10 – 6

Everyone's looking at me now.

Quite the reversal from earlier.

The ringing of my snarled words sounds loudly in the quiet that follows them. I meet their looks in turn, daring each one of them to show disapproval or reproach. They'll get no apology from me. I was right to say it. I was right. I am of the Royah. Never, not once in sixteen years of lesson and learned history at my mother's knee have we ever been put first.

Outsiders and afterthoughts, always. The last of the eyes I meet are Juliana's. The narrow squint of her blue-dark eyes stays unchanged. She understands. I know she does, I saw it. She has begged as I beg, so why would she bid me do nothing? Why would she ask me to stay away? How could she? She knows. It feels like a betrayal, and hurts much the same. Seconds drag out. Half a minute, then one in full. Blue-dark eyes peering into mine, seeing what she put in them.

Juliana stands, not of a sudden, but slow. She rises and rises from her seat until she fills the room with the breadth of her shoulders and the rich strength of her voice. “Will you walk with me?” she asks. I want to accept as much as refuse, to deny her as she has denied me. That is the act of a child, and I am meant to be grown. So, I nod my agreement and loosen my hold on Clarke. Pull away from her as Juliana tucks her helm in her arm's crook and tells the rest, “We'll be just outside.”

I follow her out into the late morning, blinking the bright-burn tears from my eyes until they adjust. It seems Morrow had built his home across the road from his tavern. He could keep a weather eye on it from his front room, should he so wish. There's a open-top wagon in front of us, its bed halfway filled with crates and burlap sacks. A draft horse with a coat of pale tan and thick, white fetlocks stands in harness. It's massive, and beautiful. It wisps an oddly short tail from side-to-side as it lips at the long, stringy weeds growing in clumps at the roadside.

There's a short, soft laugh from beside and far, far above me. Crane my head back to see Juliana's smile. The full one, not the little quirk from earlier. The force of it collides with the fear, the anger, and the pride in my heart. Little ground is given in either direction. “What?” I demand to know, “Why are you smiling?”

With a tilt of her head, she points to the horse in harness. “Do you want to meet him?”

I do, but, “That – can't – be why you brought me out here.”

“It's not,” she admits freely, “but there's no reason we can't do both.” There's some feeling in her blue-dark eyes, hidden well. I don't know what it is, or why she's offering. “Come,” she tells me, “I'll introduce you.”

The horse lifts his head at our approach, grinding a weedstalk between his large, flat teeth. He takes our measure with a huge, softly brown eye. A great, gusty snort flies from his wide nostrils, and he taps the edge of a plate-sized hoof on the ground. He does it again, and there's something familiar about it. I hold my flat palm out to be inspected, the short hairs of his snout tickling over my skin. The smell, sight, and feel of him fills my senses. I breathe it in deep, feel it spread to the furthest inch of me, and smile. “Hello there,” I murmur, running my hand up his snout. An ear larger than my head flicks at the sound of my voice. “What mighty name do they call you?”

Something proud, I should think. Proud, and as powerful as he.

“Peanut,” Juliana answers. I turn on her. That hidden feeling is still there, only now there's amusement, too. No small amount of it.

“This horse is named Peanut,” I say, flat and disbelieving. She nods. “Who named – this – horse Peanut?”

“Well, I did.” With why writ large across my face, she grins and explains, “Doesn't he look like one?” She runs her hand down Peanut's thick, broad neck. The muscle beneath his hide jumps and twitches at her touch.

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“Not at all,” I answer.

She hums her laughter, “No, I suppose he doesn't anymore.” To Peanut, “But you won't answer to anything else, will you? So we're all stuck with it.”

He noses at my pockets, in search of treats. He'll not find any, though I dearly wish otherwise. “I named my family's mules,” I offer, scratching the space between his eyes. Juliana hums, attentive and curious. “Soulful and Doleful. I was little, and they just – they whined and grumbled all the time, so...I thought it fitting.”

“You thought rightly, I'm sure,” she agrees. A peaceful minute passes, where there's only the two of us and the mighty Peanut's calming presence. Then, with that well-hidden feeling in her eyes, she asks me, “Are you alright?”

- - -

I concern myself with scratching the underside of Peanut's jaw, where his bridle would itch and chafe him the most. Not that he'd show any sign of it, proud beast that he is. No, he'd bear it in silence, wouldn't he? He prods my chest with his nose, rocking me back on my heel. Warm, pungent horse-breath washes down my front. Amusement tugs at the corner of my mouth. Maybe not, then. I take a deep breath of my own. Let it out slow, and leave Juliana's question hanging in the air between us.

We're all safe now, alive and healing. The bramble-beast is ash on the wind. I'm forgiven for the hurt I gave to Clarke. She's not leaving. Reasons aplenty for me to be alright. The crunch-squeak of dirt beneath a pressing boot pulls me away from my study of Peanut's forelock. He's managed to get a burr stuck in it, the silly thing. I see her in the corner of my eye, looking at me with that hidden feeling revealed.

It's worry. She's worried about me. She wants to help me. She has helped me, and that's why I can tell her, “I don't know,” It feels like a confession of sin. I should be, shouldn't I? “I'm sorry, I...I don't know.”

“That's fine,” she tells me, her rich voice gentle, “It's a lot, isn't it?”

I nod. “Yes,” I murmur.

“You've already dealt with so much,” she tells me, regret on her tongue, “I should've thought of that before I said anything.” I snap my eyes up to hers. It's there, too. Regret.

Perhaps she should have. Perhaps I shouldn't have snapped at her. My words were right to say. Perhaps how I said them was not. “They're my people,” I say, “I'd rather know than not.”

“So would I,” she agrees, with a kind of knowing sorrow. It would seem we both suffer from the same compulsion: to set a wrong to rights when we learn of it, and doing otherwise pains us. That might be why she became a knight. “Back inside, you said my knights and I wouldn't put your people first. What made you say that?”

For a long moment, I look at her. There was neither accusation nor outrage in her question. She's not trying to protect the reputation of the Fort or salve a wounded pride. She doesn't know, and she wants to. So I tell her, “Because it's never happened before.”

“Never?” she asks, and doesn't sound surprised.

I shake my head. “Not once.” Always the stranger, always the outsider, everywhere we go.

For a long moment, she looks at me. I don't know what she's looking for, or what she finds. Then she asks, “How do I make you believe me when I promise to keep your people safe?”

Peanut snorts and taps the edge of his great, stomping hoof on the ground. The same one as before. Seeing it again, I now recognize the gesture for what it is. Without looking at her I say, “He's got a shoe coming loose. He'll throw it soon if you don't get it seen to.”

“I'll be sure to,” she replies, then softly asks, “Will you answer me?”

I look back to her, to the narrow squint of her blue-dark eyes and the magnificent breadth of her shoulders. “You said, back inside, that things were good for now, but they won't be for long. How long?”

She lifts those powerful shoulders in a shrug. “If nothing's done...maybe a month.”

It won't be a month. It won't be. I'm certain of it, though I don't know how or why. “Get me to Port Viara,” I say, and again I tell her, “The Royah there...they're waiting for me. They won't leave until I meet them. If you want me to believe you, then get me there, and keep them safe until they're gone.”

Coda

The kid looks up at her, all haunted and hopeful. Scared half to death, too, for her people. More bruised than the greenest squire there ever was. Juliana would know. She'd seen them every time she looked in a mirror. What kind of folk were these Royah, anyway? Who sends their kids out into all of this alone, and why? Toughen them up? Get rid of the ones they don't like.

No, that's unkind. She can't help herself, when kids are involved. They're so damned small, she gets...protective.

Look at this one! Not one day out from fighting for her life, and here she is looking to throw herself back in! Asking Juliana to rush her down to the Port, like one little girl can do anything about all the ugly brewing there.

Who's the bigger idiot, though? The one asking, or the one considering it? Looking down at her, skinny and exhausted, holding onto to Peanut for dear life, Juliana knows the kid's going south. She's seen that look enough times in a mirror.

So, yeah, looks like Juliana's going south, too. Someone has to make sure the kid gets there. Kids, she should say, because there's no way that magi's going to let the kid go alone. Not with the way she looks at her, holds onto her. The Fort'll be fine without her. She'll get Jer to take the wagon back, write a message.

She hated writing. All the pens are too small.