rohesia & holt iv.

Rohesia

It isn't as much an answer as he may have hoped for, but Rohesia's father can see that Holt is not likely to tell him more. He returns to his ale and stew, as does his child, and soon enough both are soporific with travel, with food, with beer. They trudge upstairs with Holt to the little alcove of a room behind its curtain, with the single narrow bed. Rohesia's father lets her take that bed, more of a cot really, and she falls asleep with Holt's cloak still over her, not even realizing it. Her father takes off his own cloak, bundling it up as a pillow as he lays out on the floor beside her.

They both sleep heavily, worn from their day, from what they have lost, from what is still to come. Rohesia's father snores mildly, but so do people downstairs and in nearby rooms. Somewhere in the inn, a dog is panting in its sleep.

--

In the morning, it's Rohesia's father who fetches some water for them to splash on their faces, their necks. Rohesia, for her part, approaches Holt, unclasping his cloak.

"I am sorry," she says quietly, trying to give it back to him. "I was very tired. I did not mean to abuse your kindness."

Holt

Gradually the inn quiets around them. The heavy curtain takes the edge off the noise, even if they do not have a true room to call their own. With the girl on the bed, her father on the floor, and Holt sitting with his back to the wall -- still watchful -- they pass the night. Even the superhuman must sleep, though, and sometime in the small hours Holt does, indeed, drift off.

Wakes with a start when the father goes to fetch water. At once his eyes are open, wary, but it is only the (former) stableman. As he steps out, Holt rises to his feet, stretching to rid his body of stiffness.

He looks at the cloak when it is offered like it is a foreign thing. Shakes his head gruffly, "You cannot abuse what was given freely. Keep the cloak." And now, perhaps with just the faintest hint of humor, "It becomes you.

"Finish readying yourselves. I will buy provisions from the innkeep and go to fetch the horse. Meet me outside when you are both ready. And Rohesia," catching her eye, "we should talk. Later."

Rohesia

Humor or not, Rohesia's cheeks flush slightly. She looks down, steps away, unfurling the cloak again, settling it over her shoulders, not looking at him anymore.

Her father returns, and Holt says he'll buy food. He also says he wants to talk to Rohesia, and his cheeks flush too, for a different reason, but he doesn't throw down a glove. Something lingers in him, some primal terror, that he cannot quite seem to shake.

There is that. And there is also the reality that everyone they've ever known is dead or scattered. And he has an unmarried daughter. And his plans for her have all been dashed.

Rohesia's father is not a brave man. Nor is he educated. But he is patient. And he is not a fool.

Rohesia

They leave the inn. Rohesia walks, they all walk, the yearling behind them with no need a rope to guide or secure it. She plucks berries when she sees them, sharing them in some cases, putting them away to eat later. She has sharp eyes for things: a spot of bright color in the woods regularly sends her darting briefly off the path they're on, because she isn't about to let something useful go to waste.

There are stops, short ones, to rest or take water, refill skins at a creek. After a while, Rohesia's father all but forces her to climb up on the yearling for a while and let it carry her. He seems to have the endurance of one of his charges, while her pace was flagging under her long skirts and shoes that were not made for traveling.

She sings. While she's riding, no longer winded. It's nothing more than little folk songs -- some of which are humorous, some of which tell stories, some of which are just praise of fields and lands she's never seen -- that she's heard at home or from travelers. She has a pretty voice, if a simple one, and she sings quietly enough that it doesn't carry far. It passes the time.

Holt

The second day, with more distance between them and the chaos of the castle, Holt is more settled; even a little more conversant. He asks the names of a song or two. He expresses his approval of the yearling that has borne them this far. He even tells them a little of his past -- that he was born far from here, that he has not had a true home in years -- though the details are sparse, and questions he doesn't want to answer are met with a stony silence.

He partakes of the berries Rohesia finds, too, and from time to time passes out more bread and hard cheese from the pack he'd refilled this morning. Eventually, to help pass the time, he begins to tell stories: fantastical fables full of monsters and monster-slayers, bearing little resemblance to reality.

From morning to noon they walk, and from noon to night again. When the sun has set and father and daughter look sufficiently weary, he suggests that they make camp, for there is no handy inn tonight. And so they leave the path and strike out into the forest, where Holt's unerring senses soon uncover a clearing, a brook. There, using their cloaks and some stout branches, he pitches a rudimentary tent. The father he sets the gathering firewood; the daughter to making a fire. He himself disappears into the woods for some time, returning with a pair of scrawny hares that he gives no explanation for. It is meat, though, a rare and delicious treat.

As the hares turn on a spit, Holt rises from the fireside. "Rohesia," he says, and from the tone of his voice she already knows he'll ask to speak to her -- "Will you accompany me?"

Rohesia

At first, Rohesia's cheeks color every time Holt speaks to her. It's different than the brewer's sons or soldiers walking through: she knew she was being teased, and ignored them. Being spoken to like a person is still fresh for her, bewildering in a way. It isn't that her father does not dote on her -- he visibly does -- but he rarely speaks at all.

After a little while, though, she relaxes into the company. She tells him there is another part to one song, if he wants to learn: it is meant to be sung together with the first part. She tells him the yearling is only carrying them this far because he's enchanted it, a wry little smirk behind the words. She asks him if he had a family, before he became a traveler. Maybe that is one of the stony silences.

Her throat tires from song and so she listens to stories from the yearling's back, and for a while in the afternoon she descends, walks again with them, chewing on some of the bread Holt shares. She and her father argue, quietly and tenderly, about food she is trying to share with him, food he insists she eats. She says she doesn't need it, she isn't hungry, that he is a man and he has to eat more. She insists she rode today. He keeps telling her that old men don't need to eat as much, look at him, he is fat. The truth is that Rohesia is always hungry and that her father is nothing close to fat, but this is likely why they keep trying to feed each other.

Rohesia wins through sheer stubbornness. She agrees to carry the morsels she wanted to give him, but refuses to eat them, staring forward and walking resolutely, pointedly. She softens only when her father mutters about what a willful girl she is and finally takes the goddamn cheese she wanted him to have. Stuffs it in his mouth with a look at her that says There. Happy?

And she smiles, warmly, and there's an answering ache of tenderness in her father's expression that does not take shape in words.

Then she asks Holt if he can tell them another story.

--

At the brook, they remove their cloaks, at least for now. Holt creates a shelter out of nothing, which Rohesia marvels at, especially when her father turns out to know a thing or two about makeshift shelters, too. She has never been this far from the bailey, but she does know how to make a fire. She does so efficiently, using Holt's flint, and by the time he returns from his hunt, the fire is bright and warm, crackling right along. Sitting near it, she doesn't even miss the cloak despite the twilight turning to night around them.

It turns out that all three of them know how to skin hares, but Rohesia's father won't let Holt do it: he did the hunting. So father and daughter bloody their hands a bit, spike the little creatures on spits, and Rohesia begins to cook them. They have only just found the right placement, the right rhythm, when she hears her name.

Her hair is loose, and there is rabbit blood under her fingernails. She blinks once at him, careful, and then looks at her father. Her father is staring at Holt, and his stare is not as direct as it would be for a brewer's son, or even a soldier. But that stare needs no words, either. He looks away, seeing his daughter looking at him, and just grunts in response.

That means yes. So she rises, brushing off her dress, and follows Holt.

At the brook nearby, which she finds by moonlight, she sits on the grass and -- quite gingerly -- removes her little shoes, setting them to the side. There are blisters on her feet, red places where her skin has been rubbed almost raw. She gasps a little when she sets them in the cold, quickly-moving water, letting the edge of her skirts get wet rather than lift her hems and reveal her ankles. She puts her hands in the water too, rubbing gently at sore spots.

Holt

Two days on the road with these people, and Holt relents this much: when he is stared at, when his request is met with uncertainty and not-injust suspicion, he offers a quiet assurance:

"I would not dishonor my kin."

And then the girl is rising, and the wolf is turning, leading the way a little distance away, and by the brook's edge -- out of earshot but not out of sight. If the father wants to watch, he can. If he wants to listen in: he can't.

For a moment, perhaps searching out a way to begin, Holt says little. He crouches by the brookside. He picks up a few smooth stones, shifts them in his palms. Stands and, without good reason, hands them to Rohesia.

"Your father is a man," he says, which is perhaps the most absurd thing he's ever said to her. Yet this is what he means: "Your mother was, however, likely not a woman but a wolf like me. That is why you are what you are, half-wolf, touched with the changing blood but not fully of it.

"I am taking you to a Caern. It is a ... sacred place, where the world of spirit lies close to the world of man. It is our duty to protect both, you see: the world of spirit and the world of man... though some amongst my people would argue against the latter. Let that not concern you now; there will be time for you to learn all later, if you so choose. Yet that is precisely what I must speak of to you.

"Only those of changing blood -- half or full -- are allowed to set foot within a Caern. Only those of changing blood are permitted to know all I am telling you now. Thus I fear you may be caught between worlds so long as you remain by your father's side, always hiding certain things from your father, never quite fully embraced by your mother's people."

Rohesia

There is something about that word that strikes at Rohesia's father. Kin. They are not blood, they are not community, they are strangers, and yet he recognizes something in it. Something of her. He just gives a terse nod, and goes back to cooking the hares.

Rohesia smiles at the stones. She lifts her hands from the water, cold droplets running down her wrists and spotting the lap of her dress, taking them in her palms as Holt hands them down. It doesn't matter that they're just river-rocks, worth smooth but otherwise completely unremarkable, and it doesn't matter that they were just a few inches from her own touch. She seems to like having them given to her. It seems to make her happy: this simple, meaningless thing.

But he gets very serious -- or remains quite serious -- and she tumbles the soft-edged stones in her palms, playing idly with them while he talks. She is looking up at him, sitting while he stands, listening. She has little choice to believe him now: she saw what he became, and he knew some of the darkest little truths of her heart without her saying them. And there is that little feeling she has, that one unhooked from her momentary blushes or the gratitude for bringing her father safely to her or getting her away from a blood-drinker, that feeling that keeps pushing her to believe him at his word, trust him enough to sleep while he is near, walk into the dark woods with him when she knows he could become a monster and kill her, kill her father, and nothing would stop him.

Her brows draw together instantly when he says that only those with the blood can enter the caern. She knows that means her father cannot. She knows -- knew by instinct, almost -- that he mustn't know what Holt is, too.

She is quiet then, her hands calming around the stones, her eyes falling to them.

"I am all he has. And I do not know these people." She looks up at him again. "Can we not go somewhere else? Somewhere my father can find work again?"

Holt

Her simple pleasure at the unremarkable gift of river-stones pangs something in him; set some string vibrating within him that he didn't know he had. He looks away, uncertain of the feeling, uncertain of the moment.

So often, a small silence before he answers, as though he considers and calculates each response on the fly. Another one before this answer:

"You could," reluctant. "But it would ... give me peace to know you were better warded and guarded than you have been."

Rohesia

"Then you could stay with us," she says, with a small shrug. "You have no home now. You could have one, then. And kill any blood-drinkers that came."

She smiles.

She gives a simple answer, a simple suggestion, but something in that smile glints. She knows better. It's almost as if she wants him to argue. Tell her why not.

Holt

The answer is so obvious, and yet when she speaks it aloud his first reaction is to laugh, as though it were an impossibility.

Then he sobers. Thinks of it seriously, weighs it, measures it.

"Your father might object."

Rohesia

He laughs. And she laughs, because she thinks he got her joke. That she is only suggesting something that she -- in her great wisdom, having known him for two days and two nights -- is certain he would never want, never accept.

--

Back at the fire, her father looks up, hearing two very different tones of laughter from his daughter and the stranger. No hushed, secretive giggles, no note of nervous alarm in his child's voice. Just Holt's lower, almost dismissive noise that he can barely hear at this distance. Just Rohesia's brighter, cleaner louder expression.

He watches them, stirring the fire and turning the spit, as he watches them go back to talking. Smiles to himself.

--

Then he seems to take it seriously. Thinks on it.

Rohesia doesn't realize this, not fully, and she's back to playing with the little river-stones, listening to them clack and thunk against one another between her palms. She is used to having work to do with her hands: mending, cooking, any number of chores. This is the most lazy she's ever been, despite all the walking. It feels rather nice, not working. Dipping her feet in a stream, having freshly hunted meat brought to her, even drinking ale with her meal last night. This is also the most exciting her life has ever been. Traveling. Going to a traveler's inn. Sleeping in a bed not her own. Riding a horse for miles and miles, as if she were a lady.

Holt answers her. She blinks and looks at him, then her mouth twists in an odd little smile. She shakes her head, curious. "Why?" She could leave it at that, but she does not. "You saved us both. Me from Ana's bewitchment. He from almost certain death. You have fed us and guarded us and given us shelter. All for nothing but your honor. So tell me this, Holt: why would he object to giving you shelter and sharing food with you, in return?"

A brief flicker of that smirk of hers.

"Do you say my father is a man of lesser honor than your own?"

Holt

"No," immediately, that. "No, of course not. From what little I have seen, your father is an honorable man who has done right by his daughter. Raised you well. It is only -- he might wonder. What I have to gain from it. What I want." Beat, and then he spells it out as plainly as he can: "From you."

Rohesia

It's obvious that Rohesia is brighter than the average girl being raised next to the stable. It's not education: she can neither read nor write, though the desire to learn both has pained her when she's seen others who could. It's her spark of curiosity, of interest in the world and its inhabitants, that makes her eyes so sharp.

And her sense of humor, to be quite honest: rarely if ever seen by those she grew up with, who would think her shy only because... well, she was. Always taking care of her father, never wanting to participate in bawdy jokes or the behind-the-barn rutting the smith's daughters seemed to crave. She never fit with them, never understood them, and so she kept to herself. Only her father, really -- and now, Holt -- has ever gotten close enough to see that mercurial intelligence or that ready amusement.

Still: she blushes as easily as she laughs. Moreso. Quite suddenly, the pink rising up from her throat and over her cheeks, making her skin warm.

But here is the other secret gift she has from her mother, from her people, from her blood: sometimes she has great courage. Recall her flying at him, beating at his chest because she thought he might have harmed her father. Even when she had seen what he was, what he could do. She is just a girl, and an innocent one, but she is more like those smooth river-stones in her hands than she is like a flower, curling in on itself at night.

Night only seems to make her braver.

"Would he be wrong?" she asks, very quiet, but unwavering.

...mostly.

Holt

It catches him off guard, her frankness, her courage. His eyes flick sideways to her. Then, after a beat, he faces her fully, brave himself now.

"No. He would not."

Rohesia

In another life, in lifetimes to come, that sort of confession might have led to a number of things. A kiss, perhaps. A verbal expression of assent or dismay. But in this lifetime, with this girl, there is only a deepening of the flush in her cheeks, the warmth in the center of her chest. Her shoulders lift up and tighten slightly for a moment, but none of this is her shyness or even her innocence. The little smile that accompanies her looking away, looking down at her lap, is one of a secret, gentle pleasure.

She says nothing. The brook at their feet babbles along, rushing over rocks and between banks. The fire behind them at some distance crackles, and bits of fat on the hares bubble and pop, the scent of cooked meat wafting towards them. The stones in her hands clack softly again as she passes them from one palm to another.

Eventually she speaks, quite softly, only to say:

"My feet are cold now." By the time the words have left her lips she's drawn those sore, blistered toes of hers out of the brook, water dripping smoothly off. She doesn't dry them on her apron or slip back into her shoes, but picks them up in one hand as she gets up, bare feet on the grass. Now they are both standing, and she seems as if she means to scurry back to the fire, to her father, but before she does:

she faces him. And though she has put the other little river-rocks he handed to her in her pouch, like precious things, she has one still at hand: a flatter, smooth, smaller one, as dark grey as his fur in any of his other shapes. She hands that one back to him: presses it gently into his palm. It is as daring a touch as she is yet capable of, ready for.

Rohesia, still wearing that little smile, walks back across the grass to their makeshift tent, to the warmth of the fire, to their dinner, to her father. She sits beside him, and his eyebrows lift at her smile, which makes her redden, but he knows full well that she is untouched, uncorrupted, unharmed. He glances at Holt when Holt returns as well, nodding to him. And, perhaps in a show of magnanimity, or gratitude, or who knows what, he removes one of the spits with the hares and leans over to hand it to Holt whole.

Holt

Her shyness makes him oddly shy, too; makes him feel as though he should look away, give her the privacy of the moment and her emotions. Yet that secret little smile -- even the way her eyes cast aside -- it's hard to look away from. He allows himself just a moment's longer regard, which in and of itself is a rare pleasure all its own.

Then: the brook, the rocks, the trees swaying in the night breeze, the stars overhead. He looks at all these things, and he thinks to himself of all the things he could show her, teach her, the places he could take her, the horizons he could take her across. Her world is so much smaller than her intellect deserves.

And her feet are cold now. And he laughs to himself while she stands, while she picks up her shoes. Gives him a stone. He takes it in his palm, dry now. Their fingers graze. He feels it in his bones.

"Go on back to the fire," he says softly. "I'll follow soon."

And so he does: a moment or two behind her, taking one of the hares from her father as he joins them. Joins them.