AGAREST LEGACIES
By Greg Wong
Chapter 3: Fendias - Tlalocan
They left maybe an hour after dawn.
Interestingly enough, they didn't head for open seas, but went southwest a little, towards a chain of islands.
Rex has asked Kilik about it. The businessman had said there was some important personnel they needed to pick up.
Personnel, eh? Who could be out here?
At about noon he saw the sailors reducing the sails—"reefing" them—and heard the anchor dropped over the side. Nearby, the two caravels, Star Of Nillea and Fortuitous Winds, also came to a stop and dropped anchor. They were about half a mile away from the nearest island, so the whole thing was making him more and more confused.
"Prepare to receive the colom representative!" he heard Bosun Buckland boom from the main deck. He and Ellis were standing on the poop deck, watching the Hildegard's sailors.
Colom? As in a yulishee tribe?
To his surprise, a couple of crewmen lifted a four-foot section of the portside railing away. Huh. It was detachable. Never knew a ship could do that. A moment later Kilik, Yshae, and the two midshipmen came out of the stateroom and headed toward the gap in the railing.
He turned to his wife. "Should we?" he asked.
Ellis shrugged. "I don't suppose it would hurt anything. To be honest, I'm curious about what it's all about, too."
He nodded. Offering an arm to his wife, he walked down the stairs and strolled over to Kilik. He heard the patter of running feet, and suddenly Matthias was there, too.
"And where were you, Matty?" he asked, he asked his son.
"Oh, looking around the ship some more. Samuel and Harper had to help the captain with something. Charts and stuff. Oh! I was looking around the galley. I think we'll be having crabs for dinner."
"Oh, that's nice," Ellis said. "I haven't had those in a long time."
"Are they good?" Matthias asked.
"Very."
"Cool."
There was a rustle of movement as Buckland yelled "Stand by!" and leaned out over the gap, one hand gripping the railing. He and Ellis moved a bit, so they had an angle that let them see into the water. Nothing on the surface. Maybe—
Without warning something flashed out from under the surface, too fast for him to track easily. Buckland reached out and snagged it out of the air as it passed him. Impressive.
Especially considering what the bosun had just caught looked like a trident or partisan with well-honed edges. He heard jingling and clinking around him, and saw some of the watching sailors exchanging money.
He glanced at his wife, eyebrows raised. Ellis just shrugged, puzzled.
The bosun stepped away from the gap and said to Kilik, "All yours, sir."
With a nod to the bosun, the ET president took the same position as Buckland had. The bosun ambled over to him and his family.
"You'll get to see an impressive entrance today, sir," the heavyset man said, gesturing to where Kilik stood.
He had absolutely no idea what that meant, but okay.
"Bosun, good catch," a nearby sailor said, tossing Buckland a small sack. The bosun caught it one-handed. From the jingling sound it made, it was presumably full of coin. He looked at the sack, then back to Buckland, a questioning look on his face.
"Oh, this?" Buckland jingled the coins and waved the polearm. "Well, Count, you see, every time this happens some of the boys make bets on whether I'll catch the partisan or if it'll take my hand off. Seeing as I have all ten fingers, I think you know how all the other times went. Ah." Buckland pointed towards the water with his chin. "Look fast, sir and ma'am, or you'll miss it."
No sooner had he looked back towards the ocean when the surface exploded in a geyser of spray. A woman in a diaphanous gown, one hand outstretched, came flying up towards where Kilik stood. With a quick motion, Kilik's free hand grabbed a hold of the woman's, pulling her up. In the same motion, Kilik did a complicated twist, releasing his grip on the railing to get a hand under the woman.
The result was Kilik with the woman in a near picture perfect bridal carry.
Some of the watching sailors clapped, then broke out into enthusiastic cheers and wolf-whistles when the woman gave Kilik a deep kiss on the mouth. His eyebrows raised at that, and a quick glance at Ellis revealed his wife had the same expression.
Oh boy, this was going to take some getting used to.
"In case you weren't familiar with them sir, the lady over there is a yulishee, an ocean-dwelling folk. That particular one is sort of a mediator of sorts with the local coloms, or tribal groups. And, as you just saw, Mister Kilik's woman. You see, the president was able negotiate some business contracts with the coloms, which hired some of their more able-bodied water mages as extra crew for the ships. They use their magics to help propel the ships, so it makes our ocean crossings more time-efficient and helps us when we have to deal with crosswinds or the doldrums. We've yet to make a full ocean crossing, but the president and captain are confident it'll work out."
As the bosun was talking, Kilik had lowered the yulishee to the deck and offered his elbow to her, much like was doing now with Ellis. The pair of them were walking towards him and his family.
The yulishee was waving cheerily at the sailors around her, but when she caught sight of him and Ellis, the woman's draw dropped open and she started to run forward.
Buckland was looking at him and Ellis, so he had no idea what had happened behind.
"And, of course, more often than not we'll get some pretty girls among the yulishee mages, so that's immensely popular with the boys. The president's lady there is also very friendly, and a good healer, so that's nothing but positive as well."
Buckland started to say more, but he wasn't able to hear because the yulishee woman had just cried "Rex! Ellis!"
And then he was wrapped up in a very tight, very wet, hug from Reverie. Eh heh. Good thing it'd been warm and he hadn't worn his coat. He weakly returned the hug. Not because he was reluctant to hug an old friend, but... well, yulishees, Reverie included, didn't exactly wear much. The gown was extremely thin and near transparent due to its wetness. He honestly didn't know where to put his hands.
Thankfully, Reverie took that dilemma out of his hands by moving to hug Ellis with another excited squeal. His wife, who was shorter, smaller, and much less male than he was, was able to return the embrace warmly.
Then Reverie's enthusiasm hit a new ceiling when she caught sight of Matthias. With an excited gasp the yulishee crouched down in front of his son.
"Oh, my goodness! You're so big now, Matthias! Do you remember me?"
Their son, who had a blend of surprise, alarm, and bashfulness on his face, just mutely shook his head. Reverie wasn't hard on the eyes, and getting all this attention from a bubbly, friendly girl who seemed to know him was obviously making him feel self-conscious.
"Aw. I remember you, though! I visited when you were about two or three. You were so little. But now you're so big now! You really don't remember me? My name's Reverie."
Matthias shook his head again. "I don't remember, sorry. But, erm, nice to meet you, Miss Reverie."
"You're so polite and sweet, just like your mother and father!" Reverie exclaimed. "And you're growing up to be a handsome young man too. Also like your father."
The yulishee leaned forward and planted a kiss on Matthias' forehead. As the boy looked absolutely stunned Reverie rose and turned to face him and Ellis, a sunny grin on her face.
He smiled back. It was hard not to. "It's good to see you again, Reverie," he said.
"Of course!" the yulishee said. "We have so much catching up to do!"
Ellis had wondered if cheerfulness was contagious. She'd never been sure. With Reverie, though, it had to be.
The captain had graciously let them use her stateroom while she, Rex, Kilik, and Reveries talked. Matthias was running around the ship again with Harper and Samuel.
Another yulishee had also boarded the ship—in a much less spectacular fashion; a rope with a loop as a makeshift stirrup had been used to get the younger girl aboard. Reverie introduced the girl as Cienna.
The girl, who seemed a little older than the Hildegard's midshipman and had peaceful gray eyes framed by beautiful green hair a few shades darker than Reverie's own, wore the same yulishee gown as Reverie. Cienna was very pretty but seemed very shy.
Also, the yulishee girl was apparently part of Reverie's colom.
"You see," Reverie explained, "Landa had banished me from the Crystal Lake colom, and that kind of sentence didn't just get commuted. She really didn't have a choice, you know, with the traditions surrounding the Rainbow Shard. However, Landa surprised me by recognizing me as the leader of the Mirror Lake colom... which didn't exist."
She thought about that for a bit. "Ah," she said to Reverie. "So it was her way of getting around your exile, wasn't it?"
"Mm-hmm. I was banished from the colom, but if I was the leader of another colom, it would mean I could still come and visit for, you know, 'diplomatic reasons.' Mirror Lake was on an unoccupied island not far from Crystal Lake, so I wasn't far from Nillea or Landa."
"Which helped immensely with ironing out our contracts with the Enhambre coloms," Kilik added. "Reverie's proximity and status made everything work out in the end."
The way Kilik told it, Reverie had been the linchpin of the negotiations, because she was one of the few yulishee who was comfortable dealing with surface dwellers. Reverie had managed to convince the other coloms that Kilik was looking for a genuine business agreement, one that would be mutually beneficial to both parties. The yulishee water mages would help propel the ships, while Enhambre Transoceanic would compensate them generously and also give participating coloms excellent pricing and priority in any future charters or trading. To Ellis it seemed like Reverie's—and maybe Kilik's—way of trying to open up the traditionally isolationist coloms to the rest of the world. Time would only tell, but she hoped it would. The surface peoples and the yulishee had much to offer to each other.
"It would be silly if I was the leader of a one-person colom, so I tried looking for members. Wasn't very successful, though. Not many of other yulishees wanted to be led by an odd woman like me. The only exception was Cienna, who has a bit of wanderlust herself."
"You are not odd," Cienna said, marking the first time the girl had spoken. The girl's voice had a slow cadence to it that strongly reminded Ellis of Murmina, but with a more... melodious quality.
"Oh, but I am," Reverie said, giving the other yulishee an affectionate pat on the shoulder. "Just ask Rex or Ellis."
"Oh, she's right, Cienna. Reverie's not odd," her husband said.
"Well I'm not so sure," she disagreed. "Perhaps just a slight bit of oddness."
Rex made a show of contemplating that. "On second thought, you might be right. Only slightly. Very slightly."
"But only in a good way," she added. "Much like a certain other somebody." She looked pointedly at Rex.
Her husband put on what was possibly the saddest expression she had ever seen. "What have I done now?"
Oh, gods, they were doing the banter thing again. A small part of her was annoyed that they did this all the time... but the—much—larger part of her enjoyed it to no end.
"Says the man who tried to buy a half-dozen dull, poorly made swords at full price."
"That's just having exceptionally poor bargaining skills!" Rex protested. "Not being strange!"
She sighed heavily, throwing up her hands. "You win, you win. But only because of the puppy-dog eyes."
Ellis noticed Kilik, Reverie, and even Cienna staring at them.
She heard Kilik clear his throat. "Well, Reverie, at least we know what we have to look forward to."
Reverie nodded. "Perhaps. I don't think it'll ever be that bad, though."
"Yes, you're right. It'll be worse."
"Perish the thought."
Cienna, an eyebrow cocked, looked between her and Rex, and Reverie and Killian. The girl pointed to her and Rex. "Theirs was better."
They laughed.
Matthias craned his neck as the captain's cabin door opened and Mother, Father, Mister Kilik, Miss Reverie, and a girl he'd never seen before came outside onto the deck. It looked like whatever they'd been talking about in the stateroom wasn't finished, because the four adults continued to talk. Adults always talked a lot.
The yulishee girl moved away from the adults, walking around the deck and looking at stuff. She looked at the rigging on the mast for a long time, then the sails, and the various pulleys and blocks. She looked real interested in everything.
Then he saw her fin-ears twitch, and she suddenly spun around to look at him.
His first instinct was to duck behind the storage crate he was behind, but that would be dumb. The girl had already seen him, and it would make him look look disrespectful. Sir Davien always said to be respectful, especially to women. That probably included yulishee girls.
"Um, hello!" he called to the girl, maneuvering around the sailors and objects on the deck. He gave her a little wave, which the yulishee returned the gesture as he got closer.
Wow. She was pretty. He suddenly felt that weird shyness he'd had when he'd been introduced to Miss Murmina and Miss Reverie.
But shyness was bad! He mentally shook himself. Bad, bad, bad!
"My name's Matthias. Nice to meet you. What's your name?" he said, just a teensy bit too rushed.
"My name's Cienna," the girl said, slowly, just like Miss Murmina usually talked. The difference though was that it sounded more... musical, or something. It was a nice voice. "It's nice to meet you to. You're the Count's and Countess' son, yes?"
Oh, she'd met Mother and Father, it looked like. He hadn't seen her talking to them, but then again after Kilik and Reverie had brought his parents into the captain's stateroom he'd wandered off to look around. Must've missed her. Hmm. He wondered if she could do that water-jump thing that Miss Reverie had done. Maybe he'd ask Cienna sometime.
"Yeah. Uh. Yes, yes I'm their son."
"They seem like very kind people. Reverie told me much about them. I've wanted to meet them."
For some reason, he thought about when his parents had unleashed their power on the devil's eyes that had been hunting him and his friends. Mother was a high elf, and he'd heard that high elves had incredible magical power, but it was still awesome to see. He didn't know Father had had that kind of magic though. It was uncommon for a human to have magic power, and rare for a human to show the power his father had. Wait. That just meant his father was rare. Huh.
"Yeah, they're cool," he agreed.
Cienna looked confused. "Cool?"
Oh, right. Cienna lived in the ocean, not in Aegisthus, and especially not near Centan. Was probably as out of touch—tee hee—as Mother and Father.
"It's an expression back on Aegisthus. Means something that's really, uh, neat? Interesting?" Hmm, now that he thought about, it could mean a lot of things, couldn't it?
Cienna nodded, like she understood. "I see." The yulishee scratched her head. "Well, not quite, really. I suppose I can get used to it."
He just shrugged at that. Cienna didn't add anything, and it kind of became awkward and weird as they stood around.
Um.
"Have you ever sailed before?" he asked. Wait, that was a dumb question. Yulishees lived underwater. Why would they need a ship?
"No, I haven't actually," Cienna answered. "I've always wondered it was like, though, to travel over the water rather than through it." The yulishee gestured to the mast and the rigging. "It seems quite a bit more complicated than I imagined."
Matthias took a quick look around. Harper and Samuel were nowhere to be seen. Probably still working with the captain. He turned back to Cienna.
"Well, I could show you around and stuff. You know, if you don't mind or whatever."
Cienna's face brightened. "I wouldn't mind at all. Do you know much about sailing?"
He shrugged again. "Not all that much. But I know a little, from what I learned from Harper and Samuel and the bosun. I could at least show you around the ship."
"That would be... cool. Did I use that right?"
"Yup."
"All right." Cienna turned to look over at his parents and Miss Reverie and Mister Kilik. They were still all talking. Sheesh. "We'd better get out of view otherwise Reverie's going to remember that we have to get work."
He grinned. "Okay. Let's go below decks."
Together they explored the galleon's interior. Matthias pointed out all the interesting features—well the ones he knew about anyway—and cool places.
Just not the bilge area. Because that was just yuck.
But he ran out of things to look at below, so he took Cienna back up top to kinda-sorta explain the sailing.
"Oh, so if the ship uses wind to push it along, they can't sail towards the wind can they? What do they do? Do they just anchor and wait for the wind to shift?"
"Not really? They just sail in a zigzag, kind of towards the wind, but not really. So they can sail into the wind, but it takes time. Uh... they call it tacking."
"Fascinating," Cienna said as she looked up at the sails, and the yulishee actually looked totally interested. "Do the shape of the sails—"
"Cienna!" he heard Miss Reverie's voice call, interrupting Cienna. Aw. He had wanted to hear the question, so he could answer or whatever. "It's time for the ships to begin moving again! Over the side!"
Miss Reverie, spear in hand, gave a final wave to Mother, Father, and Mister Kilik, then walked to the edge of the ship and jumped over.
Cienna turned back to look at him and also gave a wave of her own. "I had better go. I'm only a trainee water mage, so I have to observe the other water mages as they move the ship. I'll perhaps see you tonight, since we'll sleep aboard the ship."
"Okay. Um. I'll show you more of the ship then, if you want."
Cienna smiled. "That would be nice. Goodbye."
"Bye."
He watched Cienna walk over to his parents and the president, probably to say goodbye. When Cienna came back he would probably show her the—
"Well, she is quite a pretty girl, Master Matthias," a voice said from behind him.
He jumped about half a foot into the air before whirling around to find Sir Davien. The knight was smiling at him, with a little gleam in his blue eyes that he always saw in Mother's and Father's whenever they laughed.
The surprise wore off, only for Sir Davien's words to register. His cheeks felt hot.
He crossed his arms over his chest. "She's a little pretty," he said to the knight.
Sir Davien didn't say anything else, just kept on smiling. He started when he heard another splash and noticed Cienna was gone. Must've gone back into the water, too.
"Don't worry. She mentioned she would be back."
He pursed his lips and frowned. Mother usually scolded him when he made this face, but Sir Davien wasn't mother. Humph.
The knight laughed. "Well, I'd better distract you then, Master Matthias. You remember the swords your father purchased in Enhambre?"
He nodded. "The ones Mother got mad at him for buying?"
"Oh, no, your mother wasn't too cross with him for that. But yes, those swords. Now that we have some training blades, would some sword training sound cool to you?"
Oh! That sounded awesome. "Yeah! That would be totally cool!"
"All right!"
Tlalocan had changed quite a bit from the last time she'd seen it, at least from her vantage point on the docked Hildegard.
Ellis waited for the gankplank to be secured and for Captain Yshae and the two midshipman to go down to the pier. She saw the captain meet and shake hands with an older gentleman at the wharf, most likely the harbormaster.
According the Kilik, they'd spend a day here to stretch their legs while the Hildegard, Star of Nillea, and Fortuitous Winds restocked. After that they would move to the south of Fendias to the city of Lus Soleil, to unload and load some additional cargo.
According to Yshae, they'd made the journey from Enhambre to Fendias in only fourteen days with the help of the yulishees, as opposed to the normal twenty days. The captain had theorized they could have gone even faster if they had continued using their magic at night, but yulishees needed rest and had night vision no better than a human, so they came aboard the ships at dark to sleep.
Still, nearly a week of saved time was fantastic. Kilik had seemed particularly impressed with the time they'd made. For all his talk about not caring about the economic aspect of his business, the former pirate really did seem enthused about their speed.
"Count, Countess, you may go down now, if you like," the bosun said to her and Rex. She stepped forward... then stopped. Her husband's machismo would undoubtedly be dealt a harsh blow if the wife went by herself only to fall to her doom.
The walkway was only about a foot and a half wide, so not quite enough to accommodate her and Rex side by side. She let Rex go first, where her husband reached back to offer a hand to her. She rolled her eyes playfully in response to his crooked grin. Rex led her down the walkway, with Matty craning his neck every step her took behind her to get an eyeful of the city. Further back would be Davien and the other knights
They reached the pier to find a finely dressed, somewhat portly man waiting patiently next to a pair of large, shrouded palanquin and its carriers. There was a crest on the man's shoulder that she didn't recognize. Looked familiar, though. Hmm. Where had she seen it before? Whoever it belonged to, it was obvious that this was an orderly or courtier of some noble house in the city.
The man gave her and Rex a polite bow. "Count and Countess Roaring Cove?" the man asked.
"Yes, we are," Rex answered. "What can we do for you?"
The man stumbled on his words for a moment. A count asking what he could do for a messenger was perhaps a bit unusual for those who did the full-time nobility thing. "Er. Milord, I have been asked by my lord to convey you to a meeting."
She frowned. That was a bit... forward. The man hadn't even given his patron's name.
She caught Rex's eye, and knew the same thing had gone through her husband's mind.
"You can tell your master that we will gladly meet him," she said to the courtier. "We would just like to know who has provided such a warm welcome for us."
The man bowed politely. "Milord, milady, you will meet her soon enough. Please, I beseech you to—"
"We are more than happy to wait for the information," Rex cut in, firmly.
The attendant spluttered. "Count, countess! I beg you—"
"Votel, that's enough, thank you" a voice said from inside the closest litter, which was quite apparently occupied.
The courtier jerked at the command and stepped aside, bowing.
A hand brushed aside the curtains, and out stepped a woman.
Average height, but slender, with brown hair and matching eyes. Despite her slimness and the fancy, frilly clothing, Ellis could see that she had compact, athletic build. The noble's face wasn't exactly beautiful, but striking in its own way. The set of her jaw gave the impression that this woman wasn't one of those delicate, pampered court flowers.
Ellis had never met a noble like her before, so why did this woman seem so familiar?
Beside her, her husband started chuckling. Huh. Did Rex know something she didn't?
"You look good in those clothes, don't get me wrong," Rex said to the noble. "But... I don't know. They somehow don't seem you, Beatrice."
She did a double take. Oh, gods, Rex was right! It was Beatrice! Aged a little, but now that Rex mentioned, she saw it.
"Oh, Rex, you have no idea how I wish I could wear normal clothing for once," Beatrice snorted as the younger woman gave them both a hug. "I can barely walk in heels."
"Well, if you do trip," Ellis said, "at least your shinobi training would mean you would fall gracefully."
"Hah! Ninja techniques are amazing, but they can't work miracles."
They laughed at that.
"So, why the mysteriousness?" Rex asked.
"It's normally how things are done when the consul wishes for an audience with someone," Beatrice explained. Consul? Hmm? "Usually people would instantly recognize the crest of the ruling consul, but I guess my father didn't realize that you'd never seen it before.
Oh, that was right! Beatrice's father was Ryune, the consul of Tlalocan. She'd never met the men, but she recognized the name.
"Ah, that explains the clothes," she said.
"Yes, it does," Beatrice answered with a sigh. "The daughter of a consul is the closest Tlalocan has to a princess, so this." She watched the other woman gesture to her clothes. "And since I don't have an excuse to go overseas to fight demons and dark gods, I'm here worrying about protocol and which noble to talk to and whatever." Beatrice fingered her dress. "It's not entirely bad. I mean, it's nice to have such beautiful clothing and being able to look... pretty every once in a while. It's just that the rest of it drives me up the wall."
"Speaking of consuls and semi-royalty, how is your grandfather doing? I haven't seen Alberti in ages," she heard her husband ask. They all ignored the faint choking sound Votel made. Maybe hearing a count and countess being so casual with what amounted to a crown princess and a former king—well, technically king consort, if you wanted to nitpick—was perhaps a bit too much for him.
"He's doing perfectly fine. In fact..." Beatrice turned back to the litter and poked her head inside. "Grandfather! Please come, they want to—Grandfather?"
The brunette stopped, head still stuck inside the curtains. A moment later Beatrice withdrew. The younger woman was rubbing her temple with her hand, as if trying to ward off a migraine.
"Oh, he's doing it again, isn't he?" Beatrice said with a sigh.
"You act as if it's a surprise," a gruff voice said from behind her and Rex. "You know I hate being cooped up in one of those things."
Now this gravely voice she recognized. "Watching our backs as usual, Alberti?" she asked over her shoulder. She and Rex turned slightly to get a look at another old friend.
Alberti hadn't changed much, at least compared to Beatrice. Beatrice still looked fit and youthful for a woman in her early thirties, but she could still see the signs of aging that was the simple fact of life for a normal human like Beatrice. Alberti had been pushing sixty during their battle against Summerill and Chaos, but had kept in such fine shape that the former royal guard had been in better condition than most men half his age.
Alberti still looked in excellent condition... for his age, which was only a few years off of seventy. The wrinkles on his face were more pronounced, and the skin around his forearms and face was much less firm than what she had remembered. Telling, too, was the white that was making Alberti's pale blond hair seem even paler.
Despite that, the man's blue eyes still had their alert sharpness, and Alberti still filled out fur-lined jacket well.
"I had to do it for four decades," Alberti laughed, walking around to stand next to Beatrice. She saw the older man still moved well despite his years. "Well, only two in Rex's case. Why should it be any different?"
"Your rewards for that weren't clothes, it seems," she heard Rex joke, motioning to Alberti. The jacket the older man was wearing was probably the same one he'd purchased in Enhambre, and the camouflaged trousers didn't look much newer.
"Heh," she heard Alberti chuckle. "I'm just as uncomfortable with consular trappings as my granddaughter is. However, Beatrice was at least born into the life. Me? I was just a mere royal guard who the consul's daughter seemed to like."
She smiled. Alberti had forsaken the privilege and rank he'd had as the commander of Tlalocan's royal guard and risked life and limb to save Nastassja, the daughter of then-consul Midas. The love the two had for each other was actually a standard she strove for in her marriage to Rex. So far, she thought she and Rex were managing just fine.
"Well, thank goodness for that. Imagine if Grandmother hadn't liked you," Beatrice said in a deadpan.
"Well, your father would have been terribly angry about that, I think," Alberti replied, in the same tone.
They shared a chuckle at that.
"And speaking of fathers," Alberti continued. "We received your letter you sent all those years back. Belated congratulations, and apologies for not being able to come by to visit. Is this the boy?"
She smiled. "Yes. Beatrice and Alberti, this is our son Matthias."
So this was Matthias' first time to meet a princess. It was pretty cool.
Well, Mother said Lady Beatrice wasn't technically a princess, but she looked princess-y. So he was going to call her Lady Beatrice since it seemed like it was the right thing to do.
Mister Alberti had told him not to call him "Lord Alberti," though. It kind of made sense, since Mister Alberti didn't look like a king—well, "technically not a king," Mother had said—but rather looked more like Sir Davien. Well, if Sir Davien was older, blond, and wore less armor.
They seemed really cool though.
They talked a little more—like adults always did, ick—until Miss Murmina, Vashtor, Miss Reverie, Fer, Qua, and Cienna also appeared. It looked like Lady Beatrice and Mister Alberti knew them, too, except for Cienna.
And then more talking. Argh.
He quietly stepped over to Cienna and gently tapped her on the shoulder. Sir Davien said that that wasn't a polite way to get a lady's attention, but Cienna was only a girl and he was desperate to get out of this.
Cienna turned her head and gave him a questioning look. He pointed to the side, where he could see an exit from the dock area into the city. Cienna looked to where he was pointed, then nodded slowly.
When Mother and Father weren't looking, he grabbed Cienna's hand and quietly went off towards the gate.
"I'm sure my father wouldn't mind hosting the rest of you for a night," Rex heard Beatrice say.
"He doesn't have to," Murmina said.
He watched Beatrice smile. "I want to, though. You're all dear friends of mine. Not to speak ill of Kilik's ships, but I hope some palatial rooms are more comfortable than the cabins you have on the galleon.
"Honestly, a floor that isn't rocking constantly would be more than enough for me," he said. "I don't know how Ellis stands it."
"That's because I'm not a baby, sweetheart," his wife teased.
"Well, technically, I kind of am. I'm a quarter of your age, you know," he poked back. "At least I'm fortunate that I got to you first. Who knows. You might have found some handsome pirate somewhere and enjoyed atrociously bobbing floors to your heart's content."
Ellis responded with a huff and a playful poke to his side with her elbow.
Alberti cleared his throat. Oops. He and Ellis were doing it again.
"Well, there's a lot of things I'm sure we all want to speak about," Beatrice said. "But we can do that at my residence over a good meal."
"Which is going to take some figuring out, I think," he heard Alberti add, pointing with his chin at the two litters.
Right. No offense to the bearers, but Rex highly doubted that they could carry ten people, especially people with the physiques of Davien and Vashtor.
"Hrm," he said. "How far is it from here?"
"About two and a half miles, Rex," Beatrice answered. "I could send a runner to get some litters, maybe."
"Personally, I'm fine with walking," he said. He looked towards Ellis, who nodded.
"But you all must be exhausted from the voyage," Alberti said.
"We've been cooped up on a ship for two weeks," Murmina said. "Walking sounds fantastic."
Beatrice shrugged. "Well, that's good enough for me. However..."
The brunette bent down and removed her heels. She went back to her litter, tossed the shoes inside, reached in, and withdrew a pair of worn but practical sandals.
"Okay, shall we?"
He carefully didn't stare at poor Votel, who looked flummoxed by Beatrice not only speaking to those of lower status so openly, not only inviting them all to the consular palace, not only offering to walk with them, but also for changing out her ornate shoes for something so passe as comfortable footwear.
Heh. At least and Ellis weren't the only ones who had trouble adjusting to a noble lifestyle.
Well, time to go. Better get Matthias moving before the boy—
Matty?
"So they hit the metal when it's hot because...?" Matthias heard Cienna ask him.
"Because when it's glowing its softer," he explained as the blacksmith hammered. He looked over to the side of the open smithy, where a man, smaller than the blacksmith, was bent over a sickle blade, rubbing the metal. The man's lips were moving, but he couldn't hear what was being said.
He pointed to the other man. "Although, I don't know what that's about," he admitted.
"Oh, I think he's working some kind of enchantment into the metal," Cienna said. "I can feel the magic, faintly."
His eyes widened. "You can sense magic that easily?"
"Well, I'm training to be a water mage, silly," Cienna said with a laugh. "Reverie says I'm particularly sensitive to detecting magic, and Reverie is a very strong mage herself."
"Wow, that's really cool," he said, continuing to watch the human mage work. "Can you tell what he's doing?"
The yulishee shook her head. "I can't. Well. I can sense that it's earth magic that he's using, but that's about it. I still need more training and practice."
"Well, it's still really cool," he said, grinning.
Cienna looked embarrassed for a second, then slowly grinned back.
After getting bored they headed away from the smithy, wandering through the street and making sure not to get stepped on by horses. That would be bad.
He felt Cienna tug on his sleeve. Hmm? He turned to look at the shop the girl was pointing at.
"Yeah?"
"I sense magic coming from that store. Quite a bit of it. What is it?"
He read the sign. It was a name he couldn't pronounce.
"Hmm," he said. "I don't know. Let's go look!" He ran across the street, towards the shop. He looked through as Cienna caught up with him. Hmm. The glass was kind of dirty, so it was tough to see, but he saw lots of shelves around the store, all of them holding stuff. Umm. He saw a jar with... were those eyeballs?
Oh, he knew what is was.
He spoke slowly, because the word was tricky. "It's an... apothecary. They collect plants and monster parts and stuff and sell them to mages or herbalists."
"Oh, so I suppose that's why I'm sensing such strong magic from this place."
He peeled his face away from the glass. "Yup. There's a lot of magic items in the... apothecary, plus the people who shop there are usually mages. And I guess the owners would be too, huh?"
"It would make sense," Cienna said, also looking into the window. The yulishee backed away and looked around. "What else can we look at? I never knew city life held so much."
This was kind of weird. He was the one usually asking tons and tons of questions, not person being asked.
"Uh... I don't know really. I've never been to Till. Tla." He frowned and concentrated on the word. "Tlalocan." Some of these cities outside of Aegisthus had weird names. Maybe if he ever practiced talking a lot like the adults did he might not have problems with it.
"Oh, I see," Cienna said. "Perhaps... that way?" Cienna pointed deeper into the city.
"Okay, that sounds good. I think there might be clothing and general shops that way."
They started moving in that direction. It started to get more crowded, with people bumping into him or Cienna often.
Father always said he was big for—oof!—his age, but people who were normal sized for their age was still bigger than he was. Cienna was taller than him, so people saw her and usually avoided running into her, but she was still getting hit every once in a while. He tried to stay in front of her to block. Father sometimes did that for Mother when they had went to Centan on a holiday, and the streets were even more crowded. And even if Cienna was only a girl, she was older than he was, so she was close enough to a lady. Or something.
He managed to bull his way through the street, and found himself in what looked like a town square. Except it would be a city square, right?
But at least the huge crush of people was gone. Phew. He rested against the edge of a fountain.
"My goodness!" Cienna said with a laugh as she rested her hands on her knees. "Are the surface cities always this busy?"
He shrugged. "Some of them. When I was growing up the closest city was Centan, and it was usually pretty quiet except during celebrations. Uh... Nillea seemed pretty quiet, too, but it's a lot smaller than Til... Tlalocan."
"So you're not used to this, either?"
He shrugged again. "Kind of. I mean we visited Centan a couple of times a month, I think, and lots of time it was during some event."
"I see," Cienna said, leaning over the fountain. "Excuse me."
He watched the yulishee splash some water over her face and hair, then run her wet hands over her arms.
"Sorry," she said to him. "My skin felt a little dry."
The water made her hair glisten prettily.
He suddenly felt shy again. Um. Talk. Talking was the answer.
"Cienna, how come you follow Reverie around. Well except for now, I mean."
"She's my colom leader," the Cienna answered. "I wanted to see the world, so I joined her."
"Oh," he said. "Did your parents mind that?"
"Not quite. They wanted to keep me in their colom and grow up to be a proper yulishee lady. It probably would have happened had I not met Reverie several years ago. She told me of the surface world, especially the cities of the humans, and I became curious about it. Two years ago, when I was twelve, Reverie petitioned the leader of my colom to allow me to become a member of her's."
"So you joined her colom after that?"
"Yes."
"Cool. How many of you are there?"
Cienna chuckled. "Including Reverie and myself? Two."
He blinked. "Wait, really?"
"Yes. I suppose Reverie's wanderlust and interest in the outside world was just a bit too strange for most other yulishees." The girl laughed again. "I suppose I'm just a bit too strange, myself."
"Well, then that would make us both strange too," he said. "I think sometimes Mother and Father get annoyed because I forget the time while I'm exploring... things..."
Oh, hold on.
"Matthias?"
"I just kind of remembered that we've been gone for a while. I know the adults love to talk, but they can't talk that long, you know. Uh. Maybe we'd better get back to the harbor."
"We probably should," Cienna said, suddenly looking a bit worried. "But..." He saw the yulishee looking over at the packed streets. Going back through that again wouldn't be fun, oh no it wouldn't.
Hmm. "Maybe we could try cutting through the smaller streets and alleys," he suggested, pointing.
"And that will get us back to the ships?" Cienna asked. She didn't sound sure.
"Maybe?" he said. He wasn't sure, actually. "If we go down that way and just head back the way we came, kind of, I think we're going to reach the harbor." He thought for a second. "I hope."
Cienna looked thoughtful. "Well, I suppose that makes sense. Of course, we could end up going in the completely opposite direction and getting hopelessly lost."
"Well, yeah. But even if we get lost, we'll probably see more cool stuff. It's a win either way!"
Cienna just smiled.
Rex frowned. "You know, I love my son as any father does, but when I find Matthias he's going on a leash. A literal leash. Ten feet at most. With the other end wrapped around my waist or Ellis'."
Was he a little annoyed with the situation? Eh. Maybe a little.
"I wonder where he gets it from?" he heard Alberti ask. "I remember you being almost painfully obedient to Ellis and Plum." The older man laughed. "Except when you weren't. Then you had your troublemaking streaks, too. Might have gotten it from your grandfather."
"Why couldn't it have skipped his generation?" he mused.
They'd split off into pairs and were looking through the city. Problem was, Tlalocan was one of the larger Fendiasi cities, so this was going to a while.
Humph. Five foot leash.
Whoa, that was weird. Matthias had felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle up a bit. Mother said that was a sign that someone was talking about you.
But he had other things to worry about. Like being hopelessly lost.
"I think we've seen this inn before," Cienna said, pointing.
"Can't be," he replied. "We'd have to make, like, three lefts or three rights to get to the spot, and I know we only did two lefts."
The girl's brow crinkled as she thought. "True, but I think we made four rights. Wouldn't that bring us back to the same spot?"
He imagined a drawing in his head. It would, wouldn't it? Then again...
"But I don't remember that store myself," he said.
"Fifteen minutes ago you were explaining to me what ice cream was when we saw that eatery," Cienna told him. "Maybe I noticed this inn and you didn't?"
"But then, where's the eatery?"
Cienna blinked. "Good point."
They continued meandering around Tlalocan, still completely lost.
"Maybe we should ask someone, Matthias," Cienna suggested after another ten minutes.
"Maybe we should," he replied. He looked around. About five minutes ago they'd entered a quieter part of the city. In fact, he could only see a handful of people on the street.
"Let's ask him," the girl said, breaking away from him and moving towards a poorly-dressed, dirty man near the corner. Oh. A beggar. He was going to tell Cienna that no, stop, maybe asking a homeless man wouldn't be the best idea, but the yulishee was already close.
"Excuse me, sir?" Cienna asked the homeless man. "Could you please point us towards the harbor. We're lost."
The beggar looked up. Unless the man was born with different colored eyes, and one of them was a very pale color, he was blind on one eye. "Eh, what was that? I ain't got the hearing I used to have, so you gotta speak up, little missy."
"Sorry," Cienna said, a little more loudly. "We're lost and we'd like to know how to get back to the harbor."
"Sure thing," the beggar said. The man gave them the directions.
Oh, they'd take one too many rights and shouldn't even have gone left until the second right. Darn. He thought he'd remembered it right...
"Thank you!" Cienna said brightly, smiling.
He suddenly felt bad. The poor man had given them nice help, but he didn't have any money on him. If he had, it probably would have been gone because he would have bought Cienna ice cream, anyway.
"I'm sorry," he apologized. "We don't have any money or anything.
The homeless man didn't look disappointed or mad or anything. "Oh, don't worry about it, young sir. It's such a rare occasion that anyone talks to old, lame, half-blind Brennan, so having a pretty young lady like the miss here speak to me is plenty enough."
He still felt bad, but okay. "Okay then, Mister Brennan," he said to the beggar. "Thanks for the help."
"Hah! 'Mister' Brennan! Haven't heard that in years. Thank you kindly for that. But best be off on your way, lad and missy."
"Okay, goodbye."
Matthias and Cienna were almost there when they ran into Fer and Qua.
"Oh, I don't envy being you right now," the nelth said to him.
"Huh? Why?"
"Your parents seemed quite mad.
"Veeeeery mad," Qua added.
Rex was glad he'd never experienced Ellis' angry side. Like Alberti had mentioned earlier, he'd had his disobedient streaks when he'd been a kid. However, he'd never been subjected to what poor Matty was experiencing right now.
To be fair, this wasn't really Ellis' anger, not really. He'd seen that when they'd faced Summerill, and later, the dark gods. What he was seeing right now was just a mother expressing her worry and fear to her son. Not too far off, he could hear Reverie giving Cienna a similar lecture, though maybe one with a little less heat than Ellis'.
Matty, to his credit, looked genuinely contrite about the whole thing. Rex didn't doubt it. Yes, Matthias did drive them nuts every once in a while, but that was just because of the boy's energy and curiousness, with maybe a little bit of immaturity. He was willing to bet that if Matthias took the time to think and realized that wandering off into a strange city was going to drive him and Ellis sick with worry, the boy wouldn't think to leave their sides.
And yet, he was still considering a leash, gods help him.
He noticed that Ellis had finished, and had taken a step back from their son. His wife probably expected him to say something. Ugh. He was better just looking disappointed with Matthias, not actually saying anything. He was a terrible... scolder. Was that even a word?
Eh.
"Matthias," he said to the boy, "you have to understand that you're the most important thing to the two of us. Like your mother said, we get scared when you disappear without us knowing, especially in a new city. And to top it off, why did you go off, anyway? You heard us. We were going to go by foot through the city. You'd have plenty of time to look around as we traveled through."
Matthias had his eyes glued to the ground. Normally his son was good with being polite and making eye contact, but he guessed being scolded by both Mother and Father was just a bit too much.
"Sorry," he heard Matty say quietly. I would have waited, honestly. But grown ups talk for forever."
Despite himself, he snorted. Without really thinking about it, he glanced over at Ellis, who was looking at him with an eyebrow cocked. Oh boy.
"Well, I'll give you that, Matty," he said to his son. "Adults do talk a lot. Your mother knows. I sometimes got bored out of my skull, too."
Ellis' expression changed to one of monumental disappointment. "You, know, sweetheart, you're not supposed to encourage him."
"But I'm not!" he protested. "I'm not approving of slipping off like that. I'm just saying I understand. Because, seriously, when I was Matthias' age, all of you talked way too much. And then six or seven years later, I was doing the same thing."
"I'll be doing that in six years?" Matty asked, eyes wide.
"I talked too much?" Ellis asked at the same time.
Um. Ignore. Ignore!
"The point is, Matthias Raglan," he said seriously, "is that you mean the world to your mother and I. Think about what it's like for us when you disappear like that in a city we're not familiar with. Something could have happened to you, and that is something that scares us. Okay? Just think about this whenever you decide to go off somewhere. Think about where and when, and with who, and if you're going to let us know. Are we clear?"
Matthias briefly lifted his head and made eye contact, before looking back at the ground. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry."
He had made sure not to word it so as to completely dampen Matthias explorative nature. He just wanted to make Matty a little more... thoughtful. He made eye contact with Ellis, and he saw his wife smile slightly. They'd been married for a little more than ten years. They knew how the other ticked.
And he knew he was going to pay for the "talking too much" statement later. Heh.
"Well, Matthias, your father said the rest of what needed to be said, so we can stop it here," he heard Ellis say. "Just know that we get angry like this because we're scared for you. We don't want anything to happen to you. Understood?"
Matthias looked up, and their son actually smiled weakly. "Yes, ma'am."
Beside him, his wife took a breath and let it out. He could almost see the stress and anger leave her system.
"Well, with that out of the way," Ellis said, "we'd better start making our way towards the consular building." He watched his wife pat Matthias on the head. "And since you've seen the city already, maybe you could be our tour guide."
"Oh!" Matthias said suddenly, eyes wide. "I almost forgot! Could we make, er, a detour somewhere? And could I borrow some coin, Mother?"
Huh?
Ellis had to admit, Matthias hadn't been exaggerating about how crowded the main boulevards were. Oof.
After Matthias gave a quick recounting of their meeting with the beggar Brennan, and telling Alberti about the directions—she was impressed that Matty had been able to recite them in reverse so easily—they'd decided to split up on their way to the consular home. Matthias seemed insistent on giving the homeless man some kind of reward for the help. She couldn't rightly disagree with it. After all, without those directions Matthias and Cienna might still be wandering around, lost, and she and Rex would be dealing with heightened blood pressure. Gods. She was only one hundred and thirteen, far too young a high elf to be worrying about things like that.
However, as luck would have it, the location where Matty said the beggar was significantly out of the way. At Beatrice's suggestion, she, Rex, Matthias, Alberti, and Cienna had broken off from the main group, along with the ever-present Davien and the knights. The two children would lead them to the spot, and Alberti could guide them to the consular building afterward.
Cienna had tagged along since she also wanted to thank the Brennan fellow, and Reverie was busy. The older yulishee had to arrange for the housing of the water mages during the night, and the negotiations would take an hour or so, even with Kilik's help. Reverie wasn't their colom leader, of course, but in the context of their employment to Enhambre Transoceanic she was basically the manager.
For Ellis' part, she'd considered just letting Rex go with Alberti and the kids. She was still a smidgen upset with Matthias' sneaking off, so she wanted a little time to cool off a bit. Which made her sound like a harassed old woman, but whatever.
Then Matthias had mentioned an ice cream parlor.
She sighed to herself.
If there was a food that she had a soft spot for, it was ice cream. She'd harbored that particular weakness ever since Leo introduced it to her at Chalcis, back in Lucrellia. Her home continent of the past ten years, Aegisthus, was hot and generally arid, so gelato was extremely rare and expensive. To top that off, during their short stay at Enhambre, she'd made the misery-inducing discovery that the hot and humid climate of the island region wasn't exactly conducive to the ice cream market.
So she'd almost been embarrassingly eager to get some ice cream. This kind of thing was going to make her fat.
Ugh. Too young to be thinking like this!
She was jerked out of her thoughts when Matthias stopped in front of them suddenly.
"Matty, what's wrong?" she asked.
"Well, Mister Brennan's over there," her son replied, pointing. "I don't know who the others are, though."
She looked to where Matthias was indicating. She could see a poorly dressed man sitting near the corner, with what looked like three youths surrounding him in a semicircle.
She might make jokes about her age, but it didn't change the fact that she had over a century's worth of experience living life, and that included socializing with people. And that experience was telling her that Brennan didn't know those three.
And by the youths' aggressive body language, she could tell that they weren't meeting the homeless man for charitable reasons.
Almost without thinking she reached out and pulled Matthias closer to her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rex studying her. After a moment her husband started walking towards the four men, followed closely by Alberti.
Her first impulse was to hang back with Matthias and let the two men handle this. But no. She couldn't coddle Matty, not even as a panic reaction to her worry during her son's disappearance earlier. Matthias had to learn about the world, and not just what she, Rex, and Davien could teach.
Gently gripping her son on the shoulder, she followed her husband, staying a few paces behind. Cienna stayed near them. To her surprise, Sir Davien and the two other knights hung far back.
"Good afternoon, gentleman," she heard her husband call out to the four. The three young men had been so caught up with saying something to the beggar—she hadn't caught what was being said—that the greeting caught them by surprise. "Would one of you happen to be Brennan?"
The three strangers wheeled on Rex. The looked to be around seventeen or eighteen, and the largest of them was actually taller and broader than her husband.
Of the Raglans she had grown up with, Rex was the smallest after Duran, and it could be argued that Duran hadn't finished growing when he'd given his life to seal the Enhambrean spire. But, in any case, her husband didn't strike a particularly imposing figure... when he didn't want to. And right now Rex was trying to be as disarmingly innocuous as possible. Her husband had always been good at controlling his own body language and tone of voice. Hopefully that would resolve whatever the situation was.
But why, oh why, did she not think so?
"Brennan's my name, good sir," the beggar answered, starting to rise from his sitting position. "Good day to—"
Ellis gasped when the largest youth savagely kicked the old man in the ribs, tumbling Brennan back to the street and bashing his arm against the ground. She saw Rex's right hand twitch slightly.
"Shut up, you old street rat," the larger boy spat at the old man. Then, turning to her husband, "Get out of here. You've got no business with filthy old Brennan."
"I think I know enough about myself to know whether I have business of not," she heard Rex say, still speaking in a neutrally friendly tone. Her husband directed his attention to the wheezing old man. "I'd like to thank you for helping my son and his friend a little while back. It was very kind of you."
Brennan looked confused, as did the youths. The beggar might be stunned from the blow and wasn't tracking well. The three bullies didn't know how to deal with someone who just ignored them.
She saw Rex turn slightly and nod to her. Right.
She walked forward, nudging Matthias along.
"Don't say anything to those three," she said quietly to Matthias. "Your father and I will deal with this. Same goes for you Cienna, if you please."
"Okay," Matty whispered.
"Yes, ma'am," Cienna added.
When Brennan caught sight of her son and the yulishee girl, Ellis saw recognition in the beggar's eyes. "Little sir and little missy! Old Brennan remembers you two! Found your way back, did you?"
"Yes, Mister Brennan," Matthias answered.
The beggar was going to say something more, but the large youth cut him off. Ellis saw him motion at Matthias with his chin. "That your boy?"
Rex nodded. "He is."
"What's with his ears?"
"Among other things, he's half high elf," she heard her husband answer.
Technically, Matthias was nine-sixteenths high elf, but that really didn't matter. What mattered was that eyes of the trio narrowed their eyes with such naked hatred and disgusted that she almost pulled Matthias and Cienna behind her to shield them.
"So you plowed a pointy-ears, did you?" one of the smaller youths spat. "What? One of your own kind wasn't good enough for you?
A small part of her mind made a mental retort that Rex wasn't as human as he looked, despite having the outward appearance of a completely normal human being.
A slightly larger portion noticed Rex's hand clenching into a fist briefly before opening again.
The majority of her mind was concentrating on keeping her jaw from dropping open at the sheer rudeness and vitriol of that... accusation.
"That—" her husband started to say.
"What're you doing, rutting with a pointy-ears, huh?" the largest youth snapped. "Think that's your ticket into Lus Soleil? Making a half-breed freak?" The boy locked eyes onto her. "Is that her, your elf bitch?"
She heard Cienna gasp.
She saw Rex's right hand—his sword hand—clench tightly into a fist, quivering.
She wasn't bothered by what was being said. Well, no. She was quite thoroughly offended by those words. Incredibly offended. But she'd heard worse. Had worse. Gods, she'd almost been killed, in Lucrellia, for the simple sin of being a high elf. Sticks and stones and warhammers could break bones, but words from a bigot with more size than sense would never hurt her.
But she was worried. Rex was very good at controlling his body language, which was one aspect that made him such a good leader. But she knew, after so many years of being with Rex, about one thing that her husband didn't seem to control very well.
Rex got angry just like any other person, even with his excellent self control. She remembered clearly the time in Enhambre when an anxious Rex had yelled at Fer and Qua. But there were a few times she had seen her husband's anger become something else. It was something she hadn't seen with the other Raglans.
It was an anger that was so total and primal and focused that it ceased being simple anger. It was utter rage. A rage that had ended gods.
The twitching in Rex's hands, that fist he was making, were signs that her husband didn't—or couldn't—control. And with his sword hand balled up like that, she knew that Rex wasn't angry yet, not even now. But that fist was a sign her husband was close to allowing himself to get angered, and what followed after that could turn... unpleasant.
She had to intervene. But how? The three bigots would just spew something else offensive to her, and that would only serve to stoke Rex's fury. Perhaps, with her magic, she could—
Alberti stepped forward, into the three youths' faces, forcing them to take a step back. Even at his age, the older, taller, stockier man cut a much more imposing figure than her husband did.
"Listen, you three," she heard Alberti growl. "The Count and Countess here are very polite, patient people. Why don't you three quit while you're ahead and leave? Now."
The large youth sneered. "Who're you to tell us—"
"Shut up," Alberti snapped, "and leave. Your rudeness is starting to annoy me."
The boy stared at the older man.
Then he threw a brutal punch into Alberti's jaw.
Or it would have ended up in Alberti's face had not the older man stepped forward into the punch, robbing it of momentum and arresting what energy it had with a defensive block.
"You would hit an old man, wouldn't you?" she heard Alberti sigh. With a quick, powerful movement, Alberti sent the large youth stumbling backwards. The two other young men stared, eyes wide with shock.
"Let's just let it end here," Rex told the youths. "This doesn't need to go any further."
Another of the youths—the one that hadn't spoken yet—bounded forward and threw a punch at her husband's face. The boy was faster than the first, that much she could tell.
It didn't mean much. She had seen her husband in combat, and he was lightning quick. She watched her husband sidestep, grabbing the boy's wrist on the follow through. Rex pulled slightly, upsetting, the youth's balance.
Then she saw Rex's fingers squeeze.
She swore she heard a creaking noise. The youth let out a surprised yelp and collapsed to his knees on the street, futilely trying to tug his arm out of her husband's grip.
Her husband didn't look it, but he was also incredibly strong. Whether that was because of Rex's diverse lineage or the power of the Spirit Vessel—or, most likely, a combination of the two—her husband had enough strength that even a gurg like Vashtor couldn't simply overpower him. Yes, Vashtor was stronger, but the pale man was for all intents and purposes a demigod who was probably close to double Rex's weight and significantly taller. She'd seen the two of them sparring before. Monstrously strong as Vashtor was, the gurg wasn't strong enough to simply brute force his way through Rex.
Almost felt sorry for that arm. Almost.
The last youth made a half-hearted towards her husband. Almost without thinking, she raised a palm towards the boy, calling her light magic forth. Her hand blazed with white, luminous energy.
It was completely harmless, a variation of her illumination spells. However, to those who weren't familiar with magic, and light magic in particular, it looked positively menacing. The youth stopped in his tracks. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her husband release the boy he'd been restraining.
"Please, just leave," she said softly. "This is getting us nowhere, most of all yourselves. Imagine what you could be doing instead of beating on an old beggar and starting fights with a high elf. Imagine what you could make of yourselves if you didn't waste your energy on hate."
She'd said that without really thinking about it. Why? Hmm. Perhaps it was because, after that flash of indignation and anger, she'd felt pity and sadness for these three boys.
The three youths hastily departed. The first two, the largest and the one that had tried to wallop Rex, glared venomous daggers at her and her family. The last, the boy she'd dazzled with her magic, looked unsure, and when he looked at her, she felt less animosity radiating from him.
Maybe in the near future that youth would give up on his racism and adopt a more positive outlook. Who knew. If he did, she'd daresay this little bit of unpleasantness was worth it.
She felt tired. She'd grown up with hate. Hate directed at her, or at the world, or at her friends, or at entire peoples. She was frankly sick of it. Rex and his ancestors had given Agarest freedom. Why waste it by choosing to hate?
She watched Rex and Alberti reach down and gently haul Brennan back into a seated position.
"We're sorry for what happened," she heard Rex say to the old man.
"Eh, stuff like that happens to me. I've learned to deal with it."
"Was there a reason they were harassing you?" Alberti asked.
Brennan nodded slowly. "I wasn't always this old or this crippled, good sir. At one time I was a woodsman living in the woods not too far from the high elf city of Lus Soleil." She saw Brennan's good eye lose focus slightly, as if the beggar was seeing something off in the far distance. "A high elf girl and I met. We fell in love. And as soon as the relationship started, it ended. I don't know if she had second thoughts with being with a human, or if her family didn't want her consorting with me. Was never sure. Maybe I was a coward for never seeking her out to get an answer. I moved north, to Tlalocan. Maybe to forget about her. A logging accident shattered a leg and blinded an eye, and here you find me."
She blinked. The three youths must have found out about Brennan's past relationship with an elf, making a crippled beggar a target of their torment.
She didn't know how to react to that story, so she said nothing. Her husband and Alberti didn't look like they had any better idea, for they too were silent.
Well, this was a bit awkward
After a few moments Rex stepped forward and knelt next to the beggar, pressing a few gold coins—quite a bit of money, actually—into Brennan's hand.
But the beggar refused. Hrm?
"I'm sorry, but I can't take your coin, not from you, Mister Raglan."
Her eyes widened in surprise. They hadn't given their names.
Brennan smiled. "There are plenty of us across Agarest that remembered what you gave to us, despite the idiots here and there that forget or still hold to the old prejudices. The least I could do was give your boy there directions to the harbor." The beggar forced the coins back into Rex's hand.
She saw her husband nod before standing up.
"Very well," she heard Rex say. "Then you take of yourself then, then."
"You as well," answered Brennan.
"Interesting day," Rex said to Ellis.
"Ugh," his wife grunted, turning in bed to face him. "To be honest, I could do with more boring days."
"At least nothing worse happened."
"Silver linings," Ellis said wistfully.
He chuckled, scooting a little nearer to Ellis and drawing her closer.
After the... incident, they'd headed straight for the consular building to meet up with the others. They'd met Ryune, the current consul of Tlalocan and Beatrice's father, and several of governmental officials. They'd been treated to an extravagant dinner—well, extravagant compared to what he was used to, at least—and later turned in for the night early. The Hildegard was leaving early in the morning for their trip to southern Fendias.
He was looking forward to that. He'd never seen his grandmother's home. And there was a chance he might be able to meet his maternal great-grandfather.
But in the meanwhile he had to get some sleep in the quite comfortable beds they had in the consular residence. Well, to be honest, anything that wasn't one of the Hildegard's cots was comfortable. Even if their small size meant he was squeezed up against Ellis all night.
Speaking of Ellis...
"Are you all right, though?" he asked. "About earlier, I mean."
His wife moved her head to rest it on his shoulder. "Not the worst I've heard or experienced. It just makes me sad that despite all that's been done for this world you can still run into those attitudes still."
He was expecting more, but Ellis said nothing. He regarded his wife through the darkness, barely illuminated by the moonlight filtering in through the windows. He could see that her eyes were open. She looked deep in thought.
There were times that he forgot how old Ellis was. Part of it was the familiarity of being married to her. They'd been together long enough that sometimes he forgot this high elf woman had raised three generations of his ancestors.
And that meant he also sometimes forgot how much life Ellis had lived.
What those punks had said to his wife had made him... very angry. It was was one of his qualities as a person that he had to work on, perhaps. But it wasn't until later, after dinner, that he had actually thought how those hurtful words might have affected Ellis.
Ellis was a strong woman, no doubt about that. But he knew the story of his his wife had met with his ancestor Leonhardt. He knew elves—especially high elves—faced all manners of bigotry across the continents for gods new why. He knew that had to weigh heavily on Ellis' mind.
Still, Ellis never seemed to let that bother her. He wondered, sometimes, how much it was her simply not carrying—who would take the opinions of a bigot seriously—and how much was Ellis putting on an act for his sake.
Or perhaps it was a mix of both. A woman who knew what some of the worse parts of the world were like, and a wife who didn't want to alarm her husband.
Without really considering it he propped himself up on an elbow and gave Ellis a soft kiss on her forehead.
"Hmm?" he heard Ellis say. "That seemed out of the blue."
He shrugged, even though he was sure Ellis couldn't see the gesture in the dark. He had considerably better night vision than she did. Another benefit of his diverse heritage.
"Maybe," he said. "Just thinking about this afternoon, which led to me thinking how lucky I am to have you. Stuff like that."
Ellis gave a small laugh. "It sounds like you're just trying to distract me."
He chuckled. "Oh, I don't know. I don't think you're the type of woman who'd need that from me. And even if you did, why not?"
Traditional wisdom—or simply traditional tradition—held that the man should be the main pillar of strength in a marriage, supporting the wife, while the woman contributed her feminine approval. Maybe it was like that with other couples. He just knew that he relied heavily on Ellis' own quiet strength, maybe even more so than his wife relied on his.
But there were the times he was glad to be the main pillar. His wife was worth it.
His wife didn't say anything. He could just barely make out Ellis peering at him in the darkness.
Then Ellis leaned over and gave him a soft kiss of her own. "I suppose you're not the only lucky one," his wife said affectionately.