Notes: Picking up the plottiness after this, we're almost there!
Title: Interlude: Ticking Clocks Pt. One
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Three Days Out
“We’ve no room for another at this point.”
“Filian, come now.”
“I’m serious!” The lanky Healer paced back and forth in the small amount of fireside he’d been allotted, all of the representatives of the Thread come together late that night to discuss the next part of their route, as they always did. And as usual, whenever Filian was part of their number, the discussion revolved around scarcity. Of resources, of time, of his own sanity. He was the worst person the Temple of Bayd could have sent to represent them, as far as Wynne was concerned.
But then, they rarely remembered to ask for her input.
“We’ve ten initiates already. Ten! And only three of us to take them on!”
“Four,” Trew, a half-troll Druid from the northern mountains, grunted taciturnly. He was smaller than his trollish kin, but just as sparing with his words. “If Robb would bother.”
Five, Wynne thought about saying, but in the end she didn’t bother. Alissa would steer them back on track.
Eventually.
Robb, their resident Bard for this season, strummed a chord on his pear-shaped, five-stringed lute. The sound was pleasing, the hand that made it smooth and elegant. Robb was as sleek and handsome as any Bard could hope to be, but with even less motivation than most of them walked around with. And that was saying something, as far as Wynne was concerned. “It’s not my fault none of the tykes show the slightest hint of musical ability,” Robb said carelessly.
“There have been several excellent singers that—”
“Holy Razomme doesn’t need a choir to sing her praises,” Robb interjected. “She needs pious and loyal musicians who can master every aspect of how music touches the soul of the beholder. No one has been competent enough to consider on her behalf.”
“You haven’t exactly given many of them a fair chance.” Alissa finally looked up from where she’d been writing in her latest grimoire, monocle making one of her eyes appear enormous. “Your auditions last less than a minute apiece on average.”
Robb smiled at her. The expression was somehow both charming and slightly pointed at the same time. “Alissa, darling. Are you monitoring me so closely because of a hidden interest in my unworthy self?”
As always when Robb flirted with her, Alissa made a face like she wanted to vomit. Everyone knew that sort of attention bothered her immensely, but Robb just had to keep pushing it. “Not in the slightest. I’m keeping statistics on our practices so that I can compare them to previous Threads.”
Trew huffed and scooped up a spoonful of his mushroom stew. Next to him, his stag companion nudged him with one enormous, seven-point antler until he put the bowl down for the beast to help himself from. “The High Priest of the Pantheon in Galenish only wants that so he can try to justify givin’ us even fewer funds next year.”
Alissa shrugged. “It’s my responsibility to keep the records regardless.” She frowned. “Filian has a point, though. We’re on the verge of being overextended already, and we’ve two towns left to go.”
“Garrison doesn’t really count,” Filian said immediately. “Anyone we find there we can remand to the custody of the local temple. They have representatives of every denomination there, and our recommendation carries enough weight to give a potential initiate a leg up, at least. Lollop is the problem.” His voice took on a bit of a whine. “Can’t we just go around it?”
It would be highly out of the ordinary to skip a town on their route, but frankly this had been one of the least enjoyable Threads Wynne had ever participated in. She’d long considered leading their caravan one of the highlights of her year, but this trip was straining her goodwill in a way she’d never experienced before. Everyone had a shorter temper, and even the joy of the children who’d been chosen had worn away faster than usual as they wound their way across the countryside. It should have been fun, but more and more it simply felt like another chore.
Perhaps I’m simply getting too old for this. Maybe we should skip Lollop.
“We can’t skip Lollop!”
Everyone turned and stared at Robb, who stared right back, shameless in the wake of his outburst. “Our duty requires us to follow the official route,” he said. “We can’t abandon it simply because we’re a bit strapped. It would be negligence.”
Filian gripped the edges of his sleeves and pulled disconsolately. “Why do you care? You haven’t even found an initiate yet! Odds are good you won’t find one there either, so why—”
“And what will happen if we avoid Lollop and then get audited at the end of this?”
Ah. Good point. Wynne was a bit abashed she hadn’t thought of that. The threat of an Imperial audit was almost a given these days, considering how money-pinching they were being. If they skipped a town, they’d be required to pay back some of their already meager funds. They were getting a bit tight on supplies, but…
“We’ll take our normal path,” Wynne said, effectively shutting everyone else up. They couldn’t argue with her final decision; she was the Guide, after all. “With a stop in Lollop. The Gods don’t give us more than we can handle.”
Robb smiled at her, his pale, shining eyes reflecting the campfire flames almost as brightly as a mirror. “As you say, Wynne. Just as you say.”
One day out
Pa was yelling again. Rickie liked it better when Pa was quiet, because it meant he could walk across the middle of the floor without getting something thrown at him or being shouted at for being in the way. Rickie had learned to only ever walk across the middle of the room when Pa was asleep, or at the bar, or if Baby Davey needed someone to protect him.
“—keep wasting your time with that bastard Emblic, he’s no good—”
“Pa, he paid you in gold for my time! I still owe him a week, I can’t walk off for no good reason!”
“Even more suspicious! What kind of man pays for a useless village girl like you for so long, eh? Are you bedding him, then?”
“No, Pa!”
Last week, Baby Davey was working on crawling, and he decided to crawl across the middle of the floor while Mama was at the oven and Pa was asleep in his chair. Rickie had sat down in the shadows on the side of the fireplace and whispered to him that he was a good baby and held his arms out to beckon him close, but he’d knocked over the poker when he reached out toward Davey, and Pa had woken up. He’d seen Baby Davey and thought he’d made the noise and been real mad, and he’d grabbed the poker and Mama had screamed but she was too far away to help. So Rickie had crawled over to Baby Davey and covered him up himself before the poker could hit him, because Davey was just a baby.
It had hurt, but Rickie could take one hit. The next one hurt worse, but then Mama had been there, scooping both of them up and putting them in Millie’s arms and sending them all outside while Pa raged, and Rickie had left Davey with Millie and run into the forest, and that had been the first time Esme found Rickie crying.
Esme didn’t ask him what he’d broken or yell at him for running away, she just curled her long, furry body around his and licked the side of his face, then purred in his ear, “What mends the cracks in bone and sinew alike? Time.” All of a sudden Rickie’s back had stopped hurting, and the hitch in his breathing evened out, and then he was nothing but warm and tired and happy in Esme’s embrace.
“Esme,” he’d whispered, wrapping his arms around her neck and nuzzling into her coat. She licked him again, her tongue somehow both gentle and rough on his skin.
“Yes, cub?”
“You found me.”
Esme laughed. “I always find you, little cub.”
Yes, she did. Rickie looked up at Esme, at her eyes that shined like emeralds and her stern, human face that held a kitty cat’s tongue, and the many fangs in her smiling mouth, and his heart filled with love for her. She was as dear to him as Mama, as Baby Davey, as Letty. “Esme,” Rickie told her, “you’re my best friend.”
Esme went still for a moment, then bent her head so that it rested on top of his. “I am as ancient as the deserts, old enough to remember grains of sand when they were still rocks,” she murmured. “I am the Shayin, the Glorious Burning Desert Star, mistress of the oases and prowler along the sacred path. I am a power in this world, and I have learned at my peril what it means to have friends. And you,” she turned and kissed the top of his head, “are only the second person ever bold enough to befriend me.
“You are as my own dear cub, Rickie, and I shall ensure no harm touches you from this day forward.”
“Mm.” He rubbed his face on her shoulder. “Okay.”
Esme had just laughed again.
Pa was still yelling at Letty. He yelled at her a lot, more than anyone else. He never yelled at Rickie anymore; he barely even noticed he was there. Rickie liked that. He wished he could make Letty invisible too.
“Tomorrow’s your last day in that man’s company,” Pa announced, shaking one of his thick fingers in Letty’s face. “The last one, you hear me? I won’t have you be unsellable because no one trusts your maidenhead to be intact.”
Letty’s voice broke. “I’m not—Pa, I’m not for sale. I’m—I’ll keep helping you and Ma with the rabbits, and keep the house up, and look after the other kids, and—”
“For now,” Pa said menacingly. “Better work hard here, girl, or I’ll start asking about bride prices and I won’t be choosy about it. Understand?”
Rickie watched Letty shrink in on herself. “I understand.”
“Good.” Pa tossed his cup at her, sneering when she almost fumbled it. “Take the rest of these brats with you to watch that spectacle tomorrow. Your ma has a lot to do here, and it’ll be easier with everyone out from underfoot.”
“Yes, Pa.”
“I’m off to the pub.” He finally left, and Rickie watched his biggest sister sink down to the floor, face desolate, eyes brimming with tears.
He went over to her and climbed into her lap, wrapped his arms around her neck, and said, “Don’t worry. Esme will help you, too.”
Letty just cried louder.
Huh. Rickie would just have to convince Esme to show her.
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