The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
- Thread starter arianedartagnan
- Start date
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Heavenly etiquette is so rigid that it would cause all sorts of issues....
It should really happen though....
Chapter 96: Trust
Chapter 96: Trust
In retrospect, telling Bobo about Stripey's promise might not have been the best idea. Now that she knew he would return to Honeysuckle Croft when he awakened, she couldn't stop scanning the skies for him.
Daytime was the worst, because everyone was out. Mistress Jek, Taila, and Nailus headed to the Academy, while Master Jek and the eldest son, Ailus, plowed the fields alongside their new rock macaque ex-demon farmhand. The second son, Caius, had long since moved into Master Gravitas' house as an apprentice. Without a houseful of people to distract her, Bobo kept abandoning her chores and loitering by the gate. Several times, I had to fetch her when the soup started to boil dry.
You're going to get in trouble with Mistress Jek if you keep this up, I warned.
I didn't know much about cleaning so I couldn't judge her performance there, but I did know quite a bit about food. And one of the most basic requirements was that it not smell burnt.
"Oh, oh, yes!" Bobo slithered back into the cottage, dumped half a bucket of water into the pot, and stirred so vigorously that it sloshed onto the rushes on the floor. Halfway through, her eyes went distant again.
I flew up to her, and she automatically shaped a coil for me to land on.
He won't come back anytime soon, you know. He needs a hundred years, at the very least.
"Uh-huh! Uh-huh! I know."
Picking up the cleaver with her tail, Bobo set about chopping onions. Irregular chunks flew everywhere.
I removed myself to a chairback. We don't even know if he'll survive long enough to awaken in his first life. We don't know when to start counting the hundred years.
The cleaver flashed, mincing the onion left on the cutting board. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But he'll be back. He sssaid ssso."
Yes. He promised.
Even though I'd just scolded her, I couldn't resist peeking out the window either, as if a duck might crash land in the yard right then.
"Oh! I know!" The cleaver stopped all of a sudden. "Rosssie, you know people up in Heaven! Like the Messsenger! And the goddess who loves Taila! You can asssk them how he's doing!"
Bobo had forgotten my long, complicated history with Aurelia, and I didn't feel like talking about it right now. Perhaps not ever.
I tried already, I told her instead. It's against the rules, so they wouldn't – oh! I hopped onto the chairback.
"Did you think of sssomething? Did you think of sssomething?"
I hopped again. I did! I did! It's against the rules for clerks to reveal private information from a soul's file, but the Director makes the rules! So he can make an exception for us!
Caught up in my excitement, Bobo swished her tail (still gripping the cleaver – good thing I'd gotten out of the way already). "Ssso he can make a new rule that sssays he can tell us where Ssstripey is! And then we can go find him! Let's go talk to the Director!"
Before she could drop the cleaver and rush out the door, I cautioned, Wait. The Director isn't so easy to talk to.
Not least because he could be anywhere on Earth right now. Well, no, that wasn't true. More precisely, he could be anywhere on Earth where there were people he could induce to give him offerings. That did narrow it down. A bit.
We need a way to gain his ear.
"Gain his ear?" Bobo repeated, puzzled but confident in my ability to pull it off.
Yes. And I know exactly how to do that.
"Yay! Let's go!"
Wait! I flew in circles around her head to stop her. We need to plan first. We can't just go rushing off without a plan. (Had I really just said that?) And anyway, you can't just leave without telling Mistress Jek. What would she do if you disappeared all of a sudden and there's no one to take care of the house?
"Oh." Bobo did her dejected-heap-of-coils pose. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah. That would be irresssponsssible of me."
For now, finish cooking dinner, and we'll discuss it with Mistress Jek tonight.
Both of us looked down at the onion paste left on the cutting board. I had no idea what you were supposed to do with onion paste, and from Bobo's expression, neither did she.
Uh, dump it in the pot? I suggested.
So that was what we did.
"Thank you, Bobo, the soup tastes good tonight," Master Jek said.
(It should. For the first time in a week, it didn't consist of burnt vegetables and charred fish bones swimming in water.)
At the unexpected praise, Bobo's eyes shone. "Thank you, sssir! Rosssie helped!"
Floridiana, whom Mistress Jek had invited to dinner again, refrained from comment but slid a dubious glance my way. Was it really so incredible that I might have helped cook?
On a second thought, yes. Yes, it was.
I'd always been more of a muse than a creator myself.
Bobo's thoughts, however, had already moved on from culinary accomplishments. Fidgeting the whole length of her very long body, she stammered, "Ummm, ssso I was thinking, I mean, Rosssie and I were thinking, we were sssaying that we both miss Ssstripey…and, um, there's a way to find him, but we have to go talk to sssomeone – "
Floridiana had been sniffing a spoonful of soup, but at that, her head shot up. "Someone? Whom?"
At the same time, Mistress Jek demanded, "How long will it take?"
"The Director! And, um, I don't know…?"
"The Director? Of what?" Floridiana pressed.
"Uh, oh, huh, I don't know…. Rosssie?"
Everyone at the dining table, even the farmhand, lowered their spoons and stared at me. I hopped into the center of the table – ah, memories of taskforce meetings! – and flipped my wings across my back.
This is highly restricted information.
I cocked my head at the children and the farmhand.
"Oh, of course." Mistress Jek surveyed their bowls, estimating how much food they had left. "Finish your suppers, and then, Bobo, take the children to play – " At the realization that she couldn't send Bobo off to babysit, she stopped.
As if he were terrified of getting saddled with childcare, the farmhand averted his eyes, grabbed his bowl, slurped down the soup, and fled with a mumbled, "I'm off. See ya tomorrow."
Good to see Taila could still terrorize demons.
"I'll take them out to catch fireflies," Master Jek volunteered.
Once it was just the four of us, Mistress Jek folded her arms across her chest. "Now, Bobo, what is this all about?"
Bobo squirmed some more. "Oh, uh, um, Rosssie knows sssomeone who knows where Ssstripey is – "
Floridiana cut her off, her eyes and tone sharp. "You said that already. What do you mean, someone who knows where Stripey is? He's dead. We all saw him get eaten."
At the reminder, Bobo drooped.
Glaring at Floridiana, I intervened. To be more precise, we mean someone who knows where Stripey's soul reincarnated. Stripey the whistling duck may be gone, but his soul is not. All souls are reincarnated after death. Shouldn't you know that? Didn't you learn that from your wonderful mistress – what was her name again? – the great Domitilla?
The not-so-great Domitilla's not-so-great disciple folded her arms, mirroring Mistress Jek. "I repeat my question: Who is this 'Director' of whom you speak? The Director of what?"
I could have sworn her to secrecy and then told her, but that would have going too easy for her. Plus I didn't like the way she treated Bobo.
Given your knowledge of the information we're after, what do you think he's the Director of?
At first Floridiana scowled, but as she processed my words and drew the only possible conclusion, her mouth went slack and her eyes popped out of their sockets. "You don't mean – "
But I do.
Mistress Jek gasped and leaned forward. "You know the Director of Reincarnation? Oh, but – that means – "
I shrugged my wings, modestly. It was pretty impressive that I had access to the Director of Reincarnation. (Well, would have access. Just as soon as I got Lodia access to Anthea.)
I didn't get to bask in Mistress Jek's and Floridiana's admiration for long, though.
"Where is he?" "Where is she?" asked the mage and the mother at the same time.
They stopped and exchanged confused blinks. Then Floridiana sat back and let Mistress Jek go first.
"Maila. Where's Maila?" the mother demanded.
Oh. I hadn't thought of that. But of course that would be Mistress Jek's first question.
I could, of course, have fobbed her off by pointing out that the Director of Reincarnation wasn't here right now, and that I'd have to ask him and then get back to her – but was it really so terrible to tell her the truth? What was the harm in letting her know that her daughter's soul had come back to her, in the form of another daughter?
I studied her for a moment, her intent eyes, her tense shoulders, and made my choice.
You absolutely cannot tell anyone else what I am about to reveal. You will incur the wrath of Heaven if you do. And, I assure you, you do not want to incur the wrath of Heaven.
Should I swear them to silence? But all oaths got registered in Heaven, and even if the clerks didn't bother to read them, there was still the risk of a random audit. If we got caught, we'd all get reincarnated as tapeworms forever.
I don't even dare have you swear an oath, because that might tip Heaven off. That's how serious this is. Do you still want to know?
I looked from one woman to the other, checking to see if either quailed before the enormity of the revelation. But both met my gaze, the one determined to find out what had happened to her child, the other just as determined to learn everything she could about our world.
"We are capable of keeping secrets, you know," Floridiana pointed out. "We haven't even informed the Baron that Master Gravitas is an agent of the North Serican crown."
I rolled my eyes. Of course they hadn't. Floridiana herself had been another agent of the North Serican crown. As for Mistress Jek, her whole family was tied so closely to the mage that Baron Claymouth would never believe that they hadn't known.
How is Boot doing, by the way? I asked sweetly.
Floridiana answered through gritted teeth, "Perfectly well, last I heard."
Good.
I hesitated one more moment, but only to build suspense. I did, after all, know these two women well and, with faint surprise, I realized that I did trust them. And as for Bobo…I'd just have to keep an eye on her and stop her from blurting it out. All right, here goes.
Maila's soul reincarnated in Taila.
Silence, broken by Bobo's shriek. Mistress Jek sat in her chair, as frozen as if Lord Magnissimus had breathed on her.
Huh. I'd expected more of a reaction than that. Floridiana darted a concerned glance at her friend's face.
So her soul is right here with you. Well, not right here right this instant, since she's out catching fireflies, but you know what I mean.
"Ssshe came back? Ssshe came back! Missstress Jek, isssn't that – " Bobo stopped.
A single tear overflowed the corner of Mistress Jek's right eye and ran down her cheek. It was followed by another, and then another. Was it that bad? Why wasn't she saying anything?
Floridiana chewed her bottom lip, lifted a hand to pet her friend's shoulder, and then dropped it again.
I did tell you Lord Silurus was lying, when he pretended he kept the people he ate inside him. Their souls went straight up to Heaven for reincarnation when they died.
I was still annoyed at Mistress Jek for running at the catfish demon and scaring the rest of us the way she had. That was the problem with caring whether people lived or died. You cared.
At last, Mistress Jek's lips moved in a mumble. It might have been the word "Maila."
I cocked my head at Floridiana, hoping she could do something about this increasingly awkward situation, but she looked just as lost. In the end, it was Bobo who moved. She looped herself around Mistress Jek's upper body and squeezed carefully. Then she unwound herself and moved back.
At the hug, Mistress Jek seemed to come back to herself. Tears were streaming down both cheeks now, but a radiant smile illuminated her face. "Maila. She came back to us. She came back to us."
Funny how humans could smile and cry at the same time. I'd never understood it. I decided to ignore it.
Yes, I confirmed. She's been here with you all along.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, UndeadCellar, and Anonymous!
In retrospect, telling Bobo about Stripey's promise might not have been the best idea. Now that she knew he would return to Honeysuckle Croft when he awakened, she couldn't stop scanning the skies for him.
Daytime was the worst, because everyone was out. Mistress Jek, Taila, and Nailus headed to the Academy, while Master Jek and the eldest son, Ailus, plowed the fields alongside their new rock macaque ex-demon farmhand. The second son, Caius, had long since moved into Master Gravitas' house as an apprentice. Without a houseful of people to distract her, Bobo kept abandoning her chores and loitering by the gate. Several times, I had to fetch her when the soup started to boil dry.
You're going to get in trouble with Mistress Jek if you keep this up, I warned.
I didn't know much about cleaning so I couldn't judge her performance there, but I did know quite a bit about food. And one of the most basic requirements was that it not smell burnt.
"Oh, oh, yes!" Bobo slithered back into the cottage, dumped half a bucket of water into the pot, and stirred so vigorously that it sloshed onto the rushes on the floor. Halfway through, her eyes went distant again.
I flew up to her, and she automatically shaped a coil for me to land on.
He won't come back anytime soon, you know. He needs a hundred years, at the very least.
"Uh-huh! Uh-huh! I know."
Picking up the cleaver with her tail, Bobo set about chopping onions. Irregular chunks flew everywhere.
I removed myself to a chairback. We don't even know if he'll survive long enough to awaken in his first life. We don't know when to start counting the hundred years.
The cleaver flashed, mincing the onion left on the cutting board. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But he'll be back. He sssaid ssso."
Yes. He promised.
Even though I'd just scolded her, I couldn't resist peeking out the window either, as if a duck might crash land in the yard right then.
"Oh! I know!" The cleaver stopped all of a sudden. "Rosssie, you know people up in Heaven! Like the Messsenger! And the goddess who loves Taila! You can asssk them how he's doing!"
Bobo had forgotten my long, complicated history with Aurelia, and I didn't feel like talking about it right now. Perhaps not ever.
I tried already, I told her instead. It's against the rules, so they wouldn't – oh! I hopped onto the chairback.
"Did you think of sssomething? Did you think of sssomething?"
I hopped again. I did! I did! It's against the rules for clerks to reveal private information from a soul's file, but the Director makes the rules! So he can make an exception for us!
Caught up in my excitement, Bobo swished her tail (still gripping the cleaver – good thing I'd gotten out of the way already). "Ssso he can make a new rule that sssays he can tell us where Ssstripey is! And then we can go find him! Let's go talk to the Director!"
Before she could drop the cleaver and rush out the door, I cautioned, Wait. The Director isn't so easy to talk to.
Not least because he could be anywhere on Earth right now. Well, no, that wasn't true. More precisely, he could be anywhere on Earth where there were people he could induce to give him offerings. That did narrow it down. A bit.
We need a way to gain his ear.
"Gain his ear?" Bobo repeated, puzzled but confident in my ability to pull it off.
Yes. And I know exactly how to do that.
"Yay! Let's go!"
Wait! I flew in circles around her head to stop her. We need to plan first. We can't just go rushing off without a plan. (Had I really just said that?) And anyway, you can't just leave without telling Mistress Jek. What would she do if you disappeared all of a sudden and there's no one to take care of the house?
"Oh." Bobo did her dejected-heap-of-coils pose. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah. That would be irresssponsssible of me."
For now, finish cooking dinner, and we'll discuss it with Mistress Jek tonight.
Both of us looked down at the onion paste left on the cutting board. I had no idea what you were supposed to do with onion paste, and from Bobo's expression, neither did she.
Uh, dump it in the pot? I suggested.
So that was what we did.
"Thank you, Bobo, the soup tastes good tonight," Master Jek said.
(It should. For the first time in a week, it didn't consist of burnt vegetables and charred fish bones swimming in water.)
At the unexpected praise, Bobo's eyes shone. "Thank you, sssir! Rosssie helped!"
Floridiana, whom Mistress Jek had invited to dinner again, refrained from comment but slid a dubious glance my way. Was it really so incredible that I might have helped cook?
On a second thought, yes. Yes, it was.
I'd always been more of a muse than a creator myself.
Bobo's thoughts, however, had already moved on from culinary accomplishments. Fidgeting the whole length of her very long body, she stammered, "Ummm, ssso I was thinking, I mean, Rosssie and I were thinking, we were sssaying that we both miss Ssstripey…and, um, there's a way to find him, but we have to go talk to sssomeone – "
Floridiana had been sniffing a spoonful of soup, but at that, her head shot up. "Someone? Whom?"
At the same time, Mistress Jek demanded, "How long will it take?"
"The Director! And, um, I don't know…?"
"The Director? Of what?" Floridiana pressed.
"Uh, oh, huh, I don't know…. Rosssie?"
Everyone at the dining table, even the farmhand, lowered their spoons and stared at me. I hopped into the center of the table – ah, memories of taskforce meetings! – and flipped my wings across my back.
This is highly restricted information.
I cocked my head at the children and the farmhand.
"Oh, of course." Mistress Jek surveyed their bowls, estimating how much food they had left. "Finish your suppers, and then, Bobo, take the children to play – " At the realization that she couldn't send Bobo off to babysit, she stopped.
As if he were terrified of getting saddled with childcare, the farmhand averted his eyes, grabbed his bowl, slurped down the soup, and fled with a mumbled, "I'm off. See ya tomorrow."
Good to see Taila could still terrorize demons.
"I'll take them out to catch fireflies," Master Jek volunteered.
Once it was just the four of us, Mistress Jek folded her arms across her chest. "Now, Bobo, what is this all about?"
Bobo squirmed some more. "Oh, uh, um, Rosssie knows sssomeone who knows where Ssstripey is – "
Floridiana cut her off, her eyes and tone sharp. "You said that already. What do you mean, someone who knows where Stripey is? He's dead. We all saw him get eaten."
At the reminder, Bobo drooped.
Glaring at Floridiana, I intervened. To be more precise, we mean someone who knows where Stripey's soul reincarnated. Stripey the whistling duck may be gone, but his soul is not. All souls are reincarnated after death. Shouldn't you know that? Didn't you learn that from your wonderful mistress – what was her name again? – the great Domitilla?
The not-so-great Domitilla's not-so-great disciple folded her arms, mirroring Mistress Jek. "I repeat my question: Who is this 'Director' of whom you speak? The Director of what?"
I could have sworn her to secrecy and then told her, but that would have going too easy for her. Plus I didn't like the way she treated Bobo.
Given your knowledge of the information we're after, what do you think he's the Director of?
At first Floridiana scowled, but as she processed my words and drew the only possible conclusion, her mouth went slack and her eyes popped out of their sockets. "You don't mean – "
But I do.
Mistress Jek gasped and leaned forward. "You know the Director of Reincarnation? Oh, but – that means – "
I shrugged my wings, modestly. It was pretty impressive that I had access to the Director of Reincarnation. (Well, would have access. Just as soon as I got Lodia access to Anthea.)
I didn't get to bask in Mistress Jek's and Floridiana's admiration for long, though.
"Where is he?" "Where is she?" asked the mage and the mother at the same time.
They stopped and exchanged confused blinks. Then Floridiana sat back and let Mistress Jek go first.
"Maila. Where's Maila?" the mother demanded.
Oh. I hadn't thought of that. But of course that would be Mistress Jek's first question.
I could, of course, have fobbed her off by pointing out that the Director of Reincarnation wasn't here right now, and that I'd have to ask him and then get back to her – but was it really so terrible to tell her the truth? What was the harm in letting her know that her daughter's soul had come back to her, in the form of another daughter?
I studied her for a moment, her intent eyes, her tense shoulders, and made my choice.
You absolutely cannot tell anyone else what I am about to reveal. You will incur the wrath of Heaven if you do. And, I assure you, you do not want to incur the wrath of Heaven.
Should I swear them to silence? But all oaths got registered in Heaven, and even if the clerks didn't bother to read them, there was still the risk of a random audit. If we got caught, we'd all get reincarnated as tapeworms forever.
I don't even dare have you swear an oath, because that might tip Heaven off. That's how serious this is. Do you still want to know?
I looked from one woman to the other, checking to see if either quailed before the enormity of the revelation. But both met my gaze, the one determined to find out what had happened to her child, the other just as determined to learn everything she could about our world.
"We are capable of keeping secrets, you know," Floridiana pointed out. "We haven't even informed the Baron that Master Gravitas is an agent of the North Serican crown."
I rolled my eyes. Of course they hadn't. Floridiana herself had been another agent of the North Serican crown. As for Mistress Jek, her whole family was tied so closely to the mage that Baron Claymouth would never believe that they hadn't known.
How is Boot doing, by the way? I asked sweetly.
Floridiana answered through gritted teeth, "Perfectly well, last I heard."
Good.
I hesitated one more moment, but only to build suspense. I did, after all, know these two women well and, with faint surprise, I realized that I did trust them. And as for Bobo…I'd just have to keep an eye on her and stop her from blurting it out. All right, here goes.
Maila's soul reincarnated in Taila.
Silence, broken by Bobo's shriek. Mistress Jek sat in her chair, as frozen as if Lord Magnissimus had breathed on her.
Huh. I'd expected more of a reaction than that. Floridiana darted a concerned glance at her friend's face.
So her soul is right here with you. Well, not right here right this instant, since she's out catching fireflies, but you know what I mean.
"Ssshe came back? Ssshe came back! Missstress Jek, isssn't that – " Bobo stopped.
A single tear overflowed the corner of Mistress Jek's right eye and ran down her cheek. It was followed by another, and then another. Was it that bad? Why wasn't she saying anything?
Floridiana chewed her bottom lip, lifted a hand to pet her friend's shoulder, and then dropped it again.
I did tell you Lord Silurus was lying, when he pretended he kept the people he ate inside him. Their souls went straight up to Heaven for reincarnation when they died.
I was still annoyed at Mistress Jek for running at the catfish demon and scaring the rest of us the way she had. That was the problem with caring whether people lived or died. You cared.
At last, Mistress Jek's lips moved in a mumble. It might have been the word "Maila."
I cocked my head at Floridiana, hoping she could do something about this increasingly awkward situation, but she looked just as lost. In the end, it was Bobo who moved. She looped herself around Mistress Jek's upper body and squeezed carefully. Then she unwound herself and moved back.
At the hug, Mistress Jek seemed to come back to herself. Tears were streaming down both cheeks now, but a radiant smile illuminated her face. "Maila. She came back to us. She came back to us."
Funny how humans could smile and cry at the same time. I'd never understood it. I decided to ignore it.
Yes, I confirmed. She's been here with you all along.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, UndeadCellar, and Anonymous!
Chapter 97: Firefly Spirits
Chapter 97: Firefly Spirits
Anyone (well, fine, anyone who wasn't me) could have predicted what happened next: Tears streaming down her face, Mistress Jek dashed out of the cottage, even faster than that time she learned I'd been Serica's most infamous demon and assumed I was here to eat her children.
After her ran Floridiana, calling, "Vanny! Vanny! Calm down!" much the way she had that time Mistress Jek charged at Lord Silurus.
And on her heels slithered Bobo, who couldn't bear to miss the touching reunion.
Left alone in the cottage, I shrugged. No reason not to go along too, I supposed.
I followed them past Bobo's bamboo stand to Den's pond, where the dragon king himself was standing on his caltrop rosettes – mediating a heated argument between the Jeks and a swarm of firefly spirits. I hid in a tree before the fireflies could spot me.
"We are not toys!" one of them squeaked. "Your Majesty, we demand that you punish these humans!"
"Wait! Please!" Master Jek extended his hands towards them. "I'm sorry! They didn't know you were spirits! We'll make it up to you! What do you want?"
"We want them not to chase or catch us!" shrilled a second firefly. It landed on the tip of his nose and flashed menacingly.
Mistress Jek swatted it off, then planted her hands on her hips. "Nonsense! They didn't mean no harm." In the heat of the moment, her grammar slipped, but no one else seemed to notice. "They were just having a little fun."
"It was not fun for us!" a third firefly sputtered.
"Your Majesty, we demand that you protect us as our liege lord!" said the first, and the whole swarm spread out in an arc around Den and blinked on and off in unison.
Cowering behind his parents and Bobo, Nailus hung his head. Taila, on the other hand, was pouting.
Yes, I could very much imagine that whatever game she devised would not be fun for the fireflies. And Master Jek lacked the strength of will to stop his daughter, while Mistress Jek – well, she was really going to spoil the girl rotten now.
Floridiana's pursed lips suggested that she had to deal with this sort of behavior in school all the time.
Poor Den rubbed his temples as if he were already hungover. "Now, now, Luciolus, everyone, please calm down."
"We will not calm down! This happens every summer! We are sick and tired of it!" squeaked the spokes-firefly.
He flashed on and off in rapid succession, and the rest of the swarm picked up the pattern. Taila's eyes lit up, and she edged between her parents' legs for a better view.
It was quite a sight. Why hadn't I thought of hiring a troupe of firefly spirits to perform at summer garden parties in Cassius' court? They could have flown in choreographed patterns, blinking on and off, while we enjoyed the evening breeze and ate cold desserts and sipped cool drinks. It would have been glorious!
A random thought: Did star sprites serve the same purpose in Heaven?
Below me, Den was very much not fantasizing about garden parties, with or without light shows. "What precisely happened? Can you walk me through it? Just one of you, please."
"We were doing our own thing, minding our own business, the way we always do, when these two human children charged at us and started trying to grab us! That one – " and the spoke-firefly pointed his belly at Nailus and flashed once – "nearly tore Spark's wing off!"
Nailus hung his head still further, confirming his guilt.
"But Spark's all right otherwise?" Den double-checked. "He'll recover?"
Luciolus flashed again. "Would you recover from having one of your horns torn off?" Tardily, he added, "Your Majesty."
Nearly torn off, I muttered to myself. Not all the way torn off.
At the same time, Mistress Jek objected, "Nearly torn off. He didn't tear it all the way off. It's still there, ain't it?"
Off on the side, Floridiana was flapping a hand at Den, signaling him to act more like Densissimus Imber, Dragon King of Caltrop Pond, and less like Den the friendly fellow partyer.
At the reminder, the dragon straightened his back, arched his neck so Luciolus and all the other fireflies got a good look at his pearl, and made his voice cold and distant. "As a matter of fact, such an injury would be insignificant to Us."
I doubted that, but it did have the effect of cowing Luciolus. He blinked in a slower, gentler, more appeasing sort of pattern.
"But that is irrelevant to this discussion," Den continued. "You came here with a charge against these children. They, however, are not Our vassals and hence not subject to Our decrees unless they swim in Our waters or trod upon Our lands." (And by his "lands," he meant the ring of mud around his pond.)
Luciolus protested, "We've gone to Baron Claymouth before, Your Majesty. His seneschal brushed us off." (Yes, that did sound like Anasius.) "If you, our liege lord, won't protect us, who will?"
"We can only protect you within Our own borders. If you stray into another lord's fief, then you are subject to his laws."
Well, yes, but technically, Den could have raised an army against Baron Claymouth to protest the treatment of his vassals. Or, if he were confident enough in his own power and the insignificance of the offenders, he could have executed them and been done with it. Not that I was advocating for that at all.
Den looked at the offenders' parents next. "Master Jek. Mistress Jek. No matter whose vassal is injured, harming another is unacceptable. Control your children."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Both parents bowed low. A glare from Mistress Jek got Nailus and Taila to follow suit.
Den's stern stare shifted to Floridiana next. "Headmistress, see to it that you educate your students in both academics and moral behavior."
At the rebuke, the mage pinched her lips together, but having urged him to act like a king, she couldn't undermine him now. She, too, gave a bow, albeit a curt one.
"Is that it?" buzzed one of the other fireflies. "Is that all you're going to do, Your Majesty? You are bound to protect us, as we are bound to serve you!"
"Then stay above Our waters and upon Our lands." Den sounded fed up. "We've been through all of this before. We can guarantee protection within Our fief, but not in another lord's domain. That is Our final word on the matter."
Grumbling, the fireflies dispersed – although not too far. Their lights didn't stray three feet beyond the rocks that ringed Caltrop Pond.
Den blew out a long breath, and his spine relaxed back into its normal curves. "Whew. That could have gone a lot worse. But seriously, Taila, Nailus, stop hurting the firefly spirits. It isn't nice."
Taila lifted a face full of righteous indignation. "But we weren't trying to hurt them, King Den! It was an accident!"
"Then stop chasing them and trying to catch them, so you stop hurting them by accident."
"That firefly spirit, Spark, will he be all right?" Now that the case had been settled in her children's favor, Mistress Jek could afford compassion. "Is there something we can do to help?"
Den shook his head. "He'll heal on his own. Eventually."
Nailus edged closer. "Can we, maybe, make a house for him? Or something? To sleep in?"
Den barely suppressed a groan. "He'll be fine on his own. Just leave him alone."
As I observed this impromptu trial, I thought to myself that we'd had much better ways of adjudicating disputes between fiefs back in the Empire. We'd had centralized law courts run by the Imperial government, but it sounded like those no longer existed, at least not in East Serica. Seriously, had central authority really disintegrated to this extent?
Well, it wasn't like I could do anything, so I stopped worrying about it.
In the half-light of dusk, the Jeks walked back towards Honeysuckle Croft. Mistress Jek was clutching Taila's hand as if she'd never let it go, listening intently to the girl's account of her and her brother's adventures. Nailus himself acted more subdued and darted the occasional guilty glance at his father.
Floridiana, Bobo, and I lagged behind them, giving them some privacy.
Quietly, the mage said, "Getting back to what we were talking about earlier, you and Bobo plan to seek him out to learn where Stripey's soul reincarnated?"
I didn't know why she was phrasing it as a question when she obviously remembered our conversation, but I still answered. Yes.
"Where is he? Is he even on Earth?"
Oh, yes, the Kitchen God was definitely on Earth. I remembered how long it had taken for the Bureau of Reincarnation to compensate me for Cassius' illegal interference, kicking me back down to White Tier when I'd finally, finally made it to Green. In the end, it had been the Goddess of Life who handled my complaint, since the Kitchen God only went up to Heaven for a week at the New Year.
As for where he was on Earth – well, that was what Anthea was for. She could tell us where her patron god was, or at least know how to contact him.
Yes, he is on Earth. As to his precise whereabouts, I know someone who will be able to put us in touch with him.
"Who is this person, and where are they? Somewhere in South Serica, I assume?"
Amusingly, in her determination to figure out what was going on, Floridiana forgotten her usual discomfort around me.
It's a raccoon dog spirit in South Serica. I saw no reason not to tell her when Serica was full of raccoon dog spirits. Overrun with them, you might say.
Floridiana nodded, mostly to herself. "Ah. I see. South Serica…."
At the yearning in her voice, I hastily landed on her shoulder. You can't run off to South Serica. You're the headmistress here. If you run off, there's no one to teach your classes.
She jerked out of her reverie. "I know that! You don't have to tell me my business."
On her face was a mix of chagrin at being reminded of her responsibilities, regret at accepting them, and, I was glad to see, resignation and resolve to follow through on them. She smile wistfully at the horizon, where sky met farmland.
Good. The children of Claymouth Barony would not be losing their chance for education due to their teacher running away on a grand adventure, and I would not be earning a hefty dose of negative karma thanks to accidentally luring their teacher away on said grand adventure.
Still, with Bobo accompanying me to South Serica, childcare was going to be an issue. Neither Taila nor Nailus could be trusted on their own, so the Jeks needed a substitute babysitter. Lord Magnissimus did offer his services, but Mistress Jek and I turned him down, albeit for different reasons. I suspected he'd eat the children if he got hungry or curious enough, while she thought he'd let them run even wilder than they already did.
"What if they stay at school after school and do homework in the classroom?" Floridiana proposed. "If they're quiet, you can still get your own work done."
Mistress Jek eyeballed her offspring, who were balancing on and walking along the fence rails like traveling acrobats.
"Never mind," said Floridiana, following her gaze.
It was while we were at this impasse that the Jeks' farmhand led a fellow ex-soldier to the gate of Honeysuckle Croft.
As soon as I saw her, I started hopping up and down in rage. I remembered her. Oh, I remembered her. She was the one who'd abandoned me in the river when it came down to a choice between her or me getting eaten by Lord Silurus. Her selfishness was what had forced Stripey to save me, leading directly to his death. I'd assumed that she'd died in battle, but obviously not because, as I'd seen time after time, Heaven had no sense of justice.
What's she doing here? I hissed at Bobo, taking care not to let the new rock macaque overhear. It was bad enough that the farmhand knew about me.
Before she had a chance to reply, the farmhand introduced his companion to the Jeks. "This is my cousin Maca. She's looking for work, and since you're looking for a new babysitter, I figured…." He shrugged, having reached the end of his ability to express himself.
The murderess bowed. I clenched my beak and glared, debating whether it would be more advantageous to peck her eyes out now or later.
"Good evening, Master Jek, Mistress Jek. Thank you for seeing me." The rock macaque sounded more subdued than I remembered. Maybe she was wracked by remorse, as well she should be.
Unaware of her history, Mistress Jek started interviewing her. "Do you have kids? Have you babysat before?"
"I don't have kids of my own, but I've babysat the ones in our troop. They can be quite a handful."
I flapped my wings at Bobo. Ask her if she ran away to save her own miserable life when they were in danger.
"When who was in danger?"
The rock macaque children. Did she abandon them to die when they were in danger?
Taken aback, she blinked her big, bulbous eyes. "But why would she – I can't – I can't jussst asssk that!"
I flapped harder. She's the one who ran away during the battle and got Stripey killed. It's all her fault.
Bobo blinked again. Then, for the first time ever, her expression hardened.
One moment, she was coiled up next to me. The next, she was right in Maca's face. "Excussse me. I have a quessstion for you."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, UndeadCellar, and Anonymous!
Anyone (well, fine, anyone who wasn't me) could have predicted what happened next: Tears streaming down her face, Mistress Jek dashed out of the cottage, even faster than that time she learned I'd been Serica's most infamous demon and assumed I was here to eat her children.
After her ran Floridiana, calling, "Vanny! Vanny! Calm down!" much the way she had that time Mistress Jek charged at Lord Silurus.
And on her heels slithered Bobo, who couldn't bear to miss the touching reunion.
Left alone in the cottage, I shrugged. No reason not to go along too, I supposed.
I followed them past Bobo's bamboo stand to Den's pond, where the dragon king himself was standing on his caltrop rosettes – mediating a heated argument between the Jeks and a swarm of firefly spirits. I hid in a tree before the fireflies could spot me.
"We are not toys!" one of them squeaked. "Your Majesty, we demand that you punish these humans!"
"Wait! Please!" Master Jek extended his hands towards them. "I'm sorry! They didn't know you were spirits! We'll make it up to you! What do you want?"
"We want them not to chase or catch us!" shrilled a second firefly. It landed on the tip of his nose and flashed menacingly.
Mistress Jek swatted it off, then planted her hands on her hips. "Nonsense! They didn't mean no harm." In the heat of the moment, her grammar slipped, but no one else seemed to notice. "They were just having a little fun."
"It was not fun for us!" a third firefly sputtered.
"Your Majesty, we demand that you protect us as our liege lord!" said the first, and the whole swarm spread out in an arc around Den and blinked on and off in unison.
Cowering behind his parents and Bobo, Nailus hung his head. Taila, on the other hand, was pouting.
Yes, I could very much imagine that whatever game she devised would not be fun for the fireflies. And Master Jek lacked the strength of will to stop his daughter, while Mistress Jek – well, she was really going to spoil the girl rotten now.
Floridiana's pursed lips suggested that she had to deal with this sort of behavior in school all the time.
Poor Den rubbed his temples as if he were already hungover. "Now, now, Luciolus, everyone, please calm down."
"We will not calm down! This happens every summer! We are sick and tired of it!" squeaked the spokes-firefly.
He flashed on and off in rapid succession, and the rest of the swarm picked up the pattern. Taila's eyes lit up, and she edged between her parents' legs for a better view.
It was quite a sight. Why hadn't I thought of hiring a troupe of firefly spirits to perform at summer garden parties in Cassius' court? They could have flown in choreographed patterns, blinking on and off, while we enjoyed the evening breeze and ate cold desserts and sipped cool drinks. It would have been glorious!
A random thought: Did star sprites serve the same purpose in Heaven?
Below me, Den was very much not fantasizing about garden parties, with or without light shows. "What precisely happened? Can you walk me through it? Just one of you, please."
"We were doing our own thing, minding our own business, the way we always do, when these two human children charged at us and started trying to grab us! That one – " and the spoke-firefly pointed his belly at Nailus and flashed once – "nearly tore Spark's wing off!"
Nailus hung his head still further, confirming his guilt.
"But Spark's all right otherwise?" Den double-checked. "He'll recover?"
Luciolus flashed again. "Would you recover from having one of your horns torn off?" Tardily, he added, "Your Majesty."
Nearly torn off, I muttered to myself. Not all the way torn off.
At the same time, Mistress Jek objected, "Nearly torn off. He didn't tear it all the way off. It's still there, ain't it?"
Off on the side, Floridiana was flapping a hand at Den, signaling him to act more like Densissimus Imber, Dragon King of Caltrop Pond, and less like Den the friendly fellow partyer.
At the reminder, the dragon straightened his back, arched his neck so Luciolus and all the other fireflies got a good look at his pearl, and made his voice cold and distant. "As a matter of fact, such an injury would be insignificant to Us."
I doubted that, but it did have the effect of cowing Luciolus. He blinked in a slower, gentler, more appeasing sort of pattern.
"But that is irrelevant to this discussion," Den continued. "You came here with a charge against these children. They, however, are not Our vassals and hence not subject to Our decrees unless they swim in Our waters or trod upon Our lands." (And by his "lands," he meant the ring of mud around his pond.)
Luciolus protested, "We've gone to Baron Claymouth before, Your Majesty. His seneschal brushed us off." (Yes, that did sound like Anasius.) "If you, our liege lord, won't protect us, who will?"
"We can only protect you within Our own borders. If you stray into another lord's fief, then you are subject to his laws."
Well, yes, but technically, Den could have raised an army against Baron Claymouth to protest the treatment of his vassals. Or, if he were confident enough in his own power and the insignificance of the offenders, he could have executed them and been done with it. Not that I was advocating for that at all.
Den looked at the offenders' parents next. "Master Jek. Mistress Jek. No matter whose vassal is injured, harming another is unacceptable. Control your children."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Both parents bowed low. A glare from Mistress Jek got Nailus and Taila to follow suit.
Den's stern stare shifted to Floridiana next. "Headmistress, see to it that you educate your students in both academics and moral behavior."
At the rebuke, the mage pinched her lips together, but having urged him to act like a king, she couldn't undermine him now. She, too, gave a bow, albeit a curt one.
"Is that it?" buzzed one of the other fireflies. "Is that all you're going to do, Your Majesty? You are bound to protect us, as we are bound to serve you!"
"Then stay above Our waters and upon Our lands." Den sounded fed up. "We've been through all of this before. We can guarantee protection within Our fief, but not in another lord's domain. That is Our final word on the matter."
Grumbling, the fireflies dispersed – although not too far. Their lights didn't stray three feet beyond the rocks that ringed Caltrop Pond.
Den blew out a long breath, and his spine relaxed back into its normal curves. "Whew. That could have gone a lot worse. But seriously, Taila, Nailus, stop hurting the firefly spirits. It isn't nice."
Taila lifted a face full of righteous indignation. "But we weren't trying to hurt them, King Den! It was an accident!"
"Then stop chasing them and trying to catch them, so you stop hurting them by accident."
"That firefly spirit, Spark, will he be all right?" Now that the case had been settled in her children's favor, Mistress Jek could afford compassion. "Is there something we can do to help?"
Den shook his head. "He'll heal on his own. Eventually."
Nailus edged closer. "Can we, maybe, make a house for him? Or something? To sleep in?"
Den barely suppressed a groan. "He'll be fine on his own. Just leave him alone."
As I observed this impromptu trial, I thought to myself that we'd had much better ways of adjudicating disputes between fiefs back in the Empire. We'd had centralized law courts run by the Imperial government, but it sounded like those no longer existed, at least not in East Serica. Seriously, had central authority really disintegrated to this extent?
Well, it wasn't like I could do anything, so I stopped worrying about it.
In the half-light of dusk, the Jeks walked back towards Honeysuckle Croft. Mistress Jek was clutching Taila's hand as if she'd never let it go, listening intently to the girl's account of her and her brother's adventures. Nailus himself acted more subdued and darted the occasional guilty glance at his father.
Floridiana, Bobo, and I lagged behind them, giving them some privacy.
Quietly, the mage said, "Getting back to what we were talking about earlier, you and Bobo plan to seek him out to learn where Stripey's soul reincarnated?"
I didn't know why she was phrasing it as a question when she obviously remembered our conversation, but I still answered. Yes.
"Where is he? Is he even on Earth?"
Oh, yes, the Kitchen God was definitely on Earth. I remembered how long it had taken for the Bureau of Reincarnation to compensate me for Cassius' illegal interference, kicking me back down to White Tier when I'd finally, finally made it to Green. In the end, it had been the Goddess of Life who handled my complaint, since the Kitchen God only went up to Heaven for a week at the New Year.
As for where he was on Earth – well, that was what Anthea was for. She could tell us where her patron god was, or at least know how to contact him.
Yes, he is on Earth. As to his precise whereabouts, I know someone who will be able to put us in touch with him.
"Who is this person, and where are they? Somewhere in South Serica, I assume?"
Amusingly, in her determination to figure out what was going on, Floridiana forgotten her usual discomfort around me.
It's a raccoon dog spirit in South Serica. I saw no reason not to tell her when Serica was full of raccoon dog spirits. Overrun with them, you might say.
Floridiana nodded, mostly to herself. "Ah. I see. South Serica…."
At the yearning in her voice, I hastily landed on her shoulder. You can't run off to South Serica. You're the headmistress here. If you run off, there's no one to teach your classes.
She jerked out of her reverie. "I know that! You don't have to tell me my business."
On her face was a mix of chagrin at being reminded of her responsibilities, regret at accepting them, and, I was glad to see, resignation and resolve to follow through on them. She smile wistfully at the horizon, where sky met farmland.
Good. The children of Claymouth Barony would not be losing their chance for education due to their teacher running away on a grand adventure, and I would not be earning a hefty dose of negative karma thanks to accidentally luring their teacher away on said grand adventure.
Still, with Bobo accompanying me to South Serica, childcare was going to be an issue. Neither Taila nor Nailus could be trusted on their own, so the Jeks needed a substitute babysitter. Lord Magnissimus did offer his services, but Mistress Jek and I turned him down, albeit for different reasons. I suspected he'd eat the children if he got hungry or curious enough, while she thought he'd let them run even wilder than they already did.
"What if they stay at school after school and do homework in the classroom?" Floridiana proposed. "If they're quiet, you can still get your own work done."
Mistress Jek eyeballed her offspring, who were balancing on and walking along the fence rails like traveling acrobats.
"Never mind," said Floridiana, following her gaze.
It was while we were at this impasse that the Jeks' farmhand led a fellow ex-soldier to the gate of Honeysuckle Croft.
As soon as I saw her, I started hopping up and down in rage. I remembered her. Oh, I remembered her. She was the one who'd abandoned me in the river when it came down to a choice between her or me getting eaten by Lord Silurus. Her selfishness was what had forced Stripey to save me, leading directly to his death. I'd assumed that she'd died in battle, but obviously not because, as I'd seen time after time, Heaven had no sense of justice.
What's she doing here? I hissed at Bobo, taking care not to let the new rock macaque overhear. It was bad enough that the farmhand knew about me.
Before she had a chance to reply, the farmhand introduced his companion to the Jeks. "This is my cousin Maca. She's looking for work, and since you're looking for a new babysitter, I figured…." He shrugged, having reached the end of his ability to express himself.
The murderess bowed. I clenched my beak and glared, debating whether it would be more advantageous to peck her eyes out now or later.
"Good evening, Master Jek, Mistress Jek. Thank you for seeing me." The rock macaque sounded more subdued than I remembered. Maybe she was wracked by remorse, as well she should be.
Unaware of her history, Mistress Jek started interviewing her. "Do you have kids? Have you babysat before?"
"I don't have kids of my own, but I've babysat the ones in our troop. They can be quite a handful."
I flapped my wings at Bobo. Ask her if she ran away to save her own miserable life when they were in danger.
"When who was in danger?"
The rock macaque children. Did she abandon them to die when they were in danger?
Taken aback, she blinked her big, bulbous eyes. "But why would she – I can't – I can't jussst asssk that!"
I flapped harder. She's the one who ran away during the battle and got Stripey killed. It's all her fault.
Bobo blinked again. Then, for the first time ever, her expression hardened.
One moment, she was coiled up next to me. The next, she was right in Maca's face. "Excussse me. I have a quessstion for you."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, UndeadCellar, and Anonymous!
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
And whose fault is that, Piri?
Piri: I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Haha, it's all for Stripey! He's such a good influence.
No...Piri holds a grudge. For centuries, if necessary.
Haha, I'll have to keep firefly performances in mind for the future!
Chapter 98: Rock Macaques Are Smarter Than They Look
Chapter 98: Rock Macaques Are Smarter Than They Look
For the first time since I'd met her – and apparently since the farmhand, Floridiana, and even the Jeks had known her – Bobo looked like the venomous viper she was.
Balancing on her tail, she raised herself to eye level with the ex-soldier. "Why did you run away during the battle?"
Maca actually backed up. "I didn't run away! I didn't!" she insisted, but her defensiveness confirmed that she had. "I was there all the way until the end! I saw that turtle get eaten. I was on the ice when it happened!"
Bobo swayed from side to side in a hypnotic "no." "I don't mean the end of the battle. I mean the beginning. You abandoned the Emisssary in the river and ssswam away. Why did you ssswim away?"
"Oh, that – I – it was the middle of a battle! I had to make an on-the-spot decision! That turtle already got Lord Silurus out of his hole. We didn't need her anymore!"
A gasp from all the humans present. Jettisoning the Emissary from Heaven like last night's garbage? O, the sacrilege!
I, on the other hand, wasn't the least bit surprised. Maca was a demon, after all. What else would you expect from a demon?
"You thought we didn't need the Emissary from Heaven anymore, so it was okay to feed her to Lord Silurus?" Mistress Jek demanded.
A demon shouldn't have bothered justifying herself, but Maca fumbled for words anyway. "No – no? Look, she was just a turtle! It wasn't like she could fight or anything! And – and – she was sent by Heaven! Heaven wouldn't have let her die!"
(How very naïve if that were how she thought Heaven operated. I could almost forgive her for abandoning me – if it hadn't gotten Stripey killed.)
In the face of all the incredulous stares, she hung her head.
"You got Ssstripey killed." Bobo's voice was raw. "You abandoned her, so he had to go to sssave her, and Lord Sssilurus ate him. You got Ssstripey killed."
"Stripey?" The name didn't ring any bells for Maca, and for a moment, I thought Bobo was going to strike. "Oh, you mean the duck demon bandit?"
"Yesss. Ssstripey. The whissstling duck. He was my bessst friend."
"He saved us from starving to death," Mistress Jek added.
"He was also a member of the taskforce," Floridiana put in.
Maca looked blank at that. She must have ranked so low that she hadn't known what her leadership was up to. But while I could pardon her for not understanding what Stripey had meant to the people of Claymouth, I could not forgive her for getting him killed.
"Hold on." The farmhand, who'd been watching silently up until now, finally realized that this job interview wasn't going well at all and that maybe he should step in. "That's not fair. Maca didn't kill him on purpose. In fact, she didn't kill him at all!"
"But ssshe ran away, didn't ssshe? Ssshe abandoned her duties and ran away. What kind of sssoldier runs away at the firssst sssign of danger?" In a flash, Bobo was in his face, making him flinch too.
"See here! Her duty was to get the catfish out of his hole! Which she did! The duck demons were there to get the turtle out!"
The ducks were there to get me out? What was he talking about – oh. That was kind of true. That had been why Stripey and the ducks were in the river in the first place. But they were supposed to be backup, there to extract me only if everything went not only sideways but also backwards and upside down. Which, I supposed, it had, from Maca's perspective, after Lord Silurus ate two of her comrades and started chasing us up the river.
I hated her anyway.
"Is that true?" Bobo swiveled to look at me for confirmation, remembered that we were keeping my identity secret from strangers, and kept revolving until she was facing Maca once more.
"Yes," mumbled the rock macaque, digging her toes into the rushes on the floor.
"Oh. Oh. I sssee. I sssee." After a long moment, Bobo's spine relaxed back into its natural curves.
Mistress Jek, on the other hand, wasn't nearly so understanding, at least not where her children were concerned. "Maca. Does that mean you'll cut and run at the first sign of danger if someone or something threatens my children?"
"No! No! Not if my whole job is to protect them!"
Two pairs of brown eyes stared into each other, one pair fierce and probing, the other desperate. Maca wasn't the most articulate person around, but I found her clumsy plea more convincing than an eloquent speech.
Breaking their gaze first, Maca noticed the rushes that she'd disarranged. She started using one foot to pat them back in place. "You can trust me, Mistress Jek, Master Jek, Mage Floridiana, Bobo. I – I – I want this job not just because I need work. I gotta – I gotta earn good karma."
My blood ran cold. If anyone in Heaven happened to be watching….
"Good karma?" Floridiana pounced on that. "Explain."
"I – I – it was something the Emissary said. To Lord Silurus. In the river, and then again on the ice. She said – " Maca scrunched up her face in the most unattractive manner, struggling to reproduce my wording. "She said, someone gave him the chance…to learn how to earn good karma. But he ate them. And now he was out of time to earn good karma. So he was going to reincarnate as a tapeworm or something…something that…'lives on humans, always doing them harm.' And never gets a chance to earn good karma."
The farmhand took up the story. "So afterwards, some of us sat down and talked about it, and we thought it meant that we could earn good karma by doing good for humans."
Silence. Just as a precaution, I fluttered down to the floor and started burrowing into the rushes.
The farmhand looked from frozen face to frozen face. "Was that wrong? Did we get it wrong?"
"No…. That makes so much sense…." Wonder crept into the mage's voice. "Why did I never think of that? Of course it makes so much sense." The others hadn't grasped the implications as fast, so Floridiana switched into teaching mode. "From where do the gods and goddesses derive their strength? From the offerings dedicated to them. Who dedicates most of these offerings? Humans. So of course. Of course they would reward that! It makes so much sense!"
"So…if we made more offerings to Heaven…we would earn good karma too?" The farmhand laboriously worked through the logic.
"Probably." Floridiana nodded, then nodded a couple more times. "Yes, almost certainly. Making offerings to Heaven, while not harming the humans who make offerings to Heaven. Yes, yes, that's it. That's the trick."
"Oh…oh! So I can – " Maca's face lit up, only to fall again. "Oh, but I don't have money to spend on offerings…which is why I need this job. Please, Master Jek, Mistress Jek, I will guard your children! I will guard them with my life! Please give me a chance!"
The three human adults exchanged long looks.
Then Floridiana said, "I think we can trust her desire to earn good karma to balance all of the evil she's done," and Master and Mistress Jek agreed.
As Maca flung herself to the floor and genuflected in gratitude, I wiggled back out of the rushes. It didn't look like Heaven was sending anyone to execute us. The gods probably hadn't been paying attention at all.
Just to be on the safe side, I told Bobo to impress upon the rock macaques not to spread this knowledge of how the karma system worked. Heaven would be enraged, I warned.
"But why?" she asked, puzzled. "If everybody knows, doesssn't that mean everybody's going to ssstart making offerings? Isssn't that good for them?"
To that, I could only shrug. Flicker had been very clear that the Accountants did not want people, even people within the Heavenly bureaucracy itself, to know how they computed karma. And I certainly wasn't going to oppose them!
I'll see what I can find out, but for now, make sure they keep it a secret.
So Bobo had a talk with Maca and the farmhand, both of whom had developed a healthy respect for her and her fangs, after which she reported, "They sssaid they weren't planning to tell anybody anyway. They don't want anybody getting a leg up on them."
That logic I certainly understood.
With the matter of childcare settled, Bobo and I were free to head south at last – or so I thought. The night before we planned to leave, familiar footsteps tapped up the path to the bamboo stand, and who should peer between the stalks but Floridiana?
"Good evening, Bobo, Rosie. Do you have a moment?"
Bobo moved to the edge of the stand, flowing from bamboo to bamboo like a ribbon. "Of courssse! Come in! Oh, maybe there isssn't enough ssspace for you inssside. We can talk here!"
She coiled around a stalk on the outermost ring of bamboo, at about Floridiana's head height. I stayed where I was, since I was comfortable and the stand wasn't so big that I had to shout to be heard.
"Ssso, what can I do for you?"
"Oh, I was thinking – since it's summertime and the farmers' children should be helping out in the fields anyway, it might not be such a bad time to give them a break. Let them have a little vacation, clear their minds, help out on their farms, come back in – let's say, maybe the fall? – feeling refreshed and eager to learn once more."
Floridiana had clearly rehearsed this argument before coming here, but she still stumbled over her words. Probably because even she realized how self-serving they were.
"I heard from Vanny – Mistress Jek – that the two of you are planning to leave for South Serica tomorrow?"
"Uh huh! We're all ssset!"
"Ah, yes. Yes, I did hear that. But I was wondering – if you might consider delaying your departure? Just by a couple days?"
A couple days? I asked from the depths of the bamboo stand. Why?
Floridiana's shoulders tensed, and she seemed to steel herself. "Because I would very much like to accompany you."
Bobo's jaw dropped. A long ways, given that she was a snake.
You want to come with us?
Floridiana's desire didn't surprise me at all. What did surprise – no, disappoint – me was that she was willing to abandon her teaching duties after all. I'd thought she had come to value her obligation to her students and their parents and to Baron Claymouth, for that matter, over her own passion for thrill-seeking.
The mage clenched her hand around her seal, not in a threatening way, just as if she needed the comfort of a familiar physical sensation. "Yes. I want to go with you. I believe the children and their parents would all benefit from a recess in classes. A…summer vacation, we could call it, similar to the break everyone gets for the New Year. I would improve as a teacher, too, if I could speak to other educators and gain exposure to different pedagogical methods. And also…the geography test taught me that not all the information in A Mage's Guide to Serica is up to date. It would be best if I supplemented it with my own observations."
Ha. That was a clever argument – travel as a way to improve the quality of education in the barony. I stayed quiet, though, curious about the rest of the arguments she must have concocted.
"Having me along would benefit the two of you as well. I do have some savings I can draw on for travel expenses, and if we take my horse and wagon, we'll make better time than walking. Flying. Slithering. You get my meaning."
Well, as a spirit, Bobo could move faster than a normal animal, so I'd been planning to ride on her, but if we had a wagon, then she could take breaks. Except normal horses traveled so much more slowly….
How fast can your horse go? If it takes us months just to reach Lychee Grove, you're definitely not going to be back by the end of summer.
I half-expected her to bristle and act defensive, but Floridiana had a ready answer. "Master Gravitas made improvements to the wagon design, to make it lighter and easier to pull. And as for my horse…my horse awakened recently. It came as quite a shock, I assure you."
What? I nearly fell off the bamboo stalk and had to flap my wings to stay upright. Your horse awakened? And you weren't expecting it? Didn't you know how old it was?
"Oh yeah! Sssorry, Rosssie, I forgot to tell you!" Bobo whipped the top part of her body around to grin at me. "The barony has a new baby ssspirit!"
Floridiana answered, a little stiffly, "When I purchased my horse, I was informed only that he was old, not that he was that old. I imagine that he changed hands many times over the years, and that the sales records did not keep careful track of his age. Proximity to the Jade Mountain Wilds might also have speeded his awakening."
Okay, that all made sense. I thought for a moment. No way could a human mage of mediocre ability and a newly-awakened horse spirit match Bobo's top speed, but a wagon to rest in and two extra pairs of eyes to watch for predators and bandits might prove useful.
And, as Floridiana had confessed, her textbook was woefully out of date.
Okay. Fine. You can come along.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Arif, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, UndeadCellar, and Anonymous!
For the first time since I'd met her – and apparently since the farmhand, Floridiana, and even the Jeks had known her – Bobo looked like the venomous viper she was.
Balancing on her tail, she raised herself to eye level with the ex-soldier. "Why did you run away during the battle?"
Maca actually backed up. "I didn't run away! I didn't!" she insisted, but her defensiveness confirmed that she had. "I was there all the way until the end! I saw that turtle get eaten. I was on the ice when it happened!"
Bobo swayed from side to side in a hypnotic "no." "I don't mean the end of the battle. I mean the beginning. You abandoned the Emisssary in the river and ssswam away. Why did you ssswim away?"
"Oh, that – I – it was the middle of a battle! I had to make an on-the-spot decision! That turtle already got Lord Silurus out of his hole. We didn't need her anymore!"
A gasp from all the humans present. Jettisoning the Emissary from Heaven like last night's garbage? O, the sacrilege!
I, on the other hand, wasn't the least bit surprised. Maca was a demon, after all. What else would you expect from a demon?
"You thought we didn't need the Emissary from Heaven anymore, so it was okay to feed her to Lord Silurus?" Mistress Jek demanded.
A demon shouldn't have bothered justifying herself, but Maca fumbled for words anyway. "No – no? Look, she was just a turtle! It wasn't like she could fight or anything! And – and – she was sent by Heaven! Heaven wouldn't have let her die!"
(How very naïve if that were how she thought Heaven operated. I could almost forgive her for abandoning me – if it hadn't gotten Stripey killed.)
In the face of all the incredulous stares, she hung her head.
"You got Ssstripey killed." Bobo's voice was raw. "You abandoned her, so he had to go to sssave her, and Lord Sssilurus ate him. You got Ssstripey killed."
"Stripey?" The name didn't ring any bells for Maca, and for a moment, I thought Bobo was going to strike. "Oh, you mean the duck demon bandit?"
"Yesss. Ssstripey. The whissstling duck. He was my bessst friend."
"He saved us from starving to death," Mistress Jek added.
"He was also a member of the taskforce," Floridiana put in.
Maca looked blank at that. She must have ranked so low that she hadn't known what her leadership was up to. But while I could pardon her for not understanding what Stripey had meant to the people of Claymouth, I could not forgive her for getting him killed.
"Hold on." The farmhand, who'd been watching silently up until now, finally realized that this job interview wasn't going well at all and that maybe he should step in. "That's not fair. Maca didn't kill him on purpose. In fact, she didn't kill him at all!"
"But ssshe ran away, didn't ssshe? Ssshe abandoned her duties and ran away. What kind of sssoldier runs away at the firssst sssign of danger?" In a flash, Bobo was in his face, making him flinch too.
"See here! Her duty was to get the catfish out of his hole! Which she did! The duck demons were there to get the turtle out!"
The ducks were there to get me out? What was he talking about – oh. That was kind of true. That had been why Stripey and the ducks were in the river in the first place. But they were supposed to be backup, there to extract me only if everything went not only sideways but also backwards and upside down. Which, I supposed, it had, from Maca's perspective, after Lord Silurus ate two of her comrades and started chasing us up the river.
I hated her anyway.
"Is that true?" Bobo swiveled to look at me for confirmation, remembered that we were keeping my identity secret from strangers, and kept revolving until she was facing Maca once more.
"Yes," mumbled the rock macaque, digging her toes into the rushes on the floor.
"Oh. Oh. I sssee. I sssee." After a long moment, Bobo's spine relaxed back into its natural curves.
Mistress Jek, on the other hand, wasn't nearly so understanding, at least not where her children were concerned. "Maca. Does that mean you'll cut and run at the first sign of danger if someone or something threatens my children?"
"No! No! Not if my whole job is to protect them!"
Two pairs of brown eyes stared into each other, one pair fierce and probing, the other desperate. Maca wasn't the most articulate person around, but I found her clumsy plea more convincing than an eloquent speech.
Breaking their gaze first, Maca noticed the rushes that she'd disarranged. She started using one foot to pat them back in place. "You can trust me, Mistress Jek, Master Jek, Mage Floridiana, Bobo. I – I – I want this job not just because I need work. I gotta – I gotta earn good karma."
My blood ran cold. If anyone in Heaven happened to be watching….
"Good karma?" Floridiana pounced on that. "Explain."
"I – I – it was something the Emissary said. To Lord Silurus. In the river, and then again on the ice. She said – " Maca scrunched up her face in the most unattractive manner, struggling to reproduce my wording. "She said, someone gave him the chance…to learn how to earn good karma. But he ate them. And now he was out of time to earn good karma. So he was going to reincarnate as a tapeworm or something…something that…'lives on humans, always doing them harm.' And never gets a chance to earn good karma."
The farmhand took up the story. "So afterwards, some of us sat down and talked about it, and we thought it meant that we could earn good karma by doing good for humans."
Silence. Just as a precaution, I fluttered down to the floor and started burrowing into the rushes.
The farmhand looked from frozen face to frozen face. "Was that wrong? Did we get it wrong?"
"No…. That makes so much sense…." Wonder crept into the mage's voice. "Why did I never think of that? Of course it makes so much sense." The others hadn't grasped the implications as fast, so Floridiana switched into teaching mode. "From where do the gods and goddesses derive their strength? From the offerings dedicated to them. Who dedicates most of these offerings? Humans. So of course. Of course they would reward that! It makes so much sense!"
"So…if we made more offerings to Heaven…we would earn good karma too?" The farmhand laboriously worked through the logic.
"Probably." Floridiana nodded, then nodded a couple more times. "Yes, almost certainly. Making offerings to Heaven, while not harming the humans who make offerings to Heaven. Yes, yes, that's it. That's the trick."
"Oh…oh! So I can – " Maca's face lit up, only to fall again. "Oh, but I don't have money to spend on offerings…which is why I need this job. Please, Master Jek, Mistress Jek, I will guard your children! I will guard them with my life! Please give me a chance!"
The three human adults exchanged long looks.
Then Floridiana said, "I think we can trust her desire to earn good karma to balance all of the evil she's done," and Master and Mistress Jek agreed.
As Maca flung herself to the floor and genuflected in gratitude, I wiggled back out of the rushes. It didn't look like Heaven was sending anyone to execute us. The gods probably hadn't been paying attention at all.
Just to be on the safe side, I told Bobo to impress upon the rock macaques not to spread this knowledge of how the karma system worked. Heaven would be enraged, I warned.
"But why?" she asked, puzzled. "If everybody knows, doesssn't that mean everybody's going to ssstart making offerings? Isssn't that good for them?"
To that, I could only shrug. Flicker had been very clear that the Accountants did not want people, even people within the Heavenly bureaucracy itself, to know how they computed karma. And I certainly wasn't going to oppose them!
I'll see what I can find out, but for now, make sure they keep it a secret.
So Bobo had a talk with Maca and the farmhand, both of whom had developed a healthy respect for her and her fangs, after which she reported, "They sssaid they weren't planning to tell anybody anyway. They don't want anybody getting a leg up on them."
That logic I certainly understood.
With the matter of childcare settled, Bobo and I were free to head south at last – or so I thought. The night before we planned to leave, familiar footsteps tapped up the path to the bamboo stand, and who should peer between the stalks but Floridiana?
"Good evening, Bobo, Rosie. Do you have a moment?"
Bobo moved to the edge of the stand, flowing from bamboo to bamboo like a ribbon. "Of courssse! Come in! Oh, maybe there isssn't enough ssspace for you inssside. We can talk here!"
She coiled around a stalk on the outermost ring of bamboo, at about Floridiana's head height. I stayed where I was, since I was comfortable and the stand wasn't so big that I had to shout to be heard.
"Ssso, what can I do for you?"
"Oh, I was thinking – since it's summertime and the farmers' children should be helping out in the fields anyway, it might not be such a bad time to give them a break. Let them have a little vacation, clear their minds, help out on their farms, come back in – let's say, maybe the fall? – feeling refreshed and eager to learn once more."
Floridiana had clearly rehearsed this argument before coming here, but she still stumbled over her words. Probably because even she realized how self-serving they were.
"I heard from Vanny – Mistress Jek – that the two of you are planning to leave for South Serica tomorrow?"
"Uh huh! We're all ssset!"
"Ah, yes. Yes, I did hear that. But I was wondering – if you might consider delaying your departure? Just by a couple days?"
A couple days? I asked from the depths of the bamboo stand. Why?
Floridiana's shoulders tensed, and she seemed to steel herself. "Because I would very much like to accompany you."
Bobo's jaw dropped. A long ways, given that she was a snake.
You want to come with us?
Floridiana's desire didn't surprise me at all. What did surprise – no, disappoint – me was that she was willing to abandon her teaching duties after all. I'd thought she had come to value her obligation to her students and their parents and to Baron Claymouth, for that matter, over her own passion for thrill-seeking.
The mage clenched her hand around her seal, not in a threatening way, just as if she needed the comfort of a familiar physical sensation. "Yes. I want to go with you. I believe the children and their parents would all benefit from a recess in classes. A…summer vacation, we could call it, similar to the break everyone gets for the New Year. I would improve as a teacher, too, if I could speak to other educators and gain exposure to different pedagogical methods. And also…the geography test taught me that not all the information in A Mage's Guide to Serica is up to date. It would be best if I supplemented it with my own observations."
Ha. That was a clever argument – travel as a way to improve the quality of education in the barony. I stayed quiet, though, curious about the rest of the arguments she must have concocted.
"Having me along would benefit the two of you as well. I do have some savings I can draw on for travel expenses, and if we take my horse and wagon, we'll make better time than walking. Flying. Slithering. You get my meaning."
Well, as a spirit, Bobo could move faster than a normal animal, so I'd been planning to ride on her, but if we had a wagon, then she could take breaks. Except normal horses traveled so much more slowly….
How fast can your horse go? If it takes us months just to reach Lychee Grove, you're definitely not going to be back by the end of summer.
I half-expected her to bristle and act defensive, but Floridiana had a ready answer. "Master Gravitas made improvements to the wagon design, to make it lighter and easier to pull. And as for my horse…my horse awakened recently. It came as quite a shock, I assure you."
What? I nearly fell off the bamboo stalk and had to flap my wings to stay upright. Your horse awakened? And you weren't expecting it? Didn't you know how old it was?
"Oh yeah! Sssorry, Rosssie, I forgot to tell you!" Bobo whipped the top part of her body around to grin at me. "The barony has a new baby ssspirit!"
Floridiana answered, a little stiffly, "When I purchased my horse, I was informed only that he was old, not that he was that old. I imagine that he changed hands many times over the years, and that the sales records did not keep careful track of his age. Proximity to the Jade Mountain Wilds might also have speeded his awakening."
Okay, that all made sense. I thought for a moment. No way could a human mage of mediocre ability and a newly-awakened horse spirit match Bobo's top speed, but a wagon to rest in and two extra pairs of eyes to watch for predators and bandits might prove useful.
And, as Floridiana had confessed, her textbook was woefully out of date.
Okay. Fine. You can come along.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Arif, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, UndeadCellar, and Anonymous!
- Location
- PA
Hrrrm.
I have to say, a Bobo that can go from 'sitting' on the ground a few meters away to zipping so she's cooked around your neck and in your face is Scary!
…I will admit to Bobo in my head kind of getting…spikey, and as an alternative to being in prime 'I'm about to strangle/bite this fool' I took the 'his face' bit as an excuse to imagine her sizing up so she could stare at him in the face while up on her tail. But the lack of escalation made me accept the 'wrapped around the neck' posing.
But it's the kind of scene that will have me paying her considerably more attention and respect then just 'simple country-girl snake'. She's probably faster and more agile then I'm giving her credit, especially as she seems to be able to do weave through bamboo stalks off the ground casually…
The horse being ignored until it awakened was amusing. I wonder what he is like?
I have to say, a Bobo that can go from 'sitting' on the ground a few meters away to zipping so she's cooked around your neck and in your face is Scary!
…I will admit to Bobo in my head kind of getting…spikey, and as an alternative to being in prime 'I'm about to strangle/bite this fool' I took the 'his face' bit as an excuse to imagine her sizing up so she could stare at him in the face while up on her tail. But the lack of escalation made me accept the 'wrapped around the neck' posing.
But it's the kind of scene that will have me paying her considerably more attention and respect then just 'simple country-girl snake'. She's probably faster and more agile then I'm giving her credit, especially as she seems to be able to do weave through bamboo stalks off the ground casually…
The horse being ignored until it awakened was amusing. I wonder what he is like?
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I suppose we'll see.
Scary Bobo is delightful. And Floridiana is genuinely a smart woman.
Road trip time, and people are getting wise to heaven's ways. Let the Spiffing Brit flow through you.
Yeah, Bobo could be a threat if she wanted to be one! Fortunately (or unfortunately?), she doesn't have the personality for it.
You'll see more of the baby horse spirit soon!
Yep, Floridiana has figured out how to appeal to/manipulate Piri!
Yeah, Heaven hasn't noticed yet, but they will at some point.... (I.e. when it's narratively entertaining
)
Chapter 99: Travel Adventures
Chapter 99: Travel Adventures
Traveling with two spirits and a mage, I made much better time going south than I had flying north on my own. It was much more relaxing too, as I could ride on either Bobo's head or the wagon seat next to Floridiana, while the baby horse spirit clip-clopped along.
And by "baby horse spirit," I meant a glorious, golden stallion with lacquer-black legs who strutted like an emperor's warhorse. It was a far cry from the scrawny, broken-down nag I'd seen in Yulus' vision during my life as Mooncloud.
Hey, spirit, what's your name? I made the mistake of asking him our first day on the road. In my defense, I was bored.
The horse tossed his mane and swished his tail, nearly sweeping the hairs into my and Floridiana's eyes.
"Careful there," she warned, as if she were lecturing an unruly student. "What did we talk about, Dusty?"
His tail stilled, but he informed her stiffly, "My name is no longer Dusty, mage. When I awakened, I was granted the awareness of my true identity as The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind."
"It's an awesssome name!" agreed Bobo, who was slithering along next to the wagon.
The valiant prince of the victorious – whirlwind?
So…Dusty, I muttered, loud enough for Floridiana to hear, which was more than loud enough for the two spirits to hear.
"My name is not Dusty. I will not answer to that moniker. You will call me by my proper name, as befitting a true spirit."
If that level of reverence were what he expected from life as spirit, he was about to get crushed by a mountain's worth of disappointment. No one called me Flos Piri, not even the clerks up in Heaven. If I could resign myself to "Rosie" and "Mr. Turtle," he could cursed well answer to "Dusty."
At my unimpressed silence, he added, in the tones of one granting a nigh-unbearable concession, "In a pinch, if time is of the essence, you may also address me as 'Your Highness'."
Yeah, sure.
Maybe I didn't sound sarcastic enough, because Floridiana's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"
Yep. Just as soon as I take over Heaven.
Dusty seemed to be pondering the timeline there, but Floridiana got the point. She snorted, and Bobo raised her head so her eyes were level with mine and giggled, "Promissse you will! Promissse you will! I want to sssee that!"
I chirped a chuckle, puffed out my chest, and spread both wings. It's a promise. On the day that I take over Heaven, I will address Dusty as "His Highness the Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind."
Bobo's laughter was contagious.
Days and then weeks passed as we made our way south. The landscape turned exuberant green, a shift that was highlighted by Floridiana's exclamations and frequent scrabbling for her journal so she could jot down notes and sketch plants and animals and even foods that she'd never seen before.
Is it really that exciting? I asked one time we stopped for lunch in a village square.
Floridiana had ordered a bowl of something that looked like irregular lavender and pale-orange chunks drowned in water. Rather than eating it like a normal person, though, she was alternating between sampling mouthfuls and scrawling down observations on the flavor and texture.
"Yes! I've never seen anything like it in the north! I'll bet the purple ones are made from 'taro.' I've only ever read about 'taro' before!"
Ta-roh?
I'd never heard of it. Maybe it wasn't a food people ate in Lychee Grove. Or maybe the Kohs just didn't like it.
The Kohs. Lodia. Her hunched, timid figure flashed through my mind. How was I going to get close to her again after her grandmother had forbidden it?
"Taro is a root vegetable with pale purple flesh," Floridiana explained without looking up from her notebook. Typically, she hadn't noticed that my thoughts had long since moved on from the topic of food. "I believe that the orange balls are made from sweet potato. And the soup part is definitely ginger water sweetened with…hmm, it's not honey, it's – sugar! It has to be sugar! Sugar is so cheap here that even street vendors use it! I can't believe it!"
I could. Mostly because I didn't care enough to think about it.
Leaving the mage to her excitement, I went to find Bobo. The bamboo viper was coiled up on the edge of a pond, watching a pair of water birds paddle about. One of them was a drab, mottled, greyish-brown creature, but the other was resplendent: purple and teal and orange and black and white markings all on one body.
"Is it a duck?" Bobo was marveling to herself. "No, it can't be a duck. But the bill! It mussst be a duck. But it can't be…." When she heard the flapping of my wings, she stuck out a loop of her coils for me to land on without taking her eyes off the water bird. "Rosssie, is that a duck? Is that what ducks look like in the sssouth?"
This was my first time seeing a bird like that too. Unawakened, no less. This wasn't some vain spirit who'd decided to adorn itself.
It appears to be an aquatic bird, at least.
"I think it's a duck. The bill – it looks sssort of like…like Ssstripey's." Bobo's voice got tinier and tinier until his name drifted away on the breeze.
I rubbed the crown of my head against her side to comfort her. Yes. It does, doesn't it?
Together, we watched the pair of probably-ducks glide across the pond. Stripey and his bandits had never been so placid. They'd been in constant motion – bantering, laughing, eating, drinking, dancing, attacking travelers, mocking the baron's knights. Crash landing in the Jeks' yard. Saving Taila's life.
Saving mine.
Where was he now? I wondered. What was he now? Had he reincarnated as a duck again? A duck like this one? Could this be Stripey? Unless Flicker took pity on me, we would never know.
"Do you think Ssstripey is okay? He has to be okay, right?" Bobo tore her large, round eyes away from the pond to gaze pleadingly at me.
I'm sure he is, I said, putting more confidence into it than I felt. Maybe he's even a really flashy fellow like that one.
That got a sniffly laugh from Bobo. "He'd hate that. He'd sssay that you can't ambusssh people when they can sssee you coming a mile away."
I cocked my head to a side. Was that actually something Stripey would say? Or just something we thought he might say, based on our fading memories of how he used to speak? I tried to imagine the whistling duck standing next to us, tried to picture what he'd say.
I couldn't.
Well, Bobo had known him for so much longer than I had. I'd take her word for it.
Let's get Floridiana to draw the duck, I suggested. Then when we find Stripey again, we can show him the picture.
"Yeah! That's a good idea! Let's!"
Floridiana, naturally, was ecstatic over discovering a new type of duck. Humming to herself, she sat on the grass and sketched, jotting down the colors and drawing little arrows to point to different patches on the body. As I watched, I thought that it was a shame she didn't have colored inks. Maybe we could get her some in Lychee Grove. It was such a prosperous city that surely someone had to sell colored inks there.
And I even knew whom to ask for stationery recommendations.
"Halt! Who goeth there? State thy name and business!"
Half a night's wagon ride from the city of Lychee Grove, our luck ran out. Our journey, which had gone so smoothly up until that point, was interrupted by a band of armed humans and spirits. Dusty whinnied and tried to rear, and while Floridiana was hauling on the reins to stop him from striking them with his hooves, I squinted at the guards. They were all sporting green tunics and badges engraved with a sprig of round fruits. Since when had the Lady of the Lychee Tree posted night patrols?
The wagon lurched and jolted as the battle between Floridiana and Dusty continued.
Metallic sounds rang out, and I found myself staring down a good dozen pointy tips. Half the guards were aiming crossbows loaded with multiple bolts at us. More than one bolt on one crossbow just seemed excessive.
"Wait! Wait! Don't shoot!" Floridiana was yelling. "Dusty, curse it all, calm down!"
"Halt, or we shoot!" shouted the guard who seemed to be their leader. He raised a scaly club – oh, that was his tail. He was a pangolin.
Very slowly, I hopped backwards on the seat until I could drop into the wagon bed. Unnoticed on the side, Bobo's long form was sliding into the undergrowth.
"Dusty! Cut it out! Are you a spirit or a mindless beast? Get a hold of yourself before you get us all killed!"
At last, Dusty stopped lunging at the guards, although he stamped his hooves and snorted furiously. Breathing hard, Floridiana spanked his back with the reins before she looked back at the pangolin leader.
"Sir, I apologize for my companion's poor behavior," she said, switching to an unctuous tone. "He is newly awakened and does not yet understand the ways of civilized people."
Appeals to the spirit's paternal nature, however, proved unsuccessful. "State thy name and business…mage."
He must have spotted the seal that hung from Floridiana's belt.
"Of course, sir! I am but a simple traveling mage. Word of the glories of the city of Lychee Grove have traveled far and wide, reaching even my humble ears, and I wished to witness them for myself."
"What carriest thou in thy wagon?"
After spending time back at Honeysuckle Croft, I'd forgotten how jarring the speech in Lychee Grove sounded. Floridiana's eyes, on the other hand, lit up.
"Merely supplies for the road, sir. Would you like to take a look?"
I couldn't see what happened next, but heavy, booted footsteps approached. A human guard jumped into the wagon bed and began to ransack Floridiana's trunk.
With his poor human night vision, he missed me and nearly trampled me. I screeched.
"What's this?"
A meaty, hairy hand reached for me. I shot between his fingers and streaked into the nearest tree. More crossbows swung up to follow me. Now that I had a better view of the guards, something felt off about them. What was it…?
Floridiana was spinning a desperate tale about how she had rescued a sparrow fledgling that had fallen out of its nest and handfed it and raised it so now it followed her everywhere. The pangolin leader scowled but didn't order his guards to shoot me, so her storytelling was probably working.
What was off about the guards anyway? Leaning over the branch, I cocked my head and scrutinized them. They were dressed unmistakably as guards, with metal badges that glinted on the leather armor over their green tunics – the badges! The lychee sprigs etched on them. They were too crude. I'd seen the coins minted in Lychee Grove; I knew what the craftsmen there were capable of. And the green of the tunics. It wasn't the bright, leaf-green hue that I'd seen on the Lychee Grove Earth Court retainers. It was duller, darker.
Whoever these people were, they didn't answer to the Lady of the Lychee Tree.
All of a sudden, the pangolin leader's hand flashed out. He wrenched the seal off Floridiana's belt and dropped it into his pocket. "Come. We will escort thee to the city."
Floridiana yelped and stretched out her own hand before she thought better of it. She dipped her head in a convincingly grateful nod. "I appreciate it, sir."
Under the watchful eyes of the not-guards, the wagon wheels creaked and began to rotate. Floridiana sat straight as a spear, while Dusty placed each hoof with care.
Now what should I do? Should I fly down and warn them that these weren't real Lychee Grove guards? But what difference would that make? It wasn't like Floridiana and Dusty could win in a fight, especially if she couldn't use magic.
"Ssshould we go down? It looks like everything's okay now, doesssn't it?"
At the whisper in my ear, I jumped. Bobo had appeared next to me, wrapped round and round the branch, dangling upside down and following the motion of the wagon with her head.
No, something's wrong. Those aren't real guards.
"They're not? Who are they?"
I don't know.
"Are they bandits?" She sounded almost hopeful.
I doubted it, not with that gear, but even if they were bandits, they weren't the nice kind like Stripey's duck demons. (Although travelers robbed by the ducks probably didn't think they were nice….)
I don't know. Don't you think they're too well equipped for bandits?
"Oh no! We have to sssave them!"
Yes…but for now, let's follow them. Don't let the pangolins hear you.
Keeping a safe distance, we tailed them, letting the sounds of the nighttime forest cover the rustling of her scales and my feathers. Several minutes later, a yellow glow lit the trees, and we found ourselves on the edge of a camp.
A camp full of humans and spirits who were wearing leather armor and tunics trimmed in reddish-purple. Stars and demons, if these were bandits, then they were the most organized bandits I'd seen!
No. They weren't bandits. They were soldiers.
Dusty neighed in alarm, and Floridiana protested, "What's going on? This isn't the city. Where have you brought us? What are you going to do to us?"
The pangolin leader made a hand signal, and a dozen soldiers surrounded the wagon.
"Stay here and be quiet," he ordered. "We can't have you warning the Lady of the Lychee Tree."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Arif, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Traveling with two spirits and a mage, I made much better time going south than I had flying north on my own. It was much more relaxing too, as I could ride on either Bobo's head or the wagon seat next to Floridiana, while the baby horse spirit clip-clopped along.
And by "baby horse spirit," I meant a glorious, golden stallion with lacquer-black legs who strutted like an emperor's warhorse. It was a far cry from the scrawny, broken-down nag I'd seen in Yulus' vision during my life as Mooncloud.
Hey, spirit, what's your name? I made the mistake of asking him our first day on the road. In my defense, I was bored.
The horse tossed his mane and swished his tail, nearly sweeping the hairs into my and Floridiana's eyes.
"Careful there," she warned, as if she were lecturing an unruly student. "What did we talk about, Dusty?"
His tail stilled, but he informed her stiffly, "My name is no longer Dusty, mage. When I awakened, I was granted the awareness of my true identity as The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind."
"It's an awesssome name!" agreed Bobo, who was slithering along next to the wagon.
The valiant prince of the victorious – whirlwind?
So…Dusty, I muttered, loud enough for Floridiana to hear, which was more than loud enough for the two spirits to hear.
"My name is not Dusty. I will not answer to that moniker. You will call me by my proper name, as befitting a true spirit."
If that level of reverence were what he expected from life as spirit, he was about to get crushed by a mountain's worth of disappointment. No one called me Flos Piri, not even the clerks up in Heaven. If I could resign myself to "Rosie" and "Mr. Turtle," he could cursed well answer to "Dusty."
At my unimpressed silence, he added, in the tones of one granting a nigh-unbearable concession, "In a pinch, if time is of the essence, you may also address me as 'Your Highness'."
Yeah, sure.
Maybe I didn't sound sarcastic enough, because Floridiana's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"
Yep. Just as soon as I take over Heaven.
Dusty seemed to be pondering the timeline there, but Floridiana got the point. She snorted, and Bobo raised her head so her eyes were level with mine and giggled, "Promissse you will! Promissse you will! I want to sssee that!"
I chirped a chuckle, puffed out my chest, and spread both wings. It's a promise. On the day that I take over Heaven, I will address Dusty as "His Highness the Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind."
Bobo's laughter was contagious.
Days and then weeks passed as we made our way south. The landscape turned exuberant green, a shift that was highlighted by Floridiana's exclamations and frequent scrabbling for her journal so she could jot down notes and sketch plants and animals and even foods that she'd never seen before.
Is it really that exciting? I asked one time we stopped for lunch in a village square.
Floridiana had ordered a bowl of something that looked like irregular lavender and pale-orange chunks drowned in water. Rather than eating it like a normal person, though, she was alternating between sampling mouthfuls and scrawling down observations on the flavor and texture.
"Yes! I've never seen anything like it in the north! I'll bet the purple ones are made from 'taro.' I've only ever read about 'taro' before!"
Ta-roh?
I'd never heard of it. Maybe it wasn't a food people ate in Lychee Grove. Or maybe the Kohs just didn't like it.
The Kohs. Lodia. Her hunched, timid figure flashed through my mind. How was I going to get close to her again after her grandmother had forbidden it?
"Taro is a root vegetable with pale purple flesh," Floridiana explained without looking up from her notebook. Typically, she hadn't noticed that my thoughts had long since moved on from the topic of food. "I believe that the orange balls are made from sweet potato. And the soup part is definitely ginger water sweetened with…hmm, it's not honey, it's – sugar! It has to be sugar! Sugar is so cheap here that even street vendors use it! I can't believe it!"
I could. Mostly because I didn't care enough to think about it.
Leaving the mage to her excitement, I went to find Bobo. The bamboo viper was coiled up on the edge of a pond, watching a pair of water birds paddle about. One of them was a drab, mottled, greyish-brown creature, but the other was resplendent: purple and teal and orange and black and white markings all on one body.
"Is it a duck?" Bobo was marveling to herself. "No, it can't be a duck. But the bill! It mussst be a duck. But it can't be…." When she heard the flapping of my wings, she stuck out a loop of her coils for me to land on without taking her eyes off the water bird. "Rosssie, is that a duck? Is that what ducks look like in the sssouth?"
This was my first time seeing a bird like that too. Unawakened, no less. This wasn't some vain spirit who'd decided to adorn itself.
It appears to be an aquatic bird, at least.
"I think it's a duck. The bill – it looks sssort of like…like Ssstripey's." Bobo's voice got tinier and tinier until his name drifted away on the breeze.
I rubbed the crown of my head against her side to comfort her. Yes. It does, doesn't it?
Together, we watched the pair of probably-ducks glide across the pond. Stripey and his bandits had never been so placid. They'd been in constant motion – bantering, laughing, eating, drinking, dancing, attacking travelers, mocking the baron's knights. Crash landing in the Jeks' yard. Saving Taila's life.
Saving mine.
Where was he now? I wondered. What was he now? Had he reincarnated as a duck again? A duck like this one? Could this be Stripey? Unless Flicker took pity on me, we would never know.
"Do you think Ssstripey is okay? He has to be okay, right?" Bobo tore her large, round eyes away from the pond to gaze pleadingly at me.
I'm sure he is, I said, putting more confidence into it than I felt. Maybe he's even a really flashy fellow like that one.
That got a sniffly laugh from Bobo. "He'd hate that. He'd sssay that you can't ambusssh people when they can sssee you coming a mile away."
I cocked my head to a side. Was that actually something Stripey would say? Or just something we thought he might say, based on our fading memories of how he used to speak? I tried to imagine the whistling duck standing next to us, tried to picture what he'd say.
I couldn't.
Well, Bobo had known him for so much longer than I had. I'd take her word for it.
Let's get Floridiana to draw the duck, I suggested. Then when we find Stripey again, we can show him the picture.
"Yeah! That's a good idea! Let's!"
Floridiana, naturally, was ecstatic over discovering a new type of duck. Humming to herself, she sat on the grass and sketched, jotting down the colors and drawing little arrows to point to different patches on the body. As I watched, I thought that it was a shame she didn't have colored inks. Maybe we could get her some in Lychee Grove. It was such a prosperous city that surely someone had to sell colored inks there.
And I even knew whom to ask for stationery recommendations.
"Halt! Who goeth there? State thy name and business!"
Half a night's wagon ride from the city of Lychee Grove, our luck ran out. Our journey, which had gone so smoothly up until that point, was interrupted by a band of armed humans and spirits. Dusty whinnied and tried to rear, and while Floridiana was hauling on the reins to stop him from striking them with his hooves, I squinted at the guards. They were all sporting green tunics and badges engraved with a sprig of round fruits. Since when had the Lady of the Lychee Tree posted night patrols?
The wagon lurched and jolted as the battle between Floridiana and Dusty continued.
Metallic sounds rang out, and I found myself staring down a good dozen pointy tips. Half the guards were aiming crossbows loaded with multiple bolts at us. More than one bolt on one crossbow just seemed excessive.
"Wait! Wait! Don't shoot!" Floridiana was yelling. "Dusty, curse it all, calm down!"
"Halt, or we shoot!" shouted the guard who seemed to be their leader. He raised a scaly club – oh, that was his tail. He was a pangolin.
Very slowly, I hopped backwards on the seat until I could drop into the wagon bed. Unnoticed on the side, Bobo's long form was sliding into the undergrowth.
"Dusty! Cut it out! Are you a spirit or a mindless beast? Get a hold of yourself before you get us all killed!"
At last, Dusty stopped lunging at the guards, although he stamped his hooves and snorted furiously. Breathing hard, Floridiana spanked his back with the reins before she looked back at the pangolin leader.
"Sir, I apologize for my companion's poor behavior," she said, switching to an unctuous tone. "He is newly awakened and does not yet understand the ways of civilized people."
Appeals to the spirit's paternal nature, however, proved unsuccessful. "State thy name and business…mage."
He must have spotted the seal that hung from Floridiana's belt.
"Of course, sir! I am but a simple traveling mage. Word of the glories of the city of Lychee Grove have traveled far and wide, reaching even my humble ears, and I wished to witness them for myself."
"What carriest thou in thy wagon?"
After spending time back at Honeysuckle Croft, I'd forgotten how jarring the speech in Lychee Grove sounded. Floridiana's eyes, on the other hand, lit up.
"Merely supplies for the road, sir. Would you like to take a look?"
I couldn't see what happened next, but heavy, booted footsteps approached. A human guard jumped into the wagon bed and began to ransack Floridiana's trunk.
With his poor human night vision, he missed me and nearly trampled me. I screeched.
"What's this?"
A meaty, hairy hand reached for me. I shot between his fingers and streaked into the nearest tree. More crossbows swung up to follow me. Now that I had a better view of the guards, something felt off about them. What was it…?
Floridiana was spinning a desperate tale about how she had rescued a sparrow fledgling that had fallen out of its nest and handfed it and raised it so now it followed her everywhere. The pangolin leader scowled but didn't order his guards to shoot me, so her storytelling was probably working.
What was off about the guards anyway? Leaning over the branch, I cocked my head and scrutinized them. They were dressed unmistakably as guards, with metal badges that glinted on the leather armor over their green tunics – the badges! The lychee sprigs etched on them. They were too crude. I'd seen the coins minted in Lychee Grove; I knew what the craftsmen there were capable of. And the green of the tunics. It wasn't the bright, leaf-green hue that I'd seen on the Lychee Grove Earth Court retainers. It was duller, darker.
Whoever these people were, they didn't answer to the Lady of the Lychee Tree.
All of a sudden, the pangolin leader's hand flashed out. He wrenched the seal off Floridiana's belt and dropped it into his pocket. "Come. We will escort thee to the city."
Floridiana yelped and stretched out her own hand before she thought better of it. She dipped her head in a convincingly grateful nod. "I appreciate it, sir."
Under the watchful eyes of the not-guards, the wagon wheels creaked and began to rotate. Floridiana sat straight as a spear, while Dusty placed each hoof with care.
Now what should I do? Should I fly down and warn them that these weren't real Lychee Grove guards? But what difference would that make? It wasn't like Floridiana and Dusty could win in a fight, especially if she couldn't use magic.
"Ssshould we go down? It looks like everything's okay now, doesssn't it?"
At the whisper in my ear, I jumped. Bobo had appeared next to me, wrapped round and round the branch, dangling upside down and following the motion of the wagon with her head.
No, something's wrong. Those aren't real guards.
"They're not? Who are they?"
I don't know.
"Are they bandits?" She sounded almost hopeful.
I doubted it, not with that gear, but even if they were bandits, they weren't the nice kind like Stripey's duck demons. (Although travelers robbed by the ducks probably didn't think they were nice….)
I don't know. Don't you think they're too well equipped for bandits?
"Oh no! We have to sssave them!"
Yes…but for now, let's follow them. Don't let the pangolins hear you.
Keeping a safe distance, we tailed them, letting the sounds of the nighttime forest cover the rustling of her scales and my feathers. Several minutes later, a yellow glow lit the trees, and we found ourselves on the edge of a camp.
A camp full of humans and spirits who were wearing leather armor and tunics trimmed in reddish-purple. Stars and demons, if these were bandits, then they were the most organized bandits I'd seen!
No. They weren't bandits. They were soldiers.
Dusty neighed in alarm, and Floridiana protested, "What's going on? This isn't the city. Where have you brought us? What are you going to do to us?"
The pangolin leader made a hand signal, and a dozen soldiers surrounded the wagon.
"Stay here and be quiet," he ordered. "We can't have you warning the Lady of the Lychee Tree."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Arif, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ohohoho.
And it seems we have a rebellion going on. This, I think, shall prove interesting.
It's Serica, so things can always get worse! But really, what are crises but a chance for you to shine...?
It maaaaaay be a Freudian slip...? Piri's going to regret that promise though.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Setting up a brick joke that far in advance? I look forward to it.
Setting up a brick joke that far in advance? I look forward to it.
Hopefully people will still remember it by the time we come back to it!
Chapter 100: Invasion
Chapter 100: Invasion
"Shh, shh, we've been through worse," Floridiana murmured to Dusty.
She ran her hand over his neck, feeling his skin twitch and then settle under her palm, the way she had so many times in the past, before he awakened and she turned into a schoolteacher. A schoolteacher, of all things.
As if seconding her disbelief, the horse blew out a long snort.
"We'll be fine, we'll be fine," she chanted, the way she used to when it was just the two of them (and sometimes a North Serican cat spy) on the road. Together, they'd faced down bandits, hostile guards, guards who moonlighted as bandits, demons, and everything in between. "We'll be just fine, Dusty."
Unlike those past times, though, her horse could talk back now. "How do you know we'll be fine? Have we ever been conscripted by a freaking army?"
Did the taskforce and that not-even-half-baked, last-minute plan to fight Lord Silurus count? "Yes, in fact. And we made it out just fine. We haven't even been conscripted this time, just…temporarily detained. We'll be fine. You'll see."
How long had it been since the ambush? It felt like forever, but then again, time moved in strange ways when you were surrounded by soldiers who could shoot you or stab you or bash in your skull whenever they pleased. That pangolin raiding party leader had even taken her seal. Just ripped it off her belt and walked away, tossing it up and down in his hand as he left.
He claimed he'd return it "after it's over," but without her seal, she felt naked. Without her seal, she couldn't do anything. Without her seal, she was just another weak, ordinary, middle-aged human woman. "We've been through worse," she kept telling Dusty, but she knew they hadn't.
For one thing, they'd never been betrayed by a demon before. Why and for what, she had no idea, but there was no doubt in her mind that The Demon had led them straight into the ambush.
Pawing at the ground, Dusty asked, "Where's Bobo? Where's Rosie?"
"Shh!" Floridiana darted a glance around them, but the soldiers were busy checking their weapons or listening to reports from scouts. Hardly moving her lips, she whispered, "I'm sure they're getting help. We'll get out of this soon enough, you'll see."
"I don't like it, I don't like it." His eyes rolled in their sockets, and he tried to rear again.
She grabbed his reins and dragged him down. "Maybe you don't remember, 'cause it was before you awakened, but we've faced bandits and demons on the road before. Just because there are more of them this time doesn't change a thing."
"Oy! Keep it down!" snapped a soldier.
"Sorry, I'm sorry, sir," she apologized. Moving closer to Dusty, she stroked his nose. "We've seen worse, we've been through worse, and I've gotten us out of it every time. When have I failed you? We'll get out of it this time too, I promise."
In the very worst case scenario, she'd offer her services to the army as a mage. Whatever they were up to here, a little magical assistance never hurt.
"Rosssie, Rosssie, we have to sssave them!" Bobo gasped, so loudly that I was sure the pangolins would hear her.
Shh! They have good hearing!
"But we have to do sssomething," she hissed in a lower voice.
I know! You don't have to tell me that!
At the foot of our tree, Floridiana seemed to be taking her captivity with surprising calm. She unhitched Dusty from the wagon, stroked his neck, and spoke to him in a low, soothing tone. I caught bits and pieces of it: "Shh, shh, it'll be fine," and "We've done this before, remember?" and "We'll get through it all right." I'd known that the life of a travelling mage must be full of bandits and demons, but I hadn't realized until this moment just how dangerous it was. Good thing I'd twisted her arm into settling down in the Claymouth Barony.
If only I'd forbidden her from coming south with Bobo and me! What had possessed me to agree? Now if she got hurt, it was on my head – or rather, karma total – wasn't it? Sigh. This was what happened when I tried to be nice to people and grant them their heart's desire.
(Never mind the part where having a horse, wagon, and mage had been convenient for me too.)
"Oh, oh! Rosssie! You know people in Lychee Grove, don't you? That perssson who knows the, uh, perssson who knows where Ssstripey is."
Uhhh….
Yeah, no, I was not seeking out Anthea to throw myself on her mercy and beg her to rescue my friends. Not so much because I thought she'd reject me or backstab me (she could try all she wanted, but success was a different story) but, just – no.
Anyway, she was probably with the queen right now. She probably wasn't even in Lychee Grove for me to seek out.
Bobo's mind had already raced on to other rescue options. "Oh! The girl! The new girl you're helping. You sssaid ssshe's very nice, didn't you? Ssshe can help us."
Lodia? Shrinking, timid, touch-me-not-plant-like Lodia? Help us? I cocked my head to the side, trying to picture it.
Huh, actually, it wasn't such a bad idea. As Bobo said, Lodia was a nice girl and would want to help, at least when she wasn't busy sabotaging herself with her own lack of self-confidence.
Yeah. Yeah. This would be a good experience for her. She could accomplish something, build self-esteem, and maybe stop hiding in the house embroidering all the time.
I just had to make sure that her grandmother didn't throw me out. Again.
That's a good idea! Come on, let's orient ourselves so we can figure out how to get to the city.
"Okay!"
Leaving Floridiana and Dusty behind for now, Bobo and I made our way from tree to tree, trying to get away from the camp. Except we kept passing more and more soldiers in their reddish-purple-trimmed uniforms.
This wasn't a simple camp of soldiers, I finally realized. This was an –
"It looks kinda like that rock macaque army, doesssn't it?" Wrapping her tail around a branch, Bobo dangled down like a vine for a better view. "Their uniforms are different, and they're not rock macaques, but…."
She was right.
It was an invasion. Someone was invading Lychee Grove.
I have to warn them. The words fell out of my mouth without passing through my brain.
I stopped flying, appalled at myself. Pick sides in a battle without understanding what the different sides were? What they wanted? Which one had the upper hand, would be more likely to give me what I wanted? This wasn't like me at all!
I could waste time arguing with myself, but deep down, I already knew what I was going to do.
Go back to Floridiana and Dusty and keep them safe, I instructed Bobo. I'll warn the city.
Sparrows weren't nocturnal birds. With my friends by my side, I hadn't noticed how dark and shadowy the forest was. Now, with every rustle I heard, every motion I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye, I expected an owl or snake to lunge out of nowhere and devour me. My heart was thrumming like hummingbird wings. I flew in zigzags, partly because I hoped it would confuse predators, but mostly because I kept jerking and twitching and it threw me off my path.
I was a coward. A coward who wanted to survive. I could admit that much in the privacy of my own head.
There! The Kohs' house! I recognized the shape of the windows, the particular arrangement of stilts that supported the kitchen level. I zipped up to Lodia's bedroom on the third floor, and there she was, sleeping with her back to the window, her long black hair fanned out across her pillow.
Lodia! Wake up!
This time, I didn't bother trying to sound mysterious. I just wanted her awake and alert. But Lodia, as I'd seen before, was a heavy sleeper.
"Mmmmph."
The instant she started to turn over, I took flight. And not a second too soon. Her shoulder whammed into the spot where I'd been.
Lodia! Wake up! I need you to wake up right now!
"Mrrrrrrrgh." A line of drool trailed out a corner of her mouth.
Lo-di-AAA! Wake up! Wake up! An army's coming!
She just groaned, rolled back the other way, and yanked the pillow over her head.
Ugh, at this rate, I was going to wake her grandmother first, and then I was going to either get tossed out the window – or have my neck wrung. In desperation, I took a strand of hair in my beak and yanked.
Wake UP!
"Ow!"
Lodia sat up so suddenly that I tumbled off her back. I righted myself and pumped my wings to fly around and look her in the face.
Her hair was as mussed as Den's mane after a night of partying. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and blinked again.
"Pip? Is that you? What are you doing here? You can't be here, Grandmother will – "
Your grandmother's not going to be able to do anything if you don't listen to me! There's an army! In the forest!
"An…army?"
Yes! An army! And not the Lady of the Lychee Tree's army either.
Finally, she snapped awake and lifted a finger for me to land on. "Whose army? Who attacketh?"
Even through my anxiety, a corner of my mind winced at the antiquated speech. I shoved aside the irrelevant thought. I don't know. They didn't say. But I saw a mix of humans and pangolin spirits.
She chewed on her lower lip, considering. "That doth not narrow it down much…. What colors were they wearing? Did you see their banners?"
I'd glimpsed banners through the leaves, but they'd been furled and I hadn't taken the time to study them. I'd opted to fly here as fast as possible. Maybe that had been the wrong call.
Most of their uniforms had reddish-purple trim. Oh, but some of them were wearing green. They had badges with lychees on them. I think they're pretending to be Lychee Grove guards.
Her jaw tightened. "That's bad. Come, we must tell Grandmother."
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and raced, barefoot, for the door. She stopped when she realized I wasn't following.
"Pip? Aren't you coming?"
She'll listen to you better without me. She'll just get mad again if she sees me.
"She won't." Lodia's tone was uncharacteristically certain. "Grandmother won't waste time getting mad when there's a crisis. Come, Pip. Let us wake her."
Well, I'd need to be there to answer any questions the mage had anyway. So down the hall we rushed, with Lodia calling, "Grandmother! Father! Wake up! There's an army attacking!"
She rapped on one of the bedroom doors. Across the hall, the baby started to wail.
"Father! Father! Wake up!"
She ran to the door at the end of the hall and knocked on it hard.
"Grandmother! Grandmother! Wake up!"
The door flew open. Missa had already flung an embroidered robe over her nightgown.
"What is it?" Her voice was sharp and her eyes clear, not muddled by sleep at all.
Lodia babbled, "There's an army in the forest, some of them are pretending to be our guards, but the rest of them are wearing magenta, Pip came to warn us – "
Missa cut her off with a raised hand. Her gaze moved past her granddaughter's shoulder to me. "Pip. Tell me what you saw."
Even though she'd just been yanked out of a sound sleep and gotten a crisis shoved in her face, she didn't hesitate. Also, as Lodia had predicted, she didn't waste time yelling at me. It was kind of like how the girl stopped dithering when you really needed her to pull herself together.
I approved.
By this time, Rohanus had also come into the hall, and while I summarized what I'd seen, we moved downstairs into the common room. Missa unrolled a map across the table so I could point out where the army was.
"Magenta trim," Rohanus mused. "I can think of two possibilities."
Missa didn't waste time shaking her head or even looking up from the map. "There's only one. It's the Earl of Black Crag. The Queen's uncle."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Arif, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
"Shh, shh, we've been through worse," Floridiana murmured to Dusty.
She ran her hand over his neck, feeling his skin twitch and then settle under her palm, the way she had so many times in the past, before he awakened and she turned into a schoolteacher. A schoolteacher, of all things.
As if seconding her disbelief, the horse blew out a long snort.
"We'll be fine, we'll be fine," she chanted, the way she used to when it was just the two of them (and sometimes a North Serican cat spy) on the road. Together, they'd faced down bandits, hostile guards, guards who moonlighted as bandits, demons, and everything in between. "We'll be just fine, Dusty."
Unlike those past times, though, her horse could talk back now. "How do you know we'll be fine? Have we ever been conscripted by a freaking army?"
Did the taskforce and that not-even-half-baked, last-minute plan to fight Lord Silurus count? "Yes, in fact. And we made it out just fine. We haven't even been conscripted this time, just…temporarily detained. We'll be fine. You'll see."
How long had it been since the ambush? It felt like forever, but then again, time moved in strange ways when you were surrounded by soldiers who could shoot you or stab you or bash in your skull whenever they pleased. That pangolin raiding party leader had even taken her seal. Just ripped it off her belt and walked away, tossing it up and down in his hand as he left.
He claimed he'd return it "after it's over," but without her seal, she felt naked. Without her seal, she couldn't do anything. Without her seal, she was just another weak, ordinary, middle-aged human woman. "We've been through worse," she kept telling Dusty, but she knew they hadn't.
For one thing, they'd never been betrayed by a demon before. Why and for what, she had no idea, but there was no doubt in her mind that The Demon had led them straight into the ambush.
Pawing at the ground, Dusty asked, "Where's Bobo? Where's Rosie?"
"Shh!" Floridiana darted a glance around them, but the soldiers were busy checking their weapons or listening to reports from scouts. Hardly moving her lips, she whispered, "I'm sure they're getting help. We'll get out of this soon enough, you'll see."
"I don't like it, I don't like it." His eyes rolled in their sockets, and he tried to rear again.
She grabbed his reins and dragged him down. "Maybe you don't remember, 'cause it was before you awakened, but we've faced bandits and demons on the road before. Just because there are more of them this time doesn't change a thing."
"Oy! Keep it down!" snapped a soldier.
"Sorry, I'm sorry, sir," she apologized. Moving closer to Dusty, she stroked his nose. "We've seen worse, we've been through worse, and I've gotten us out of it every time. When have I failed you? We'll get out of it this time too, I promise."
In the very worst case scenario, she'd offer her services to the army as a mage. Whatever they were up to here, a little magical assistance never hurt.
"Rosssie, Rosssie, we have to sssave them!" Bobo gasped, so loudly that I was sure the pangolins would hear her.
Shh! They have good hearing!
"But we have to do sssomething," she hissed in a lower voice.
I know! You don't have to tell me that!
At the foot of our tree, Floridiana seemed to be taking her captivity with surprising calm. She unhitched Dusty from the wagon, stroked his neck, and spoke to him in a low, soothing tone. I caught bits and pieces of it: "Shh, shh, it'll be fine," and "We've done this before, remember?" and "We'll get through it all right." I'd known that the life of a travelling mage must be full of bandits and demons, but I hadn't realized until this moment just how dangerous it was. Good thing I'd twisted her arm into settling down in the Claymouth Barony.
If only I'd forbidden her from coming south with Bobo and me! What had possessed me to agree? Now if she got hurt, it was on my head – or rather, karma total – wasn't it? Sigh. This was what happened when I tried to be nice to people and grant them their heart's desire.
(Never mind the part where having a horse, wagon, and mage had been convenient for me too.)
"Oh, oh! Rosssie! You know people in Lychee Grove, don't you? That perssson who knows the, uh, perssson who knows where Ssstripey is."
Uhhh….
Yeah, no, I was not seeking out Anthea to throw myself on her mercy and beg her to rescue my friends. Not so much because I thought she'd reject me or backstab me (she could try all she wanted, but success was a different story) but, just – no.
Anyway, she was probably with the queen right now. She probably wasn't even in Lychee Grove for me to seek out.
Bobo's mind had already raced on to other rescue options. "Oh! The girl! The new girl you're helping. You sssaid ssshe's very nice, didn't you? Ssshe can help us."
Lodia? Shrinking, timid, touch-me-not-plant-like Lodia? Help us? I cocked my head to the side, trying to picture it.
Huh, actually, it wasn't such a bad idea. As Bobo said, Lodia was a nice girl and would want to help, at least when she wasn't busy sabotaging herself with her own lack of self-confidence.
Yeah. Yeah. This would be a good experience for her. She could accomplish something, build self-esteem, and maybe stop hiding in the house embroidering all the time.
I just had to make sure that her grandmother didn't throw me out. Again.
That's a good idea! Come on, let's orient ourselves so we can figure out how to get to the city.
"Okay!"
Leaving Floridiana and Dusty behind for now, Bobo and I made our way from tree to tree, trying to get away from the camp. Except we kept passing more and more soldiers in their reddish-purple-trimmed uniforms.
This wasn't a simple camp of soldiers, I finally realized. This was an –
"It looks kinda like that rock macaque army, doesssn't it?" Wrapping her tail around a branch, Bobo dangled down like a vine for a better view. "Their uniforms are different, and they're not rock macaques, but…."
She was right.
It was an invasion. Someone was invading Lychee Grove.
I have to warn them. The words fell out of my mouth without passing through my brain.
I stopped flying, appalled at myself. Pick sides in a battle without understanding what the different sides were? What they wanted? Which one had the upper hand, would be more likely to give me what I wanted? This wasn't like me at all!
I could waste time arguing with myself, but deep down, I already knew what I was going to do.
Go back to Floridiana and Dusty and keep them safe, I instructed Bobo. I'll warn the city.
Sparrows weren't nocturnal birds. With my friends by my side, I hadn't noticed how dark and shadowy the forest was. Now, with every rustle I heard, every motion I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye, I expected an owl or snake to lunge out of nowhere and devour me. My heart was thrumming like hummingbird wings. I flew in zigzags, partly because I hoped it would confuse predators, but mostly because I kept jerking and twitching and it threw me off my path.
I was a coward. A coward who wanted to survive. I could admit that much in the privacy of my own head.
There! The Kohs' house! I recognized the shape of the windows, the particular arrangement of stilts that supported the kitchen level. I zipped up to Lodia's bedroom on the third floor, and there she was, sleeping with her back to the window, her long black hair fanned out across her pillow.
Lodia! Wake up!
This time, I didn't bother trying to sound mysterious. I just wanted her awake and alert. But Lodia, as I'd seen before, was a heavy sleeper.
"Mmmmph."
The instant she started to turn over, I took flight. And not a second too soon. Her shoulder whammed into the spot where I'd been.
Lodia! Wake up! I need you to wake up right now!
"Mrrrrrrrgh." A line of drool trailed out a corner of her mouth.
Lo-di-AAA! Wake up! Wake up! An army's coming!
She just groaned, rolled back the other way, and yanked the pillow over her head.
Ugh, at this rate, I was going to wake her grandmother first, and then I was going to either get tossed out the window – or have my neck wrung. In desperation, I took a strand of hair in my beak and yanked.
Wake UP!
"Ow!"
Lodia sat up so suddenly that I tumbled off her back. I righted myself and pumped my wings to fly around and look her in the face.
Her hair was as mussed as Den's mane after a night of partying. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and blinked again.
"Pip? Is that you? What are you doing here? You can't be here, Grandmother will – "
Your grandmother's not going to be able to do anything if you don't listen to me! There's an army! In the forest!
"An…army?"
Yes! An army! And not the Lady of the Lychee Tree's army either.
Finally, she snapped awake and lifted a finger for me to land on. "Whose army? Who attacketh?"
Even through my anxiety, a corner of my mind winced at the antiquated speech. I shoved aside the irrelevant thought. I don't know. They didn't say. But I saw a mix of humans and pangolin spirits.
She chewed on her lower lip, considering. "That doth not narrow it down much…. What colors were they wearing? Did you see their banners?"
I'd glimpsed banners through the leaves, but they'd been furled and I hadn't taken the time to study them. I'd opted to fly here as fast as possible. Maybe that had been the wrong call.
Most of their uniforms had reddish-purple trim. Oh, but some of them were wearing green. They had badges with lychees on them. I think they're pretending to be Lychee Grove guards.
Her jaw tightened. "That's bad. Come, we must tell Grandmother."
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and raced, barefoot, for the door. She stopped when she realized I wasn't following.
"Pip? Aren't you coming?"
She'll listen to you better without me. She'll just get mad again if she sees me.
"She won't." Lodia's tone was uncharacteristically certain. "Grandmother won't waste time getting mad when there's a crisis. Come, Pip. Let us wake her."
Well, I'd need to be there to answer any questions the mage had anyway. So down the hall we rushed, with Lodia calling, "Grandmother! Father! Wake up! There's an army attacking!"
She rapped on one of the bedroom doors. Across the hall, the baby started to wail.
"Father! Father! Wake up!"
She ran to the door at the end of the hall and knocked on it hard.
"Grandmother! Grandmother! Wake up!"
The door flew open. Missa had already flung an embroidered robe over her nightgown.
"What is it?" Her voice was sharp and her eyes clear, not muddled by sleep at all.
Lodia babbled, "There's an army in the forest, some of them are pretending to be our guards, but the rest of them are wearing magenta, Pip came to warn us – "
Missa cut her off with a raised hand. Her gaze moved past her granddaughter's shoulder to me. "Pip. Tell me what you saw."
Even though she'd just been yanked out of a sound sleep and gotten a crisis shoved in her face, she didn't hesitate. Also, as Lodia had predicted, she didn't waste time yelling at me. It was kind of like how the girl stopped dithering when you really needed her to pull herself together.
I approved.
By this time, Rohanus had also come into the hall, and while I summarized what I'd seen, we moved downstairs into the common room. Missa unrolled a map across the table so I could point out where the army was.
"Magenta trim," Rohanus mused. "I can think of two possibilities."
Missa didn't waste time shaking her head or even looking up from the map. "There's only one. It's the Earl of Black Crag. The Queen's uncle."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Arif, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, Sebastian, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Piri will never dislodge this belief from Floridania's head, not in a thousand lifetimes.