Chapter 8.5 The Protectors
After a long minute of contemplating it, and basking in the kind of hopeful fancy Marton seems to feel, I release a sigh.
As nice as it is to think about all the magic that may still exist in the world, it doesn't help us with our current mission.
"So are we bound southwest? Towards these lands by the Philostian border, where a giant hawk carries off the farmers' goats? "
"Sheep," Marton says automatically.
I narrow my eyes at him, and his mouth twitches. A joke. I roll my eyes, fending off a laugh. I think I'm feeling slightly hysterical, and Marton might be experiencing something similar, because after a moment, we both start laughing.
The thing which was hardly funny to begin with just gets funnier the longer I can't stop laughing, and Marton's hilarity eggs me on.
When our humor comes to an end, Vakhrin and Cherry are both eyeing us with something like horror. Maybe annoyance. A little confusion.
I wipe my eyes, catching my breath. "Sheep," I repeat, and Marton chuckles.
Cherry shakes her head at me, and that sobers me up immediately. Because this is her future we're talking about. Her husband we're looking for, so she can return home. I take a deep breath. "Southwest?"
Cherry shrugs. Marton nods. We all look at Vakhrin.
His shoulders rise almost defensively.
"You do not have to come with us," I assure him. "Though we would be glad of your help if you chose to join our company."
"I—" He swallows. "I don't—" He growls in frustration at his own uncertainty. "It is not customary for my people to have...companions. Not for long stretches. We occasionally run across one another, but we always go our own ways afterwards."
"You don't have to do something," Marton says, "just because you are supposed to, or because that is the way things are usually done.
" His eyes go to me as he speaks, and I wonder if he is thinking about his own choice—to believe, and to chase stories of magic instead of simply studying them as subjects of intellectual interest as his peers did.
"Do whatever you want to do," agrees Cherry in a petulant tone, stabbing aggressively at my dress with her sewing needle.
Vakhrin studies her bent head with a frown pulling at his mouth.
His eyes flick to me and Marton, and he seems to study the space between the two of us with speculation.
I don't know what he's speculating about, but it makes my skin prickle.
Are we being conspicuous in some way? After a moment, Vakhrin nods.
"I think I should...like to come with you. "
We set out mid-morning, the sun high and bright over the mountains, casting streaks of gold through the gray peaks and over the tangles of green foliage below.
Marton and Cherry both ride on my back again, and Vakhrin flies beside us in manticore form.
In the afternoon, we stop in a bustling little market town to purchase a better map, at Cherry's insistence.
Cherry and Marton go in while Vakhrin and I wait in the woods on the town's outskirts—on the chance that our slightly inhuman appearances might tip anyone off to our inhumanity.
The others return quickly, and we eat a hasty lunch that Vakhrin hunted for us. As we do, Cherry has me study the map, with Marton marking out major landmarks along our route. After we finish eating, Cherry has me study the map again.
I'm amused by her insistence, and it doesn't take her long to reveal her motivations.
"You have the landmarks memorized?" she asks as we get ready to leave. I nod, and Cherry gives Marton a triumphant smile. She turns to me. "Then there's no need for Marton to sit so closely behind you. You have the directions memorized."
Marton makes a disbelieving noise, while I have to laugh.
Cherry is all seriousness. "I'm the princess." She smacks the folded map against her palm, chin up. "I should get the foremost seat, as is my right."
I smile in amusement, watching as Marton passes through the several phases of Interacting With Cherry: shock, disbelief, irritation, realization that argument is futile.
There's then a fork in the road where a person might choose to be angry about this turn of events or to be amused by it.
Marton, of course, chooses the latter. "Alright.
" Marton shrugs, waving a gallant hand. "The foremost seat is yours, princess. "
I hear Vakhrin snort just as I shift into my dragon form, and then we're on our way again.
Vakhrin hasn't offered to let anyone ride on his back, and no one has asked.
I don't know if the thought hasn't occurred to him, if he doesn't think anyone would want to, or if he's offended by the notion.
His people, the Chimera, have all kinds of customs and traditions that I'm unfamiliar with.
Perhaps its unheard of for a protectorkin to let a human ride on their back, and I'm committing some kind of grave faux pas by allowing it.
Either way, Vakhrin has roots, ancestry. Something I have never had. He has a people, no matter how distant and scattered they may be. I had a mother, once upon a time, and now I have a princess. A wayward scholar. And a grouchy manticore.
We camp that night in the foothills southwest of the mountain range on the Ithymian side, beside a thin river weaving its way through the uneven terrain.
Another day's travel due west would bring us to Philostia, Marton informs us.
But we're bound along a diagonal route, heading further south into Ithyma while veering slowly toward the western border.
As the sun slowly lowers itself over the western hills, Cherry demands that Vakhrin teach her how to fish.
He's brought his fishing rod with him, tied to a strap on his pack with a length of fishing twine—fishhook tucked securely in an interior pocket.
Cherry accosts him as he takes his supplies out and reassembles his fishing pole for use.
"I should like to learn to fish." Cherry's nose is in the air with utmost dignity, one hand on her hip. Everything about her tone and posture indicates that this is not a request.
Vakhrin's expression vacillates between shock at being address by her at all—she's been staunchly ignoring his existence for two days—and irritation at being addressed in such a manner.
From where I watch by the ring of stones Marton and I are assembling for a fire, it looks very much as if Vakhrin wants to refuse, just to prove that he can. But it's equally clear he can't think of a good reason not to share such a useful skill.
He finally grumbles an assent, and he and Cherry walk off several yards towards the river. I see Vakhrin gesturing to different parts of the fishing pole, explaining what they are and how to use them. Cherry nods, barely attending to him as she gazes at the water.
I fight a smile and share a glance with Marton, who is shaking his head in wonder.
"He's in trouble isn't he?"
I laugh. "I've tried teaching Cherry several survival skills: hunting, tracking, foraging, building a fire, boiling water.
" I shake my head. "She's interested at first by the novelty of it, and then she complains that it's boring or dirty, and says there will always be people around to do it for her, anyway. "
Marton frowns. "But I wonder if she could survive on her own, if she had to."
"She won't ever have to." Not if I have anything to say about it.
Marton doesn't look so convinced. "But if something happened to you," a grimace flits across his face at the thought, and he hurries on, "If something happened to me, and to Vakhrin, and Cherry was alone, far from home, could she survive? Could she take care of herself?"
I chew my lip, not at all enjoying this topic of conversation.
I eye my pretty young friend as she tosses her hair by the river, accepting the fishing pole from Vakhrin's grip.
She casts her line clumsily, beaming, then scowls at whatever admonishment Vakh is evidently giving.
She argues back at him, looking like she's explaining why the way she did it was perfectly fine, and then audibly screeching as he tries to take the fishing pole from her.
I have to laugh again, softly this time.
"Cherry may not be the best at hunting or fishing, but she's one of the most pig-headedly stubborn people I've ever met.
Given, I haven't met many people in the last few years.
But when there's something she wants, she doesn't give up.
I think if she were alone—in the mountains or the forest, in the desert or the plains—if she really wanted to get home, there's nothing that could stand in her way. "
Only once have I seen her give up. When we had been in the tower for several years, and I continued refusing to take her anywhere else. When she retreated into that dark place inside herself, because she could not have her heart's desire.
"What has it been like for the two of you," Marton asks quietly, "all these years, living alone in those ruins?"
I fiddle with the hem of my scrappily repaired dress, noticing but unaffected by the cool wind that blows towards us off the mountains.
Autumn will be upon us soon, and we will have to find a way to purchase new clothes.
Cherry will like that. "It wasn't so bad, most of the time.
I hunted and patrolled, Cherry complained and demanded.
After a few years," I skip breezily over the dark part, "we settled into our new life.
We played games together, made up stories of exciting things that were happening in other parts of the world.
Cherry learned to sew. I learned to..." Kill.
I swallow the word down to keep it from escaping.
"I learned to protect her, from any threats that accosted us.
And we just...waited. We waited for something to change.
We waited for the king to send word that the danger to her life was over, that she could return home. "
Marton is quiet for a beat, digesting that, then he speaks quietly again. "What would you have done, afterwards, if Cherry had been allowed to return to the palace?"
A shrug. "I would have gone with her. Been her royal bodyguard, perhaps. I might have gone home to see my mother for a bit."
"And is that all you ever wanted? A life by the princess's side, serving her?"
I eye him uneasily. "Why are you asking me this?"
Marton schools his intent expression into one of casual disinterest. "I'm just curious. Just...making conversation."
I frown at him, but he handily avoids meeting my eye as he finishes setting up the fire pit.
He waves a hand of invitation, and I lean forward, summoning the fire in my belly.
I part my lips and breathe flame onto our waiting pile of firewood.
Fire blossoms, warm and bright before us, casting infernal reflections in Marton's dark eyes.
"The king gave me a duty when I was thirteen years old. Lie or not, he is still my king, and I have never been released from that duty."
Marton casts his eyes down once more, pretending to stoke the fire.
"You're a dragon, Tarah. I know you know that," he says quickly, preempting my irritable reply.
"It's just...Think about it. You can go anywhere you want.
Destroy anyone who tries to stop you. You don't have to serve the king, not if he doesn't deserve it.
And you don't have to serve the princess, either. "
"Cherry is my best friend," I warn.
"No, I know that." Marton smiles to soften his words.
"But—Look, you said before that you don't know how to be a normal sort of friend, right?
So here's how it is. Normal friends, they don't control each other.
Or they might try, sometimes, but the other doesn't have to listen. You don't have to obey your friends."
I'm shifting uncomfortably by this point, wanting to be annoyed with him for interfering.
Wanting to prove his assumptions wrong. But.
..he's not exactly wrong. He's not exactly right, either.
"Cherry and I have always controlled each other.
I was her...warden...as much as she was my princess.
So it was not just her bossing me for eight years.
I bossed her too. Refused her constantly, because I had to.
Because what she wanted was not what the king had commanded.
She wanted freedom, and activity. She wanted fine gowns and fine accommodations and.
..company. And I couldn't give her any of that.
So I think I have always felt guilty. Have tried to give her anything else she wanted, anything within my power, to make up for it. "
Marton nods, as if this makes sense. His eyes are on Cherry, pointing her finger in Vakhrin's face while he resolutely holds the fishing pole behind his back, out of her reach.
Marton smiles softly, but his eyes are concerned when he turns back to me.
"Your duty to her will come to an end someday.
Maybe someday soon, if we're successful.
I just want you to...think about...what you really want, after that. "
"I don't know how to be without her," I tell him truthfully, tightly. "She is— For eight years, she has been my world, and I've been hers. I don't know if either of us knows how to be without the other." The thought of trying makes me panicky, like there's nothing tethering me to the world anymore.
"I'd help you figure it out," Marton whispers, so quietly that the sound is almost lost among the crackling of the fire. So quietly that, were I human, I might not have heard him at all.
I pretend I didn't hear.