Still packing. Still going insane, one box at a time. Ethan’s going to school every day to preserve some sense of normalcy (in this family? Ha!) so my evenings are not only full of packing, but homework. It’s okay. I’ll survive. Just have to keep moving, keep breathing, keep packing–one box at a time.
I kinda envy how little the move is affecting him so far. Even though his dad is about to go out on contract for another year, Ethan’s cruising along, playing games, making friends, and reading books. Not that I’m complaining. Every time he picks up a book of his own volition I squeal on the inside, clamping a lid on my glee as though he were a timid deer in the forest and one wrong move would cause him to bound away with a fwip of his contrary tail. Yes, little boy. You read those books. They’ll be some of your best friends.
Last Friday night I was raiding when bedtime rolled around. See, when I raid, I don’t have time for the usual bedtime story ritual unless I remember to start it an hour before he’s supposed to go to bed. I didn’t remember, and neither did he. “We’ll read together tomorrow,” I told him. “Can I read a book to Mr. Teddy?” he asked.
OF COURSE YOU CAN.
So he took a brand-new copy of Henry Huggins off the shelf (mom and dad bought him a set of Beverly Cleary books this year, which won serious brownie points with me) and proceeded to read the entirety of Chapter 1 to a stuffed animal. These are not short chapters, mind. He read 28 pages without any prodding from me and loved it. I caught him skipping ahead in his reading textbook for fun earlier that week, too, now that I think about it. It makes me happy–I’ve created a Reader.
Last night we read Chapter 2. It’s been 20 years since I read Henry Huggins, but it may as well have been yesterday. The scenes where Henry buys and cares for his baby-making guppies were seared into my memory ages ago. I made up a little song about it and Ethan was delighted:
Henry bought a couple guppies and he took ‘em both home,
They started having babies so they wouldn’t be alone.
He dumped ‘em in a pickle jar and put ‘em on the floor
He filled up every pickle jar and still they made more…And there were millions of guppies everywhere
Guppies in the living room and guppies on the stairs
Anywhere you looked, there was guppies there
Millions and millions of guppies.
Can you say “a couple guppies in a pickle jar” three times fast? I bet you can’t. (We sure couldn’t, but tongue-twisters are especially hard when you’re giggling.)
I may be hard at work preparing for a cross-country move, but I still have time to write for Mama Hillary over at Seven Deadly Divas. I like this particular post because it harnesses the mind-breaking power of Jim Carrey in spandex. Go look, you know you want to.
Today’s other activities include reading manuscripts, bleaching the bathtub, hooking up a coffee IV, and birdwatching. The bright pink vincas mom potted for me this spring are bringing in all kinds of pretty bird and bug visitors. Makes it feel like there’s a little Animal Kingdom on my patio.
Tenacious citizens built shelters from their government stipend, founding the stinky hamlet of Cheese-til-Tuesday. Proud Cheesians weathered the bites of passing transients, the freezerburn of winter, and various molds brought on by a long rainy season; when summer returned, sun-ripened homes swooned in on themselves, bulging at the walls and sweating orange grease. Video of the resulting flash flood of fondue went viral, but not in time to save the ones who stayed to dip their bread.
Okay, it’s just ONE recipe, but it’s cheap and tasty. Keep a few cans of clams and tomatoes in your pantry and a bulb of garlic in the produce bin, and you can make my “oh shit we need groceries” clam sauce too. Check it out at Seven Deadly Divas.
Shameless self-promotion: Complete.
Watched “To Sir, With Love” last night with the hubby. I’ll spare you the play-by-play; let’s just say it was a culture-shock in terms of race and gender equality, and the cheese factor was occasionally cranked up to eleven (the slow panning of the camera between weirdly-smiling student faces is just creepy, man). Not to mention the gross nude-lip makeup that was the style at the time.
In one scene, these London schoolkids tell their teacher about the ‘lame’ tradition of the older people in London of giving streets odd names based on a roundabout sort of rhyme. I’d read about something similar in a Terry Pratchett book (Going Postal) and didn’t understand it there, either, so I went to the internet to figure out what the hell was going on. Google is my friend.
I finally found it under “Cockney Rhyming Slang.” You take an existing word, let’s say “look,” and you think of a short phrase that rhymes with that word: “Butcher’s Hook.” Then you snag the non-rhyming portion and it becomes a synonym for the original word; i.e., “Have a butcher’s” = “Have a look.” (The progression being Look = Butcher’s Hook = Butcher’s.)
There’s a ton of off-color examples, of course. Take J. Arthur, for instance (tee hee). Wank rhymes with J. Arthur Rank, hence ”J. Arthur” becomes slang for rubbing one out. Titties, rhymed with Bristol Cities, become a fine pair of Bristols. Turns out you might know a little rhyming slang of your own. Have you ever eighty-sixed a project? You might be surprised to find out it’s just a bit of American rhyming slang: Nix = eighty-six.
Anyway, that’s what this word-nerd learned from yesterday’s Netflix escapades. It’s a bizarre and sometimes funny play on words, and if you like quirky linguistics you might want to look it up.
A quiet, peaceful life in a town where nobody knows you is only good until you realize how goddam lonely you are.
There’s a long list of people who want me to pull up roots and settle in Oregon, which is just about as far from here as you can be and still be on the continent. It makes me feel wanted. Their sentiments are echoes of my own stubborn hard-wiring that screams “this is where you belong, this is your home and always will be no matter how long you stay away.” It’s a win-win, right?
But for all those loud supportive voices, there are quiet ones close to my ear that tell me it’s a bloody stupid idea. Why leave Georgia, they say, our safe little orbit where the economy never quite tanks and you can buy a house for a song? Why, when the weather is good (read: hot), living is cheap, and people pretty much leave us alone?
My husband would be happy as a pig in shit to live here for the rest of his days. It’s warm. It’s adequate. It’s comfortable, like old gym shorts. This kind of easy living appeals to him on the most basic of levels. When he says something so innocent as “let’s just stay,” it’s hard to breathe and my eyes start to water. I panic. He may as well be saying “you can’t have this,” because that’s all I hear.
I want my family to be happy, and not just my family on the opposite coast; I have an even greater obligation to the ones I live with. But I can’t give up just because he says “why.” I want it too much. I’m almost positive that once we’ve moved and settled in he’ll be just as content with an Oregon life as he is with the one we have now. Meanwhile the tidal current that’s worn me down to bone, that has me treating the last decade of my life as a phase, that insists I’m never really home even when I’m in my own house, my own bed, will stop. I’ll be positively drunk with relief. His inertia can’t break that tide, only slow it down.
Still, I’m scared. Scared of an eleventh-hour freakout, afraid I’ll give up on what I want rather than walk away from here while he drags his feet behind me. He’ll follow where I lead, though I know he’d rather we stayed.
I’m not being fair. Fair means compromise, only some things can’t be compromised; like moving or not-moving, they are binary options where there are no halves. You move, or you don’t.
And it isn’t fair.
Because it’s not fair, I’m already resigned to what happens later, when my decision gets to be the whipping-boy for anything that goes wrong. I’m willing to risk every annoying, pain-in-the-ass I told you so. Even if I screw it up, if I make bad mistakes, if everything goes pear-shaped, I’m okay with that, because at least then we’ll have an army of family members who have our back.
And I’ll be home.
“Whatever happened to Fiction Friday?” you might ask. Well, I ate it.
Not really. Actually I just ate a metric ton of Mediterranean food and beer, and the garlic fumes emanating from my face are starting to cloud up my screen so I better sum up before I can’t read what I’m typing.
Friday Fiction… is a lie. At leasy, it is right now. I’m not stressed overmuch about it though, because I have plenty of other things to stress about, like packing up everything in my house and arranging to get carpets replaced and culling my belongings for yard sale swag. I’m getting ready to move, and it’s a BIG move, and I’m so excited I could pee. Just a little.
In between changing my pants and pinching myself to make sure it’s not a dream, I pack boxes. I bought 65 of ‘em from Uline, which has a warehouse just a couple hours from here. There’s some guilt in that purchase, I admit–seems like I should’ve tried to get used boxes that people would otherwise throw away–but then, I can always give them away when I’m done with them.
And this way my stuff won’t smell like old people or warehouses or bananas, and whatever other weird things people used to store in there. (“Who stores old people in boxes? Jesus, what kind of freak are you?” Shut up or I’ll put you in a box!) Yep. Nothing but the heady scent of fresh, cardboard-y cardboard.
My other excuse reason is that I’m working on one BIG story and one medium-sized story right now and haven’t had much time for side projects. I’d love to share them, but I can’t. Once I finish Coyote Box I’ll share, but until then this Bika is a busy bee.
Oh, one last note. I’m still posting weekly at Seven Deadly Divas, along with a ton of great ladies who are also awesome friends. See what I’ve been writing here.
Magister Brightwind paused her manicure to riffle through the deck, keeping her nails carefully separated as she passed the cards from one hand to the other. “What did you have in mind?”
“Strip poker,” he said, and grinned at his own joke for what may very well have been the millionth time in a row.
The other Magister let out a noise that was somewhere in between a giggle and a sigh. “You may be the most persistent man I’ve ever met. But yet again, no. Someone might actually need us to do work some day, you know.”
He snorted and took his feet down, bellying up to the big polished table that would be surrounded by middle-ranking assholes in less than eight hours. “I’m sure you can work just as well with your clothes off, my dear.” Taking the cards back he set them on its shining surface and shuffled the deck using only magic. At one time this trick was invariably paired with a raucous “Look, mother, no hands!” but as it came to annoy even himself, the phrase was permanently discontinued.
Forty-two hands later they sat tallying their respective winnings on little leather notebooks designed for taking messages but that had long since been reassigned to poker duty. Deep in his cups but hardly showing it–he had quite a lot of practice, after all–Magister Fardawn interrupted his companion in the middle of a declaration that she would most certainly beat him next time. “Elissa, did you hear something?”
She paused mid-scribble and looked up from her notebook. “Hear something? Like what?”
He put a finger to his lips and they sat still in the semi-dark room, long ears pricked for the sounds of a possible intruder or perhaps even the dreaded Night Shift Surprise Inspection, which was rare but certainly not unheard of. The blonde, broad, besotted man gave up first with a small shrug and was about to suggest a round of strip backgammon when a mighty knock sounded at the main door. It echoed through the empty halls. Magister Brightwind jumped in her seat, startled.
“Er, rather like that. Hell of a lot quieter last go, if I do say so.” He stood up and straightened his shirt while his companion looked up at him, brows drawn together. She was definitely starting to feel the effects of a bottle or three, if the expression on her face was any indication. “What should we do?”
“As much as I would like to say ‘wait quietly and hope they go away,’ it could be something important. Wait here, I’ll be back in a moment. I won’t complain if you indulge in a peremptory undressing.” It was extraordinarily difficult to suppress a giggle at that, and he muffled it against his sleeve as he headed for the door.
Elissa Brightwind poured herself a generous serving from her partner’s unattended bottle and was half-done drinking it when the ruckus started down the hall. Lorannis’s booming voice echoed back to her along with the softer, brighter tones of a female. She rolled her eyes. They ruled the Dead Shift, had for years, and Elissa knew the old lout like the back of her hand. She didn’t need to hear any words to know that this was his damsel-in-distress routine and that whoever might be at the door, Magister Fardawn was trying to charm her pants off and almost certainly failing. A brief look around the room decided her; whatever was going on in the reception hall was a thousand times more interesting than sitting alone surrounded by empty wine and liquor bottles. “Do you need assistance?” she called out, and swayed down the hall not waiting for an answer.
In the carpeted lobby lit by a few floating lamps, Magister Brightwind walked in just in time to see a sturdy redheaded elf crossing the threshold backwards dragging a limp figure behind her, arms locked under armpits. Her drunken mage companion stood close by and watched without offering to lend a hand. Shameless, she thought, and shot him a dirty look. It should be noted that it didn’t occur to her to offer any help of her own.
Once the prone woman was clear of the door, the girl with the flaming red hair straightened up, groaned, and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“Is she dead?” said Magister Brightwind.
“Whether she is or isn’t, you might be better served taking her to an infirmary,” said Magister Fardawn.
“Please, we need help that no medic can give,” said the sweating girl. There was a long streak of dirt on her cheek and forehead, but neither magister really noticed. Instead they stared at her ruined face and pale eye, then (in the case of Lorannis) mentally checked the fit of her chestplate. Neither of them noticed the tall, lanky elf who crept into the lobby after her, either.
“I still think you’re in the wrong place. Exorcisms are more of a priest’s area of expertise, may I recommend–” Elissa was interrupted mid-sentence once again by her partner.
“Is that… Cersei Dusksinger?”
There was movement in a corner of the room as the tall stranger flinched. Magister Fardawn narrowed his eyes and demanded, “Step forward and identify yourself, please.”
The tall elf cleared his throat, blushed, and pointed a finger to his chest. “Uh. Um. You mean me?”
The redhead took a few steps toward him and stood protectively at his side. “He’s Fenniel Dusksinger, Cersei’s brother. I’m Ysani. Er, Dame Cloudbreaker.”
“You’re kidding me.” Magister Brightwind smirked, and a giggle barely escaped her lips. “Dusksinger has a brother? What in the name of the Light happened to her anyways? She looks absolutely dreadful.”
Ysani glanced up at Fenniel, then at Magister Brightwind. “We’re not exactly sure, ma’am. She wasn’t at her post–over at Stonard, you know?–so we checked the swamp and found her like this. Well, dirtier, and… and worse… but more or less like this. Catatonic mostly, sometimes babbling.”
The two magisters exchanged a look, then moved in to peer at the elf on the floor. “Can’t say I’m surprised to see her this way,” said Magister Fardawn, taking off his slim gold spectacles and cleaning them with his shirt.
“Uh…you’re not?” Fenn cleared his throat. “Of course you’re not. Um. Right. Anyways. We just found her like this.” He nodded at Ysani, whose ears reddened slightly.
“She’s largely unresponsive and I believe she may have been under duress for a prolonged period of time? I mean, she’s really messed up and I haven’t had any luck bringing her around. We thought…” Here she trailed off and bit her lip. Magister Fardawn hmmed and nodded, focused mostly on her fitted elementium armor as he scratched his chin.
“You thought…?” said Magister Brightwind, helpfully.
“We, ah, thought maybe that she might be better off, um, re-educated. To erase the trauma so she can recover, you know?”
The magisters exchanged another long look, this time with matching raised eyebrows. They say that people (and even animals) who spend a lot of time together begin to look alike, and there was definitely a resemblance between them now while they wore identical expressions of bafflement.
Magister Fardawn folded his arms across his chest and addressed Dame Cloudbreaker in a most gentle what in the name of the Light are you thinking voice: “Have you a prognosis from a medical professional? A second opinion? A list of witnesses or evidence? Do you realize that your so-called solution might destroy the possibility of any evidence coming to light in the future?”
Ysani’s eyes–eye?–flicked to Magister Brightwind for a moment, then back to Fardawn. “Well, yes, sir. I do realize that.” She paused. It was a very long, awkward pause, in which Ysani stared at Fardawn, both magisters stared at Ysani, and Fenniel avoided eye contact with everyone in the room. Magister Fardawn began a mental count of the silence and once it reached ninety, he shrugged. “All right.”
Fenn fanned himself with the collar of his shirt. “Um, that’s it?”
“Sure. It’s been a slow year. Elissa, would you be a dear and write up the paperwork for us?”
Elissa tilted her head to one side. “Sure.” She reached into her robes and drew out a small pad of paper and pen. “What would you like her to be like after re-education? I always thought she could use a little attitude adjustment, myself.”
“Uh. Well. Um.” Fenn’s fanning increased in speed. “She used to be quite nice. When I was a kid.”
“Mm. Moderate regression, if possible.” While she jotted down notes, Lorannis helped Ysani lift the woman into the nearest chair. Within twenty minutes, Cersei, having been examined for potential of recovery (the magisters agreed that ‘unlikely’ was an adequate guess and made it official in her forms) was taken away on a floating stretcher from the storeroom while Lorannis gave the two visitors a laundry list of instructions for the care of a freshly re-educated soul.
“Just wait here in the lobby to pick her up when we’re finished. Shouldn’t take more than, hrm– three, four hours. Depends on what kind of mess we find in there. I’ll send Elissa back to let you know how it’s going, but don’t leave, because we’re off at seven and breakfast won’t be eating itself. One way or another, she’s your problem at dawn.” He left them sitting with their eyes wide and jaws slack while he caught up to his partner, trying to recall the one specific incident that got the infamous Cersei assigned to swamp duty and finding himself unable to pin it down.
Magister Brightwind waited for him in the white room with the spare set of instruments set out on a tray. “I haven’t done one of these in ages, have you?”
“Nope,” he said, and grinned. “And here I thought it was going to be a dull evening.”
This chapter closes with a reminder that in every ruin there is a seed of hope. Verdus has a few words for us:
I hope that you all have enjoyed reading this story as much as I have writing it. Thanks to all of you for bearing with me on this long project. Double thanks to Hammaryn and Ambika, for not only letting me undertake it but also helping me put it together. It’s been a great ride.
Please enjoy Part X of this series, written by Verdus. Missed any of the previous posts? Visit the links below:
* * *
Deep in the heart of Desolace, there lay a small purple crystal.
Standing astride the corpse of her hated enemy, holding the small stone of congealed essence up to her eyes, Cersei could almost see the tiny wisps moving within. Her triumph complete, she simply smiled.
This crystal wasn’t much to look at, assuming that one noticed it at all, tucked away in its little nook. It was small, no larger than adult’s smallest finger, cut cleanly but plain. It had little luster, despite its faceted diamond prism design, and was dull in hue. Unless one knew what to look for, a person would think it unremarkable at first glance, not likely to fetch much coin. Only by laying a hand upon it would the uninitiated begin to suspect that this tiny gem held a secret, as it was surprisingly cold to the touch.
The wind whipped at her hair as she rode the wind rider north out of the wretched wasteland. Chancing to look down, Cersei passed over a small ocean of giant, sun-bleached bones and thought of the cold stone clutched in her fingers. “A graveyard for beasts…” she muttered to herself, the words snatched quickly away by the roar of passing air. “How fitting.” She tossed the shard out into the open sky to rot with its own kind, and smiled.
Though the gem itself had not existed for long, it had already accumulated quite a remarkable history. In its relatively momentary existence, the gem had been stolen, cursed, discarded, sought, fought for, lied for, lost, and forgotten. And that speaks only for the crystal itself. The secret it held had been the subject of both love and hatred, cherished and reviled, its story ending in heartbreak and death. Or did it?
“Hear me, Mother.”
Sitting for weeks in the endless dust of the Desolace wastelands, broken only by the bone sea to the south of where it landed, one might have thought it would sit there until the desert wind ground it to powder. Quickly buried by the dust, and with not a soul knowing precisely where it lay, this would have seemed a very safe assumption. But then something remarkable happened.
“Mother, hear me.”
The earth itself heaved in torment as devastation in the seas far to the east tore the land asunder. The ground shook and cracked as cataclysmic destruction was wrought upon far-off civilizations. Closer at hand, noticed by few beyond the wasteland beasts at first, the earth split all the way to the sea, which quickly rushed in to greet its new home. One break in particular, a long broken finger, reached all the way to the great bone fields.
“Mother?”
The ocean surged in, and now that the path had been opened it would suffer neither dust nor rock to stand in its way. The water sought paths newly opened beneath the ground as well as on the surface. The stone was no barrier as the sea sent tendrils questing between its cracks, welcomed by the dry sand and silt between.
“Mother, I hear you!”
The dried bones and dessicated flesh had once marked it as a place of death. Now that the water had come, those same markers formed the building blocks of life anew. Yet still something was missing. The potential was there to be built upon decades hence, but for a true miracle, for life to flourish in mere days, the land needed something more. It needed a catalyst.
“Yes, Mother! Yes, I will! Guide me!”
In the aftermath of what would come to be known as the Sundering, few cared about what might have happened to Desolace. Few tried to eke out a living in that harsh land, and there were more pressing matters to attend to, mending broken bodies and shattered homes. It would be days before the soldiers of Ghost Walker Post, situated just above the great Kodo Graveyard, would return from lending aid to the trolls of Shadowprey Village on the nearby coast. It would be weeks before their message would make its slow way north to the Moonglade to be read by the Cenarion Circle. It would be a full month before the first druid would set foot in what would soon be known as the Cenarion Wildlands, stare up at trees the size of mountains, and gape in awe at a living miracle. And it would be only a month more before a small community emerged in the Wildlands’ heart to study, unsuccessfully, how such a wonder could possibly have come to be.
None of the glade’s inhabitants have noticed the small purple crystal, nestled in the roots of the glade’s tallest tree, just peeking out into the open air. But when it rains, some of them swear they can hear singing.
The end is nigh; what began as a silly late-night RP session between my druid and a geeky little hunter named Fenn seems to be drawing to a close after having spawned enough stories to fill a good-sized novel. The Right of All Horde will wrap up Part X next week with an epilogue to follow, as well as a little story about Cersei’s fate.
Please enjoy Part IX of this series, written by Verdus, co-authored by Claire (& me!). Missed any of the previous posts? Visit the links below:
* * *
After two long and awkwardly quiet days on the road, Verdus, Fenniel, Ysani, and the catatonic Cersei approached the end of their journey. The hushed, pristine forests of Eversong stood in stark contrast to the loud engines and thick exhaust of their motorcycles as they drove along the winding roads toward Silvermoon. Ysani was at the head of their mini-caravan, chattering often in Fenniel’s direction while he rode in her sidecar, mostly silent. Neither had spoken more than five words to Verdus since they’d set out from the Swamp of Sorrows and his own passenger wasn’t exactly a rousing conversation partner. At least, not outside the occasional burst of insane, terrified babbling. Lonely as the travel arrangements were, it was probably for the best. Verdus was sure he didn’t know what to say to either of them anymore.
If it weren’t for the circumstances, the drive could have been quite pleasant overall. The elves obviously cared a great deal about the natural state of their homeland. There was none of the barren industrialization that one found around the outposts of Garrosh’s orcs, nor any of the bleak, sickly despair that pervaded the former realm of Lordaeron. The trees and grasses were healthy and vibrant, frozen in an endless autumn moment. The fruits were plentiful and birdsong flitted through the cool air. It was a scene of perfect natural beauty, like riding through a painting.
For all that, though, it lacked something. It had taken Verdus hours to put his finger on exactly what it was, but once he saw it what it was it seemed painted across every bush and rock in sight. There was no depth to any of it, nothing wild. In Feralas, Stranglethorn Vale, or even the sedate plains of Mulgore, there was always sense of urgency coursing through the Emerald Dream, life and death weaving back and forth through the regions’ inhabitants. There was none of that here. These woods had meticulously groomed and manicured over thousands of years. The results were lovely to be sure, but tame. Domesticated, even. While it made for a beautiful scenic drive, it was nowhere that a druid like Verdus would ever want to live.
On the last leg of their journey the four riders camped for the night in the south of Eversong to collect their thoughts and, though they would never phrase it as such, get their stories straight. Ysani dove right in before they were even settled, sitting on her heels beside her bike and making eye contact with Verdus for the first time since they left the swamp. “I think you should leave.”
“What?” replied Verdus and Fenniel in unison, both blinking in surprise.
“I don’t think lying will fix this, but I think it might be best to, ah, leave some things unsaid. And unseen. Like you,” she said, pointing at Verdus for emphasis. She’d had two long, slow days on the road to think things over and it was all coming out now, whether she wanted it to or not.
“Why the change of heart?” Verdus asked, not quite believing what he was hearing. “You were the one who said I should turn myself into the authorities in the first place, if you’ll remember. Now you want me to run away?”
“The Magisters re-educate elves. They won’t give you the same treatment, which might be good, except for the part where they definitely kill you.”
“Yeah, Ysani. I know.” Verdus surprised himself with the matter-of-fact way the words came out of his own mouth. He hadn’t had to think about what arriving in Silvermoon would mean for him during the trip, but part of him had known the second they set out. Saying it out loud seemed to make it real, and for some reason the thought didn’t bother him as much as he would have guessed.
“Well, it’s like I said before. Killing Cersei wouldn’t have made Libby’s–” She looked at Fenn with a dubious expression and continued, red-faced, “–wouldn’t have made up for what Cersei did. And I don’t think that what the Magisters would do to you would make any of this right, either.”
Fenn fanned himself in spite of the cool evening air. “I don’t want Mister Verdus to get hurt too.”
Ysani moved across the grass toward Fenniel and put her arm around his shoulder. “I know you don’t. That’s why I think it would be best if he got out of town after we talk.” She looked pointedly at the druid. “I don’t think he’ll ever do something like this again, you know?”
Unbidden, the idea of repeating his acts of the past weeks bubbled to the surface of Verdus’s thoughts. A nameless, faceless criminal guilty of a horrible crime discovered, stalked, and executed. With the last of his lingering anger having bled out of him, the druid found himself feeling physically ill just thinking about it. He unconsciously looked down at the ground between the three of them and replied with a very small “No.”
“I believe you, Verdus. I don’t think you’re a bad person, and that’s why I don’t want to just turn you in. You work hard for the Horde. What a senseless waste it would be..!”
Fenn turned to look at Ysani, and quirked an eyebrow. “No one is hurting Verdus, right?”
“Not if we can help it. It just might be a little tricky.” The saddlebags on her motorbike were seriously depleted of their usual candy stash, but she dug out the last of it anyway and set it on the ground between her and her friend. “We can say that I went to talk to Cersei and she wasn’t at her post, so I went to look for her and found her like this.”
Fenn frowned and unwrapped a piece of candy. “Why would you talk to my sister?”
“You’ve been distraught. Maybe I thought Cersei could help cheer you up,” Ysani said around a lollipop. Fenn’s immediate reaction made her reconsider and she tried again. “Or maybe I went to question her about the incident with your–with Libby.”
“Then what was I doing there?” Fenn’s stomach gurgled and he mumbled an apology. Ysani unwrapped three more candies lickety-split and put them into his hands for quicker ingestion.
“You were there in case Cersei tried anything and I needed help. Weren’t you?”
His eyes widened.
“And when she wasn’t at the post, we went into the swamp to look for her and found her tied to a tree. Right?”
He shook his head. “Everyone knows I’m terrified of my sister.”
“All the more reason for me to be there. I’m not scared of anything–well, not Cersei, anyway. I suspected she might know what happened, so I asked your permission to go speak with her, then we went to Stonard together. You were going to wait with the guards while I talked to her, but she wasn’t there. So I went out looking for her.” She looked at the druid, then back at Fenn. “Does it sound even remotely feasible?”
Fenn talked around a mouthful of candy, licking his fingers. “Ysani, what if we get caught? What if they find out we lied?”
Verdus was still looking at the same patch of earth that he had before Ysani had begun outlining her story, lost deep in thought. A long moment passed in silence between them before he looked back up. “So that’s it?” he asked. “We just walk away from this and pretend it never happened? After all the terrible things that have happened…” His voice trailed off into the night, lost for words.
It was nearly dark now, and stars were beginning to twinkle overhead in the gaps between trees. Ysani looked to them for guidance and found nothing. She shrugged. “If you haven’t suffered enough, you will. It seems like your own conscience will provide ample punishment if that’s what you’re looking for. As far as plans go that’s all I had. But we can keep thinking. Something will come up, it has to.”
“I’m not saying it’s a bad plan, I’m just um…” Fenn polished off the last piece of candy. “I don’t know what the Magisters would do to us if they found out we were lying.”
Ysani stared glumly into the forest and chewed on a huge wad of taffy. “I think I know.”
Fenn went back to fanning himself. “I think I do too.”
The conversation flickered out at that point. The three of them went about their now-familiar tasks in silence, thoughts weighing heavily on each of their minds. Ysani set up camp, laying a fire and putting out bedrolls for each of them, including Cersei. Fenniel hunted for game and established a perimeter around the camp, setting traps to signal and ensnare any uninvited guests. Verdus tended to the catatonic warlock and, once Fenniel returned from his hunt, prepared dinner for the lot of them. Fenn and Ysani were still talking quietly with each other when Verdus turned in for the night, no doubt getting the details straight on the lie they’d have to sell once Verdus left in the morning.
The druid was still staring up at the stars long after the other two retired. Sleep hadn’t come, of course, nor was he sure he wanted it to. While he’d snatched a few fitful hours since pulling Cersei from her would-be tomb, they had hardly been restful, plagued by the nightmares that had haunted him since he put her there. They were always the same, with Verdus down in that miserable hole instead of her. There was no light, no sound, only the damp pressure of the mud compressing him from all sides. He couldn’t have moved even if he had the strength left to try. He’d screamed his throat raw days ago. The only sensation that Verdus felt in the dream at all, apart from the crushing weight of earth above him, was the half-imagined wriggling of burrowing insects as they moved through the dirt along his skin. Only guilt and despair lived down there.
Verdus woke with a start from the dream he hadn’t even realized he’d been having. Trembling and drenched in sweat, he struggled to calm his frantic breathing while not panicking at the familiar blackness all around him. The fire had long since died down to mere embers, but they were enough for him to focus on as he fought down the disorientation of waking. Gathering his wits and calming his nerves, he realized there was little point in staying until morning. Ysani and Fenniel didn’t need him to make any more a mess of things and waiting would only bring awkward farewells. They probably didn’t want to see him again anyway, not after all that he’d done. Besides, even thinking of going back to sleep scared him. It was better this way.
Quietly gathering up his things, Verdus walked his motorcycle away from the darkened camp so as not to wake the others. Almost too late did he remember the perimeter of traps that Fenn had established, narrowly avoiding one in his path. But before he’d even gotten a dozen yards from camp, he heard a quiet crunch of leaves from the darkness to his left.
“Sh-show yourself. I’m a trained Farstrider of Silvermoon.”
“Fenn? Is that you? Stars and stones, what are you doing up?” Verdus replied in a shocked whisper. He was so sure he’d gotten away unnoticed.
“Oh, Mister Verdus.” Fenn took a step towards Verdus, barely illuminated in the moonlight. “I couldn’t sleep. Where are you going?”
“I couldn’t sleep either, Fenn. And, well…” Verdus fumbled for words for a minute, before letting out a defeated sigh. “I’m taking Ysani’s advice, Fenn. I’m leaving. I just… I thought it would be easier not waiting until morning. Then I wouldn’t have to…” Verdus’s voice trailed off, not finishing his thought, Then I wouldn’t have to face you again.
“M-mister Verdus it’s okay, I mean, you don’t have to go right now.” He cleared his throat and lowered his gun, letting the barrel sink into the dirt. “Are we… are we still going to be friends?”
The question was so unexpected that Verdus felt himself rock back from it, as if the small elf had almost knocked the massive tauren over. For several seconds he could do little but gape and blink. “What do you… I… what?”
“I just want to know if um… is this… are you never going to talk to me again?”
“I… I’d like to, Fenn. I really would. I just… If someone had done to me what I’ve done to you here… I don’t know what I’d do. You’re one of the best friends I have, Fenn. I wanted to find the truth for you, to make whoever had hurt you pay. But… it got turned all around somehow.” The words came with great difficulty at first, but now they poured out of the broken dam and it was all Verdus could do to keep from breaking out in tears. “I… I was afraid you’d hate me for it, Fenn. That you’d… I don’t know, never speak to me again, throw me to the magisters, come after me yourself. I wanted to help you and I screwed everything up! I’m sorry, Fenn, I’m so sorry!” His last vestiges of self-control gave up the fight, and Verdus fell into incoherent wracking sobs, still standing only because he was leaning on his motorcycle.
Fenn stood there for some time, open-mouthed and blinking rapidly. “I…well. I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t really know how Cersei is gonna be after this.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s better I know. Maybe it’s not. I don’t really know. My head is um…kind of a mess. But I don’t want you to not be my friend anymore.”
“You still… but… why?” Verdus stammered as he blinked through the tears streaming down and along his snout. “I don’t… I don’t deserve that, Fenn.”
“I don’t have a lot of friends.” His shoulders crumpled. “People make mistakes. It’s okay.”
“I…” Verdus started to say, but stopped and simply nodded. He stood up straight from his bike as the tears slowed and stepped over to where Fenn had stepped out of the trees. “If you’ll still have me, I’d be very happy to be your friend, Fenniel.” Verdus enveloped the comparatively tiny elf in a mammoth hug, trying very hard not to crush him in the process. A smile began to creep across his face for the first time in weeks.
Fenn stood limply for awhile before patting his friend on the back, pulling away and wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. “It’s okay.” He smiled faintly. “It’s okay. We’re still friends.”
“You’re too good to me, Fenniel. You deserve a lot better than this messed up bull.” Verdus took a step back, one mammoth hand still on Fenniel’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll talk to you soon, Fenn. I promise.”
Fenn smiled weakly and nodded, then turned and walked back toward the camp. Watching him go, Verdus wondered what had ever possessed him to think that such a gentle man would care the first whit about revenge. All Fenniel had ever wanted was his wife back, his life back. Verdus knew that now; everything else had been about his own selfish anger. As he turned south and started his long walk back home, he knew that there was nothing he could do to give Fenniel what he really wanted. Nobody could. Libby was gone and, Earthmother willing, had found a greater peace than she had known in life. Maybe, though… Just maybe he could help his friend build a new future.
It’s that time again–I have a new post up at Seven Deadly Divas. This one has doodles, and I’m sure you missed those, right? Right! Go forth and read about what happens when I can’t think of stuff to write.
