Fable - Ask Shedding Skin

[Samantha Black]

"Coraliv? Oh it still stands," Sparrow said after swallowing a large bite of pulled pork, "wouldn't call it a small town either. That place is bustling."

"I remember hearing about the Anirian take over years ago," Sam thought back to that, brow furrowing, "but not much beyond that."

"Oh yeah, we installed a new government there. Got our claws in good and deep. You know how it goes. We could go visit sometime, if ya want, Wolf," Sparrow had by now cleaned her plate and several of the squadron were now finding seats around the campfire, "I'm sure there's something needing doing there we can find a reason to go. Maybe for your training, eh?"

A broad man with a shaved head and a full beard lowered a heaping plate of food in front of Sam whose eyes bugged at the unexpected sight of it, "For the Lieutenant. All the best cuts."

"Don't get used to it," grumbled another woman of smaller, more spry build than Sparrow, "you still have to earn those prime cuts like the rest of us, kid!"

Sam grinned, "Duly noted, Mess," shook her head, and took the plate, spearing a big hunk of meat with the fork and taking a large, very unlady-like bite.

 

[Davi]

Davi had been old for an initiate to be given over to the Academy. He along with six other children had been snatched from the still smouldering city and pressed into servitude. To survive they had had to believe in everything Vel Anir preached and forget the life of contrasting freedom they had had before. As Sparrow went on about the town's growth over the last few years, how the new governor no longer opposed Aniria, how the people had finally stopped muttering about rebellion...

"No," he hadn't meant for his voice to sound so flat but it felt as though his tongue was made of lead. He set down his fork, appetite gone. "No, thank you."

 

[Samantha Black]

"Well alright," Sparrow replied without any further push, "I had something fun brewin' for you anyway." She stood to take her plate back to the food tent, leaving Davi alone for the moment with Sam. The latter looked at the former, having quite noticed his sudden shift in expression. She paused over another bite, watched his face closely, then slowly got back to eating.

It was the same sort of expression he'd had before in the stable when he'd not touched his dinner. Now she knew better than to pester. Recognized it as a side effect of something else. Didn't really occur to her that he'd have any sort of nostalgia or feelings left for the place he'd once called home. Then again, she'd been handed over to the Academy a bit earlier in life than he.

Sam didn't even remember her family's home, the name of her wet-nurse, what her parents looked like ... at least she hadn't in regards to her father until he'd shown up in her last year. It was off-putting, but there was rather little that would turn her off her meal in the world, so she fed herself and partook in the general merriment of the evening.

When it was time to turn in, Sparrow directed them to a tent they would share and headed off to her own for the evening. Comfortably inebriated after having several mugs of ale pushed at her throughout the night, Sam flopped down on her bedroll with a pleased sigh.

It wouldn't take her long to drift off, she knew, but Davi's soured mood had been nagging at the back of her mind the entire evening.

"Davi," she muttered into the dimness of the tent, "you okay?"

 

[Davi]

Davi had never shared a tent with a woman. He'd barely shared a tent with anyone. His magic and ranking in the Academy had often meant that he was shunned from such comforts and he had learnt long ago to make do with the stars as a blanket. He stood outside the flaps debating what the exact etiquette was for these occasions. Not wanting to make it as weird for her as it was for him in the end he crawled inside and with care laid out his bedroll as far from Sam as he could get in the small confines.

He really hoped she didn't snore.

Davi laid on his back with his hands acting as a pillow for his head. He stared at the darkness of the tent above trying to sort through the day in his head.

"It's just... a lot. To take in. To go from the Academy to this..." he fell quiet not feeling the obvious needed stating.

 

[Samantha Black]

Given her years of prior experience sharing tents (and beds), there was not a trace of awkwardness from the newly promoted Lieutenant where she lay. Warm and content as a well-fed predator settling in for a good food coma, she nary even batted an eye at him as he joined her.

"Mm," she grunted in return, "I suppose it is. I've gotten so used to it I don't even think about it anymore."

"Far preferred my missions with the Knights ... been dreaming of this day for years when I signed my name over to them. Though-" Sam cracked a side-eye at him and a lopsided smile, "you were a bit of a surprise."

 

[Davi]

Davi gave a hoarse laugh and finally spared a glance in her direction.

"A good one, I hope?"

 

[Samantha Black]

That laugh was a good sound and it made her smile broaden. She yawn-chuckled in return, "Yeah, of course."

The lack of sleep from the prior night had held off during the feast but quite suddenly fell upon her now that she was comfortable, "It's gonna get easier. Promise. You'll be glad to be here before you know it."

Words spoken to her by Holstag a decade ago. How right he'd been. Sam could only hope Davi would come to feel as at-home with these people as she did. This was their family now and it wasn't anything like the life they'd known at the Academy.

"Wake me in the morning?" she rolled to her side facing him and pulled her blanket up and over her head, snuggling deeper into warmth and comfort, "Too much ale..."

 

[Davi]

Promise.

It was the first time somebody had said that to him where he didn't immediately dismiss it for a lie. He took a deep, quiet breath and let it out slowly. This was a new start. They had graduated and there was nothing, technically, Aniria could do to him for choosing this path under their new rules. Joining the Knights had never been on his radar and it was not for them he joined. It was for the first kindle of friendship he had ever been given. For a promise he finally believed in.

For him that was far more powerful.

"Aye, get some sleep," he chuckled again deep from within his chest. He listened until her breathing evened and deepened into the laboured breaths of sleep before relaxing fully.

Sleep found him soon after too though far lighter than his companion. As such he woke when the sides of the tent began to let in the faint hints of daylight. Instead of waking her straight away Davi crept out on quiet things and took a wander to find the cook. As he predicted, Cookie was already up and preparing, and seemed more than happy to put Davi to work when he offered. Only when the bacon and sausages were ready did he dare wake Sam; he'd learnt better than to wake someone with a hangover without food.

"Wake up sleepy."

 

[Samantha Black]

Edric had once said that she slept like the dead and for all the violent awakenings she'd lived through, he wasn't far off the mark. Sam barely even budged, so deeply asleep had she been the entire night, so when Davi came to rouse her from dreamland it was with a groan of stiffness and an arm asleep that she did so beneath her blanket.

Any other day she'd have snapped to attention at the first hint of rustlings within the tent. Not today. Yet when the aroma of bacon, sausage, and eggs hit her through the part of the tent flap she was well on her way to considering waking by the time he arrived.

She peeked out from the cavern of her blanket roll, wincing into what meager amounts of daylight infiltrated through the canvas above her, "Fuck me. I'm never drinking that much ale again. Do I smell bacon?"

 

[Davi]

"Strong coffee too," Davi wafted the steam that rose off the plate towards her. At least she hadn't thrown something at him; he'd suffered that particular welcome one too many times on missions.

"Are you eating in there or do you think you can get yourself out without being sick?" he wrinkled his nose at the thought.

 

[Samantha Black]

"If I could eat while I slept, I would," Sam muttered in response, grunting as she pushed herself to sit up. The blanket remained wrapped over her head and she tugged it over her shoulders with a miserable grimace. Once she got some food in her she could activate her clarification rune without fail. Doing so now would only make things worse.

A hand snaked out from the blankets to take the plate, then another to take the coffee, "Thanks."

A bite followed. Another. The sort of momentum an avalanche grew once the first dribbles of snow had begun.

"Did you eat?" she asked after a good slug of coffee and a wince at the heat, "You didn't finish your plate last night."

 

[Davi]

"Sparrow piled enough on my plate last night to feed three Edric's," Davi pointed out then settled down outside the tent flaps, plucking at blades of grass. Most of the little regiment were awake and beelining for the tantalising smell of freshly fried bacon.

"Cookie made sure I ate first before I came to get you, claimed sues chef got first pick," his lips lifted in a half smile. He had a feeling Cookie would be easiest to grow attached to. The man was quick to laugh and easy to work in silence with. He hadn't pressed or asked questions, just set willing hands to work. He could appreciate the simplicity of that.

"I'm fine," his icy eyes lifted, words meaning more than the obvious.

 

[Samantha Black]

She laughed ad the Edric comment, then immediately regretted doing so and groaned as it sent a fresh pounding through her skull. God damn. What a severe and stupid reminder of why she didn't drink.

"Good. Cookie is the best of us," she replied, "takes care of everyone." Cookie was the Squad-Mom to Holstag's Captain-Dad.

Her plate was cleaned in short order and she drained the tailings of coffee from her cup, then forced herself to a crouch before crawling out of the tent, blanket and all. She stood there, blearily squinting into the daylight, and looked down at Davi with a long-suffering sigh. Complaining wasn't her thing, but hell if this was a heck of a way to start her first official day as Lieutenant.

Another grunt as she let herself down to one knee near Davi, and then the other until she sat upon knees and the heels of her feet. Plate and mug were set aside. Blanket remained. With a long and slow inhale, Sam set her hands on her thighs and closed her eyes. Exhaled, murmured a few words under her breath, and waited with bated breath as the clarification runic equation tattooed over her liver worked its literal magic.

 

[Davi]

Davi froze as she went down on one knee and then the other.

She's going to be sick.

He inched back slightly so if she was she didn't hurl up into his lap. He'd managed to have a bath that morning and find fresh clothes, he had no intentions of ruining it quite so quickly.

"Do you err... want me to get you some water? A bucket?"

 

[Samantha Black]

Actually, water wasn't a bad idea.

"Mm," came her reply as she opened her eyes, both now glowing from the activation of magic within her body, "I can get it."

A few more moments and the glow faded. It wasn't an immediate cure-all, but she knew that over the next few minutes she would begin to feel more like normal. At the very least the desire to puke had abated now she had some food in her belly again. Sam rolled her head, then her shoulders, cracks and pops sounding over a sigh.

"Much better. Alright, let's get this shit packed up."

And just like that, she was ready for the day.

 

[Davi]

Davi still eyed her with trepidation as she stood, his body tense and ready to spring backwards out of any projectile zone there might be. Cautiously he rose to his own feet and, after a brief pause to give her stomach another moment to vocalise any objections, nodded.

"Most of the others have already begun breaking down. I can get this one sorted if you want to speak to the others, they were waiting for orders," though how it had been said made Davi doubt they really needed orders to know what they needed to do and that it was another chance to gently tease the new Lieutenant.

 

[Samantha Black]

"Waiting for orders my ass..." Sam huffed as she paused where she had begun with pulling out her bedroll from the tent. Well, it would be a new routine to get used to - letting others do the menial tasks while she handled the larger portion of project management, as it were.

Still. She hated not... being useful and helping out herself. The act of it had been so ingrained to her by now she felt out of sorts without something to do.

"Right, I'll go bark at them if that's what they really want," she gave Davi a squeeze on his shoulder and headed off to do just that.

Sam's voice sounded over the tents as she headed over to the main circle, a bark of laughter from someone else echoed after it. Sparrow arrived just a few minutes later looking entirely too pleased with herself and casting a wayward grin over her shoulder as she moved to help Davi, "Sleep well, then?" she asked after him as she took the opposite side of the tent, "should be home to Castere in another few days. Just a lot more of the same-old-same-old I'm afraid. Not a very exciting start for you."

 

[Davi]

Davi allowed himself a small chuckle as Sam marched off; he'd have to remember that look that had passed across her face. He had a feeling it meant someone was getting an earful.

He made quick, short work of rolling up their sleep mats and blankets and had been about to begin on the tent itself when Sparrow appeared. That awkward unease that came when alone with all new people settled on his shoulders like an uneasy cloak, but he tried to push it away and force himself to be pleasant.

"After the last few weeks ordinary seems exciting," was that all it had been since graduation? His wounds were nothing more than faint dull aches now. Nothing remained aside from a pale scar to show how close to death he had come.

"It will give me a chance to practise, we haven't had much time on the road for magic lessons."

 

[Samantha Black]

Sparrow easily fell into routine with deconstructing the tent, guiding Davi as he spoke with gestures when needed. Not that an Initiate didn't know how to pack up a tent, but there were so many different designs out there she sometimes got confused herself.

"Oh yeah? Maybe I could help you with that. Find you some new things to practice with and bring 'em in." Her own powers had their boons in that manner. She'd found the wild boar for Route to hunt the prior day and managed to make the endeavor far less dangerous. Route would have said she'd taken all the fun out of it, but wouldn't it be just a waste to lose their best tracker to a pig in the woods?

"We're going to have some fun," she said with a growing smile and nodded to herself, "I'm eager to see what you can do. It'll be nice to have another magic user about, too. Black doesn't tend to use hers for any fun. Spoil sport, she is. What's the point of it if you can't at least enjoy it and make your life a bit easier, eh?"

 

[Davi]

Sparrow's last sentence lingered in his mind long after the tent was put away and the rest of the army had broken camp. It stayed with him even when they fell into the long snaking line of people, horses and carts. His magic had never been a thing that had made his life easier. It had had him dragged across half the continent, beaten, tortured, bullied. But... it didn't have to be the source of all his woes. Not anymore.

Yes, what was the point if he couldn't enjoy it? What was the point if it couldn't make all their lives easier?

A small smile of relief and hope tugged at his lips.