That, and the baba would tell him every single time.
"Now, remember, Tua," she tutted, the way she always did, as if he were still six and not nearly twenty, "they're just bullies and bullies can't hurt you if you don't let them. But they are our guests and so we're not allowed to make faces."
"Yes, ma'am," he answered, the way he always did.
o-o-o
"That's a good boy," she said, kissing the tip of her finger and touching it to the tip of his nose before turning back to her mirror to inspect the artful flyaways in her hair. "Just look intimidating but don't say anything. Nod if I ask you any questions."
This was it, the new part. He'd always been there when the ambassadors came since they'd begun to come, but he'd always been wearing a different shape, stuck together at the seams with pine sap so thick that it would mask the ocean salt. All but invisible to eyes and nose. But now he was supposed to stand next to Mayuko, in full view of everyone. He'd reached manhood since the last time they'd come.
Tua wiped the kiss from the tip of his nose and tucked it into the pouch around his neck, along with all the others, the way she'd always told him to.
"Right," Mayuko sighed, turning his head this way and that and running a finger up the curve of her throat. "Let's go greet our guests, shall we?"
The audience chamber was stolen; the physical space from an abandoned warehouse two hundred miles north and the interior borrowed right from under a drunken lord's nose just up the street. It would to be returned in a little less than two hours or else there would be hell to pay when he woke up and found himself and guests in the middle of the warehouse's cobwebs and rats. She'd have to be sure to keep it for the next three.
But for all that they hemmed and hawed and simpered, the ambassadors were actually always quite quick with their visits. There was only so long they could bear to be away from home and even servants with buckets of water didn't extend that time all that much. And the twins had been extremely displeased the last time there had been spilled sea water all over another set of borrowed wall hangings and so the visits were now down to a predictably exact length of time.
Mayuko liked to make them sweat though. She stood just outside the door to the chamber, running a finger along the lines of her agreement with the cavalla that were printed in neat, official font along the grain of the wood. Then she ran her hand over her hair again and looked over her shoulder at the back of her robes.
"Adjust the knot there, would you?" she asked Tua. He crooked one finger and slid the knot of her sash over two inches. She smiled and swiped another fingertip kiss across his nose and then sallied forth into the chamber. Tua followed, closing the door carefully behind him and tucking the kiss in with its siblings.
They were an all-new group of ambassadors this time. It happened. A wave of inexperienced briny panic wafted throughout the room as Baba Mayuko appeared to lounge on the throne that was on a friendly loan from the antique merchant who had given Mayuko the same pair of jade earrings twice. It was an uncomfortable chair, as the upholstery was wearing out and it would creak if she were anything less than completely graceful, but it was covered with something close enough to gold leaf and it was taller even than Tua as the man came to stand at her arm. Certainly grand enough to impress a few backwater scribes who'd be recruited for petty revenge techniques.
"Milords," Mayuko intoned, waving away the twins who had been serving rolled seaweed and chilled shrimp. The two women were thick and burly this time and they glared at Tua as they brushed past him on their way out, the way they always did when they were bigger than him. Poor boy. The ambassadors didn't see; they were too busy mashing their faces to the floor.
Then one of them raised his head and began to speak.
o-o-o
First, there were the scripted pleasantries...
"Strong waves, Baba Mayuko -”
"Yes, and a very good day to you too. Now, to business."
...which the baba was well known for ignoring.
The ambassador predictably began to gape, his gills slapping the sides of his neck at a rather impolite volume.
"I'm sorry, milord, should I have Tua get you a glass of water? You seem a bit parched."
At least somewhat polite, if rather blunt, by human terms, but the cavalla's fins bristled at the implication he was weakened out of his environment. And, of course, all eyes turned on Tua, just as the baba had intended. A general fluttering of extremities and noisy sloppings of lips ensued as they took in his scent and indentified him. The bitter smell of panic grew stronger. None of them had ever seen him before, but he was impossible to mistake for the cavalla.
"B-Baba," the lead ambassador, with his gray crest and gold scales, stammered around his gills' involuntary panic, "what is that doing here?" He even pointed with the closest thing he had to a finger.
"Does his presence offend?"
"But he's -"
"- necessary for these negotiations to continue, do you not agree?" The baba's voice was growing low and firm.
The ambassador's nostrils flared without air as he debated.
"Indeed. You have protected him long enough, sehrr." Another of the ambassadors, this one with antennae bristling about his face. "He has reached manhood, has he not?"
"Have you indeed?" The baba turned to Tua and remembering his instructions, he nodded.
"Well, fancy that. I hadn't thought the cavalla would be so petty as to allow a grudge to stand for sixteen entire years. I had thought them more magnanimous than that."
The entire group writhed and burbled so that Tua was nearly sure they would start spawning on the floor.
"This... abomination is a danger to our lord and your protection is an insult to our entire people!"
"I understand milords, that you have had disagreements with the boy's-"
"Man," the bushy-faced one with eyes like a frog corrected.
"- boy's father," she ignored him. "However, as you have observed this entire sixteen years, the child-"
"Man," came the insistent mutter again.
"-has never had contact with his father. Lutrinae is rumored dead, even. Why bother an innocent under my protection?" She emphasized the last few words with the barest of hints between the syllables.
"He is no longer under your protection, sehrr," the lead ambassador remarked politely. The baba fixed him with a languid gaze, peering out from under her eyelashes.
"He is perhaps a man, but he still resides in my household, ambassador. Do not think that I do not protect my own merely because they have been alive for more than a certain number of years."
o-o-o
They all murmured amongst themselves for a moment, huddling their heads together and anxiously flapping their gills. Mayuko took the opportunity to rest her chin in her hand and lean her elbow against the arm of the chair. It had to be done delicately to avoid too much creaking.
"Sehrr, we are willing to negotiate the terms of the release of this man from your service and into our custody."
"You are welcome to attempt it," she answered. "Perhaps I can be reasoned with."
Tua didn't move from where he was standing. Didn't blink, didn't turn to look at her. She assessed him out of the corner of her eye as the ambassador began to haltingly outline terms and conditions. Lutrinae would have been proud of this boy, if only he were around to see him.
She tuned back into the ambassador's words after a while, just as he came to a flourishing finish, having worked himself up into a grand diplomatic flurry. Mayuko waved a hand, using the gesture to disguise how she pulled her spine into a more comfortable position.
"I'm afraid, gentlemen, that none of your proposals interest me."
"B-but, sehrr B-baba, w-we..." Another of the group, this one with a wide sucker face and multiple rows of tiny, tiny teeth, struggled to maintain composure. It was hard to tell if he was afraid, angry or just stammering around so many obstacles. It was amazing that he managed human speech at all. "We must insist."
"Insist?" Mayuko let one of her eyebrows rise. They needed plucking; she could feel the itch of new hairs.
"Indeed." It was the lead ambassador again, his gray scales beginning to drip a little with the stress of remaining calm. His robes were growing dark with the damp mucus. "You pleaded his youth in keeping him. We indulged you, since your customs are often different from our own. But you have acknowledged that he is of age, when a child leaves its parents, and so we must now insist on satisfaction."
"Satisfaction?" Mayuko did let her chair creak then, forcing the sound in and out of the corners of the room until deafening echoes billowed over scales and fins, flattening them. They cowered and whined, but she simply leaned harder on the arm of her chair, sending the shriek of badly joined wood rattling about the high ceilings.
"What, may I ask, would you do if I were to refuse? To say that you could never have the boy?"
Bristly-face's mandibles clacked and sucked with anxiety and indignation.
"We insist!"
"I refuse."
o-o-o
Tua didn't turn to look at her. He just watched the ambassador's feet begin to slip a little on the slimy slick floor. They were not prepared for this. They were expecting her to dodge, to let them flatter her and remind her of her place. It was what she had done for every group before this. It was passed down from spawn to spawn.
He didn't say anything. Just clutched at the pouch of kisses beneath his tunic.
o-o-o
"But... We insist!"
"I. Refuse."
"You-you have no right!"
"On the contrary, gentlemen, I have every right. Do I not, Tua?"
He nodded obediently. Mayuko smiled at him, but he didn't look her way. He was still staring steadily forward. She could see his hand tucked under a fold of clothing, only a white glimpse of knuckles visible.
"I raised him. He was entrusted to me."
"His father has done our people great wrong."
"Then take it up with him. Honestly," and she let her head fall forward to rest in her palm, "I've only been trying to explain this for the past sixteen years," she muttered too quietly for them to hear.
They wouldn't have heard anyway. When she looked up, face serene and controlled again, Bristly-face had turned more blue than green and Tua was standing between her and the ambassadors, hands hanging loose at his sides. The other ambassadors had slimy fins and tentacles wrapped around Bristly-face, keeping him contained. They might have been very poor at diplomacy, but even they knew better than to attack a baba in her own home. She stood carefully.
"I believe our meeting has concluded, gentlemen," she said, carefully straightening her robes and folding her hands in front of her.
They glanced from her to Tua, his feet planted firmly and one hand reached ever so slightly back towards her. Then they looked back to her, her smile gently pulling at the corner of her mouth.
They didn't argue. She didn't even have to call in the twins. Tua remained in place, arm still stretched back, until the door closed behind them and the crash of the ocean falling back into place echoed through the borrowed chambers. Only then did he relax, his spine straightening from his crouch as he turned to face her. Mayuko put a hand up behind his head and drew him down so she could plant a kiss on his forehead.
"That went well," she said, pulling her hair from its knot as she headed for the door out of the warehouse that was already starting to look more like a warehouse. Tua didn't say anything, but she saw him carefully pull the kiss from his forehead and tuck it into its pouch.
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