by the way, i've revised my chapters one and two -twice- so some details may be different. so if you have time, i'd scan them over before reading this chapter...all shiny and new...
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When Ara was thirteen, she shed her hat and breeches for the first time and donned a skirt. "Ara," Cullen had begun tentatively, "Perhaps you should be a girl now."
"Why?"
He blushed. "Because, you can tell already...you know. If you dress like a boy, people will know you're hiding something. And hiding something makes you guilty, at least in the minds of this city. And Perisen." He averted his eyes, but Ara knew there was that bitter fire sparking his goldenbrown eyes though she could not see his face.
She sighed, remembering the cumbersome weight of her mother's skirts, and feeling the flexible freedom of the breeches, but nodded. "Fine."
And so she returned the next day dragging a bolt of cloth taller than herself, plus a thick, heavy wool cloth, and based on childhood memories managed to make herself a dress. It took most of her free afternoons for a couple of weeks, but when she was finished Ara was pleased with her accomplishment. The deep green muslin, along with the thicker wool, swirled around her ankles smoothly, and the fitted bodice showed her growing figure.
"Mama would have been proud," Ara said. "I look...just like her. Strange." Ara hadn't thought of her in years, and the memories swamped her mind; it hadn't occured to her before that the childless Perisen, her birth father, was a tyrant. Aralien, not Ara. What would Cullen say? Tears pricked her eyes at the thought of his angry shout, hatred sparking in his beautiful brown eyes. It could never be told, she argued with herself. She could never bear him hating her.
Cullen blinked, wondering for a moment if her mother could possibly be as pretty as the girl in front of him. He made a face. After all, what was he thinking? It was only Ara, the same girl who he had seen every day for six years.
"And now I can make you some more clothes, too. Cullen, you look like a walking pile of rags," she said gleefully, covering up her tears with exagerrated cheer.
"Do not," he said, but looked pleased to have new clothes. Ara wondered how the young Lord felt to be a simple commoner, but bit her tongue and never asked her question. "By the way, how did you learn all this?"
She grinned slightly. "I didn't. But then again, I was also a servant. You were lucky, lord-boy, because I knew how to make a proper soup, and didn't have strange experimentations. It could have been watery broth for seven months, you know." He laughed, teasingly.
Measuring and remeasuring, as she had done with her dress, the boy became quickly tired of the whole affair. "Do you have to keep trying it on and off and on..." he complained, good naturedly.
"Well," she had replied, "If you wouldn't grow so tall-" and with that she brought him lower with a small tug at his elbow. Well, she told herself, he had grown. Even his shoulders seemed broader under her fingers, more solid. Yet still, in the morning light, his hair was the same light brown as it was when he was a boy, the eyes still a golden brown, the pure line of his profile as noble as before. She shook her head sharply, and the moment was gone.
"I suppose I have to tell the inn that I'm female, now," she sighed, not quite thinking.
"What?"
Her mouth had betrayed her. "Oh, nothing."
Cullen's eyes snapped at her. "You leave here to work?" Grasping her shoulders, he shook her angrily.
"You do, too!"
"But-" he began, before she reached out a booted foot and flipped him with the easy grace that she learned to use. With a yell and a thump, he didn't have a chance to dodge and landed heavily on his back. "That's not nice, Ara," he said sheepishly, staring up at her from the hay. "I taught you that."
"And I use it. But the inn gives me money for cleaning, and that's that. Did you really expect me to sit in this dusty place all my life?"
He shrugged, voice rueful. "I suppose...besides, it's not like I can stop you. I didn't know you got that good at fighting."
Beginning to feel a laugh bubbling out of her throat, Ara gave him a hand up. "Perhaps Ladies sit in their homes all day, but not us women of the city. We do things." But pulling off her hat and letting her hair tumble out, she frowned. "Drats. I haven't combed this properly for months." The tangled mass, though clean, was twisted so thoroughly that it would take both of them hours to make it sleek and straight.
"I guess I would have outgrown my hat soon enough," she said blithely after the painful struggle was over. "It got quite long while I wasn't watching it." The strands, reaching down past her knees, were quickly pinned up out of her way and forgotton.
Dropping her old clothes in a crate, she put on the dress (stuffy, she thought) and followed Cullen, the first time she had done so openly. But protectively (as if she couldn't take care of herself, Ara thought) he waited for her during the night times to get her back to the abandoned warehouse.
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Isa gasped audibly as Ara walked through the doors. "Lass, is that you?"
Ara grinned. "Hush, Isa. It's still me."
The woman left the counter to stare critically at the girl. "No, it's different. You look like a Lady, Ara. I can call you that now, can't I? Not an Aral anymore. Pretty, and with such hair! I had never known." Isa blushed. "And now I'm blathering on like a fool."
"Don't be silly, Isa." Ara stooped to pick up the broom, but the woman stopped her.
"Girl, with you looking like that, customers will complain of me forcing the like of you of doing hard work. I'll hire a new boy-" Ara shook her head- "and you can help me serve tables and cook. Would you like that?"
Ara made a disparaging noise, but nodded. "I suppose. As long as I don't have to sew..." Isa just laughed. "Well, I've been doing it without halt for weeks and weeks..." Her aggrieved voice trailed off dramatically.
A strong rap sounded at the door. Cullen's slightly curly head stuck itself in and he smiled. "Hurry up, Ara."
"All right."
Though her new work papers, under her female name Ara, cost even more that last time, she was still considered a new worker though Aral had been laboring for several years. "Well, now I'm a legal worker, with the correct papers," she told Cullen, who snorted.
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It took about a year after her gender change when the innkeeper first mentioned Cullen. "Is that your young man?" the woman asked, peering out the window at the waiting figure. "He's handsome."
"Oh, no," Ara exclaimed. "That's just Cullen."
"Ah," Isa winked at the girl. "Just Cullen."
"Wait!" Ara cried. "You don't understand, he's-" He's just...just what? she thought desperately. Not my brother, at least.
"Never mind, child, you don't have to tell me." And no matter how Ara protested, the woman hummed sweetly and ignored her.
So Ara was in a bad mood by the time she left the inn, wringing her apron in both hands as she ran out the door to the waiting young man. "Sorry, I'm late," she mumbled.
"What's wrong?" he asked instantly.
"Oh, Isa being strange," Ara replied, looking up the foot or so to his face, but strangely (at least he thought) she looked away quickly. And they walked along in silence.
"Zak and his brother are coming for a visit tonight, after supper," Cullen began. "They're friends of mine from work, at least Zak is. I've only met Joul once or twice, he's a year older than you, and Zak is a year older than me."
"That's good," she said in reply. "It's a nice thing to know people." But she was still deep in thought; however, they mostly were about his soft, slightly curly brown hair, and they way he ran his fingers through the waves when he was thinking. Only when the evening came and a jolly pound on the warehouse door shook her out of her stupor did she smile at the perplexed Cullen.
Zak was an interesting sort, she thought. With his merry eyes and broken nose, he seemed at home even in their hideaway loft. "Ara!" he had said joyfully, as if they were long-lost friends. "Wonderful to meet you!" Even to Cullen, whom he had seen just a scant few hours before, he gave a hearty welcome and slap on the back.
Joul was a quiet boy, following his brother clumsily. Ara noticed, vaguely, that he tripped more while she was watching, and fell over himself to get things for her. "It's just a bit of wood," she said, incredulous. "No need to rush- I can get it myself." But Joul would shake his head and run off to gather logs from their pile with wide eyes.
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That visit began a series of other visits, and the two brothers added extra cheer into the small loft. Dashing in, often with straw flying in all directions, Zak made everything he did seem like it was the most fun he had ever had in his life.
"C'mon!" he yelled. "Harder!"
Cullen came in as Ara slowly went through the motions of a twist-kick, then preformed the stunt flawlessly. Zak whistled in admiration, and Joul watched with awe-widened eyes from the side of the room.
"You learned that a bit too quick, girl," Cullen said. "Your enemies are quaking in their booties!" She laughed, trying it again.
"It's good fun," she told the astonished Cullen. "Why so shocked? Did you think I had finally forgotten everything you taught me? Because I stopped bothering you?"
He laughed. "Actually, I was hoping."
Zak grinned. "She's a better student than you were, friend." To Cullen's mock-astonished glance, he told her playfully, "Cullen fights like a girl."
One of Ara's dark brows rose in question. "And is that an insult?"
"You know what I meant... You're not any girl; for one, you could give any guard a broken skull and he'd never know what hit him." And that was a compliment, in Zak's strange way, because he hated the battle-honed mercenaries the most, and that she would have the skill to kill one unawares would be a difficult task.
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Zak laughed when he saw his brother's antics, on their later visits to the loft. "Look at that lad," the twenty-one-year-old had said, "Falling head over heels in love. Silly boy."
Cullen whirled around, only to catch sight of Joul trying to give Ara a flower, hand-picked from somewhere; where he found it in the dead of a freezing winter Zak would never know. She seemed baffled, her emerald eyes confused, probably because she had never been courted or even treated like a girl until two years before.
"Surprised you haven't found her a husband yet, Cul," Zak said. "She's overdue for one, and it shouldn't be too hard, seeing her. Seems like all the girls are married off by fourteen, most by thirteen. And she's fifteen. Cullen, you're slacking off on your brotherly duties."
"Oh," Cullen had said, mind suddenly focused. "Why must I?"
"So she can have a family." Had Cullen been his usual self, he would have heard the unusual patient strain in Zak's jovial voice. "Don't you think she could marry?" And he spun his friend around. "Look at that hair, her face, and, well, the rest of her."
"Oh, shove it." But against his wishes, he found his eyes resting on her green eyes and dark lashes, but more importantly on that sparkle in them that made his heart wrench in his chest. He guiltily closed his eyes for a moment before turning back. "You know where, Zak."
"Sorry, man. I just had to see."
"See what," he replied irritably.
Zak smiled his crooked grin. "Well, now I'm absolutely sure you're not her brother. And I think I know who you two are, by the way, but I promise I won't even tell my brother."
"What?" Cullen yelped.
His friend leaned a bit closer. "Oh, come on, I just saw how you looked at her, and besides, you're my best friend and it can't be a coincidence...can it? Only aristocrats have names that end with "n" sounds, as yours does, Cullen. That's why I tell everyone your name is Cull. Besides, two kids, left on their own after running away, raising themselves...a girl and a boy...?"
"Thats a small theory to run on, Zak."
He grinned a bit wider. "But, Cullen ol' buddy, do I see you disagreeing?"
"Gods," Cullen sighed. "I'm terrible at lying. So you know. Don't tell, or we die. That's that."
"Gods, Cull, how can you be so matter-of-fact?" The street-hardened boy sounded horrified to hear his paranoid friend say such a phrase.
He grimaced. "Because we have to live that way, or we go insane."
Zak leaned closer, voice quieter. "Is Ara his daughter? Ol' Perisen?"
Cullen shook his head. "I don't think so, Zak. She's a serving woman's daughter, and besides, her name is Ara, with no "n" sound. Surely her mother would have named her such, if she had been even the offspring of a snake like Perisen."
"Are you sure?" his friend asked softly.
"Pretty sure; though in truth, I don't believe it would make a difference to me..."
Zak smiled. "I'm glad, you know. I could be wrong. But as long as you love her for who she is, then..." he grinned, "maybe she won't beat you up for coming on to her. Maybe."
"No guarentees, are there, friend?" Cullen groaned, though Zak only laughed merrily. "But now another problem. What do I do about...Ara?"
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Walking home was a struggle in the muddy roads, filled with the season's rain. Each step was a halting slosh, boots disappearing inches into the thick sludge. It was on these days that Cullen was stuck into extra work, as Perisen again exhausted his treasury with new additions to the palace. The lumber needed was essential to his extravagance, though the boy managed to never enter the estate premises.
She wondered what Cullen would say, when she entered, bearing a basket fresh bread and jams, carefully protected by a kerchief. It would be nice with her latest pot of stew.
Ara was whistling to herself, swinging her long braid behind her merrily, when she was grabbed from behind, a large arm encircling her arms. The basket itself dropped to the cobblestones, luckily not into the mud.
"What have we got here?" a voice grated into her ear. "A pretty one, ain't she, Poder?"
His friend lumbered over, his leer sickening. "Very. What were you doing, lass," he said, rough hand under her chin, "walking by yourself?"
"A pretty girl shouldn't be walking by herself," his friend laughed, the sound sending chills up the back of her neck. "It's not safe, is it, Poder?"
"She needs protection," he commented, eyes wandering. Ara's face flushed with anger, but she didn't wish to attack until his friend was standing more to the left, not directly in front of her. "We can take care of her, can't we, Barl? Don't worry, girl," he told her. "Uncle Barl and Uncle Poder will take care of you." His eyes betrayed the family titles as they brushed lower and lower from her face.
A red haze drifted over her eyes. "Beating you up," she murmured, before slamming her foot into her captor's groin and slamming his friend into his bent-over body, "will be so much fun."
He gasped, falling into the mud as she slammed her fist into his face. The sickening feel of his nose cartilage cracking sent a shiver through her wrist, but regardless she hefted her skirts up and kicked the other man in the lower back repeatedly until his entire upper body was stuck in mud. A shout came from the distance, but she continued to pound the man alternately in the back and in the face until they capitulated. As soon as they were able to they ran, armor clanking one stumbled and the other tried to staunch the flow of blood from his nose.
"Ara!" She saw Cullen sprinting down the road towards her. The dab of blood on her right fist shook, until she realised it was her hand trembling and not the smear of red. Wiping it on the napkin, she turned around just in time to be nearly tackled by Cullen. "Are you all right, Ara?" he nearly shouted into her face, arms wonderfully tight around her waist. She felt as if she might fall if he released her, but he didn't.
Burying her face in his shirt, she mumbled something. "What, Ara?" he said in a noticeably gentler tone.
"I'm all right." Laughing a little, she grabbed the basket. "Let's get inside the loft before they come back." Running quickly into the building, they slammed the door and bolted it hastily. As soon as the door was shut securely, Ara sagged against the wall. "That was strange," she told him.
He let out a shuddering breath.
Ara sighed, another little laugh that was more nervous than mirthful. "And I had a surprise for you and all," she said regretfully, holding out the basket of bread and jam. He stared down at her surprised, before he began to laugh out loud, hugging her tightly. She squeezed right back, scared out of her wits but too proud to admit it.
But he could tell, because her heart was pounding so loud and quick. Cullen could even feel it through his tunic, the frightened flutter that slowly quieted. And then he felt how close she was pressed to him, her arms tight around his chest and his around her waist, and he blushed. But Ara couldn't see the sudden flush, because her eyes were closed with her forehead against his tunic, nerves trembling dreadfully.
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