Chapter Text
In the end, Xie Lian didn't know if it was his bad decision or his misfortune to blame. When he set his little boat to water that morning, before the crack of dawn, the air was crisp but the skies were clear, milky with the promise of dawn at the horizon.
By sun-up, Xie Lian pulled his nets up empty and had to mend two holes in them as well, but by noon, the skies turned dimmer as black clouds rolled in. Xie Lian had the caution to pull up his nets and start rowing to shore, but not the good luck to make it there before the sea turned stormy.
He wasn't sure how long he was tossed on the waves, up and down, side to side, alternating between bilging out water with his leaky bucket and holding onto the boat for his dear life, but then a particularly large wave bucked him off his boat so violently that he was momentarily tossed into the air like a ragdoll.
The pelting rain had been cold, but the seawater had a black, icy grip on his entire body, crushing out the air from his lungs. He didn't know up from down as he desperately tried to paddle to the surface again, and knowing his luck, he'd probably been heading the wrong direction anyway. His limbs lost their vigor long before his spirit did, but ah--he always knew he would die by drowning. How could he even be surprised by this?
No, what surprised him was the sudden movement in the pitch of the water, the flash of pale flesh right before he felt it: an iron grip on his wrist, a clamping grasp on the back of his neck--head tilted into position and a press against his mouth, jaw pried open and air forced into his lungs.
Xie Lian gulped it down, lungs expanding with burning effort, and then his body expelled it again, let it all bubble out of him in a flurry. And then--again. Air into his lungs, filling his chest, keeping there for seconds before escaping him again.
With each lungful, panic receded and awareness returned. Xie Lian regained control of his limbs, of his senses. He knew which way was up again, because that was where the light comes from, but even with his eyes wide open against the sting of salt, he wasn't sure what he was seeing. A pale face, mottled red, a cloud of black hair--his? His rescuer's?
Unable to keep hold of the air in his lungs for long enough, Xie Lian felt the cotton grip of dizziness inside his skull. It was, maybe, the last thing he remembered before passing out.
Xie Lian awoke and he wasn't dead.
He was so startled by this realization, that his entire body flinched, heels kicking against soft sand, hands flailing.
When he looked around, he couldn't say where he was. Sand beneath him--so a beach. Looking up, cavernous walls splitting high overhead to offer view of a strip of clear skies, so the storm must have passed. He put a hand against his chest, but he couldn't feel the ache at the bottom of his lungs that usually followed his previous near-drownings.
Looking to one side, a small fire, crackling merrily, along with a small pile of twigs waiting to be fed into it. Looking to the other side--his hat.
Xie Lian picked up his bamboo hat with puzzlement, wondering how it could have ended up besides him when he was sure the winds had ripped it from his head long before he fell into the water. And--
Looking past where the hat had been placed on the sand, there was also his little boat, pushed up onto the sandy beach, waiting for him.
The cove around him was not large at all, and it was silent save for the gentle lap of water against the sandy beach. There was nobody else around. Why was there nobody else around?
Xie Lian bent his legs experimentally, leveraged his weight against the sand to push himself up. He rose upright with watery muscles, staggered like a fawn for a couple of steps with what he recognized as the kind of shakiness one had after the battlerush washed out of one's body.
When he approached his boat, he not only found his nets neatly folded up inside, but the back of the boat was filled with a day's worth of catch, fresh fish confusingly interspersed with chips of ice.
It was summer. Where would the ice have come from? He usually had to rush to shore and sell his catch to the fishmongers quickly, and he certainly never had such a luxury as ice to rely on.
The small cove around him remained quiet and empty, and Xie Lian, unable to answer any questions, placed the hat on his head and picked a fish from the pile to roast over the fire. If his luck was going to turn bad again, he at least wanted to fill his stomach first.
By the time Xie Lian paddled out of the small cove, it was morning again. He'd woken up there when it was already evening, so he decided to spend the night. It was not as if he had any place better to stay, anyway. When the season was warm, he slept wherever he could find shelter, usually on the beach. When the season turned cold, he usually traded labor for board.
In fact, leaving the cove, he was a bit regretful. It seemed like a safe, comfortable place to live, accessible only by boat, and not flooded by the tides at any time of day. But as he led his boat carefully through the jutting rocks and out on the sea again, he was doubtful he would find his way back.
It was just past sunrise when he arrived to the fish market. The fishmongers were opening their stalls. Other fishermen, who'd gotten up early and had a good haul, were just bringing in the first catches of the day. For most of them, the fishmongers they went to were their spouses or family members. Xie Lian was not related to anyone, and had no real network of family or neighbors eager to take his fish. He often had to settle for being paid a fraction of what the fish might have been worth, because he had learned early on the fishmongers would react very poorly if he tried to squeeze in on their turf and sell the fish himself. Competition in the fish market was already fierce.
Xie Lian was glad to at least have made a bit more coin than usual. He purchased more fishing line and some supplies--food that wasn't fish, items to mend his nets and his boat and his clothing, a small jar of cheap medicine for all the scrapes he'd gotten the other day during the storm. He also filled jugs of fresh water at the free spring.
He stowed his purchases in his boat, in the small storage space he had under his seat, and paddled out again, having a mind to return to the cove.
He spent several hours going up and down the shore, peering at the jagged, rocky cliffs, trying to find the opening to the cove again, but his search was predictably futile. As the sun crawled to its apex in the sky, Xie Lian merely tipped his hat to shade his eyes and started eating a mantou he'd bought from a street vendor in port.
His mind buzzed with the same questions as yesterday, but having no way to answer any of them, he merely turned over the string of events in his head like rubbing a worry stone. He couldn't say he was thinking of anything, really, as he heard a splash, and spotted something from the corner of his eye--movement, color. A break in the blue and gray of the shore.
He swallowed and casually wrapped the mantou back into its oily paper, stashing it down his shirt. When he turned around to look over the water--keeping his manner calm and unassuming, as if merely glancing--he saw nothing, but the sound of splashing returned, closer, a spray right behind him, and he felt the boat bob unexpectedly.
Xie Lian turned around to see a merman casually hanging off the side of his boat, arms crossed as he rested them on the edge. He looked youthful, with a mischievous smile set in a pallid face, and he could have made for a handsome human. But his sunset-orange eyes and the smattering of red scales across his shoulders was unmistakable. When the young merman tilted his head, cowry shells tied around his ponytail clacked against one another.
"Gege, are you lost?" the merman asked, lips peeling back in a cutely fanged grin.
"Ah, there's no way to get lost along the shore, I'd just row until I reach port again," Xie Lian said with a careful smile.
"If you're looking for port, I can show you the way," the merman offered.
Undoubtedly he could. Xie Lian knew that a local merfolk pod had turned to piracy, and was attacking many of the ships heading to port. If this young merman was local, he had to be in on it, and in fact, even if he was not, the governor had issued high bounties for whoever could bring any of the pirate merfolk to justice. The highest bounty was on the head of their leader, known only as Crimson Tide.
It was just that the local fishermen couldn't be terribly bothered about all that. The merfolk didn't attack any of the smaller boats, only the fat merchant ships that came lumbering along and scaring the fish anyway. More ships were coming to this port every year and making it dangerous for the fishermen and their boats to weave around them, and strictly speaking, with how close to shore some of those ships were when the merfolk hit them, on a lucky day, some of their cargo sometimes washed ashore, and skilled-enough human scavengers could have their pick. The governor didn't like that either.
"I'm coming from port, actually," Xie Lian explained. "I was looking for a place, but I'm not sure if I can find it again."
The merman perked up, pulling himself higher onto the boat's edge. It bobbed in the water again, and Xie Lian saw the merman's tail-fins splash up excitedly past the water surface before disappearing below again.
"I know these shores well," the merman bragged. "Tell me the place and I'll take you."
"That's very kind, ah--but I'm afraid I have nothing to offer you for that information," Xie Lian explained awkwardly.
Merfolk liked trinkets--shiny, sparkly, pretty things. Gold was good, silver would do in a pinch. Xie Lian had nothing of the sort. Maybe he could go to shore and find some especially interesting looking pebbles, but his pockets were empty of anything even a human would find valuable.
The merman's face turned very serious, eyes going half-lidded as he thought.
"I don't need anything from gege in exchange," he declared after some consideration.
"How can that be," Xie Lian said, pulling his face into a mask of dismay. "You shouldn't sell your services so cheap. What is your name?"
The merman's face brightened like the spill of dawn over open waters. "Gege may call me San Lang."
"San Lang. I'm Xie Lian. Pleased to meet you."
"Gege has a very pretty name," San Lang said. "Then, I can guide you in exchange for letting me know it."
"No, no, San Lang, that's still not fair. You gave me your name as well, didn't you?"
Now San Lang pouted, making Xie Lian laugh in spite of himself.
"What was it that gege was eating earlier?" San Lang asked.
"Ah? The mantou?" Xie Lian reached down his shirt and recovered the half-eaten mantou. It was cold by this point, but Xie Lian was going to save it for later. Still, he unwrapped it from its greasy paper and showed San Lang. "It's very good. Do you want to taste?"
San Lang nodded, and Xie Lian handed over the mantou. The merman gave it a long, almost judgmental look, before he devoured it in three bites. Xie Lian had to smother another laugh. He'd never actually seen merfolk so enthused about human food before.
"It's very good," San Lang said, licking the tips of his fingers as daintily as a cat giving itself a bath. "Now, since this San Lang owes gege a favor, where does gege want to go?"
Xie Lian laughed at this slippery youth's insistence, but really, maybe he wasn't wrong about being able to help. He described the cove he'd woken up in, and San Lang listened carefully and then nodded.
"I know exactly where it is, follow me," San Lang said before letting go of Xie Lian's boat and sinking under the water. Xie Lian readjusted his weight as the boat bobbed side to side, and San Lang re-emerged a little way's away in a spray of seawater.
Taking this kindness on its face, Xie Lian rowed after San Lang, letting himself be led through the rocks, under the shadow of the cliffs, and smoothly into the quiet cove where he'd woken up the other day.
"This is it! Ah, San Lang, thank you!"
"No thanks necessary, gege," San Lang assured as he helped Xie Lian push his boat to shore.
Xie Lian jumped out of the boat and pull it the rest of the way up onto the sand, where the water wouldn't drag it away. The cove was actually quite cozy, which was why he wanted to find it again. The beach was large enough to fit a house, though Xie Lian had no need of such a luxury.
He only wanted a safe place to sleep at night. He could make do on the beach, or under the docks in a pinch, but that left him open to being bothered by rowdy drunks, scavengers, robbers, and particularly evil seagulls.
He looked up to the yawning stone ceiling, and noted by the stream of sunlight which parts of the cove would be covered from the elements. He tucked one of his fresh water jugs away, and even took the tattered straw mat from his boat and unrolled it in one of the more protected corners.
San Lang, meanwhile, apparently curious about what Xie Lian was doing, dragged himself into the shallow water and halfway onto wet sand as he craned his neck to see. He was surprisingly nimble even when dragging himself onto dry land, not looking the least bit bothered by the chafe of sand against his scales as he waddled like a walrus.
"Is gege going to be staying here?" San Lang asked, as he propped himself onto his elbows and leaned his chin in his hands. His tail was long enough that the fins still slapped the water. A ray of sunlight brought out the shimmer in his red tail as he playfully twitched it. It was a bright, joyful color, rare among merfolk but beautiful. Xie Lian had only seen its like a handful of times before.
"If nobody else is using this space, it would be nice to make us of it myself," Xie Lian said.
"Nobody else but gege even knows about it."
"And you, of course."
"And me, if gege doesn't mind."
"How could I mind? San Lang is always welcome here."
San Lang's eyes went wide and his lips parted wordlessly, but he quickly glossed over his surprise, and his eyes screwed up in pleased crescents at the invitation.
Perhaps it was not wise of Xie Lian to be seen fraternizing with merfolk, but it was not as if anyone would even see them here, and San Lang seemed just as eager for company. How could it hurt?
Xie Lian had learned to be content with very little in the years since he had taken up the fisherman trade. He had only himself to look after, himself to feed and find shelter for, so it was not so complicated a task when he looked at it that way.
His routine was simple. He woke up before dawn, fished, went to sell his catch, scrounged for food, scavenged the beaches on good days, and found a place to sleep just as evening arrived.
Now, San Lang seamlessly added himself to Xie Lian's routine. When Xie Lian cast his nets, San Lang was near. When Xie Lian went to sell his catch, San Lang waited for him just out of sight of shore. When Xie Lian went scavenging to the beach, San Lang swam parallel to the shore and dove for scavenge as well. He brought interesting trinkets, valuable things that must have come from the merchant vessels struck by the mermaid pod, and sometimes oysters laden with pearls.
Xie Lian accepted only the least valuable objects San Lang offered him. He didn't want to take advantage of his new friend, and he certainly didn't want San Lang to think he had to bribe Xie Lian for company, but if San Lang pouted, Xie Lian merely explained that it was dangerous for someone like him to have too much money at a time.
This even had the benefit of being true. Xie Lian had been mugged, robbed and pickpocketed too many times to dare carry or hide any amount of money above loose change. When he sold his catch or any scavenged objects, he tended to spend his pittance on necessary things at the market right away. It was simply safer.
In truth, the most valuable thing in Xie Lian's life was his boat, and it was so battered and small, it was not even worth stealing.
San Lang did not seem to care about such material things, at least. Each day, he seemed only glad for Xie Lian's company, and Xie Lian in turn became glad for his.
"Do you not have a pod to return to?" Xie Lian asked once, as they sat together on the sandy beach of the cove and as Xie Lian clumsily cooked fish over the fire.
San Lang was lounging, stretched onto the sand on his side and keeping his head propped up on his arm.
"I don't care for other mers that much," San Lang replied dismissively. "Gege is much more fun."
He twirled a lock of his own black hair around his finger as he said so. His ponytail hung half-loose from the red string tying it. There were cowries threaded on the string, three bone-white shells clicking together. They were like the cowries sailors sometimes used for their games of chance; though Xie Lian never gambled, the sight of them was familiar in port. The rattle of the cowries in a cup, the clatter as they spilled across the wooden planks of the dock.
Xie Lian wondered why San Lang didn't get along with other merfolk. Did they bully him? Was he ostracized? Yet, San Lang looked quite happy and healthy, so that could not be it. His scales were vibrant and beautiful, both those on his tail and the ones crawling up along his flanks and over his shoulders: a deep red interspersed with black like freckles from place to place. Was that coloring significant, Xie Lian wondered? Did it denote a particular lineage?
Yet, Xie Lian didn't ask. He only smiled, and finished cooking the fish. It turned out burnt on one side and undercooked on the other, but San Lang accepted his portion without complaint, and complimented Xie Lian so profusely that Xie Lian was embarrassed.
"San Lang, too insincere!" Xie Lian scolded with a laugh.
"Never, gege," San Lang insisted as he shook his head. The string holding his hair finally gave way under the weight of the cowries and his hair spilled free.
"Ah, San Lang, let me help you with your hair," Xie Lian offered.
San Lang looked at him from under his eyelashes, just as dark and lush as his hair, and he gave Xie Lian a slow smile.
"I wouldn't want to bother gege," San Lang said, sounding pouty and spoiled as he did so.
Xie Lian went to his little box of miscellaneous objects, now moved from the boat to a cranny next to his sleeping mat, and he took out his comb. It was an old wooden comb with a few missing teeth, but it did its job as well as anything.
San Lang gave it a judicious look as Xie Lian approached with it, but said nothing, only turned around to give Xie Lian access to his curtain of pitch-black hair.
It fell down to his mid-back, and it was as smooth as silk, and shined so luxuriously that Xie Lian felt embarrassed to be putting his battered old comb through it. Yet, San Lang's hair was so fine, combing it was easy, almost a meditative exercise.
San Lang smelled like the ocean--not a fishy scent, but the kind of clean salty smell of an ocean breeze. This up close, Xie Lian could observe the regular shape of San Lang's scales, the translucent points of the red ones and the way the black scales were like flints of obsidian. There were scales covering San Lang's spine as well, long and jagged, but San Lang had not grown a back fin like some of the older or more powerful merfolk sometimes did. Xie Lian had a fleeting recollection of Jun Wu's stark white shark-like fin splitting the water during the war against Bai Wuxiang, but then he stopped thinking of it.
There'd been one or two crimson-scaled merfolk in Jun Wu's pod as well, Xie Lian was sure. San Lang was perhaps too young to have participated, however. Merfolk did not grow at the same pace as humans, so their first ten years of life were like a human's first twenty.
Had it been ten years since Xianle's fall? Ah, no... a little over eight years, now that Xie Lian thought about it. Even if he lost track of time along the way, he was sure it couldn't have been ten years yet.
"Gege, are you just playing with my hair?" San Lang asked, his voice amused.
Xie Lian flinched. He'd been lulled by the repetitive motions and lost himself too deeply in thought. He hastily snatched up the red string to tie San Lang's hair.
"Sorry, sorry, hope your scalp isn't sore, haha..."
"Never," San Lang insisted. "Gege could continue if he wanted to."
As he moved his head from side to side, Xie Lian noticed he'd tied San Lang's hair slightly lopsided. Yet, before he could correct this, San Lang turned to look over his shoulder with a brilliant smile--not the closed-lip, careful expression merfolk usually gave to humans, and yet, the rows of sharp, pearly-white teeth did not seem to threatening in San Lang's expression.
"Thank you, I love it," he said, with a sincerity that made the blood rush to Xie Lian's cheeks.
San Lang continued to bring Xie Lian gifts, but ones that hit closer to the mark than before. Just the next morning, he gifted Xie Lian a white comb, carved decoratively in the shape of a fish skeleton, the ribs extending into the comb's teeth.
"This comb isn't missing any teeth, gege. Surely that's more useful," San Lang said, as if there was no other reason he gave it to Xie Lian.
Xie Lian turned it over in his hands, feeling the smooth white material he couldn't quite identify (was it bone? Ivory? Sea shell?), and he had to admit it was beautiful, but also practical. He graciously thanked San Lang for it.
That evening, San Lang pulled the tie out of his hair, letting it spill over his back, and sat in the sand, looking over his shoulder in a clear plea to Xie Lian. So he sat down to put the new comb to use. San Lang's hair was beautiful, so dark it was true black. It slipped through Xie Lian's fingers like water, and didn't really need that much combing to begin with. But San Lang also insisted, with a pout, that Xie Lian braid it.
Xie Lian was not particularly skilled at braiding, but he did his best anyway, carefully sectioning San Lang's hair and then slowly weaving the locks. He went slowly, sitting cross-legged at San Lang's back, both of them awash in the orange light of sunset. The sunlight brought out a warm glow to San Lang's scales, a translucency that wasn't obvious at other times. As Xie Lian braided, he even briefly rested the back of one hand against the scales covering San Lang's shoulders, up his biceps and coming to a point at the nape of his neck. The scales felt smooth and cold at the surface, but the faint warmth of San Lang's body radiated through.
Xie Lian wasn't sure he'd ever touched a merman's scales like this before--except for one time.
When he'd been a prince, they brought him a gift once: a little baby mer in a cask, a desperate, frightened little thing struggling so hard against his imprisonment that he spilled all the sea water out of his container and dried out horribly.
That mer child had been red too, if Xie Lian recalled, but a faded maroon with his scales covered in a dry, scuffed husk, like a snake in the process of shedding its skin. Xie Lian didn't know how old the mer child might have been--he'd been shown in a book once that merfolk were born the size of tadpoles, and the ones who survived being eaten by oceanic predators grew up very fast.
But when Xie Lian picked him up out of the dried out cask and carried him all the way to the sea, he'd been just young enough to hold in Xie Lian's arms. Maybe five years old, well past the tadpole stage and more human in shape and size.
He didn't struggle out of Xie Lian's hold, but only because he twisted around and bit down on his arm instead. His teeth were needle-sharp, long enough to dig down through all the thick layers of robe and reach skin--not pierce it, though later Xie Lian would find raised skin looking like angry welts where the teeth scratched him. Not even a proper bite, poor thing.
"Your Highness, your robes!" Xie Lian's attendants had yelled at him as he walked from the palace overlooking the sea, down to the beach and straight into the ocean. The waves crashed against his shins, then his knees, then his middle. He walked and walked, until the sea was up to his chest and he'd passed the foaming crest of the waves hitting against the shore. His fine robes were soaked, permanently ruined by the salt water. The mer child tugged his mouth free of the bite, leaving Xie Lian's sleeve tattered and his arm stinging.
This little mer child, who'd struggled so viciously in the cask, now clung to Xie Lian's robes and looked up at him with large, red eyes, as if more afraid of the water than he'd been of Xie Lian.
"It's alright," Xie Lian encouraged, and gently released the mer from his arms, letting him float away. The mer child bobbed below the water line, sneezed as water went up his nose, and then splashed back to the surface to look at Xie Lian one final time before ducking under the water and swimming away at speed. Under the water, he was nothing but a bright streak, a last reflection of reddish-brown scales as a tail breached the surface with a powerful thrust and disappeared again.
It was not the last time Xie Lian ever saw a glimpse of red scales and wondered. He remembered, vaguely, that he'd seen merfolk that color during the war against Bai Wuxiang, though he was too focused on the kraken to take much notice of any of the merfolk in Jun Wu's pod. And then--the last time he almost drowned, if that even happened--
Xie Lian put the thoughts aside. Maybe red was simply a memory of good fortune, and San Lang's appearance a coincidence. A small mercy from the ocean which held him in its palm as it tethered him with its curse.
When he finished the braid, Xie Lian noted with embarrassment that it wasn't very good. It was loose on top and too tight towards the ends, but San Lang was delighted regardless.
"Let me comb gege's hair next," he requested in a tone of voice that had Xie Lian defenseless to indulging him.
Xie Lian hadn't had his hair combed by anyone else since--since before the fall of Xianle. He did not think of it as he faced the stone wall of the cove and watched the shadows flicker. The sun had set now, and only the firelight lit the inside of the cove. The world outside was so dark, it might as well not have existed.
San Lang attended to the task quietly, gently, almost reverent in his motions. The silence was comfortable the way Xie Lian had rarely experienced with another person, and so he closed his eyes and thought of nothing but the gentle glide of the comb through his hair.
San Lang's next gift was a piece of sea glass. It was a milky white, smoothed out by the waves into a circular shape like a ring. San Lang had braided a leather cord and tied it around the sea glass ring to turn it into a necklace.
Xie Lian accepted the little trinket, rubbing it between his fingers and marveling at how smooth and soft it felt. Indeed, San Lang had a good eye, and this sort of jewelry was at least inconspicuous on a fisherman. Xie Lian had seen plenty of people in town wear particularly pretty shells, or bits of coral, or sea glass as ornaments.
When he put it around his neck, San Lang looked especially pleased, and that was gift alone to Xie Lian in return.
"Unfortunately, I have to leave for a while," San Lang admitted afterwards. He looked more put out the more he considered it, and added, "I wish gege could come along."
"Really, San Lang, you probably wouldn't want me along even if I could come," Xie Lian chuckled. "My luck isn't the best."
"If gege were with me, I'd be the luckiest in the whole ocean," San Lang insisted.
Regardless, San Lang left on whatever errand he had. Responsibilities to his pod, perhaps, though San Lang was cagey about admitting he was even part of a pod.
Xie Lian resumed his usual daily drudgery, trying to find the serenity he often did in solitude, but like silt stirred from the bottom of the seabed, a clinging loneliness made the days feel longer than ever.
Xie Lian hadn't realized just how much he had come to enjoy San Lang's company until he was gone. Waking in the morning was easier when he was eager to open his eyes and see San Lang. Fishing went by quickly when San Lang helped herd fish into his net. The afternoons of scavenging felt more fruitful when, at the end, he could sit with San Lang and sort through the finds, chatting lightly about anything that crossed their heads.
Left to his own devices, Xie Lian was struck by a rare pang of futility.
Was this what he was going to be doing forever? Coarse sand under his feet, sun beating down on his head, hands pruned and chafed and scratched? Day in, day out, just trying to keep a cursed body alive?
Xie Lian spread his nets, sold his fish, scoured the beaches without complaint, but the unceasing battering of the sea against shore was finally starting to grate on him.
It became a constant reminder. What belongs to the sea returns to the sea.
That was him. That was Bai Wuxiang's curse on him.
The weeks after the war ended, Xie Lian didn't understand. There was so much to do he hardly paid attention to the swooping nausea in his stomach when he traveled out of sight of the shore. Xianle's palace, after all, overlooked the sea from its perch on top of the cliff. That meant he was close enough that the curse's grip was barely noticeable.
No, it was after the war with Yong'an started that Xie Lian was hit with the full implications. The first time he strayed too far inland and had to throw himself off his horse to vomit sea water on the side of the road, perhaps he still hadn't grasped the true meaning of 'cursed'. But the longer the war marched on and he failed to show up to the battlefront, the more territory Xianle lost, the more it had time to sink in.
Now, though? Nowadays, whether Xie Lian could go anywhere at all mattered to nobody. He was sure it hardly mattered even to himself.