#ra drabble

[araluen-arrows]

the blood on my hands

this was a little drabble to stretch my writing muscles after a week off! prompt “thank you for staying with me” from @araluenrangerdanger

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The medic’s tent reminded him of a graveyard, surrounded by the dead and dying. Horace wanted to get away from it, but the blood caked on his hands ran more than skin deep. He would never be able to wash it away.

It was an idle thought, flashing somewhere in the very back of his head. The forefront of his mind was preoccupied with two things: first, the fact that his chest felt like someone had ripped his ribcage out and replaced it with barbed wire. 

Second, well. 

Second, he couldn’t stop thinking about the blood and stink and terror of battle. The dead slumped ominously on the ground and the wounded crying like souls already damned. And his duel with Morgarath. The final, awful moment where he felt his blade go through Morgarath’s ribcage and pierce his heart. 

Horace saw it again every time he blinked, the hatred and fear on Morgarath’s face blazed into the backs of his eyes. The first person I’ve ever killed, he thought grimly. He was Horace Altman, seventeen years old, and he had already killed a person. He tried not to think about how many more he would kill. 

For as long as he could remember, Horace had nursed a dream of becoming a knight. Of charging into battle, his armor gleaming like gold and his sword held aloft. He had never imagined the reality to be anything quite like this. 

Somewhere on the battlefield, next to Morgarath’s cooling body, lay the ghost of some part of his childhood.

He wanted to talk to someone about this coil of revulsion and fear and guilt lying on his chest like a king cobra—was it wrong to feel this way about vanquishing an enemy of the Kingdom? did that make him a coward?—but there was no one there for him to talk to. Sir Rodney had spared him a few kind words before dashing off to confer with Arald. Halt was gone, disappeared in the aftermath of the battle.

And Will—if it was true that Will had been taken by Morgarath—might be lost to Horace forever. His breath hitched at the thought. 

The tent flap rustled, and in ducked a lanky figure wrapped in a gray-green cloak. Gilan, Horace thought with some surprise. What was he doing here? 

The Ranger paused to speak briefly with the medic, their voices low, before Gilan threaded his way through the cots towards Horace. “Hey,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

Horace gestured to his bandaged ribs. “How does it look like I’m holding up?”

“Looks like the bandages are the only thing keeping you together,” Gil observed. He pulled a stool up to Horace’s cot, and Horace became aware of the stares of the other soldiers in the tent. After all, they made an odd pair, Ranger and Battleschool apprentice.

“But, really,” Gilan continued. “I know what you did out there. I know how it feels. The first one,” he added.

Horace kept his gaze fixed on the opposite wall of the tent, fluttering like a canvas sail in the wind. “I can’t stop thinking about it. It—it just won’t leave my mind.”

The Ranger nodded sadly. “We’ve all been there,” he said. “At some point, in our lives especially, killing is a necessity. But that doesn’t make it any less awful, does it?”

“Even if it was Morgarath?”

“Even so,” Gilan said, and something like relief blossomed through Horace’s battered chest. He had been terrified that Gilan would expect him to feel triumphant about Morgarath. Happy, even.

There was nothing triumphant or happy about shoving your knife into someone’s chest, even if that someone was a rebel warlord.

“Does it get easier?” he asked, searching Gilan’s face. 

Slowly, Gil shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “You just learn to get through it. One way or another. One day at a time.”

Horace let his eyes slide shut briefly, weighed down by some special despair. How many more times would he have to relive that moment? Would the blood caked on his fingers stay with him forever? 

There was sympathy in Gilan’s eyes. “But it does help to remember you did a good thing, Horace,” he said. “By killing Morgarath, you prevented so many potential deaths. One life against hundreds.”

“One life against hundreds,” Horace echoed, suddenly extremely tired. His limbs felt like deadweights against the cot.

“Yes.” Gilan reached out a hand and put it on Horace’s shoulder, warm and comforting, an anchor in a brutal sea. “You did brilliantly today.”

Horace felt the barest sliver of a smile on his face. “Thank you, Gil,” he said, shifting to look the young Ranger in the face. “Thank you for staying with me.” 

[araluen-arrows]

Imperfect

The boy was silent and utterly still, sitting cross-legged on the verandah and looking out into the forest. As Halt watched him, a breeze stirred the edges of his cloak, ruffling his hair, but still he did not move.

These days, Will tended to do this a lot. It had been some time since their return from Skandia, and still he wasn’t back to his cheerful self. And “cheerful” was the wrong word, Halt thought. No, he certainly didn’t expect his apprentice to be cheerful after his recent ordeal, but Will just seemed… distant. Absent from himself. 

Often when he laughed, the mirth would fade from his face as soon as it appeared, and his apprentice would fall silent for hours on end. He was less certain of himself. Will observed less, made fewer connections, fell behind with his training. And Halt was at his wits’ end as to how to help him.

- - - - -

He got the idea after he took Will to the Crooked Platter one night, a worn-down but cozy dining establishment in Wensley Village. One of the servers had short auburn hair and a cheerful grin and seemed vaguely familiar to Halt. 

“Jenny,” Will cried, and then it hit him—this Jenny person had been one of Will’s wardmates, the one apprenticed to Master Chubb on her Choosing Day. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, Master Chubb hired me out to the owner of this place.” Jenny winked. “Said it was good to learn to host and interact with customers. Speaking of which—” she dug around in her pocket for a notebook—“what will you two be having tonight?”

“I don’t recall having seen a menu,” Halt remarked archly.

“That’s because there really isn’t one,” said Jenny with another wink. “Mind, I’m trying to get the owner to develop one—it’s great for business, you see—but he doesn’t seem all that interested. Just between you and me, I think he just wants to be rid of this place.”

“You should take over, Jen,” said Will. “You’d do great with it.”

“I want to, believe me,” she said. “But I still have so much to learn: three years of apprenticeship left, and I think Chubb really wants to take me on as an assistant chef.” 

Halt dimly heard Will’s stomach growl so he asked, “What is there to eat tonight?” 

Jenny clapped her hands together, excited as always to talk to other people about her food. “We’ve got venison tonight on the spits tonight, slow roasted with my own blend of spices and served over bread and roasted corn.” 

“Isn’t that illegal?” Halt frowned. “Or have your suppliers been poaching?”

“The Princess keeps delivering game to the local restaurants,” said Jenny. “I don’t know when she became such a good hunter, but I won’t complain.”

“Ev—Cassandra is here?” Will was unable to keep the surprise from his voice. “Since when?”

“I just told you earlier today,” Halt admonished gently. “She’s here to visit Lady Sandra this week.” 

“Sorry.” Will fell into his usual deep silence again, and Halt mentally berated himself. It wasn’t his apprentice’s fault that he was more forgetful than usual. 

Jenny frowned, seeing the exchange but not understanding it. “Well, I’ll have your food out soon, then,” she said awkwardly. “It’s been good to see you two.”

Will still didn’t look up as she waved to them and returned to the kitchen. 

They ate the meal—Halt did have to admit it was very good; Jenny’s blend of spices augmented the flavor in all the right ways—in uncomfortable silence. Halt thought about saying something multiple times. He even opened his mouth to apologize before closing it again, deciding Will was best left alone. But his apprentice was clearly pained, and the fact that Halt was unable to help him made his heart ache.  

Will only showed interest when the musicians in the corner (probably hired, Halt thought: they looked too professional to be a rag-tag group of travelling minstrels) began to tune their instruments, promising for a lively night of entertainment. By the end of the first song, Will’s foot was tapping and his head was nodding ever so slightly along with the beat. 

By the end of the performance, he was humming along to the songs, clapping his hands in time with the piece. His expression still wasn’t cheerful, exactly, but it was the brightest Halt had seen it in months. And (his breath caught in his throat when he noticed) more importantly, Will’s eyes were the brightest Halt had seen them in months. 

He made sure to tip the musicians extra on their way out.

And that was the beginning of Halt’s grand idea.

- - - - -

Three months.

That’s how long it took.

There was wood to be gathered, cut, glued, painted, and polished. Sinews to be cured and tied, leather to be boiled and shaped, and two trips to the silversmith and one to the library of Castle Redmont to be made. It was difficult work, to be sure, but Halt had spent his life crafting longbows and arrows to near-perfect precision, not to mention Will’s recurve bow. There was nothing he relished more than a challenge.

The more difficult part was keeping it a secret from his apprentice. Halt worked into the late hours of the night. He chopped firewood as a pretense to obtain materials. He would set Will to a task—learning maps and charts, doing target practice—and rode like hell for Ambrose’s house in Wensley village to pick up finished parts from the silversmith. It required skill, timing, artistry, and care—none of which Halt naturally possessed in large quantities—but it would all be worth it in the end.  

Thirteen weeks after their night at the Crooked Platter, the gift was ready. After dinner, Will sat outside on the verandah in his customary place, still staring at everything and nothing, but he sipped occasionally from the cup of coffee in his hand. That was an improvement, Halt thought as he fiddled with his oakleaf, preparing himself to present the gift. He hoped it wouldn’t go over the wrong way with Will.

He cleared his throat, taking a seat next to his apprentice, holding the gift in his lap. After a heartbeat, Will turned, his gaze seeming to focus on Halt with great difficulty. “Oh, hullo Halt,” he said dully, but his eyes seemed to brighten by just a degree.

“I made you something. It’s not perfect, but… ” Halt paused, wondering if he ought to elaborate, but then decided simplicity would be best. “I thought you might have use of it.” He handed the case to Will and gestured for him to open it.

Gently, Will unlatched the silver clasps and opened the lid with a care approaching reverence. His breath caught in his throat. 

Nestled inside the cloth-lined leather was a beautiful mandola, the amber wood glowing gold in the light of the setting sun. It was teardrop shaped, just slightly asymmetrical, with a roughly circular hole about three-quarters of the way to the top. The kinks in the wood were sanded down but still present, dark streaks against the polished instrument that made it seem all the more lovely. Four pairs of strings ran from its neck to the bottom, and Will, almost holding his breath, lowered his finger onto one and plucked it experimentally. The sound it made was twangy but rich, and he fell in love with it immediately. 

He remembered his mentor watching over his shoulder, the person who had gifted him this wonderful instrument in the first place. It was, without a doubt, the most priceless thing Will had ever owned. Words failed him. “I… don’t know what to say,” he said lamely. “Thank you, Halt.

“It’s imperfect,” Halt repeated gruffly. “I’m sure you could find a better one—“

He was cut off as Will set the mandola aside and hugged him. Halt could feel his apprentice bury his face in his shoulder, shaking. Hesitantly, he returned the hug, realizing that this was the most physical contact he’d had with Will for months. His ribs complained, but Halt himself certainly didn’t.

“I don’t think I could ever find a better one,” Will said, his head still buried in Halt’s shoulder. 

“I guess this means you like it?” he asked, gently patting Will on the back. “Mind, it’s a little rough around the edges, and—”

His apprentice finally came up for air. “Like it?” His tone was almost indignant, as if he was scandalized Halt would use such a weak choice of words. 

“The imperfections only serve to increase the perfection, Halt. Like it?” he repeated again, his voice rising still higher in pitch. “Imperfect is perfect—I’ll treasure it forever.” 

This time, it was Halt’s turn to bury his face in his apprentice’s shoulder. And if Will felt him shaking slightly, he didn’t say anything: he just renewed the hug, and mentor and apprentice stood like that for a long, long time. 

[araluen-arrows]

4. Unadvised please?

The Queen’s eyebrows knit closer and closer together as she skimmed farther down the latest report from Caraway. Farmers overburdened with tax. Northwest villages on brink of famine. Children begging in larger towns. 

She read to the bottom and realized that the report wasn’t even from the Baron, probably because he would have never authorized it. No, it had been meticulously drawn up by a village headwoman who had managed to see Caraway’s unjust system for what it was. Cassandra made a note of the woman’s name for future reference. She also made a note of the Baron’s name for more immediate reference. 

“Your Majesty?” the messenger asked, worried by the lack of reponse from the Queen, that he would be punished as the bearer of bad news.

Cassandra looked up distractedly, then noticed the poor man was still kneeling on the floor. “Oh! My apologies, Martin. You’re free to go.” 

“My Queen.” With a final bow, he turned and backed out of the room, never turning his back on her. 

With a sigh, she turned her attention back to his delivered report and slumped lower in her chair. “Formalities, formalities. I have no time for court protocol. I have a nation to run.”

“All due respect, my lady,” said Lord Peter, one of her advisors, “but not only are these formalities tradition, they help cement the authority of your office and the authority of the Crown.” 

“I do not require you to parrot the words of my childhood tutor, lord,” Cassandra said frostily. “I know perfectly well the necessity of protocol.”  Protocol that Lord Peter had technically breached by addressing her as “my lady”, but the man had always been a hypocrite. Currently, she had larger problems than overbearing advisors. 

“Now,” she said, forestalling his reply. “Lord Anthony, does this report from Caraway seem accurate?”

Anthony glanced at the report, then at the treasury records of Castle Caraway and Castle Araluen. He hesitated. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Then,” Cassandra said quietly, “would anyone like to explain to me why all tax income from the northwest is coming from the common people? No money from the nobility at all?”

“My lady, have you stopped to consider that the population of the commoners is over twenty times larger than—”

Cassandra managed to refrain from throttling some sense into Lord Peter. That was the problem with nobility at Castle Araluen, she thought. They were too cloistered, too removed from the outer reaches of the country, and they failed to remember the humanity of the ones they taxed. The people were not a source of income or men-at-arms. They were—well, they were people.  

“Have you stopped to consider,” she said, each word weighed down with thinly veiled contempt and anger, “that the nobility is far more than twenty times richer than the common man? That the way they earn their money in the first place is by bleeding their people dry?”

No one dared to meet her eyes. Cassandra took a deep breath, wondering if she’d overstepped. There was a fine line she had to walk when addressing her senior advisors. She couldn’t afford to lose their support and weaken her already tenuous grip on the court. 

Lord Anthony consulted his papers again. He cleared his throat cautiously. “Ah, Your Majesty—there’s the small matter of King Herbert’s treaty with Caraway Fief in 497 CE.”

“Enlighten me.” Cassandra realized her hands were clenched too tightly around the report, so she deliberately set it on the table. She schooled her expression into a blank slate and managed to push back most of her frustration. For now. 

“Fine details aside, the King agreed to waive land taxes on Caraway in exchange for loyalty in the war against Picta, Your Majesty. But because the law requires a tax of ten silver reels from each fief per fifty persons, the money has to come from somewhere.” 

Several lords and ladies widened their eyes at the implication. Lord Peter remained stony-faced: probably because he was exactly the type of man that would turn a blind eye to this sort of thing, Cassandra thought. 

“Then am I correct in concluding that the treaty benefits only the nobility, because most common farmers don’t own the land they work, Lord Anthony?” she asked. 

“Certainly, Your Majesty.” Anthony acknowledged the truth with a grim nod. “Most of the tax in Caraway is therefore levied on the harvest even before a share of it goes to the lords and their knights.”

Cassandra mentally berated herself for not having realized this earlier. She had a responsibility to her citizens, and not noticing or stopping injustice was the same thing as perpetuating it. She should have done better. 

In her head, she also thought some very uncomplementary things about the baron of Caraway and wished she could say them to his face. Maybe she ought to send a forcefully worded carrier pigeon. 

“Then hear my decree,” she said instead, reaching for a pen and some parchment. She read aloud slowly as she wrote: “All harvests are thereafter to be taxed only after they are collected. No tax is to be derived from the farmer’s share of the crop. Deductions for Harvest Day may only be made if aforementioned holiday is directly paid for by the baron and his nobles. The fees levied on market transactions will remain in place.” 

She signed her name at the bottom with a flourish and handed it to the chamberlain.  “Lord Anthony, I will rely on you to figure out the new figures that Caraway nobles must pay. The Scribeschool can help with the wording of the final amendment.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Anthony struck his staff against the flagstones. “Consider it done.” 

“Your Majesty!” Lord Peter burst out, blindsided by the current turn of events. “This is violating the letter of the treaty! It is unadvised—”

Cassandra’s self-control snapped. “What is unadvised, my lord, is to continue talking when your contributions are so obviously unwanted. If the nobility has qualms about paying their fair share, they’re welcome to join the class of the common people.” 

Luckily for Peter’s career, he desisted, turning an admirable shade of puce that clashed horribly with his red robes. “I—You—yes, Your Majesty,” he said finally. 

And Cassandra was forced to admit that that gave her almost—almost—as much satisfaction as the newly amended law.

[araluen-arrows]

Crack

“You know what’s dumb?” Will said suddenly, setting his cup down.

“Mmph?” Evanlyn, taken aback, chewed rapidly and swallowed her mouthful of pie. “What?” she asked, wiping her mouth on the tablecloth.

Jenny rapped ever-present her ladle on the table, but even she didn’t dare whack the Crown Princess across the knuckles. She contented herself with a gibe made in jest. “Your Highness, don’t they teach you any better in that castle of yours?”

“Of course they do,” Evanlyn said, stifling a light burp. “I just choose to ignore it when I can. And that’s quite enough of the Your Highness, please.”

“If you insist, then.” Jenny grinned, but then she froze, her eyes darting toward the water clock sitting on the bar. She sighed. “Damn. Sorry, but I have to run. Lunch rush is about to start,” she said apologetically.

“Good catching up with you,” Will said.

“Come over to Castle Araluen sometime and give the staff a couple pointers,” Evanlyn called. “My father will jump at the chance to hire you.”

“And miss the chance to outdo Master Chubb every time I get? No, thanks.” Jenny made a face and waggled her fingers at them both. 

Will grinned, watching her hurry away, and then turned back to Evanlyn. “What were we talking about again?” 

“You asked what was dumb,” she said bluntly.

“Oh, yeah!” Will’s expression cleared. “I was just thinking—”

“—always a dangerous pastime—”

“You’ve spent too much time around Halt,” he complained.

“No, actually.” Evanlyn reached for another slice of pie. “I’ve spent time around Horace, who, yes, has been spending too much time around Halt.”

“Oh, whatever. But what I was going to say: I mean, if you think about it…  isn’t it dumb that the Kingdom of Araluen was almost overrun because of a crack in the earth?” Will smiled at his own wit.

Evanlyn sighed, spraying crumbs everywhere. “It’s almost like geographical features affect the course of war.”

“But if the crack had been anywhere else—if the crack had been, I don’t know, just a little higher in the mountains, nothing would’ve happened,” he protested, irritated that she didn’t find this fact as ground-shaking as he did. “We would’ve had troops stationed at the Fissure from the outset, and he would’ve had to find another way out.” 

“Okay, that is food for thought,” Evanlyn admitted. “Because I guess then there might never have been a bridge to burn. Morgarath might’ve had a different plan, and the war might’ve gone totally differently.” And we never would’ve gotten kidnapped and sold as slaves, and then Skandian and Araluen would’ve been overrun by Temujai. 

All because of a stupid crack.

Okay, she thought, grinning.

That was kind of dumb. 

[araluen-arrows]

Hehe...might I suggest...31. Murder

The dispatch fluttered from Halt’s numb fingers. He watched it catch the breeze and propel itself towards the woods, only to drift to earth again, lost from sight. “No,” he breathed. “No.”

Will looked up from his own paperwork, a frown creasing his forehead. “What?” he asked.

“The Commandant—Crowley—is dead,” Halt said, and just saying the words stole his breath away. Where there had been air in his lungs only a second previously, there was now a cold void, draining, despondent, devouring. He swallowed, hard, feeling his heartbeat pulse in his chest, and wondering why, why—

Only the smallest sound escaped Will’s lips. “How?”

Halt could see the black words of the dispatch in his mind. They drifted before his retinas whenever he closed his eyes, stark in contrast the white parchment. Urgent dispatch to the Ranger of Redmont Fief. Urgent dispatch to the Ranger of Redmont Fief. Urgent dispatch—Halt shook his head, wrenching himself back to the present. “In his bed,” he heard himself say. “Peacefully, according to the servant that found him.”

“But he was healthy—and not near old enough to just—”

“Precisely so.” 

A sudden cold clarity stole over him, the same icy focus that had come when his request to search for Will had been denied. The same clarity that had overtaken him as he stood against the Kalkara, waiting to die, or in the drowned forest in Picta, or on an executioner’s platform in Arrida. All places where people had tried to kill him, and he had beaten the odds, escaped to fight another day. 

In the end, Crowley had not been so lucky. 

But Halt had lived. Halt had lived, even if Crowley hadn’t. His life had been spared all those times to avenge the one instance when his friend’s had not.

“So if it wasn’t—wasn’t natural,” Will was saying, his gaze distant. Halt glanced away, knowing his former apprentice had arrived at the same conclusion as he had, knowing what Will was about to say but fearing it all the same. 

“Crowley was assassinated.”

“It was murder,” Halt said, his voice flat. “He was murdered.” He felt his heart harden in his chest, sweep away all the shattered pieces of itself and lock them away. There was no more regret, no more sorrow, no more hesitance—only purpose. “And I will avenge his death, or I will die trying.”

[araluen-arrows]

.....95. brother....

It used to be so cool that they were identical. Halt would slip into Ferris’s robes and attend his archery lessons; Ferris would go sit on a council meeting for him. They confused their father’s advisors and played pranks on the noblemen. Ferris covered for Halt whenever he wanted to slip away from the castle, whenever he became overwhelmed by royal life and needed a breath of fresh air. Everything always worked out just fine, until it didn’t. Until a day when they were seventeen, a day that involved a fishing trip, a small canoe, and exactly one oar. 

Halt used to take pride in having a brother.

 Now, his twin haunted him like a second shadow. Halt saw him in the summer forests, because emerald green was his favorite color; in pockets of wild chrysanthemums (his favorite flower) in the Araluen meadows; in the darkness of every night on watch as he remembered lying on his back with Ferris as children, tracing their own nonsense constellations into the night sky. 

And perhaps worst of all, he remembered his brother every time he saw a river or pond. A clammy hand would touch Halt’s back as he recalled the feeling of waterlogged clothing, the oar scraping his shoulder, Ferris calling for him innocently from their fishing boat. Worse, every time he leaned over the water, he saw his brother in his own reflection. 

They had been identical, after all.

The night before, a trio of Gorlan soldiers had confronted Crowley in the tavern. Halt had sauntered up, offered them a drink, and when they’d let their guards down, he knocked them out with three well-placed hits. It bothered him because it was such a Ferris thing to do: befriend someone and stab them in the back when it benefited you most. 

Halt used to believe he was everything like Ferris, his twin and best friend. They would have ruled Clonmel together, jointly and in peace. Then Ferris had revealed himself to be the conniving backstabber he really was, and Halt had vowed to never be like that. His brother may have gotten the throne, but he would always be the better person. 

But now? Halt had killed and lied and cheated just to stay alive. None of that made him better than Ferris, especially if the only difference was that Ferris had people to do the killing and lying and cheating for him. It was almost as if he couldn’t escape the pull of his brother, no matter how he tried. And that frightened Halt more than anything.

[araluen-arrows]

82. Noxious for the one word three sentence thingy?? 💞

Will opened the door to his cabin and immediately regretted it. He coughed, involuntarily taking a step back and fanning the air in front of his face. An awful smell assaulted his senses, vaguely sulfuric in odor, like rotten eggs. Outside, Tug snorted and shook his mane, but he didn’t seem overly alarmed. That was good, Will thought. It meant that there was nothing dangerous inside.

Still, as he stepped cautiously over the threshold, his hand dropped instinctively to his saxe knife. The all-permeating smell was making his eyes water, but everything seemed quiet— 

“Oh, Will! You’re back!” Alyss waved from her seat at the kitchen table, and Will jumped, rattling a nearby lamp. He’d been so preoccupied by the noxious odor that he had failed to notice anything else about his surroundings. Like Alyss’s boots lying by the front door. Or Alyss herself, as a matter of fact. He shook his head in mock disgust. Fine Ranger you are. 

He stepped forward to embrace her, grinning. “How’ve you been?” 

“Just fine until this morning, as a matter of fact.” Hiding a smile of her own, she set down her tea to return the hug. 

Will’s first instinct was concern. “What? Why? What happened?” He studied her carefully, looking her over for signs of injury or stress. 

A barely-contained snort escaped Alyss’s mouth as she looked back at him, her eyes laughing. 

So she wasn’t hurt, Will thought with a rush of relief, but her response had only served to confuse him more. He frowned, then decided there was no way around it but to address the elephant in the room. “Alyss Mainwaring, what did you do?” 

Alyss, attempting to maintain composure, took a sip of tea. “Alright. So after Pauline and Halt got news you’d be back around today, I thought it’d be a good idea to—to—to—” Her self-control broke down again and she erupted into a bout of giggles. 

As Will watched, amazed, her reserved expression, so carefully trained through years of work in the Diplomatic Service, dissolved like mist before the rising sun. “Oh, hold—hold on, I got tea up my nose.” She sneezed, and Will laughed along with her, holding on to the back of her chair for support. 

“I was going to surprise you when you got—when you got back from your mission,” Alyss continued, now wheezing, all attempt at retaining dignity gone. “Thought it’d be nice for you to have a dinner waiting when you got back.” She sneezed again through her laughter, sounding like a very high-pitched beached whale. “I—I—” Alyss gasped for breath, unable to talk and clutching at her own chair for support. 

Will handed her a napkin and gave her a perfunctory pat on the back, unable to stop himself from laughing too: both with Alyss and at Alyss. “I can see where this is going.”

“I’m so sorry,” she gasped again, dabbing at her eyes and sitting straighter, only to double over under another fit of laughing. “I just—I really just can’t cook, Will!”

“That’s alright,” Will said, and she leaned her head against his torso. He could feel her still laughing, the sound muffled against the material of his cloak. “Because luckily for you, I can do it well enough for the both of us.”

[araluen-arrows]

8 my dear

8. Girl

God, she was brilliant. 

Cassandra watched as the Courier took to the dance floor, holding the arm of a young knight. She smiled, and even from across the room, Cassandra could see that it lit up her entire face. 

“More wine, my lady?” A steward essayed a half bow towards her, crystal decanter held easily in one hand. 

“No, thank you, she said automatically, her face adorned with a reflexive court smile. It was more absentminded than her usual response would have been, but in the moment, she did not care. 

Cassandra only had eyes for Alyss. 

“Ma chérie, a toast!” The Gallican lord seated at the far end of the table (who was oblivious, she thought, to the obvious slight she’d dealt him by placing him to the very left, closest to the kitchens, as well to the fact that he was keeping the entire table from the dance) rose from his chair. His cheeks were already flushed with drink, though it was early into the evening. “Many years of prosperity to this country—and its princess!”

Cassandra scowled at the obvious implication and cast a longing eye at the dance floor, hoping to catch another glimpse of Alyss. 

“Likewise to Gallica,” her father was saying, lifting his glass. Very subtly, he nudged her leg with his, reminding her of her duties.

“Oh! You are gracious, my lord.” Cassandra inclined her head, forcing her expression into a polite mask. “May there be cooperation between our two nations—and with our Arridan allies as well—in the coming times.”

Seley el’then winked at her from across the table. They both knew very well that the Gallican delegation wanted to secure a trade deal that favored them over the Arridans. Unfortunately for them, her father cited recent Gallican hostility, as well as Selethen’s help saving both Erak and Cassandra from the Tualaghi bandits, and firmly rejected their demands.

But that had been just one obstacle in the evening, and there would be another one for her to surmount. The Gallican delegation had brought King Henri’s son, Prince Jacques, who had introduced himself and promptly invited her on a hunting trip. It was obvious, Cassandra thought, resisting the urge to call for more alcohol, that Gallica was angling for a marriage alliance. But she had next to no interest in the Gallican prince, and she had made her feelings perfectly clear on the subject to boot. 

In fact, she had next to no interest in princes—and men—in general. Girls (Alyss) were far more interesting. The Courier’s hair shone white gold in the candlelight, and her pearly dress caught and reflected the light a thousand different ways. She laughed, twirling in time to the music, a brilliant star tonight in contrast to her usual reticence. 

What remained of Cassandra’s self-control promptly flushed itself into the moat. “Excuse me,” she said, and the conversation halted as she rose to her feet in one fluid motion. 

“Pardon, mademoiselle?” Jacques asked. “What iz it you require? Another dish? A change of conversation, perhaps?”

It was kind of sweet how he was trying, but it irked Cassandra to be treated as a guest in her own hall. She shook her head, schooling her features into a fine line between demureness and contempt. “None, thank you. I only wished to partake in the festivities. Politics can be so tedious sometimes, don’t you think?”

She left the table before he could respond, carefully descending the steps (it would be just her luck to trip in front of two foreign delegations and Alyss). The dancers halted as she took to the floor, and the musicians wavered, unsure if the princess wanted to give a speech or request a different song. 

“Please, continue,” she said, and they struck the same tune again, and the other dancers resumed as well, but they left Cassandra a wide berth, a clear circle in which there was no other person. 

Except one. 

With a thrill, she realized that the Courier was watching her approach, smiling an unusually shy smile. “Lady Alyss,” Cassandra breathed, extending a hand. “Might I have this dance?”

“Why, Princess Evanlyn,” Alyss said, and she took Cassandra’s hand, pulling her close. “I would be delighted.”