"So," Hedwyn says brightly, "how do we feel about slurgh filet tonight? I hope you like it, because that's what I'm making."
Jodariel grunts in reply. In the wavering light of their campfire Hedwyn can't see her face, hidden as it is by the curved shadow of her horns.
He continues, undeterred. "I know it's not the most exciting meal, but hey, we have salt again! Everything tastes better with a pinch of salt. Worth the detour, wouldn't you say?"
Hedwyn doesn't really expect an answer to that one: their recent visit to the little community of Hollowroot went as well as could be expected, with Jodariel silent and glowering by his side, and the exiles of the village whispering behind their back, parents hastily herding children out of their sight. There's a reason they mostly stick to uninhabited prairie in their travels.
He hates it, although probably not as much as Jodariel does: the stares, the whispers, the signs of protection older exiles make at Jodariel before hastily averting their eyes and scuttling away. But there are some things you just can't get in the wild - the salt, the spices, the replacement for his second-best cooking tin that got lost somewhere around Licksand when they had to run from an unfriendly band of Curs. And much as it grieves Hedwyn to see people look at Jodariel and see her size and her glower and her horns and not the kind, steadfast woman he knows to exist underneath, he can't do anything about it. He can't even take Jodariel's hand on those trips, much as he wants to; nowadays, she dislikes to be touched.
So every time he smiles, and he chatters to what vendors who're brave enough to stick around, and he bargains the prices down from shamelessly outrageous to simply outrageous, and never suggests that they try the Hollowroot's dilapidated inn and the dubious comfort of its straw-filled mattresses, much as he longs for it sometimes. In and out, as quickly as possible, and here they are, camped under the stars.
And if Jodariel won't talk to him or look at him or admit to the obvious headache she's nursing - the horns, Hedwyn thinks, must sit heavily on her head and wreck the muscles of her neck, not that he's even once dared to mention Jodariel's horns to her face - well. At least he can do his best to feed her properly. Already, in just half a year since he tracked her down after ending up Downside, she lost the half-starved way she had when he found her.
He chuckles, to himself, diverted into a fond memory. "Do you remember how you took me in, Jodi? I was on my own for a while, and wasn't going to just go with any adult, let alone a soldier, let me tell you! You lured me in with fresh food like I was an alley tomcat."
Jodariel shrugs her shoulders. It's okay; he has become something of an expert in keeping up one-sided conversations. "That bread you left out for me, I still remember its taste. Sometimes it was still hot, fresh from the oven - you know, I just realized I never asked. Where did you get it? You were amazing at a great many things, but cooking was never one of them."
"One of the older kids' father used to be a baker before conscription," Jodariel says quietly. "The boy apprenticed with him."
Hedwyn nods, and doesn't press for a name. "You'd leave it closer and closer to the place where you lived, and I didn't realize it until I was at your doorstep one day. Lucky me!"
She doesn't answer, but it's okay. He doesn't know exactly what turned the Jodariel from his childhood, taciturn even then, but vibrant and steady, into this sullen, silent person, but he doesn't really needs details. Ten years in Downside, alone, with the place's desolation creeping into her flesh and bones: oh, he can guess.
He turns the filet over in the pan for the last time, and takes a bite to taste it. He still remembers enough about Commonwealth food - damn, proper meat - to feel the difference keenly, but for Downside this isn't too bad, really. And with luck, the hot food will put Jodariel in a good enough mood to listen to what he has to say.
The other reason to go to Hollowroot and deal with its unpleasantness is information. And he had heard rumors - pursued them, quietly, across the plains, listened to the rare travelers who don't avert their faces from him and Jodi, paid the smugglers...
He piles the food onto battered tin plates and takes it over to Jodariel. She accepts with a brisk nod of thanks, and he lets her eat in peace, busying himself with his own portion. Eat when there's food, sleep when there's time and peace; at least this they still have, unquestionably, in common.
When the filet is gone and the plates are put aside to be cleaned and packed later, he takes a deep breath and opens his mouth, preparing to lay out his offer.
But Jodariel puts out a hand, stopping him. Her eyes seem huge and dark in the uncertain firelight, and the look in them makes him choke on his unvoiced words.
"Hedwyn," she says, "I've decided we should part ways."
"What?"
He reels back, almost falling off the log he's sitting on; her face is implacable, stony, forbidding.
"What," he says again, gathering his scattered wits. Whatever it is, he's ready to argue - to promise and beg and shout - and he never gets a chance to do so, because that's when the familiar howls pierce the air.
They both glance at the sky, even though they know full well that the danger will come from the ground. Jodariel's on her feet before the first sounds die, and he as well; the noise is too close, they must've been distracted. There's just a sliver of time for them to stand back to back, swords in hand, before the Howlers pour out of the grass and set upon them.
Howlers are small - the biggest of them barely reach Hedwyn's waist - but they're vicious, and the always attack in droves, coming in a great wave and climbing over each other in their unstoppable desire to bite and rend.
Jodariel roars a deafening battle cry that rolls across the prairie. For a moment even the Howlers stop in their tracks, before renewing the attack. Hedwyn can swear he hears the hiss of parted air as Jodariel's sweeps her broadsword, and focuses on his half of the circle, slashing and hacking away. There's no finesse in it, but he's never been taught finesse.
At least Jodariel trusts him at her back now; for a while after their reunion she would try to protect him in a fight as if he was still a hollow-cheeked kid under her care instead of a seasoned campaigner.
It's familiar work, for a while, and he leans into its rhythm: wrap the beast coming from the left in the folds of his cloak, feint and slash at the one coming from the right, kick viciously at the one trying to come in low - bless the army for having enough decency to exile him with his good steel-capped boots still on - move with Jodariel, giving her space to work but keeping her back and flanks clear, and let it carry him, the sweat and the effort and the thrill and the tang of blood in the air.
(At least the Highwing exiles keep to themselves in Downside; he doesn't think he could ever again fight a Harp without seeing Fikani's face.)
His headband keeps the sweat out of his eyes, at least, but his arms, bleeding from a dozen of small scrapes and scratches, are beginning to tire. The ground around them is trampled into bloody mud and littered with little corpses, and he has to watch his feet carefully. Jodariel is steady and unmovable at his back, a rock of stability, but he can sense she's tiring as well. They need to finish this off - but the Howlers are still coming.
It happens very fast: one minute he's swinging his sword, strike-slash-faint, and the next there's a searing pain high in his right thigh. He looks down, dumbly, and sees that a Howler who somehow slipped under his guard has latched on his leg, its sharp jaw clenched fast. He brings the pommel of his sword down on the top of the beast's head, shuddering with revulsion, until it finally lets go and thumps down on the ground - and then Hedwyn is on the ground himself, and he can't remember how he ended up kneeling.
He looks down - his blood is brighter and redder than the Howler's, and it's gushing out fast. His ears are ringing. He blinks, blinks again, tries to pinch the wound closer with his suddenly uncooperative fingers, and keens with the pain that shoots through his entire body. A Howler lunges at him, teeth bared and screeching, and he can't make his sword arm move -
"Hedwyn!"
The bright arc of Jodariel's greatsword cleaves the Howler in two. She looms over him, a giant and beautiful figure covered in blood, and he forgets, for a moment, where they are, just to smile at her. His body feels too heavy, too alien.
Her fingers clench around his shoulder like a vise, effortlessly hoisting him up in the air, and he can't help the scream that punches out of his throat.
"Up, soldier," the Captain barks, and he tries - the orders - "up," she says again, "there are too many of them," and she hoists his arm over his shoulder, and they run. He keeps trying to look up, to listen for the deadly hiss of the wing in the air - and then his legs desert him, and the rest of his body follows, and he remembers nothing more.
It's dark, and his leg is on fire. Somebody's leaning over him, a giant shadow with a form too wrong to be human, and he keens in fear, high in his throat, but the shadow leans over him, pinning him to the ground easily, mercilessly. He thrashes and screams, and it's useless: the shadow pours something over his thigh, and the fire there turns into a blazing pyre of agony, chasing him out of his body.
It's dark, and his leg is on fire. He can hear the hiss and bubble of steaming water nearby; when he drags his uncooperative eyelids up, Jodi is leaning over him, her brows pinched together. He moans, more to let her know he's alive than anything else, and she pushes his head up with a steady hand, brings a cup of dark liquid to his lips.
"Blackbloom," she says, and he wants to weep at the gentleness of her voice. "Drink up, Hedwyn."
I missed you, he wants to tell her, but the bitter taste of the flowers is already carrying him down and under.
It's dusk, and his leg aches, but his head is clear. He tries to rise on his elbows, but doesn't manage more than a feeble twitch; his entire body feels bruised and hollow, weak as a newborn bird. He does take stock, at least; he's laid out on his cloak on the grass, and judging by the hiss of steaming water and the unpleasant smell in the air, he's in Bloomingpool. He has no memory of getting here.
When he turns his head, he sees Jodariel, slumped against the rock next to him, head awkwardly craned under the weight of her horns. He tries to remember - stumbling through the dark, dragged along; her voice cutting through the hours of confusion and pain, steadfast and calm like it was back at the days of his childhood. For a moment he wonders if the half a year they've spent wandering the Downside together, with Jodariel's growling silence between them, has been a fever dream in itself.
Jodariel stirs under his gaze. She still wakes up like a soldier, quiet and alert at once, with no hazy in-between, and when she looks at him, it's with an old, familiar smile.
"Hedwyn! You awake properly this time?"
"Yeah," he says. "How long was it?"
"Several days. Those things have dirty teeth, but there's plenty of good herbs here, and your fever finally went down yesterday. You're lucky it wasn't an artery, but it was a close call as it was."
That's maybe more words together in a row than he's heard from Jodi since he found her; he finds himself grinning at her, likely looking enough of a fool that she frowns and reaches over to feel his forehead.
"I'm fine," he says, "I'm fine, Jodi. Did you seriously drag me all the way over to Bloomingpool by yourself?"
She makes a rather rude pfft sound. "You weigh like a sack of reeds. I could drag you all the way over to the sea and back, if I wanted."
"I'm a lucky sack of reeds then! Thank you, Jodi. Sorry for letting the little bugger get the drop on me."
"Happens," Jodi shrugs. "Hungry?"
He lets her lean him against the boulder. The pain in his leg flares up, and he has to take several carefully measured breaths and blink his eyes against the bright red circles floating across his visio. But he waits it out, and the aches subside to a tolerable undertow, leaving him free to hear the desolate rumble of his stomach.
He laughs at himself, a bit, and watches Jodi as she begins coaxing the campfire to life. He can see her half-opened pack next to her, and a couple of their battered cups, but nothing more - and come to think about it, where's their tent?
"Aw, shit," he says. "We had to ditch the camp gear, didn't we?"
"Too many of them, and they kept coming. I snatched my pack, but that was it."
"You're amazing," he tells her, earnestly; with him as out of commission as he was, it's a miracle she managed to get anything out. "But damn, I'd just gotten that pan seasoned properly. Do you think it's worth returning there to look for it?"
It's the wrong thing to say, somehow, because he can see the way Jodi's back stiffens. She stays turned away from him, busy with the fire and the cup and some unappetizing roots - he doesn't know what she's making, and he doesn't want to know. Right now he'd eat boiled grass and be grateful for it.
"Jodi," he says, too tired to dance around it. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
He opens his mouth to argue some more, and yawns instead, wide and jaw-cracking.
"Rest some more," Jodariel says. "I'll wake you up when the food's ready. We'll talk later."
Her words drag him under like it's a magic spell; he stops fighting the pull and allows himself to go slack. Later... later.
"Slowly," Jodariel says, "slowly, Hedwyn. You tear your stitches now, you'll be stuck with this limp forever."
"Yes, Captain, ma'am," Hedwyn says, with just a touch of a bite, and adds a smile to show that he does understand. She's right, and he trusts her field medicine knowledge and experience much more than he trusts his own to boot, but it's been a week, and to this date his best accomplishment is the newly-won right to hobble off into the bushes to do his business by himself. And he does it too damnably slowly, and the stitches itch maddeningly, and he grows lightheaded and winded far too quickly. And Jodi's cooking, even when she manages to catch some small rodents, is atrocious, and Hedwyn misses his gear, and he's bored. And his leads, so painstakingly compiled, are growing cold.
"You used to be much more patient when you were a kid," Jodariel says, mildly. She's bent over her sword, fixing the edge of the blade with slow, sure movements, and it pleases him to see her so content with a task.
"That's because your look of disappointment could have killed a grown man at twenty paces, and I was young and impressionable."
There's just a sliver of her smile visible beyond the curve of her left horn. Her hands are moving smoothly, but her shoulders are hunched, and she looks wan. The fight, and their frantic flight, and days of taking care of him: she must be so tired. The last words she said to him before the attack are still fresh in his mind, and while he's sure she won't leave him while he's injured and vulnerable, he might be running out of time to fix whatever's wrong.
Well then. He hobbles over, leaning on a stick and swearing softly when it catches on the uneven ground, and gingerly lowers himself across from her, leaning against the rock. At least she's in a good mood; no time like the present, isn't it?
He hides his hands under the fold of his cloak, so she wouldn't see how tightly clenched they are. "Jodi," Hedwyn says, "there's something I wanted to discuss with you, about where we could go once I'm better. I have an - "
Jodariel stills violently; the sharpening stone in her hand clatters against the blade, spoiling its edge. But when she speaks, her voice is sure and even. "After you recover, I'm taking you to Hollowroot - we can swing by the ridge and look for the gear on the way - and then I'm leaving."
It's as unpleasant to hear for the second time as it was for the first, but at least this time Hedwyn is better prepared. And can hope that nobody will crash the discussion.
He makes sure to take a deep breath before answering. "Why? Did you get tired of my company?"
Jodariel looks away from him again. Her hands return to her work, the scratch of the sharpening stone underlining the words. "Your company is always welcome, Hedwyn. But mine shouldn't be."
"Jodi. I don't understand, then. Have I ever in any way made you feel I'm unhappy to travel with you?"
"People like you," Jodariel says. "If I'm not with you, I'm sure there will be a place for you in Hollowroot, or anywhere else. A house to call your own. Companionship."
Ahhh, and now he's beginning to understand. Oh, Jodariel. "You think that's what I want?"
"What else can you want? Don't tell me you're not tired of living on the road. You could have died in that ambush..."
"I could have died because I've been exiled to Downside, and most of Downside exists to try and kill the exiles. And I didn't die because somebody dragged me to a safe place and spent a week taking care of me. If it's about what I want, I know that I want to be by your side, and it never changed. If some small-minded fools want to make this place worse than it is by being spiteful, what do I care about that?"
"Maybe you should care," Jodariel says, slowly. She puts away the stone with slow, deliberate movements. Rolls to her feet and stands over Hedwyn, blotting out the sunlight, a dark shadow with a bright sword in her hand; he has to crane his neck to look up at her. "You know I'm not who I used to be. Maybe you should be afraid of what I became."
He's been trained well; he can see the shift of the muscles of her chest, her fingers, tight on the hilt. He feels it again, this clear combat thrill of danger! danger! ringing through his body - and he can't help it.
Hedwyn throws his head up and laughs, laughs like he hasn't in days or weeks or months, laughs until he starts gasping for breath, until his injured leg wakes up to life and forcefully complains. He laughs until his eyes tear up, and through the film of water he can see Jodariel's face flickering through several impressions in a row, finally settling on 'confused and awkward.'
"Jodi," he says finally, getting his breath under control. "Harp's dung, Jodi, that was amazing. What a big sword you have! But maybe horns would've been better, what do you think? You should've threatened to gore me with them! Or eat me!"
"Hedwyn," Jodariel hisses, and shoves her sword back into scabbard with a clumsy movement worth of a greenest of recruits. "Is it a joke to you?"
"Either help me get up or sit down," he says, stretching his arms out at her. "I've been duly impressed and terrified, and I'm getting a crick in my neck."
She studies him, reluctant, and then breathes out and visibly gives up. She slides down the rock next to him, and Hedwyn, greatly daring, leans against her shoulder. She's warm.
"Jodi," he says again, quiet. "You took care of me. You took me in, and taught me how to hold a sword, and how to sing a marching song, and how to get up after you fall down. You held me when I cried in the dark. All of us children, and you not that much older than us! You saved my life not a week ago. How can you think that anything, anything in the world could've made me be afraid of you? How could you think that I could choose anything in this entire miserable place over you?"
He has to pause and swallow, has to swipe at his eyes; all the mirth has left him. He doesn't dare to look at her.
"I'm tired, Hedwyn," she finally says. "I've been here for a very long time."
He finds her hand, blindly, and holds onto it, squeezed until he can feel every one of her calluses, every nick and every old scar. "I'm sorry you've been alone," he chokes out. "I swear I won't leave you here alone again, no matter what happens."
"Stubborn bastard," Jodariel mutters, and Hedwyn can't help a grin splitting his face. "All right. On your head be it."
She relaxes, finally, leans into him. Over their heads the first stars a beginning to come out. Hedwyn is looking at the bright light of Gol, drowsing a little - laughing is draining when you're wounded, who knew? - when Jodariel speaks again.
"But what are we to do then? Wander around and sleep on the cold ground until Downside gets us?"
"Oh," Hedwyn says. He surges up, cursing when his leg protests the motion, and grabs Jodariel's hand again. "Jodi! That's what I keep trying to tell you. There's this man named Sandalwood, and they say that if you can follow the clues and find his old wagon, he knows the way out of this place, back to Commonwealth, and he's willing to share it. It might be a load of bullshit, but it's still a chance, and I would take it. So I've got some information together, and I think the first place we should check out is..."
Jodi's listening to him with a cynical twist to her lips, and obviously thinks the whole thing is ridiculous - but she's holding his hand, and her shoulders are finally loose and relaxed against the rock, and it's okay. He can carry the faith for both of them, until one day it's enough.
They leave Bloomingpool a week later, when Hedwyn's leg heals enough to hold him. He doesn't protest when Jodariel shoulders her pack, leaving him with nothing to do: time enough for him to carry his own weight later. Her back is strong and straight, and her gait wide and sure, and he falls into step with her and laughs.
"Hey, Captain Jodariel," he says. "No drums for us, but it's going to be a great march anyway, isn't it?"
Jodariel snorts in response, but a moment later she does begin to sing, and Hedwyn beats the rhythm again his hip.
Let us march, brothers, sisters,
rataplan don diri don
And don't you shy from hardships
rataplan don diri don
The new world waits
On the other side
Of the setting day,
And the steep hillside
Tomorrow marches on.
The old march is older than both of them, made for walking, and by the time they hit the last words, they always can begin again.