Nevertheless

by Ailisa Madrone

  "I bet they already know." She said, not caring if she sounded flattering. "Look at you; even if you weren't gentle with someone you would easily be forgiven."

  Before they reached the end of the bridge, a tangle of branches covered them up, providing some shade made of leaves and flowers on top of their heads. At one point on the way, the bridge became different from the regular bridges; it was irregular, not disturbing the path of the trees. If anyone wanted to spend time there, it would be similarly enjoyable as if they were in paradise in the middle of a forest lost in the sky.

  Navi's eyes were on Mabel's back. "Did my father tell you about Wenceslaw?"

  "My wooer?" She said, distractedly. "Yes, he did."

  "And what was your answer?"

  Mabel laughed when Navi asked that. "Of course I said no. What did you expect?" She dragged her hand along the bridge's wall while she walked. "And about you? Don't you think the princess will mind that you left dinner? She is coming to visit and the host leaves her in the middle of a dinner to accompany me."

  "I don't think she will."

  Mabel suddenly turned her body toward Navi, with curiosity in her eyes. "Is that the appropriate kind of girl to you?"

  Instead of receiving an answer, Navi's hand touched the side of her neck and then settled on the back of her neck, trapping his fingers between her hair and pulling her head at him. As he kissed her, she stared at his closed eyes. She was surprised that, at first, a kiss was not how she would imagine it to be. He kissed her tenderly, but that was not what made her close her eyes. Between their frozen lips, Navi made a sound that could only be a moan, and it seemed to express so much desire that she got jealous and wanted to feel the same thing. She wanted to show him that it was reciprocal.

  And she did.

  And she showed him.

  "You said I was inappropriate for you." It was her first words after their lips let go of each other.

  "Forget what I said." He said, as he slowly turned his face away from hers. "None of this is matters anymore."

  Mabel stared at him as his hands went to her back. He was fixing the brown cloak that interrupted the serenity of the dress. Then he pulled the hood to cover her, and with his icy, trembling fingers, he tied a lace to the other under her neck. Then, without any further formality, he turned his back on her, following the way back home alone.

  It was understandable why no one said a word. Both Mabel and Navi were still trying to figure out what had just happened. It was as if something magical just happened, she was tempted to rub her eyes, wondering if…

  Was that real?

  XXVIX

  "When her older sister hears her coming,

  she runs into her bedroom to put on some blush. "

  The Ballad of Mulan

  ◊

  The winter solstice festival brought together everyone in the village. For Mabel, it was only an excuse for the girls in the village to show off their dresses. They were not the only ones who took advantage of it; the boys took advantage to dance with every teenage girl in Navon and the merchants would profit selling their spices. Mabel has been to the festival a few times, but never really wanted to be there.

  She's never really been there, actually.

  When she was in a place like that, she would feel lost. She didn't know anyone except the sisters of Aury, who she had seen occasionally in fairs, but they wouldn't talk to her. Neither the other girls from Navon. Not even the older women; they thought she was inadequate. So Mabel just stood there at the festival, watching all those people passing by.

  She knew Navi would be there at any moment, and her head run around the place anxiously, searching for a specific person in the crowd. Maybe this would be their first official date?

  "I'm right here." It was Aury's voice, and he was right behind Mabel. He had a smile on his face. Next to him, his fiancée. "Suri, I want to introduce you to Mabel." He smiled at Mabel with pride. "My friend."

  Suri made a move and her big dress made a noise. She nodded at Mabel, greeting her. Mabel had seen her before, but as usual, girls like her did not talk to girls like Mabel.

  All kinds of wooden instruments began to play; at midnight there would be fireworks, and the crowd would gather around the campfires. Today, they would worship the arrival of winter with a lot of dancing.

  There are several reasons why people would dance around the fire. To get a good harvest that year, or a good marriage. Through the winter solstice's campfires, infertile women would pass by, because they believed the fire was powerful. And some things really happened when fire touched people.

  "Come on, Suri." Aury pulled her fiancée by the hand. "Let's dance."

  The boys would invite the girls next to Mabel to dance, but not her. She was too weird for them, for that place. Next to these girls she felt like a blur. Her clothes did not stand out, which was just a rag compared to all those gorgeous dresses. No one would look at someone like her, and she did not know how she got the prince to kiss her. While the other women had their hands smelling of perfumes and dry cleaning, hers were a bruised from using a sword, with wounds covering her skin.

  A hand appeared in front of her, and then the rest of Yelsew's body showed up as well. "Do you want to dance, miss?" He said, bending forward.

  Mabel shook her head emphatically. "I don't dance." That's what she said. But Yelsew pulled her anyway, and she smiled. For the first time in history, someone was grateful for being contradicted.

  It was true, she did not dance. But Yelsew was clumsy, and made it so that it wouldn't feel that strange or disproportionate. He made it fun and infinite.

  Dancing and laughing at the same time was not a good combination, laughing all the time would make the mouth and stomach ache. However, it was the kind of pain that was not that bad.

  Yelsew disappeared and someone else danced with her.

  The sweet Vilanis. Mabel was surprised, as he was very quick to steal her from Yelsew. She searched for him and found him dancing with someone else. An older/ younger woman at the same time; an enthusiast. But it did not mean she was single; her husband was watching them closely enough to observe any suspicious moves.

  "Focus on me, Mabel." Vilanis complained. "I don't think I'm worse than Yelsew."

  She laughed, because it wasn't the case.

  After him, it was Sven who was facing Mabel. She gasped in surprise in the middle of the field, as it was not possible that Sven was doing something like that for everyone to see.

  She did not know, and she might never get to know, but they saw how everyone ignored her at the festival. Even Sven sympathized with her. He had no sisters, but he was close enough to women to know that being ignored that way was a bad thing for a girl. He did not want to help her, once she made him feel ashamed at the training camp that time, but as Yelsew said, they were on the same team now. And in order to help someone from their team, he would play a fool of himself in front of all those people of Navon.

  Navon's girls were suddenly jealous, because Mabel got more dance partners than they did. But she did not know how to handle it; she never knew anything about women competition. Throughout her life, she has dealt with swords when she should be making friends, fights instead of appreciating clothes and shoes; she was preparing to be a soldier when she should be living her life as a normal girl. Sometimes, especially now, she was torn between the two worlds: she was lost between the girl she should be and the girl she was.

  The music was over, and Sven and Mabel stared at each other.

  "You were the worst dance partner I had tonight." She said, teasing him. She could not say "thank you". Not that it applied to other people, only to him.

  He looked at her surprised. "Really?"

  Mabel glanced up at the white dots falling from the sky, announcing that winter was coming, and immediately she laughed. A loud, contagious laugh, and if Sven wasn't so grumpy, it might have affected him as well.

  She loved that.

  She loved things that fell from the
sky.

  Mabel reached up and a white snowflake fell in the palm of her hand. She was absorbed in that tiny flake as someone approached and made Sven move away. Then, the flake disintegrated on her skin, and she finally turned around, noticing someone's presence.

  It was Navi.

  Navi is here.

  "You're the girl getting most invitations to dance." He said in a casual tone, but his formal posture would not leave him.

  Mabel shook her head as she laughed. "I do not know what happened to them today."

  "I know exactly what happened to them." His eyes were staring at hers.

  For three.

  Eleven seconds.

  And she felt her face burn.

  Mabel looked away uncomfortably. When she looked back at him, Navi's eyes were unfocused on her again. He closed his eyes and shook his head, getting out of the state in which he got lost for a moment. Lost inside his own head.

  "Will you give me the same satisfaction they're feeling?" He was almost begging for it.

  Even as she stood facing Navi and knowing that he was talking to her, Mabel could not believe those words. That day was very strange. And she began to understand what it was all about.

  She could understand why her heart would beat so hard every time she saw him after not seeing him for a long time. And how the words in her head would be confusing when he was around her. And how she saw him as she saw the stars. She loved him so much that her chest would hurt. That was the truth.

  He held out his hand to Mabel, as if she were a delicate and special little thing. The same way she had seen him do so many times to other girls and never imagined he could do the same thing to her as well.

  For a moment there were no dances and conversations; Navi was taking to dance a girl who no other young man cared to take, and everyone noticed that unlikely couple being formed in the crowd. They were so focused on each other that they did not notice it. And why would they notice anything other than what was in front of them?

  But there was one person who felt hurt, more than any of the girls who were disappointed by the fact that the prince did not take them out to dance, but a girl like Mabel instead. Soray saw the soldier Vilanis with a glass of wine between his staggering fingers, and she thought that would be an opportunity from heaven to destroy the only chance those two would have to realize what everyone else had already noticed.

  Someone yelled and made Navi change his mind and put his hand away from Mabel.

  It was so close.

  Soray was involved in some sort of commotion, and in front of her was Vilanis, looking disturbed as if he had killed an innocent civilian in a street fight. Mabel was beginning to wonder what was happening when Navi walked up to them.

  "What happened?" Navi asked Soray, his eyes looking down at her dress.

  Mabel followed his gaze, not understanding the commotion. It was just a drink stain. Nothing more.

  There was concern in Navi's black eyes. "Are you ok?"

  "Of course she's fine." Mabel answered, outraged. All that commotion with Vilanis was only for that? "It's just wine. The only bad thing is that it feels cold on the skin, but still better than if it had been a hot drink. There's only a stain on this beautiful dress."

  "It's not just a stain." Soray replied, looking straight at Vilanis. She looked furious. "It's a dress from the East."

  "It's all right." Navi said, calmly. "You must have others like these."

  His attempt to calm her down did not work. "No, I don't."

  "I'll have someone buy you a new one, then."

  Soray shook her head in disagreement. "I want him to apologize."

  Navi did not have to ask Vilanis to do it.

  "Of course, Your Highness. I'm so sorry." Vilanis told her, leaning his head as he lowered himself humbly. "It was an accident. Even if I knew it was you behind me, I would not have been able to avoid it…"

  "No. On your knees."

  "What?" Mabel said, unthinkingly. She turned to Navi, interceding with her eyes for Vilanis.

  But the general was already saying: "Vilanis. Please."

  A good princess would say that everything was fine, but Soray waited for a man like him, with all his pride, to apologize to her in that embarrassing way. No one should bow down to someone else like that. Princesses were supposed to have mercy.

  Vilanis' jaw was tense, but still he did what had to be done; certain things could not be avoided. As Vilanis bent over to her, Soray looked at him with an arrogant look, as if she was better than anyone else.

  No one knows where Yelsew came from. Maybe from the same sky as a gift once came down, a good and bad thing coming out of the same place. He touched Vilanis' paralyzed body, still on his knees not knowing what to do, to take him away from his massacre.

  Yelsew, the savior.

  Everyone went to the tavern to support Vilanis, even Mabel, who had promised not to celebrate with them anymore. She did not care about the fact that they were the last on the scale of importance in the King's Army, as long as they were true friends.

  Yelsew, who was next to Vilanis, threw his hand on his shoulder, to shake him.

  Sven tried to cheer him up as well. "Stop acting like a baby." He whispered. "It was not a big deal."

  "Sven's right." Mabel had to agree with Sven, even though she did not like it. "It was no big deal."

  "Of course," Vilanis grunted. "It wasn't you guys who had to kneel before that... girl!"

  "Be careful with the things you say, Vilanis." Yelsew said, bringing the glass to his mouth. "I don't think you want your next humiliation to be hanged."

  The thought made Mabel shudder. She turned to the left and to the right, discreetly; making sure no one had heard that. When she turned her head to the table, she found Sven looking at her.

  Looking annoyed, he ran his eyes to the glass on the table. "What are you doing here?" He asked her. "Shouldn't you be dancing with one of those idiots now?"

  Mabel shrugged contemptuously. "There was no one to dance with."

  "Of course not, in this horrible dress you're wearing."

  "And it was a simple whim. I had to kneel at a simple whim!" Vilanis continued to shout angrily, and drank what was in his glass all at once. "I cannot believe the general is going to marry someone like her."

  A doubt hovered in the air. Especially over Mabel's head.

  "I'm sorry," She sounded disturbed. "What did you say?"

  "Don't you know?" Someone close said; Yelsew. "The Princess of Tantam is here to get familiar with Navon and its politics, because she and the general are getting married."

  "This is not true. It's a rumor, because…" Because Navi kissed her. He would not have kissed her if he was going to get married.

  God. Why hadn't she thought of that before? That was why Soray was there, because Navi finally found what she was looking for, and it was Mabel who made it happen.

  Her, herself, no one else.

  Mabel felt her face sweat, as well as the rest of her body. "It's hot here?"

  "Maybe you could stop him," Yelsew said, his eyebrow raised. "Make him change his mind."

  Mabel looked up to see him face her. "How would I do that?"

  "You were his fiancée, weren't you?" He said, sarcastically. "Is there any possibility of asking him to come back to you?"

  Mabel was shocked, while had a smile on his face. It was not possible that he knew about it.

  Vilanis shook his head, forgetting his problem for a moment. "No way." He said. "It makes no sense."

  "Of course it doesn't make sense." Mabel lied, even looking into Yelsew's eyes. "Because he's lying!"

  Yelsew was looking back at her. ''You like him. Just admit it, Mabel.''

  She did not consent, because admitting that would be her downfall.

  "You drank too much, Yelsew." But Mabel knew he had not. He was one of the soberest ones in that establishment. "What makes you think I'd want someone like him?"

  Someone was nudging Mabel, but she did not stop tal
king to look at who was next to her; she was a little too busy trying to justify herself to Yelsew's assumptions.

  "He's not even handsome; he looks like a peasant who has a screwed up nose. Hugging him must feel cold as he is inside, and kissing him must be an unforgettable experience. But not in a good way, if you know what I mean."

  Sven laughed so hard that the drink was coming out of his mouth, and he had to block it with his arm. Mabel thought he was laughing like that because he was thinking about who the hell she thought she was to reject someone, especially a prince.

  Yelsew had one eyebrow raised at her, somehow in shock, and that made her want to continue talking.

  "It is true! Being married to him must be a sacrifice. Sleeping with him…"

  Mabel stopped talking because of the way Sven laughed, laughing in a way that made her laugh too, at first influenced by him, then so intensely to the point her face turned red. When she turned sideways to look at Vilanis and Yelsew, she panicked.

  Mabel got pale and her eyes almost popped out. She looked very funny, because Sven kept laughing, so hard that a man of that size was crying like a little child. His face was look so red. In fact, she thought he was feeling sick.

  Navi was not laughing. The men at the table were, but he was not. And then he turned diplomatically to Vilanis. "Sorry for making you do that." He said, friendly. "It was necessary; she is the daughter of a possible ally. Unfortunately, we are in her hands. I hope you understand, Vilanis."

  Everyone stopped laughing. In seventeen years of existence, Mabel had never heard of a prince and at the same time a general who apologized to a soldier in front of everyone.

  Navi nodded, looking at everyone. "The drink is on me." Before he went, he looked at Mabel. "Don't drink too much this time. I will not be here to take you home."

  Across the table, Yelsew laughed one of his silent laughers.

  After Navi had left, Mabel could not sit still in the chair. She was restless. Yelsew mentally counted seven seconds when she decided to leave the table and go after Navi, with a smile of someone who makes no mistakes. She was so persistent that she was predictable.