July 2023 ver.
“So.” They had been walking long enough that Avery was bored. “Grandpa was never going to leave the shop just to you?”
Devin huffed at him with a roll of green eyes, “No, idiot. He was testing you.”
He exaggerated his frustration, “That rat bastard! I was losing my mind over that game!” He knew neither were particularly used to him swearing since he tried to keep it clean at home. His kin snickered at his use of language.
They pressed onward, breaking free of the woodland canopy into much more sporadically treed hills. It didn’t take long for the sun to start cooking his head. White hair didn’t offer much protection. The boy flipped up his hood. It clipped some of his view of the sky, but it kept the heat off his scalp.
“You okay back there?” Rowan glanced over a shoulder.
The siblings were panting as they followed. The younger complained, “Why is there so much uphill?”
He could hear his cousin’s amusement, “There’s a reason people call it ‘the hills’. If you go far enough it’ll turn into mountains.”
“We don’t have to go into the mountains do we?” Avery felt as apprehensive as ever.
The young man gave a single laugh, “Right. You two definitely aren’t ready for mountains. It’d freeze your tails off without the right equipment. Should get you some real bedrolls before we tackle that too. Where we’re going is pretty close to the base of the range though. We should be there early tomorrow. Figure we’ll spend a day or two if everything is going well. After that it’s straight to Marion.”
Devin asked, “How long will that take?”
“Meh, a week?” She and Avery stumbled at this information. At least they would get to rest at this village. Or so he hoped.
“Which there’s something I should tell you guys.” Rowan spun around, walking backwards so he could talk face to face with them. His steps didn’t miss a beat on the incline. “Ideally I’d tell you closer to Marion, but I don’t want to forget because it’s serious. So I’ll say it now and remind you again later. As we get closer to Marion I need you two to stay close and aware. It should be fine, but I don’t want us making a stupid mistake either.” Avery exchanged worried expressions with Devin.
“O-okay?” Her grip on her bag had her white knuckled.
“Don’t get me wrong, the mix of species in Marion is great, but there’s a big problem that comes with that reputation. That’s traffickers.”
Avery frowned at him. That didn’t sound so scary, “Traffickers?”
“Yeah. They kidnap people. Anyone who doesn’t pass as human is usually a prime target.”
“Oh.” Avery self-consciously placed a hand over one of his ears. “Why do they do that though? Wh-what do they do with them?”
He didn’t like the look on Rowan’s face when he answered with a shake of the head, “It’s bad so I’d rather not say in detail. All you need to know is they sell people like property, so they treat them like property, and so do their buyers. Replaceable property. I’m not trying to scare you. You see, if we do encounter someone like that we’re actually well prepared. Their favorite tactic is ambushing people with magic. Like sleeping spells. That’s why gramps’ insists on all that mental training.” A confident smirk grew, “So those types of tactics don’t work on us.”
Avery stopped cold, “But. I didn’t finish.”
Devin and Rowan slowed too. His eyes flicked between them in his mounting unease. His sister prompted for details, “I thought you were training every Monday with him?”
“Well, yeah, we started. But I didn’t finish. Grandpa never cleared me.”
Rowan paled, “Oh. Oh shit, that’s bad.”
“I thought you weren’t trying to scare us!?” Avery slung the accusation.
His cousin replied with a toss of the hands, “I’m not, but that’s really bad!” Avery’s nerves frayed further and further as Rowan whipped himself to and fro. The mage muttered obscenities under his breath as he paced in a downright neurotic manner as he tried to work out some kind of plan. He’d never witnessed him like this. Devin’s ears had pressed flat. She’d never seen this of him either. Their elder’s hand swiped back into his own brown locks, pulling them from his face. Rowan stopped with a nod, turned to them, and gave a firm, “Okay.” He relinquished his hair. His blue gaze resettled on Avery. “We’ll… just have to finish your training on the road.”
“Wait wha-?”
“Sleep.”
x x x
Avery jerked his head up and stumbled forward over his own feet. He could hardly walk straight. The downhills quickly became half sliding down them.
‘Rowan has knocked me out seven times now.’ It was with magic, but that still had to be bad for you, right? He missed training with grandpa. His cousin’s tactics bordered on brutality. In fact, he was pretty sure sleeping spells were Rowan’s other expertise. How was he supposed to fend them off?
They made him take the front so he wouldn’t fall over and get left behind by accident. They had taken his bag for him at least. However, they also had to push back their ETA. Each time he failed to resist a spell their arrival time inched closer to noon.
“So did you leave a special someone behind?” Rowan was clearly prying into Devin’s life while Avery couldn’t offer commentary lest he lose focus and fall on his face.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Eh? N-no.” His sister sounded flustered from simply being asked.
“Really? No one?” He was surprised. The mage teased her, “That blushing says otherwise...”
“I swear! I don’t have any reason to hide something like that.” His ear flicked. She still sounded pretty self-conscious.
“But…” their cousin was readily confused, “you’re funny and cute, anyone would be lucky to have a girl like you.”
There was some beating around the bush from her until she finally confessed, “Well. The problem is,” Avery would bet a silver his sister was twiddling her thumbs again, “I’m not really into the boys around my age. But I’m not going to go for someone way older than me either, you know? It’s kind of frustrating… It’s like what I look for and what I’m ready for are two vastly different things.”
Rowan sighed her pain for her, “I know that feeling actually. It was kind of the same for me. I wasn’t really, I guess you could say invested, in anyone when I left. But there was certainly a girl I noticed.”
His sister was incredibly intrigued by this information. Actually, he was too. They didn’t get much family gossip to pass around with only four of them. “Ooo~h?” Devin pried back for them both with a wavering note of interest.
“Yeah… the baker’s daughter. Tia. Gorgeous bright blonde hair. Most perfectly full b- uh. Voice! Full voice! I loved hearing her sing. Still one of the best I’ve ever heard.” ‘Voice?’ Avery wondered when the heck he would have heard that woman sing. “I know she’s older than me by a good amount, but I still think about coming back after all of this and asking if she’d give me a chance. Though I don’t know if I’m the marrying type so maybe that’s not fair of me to ask her.”
“Uh.” His sister was sorry to have to tell him the bad news. “Rowan… I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but wasn’t she already engaged back then?”
He was downright wounded, perhaps aghast, “W-was she?”
“I mean it was six years ago or so. So I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure she got married that year. I remember it being really hard to go anywhere on our street the day they tied the knot. I can say for sure she’s definitely already baking the third bun if you know what I mean.”
The words fell out of him by this point in his defeat, “I do know what you mean… but couldn’t you let me keep the fantasy?”
She was sweeter than a peach, “Oh, Rowan. No!” Avery’s ear swiveled when Rowan’s pace fell uneven for a couple steps. Devin had shoved him for good measure.
He recovered with a laugh at himself, “It is pretty silly to expect someone who didn’t even know you existed to wait for over half a decade.”
But Avery’s question lingered, “So I’d like to know, when would you have heard her sing?”
“What do you mean? She sang all the time! I’d volunteer to run to the bakery just to hear her. Sometimes she sang in the square too. And again I’d say she’s one of the best I’ve heard perform there. Granted that Terring doesn’t exactly have a long list of folks competing to perform.”
Devin’s voice deflated once more, his explanation sad to hear because, “I don’t think she does any more.”
“It’s probably hard to find time with a husband and a third kid on the way. Life has a way of sweeping you along.” A brief intermission of silence. “Does she own the shop now too?”
“No, I think she had to start helping out with whatever her husband does.”
“What does he do?”
“Does it sound like I know? I would have said if I know.”
“Fair enough.” Their cousin broke into a jog to take to Avery’s side. “Moving on, I’d like to ask you, Avery…” He glared at his cousin. Intense enough that his elder flinched. He felt like a zombie and now he had to play twenty questions because he dared ask something. “Don’t be like that! Devin answered and I answered so it’s your turn.” She also came swooping up from behind on Avery’s other side.
“Actually, I’m kind of curious too. You hardly went out at home.” His sister’s tail was really wiggling around behind her.
Rowan was leaning ever further into his space, “So how about it, leave a cute girl behind to pine after you?”
“No.” It didn’t fluster him as it had Devin and the word came out harsher than he intended so he took a deep breath to muster some energy to not be mean about it. “I’m not really interested in girls.”
“None of them?” Rowan was looking at him like a foreign entity. He didn’t like it.
Avery slouched with flat ears, “No? Why? Is that weird?”
His cousin bounced his head side to side thinking the information over, “Well, you are fourteen. So a little bit?” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, I know. Do any boys tickle your fancy?”
“Boys?” The fledgling scholar just looked at him confused and Rowan was more shocked than before.
“Yeah. Boys. The flat chested ones? With dicks?”
“I obviously know what a boy is!” He heard Devin snorting out a laugh behind him.
“So sometimes people develop interests in the same sex rather than the opposite. And that’s perfectly fine if that’s how it is for you.”
Avery blinked at him then looked straight ahead. He had to really ask himself the question if he was interested in any boys. In the end he shook his head, “No, I don’t think I’m interested in them either.”
“Huh.” Rowan shrugged, “Well, okay then.” They all focused on walking again for a bit. Then he continued, “There’s plenty of other stuff you should be concentrating on right now anyway at your age.”
“Uh-huh. Like what?” Whatever he was selling, Avery wasn’t buying. Even so, his elder looped an arm around his shoulders and dragged him in closer. He smiled with such benevolence at him. The cat boy stared with a puffed cheek.
“Sleep.”
x x x
“Avery, wake up!” He felt his form jostle against the hard muscle of his sister’s back. The teen groaned. He had lost count at this point. “Carrying you is one thing, but I’m not getting you ready for bed. So c’mon. You can go back to sleep soon enough.”
He put a hand to his foggy head, “I wouldn’t want to even be asleep if someone would stop slamming sleep spells in my face.”
“D’aww, is someone crabby I woke him up from his nap?” Sometimes he wondered if they hounded each other too much. He just muttered some nonsensical jabs as he pushed himself from her.
They progressed through setting up for the night quickly. He felt too lethargic to write. Instead his focus drifted to Rowan fiddling with a map. This path wasn’t exactly well traversed unlike the direct route to Marion from Terring.
He didn’t want to bug him, but had to know before he fell asleep for the night, “Isn’t passing this training going to be harder like this? I haven’t even shook off the last one before you hit me with the next.”
The mage seemed to be thinking on this and wasn’t happy with his own answer, “You may be right. I’ve not exactly broken anyone into resisting spells before, but we just don’t have time to do it gramps’s way. So we’re going to keep at it and hope for the best.”
Avery grumbled, not at his cousin, just his lack of preparation in general. He then continued, “Aren’t sleep spells one of your specialties too?”
“Yeah. Since I was, I dunno, eight? Seven? Why?”
He scowled, “Because first off that’s going to make it even harder. But also… I was wondering why. I mean, grandpa doesn’t have specialties, right? So why do you? Why sleep spells?”
“Avery. Sleep spells are the absolute greatest spells ever crafted.” Rowan rolled up his map to tuck it into his bag. He had caught Avery’s interest with this declaration. The boy perked up, already transfixed by the impending explanation. Enough he even halfway sat up. The mage stretched, yawned, and laid with no rush to expand the thought. “You see, once you can resist spells, doesn’t mean you have to resist them. For example!” The second he was snug as a bug in a rug, Rowan placed his hand to his face. A deep breath. His hand slipped from the spot and he was left snoring lightly at the night sky.
“Is he serious?” Devin was staring slack jawed. She got up to push their cousin’s shoulder. Sure enough he was out cold. “Wow! I hope no one ambushes us out here!” The cat girl snorted then rolled the man on his side so he’d stop that rasping, gasping snore.