Thanks to my amazing reviewers! (FFNet isn't letting my reply to reviews at the moment, but Yes the character alliteration in the title is intentional—it was originally going to be Pride and Perseverance because I'm a huge Austen fan, but I thought Dalton deserved more credit—and you'll be seeing a bit more of Tobe in this update). Tortall belongs to Tamora Pierce. The Odyssey is traditionally credited to Homer and I'm not going to dispute that here…
Since they traveled with Mindelan, Queenscove, and the Wildmage's children, their journey from Corus to the Swoop was a leisurely one. Penelope still felt restless—she wanted to get farther away from the palace with all its constraints and expectations when they stopped to make camp at mid-afternoon.
She went with Dalton to gather firewood. They walked in easy silence, working quickly to finish the task, and both came back with full arms and sweaty brows. Still Penelope felt oddly unencumbered—she was used to having things to do. And the fact that Queenscove and his wife—not to mention all the children—were asleep kept her from complaining about it.
Tobe, however, seemed to feel the same way as he sat on a log and scraped quietly at the ground with the heel of his boot, politely averting his eyes from the Wildmage, who was nursing baby Rikash.
"Hey Daine?" he whispered finally. "Can we go to the creek?"
"Of course," she muttered absently, still gazing at Rikash with motherly reverence. "I'm not your chaperone."
Dalton caught Penelope's eye and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing or blushing as they stood to follow Tobe.
"Don't drown," Numair murmured without lifting his eyes from his book as they stepped over his long outstretched legs on their way to the water.
Penelope just heard Daine mutter in reply, "you don't handle that well, do you?"
They stopped beside a still, deep-looking patch of creek and sat at the rocks beside it. Dalton and Tobe peeled off their shirts. Penelope scowled jealously, stripped off her tunic, undid the top few buttons on her shirt—Dalton, who almost never saw her out of uniform, watched this rather boldly and Penelope glanced back boldly but stopped short of revealing anything unseemly—and rolled up her sleeves.
Dalton and Tobe struck up a conversation about his horse. Penelope sat, still feeling irritable and sweaty, for two minutes before inspiration struck. Then she pulled off her boots and socks, rolled her trousers up over her knees, and dropped her ankles into the icy water. She giggled as the current tickled her soles; realized suddenly that she was free of Marcel's scornful gaze and the daily monotony of the pages' schedule; and found that she could not stop laughing.
Tobe appraised her as though she were a skittish horse he needed to reign in. "Are you going to cry next?"
Penelope might have managed to catch her breath and answer him if Dalton had not set a concerned hand on her back. As it was, his fingers—warm through her shirt—caught the ticklish spot at the bottom of her ribs and she let out another helpless burst of giggles. So she merely shook her head in reply and splashed a little water on her face.
Happy, serene, and no longer overheated, she pulled up her feet and watched somewhat smugly as Dalton dropped his own bare feet in the water and flinched at the cold.
"You're sure you're not going to cry next?" Tobe asked, pulling off his own boots. "Kel does that sometimes."
"Quite." Penelope, with only mildly heroic effort, bit off another laugh, which would surely have alarmed them. Almost, she wished for Selina—who would have understood perfectly and joined in her laughter. That was the trouble with having Dalton double as best-friend and sweetheart: there were some things he simply didn't get.
After she'd had time to consider Tobe's words, she added, "Mindelan doesn't have hysterics."
Tobe shrugged. "Not very often. Only when Dom's been gone too long." He shrugged again. "She does all kinds of things that might surprise you."
Dalton blinked at Penelope. "That was hysterics?"
"That was mild," Penelope assured him.
"I'm surprised it isn't warmer," Tobe muttered, sticking his toes in the creek.
"It's just the contrast with the sun," Penelope said.
"It might even be swimable," Dalton agreed.
"I wonder how deep it is." Penelope stuck her ankles back in the creek.
"Let us know," Tobe said, just Dalton's hands slid under her arms and toppled her gently off the rocks and into the creek.
It was cold enough to make her let out an embarrassingly girlish shriek. But she regained some dignity by soundly cursing Tobe, Dalton, and the creek—in between gasps and sputters—as soon as she'd surfaced. Her body adjusted quickly and her brain began to plot revenge.
She held up a hand to Dalton, who took it instantly, wrapping his warm fingers around her cold ones.
"Here," he murmured, starting to drag her out.
Penelope jerked backwards, ducking underwater and pulling him in with her.
He came up laughing, still holding her hand, and he pulled her close to kiss her. Penelope figured she'd already be in trouble for misbehaving in front of Mindelan and kissed him back.
To her astonishment, Mindelan traded mischievous glances with her husband, who had already thrown Tobe in, and then jumped in herself. Penelope's estimation of her sense of humor surged.
They all jumped in surprise, not recognizing the Wildmage when she hit the water in frog form. And Penelope's suspicion—that all the rules that applied in Corus were suddenly null and void—was confirmed.
They splashed and shrieked like six-year-olds until Queenscove called them to dinner and then they climbed out of the creek, soaked and starving.
If Marcel or Gregory had been there, she might have worried about the way her wet clothing—thankfully dark enough not to have become transparent—clung to her figure, which was small enough to be mostly obscured by her usual training clothes. Queenscove and Tobe seemed completely oblivious to her appearance. Domitan had eyes only for Mindelan. And Numair was carrying his own rabbit-shaped wife. Dalton did look. But this, Penelope realized, made her blush with pleasure rather than embarrassment. And in any case, she was too busy gazing at Dalton's bare shoulders to protest.
At least until Mindelan turned suddenly and appraised them both with a mind-reading, blush-inducing look. Shaking her head, she draped a blanket over Penelope with motherly hands and pushed her into a patch of trees to change. Penelope concluded that Mindelan had eyes in the back of her head and a carefully moderated sense of mischief.
PDPD
This was the first of many unexpected summer lessons. Penelope also realized that the Lioness was indeed human even as Alanna taught her own to disarm larger opponents before they could take advantage of their size.
She took on a centaur and learned to avoid the failing hooves. And that Dalton's arms were a good place to catch her calm after a battle.
She took care of Queenscove and Mindelan's daughters for an afternoon and concluded that small children were louder, more violent, and more terrifying than most immortals. And that anti-pregnancy charms were the most valuable magical device after the Dominion Jewel. Not that she'd used either.
She discovered that Dalton was ticklish in his left elbow—but not his right—and that the oak tree behind the Swoop stables was an excellent place to be kiss (assuming, of course, that the Lioness and her husband weren't already embracing beneath it). She also found that she could easily fit into an armchair with Dalton (as long as she didn't mind draping her legs over one arm) and that they could get away with sitting this way at the Swoop because it ran on different rules.
And she perfected an impudent pronunciation of 'sir' to address Queenscove with.
"Look," he told her finally. " I'd just as soon not be called Queenscove—it sounds like the queen is my mistress or something—but if you're going to cut me down to a single syllable, I'd rather go by Neal. Fewer sibilant sounds for you to fill with cheek."
"I could never address you with such bold informality, sir," she protested.
But she managed some of the time because she was beginning to understand why Mindelan liked and trusted him so well. There was a compassionate and loyal chivalry tucked behind the melodramatic sarcasm.
Penelope barely even noticed the first time Neal slung his arm round her shoulders on the walk back from the stables because she was too busy teasing him about the unlikelihood of his looking distinguished with grey hair. And then it seemed as though they'd always walked together that way.
"In any case," Dalton added as he took her arm at the door. "I suspect you'll worry him into several grey hairs and then we'll all be able to judge for ourselves."
"You never know," Neal said darkly. "I might go bald just to spite all of you."
Penelope squinted at him and shook her head. "You don't have the beer gut for it."
"Perfect match," someone—Penelope thought it was George—muttered. Penelope wasn't sure which pair he was referring to but decided she agreed anyway.
Her month at the Swoop flew by so quickly that she had almost no time to dread leaving it.
PDPD
Dalton gave up on sleep the night before Penelope was due to leave with Queenscove and padded barefoot and shirtless from his new room for a walk around the walls of the Swoop.
He'd half expected to find Penelope already gazing out towards the sea, but the sight of her surprised him slightly. She was also barefoot, her calves appearing suddenly beneath the hem of blue nightgown.
"This is rare," he murmured, lifting a lock of her hair, which hung loose against her shoulder blades.
She lifted her elbows off the wall and turned to face him, her eyes widening momentarily as she realized how little they were both wearing. "Not really. I let it down most nights—it's usually halfway tumbled out by then anyway—and braid it up first thing in the morning. I know I should probably chop it all off but I'm just too stubborn to—"
"Don't," Dalton said. "I'd like to see it again at midwinter."
Penelope smiled and they turned together to gaze out, their elbows resting side-by-side on the wall. Her hair fell in a curtain between them and he lifted a hand to tuck it back.
"I'm not sure you'll ever stop surprising me," he muttered, running a few gleaming strands through his fingers.
"I suppose I'd have to stop surprising myself first," she murmured, turning to plant her forehead against his bare shoulder. Her skin was warm but her hair fell cool and soft against his arm.
"There's your name, for instance, and the way you're nothing like your namesake."
She lifted her head. "You mean the one who waited all those years for her husband Odysseus to come home?"
"That one," he agreed. "She was kind of an idiot."
"More than 'kind of'. I've never understood why she didn't just go out and find him." She tilted her head thoughtfully at the sea. "Then again I've never understood why she wanted him back since he was too stupid to find his way home and too arrogant to ask for directions."
Dalton smiled. "You do realize there wouldn't be much story to tell if he'd done that?"
"Exactly, it would be a short fable about traveling safely so that you can get back to the one you love."
Dalton's breath caught and Penelope's eyes widened as she realized what she'd said.
"Indeed," he murmured.
"I—" Dalton silenced her lips with his fingers.
"I will if you will," he whispered, drawing her into his arms so that she turned to face him.
"Agreed," she murmured, lifting her face to kiss him.
"Promise?" he stepped back and traced her cheekbones with his thumbs, wiping away the silent tears that she was bravely ignoring.
"Promise." She turned and settled her back against his chest, pulling his arms about her waist so that they stood wrapped together to watch the moon pull the tide out.
I think I'll just leave them there for now—I don't have the heart to end by sending them in separate directions. Apologies to any diehard Odyssey fans I've managed to offend—though I've noticed during several dining table battles that feelings for that particular epic tend to be divided along gender lines. I hope to post another chapter this weekend before I fly home.