It hadn’t taken us more than ten minutes for the caravan to pull into our first stop of the night. Having parked the carts and dismounted, the troupe and I were now stood in a haphazard line, out front of Fellorne’s last working grain mill. I was caught up between the brutes to my rear and the apprentice puppet masters at my front. We all waited our turn to fill our personal flour pouches from the open sack of powdered grain resting at Boss Strise’s feet.
I looked up at the slow moving blades of the windmill. The long beams and fabric sheets of each arm gracefully passing in and out of the lantern light around the base of the imposing structure. All around the property, workers were busy offloading and on loading sacks of flour and grain. They marched like ants in a tight file from carts, to warehouse, to the mill and then all in reverse and back again in an endless war to meet the capitol’s demand for bread.
At the head of the flour line, Icarus and his brood were just finishing up. I’d noticed that they had loaned a spare pouch to Persephone and Morte and mentally kicked myself for not thinking to gather them more supplies for our journey. The little family waited for their two recently adopted members to fill their sack before the lot of them made their way toward the stone well, which sat back against the mill owner’s house.
The trio of masked birds moved a few steps forward while Mirrin nudged Shay out of his way to fill his pouch before her.
I went to take the open space in front of me but felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey now, Sorrel dear,” cooed Reginald, “What’s with you being back in loner land all of a sudden?”
“Was it maybe something I said?” asked Trilles, “I know I kinda tend to run my mouth a lot without thinking. And anyways I hope I didn’t say anything that upset you or anything. You know, Sorrel pal, if I did I’m real sorry. Words are just real hard to get right sometimes, I guess.”
These guys...I turned to face them. It seemed like they were just going to keep throwing me off like that from now on. So it looked like I had no choice but to at least try and embrace the change.
“Hey, come on now,” I said with a gentle smile, “It’s just a lot for a person to adjust to so suddenly. It’s not that I don’t want to start spending some time properly getting to know you all. It’s just like you said, Trilles, words are hard to get right. And it’s been a long while since I’ve talked this much with anyone. I guess, just for right now, I need a little time and some space to think and wrap my head around a few things.”
I trailed off into silence and the others stared at my thoughtfully for a moment. Charlie had a particularly intense look come across his face.
“Say you was riding up with that pretty strider,” said Charlie suddenly, “You think she’s be faster than my new horse?”
“Huh?” came Garris, “Charlie, what’re you on about now?”
“In a race, I mean,” Charlie responded as if it were obvious.
“Charlie...” Garris groaned.
“In a race?” I asked while mulling it over, “Well I guess with six legs a horse might have an advantage in an all out sprint, but when she’s at her top speed Princess can leap extremely far. So I guess it would mostly come down to where we were racing. On a straight road like the Main Line I don’t really think you’d be able to keep up.”
“Hold on a minute, sweetie,” came Reginald to cut off my rambling, “That big thing’s name is Princess?!”
“I don’t know what to tell you other than that’s what Patrina- The woman who hatched her chose to name her. And in my opinion there is a certain majesty to a dragon so I think it fits.”
I was starting to tread into dangerous territory with this conversation.
“So her name’s Princess,” said Charlie, “She usually only ever hisses at me when I try reaching out with my mana. But I always kinda thought maybe there was a reason why she looks happy when she can see you, Sorrel. Was you and this Patrina a special kind of friends?”
“I uh-” I stammered meekly.
“For fuck sake, Charles,” came the sharp voice of Zen, “Look at this situation. Do you really think now is a good time to ask the man about something like that?”
The short, bald man was glaring at Charlie, incredulous and with his thick arms folded over his barrel of a chest. When he spoke the golden hoops he wore on each earlobe shook to punctuate his harsh rebuke.
“Really, Charlie,” added Garris, “You ain’t never heard of this Miss Patrina like the rest of us either until just now haven’t you? Even a half wit ought to know asking him about that’s going to be a touchy subject knowing that the woman ain’t here. Y’damn fool.”
Charlie looked down at his feet, utterly dejected as his four friends berated him on my behalf.
“Hey, listen,” I told them while looking at Charlie, “I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but Garris is right. The subject isn’t easy for me. Patrina and I. We were very close for a long time. Now, every time our troupe stops at Shimmer, all I can do is visit her and pay my respects. And that’s all I’d care to say on the matter for the time being, alright?”
The others turned their gazes down sadly while Charlie turned his up to meet my eyes. They were a brilliant blue that glinted with tears. He snorted back a bubble of snot and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
“Sorrel,” he said, “I’m real sorry for not thinkin’. Just know that so long as I’ve got it, there’s always gonna be a spot for you in my wagon, pal.”
“HEY YOU USELESS SHITS!,” hollered Boss, “If you don’t quit your damn fool talk and hurry your asses over here I’m closing this here bag. Ya hear me, ya damn brainless knuckle dragging sons’a’slimes?!”
I nodded for Garris, Trilles, Reginald and Zen to go on ahead of us while keeping my eyes fixed on Charlie. Much as I’d feared, the conversation had gotten painfully awkward. And I couldn’t just leave things to settle like that. Not when we’d be taking it all back to the road with us.
“Listen, Charlie, I know you feel guilty right now. But can we try to move passed that a moment?” I asked, “The thing is, I’m curious to know where that question about racing came from? If I’m not mistaken, it almost came across like you were challenging me to one.”
“Oh that? Well you know how my mana helps me’n’most critters to understand each other so-”
“Wait, so that’s how it works?” I interrupted, “I thought it just made most species obey you?”
“Obey me?” he said with a sudden laugh, “Oh no, not at all. I just talk to ‘em with my mana and ask if we can be friends is all. But yeah, that’s why I know Miss Princess doesn’t really care about nobody but you.”
“I-is that right?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” he continued, “And that’s how come I know she misses going for runs with you through the trees. Not that she minds pulling that cart neither but I’ll tell ya, Sorrel, she’d be a lot happier if you were at the reigns from time to time.”
“She wants to run,” I said more to myself than to Charlie.
“And so I reckon you were right, Mr. Sorrel, I was trying to figure out if I could challenge you to a race. But it’s only ‘cause that snarky strider of yours has been taunting me’n’my new friend since I brought her around last moon. So now Lillabelle’n’me are fixin’ to put that Princess in her place. Er, with all due respect of course.”
Behind us Garris was very slowly pouring flour into his pouch while using his magic to listen in. I could feel his mana gently vibrating through the ground and picking up our hushed sound waves. He was sneaky, but not sneaky enough to pass unnoticed through my own highly sensitive magic.
If I had an audience then I’d best perform.
“Listen, Charlie,” I said while clapping my hand down on his shoulder, “I can get where you’re coming from. I really can. But if you think you and your horse stand a chance against me and that land dragon then you’ve got another thing coming to you, pal.”
I tightened my grip and we both narrowed our eyes.
“Oh is that so, Fellin’wood?” he asked with an uncharacteristic confidence.
“On the Goddess, I swear that it is,” I proclaimed.
I released my grip and for a beat we just looked at each other with a competitive aura thick in the space between us.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Tonight?” he asked.
“We let our creatures rest while we set up camp and then you’re on,” I answered.
We both shook on it and smirked at each other.
From behind my back, Garris shouted to hurry our asses up if we wanted our road rations. Charlie and I both jumped to attention and hurried over, pouches in hand and tension forgotten. Somehow I’d made my way through yet another conversation. Though I sincerely hoped that resolving them all with a challenge wouldn’t become a trend in my future.
After filling my pouch, I joined Garris and the others by the well. We took turns hauling up buckets and filling our waterskins and canteens. They made idle small talk among themselves about this or that while letting me keep to myself.
I could feel a new awkward tension in the air and I wasn’t really sure how to dispel it, short of charming my new friends. Something that I’d already decided against doing unless absolutely necessary. For now it seemed best to just let it be. I poured the old water out from both my skins and then plunged them down into the bottom of a full bucket. Holding them down until the bubbles stopped rising up to the surface.
The guys? The lads? Brute squad didn’t really fit right any longer, I’d decided. Whatever I was going to call them going forward, Garris and his crew gave me a cheery farewell which I knew for certain was forced. They made there way to the rear wagon and I made mine toward Princess and the middle cart.
When I jumped up on the bench beside him, the sparrow didn’t so much as turn his head. I put my flour pouch and the two plump skins of water into my pack, which sat on the bench between the sparrow and I. When I held my left hand out for the reigns he made no objection and offered them to me freely. They felt right at home being back in my hand after such a long time.
From ahead, inside the covered wagon, Boss rang his bell to signal it was time to leave.
The lead wagon started moving forward and I called for Princess to follow. She turned her head back, almost seeming surprised to hear me, and blinked her crimson globes twice while staring at me. She flicked out her forked tongue and licked one of her eyes. Then she swung her neck back around and took off with an added spring to her step.
The sparrow and I weren’t quite ready for it and the motion pulled us together over the top of my pack. He made a disgruntled twittering sound before sitting bolt upright and raising a hand to cover the beak over his mouth.
“Huh, strange,” I said to nobody, “There aren’t usually many night birds outside of the forests.”
The sparrow nodded appreciatively while continuing to look forward.
Princess trundled us along, off of the mill owner’s property, and back onto the road. There would potentially be just one more stop before our caravan would keep rolling on, for several long hours without rest. But that would only happen if there were campers waiting for a ride at Fellorne’s Eastern Hitch.
Boss Strise was always more than happy to add a few wanderers to our caravan so long as they had the coin to spare. And it really was very dangerous to travel the roads without a decent number of companions. In particular during the night.
Of course when it came to old Boss, the price he usually asked was unreasonably steep so we only occasionally found ourselves with short term company joining us.
Princess snapped up another mouthful of night flies, leaving a trail of glowing drool spots dotted along the road behind us. Up ahead I could see where the fields of Fellorne ended and an ocean of trees began. We would be entering the Eastern Fellwoods in a matter of minutes. The forest from which I was given my second name, from the first family that I’d ever known.
Seeing as thinking of my past had been all I’d really done when alone of late, I saw no reason not to get a little lost in another memory. At least until we reached the Hitch.
------
It had been during one of my earliest successful lives, nearly nine hundred years ago, after I had finally learned how to hunt beasts and fight the terrors of the Frontier Woods. Back then all I’d seen of humans was their bloody war in the barrens, west of the treeline and my nursery grove. My instincts told me it was better to not wander close.
Instead I spent several seasons slowly migrating east, hoping to get far away from the humans and their fighting. I had wanted to find others like myself. There was something within my mana that had told me that they were out there. All I had to do was seek them out. I knew that if I scoured the forests long enough then eventually I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.
It was a belief that I clung to like how humans worshiped the legend of Marinclay. Something which I would come to learn of in time and after making a fateful blunder.
I was very curious, the first time I came across a trap made from human ingenuity and magic. A faintly glowing ring of green light set into the ground with a fresh cut of meat at its centre. Fool that I was, I walked right on in just to check it out while securing myself a free meal.
Before I could reach for the meat, my body tensed up and started quivering. Sparks of mana rocked through the whole of my being and sent me flying into the air.
I’d lost consciousness after hitting my head on a tree during the landing.
The party of adventurers who’d set the trap were kind enough to clean me up and dress my injuries after the accident. Rallis Marrowroot had been among them. He called himself a ranger and when he had lowered his hood to show me his ears I remember crying.
After our first meeting I spent many moons camped out in a cave in that same part of the woods. Eventually I would learn that it was in a place called the Fellwoods, about two moons by foot, north from a place they called the Capitol.
That party would come visit me regularly, at least once every four to ten moons, bringing me food, clothing and other gifts. The cleric, Sister Helsumine Claris, would sit with me and teach me the sounds of different words in the Wooded Realm’s common language. Often times she’d clutch at the charm of the life tree she wore around her neck and muttered prayers to the Goddess in frustration. But ultimately she only acted warmly toward me. They were all the same in that regard.
It was Rallis who taught me how to properly feel my mana and direct its flow. As I learned how to speak, and eventually to read and to write from Sister Helsumine, Rallis would eventually teach me much more. He taught me about our connection and the place where our dreams came from. He also taught me that we were constantly in danger if the wrong humans learned that we were elves. I was reassured by the kindest of the three who knew our secret.
The other members of the party, Theo Moore and Ventis Buckway, also insisted on tutoring me in their own unique ways. Theo taught me how to wrestle and how to brawl, mostly by constantly knocking me to the ground and then walking me back through his motions. Ventis, on the other hand, was a strict and serious tutor in the art of the spear.
We would fight for hours, and in between lessons Sister Helsumine would treat my injuries while lecturing me for always taking brawling more seriously than her own teachings. And in the off time I would be caught up in discussions with my newly found brother, Rallis.
That persistent lot just didn’t have it in them to leave me alone. By the time Winter was rearing his bitter face I’d finally made up my mind to join them. The last time they visited me in that cave, deep in the northern Fellwoods, I had already stowed most of my possessions inside the pack they had given me. I remember greeting them with it slung on my back and reaching for the hands of brother Rallis and Sister Helsumine.
They had all seemed relived to finally be free from marching out there to check in on me. It was decided fairly quickly after that that I’d be joining the party as a back line supporter. But to register with the Adventurers Guild I would need a full name.
“Well we found you fallen down in the Fellwoods,” Theo had said jokingly, “And Rallis is called Marrowroot because he nearly bled out on our first adventure. So how about Fellingwood? Fitting isn’t it?”
And that really had been all that was needed for it to stick. That chosen name that I’d clung to across each of my lives. After parting ways with my first family it was the only real tribute I could make for them by keeping it. But that was a memory I doubted I’d ever be ready to look back on fully.
------
When I broke away from my recollection I looked around to see that we’d entered into a world of trees. Branches mostly bare while the earliest risers had small clusters of budding leafs sprouting off from their tips.
Over the centuries I’d wonder, just on occasion, what ever became of Rallis and the others, despite trying to push that time away inside my head. If my sacrifice in the Fool Lord’s Tomb had at least given them a chance to escape. But Ventis was badly poisoned and Sister Helsumine was already-
No. I just couldn’t. Never that memory.
Unfortunately I seldom met the same elf twice. And the name Rallis Marrowroot was a name not a single one of them had ever heard.
I leaned back and rolled my neck from side to side. Looking up, I noticed that the flaming serpent skull was staring right at me. I turned to face to sparrow and saw he was facing me as well. His head tilted to the side.
I realized that my expression was extremely somber and tried to play it off with a yawn. His aura told me that the sparrow wasn’t buying it. Now, the other members of the troupe taking an interest in me was one thing, but since when had I been worth the notice of the bird masks? They only interacted with each other. Outside of that you were lucky to get a polite nod.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” I told him, “I was just doing a little thinking, back on moons long since gone by. And I’m not so distracted as to run our cart off the road.”
He nodded at me and turned forward again. Apparently satisfied with my response.
I started to have a thought then, right on the edge of my mind, only to lose it as Boss Strise’s bell rang out through the darkness and puppet light. We were coming up on the hitch and it looked like we were fixing to make a quick stop after all.
Princess didn’t need me to guide her to the side of the road but I held the reigns and pretended like I was in control all the same. We came to a stop along the edge of a broad clearing.
The Eastern Hitch was a collection of six tiny, highly rundown, log cabins. Each came equipped with two cots and a wood stove. There was a hole dug deep into the ground, in a shed far off to the back of the lot, for people to take care of their business in.
It definitely wasn’t the sort of place that most people would want to find themselves stuck at for long. Not unless they were truly desperate to get somewhere else in a hurry and without paying the usual rates for safe travel. Most Hitches along the roads were the same as this one, though the ones outside the capitol tended to be in worse shape due to how many wanderers came passing through them on a regular basis.
Once our caravan came fully to a rest I made a curious glance over to our potential joiners. In a thin cluster of cloaked figures one person in particular caught my attention.
They were a small creature with a bit of a hunch to their posture. Scaly grey hands protruded from the sleeves of their burlap cloak and gripped a dented old lantern. The battered old light had a faintly blue tinted mana flame dancing around inside of it.
Things suddenly seemed like they might get a touch more interesting if my little curseling savior from the slums was to be joining us going forward. But then, when it came to dealing with curselings, the first rule to remember was to always expect the unexpected.
Still, I had it on fairly good authority that Garris wasn’t going to like seeing this curseling again. Least of all if they happened to be join us for the next leg of our endless journey across the realm.