*
Second of Summer, 513
His exposed chest rose, then fell, like the bow of a boat. Trente continued on watching, counting each breath as a means to occupy his mind, though he surpassed the highest number he knew in the first day, once he returned to the shop, causing him to repeat from one again and again.
A squeaking floor board broke his rapt addition. With a start he ripped his eyes from the boy, to take in the visage of the women who had found them before. She had a much gentler look about her without the smearings of blood upon her clothing.
She gave a sad sort of smile, one that Trente recognized. The kind the Konti always gave, pitying. It caused previously hidden wrinkles of age to deepen on her face. She had been touched ever so gently by the hand of Tanroa. She was perhaps close to Trente's true age, though perhaps older. She had a naturally youthful face, doe like eyes, a rounded jaw, all centred by a soft nose lifting ever so slightly upward at the tip.
Something warmed in Trente at the sight, how thankful he was for those slight wrinkles, the impure natural beauty that the women possessed.
In return he gave no expression, only a swirl of deepness to his sapphire eyes.
"A shipment of pears passed through en route to Zeltiva earlier. I picked some up." Her voice came clearly, crisp, without disrupting the silence of the room in the least, but instead complimenting it with a sure cascade of words, offset only by the slightest undercurrent of timid grace. "Would you like some?"
From a large pocket sewn to her loose and heavy skirt she produced one, several others still hung within the pocket, weighting her skirt slightly to the side, and attempting to pull her tucked shirt free from that hip. Trente wished it would. What use would her modest attire serve if it was never undone? He felt a certain despair at the mere thought that it would not, and his mind left his guilt for but a moment.
He nodded, and pulled himself from his chair, leaving his weapons resting against Matilis' bed-frame, to join the temptress' at the door.
Trente drew closer, and her lips parted again to speak. "I got one for the boy too, for when he wakes." She offered encouragingly and produced another pear as promised from her pocket, relieving further weight from her clothing, as Trente's eyes shifted from her a moment, feel the weight of guilt again.
He was unsure if he were in any state to speak, to share a light snack with a stranger without imposing his dramatics upon them. He had shared enough of himself over the years, and had no desire to share his pain any further. He resolved to accept the fruits and bid the women farewell with a polite appreciation.
She handed over the first pear with that same sad smile, but then as Trente reached for the second, the one reserved from him she turned to leave the doorway. The pear rolled to her shoulder still grasped in his hand to clear the frame of the narrow doorway as she spun, and Trente's heart hesitated in his chest as her eyes moved back to look at him, connection and lending a silent beckon to follow her from the room.
There was physical pain at the thought of letting her leave, and more at the thought of remaining without her. Alone, with his son.
Without a thought he deposited the pear to some surface near the doorway for which he gave not another thought to, and exited after the women, her modestly concealed posterior striding effortlessly down the hall and out into the clearing before Eridanus' shop.
She inhaled the clear hot air with a sense of relief, and Trente realized how troubled this situation had made her. He realized how she had taken to Trente and his son. Women, ask them for help and they may never stop assisting.
She smiled, a more genuine one now, at the trees shading the highway, and with a single hand unfolded a leather trip about her high waist functioning as a belt. From deep within the folds appeared a very small kitchen knife with a single spiked deer antler hilt, which she promptly brought to the pear and extracted a thin slice, catching it with her thumb expertly and bringing it to her lips where she held it as she cut loose another and offered it back to Trente as he caught up.
She was not as clueless as Trente thought, she saw his eyes, trained on the slice, not the one offered but the one between her lips. He repaired his fixation quickly, with a near smile and accepted the slice, but not before that pitying softness came again to her face. She understood, and couldn't help but empathize.
"His name is Matilis," Trente said, then after a minute paused added, "he is my son, and I am Trente Ostentatoire-Criard Eclatante." Announcing his name in full restored a certain pride in him, and his posture corrected itself, straightening and he looked the women in her pitying eyes with dignity, and it seemed to have some effect as she became distracted processing the swirls and fluctuation of his eyes.
She smiled with more honesty then and pulled the slice into her mouth with celerity in order to reciprocate, "My name is Colvia Dien."
Without breaking eye contact Trente expressed truthfully, "Thank you, Miss Dien."
"Colvia, please." She smiles politely and Trente nodded.
"Colvia. For saving Matilis. For remaining to ensure his health."
She dismissed the appreciation, though it showed in her eyes how cherished the words were to her. It was moments like these that allowed people to identify themselves, and decide what kind of people they were. "Oh no, anyone would of course. And I am, well, a bit in between work at the moment, so I really have no need to be back on the road. Regardless it is better for Torav, my horse, if we rest a few days." She gestured to horse grazing near by, it suited her, a very rich yet natural brown, strong and healthy.
Trente shook his head gently and reasserted eye contact to respond, "No, Colvia. Not 'anyone' would do this. What you have done is very special, and because of it Matilis may live. So, thank you."
A silence followed, there was a sweetness to it, a profound meaning that hummed along with the creaking crickets, but also a complexity that the two strangers could not understand in one another. Trente could not recall the last time he felt such mystery from a woman, the last time he took the time to speak to an unknown beauty without some political agenda. It exhilarated a part of him, and he felt somewhat surprised at himself that despite all the pain and suffering that had filled what was comfort and ease in Zeltiva, Trente felt better. Freer. He had missed the road, the open waters, the freedom.
He opened his mouth to speak, but her words came first to break the silence which had lasted exactly long enough. "How did it happen, Trente? How did he get hurt?"
He nodded at her, and gesturing down the highway as he responded, "Walk with me, and I will tell you everything you wish to know."
She smiled at him, his charming way of gesturing, loose and relaxed, yet somehow posed as if he had practiced for hours in the halls of some pre-valterian building back in Zeltiva. Which he, of course, had.
She shared another slice of pear and they walked. With every step away from the shop Trente's heart lightened. Part of him wanted to run, more of him wanted to take her horse and ride off with her, this Colvia and her delicious pears.
He told her the story of the monster in the woods, and when she inquired further he told her of the circumstances surrounding their flight from Zeltiva, and though part of him advised against it he admitted to the bounty that was likely on his head. She was enchanted by the story, despite Trente's lackluster skill in portraying it, and when he finished it appeared she did not completely believe him, but was unsure which part of the story to disbelieve.
She had, after all, seen for herself the mark of the Laviku upon the young boy, and if that were not the most outlandish of the tale then she was unsure what was.
She sat quite relaxed against a tree's trunk as Trente depicted with an imaginary sword that heroic fight for the safety of his son, and found the display almost silly with the amount of enthusiasm Trente recalled the mortal struggle with.
When she finally laughed Trente felt a twinge of offense before realizing how she must see his tale, and laughed as well. How outlandish it was to live such a life, of godly interventions. To be the founder of a sect of scholarly warriors, and to save his long lost son from the grips of his arch nemesis, the plague bearer.
He collapsed beside Colvia beneath he branches of their cropping of trees and waggled his finger at her as he failed miserably at restraining his laughter into a reprimanding expression.
It had been so long since his last outburst that he surprised himself at the sound of his own laughter, and he was well aware of exactly how sad that was, that since the day he set foot in Zeltiva he had not once laughed, once felt the sharp pain of a childish stitch in his side.
With reddened faces, and heaving chests the two recovered from their mutual hysterics and by no accident Trente found himself very close to Colvia, the rough tree posing as an uncomfortable contrast to her glowing soft skin.
He looked deep into her eyes, and her smiled faded to thought, expressionless and fixated on Trente's own face. He felt the time come, the intimacy grew and his eye lids relaxed as he focused only on her and what he was certain was lust upon her face. He leaned into her, expertly directing his lips to hers only to have a sinking pain struck straight into his heart.
Her palm pressed firmly to his chest, holding him from her, and that expression of pity returned, this time with a certain sternness about it. A sternness that only came from an older women.
"Trente," she said, crisply as she had her first words to him, almost premeditated as if she knew this moment would come. "I get how you feel right now, trust me I really do. I feel like you are upset about your son and this, all of this, it is just your way of trying to feel better, to relieve that pain. But trust me, Trente, it isn't going to help, it is just going to make you feel worse later."
Trente was furious, and it showed, but not at Colvia as she may have believed, but at Matilis.
"The best thing you can do right now is go back to your son's bedside and be there for him, when he wakes up.
I- I'm sorry, Trente. But I can't help you make this mistake. Thank you for sharing your story... I am going to walk back to the shop now, I understand if you want to stay here and just think for a bit."
Trente righted himself and stood up quickly, and distanced himself by a step from the woman he was currently labeling less then pleasant titles within his mind, and wondering if she had planned this from the moment she purchased those pears.
He, however, said nothing for a long moment till finally he turned from her, stroked anxiously at the beard growing upon his face then turned back and asked with a composed clarity, "Would you answer me just one question, Colvia?"
She nodded, unsure if it were the right thing to do, seeming more than uneasy at his anger, which she had not expected.
"If Matilis were not here, were not hurt. If it were just you and I-"
She responded before the questions was posed. "Yes, Trente."
Trente's brow creased, it was not the answer he expected, and was unsure what answer he desired.
"Thank you, Colvia." He uttered clipped and coldly then made his way back to their sanctuary.
When he arrived he went straight to Matilis' room, fury still filling him. He was unsure what he planned to do when he got there, but one thing was for sure, he hated Matilis in that moment. Hate him more than he had every hated anything in his entire life, more than he had hated the plague bearer. More than he hated the gods, and more than he had ever hated the boy's mother.
He burst into the room to see the wizard hunched over the child, then straightened and turned to take stock of Trente, sweating and generally appearing undone at the seems.
"Trente. We need to talk... His wound, I believe it may be infected."
Within the hour Trente was gone from that place, and with him Colvia's horse, Torav, the brown stallion. He broke his promise to never leave Matilis, and he felt not an ounce of remorse for the decision.
*
Second of Summer, 513
His exposed chest rose, then fell, like the bow of a boat. Trente continued on watching, counting each breath as a means to occupy his mind, though he surpassed the highest number he knew in the first day, once he returned to the shop, causing him to repeat from one again and again.
A squeaking floor board broke his rapt addition. With a start he ripped his eyes from the boy, to take in the visage of the women who had found them before. She had a much gentler look about her without the smearings of blood upon her clothing.
She gave a sad sort of smile, one that Trente recognized. The kind the Konti always gave, pitying. It caused previously hidden wrinkles of age to deepen on her face. She had been touched ever so gently by the hand of Tanroa. She was perhaps close to Trente's true age, though perhaps older. She had a naturally youthful face, doe like eyes, a rounded jaw, all centred by a soft nose lifting ever so slightly upward at the tip.
Something warmed in Trente at the sight, how thankful he was for those slight wrinkles, the impure natural beauty that the women possessed.
In return he gave no expression, only a swirl of deepness to his sapphire eyes.
"A shipment of pears passed through en route to Zeltiva earlier. I picked some up." Her voice came clearly, crisp, without disrupting the silence of the room in the least, but instead complimenting it with a sure cascade of words, offset only by the slightest undercurrent of timid grace. "Would you like some?"
From a large pocket sewn to her loose and heavy skirt she produced one, several others still hung within the pocket, weighting her skirt slightly to the side, and attempting to pull her tucked shirt free from that hip. Trente wished it would. What use would her modest attire serve if it was never undone? He felt a certain despair at the mere thought that it would not, and his mind left his guilt for but a moment.
He nodded, and pulled himself from his chair, leaving his weapons resting against Matilis' bed-frame, to join the temptress' at the door.
Trente drew closer, and her lips parted again to speak. "I got one for the boy too, for when he wakes." She offered encouragingly and produced another pear as promised from her pocket, relieving further weight from her clothing, as Trente's eyes shifted from her a moment, feel the weight of guilt again.
He was unsure if he were in any state to speak, to share a light snack with a stranger without imposing his dramatics upon them. He had shared enough of himself over the years, and had no desire to share his pain any further. He resolved to accept the fruits and bid the women farewell with a polite appreciation.
She handed over the first pear with that same sad smile, but then as Trente reached for the second, the one reserved from him she turned to leave the doorway. The pear rolled to her shoulder still grasped in his hand to clear the frame of the narrow doorway as she spun, and Trente's heart hesitated in his chest as her eyes moved back to look at him, connection and lending a silent beckon to follow her from the room.
There was physical pain at the thought of letting her leave, and more at the thought of remaining without her. Alone, with his son.
Without a thought he deposited the pear to some surface near the doorway for which he gave not another thought to, and exited after the women, her modestly concealed posterior striding effortlessly down the hall and out into the clearing before Eridanus' shop.
She inhaled the clear hot air with a sense of relief, and Trente realized how troubled this situation had made her. He realized how she had taken to Trente and his son. Women, ask them for help and they may never stop assisting.
She smiled, a more genuine one now, at the trees shading the highway, and with a single hand unfolded a leather trip about her high waist functioning as a belt. From deep within the folds appeared a very small kitchen knife with a single spiked deer antler hilt, which she promptly brought to the pear and extracted a thin slice, catching it with her thumb expertly and bringing it to her lips where she held it as she cut loose another and offered it back to Trente as he caught up.
She was not as clueless as Trente thought, she saw his eyes, trained on the slice, not the one offered but the one between her lips. He repaired his fixation quickly, with a near smile and accepted the slice, but not before that pitying softness came again to her face. She understood, and couldn't help but empathize.
"His name is Matilis," Trente said, then after a minute paused added, "he is my son, and I am Trente Ostentatoire-Criard Eclatante." Announcing his name in full restored a certain pride in him, and his posture corrected itself, straightening and he looked the women in her pitying eyes with dignity, and it seemed to have some effect as she became distracted processing the swirls and fluctuation of his eyes.
She smiled with more honesty then and pulled the slice into her mouth with celerity in order to reciprocate, "My name is Colvia Dien."
Without breaking eye contact Trente expressed truthfully, "Thank you, Miss Dien."
"Colvia, please." She smiles politely and Trente nodded.
"Colvia. For saving Matilis. For remaining to ensure his health."
She dismissed the appreciation, though it showed in her eyes how cherished the words were to her. It was moments like these that allowed people to identify themselves, and decide what kind of people they were. "Oh no, anyone would of course. And I am, well, a bit in between work at the moment, so I really have no need to be back on the road. Regardless it is better for Torav, my horse, if we rest a few days." She gestured to horse grazing near by, it suited her, a very rich yet natural brown, strong and healthy.
Trente shook his head gently and reasserted eye contact to respond, "No, Colvia. Not 'anyone' would do this. What you have done is very special, and because of it Matilis may live. So, thank you."
A silence followed, there was a sweetness to it, a profound meaning that hummed along with the creaking crickets, but also a complexity that the two strangers could not understand in one another. Trente could not recall the last time he felt such mystery from a woman, the last time he took the time to speak to an unknown beauty without some political agenda. It exhilarated a part of him, and he felt somewhat surprised at himself that despite all the pain and suffering that had filled what was comfort and ease in Zeltiva, Trente felt better. Freer. He had missed the road, the open waters, the freedom.
He opened his mouth to speak, but her words came first to break the silence which had lasted exactly long enough. "How did it happen, Trente? How did he get hurt?"
He nodded at her, and gesturing down the highway as he responded, "Walk with me, and I will tell you everything you wish to know."
She smiled at him, his charming way of gesturing, loose and relaxed, yet somehow posed as if he had practiced for hours in the halls of some pre-valterian building back in Zeltiva. Which he, of course, had.
She shared another slice of pear and they walked. With every step away from the shop Trente's heart lightened. Part of him wanted to run, more of him wanted to take her horse and ride off with her, this Colvia and her delicious pears.
He told her the story of the monster in the woods, and when she inquired further he told her of the circumstances surrounding their flight from Zeltiva, and though part of him advised against it he admitted to the bounty that was likely on his head. She was enchanted by the story, despite Trente's lackluster skill in portraying it, and when he finished it appeared she did not completely believe him, but was unsure which part of the story to disbelieve.
She had, after all, seen for herself the mark of the Laviku upon the young boy, and if that were not the most outlandish of the tale then she was unsure what was.
She sat quite relaxed against a tree's trunk as Trente depicted with an imaginary sword that heroic fight for the safety of his son, and found the display almost silly with the amount of enthusiasm Trente recalled the mortal struggle with.
When she finally laughed Trente felt a twinge of offense before realizing how she must see his tale, and laughed as well. How outlandish it was to live such a life, of godly interventions. To be the founder of a sect of scholarly warriors, and to save his long lost son from the grips of his arch nemesis, the plague bearer.
He collapsed beside Colvia beneath he branches of their cropping of trees and waggled his finger at her as he failed miserably at restraining his laughter into a reprimanding expression.
It had been so long since his last outburst that he surprised himself at the sound of his own laughter, and he was well aware of exactly how sad that was, that since the day he set foot in Zeltiva he had not once laughed, once felt the sharp pain of a childish stitch in his side.
With reddened faces, and heaving chests the two recovered from their mutual hysterics and by no accident Trente found himself very close to Colvia, the rough tree posing as an uncomfortable contrast to her glowing soft skin.
He looked deep into her eyes, and her smiled faded to thought, expressionless and fixated on Trente's own face. He felt the time come, the intimacy grew and his eye lids relaxed as he focused only on her and what he was certain was lust upon her face. He leaned into her, expertly directing his lips to hers only to have a sinking pain struck straight into his heart.
Her palm pressed firmly to his chest, holding him from her, and that expression of pity returned, this time with a certain sternness about it. A sternness that only came from an older women.
"Trente," she said, crisply as she had her first words to him, almost premeditated as if she knew this moment would come. "I get how you feel right now, trust me I really do. I feel like you are upset about your son and this, all of this, it is just your way of trying to feel better, to relieve that pain. But trust me, Trente, it isn't going to help, it is just going to make you feel worse later."
Trente was furious, and it showed, but not at Colvia as she may have believed, but at Matilis.
"The best thing you can do right now is go back to your son's bedside and be there for him, when he wakes up.
I- I'm sorry, Trente. But I can't help you make this mistake. Thank you for sharing your story... I am going to walk back to the shop now, I understand if you want to stay here and just think for a bit."
Trente righted himself and stood up quickly, and distanced himself by a step from the woman he was currently labeling less then pleasant titles within his mind, and wondering if she had planned this from the moment she purchased those pears.
He, however, said nothing for a long moment till finally he turned from her, stroked anxiously at the beard growing upon his face then turned back and asked with a composed clarity, "Would you answer me just one question, Colvia?"
She nodded, unsure if it were the right thing to do, seeming more than uneasy at his anger, which she had not expected.
"If Matilis were not here, were not hurt. If it were just you and I-"
She responded before the questions was posed. "Yes, Trente."
Trente's brow creased, it was not the answer he expected, and was unsure what answer he desired.
"Thank you, Colvia." He uttered clipped and coldly then made his way back to their sanctuary.
When he arrived he went straight to Matilis' room, fury still filling him. He was unsure what he planned to do when he got there, but one thing was for sure, he hated Matilis in that moment. Hate him more than he had every hated anything in his entire life, more than he had hated the plague bearer. More than he hated the gods, and more than he had ever hated the boy's mother.
He burst into the room to see the wizard hunched over the child, then straightened and turned to take stock of Trente, sweating and generally appearing undone at the seems.
"Trente. We need to talk... His wound, I believe it may be infected."
Within the hour Trente was gone from that place, and with him Colvia's horse, Torav, the brown stallion. He broke his promise to never leave Matilis, and he felt not an ounce of remorse for the decision.
*
