by Alex Aguilar
Syrena instantly fell to her knees with a look of concern…
This was the man that had helped her break away from her chains. Twice. He was the first person in 10 years to show her any form of kindness, in his own peculiar way. More than that, he was the first person to trust her when everyone else wanted her either dead or in chains. Syrena was a solitary soul, that much was certain, but if there was anyone in the world that she cared about even in the slightest, it had to have been Hudson Blackwood.
“H-Hudson,” she whispered through a wall of tears that she refused to let go of. “Hudson, darling… Wake up…”
John watched them from afar, taking hesitant steps forward. Gazing upon the face of the unconscious thief, he felt the guilt sinking into his chest. Had he not urged him to continue on the journey, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. Hudson would still be awake and alert and off somewhere doubtlessly looking for trouble.
“Hudson,” Syrena shook him. “Wake up, darling… Please…”
But the thief didn’t move, not even a flinch, and Syrena could no longer resist. A tear escaped her eyes, leaving a glistening trail on her pale cheek. But she refused to weep; her expression was firm and steady, as if she was entirely unaware of the tears. Her sweaty palms were grasping onto the thief’s shirt and she had to bite her lower lip to keep it from trembling. Sivvy, the redheaded pixie, was watching them with awe, her head tilted to the left as she floated over John’s shoulder.
Come on, mate, John pondered. Don’t do this to us…
And then the farmer gave in to his impulses, no longer ashamed to demonstrate his concern. He dropped to his knees next to Syrena, as the witch shook Hudson harder and harder.
“Hudson,” she kept saying. “Wake up, darling. We still need you…”
But the thief was cold and stiff and looked almost lifeless. John placed a gentle hand on Syrena’s shoulder for comfort, and then felt his own eyes swelling up at the sight of it all.
Come on, mate… I know you’re still there. Wake up, damn you!
“Don’t you dare,” Syrena said as she fell forward gently, placed her forehead on Hudson’s cold shoulder, and gripped the leaves and dirt with her fists. “No,” she kept saying. “No… You can’t…”
The silence seemed to drag on for hours. John closed his eyes and a tear of his own escaped his eyes. If the pain was this bad for him, he could only imagine what Syrena was feeling. He couldn’t help but think of Viktor Crowley’s disapproval if the man were here to see this, and yet John found that he no longer cared. This was the man who had taken an arrow for them. This was his friend.
Syrena felt her fingers warming up suddenly, her mind angrily coming to terms with the reality that her only true friend was gone. And then, as if mirroring her emotions, both her hands and part of her forearms started to radiate smoke. Get out, she told herself, knowing very well of what her rage was capable of. Get out of here now…
She lifted her head from Hudson’s stiff shoulder and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“I-I have to go,” she rose to her feet.
“Syrena?” John tried to calm her.
“Just let me go,” Syrena could no longer look at either of them. Her hands were discolored all over again, this time much darker, almost turning purple from the agitation. Just when she took a step towards the vines, however, there was the sound of a dry inhale. And so her eyes widened and she glanced back.
Hudson’s chest began moving…
John felt his skin crawl as he shook him again gently.
“Hudson…? Are you there, mate? Hudson?!”
Then it happened… A shiver of the eyelids, a twitching of the nose, and a gentle breathing… The infamous thief was beginning to wake, and both John and Syrena felt a rush of energy that woke them both entirely.
“Hudson!” John repeated with a vivid joy in his voice. Syrena threw herself into the leaves again, kneeling by the thief’s head, unsure of what to do or say. Hudson opened his eyes and with every struggling breath he became slowly aware of his surroundings.
“Hudson, my dear?” Syrena spoke softly, placing her warm hand on his cold cheek.
When the thief finally spoke, his voice was hoarse and dry, and he said something Syrena couldn’t quite understand. It sounded a bit like “John.”
The farmer and the witch glanced at one another.
“John…”
“Y-Yes, I’m here, mate,” John said, the hint of a smile on his lips.
“Move… closer…”
Syrena moved aside and allowed for John to lean in.
“What is it? What d’you need?” the farmer asked, tilting his ear closer to the thief’s lips.
“John,” Hudson whispered, weakly and drearily. “…please tell me I’m wearing trousers.”
* * *
The fish was crisp and warm, with a savory taste that could only be achieved with years of practice. Robyn Huxley was given three plates of them, and her eyes lit up with joy at the sight of such a feast. She walked back to the stables and handed the largest fish to the Beast, who took it instantly and bit at it as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Old Nyx rejected the fish at first and urged Robyn to have it, but the girl placed the wooden plate by his paws regardless.
The Beast was grumbling and moaning through every bite.
Robyn and Nyx couldn’t help but stare.
“By the gods,” Nyx said, sitting with his front paws resting flat on the ground. “If you don’t slow down, you’ll choke on a piece of fishbone.”
The Beast replied with a shrug of the shoulder and a heedless grunt. He was stuffing the fish into his mouth, bones and all, and bits of it were oozing out of the corners of his thick green lips.
They sat on the dirt inside Miss Rayna’s stables. Nearby, there was a long indoor corridor with over a dozen horse stalls at both sides, and an additional space at the entrance where more horses were tied to posts and stood side to side drinking water from a long container. It was in that space where they chose to rest; the smell was not very pleasant, but considering they had four walls and a wooden roof it was the closest thing to shelter they would find for miles.
“How did you pay for all of this?” Nyx asked, looking up at Robyn as she munched on her own piece of fish, just as eagerly as the Beast.
“I didn’t,” she said. “That Kiira girl gave ‘em to me, said it was courtesy of Miss Rayna.”
Robyn had never been very fond of fish, but after a week of eating nothing but berries and stale bread with cheese, she could hardly resist that tangy aroma; she welcomed the fish and savored every bite. Nyx gave in as well and devoured everything on his plate with two mouthfuls. Even as a fox, Robyn could see the human expressions on his face. He closed his only eye and exhaled with relief, and with a flicker of his whiskers he made his best attempt at a smile, like a joyful child feasting on his favorite dish.
“I had forgotten what a real meal felt like,” he said.
Robyn chuckled. Sitting beside Nyx, she felt the sudden urge to run her fingers through his soft grey fur, but out of respect she held herself back. They sat in silence for a moment, taking the time to catch their breath after days of struggling to remain alive. Should they survive the journey to Drahkmere and back, nothing would ever be the same again and Robyn knew it.
She wondered what life would be like back in Elbon now that Nyx had revealed his secret to her. She wondered why, after knowing and trusting in Mister Beckwit her whole life, did the old man not confide such a secret to her. Perhaps it had been Nyx’s decision, and if it was, there was no way she could ever blame him, for humans were not the most sympathetic of the races. She wondered if Nyx would be opposed to the idea of revealing his true nature to all of Elbon, and perhaps now that her brother John had become acquainted with people of nobility, to all of Val Havyn.
A thought suddenly flashed through her mind, and it hit her like a sharp stone to the temples… She had been avoiding the thought, fighting it since the day she left the farm,
and it finally crept into her mind now that she was sitting safely within four walls.
She thought of her mother…
And when she did, something like guilt began to settle in her stomach and it was certainly disagreeing with the fish.
I should’ve told her, she thought, and then her eyes began to swell unwillingly.
At the very least, I should’ve left a note…
She breathed, slowly and deeply. What Robyn had done, as with most of her decisions, she had done spontaneously. And she certainly had no time to give her decision much thought. At the time, the only thing she knew was that her brother was leaving. He was leaving without any assurance that he would ever return. And this was something she simply couldn’t live with.
You never abandon family, she repeated in her mind. Never.
After days of struggle, she had very little time to think about her mother or the twins until now. And she was starting to regret allowing her mind to yield to those thoughts.
You never abandon family… And yet… you abandoned them, Robyn.
You left them behind to chase after John.
She breathed again. This time, Nyx placed a paw on her boot as if he could somehow read her thoughts. She tried to distract herself from the guilt, but her mind wouldn’t let go of her mother.
She missed her… She missed every lecture, every shout, every argument…
She missed the way her mother would pull at her blankets in the mornings to force her awake. She missed how there would always be a cup of tea ready for her when she woke up in the morning, along with freshly made cornbread on the table.
She even missed Margot and Melvyn, as much as they irritated her.
She missed their mockery, their tricks, their defiance… She missed chasing them through the farm when they laid their hands on her beloved bow.
She missed all of it…
What would mum say if she saw you right now, Robyn?
How would she react if she knew her oldest daughter was traveling through the Woodlands with a cursed warrior and an orc?
Would she be angry? Or proud? Would she ever trust her own daughter again?
A single tear ran down her face, but she wiped it away before it reached her cheek.
“Are you all right, Lady Robyn?” asked Nyx.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “I’m just worried about John.”
“He’s a brave young man. I do trust that he is alive and well.”
“I hope so, too,” she smiled at him, or at least tried to.
A loud belch interrupted them. The Beast wiped his slobbery chin with his wrist and proceeded to dunk his head into the container of water by the horses, ignoring the fact that it was infested with slobber and dead bugs. Robyn didn’t know whether to scowl or chuckle, so she did both. The Beast came back up and looked more than refreshed; drops of thick, slimy water dribbled down his green jaw and black beard.
Nyx sighed deeply. “Why not,” he said, and then moved towards the water himself.
Robyn remained silent, leaning back against the wood. Her eyes met the Beast’s for a moment; so humanlike and ordinary they were, nothing like she had ever envisioned an orc’s eyes to look like. Then again, she didn’t know exactly what to picture. In her mind, she’d pictured their eyes to be either pitch black or bright red, something sinister, something from a storybook.
It baffled her how someone so similar to her could be regarded as a monster and shunned for it. Why were they the ones who were shunned, when there were humans out in the world who were far more unpleasant? Humans that would most certainly think twice about fighting an ogre to death in order to save some farmgirl they just met…
The Beast rested his back against the wood, a good distance across from Robyn. Now that he had washed off the dirt from his bare chest, the girl noticed just how deep and severe the scars on his chest were. The three lines ran diagonally from the upper left side of his chest, where his heart was, down to his lower right abdominal area. She had noticed them when she first saw him at the Brotherhood camp, but not this closely nor well lit. Something had given him those scars and it had to have been something big.
Nyx rose out of the water then, coughing and spitting out chunks.
Chunks of what exactly, Robyn preferred not to know.
And then something a bit unexpected happened.
The Beast spoke. “Refreshing?” he asked, though it sounded more like a grumble.
Robyn’s eyes widened and she glanced over at the orc with a surprised grin.
Nyx spit out a bit of slime. “Sickeningly so,” he replied, and then shook his head and body like a wet hound. Unsure of how to react to the orc’s sudden decision to converse, Robyn sat up straight and cleared her throat.
“Sh-Should I, um… Should I perhaps ask Miss Rayna for a proper drink?” she asked. For a moment, she wasn’t sure whom she was asking. And when the Beast ignored her, she turned her gaze over to Nyx.
“If by proper, you mean ale… then certainly,” the fox said.
“Anything for you, Beast?” she beckoned for him.
The orc ignored her again, instead he unstrapped his axe from his belt and began to sharpen it the way he usually would when he was angry or nervous. Robyn felt a dash of annoyance; the fact that the orc had said four words since they met and the fact that his axe did not need any further sharpening didn’t help. Before she could stand, however, Kiira the elf approached the stables with a tray of overfilled tankards.
“Thought you could all use a drink,” she said.
“Is it proper?” Nyx asked.
“Hmm?”
“Never mind.”
“Thank you, Kiira,” Robyn said with a smile. Much to her surprise, the elf girl smiled back. It wouldn’t have been as unexpected if the only other nonhuman Woodlander she had ever met carried a grimace that appeared to be permanent. As Kiira handed each of them a tankard, Robyn took a moment to examine her. She was more slender than most humans, and her arms were long enough that her wrists were nearly at level with her knees. Unlike the Beast, Kiira had no fangs rising out of her bottom lip; her teeth were like that of a human’s. Only her sharp ears and the color of her skin were different. She was dark blue, the color of the sky on a cloudy day, and her short curly hair was dark glistening silver.
“Do I have something in my teeth?” Kiira asked suddenly.
Robyn stumbled in her words, embarrassed to have been caught staring.
“Oh… N-No, I… Sorry, I was just…”
“What? Never met an elf that served tables before?”
“Never met an elf before…”
Kiira chuckled as if Robyn had made a joke, her mystical grey eyes glancing at Nyx and the Beast, the most unlikely pair of traveling companions. “Oh, you’re not joking?”
Nervously, Robyn shook her head from side to side and drank from the water tankard.
“Huh,” Kiira exhaled, squinting her eyes pensively. “You’re a peculiar one… I like ya.”
Robyn felt an instant relief, suddenly able to laugh with ease. She was so distracted that she didn’t notice the folded towels beneath the tray in Kiira’s hands.
“By the way, Miss Rayna asked me to bring you these,” the elf smiled as she handed Robyn the white cotton towels. “Just in case you needed clean ones.”
“Oh!” Robyn’s eyes lit up. “I… Yes, thank you!”
“I get it,” Kiira said with a head nod. “You’re on the road long enough, you overlook a few things. Sadly, it always comes back to remind you, doesn’t it?”
Robyn chuckled with her. “That, it does.”
Kiira glanced at Nyx and the Beast again. It might have been the orc’s scar or the fact that he was sharpening his axe, but something about him made Kiira shiver. They thanked her for the food and the drinks, all except the Beast, who hardly acknowledged she was even there.
“Oh please,” Kiira said. “It’s only water. It’s the least we could offer.”
She went back into the tavern,
and Robyn tucked the clean towels into her rucksack, neatly folded. Even after Kiira left, the Beast said nothing and kept working on his axe, refusing to look up. He looked so lost in his thoughts that Robyn simply couldn’t help but pry.
“So… How’d you come across that axe?” she decided to ask.
There was no answer. Nyx gave her a sudden look that urged her to stop, but it only made Robyn more curious. Come on, say something… You’ve done it before, you can do it again…
“Did one of the rogue raiders give it to you?” she asked.
Rather than answering, the Beast rubbed the stone harder against the steel as if trying to overpower the sound of Robyn’s voice. His breathing became louder and heavier, and sweat was starting to build at his temples.
“Beast? Are you there…?”
There was a grunt, and then his fingers slipped. The stone fell on the dirt, stained with trickles of red. The Beast growled and held his right hand on his left; the cut between his finger and thumb was minimal but it was leaking down to his forearm. There was a startled grunt in the distance. Edmund, Miss Rayna’s adopted ogre son, had fallen asleep by the tavern door and was woken up by the orc’s growls.
“Gods, a-are you all right?” Robyn asked, genuinely concerned.
The Beast was glaring at Robyn, breathing heavily through his clenched teeth.
“What do ye want from me, scrap?” he finally spoke to her.
Robyn hesitated. How does one even answer such a question?
“N-Nothing,” she said calmly. “I was… just trying to talk to you.”
“Why?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“What’s it to ye?”
She exhaled sharply, scoffing at his unnecessary defensive tone. “Because we’re traveling together,” she said. “And I… I don’t know. I was only trying to be friendly.”
“You ‘n’ me aren’t friends,” he growled.
“Then who are your friends? The Brotherhood?”