falling in a raindrop over Bosaa, joining one of the streams that bubbled through the forest and nurtured the life around it.
"You said you needed a month," he said, eyes still closed. "That would be just enough time to get to Evershoal and back. Maybe we can bring reinforcements for you."
"And once we've won, your current will pull you away again."
"It… wouldn't be good for either of us to pretend otherwise."
"But it might bring you back again, no? And over and over." Gannet felt Korash shift next to them. "Bosaadak would certainly welcome you upon returning."
Gannet opened his eyes, but he didn't dare look at Korash. "You know what it is to flow," he said. "The pieces you leave behind aren't with you, but they aren't gone. This- wouldn't be the first place I retrurned to. Or the only one. And I'm sure that plenty would happen without me. But if it would accept me back-"
Korash cut Gannet off, placing their hand over his own. Warmth washed over him, and he couldn't keep from smiling as he turned to look at Korash head on. Korash's tongue darted out happily in reply.
B'atz, Kan, and Izamna would come back a couple hours later, baskets of spice in hand, to find Korash and Gannet in the same spot where they'd left them. Gannet paused in his work to raise a finger to his lips, and the children's eyes widened when they saw that Korash had fallen asleep on his shoulder.Their suppressed giggles as they ran off didn't wake Korash, only made them snuggle closer.