allowed himself to be settled against the pillows, but the hand-knit little furrow between his brows stayed tight and anxious. “Are we ever safe?” he asked, and I took his hand and stroked it.
“I’ve always felt safe,” I confessed freely. “You always had my back. How else would I feel?”
He grunted, but I thought he were pleased. “I’ve never seen you shout before,” he mumbled, close to a healing sleep.
“I’ve never had to make you see sense before,” I grumbled. “You usually carry it ready at your belt.”
“You’re the smart one,” he muttered back. “All I am is the hard shoulder.”
I floundered for a moment, opening and closing my mouth like a puzzled baby bird. He fell asleep whilst I were still fumbling for the words to refute him, but what else were I to say? How could I tell him that I would not have followed a fool into the woods, no matter how good it felt when he buggered me into the ground?
There weren’t much to do that day. I poked around, discovered clothes in the drawers that seemed tailor made for Hammer and me: simple, strong, serviceable, but of finer make than we were used to. The shirts were of linen instead of cotton, the vests were of leather and not corduroy, but there were a set that were broad in the shoulder and a set that were long at the waist, and that were Hammer and me, so I wore mine.
They fit lush against my skin, and I gave myself time for a shiver of longing for nice things, fine fabrics, fitted seams, before I moved on to the rest of the cottage. There weren’t much to do there—much of it seemed to clean up after itself—but that were unsettling, so I tried to clear up breakfast dishes before they had a chance to put themselves away, and I picked up a broom and swept up the mud and dirt we’d tracked between the room and the bathtub and such.
When I were done, I went outside for a minute—Hammer were asleep by then—and breathed deep and tried to gauge the season by the smell of frost and the color of the leaves.
It couldn’t be done.
The sky were the blue of early October, that deep, lazy azure you could fall into if you let yourself, but that weren’t possible. It had been mid November when Hammer had been wounded. It were, earliest, late in the month now.
I ventured out from the house, with the intention of seeing where the enchanted world ended and the real world began—but I didn’t get far.
My feet crunched through the dead leaves, and I snapped through maybe half a league of underbrush, before a terrible feeling of unease assailed me like a bucket of cold bathwater. For a moment, I thought I could hear the sea, and then… oh gods of magic, gods of motion… what in the hells of the holy were that?
It were a hideously sickening motion, as though the ground beneath my feet had been ripped asunder and tossed like a child’s flying disk, me on top of it. My head spun and I fell backward the way I’d come, flailing as I fell and rolling as I landed, and I stayed there, gasping, trying hard not to vomit.
I fancied myself a scientist; an investigator. But something clearly did not want me to progress beyond that boundary. I could, I thought resolutely. I probably could throw myself across that space with a lunge of pure momentum. And then I remembered Hammer.
I stood up and brushed myself off and turned my back on that boundary without a single glance. Even then I knew that any course, any course at all that deviated from Hammer, were not a road I wanted to walk.
When I think about it now, all that is good in my life has come from that squaring of my shoulders and tramping back to the little enchanted cottage that held my gruff, short-spoken companion. It seemed like the most natural course in the world then, and it seems that way now, but it were the beginning of my realization that the language of science does not have a word for the sacrifice of the paths of ambition to achieve a heart’s desire.
It should. All languages
“I’ve always felt safe,” I confessed freely. “You always had my back. How else would I feel?”
He grunted, but I thought he were pleased. “I’ve never seen you shout before,” he mumbled, close to a healing sleep.
“I’ve never had to make you see sense before,” I grumbled. “You usually carry it ready at your belt.”
“You’re the smart one,” he muttered back. “All I am is the hard shoulder.”
I floundered for a moment, opening and closing my mouth like a puzzled baby bird. He fell asleep whilst I were still fumbling for the words to refute him, but what else were I to say? How could I tell him that I would not have followed a fool into the woods, no matter how good it felt when he buggered me into the ground?
There weren’t much to do that day. I poked around, discovered clothes in the drawers that seemed tailor made for Hammer and me: simple, strong, serviceable, but of finer make than we were used to. The shirts were of linen instead of cotton, the vests were of leather and not corduroy, but there were a set that were broad in the shoulder and a set that were long at the waist, and that were Hammer and me, so I wore mine.
They fit lush against my skin, and I gave myself time for a shiver of longing for nice things, fine fabrics, fitted seams, before I moved on to the rest of the cottage. There weren’t much to do there—much of it seemed to clean up after itself—but that were unsettling, so I tried to clear up breakfast dishes before they had a chance to put themselves away, and I picked up a broom and swept up the mud and dirt we’d tracked between the room and the bathtub and such.
When I were done, I went outside for a minute—Hammer were asleep by then—and breathed deep and tried to gauge the season by the smell of frost and the color of the leaves.
It couldn’t be done.
The sky were the blue of early October, that deep, lazy azure you could fall into if you let yourself, but that weren’t possible. It had been mid November when Hammer had been wounded. It were, earliest, late in the month now.
I ventured out from the house, with the intention of seeing where the enchanted world ended and the real world began—but I didn’t get far.
My feet crunched through the dead leaves, and I snapped through maybe half a league of underbrush, before a terrible feeling of unease assailed me like a bucket of cold bathwater. For a moment, I thought I could hear the sea, and then… oh gods of magic, gods of motion… what in the hells of the holy were that?
It were a hideously sickening motion, as though the ground beneath my feet had been ripped asunder and tossed like a child’s flying disk, me on top of it. My head spun and I fell backward the way I’d come, flailing as I fell and rolling as I landed, and I stayed there, gasping, trying hard not to vomit.
I fancied myself a scientist; an investigator. But something clearly did not want me to progress beyond that boundary. I could, I thought resolutely. I probably could throw myself across that space with a lunge of pure momentum. And then I remembered Hammer.
I stood up and brushed myself off and turned my back on that boundary without a single glance. Even then I knew that any course, any course at all that deviated from Hammer, were not a road I wanted to walk.
When I think about it now, all that is good in my life has come from that squaring of my shoulders and tramping back to the little enchanted cottage that held my gruff, short-spoken companion. It seemed like the most natural course in the world then, and it seems that way now, but it were the beginning of my realization that the language of science does not have a word for the sacrifice of the paths of ambition to achieve a heart’s desire.
It should. All languages
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