A Knightly Respite

For K, who's reading this for the very first time.

***

It'd take more than a torrential downpour to sully this grab!

I caught a glimpse of her on the way out of the city, brilliant brocade dress, emerald green, several rings an each hand, silver and agates mostly, and a mess of vibrant red hair held together by more golden pins than I have fingers and toes. Her carriage, attended to by three strapping young servants, was painted with brilliant heraldry—denoting some noble sort of such-and-such esteemed provenance, I'm sure.

I decided to gamble on following her out of town. Though I regretted missing my chance to filch something while the baggage was being loaded, I figured, what with this terrible rain starting, it wouldn't take long for that fancy carriage of hers to lose an axle to the mud.

And I was right. Quickly, the rain turned the road to slop, slowing her carriage to a crawl. That allowed me, inconspicuous little sneakthief that I am, to follow on foot from an easy distance. Lost sight of her after a while, but I wasn't worried; it's a long time before the road branches, after all. I wouldn't lose her.

But, as we went, the rain came harder, my clothing became soaked, the city grew farther away, and I began to double guess my choice. That is, I did, until I heard her banshee wail screeching even louder than the wind and rain. The sound was like birdsong to me. I clutched the front of my cloak against the wind and hastened down the road as fast as I was able. You've got good instincts, Ort. I thought. Never doubt 'em, not where plunder's concerned.

As predicted, her stately conveyance had lost a wheel to the simple mud, and its honorable passenger had deigned to stick her head out into the ignoble rain, to screech protestations against her unfair fate.

She was a dense one, this noble—so concerned with screaming the ears off her servants for their temerity in allowing her carriage to mire itself in the mud, she had no attention to spare for the slip of a girl brazenly rooting through her baggage as if it were a charity bin. "A woman like I should never have to suffer such indignity," I think I heard her say, as I undid the lashings of her baggage. "The shame of it, Silas! The absolute shame!" she protested, as I tossed her many linens and finery to the mud, searching for more compact loot.

The burly man I took to be Silas offered no response but the chorus of his grunts as he threw his back against the carriage in a futile attempt to right it.

My heart pulsed my chest. Though I was confident in the oil-black of my cloak to keep me hidden from sight, I was spitting distance from the commotion of lady and laborers, close enough that the flickering pool of their lantern light touched at the toes of my boots. Potently aware of my proximity, my fingers began to shake.

But the men had no eyes for anything but their effort, and the lady had no mind to do anything but screech to the heavens, and blather on about who and whom would rue the day, when all this was over with. She was still crying out about this and that, somethings or others, when I snatched the closest, biggest hunk of jewelry available and made my departure, back into the sparse trees that clustered on the roadside.

And now, here I am: wet as a river beaver and far from home, but one colossal string of pearls richer for the inconvenience. I hold the necklace out in front of my body and examine it with something approaching lust. Said I plundered her belongings like a charity bin, but you won't find anything like these pearls in any poor box. I pool it in my palm and heft the weight of it. These are twice as many pearls as I've even seen in one place, let alone on one string. Search me if I know why; some new trend in court fashion I'll assume. Piteous girl that I am, I've only ever had the head for the taking of jewelry, not the wearing of it.

The only issue is how long it took; must've been nearly an hour of following her. While the thrill of the chase stormed through my blood, I'd hardly noticed the cold bite of the persistent rain. But now, excitement overcome—climax achieved, one might say—the chill in my bones makes itself angrily known. The freezing cold of a late-winter rain is more fearsome than any brigand or bandit—which I am not, I'll mention; to my mind it's easier, to say nothing of more satisfying, to leave the mark alive after you nick their goods. Putting aside that murder is a most wretched sin, why would I deny myself the pleasure of imagining how furious a mark will be when they discover what I've done?

I'm guessing this lady will be as furious as they come, when she discovers how much of her clothing I discarded to the mud. The thought alone builds radiant warmth in my chest and blossoms a smile across my lips.

But such warmth is fleeting. A frigid breeze stirs the bare trees along the road; my shoulders respond with a shudder. I'm sopping wet, my oilskin cloak soaked plain through—which I suppose means it's not oilskin at all, and I spent my hard-won coin on an inferior product.

I abandon hope of making it back to the city tonight. Thankfully, I know a traveler's hole not far down this road, a shallow shelter dug into a small hill. Provided the local villagers have kept up its stock of firewood, I'll be able to wait out the night in relative comfort. Then, if this rain clears before dawn, I'll make the city gates early tomorrow morning. It's a terrible thing, going to bed without supper; I'll let thoughts of the lavish meal I'll be having tomorrow—after I fence this trinket—fill my stomach.

My hurried steps slow to a cautious crawl as I approach the roadside enclosure. This time of year, in this inclement weather, I'd never expect anyone to trek out and spend the night here, but clear as day I see the flickering orange and yellow light of a fire rebounding from inside the cave.

I draw in a breath. As I wait, still more rain patters down upon my head through the poor insulation of my cloak. I'm wary of strangers, as any sane traveler should be, but between freezing to death out in the open or risking my luck with whatever country bumpkin trundled into the shelter before I arrived, the weather has made my choice for me. I stride forward with purpose, entering the cave...

...and what I find therein is the farthest thing from a bumpkin I could possibly imagine.

She's sitting with her back against the roughly hewn firewood rack. With that dark, earth-clod skin and pale blue eyes she's Vale Elf, no doubt, but I think this Vale Elf has seen no vale in a very long time. Her cotton doublet is stitched with silver and the shield resting against her luggage bears the sign of The Unicorn and Purple. Aside from the knight and her gear, the cave is empty. This isn't a place for comfort, but survival. No bed, even, just a layer of straw trampled down with the filth of however many boots have come here since last they changed it. In the middle of a tight stone circle gutters a weak fire, but weak is far more than none.

"Fine lodgings for a royal soldier," I say. I lean a hand against the wall at the mouth of the cave and kick my wet boots together, removing whatever mud I can before I enter the shelter proper. "These places are for the common folk, Sir Knight, those that can't afford the linen and finery you've accustomed yourself to."

I'm not normally inclined to be so bold—not in the presence of those with sharp swords, anyway—but sodden clothing has a way of making one crabby.

Looking up, the Vale Elf cants her head towards me, spilling her white hair, cut short to her chin, over one of her pointed ears. "Beg apology," she says. "One of my saddlebags broke a strap. As I dismounted to repair it, a peal of thunder sent my horse fleeing into the copse." Her hands, shod in fine, soft leather—lambskin, I'd guess, stained dark brown by the rain—gesture to the road and forest beyond the cave. "Had I known another had claim on this place I would have gladly spent the night out in the storm."

"What's done is done." I draw the hood of my cloak from my face and shake out the mess of my unruly red hair, using the motion to drape the pearls around my neck and beneath my shirt, hoping the low light will hide the action from her notice. "Besides which, it's a boon for me that you found this place. You've built the fire and saved me the effort."

Regarding me coolly, the elf quirks a brow. "Aye," she says.

"Aye," I reply, in mimicry of her stuffy demeanor. Legs too tired to keep me standing another moment, I heave my body down by the fire. The hard earth bruises my arse, but exhausted as I am, it's hardly a bother. Leaning back on my hands, I dig my fingers through the straw and relaxing my shoulders with a long sigh.

"Well," I say, after I've taken a moment to enjoy the fire. "If you're to share our cave, it's only right you share the customs of we common folk as well, not the least of which is..." I perk my eyebrows upwards a time or two, and nudge my chin in the direction of her small meal of fruit and salted meat that my appearance interrupted.

Though her face remains placid, giving no indication she understands my intimation, after a moment the elf takes up an apple and rolls it towards me.

"Far be it from me to tread upon tradition," she says.

I snatch up the apple as it comes close and buff it against my wet cloak to remove the mud it's collected from the floor. "It's heartening to know there's some in noble circles who still respect the common practice." Dipping my head most obsequiously, I hold the apple against my forehead in both hands. "Tell me your name, Sir Knight, so that I might properly proffer my 'ppreciation."

The knight takes up a small oiled rag beside her. "Elyn."

"Ee-lyn?" I ask, sounding it out. "What kind of name is that?"

"Old name," she says. Her hand buffs the rag slowly against the worn leather of her riding trousers. She is in no rush to reply—few things could rush this one, I think. "Family name. Grandmother's. What's yours, that you'd insult mine so readily?"

I sink my teeth into the apple and draw away a chunk of it. I answer through a mouthful of fruit. "Ort."

"What?" She looks up from her work, quirking her eyebrows in disbelief. On that somber mien of hers, I'd guess that's her rough equivalent of outright laughing in my face. "You question my name, when yours sounds like a wagon wheel squelching through mud?"

I'd throw this apple at her... if I wasn't so damned hungry I could eat the core.

Instead, I sulk, slumping my shoulders and dipping my head to look at the muddy ground and strewn straw.

"It's a good name," I say. "Made it up myself."

She sets her rag down beside her and regards me quietly. The only sounds are the crackle of the fire, the persistent patter of the rain, the distant claps of thunder outside, and the crunch of my biting into her apple—embarrassed though I may be, I'm still hungry.

After a while she asks, "Made up your own name?"

"Old one didn't fit me."

"Why not?" She asks.

"Just didn't," I reply.

The apple's mostly gone. Regal sort this Elyn is, I'm sure she's quite put off by the suckling, slurping sound as I draw out its remaining juice. I've still half a mind to eat the core, pits and all, but my proximity to this stately and noble lady has, quite unconsciously, put me on my better manners.

Feh, knights. Feh, propriety. Feh—

She interrupts my thoughts. "Well, then maybe it's a fine name."

"It's a name," I say. "Let's leave it at that."

Elyn reaches her gloved hand out, as if she could touch me from the other side of the fire. "I didn't mean to offend," she says.

Instinct draws my body back before I can stop it. The display of weakness rages a deep blush through my cheeks. "Didn't," I say.

She shakes her head. It's quiet for a time, the both of us looking at the fire, sulking in our respective corners.

A log splits with a sharp pop. Shaking her head, Elyn rousts from her reverie.

"Need anything else to eat?" she asks. "I've taken an oath to—"

"Sure, sure," I say. "I know all the oaths, heard 'em recited at every church from here to Valdamar." I draw myself onto my hands and knees, crawl over to get nearer to her side of the fire. Sitting back down, I hold out my hand. "Bread'd be a start."

My boldness brings a disbelieving quirk to the corners of her lips, but it's not long 'til she's dug into her baggage and produced a small, hard roll, brown on top, scorched black on the bottom.

As I hold out my hand to receive it her gloved fingers trace across my upturned wrist. I respond with a brief shudder, eyes snapping to her face. She cants her chin downward. A bit of her pale hair spills before her easy, blue eyes; they are inquisitive, and fixated solely on mine.

My hand snaps back against my chest, clenching around the roll to suppress shaking fingers.

Elyn eyes me with a curiosity that belies the neutral tone of her voice. "Are you all right?"

My hands pass the small, hard roll back and forth a few times before my teeth dig in and tear off a mouthful. I chew and quickly swallow—too fast, throwing a dull ache through my throat. I wince and shake out my head.

"It's cold, is all."

"Take off your cloak, then," says Elyn, who surely thinks herself very intelligent for suggesting this, as if I hadn't thought of it. "It's soaking wet."

"I'm fine," I say.

"You've no sense," she says, voice laced with the building frustration of mothers, older sisters, nannies, and schoolteachers rolled into one. "Here, take it off and sit closer to the fire."

"Leave off," I say.

But her fingers are already around the clasp by my neck, and the heavy burlap falls from my shoulders to the rock below, revealing my lithe, underdeveloped body—trousers and shirt leave little to the imagination. I cringe.

After we've suffered the silence long enough, Elyn asks, "How many years are you?"

"Nineteen," I say. "...this coming autumn."

"Nineteen," she repeats.

I can hear the disbelief in her voice. No surprise there. Looking down at my body, my slight hips, my lack of bust, I know why her eyes catalog me as they do, ignorant of the secret that brings a raw blush to my cheeks.

"Nineteen," I say, firmer this time.

"She's nineteen, she's no family, and she's made her own name. Could it be this is no girl of woman borne, but perhaps a fey creature who's sprung whole from woodland rock and earth?"

I snort, keeping my gaze away from her. "No stranger tale than some I've heard."

Bending one of her legs to her chest, Elyn hugs her arms around it and rests her chin atop her knee. "Perhaps," she says.

I wrap my thin arms around my shivering body and sit as close to the fire as its lapping flames will allow. It barely warms the surface of me, let alone the bones. "What god screwed this hound of a season?" I ask. "It's snow for winter—ice candy, frosted windows, that sort of thing. Rain is for spring. How can it rain when it's so gods damned cold?"

She is silent, watching me, her eyes looking only for mine in the dim light. Her long ears uptick with mild curiosity; somehow this adds an even more thoughtful air to the living portrait she presents to me.

Absurd.

When the heat in my cheeks overcomes me I look away and tear off another mouthful of bread, as if the action might relieve even the smallest mote of my embarrassment.

Elyn shifts in her seat, splaying her long legs out before her, then pulling them back, she sits cross-legged, tucking her boots under her full hips, and rests her body back against the wall. "You're freezing." She pats the earth beside her. "Come, sit."

Shaking out my head and scattering the mussed, wet strands of hair into my face, I try not to let my anxiety snake its way into the laugh I throw at her. "As if I should," I say. "Make me."

Her fine, thin lips quirk into the first thing I've seen from her that could rightly be called a smile—ruddy bitch.

"I could," she says.

She could.

I drag myself onto hands and knees once more and clamber across the cold, wet hay. Once again, the chill that's sunk into me asserts itself. Sitting next to her, I hunch forward and bring my knees to my chest, trying to make my small body even smaller, trying to clench down on this formidable tremble spilling through me, causing me to quiver and shake against Elyn's side. The first thing I notice is the press of her drenched doublet against my arm. I shift and frown. This hardly feels better. Now it's just two wet travelers sharing their—

Her arm is around me. I freeze, a rabbit caught in the trap. The biggest rabbit in all these lands, but no less dumb for my size, now she has me snared.

Her hand draws me in. My shoulder presses against her, and I feel the slow retreat of her soft bosom under my weight. For a moment I forget the freezing air around us, so brightly does the fire burn through my cheeks. I crane my neck up, inch by inch, slow as any rabbit might.

Her eyes are crystal blue by firelight. They are crisp yet somehow bleary, like mountain water. She smiles down at me, this time there's no slyness to it. Her fingers draw soft furrows into my arm, keeping me close, her warmth a gentle and distant suggestion beneath the heavy cotton of her doublet.

I look away. Drawing my lower lip between my teeth, I bite down. Focusing on the pain, I hope to quell my shivering, but it only seems to amplify with every moment. I am charged, as if the lightning that strikes in the mountainous distance were attuned to my body, and suffusing me with its heavenly energy. Shiver, and bite down. Shiver, and bite down harder. Shiver, and—

"Ah!" I yelp.

Elyn's head quirks quickly to the side, her ears up and on alert, her eyes scanning for danger, and her arm retracting me, drawing me in so I could never escape. The moment lasts a second, or even half of one. Scanning the cave and finding no evidence of attackers, Elyn looks down to me, furrowing her brow in quiet consternation.

Her finger draws slowly across my parted lips, cleaning away the soft hint of blood that's welled up where I bit clean through the skin. My blood stains the rich material of her glove. Her hand around my side releases me, to dig deeply into my dampened hair, and to turn my reluctant gaze up towards her.

I open my mouth to speak, but Elyn slips her tongue between her lips for an instant, wetting them, then makes a shushing sound.

"Quiet," she says, the word soft—a suggestion, not a command. "Take a moment. Take a breath."

I do, but I find hardly any space in my lungs to fill with air. My throat is tight, my chest closed off. I've no thought but to stare up at her, my heart thundering so deeply in my chest that the press and squeeze of my blood can be felt in my burning ears. I am shaking, still, but now I know it's not from cold...

As my mind throws itself into a dizzy blur I notice the soft embrace of her leather-shod hands against my cheeks. I notice the gentle movement of her palms, turning my face upwards to meet hers. I notice the press of her lips against mine. Somehow those seem the boldest part of her, as if they were made of some different, stronger material than my own weak flesh. I stare up at her closed eyes, unable to find the will to shut my own. I trace every detail of her eyelashes with my gaze. My breath pulls itself into my body, and through it, her scent—that of open roads, of sweat, of fields, and of fresh rain—amplifies my dizziness to untold levels. I am swimming in the cold air.

I am the rabbit; she is the trap.

Beneath us, my hands press down against her bent legs, steadying me without my conscious command. Urgently, I grope my lips forward, returning her soft pressure. When I do, a spark of pain flashes through my mouth and I wince, pulling away.

Elyn replies in kind, dropping her hands into her lap. "I'm sorry," she says, "I should've asked—"