Trigger warning: Deals with elements of starvation and struggles to adjust to dietary limitations.
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Chapter 4: Winter, Before the First Snow
Addison had never noticed how gradually the seasons change before now. Not really. Back home, life was marked so easily, so carelessly, by the concept of a calendar. All these instruments invented with the purpose of keeping time. All invented with the intent of propulsion — calendars and clocks and alarms and the like propelled you forward into the future. Always reminding you that there was something other than the present that needed your concern. To what end? Standing here now in the foothills of some great and terrible unknown, some wild place with no name. Some past life that Addison should not have had the...privilege...of knowing. What was it for?
Looking back at her old life — and that is what she was calling it now, her old life — Addison felt like every moment had been so carefully punctuated. She would never go back to that place. She was convinced now that she would live out the rest of her days here. That she would die here. But nothing here was definitive like it was back home.
Perfectly linear, the twenty first century. That's how it sold itself to the people living in it. Addison looked back both with fondness and exasperation at those clear cut, well-marked moments in her past life. Those singular events marked on a calendar. Sundays. Mondays. Tuesdays. Decembers and Julys. To what fucking end?
These arbitrary dates, names, events covered the pages of her life's first chapter. But in this new chapter. This current one. The— the final one. Addison felt as though everything had become one long run on sentence. Nothing was defined. Nothing was punctuated. There was no point in the concept of Sunday Scaries when every day was equally as terrifying and anxiety inducing as the last. There was no point in following a clock when you simply obeyed the sun. There was no point in planning for December when you simply heeded the weight and set of the clouds in the sky. Addison never realized that she had been powerful. Addison had never registered that her one-time fixation with time had been an undeniable privilege, a mark of needs met. Wherever he was, Maslow and his stupid hierarchy of stupid human needs was rolling in his grave at one Addison St. James.
It took her weeks to see that the grass was wilting. Took her even longer to truly register that the rain was going to get worse before it went away, and that the cold she'd felt constantly in her bones since she'd arrived in this little village at the edge of the woods was only going to get worse.
Ailios watched her charge like a hawk. Her charge and her children, and the sky with its ever-greying masses of clouds, she watched them all.
The snows would be upon them soon enough, and while her children were resilient, they were young. And though Malvina was old, she lacked the toughness she required to make it to spring. The widow was truly amazed that the girl had lasted so long in life. Most of her make and matter were likely to die young in childhood unless they were of noble birth. And sometimes Ailios did wonder if Malvina was some lost noble girl what with the way she turned up her nose at the skinning of animals, and the way she lacked the proper calluses on her hands and feet. She was soft and the winter would swallow her hole.
This did not sit well with the older woman who had come to like her odd little charge, but Ailios had learned long ago that it mattered little what sat well with her. Nature and powerful people always found a way to make sure that she and the other serfs of the world were reminded of this. It did not matter that Ailios had grown fond of the odd girl who spoke a foreign tongue. It did not matter that she wished she could teach the girl how to survive properly. It did not matter that Ailios loved her children. If she was not smart, if she was not careful, someone would die before spring. And if she had to choose between her own children and Malvina, she would choose her children every time. Regardless of her affection toward the girl.
Addison was in the woods, with another maiden she didn't know the name of and a couple of the betwixt girls, looking for wood that could be stored for the coming months. It was tedious, hard work, but it had been better than the alternative which was to help dry the meat and store it. That job was a smelly, bloody process and no part of the animal went to waste. Suffice to say Addison was not of the proper bearing to complete the task without botching it horribly. She didn't even have to refuse, Ailios had forbidden her participation. And Addison had been eternally grateful.
It was the snap of a branch that alerted her, though she really couldn't say why, what with the noise they were making themselves. But the branch snapped, and Addison knew that something was wrong. Her head shot up. She looked wildly around for the others. One of the younger girls was with her still. She had looked up at the noise too. Head whipping around, frantic as she looked for the source herself. And then in no small amount of terror, the betwixt girl brought her eyes to meet Addison's.
There was a rustling. A grunt. More twigs snapped. Something was...was chuffing. Chuffing and grunting and running through the bramble and brush.
Addison wordlessly held out a hand to the girl. Part of her found solace in her presence. She was not alone. She didn't have to be alone to face whatever this thing was. But the other part of her. The adult part of her, if barely, felt the pressure of the girl's presence as well. She wanted to save herself. To book it. To run from the woods and flee the danger. But she felt responsible. This girl was just a kid. And Addison was older. She was bound to protect her from harm. Right? No matter how much she wanted to be selfish and protect only herself.
The two girls clung to each other. Listened as the rustling and snapping, chuffing, and grunting got louder and louder. The sound reverberated through the trees. Projected itself through the wood. Everywhere and nowhere, it echoed. Never betraying its source or location. The younger girl whimpered. She was muttering something that Addison couldn't understand. A prayer, maybe. Addison couldn't blame the girl, but she was having a slight crisis of faith these days what with the hole being trapped in a foreign medieval hellscape thing she had going on. And now, what with the forest monster she was about to battle, Addison did not believe that any god would be answering the child's prayers. Perhaps, if Addison were to leave her there to deal with it herself, God would answer then. But not so long as she was in Addison's cursed presence. With no other ideas, and a sense that she was running out of time — however you measured that kind of thing in a place like this — she decided it would be best to slowly back away from where she thought the noise was coming from.
With one hand she kept the betwixt girl beside her. She held the other hand out in front of her, as though that alone could fend off the wayward forest monster should it charge at them. And she stepped back. Once. Waited and listened. Slowly they backed themselves against a tree. This was equal parts good and bad, Addison thought. On the one hand, it could leave them trapped and unable to escape. On the other, at least they had one less angle they could be attacked from.
The chuffing turned into a loud and angry squeal, like a pig she thought. But deeper. Far wilder than any pig she'd ever heard. Her eyes flitted through the brush. Faintly she registered, up the hill at a fair distance, the other maiden and betwixt child watching on in horror. The maiden was pointing and shouting something at her. The betwixt set off, running quickly from the wood. High tailing it back toward the village for help. Addison wondered idly what good more witnesses would do. She was sure as shit about to die. Addison followed the maiden's finger to where it pointed to a bush just a couple of yards away. With the visual guide of the other woman, she could now pinpoint source of the sound for certain. Whatever was coming was in that bush.
Blood rushed loudly in her face and ears. Adrenaline, she noted absently, and found again a little piece of comfort in her educated mind. Prescribing her body's response to fear was, for a moment, liberating form the fear itself. The little girl behind her, whimpering and muttering, was quaking something fierce, not that Addison could blame her. It was like all the noise had faded from the world, and all the other creatures as well. Addison's eyes had narrowed in on her threat and they stayed there, tunneled and focused in a way she'd never known.
She risked a quick glance up at the tree, hoping they could climb it, but the branches were too high for her to latch on. Still, maybe...keeping one eye on the bush she waved her hand at her companion and pointed up at the tree. She spared the girl a brief glance to make sure she got the point Addison was trying to make. Luckily, the girl's desperate need to survive had transcended any language barriers that once stood between them. The girl nodded, thankful and desperate and teary as ever. Addison linked her hands together to make a foothold and knelt down. This angered the beast in the bushes. She could hear it raking its foot across the wet earth floor, kicking up fallen leaves and dead bramble. It was so close she could see the mess flying out of the bushes and into the air. She hurried up the pace, lifting the girl too soon up into the air. Desperate, the girl kicked her in the head and used her shoulder as leverage while she scrambled up quickly to the nearest branch of the tree. Without waiting anymore to see if she made it, Addison turned, and she ran.
She didn't bother charting a path or planning ahead. She went where her eyes told her. Acting on instinct alone. Whatever the monster was, it gave chase. Hot on her heels and squealing like a beast straight out of hell. She felt the breath of it on her legs as she ran, and when it bumped her, she went flying. Addison flew through the air, arms out wide to catch herself and slid face first across the dirt and branches and pinecones that composed the underbrush of the wood. She kept her eyes closed tight, tangled in the skirts of her dress, bleeding and dizzy from the kick she'd been dealt to the head before she ran, Addison wondered if this was how she would die. The beast had been on her. Had bumped her in warning, in pursuit of her. Had sent her to the ground, loud and squealing. Violent and angry.
Now, though, the forest was silent.
Addison heaved. Her breath refused to come slowly enough to catch it while her body came down from its fear. Face still pressed in the mud; she took stock of her body. She didn't think she was injured. She didn't feel any pain. Aside from her head that is.
She couldn't move though.
Oh god, she couldn't move.
There was a soft keening noise coming from somewhere and Addison only faintly registered that it might have been her. Then something heavy and strong came down on her back. Addison screeched and thrashed but nothing she did deterred the heavy thing. It wasn't until she was upright and, on her feet, again that Addison realized it had been a hand. Two hands, to be exact. Strong ones black with soot and dirt. She turned to face her savior and instead saw the giant beast, with its long pig like snout and its tusks and its truly appalling smell, hefted off the ground and tossed over a giant familiar shoulder.
Addison cried out and stumbled back.
This time, instead of her face, she landed gracelessly on her ass.
The man carrying the wild boar turned back around in alarm, still holding tight to his kill, and staring incredulously back down at the girl he'd just lifted off the ground. The blacksmith. She'd never spoken to him before. And she had no idea what he was saying but the way he tilted his head back toward the village suggested she should stand back up and follow him. She pulled herself up. Dusted off her skirts and did as he bade her.
Passing by the tree she'd run from; Addison noted the girl had already made her way down. When they climbed the hill to join the other maiden and the two betwixt girls, Addison realized with a stutter in her step that the blacksmith had not come alone.
Two knights were with him.
She'd seen them before.
She was embarrassed to remember her first encounter with both of these stern looking men. The morning she'd laid in the mud patch outside of the drunkards' hut, desperately hoping the universe would swallow her up and spit her back out where she came from, that was the first time she'd seen them. And while she'd seen knights coming and going through the village. She'd not seen hide or hair of these two men since. It hadn't been her best look then, and she was coming to realize that this was unfortunately going to be a bit of a pattern for her — the whole falling on her face in front of them thing.
The heftier of the two knights was on his knees in front of her betwixt friend, checking her over. He had two meaty hands on her cheeks, and he was shaking her head back and forth lightly as though to drive home whatever it was, he was saying to her. Next to him, towered the man who had helped her off the ground all those weeks ago. The one who had spoken kindly and softly to her.
The gentle...beserker.
She was going to need a new name for the tawny haired knight, she thought to herself. Her eyes drawn to him even now. He too, seemed to register her approach and looked away from his friend and the child to settle his gaze on her.
His eyes were warm and considering. Like he was taking her measure. She wondered, a bit pointlessly, if he liked what he found.
Sorley was catching up with the blacksmith and Bróccin when they heard the cry in the woods. He'd straightened a bit, hand coming to rest on the hilt of his axe. Bróccin too had pulled himself to his full height at the noise, eyes scanning the tree line, thumb rubbing idly back and forth over the handle of his dagger. They surveyed the land for whatever was coming their way. Slowly beginning to pick their way down the path toward the trees. It was the second cry that drew the blacksmith away from his forge, the spear he'd just repaired held loose and sure in his hands. When the betwixt child broke the tree line, calling to them for help and running as fast as her little legs could carry her, the three men broke into a run.
She stopped at the sight of them, buzzing with panic and reversing course, waving them along back toward the tree line as she led them to the source of her distress.
"Hurry," she cried out. "Hurry please there's a boar. Beatie and Malvina —please — there's a boar." She was frantic and scrambling back toward the trees. Bróccin stuttered to a stop and stared at the girl.
"Beatie?" He asked gruffly. "My girl, Beatie?"
She reached back and tugged his arm as though to hurry him along, nodding frantically as she did.
Bróccin shook off her hand, brushing past her and sprinting into the trees with just his dagger and his hands for weapons. The blacksmith hurried behind him, outpacing Sorley and the panicking girl, frantic to reach Malvina and Bróccin 's eldest daughter, Beatie.
Sorley gently grabbed the girl's arm and hurried her along. "You listen to me, girl," he said roughly as they followed the other two men back into the trees. "You'll show us where and then you'll do as I say. If I tell you to run—"
"I run," She agreed gasping for breath as she tried to keep pace with his long legs. He nodded as they rushed back into the woods. Bróccin had disappeared into the brush, but he could make out his bulk camouflaged in the leaves just the same. Their best bet was to sneak up on the boar while it was distracted by the girls.
They could hear the chuffing and squealing even from here. The blacksmith looked back at the girl. Sorley gestured for her to tell him what she knew. She pointed to the correct path and rattled out the common landmarks among the betwixt children. Three paces past Faerie rock, down the hill, Malvina and Beatie had their backs to the hangman's tree. Sorley nodded for the blacksmith to go. He noted Bróccin doing the same from a different angle. And slowly he pressed forward with the child kept close to his side, axe held light and ready in his hand as they pressed into the dark of the wood.
The closer they got; the louder the boar's warning cries sounded. The child at his side trembled and he pressed a reassuring hand into her shoulder as he crept them quietly through the brush.
With the blacksmith and Bróccin distracted by the aggressing boar and the two girls, it was on Sorley to keep an eye out for the rest of the herd. It wouldn't do to get cornered by a whole horde of the beasts. His head was on a constant swivel as they moved. He heard a commotion. Beatie's cry. The snapping of twigs and branches and dust kicking up as the screaming boar began its charge.
His muscles bunched and flexed at the sound, as though the beast were upon him and this child rather than some maiden down the way. His grip was slightly less forgiving on the girl when he heard the beast then, but she sounded no complaint of pain.
As quickly as it started, it stopped. Sorley and the betwixt girl came upon the hill where the other maiden stood. He released the child. She scrambled back to the safety of the older woman's embrace. Sorley watched over their exchange quietly as the maiden muttered praise and comfort to the girl for the loud way her voice had carried, and the swiftness of her legs. Aye, Sorley thought, it had been an impressive feat coming from as deep into the wood as the girls had been.
He surveyed the underbrush grimly for any more signs of trouble. There was a panicked keening sound coming from the maiden at the bottom of the hill though the boar was dead, and the danger passed.
He hefted his axe. Felt its weight, perfectly balanced, in his fighting hand. He supposed he couldn't blame her for her fear. It was a fair response. Bróccin had instructed young Beatie to jump from the branch she clung to, and Sorley tilted his head in wonder at the height of it. There was no way the girl had climbed that way on her own. He watched as his brother knight muttered and scolded and coddled his oldest — and admittedly favorite — daughter, dragging her up the hill toward the group of them. His voice got louder and sterner as they climbed closer to safety. The girl was crying and apologizing and venting her fears and her gratitude for having survived the horrible event.
"How did she get up the tree?" Sorley asked the maiden who was still whispering praise to her betwixt charge.
"Malvina," she said earnestly. "Malvina, the simpleton, she lifted her into the tree before she ran."
Malvina, the simpleton. He didn't know the name, but he could only assume it was the other maiden, the one who was keening in the mud. She'd saved Beatie's life when another, lesser, maiden would have simply run for her own regardless of her companion's safety.
The woods made survivors of everyone and friends of very few. He knew this from experience and had never blamed others for doing for themselves what they could not do for others. It would have been perfectly acceptable for this Malvina to run without a single thought for anyone else's safety. It was the way of nature. That she had stayed and helped Beatie — that a simple village girl had sacrificed her own escape so that she may save Bróccin 's child — well, it was unheard of. Incredibly daft and monumentally brave.
A simpleton... He couldn't help the astonished snort that escaped him. Such occurrences were rare. He turned at the blacksmith's approach. The boar that he had hefted over his shoulder was large. The tusks were long and brutal, but he had to wonder if the largeness of the boar resulted from having a belly full of young. It would be odd, this late in the year, he thought, but not impossible. He grimaced at the brutal skinning that was ahead of them if the boar was a female.
"You need a hand, brother?" He called down to the blacksmith who was slowly making his climb up the hill. But the other man shook his head.
That was when Sorley noticed Malvina.
And he was struck into momentary stillness at the sight of her eyes. Familiar eyes. Wide and unblinking from fear, but two dark unmistakable pools of melted bronze. Sorley knew Malvina, the simpleton. And his heart gave an unnatural thud, like he'd been kicked in the chest by a horse.
He was surprised to see this girl again. He'd kept his eyes peeled for weeks. For what felt like the longest time, every pass through the village had resulted in him scouring the faces of the maidens there. Desperate to see the bonny lass again. But she was as evasive as any mystery he'd come to realize. For weeks, he'd wondered about her, and now here she was. He had to suppress a surprised laugh. Despite the direness of the situation, he couldn't help but feel as though there was a lightness in his chest. This odd lass—
She was once again covered in a thick layer of mud, all along her face and down her front, and he could understand why the town thought she was simple. She seemed to have an affinity for laying herself flat in the dirt. But her eyes, they were fixed on him as she stumbled her way up the hill, following the footpath the blacksmith had laid, and he knew from looking into them that she was keen. She was sharp as a whip, this one. He'd bet his horse on it, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
Beatie, registering Malvina's approach, let out a cry and broke from her father's grip to run to the maiden. She threw her arms around the foreign girl and cried out her gratitude. Keeping her arms firmly locked around her savior, Beatie turned back to her father.
"She saved my life, father," Beatie said to him with the most serious look Sorley had ever seen on her young face. He shot his eyes to Bróccin who too saw that this moment had shifted something in Beatie. The girl was quickly on her way to being a formidable young maiden herself. "I am in her debt, truly. Malvina is simple but she has done something for me that no one else would have done."
Bróccin, quieted from the exchange, looked between his growing daughter and the simple woman he too remembered from that unremarkable fall day when she'd blocked the road that led out of the village.
"Aye lass," Bróccin murmured if a bit skeptically. "Aye, we owe her a debt."
Beatie nodded resolutely, before looking up at the still shell-shocked Malvina and grasping her hand.
"I know you do not understand me," she said up to the lost looking maiden. Malvina looked down at her with a wrinkle in her forehead that Sorley had the inexplicable desire to smooth. "But I will repay my debt to you. I swear it."
Then Beatie, solemn and stern and unbelievably protective of the simple serf girl, grabbed tight to Malvina's shaking hands and led her down the path that would bring them back to the village. Bróccin, humbled by his daughter's grace and maturity, quietly stood and collected himself, trading a look with Sorley who smiled at him broadly, and knowingly. He patted him on the back before gesturing for the other maiden and girl to follow Beatie, Malvina and the blacksmith back out of the woods. The two knights trailed behind the group, keeping an eye out for the rest of the boar's herd as they picked their way through the brush.
More days passed and the excitement of the girls' encounter with the boar died back down among those in the village. Beatie had at first been attached to Malvina's side out of gratitude for her life but had quickly been called to heel by her mother. A debt could be owed, and would one day be repaid, but it did not mean Beatie could shirk on her responsibilities at home, on the other side of the village.
Malvina for her part, was losing weight. Ailios had no extra food to feed her, and she did not know how to encourage the girl to keep down what she did eat. As she cared for her children, she watched her charge out of the corner of her eye. Deterioration. She hadn't expected this of all things. When a lone girl shows up, and you offer her food and shelter, you expect her to thrive. You expect her to improve as her conditions have improved, and yet Malvina... Malvina worsened. Ailios smoothed back the hair on her youngest boy and kissed his head softly. She knew not what to do.
Addison, of course, knew what was happening to her body. She was starving. A serf's diet was small and simple and utterly disgusting if she was being honest with herself. She had adapted to eating Ailios's Rustic Nature Stew fairly quickly. And she had just as quickly adapted to vomiting it all back up when she was done. She didn't know truly how much time had passed, but she had to guess they were gradually approaching an icy December, if not already in that dreaded first month of winter, and Addison's stomach had been cramping for months. The food, it tasted like shit. And it made her feel like shit. And she couldn't keep it down so then she felt like a shit person for eating what Ailios and her children so desperately needed, knowing that it would come up soon after. Scarcity was real. And it was only bound to get worse. She ate less, so they could have more. And at least then she could throw up less as well. Unless it was fruit, that is, plucked from a tree or picked from a bush. Then she would gorge herself on the stuff. But you could not last on small berries alone, and most of them had gone and died with the changing season anyway.
Once again, Addison thought of Maslow, and wondered if she'd not be gnawing on dead grass before long what with the way things were steadily progressing toward death for her.
Ailios watched the girl lose her once healthy glow. Rich olive skin had taken on the pallor of a fae creature roaming the darkness. Her eyes, which had been bright and afeared when she first met the girl, had now dulled and detached from the world. Often at night, Ailios wondered if her charge was even of the earthly plane. She'd mentioned it once to Beatrix who she knew was in possession of her own special abilities, and the old midwife had assured her that Malvina was both human and in need of loving care rather than suspicion. Where Ailios saw a fae creature at times, Beatrix saw a child impossibly adrift in the world, and in need of goodwill. Ailios, loyal and grateful to old Beatrix, had not batted an eye at the old woman's words. She would do as was asked of her. She would keep the girl alive.
But now, she stared at her charge. Her skin, pale and thin in the absence of the sun, and her constant illness — she was unable to keep most of the food she ate in her belly — suggested to Ailios that she was failing at her task. And that simply would not do.
The girl subsisted on foliage. On fruit. But rarely could she choke her way through any stew, no matter how hungry she was. And she tried. Malvina tried valiantly and regretfully. Ailios was at a complete loss for how to help her. And watched with dread as the fruit bearing plants of the world ceased their yield until the winter ended. If the cold didn't kill her, starvation would.
She could see Malvina's bones protruding from her wrists. Her cheekbones were sharper than ever. Her shoulder blades too. Her round rosy cheeks that Ailios had always secretly admired, were gone now.
Addison was lying in the pile of furs in the corner.
Early again.
Earlier than the rest of the family at least.
The sun had gone down. This day, like the ones before it, had been impossibly short. Even in the light hours while she worked with the rest of the women, preparing for the coming snow, Addison didn't feel like she was really getting a day. The clouds were so thick and grey. They acted like a blanket over everything and everyone. Her mind and body spent the entire day waiting for the sun to come and wake her, and then, in a complete mockery of all of her waiting, what light the day did provide simply disappeared. And now, once again, it was dark, and she was still waiting.
She couldn't imagine a whole season of this. It was like the fog had rolled in off the moors and settled inside her mind. Without the sun, and without good shoes, Addison was cold. Cold like she'd never been cold before. She always imagined that freezing to death would be something that started on the outside and worked its way in. But now she could say with absolute certainty that the bones were the first to go. Her entire skeleton was ice, and it had quickly set to work cooling the rest of her body down to temperature. It was the rest of her. The outside parts of her that the world could see. Those were the parts that would be the last to freeze. When she finally did turn blue, it would be the result of a months' long process of corporeal cooling. Nothing would ever convince her otherwise.
She thought Ailios had a hunch that this was the case as well though. The older woman spent an inordinate amount of time in the evenings studying Addison's feet by the light of their small fire. She would rub her charge's toes frantically between her hands, staring at her in blatant dismay. But Addison didn't really know what to do about any of this. She was cold and she was tired, and she was hungry. And that was really all the energy she could put into thinking about it. She'd already accepted that she was going to die here. That she had lived this long had been a miracle in and of itself. No point in fighting whatever the universe had planned.
The family was still up and about their nighttime chores, but Addison had fully leaned into her uselessness.
Exhausted and shivering, she'd vomited her stew outside the hut and stumbled back in and toward the mat in the far corner. She buried herself in the furs there, closed her eyes so as to not see the bugs that crawled in the dirt and over the fur coverings that she pulled over her legs. She was too cold to want to care. She still feared though that if she let herself think about the bugs even for a second, she would reject the small warmth the furs provided. Her disgust would deny her the right to this warmth too. And that—that would be the end of her in just a single night. For all Addison had accepted that she was going die tossed around in the tides of history, that primal part of her brain that was more animal than anything else still latched onto her need for warmth. Addison did not, in fact, want to die. She curled a little tighter into a ball and hummed to herself as though she could use the sound to warm her from the inside out. She fell into restless oblivion, lulled by the sounds of Ailios and her children preparing the hut for sleep.
Addison noticed something was off a couple days later. Ailios left that morning without saying much at all to her, sparing her a quick, emotionless glance before disappearing to do whatever it was that she got up to in a day. Addison had nervously followed her path up the hill and paused to trace her steps with her eyes. Watching as her guardian easily traversed the village center. She wrung her hands at the woman's sudden shift in attitude. Maybe Ailios was just having a bad day, but Addison once again was reminded of just how exceedingly vulnerable she was here.
She needed Ailios, but Ailios did not need her. Far from it, in fact. She was a burden on Ailios. Had been for a while, but now she was sick again. Sicker than usual. This was not a result of disagreeable food. Addison had caught a virus. Not that Ailios knew what a virus was, but Addison was beginning to think that illness was an unforgivable act in this place and time. She'd never truly understood, in the modern world, how people could have died from colds in the past.
Now, she did.
She coughed and sniffed and covered her face to hide her shame. If she didn't freeze to death, and she didn't starve, Addison mentally ticked off the bullet points on the checklist in her head, then surely it would be pneumonia that finally did her in. She looked down at her sad little cloth slippers, where they squelched and squished in the mud. She watched with an air of detachment as the mud sunk through the fabric and came up between her toes. Her slippers were totally useless. The rain had been hard to adjust to and on more than one occasion she'd been scolded for removing her footwear altogether.
In her mind, it had been easier to go barefoot than to slump around in wet cloth, but Ailios had slapped her, issued her a sharp reprimand, and forced her to sit. She had snatched up one foot and then the other to inspect them. For what? Addison couldn't say for certain. Cuts or discoloration. Those were her best guesses. Ailios had pinched her skin and both women had watched in dismay every few nights as the skin took longer and longer to regain its color.
Another cough, and a pair of married women who were walking by jumped and crossed themselves. They averted their eyes and hurried down the path, away from her.
She was beginning to think the town would liken it to a curse. She was already the foreign, useless, serf girl that didn't speak the language. She had already been likened to a being of the faeries. She could not afford to be all of that with a cold. Ailios had taken one look at her with her stuffy nose and sore throat and quietly ushered her children out for the day. Addison wondered if her reluctant guardian had reached the limit on her generosity.
Addison watched her go and then warily looked around her at the foreboding fog that rolled through this interminable landscape, and the blanket of grey that loomed longer and lower to the ground every day.
Winter was here.
It was here and Addison was paralyzed by it.
The inevitable cold that wouldn't clear for months. The snow. The scarcity of food even with the carefully stored rations the town had worked so hard to gather. And if the castle ran out, here was where to nobles would come to take their fill. Addison's stomach lurched at the thought of more starvation — of worse starvation than what she was currently experiencing. That, and the snow. That the world would get even colder was unimaginable and gut wrenching to her.
Ailios was reaching the end of her rope with Addison, but Addison wasn't sure she knew what that meant for her. Would she just cast her out one day? One moment would Addison have shelter and fire and food, and the next none of it? Would she be forced in the coming days or weeks to have to fend for herself in the forest? Would someone else try to take her in?
She doubted it.
The women of the village had made it abundantly clear that they tolerated her for their friend's sake, had shown her the ropes so that she may help rather than hinder Ailios, but they did not actually like her. Not truly. She was foreign, and dangerous because of it. She was useless, and a burden because of it.
Winter was here and there was a primal feeling in the air. The fear of a slow cold hungry death had taken root. And even those most capable of surviving had turned selfish for it. Addison didn't really take offense at this. This was the way of the past, she thought. It was entirely Darwin and she understood it logically in a way that eased the sting of the emotions she felt.
She was disassociating again.
Had been doing so, with varying results, since she'd arrived. She was seeing everything from a distance, like she couldn't quite tether herself to this world, like a part of her was still suspended in the darkness above this plane. She understood that if this was a pack of wild animals, she was soon to be culled from it. And she buried the sensation in her belly, deep down, and told herself that if all she had to feel was this feeling then she'd rather not feel much at all. When they inevitably sent her away, she had no idea what she was going to do.
Later that day when the dark once again rose to take back the light. Ailios took Malvina by the hand. She tried her best to tell her all she needed the girl to know, though she knew that it would be to no avail. Her charge was just as clueless to her words as she had been on day one, she thought.
And then, with a stern word to her eldest, that all of her children be kept inside and sent to sleep, Ailios led Malvina up the path toward the castle. They had to make this quick, if she wanted to be back before the knights went on the prowl for any stray serf girls to warm their beds for the evening. She nervously eyed Old Man Macphearson and nodded at Beatrix and Gelis as she led Malvina past them all. She could feel her young charge's eyes on her, and her stomach was in knots over the girl's fear.
She'd grown fond of her. Liked her company, even if she was odd. And had taken a small amount of solace in having a warm body to curl up next to at night. She had hoped, albeit in vain, that Malvina would take to village life. That she would adjust to the ways of the highlands and thrive in their small community. But Malvina was ill, and she was dying a slow death that everyone could see. And Ailios had a promise to keep.
She'd gone to the midwife, Beatrix, and Old Man Macphearson for their counsel early that morning and had asked them what they thought she could do. And this was the only solution any of them could come to. These were the girl's best odds of survival. But she couldn't help but quake in grief for her just the same. It would be a harsh life to be thrown into, but with any luck it would undo the damage that winter had already done.
Addison followed behind Ailios. Her only friend. The woman who had taken her in just a short time ago. The sky was a dark blue, not yet night but desperately trying to be. The villagers had all calmed for the day. Chores had been finished and now was the time for dinner and drinking and company for the sake of company. Addison felt the eyes of the village on her and Ailios as they cut a path through the middle.
And then they left the village altogether. Something that Addison had not done once since she'd appeared here. The two women had gone from one edge, the far edge, where their hut rested at the base of an insignificant little hill and come out the other end, stepping from a path of mud onto a road paved by stone. And then they pushed further on, over a bridge. Addison had never realized how truly large the castle loomed, but now she was consumed by its shadow. She had to crane her neck to look up at it and tried not to think about the moat she would find if she were to look down.
Her mind wandered to all the reasons Ailios would bring her here. She had tried a couple times to tug her hand away, but Ailios held fast. Not looking back, just issuing her usual series of sharp retorts. Pushing ever forward, dragging her charge along as she did. Always forward. Ever forward toward the great monolith that loomed taller and taller the closer they got.
She knew of course that Ailios had been her reluctant guardian from the start. Had just pondered the state of their relationship that morning. But she didn't want to think of all the reasons the woman had brought her to the castle of all places.
Their steps shuffled through the draughty corridor as a servant, and a guard, led them through a labyrinth of hallways. A set of high doors, set in wrought iron frames, loomed high above them too. The women were called to a halt by the guard there. The doors opened seemingly of their own volition. He entered, and they closed just as quickly behind him. Then the guard reappeared. He waved the servant into the room. The servant — an older man — disappeared behind the solid wooden frame without sparing either of the women even a glance.
Then once again, both doors opened wide to reveal the guard, the servant and a group of men and women, seated and standing. The men were tall and heavy set with bulky muscle – they were something of a nightmare to Malvina who had only glimpsed them in passing coming to and from the castle donned in armor and oftentimes thick coagulated blood and other substances. These were the knights that Ailios had taught her to fear.
The man in the middle of the group, seated in a high-backed chair, was thick around the middle. Unlike the serfs in the dirt hovels down the hill, she had the feeling he had never missed a meal in his life. His eyes were small and close together, but he studied them with a passive intensity that spoke to both his power here and their complete lack of it.
The servant gestured brusquely for the two women to enter. Malvina had been instructed under no uncertain terms (or at least in a series of threatening hand gestures and words that she'd vaguely come to recognize but not enough to be sure of her translation) to keep her mouth shut. Ailios knew of her charge's odd manner of speaking and foreign demeanor which would not be received well by the laird who presided here.
The woman spoke meekly in the presence of the most important people, the most powerful people, in the world as it existed for her and her own. Addison could only guess what she was saying. The laird grunted out his own questions. Most of the people in the room were looking to her, waiting, and Addison couldn't help but gulp back her nerves. She kept her mouth diligently closed and hoped it wouldn't get her killed. Her guardian then gripped her forearm in one hand and shoulder in the other, pulling her closer to her body in a proprietary gesture, her voice had grown more confident as she spoke.
The air briefly flooded with tension before a familiar figure stood. He was a tall, bulky, wild looking man with a lion's mane for hair, and Addison recognized him instantly. Her eyes were drawn to his every move. This man who had pulled her from the mud, who had come running at the sighting of a wild boar. She couldn't say she'd spared him many of her thoughts, so preoccupied she had been with trying to stay alive, but she couldn't deny that something inside her somersaulted at the sight of him. He looked down at her, only briefly, before turning his full attention back to the laird. His voice, that deep brogue from before, was less gentle than he had used the day he spoke to her, it was more matter of fact now. More clinical. But his low rumble washed over the room nonetheless as he spoke to the laird.
The laird looked at his man, genuinely listening to what he had to say, before shrugging and waving his hand in acquiescence. Ailios's hands loosened a bit their grip on her, and she felt the woman sigh audibly with relief. Another curtsy, deep and grateful this time from her guardian. And a stuttering, uncertain one from herself and they were led from the room.
The doors shuddered closed behind them. Ailios held her face between her hands and spoke to her sadly, and kindly, before letting her go and stepping away. Addison had a bad feeling in her in the pit of her stomach. The servant stepped forward and grasped her elbow gently as though to lead her away, but Addison held fast, looking wildly between the servant, the guard and the woman who had come to be her only lifeline in this place. The woman who was stepping back, and away. Had this been a goodbye?
A sound escaped her, and she shot forward as though to join her guardian on the other side of some invisible line that had been drawn. The woman uttered something in that gruff language of hers, held up a hand in their universal sign to stop. Her face was stern though her eyes had misted over slightly. Something had happened and Addison didn't understand, and the woman knew that there was no way to make her understand.
The guard stepped between them. The servant grabbed her more tightly in his grip. It didn't matter the strangled cries she made to be set free, they took her down a corridor and down a narrow set of stairs, down another hall and to a room. They threw open the door and abruptly shoved her in. There was a table, a stool, a chest and a small hearth. It looked to be a closet of sorts, or an office. The stone floor was harsh and cold beneath her feet which had grown accustomed to the give and pull of mud and grass. There was a stern word behind her and the rattle and clang of the door closing as well. She whipped around as though to leave this place but stopped and gave a shuddering sob when she heard the tell-tale clattering of a key in a lock.
She was trapped.
