“Sasha! What did you do that for!” he barked.
“What?” asked Sasha, who was clearly trying not to laugh. “You told me to wake you by whatever means necessary.” She tried to look put out, as if he was the one who had just done something wrong.
Rubbing his throbbing head again, he looked up into the twinkling eyes that looked down on him. He growled, “And you thought that a bucket of cold water was necessary?”
A mock look of deep contemplation came over Sasha’s face. “You see, I couldn’t find a bucket of warm water and well … I suppose I could have been a bit less… oh, what’s the word I’m looking for… rude? But then I suppose I would not have been so apt to rudeness if someone hadn’t put a beetle in my soup two nights ago.”
Legon’s anger subsided a bit. He had put a beetle in her soup two nights ago and she did owe him for it. He took a moment to think about that night, reminiscing about bean soup flying across the dining room and Sasha screaming… Ah, it’s the little things in life, he thought. He’d worried about what she would do for revenge ever since.
Now that he was drenched and boasted a spectacular pain growing in his head, he didn’t have to worry anymore. He should have known better, though, when she had invited him on a breakfast picnic. Legon and Sasha would often go on picnics together, and despite the fact that they liked to play jokes on one another, they were closer than twins. Sasha had brought the idea up to him last night, egging him on by questioning if he could get up in time. And like the idiot I am I gave her an opportunity.
Sasha smiled, glanced over her handiwork, gave a small giggle, and left the room with a slight skip in her step. Legon took a moment to get out of bed, then went to the dresser in the corner of the room and got out some dry clothes. He pulled on a pair of grey woolen pants, an off-white button-up shirt, and a pair of dingy socks. Lastly, he put on a pair of brown leather boots and went into the hall connecting his room with the rest of the house.
To his right was a railing and open space that looked down on the lower floor. To his left were closed doors that lead to different rooms in the house. The first he passed was Sasha’s and then his parents. The hallway was lit by the light coming from the kitchen below. He came to the staircase and made his way down the creaky wooden stairs into the kitchen. As he went down the stairs he smelled food cooking. He picked up his pace at once. Getting up would normally be a lengthy project this early in the morning, but one benefit of Sasha’s little prank was that he felt like he had already been awake for a few hours.
He walked into the large open room that was their kitchen, dining, and family room. A heavy wood table stood in the center of the room and in the corner opposite the front door was a counter and cast iron stove at which Sasha was standing. To the left of the stove and counter was the back door and next to it on the wall was a small mirror with a copper frame. Legon stepped up to the mirror to make sure that he didn’t look too beastly. Staring back at him was a teenage boy with short brown hair, dark green eyes, and a firm jaw line. His skin was unusually smooth. He inspected his face with a look of disappointment, hoping to find the small pricks of a beard. I’m like a girl! I couldn’t grow a proper beard if my whole family’s life depended on it!
Sasha noticed him inspecting his face and chimed in, “I like it that way, Legon. Your face reminds me of a little baby.”
He could see her smirking in the mirror. “You’re on a roll this morning aren’t you?”
She shrugged and went on packing for the picnic. Legon went to a cabinet under the staircase and got some blankets and two long buckskin tubes containing their hunting bows, along with some arrows. Sasha was no hunter, but she was a fine shot and they enjoyed practicing archery, shooting into the hillsides of the mountains.
She wrapped four pocket pies that she had made into a red and white checked cloth, put the cloth into a wicker basket lined with a wool towel blanket, and wrapped the towel around the cloth. She then procured a dark green bottle of cedar from a cabinet that was built into the lower part of the counter and turned to Legon.
Legon looked down at the package wrapped tight in the towel. “Why did you wrap them in the towel and the cloth?”
“It’s chilly this morning. I don’t want the pies to be cold by the time we get up to the top of the hill,” she replied conversationally.
“Oh, good thinking Sash. Let me grab your cloak and we can be off.”
Legon went to the wall next to the front door where four black traveling cloaks rested on hooks. He put on his own, then walked up to Sasha and wrapped hers around her. Prepared for their outing, they stepped out of the back door of the house and began to walk to the woods. The back of their house faced directly into the woods at the edge of town. As they walked out they could see to their right the fenced-in paddock and an assortment of sheep, pigs, cattle, and the family’s horses. Other than the horses, the animals were mostly livestock that townsfolk had brought to be slaughtered in the family butcher shop. In the corner of the paddock was the shed where Legon and his father slaughtered and cleaned the animals. In most butcher shops the shed would be attached to the main building, but Legon’s mother had complained about the smell. One of the benefits of building a separate shed was that they were able to turn the old space where they used to slaughter the animals into a smoker and a large ice box. This gave them the ability to cure meat for people and keep their stock of meat fresh for longer periods of time.
The morning air was crisp and sweet—perfect for a hike. They were able to walk straight into the woods, since the town of Salmont had no town wall. Instead, the city was surrounded by a beautiful view of the woods and mountains.
They walked together into the woods and soon they were completely surrounded by trees as they ascended a steep hill with tree roots jutting up here and there. The pines were small on this hill, but still far above their heads. Sticky sap ran from some of them, giving the forest a pungent smell that they could taste on their tongues. This hike would be difficult for most people in the predawn darkness, but Legon and Sasha had spent their whole lives playing in these woods, so the faint moonlight was more than enough for them to walk in. After about a half hour they reached the top of a hill that overlooked the valley where they lived. The sun was just beginning to make itself known to the world as they rolled out a grey blanket on the soft turf and sat down. They took off their cloaks and put them across their laps, and Legon took a blue blanket and placed it around their shoulders. He uncorked the bottle of cedar as Sasha began unwrapping the pocket pies.
“Sash, did you remember to bring glasses?” Legon asked, looking around for them.
“Oh…” she said, looking perplexed, “I suppose those would be handy wouldn’t they?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, they would. Oh well. We can just drink out of the bottle. Mom doesn’t need to know.”
“That she doesn’t.”
Sasha had been right to wrap the pocket pies. It was chilly this morning and the cloth and towel had kept the pies hot. Legon looked down at the four pies. Three of them were made with eggs, bacon, onion, and cheese, and he knew the fourth would be fruit-filled.
“Sash, did you make enough? There’s only three breakfast ones here.”
She looked down at the food. “Yes, I think so… there are two for you, one for me, and a strawberry one that we can split.”
“You’re just going to have one? I can split the third with you, I don’t mind,” he said sincerely.
“No, that’s fine. I only need one.”
“Oh come on, you’ll be hungry by ten if you just have one,” he said as if he were pointing out the obvious, which he was. One pie was nowhere near enough.
Sasha laughed. “I’m not a bottomless pit like you, brother. I can eat one and be full, whereas I don’t think I could make enough to ever sate your appetite.”
A smile crossed his face. When he thought about it, he had to admit that he did eat a lot. He was big to be sure, but not fat. He was
all muscle, but even for his size he ate a ton. He remembered once going over to Kovos’ house for dinner. Kovos’ older brother was supposed to be visiting with his wife, but had been unable to make it. By the time the family found out that their oldest son was not going to be there, Kovos’ mom had already made a huge dinner. Legon remembered with some satisfaction the looks on their faces as he went for a fourth helping.
Now, sitting on the top of the hill with his sister, he thought that maybe he did eat too much. Or perhaps the rest of the world didn’t eat enough. That sounded right.
Sasha and Legon sat enjoying the pies and cedar together as they watched the sun rise. The pies were incredible. It seemed that everything Sasha touched tasted good. Legon had finished both of his by the time Sasha was done with her pie. They drank from the bottle of cold cedar, which was sweet and good with the pies. Sasha leaned over the basket and uncovered the last one.
She had saved the best for last. It was filled with sliced strawberries in sticky syrup, which covered their fingers with sugary goodness. Legon wished there was another when he finished his half of the pie. He was sure to tell Sasha what an amazing cook she was, and that it was possible that no one in Airmelia could compare to her, which made her smile.
They talked about how much they liked the early spring and how beautiful all the new life was in the reddish orange sunlight. There were thin clouds in the sky that were turning from dark blues and purples to pink and orange. They looked out over the small town where they lived. It looked peaceful and serene, bathed in soft colors. The town sat in a valley with tall mountains on all sides. There was no town wall, which was strange for a town in Airmelia; most towns had large stone walls and keeps in the center of town. This was done for many reasons, the most important of which was to discourage bands of robbers from trying to loot the town, and to give the people a general feeling of safety. There hadn’t been a full-on war since the queen took control, and that was almost fifty years ago, but many towns still kept the walls intact. Most towns could not withstand an attack from a large force, but even small villages would have stockade fences surrounding the village proper. However, this was not the case for Salmont.
The town’s people were not amazing fighters, but Salmont was remote and the people lazy. Salmont was in the middle of the Empire and was surrounded by mountains; most people didn’t even know that it existed. The town had no exports and was not a center of trade. This meant that robbers were not apt to come because the pickings were too slim and the mountain passes restricted the routes they could take.
Legon once thought that he lived in the most boring and uneventful town in all of Airmelia. “Even the name of our town is boring,” he told Sasha one day. “We live in the Salez territory so we get ‘Sal’, and in a mountain valley so we get ‘mont’—Salmont,” he said with a shrug.
Now they could see the town from above. It was disorganized, and from on high the streets looked like a big maze. In the center were the old remains of a stockade fence where the town had started. The only strong building was the keep.
The keep was two stories high and made of dingy grey stone. It was a large building and looked almost like a warehouse. Above it flew a black banner with a silver crescent moon curling around a many-pointed star, beside which were three long waving lines. The moon and star were the symbol of the Iumenta Lord Sodomis who was over Salez; the three lines represented Regent Kooth, who was the human in charge of this part of Lord Sodomis’s territory. Kooth was over five towns and ten villages. The town hadn’t been visited in years by either Kooth or Sodomis, but their tax collectors were sure to visit every year, along with the occasional soldier patrol that kept the passes and roads safe from robbers, so the townspeople flew the banner.
They were enjoying the warm sunlight on their faces, when all of a sudden Legon noticed that there was something wrong with Sasha. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, her face contorted, and her whole body became ridged. “She’s having an episode!” he thought, panicked.
One moment Sasha was lying on the blanket thrashing and twitching, then the next she was off the blanket on the bare turf convulsing. He ran around behind her and wrapped his arms around her so she would not roll away and get hurt in the bushes or brambles. He was used to these episodes, but that did not make them any less scary. Fear was tearing through him as he struggled to hold on to her.
“Come on, you’re okay, you’re okay Sash, come back to me, you’re okay,” he said again and again, trying to keep his voice soft and reassuring.
She was making a horrible gurgling noise and he was worried that she was going to throw up, which sometimes happened. After a few minutes that seemed like hours, Sasha began to calm. Her breathing became steady and her body relaxed, and she soon fell asleep. Legon was still lying behind her with his arms wrapped tight around her; they both were covered in sweat and trembling. There was a slight metallic taste in his mouth and he realized that he had bitten his tongue.
He had done this many times before; some of his first memories were of Sasha’s episodes. He could remember as a boy sitting next to her bed holding her hand as she slept after having a particularly bad one. This was one of the things that made them so close; Legon never left her side, and caring for her made him love her more.
He held her, willing her to wake. Her hair tickled his noise. He sniffed back a sneeze and breathed in the scent of her hair, which calmed him. The trivial problem of a wanting to sneeze and noticing what her hair smelled like was welcome; it meant that the episode was over. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew when they were over, knew when no more tremors would rock her body. He always noticed something mundane like the scent of her hair or that one of his socks had a hole in it. After a bit Sasha’s eyes opened.
“Where… where am I?” she asked. It was common for her to have a hard time remembering what she had just been doing after an episode.
When he spoke he tried to speak softly, tried not to show the overwhelming relief that he felt. “On top of the hill having a picnic.”
She was silent for a bit, almost like her mind was catching itself up to the present.
“Oh now I remember. What am I doing on the ground covered in dirt, and why are you holding…” she trailed off as she realized what just happened.
“I had another episode, didn’t I?” her voice was full of fear and sadness. He knew if he could see her face there would be a look of worry on it.
“Yes.”
They sat up and Sasha looked at him. He could see her eyes filling with tears that began to roll down her cheeks.
“Why?” she sobbed. “Why does this happen to me?”
She buried her head in the crook of his neck and he felt her hot tears soak his shirt. He did not answer her questions; they were not meant to be answered. Legon kissed the top of her head and now felt his own tears welling up in his eyes. Why did she suffer like this? Was there some purpose to it? He didn’t know, and he didn’t share these feelings with her. She needed him to be strong, to be a protector. They both needed him to be that.
“I wish I could take this from you… I would do anything to make it stop… I would take it on myself if I could.” His voice sounded choked.
“I know you would.” Her tone turned bitter. “But then you would be a freak like me.”
Legon gently moved her back so he could look into her eyes. “Don’t you say that. You’re not a freak. I love you, sister, more than anything in this world. You know that don’t you?” There was warmth and firmness in his voice.
He would take it from her if he could, he would take it and so much more—anything to keep from seeing the pain in those eyes. He wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone; he wanted her to understand that as she suffered so did he, though not in the same way. He tried to convey this to her in his gaze.
* * * * *
Sasha turned her head. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“I know you do… and I you.” She smile
d a bit; she could almost feel the love and concern radiating from him. How does he do that? she thought to herself. It’s like he can make me feel his emotions. That was one of the wonderful things about Legon: he had an ability to comfort people and convey love in a way that was unimaginable.
They sat on the hill holding each other, both sad, both scared, and both more thankful for each other than the other could ever know.
It was for this reason that Sasha was not liked in town. Sure, people were polite to her most of the time, but the only person other than family members that was truly kind to her was the town carpenter, Arkin. Sasha had once had a friend that was good to her, but that girl was gone now. She had been taken by the queen’s tax collectors when her family could not pay. People in the town said that Sasha was a good girl, but that demons possessed her and caused these episodes.
“You’ll see one day, Legon. She’ll slit your throat when they take over,” a lady named Moleth said once. Sasha was two years older than Legon and should be married, but was not because none of the men in town were willing to risk it. “Yeah she’s a nice girl now,” they would say, or “Have a demon like that lying next to me? No thanks!” Her brother had gotten into many fights defending her from these attacks; his friends Kovos and Barnin would back Legon in fights and would defend her honor when Legon was not around. Both boys were a little uncomfortable around her. However, they weren’t sure about her themselves, but they were loyal friends and so they backed Legon. Still, the violence disgusted her. She was thankful for the protection, but she was sad that it was done because of her, even though to a large extent it was necessary.
Barnin had left seeking adventure a year or so ago. He was headstrong and had always wanted to find the resistance and join them. He wasn’t anything amazing on a physical level but he made up for it in determination and confidence.
All three boys were tough. In truth, one of the only reasons certain townsfolk hadn’t done anything violent to Sasha yet was that Legon’s dad was the town butcher and they were worried he would do something to their food if they hurt her, which was true. The other reason was that they were truly afraid of what Legon would do; no one in town had won a fight with him in years, and he helped his dad as a butcher, so he had all sorts of knives and cleavers to use if he saw fit.
Legon Awakening: Book One in the Legon Series Page 2