Mishka: The Pieces of History Between Us

When Mishka was thirteen, barely a child, he went to the market in Alabaster, and a fortune-teller read his palm. She blanched, spit on his hand, then dropped it as though he were diseased. “*Adver-lese*,” she said.

Mishka wiped his palm on his pants. His mother yanked him away as though the fortune-teller had said something awful.

He puzzled over the word: *Adver* meant *animal*, like a dog. *Lese* meant *lover*. “Did that fortune-teller just call me a dog-fucker?”

“It’s a rude word,” she said shortly. “Don’t repeat it.”

His mother had the fortune teller removed from the city. Mishka went back the next day to ask the woman what that odd word meant—but she was already gone, her space in the peaceful elven market already filled. There was a bakery there instead, selling sweet, circle-shaped pastries covered in crystalized sugar. Some kind of exotic human food. Mishka bought one, then sat beneath a tree in the market square, quietly pulling it apart.

\*

Nobody would tell him what *adver-lese* meant. They’d shoo him away and tell him he was too young.

But when he was seventeen, he found it between the pages of a book hidden in his mother’s bedside drawer. A really sordid romance novel about an elven princess and the commander of an invading orc army.

Adver-lese meant orc-fucker.

There was no specific elven word for orc, which had thrown him off. Instead they called orcs “adver,” which meant *enemy animal*. Like the rabid wolves and dogs that came out of the forest, sometimes, to drag elven children away in the night.

Mishka wrinkled his nose.

\*

He eventually dismissed it. The memory dimmed. He was thirteen when the fortune-teller called him an orc-fucker. Obviously she was mistaken. Almost a hundred years had passed, and so far Mishka had fucked no orcs. Even if it was true, who cared? Mishka was far worse things than an orc-fucker. His mother told him so.

Elitash was getting older and would need a replacement soon. She refused to say so--she staunchly pretended there was nothing wrong--but she walked with a limp these days, and her arm had weakened.

And then Mishka walked into a bar and saw a grim-faced half-orc sitting at the front.

\*

Mishka usually triggered his spells by snapping his fingers. Most of his little spells required some sort of sound, either a whispered incantation or a motion with his hands. People rarely noticed. A few people in the crew, the ones who'd been with him for years, picked up on it. But no one else.

It took Hansel one week.

Whenever Mishka snapped his fingers, Hansel would glance sharply around. It made turning invisible and watching Hansel from the top deck difficult. Hansel would shift uneasily and rub his neck, eyeing the empty spot where Mishka was--like he could *tell*.

So Mishka stopped going invisible. Instead, he started lounging around nearby—blatantly—whistling at Hansel when Hansel took his shirt off to sop off the sweat, or smiling at Hansel when Hansel trained the new recruits. (Hansel insisted on teaching everyone on the ship to fight. Even the fucking cook.)

Hansel would always scowl like Mishka was making a bad joke.

\*

The first time Mishka wanted to kiss Hansel was after a battle. Mishka sat in the hold, a crossbow bolt in his gut, sunk into his kidney. Mishka blinked blearily at it and held it still with his fingers. His blood had soaked into his fine Calish-silk tunic. This was his favorite tunic.

He’d used every ounce of his power in this fight. There was none left.

“You shouldn’t yank that out too quickly,” Mishka joked as the healer prodded at it. “You might startle me. I could incinerate you by mistake.” Which was an outright lie. Mishka was fucking defenseless right now. Someone could wrap their hand around his throat, hold him down, and kill him slowly. And Mishka would have no clever little magic tricks to get out of it.

Hansel stood by the door, arms crossed. When Mishka said *I could incinerate you*, Hansel’s eyes flickered over. He raised his eyebrows.

Once the healer left, Mishka said, "I'm not lying. I know I look like a delicate flower, but I can kill you with a snap of my fingers."

"You used all your tricks during the fight. I counted."

Mishka tensed.

The problem with being a pirate captain was that pirates were ruthless; pirates mutinied; pirates shanked each other over a piece of bread. Had anyone else been counting? Did anyone else know Mishka was defenseless right now? Was it just Hansel? If Hansel did something to him, there was a knife in his boot—

Hansel wasn't wounded. Mishka ran the math in his head, and the math looked really fucking grim—

He'd watched Hansel fight before, admired it. The particular way he threw himself into it. It would be painfully easy, Mishka realized, for Hansel to kill him right now. With one hand.

Hansel said, “Wow. I must’ve caught you off-guard. You stopped flirting with me for a second, there.”

Mishka bit his tongue.

Hansel’s voice changed. “Your quarters only have one entrance. Go to your room and go to sleep. Bar the door if it makes you feel better.”

“I can’t imagine what you mean. I'm fully capable of defending myself.”

“Right,” Hansel said.

There was another long silence, heavier this time. Mishka closed his eyes and thought about how it’d feel to pull Hansel down and kiss him. Whether Hansel would let him or not. Adver-lese. Orc-fucker.

Mishka stood up, still grasping his bloodied side. “Well. Shall we go to bed, then? If you’re so concerned about my safety, perhaps you can keep me company inside my room.”

“There,” Hansel said. “Back to bullshit again. Only took you sixty seconds. Maybe you’re not that badly hurt after all.”

\*

Hansel slept inside his room that night. Not in bed; at the door, slumped over in a chair. Still armed.

Halfway through the night, Mishka got up, shook him awake.

“Neyë,” he whispered—*come here*.

And Hansel did.