The words echoed in Isidrian’s head. Dead? The last letter he had received from his father had been over six months ago detailing the exploits of a trade deal and a gift of a small sum of money. He often wondered if his father was still alive, or a carcass in the sand, and it was not uncommon for incorrect tales of travellers deaths to reach their loved ones. But there was something in this hulking man’s eyes that pleaded the truth.

“You saw it happen?” Isidrian asked.

“I did.” Ash said, then held up a hand to pause the boy, “I will not give you the details. You are too young to be hearing things like this already. I would know. Your father left you this.” Slowly, he reached his hand into his cloak and withdrew a metal cylinder. It was short, no longer than Isidrian’s outstretched thumb tip to index tip in length, and about his thumb length in width. The cylinder was heavy and covered in a vine-like, flowery, pattern that centred around two distinct thumb prints that opposed one another on each side of the cylinder.

“What is it?”

“Your father kept pages in there. I don’t know what. I can’t read. And I can’t get the canister open either. There’s a small twist incision at the top end from the way you are holding it.” Ash pointed. Vix’s bow creaked. “Oh come now fox, is it not clear enough that I am not here to hurt you? What could I possibly gain from that? Ochre was my friend, damn his fucking heart!”

Vix’s drew the bow as Ash stood. “Stop. Both of you.” Isidrian commanded. He twisted the top of the canister, pointing the open end towards Ash in case it was trapped. Travel-stained yellow pages emptied onto the table as Isidrian shook the canister. Curled black writing traced across the pages, long strokes of black ink made by a brush, not a quill. Alvish, and more specifically, the kind written and spoken by the people of the Broken.

“Vix. Drop the bow and come over here. I need your eyes.” Isidrian commanded. The Gargan slung the bow over her shoulder and clutched an arrow as she would a shank. She came to stand between Isidrian and Ash, and looked over the papers as best she could without turning her eyes from the man.

“This reads like the permits from the Prom himself.” She stated.

“I thought so too. The large runes,” Isidrian said, pointing to two distinct complicated patterns, “This one looks like a cross between singular, ownership, and right of passage. I can’t begin to understand the other one. It’s odd. Jagged. It barely looks Alvish. Ash, what was my father doing?”

“All I know is that he was a trader. He’d come by some times and have a drink with me. The last time I saw him, he said to expect a letter within six months. That he’d send many, but only one needed to arrive. If not, he was dead, and that I need to take this to you. He got mixed up in some nasty business. And then, three weeks ago, he arrives in my caverns.” Ash paused, “He died hours later. That’s all I’ll say. Give Dawn the message. Tell her I’m sorry.”

Ash stood and Vix turned, ready to strike. With gentle hands the large man took the arrow from her hands and snapped it between his fingers, throwing the wood to where the cutlery lay scattered. “I must go. I’ve spent too long here already. My boys will be waiting. Isidrian, if you ever end up west of the Fel Reaches, the clay caverns where the Chitters won’t go, come to me. I will welcome you with open arms.”

Ash opened the door, leaving the lantern on the doorstep, and fled into the night. He moved far too silently for a giant, lumbering man. Isidrian walked to the door after him, picked up the lantern, and brought it inside. Vix closed, locked, and barred the door behind him.

Isidrian sat back down at the table and looked over the documents. He was cold inside, oddly so. His skin tingled. Vix brought the other chair back to the table and sat down beside Isidrian. She watched him cautiously. He was calming himself.

“Icy…” Vix began, but couldn’t find the words to finish. He didn’t look at her. “Look at me.” She said simply. Then, when he didn’t, she commanded him. “Look at me.”

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His head snapped upwards, a confused haze of emotions crossing his usually composed face. His eyes were wild. His breathing stopped being calm and bounced between heavy laboured breaths and quick airless drags. She wrapped her arms around him and he wept silently into her shoulder. She stroked his bound, shoulder length hair softly with her long fingers. Hesitantly at first, then tighter, Isidrian’s arms wrapped around her. “I’m here for you,” She said. There was nothing else she could say. “I’m here.” She repeated long into the night, long after the rush candles burnt out, long after Isidrian lay quiet and still and asleep in her lap.

Careful not to wake him, she stood, and using the moonlight that streamed through the windows of the shop front climbed the stairs. She returned shortly afterward with a blanket and two pillows. Laying them out on the floor, she carefully lowered Isidrian onto them, curling about him and covering them with the blanket. He had grown too large for her to carry him up the stairs anymore. And if not for the pain in her own heart, she would have smiled down at his face sleeping beside her.

Isidrian awoke on the floor. Trying to orientate himself, he pushed himself up with his hands. A soft ‘Ooft’ followed by a hard shove to his side sent him rolling. “Remind me not to sleep next to you again.” Vix said, clutching her stomach. Isidrian shoved himself even further back.

“Did I? No, you’re wearing clothes. What…” He began, startled, his brain clunking along like a square wheel. Then, with a sudden shudder the rapidly rising red drained from his face. He looked fearfully to the table. “Last night happened, didn’t it.” He said.

“It did.”

“And Father is gone.” Isidrian said, more to himself than to her. Vix nodded once, quietly, watching his expression. The emotional child from last night was gone. Sitting across from her was the passive, calculating, Icy. Now noticing that her blouse hung scandalously low across her chest, she fixed it with a swift tug at her shoulders. “Mother is gone for another day.” Isidrian looked about the room. “Help me clean this mess. Then take the day off. I won’t be needing your services for the day. Do with it what you wish. Go have fun.”

Vix stared at him quizzically then laughed. Whatever reaction he had expected it wasn’t this. “What’s so funny?” Isidrian asked.

“I’m a Gargan slave. I’m your Gargan slave. I’m not some village girl who can wander about town. This steel shackle about my neck has your name engraved on it. I don’t get days off. I don’t get to wander about town. Do you know how hard it is for me to move about this city even bearing this quite obvious blight?” She shouted down at him. Isidrian stared at her. He had definitely not expected this. Vix hadn’t either. It was pouring out of her and she couldn’t stop. “My services? I don’t do what you ask me because I am your slave. I do what you ask because you have done nothing but treat me with kindness and respect. So if I am to choose what I do this day as if I were not a slave? I choose to stay here. By your side. You will not be rid of me whether you need to piss or shit or sleep with another right in front of my eyes.” Her ears lied flat against the sides of her head, her tail poised as if she were ready to leap in for the kill. “I stay with you, you incorrigible, callously kind, arsehole!”

Crushing silence descended. Vix panted. She meant every word and it terrified her. Slaves had been beaten to death for less. “My parents died at Tread’s Grave. I know how it feels. The loss. The gaping hole. It never gets filled, Icy. It stays with you. You try every day to fill the gap but nothing works.” She dropped to her knees, tears rolling from her eyes, her jaw quivered and her tail laid low and lifeless on the floor. “I found people who matter as much to me as my parents do. I hope you find your people too.”

Isidrian watched her, silent throughout, his insides impossibly cold in the warm summer sunlight that streamed into the shop. He had to say something to punctuate the silence. There was something inside him that had been wounded last night. This was the closest to a deathblow he had ever felt. “You never told me you were from Tread’s Grave.” Isidrian said tentatively.

“At first it was easier to pretend.” She winced painfully. “By the time I accepted there was no going back, I already had a family here to serve. Where I was from doesn’t matter. Where I am now does. There was never a need to go back.”

“Would you go back? If you could, I mean.”

“You know the song. The one the slaves sing when they think no one hears them. They set fire to Gatt and laid waste to Tread’s Grave. The Verillian crushed my birth-people. That place is nothing but ash and blood. There is nothing to go back to.” She paused. “Here matters. Now matters.”

Isidrian slowly got to his feet and walked over to Vix. He knelt beside her. “I’m sorry, Vix.” Then, before she could scathingly retort, he added, “For making you dredge up what you had hoped to leave behind. Now, before I say something terrible to you again in my, what did you call it? Callous kindness? I’m going to order you to allow me to help you fix breakfast, because neither of us really got to eat last night, did we?”

“I thought you said I had the day off?”

“I rescind my previous order as something more important has come up.” Isidrian stated.

“That being?” Vix pressed.

“I’m hungry.”