I almost opened my mouth to ask him. But then he was tying Minstrel's Ivoronsu, which he'd tentatively named "ivoronsu" until he could think of the proper thing—then he was tying him to a branch of the nearby tree. So I sighed, gave in to stopping, and dropped down, in a splash of water and soft, green, grass. My boots were not well made for protection from such things, and I imagined I would have to hang them out to dry tonight, but for the time being I stepped Fauna up, past the tree place, even glancing at the surrounding green and wetness, then tying her up beside ivoronsu.
Before I knew it, Cole's hands were there with mine, helping along. Then we looked up at each other. Then we both let go, then we took one each a step back from each other, then we sat. Then we stared, like that, cross-legged, at one another. It felt in every way, as if we'd just taken part in a dance, both of us acquainted with the steps, so as not to need a word between us to begin and end it. But had we ended? Because the way he was staring back was so similar to the way he'd looked when we had danced.
"Say, Cole, do you have hair?" I heard myself asking—as if from a distant place. But then, there he was, two feet from me, with the rainy grove dripping behind him, and the horses off to his side.
"Not really," he answered. "I mean... I cut it."
"Oh... like very short?"
He nodded.
"It's gold," he added. I blinked, looking from the ground, where I'd begun to stare, seeing the damp moss, and imagining our luck with making a fire, whether we should spend the night here, or try on again if the rain stopped. "What?"
"My hair, it's gold. Light brown. Or lighter than that. Not light like yours, but..." The ivoronsu, of Minstrel's, Ivoronsu, knocked his head, past Fauna, in our direction. I glanced his eyes, black with silver, then frowned back at Cole.
"I thought you said you cut it."
"I mean, when I don't cut it."
"Oh."
"Don't people have hair even when they cut it?" he put to me.
"I suppose..." My voice was dull, while Cole's seemed really too sensitive.
"My eyebrows are dark," he added quickly.
"What?" Now I really looked back to him in a flash. And in that way that I could tell he was narrowing, just by the scrunching of his eyes, I could tell. And also he was bending forward, even with his legs still crossed, and with his hands there, folded, or fiddling, or something—I wasn't quite focused there to tell.
"Were you imagining I didn't have any because of my scars? I do."
"Eyebrows?"
He nodded. "They're dark."
"Yes, you've said that," I snapped at him, exasperatedly. Was there a deeper reason for that? Possibly. But did I have a right to reproach such strange behavior, whether it was inadvertently offensive or not? Certainly. "Cole, don't you forget we're here on an important sort of mission. This isn't Genbu repeated."
There was a mumbling, without doubt, there under his breath. And I wasn't too distracted by our speed of travel, or the rain, or the burden of ruling a country some point in the near future, not to be aware of those greatest differences between our traveling to Genbu, and travelling now, for which he might be mumbling.
So very suddenly, it was, that I laughed. Truly, burst out laughing.
"What's that about?" he asked.
"I've only just realized," I said, "That I just referred to our trip in Genbu, as something not very important... but it was the difference of the war, wasn't it? And you didn't even think to argue that, either."
"I thought of it," he countered.
I raised a skeptic brow at him, still smiling from my laughter. "And so, you didn't say it, since...?"
"Since I see no advantage to correcting you. Not... most of the time at least."
"Oh, you'll make a fine advisor at this rate," I scoffed.
Then Cole went still. Then blinked, then watched me. "Advisor?" he repeated.
The ivoronsu besides us whinnied, so that Fauna regarded him, clopping her hoof; all the while as I sucked in a breath, for my misspoken words. "No. I mean, I didn't mean..." I took a great huff. "I only thought, that since you are my friend, you might help me to reform up Shaundakul. Isn't that a thing that anyone would do? Minstrel said that he would help; and so did Lucian—even Amalia."
"You've already spoken with all of them about reforming Shaundakul?"
"Well, of course I have. They'd liably think I was mad, otherwise. Spending my purpose to free my people, and then leaving them abandoned."
"None, of them would think that way, princess."
"That's fine, Cole. That's fine. But anyways... the thing of it is, that if you don't—"
"Ellia, I'm not leaving you," he interrupted. "Haven't I already said that?" His gaze was steady, and I'd gone still, but his tone was light—as if we were having the most casual conversation, and here, on the damp ground, where the leaves had ceased to do much for stopping us getting wet. "So if you want to reform Shaundakul... then I will help you. I'll be an advisor, or whatever you want. Blast, if you want to stay on Yanartas for eternity, or if you want to drive your horse in circles about the desert, I would."
"Advisor's have to tell you when you're wrong, though, don't they?" I countered quickly, trying to detract from the rest, "And haven't you just said you see no advantage to that?"
"I'll have to put work into deciding it does."
I snorted short, then eyed him. "What a way to think... putting work into deciding something. Don't you decide it or not?"
He watched me back. I'd rather lost account of what we were speaking about at all. This was why it was better to speak of weather, or colors, or granted animals even, but not Shaundakul, not with Cole.
"Do you know what will be the first thing I'll advise, I think," he started.
I gave him an inwardly scathing frown, regretting that I'd said anything at all. The truth of it was, that I hadn't thought for him as an advisor at all; he wasn't wise enough, was he? Not old enough; he didn't know about Shaundakul, and as we'd discussed, he'd be horrid at opposing my opinion. I'd thought... rather, something in the army—wasn't he fair at training? And certainly fighting.
"Do you know that my father wanted me to marry a warlord, Cole?"
Cole stopped short. He'd been shifting around twigs, I supposed, or I could only guess, to make a sort of picture, of what might be his suggestion, but this paused him in his work. He'd gestured me over, at the start of his comment about advising, and so I had scooted a little closer to him, turned and facing him out from the tree, and me to the horses, as if there were a fire there in front of us, only there wasn't.
"A warlord?" he repeated finally. "Like a..."
"Warring Lord, yes," I confirmed. "It was a fairly common thing in Shaundakul... since so many appointments were determined by one's name, or rank of nobility. So very few commoners advanced above infantry, while the sons of Lords were so often put to positions, as soon as they'd joined."
"Sounds..."
I waited for Cole to add something. Perhaps, about how silly that was, since Lords' sons couldn't so often be trusted to be the best of the warriors. Not that incapable ones were allowed, but still... "It's something similar with the way dragon's were given out for bonding," I said. "It went by name, beginning with mine, of course, then there were others following. Padril, Valerian, Bostoas, Halkin, not in that order, but..."
"But there was an order."
"Yes, there was an order to everything in Shaundakul."
"An order of names."
I stayed watched at the damp moss for a moment, then hugging my arms over my knees I nodded.
I didn't know whether it was something Cole noticed about me, imagining I was cold, or whether he was cold himself, but he moved to push the sticks he'd gathered then, into a pile, and then to start a fire.
"Do you think that's foolish?" I asked him.
"Which thing?" he replied.
His movements were deft as they'd always been, first glancing over, then discarding the more dampened branches, th
en pulling out his flint, then sparking a flame with much less difficulty than most might have. I thought the rain had lessened, at least enough not to be sending droplets down through the leaves—though it still pattered past, in the grove, and slipped down the tree's bark.
"About the order of things."
"I think if it's something by names that meant you were ranked first for a dragon, or to be ruler, or whatever you might want... then it couldn't be a bad thing."
"But look at what happened to Kraehe. Perhaps if someone else had..."
He looked back at me, cutting me off with his glare, having just blown into the fire.
It was fiercely that we stared at each other for seconds. The flames had begun to build well enough to light his eyes orange.
"Don't ever think that way, Ellia," he said finally.
There wasn't much to argue with in it. And I'd felt, even before I'd said it, truly, that it was not an aright thing to say. Only a worry... one that didn't mean much, any longer, any ways.
Cole scooted himself back, straight, the fire not large, but sufficient. He didn't move all the way to the tree, since it was wet, but nearly, and with one leg straight, and one knee bent and his arm slung over it.
From the way that the sky was beginning to glow to darkening, and how Fauna had stretched to the end of her rope to munch down on grass in the wet grove, and from the way Minstrel's Ivoronsu had... actually fallen down into the ground, strangely enough... I thought from all of this, and Cole's relaxed position as well, that we would be spending the night just here. How many nights had we spent?... too many to remember, so far, out in the woods, since our travels had begun. It was not a strange or uncomfortable thing. Exempting, perhaps, the uncomfortableness, of the ground.
"Why are you asking about these rules about names?" Cole asked, tipping his head up, his hand still there over his knee.
"Well, I don't know..."
His retorting tone was a scoff. "Do you mean to change them?"
"I'm not sure that I could..." I chewed on my lip, looking at the fire, then watching him again. "It's not as if those that will return have been gone for forever. It wasn't so long ago, they lived in Shaundakul. So, they'll remember the way it went there, and they'll want it to be the same."
Cole was shaking his head. "They'll remember the best things of it. And they'll want the best, as well. You're the best thing, for them. So what you think, that will be what they want.... Too much has changed, Ellia, for it to be exactly as it was."
I frowned, while he glanced to the fire solemnly; for myself I was thinking of the dragons, but I asked, "So you think I should change about the nobles and the names?"
His eyes moved to me. He watched a moment, gaze so severely serious that I thought: wouldn't he make a fine advisor after all, taking all of these questions of mine, so seriously, though we were only just talking casually, and he'd never known a thing about how Shaundakul was run in any case. He shook his head, though he didn't answer in the negative or positive, one way or the other. "I think that you'll have to be the one to decide that, Ellia. I don't want to say it for you...." I frowned; was he so well at telling that I would, so easily, hear some opinion from him, and take it too severely as a wise thing. But I shouldn't: that was the point. I needed to think of what was best for myself, I only wished that he would tell me what was. "But if I were to be truly, honest," he said. His gaze moved steadily, brightly, to mine. "Even speaking as a commoner myself, someone that might not have been thought a lot of in Shaundakul... I wouldn't want it to change... I wouldn't want to think... that it was different in any way from those days that... from those days I've heard that it used to be. I wouldn't want to think that anything at all had changed. Not because of Akadia, and not because of Lox. Won't it be so much that will be different, just because of that time Uldin Keep was abandoned. So if you love, Shaundakul, I think fighting best, for the way it was... it will take all of that to keep it really Shaundakul."
"Oh Cole, but this is just what I've thought and been concerned over," I spoke, nearly cutting him off, and hardly even realizing that I'd meant to reply so at all. My eyes were bright, and maybe wet despite myself, but I shook my head, without pause. "I don't want it to change."
"I don't want it to either, Ellia."
"I want it to be the way that it always was, as if none of it had ever happened."
He laughed once, and I was glad, for I worried otherwise, from his demeanor, that he might try something more severe very suddenly. "I'm not sure that can happen, but... you can do your best."
"And you don't think, even as a commoner, that it matters about the nobility. I don't want to begin again, something harmful. But it is truly, so much of what Shaundakul was based upon..."
Cole grew silent again, in consideration, I thought? If he'd meant, not to be sharing his opinions, so as to influence me; he'd failed. He was going to fail. That, he'd said, about wishing Shaundakul could remain as it was, that it would be difficult enough holding onto the life of it, without the dragons, that had been my strong feeling as well—and yet I hadn't felt assured that that would be the wise chose to make, until he'd said something similar. How could I be sure, I didn't just want to bring back those days with Cyric? How could I be sure, that it wasn't too hard, for those who hadn't been given my advantages. Simply because something was done a way, wasn't a reason to continue it, was it? And yet... I had always thought it very romantic the way Cyric was not a lord's son, accustomed to the idea of being allowed to marry me, or being put to a high position without great trial. And those orphans which had been gathered up, to be trained by the scholars. I could speak rightly for myself, that the young girls of court, even though daughters of nobility, had been mad with the idea of marrying one or the other of them; such a great collection of excitement.
"Do you know what I thought of sometimes after Genbu," Cole said.
It was obviously still in answer to my question, but his eyes were intense, (obviously not considering over silly things like girls fawning for wards, as I'd just been). But then, also, with the mention of Genbu, I did fear what he would say.
He turned his gaze to me, his hands coming out to gesture, while he spoke. "You know the constellation animals, and the way Tongon said those four ancestors, did those great things for the lands—so that they were blessed with those abilities?"
"Didn't you say you thought that was myth, Cole?"
He was shaking his head. "I don't think to presume much of anything in that case, any longer, Ellia. I only know what I've seen, and I've seen that they're powerful, the four of them. Or five... as it is. The most powerful."
"So what's that got to do with Shaundakul?"
"Well," he was on to gesturing again, "The four were granted powers because they did great things, right? And the other animals... some of them were granted powers, but not so strong, and not all of them, and some weren't given any at all. And it had to do with how well they'd fought, and given up for others."
"But that's not the way—"
"Right," he interrupted, "Not the way of Shaundakul. But hear out the rest... When you think about it... those four animals died out long ago. At least, we can assume they did. I mean... if the Vishnuites think it was long enough for Vishnu's shell to have turned to rock..."
"Then it was long," I followed.
"Right. And before men came. But their descendants... according to the myth... their descendants are still being blessed. They still have those great powers. They always do, each of them, they're born with them. And those descendants of the ones, that didn't help... they don't have much of anything, still."
"This is... sort of a sad thing, you speak, Cole..."
"No, it's not!" he argued, quickly. "It's not." And now, his tone was excited, even delighted. "Can't you tell, it doesn't matter. Those animals, that don't have great power: they didn't do anything wrong. Even ones like the ivoronsu, which no one's sure whether they're a granted animal or not. Or the giant spiders, or even a squirrel or so
mething—they didn't do anything before they were born. It's just the way they were.... And it's not bad."
"What?"
"They can still fight, can't they? They can still do great things... And why shouldn't those constellation animals, which gave so much not have their descendants blessed. Isn't it nice to imagine, that if you fight and give something up of yourself, during your life, that it will have a good effect on your children?"
"Cole, you've gone beyond me."
"No. Think. Your ancestors. Your father, and his father before him; your great grandfather, or grandmother, or someone high up there along the line... they must have done something great to have been chosen as ruler of Shaundakul. Even given those powers of yours. To be guardians of the dragons..."
"Like the Constellation Animals did," I followed.
"Right, so even now, you have power and placement, because of that. But even if you didn't, it doesn't matter. Because everyone's different, but they can still be great."
I frowned. Cole, he was not with his knee bent, any longer. He was bent forward again, bent towards me. And the fire was sputtering for his neglection of it. The sky had gotten darker, so he seemed only brighter. But still... I couldn't tell what he meant. Other than that it seemed unfair to me now that the Constellation Animals should be so powerful, while the squirrels were not.
"I'm not sure that I..."
"Look," he interrupted, "You had places with the scholar's in Uldin Keep, right? Where the orphans lived? Near the libraries?"
"Right..." Had I told him about that? I must have. Or else Minstrel.
"So, was it terrible for them?..."
I narrowed, watching him... "It can't have been as fine as having a home."
"Maybe," he spoke, "or maybe not. Isn't it a great thing, to be taken care of by people that don't have to for another reason. I imagine, it would have felt good as a young kid, to have been cared for and taught by someone that you didn't have a relation to. But even so, even if it was harder, does that really make it worse? If you can fight just as well, with what you're given, and where you're placed. Then it doesn't matter so much whether you're a noble or a commoner, or... whatever else. It only makes people different. So I don't think that you should change the way, Shaundakul works. Because I think it's better when people fight to be great with what they're given, than to have everything be great all the time, and only then you're able to fight."
Fallen Warrior (Fallen Trilogy book 3) Page 61