For the sake of nostalgia and everyone having access to the remaining parts of Year One, I've decided to put up what I saved as a new chapter of Loveshack.
Alas, everything is from Alain's point of view, as my note to myself in the document seemed to think I needed this for sidequest information. The sidequest must have been the demons and later the Black Knight, because otherwise there's really no connection I can think of. The breaks are where I guess-timated them to be based on the writing. In some places it was pretty difficult to tell. I broke them up based on content and context...eg, it seemed someone must have interjected dialogue for that to make sense, so put in a break.
Enjoy a little piece of Year One! Alas, if only I'd thought to save it all. :(
Hearing a door close somewhere down the hall, Alain decided to investigate. Layla was sleeping soundly now, over her nightmare. Strands of hair had fallen across her face, one hand flung out to her side, the other tangled in her hair. Her lips were parted, face pale in the moonlight that fell through the window to alight on her skin. His breath caught in his throat at the sight.
He leaned down and gently pressed his lips against hers, then stroked the hair from her face with a soft brush of his fingertips. "I'll be back in a little while," he whispered, not sure if she would wake or not.
Layla stirred a little, but Alain was already twisting the doorknob and stepping into the brightly lit hallway.
"Rox," Alain said, not surprised to see the Yuke in the lobby. Few candles lit the foyer, and in the dim Rox's hair looked like blood.
The Yuke looked up at him, then down at the book he was once again writing in. "You have something to say to me?" he said, noticing the very odd expression on the Clavat's face.
"I have to know," he said after a moment. "Was it all an act? Did you intend to trick them all along?" Some of what Rox had said and done had been frighteningly real.
The sudden weather change had taken Alain by surprise, and he moved to the room's sole window to see what was happening. His body stiffened in shock to see Layla, Meg, and Rox facing down the demons. Jackie ran to join them, and though the odds had improved Alain knew they would need all the help they could get.
A cold, numb feeling seemed to overtake his chest, and he pulled on his new jerkin with hands that were surprisingly steady. Something told him that this was the encounter. Whatever happened here would decide all their fates.
He finished his laces and headed for the door. Naked sword in hand, he stepped out into the storm, ignoring Demi's questions and heading for the others.
Alain had flushed a brighter red than Dai's back at his little singsong. He tightened his grip on the reins, fists clenched so hard his knuckles were bone white. If Layla had not practically thrown the reins into his hands, he would have been the one to climb down from the driver's box and find him. As it was he could only forcefully tamp down his anger.
"We're here," he announced, pulling back slowly on the reins to guide Papu to a halt. The miasma stream glowed ahead, an eerie, twisting blue that was not dampened by the ripples in the chalice shield.
Dai swore loudly when the wagon suddenly shot forward, already lunging to put his own weight into holding it back. He was straining against the wood, booted feet skidding on the slick stone of the miasma stream when the caravan suddenly slowed further. He straightened slightly, still pushing at the wagon with all his might. "That's my Meggie~" He grinned even though the strain was obvious. Alain didn't even want to imagine the toll this was taking on his body.
Not to say that Alain was standing by and doing nothing. He had urged Papu to a trot, a pace it was normally not forced to use due to the wagon and long days on the road. The beast grunted as it followed him, and Alain had to work to ensure that it did not veer left or right, a direction that would drag them all to their deaths in the seemingly endless miasma.
The stream was not very large, and abruptly it seemed that the gusts lessened, then died out nearly entirely. They had made it through the worst of it unharmed.
Dai gave a wolf whistle, and even Jackie grinned. She was happy for the two of them.
He'd thought he'd managed to get past the fact that Layla was incredibly pretty and that he was incredibly tongue-tied, but the flush that crept up his neck and made him turn bright red told him otherwise. He could only nod in response, unable to ignore Megan's knowing, if kind smile, and Rox's smirk.
"I am the rancher's son, after all," he said after a moment, but had to think about that. He was so much more than that now. Joining the caravan had finally helped him in his journey to become more than just the rancher's second son. "But I'd love the help."
He pulled all of his clothing out of his packs, wincing at the smell of some of them. Blood and sweat were not generally his scent of choice, and he hunted for the soap he'd packed into one of the compartments. "Anyone need any wash done?" he asked, looking pointedly at Dai, whose furs were looking rather grimy.
Without another word Alain gathered up the packs marked with his, Rox's, and Dai's names and moved towards the stream. He needed to think about all that had occurred. And, he realized, he needed to think about all that might occur.
With the Clavat gone, Rox let out a low chuckle. He didn't want to embarrass him, after all. "I can't decide what the most poorly kept secret in this caravan is: my face, Dai's prankster act, or Alain's feelings for Layla."
Jackie laughed too, though not unkindly. "Imagine how well we'll know each other by the end of the year!"
"I think that's what I'm most afraid of," Megan joked.
When Layla had volunteered her life for Dai's, Alain hadn't spoken up to stop her. He hadn't known what to say. He liked her, certainly, cared for her. But did he love her? It was too soon to tell. But the potential for them to be more than comrades, more than friends... it hadn't been enough for her to want to stay.
The thought was like a blow to his heart, and so he laid out his bedroll beside the others in silence. He did not try to sleep near Layla this time, taking a place across the makeshift fire pit. Why had she not even looked at him when she offered her life in exchange for Dai's health?
It was as if something ugly took root inside of him as more and more poisonous thoughts began to swirl in his mind.
Alain forced his own thoughts to quiet as he strained to hear Jackie and Rox's conversation. Huh, didn't see that one coming. But he could also see where the two would be good for one another, her cheerfulness lighting Rox's darker moments and his steadiness making up for her more flighty moments.
Finally he recognized the feeling that had been building since the moment that Layla had offered to give her life in exchange for Dai's, who she supposedly didn't even like. I'm jealous. I want what they have.
Alain glanced over to where Rox seemed busy with his journal and where Dai muttered in his sleep, amusing even when he wasn't trying to be. Megan and Jackie were still out cold. This was probably the most privacy they would ever get.
"If you..." he paused, trying to word it correctly. "If you don't feel the same anymore, it's okay. I get it." He hurried to explain himself. "I mean, Dai's really funny. And he's the kind of guy girls like. So if you... if you don't...if you want me to leave you alone, it's okay. I'm not mad. Even if I can't be your... your boyfriend," he practically whispered the last word, "I'll still be your friend."
It was probably the most glorious moment of his life so far. It was not what he had expected, and yet in the instant she leaned forward he had known.
Her lips were soft, surprisingly so. Though it was a simple, close mouthed kiss, the warmth that seemed to fill his entire being said it was anything but simple. And though he knew-hoped-that this would be just the first of many, he also knew that this would be the kiss that he judged all the others in his life by. And no matter how skilled or complex, all those other kisses would be found wanting.
Rox may have chuckled to himself, but Alain was too wrapped up in Layla to care. He touched her face delicately, tracing the line of her jaw with his fingertips before backing away.
He wanted to say something, anything. But he couldn't have spoken if he'd tried to.
"Rox, no," Alain said, putting his foot down for once in his life. He stood, moving into Rox's path. "You can't keep that. Seriously, throw it down, bury it, anything but keep it."
Alain took a deep breath. He wanted to stand down. He did. He wanted so badly to crawl back into his bedroll, to curl up next to Layla, to hold her hand through the night. But at the same time he could see that same Rox he'd seen that night in the inn, the one that had something inexplicably dark in him. He couldn't let this go so easily.
"Rox, please. You can't be thinking. If you were thinking at all, even a little bit, you'd know that this is just another trick."
Alain stared down at his hands, watching the way they shook uncontrollably, then looked back up to Rox and Meg. The others stood transfixed, as if so shocked by the turn of events that they couldn't even fathom how to act.
The things we have come to these past few days.
Alain awoke with a start, sweating profusely. He'd had a terrible dream, something about a mountain, and fire, and a man with a tattered red cloak...
He looked around in a panic, and at first everything was well. Layla and Demi still slept, but the further he turned...
At the sight of Rox obviously hurt, Alain tore through his packs. "The magicite was only just activated," he said, focusing the Cure stone on Rox. "It might not do hardly anything for you."
He didn't dare ask where Dai was. He remembered Rox's order from earlier in the evening. If the Selkie had run for the miasma, well, could any of them have really saved him from himself?
As a rancher who lived on the outskirts of Tipa, Alain hadn't known all of the people in the village. Suddenly he wondered. "Was there ever a Dai Soo? I mean, did anyone know him before the caravan?"
He returned Layla's hug, holding her tightly to him. He was suddenly afraid for her, for all of them.
As Alain looked around the circle, he realized with a sudden chill that he really couldn't trust any of them. After all, he hadn't really known any of them before the caravan. Perhaps they were all puppets too? He amended that quickly. He was fairly sure he'd seen all of them around town before.
Still... he looked from face to face. His heart wanted to trust them, wanted to go on as they had been, but his brain was stepping in and telling him to rethink everything.
Alain found himself looking at Demi, the only one in the circle he knew next to nothing about. She was strong, ridiculously skilled in an art few practiced. She was an innkeeper, once. She hadn't come outside during the battle in the storm, even though she probably would have been more useful.
No, he thought to himself. Stop this. You're seeing enemies everywhere!
"Trying to divide us," Megan suggested. "Trying to weaken us by making us stand alone."
Alain nodded, still taking in Rox's words. It had been hard enough standing on the sidelines of Rox's very personal fight with Scarmiglione. He couldn't imagine enduring a fight on his own.
"I saw a mountain of fire," Alain said. "I saw it like I was standing on the sea, looking at it from far away. He was standing over the mountain, massive, but shrinking as I looked closer. And I knew, as if he'd whispered it in my ear, that he was waiting at the summit. That he would meet me there." He didn't say the other knowledge Rubicante had imparted to him. That he would meet his end there at the demon's hand.
Alain wrapped his arm around Layla's shoulders. He looked around the circle, from Demi who stood smiling awkwardly in the background to the grinning Jackie, from the seething Rox to the finally reunited (and never to be parted, if their kiss was any indication) Meg and Dai. Things were suddenly... complete again.
Alain helped the one Lilty to his feet, the other man using his spear to support himself. "Aren't you a bit out of place here?"
The Lilty, who was clad in armor that shone black in the sunlight, huffed slightly. "Don't know," he said, knocking his visor back with one gauntlet covered hand. Faded red lines crisscrossed his face, the slashes too even to be anything but deliberate. His blue eyes seemed slightly unfocused. "Here's good as any."
A tentacle sprang from the ground, but the man quickly blocked it, then used the momentum of his spear to bring the double edged blade around for another swipe. "Thanks," Alain gasped. He hadn't even seen the blow coming.
The Lilty shook his head at him, leveling his spear. "'Tis I should be thanking ye, lad. I won't..." he paused, and something bitter and infinitely lost crossed over his face. "I won't forget ye." He replaced his visor, then with a loud yell, charged the malboro.
If they're willing to pursue us across the continent for no better reason than that, then they're never going to stop. We'll have to kill them, or be killed ourselves. Somehow the realization didn't bother him as much as the way the Lilty flexed first one glove, then the next. Alain wrapped an arm around Layla as if to protect her, waving the warrior down as his hand passed behind her back.
The other man appeared not to notice, still fixing his gear where it had been dislodged by the malboro. Alain bit his lip. If he attacked now, they would all die, as certain as anything.
"Oh," he muttered into Layla's hair, lips barely disturbing the already rumpled strands as he pictured how the slaughter would go, "Why didn't I tell you I loved you before this?"
"Please respect the dead," Alain said quietly to the Lilty. "You may not have known her, but she was good, and brave, and she really cared about us."
The Lilty nodded, then scuffed a boot across the grass before walking back to the caravan. He watched him go, before turning back to the others and the grave. Looking down onto her blanket shrouded face, red hair spilling from it in waves, he said, "You were at your finest in the forest, Demi. I'll remember you that way." He couldn't stop the tears that came then, or the sob that caught in his throat and made his voice crack.
Someone stopped him as he left the building, a hand clamped on his shoulder in an unforgiving grip. Alain turned, frowned. "What do you want?" he asked the Lilty in black.
"I owe ye," the man said after a moment spent regarding the Clavat. "Anything. Ye name it, lad."
"Can you save her?" Alain asked, knowing that the Lilty understood his question perfectly. At the sharp jerk of the dark helm to one side, he shook his own head. "There's nothing else I need." He turned on his heel and headed for the blacksmith's, ignoring the muttering of the Lilty behind him.
Alain stepped into the darkened room, letting his eyes adjust before moving further. He noticed the pile of clothing left on the chair and immediately looked to the bed.
She was probably already asleep, so he went through his evening routine without a second thought and slid between the sheets with a sigh. The feather stuffed mattresses felt like heaven. For a moment he could forget about sleeping on the ground for the past months as he luxuriated in the softness.
Still, he tossed and turned. Something felt off. He'd left something undone today... but what?
At last it came to him. With a slight sigh at his own idiocy and a smile, he rolled to his left and softly pressed his lips to Layla's shoulder. "Good night," he whispered.
Alain shrugged, his own mouth full of food. He hastily swallowed. "Don't know, don't mind," he said. He took her hand in his, running a callused thumb over her knuckles. Her skin had already begun to adjust to her training regime. "So Aeil took the news...well, then. Or as well as can be expected anyway."
He thought of Demi, standing behind the inn counter with a welcoming smile. He thought of her with her eyes narrowed in concentration, one fist cocked back as she and Layla sparred. He thought of the fire in her eyes as she battled, and the way she had gasped out her last words. And then, in a mental leap he hadn't expected to make, he thought of being a father, and hearing that his baby girl had died on a battlefield far from home.
Biting his lip, he squeezed Layla's hand. When they returned to Tipa, he would tell his mother and father everything that had passed this year. That way, if he died, they would not be left wondering what had happened. They would understand.
With a start, he came back to the moment. He sighed and loosened his grip on her hand. "I was thinking about being a father," he said softly, not looking into her eyes as a flush crept up his neck. "And finding out that my little girl had died. I was thinking about how that would feel. And then I realized just what it took for my parents to let me walk away from them that morning, third son or not."
Alain traded his sword to his right hand as he wiped the sweat from his palm. It was so damn dark in here, and they were packed so closely together in the tunnel. He found himself panting as he switched the sword again, wiping his other hand on his breeches.
Their footsteps seemed to echo against the tunnel walls. Surely every monster within a hundred paces could hear them. He found himself imagining what might lurk just beyond the light of the torch.
Layla shook herself to wakefulness, wincing at the stiffness of her newly formed skin. She looked to Alain, who still crouched by her protectively.
"You're all healed up," he said with a sigh, "And ready to run off and get hurt again."
"I'll try not to," she said, reaching a hand up to be pulled off the ground. She didn't bother to dust herself off, only checking to make sure her gloves were tight across her knuckles before running to join the others.
"Not good enough," Alain muttered, circling around to wait near the orc king's flank, sword at the ready.
Dusk had fallen on the village and Alain's father had already begun to light the candles and lanterns around the room. His siblings and their families had left for the festival already, and at last he stood alone with his father. His throat felt tight. It had been difficult not to cry throughout the harder parts, especially now that they were all safe. If there were ever a good time to break down, it was now.
"Tell me the truth, Al," his father said after a moment, his back to his second son as he stared out at the crystal. "Would ye do it again?"
Alain thought it over for several long moments. At last he spoke softly. "Since I left all those months ago, I've seen and done things you wouldn't believe. I've breathed poison but didn't die. I was frozen and waterlogged and burned and paralyzed at times, but here I am. I met five strangers who managed to become my best friends and they carried me through. I kissed a girl and somewhere along the way fell in love with her. I cried over a friend who left us far too soon, and I carved my name into the place we buried her. I dealt with a demon who wanted me to die because I was more of a gentleman than any other caravanner he'd seen. I've seen three myrrh trees. I've seen a Yuke's face, kissed a Clavat crazy, been kissed by a crazy Selkie, and rescued a Lilty with no memory. And I killed, Father. I killed and killed until it became easier to unsheath my sword than it did to sheath it. Would I do it all over again? Yes. A dozen times, yes," he said.
"Do ye think ye'll ever come back for good? Run the ranch with us?"
He couldn't answer, not because he was torn, but because the answer was so obviously and emphatically no. How could he go back to the ranch routine, when the outside world had held such joys and tragedies?
His father turned away from the crystal at last. "I figured as much," he said, and hugged Alain to him. His beard and cheeks were wet, but Alain embraced his father tightly anyway. "We love ye, Al. Yer ma and me, we love ye. And we're so damn proud."