Where Are You Going

Forgive me, please, my dear readers, wrestling with taxes distracted me and I did not send out Thursdays little bit of entertainment. So, a few hours late (cough few?) here it is. A preview of works far in the future.

Where Are You Going

When he was leaving home his father had asked, “where are you going?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked that, but something about the tone would stick in Droless memory all his life. It didn’t feel like a question, it felt like a challenge.

Droless answered with a rye smile before aiming his finger left of the setting sun. “Away.”

His father rumbled, “that is not answer.”

“It was always answer enough when you left.”

The silence between them was as implacable as the mountains.

“Come home,” implored his mother.

He sighed, “I will … in time.”

He hadn’t meant it when he said it, but he knew even then the best lies were the ones people wanted to hear.

***

“Where are you going?” asked the man swaddled in a dark cloak. The remains of a white pennant flailed from the end of his pike in the growing wind.

Droless slid his gaze from the man with the pike to the one on the opposite side of the road. They both wore the tattered remains of tabards adorned with the dove and rose. “Does it matter?”

“Ya,” insisted the man with the sword as he took a step forward and drew the blade an inch from its scabbard. “This is a toll road and if you expect to pass we expect you to pay.”

Droless rotated his neck to loosen up stiff muscles. “No, it don’t cause I’m going through all six of you.”

The declaration caught them aback, whether from the menace in his voice or his ability to smell the four people hiding in the surrounding foliage Droless didn’t know, or care. He charged, hooves tearing apart the ground as he lifted his ax high.

***

“Do you have to go?’ she asked, eyes full of warmth and sadness.

“Yes,” the response was reflexive as though some instinct deep within warned him that if he didn’t leave he would die. “Mobility is life” his mother had taught him.

Her hands wrapped around his wrist, the woman, the human, had to stretch on her tip-toes just to do that. Though he towered over her, though his body was networked with scars she saw in him something other than a monster. It was almost enough to make him stay.

“Please,” she pleaded.

He couldn’t look her in the eyes so he turned his gaze to the horizon. “No, I must go.”

“Where? Go where?”

Not here. He pulled his hand away, took one step, then another, more and more until he was running, not running racing. Racing the feelings that made him want to stay, that would trap him in this little village on the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere.

***

The smell of strawberries and sunshine told him more than the pressure told him a pixie rested on his shoulder. The fact that it did rest on his shoulder told him which one it was before she spoke. “What is it Bellarai?”

“Don’t be like that Droless,” she cooed into his ear, her tiny fingers kneading into the base of neck to break up knots he didn’t realize he had.

“You want something, just say it,” he wanted to enjoy the sunset in peace it reminded him--

“You would do well to stay here.”

“Oh?”

“The Baron likes you, and you can provide quite a useful service to him. Not many people around here can touch iron, fewer the Baron will trust with it.”

Droless looked to the heavy iron ax that rested next to the bath. “You would have me join the Iron Guard?”

“You could lead it Droless, if you played your cards right.”

He released a derisive snort and shrugged off the pixies’ administrations. “No, thank the Baron but no.”

He crossed to the pool and took the ax in hand. Somehow it never felt any lighter. “No, I’m leaving.”

“Leaving, where are you going?”

“Home Bell, I’m going home.”

——

I do hope you enjoyed that, and that the wait wasn’t too disruptive. Thank you for your patience.

Take care and God bless;

~S. Wallace