The rising sun shone on the horses backs as they steadily pulled the wagon down a long dirt path, away from Paradiso and its many troubles: some of which were now the fault of Avery, as much as he hated to admit it; but at least his favorite innkeeper would get to stay in business a little while longer, and the World Garden was short two criminals. One day, he planned to return. If nothing else, to apologize for the whole flying head incident. And for not paying for the alcohol. And for the sharp instrument he left wedged in the floor, which was likely going to take two or three men to dislodge. Though nothing quite tickled his fancy like showing off one of his only assets, that being his raw strength, he still felt sorry for it nonetheless; because despite the comments about his weight, the innkeeper was just as honest as he was industrious.
The Princess hadn’t said much since they left town, but she kept her eyes and ears open. She had never been so much as a stone’s throw away from the city she was born in, and everything about the environment looked and smelled new. She must’ve looked like a newborn seeing clouds for the first time as her head bobbed back and forth at every chance to look outside.
But one thing that she didn’t like, that was foreign to her, was the coldness of the wind. For even when she laid perfectly flat on the floor of the wagon, it somehow blew right through her red dress. Where she was from, it stayed hot all-year round.
They had already tried and failed to remove the chains, and the cold metal stuck around her wrists drove her crazy. She wanted to cry, but thought better of it: the big man in front seemed aggravated ever since they left, and she didn’t want to annoy him. He hardly checked on her, unless to pass her food and drink. But she wasn’t allowed to leave the back of the wagon if any travelers were closeby, something he made very clear early on. Avery didn’t know who might happen across them and recognize her.
“Where are we?” Princess Arpina asked, yawning in his ear. She sat down next to him, on the edge of the wagon.
“Away from town,” Avery grumbled. “Can you watch where you’re pointing that morning breath of yours?”
“Sorry! I’m just tired. I haven’t been able to sleep for a week now.”
“I hear counting sheep works but I always end up chasing them instead,” Avery said. He salivated at the idea of washing down a plate of mutton with a tall glass of ale. The thought occurred to him that for returning the princess, he might receive a reward. He wouldn’t beg for it, however badly he needed it, but he wouldn’t turn it down either if they offered. “Anyways, try that.”
“You must really like food,” she said, playfully slapping him on the belly. That really upset him but he didn’t bother acknowledging it.
“Hey, can we stop up ahead? I see a river over there!”
“Tell me what’s so damn interesting about a river?” he asked, furrowing his brows.
“Well, nothing … I’d just very much like to see one up close and touch it, though I can’t swim. My mother hates water, it’s why she never taught me. But anyway, is the water cold you think?”
“Is it cold?” he mocks. “Is it cold?”
She stared at the side of his face, confused. “Well is it?”
Without answering, he maneuvered the reins and slowed the horses. He could hardly believe his ears. When they came to a complete stop, he quickly checked up and down the road to make sure no one was coming, then impatiently motioned Arpina to follow. If it weren’t for the fact he was thirsty, he wouldn’t have bothered. It amazed him at how sheltered the girl seemed to be. And that she would dare slap his belly without permission.
She was pleasantly surprised that he agreed, and also very excited. She ran down to the riverbank, through tall trees that wore sunlight like red crowns, and stopped herself just short of the edge of the water. Carefully, she dipped in one of her tiny fingers and waved it upstream, feeling the current push against it. A large branch from a nearby willow broke off overhead and made a large splash, scaring her. She pulled her finger out and watched for a moment as the water carried it away, towards places she could only imagine.
The water wasn’t just cold either, it was freezing cold! she thought, and pulled it straight back out. “Kids play in this? Are they mad?”
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That gave Avery a good chuckle. “Normal kids do. Not everyone has the privilege of living in castles, with servants to scrub their feet.”
“Eww,” she said, scrunching her face. “Nobody touches my feet, no sir. They’re too ticklish. And by the way, what’s a castle?”
“Sweetheart, let me ask you something: where are you from exactly? I can’t think of a single place in all of Eterna that doesn’t have endless amounts of rivers and castles. So unless you’ve lived on a crater somewhere on the dark side of Lunis your whole life, I can’t help but ask: are you of this world?”
Her young face, brighted suddenly by the sun, seemed to indicate that she was. And so did her laugh. In a strange way, he almost resented how much he enjoyed her laugh. The sweetness of it really struck him when he first heard it, more than anything else about her. But if asked to admit anything of the sort, he'd separate their heads from their bodies all the same.
“I’m from Vulkanon. I’ve lived my whole life there.”
“Vulkanon?” he cried. It shocked him to hear how far away she was, but it explained a lot about the way she behaved. The Ashen were a weird folk judging by the gossip he’d heard over the years, and they were always involved in some conflict or another. They weren’t particularly wealthy either, he lamented, at least not in terms of gold. He’d been once, and only once: it was miserably hot, and he cut his trip short. “Why are you all the way out here?”
“I don’t know. All I remember is waking up that night to a bunch of people wearing masks, and they poured something in my mouth. But actually,” she said, interrupting herself, “can we talk about something else?”
She stared across the river, her back turned to Avery, and sobbed uncontrollably. It annoyed him at first —the sounds she made, the way her whole body shook from the force of her crying— but after a while, it weighed on him. It occurred to him that she was no older than twelve or thirteen, and that she was dragged hundreds of miles from her home. The state of her dress, ripped in many places as far as he could tell, painted a dark picture about what happened that night, whether she wanted to admit it or not. And maybe she never would.
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Avery spotted a hooded stranger sprinting at them from across the way, seemingly out of nowhere. It immediately crossed his mind that the surviving captor had somehow tracked them down, but the closer the stranger got, the less that appeared to be the case: he was much taller, and wearing scaly brown robes that resembled tree bark.
He ran to the girl and threw her over his shoulder. “Stop!” he shouted, then drew his sword as the stranger frantically slid down the bank. He took a quick glance at Avery from across the water, then knelt down and dipped his hand inside the river. And as he did, his robes and arms momentarily took on a new form: flowing water.
Confused, Avery took a step back. Princess Arpina flailed around, screaming “Let me go! Let me go!” but he held her tight. She couldn’t see what was happening, and maybe that was for her own benefit: two more men, wearing dark chainmail, were rapidly approaching. And they had murder in their eyes.
They stopped on the bank, unsheathed massive two-handed swords from their backs that were as dark as the midnight sky, and snarled. The mage appeared normal again, though the color of his robes had changed to aquamarine. One of them already had a bloody lip, as if he’d been punched in the face, and was missing his front teeth; the other wore a red ‘X’ on his face, painted with someone’s blood. Neither looked like the kind of man you’d bring home to meet your mother. Unless of course, you wanted her dead.
They stared at the mage, and he stared back. His eyes glowed blue like the ocean. No one made so much as a peep, including Princess Arpina. Evidently, she had finally sensed impending danger and decided that Avery’s shoulder actually wasn’t so bad. All you could hear was the water as it flowed over the rocky riverbed, and the rustling of the trees overhead. Avery thought about letting the girl run back to the wagon, but didn’t like the idea of her getting captured again if there were more nearby, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He’d either have to fight them off one-handed, or run away like a coward, at half-speed.
Finally, the soldiers grew weary and charged. Powerful jets of water shot from the center of the mage’s hands, one after the other. A jet blew through one of the men’s chainmails, piercing his heart. He flew backwards and was dead before he hit the ground. The other dodged, and got dangerously close: he swung a quick overhead blow. It glanced off the mage’s hood and sliced off his arm. It fell into the dirt and dissolved into a pool of red water.
The mage’s other arm transformed into a tentacle and whipped the soldier across the face, launching his helmet into the river. The fighting ceased for a moment as the toothless soldier suddenly watched his beloved hat, gifted to him by his grandfather, float downstream. By the time he finished cutting off the mage’s other limbs, it would be gone: picked up by some snot-nosed kid and carried off as a trophy. The thought of it made him sick to his stomach.
Fury filled the soldier’s miniaturize-sized heart, and he swung his blade like a madman. It clashed with the tentacle once, twice, then on the third, tore straight through it. He swung it once more at the mage’s throat, who ducked underneath and headbutted him in return. The soldier fell. “Next time, mind your manners!” the mage shouted, aiming his bloodied shoulder at him like a cannon. It erupted like a geyser and flung the unconscious soldier into the river where maybe, if he were lucky enough to not drown, he might awaken in time to find his cherished helmet.