by Pirateaba
Where would she be if she were at home? She’d be…she’d be in her living room, eating with her mom and dad. She’d probably be laughing and eying the presents under the tree. Knowing her father, he’d have bought her some chess guide or a new board—her mom would get Erin some tasteful clothing that Erin had hinted she wanted. And Erin would be looking forwards to seeing her parent’s reactions for the presents she’d bought.
Or—Erin’s voice faltered. Would she be in college? She would have been in college after her one year break. Erin would probably have come home for the holidays, but—
“Erin?”
She looked around, and realized the song had ended. People were waiting for the next song. Erin smiled. She felt something building in her heart. She searched for a song, and couldn’t think of anything off the top of her head.
“Um—what should I sing next? Another Christmas song? Okay. Then I’ll sing…”
It came to her without thinking.
“How about Home For the Holidays? Anyone heard that song? Well—”
Erin smiled faintly as people cheered and clapped. She took a deep breath and began. There was no accompaniment for this song. It wasn’t an immortal moment. Erin felt her hearting beating slowly as she began to sing, mechanically reciting the song she’d heard so many times.
“Oh there’s no place like home for the holidays—”
Only when she was halfway through did Erin’s mind catch up with what she was singing. She paused, and people looked up. She coughed, and felt something in her stop. The people who’d been swaying to the music paused and looked at her. She tapped her throat, cleared it.
“Sorry. Something was in my throat. Let me try again.”
She opened her mouth, and tried again.
“Oh there’s no place like home for the—”
Again she broke off. This time, the noise in the inn died. Erin lowered the wooden spoon in her hands.
Something was wrong. Her eyes were stinging, and the world was getting fuzzy. Erin tried again. She took a deep breath.
“There’s no place like…”
Silence. Every eye was on Erin. The people in her inn had stopped. They stared at the girl standing in the center of the room. Erin’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. The last word she’d meant to sing died unspoken.
She dropped the spoon. It landed on the floor with a clatter. Erin looked around. Her eyes were bright and overfull. The word echoed in her mind, in her heart.
Home.
She wasn’t home. She was far from home. And though she’d tried to forget, Erin couldn’t. She remembered her parents, her home. Her friends. They weren’t here. This wasn’t her world.
Standing in the center of the room, Erin blinked and then lost the smile that she’d kept on her face for so long. Her mouth turned down.
She couldn’t stop it, no matter how hard she tried. The world blurred. Erin’s shoulder’s shook. Slowly tears rolled down her cheeks and fell onto the floor of the inn.
Drip. Drip.
Erin covered her mouth with her hands. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
Home. She missed home! She wanted to see her mom and dad again. She wanted to go to her room. She wanted it so badly that Erin couldn’t do anything but cry.
No one could speak. Erin looked around, tears falling, unable to speak. Wide-eyed faces stared up at her, people soundlessly gazing at her.
She made the smallest noise, and then turned. Erin ran for the door to her inn and flung it open. She disappeared into the snowy night. The inn’s door slammed shut behind her.
For a second no one spoke. All of Erin’s guests stared at the closed door. Then Mrsha began to howl, and everyone began shouting at once.
—-
The first few minutes were all chaos. Mrsha ran for the door, only to be caught by Lyonette. Ceria stood up and wanted to go after Erin, but Yvlon pulled her back. The Human woman tried to tell Ceria to let Erin grieve by herself at the same time Grev burst into tears and Klbkch flipped his table and stood up.
Some people went for the doors, but others got in the way or had other opinions. The noise was so intense that it became impossible to think or make sense of any individual voice.
In the end, Relc leapt onto a table and bellowed at the top of his lungs.
“Alright. Everyone shut up!”
He had a voice used to shouting in the middle of battles and over noisy crowds. Everyone grew quieter as they stared at Relc. The Drake looked around the room, and then hopped off the table.
“Damnit.”
He kicked at a fallen cup. Relc stared at the door and sighed heavily.
“Someone should go after her. It’s cold out there. And there’s Rock Crabs and Shield Spiders hiding in the snow.”
“I’ll go.”
Klbkch, Halrac, Pawn, Olesm, Krshia, Selys, Ceria—there were fewer people who remained sitting. But it was Pisces who appeared at the door in an instant with his [Flash Step] spell. The mage looked around the room.
“I shall go. Discreetly. I know [Invisibility]—I shall make sure she doesn’t freeze and keep any monsters away until she returns.”
No one had anything to say, so Pisces opened the door and disappeared into the night. The others sat down and began talking amongst themselves anxiously in low voices.
“Happy?”
Halrac snarled at Revi. The Stitch-girl raised her hands, looking upset.
“Don’t glare at me! It wasn’t my fault! Why did she start crying like that?”
“Because she’s homesick, you idiot! And she’s worked too hard putting this party on!”
“Well, how is that my fault?”
Revi’s raised voice attracted a few dark looks, but people were more concerned with Erin. Selys stroked Mrsha’s head as the Gnoll clung to Lyonette and buried her face in the girl’s shirt.
“I had no idea Erin was feeling so down. She didn’t say anything to me, and we’re best friends!”
“I say it’s all the work she’s been doing. Halrac is right—she needs a rest. And a friend. We should see if she wants to talk when she gets back.”
Ceria put her head in her hands as she sat at a table with Yvlon, Ksmvr, and the Halfseekers. She felt her own eyes stinging and brushed angrily at them.
“We should have been helping out and keeping her company instead of drinking and doing nothing! We should take tomorrow off and—just be there with her.”
Yvlon and Ksmvr agreed to the idea and Ceria saw other people nodding in agreement around the room. But it was Relc of all people who stared at the ceiling and shook his head.
“Naw, that’s stupid.”
“What?”
Ceria turned and glared at him. The Drake sighed. He looked older as he sat in a chair and leaned back.
“You know what we should do? We should leave her alone. If anyone stays here, she’ll just look after them. That’s what she does. Look after people. She’s a weird Human like that.”
The half-Elf opened her mouth to retort angrily, and then closed it. At his table, Ulrien nodded.
“That’s true. If we’re here, she has a job. We’re her customers, not just her friends. I say tomorrow, we all go into the city and give her the space she needs. We eat, and sleep there if we can manage it.”
“Ulrien!”
Revi protested. He looked hard at her.
“It’s what’s right, Revi. We won’t have a problem occupying ourselves for one day. And in the meantime, anyone who wants to talk with Erin can. But I think the Drake’s right. Giving Erin time alone is what she needs.”
“My name’s Relc, asshole.”
The other guests of Erin’s inn were in agreement. Selys was still very upset, though. She paced back and forth in front of her table.
“I just—I don’t know what to tell Erin! She wants to go home? Where’s she from? Terandria? Baleros? Chandrar? She’s never talked about it once!”
She looked at
Krshia.
“Where’s Erin from? Has she told you?”
The Gnoll shifted, and looked around the room. Brunkr, who’d put his head down, raised it warily. Krshia nodded at the door.
“I have some knowledge of her home, but it is not for me to say, no. I am sorry, Selys. But Erin is a girl of many secrets. Her home is one of them, and few know of it.”
“Some know. Or have guessed.”
Ceria folded her arms frowning at the door as well. She was talking about Pisces, whom she was sure knew more than her.
“How hard is it to find out? Erin’s got to have said something to someone. Why’s going back so hard? Does she not have enough coin to pay her way home? Is she an outcast? What?”
Wesle’s face was filled with honest confusion. He looked around.
“I mean, she’s never spoken to me about it. But where’s her home?”
No one knew. And those that did weren’t saying. Yvlon sat with some of the others, frowning as they talked it over.
“She didn’t know about Terandrian nations. And she’s not from Chandrar.”
“Are you certain?”
Olesm nodded. He was toying with a chess piece, tail twitching with emotion.
“Yeah. She didn’t know about the King of Destruction.”
Ceria shook her head.
“What, him waking up? That’s big news, but—”
“No, she didn’t know about the King of Destruction at all.”
“You’re kidding. Then is she from Baleros?”
“Hardly. Remember Gazi? She told me she’d never met a Gazer before in her life! She thought Gazi was a full Gazer, not a half-Gazer!”
Jelaqua walked over, suddenly alert. She stared at the others.
“Wait, Gazi? You mean, Gazi the Omniscient? That monster? How does a girl like Erin know her?”
“She poked Gazi’s eye out.”
“She what?”
Amid the second uproar, Halrac ground his teeth. He grabbed the wooden spoon Erin had dropped and snapped it with a twist of his hands. The sound of breaking wood echoed through the room like a gunshot. Everyone stared at the [Scout]. Halrac’s face was red and he looked angrier than anyone but Ulrien had ever seen him.
“None of this is helpful. So Erin doesn’t seem like she’s from one of the four main continents. So where did she come from?”
“The same place as Ryoka Griffin.”
Ceria spoke quietly, tracing a pattern in the spilled ale on one of the tables and freezing the liquid with the tip of her skeletal finger. Everyone fell silent at this. Those who didn’t know Ryoka asked who she was and got varied responses.
Someone else reacted strongly to Ryoka’s name. Zel’s head turned ever so slightly. But he said not a word as he leaned against the kitchen doorframe. Only Mrsha saw his entire body tense and the claws on his feet dig into the floorboards.
“Hold on, if Erin’s from the same place as that Runner chick, she can’t be nearby. There’s no one who looks like her in Izril, I’m certain.”
Relc scratched the spines on his head as he frowned. Yvlon nodded.
“She’s an islander. From far across the seas, I thought. Is Erin from there?”
“No, she can’t be! She never mentioned getting on a ship to me when we met.”
All eyes were on Relc. Standing against the far wall, Klbkch stared at his partner as Relc tried to puzzle out Erin’s origins out loud.
“You see, Klb and I, we were the first people who met her. In this inn. Well, not this inn, but the old one. We saw smoke coming out of the chimney one day while we were on patrol. We came to investigate whether bandits or fugitives were hiding out here, and found…her. Just living here.”
“You didn’t ask how she came here?”
Ceria stared incredulously at Relc. He raised his claws.
“It wasn’t our business! She wasn’t a wanted criminal anywhere—and believe me, the Captain had us check. She was just some strange Human who came here out of nowhere. Funny thing, though…”
The Drake paused and scratched at his chin.
“She can’t have come from the south. It’s way too dangerous for someone who’s not a Runner or warrior to travel alone, and Erin didn’t have any potions or weapons on her. And if she’d come down the northern road someone would have mentioned her, right? I remember traffic was good that day, but no one talked about a girl like her when we asked if they’d seen her.”
“So what?”
“So…I don’t get how she got here. Liscor’s surrounded by mountains. Really big mountains. There’s no way she could climb the High Passes, not with no levels…”
“No levels?”
Typhenous frowned. Relc nodded absently.
“Yeah. She only had like four levels in [Innkeeper]. But nothing else. That’s what she said.”
“Strange.”
“You’re telling me. Wait, now I remember…Erin said she ran away from something. Oh yeah, she said she ran away from a Dragon when she got here. I remember thinking how crazy she was!”
“A Dragon?”
The room stirred. Jasi exchanged a wide-eyed glance with the other Humans from Celum. Olesm and the other Drakes looked just as incredulous as Relc.
“There’s no way.”
“Right, I mean, that’s what Klb and I thought. She must have run from a Wyvern, right? Only, her arm was burned. A fire breathing Wyvern, I guess.”
“I find it hard to believe that girl would confuse a Wyvern with a Dragon.”
Seborn nodded to the door. Relc shrugged.
“Come on, it can’t have been a Dragon. She probably just thought it was because she’d never seen a Wyvern before.”
“If it was a Wyvern, why didn’t it run her down?”
Halrac stared at a scar on his arm. Ulrien nodded as everyone turned towards their table.
“Wyverns are fast hunters. They don’t give up on their prey. Even if she was running at night, it would have swooped down on her. Unless she had tree cover, and the area around Liscor has virtually no trees.”
“Except the ones that go ‘boom’. Yeah. Okay. But—nah, it was probably a huge salamander. That breathes fire. It’s not a Dragon, right Klbkch?”
Relc turned towards Klbkch. The Antinium was silent for a moment as every eye fell on him. Then he nodded.
“The odds of a Dragon living near Liscor are remote. It is highly unlikely it was a Dragon that Erin saw.”
“Right, there was no Dragon.”
“That is a reasonable assumption, yes.”
The Drake [Guardsman] nodded. He turned back to the others.
“The only reason I’m mentioning it, see, is because Erin said she was running away from that. So she might have come from…Esthelm? Only she didn’t know that city…damn. If it was a Dragon, it could have teleported her, since Dragons can do all kinds of things like that, right? But if it wasn’t a Dragon…did she say she was ever on a ship…? Let me think.”
The others kept conferring. But sitting at his table with Jasi, Grev wiped at his face and then stared at Klbkch. He looked back at the others, and then raised his hand.
“Hey.”
No one heard him. Grev hesitated, and then called out.
“Hey!”
All the adults turned to look at him. Some, like Halrac, were annoyed. Grev quailed, but he said his bit determinedly as he pointed to Klbkch.
“He never said there were no Dragons. That Ant man.”
“What? Grev, don’t interrupt—”
“No, wait. What did you say?”
Zel raised his claw and came away from the kitchen’s entrance. He stared at Grev. The boy gulped, but went on, stammering as everyone looked at him.
“He—it’s a trick, see? In the city. You learn to listen for it. If someone don’t say something’s true or not true, they’re not lying, see? But they’re still not saying if it’s true or not. That K—Kb—that guy said it weren’t likely Dragons were around Liscor. But he never said they wasn
’t.”
The room grew very, very quiet. All heads turned to Klbkch. He sat next to Xrn, the overturned table at his feet. The blue Antinium was staring at Klbkch. But the Antinium said nothing.
“Hah! There are no Dragons. Tell him, Klbkch!”
Relc laughed nervously as he stared at his partner. Klbkch said nothing.
Krshia cleared her throat with a rumble.
“Why do you say nothing, Klbkch? Is it as the Human child says? We have Skills, yes. Skills to detect lying among those in this room. Say there are no Dragons and we shall know. Unless you are a deceiver of the highest level.”
Still, Klbkch said nothing. Relc lost his nervous grin. Ceria felt her heart begin to beat faster.
“Klb? Hey, buddy…”
There was no way for Klbkch to get out of it. Even Pawn and the other Antinium were staring at him. At last, Klbkch nodded and looked around the room coldly.
“Regrettable. I will say nothing on this matter.”
That was all. But his words were confirmation enough.
“Dead gods!”
Typhenous knocked his chair back. Halrac’s hand had gone white on his mug. Ulrien was staring. The Halfseekers seemed paralyzed. Ceria felt like her heart was about to beat out of her chest.
And those who weren’t adventurers were stunned. Selys gaped at Klbkch. She whispered a word.
“Ancestors.”
Zel felt his heart beating faster than he could ever remember. He stared at Klbkch. A Dragon. Could it be? He saw Relc’s mouth hanging open and Olesm, scales white as a sheet. The Ancestors, the First Parents. How long had it been since a Dragon had been seen on Izril—no, anywhere in the world?
Chance sightings. Stolen cattle, or strange burn marks. That was the rumor. But a real Dragon sighting? A Dragon? Here?
He couldn’t believe it. No one could. But the Antinium who knew the truth had confirmed it by not denying it. Or had he? Was it just a trick that played on the faintest possibility? Zel’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Klbkch.
The Antinium was unmoved. He stared around the room, at the eyes on him and the countless unanswered questions on everyone’s tongue. And it was clear he meant to answer none of them.
