Fable - Ask C'mere, Chimera!

[Maranae]

"Right," she said after she had set him down. She could not see any wings on him; clearly he did not have them. No idea what a drakeling was either. Probably some kind of food. The mere thought of food made her recall that she was, in fact, hungry and had not eaten since that morning.

"I will not," she said in response to his demand. She did not understand why he would ask her to spin him and then to not spin him. Her brow furrowed as she tried to come to terms with the contradictory statements. When he asked her to follow his lead again, she slowed to a stop, body twitching to the rhythm but feet planted firmly.

She followed his every movement with wide eyes. After a cycle of movement, she nodded to herself and then began to mimic his movements quite precisely. Mimicry, it turned out, was something she was quite good at. She repeated every movement he made, right or wrong, without any real understanding of the basics. The whole night of dancing was pure mimicry to tell the truth; she was not trained to dance. She had been trained to fight.

Fighting and dancing were awfully similar as it turned out. One just involved a lot more blood on both sides, but both were finely tuned movement and countermovement.

Sweat beaded on her brow, but she wore a delighted expression all the same. Even if her stomach growled nearly loud enough to be heard.

 

[Quinton]

Spoiler: Music IC

Quinton had expected that his partner might not keep up with him for the entirety of their dance, however not once had she let him down by turning around and escaping the clutches of this performance. Rather, she held her ground, stayed the duration, even if she might have spun him a wee bit too quickly for the contents of his stomach to stay down.

At least a well placed hiccup from his drink had kept his innards from coming up after being just a bit dizzy. Alas, the halfling wasn’t the greatest dancer in the lands to begin with; he had simply been to enough taverns to get the feel for the rhythms and move his feet like liquid steel whenever the occasion called for it.

So absolutely no judgment for this little lass. She was fantastic! No bombastic ego for either of them. No, her merriment was encouragement! Elbows up, knees up, she had this! “That’s it!” Quinton tapdanced and snapped his fingers. “You’re getting the hang of it, miss!” She was indeed and, if anybody thought differently, they could simply leave.

Moments later, however, and even the dancing halfling was feeling hungry as much as thirsty. That actually happened more often than not no matter what he was doing, honestly. “You did brilliantly!” He slapped a hand on her shoulder which, given their height difference, meant he had to stand on his toes a bit. “How about we take our seats!?”

Quinton didn’t wait. He found his table with his ale and beef and cabbage and almonds and nuts and other stuff not quite finished. “I’m famished!” He guzzled his beverage, well earned for the trouble, not that it was a bother. “So, my lady,” he winked with his eye as much as his smile. “Did you enjoy it?”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

The part of her that was human - the part of her that was a young girl - was delighted by all of this. Quinton was naturally charismatic (as far as she was concerned), and his encouragement buoyed her spirits even higher than they had been. The terrifyingly cat-like grin was far less so when lit by delight.

The slap on the shoulder, though, was a mistake. The part of her that was an animal, debased and low and feral, recoiled at the touch.

The smile faded, ghosts of some unspoken and definitely unpleasant memory marching across her features. It wasn't anger so much as fear that rose there. The cornered animal, the beaten dog. She slowed and stopped short of the table while she wrestled with instinct, part of her wanting to lash out so that she was not hurt again. Another part screamed to run and hide.

She stood there in the light, with the laughter and the music and the cheer roiling round her and took a step backwards. As quickly as that it was too much, and she turned and bolted for the door with every thought of food and fun and dancing evaporating like mist in the midmorning sun.

She did not go very far. Only far enough to get away from the noise and the merriment and the bright light. Outside it had fallen dark, the air alive with the scent of coming rain. Lightning flashed in the sky, shattering the darkness for a moment every now and again, the distant rumble of thunder counterpoint to the night sounds.

Maranae stood in the road nostrils flaring as she fought with her particular brand of inner demons

 

[Quinton]

“Did you enjoy it?”

Quinton looked up at his newfound companion, expectant of a response any moment; only, when he looked up and when he spoke, when he lifted his cup to his lips for a delicious sip, he found no companion in his presence. No, she slipped away from him as quickly as the wind, though he glimpsed the curious creature exit the tavern.

And to think, Quinton… He sighed inside his mind. You came here for meat and mead as much as to pick pockets… How had he gotten himself into this position to begin with? Oh. Right. A halfling’s merry curiosity…

This girl was obviously not his niece, never mind his daughter, and he was no uncle, didn’t want to be a father. They were hardly friends, didn’t even know each other, but something within him felt responsible for what had happened, what might happen to her. Not my problem, not my problem. Quinton reminded himself. Perhaps her departure from his presence and this tavern was just as well.

Except, well, as he thought all of this from one moment to the next, like the environment, as the wind tickled his skin, the little guy was already outside, no cup or plate in hand, no pockets picked, as he stood behind his companion.

“M-Miss?”

The halfling hesitated. He didn’t know if this girl might just bite the head off his shoulders. Was it him, something he said or did, that had prompted her swift exit from the tavern? Maybe the music? Should have told those musicians to play something more exotic maybe, more orcish, less merry. Then again, random thoughts just tended to enter his head, and maybe it would rain any second.

“Are you okay?”

He looked right, waited yet again for her to say something, looked left.

“I can make you some eggs if you like with that fine frying pan ahahahahaha……ha…”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

It was such an innocent thing, that friendly touch. But it was too much for her, and Quinton was neither the first, nor likely to be the last to cross that boundary.

She had been treated like an animal, once. Was something more than an animal, but less than a human - in her own eyes, and in the eyes of those that had made her and hunted her and forced her to do things that she did not want to do. In fact, the entire idea of humanity was far beyond her; such philosophy belonged to scholars. Or people brighter than her, anyway.

The sound of his voice made her heart lurch for a moment, her muscles tense. Fight or flight flickered in her... but only for a moment.

She wasn't an actual animal, after all.

She turned to face him, eyes glowing in the light from the tavern windows. Actinic light washed over the scene, the not-quite-as-distant growl of thunder washing over the little town. A wariness lay in them. He had not hurt her. She had been having fun. She had been enjoying the light and life and music and laughter.

She stood there, trying to work through the words in her head. Trying to articulate an idea. She opened her mouth, paused, closed it. And then opened it again. "You did not hurt me," she said to herself, low and very nearly below her breath. As if she were trying to convince herself. "Not one of the bad people," she said after another long moment.

Her brow furrowed in thought, seemed to relax a little. It wasn't the ghost of his touch that she was feeling right then. It was the crop, the fist, the blade. Remembering it made her eyes distant and made her reflexively open and close her hands.

 

[Quinton]

She turned, and he was there to see. To witness her visage as given to him. Such a small creature. Ironic. For she was taller than him—but not older. Was he much different in comparison? Was there any wisdom within him? He might call her a child but, in the end, what was the age difference, never mind height?

Quinton was only eighteen and there was where he might hide. There were his lies. In this universe, in that tavern, maybe you had to be twenty-one or just older but it didn’t matter to him because, in the end, this halfling had his wiles amid his wild antics, never mind wisdom.

His thoughts did often get the better of him. Not at this moment though. No, it wasn’t thinking, but feeling. No father. No daughter. She wasn't even his sister. Just a stranger...

I didn’t hurt her. Those were her words. Not one of the bad people. So he wasn’t evil. Phew. That was a relief. Whether drunk or sober, Quinton had a way with words and movements for better or worse, and forget pickpockets.

He watched her hands open and close at that moment. He swallowed the aftertaste of ale, though suddenly it was stale, while the scent of rain was heavy on the horizon, then a droplet on his face the next moment.

“Tell me about them,” Quinton pleaded with a gentle smile on his face, as he took a steady step forward toward her, brave as morning dew in the wake of sunlight despite the night. “But not here. Not in the open.”

So exposed to weather and droppers of eaves as they were. “Over there.” He nodded toward a roof nearby. Horses tethered together beneath straw ceiling like canopy. Stables. Stools and tables. “If you are willing and if you’d please.”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Them.

She turned slowly, eyeing where he was pointing. She did not move. There was a pensive air about her - the flash of eye, the uncertain stance that screamed of her willingness to run again and to not face the past. Or the here and the now, if it came to it.

"Do not touch her," she said suddenly, voice rasping. She swallowed hard for a moment and finished turning so that she fully faced him. "Me," she said again, quietly. "Not her. I am a me," she added as if she were trying to convince herself of the fact.

Actinic light, the sharp crack of thunder a split second later. Maranae jumped at the flashbang. A few seconds later the occasional drop turned into a torrential downpour, wind rising until the trees nearby whipped in the gust front. She hesitated only a moment longer, then darted through the sheets of water into the shelter that Quinton had indicated.

"Why?" She asked once both were in the stable. Her thought skittered round the edge of memories of darkness and pain and confusion. "If I remember, they always come back." She eyed the darkness with one eye, and him with the other. Stood there in silence and dripped in the horse manure scented darkness.

 

[Quinton]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Do not touch her. Her words rang out like a thousand bells, a million chimes, and never mind the violin or the musicians of the tavern whence they had both escaped. No, this environment was different, here in the budding rain. It began as a drizzle, forget the fiddle, but like slow strings it was slowly growing; droplets became a pour, downward, soon to become a downpour.

Quinton wasn’t perturbed by it. Rain would not disturb his position before this young woman. Her. It was her word. This young man would not deny it. Would not curse her for her actions. They had chatted, they had danced, and he had enjoyed it whatever her own voice toward it and her stance. I am a me.

Really, was a Quinton any different? He had no surname to his halfling identity. Born an orphan, left on a porch, his self-acceptance was lost on him since his birth. Having found purchase with makeshift parents in a tavern, however, his childhood was not so cursed, despite his life as a thief turned pirate of the seas.

Great rain fell, as if the skies had turned to hell. As determined as Quinton was to stand there in his cloak, unhooded, to be soaked, let water twist its rivulets down his countenance, he wouldn’t deny his appreciation that his companion had decided to seek their shared shelter amid his suggestion as her helper.

They stood under the roof, amid the hoof. Horses beside them. A few stirred as thunder cracked the welkin. Others were as oblivious as the patrons of the tavern. Quinton? Not so different. Not so indifferent, for that matter, as he turned to her, his companion.

“My lady, I do not know who ‘they’ are, but I assure you…”

He dared to leap. Didn't hesitate. His hand reached forward toward her own, as gently as a feather in the wind, purposely, knowingly; knowing that she didn’t want to be touched, so he attempted it just as much.

If she slapped his hand away, Quinton would not retaliate.

“...You are you. I will not let them take you. You are free. As I am me.”

He smiled, and all the while the rain poured, but it did not drown them, as they were allowed their moment.

“Quinton.”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

She jerked her hand back and tensed at the same time; animal fight-or-flight flared brilliantly behind her yellow eyes. But she did not strike out, and she did not run. She stared at his hand for a long second - almost too long. The uncomfortable silence grew until...

...she broke it. "They will not take me, back" she said slowly. There was a growl at the back of her throat that laced the words with a menace completely at odds with the gentle nature that Quinton had seen. Terrifying teeth and cat-like eyes did not fit with the dancer on the floor. They fit quite well with that voice, though.

"They made me," she added after a moment. "They own me. But not a...a..," she struggled to find a word that fit what they had made. "A... killer?" A soldier of war, made fit for purpose. She looked inward, into the void in her head. "They want a killer," she said. "Angry. Angry, they are angry... They said I am not a me, am a thing..."

Memory of torments endured were etched on her face.

 

[Quinton]

As she visibly jerked her hand back, admittedly, Quinton had half-expected the gesture. In fact, how dare he even attempt it? He stiffened, he gulped back dread, frightened. The nerve of him! Oh, sure, he was only trying to console the young woman, the tall girl, but he made a mistake at that moment yet again. He always made mistakes. Quinton Of No Surname was a mistake. He should have known better.

She said they will not take her back and he was still not too sure of who ‘they’ were but perhaps it didn’t really matter under the circumstances. Here in the stables, where the pair of them had since bidden tables and musical fables goodbye; where the fire was replaced with the rain despite keeping dry; where the animals of horses and donkeys kept them company—not the animals of men and women.

Then, in the next moment, Quinton saw no little lady, no girl as big as a woman, not even a child, but an infant just like him, abandoned and left on a doorstep. Just like me. Her prison wasn’t his, granted, but were they both not prisoners? He was just a visitor in her presence, however, but he wanted to help her—or go to hell for the attempt.

Yes, he saw anger in her, and it did blaze like the fire of the tavern, but he did not see terror. A killer? Maybe, but not a monster.

“Whatever they want,” Quinton bit his lip, took a step closer, but he did not yet again attempt to rest his hand on her shoulder despite his desire to hold and console her as his absent father never did to him. “They cannot have you.”

Another step. "I won't let them." Closer. Slower. “They do not own you. Don’t you see?” He expressed his disbelief as he breathed between his lips. “They are idiots! To think you a thing…” He shook his head with emphasis. “No, my friend. You are no thing. You are…” He hesitated. “What is your name, anyway?”

She knew his.

Quinton.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

"Maranae," she said. Tense, standing there with her hands at her sides and palms opening and closing. Her eyes were locked on him, watching every single movement.

"They made me,, so how could they not own me?" she asked after a moment. She did not really understand how or why. All she knew was that she could not ever remember being a child-

-smiling face laughter light warmth caring wonder music softness eyes gleaming eyes laughter BELONGING-

-she blinked, overwhelmed by fragments of something, shook her head as if to get rid of cobwebs. Not a child, always as she was. There was a moment of awakening and nothing before it. Darkness, and then a different kind of darkness, one where cold steel cages and men and women in robes - each one faceless, nameless, and cruel - figured largely in her world.

"What is a friend?"

 

[Quinton]

Maranae… Quinton repeated the name, sounding it out in his mind just in case he butchered it between his lips and she ruined him with her fist for it. Mara…nae… Like marmalade? Maybe…Mar…anae…like Mare-On-Aye... Anyway… “It’s a pretty name, my lady.” Yes. She was a lady to him in comparison to being a thing.

He saw her pain. He saw on this girl’s face a hidden rage. Quinton felt it to be familiar, in his own way. He, too, covered his horror with a grin on his countenance more often than not. They were similar, then, if different. Yet he did not smile just then. Neither did he frown. His lips were somewhere in between, like a leaf carried by a breeze, and the rain did not matter.

“My parents made me,” Quin answered her first question. “Yet I never met them. No, rest assured, they don’t own me.” He stiffened his lip. “How could they? How could my mother and father own me when they abandoned me and left me on a doorstep of a tavern not so different from the one we just left?”

He shrugged. Neither angered. Neither saddened. Speaking simply so. For he had long since come to terms with all this nonsense. “I am Quinton. I am me. A halfling man. I exist. My parents be damned, whatever their reasons for what they did. I have since learned to rely, not on family that I do not have, but on…friends…” Those he kept.

"A friend is someone who needs and wants you as much as you need and want them. A friend is who you care about and they care about you too." He took another step closer to her. “I look at you, Maranae,” he said her name. “And I do not see a monster. I only see what matters.” He lifted his hand, this time not to try to touch her even in comfort, but to offer her own to take his as a gesture of friendship. “I see a friend.” Finally, Quinton smiled once again.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

"No father, mother," she said. Fragments of broken memories flickered but were totally meaningless to her. She understood something of the idea of parents, as explained by others. She did not see where she fit in to such things.

Never a child, always as she was.

She cocked her head slowly to one side as he spoke. "A... friend," she said with even more painful slowness. It was as if she was tasting the word. She gave Quinton a shy and uncertain smile as she looked at the offered hand. A friend. Was it like her master? Try as she might, she could not recall his name. Names were not things she was good with. Memory wasn't, if it came to it.

"Strange kid."

She was working on a piece of steel, more playing than doing anything really useful with it. It was the end of a day. The Master had taught her the proper stroke for the hammer, how to hit it without showering sparks everywhere. There was an art to it; brute strength was useful but applied poorly it was more a hindrance.

He was walking with the farrier down the street. The man had a lot of horseshoes made.

"Didn't need an apprentice. Didn't want one. But..," he trailed off, and looked back at her. "What could it hurt? She's simple, but there is something bright buried in there somewhere."

She gingerly took his hand, face scrunching in thought. Digging inside her head for the right words was always a challenge. "...friend? Care... but why?" She was still on the edge of flight but...

Hope was a damnable thing. It had shined in the darkness before, and it was the light that guided her to where she was now. If the master could be kind, then surely others could be too.

 

[Quinton]

Spoiler: Music OOC (Recurring)

Unexpected. The hand. The moment. The journey. This was, for all intents and purposes, an unexpected journey. Ever since the tavern, their encounter, arguably random, yes, merely a coincidence. Chance at its best. Fateful? Perhaps, there at Quinton’s table, where he met a girl, tall as a woman, and a woman met a man, short as a small boy. Choice. She had a choice. To dance with him, to take his hand into his grip, and on both occasions, well, compliance was what she had chosen.

Quin bit his lip the moment she did. Uncertain. Unexpected. They had danced, yes, and had a grand time of it. Yet, she had slipped from his presence, and he was perplexed by his actions, for he had given her insult, bold though he was in their endeavor. He had offered friendship the moment they met. Would this gesture also be an accident?

Friend. Care. But…why? Her words were an echo within his noggin the next second. A young man, but an old soul. Time was cruel to Quinton. The days dealt their blows. As surely as he had deftly picked the pockets of many, their faces were as closed to him as his memories of his parents; faint, forgotten, abandoned.

Yet Maranae’s face, her words, her hand, were louder than a thousand words, more fluid than a hundred dances, and struck his heart harder than a hammer or a frying pan at that.

“Why, she asks…” Quinton couldn’t help it. Idiot. You idiot. “Why..?” His lips quivered. No longer so stiffened upward. No longer so lowered. You idiot. Leave your emotions at the door of that damned tavern! Like you parents did in your blanket! A bastard in a basket! “Why not!?”

He didn’t shout it. His exclamation was one of vehemence. He held her grip, fingers squeezing in, hand in hand, firmly but gently. This young lady was not his family. She was his niece if ever he was the uncle of the tavern’s owner. Yet she meant something to him. Everything. There in the stables, beside the rain, and never mind the tables, never mind fate.

“Because you, Maranae, are Quinton’s friend, and caring is what friends do.” He reached forth with his other hand, as if they might dance all over again, but would simply hold it if she wanted. “Because we are both just two strangers, two prisoners, lost in a big wide world, a man and a girl…”

And he knew that she would not understand all of his talk but that was all right. She would understand his eyes.

“I will protect you, my friend. I will not let them take you.” He looked away, looked into the rain. “On land. On sea. They will not take you. They will not take…me…”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Emotion was not a thing that she understood. Something had been taken from her. She didn't know what it was, but it might have been her humanity. It had been replaced with something alien and strange. Right now it twisted in her chest and ached terribly. Something she had not encountered before. That she could remember, at least.

She wanted without know what it was. She needed with the memory of that need sliced away as though by a scalpel. There was something missing in her life, but she didn't know what it was. Everyone else took it for granted. So many didn't understand what a boon it was to be blessed with it.

And she didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to say, or how to act. In all her life, she had always been either a tool or a burden or just another bit of trouble.

She opened and shut her mouth. There were no words. There were no tears, either; animals did not cry and that part of her seemed distant and strange. No one had taught her what it was to be a person. They were only interested in fangs and claws. "Friend..," she said again, slow and deliberate. One hand held delicately and uncertainly, she cocked her head to one side slowly. Riotous red hair shifted.

But she did not know what to do beyond stand and stare and wonder at some bridge crossed that she could scarcely understand.

 

[Quinton]

Had the quiet not have been broken that moment, had Maranae not have spoken, said something, anything, then Quinton just might have spent the rest of the night with his gaze into the rain. Time might have ended for him, as surely as music did, as one song shifted into the next one in that tavern now distant. He was as restless as tired, there as he faced the direction of this village, wondering how moments had led to this.

Rain. Droplets upon droplets of rain. Blades as slender as a dagger shaped like a needle. Its grip had filled his hand once. Once upon a time, it was this little man who was the monster and the murderer. Killer. Maybe that was her. Perhaps it was him. Thief. Might be, then, that Quinton really did fit the description of a pirate. Orphan.

So maybe neither person was worth anything in the end. Maybe they were nothing. Then again, maybe that’s why they were perfect for one another’s presence. His thoughts were distant, drifted like the wind within the droplets, but he was taken back to reality by her word mentioned.

“Friend,” Quinton repeated. "Yes." His lips might have quivered a bit, there beside the river from the sky like a blanket over either person. Maranae was a child to him who had since elected to protect, as much as an abandoned gift to cherish, but no object. Maybe Quinton was a gift too but, if he was, he did not have the parents to show him it.

“No more. No less,” he promised. “Where would you like to go, Mara?” The question was sudden, but such was his nature after having asked for her hand into a dance of merriment. He didn’t know if she would mind that shorthand version of her name. He didn’t know where he wanted to go either way. “Back to that tavern? Remain here away from the rain? On a ship to an island?” He was only half-joking. “We may adventure together, as halfling and…whatever it is you are, but no matter…as…friends.”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Something stung in her eyes. A moment later, water trailed down her cheeks. She let go of his hand and reached up, touching what leaked from her eyes with incomprehension.

Her chest hurt, but it was a sweet pain. She had no words to describe it; something therein twist in on itself while at the same time it filled her with such warmth. It took a moment to realize that this was happiness and not the banal happiness from working with her hands or eating or sleeping. It was a thing she could not remember ever having felt before.

"No one has ever...," she began, but her voice hitched as emotion rose from a cold place that had been devoid of such. Numb and empty, it was suddenly full of something she had never dealt with before. Was defenseless and powerless to confront or to control.

And so she dropped to her knees and wept tears of joy, overcome by emotion for the first time since before.

 

[Quinton]

It wasn’t the rain. They were safe from getting wet here under the roof of the stables. There was no storm waging, not so as to disturb the horses. They didn’t even whinny. No one whined, it was quiet, but there was no denying the tears that twisted down the girl’s cheeks in rivulets. She didn’t whine. She cried. There was a difference. Just ask Quinton. His tears had since been spent over the years, however, so he let her cry, and he watched and listened right by her side.

How many heads had Maranae bashed with that frying pan? How many eggs had been cracked into it? How many times had it banged and clanged? How many meals were smashed and baked and roasted and caked into its open surface? Were thoughts just nonsense? Not to Quinton. Food and cooking, drink and drinking, were as custom and precious to him as gems to a dwarf or the trees for an elf. Just as well, then, that no frying pan, no tool or weapon, could save his friend from what happened next.

Her defenses weren’t prepared for this. No sword or shield could protect her from these tears. No dam for this river. Yet not all tears are evil. She had since experienced evil. Lived her hell. Those tears were feeble. If she had ever wept, and granted Quinton could not tell but maybe she never did, they were tears in vain. Tears of misery.

Sometimes we cry from happiness, Quinton…

Words in his head. Not his. Not hers. Not his mother’s. But a woman’s. A lady from a tavern.

I will not say do not weep, for—

Before he could finish the thought, Mara had dropped to her knees and, truly, Quin could tell they were tears of joy. She had not lost her voice entirely. Biting his lip, he did what a simple little man only knew how to do. He dropped to his knees, he traded hands into hands for arms around shoulders, and he held this little lady into his embrace.

“It’s okay, my friend,” Quin promised. “Let it go. Let it flow. Whatever the memories of yesterday, here today two friends are made to wash those memories away.” He closed his eyes and, despite his strength, felt a tear creep at the corner of his eye. “Like tears in the rain…”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Tears streaming, the embrace elicited a moment of panic, a hitch of her breath. For a brief moment, fear replaced joy. She stiffened in his embrace...

...but he is not like them! They never held you, only beat you. Cut you, cursed you. This is....

Not like that. Not like them. It elicited memories that remained in her head, broken and shattered beyond any hope of piecing them together again. The warmth of caring long forgotten. The many, many visible scars on her flesh burned in memory of pain; the ones inside shivered. All were balmed by a gesture of kindness.

"Why...can't...I...remember?" She asked herself between sobs. Happiness and sorrow twisted round one another. She raised her hands, unsure what she was supposed to do. Eventually, she returned the gesture, the embrace. Kindly, carefully, tenderly.

Maybe it didn't matter that she couldn't remember. Maybe it was enough that a moment like this could still happen with she who was less than human, more than an animal.

In the wet night, both souls shared a moment of healing.

 

[Quinton]

Why...why did they...forget me..? Why was I abandoned and left by my own parents? Like her question, maybe, there was no answer. Not yet, at least. In time, who could say for either person? At the moment, they just embraced, shared one another's pain in silence despite the rain that pitter-pattered on the roof above their heads.

The horses were quiet. The town was still in the night with most folk inside. Many still back in that tavern, surely, where Quinton had found Maranae. To think that they had so suddenly gone from eating and drinking and dancing and smiling to crying. They were still were but, unlike those tears of moments ago, having since left their cheeks, these were tears in a river of solace over sorrow.

"I don't know." Quin sniffed, as honest as ever. "But perhaps we will remember together." He promised. "You. Me. Friends. Together on our journey."

Rain falls, pouring from the skies where clouds swarm, but no more lightning, no thunder anymore, no storm. Puddles in the mud, on the street where feet walk across and wheels roll along, but those people have distant troubles from two souls in this stable.

Theirs is a different rain. It isn't the tears. It isn't fear. It isn't pain. It isn't heartbreak. It's the rain of a waterfall in the heart and in the brain, cleansing souls like a bath in a pool, and it washes over them, two friends, and the roof is not enough to stop this rain.

Maranae

[END THREAD]