Previous: Interlude I | Next: Chapter 5
Marcel spoke up from across the square, his eyes narrow. “River.”
“Yeah, yeah, thank you, but I’ve already introduced myself,” said River. “As it happens, though, Marcie, I’m very flattered you remember me! It’s been a while since we got to chat face-to-face, huh?”
He didn’t react, so she replied for him, her voice flowing right along like music. “Mhm. Quite a bit longer than usual. Someone who didn’t know you so well might think you’re starting to slip. Where’s your buddy Valerie?”
“He’s on his way,” Marcel said. “We’ve had sensitive matters to attend to, recently, as I’m sure you and your posse are aware of by now. You–” Then he looked pointedly, straight at me again. “–and you, too, aren’t exactly my priority. I just need to make sure that whatever this is doesn’t get out of hand, alright?”
River scoffed. “Well, nobody wants that, Marcie. But as it happens, you aren’t the reason I’m here, either. Oh no.” She turned her head to meet my eyes over her shoulder. Hers were bright green. “I’m here for you.”
I stared back, standing my ground, not wanting to say something else I’d regret. Marcel stood his own ground, the point of River’s sword tracing little circles in the air before him. Quivering, almost imperceptibly.
The truth was, I had no idea what in the world was going on here. Not that I’d had much of an idea before she’d arrived, but nevertheless.
“...Why?”
Her lip curled upward, just slightly. “Why? You’re fascinating! I saw you way back on the beach, and I came to find you before these losers did. Sorry I kinda botched that one, but I’m here now. And unlike some folks ‘round here, I’m here to help.”
“River,” he growled. “I don’t believe you understand what you’re doing or what the potential consequences of it are, right now, but–”
“I can find out what you’re all hiding for myself just fine, thank you very much!”
I stood up a little taller, interrupting their back-and-forth. When I spoke to her, I stirred up as much determination as I could. “What do you want with me?”
She turned from Marcel – though her sword didn’t waver – and met my eyes again, and although her face kept its smug expression, I caught it soften a little. Her voice softened, too. “Hey, hey,” she said, “it’s okay, stranger. I don’t want anything from you, alright? Listen, I know everybody around here. Which means I know you’re not one of ‘em. I’d just rather you got a chance at your own life before throwing your lot in with them.”
“I don’t want to throw anything into anything,” I replied. She exhaled.
“Yeah, well… let me ask, if you don’t mind, where did you come from?”
Before I could think of another way to say what I’d already said, Marcel spoke from across the square. “She doesn’t know, River. She–”
“Hey!” She cut him off, her voice back to the way it was. The point of her blade steadied in the air, pointed straight through his chest. “I don’t know what you’ve been trying to sell her this whole time, but I sure don’t think I need you telling me what she’s perfectly able to say herself, can’t we all agree?”
“I really– I really don’t know, okay?” I said. My throat tightened. “Is that what you want to hear?”
She seemed to consider that for a long time, before, I think to everyone’s surprise, she sheathed her sword with a single motion and a quiet snick and turned her back to Marcel. Yet he still didn’t make a move as she walked over to me, her hands raised. She even seemed to make an effort to suppress her aura of energy. It was almost an embrace, like warm water.
Before I knew it she was right in front of me, looking up into my face. And she was the first person not to make me afraid, I realized. Her eyes were a relief.
“I wouldn’t say that,” she replied, quietly, “but I’ll take your word for it. So let’s go.”
“I… what? Where?”
“Away from here!” she said. “Just for a little while, somewhere they can’t find us. I have a safe place nearby, and better than that, I have people. People who’ve taken care of the odd wanderer like you before. People who can help.”
“How…”
“You don’t understand this, River,” said Marcel.
She turned once more to glare at him through the corner of her eye. He’d relaxed somewhat, too, but unlike her, he was still very much on guard. “Oh, really? Really? I don’t think it’s a matter of understanding at all, Marcie.”
“You’re being antagonistic for the sake of it. As usual. If we can just put aside our differences for a single moment–”
“Differences,” she enunciated, scoffing. “I see. Differences. Well, unfortunately for you, I remember just fine what differences with the Court get you, and I’ve still got the silver burns to prove it. I guess that’s your priority, then?”
“River,” he started, hesitating, “I–”
“I think it’s time we get going,” she said, ignoring him. She didn’t exactly give me the time to consider all my options, not that there were many. I was caught between the two of them, whatever tension was between them; and whatever that entailed, it didn’t seem like there was any better way out.
These people were hard. Hard to deal with, hard to understand; they’d taught me that much. I wasn’t sure, had I a real chance, that I’d prefer dealing with them to just remaining alone. Doing the only thing I’d ever done.
Or I could stop being alone, for just a little while.
“There were others like me?” I asked, very quietly. River turned to me. “And you’ve helped them? And you can help me?”
Again, she smiled. “Yeah. Just like I said. I know what it’s like, stranger.”
I nodded to myself. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”
We both must have felt it as Marcel let his heat start pouring outward, even as he took a running start toward us, but for a moment she seemed to ignore him, her eyes locked with mine. But she pulled something from a pocket, clutching it tightly in her palm before holding it aloft, above her head where he could see it.
A tiny white sphere– nothing I’d ever seen before. He clearly recognized it, though. He leapt forward, one hand outstretched and the other reaching for something at his waist, before River lobbed the thing to the side; in an instant he kicked off from the ground to redirect himself, chasing after the falling… whatever it was, away from us. Diving for it like he was desperate to keep it from hitting the ground.
River spun on her heels in the confusion, already on the move. She grabbed my hand with her own, leather separating our skin, and the sudden contact was almost as jarring to me– but she didn’t give me time to be surprised. She pulled me away, towards the edge of the square.
“Run,” she whispered to me.
Marcel’s body hit the ground behind us.
I stumbled over my feet, but River guided me along, faster and faster as I got my bearings. She glanced over her shoulder to look at him.
And for some ridiculous reason, she was still smiling.
“Run!”
With a thundering crack and a soft white flash and some kind of crackling discharge of energy behind us, I felt the space in the heart of the square – where Marcel was, and where River’s white orb was – explode all at once, the air pressure shifting and the electrical fields shuddering all around us. My senses were frazzled momentarily, like I’d fallen in place very suddenly, but we were already past the outer ring of buildings– I couldn’t imagine what it must’ve felt like for him.
River stumbled too, her grip on me slackening, but she righted herself before long as we careened down the street. Shutters and doors slammed shut on every side as the people who’d been watching everything play out in the square hid from the explosion.
“Electromagnetic,” said River, unprompted, as she lead me down an alley from the wide street, one I couldn’t tell if I’d passed through before. “You okay?”
I blinked, rapidly, still feeling the lingering effects, the fuzz clinging to my senses of heat and electricity. “I think so. I don’t know.”
“Kick like that should put him out of commission for a good minute or so. Long enough for us to get a head start outta here. Just stick close to me.”
She was leading us in a wide arc towards the edge of the city, I could tell, weaving between the narrower alleys. Marcel’s presence was still behind us– faint, but there. If we were running, he was surely following, but it was hard to say whether he was keeping up, or if he was still functioning at all after the blast. The noise drowned him out.
Then there was something else; another flare like him, like River, from another direction. Coming toward us at an angle from the fields beyond the city. Where the flying ship I’d seen had been heading.
I recalled what he’d said about his partner. “The other one, Valerie, they’re coming–”
“Yeah, I’ve got him too,” she said. She still seemed at ease, but she picked up the pace slightly too, and I followed suit. We slipped into another alley, further still from the bustling main roads, our feet splashing through dust and stagnant water.
We hit a wall. Not literally, but almost; River skidded to a halt on the heels of her boots as we turned into a dead end, pausing for just a moment before she started to scale the side of the building, pulling herself up on loose bricks and old pipework. Above us, the dark sky silhouetted the even darker shapes of the low rooftops. Familiar.
When she reached the top she turned around to look over the edge, apparently expecting to help me up, but I was already right behind her. We stood up together on the edge of the roof, my feet sliding against red shingles.
It was cooler up above the street– much nicer. The wind buffeted us both, the pale smoke of a nearby chimney seasoning the air, but it was clear and calm in comparison. She turned to look for the dark treeline at the edge of town, still some distance away, and soft moonlight shimmered around her head.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked. Marcel and his friend were still some distance away, too, but they were approaching fast from two different directions.
She turned back to me, gesturing to keep following as she started walking again along the roof. “Come on. We should be able to make it.”
And we were running along the rooftops. Stumbling, occasionally, leaping across the chasms where the shingles gave way, but we quickly fell into a rhythm and picked up speed.
We leapt across another gap, and suddenly she hollered something unintelligible into the night, pumping a fist into the empty air. It sounded primal, exhilarating. It was exhilarating. She still had that grin on her face, and the way she wore it, it seemed almost infectious. I felt something tugging at the edges of my lips as I watched her.
I couldn’t recall the last time I’d felt like that.
After letting out another piercing whoop she glanced over to meet my gaze. She said something I couldn’t make out, the wind whisking the words away, but she was still smiling. She was radiant, I thought. I was quite sure that was a totally objective observation. Maybe it was the adrenaline.
I shouted that I didn’t catch what she said. She was opening her mouth to speak when she slipped off the rooftop, sliding down into the dark street below and falling to the ground.
“Ack!”
I stopped and rushed to the edge where she’d fallen, startled, but she was already moving again, parallel to our previous path. “I’m okay! Just a little roughed up is all!” she called up to me. “Just keep going!” I obliged, following from above.
By the time we were coming upon the edge of the city, where the buildings slumped and the roads gave way to grassy dirt tracks winding along the hills, we were far enough ahead that I couldn’t feel Marcel’s energy anymore. “We’re just heading into the forest out there!” called River. “Then we can get outta here on my ship, alright? Just keep going straight this way, over the creek, and we’ll be right on it.”
I nodded, before realizing that she probably couldn’t see me that well from down there, and I called back an affirmative instead. We kept running until the next gap in the rooftops, where I hopped down to ground level to meet her again, neither of us breaking our stride.
The stone walls and jagged fences gradually sank back into the earth, the night only growing colder and quieter as we left the town behind for the vast expanse of tall grass between us and the treeline. Then I was in the forest once more.
We both had to focus more on our footing as we went deeper, so we became quieter, too; not that I could think of much I wanted to say. I was so tired, and the words felt out of reach anyway.
Being out here, where the lights were replaced by chirping insects and the deep hum of slumbering trees… at least it helped the headache. Suddenly, I remembered how loud every sound of the forest was as we trudged through the undergrowth. It was hard to believe I’d almost gotten accustomed to the chaos so quickly.
We crossed the shallow creek on the smooth rocks beneath the surface, our legs drenched in the spray, and then, finally, River stopped in a long, moonlit clearing. She knew what she was looking for, seemingly, but I couldn’t figure out what; until she reached into the boughs and pulled a leaf-covered tarp down to the ground, revealing what it had been hiding.
River’s own dragon; a flying ship. Not unlike the one I assumed Marcel had arrived in, though it seemed much smaller, even up-close. Its wing-like sails were still, folded above its body. “Here she is,” said River. “My pride and joy.”
Along the side of the hull, dark, stencilled letters were strung together: Seremina. It was an unfamiliar word, but at least I recognized the script.
She looked at me for a second, waiting for a further reaction, before she simply clapped her hands together and moved over to inspect the hull. “Let’s get going, then! Unless you’ve got any objections, stranger?”
I hesitated for a long time, and she noticed. And then I said, carefully, “I just… am not sure how I can trust you. Or anything, really. I’m not sure about anything.”
“...I get it.” She turned back to the ship, and then, over her shoulder, she continued, “Let’s just get inside, maybe get off the ground, and I’ll tell you everything I can, deal? No obligations, nothing. But trust me when I say that I want to help.”
I sighed as she pulled herself up onto the deck of the vessel, brushing aside fallen leaves and tangles of rigging along the way, but I followed her. She reached down one hand to help me up, and this time I took it.
Then we were both standing, and she was watching me very intently, her hand still wrapped around mine. I wasn’t sure what she was waiting for from me– but apparently, it was nothing much. She snapped out of it, blinked quickly, took a step back. She reached down to pull the leather glove from her left hand, before extending it out to me, meeting my eyes with a more serious expression on her face.
“Okay, y’know what? First things first. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” she said. “I’m River. River Mercier.” She took my hand again, in her own bare palm, this time. It was soft, softer than I expected– although I hadn’t exactly come into contact with many other people, that somehow struck me. Not that that really made any sense. Maybe I was more tired than I thought.
She waited expectantly for a few moments, before breaking the silence again. “Now’s the part where you tell me your name. First step in getting to know someone, after all.”
I was surprised by that question, because until that moment, the concept hadn’t even occurred to me. My name.
Seabirds didn’t talk; they hadn’t called me anything. The people in the stories had names, and the people here had names. There was no real way to know how many of the texts back home were written by me and left there, forgotten until their rediscovery, but I never signed anything. There was no reason to.
My memories were blurred between what was real and what I’d only imagined, but I did remember some things. Stories I couldn’t recall reading, little bits of information some past self had left for me. I didn’t have a name, but I knew names. Panicking, mentally, I ran through them and tried very hard not to think of hers.
Until something came to me, drowning out the others, drifting in like the last shred of a dream, and this time I clung to it. Where it was from was impossible to say, nothing but vague impressions – it might as well have been from a dream – but if I didn’t have one of my own, then it was as good a name as any.
“I guess you can call me Adeline,” I said, meeting her eyes, clutching the locket around my neck, the one other relic I could hold on to. A brief pause. The moment the word left my tongue, though, it felt familiar. It fit. “Just Adeline, I think.”
“Well, good morning, Adeline,” River said, and my heart fluttered. She pumped my hand up and down, a smile creeping back onto her face. “Let’s get down to business, yeah?“
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