Aria [2]
Apples and Engineers
The Abbeyford
She woke in a cold sweat. Gasping for air, Aria sat up, hugging herself tightly, she rocked back and forth slightly, breath coming in short, desperate gasps.
“Oh, by the white wolf,” She cursed under her breath, gripping the cold sheets, the material slipping from her sweaty grasp.
It was gone. All of it. Consumed by fire. Her home. The only home she’d ever known. Nothing but ashes.
“How did I…where am I?” She whispered to herself, drawing the blankets up to her chest. By the looks of it, she was in some kind of inn room, an expensive one at that. The familiar autumn breeze flowed through an open-door balcony, the silk curtains flowing and rippling like ghostly robes. The full moon shone bright, staring down at her from the night sky.
Relief, and a sigh overcame her when Aria noticed a sleeping Puck beside her, his back to her. He’d left his burnt shirt and cloak on the floor, and he hadn’t bothered to wash the black scuffs of ash and dirt from his skin, but he’d applied a salve to treat the numerous burns on his back. With a small smile, Aria rested her head back down against the pillow.
The urge to explore and figure out what was going on couldn’t quite match the urge to sleep, as every muscle and bone in her body told her to go back to sleep.
And so she did.
~ ~ ~
When the morning came, Puck had disappeared and Aria realized she’d been crying in her sleep. Her cheeks were rosy and puffy, and dark shadows had formed underneath her eyes, and her pillow was damp with tears.
“Ah…dammit.” Aria sniffed away the muck in her nose and the tears still sticking to her cheeks. A round table by the window was decorated with an arrangement of flowers, a bowl of freshly sliced fruit, a glass pitcher of wine and a bowl of cold water by a folded face-towel.
In her smallclothes of bound leather wraps, Aria cleaned her face and took careful bites of an apple. When memories of the previous night returned, a sudden wave of emotion forced her to sit on the edge of the bed, the bed-springs bouncing slightly as she cupped the apple in both hands.
Where was Puck?
Where was Darius?
Where was Angela?
Where was Altair?
Had they survived the flames?
These thoughts almost made her feel sick to the stomach. To even consider the possibility that one of them…
Unable to sit quietly, Aria went over to the copper tub behind the wooden slider, and ran a warm bath. She scrubbed the marks from her body, desperate to rid herself of the smell of ash.
Perhaps they’d been happened upon by a good Samaritan. A merchant who used to call the Silverpine home, or maybe a handful of local soldiers who weren’t completely piss drunk. Though she supposed you had to be drunk to run into an inferno like that for a bunch of savages.
But no… Aria hadn’t been saved by heroism of a stranger. Smoke clouded her memories, but she could not forget the great horse that had materialized as if from the ashes to save her, and carried her on its back through the firestorm, only to collapse back into Aria’s best friend. From the crow feather sitting placidly on the table, she could only assume Puck was ok, and with the rest of the hunters. He had to be.
Aria hugged her legs to her chest, and rested her head on her knees, nails digging into her sides. It wasn’t fair. First, the elders, now, the forest. What was she to tell them when they returned to find nothing but ashes in place of their home. Aria was tempted, so, so, very tempted to stay in that bath-tub and wallow in her grief and sorrow, but she had to find the others and make sure they were safe.
And figure out what comes next, I suppose.
With a sigh of determination and by force of will, swallowing back tears and every emotion that weighed her down like a bag of stones, Aria gripped the sides of the tub and went to pull herself out. That was when she noticed the strange mark on her left palm. A…phoenix? It was almost like a water-painting, the way it’s feathers streaked across her fingers and up onto the back of her hand, the two feathers longest tips almost touching, each feather beside each other a different shade of red, orange, yellow or crimson. It might have just been her eyes, still affected by the smoke, but she could almost swear the mark moved, the water paints shifting an inch and back again in an endless loop.
It felt almost like it burnt.
There was no way that the fire and the mark weren’t connected somehow, that much was obvious, Aria thought, drying off and dressing herself in a set of clothes left on the bed, supposedly by Puck due to the black feathers laying about it. Brown leather shoulder pads, thin and light weight that stretched down into gloves with metal knuckles. A red midriff, her baggy trousers a greenish shade of black and her strap boots black. Aria pulled her hair up into an ungraceful bun, strands of orange hair straying about.
She took a linen pack woven with coloured threads and threw it on her back, packing two skins of water, a pouch of silver Bellas left on the table and a small sack of fruit from the bowl, Aria munched on the rest of the apple as she left the relative safety of the inn room. As Aria wandered down the wooden hallway in search of the stairs, she wondered how in fact Puck had afforded the room and new clothes.
Eventually she made her way downstairs and into a tavern filled with men from across all of Valyrett. The air was dank and heavy with cigar and cigarette smoke, and smelled of whisky and piss. Imperial soldiers, otherwise known as the Local Marksmen, gambled their salaries away in the corner. With their feet up, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, it almost seemed that they had no idea that not only her home, but also great source of resources and livelihood. Maybe they just didn’t care. With less resources and the need to import, taxes would be raised and therefore their salaries. Or perhaps they simply didn’t know.
Farmers, in town after selling their goods drank at the bar, tended to by a tall, rusty haired man dressed in the usual bartender apparel of a white undershirt and black vest, with a red bowtie, a tell-tale sign that he was property of the Abbey Masters. Aria sat up at the bar, earning drunken glance from a grizzly old farmer, who’s face was essentially white bear with two beady black eyes.
She sneered, and then looked to the bartender, who was wiping up a glass when he noticed her.
“Ey there, how can I help you?” He smiled.
Aria couldn’t help but notice the calluses and scars running up his hands and arms, and the numerous bite marks on his fingers were an obvious indicator to the kind of child he parented. Parenting a child cursed to be an Ashling, well, that kind of money couldn’t be made by a simple bartender. You could see it in his watery blue eyes, eyes that didn’t try and hide the sadness pooling beneath them, despite the kindness that desperately shone through.
“Have you by any chance seen a certain guy rent a room here? He’s about 6 feet, brown hair, green eyes, probably smells like shit and his clothes are burnt? Kinda looks like a lost puppy,” Aria explained through a mouthful of apple.
The bartender smiled lightly, then nodded.
“Yeah, did too. Came in here with you, just as I was about to close up shop. Said there was a fire at the Silverpine. Half the town and myself were out in the streets, gawking at the plume of smoke chocking the sky. The Marksmen went to check out, but they couldn’t do a thing. Could only stand there and watch it burn.”
Frustration clawed up her insides.
Aria took in a deep breath, and said, “did you see where he headed off to, and…was he with anyone else?”
He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then replied, “He came through here early this morning, asked where he could find a general shop and someone with the knowledge to care for animals.”
Care for animals? Why would he…Oh, by the White Wolf. The Robin she’d saved from the fire, he must’ve taken it to be healed.
“Thanks,” Aria said in her way of goodbye, offering a genuine smile.
Instead of heading out into the streets, she headed upstairs and out a window at the end of the inn hallway, out onto the roof of the house beside the inn. Crouched on the wooden roof, Aria couldn’t help but think back to the Marksmen. It was then, shuffling up to the peak of the roof that she remembered the MUNC dogs they’d left locked up in a cage.
The realisation hit her so, Aria slipped from the peak and slid down the roof, landing on the cloth awning overlooking the street. Sprawled on the awning, Aria sighed and rolled onto the dirt street, kicked up in the air from passing carriages and peoples. Seeing how quick Puck was able to get them here, and the bowtie slave collar, there was only one place they could be, a town by the name of the Abbeyford, in the Ashryn province.
The brother to lord Ashryn, Scholar Tobias ruled over the town and central, abandoned Abby where the Scholar made his home. Here, religions of the old world were studied at the Abby, most so the God of Abraham. They did not worship, as the capitol often accused them of doing, but studied out of endless curiosity, to Aria’s knowledge.
She visited the general store, and bought a map, a small filleting knife and a simple wooden bow and fistful of common, wooden arrows. She asked after Puck, but the shopkeeper hadn’t seen a brown-haired lanky giraffe.
A farmer, his cart and mule were stopped in the middle of the road, the grumbly, old, tanned man grunted his complaints to a pair of Marksmen, who looked as though they could not care less, and seemed almost as disgruntled as they him. Aria gave the mule a pat, and peered closer and found that Puck was lying on the ground by their feet, the other Marksman’s foot rested atop his chest. The Marksmen wore a navy uniform, with Amor and Haine of black and white sewn onto the backs of their lighter blue cloaks. The day was proving to be a hot one, so the guard speaking to the irritated farmer held his dark blue helm in the crook of his arm, wiping away the sweat on his brow with a black-gloved hand.
Aria’s breath caught in her throat and heart stop in her chest, seeing Puck on the ground, bloodied and broken so. A steady stream of blood trickled from his nose, and a bruise was forming around his left eye and he hugged his chest in such a way as to suggest that a rib or two might be broken.
“Oh, you fool…” Aria whispered under her breath, climbing up and into the wagon tray filled with sacks of various seeds and fruit. She shrugged off her bow and stabbed an arrow head into and apple, Aria lined the awfully unbalanced arrow up, and drew it back with all her strength and shot the apple-arrow straight into the helmed head of the guard holding Puck down. The arrow harmlessly bounced right off, rattling his head inside his helm for a moment. Yet, she may as well have shot an arrow right into his ass the way he spun round and glared at her furiously.
Aria merely stabbed another arrow into another apple and shot it into the forehead of the other Marksman, catching him so off-guard that he tripped backwards onto the ground. At that, Aria laughed, grinning a vice grin as she shot another apple-arrow into the back of the farmers head. Puck just watched, squinting his one good, green eye at her in complete and utter, oh, you moron.
Another three Marksmen appeared, one mounted with a spear in hand.
“Oh, shoot.” Aria, thinking fast as she could, stabbed three arrows into three apples, and crouched at her knees at a ninety-degree angle, holding the bow at a horizontal angle as she watched the mounted Marksman charge, his spear at the ready.
Three meters.
She pulled the string back.
Two meters.
She forced her hands to stop shaking.
One meter.
She loosed the barrage, the apples slamming into the open air of the centre of his neck. Chocking and spluttering, he began to slide off his saddle, dropping his spear his horse rounded. Aria took her chance and leapt onto the saddle, kicking him off and snatching up the spear as she kicked the dark horse, using the butt of the spear to slam fend off the other Marksmen, she yanked at the reigns and came to a stop at Puck. Groaning, he struggled up onto the horse with her help, and slumped against her, his head rested on her shoulder and good arm wrapped around her middle.
Despite herself and despite the situation, Aria couldn’t help but notice how she liked the feeling of him being so close and holding her so, and how warm he felt. She took a deep breath and shook her head, and kicked the horse into a canter, galloping down the street and into the stone-paved section of the Abbeyford. The Marksmen they left in the dust called for the others to give chase.
Aria estimated that she had a three-minute head start, given that they had to saddle and mount, and the fact that more than half of them were already tipsy. The cobblestone main street was quiet, with a handful of people shuffling about on the sidewalks visiting the stores lining the street. Butchers, bakers, tailors, leather-workers, gunsmiths, general stores and patisserie streaking colours of red, white, brown, gold, green, pink and blue throughout the town. In the upper floor of the two story houses, the Abbey Mothers burnt incense and dressed in Ghar’ish spices, perfumes and sashes of coloured silks in accordance of the time of day, to signify what the Masters would do, whether it meant sleeping, singing, studying, dancing, farming or eating.
The main street sloped downwards, and Aria followed the subtle curve of the road until it reached a centre courtyard of sorts, a round causeway of white cobblestone, centred by a fountain statue of Arabella. She wore a white flowing dress of marble, and she held up in cupped hands, The Wanderer, a star she was said to have discovered and used to navigate and lead the Phoenix Men to the new world. On her back fluttered a tattered cape of yellow-gold, the colours of the Abby. The same Abby just up the long white bridge behind the statue. Beneath the bridge a lake rippled calmly, lapping softly against the mangrove-hybrid trees that lined the bridge on either side like sentinels keeping watch over the bridge and their Abby.
Puck held her even tighter, and buried his head into the crook of her neck as the horse leaped the few stairs and up again to another street to the north of the city. The Robin tweeted weakly in his careful hand that caged it protectively.
Aria could hear the thunder of hooves to the west, shouts of indignation and clattering of armour as they rode with righteous fury, seeking revenge for their comrades that had been rained down upon with apples.
They were running out of time. The Marksmen grew closer and their escape grew farther away. They were making their way down what seemed to be an industrial strip when Puck’s grip around her waist loosened, and he slipped, falling to unevenly paved road. He still protected the robin, despite the agony he was clearly in and the fact he could barely move on his own. His sudden departure startled the white and spotted black Falabella horse, who in turn jerked the other direction in which Aria had been twisted round to reach out to Puck, throwing her off.
The Falabella charged off and over the hill, leaving the two to groan in pain at the sudden meeting of face to stone. The shouts of the Marksmen grew ever closer, pushing Aria to get to her feet and pull Puck up with her, careful and fast as she dared. The two hobbled best they could into a blacksmiths empty shop, slamming the door behind them. Puck slouched against the wall, holding it desperately for support. Aria ducked her head, and peaked her head just an inch to peer through the window and watch the Marksmen thunder past.
“Oh…damn. We need to find another mount, and get out of town and find the others. Fast,” Aria whispered under her breath, sitting on her haunches watching Puck try to remain conscious.
“I’ll be right back. Promise,” Aria held his chin up, and felt her heartstrings pull as he attempted a weak smile.
“Such a dick,” Aria sighed, running her thumb down his lips and wiping away as much blood as she could.
She searched the shop, and even upstairs in the small loft that seemed to be someone’s living space. A mattress, an ungracious sprawl of blankets, an oil lamp, an odd looking radio and a letter, weirdly addressed to Mint Cupcake.
From the window in the second floor, Aria could see a small square courtyard, a stable and a blacksmith’s forge and workplace.
“Blacksmith…maybe a weapon or two. And a stable…usually that means horses. Oh, by the White Wolf we could use some guidance.”
Aria heading back downstairs and put Puck back together and out into the courtyard, resting him on a wooden long chair whilst she searched about. There was nothing especially interesting or spectacularly useful in the workshop, as it looked as though it hadn’t been used for some time. But, perhaps the White Wolf was with them, as stallion, black as Puck’s wings stood all by its lonesome in a small stall, far too cramped for such a fine beast.
“Oh, hello there,” Aria soothed, stroking his snout. She almost felt a tad at ease, before she felt something cold and sharp rested against her back.
“Turn around. Real slow,” A strange voice said.
She obeyed, and came face to face with a girl who couldn’t be any older than she was, her eyes a faded blue and hair, a mint green and tied into a French braid. She held a large spanner, but wielded it like a sword, with a defensive scowl.
Aria raised her hands in surrender.
“Listen, I’m sorry, but…I really need to steal your horse. I swear I’ll return it, I’m just in a bit of a situation right now and we need to get out of town,” She said, motioning towards a broken Puck.
The girl went to reply, but was interrupted abruptly when Marksmen bashed on the front door of the shop, shouting, “Baldwin, we know and your whore are in there! Open up, we come with questions from the Masters!”
At that, the girl’s scowl was replaced with a look of fear.
The girl looked from the shop to Aria, and back again.
“Please,” Aria pleaded.
The girl paused, but they bashed against the door again, as if they meant to kick it down.
She unlocked the gate of the stall and led the horse out into the courtyard, revealing that he was already saddled and bridled.
“Jump on!” The girl ordered, running over to the workshop. Aria turned to help Puck, only to find he was already standing. Almost drunkenly he put a hand on her shoulder and used a set of motions Aria had half-taught him to communicate that said, Me. Sky. Watch. Help you.
Before Aria could go to stop him, he shifted into a crow and fluttered up into the sky, to watch over them until it was safe.
Gritting her teeth, she mounted the horse the girl jumped on behind a satchel now at her hip, holding onto the lip of the saddle as they charged into a tight alleyway and back into the street. Left or right?
“Directions maybe?” Aria asked, desperate.
“Just keep heading east until you find the gate!” The girl called, kicking the horse into a gallop.
“How very specific!” Aria grunted as they charged unto the east.
Eventually they found their way out and into the farming fields beyond, with a mark now painted on their backs and dark wings keeping watch above.
ns 172.70.178.16da2