GALENDRIA

“I was wondering if you had already chosen your dance partners for the evening?” Yet another young man following a pretty voice and a Fyr-Ceann’s cloak asked her.

“I thought I might dance with…” Gale turned to where Fenn had been standing and only saw falling snow. “....A few different people, and perhaps my cousin.” She didn’t allow her shoulders to sag, nor the music to fall from her tone. She couldn’t.

“And who first?” He was a persistent fellow, Nilum, even if he played coy.

She glanced around once more for Fenn. He sat in a chair set back from a table where his mother’s sons played White Tail, his back to the dancers. Snow stuck to the short, feathery tips of his already pale hair, making it appear white. Disappointment drained her willpower. “Well, I had thought of Fenn,” she answered bluntly, “but it seems he isn’t in the mood.”

“Fenn?” Nilum asked, his large, smooth brows cocking. “You mean the Myc-Ceann Willowbirth so recently returned?”

“Yes.”

“Does he even know how to dance?”

It occurred to her that even in school he’d been poor at it. “I suppose he may not.” She reached out a hand to Nilum. He wouldn’t leave her alone unless she gave him one anyway, and the next dance would be a line dance. It was as unromantic as she would manage.

She forgot about Fenn for a little while, spinning or jigging with many men once and no one twice, and of course Rienfren, her cousin. Every once in a while she’d search for Fenn and find his back turned to the floor, but otherwise she ate roasted nuts and twirled about and chatted with old friends and laughed and she even found Kitaryn, Fenn’s little sister, bouncing baby Rud in front of a puppet show. When she circled back to at least say hello to Fenn and his brothers, she spotted his cloak’s back, but there was no head. No Fenn.

“Fyr-Ceann!” Dysren waved his arm, gesturing her nearer. He was a very friendly man, and he’d caught her staring at Fenn’s empty seat. “You’ve done some lovely singing and dancing tonight.”

She nodded her thanks. “Are you enjoying the Festival?”

“Yes, but you weren’t staring at Fenn’s cloak so that you could ask me that. He walked that way to ‘look around’ about half an hour ago and I haven’t seen head nor tail of him since. Between you and I, Fyr-Ceann, he was quite afraid you would ask him to dance. It think he doesn’t remember how. Someone needs to remind him” He leaned in conspiratorially, even though the rest of the table heard him with winking grins.

Despite the cold, she felt her cheeks grow warm. She hadn’t really meant to imply anything by her curiosity. It was only that they’d been good friends once, and he’d been gone for so long… “You said that way?” She pointed to where Dysren had jerked his head toward the exit of the Upper Tier of the city.

“Yes, Fyr-Ceann, in a straight line. Didn’t look much like looking around to me.”

“Lovely of you to help,” she said, plucking up Fenn’s cloak and rolling it so it would be less recognizable.

He raised a questioning brow.

“I know exactly where he’s gone. And he’ll be cold.”

Under the table, Dysren handed Edwend a chip of gold, the latter wearing a greased smile.

She frowned. Betting was bad enough, but on her behavior? Or was it the game? They were still in the middle of it and no one had moved a piece since she’d walked up.

She wished them well anyway and headed for the side of the mountain. There was one place Fenn had always gone. A hundred years had never broken the habit.

…

Snow as fine as mist fell between the pines, but they had not covered Fenn’s tracks. She stepped lightly, trying not to sink too far into the deep drifts. In a few more paces, the trees cleared. On a rock they’d pushed there in a bygone time sat Fenn, as still as the winter’s death with snow powdered on his hair and cloak. Yes, he was wearing one that clasped at the shoulders in a foreign style he favored lined with a white and gray fur-like material, a token brought back from his century-long excursion.

Of course he’d fetched a cloak. She hugged his Myc-Ceann’s decorative one to her chest. He is not a child.

Something fluttered in her stomach. It was true, he wasn’t a boy any more than she was still a girl. The betting of his brothers, the attempting and dodging of dancing. These weren’t childrens’ games.

She shook away the thought. Fenn leaned forward over his knees, straining to see something in the snow.

She grinned. He had no idea she was there. Girlish or not, she crept toward him, scarcely daring to breathe. She placed the cloak down, and step by ginger step, removing her mittens, came to stand at his back.

He hadn’t moved, still leaned forward. Over his shoulder, a book sat in his lap scribbled in a foreign tongue she didn’t think she recognized. Gale put her icy fingers to the sides of his jaw.

Fenn cried out, spinning and stumbling away. He reached for something at his belt that was apparently not there as he fell to the ground.

Gale cackled. She thought she’d make him jump, not send him crashing to the ground in a pile.

“Gale!” He gasped, staring.

She re-mittened her hands, struggling as she shook with laughter. She couldn’t answer with her mouth so full of amusement.

“Ah, I mean, Fyr-Ceann–”

“Don’t.” Gale waved her hands, still giggling. “Please don’t finish that, Fenn. We’ve never been those things to each other. Don’t start it now.”

He blinked mutely from the ground. She offered him a hand. He clasped it and jumped up, his cloak falling heavily around him. Then he let go and pushed up his glasses, clearing his throat.

“I thought I’d bring you your cloak,” she spoke quickly, “but it looks like you’ve already fetched one.”

“Yes,” he looked down as though only noticing he wore one. “I’d rather not freeze. Did Dysren and Edwend send you?”

“I wanted to come.” She was beginning to feel sent. Pranked even. But they hadn’t told her to bring him his cloak.

“Oh.”

“Do you prefer this cloak that much?” She asked, not sure what else there was to say.

“Yes, it’s far superior. You see how it buttons at each shoulder?” he unclasped one ornate button, letting the cloak slip. “That keeps it from pulling at your neck when you wear it like Etnfrandian clasps do. And it’s still made from Kapor wool, so it repels water and snow just the same while the lining is wolf fur, which is quite a bit warmer and catches the snow on the fringes of the hood. The overall effect is a warmer, more comfortable cloak that allows less snow to fall in your face.” While he spoke, he unbound the other clasp and dropped his cloak on her shoulders. He placed one button carefully, his eyes turned down, his specs slipping down his nose.

When had he become so tall? Gale craned her neck to look up at him. Snowflakes landed on his downturned lashes, normally shielded by his prominent brow. If he hadn’t been so pale and thin, he would’ve been a very handsome man. Not a boy…

She jolted and set to work on the other button. They were large and brassy, engraved with some runic characters she’d never seen before. He hadn’t really needed to unbutton it at all for her. The cloak drooped heavily off her shoulders and bunched in the snow at the bottom, much too large.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

She traced the button with her mitten as Fenn stepped back, pulling up the hood over her head. “There, now see?”

Sure enough, the fur fringe caught the snow wafting in the air, protecting her eyes. She’d never felt so warm in her life, either, double-cloaked and with the warmth of his back leaking from the fur lining. “Yes, it’s very nice.” She threw it off over her head, holding it out towards him. “But it’s much too big for me.”

“I suppose that’s true. You could ask your father to have a few imported. I had to get mine tailored to fit, but the dwarves never stop making them. They are quite a popular souvenir.”

She had to shake her head. Several of the wordshad been in Allspeach, and the unexpected switch set her mind staggering. “Souvenir?”

“Like a trinket from a trip. Wolf fur isn’t so easy to come by outside of the Kravtic mountains, so when people make trips there, they always buy something made with it.”

The weight of the cloak left her hands at the exact moment instinct told her to drop it. “Wolf fur? Th-the dwarves figured out how to harvest fur from wolves?!”

“You thought it was an imitation? No, they…” he stopped short, turning even paler. “Maybe it’s better I don’t tell you.”

She looked at the snow piled around her boots. So the dwarves killed the wolves for their fur. It was horrible to imagine. A slaughter of living things for naught but wealth. She shivered. What else has Fenn become accustomed to? Eating meat? The use of magic? The Worship of gods? She rubbed her arms for warmth.

Material dropped on her shoulders, brightly woven and embroidered. His other cloak. Fenn stepped away and scooped up his notebook, settling back down onto his stone–their stone. The hazy snow made him seem far away, a man she didn’t know from the next.

She closed the distance in a few steps. He had already begun scribbling. That, at least, was familiar to her. “Can you scoot over some?”

He shifted to the edge of the rock, not looking up. She took the other half, her low back meeting his. She stared out into the haze. Tears wanted to fall from her eyes, though she wasn’t sure why. Not simple disgust, at least.

“There used to be a stump here, too,” Fenn said over the scratching of his pencil.

“It rotted a long time ago.”

“Ah.”

He’d been gone so long. She should’ve let him tell her about the cloak. She shouldn’t have been repulsed by the fur. She didn’t know what he’d been through. One hundred and nineteen years of being on his own, certainly. She wanted to know, she realized. She didn’t want him to avoid her any longer.

She didn’t even know if he had been avoiding her. He’d never liked parties anyway. “Erm, Fenn, why… did you leave?”

The pencil-scratching stopped. The impenetrable silence that only a thick snow makes swelled to a crescendo. She could hear her own heartbeat. She wrapped his Myc-Ceann cloak tighter around her.

“There…” He swallowed hard enough that she could hear it. “There was something important my father wanted to destroy, something priceless, and I had to choose. I could stay and obey him forever, or I could protect it and leave.”

Her eyes widened, realizing the question he’d actually answered. Her hand clasped his elbow. Something important, something priceless. She’d known his father was awful, yet she’d never done anything to help him. She’d never known how. Not as a child. “I’m sorry.” She choked, but forced her way through it. “I should’ve helped you. I should have realiz–”

“It had nothing to do with you, Gale. You couldn’t have done anything.” His bare hand pressed her mitted one around his elbow. “Nothing more than what you did, anyway.”

“I never did anything to help.” She bumped her forehead against the back of his shoulder.

“You were my friend. That helped.”

Forget that he was a man now. She turned and squeezed him, wolf-hair cloak and all, right around his middle. Let him be a boy for just one last moment, the boy that was her best friend, the boy she had failed to protect. The boy who’d come back.

“Gale, I’m going to fall off the rock,” he wheezed, patting her hand radily as though losing a wrestling match.

She dragged him back a smidge. “Just a second, this is important.”

“Gale, please let me go.”

“Not until you tell me why you ran away from the Festival,” she demanded in a moment of inspiration.

“This isn’t a game!”

“No, and we aren’t children anymore!” She squished him tighter.

“Fine! Fine! Let go!” He gasped as she released him from her grip. It was she who slipped from the rock into the soft powder at the change.

He turned to face her, his face blazing purple–she’d almost forgotten how purple his blush truly was. He didn’t speak for a moment, and the color faded to only his cheeks and ears. He turned away, apparently unable to look at her any longer. When he spoke, it was soft. “It’s simple really. It’s easier to be alone out here than up there.”

Easier to be alone out here. Alone there. Alone here. Fenn was always off to the side, always listening but never engaged in the conversation. Never truly at a party, just standing there. Alone, no matter where he was. “Do you have to be alone, Fenn?” She asked, barely more than a whisper.

“Technically, I’m not alone right now, am I?” His mouth quirked.

She met him with a more daring smile. “No, but we are.”

He tilted his head, brows knit seriously. “But if there are two, can either of them honestly say they are alone?”

She gaped, flabbergasted at how unaffected he was by the obvious flouting of the social boundary they were breaking.

Noticing her expression, he partially opened his mouth in an inhale as if to speak, but then shut it. “Ah. I remember now. This is inappropriate at our age, isn’t it?” He huffed a tiny laugh to himself, shaking his head. “Such strange customs,” he muttered in Allspeech.

Where she had hope he might be embarrassed, instead she was. She faced the snow-laden boughs to hide her reddening shame.

He scratched at his notebook, unconcerned.

That’s unfair. Whatever land he’d lived in apparently didn’t care if single men and women ran off together. She wished she hadn’t pointed it out if she was going to be the only one thinking about it.

Movement in the woods drew her attention. She couldn’t see what had moved. All was white snow or gray shadow. Then it rushed away, its voluminous tail disappearing into the bare underbrush.

She gasped and jumped to her feet. “The white fox!”

“You saw it?” Fenn asked, looking up.

“It just ran over there.” She pointed. The seasonal sign of enduring love was gone, but she could not unsee it, could not forget where it had disappeared.

Fenn turned and she finally saw in full view the new page he’d been working on. He hadn’t been writing at all. In stunning detail rendered only in graphite was the image of a prowling fox, its fur as stark as the off-color page would allow.

She stared. “You already saw it?”

“Just before you jumped me.”

A pang of guilt thrust through her. “It’s such a beautiful thing. I’m sorry I scared you both.”

“It’s alright. I still drew her.” His long fingers lingered on the corner of the page as if they touched something precious. “I’d never seen one in person before.”

Gale bent beside his shoulder for a better look. “It’s a wonderful drawing. I’m inspired by your art,” she teased him with the compliment he’d forgotten.

“Such a remarkable creature full of myths and symbolism, and she stared into my face.” There was a magnetic reverence to his voice that drew Gale nearer.

Suddenly, she was aware of their shoulders touching, of his breath puffing between her and the page, of the pinch of cold coloring his cheeks as his slate-colored eyes sparkled with admiration for the creature.

She placed a hand on that near shoulder and found those eyes looking at hers. A pain she hadn’t known she carried, a loneliness that she hadn’t known she felt; both melted away under that earnest, expectant gaze. “Fenn, I’m very glad that you came back,” she said simply.

Something in his face twitched, but he didn’t look away when he said, “I’m glad to see you again, too, Gale. Of everyone here, I’m really glad to see you’re well.”

If two cloaks hadn’t been warm enough, his words were. They warmed her to her center. Here was a man who meant what he said, even and especially when it was said with the wrong words. Suddenly the season seemed brighter, lovelier, and fuller. Spring was inside of her, blooming in an emotion she didn’t know. She smiled and sat beside him once more. “What else have you been putting in that notebook?”