5 – 4

My journey down to breakfast this morning is one carefully made. Each step down the stairs is made with care, and I've braced a hand against the wall to compensate for this new ungainly quality in my limbs. That loose and molten sprawl I awoke in, warm and damp beneath my blankets, is without a doubt the cause. My arms feel heavier than they ought, in a way unlike the pained fatigue of a long labor's aftermath. My legs seem disinclined to obey their usual directive to keep me upright, obeying only after a wobbly show of reluctance. I'm just as eager to have done with it as I am for it to remain. A small, easy smile starts in the corners of my mouth and quirks them upward. I should think it's so tiny, so hard to see, that no one else will know of it.

This will all be a secret, for me alone to know and enjoy.

Down into the empty quiet of the taproom. In the light of the early morning, coming in rays through windows newly-cleaned of ash and soot, motes of dust drift among the naked tabletops, empty chairs, and upturned barstools. The bar itself, from which Agnes once held a nightly court, has seen little patronage in the past few days. The shelves behind it, in contrast, are rather bare. It seems that evening's drink is now to be down outside, where there's food, company, and clean air. It'll be harder for the drunkards to stink up the place, which I take as a blessing.

From behind the closed door to the kitchen I hear the faint sound of meat, sizzling on the pan. My nose tells me it's bacon, thickly cut and marbled with fat. Fresh bread, as well, most likely from Mallory Knott's dough. If there's bread, I should also think there's jams and butters to spread. Perhaps eggs as well, seasoned to perfection with pepper and salt? I'm reminded I haven't actually opened the door and seen for myself by the growing ache of my empty belly.

Inside, Agnes sits at a small table, her hands around a mug of some steaming-hot beverage. Her entire form carries an air of forced relaxation and patience: a mighty glower drawing her brow down over her steel-gray eyes, her heel drumming an agitated beat on the stone floor, and those keenly irritated eyes following the source of all this annoyance as it flits about what the old pillar clearly sees as her kitchen.

Though, I should say who. She ignores the daggers being stared into her back and hums quietly, a tune I recall as the one I danced to at Market Day. The ink-dark spill of her hair is contained this morning, pulled up and into a knot at the back of her head. The piece of ice, silver-trimmed, at the hollow of her throat gleams coolly in the morning light coming through the open back door. “Clarke?” I whisper, and though it is no louder than that, she somehow hears.

She tears her blue, blue eyes away from the frying bacon and has them on me in a hearbeat. They're as wide as I've ever seen them, and that surprise is as clear in the high, tight strangle of her voice when she says, “Zira! I –” She stops to clear her throat. Then she smiles at me, soft and sweet, and I can't help but smile back. Time passes before either of us recover, though not enough to burn the bacon.

Agnes looks from her to me, and back. A fey light enters those steel-gray eyes. A leaden foreboding settles into my gut. She's going to say or do something terrible, I just know it. What she does is this: grins, winks at me, and settles more comfortably into her chair.

The legs creak on the stone floor, prompting Clarke to flush a band of red across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose. She turns back to rescue the bacon and, without looking at me, asks, “Did you sleep well? You must tell me if you didn't.”

I shrug and answer, “Well enough, and you?”

She looks over her shoulder at me, blue eye a-glitter, a smug curl to her mouth. “Wonderfully,” she tells me, a slight purr to the word. Then she winks at me, the wretch, and turns back to her cooking. I make eye contact with Agnes. Helpfully, the old dwarf wiggles her brows at me and drinks from her mug.

Why am I being tormented? I am a dutiful daughter to my mother, a devout follower of the Lost! What could I have possibly done to deserve this?!

Perhaps out of pity for me, Agnes asks, “How's it lookings there, eh?”

“About done, I think,” Clarke answers, turning away from the stove. In each hand she holds a filled plate. The eggs look fluffy and seasoned to perfection with salt and pepper. The bread fresh and sliced generously to hold the most jam or butter it can. The bacon is piled in thick strips on the plate's edge. “Here you are,” she says, setting one down in front of Agnes. That's when I notice the third plate, carried through the open air on a bed of ice-white mist. It settles in front of the seat opposite Clarke, who's looking at me. “Sit, please,” she invites.

I do as bid, and see Agnes grin into her mug out of the corner of my eye. If I wasn't enjoying this so much, I'd find it irritating how much she is. Moonlight, if this is what it's like when Clarke's unsure of what she feels for me, I doubt I'll survive her being certain. I've not forgotten my manners, or my hunger, and so I give thanks before digging in. If my words come from a deeper, hoarser place in my throat, that's my business.

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- - -

The quiet under which breakfast passes is the sort where everyone is more concerned with filling their bellies than making conversation, where the only sounds are those of chewing, drinking, and the scrape-and-clatter of cutlery. There's a small jar of jam and a thick pat of warmed butter for the bread that I make generous use of. The eggs, dusted with salt and pepper, measure up to their appearance in their taste. Seasoned to perfection. The bacon is a little charred around the edges, and crispily better for it.

Partway through, Agnes shares of her tea with us, pouring the bitter drink from an old iron kettle into a pair of mugs. She drinks it plain, I discover, as does Clarke, but the dark brew has always been too bitter on my tongue for me to. Adding a splash of milk serves to sweeten it enough to suit my taste. If only I could drizzle in some honey. With none to be found, and in no mood to break the quiet to ask, I settle back into my chair and lift the mug to my lips.

The bittersweet drink helps settle my sated, well-fed belly. The distant clamor of Valdenwood's new morning sounds come through the opened back door, drifting on a cool, gentle breeze. Wagons on the rattle, filled with fresh lumber and charred cinder alike, wheels rolling on the cobbled-stone roads. The thump and thunder of hammerheads, the gnawing rasp of sawteeth, and the shoutful bickering of builders with ideas. Better that than the hateful roar of flame and the howling blast of its burning, ash-choked wind.

In thinking of the fire I'm once more reminded of the dream that preceded it. I dreamed of the elk that found me when I was lost and led me to the road, only its shape was not wholly that of an elk. It stood on two furred legs, with a man's bared chest and arms, golden skin inked by lines and whorls of green. Only its head remained, vastly antlered and majestic. It told me, shouted at me, to let nothing be assumed. Then it bade me wake, and I did to a town aflame.

Clarke believes the elk to be a spirit of the woods; an ancient being of power, wisdom, and pride. She's correct to. I knew from the moment it found me that there was more to it than met the eye. How could there not be? No true elk would share its warmth with a lost and foolish girl on a cold, wet autumn's night. No wild beast would lower itself to help her stand, nor let her use it as a crutch so she may walk. It chose to do these things.

It chose me, and I haven't even the beginning of an idea as to why. I don't even know what it meant by those words. Were they a warning? A command? I reach the bottom of my mug and set it down on the tabletop so that I may frown at it. In last night's dream, Edith believed them to hold an element of both, that I should doubt the common knowledge and find out for myself how the fire began. Clarke's only certainty was that it would be stupid to ignore the words of a spirit.

Surely there must be someone else, someone more suited to such a task. “Zira?” such a person asks, a note of growing concern in her voice. I look up from my furrowed contemplation and see her looking at me with her distractingly blue eyes. “You've been lost in thought,” Clarke says, then leans over the table and lowers her voice, “Is it about last night?”

“Yes,” I answer, just as quietly. There's no reason for quiet. Agnes is nowhere to be found. It just seems that quiet is called for when discussing something shared while so closely entwined. “Why did the spirit come to me?” I ask. “It could have – it should have gone to you, or Edith, or anyone.”

The smile she gives me is short and apologetic. “They're inscrutable by nature. Even if you tracked it down and asked, I doubt it would explain itself. Which isn't – I know that's not helpful, but...” She shrugs, the gesture helpless, and says no more.

I return my frown to the tabletop and the slow, pensive revolutions of my empty mug in my hands. “I think,” I say, after a long moment, “that Edith may be right, and we – and I should...investigate how the fire started. I think that's what the spirit meant.” My own rise and fall of shoulders is as helpless as hers. “But...I don't know for sure.”

Clarke reaches across the space between us and covers my hand with hers. Her touch is cool, smooth, and sure. It's reassuring, and I give thanks through a quick smile, little more than a quirk of my lips. “I'll help you,” she offers. Then, with a curl of her mouth, “Edith will, too. It's her idea, after all, so it's the least she can do.”

Warmth blooms soft and sweet in my heart. It lifts my head and the furrow of my brow and I laugh. “That it is,” I agree. There's only one question that remains. “Where do we start?”

“The fishery,” Clarke answers without hesitation. She must see my surprise and, to its furthering, her shoulders hunch and a flush spreads across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose. “I...may have been part of some gossiping before dinner last night.” I laugh again, and the flush deepens in color from pink to red. She huffs and falls back into her chair, folding her arms. “Stop it!” she protests, despite the smile she's failing to keep hidden. “I was just – there was a lull in patients at the hospice tent, and I couldn't help but overhear, and the next thing I knew I was – it's not funny!”

It was, though, and truly.What made it all the better was how clearly pleased she was. After so long, it was Clarke they'd wanted, and not the magi. How could I not laugh?

Coda

Does his best to bite down on what's sure to be a miserable fit of coughing. Doesn't quite manage, and it sure enough is terrible. Damn near bends him in half. Digs a handkerchief out of his pocket and tries to muffle the noise. If she catches wind he left again, he won't have any peace. At least You's good for leaning on, though the animal takes it with its usual grace. Makes a sound as if its mightily put-upon and tries to turn back and bite him. Too far away for that, so those yellowed teeth don't even get his hat. Fit ends and he unfolds from it, stuffing the kerchief back in a pocket and looking around to see if he's been found. His luck's holding. She's nowhere to be found.

Trades nods with one of the younger boys who insisted they be the ones to carry most of the heavy shit. Been filling his cart for a good twenty minutes now, bringing soaked and charred bits of wood from all over the place. Once it's full, he'll get You to pull it out to where a different group of younger boys is turning it all into charcoal. Probably good money to be made selling that around the Towns. He'll have to look into it once things, and his lungs, settle down.

Shit, but he's feeling old these days. It was that last bit at the well, had to be. Come pretty close to packing it in, or so she says. Moments like just now, when he starts seeing spots from not breathing? Believes her.

Then there's a terrible sound. Just awful. Worst thing he ever heard. “You!” someone shouts. He groans aloud and drops his head. Knows that voice. Knows it all too well. Turns around and, sure enough, there she is. Got Zira and Agnes' girl with her. Powerful irritated look on her face. Marches over and damn near puts his eye out with her pointy finger. “What are you doing here, Harlan?! You should be in bed!”

Shrugs. Younger boys are keeping their distance from this. Smart. Zira's grinning, fit to beat all, and Agnes' girl – Edith – goes off to start poking around the place. If she's looking for something left before the fire, he wishes her luck. If not, the moonlit hell's she doing?

“Don't you shrug at me!” She shouts. Getting pretty worked up, which he's finding funny. All the trouble she gives him, she's due her own. “Don't you –!” she cuts herself off and shrieks. Throws her hands up and walks away.

Zira's got a look on her face. Says she's about to be a brat. “Alright, there?” she asks.

Yep. He was right.