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Thanks to everybody who stuck with me through the first book, it's thanks to all of you that I finished it and that it came out so well. Most of all, thanks to Mayaj, who was with me from the very beginning, of the story, and my time on FP. ::hugs:: Without you, DC would not be what it is, and even I wouldn't be who I am right now. Happy birthday (yeah, yeah, early), even if you don't want it to come.
It wasn’t a festival day, and the shop was almost full to bursting with customers, but I closed up early anyway. I looked out the window, decided it wasn’t warm enough for my cloth cap and shawl, and went out bareheaded. My curls had straightened out a bit over time, and my blonde hair was now characterized by gentle waves that grew down to my waist. With the shop locked and bolted, and the ‘closed’ sign hanging in the window, I was free to do as I pleased.
Normally, this time of day, I was up to my elbows in work, weighing rice, counting yards of cloth, or haggling with old biddies. Then at the end of the day, I would have a bit of free time to read or make visits. Days off, I would do my own shopping and go to pubs or wander the market for a bit of entertainment from whatever bard or performer was happening by. That was what I normally did. But I was bored sick with ‘normally.’
Five years had passed since I had come to live in Mioll with my friends. A lot of things had happened since our initial adventures, the ones that had brought us to this country and the ones that had happened after our arrival. After our triumphant return from Mt. Cahon, there’d been a lot of celebrating, so much that Miollian life never really did go back to what it had been. Knife was knighted, and officially left behind the name of ‘Knife’, cleaving wholeheartedly to his birthname, Gæden. But even after five years, none of us ever could completely stop thinking of him as Knife, and sometimes one of us would slip and forget.
Right after that ceremony there had been the announcement of the return of the presumed dead Princess Seridrani of Cikkarat and then a double wedding, which had given every city in the country cause to rejoice for a full month. It certainly was enough reason for me to; after too much time and far too much opposition, Kyube and Gæden were finally married, and the most stubborn and strange royals I’d ever met were each safely matched up with the one person who could put up with either of them.
After what we’d been through together, there was no question of our need to stay together, and so we did. At first, Odin insisted that we all take places in the castle, but I wanted to pay my own way and live a bit of the honest life my old dad would have liked me to live, and Kyube and Gæden wanted a little house. It wasn’t the first time we all argued—and certainly not the last—but luckily, Idra was on our side, and with a few choice words from her, Odin gave in and we had our way. I had my shop with its comfortable apartments, and my honest life. Gæden and Kyube had their little house and soon after, the little family to go with it.
Which was where I was currently headed. It was a cozy house, with a well-kept garden, and one could tell just by looking at it that love was just bursting out of the doors and windows. Gæden was sitting on the lawn with one of the children, his son Dash. They were both leaning over something that I couldn’t see.
I waved, but they were so intent on whatever they were fiddling with that they didn’t see me. “Hey!” I called.
Immediately, little Dash jumped up from his crouch and raced towards me, living up to his name despite his short legs. “Aunt Marja!” He tackled my legs, then held on, hugging them tightly. I patted his head, then when he let me go, I knelt down so I could give him a proper hug and a kiss on the cheek. He made a face and wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. Then he smiled, as if remembering something important, and pointed at his father. “Mummy made me a present at work. Daddy’s putting my letters on it.”
“Your letters?”
Gæden looked up and laughed, then returned his attention to the object he had in his lap. “Kyube made him a dagger, and I’m carving his name onto the hilt and the sheath.”
Wide-eyed, I took one of Dash’s clapping hands and walked over to where Gæden was sitting. “You’re giving your two year old son a dagger?”
He brushed the dagger’s hilt with his hand, then slid it into the leather sheath. “Of course. My father gave me my first dagger when I was Dash’s age.”
“Isn’t your situation a little different from what your father’s was?”
“Why, Marja, I don’t think I know what you mean.” He winked at me, then handed the sheathed dagger to his son. “There you go, Dash. Now remember what Mummy and Daddy told you.”
The little boy clutched the weapon close to his chubby body and nodded vigorously. “Not a toy!”
Gæden nodded, then patted Dash’s head proudly. “That’s right. It’s a tool.” He smiled as he watched Dash run into the house, then turned to me and said, “He’s a smart kid. Besides, my father didn’t expect me to fight with my dagger right away either. A dagger at this age is for digging holes in the garden and cutting up fruit.” Knowing him and Kyube, however, they would be teaching the kid a few tricks of their old trade that did not involve fruit. I knew for a fact that they had already started teaching their oldest, Lafisina, how to handle a throwing knife. Gæden stood up and gave me a hug. “Haven’t seen you for a while. How’ve you been?” Usually I tried to squeeze in a visit no matter how much I had to do, but for the past week or so, I’d been busy with preparations for something that I’d been wanting to do for months.
And I was finally ready to do it. I hugged him back and rested my head on his shoulder. After our first year living in Mioll, I’d started getting taller, and now I was barely three inches shorter than Gæden, and an inch taller than Kyube. I stepped back and held him at arm’s length, just taking a moment to look at him and make a mental picture to keep in my heart. Unlike me, he hadn’t gotten any taller, but he had put on more muscle from his work as a knight and he’d decided to grow a beard. It was a decision that he had made not long ago, so for the time being, it just made him look a bit scruffy and roguish, which suited him. His face was more weather beaten than it had once been, and a long scar ran down his left cheek, a souvenir from some battle or other. The purple hair that made him stand out more than ever among the browns and blacks of Mioll’s citizens, even though he had stopped spiking it; he kept it a bit longer than military standards dictated, but not much longer, barely enough to fall into his eyes every now and then.
“What? Do I have a some food in my beard or something?” He raised a hand to his face and I laughed.
“No. I was just trying to figure out how your kids got such cute faces.” Then I reached up to ruffle his hair and said, “How’s the new baby?”
He started walking to the house. “Come on in and see for yourself.”
The front room was as messy as it always was, with dolls and Dash’s meticulously detailed—and often half broken—knights and soldiers littering the floor, along with a couple of empty bottles and baby blankets. I loved it. My apartments were so clean that it was the work of a moment to find a dropped pin, while in this house, there was so much clutter that there was no danger of stepping on a pin even if there had been room for it on the floor. A wooden sign above the mantle had the very appropriate saying, “The best mothers have filthy houses and happy children,” carved into it.
Lafisina, her purple hair plaited with white ribbons, was sitting in the middle of the mess, talking to a doll. “If you don’t listen to Mummy, then you don’t get a tart after dinner.” She wagged her finger at the doll and frowned. “Go and wash your face!” Then she saw me and she jumped up; tossing her doll to the floor, she flew at me. I bent down to catch her and lifted her in the air—she had recently turned four, but she was still light enough for me to pick her up with relative ease. Besides, I’d been saving money for years by refusing to hire help and doing all the heavy lifting—sacks of flour, carts of cider, you name it, I stocked it—by myself, and I’d gotten pretty strong.
“How are you, sweetheart?”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek, then she twisted in my arms and pointed at her fallen doll. “I’m making Harta be good. She’s a very naughty girl.” She slid back down to the ground, blew a kiss to her father, then ran into the kitchen. “Dash, stop bothering Mummy. Aunt Marja is here.”
Dash’s indignation rang out loud and clear. “I’m not bovering her! I’m showin’ her my letters!” He ran into the front room, then, feet spread wide apart, he pointed back at the kitchen. “ ‘Sina’s bein’ naughty,” he stated matter-of-factly, his pale green eyes big and accusing.
“I am not!”
“Lafisina, could you do Mummy a favor and find another blanket for Varsetti? She’s spit up all over this one.” Kyube emerged from the kitchen and knelt down to kiss the top of Dash’s head. “I worked very hard to make that dagger for you, and I’m happy that you like it so much. Why don’t you and Daddy go to the castle and show it to Uncle Odin and Aunt Idra?” This proposal was met with eager approval, and Dash, aided by his father, started searching for his shoes. They were found surprisingly quickly, and after a few kisses were exchanged, Dash and Gæden left.
Kyube sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to her. “Sit down, Marja. We’ve missed you around here.”
Out of the five of us, Kyube had changed the most. Her long copper hair was down to her knees now, and more often than not, she wore it in a fat braid that she twisted up into a bun. But the big difference was in her face; ever since Lafisina had been born, there had been a sort of glow on Kyube’s face all the time, as if she had a happy secret. By some miracle she had retained her figure through three pregnancies, though it was most likely due to her strenuous work at Kiveo Amra’s forge. I had gotten used to seeing her holding a baby, and Varsetti was the prettiest of the three; she had her mother’s hair and her father’s eyes, and Gæden joked that she had my nose.
When Lafisina returned with a fresh blanket, Kyube took off the soiled one, then wrapped the baby up again. I watched with a smile, thinking how much I would miss just being around them. “I’m sorry I haven’t come by lately. I’ve been…taking care of some things.” Then I frowned. Why was it so hard to say it? Better to just hurry up and get it over with. “I’m leaving, Kyube.”
She stared at me. Even Lafisina looked up from her doll; she stared at me for a moment, then climbed into my lap and snuggled up against me. “But…Marja, why? Where did this come from?”
It probably did seem to be out of the blue, after all, I hadn’t said anything about it to anyone, not even Kyube. “I’m getting bored here. I want to go on another journey, maybe visit my old dad. He sent me a letter, he’s in Naravi.”
Varsetti started fussing, and Kyube shifted her position so she could rock her and pat her back. “I never thought any of us would ever go anywhere near Chapima again,” she said, looking thoughtful. “How long will you be gone?”
The truth was, I hadn’t given that part much thought. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I just know that I have to get out of here and do something different before I have a fit and beat up one of my customers.”
She laughed. “When you put it that way… Well, as long as you promise not to stay gone too long, I guess there’s nothing I can say to stop you.”
I smiled gratefully and hugged her, cuddling Lafisina in between us. “I knew you’d understand.” Then I sighed and helped Lafisina down from my lap, then stood up. “Now I just have to say goodbye to everyone else, and I can leave tomorrow.”
The Addanars’ house was very close to the castle, which was beneficial to everyone, especially the children. Odin and Idra’s daughter Shamandalie—whom everyone called ‘Dolly’—was the same age as Dash, and the two were adorably inseparable; it was impossible to watch them walking hand in hand without smiling and sighing. There had been few changes to the castle in five years, and I knew my way around as well as any of its residents; I also knew exactly where to find my friends, when any of the children were visiting.
They were all in the Queen’s Garden, named after Odin’s mother, who had reputedly spent most of her time there. Dash and Dolly were taking turns using his new dagger to dig new holes in an empty plot, and a few potted flowers were sitting beside them, waiting to be planted. Kneeling on the grass on either side of them were Odin and Idra, offering words of instruction and praise.
The King and Queen of Mioll were the same as they had ever been, except for the fact that Odin smiled a great deal more than when I had first known him. He still acted like an old man from time to time, but now he had Idra around to pester him and remind him that he was still just twenty-six. Everyone had convinced him to let his councilors take on more of the monotonous duties he had, which left him with more time to spend with his family and his books; he had already taught Lafisina and Dolly to read, and was making headway in breaking down Dash’s resistance to learning. Idra, like Kyube, had acquired that mother’s glow on her face, and she had cut her hair after Dolly was born so that it curled into a cute bob a half inch above her shoulders. She never seemed to dress like a queen, always wearing practical trousers and loose tunics, but she carried herself with a proud and regal manner that made her status obvious. They both wore identical golden circlets, and even Dolly’s medium brown hair was crowned by a small circlet made of gold wire and flowers.
Idra stood up and brushed the dirt off of her hands and knees, then turned and saw me. “Hello, Marja! Dash was just talking about you. He said you were at his house. We hoped you’d be coming here next.”
Apparently I’d been missed at the castle as well. Perhaps I should have stayed a few weeks longer before leaving… But that would make my leaving harder on everyone, besides, I had already said goodbye to Kyube. “I wanted to say goodbye to everyone before I left.”
“Left? Where are you going?” Odin got up and wiped his hands on his pants. He reached out and took my hands. “You aren’t tired of us, are you?”
I laughed and swung our arms from side to side. “Of course not. How could I?” I pulled him and Idra both into a hug, then pulled away and walked over to the children. “I just need a change. My routine is going to kill me if I don’t break it as soon as possible.”
The children dropped the dagger and started climbing on me; when I tried to say goodbye to them, they each grabbed one of my legs and held on tightly. “You can’t go anywhere, Aunt Marja,” Dolly protested, “we got you.”
“What are they talking about? You’re leaving?”
I turned as much as my captors would allow, and saw Gæden standing behind me, holding a bag. “I’m planning to, if these two will let me.”
He put the bag down and walked over to me, then carefully extracted Dash from my left leg; Idra reached for Dolly, who relinquished her hold a bit more willingly. “Where will you go?”
“Naravi. My old dad is staying there right now, probably just a stopover until he leaves for Chapima. They’re not far from one another, you know.” I bent over and brushed off the dirt the kids’ dirty hands and clothes had left on my legs, then straightened. “I promise I’ll come back.”
Odin argued with me for a while, trying to convince me to stay, but he had never really won an argument with me, and that wasn’t about to change. I was going to go, and no one could stop me.
