1.
Water. Everywhere. You'd think ducking under trees would spare you some of the wet, all those leaves acting like shingles, right? But no. Nope. In fact, you get even more drenched, if that's possible. So though there's no possible excuse, the rain was probably the closest for explaining exactly why I made the thief's colossal mistake of drawing attention to myself by slamming through the tavern's front door.
2.
What the devil is wrong with that...that...that ranger?! Standing outside, in the middle of a damned hailstorm, shouting his fool head off, as though I had as little sense. At the first fall of ice, I ducked for shelter, but he-twice my age, or more with that elven blood, supposedly thus older and wiser-gets soaked, and frozen, and battered till anyone else would have either given up or been knocked unconscious. Why? No one else would. Maybe Scott or Alice-but not for long and not as stupidly, they both know I've got sense enough to take care of myself, but they've known me long enough to have a reason to care, like Nicha did. Nicha would have done the same thing he did, to shame me into coming out, but I was a child then, and she'd raised me since I was a babe. Kirill-why would he care? We met less than a week ago, me just a courier, paid to deliver a letter. We sat in company only a few hours in all that time, exchanged maybe a dozen words. We barely know each other-why does he care??
I'm so mad at him for being such an idiot, for spoiling my plans...but... I don't want to admit it, I'm just fine taking care of myself and not worrying about someone worrying over me, and I'll never tell him-especially if he keeps sneaking off like he does-hah! And he gets mad at me-but really, I have to admit, if only here, that it's nice...I like...having him care. I mean...having people care.
3.
I've been in charge of my life for three years now, since Ticha died. I haven't answered to anyone for my coming and going since then; the limited contact I have with Scott and Alice doesn't really count. But now, these people, who have barely met me, who have no reason for poking into my business, are trying to make me account for my every exit and entrance, and trying to tell me what to do. The bard and the warrior haven't done much, honestly, nor has the halfling (besides setting his mice on me), but I can read it in their eyes, what they want me to do. And the monk-a worse do-gooder than I, for she helps anyone, whether or not they deserve it-she talked to me like Alice talks to her children, gently pointing out the 'right path'. Huh! As though I were five, and not thrice that age! I've lived a time in this world; I know there's more than one 'right path' in any situation. That was half the reason I wouldn't tell Faline my decision; the other half was that I hadn't completely made one. Faedren's story had me mostly convinced, really. I mean, how could it not? His fiancée stolen away, her soul imprisoned...I've lost someone, not realizing how dear she should have been to me until after she was gone. Faedren's fate was even worse. To see a grown man cry...to watch him hobble about, hindered by physical and emotional injuries, when by looking at his friends...at his brother...and listening to him play...you could see the man he used to be. And to realize that you could help him become that man again... I don't have a heart of stone. And there was one other thing-I realized it in the midst of Faline's lecture: I owe Kirill. He'd be the first to tell me it wasn't so, but it's my opinion that weighs most heavily on my actions. All the meals and rooms he bought for me and the others, his advice and help...and most importantly, though most would count it little, the fact that he cared enough to look for me, to stand outside in a storm and look for someone who had gone out in that same storm...whatever his reasons, whether care for someone younger and weaker, or just frustration over losing someone he wanted to have help his brother, it doesn't really matter. He's the first person in a long while-and the second man ever-to care where I was and what I was doing. So if he truly wants me to do this-there are older, better, more experienced thieves out there, ones easier to persuade...Pa for one-but if he wants me, for whatever reason, I'd do it. I owe it to him.
4.
It was frustrating getting a straight answer out of him tonight. I wanted to confront him when he was alone-this wasn't something I wanted spectators for-but the man was never away from people, except when I couldn't get away from my traveling companions. I even waited until midnight, when most sensible souls would be asleep, intending, if necessary, to track him down with the trinket the cloaked lady had given me and wake him up. But when I crept downstairs, I found him still scrubbing pots ferociously, in company with his brother. Unwilling to come back upstairs, I settled myself in a corner of the main room, impatiently waiting for Kirill to leave. I could have screamed when they came out together, already beginning a conversation. I couldn't sit there and listen; even if my moral sense had let me, this was Kirill we were talking about, a ranger by nature and profession. If he didn't already know I was there, he'd soon spot me...and I didn't relish being accused of eavesdropping. Stepping out now, I'd have to explain anyway, so I might as well get it over with. I was truly amazed at how startled both brothers were when I stepped from the shadows. I was too nervous and too frustrated and honestly too exhilarated at apparently surprising Kirill to mince words or be anything but blunt. Naturally, Kirill was anything but blunt in return. By Olidammara, does the man think himself a sooth-sayer? "You're meant for greater things than helping orphans." "I want you to have the chance to find out who you are meant to be." I know who I am, and I see no reason for a change. I am a helper of orphans, yes, and proud to be so. I am a helper of those who have been harmed by those stronger, older, more powerful than they, the ones who should have protected them. I always knew that I was pretty lucky in how my life has gone; in the past three years I've come to realize exactly how fortunate I was and remain. So, no, I don't see any reason to change myself.
Wait...how did he know I help orphans? The only thing he knows about me is that I was paid to deliver a letter to him...well, and that I am too proud/well-off to accept his money. He knows nothing about me! Why does he...? Argh! Stupid Ranger!
5.
STUPID RANGER!
I am so confused...so confused. What just happened!? Why did he...? Why did I...? How...
Deep breath, Starling. Lay it out in order, make it make sense. What happened first? All right, well, I woke up.
It was a beautiful morning, one no different than any other, insomuch as any of my days right now are similar. Though it was early, sunlight streamed through the door to my balcony, which I had left slightly open overnight, and the dawn breeze carried birdsong. The temptation to lay in bed might have been overwhelming if that breeze had not also carried delicious scents of apple and cinnamon and the first ash of a fire starting. The thought of Faedren limping about the kitchen preparing food for all of us without any help spurred me out of bed and into my outer wrap. Again, it was a normal morning, fetching and carrying for Faedren, though Aylen's behavior puzzled me-she seemed far more antisocial and, though I would never have thought to apply it to her, almost shy. I had almost forgotten that; Faedren kept me busy, and then when we slowed down, he took my mind right off anything else. He asked me to go make sure Kirill was awake.
I don't really remember traveling from the kitchen to the hall outside Kirill's room. I think I passed Aaron-the fact that he was clothed made its way into my brain-but all I could concentrate on was attempting to act normal, convincing myself that I was on an ordinary errand, that there was no reason for my heart to be beating so fast. I naturally didn't succeed; my fist was shaking as I raised it to knock on the door. As is typical, Kirill took his own sweet time answering; in fact, I thought he was gone when the only answer to my multiple knocks was Ghost's scratching at the door. But when I opened the door, and saw the unmade bed my composure splintered even more and I focused entirely on Ghost, ruffling her fur and talking to her in as loud a voice as I could manage. Even so, Kirill didn't-or didn't deign to-notice me until Ghost left me and trotted out to the balcony. And when I followed... Lady of Light... How I managed to say anything remotely comprehensible I don't know, seeing him standing there in the dawn's mellow light, his hair glowing, the planes of his face and the lines of his body outlined by that same light. I've never felt this before, I barely know what it is...I didn't see it coming, didn't realize that more than exasperation and a wish for revenge were affecting me. I couldn't think, I was so overwhelmed. I could barely speak.
And then he kissed me! After I tripped over poor Ghost and he had to catch me-he kissed me! I was blathering like an idiot-and he kissed me! I can't-I don't-Even now I don't know how to describe what it felt like, what I felt. I haven't the words. And then he pushed away from me and stood at the railing again for a long moment, staring at the trees as I stared at him...then he jumped over the railing and to the ground and ran...
It's an hour later and I'm still confused. He ran and he hid and I found him and we talked...He likes me. Probably. And what I feel can't be anything else...but he isn't sure, and so I'm not sure about him. I want to be happy and dancing and dream-eyed...but I'm afraid to hope, afraid to think he'd be different than any other man I've known. Different than Pa.
But he kissed me.
And I kissed him.
Stupid Ranger.
6.
Poor Caria. And poor Aaron.
I'm watching him from across the campsite as he drinks mug after mug of coffee. I'm curled up against my packs under a thick evergreen, writing in this journal, so I don't think he can see me, but I can see the tension in his face, in his whole body. I hope, for both their sakes, that we get her back soon, that she'll be all right when we get to her.
I can see Aaron planning something, after the carnage we found today. I don't know entirely what he has in mind, but I'll be making my own small preparations, so that I'll be ready when he moves. Were I in his place, I wouldn't stop to explain to others my plans, and I doubt he's any different. But I won't let him go alone.
When did these people become family? When did I know they were something I've only touched the edges of? I don't know. But Aylen and Fayline, Kirill, Aaron, Caria, Winston, Faedren and Amaya, even Dorn...in the past two months, they've somehow become part of me.
And I won't let any of them go.
7.
I've been lying here for...I don't know how long. The comforting scent of him, still caught in the pillow and blankets, isn't enough to calm me down after this morning's revelations, especially since he pulled another disappearing act this morning. On the plus side, he left a note. Of course, there was as little information in it as though he had left nothing at all. But still...it was sweet of him.
It wasn't the only thing he left, either. Fayline found a necklace tangled in my hair...and that opened all sorts of excitement. My dear ranger has royal blood in his veins. And I...I can't define my own blood, but I know what's in it.
I know who my mother is, now. I know she's alive, I know why she left, I know I have an aunt-well, several of them, but I know one, and I know I have a sister. A half sister, an older sister, moreover, someone I've known for a while now, someone I was helping, someone who is marrying the brother of the man I...love.
That's something else, the complex realization that came last night, as I was lying in his arms in this bed, before all of this. I've never felt afraid around people, I've always been fully capable of taking care of myself, but...Kirill is the first person I have ever felt fully relaxed around, the first person that, when I'm with him, my guards come down without my even thinking about it. I feel safe, always, and even when he leaves or pulls his silent antisocial woodsman act...I feel welcome and wanted, not as if he wished me elsewhere.
I want to talk to him. I need to talk to him. I've learned so much today, about him and about me and about us, and it's running around in my head and it won't settle. For the first time since my childhood, I want to be held by someone and told it will be all right.
All right.
Eventually.
8.
My poor ranger...
The sunlight shifts across his face as the carriage we have...borrowed...rolls somewhat smoothly across the landscape towards Silverymoon. It is an unspoken agreement among all in the party that the shades on these windows will not be drawn, for the sake of the two who lie within. Caria...and my Kirill.
My Kirill...my poor Kirill. For as long as I live, I will not forget the dreams which came to me as we rode to that dark fortress. Dreams full of darkness, and pain, and cruel sorrow which sent me upright from deep sleep, my throat raw with the vestiges of a half-real scream. Those dreams which, though they tore my heart, allowed me when I found him, when Fayline and I opened that door and saw him as those horrible ones had left him-chained to the wall, nearly unconscious, beaten so that despite my braced nerves I nearly cried-to instead work sensibly to loose him with as little damage as possible, to assist Fayline in bandaging as much as we could. I think that some part of him knew I was there; it is not something I can ask.
But even now, as he and Caria lie sleeping on facing carriage seats and I sit on cushions on the floor between them, my back against the door, he has captured my left hand in his swollen battered grasp, so that my arm lies beside his on the leather seat. It is not uncomfortable for me, but I am nearly crying that he would wish this contact, that such a simple thing from me can bring him some measure of comfort. Aylen has done what she could for both these two, but she has only one spell of healing each day, and Kirill, noble strong stubborn male that he is, manages things so that Caria receives that help more often than he himself.
Were he not so injured, I would be seriously torn between beating him for his pigheadedness and kissing him for the love and pride I have in his goodness.
Aaron has just looked in the window; it is time for us to switch out, so that he can ride with Caria and I can stretch and eat and ride in the wind, so that not even I can tell for which reason the tears roll down my face. I will not cry beside Kirill.
I will leave my hand in his as long as I might, until Aaron flips down from the carriage roof where Winston rides with Shadow. Until then, I will do all that I can for my ranger: sit beside him, be with him, love him as he heals.
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