The sun's morning rays crept through the leaves, accompanied by the singsong of birds. The sight reminded Yorda of an opera, with the spotlight following the singers everywhere they went. The birds flew overhead, their song dancing from one ear to the next. Was this really the path Ico had been taken on as a child? "Doen this way?" she asked again.
Ico gave a small nod. "Do we really have to do this?" he asked softly, looking at the map in his hands. "We've been away from home for five days now. Maybe we should go back, let Toto get on with his-"
She placed a finger to his lips, giving him a welcoming smile and a stern gaze at the same time. "I get my peace," she said, "now you get yours." In truth, she did agree with him on some level. It was her turn to carry the bag, and her legs hated the burden with every fibre. Even her feet were starting to feel the pain. For a brief, yet shocking second, she wondered if she should have brought sandals after all.
"Yeah, I guess," said Ico. "Shouldn't be far now."
Yorda sighed with relief, forgetting herself for a small moment. Perhaps I won't need those sandals. She shrugged the left strap back into place, letting Ico take the lead. Once again, he hesitated. With a cheeky tut, she marched on, just as he started moving with larger strides, quickly outpacing her. He moved without hesitation, with purpose. She wondered if he was feeling how she felt about the gate. Though this is definitely more urgent than what I wanted.
The path sloped downward. Ico took careful steps, reaching with his hand to help her down inch by inch. With the huge burden on her back, she accepted his help without a moment's hesitation, finding footholds in the dirt, keeping her gaze on the path down. "Not pull, Ico," she joked, trying to steady her nerves.
"I won't," he started to say. As he did, Yorda lost her footing, and the bag pulled her down the slope. Still holding tight, Ico found himself tumbling down with her, smashing into the ground below with a thud. Yorda, in turn, landed on the bag, flattening it. The seal broke, and the clothes within spilled into a nearby puddle of mud. She stared in horror, trying to salvage what she could. Unfortunately for her, only Ico's spare turban survived untouched. "Rat crap and cow droppings," she hissed.
Ico picked up the muddy clothes, looking disdainfully at them. As she watched, he looked away, and his expression lifted suddenly. "Not to worry," he said. "It's just there." He bundled the clothes together and ran ahead. Yorda, rather stunned, sealed the bag and ran to catch up with her husband. At least now, the burden was much lighter.
A lone windmill blew at the edge of the village. A gentle breeze pushed the sails along, creaking loudly against the ramshackle tower propping it up. Yorda looked at it in confusion, trying to make sense of it. There was nothing clearly attached to the windmill. The wheat fields were on the opposite side of them, anyway. Still, that creaking filled the space of the village. No other voices joined it.
Ico stared at his old home. The huts were still there, still encircling the chieftain's hut. But holes marked the roofs and walls of some, and others had collapsed outright. "Where… Where is everyone?" he said to himself. What could have happened to his hometown, to steal the life he had grown up with. "Hey!" he yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth. "Hey! Is anybody here?!"
Silence met them in reply. Yorda looked again at the wheat field. The stalks didn't look particularly healthy. The grass underfoot was a pale yellow, almost like straw in how it felt. What little life was left in the soil clearly wouldn't last the month. If this village isn't dead already, she thought, it soon will be.
Panic clutched at Ico's heart, as he ran towards the huts. "Hey, anybody!" he called. "It's me, Ico! I'm back! I'm home!" He ran around the chieftain's hut, checking every home around it, both standing and derelict. "Esa? Locu? Yue?" He stopped suddenly at one hut, still standing seemingly unscarred. Yorda caught up with him, just seeing him stand utterly still before this one, lonely house.
"Mother?" he whispered.
As Yorda watched, something took shape in the hut's threshold. A thin, hobbling woman, peering out of the shadows with narrow eyes. Twin braids hung from either side of her head, itself compressed like a blob of dough. She took one look at him, at the gentleman in the turban, then at the elven woman standing beside him.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" she whispered to herself with a haggard croak.
"Mother, it's me," he said gently, pointing to himself. "Ico."
The old woman's eyes grew wide in shock. "Ico?" she gasped, stepping back into the shadows. "N-no, that's not true, it's not! You- you went to the Castle, just like all the other horned boys." There was a look in her face. Not quite fear, but close to it. "They said you would never come back. You were meant to…"
Ico smiled. "I escaped my cursed fate," he said, gesturing to Yorda. "Me and her, we brought an end to the curse once and for all." He gave her a look that read, Or so I thought. She replied with an uneasy laugh.
To reinforce his point, he unrobed the turban, dropped it by his feet. His mother saw the two broken nubs on his head, and dropped her walking stick in amazement. "It cannot be," she whispered. "You truly have escaped your fate." A great excitement overcame her. "My son is alive!"
Ico ran towards her, wrapping his arms around her in a long-awaited embrace. Yorda stood back and watched, happy for her husband. At last, he can find the closure he's always needed. Her gaze turned to the other, ruined huts of the village, and she lost her smile. Although his story is far from over.
"Hey, Yorda!" Ico shouted. "Come join us! We need to tell mother what happened at the castle!"
"Oh," she replied, giving his mother a friendly wave. "It long, crazy story."
Their stories were exchanged over a beef broth.
Ico explained what happened at the castle, wording his explanations carefully to make everything sound believable to his mother. Yorda would sometimes interrupt with one of their adventures out in the open world. As she was talking about their involvement in the Miners' Protest in Krollik, he was worried that her story, or how she was spinning it, would come across as too far-fetched. Instead, his mother chuckled, and accepted her words without question. It helps we haven't had to deal with magic since our escape, he thought.
"So, what brings you back to Doen?" she asked. "After all your escapades, I'm surprised you'd want to come back here."
"Yeah," said Ico, reminded of his unease. Was it better to ask about what happened to the village, or just answer the question straight, and hope to get an explanation from that?
"He come for closure," said Yorda, taking the choice from him. "We travel to make peace with our past. I do mine, now he come here for his." She gave him a smile, which he didn't feel ready to return. Did I speak out of turn again? she asked herself.
"Um, there's something else," said Ico. "Have you heard of the Matador?"
"Yes," said his mother with a grave nod. "If you've lost your horns, maybe you'll never have to deal with him. I pray you never do."
"I doubt I'll be that lucky," he replied with a mirthless laugh. "The horns may be gone, but they're still a part of me. I am, and always will be a horned child. And I think he'll pick up on that."
"So, what?" she asked. "Are you going to flee this country?"
He shook his head, just as Yorda opened her mouth to reply. She saw it, leaned back, and let him talk. "It'll happen no matter where we go. No, mother. I want to understand it. See, he's got this thing caged up. It's like-"
"A bull with the body of a man?"
He gasped.
His mother gazed out the door, towards the ravaged village. "You weren't the only horned child from Doen," she said. "Remember Cantu?"
He nodded his head slowly.
"He had horns too, but they broke when he was six, just before they could take shape. So, he grew, and as he turned into an adult, he grew hairy, his voice turned deep, and he struggled to speak. By the time he was twenty…" She sighed. "The Matador actually came here, took him away from us."
Ico fell in his seat, numb. "One of them lived here…"
"As you can imagine," she continued, "after that, a lot of us decided to move out. Our people fled to live in Arskel, or Bolon, or wherever they could find refuge. Me and the chieftain stayed, but even then, he's admitted he will probably leave when I'm gone." She looked down at herself. "Doen dies with me…"
"All of this desolation…" Ico whispered, "because of the curse?" He looked at the lonely windmill out the window. It had ground to a halt. He struggled to imagine it turning ever again. "Will nobody ever live here after you're gone?"
She shook her head. "The chieftain stays out of duty only. He has nothing else to do, than to make sure I'm still alive." She sighed. "It's not fair for you to carry this burden, my son. But this curse killed our village." She looked him in the eye. He could still see the disbelief in her gaze, the doubt that her son was still alive, and talking to her. "We all thought it would kill you."
"You know, I doubt curse do this," muttered Yorda.
The two turned to her. "Pardon?" said Ico's mother.
"Horned children carry curse, yes," she explained, sitting up. "Mother, she… harvest them, take their magic, feed off them. Then she turn them to shadow, to serve her forever. No grown child come to castle ever. What she do with grown bull man?" She shrugged. "Who say curse from mother at all? Who say she not just take something that natural?"
"Are you saying this just happens?" asked Ico, a little dumbfounded. "That horned kids are just born without any rhyme or reason?"
"I think," she replied, scratching her chin. "All this drought, plague, bad things that happen… Maybe she cause that. Maybe whole harvest just big, clever game she play with people, so people think horned child to blame?"
"That sounds very difficult for her to organise," muttered Ico, considering the possibility himself. "We need to get to the bottom of this. But I don't think there's anyone left in the land who'd know anything about it." He paused. "Well, one exception, but there's no chance I'm asking him."
"You might be right," said his mother. "I implore you, whatever you must do, leave the land until it is safe for horned children once again." She shook her head. "You deserve a free life, Ico. The pair of you do."
"Ico," said Yorda suddenly, with a snap of her fingers, "I may know someone."
"Who?"
She hesitated for a moment. Ever since meeting the Mayoress of Sullovar, she hadn't told him about their shared conversation. What would he say now if she told him? She closed her eyes, and braced for the result. "Leader of Sullovar," she said. "She… Speaks my tongue."
"How can that be possible?" asked Ico's mother. "Surely you and your queen were the only one literate in that… dialect."
"There is a lot about my family I do not know," she whispered in her language, sitting back down. "Perhaps my journey of self-discovery is not yet over after all." She looked at Ico, with a face of concern and hope. "Perhaps our fates are bound closer than I thought."
She could see in his eyes that he still couldn't understand her language. Beyond that, however, she could see that he knew what she was saying. "So be it," he decided. "Starting tomorrow, we embark for Sullovar."
"Where will you stay?" asked his mother. "If you'd like to stay here one last time, I'd be happy to host the pair of you."
"Thanks, mother," said Ico, pulling his bag along the floor. "I hate to ask this, but could you help us with our washing while we're here? We slipped on the way."
The bag sagged, spilling muddy clothes over the cold, stone floor. His mother stared at them in shock. Her gaze returned to Yorda, who smiled innocently. "My clothes not dirty as his," she said.
An overnight stay evolved into two, as Ico spent more hours talking with his mother than Yorda had hoped. Their clothes had been washed, their food replenished from the village's derelict barn; by all means, they were ready to go. Tidemoon Harbour was only a stone's throw away from Doen, easy to reach on foot.
And yet, this was the happiest she had ever seen him. His family was alive, and so was she. As far as she understood it, his life had come full circle. Watching him chat with his mother, she felt almost forgotten about, with neither paying her much attention. She had to insist they leave to be acknowledged, and even then, they would quickly forget, and return to their recollections.
Yorda sat on the doorstep, gazing out to the decaying village around her, stamping her feet against the dry, dusty ground. This may be the happiest he's ever going to be, she thought, but we can't live here. While he's here, he's just the same little boy he was before the sacrifice, and not the man I love. There is nothing for me here.
Was there any chance he'd want to stay? The idea wedged itself in her head, and refused to be ignored. That would put a lot of pressure on her. Pressure that didn't feel fair. She stood up, turning back into the hut to bring this up.
There he was, sitting by the table, eating another bowl of broth.
Yorda sat opposite him, fixing a glare on him. "We need to go," she insisted.
"I know," he said lazily, "but after this. Mother's preparing me some bread for-"
"We have all we need!" hissed Yorda. "You cannot stay here."
Ico dropped the spoon in the bowl. "Why can't I?" There was a childish pettiness in that question. So he does want to stay.
"You in danger," she said. "Matador find you, do thing to you I don't want see! We go, before he find us!"
"Yorda, listen," replied Ico, trying to sound reasonable. "This is my mother. I haven't seen her in ten years. She's my family. After all this time, you can't seriously expect me to just walk away from her, do you?"
"If I let you stay here," she said, throwing out her hand to the village beyond, "this what you become! Alone, lifeless, cut off from people! You have so much, Ico." She returned her hand to the table. "Stay here, and all that will go."
There was a sneer in his eyes. "Is that what you're afraid of?"
"What?"
"There's plenty of room in this village for you, Yorda," said Ico, with the voice of a parent speaking to a small child. "We can just move here. Forget about the Matador. About Toto, about Eles. It'll be just like how things used to be, before the sacrifice, before the Queen. Back when my life made sense."
Yorda's cheeks turned pink. "You right," she whispered, struggling to contain herself. "This place just like it was. Before sacrifice. Before Queen." She stood up suddenly. "And before me."
She turned tail and walked out of the doorway, grabbing her bag on the way out. Ico watched with shock as Yorda disappeared from view. He leapt over the table and ran to catch up with her. The broth bowl was knocked over as he did, crashing on the floor.
His mother watched it all unfold from the kitchen, turning to the bread in the kiln. "It's true, isn't it?" she said to herself. "I'm holding him back from her."
Evening rays peered out of the clouds, bathing the golden grass in autumnal hues. For a moment, it was easy to forget that Doen was a ghost town, when it could offer such potent beauty.
Yorda wasn't in the mood for it. She marched past the grass, between two run-down huts, back into the surrounding forest. She held the new map in her hands, kindly donated by Ico's mother. According to it, as long as she kept going downhill, she'd reach Tidemoon Harbour before nightfall.
"Yorda!"
She stopped on instinct, turning to see Ico running towards her, flailing his arms without any elegance or composure. He looked genuinely panicked; a sight she had grown too used to for her liking. "Yorda!" he repeated, coming to a stop, wheezing for breath.
Yorda folded her arms. "You forget for bread?"
"Yorda, listen," huffed Ico, waving his hand to her. "I'm sorry about that, I really am." He faced her. "But my mum's precious to me. With dad gone, she's the only family I have. You, you can't seriously expect me to walk away from that."
"Yes," Yorda started to say, before rethinking what he'd just told her. She had heard the two talking about his father, but never paid attention to the details. From what she could recall, he'd just up and left one day, for the sake of some job or other. I suppose I am being rather ignorant here, she realised. She sighed. "I mean, no."
Ico caught his breath, and stood straight. "You understand?"
"No," she answered honestly, "but it not your fault. My mother, never like that. She not love me, or anything. Love for family, I never get." She looked away. The Mayoress of Sullovar loved me, a little. Was that what a mother's love felt like? We never should have left. Her gaze returned to Ico. "I'm…"
Something caught her eye in the distance.
A plume of smoke, billowing from Ico's hut.
"Ico, look…"
He turned in confusion, and stared in visible horror as his childhood home bloomed into flame. The fire spread quickly to the surrounding huts, and caught fast on the derelict windmill at the far end. The fields were fast ablaze. The two could feel the heat shimmer from where they stood.
"No!" Ico cried, sprinting towards it. Yorda grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him back. "Let me go!" he protested. "Mom's still in there!"
"She got out!" Yorda shouted back, thinking on the spot. "I see her, she get out alive! We can't stay here!"
Still, Ico resisted. "I have to be sure!"
"I'm sure!" She ran to face him, eye to eye. "Do you trust me?"
"Wh, Yorda-"
"I saw her," she repeated. "Now let's go!"
He stuttered for a response, before finally swallowing it. "Okay," he said weakly. "Let's go."
Yorda led the sprint, dragging Ico behind her as the two ran for the woods. She hadn't really seen his mother at all. But he was too attached to that place, and to her. This was the perfect opportunity for him to cut away and become a man once again. If she had lived, she didn't want to know. She will only drag him down, if he sees her alive again.
The two ran into the dimming sky, listening to the crackling of fire fade behind them.
Two figures watched the two flee, hidden in the canopy. "This was a bit extreme, don't you think?" asked the younger one. Their voices were drowned out by the raging flames, but they heard each other just fine.
"Maybe," replied the older one. "But it was a dead town anyway. I just got too sentimental over it. Ironic that my son helped me realise that. It caught him in the same trap."
"So, what do we do now?"
The older voice scoffed. "Well, you're hardly a chieftain anymore," she said. "I don't suppose you know the way to Arskel?"
Two hours later, and Doen was the talk of the town for the first time in years. Everybody could see the rising smoke. The two heard chatter about it on the way to the inn. Yorda powered through it, determined not to let Ico be caught up in any of it. But now, in their room, they were away from all that. Still, she could see the smoke from the window.
Ico lay on his bed, his face frozen in shock. "It's gone," he repeated again. "All of it, gone."
Yorda sat next to him, putting a hand on his lap. "It was dead town," she whispered. "We not have to stay there anymore."
He shook his head, tears welling in his eyes. "You don't understand," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "I remember how it used to be. We had close ties with the priest. He always led sermons in the village centre every other season. He organised the whole Horn sacrifice thing." He looked her in the eyes. "When we got there, that square was completely overgrown."
Yorda bit her lip. To her, it was clear that Doen was right at the centre of the Queen's schemes. She wondered if that was why it died out after the Castle collapsed. With the sacrifice ended, there was no use for the village anymore. The fact his mother still insisted on living there baffled her, to some degree. Did his father know to move on?
"It must be great," she said instead. "I hear one person say, 'Oh, Doen great place. Why everyone not go there?'" She deepened her voice, trying to imitate an old man talking. The sound made her giggle a little.
Ico threw himself around her, and sobbed. He allowed all of it to surface. The frustration at his bullhorns, the anxiety of the Matador, and for this moment, the loss of his hometown. At least his mother was safe, he hoped. He felt certain of that. Yorda wrapped her silky arms around him.
"There," she whispered, stroking his hair. "We be okay. You have me. I have you."
He let go, sniffled a little while his voice steadied. "I guess I found my closure," he joked. "A bit too much closure, in fact."
She smiled, planting a kiss on his forehead. "I bet you I get too much closure from Sullovar, when we go there," she said, standing and returning to her bed. She had hoped they'd get a single bed, but only the doubles were available. She slid into her bed covers, giving Ico one final look, before closing her eyes.
That took longer than I expected.
From here, I don't know where the story's going, or if it'll go any further than here. I do wish to conclude this story, ideally in a satisfying way. Plus, I'm hoping to commission a drawing of the protagonists, although time will tell how that works out. I started this with no idea of where it's going, which I think does aid the relationship between Ico and Yorda. At the cost of the whole Matador subplot.
Right, enough rambling from me. Thank you for sticking with this, and Merry Christmas. Here's to Chapter 4.
