Gravemound by Kim Fielding (snow like ashes TXT) 📕

eating something he’d grown himself. Before landing on this planet, he’d never done that and didn’t know anyone who had. Back home, food came from the big rooftop ag-domes and the protein factories. And although you could buy products containing a variety of spices and artificial flavorings, none of it tasted as good as the simple fare he ate here.

With this in mind, he packed his snack basket extra full. Although the chance that Kendo would reappear was probably small, Phin could keep himself busy by stuffing his face all night. He also brought two blankets, just in case. The sky was without clouds, and tonight might be chillier than the previous one.

Phineas greeted both Thozzon and Somboon when he arrived at the cemetery. They didn’t answer back, of course, but it seemed rude not to acknowledge them. He made his way to what he now thought of as his spot against the wall and settled down. “You know, they should install comfy seats in this place. Armchairs. Except maybe not too comfy, because we don’t want guardians nodding off in the middle of the night.”

He wrapped one of the blankets around his shoulders and began to hum softly. He wasn’t very musical, but a few old tunes rattled around in his head and he didn’t mind giving them an outing. Nobody on this planet had heard them before, and he wondered what the villagers would think.

Phineas was halfway through an advertising jingle for holidays on the moon—probably a little morbid under the circumstances—when a figure appeared out of the darkness. This time Phin startled only a little. He hadn’t heard Kendo approaching.

“I have food,” Phin offered. He couldn’t see Kendo’s face, just the outline of his wiry body and the sword handle sticking up above one shoulder.

“I don’t want to impose.”

“It’s more than fair compensation for your company.”

After a brief pause, Kendo sat close beside Phin and thanked him when Phin passed the basket.

“I didn’t know if you’d show up tonight.”

“I…. I rarely stay in one place for more than one night. But you’re very interesting.”

Phin smiled. “Not really, but thanks. Hey, is it comfortable to sit with that sword thing hanging on you?”

“My baldric?” Kendo sounded amused. “I’m accustomed to it. I sleep with it on. Does it bother you?”

Phineas had to think about that. Where he came from, walking around with a sword would get you thrown in jail and subjected to weeks of violence-deprogramming classes. But where he came from, nobody worried about soul-reapers, and wars were fought with much more powerful weapons than blades. “No. But I have an extra blanket—I don’t know if you can use it without disarming yourself.”

Kendo’s smile glinted in the moonlight. “I can.” He demonstrated by shaking out the blanket and folding it around himself in a complicated way that covered most of his torso but left his arms free. Then he dug into the basket. “This is a lot of food.”

“I have plenty.”

As Kendo ate, a nightbird called several times, a mournful sound from somewhere outside the cemetery. According to a story Gurthcir had told him, those particular birds had drab brown plumage and bumpy gray beaks. Ashamed of their own ugliness, they hid inside trees during the day, only coming out after dark to bemoan their fate. Phin stared at Kendo’s scarred face and wondered if that was why he traveled at night.

“It doesn’t disgust you?”

Phin blinked. “What?”

“The way I look.” Kendo traced a finger across one of the deeper marks, a line that bisected his left cheek, narrowly missing the eye.

“I have scars too, from the crash. You can’t see them now because of my clothes.”

“You’re very handsome, though. I wasn’t, even before.”

Now Phin blushed, the blood hot under his skin. He’d never considered himself especially good-looking. Even Somboon had tended to praise Phin’s mind—or, when they were in bed, his ass—but not his face. He cleared his throat. “My scars sometimes pull a little if I move the wrong way. Do yours hurt?”

“On a bad day, everything aches, but my face isn’t the worst of it. It does make people turn away, though.”

Hoping to demonstrate how stupid those people were, Phin scooted a little closer and settled himself comfortably.

After perhaps a half hour of silence, Phineas cleared his throat. “You’re a soldier?” When no answer came, he sighed. “Sorry. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I spilled my guts to you last night, and I spent hours today wondering about you.”

“You thought of me.” Kendo sounded surprised. He looked down at his own lap. “I’m nobody now. I’ve been nobody for a long time. But yes, I was once a soldier. There was a war.”

It was funny really—war was as small a word in this language as in Phineas’s own, yet it carried so much weight. So much importance. So much devastation. That tiny word ended so many lives and changed so many others.

“We had a war too. I wasn’t there, but my family was. They died. The people who survived were never the same after.” Honestly, neither was Phineas, even though all he’d done was watch the vids. He’d seen his parents’ building collapse into a heap of melted metal, the heat so intense that not even the bones of the occupants were left. From thousands of miles away, that heat had scorched him too. For a long time afterward he tasted nothing but ashes.

“Yes,” Kendo said, as if he knew all of this. “I left my home to fight, and I can’t go back. The man who used to live there no longer exists.”

Phin nodded. He’d left his home too. “You said you’re nobody. But maybe you just haven’t decided yet who you’re going to be now.”

“As you’ve done?” Kendo was watching him closely.

“Maybe. I think the new Phineas is still a work in progress, but I’m hoping he’ll be an improvement in some ways over the old model.”

“I think he’s very good.” Kendo smiled and then looked