Heartworm

The air was stale, like it had died earlier in the afternoon, and was left to decay in the streets. It was unnerving, the utter lack of presence in the village as we walked back up to the hut on the docks. I could see the faint movements of people within the houses, so there were indeed signs of life, but in the streets of the village it was only us, and the occasional person that walked from one house into the next. Was this just what a quiet comfy life was like in Urden? I had only ever lived in Varenthell, an incredibly dense city, with enough meandering people that you’d never see an empty street. With significantly fewer people, I suppose it makes sense that this eerie quiet was just another day. The old man at the hut certainly didn’t seem to think anything was up.

‘He still reeks.’

“I’ve talked to my group, sir. We really do need passage immediately. I’m so sorry to bother you with this, but is there any way that we can ask one of the fishermen for passage? We can pay extra for the trouble.” Cecelia returned to speaking with a lighter, smoother, tone of voice to try to convince the man. I started to consider that the voice was most likely used for the purpose of distracting so that Phern could pickpocket someone. Something which she had offhandedly mentioned doing a few times on the road.

“They’ve retired for the night, ma’am. I doubt you could get any of them to accept your deal.” The old man replied, still scratching something onto the parchment before him. The details of which I could not see from where I stood.

“Would this help?” I moved forward to stand next to Cecelia and pushed my hand towards the man, opening to reveal the gold coins in my palm. I stood, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement to pass his face. After a moment, he leaned forward, getting extremely close to my hand before his face lit up in recognition.

“Oh! I am almost blind, you must excuse my trouble seeing.”

“It’s okay sir, really.” I replied.

“I’m afraid I still won’t be able to help you. In the morning you can certainly use that money to get passage, possibly even on the fastest vessel that we have here in Urden.” I started to notice what Lilith was talking about. Once he had gotten closer, the stench around him was pretty overwhelming to my nose. While my nose felt less sensitive while disguised, I could still pick up on the disorienting aroma.

“I-I’m not sure I understand, sir. This is an exorbitant amount of money, are you certain there is nothing you can do to help us?” I was sincerely hoping that the bribery would work. While we’d still be compensating for the boat, stealing it still felt weird to me. But if this man was going to continue to be obstinate and unhelpful, it would leave us with very little options.

“We are humble people, we live by repetitive schedules that bring us comfort. I’m sorry, but I believe you will need to wait until morning to leave by boat. Everyone has the need to sleep, which is exactly where I intend to go in a moment, dear.” The old man seemed entirely unphased by the amount of money offered. I did take the slightest bit of joy in being called ‘dear’ however. Tradeoffs.

‘We have more important things to be thinking about than affirmations, little morsel.’

I can’t take a little joy when it comes up?

‘When you are safe, sure. I will give you plenty of affirmations when we are sailing across the lake.’

“I understand. Is there a place where we may rest around here?” I asked. It was probably a safer choice to wait to steal a boat until the traffic in the street went from almost dead to completely vacant.

“Just down there, dear. Not many rooms, but it’ll do. Not many people stay here in Urden.” The man replied before writing a little bit more onto the page in front of him. I followed his gaze to one of the nearby buildings, one of the larger buildings in the entire village.

“Thank you for your help.” He had not been helpful, but there wasn’t anything to be gained by telling him that. I’m sure he was just living a comfortable day to day here in Urden, but it was frustrating to be met with such ambivalence when we expressed our urgency.

I took the Bandits to the nearby inn, where we decided to stop in front of rather than go inside. Renting a room was unnecessary since we had planned to leave soon, but if we lingered outside of the building it might look like we’re adventurers deciding whether or not to rent a room or not. I had no idea just how long we would have to wait outside for most individuals to retire for the night, but I hoped it wasn’t long at all. The longer we stood still, the closer the Council nipped at our heels.

“It seems bribery has gotten us nowhere.” Sebil sighed sadly as he leaned against the wall of the inn. He seemed just as dejected as I that we were able to steal a fishing boat from this small village.

“It’s possible that the Council has already made it here. I find it hard to believe people would refuse that sum of money for a simple passage across a lake that they traverse on a daily basis. It doesn’t add up.” Cecelia seemed deep in thought as she took a seat on the small bench outside of the inn. I opted to take the seat next to her. It wouldn’t do much to set her mind at ease, but I slowly moved my fingers towards her to intertwine our hands as we sat. She flashed me a tender smile that made my heart flutter, but I could still tell she was running through hypotheticals in her head.

“Maybe he’s just sleepy? Or old? I know a lot of people who made stupid choices when they got older.” Phern moved to sit on the bench with us, ignoring the fact that there was practically only room for two people. She was small enough to fit on the edge, and didn’t seem to mind or notice that it was not an ideal amount of space for us to all sit.

“Sebil.” Lucas spoke softly.

“Yes, love?” Sebil replied, looking to where Lucas stood to his side, on the opposite side of the rest of us.

“I need to talk to you.”

“I-I’m sorry, is now really the time, love? We’re making a move for the docks the moment that the street clears out?”

“It’s important.” Lucas urged.

“Care to share with the class, cornrows?” I leaned my head forwards to be able to look across towards Lucas. He didn’t even move his head to address me.

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“It concerns a member of the Bandits, it does concern me.”

“Xa-Ester. Apologies. I will be fine. Five minutes, top. If the opportunity presents itself, start without us as I we’ll be back shortly.” I didn’t mind Sebil’s slip up too much. He had less time to adjust to my name, since Phern and Cecelia had technically already had time to practice and process the new information. What I did mind was the completely insane plan unfolding before me. There was no conversation, as far as I was concerned, that needed to unfold right now. We had too many factors that were hovering over our heads, ready to burst at any moment.

“Sebil. No. Now is the worst time for us to split up. I trust him as much as he trusts me!” I gestured towards Lucas, who let out a scoff in response. “I know you trust him more than the rest of us, but whatever conversation this is has to wait until we’re on the ship.”

“I swear to Inthenia, this is important, Sebil. Please trust me.” Lucas was still whispering towards Sebil, but I could hear his hushed words even from my distance. I did not worship Inthenia, at least not any more. But I had spent enough time devoted to her at the academy to know that swearing to Inthenia was not something to take lightly. For a Marked, with their life, their eyes, and their heart devoted to the Empire, it meant even more. It made me all the more concerned about what he needed to say.

“Ester, love. I ask that you place your trust in me. I will be back in five minutes, and if I am not, you may do what you please. Even if that means leaving on the ship without me.” Sebil spoke intensely, with the same overwhelming charisma that was hard to want to fight against. He spoke with an openness that felt like he was laying his very heart out before him.

“Fuck. Five minutes, Sebil. Please don’t make me regret this.” I replied to Sebil. With the permission granted, the two of them quickly walked away. Something which made Cecelia turn to look at me with shock in her face. She clearly hadn’t expected me to make the choice that I had.

“You let him?!”

“I didn’t do it for him, CiCi. This is the first time Sebil has asked for something so serious.” I squeezed Cecelia’s hand with my own, hoping that my reassurance might bleed into her from the physical touch.

“He killed you, Ester! For all we know, he’s running off to apprehend Sebil first before he sets a trap for us.”

“I know, CiCi! I’m not asking you to trust in Lucas. Can you trust in me?” I felt Cecelia’s hand tremble against mine. It felt like she tried to move her hand away from mine for a moment before stopping herself. I knew Phern was nearby, sitting awkwardly on the end of the bench. Yet it felt like it was only Cecelia and I in the entire world. I could hear the heartbeats in her chest, thumping through her hesitations like military drums. I could smell the fear that seeped out of her pores, something which would usually ignite the urge to hunt. Instead, It felt like it pulled us closer together. She was scared of something. I was scared of losing her, and the other Bandits that had protected me and risked their lives to break me out of a prison moments before my execution. Fear was the ingredient that the Gods utilized like a gross mixologist to bring us together.

“...I trust you.” Cecelia whispered back to me, the words filtering through the stale air of the street like water through cloth.

“Okay this is like sooooo cute and I really want you two to kiss right now because it would be like the perfect end to such a tender moment but I also think we should probably steal the ship now because the street is empty.” Phern’s words reminded me that as much as I wanted to sit with Cecelia for hours on end, we had work to do. Theft, more accurately. Does theft count as work?

‘If you are less honorable, perhaps.’

You mean to tell me you haven’t stolen in the centuries you’ve been alive?

‘I have no need to steal. If I want something from someone, I will take it from them once they are dead.’

Here I thought you might be a thief. You’re just a cold blooded murderer. Thank the Gods for setting my heart at ease with that.

‘Is it murder if I need to eat? You do not call farmers murderers for culling their cattle.’

Yes. It is murder, Lilith.

‘What separates your need for sustenance from mine? We both desire food. We both hunt, as you have done repeatedly while we’ve walked the lake.’

That’s different. I was hunting caritune and hares.

‘They think and feel, do they not? What makes them different from humans?’

That’s not- Those are different and you know it, Lilith.

‘Is it a matter of intelligence, little morsel? Should I only seek out humans that I deem more dimwitted than the rest. I’m afraid everyone looks a little dimwitted to me. Is it justified to you, then?’

I’m not having this conversation now, Lilith. You can give me your half-assed improvised ethics lecture when we’re not in the midst of stealing a boat.

‘You realize how you sound, little morsel? Do not lecture me on morals, I’m busy committing a crime? From where I’m sitting in the back of your mind, you should be agreeing with me.’

“That one. Phern, start unmooring that boat.” Cecelia ordered, already starting to hastily walk toward the docks. I quickly scampered off of the bench to try to keep up with her. I had been so caught up in the mental conversation I seemed to have missed out on whatever Cecelia had been saying before.

“Aye Aye Capitano! That boat will be sailing the seven seas in the most legendary way possible!” Phern pumped her fist into the air. The wide grin across her face demonstrated just how much thievery felt like home to her.

“You know about Sinbad?” I had read a legend of the sort when I was in the academy. I remembered there being some legend of the seven seas that many considered to be ancient history. I doubted those claims, since the geography of our world made little sense to contain seven seas unless you were to create unnecessary divisions to inflate the number up to seven.

“Yes, Ester. I know that sin is bad. Isn’t that like the whole point?” Phern rolled her eyes at me as I stared in disbelief. “What next, are you gonna tell me that murder kills people?” Phern huffed as she skipped down the street towards the boat. I figured it was best not to press her further. Clearly she had not read about Sinbad and happened to accidentally touch upon the idea in her patented word salad. I was half-certain that she could accidentally recite half of the books in a library by accident if she talked for long enough.

“Are we going without Sebil?”

“We’re unmooring and waiting. But if trouble shows up, he told us to leave.” Cecelia stated plainly. I had to assume she wasn’t going to leave Sebil behind, but she had the familiar expression that dawned on her whenever things got serious, which made it hard to tell.

Once we had made it to the docks, Phern ran ahead and began to untie all of the ropes that bound the ship to the dock. Cecelia and I stood by the hut that the old man had occupied in wait for Sebil. The air was stale as we waited under the cover of darkness. I moved into the hut itself and pulled out the gold coins from my pocket. Five golden coins.

Perspective was a funny thing. This amount of money meant a lot to Cecelia and Phern. I could see the weight it held when they fetched it from their bags and handed them over to me one at a time. I had seen the way that people in Multon and Thrum had reacted to smaller amounts of money as we walked the streets. Yet to me, it was just gold. I had seen plenty of the sight in the academy. In that way, I truly was the child of royal parents. The wealth that it took to get a child into Varenthell Academy ensured that each of my classmates were just as spoiled as the next. The gold coins I placed on the desk of the fishing hut felt light to me. Far lighter than they would be for others.

“What are you doing?” It wasn’t Cecelia’s voice that traveled across the empty street. It was instead the old man from earlier, whose slouched form hobbled towards us from a distance, supported by his cane. Cecelia and I froze as the man took slow steps towards us.

“We’re just looking at the ships. We want to have one picked for the morning when we depart.” Cecelia did her best to cover for the both of us. She stood just outside of the hut.

“Then why is your friend unfastening the ropes down the dock?” The man asked as he limped towards Cecelia. I moved towards the open door of the hut to stand by Cecelia. Before I left, my eye caught my own reflection in the small cracked mirror that sat on the desk of the hut. That was an ear, an inhuman, fuzzy ear.

‘What are you doing, little morsel?! Do not drop your disguise!’

I’m not! I’m not trying to! Is there a time limit or something?!

‘Not one that you should have exceeded in such a short time, no!’

I pulled myself back into the hut to break line of sight with the old man before he could see my face. With features melting back into their natural form, I needed something, anything to cover me. Sitting on a rack by the door was an old, decrepit looking hat with a dusty scarf underneath. While the two accessories looked and smelled positively ancient, it would have to do. I threw the hat on, tucking my ears into the top of the floppy accessory, and wrapped the scarf around my neck to pull it over my nose.

“Sir, we’ve left a payment for the vessel, it will be left at the other side of the lake when we are finished. It’s a simple affair to bring it back to Urden, we don’t want to cause any more trouble than that.” I exited the hut as Cecelia finished speaking to the old man, who had walked up an uncomfortable distance to Cecelia. He was much shorter than she was, but he seemed unbothered by the difference in height as he looked up at her, only a foot away.

“Payment will not be necessary.” The old man spoke. A number of thoughts raced through my mind in quick succession over the course of a few seconds, like one domino of thought crashing into the next in a chain reaction.

The parchment in the hut was blank. I had seen the man scrawling something across the parchment as we spoke earlier in the day. Yet despite the indentation across the paper, indicating where pressure had left marks, no ink had set into the parchment itself.

The man had claimed to be nearly blind. How had he managed to see us from such a distance? He was far enough away from the hut that we should have been difficult to spot for a normal person in the darkness, let alone someone with such difficulty seeing the golden coins in my palm earlier. The same went for how he had managed to spot Phern unmooring the boat across the dock.

The stench of the scarf wrapped around my nose was nothing like the old man. This was presumably his own clothing, and yet it carried the scent of salty brine, nothing like the unique smell of the old man earlier. The same scent that Lilith had picked up on when we had first met him. They were not the same. As I pulled down the scarf to once more smell the man in front of me, I could tell that there was some sort of sickly layer overtop a different stench. My eyes widened as I came to the same realization as Lilith. Her voice slamming into the edges of my mind like a cavernous echo.

‘HOLY MAGIC!’

“CECELIA!”

By the time the words had left my mouth, the man had lunged his hand forward towards Cecelia. The visage of the man melted away into the air, like oil bubbling across a canvas and destroying the image of an elderly fisherman. The menacing shape of Laia took form as a holy dagger plunged into Cecelia’s chest, scraping through the armor with difficulty as a screeching din reached my ears.

The air was stale, like it had died earlier in the afternoon, and was left to decay in the streets. The blood curdling scream that tore its way out of my throat found good company in the stale air. It hung across the stagnant street, like it was to be immortalized as an effigy to my sorrow.