Vassal

by Sterling D'Este

  The grin disappeared from Delyth’s face. “They just left you alone? For days? With a broken wrist?”

  Gods, that must have been painful. The more the priestess heard about these masters, the less she liked them. They had abandoned Alphonse and the Cabot man both in her story from earlier.

  The trainers at the temple, for all their faults, had never left their students in such precarious positions. When Delyth had her own wrist broken, they had sent her to have it healed immediately.

  ❀

  “They say you can study and study and study, but at some point, you have to take that theory and put it into practice.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, seemingly not all that upset about her upbringing.

  She had learned how to heal, after all.

  And she could do it in even the most strenuous of circumstances. Perhaps that would not be true if she had been coddled or not given opportunities to fail so horribly.

  “Delyth,” Alphonse started, placing her hand on the warrior’s leg, “I am very sorry about last night. I— I suppose, having grown up in such an intensely competitive manner, I took wooing you more… studiously than I should have. I see how that could be...unattractive or unappealing.” And all she wanted was to clear the air between them. Fix whatever she had ruined.

  If such a thing was possible.

  Delyth covered Alphonse’s hand with her own. “Nothing about you is unattractive or unappealing.”

  She raised the healer’s hand to her lips and kissed it gently before moving it back to her leg. “I don’t think there is a should have or shouldn’t have in this. So long as we’re both open and willing—which I think we are—then whatever we bring to it is valid. However you approach it… well, I’m with you.” She scrunched up her nose. “Does that make sense at all?”

  “I suppose so. But… That’s not entirely fair because… Well…” Alphonse winced as she tried to think of the words without sounding too… brash?

  “You’ve gotten to study cooking before, and you know what people like to eat and… Alright… Perhaps now you’re not hungry but… What if, at a later time, you are hungry and you grow tired of my burning the pot? And before you know it, every time you think of my cooking, you think of burnt food and feeling unsatisfied, all the while I get to eat your marvelous cooking. You use herbs and flavors I didn’t even know existed, and I look at you and my mouth waters, and every time you cook for me, I’m sated and full and… Well. I don’t even want to think about eating someone else's cooking. It’ll probably taste like ash in my mouth and…”

  She was rambling, and she knew it. Was she even making sense?

  What Delyth said was the journey mattered, not the destination. Alphonse wondered if she even knew what the destination was or how to get there.

  “And then I fall in love with your cooking, and you hate my cooking, and I’m selfishly full, and you’re starving, and then you wake up and realize that you could have been eating wonderful meals all this time instead of burnt rice?!”

  Delyth took a deep breath, her brows creased as though she was having a hard time following. “Well, so far, I’ve liked how everything you’ve made has tasted. I don’t think it matters much that I’ve cooked before because everyone likes their um… food a bit different, right? Though I’m glad that you like my cooking…”

  Delyth trailed off for a second, the silence long enough to make Alphonse squirm, her mouth opening to speak again only for the priestess to resume.

  “Besides, if you ever add any flavors that don’t suit my particular taste, then I’ll just tell you, alright? It's not like we’re taking turns at the cooking fire while the other one eats in a different tent. We’re both standing over the pot. So you can tell me which spices are your favorite, and I can tell you mine, and we’ll get really good at cooking for each other. So that way, no one goes hungry, and the meals are a little different and a little better all the time.”

  Alphonse looked up at Delyth moonishly before snickering. She couldn’t help it. They were both so silly! Adults, who couldn’t talk openly about each other’s bodies or making love…

  “Fine. But be warned, Enyo sometimes puts very spicy ideas into my mind, and I don’t know if that’s traditional seasoning or if Gods just eat things differently.” Some of those ideas didn’t seem all that bad…

  Delyth cocked an eyebrow at Alphonse, her lips twisting into a smile. “Well, the only way to know if you’ll like a particular dish is to try it, right?”

  “I suppose, though, I doubt you’d be interested in raw rabbit…” Enyo’s tastes varied. Tristan was typically on the menu, but Enyo seemed to see everything through a more… opportunistic light.

  “Perhaps not.” Delyth shrugged. “But if it's something that you would like to try, and it just involves the two of us, then I’ll try it. The worst that can happen is we laugh and decide we don’t like it.”

  She leaned over to kiss Alphonse’s cheek again. “I’m glad you told me your worries about— about cooking. I was worried after last night, not because of any of the food itself, but because of how upset you were afterward.”

  Alphonse chewed on the inside of her cheek, thinking of all the lies and the guilt. It had been upsetting. It still was.

  “If I am ever upset, please assume it has something to do with this—” She touched her heart, where Enyo buried herself. “And not with you or us. I do not want you to think there is anything that you have done. It is entirely me. And Enyo. And Etienne. And this… mess we created.”

  And while that wasn’t the full truth, it was half of it.

  And the weight resting on her soul lifted, just a bit.

  Delyth bit her bottom lip, still uncertain. “I— I don’t want to just assume, Alphonse, because then what if one day it is something to do with us or something else that I could help fix and I just assume that it’s this… this mess?”

  She cocked her head for a moment, thinking. “How about if I ask you what’s wrong, and it’s something to do with Enyo that you don’t want to talk about you just…”

  Delyth touched her own chest like Alphonse had done. “And I’ll know what you mean. Our secret.”

  Considering this bargain, Alphonse held out her hand. “Agreed.” They’d shake on it.

  As soon as that was settled, Alphonse sighed and flopped sideways onto the pallet, looking up at the roof of the tent. She hadn’t slept all that well last night. She’d been too worked up about her failings, lying, the new experiences Delyth had shown her…

  Now she was both tired and not tired in the least. And if Tristan was to be believed, the snow would take at least another day to melt.

  They would run out of stories to tell.

  Maybe she’d learn to play dice games after all.

  “Do you think Etienne and Tristan have killed each other out there?” Was it terrible that some part of her, the part mostly in agreement with Enyo, thrilled over the idea?

  Delyth yawned and looked towards the tent flap. “I can’t imagine they’d have done it so quietly, but we should probably go check anyway.” The priestess stood and stretched, clasping her arms in front of her instead of reaching up. She turned and held out a hand to Alphonse to help her up. “Coming?”

  Groaning, Alphonse slipped her hand into Delyth’s.

  ⥣ ⥣ ⥣

  * * *

  “I was eleven when I entered Moxous.”

  Etienne was dimly aware of his companion’s eyes upon him, but he kept his own gaze down at the campfire between them. Already it was dark beyond the mouth of the cave, the sunset hidden by the mountains that sheltered them.

  Choosing a story had been difficult for the mage. He did not think his life had been as exciting as Delyth’s or Tristan’s, and neither was it populated by the scenes of compassion that so exemplified Alphonse. He hadn’t been sure until his old friend had disappeared into her tent that morning, her hand red with the force of the blow she’d dealt.

  “Already, I was hungry for knowledge. M
oxous, for me, was a symbol of freedom, of status. The chance to study there meant that I would not live out the rest of my life like my father had: poor and unhappy.”

  He knew that he had been too harsh with Alphonse the night before, but her earlier attack had only proved him right. She was losing herself, changing because of the Goddess. She had to remember what they’d come for, and he could think of no better way than to remind her where she had come from.

  “I did not make friends easily at the school but kept to myself. It wasn’t long before I found the archives deep within the school’s library and turned there to study in the relative quiet.”

  Etienne nobly ignored Tristan’s snort of derision.

  “It was there that I met Theo. He was a few years older than me: slender and unassuming. He had a knack for turning up in the archives whenever I was there to discuss our studies, and quickly we became friends. We had the same interests, both studious and ambitious, and because he was older than I, Theo knew much more about magic. I learned more that first year from him than any of the school’s teachers.

  “Compared to Theo, my peers were harsh and misunderstanding, and the more isolated I felt from them, the more time I spent with my friend. The archive came to be a sort of second home; every spare moment was spent there. I thought it a little strange that I never saw Theo anywhere but the archives, that he turned down my invitations to the dining halls and the grounds. I might have worried about this more, I suppose, if something stranger hadn’t happened first.”

  The mage finally looked up, his eyes meeting Alphonse’s over the fire. He didn’t smile, for all that it was a sweet story.

  “One day, while speaking with Theo in the archives, I looked up to find that another student had wandered into our domain. She was small and girlish but dressed as severely as a matron.

  “I was angry at first, at being interrupted, but the girl seemed only vaguely curious. She stood calmly near my table, head cocked to the side, and asked why I had been speaking to myself. I was immediately affronted, but when I swung around to point out Theo, he was gone.”

  Etienne let his eyes drop back to the fire, his expression bitter.

  “That student could have laughed at the boy who’d befriended a spirit rather than his own peers, but she didn’t. She was kind and easy to be around. She looked after me and didn’t mind my rambling about the knowledge I had found. We became friends quickly and have not parted since.”

  ❀

  As Etienne had started to tell his tale, Alphonse sat up straighter, watching him carefully. Her heart understood what his words didn’t say. He missed his friend. His only friend, really.

  And perhaps he was sorry that he had been so harsh with her. So brutally truthful and blind to her needs, her experience. She hadn’t been oblivious all those years ago, seeing a young boy talking to himself. She didn’t think him odd or strange or insane.

  She saw that he sat alone in the dining halls, and none of the other children chose to sit next to him in class. Whenever he did have a partner, they often resented how quickly he learned new techniques or were afraid of him when his spells went awry.

  So she had followed him down to the archives, and when she saw him rambling on and on to thin air, Alphonse had decided he was lonely.

  As she didn’t have many friends either, Alphonse had reached out her hand in friendship.

  It wasn’t until years later did she realize that Etienne hadn’t made up an invisible friend to keep him company in those gloomy stacks of books, but rather had the rare innate ability to see spirits and souls of those long past.

  When the masters had learned of this skill, they had been over the moon. That perhaps had been when they started to push Etienne harder and harder, putting him in more challenging and arcane classes.

  Alphonse chewed on her lower lip as the story came to an end, and then, when Etienne finally looked up at her, she tried to smile at him. She, too, remembered that friendship. “Did Theo ever stop appearing to you?”

  “Not exactly. Our long conversations were a thing of the past, but I saw him occasionally throughout our time at Moxous.”

  “You can see ghosts then.” Tristan’s voice butted in. Etienne confirmed as much, but the rogue just shrugged. If he knew more, he wasn’t letting on.

  “That was a sweet story,” Delyth said. “Do I have to pick the best one now, or can I think about it?”

  Alphonse’s gaze flickered to Tristan, who had demanded the competition in the first place. She was grateful Delyth was the one choosing because she couldn’t decide, not in a hundred years.

  Tristan’s had been the most exciting, Delyth’s revealing about herself, which Alphonse liked very much…

  But Etienne’s story…

  It reminded her of the girl she had been.

  ༄

  Tristan shrugged. “I don’t think there’s any reason to wait, now that you’ve heard them all.”

  Delyth begrudgingly agreed with him. She was only putting it off because the task of choosing between the stories was so difficult.

  She discounted her own story immediately, of course. It wouldn’t be fair to name herself the winner of a competition she judged.

  Etienne’s story had been interesting, telling of both himself and Alphonse. Delyth had not known before then that there were those who could see and speak to spirits.

  Alphonse’s story was the dearest to her heart, of course. It was full of Alphonse’s compassion and had shown her that there were other halfbreeds in the world, vastly different but likely with shared experiences. The knowledge lent Delyth a sort of hope that she had never expected to find.

  Tristan’s story, though doubtful in its verity, was certainly the most exciting. Delyth had grown up dreaming of dragons and the thought that the two great keepers of the sky still guarded their treasures… It was like something from a dream.

  Delyth sighed. She supposed she shouldn’t gloss over Tristan’s contribution just because she disliked the storyteller.

  “I think Tristan has earned this one,” she said after several moments thought. “Who knew he’d be so good at spinning tales?”

  Alphonse was smiling and nodding; she approved of the choice then. Good. Delyth thought perhaps, though, it would be best to shift the conversation before Tristan got started on himself. She reached out to brush Alphonse’s arm, eyes crinkling with affection, “How about tea?”

  Adorably, Alphonse blushed and turned to her pack while Delyth struggled to hold back a giggle. “I’ll make it!” the healer said.

  Tristan seemed rather uninterested in the prospect. “I’m glad you recognized the artistry in my work, Delyth,” he said and rose to stalk towards the cave entrance, clearly too good for the presence of mere mortals. Delyth rolled her eyes.

  ⚄

  Something had changed in the relationship between Delyth and Alphonse.

  Tristan could see it from his spot leaning against the mouth of the cave, pretending to examine the snow beyond. The two drank tea together as usual, but Alphonse’s eyes never left the priestess, her expression rapt, occasionally tilting her head to one side as if listening to someone whisper within her ear. It was almost an Enyo-esque focus, though Tristan was fairly sure it was not Enyo controlling the girl just then. When she stood to stretch, it was Delyth’s turn to watch while the shifting tongues of flame made a skull of her face, gaunt and hungry.

  Tristan turned away. This… complicated things.

  While exceedingly boring, the priestess had thus far shown no intention of abandoning her quest. She had sworn to see Enyo to the temple, and she still worked to accomplish this. If she changed her mind, tried to find a way to preserve the girl instead…

  He had seen mortals attempt more idiotic things for less motivation than an attractive lover. Still, Delyth’s tiresome morality may prove to be useful in this case. She had made a vow. She would strive to keep it.

  As for the boy, however…

  Tristen placed his palm against
the shield covering the cave entrance, though he did not test it so obviously as Enyo had that morning. The boy was no follower of Enyo or the old ways, and his skill in magic might end up causing problems.

  His mind returned for a moment to the dance he had shared with Enyo, to the way she had looked at him as if she understood, on some level, who he was to her. Longing was a dull knife in his chest.

  There could be no problems, not where she was concerned.

  He turned away from the cave entrance just in time to see Etienne slip into his tent across the cave from Delyth, where she inked a rune into the fabric of the one she shared with Alphonse.

  ⥣ ⥣ ⥣

  * * *

  Hands tugged Delyth through the tent flap, and then a mischievous smile met the warrior before Alphonse was kissing her with reckless abandon. Her hands traveled up over Delyth’s furs, cupping her neck and face, down her arms to her hands, planting them firmly on Alphonse’s rump.

  She giggled and broke away long enough to unfasten the ties on Delyth’s furs, sighing appreciatively as they fell. Smoothly, she brushed Delyth’s black hair away from her neck, kissing the sensitive skin of the throat, across the collarbone, down to the rima between her breasts.

  “Yes?” She asked, looping one hand about Delyth’s hips and circling around to Delyth’s back. Kissing her neck and then each wing, Alphonse deftly tugged on the strings of the priestess’s jerkin, much more assuredly this night than the one before. Knowing the mechanics of the jerkin, Alphonse tossed it aside playfully when it was finally loosed and paused where she stood behind Delyth, admiring the curve of her neck, the creaminess of her skin, the way the light reflected on those massive wings…

  She traced one fingertip down the length of Delyth’s spine and shivered. Perfect. The warrior was too perfect. Strong, beautiful, sharp lines and just enough curves to entice the healer.

  Stepping closer, she let her own breasts, peaked with excitement and anticipation, brush against Delyth’s back. Delicate hands slipped around Delyth’s rib cage, cupping her breasts from behind as her lips paid homage to those mighty wings. She had to stifle a moan as Delyth’s nipple caressed against her palm, burying her face against Delyth’s neck.