Eldan awoke to sun pouring through the small window in his room, his clothing and hair sticky with sweat. Glade was gone, and he would have thought he imagined her visit had there not been a rubber ball, pocked with toothmarks, in the corner of the room.
He saw there was a trunk for his belongings under the window, and crawled out of bed to stuff his two packs into it, leaving both unopened. He couldn’t bear to even look at anything he owned as it was all tied to memories of his mother. He climbed back into bed, taking a moment to unlace his boots and shove them underneath, out of sight. The mattress was gritty with dried mud that had fallen from his pants and boots during the night but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
His grief came in devastating waves, crashing down on him with immeasurable force, leaving him gasping, only to recede when he was past the point of what he could bear. He would sit, staring dully at the wall, during these brief reprieves.
During one of these lulls, when the late afternoon light slanted from the window, casting deep shadows across the room, Glade appeared in the windowsill. She leapt to the floor, opening her jaws to drop a large, silver scaled fish to the floor with a wet slap. Eldan stared at the fish, fixated on the holes piercing its side, trickles of red blood running down the silver scales where she had clamped it with her teeth, as she bumped her head against his knee.
He slid off the bed, wrapping his arms around her body and clenching his hands in her thick, spotted, still-damp coat. She smelled of the river, and Eldan thought he could catch just a whiff of his father’s tea. When he was sitting on the floor Glade’s head reached his shoulders, her muscled bulk firm and solid in his arms. His shoulders heaved with fresh sobs and he pushed his face into her side, grateful for the warmth of her living body.
Eventually his sobs calmed again, and he crawled back into bed, Glade settling to press against his back as he drifted into fitful sleep.
Eldan awoke to find his room bathed in soft moonlight and rich with the scent of woodsmoke. Glade stretched lazily as he stirred, her spreading toes ending in long, curved claws silhouetted in the pale light. Eldan sat up, suddenly ravenous with thirst and hunger. He idly scratched behind Glade’s ears as he wondered how he might slip out to find something to eat and drink, finally standing to look out the window, where he realized with surprise that they were five stories above the ground below. The wall below the window ledge was sheer, when he leaned out he could see no way to gain purchase to climb down. The next ledge was too far below and too shallow for him to drop. To his side, if he could somehow shimmy across a series of what he thought were eleven windows, stretched to his limit to gain toe-holds from one to the next, he would eventually reach a thick downspout from the gutters that he thought he could easily descend, but he wasn’t sure he could reach the adjacent sill even with his body fully extended. He shuddered as he looked at the drop to the paving tiles below. He turned back to Glade, bewildered. “How the abyss did you find me? And just how well can river cats climb?”
Glade yawned in response, exposing a mouthful of sharp teeth with long, dangerous looking incisors, then hopped off the bed to sit next to the fish she had brought earlier, reaching out a paw to bat it twice, scooting it a short distance across the floor. Eldan pressed his lips in distaste, though he enjoyed eating fish he had always found them unsettling, and he loathed fishing and cleaning whole fish. With the stiff, bony feel of their gills and eyes that never closed, they filled him with an undefined sense of horror. But.. it was here.
Eldan felt a sharp pang as he remembered the knives his mother had given him the morning prior, tucked inside his knapsack. He eyed the chest beneath his window apprehensively, not yet feeling prepared to face the contents, especially in this blessedly calm moment of relief from his raging grief.
He walked across the room, stepping carefully around the fish, and sat beside Glade, wrapping his arm around her back and burying his face in the thick fur at her neck. “It’s just you and me now. I know it’s a lot to ask, but please stay with me. You can do all the hunting you want, I will let you come and go just like my father did, but please come back. I need you.” Glade rumbled with a deep, throaty purr. Eldan sighed, “I suppose that will have to be answer enough.”
He sat back up and regarded the fish in front of him with distaste. “I could use your help with this.” He cocked his head to look at Glade, who yawned again and began licking her shoulder. Since she at least did not seem inclined to leave he decided to take it as assent, and steeled himself to open his trunk.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Eldan found his knapsack was still damp, but the canvas was waxed and the contents were mostly dry. His knives sat on top, safe in their wrapping, and he was realized he still had the folded sheet of brown paper that had held his tart tucked in the pack, as well. He emptied his clothes and supplies from his pack so he could hang it up to dry, taking a moment to stack his notebooks and pens on his desk, and gratefully chewing on a birch stick to relieve the cottony dryness in his mouth. Finally the pack hung from the hinge of his casement window and only his weapon pouch remained. He pulled out his stave and stood it in a corner, returning to unroll the bundle with trembling hands. He blew out a sharp breath when the sword was finally exposed, still dry and unblemished.
Eldan rocked back on his heels, truly taking in the blade for the first time. He had been so shocked and overwhelmed when his mother presented him with it that he hadn’t studied it in any detail, unwilling to even touch it in the moment.
The sword was hardly the dagger his mother claimed, but it was unusually short, only about three hands in length. The double-edged blade, however, was a thing of beauty, the steel rippling with blue waves. It had a simple cross-guard and hilt wrapped in brown leather, and the pommel bore an elegant, understated mark he didn’t recognize. He looked closer at the mark, following the curves with his eyes, and it seemed to itch insistently at something at the edge of his memory. He finally shook his head and picked up the weapon gently, turning it so he could see his mother’s mark hammered into the underside of the cross-guard. His eyes pricked at the simple insignia, and he laid the blade back down.
Glade grumbled softly behind him, breaking him from his reverie. “You’re right, I know. I shouldn’t have it out even now.” He mumbled around the birch stick still sticking out of the corner of his mouth, clamped between his teeth. He hissed out a sigh, placing the sword at the bottom of his chest and arranging his clothes over it, latching the trunk lid closed and draping the cloth case over the back of his chair to dry. He would oil and wrap the sword again as soon as he could. “I will need to find a lock.” He mused to Glade, who was still sitting expectantly with the fish.
Eldan spread the paper from his tart on the floor, dragging the fish onto it by its tail. He unfolded his two knives from their cloth and positioned the larger one just behind the fish’s head, turning his own away and squeezing his eyes shut as he pressed down hard on the blade, feeling it snap through the spine and meet the resistance of the floor. The knife was sharp and well-made, and he turned back to find the head completely severed. He scooted it to the far corner of the paper with the tip of the knife blade and took up the smaller blade to perform the less onerous task of gutting the fish.
Soon he had a clean fish sitting at one corner of the paper, with the head and a pile of glistening entrails at the other. “Go on, those are for you.” He motioned at the pile to Glade, who snapped up the head in two horrifying bites and began nibbling at the bloody heap.
Eldan wished he had water to clean his hands and wipe his knives, but he settled for wiping them on his travel stained pants. He took the time to wipe down the blades with the oil and cloth his mother had given him, wrapping them back up and leaving them on his desk. He eyed the door leading out of his room warily, knowing from the scent of smoke there must be a fire burning but having no desire to encounter another person. Finally he tore off a section of the paper and picked up the fish with it, walking to the door and easing it open.
The outer room was dimly lit by two windows, one on either side of the wide fireplace, and the glowing embers of a fire burning low. Eldan tiptoed into the room, kneeling in front of the fireplace and laying the fish on the hearth. He saw that a pair of tongs were hanging from a hook at the side of the fireplace and carefully lifted them off, using them to awkwardly pick up the fish and lay it across the embers. The fish skin popped and sizzled, making him start from the sudden noise. He sat stock still, feeling sure that someone would have heard the noise and would come out to investigate, but slowly relaxed when the room remained silent, save for the soft pops and cracks of the fire. He gently laid the tongs on the floor beside him while he waited for the fish to cook.
When he thought the fish was ready he used the tongs to lift it back onto the paper, slipping once and nearly dropping it into the ash but somehow adjusting his grip on the unwieldy tongs to keep it aloft. He was so hungry that he tried to immediately pick the fish up but burnt his fingers, forcing him to wait. He placed the tongs back on the hook and turned back into the room, realizing his eyes were no longer adjusted to the dark after watching the fish cook in the fire for so long. He scooted further back, staring into the darkness until he could make out the detail around him again. He peered at a table in the far corner, where he thought he might see the shape of a pitcher, and finally drew himself to his feet to pad cautiously across the room. He was enormously grateful to find it was, in fact, a pitcher, and when he dipped his fingers inside he discovered it was at least half full of blessedly cool water. He picked the entire pitcher up, drinking greedily directly from the mouth. When he had finally drunk his fill he poured a small amount into one cupped hand, rubbing his hands together and then on his tunic to clean them as best he could.
His thirst slaked, he padded back to his fish, finally making it back inside his room and slowly closing the door behind him, releasing the doorknob slowly to avoid a click. He exhaled in relief, walking over to where Glade now lay extended on the floor, the paper of fish remains licked clean. Eldan devoured the fish, shoving chunks of it into his mouth with his fingers until nothing remained but the tail, bones and ashy, charred skin. Those he wrapped up in the torn paper and set on the windowsill, not sure what else to do with them.
Glade seemed to be deeply asleep on the floor, so he dragged a blanket and pillow from the bed and lay down beside her, back to back, as they had been sleeping. Exhausted from grieving and sleepy from his full belly, he fell asleep even as the sky began to lighten and the stars fade in the early morning.