The Bright and the Blue: A Cozy Romantic Fantasy Novel

Talking to Strangers

Rinka

Sure, there was more blood coming from Rinka’s nose than was ideal, but at least she had made it. She was on board the rail-wheeler and on her way to join her friend Alison in Wilderise.

The day had started well enough. Rinka had packed everything she owned into the largest trunk she’d been able to find and had lugged it to the station an hour before her rail-wheeler was due. She had spent the time since pacing the platform, checking her maps and watching the passengers coming and going, wondering how they could be so nonchalant about the whole thing.

Rinka had never left the city of Arcas Dyrne before. Her family left the orcish strongholds for the city generations before she was born and never looked back, her mother insisting that the orcs who remained were “uncivilized” and “barbaric.” And while most city dwellers took at least the occasional holiday to the coast, Rinka’s mother found those people to be “lazy” and “unscrupulous.”

Truth be told, Rinka’s mother was a judgmental old hag.

Rinka had freed herself from her mother’s house two years earlier when she moved in with a human number-cruncher named Alison Lennox. Their flat had been small but comfortable, and it had been a short walk to Rinka’s job at a butcher shop. A job she hated, but along with Alison’s salary, it brought in enough to pay the rent.

Until one day, it didn’t. With their landlord’s latest rent increase, they were priced out of Arcas Dyrne for good. And thus Rinka had a choice: move back in with her mother, or join Alison in a land she’d never set foot in, a wild and dangerous land she’d only seen at the picture show.

She chose the latter.

Morning light flashed from the open windows of the rail-wheeler as it rounded the final curve into Arcas Dyrne’s North Station, the great black engine billowing smoke and pulling a dozen red cars behind it. A crowd had formed on the platform, primarily human and dwarven families heading out for one of those “unscrupulous” early holidays. Rinka lifted her trunk with ease despite its size, planting it and herself just a step from the platform’s edge.

The rail-wheeler slowed. Rinka could not resist the urge to take one final look at her maps and the letter from Alison with instructions on each step of her voyage, even though she’d had them memorized for weeks. She reached into her leather satchel, but when she removed the papers, a sudden gust of warm wind from the rail-wheeler swept through the platform, sending them into the air.

“No!” cried Rinka, snatching with her strong grey arms. She came away with only one of the documents: the map of her home country, Loegria. The one she needed the least.

Rinka pushed through the crowd as they inched closer to the platform’s edge in anticipation, elbowing a dwarf in his ear (“Watch it!”) and nearly tripping over a tiny Halfling child as she followed the papers, which swirled and flapped in the breeze as if they were birds in flight. She caught the corner of Alison’s letter just as she reached the part of the platform where the first-class passengers waited, shouting an apology that frightened a lady elf in a fine silken dress back into her partner, who huffed in Rinka’s general direction.

The rail-wheeler had pulled to a stop, and the platform grew even more crowded as the overnight passengers from Landsend pushed through the outgoing travelers on their way from the station. A human man in a hurry batted the final paper—the most important one, the map of Rinka’s destination, Wilderise—out of his face and down to the concrete of the platform floor, where Rinka lost sight of it as it tangled in the legs of the passengers.

She grabbed at something on the ground, coming away with a folded and yellowed object that greatly resembled the worn map Alison had sent her, but it was only a human newspaper. The crowd thinned as the passengers began to board. Finally, Rinka spotted the map caught on the armrest of the last bench before the end of the platform. She sighed with relief as she tucked it back into her satchel, content to have everything back in its rightful place.

Her joy was short-lived.

Turning hastily to make her way back to the third-class section, she crashed face-first into a cart of luggage pushed by a human valet.

For a moment, everything went black. And then stars danced in her eyes as she blinked to refocus them. She smelt something metallic and felt a warm drop of liquid slide from her nose to the top of her lip before she felt the pain.

“I’m sorry, miss, but you should watch where you’re going,” yelled the valet. He had not stopped to see the damage; Rinka doubted the elf he accompanied would have allowed it if he’d wanted to.

Her nose hurt, badly. She wiped at her face and came away with a surprising amount of blood on her hand. She reached into her satchel for her handkerchief, staining her maps with her own blood.

“Pixie’s britches,” said Rinka to no one in particular.

There wasn’t anyone to speak to.

The platform was nearly empty now, the waiting passengers having finished boarding during her struggle. Ignoring the blood streaming down her face and the throbbing of her nose, she sprinted back to her abandoned trunk, the rush of air pulling tendrils of her auburn hair loose from its bun.

“All aboard!” shouted the conductor.

“Wait! Wait for me!” yelled Rinka as the rail-wheeler’s wheels squealed into motion.

Rinka tossed the trunk up the stairs of a third-class car just as it began to move away. But when she reached out her hand to grab the railing and pull herself on board, she came back with empty air.

The rail-wheeler was picking up speed quickly. Rinka’s reflexes were normally excellent, but the pain had sent tears into her eyes, obscuring her vision and making it hard for her to find the stairs to the next carriage as it rushed past.

“Look, Mummy,” said the Halfling child Rinka had nearly trampled earlier from the approaching stairwell, tugging on his mother’s sleeve and pointing to Rinka. The Halfling’s mother, a human woman, shook her head at the child and muttered something about the impoliteness of staring, offering no help whatsoever.

As Rinka turned to the final stairway, her teary eyes caught the motion of a figure sprinting across the platform. She couldn’t quite make him out, but he appeared to be as tall and broad as an orc. He certainly moved like an orc, covering the gap between the platform and the moving rail-wheeler in one great leap.

“Please!” yelled Rinka. She had just one last chance to get on the rail-wheeler before it carried everything she owned away to Landsend, leaving her behind.

The stairwell would be in front of her in seconds. This was it. She had to time the jump just right—

“Grab on,” said the stranger. Rinka blinked away the tears—he was standing in the stairwell, reaching out to her.

She didn’t think, she just thrust her hand into his. The stranger pulled with incredible strength as Rinka fired the muscles in her legs as hard as she could.

It was enough. Almost too much, actually. Rinka very nearly knocked the poor man over.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she pulled herself up slowly, being careful not to lean too far back into the open air behind her as the rail-wheeler cleared the platform. From the top step, the stranger extended an arm again, and Rinka gratefully accepted. “Thank you for helping me,” she continued, but her voice was muffled by the blood in her nasal passages.

“My Gods, are you alright?” asked the stranger.

Rinka saw herself reflected in his dark eyes—crimson streaks running down her face and onto her pretty green dress, eyes filled with tears, and, worst of all, her hair was a total mess. It was so pathetic she couldn’t help but laugh.

“My father always said it’s not a party if no one’s nose is bleeding.” Rinka’s father had a number of sayings that were in no small part responsible for her parents’ divorce, at least according to Rinka’s mother. But Rinka always found them charming, and in this case, surprisingly appropriate.

The corner of the stranger’s mouth twisted a bit in bemusement or perhaps bewilderment. “Looks like it’s a party, then.” It was clear that her first guess had been incorrect—he wasn’t an orc—but there was something strangely familiar about him.

She studied his face as he fumbled in his pockets for something, trying to guess at his background to give her a clue as to where she might have seen him before. Humans could be as large as orcs, sometimes even larger, and they were frequent patrons of her (now former) employer. But there was something about his face that wasn’t quite human. While his eyes had the almond shape of traders from the Far East, the rest of his features were sharper and thinner, more like the elves from the high mountains of Loegria. His ears, which would have given her more of a hint, were unfortunately hidden behind his dark hair. She couldn’t quite place him, although she did have a guess.

“Have you ever been in a picture show?” she asked him as he held out the object he’d been seeking: a handkerchief.

He furrowed his brow and looked from her—no doubt wondering just how much injury Rinka had sustained to ask such a question—and then to his clothes, which were tattered and stained. “No, I can’t say that I have. I’ve never even seen one.”

“Never?” asked Rinka. She pulled the handkerchief to her face and was surprised by its pleasant floral scent. The fabric felt fine in her hands: silk maybe, or a very fine cotton. She nearly asked the stranger where he’d gotten it, but as she looked from his ragged clothes to the handkerchief, she realized it must have been stolen.

Rinka wasn’t one to judge. She’d seen enough of life in the city to understand the difficult choices that had to be made at times, and the stranger had been kind enough to help her when no one else would.

The bleeding had slowed to barely a trickle, but Rinka was grateful to be able to clean herself up. As she wiped the blood from her face, the soothing touch of the fine fabric seemed to wipe what was left of the pain away.

Rinka followed him into the carriage. There were no seats left together, but as the two of them approached the first row, a Halfling gentleman in overalls stood abruptly to offer his seat, his face registering alarm at the disheveled man and the orc in bloodied clothes.

“Poor fellow,” said Rinka. “My trunk is in another carriage. I’ll have to get changed quickly before I scare away the rest of the passengers.”

“Never mind the passengers,” said the stranger as he gestured for Rinka to take the seat by the window. “Are you sure you’re alright? May I ask what happened?” His voice was warm and deep with a bit of a rasp, as if he’d spent too long by the fire or had smoked one too many pipes.

“Just a mishap with a luggage cart. I’m Rinka, by the way.” Rinka held out her hand to shake.

“Drystan,” he said.

“Just Drystan?” Rinka asked. Humans tended to have surnames, and elves were almost all nobility of some kind, Lords and Ladies of ancient lands Rinka knew nothing about. Drystan sounded like an orc’s name, or maybe a dwarf, but he resembled neither of those.

“Drystan Droswyn,” he said. “But you can call me Drystan.”

That was curious, too. Humans preferred to be addressed by their surnames unless you were closely acquainted.

Still, Rinka could hardly see the point in arguing with a stranger about their own name.

“Nice to meet you, Drystan,” she said.

Rinka leaned back into her seat and sighed in relief. She had made it on board the rail-wheeler, her maps and instructions safely in her satchel, her trunk safely on board (if a few carriages further away than she would have liked), her nose no longer hurting, and all was well.

“It’s a beautiful day to travel, isn’t it?” she asked Drystan as she looked out the window at the great buildings of Arcas Dyrne shrinking in the distance. The landscape beyond the city quickly transitioned into fields of green and yellow and brown, some growing high with the last of the winter crops and others freshly planted and ready for the warmer weather to come. Rinka had seen it all before, but only in the grey tones of the picture show. It did not prepare her for how bright and blue the sky could be beyond the city’s smog, for the way it reflected on the water, the perfect mirror images of cotton candy clouds in the stillness of a lake. For the gentle ripples that danced on the surface as the rail-wheeler rushed past.

Rinka turned back to Drystan when he didn’t respond. He was looking at her incredulously.

“Oh, my clothes,” said Rinka, guessing at his confusion. “Excuse me for a moment—I’m going to go see to my trunk and change into something a little less alarming.”

Rinka made her way to the carriage where she’d thrown her trunk, ignoring the stares and frightened comments of the passengers. She retrieved a clean dress, a pretty yellow number she’d made herself after admiring a similar one in a shop window.

After she had changed in the water closet, she retrieved her sewing kit from her trunk. Mending Drystan’s clothes would give her something to pass the time, and it would repay him for his kindness.

“That’s better,” she said when she returned. His eyes lingered on her, but there was no hint of mockery in them. “Now, off with your trousers.”

“Excuse me?” Drystan’s face registered genuine surprise.

“Your trousers,” repeated Rinka. She shook the sewing kit in its biscuit tin, the notions and needles rattling.

Rinka studied the torn trousers as he considered her offer, assessing where to start. But there was something odd about them. There were rips and small holes, but not in the places you would expect. Rinka had mended enough of Alison’s trousers to know that the fabric usually wore along the cuffs and the seams, and sometimes at the knee. The imperfections in Drystan’s trousers were in the good, strong parts of the fabric that rarely caused Alison trouble. It was almost as if they’d been placed there on purpose.

Almost like a costume.

There was something about him that didn’t make sense. The clothes and the bag at his feet were too exaggerated in their humble appearance to have belonged to someone truly down on their luck. And Rinka had known few of even the lowest stature in society who did not take some pride in their appearance. Especially rare were those who would take the trouble to shave their faces but not wash their hair. “You’re sure you’re not from the picture shows? What about the theatre—”

“Tickets!” Rinka’s line of inquiry was cut off by the ticket taker’s arrival in the carriage. Luckily, Alison had prepared her for this possibility. Rinka reached into her satchel and withdrew her ticket, frowning at the bloodstain.

Beside her, Drystan tensed. He didn’t reach into his pockets or make a move at all.

He didn’t have a ticket, she realized.

Rinka knew she should be suspicious of him. He had jumped onto the rail-wheeler without a ticket, and the handkerchief he’d offered her was likely stolen. She knew exactly what her mother would say: “He’s an unsavory sort, and King Derkomai’s finest will see that he gets what’s coming to him.”

But Rinka didn’t want to see the only person who had helped her thrown off the rail-wheeler. And if that made her na?ve, so be it.

“I know,” she whispered to him. “We’ll just say that you lost your ticket when you were helping me onboard.”

“That’s very kind of you,” he said. He smiled at her. “But I’ll handle this.”

Rinka didn’t have time to imagine what he meant before the ticket-taker had arrived.

“Tickets, please.”

Rinka handed over her ticket. “Sorry about the blood,” she began, but the ticket-taker had already marked it and returned it to her.

She held her breath as she watched Drystan slip something to the ticket-taker she could not see.

“Of course, sir,” said the ticket-taker, winking at Drystan. “Have a good day.”

“What was that? What did you—”

Drystan pressed his index finger to his lips. A bribe, perhaps? But if he could afford to bribe the ticket-taker, why not just pay for a ticket?

“Who are you?” Rinka whispered, only it came out so loudly half the carriage turned to look. “Are you a criminal?”

At this, Drystan laughed. “Do you always ask suspicious men if they’re criminals?”

“Only if they’re behaving like criminals.”

He turned to her, his shoulder blocking her view of the aisle. “Is that really your best theory? An actor or a criminal?”

Rinka stared at Drystan for a long moment, failing to understand his meaning.

Then it hit her.

“You really are someone else, aren’t you?”

He shrugged a single shoulder as if to say he could neither confirm nor deny it, but there was a playful intensity in his eyes that gave him away.

She was right—there was something else to him.