God help the outcasts, hungry from birth.
Show them the mercy they don't find on Earth.
The lost and forgotten, they look to you still.
God help the outcasts, or nobody will.
God Help the Outcasts—Hunchback of Notre Dame
Jehan is stooped over a flower bed when the twins come running up to him, cheeks flushed with excitement and eyes bright. They have Dustfinger's eyes, but their smile is all Julianne. "What brings you two here," he asks, straightening up. "I thought your mother gave you orders to clean Juli's attic."
"We were," Robert starts.
"And we found this really neat journal," Roslyn finishes. She holds the journal up for inspection and he recognizes it easily enough as the Bluejay's work. He's got a similar journal tucked under his mattress, his name printed on the side in gold. "It's full of stories that Grandmother never got to tell us!"
"Is that right," Jehan asks. "Can I see it?" Roslyn hands the journal over and he flips slowly through the pages, taking in the familiar scrawl and a few drawings. Julianne couldn't draw to save her life, but he still smiles when he finds a decent sketch of himself holding Dustin. Now Dustin is a man grown and married to the blacksmith.
"It's neat, right? Like Grandmother is still here."
"That's right, sweetheart." He sits on the porch step, the same one he'd been sitting on when he watched his first show, Dustfinger turning flames into flowers to make them all smile. The last page is another drawing, the backs of Dustin and Lenore when they were still babies. You couldn't tell it from the drawing, but the twins look exactly like their mother. "Do you remember how this story ends?"
"It's fuzzy. Uncle Dustin doesn't like to talk about it, his husband wasn't around back then, and Mama is too sensitive right now," Robert shrugs. "We were gonna ask Marissa, but her son still isn't sleeping through the night yet. She's cranky when she doesn't get any sleep."
"Understandable. I remember you two causing quite a fuss when you were little." Roslyn blushes but Robert gives him a lopsided grin like he's proud of that. "Well, it's a nice day out and I see no reason why we shouldn't reminisce. Come on." The twins settle down on either side of him, just like they did when they were still babies that liked to cuddle.
"Can you start near the end, Jehan," Robert asks. "I remember the beginning and middle, but the ending is in pieces. By the time Grandmother got to the end, I was usually asleep." Jehan laughs at that, ruffling the teen's hair. "The ending's always the best part of stories anyway."
"I guess we'll start three months after Dustfinger saved Farid. It was a dismal time and none of us thought there'd ever be a happy ending."
Over the course of the past three months since his banishment from the Adderhead's court, Firefox has often wondered what in the hell he was doing. He wondered it that first week when he'd been forced to console Dustfinger's son, he wondered it in the middle of the second month when he instructed the Bluejay how best to use a sword, and here he is now wondering it while helping villagers hide rations beneath the earth.
"I must have been horrible in my past life," he grumbles, helping the Strong Man to lower a sack of potatoes into the hole.
"You've been pretty horrible during this life," the man grunts. Firefox would have had this man's head for that just three months ago, but now he grins and says nothing else. "Faeries are out." Firefox nods, spotting the small things fluttering about as dawn readies itself to come again. "Looks like we finished up just in time. No way the Milksop will find these supplies this time."
"Our lovely governor would probably never think to look underground." The Milksop, a fitting nickname for the Adderhead's brother-in-law, is temporary ruler over Ombra while Jacopo is still a child and Firefox has to resist the urge to wait in a dark alley and run the man through. He never liked the puny man and he likes him even less so now. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Firefox straightens despite how his sore back protests, straining to make out the noise that had caught his attention. The sound is faint at first but growing closer. "Horsemen."
"At least a dozen of them, yes." The widows outside let out small sounds before rushing into their huts to their children, desperate to protect the only family they have left after the slaughter in the forest. Firefox draws his sword, the one that the Folchart family seemed keen on stealing, and drops into his position to defend the village.
The soldiers that ride into view are vaguely familiar and drunk, barely able to stay in the saddle. They rein in their horses when they spot the robbers, one of them nearly tumbling to the ground when he overbalanced. Firefox is fairly certain the man is an idiot.
"We'll have to kill them all," Snapper hisses. "Otherwise they'll send men here tomorrow to burn this village." Firefox doesn't have a soft heart, he's been killing since he was eight and a few more soldiers won't leave a black mark on his conscience. The Bluejay, on the other hand…. He glances to Julianne's father, taking in the reluctance in his gaze and his strong hold on the sword's grip.
The soldiers charge forward with drunk cries and the robbers strike. There's screaming and warm blood and then it's finished, all the riders lying dead on the ground. The men around him grumble as they work to toss the broken bodies over a precipice, including two of their own men that they didn't have time to bury before sunrise.
Snapper and the others take the horses back to the robbers' camp, a dark ravine where there was hardly any light even in summer afternoons. Firefox hates the place and thanks all the gods that he didn't have to spend much time there. Like the Bluejay, Firefox has a farm waiting for him, a life.
He walks with the Black Prince and the Bluejay for a while, branching off five miles from the Folchart farm and heading toward Ombra. He doesn't like being this close to Ombra castle with its new ruler and ambitious soldiers, but he's also grown fond of the two children waiting for him there. The farm is still dark when he approaches, but there's a figure out on the small porch that rises as he passes the gate.
"Tough night," Julianne asks, coming down the stairs with a bucket of water in hand. Firefox grunts, taking the bucket and a cloth from her graciously. He hates being filthy, had grown used to a certain lifestyle while working for the Adderhead, so he washes even if the water's ice cold and leaves his teeth chattering. "How are the others?"
"Your father and the Prince are fine, Songbird. A few grazes, nothing serious." Her shoulders relax at the news and part of Firefox hates that he relaxes as well. This family has made him soft. "What about here?"
"All quiet on the western front." She's smiling, a secretive thing that he's come to realize means she's referencing something from her land. "Dustin and Jehan were both chasing fireflies until they tired themselves out which means the adults got a chance for a drink."
"A drink sounds wonderful right about now." Her smile fades and she twists her lips, looking him over. "What?" He looks down at himself, finding nothing out of place aside from the blood. He always looks like this when he comes home after a skirmish with the Milksop's guards.
"You need new clothes, my dude. I'll see if I can alter some of the stuff that doesn't fit Jaime anymore." Now it's Firefox's turn to frown, hating the idea of more clothes that make his skin itch. What he wouldn't give for a scrap of silk. "Don't look so snooty, you're poor now just like the rest of us."
"Don't remind me." He pulls the bloodied shirt over his head and lets it drop to the dewy ground beside the bucket, using the cloth to dab at some of the more stubborn spots of grime and blood from his chest. Julianne watches him freely, like it's her right to observe him and to hell with being demure. "Why are you up so early?" Blue eyes dart up to his face and then away, lighting on a faerie.
"Jacopo couldn't sleep because of the Milksop's noise. I haven't been home long." She looks as exhausted as her father, dark bruises smudged under her eyes and a droop to her shoulders.
"Go on to sleep."
"No, Dustin will be up soon. I don't want to break his routine."
"The Wildes and I know that boy's routine backwards and forwards. Go to bed and we'll make sure he doesn't set fire to the house." She snorts out a quiet laugh, but it's not the full-bodied thing he'd grown so used to hearing these past two years. No one's heard that laugh since the White Women took Dustfinger away to the Cold Man's castle of polished bones. He misses it.
"Fine, but don't summon any fire around him. His fingers are still red from the last time." She doesn't even have the energy to send him a scolding look before shuffling into the farmhouse again.
Firefox stays outside for a long while, changing into fresh clothes and sitting on the porch to watch the faeries. This close to Ombra, he can hear the city coming to life; horses' hooves on cobblestones, blacksmiths' hammering, merchants calling out wares. It's not long before a little boy is coming out of the house to settle beside him.
"I had a dream last night," Jehan says, resting his head against Firefox's arm. The child is free with his affection once he's decided the other person is worthy, much like Jaime and Roxane in that way. Firefox remembers the way Roxane had sat just like this when they were both poor children trying to survive a hard world. "Dustfinger came walking up the path with spiders made of fire trailing after him. He'd slayed the Adderhead and the Milksop and everything was okay." Firefox's smile has an edge of bitterness to it, but he wraps an arm around the boy's shoulders and pulls him close.
"That sounds wonderful, Jehan."