Hold Still

by Megan Derr

  "I see," Gaston murmured over the rim of his teacup. "Strange that I never knew that before now, when it seems very much like something I should know."

  Poking at his breakfast, Esen replied, "It's a very old-fashioned notion; most Sylphs prefer it not to be brought up. Romantic nonsense better left to the dark ages that created it, that sort of thing." His mouth twisted as he echoed his father. "We're in a modern age, with modern ideas, guided by practicality and logic, not all that flowery nonsense and superstition that caused all the problems our new nation is attempting to rectify."

  Gaston laughed. "I believe I was actually in attendance for that speech."

  "He used it in a speech?" Esen asked, and buried his face in one hand, mortified. He had thought that was just something inflicted upon him when he was subjected to yet another lecture on his behavior. Why anyone expected him to be able to grasp things he had not started learning until he was sixteen, when everyone else had known it since childhood, he did not know, but he had given up asking or expecting anyone to understand.

  More warm laughter drew his head up, but he only flushed all over again to see the amusement that sparked so brightly in Gaston's mismatched eyes. "You're nothing at all like the other Sylphs I know."

  Esen made a face. "So I am often told."

  "It's not always a bad thing to be different," Gaston replied. "Being different is what turned us from hundreds of feuding clans into a nation rapidly growing in unity and strength. I have also learned something new—well, corrected a mistaken belief, which is nearly the same thing. As I said before, my understanding of the Elementals is not as strong as it could be."

  Esen flicked his tongue out before he thought about, purposely tasting the air for traces of Gaston. He tasted earth, rich and loamy, but also fire, sulfuric and sharp. Under both of those, he tasted something almost metallic that he could not place, though it was vaguely familiar. "You're quite strong in the earth and fire elements."

  Gaston hummed in response, still looking amused. He started to say something further when someone rapped on the door. "Come in."

  A servant stepped inside and bowed. "Your supplies are ready, Master Chevaux."

  "Thank you," Gaston replied. When the servant had gone, he turned back to Esen. "I hate to hasten you—"

  Esen stood up. "I'll go change at once, and apologize for the delay." He gave a hasty bow, then fled the room, returning as quickly as he could to his own.

  He hesitated briefly, wondering what would become of his belongings in his absence—but as it was the queen herself who had asked him to be Gaston's guide, he could not imagine they would do anything except leave them as they were.

  Stripping off his court dress, he rifled through his wardrobe for suitable travel wear, mournfully bypassing all the lovely clothes he had so hoped to have a chance to wear. Having spent so much of his life in clothes that were plain and ill-fitting, or in no clothes at all, having so many pretty things to wear…

  Well, it was one more reason for everyone to mock and dismiss him, but Esen didn't care. They'd had each other and whatever they asked for growing up; he'd had an empty mountain and an old nurse who wanted only to sit by the fire and drink her gin.

  He dug out suitable clothes, sighing as he pulled on the durable brown breeches and plain stockings, followed by a simple white shirt and a jacket of a dark, muddy maroon that stopped at his hips. He braided his hair and tied it off with a leather thong, then gathered up his money, hat, and cloak and piled it all on the bed before he sat down to pull on brown knee-high boots still caked with bits of mud.

  The rest of his suitable clothes, which was only a few shirts and a couple of pairs of breeches, he packed into a travel bag.

  He removed his pearl earrings and put them back in his jewel case. His jewelry collection was pathetically small, but his spending coin was limited and did not extend to such expensive trinkets. A pity that, because they really were so colorful and pretty…

  Unable to resist one little splash of color, he picked out the emeralds that were the most expensive thing he owned—a welcome home present from his parents, before they began to wish they'd left him on the mountain—and put them in his ears. They didn't exactly match, and it was silly to wear emeralds to go hiking, but who was there to care what he did?

  No one, as usual.

  He nodded at his reflection, then gathered up his belongings…and realized he had forgotten to ask where he should meet Gaston. Pressing a finger to his forehead, irritated with himself, Esen walked on, hoping he would figure it out.

  To his relief, Gaston was waiting in the great hall, idly chatting—

  Esen suddenly felt sick. Gaston was talking to Lord Armia Jostlen, the Undine with whom Esen had broken his engagement. He was still beautiful, pale and silvery and really quite perfect to the casual eye.

  But he was also dressed severely, starched to a fine point. He was chilly, never laughed at anything, and talked about nothing but politics and medicine. Every time he had seen Esen's colorful clothes or caught him traipsing—or worse, drifting—about the estate, he had become impatient.

  Despite what everyone said, Esen had not broken the engagement because he disliked Armia. He'd seen Armia relaxed, seen him pleasant and happy and a very nice person to be around—just not whenever Esen was in the room. Esen couldn't stomach that. He did not want to wind up like the rest of his family. He was better off alone and miserable than bound to someone else and making both of them miserable. Such misery only spread, fouled the air and everyone that breathed it. He and Armia clearly did not suit each other, and he would not marry someone he did not suit.

  He swallowed his nerves, drew himself up, and made himself walk across the hall. When he reached the cluster of lords and ladies, he remained back a respectful five paces and waited for someone to notice.

  It was, unfortunately, Armia who first noticed him. The cold look that fell over his face made Esen flinch and look down. "I beg pardon for interrupting—"

  "Ah, Esen, there you are," Gaston said, and Esen looked up, startled by his warm, easy tone. "The supplies are outside. If you're ready, we can be on our way."

  Esen nodded, smiled hesitantly, wondering what was really going on. "I am ready, sir. Lead the way."

  Gaston laughed. "If I recall correctly, little Sylph, you are the one guiding me."

  He curled his fingers into Esen's upper arm with the familiarity of an old friend. Esen tried not to let it fluster him, but so close, it was difficult not to be painfully aware of everything about Gaston—the way he stood taller than Esen at just the right height to curl up against him. The way he smelled of earth and fire and metal. The warmth of his fingers even through layers of fabric.

  The friendliness of his smile, when Esen really only knew what a friend was from books and observation. He had always managed to mess up making them, and since rejecting Armia…well, he had a lot of experience with hostility and, he suspected, enemies.

  Outside, he breathed in the sunshine-rich air, glad to be out of the stifling palace. If he was disappointed when Gaston immediately let go of his arm, well, it wasn't the first time he'd felt such a disappointment and he doubted it would be the last. He followed Gaston down the palace steps to where two handsome roan horses patiently waited, laden with saddlebags and an additional pack each on the back of the saddle.

  "Clothes, food, and all manner of other items; we should be set for at least a month's travel, and there will be towns along the way to replenish supplies when we run short."

  Esen frowned, puzzled. "Clothes? But I have my clothes…"

  Gaston smiled at him, so handsome it hurt, his strange mix of features so much more interesting and colorful than Armia's severe countenance. "I wasn't sure if you would have sufficient clothes for travel, so I had some obtained. It was not hard to have suitable clothing prepared for you, though the royal tailors seemed amused at such a mundane request on your behalf, when they're used to preparing much fancier clothes for you."

&n
bsp; Embarrassed that even the staff laughed about his obsession with pretty, elaborate clothes, Esen nodded and mounted his horse. Gaston gave him a faintly puzzled look, but said nothing, simply led the way out of the courtyard and onto the winding road that led down the hill from the palace and out to the open countryside. The nearest city was a half-day away in the other direction; the nearest one on their way was three days riding.

  For the first time in a long time, Esen was able to relax.

  "You look how I feel whenever I am able to leave the palace behind," Gaston said.

  Esen looked at him, startled, then shrugged sheepishly. "I spent many years with little more than my own company. It has made me ill-suited to being around other people for long periods of time. I hope I will not prove too atrocious a companion, sir."

  "Call me Gaston. It's silly to stick to such formality when we are to be traveling together for months."

  "Gaston, then," Esen said. "And you should call me Esen. I never grew very accustomed to titles, and now I do not really have one, anyway."

  Gaston gave him a pensive look, and Esen turned away from it, not wanting to deal with the questions, even if they were not voiced.

  They rode in silence for a long time, and gradually Esen's tension eased. He drank in their surroundings, opening his senses to the wind and all the bits and pieces carried on it. Smoke, roasting meat, perfume, honey, birds, deer, a trickling stream, sunshine, and the faintest, teasing hint of rain.

  The wind sang to him, called for him to play and dance, and Esen let the barest bit of himself into it, tasting the sweetness of being one with the wind. After a too-brief moment of indulgence, he let the wind go on without him, settling back into himself with a faint sigh.

  He could feel eyes on him, making him tense, and looked toward Gaston with dread, not sure what the look on Gaston's face meant before it was abruptly gone, and a more familiar, polite expression filled it. "I've never seen a Sylph as…comfortable with the wind as you. They always seem so stiff, honestly. But you…you treat the wind like a lover."

  Esen tried to hide his embarrassment with a dismissive shrug. "I've been told before I am quite inappropriate in my behavior. I keep trying to learn how it is I am supposed to behave, but it does not come easily, I fear."

  "I think you looked far too natural and happy to ever be made to stop," Gaston said quietly.

  Whatever Esen had expected Gaston to say, it wasn't that. He wasn't certain anyone had ever said anything like that to him. He swallowed and managed to say, "Thank you."

  Gaston smiled and began to tell stories of his other journeys as they traveled on.

  *~*~*

  It took them five weeks to reach the corner of the vast kingdom where Mount Chiron was located. "Sylph lands are some distance away, are they not?" Gaston asked as they rested at the base of the mountain before they began what would quickly turn into an arduous climb. They had left the horses behind in a village four days away, and reduced their belongings to a single small pack each.

  Esen paused in the process of braiding his hair, which had slipped free when he had lost his thong somewhere along the way. He nodded toward the east. "About three weeks by horse that way, far less by wind." Far enough to forget about him, something he preferred not to dwell on him. "The Mountains of Song are the greatest mountain range on the continent. People who think Chiron is dangerous have never seen the jagged peaks and bottomless canyons of Song, or its rocky cliffs and crashing surfs. It's a hard, wild land—no place for a sickly child who would probably always be too weak and small to handle them."

  "Yet you have weathered this journey better than I, and I've done this my entire life," Gaston said dryly. "You keep saying you were a sickly child, but I see no evidence of that."

  "I guess leaving me to run amuck on a mountain really was the best cure," Esen said with a shrug and a sheepish laugh. He finished braiding his hair and tied it off with the red and white ribbon Gaston had given him. "Thank you again for the ribbon."

  Gaston waved the words aside. "So where do we go from here, my dear guide?"

  Esen skimmed his eyes over the landscape, pondering what he recalled and what Gaston had requested. "The Centaur never come this far down the mountain, and they're not interested in anything that does not reach a certain point. If we head that way, we should reach the cabin where I used to live by nightfall. From there, I can show you through the woods, past the border where the Centaur actually dwell, without them noticing us. I've never gone as far as the area where they actually live, but I've been right up to it."

  "Lead the way."

  Picking up his pack and settling it on his shoulders, Esen walked on, hiking easily up a worn footpath, the incline easy and the breeze cool. He gave himself to the wind the slightest bit, feeling out as far as he could to see who and what was about. The smell of the waterfall came to him, stirring an ache of nostalgia. All manner of animals, wildflowers, the lichen-covered pond, the glen filled with roses. Far off in the distance, he could smell metal and smoke. Birds called out to him, and Esen laughed in reply before asking them about the Centaurs and strangers on the mountain.

  "Esen?"

  The soft voice drew him back, and Esen shook off the airy feeling, pausing his steps to turn to Gaston. "Is something wrong?"

  Gaston shook his head. "No, you just seemed to be…going away."

  "It's easy to get lost in it," Essen said, heart thudding in his chest as he looked at the puzzled, faintly worried look on Gaston's face. "I'm not leaving. I just wanted to be absolutely certain there were no Centaurs or other threats around. I cannot smell them, and the birds say there is no one but us in the foothills, so I think we are safe for the time being."

  "Ah," Gaston said, and smiled at him in a way that did nothing to restore the regular beating of Esen's heart. "I admit my abilities are not insignificant, but they are nothing like being able to join the wind."

  Esen opened his mouth, then closed it again, because for all his lack of proper lessons, he knew it was out of place to pry, particularly into the life the Queen's Man.

  "Do you know that you're the only person who has never tried to coax my Nature from me?" Gaston asked. "I know you're curious—everyone is. My eyes alone draw questions. You've never even asked, though."

  Hunching his shoulders slightly, Esen said, "When I was first recalled to my parents' home, I only knew what little my caretaker had taught me—which, as it turned out, was as good as nothing. I never learned how to speak sideways. I just asked or said things. Too direct, too blunt. I also like to talk too much; my tutors said I'm overcompensating for spending so much time with no one to talk to. I'm still terrible at talking sideways. I find it easier not to say anything when I can't say or ask what I want. It's not really any of my business what you are, right? So I don't ask."

  Gaston laughed softly, and smiled at him in that heart-thudding way again. "What do you think I am?"

  "Reptile of some sort, one that tastes of metal. The Satyr in you is easy enough to identify. Something tastes like fire, but there are too many options for that to narrow it down to one. But the metal is the most puzzling," Esen replied. "I don't know what Nature tastes of metal. How can a man have three Natures? I always thought that was a myth."

  "You're very sharp," Gaston said, smile turning into a grin that seemed full of trouble, though Esen could not say what kind of trouble exactly. "It is no myth. I am equal parts Satyr, Lion, and Dragon."

  "Chimera," Esen breathed, unable to believe it. Before he could ask more questions, another realization struck him, though he could not say what tipped it. Except once he thought of it, he could see the resemblance. "Queen Marga."

  Gaston burst out laughing, and reached out to curl his hand around the back of Esen's neck, pulling him close in a loose, friendly embrace. "Aye, little Sylph. Marga is my mother. It's a closely guarded secret; you are one of twelve people who know it."

  "I—I won't betray your trust," Esen said, wondering why Gaston was so nice to
him when everyone else just told him all the things he did wrong. He stared at Gaston, wishing he knew exactly what to say or do, flushing at how close they were. "I still don't understand how you can be tri-Natured."

  "My mother was rather adventurous in her youth—and rather insatiable—and a night spent with both the Chief of Satyrs and the Chief of Lions resulted in me."

  Esen frowned at him, puzzled. "I don't understand what you're saying."

  Gaston stared at him, his mismatched eyes so pretty, so close their noses practically touched, and Esen had to fight a sudden overwhelming desire to see if Gaston tasted as good as he smelled. "Surely even you, my reclusive little Sylph, know what sex is."

  "Sex is between two people," Esen said. "I have never seen sex between three. I don't understand how that would work."

  "Where exactly are you seeing sex?"

  Esen realized belatedly that was one of those things he wasn't supposed to say. "Umm. I told you my family thought my giving in to the wind was inappropriate. Mostly they just got mad at all the things I accidentally saw while on the wind."

  Gaston burst out laughing, and to Esen's total astonishment, dropped a brief, chaste kiss on his mouth before pulling away. "You're something else, little Sylph."

  "I'm not that little," Esen called after him, though he admitted that beside Gaston he felt little in a hot, squirmy, not unpleasant way. Gaston threw a grin over his shoulder, and Esen made a face before running to catch up to him.

  They reached the old cabin right as the sun was setting, giving them just enough light to get a fire going and the lanterns lit. The place still smelled like dried herbs and dust, of the climbing roses that grew on two sides of the house.

  Esen trekked out to the well in the dark, enjoying the cool of the night, the buzzing of the insects, the bobbing glow of fireflies. The sky was clear, the stars slowly coming out to shine.

  It was the happiest he'd been in a long time, and he hoped the journey lasted for a long time. Or maybe he would prove so useful that Gaston would want to take him along on all his journeys. Esen pressed fingers to his lips, still feeling that brief kiss. A pity it seemed more like the kiss of a friend or brother, because he would not mind at all if Gaston gave him such lessons.