Sweetie in Hogwarts and Ch. 13 of Bridge Troll · 1:42pm Nov 25th, 2024
I'm not being more productive. I'm just posting some of my ongoing writing chapters that happen to get done at the same time. With that in mind, I managed to get part of Sweetie Belle - Hogwarts Exchange Student done last month and finished it up for you, with a garnish of Bridge Troll (below) to wash it down. If you would like to leave a tip, you can donate to Estee’s future trip to the land of cute squirrels and koi fish
Chapter List of The Young Knight, the Fey Maiden, and the Bridge Troll
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11 (with funding request)
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Foundational Issues
Dragon magic and troll magic were fascinating, although Fetch did not get much of an opportunity to observe either.
Elf magic was a complicated mix of what could be seen and what was unseen, or at least that is what Tula insisted was the key. Changing a twig into an arrow was not actually changing the twig, but convincing the world in that regard until the deception was revealed and the world changed it back. The illusion of change was easier, such as making common pebbles look like gold nuggets.
Lilly was not fooled. She could tell real gold at a glance, or a sniff. The pile of gold and silver coins in the stone house was not really that impressive at first glance, but Fetch considered the weight of one coin, multiplied by an estimate of their numbers, added in the various precious stones mixed among them, and came up with far more than he could carry, even with a string of pack mules. It made him doubt some of the tales the merchants had told while resting in the village inn, of brave knights battling dragons and bringing home wealth beyond measure.
Fetch could measure very well, in particular what his chances against Lilly would be if he were mounted on a fierce war stallion with armor and a lance. Zero is a very easy number to measure, after all.
Instead, he had a different task of measurement.
The dragon’s former lair was very much a thin crack in a glittering granite layer, starting about a human-sized hole on the sunlit side, and turning into a long narrow gap as it descended into the darkness. Quartz viewed the granite as if it were a gold mine, running his thick fingers over it and looking for the best fracture points for the longest time before asking Fetch for the first chisel.
And then the hammer.
And then the measuring tape.
And so on.
It was Fetch’s job to cling onto the narrow ledge and hold the tools, while Tula had been given the task of carrying the sketch with all the stone block measurements on it. Quartz would measure, then tap the stone with his chisel and draw a line, then tap and measure some more, only to finally give the chisel a good solid wack and watch the cleavage line split one chunk of granite away from the rest. This was a far cry from the work Fetch went through to chisel anything into a rock back at the village.
“Good thing this crack was here,” grunted Quartz as he removed a glittering block of stone that Fetch most likely could not even budge. “Quarrying into a flat stone face takes a lot of drilling, even with troll magic. The fracture line makes this easy.”
Several dozen blocks later, their path out of the growing cave was getting obstructed. The dragon picked up one of the heavy blocks like a toy, looked at it, then said rather obtusely, “These stones are cluttering up my lair. Do you have any objections to me removing them to the bridge site? I would not charge you,” she added.
“Appreciated,” said Quartz, who did not seem to be paying much attention to anything but the slab of rock in front of him. That left Fetch to be the social face of the project, which he most certainly had not expected when he was first hired.
“Miss Lilly,” he said carefully, “if you could stack them in smaller piles on this side of the ravine, please. He’s cutting the bottom stones right now, so if you stack them too deep—”
“You’d have to unstack them to start the foundation,” rumbled the dragon. “I was listening.”
Conversation was impossible for a few moments as Quartz chiseled away another thick block of granite, and when Fetch turned back around, the dragon was gone with several of the blocks.
Over the next few hours, it grew into a competition of sorts. The tap-tap-tap of Quartz’s chisel almost never stopped except for the moments that he was heaving a smooth block of stone out of the way so he could continue his work. On the other side, Lily would pop up at the cave entrance, pick up as many blocks as she could reasonably carry, and vanish with the beating of wings. One block at a time, the space opened up until it started to resemble a cave that a dragon could fit comfortably inside, with enough space for the glittering pile of treasure inside the stone house. And possibly some sort of sliding stone doorway to divert intruders, although Fetch could not quite figure out how that was going to work.
Princess Tula was rapidly running out of bridge block measurements on her sheet of parchment by the time the sun passed the highest point in the sky, and the rumbling of Quartz’s stomach was becoming obvious.
“Lunch?” asked Princess Tula when Quartz stopped to wipe his forehead.
“But we’re making good progress,” protested the troll. He gestured at the place where he had been pushing the stones after cutting, only to find it empty. “Oh.”
An hour later, with a good helping of Broom’s deer soup and dumplings in him, Quartz was feeling a little less over-focused, and Lily more talkative.
“Your assistants are underutilized,” said Lily. “Now that the area has been partially excavated, you have the space to work by yourself. At a more reasonable pace,” she added. “The granite quality seems to be holding out the further you go back into the layer, and I would not object to my lair having a certain… volume to it.”
“Why can’t I go take a look at the hole?” asked Prince Svenson, who had flown in on Snowflake before lunch started, bringing most of a deer carcass and a letter from his father. It had been a bit of a shock to Fetch, but he had put the letter into Quartz’s bridge plans and introduced the handsome young prince to Broom again, which had triggered a great deal of activity. Snowflake had not wanted to share the carcass, but gave way rapidly when the broom began to carve various parts of deer meat into bowls, and tossed little tidbits to the onlooking griffon.
Dumplings had been the obvious choice, not that Fetch had any input into the decision. He barely had time to wash up for lunch, chat with the young prince for a time about small things, and try to figure out how to set the table for two royalty, a troll, and a dragon.
“Dragons,” cautioned Quartz. “They are not keen on others knowing their secrets. It is going to be a lair, so she deserves a little privacy.”
“But…” Svenson pointed at Fetch and Tula, who were sitting next to each other, trying to figure out the best way to share the only glass of water that Broom had brought for them.
“They’re… Well…” Quartz looked over at the dragon, who had her nose into the bottom of the cookpot. “A little help here?”
The dragon shook her head, and Fetch got the unmistakable feeling that she was hiding a faint smile.
“We’re really quite busy at the site and don’t have any time for sightseers,” said Quartz instead. “Can that bird of yours fly three?”
Snowflake made a chuffing noise from where she was dealing with the deer’s liver and various internal organs.
“You’re terribly large,” said Svenson.
“Not me,” said Quartz. “Those two.”
“Us?” asked Fetch. “Where are you planning on sending us?”
“Somewhere you can get clothes. Something with less tar and stuck-on dirt so you two don’t look like sailors on holiday.”
* * *
“Ah, good evening, Princess Tula. Young Fetch.” King Sigmund did not seem to have changed a bit since the last time Fetch saw him, other than wearing a far more expensive robe and a thin golden coronet. His smile was just as genuine, only it was mostly directed at someone far more worthy of the attention. “What brings you to our fair kingdom in such a state?”
“Shopping,” said Tula. Somehow, she was making the tar-splattered shirt and stiff trousers that she had borrowed from Fetch into something worthy of her station in life, while the dirty servant to her side was merely able to look like a dirty servant.
“I shall see that your maidservants acquire the finest—”
“No, Your Majesty.” Tula’s voice was firm, although fatigued from the last few days. “I need some sturdy working clothes. And some for Fetch. I’m… hiding out.”
“Oh, I see.” The formality that had covered the king like some sort of mask slid off his face, revealing a concerned father instead. “You should have sent word instead.”
“That’s probably the most practical approach,” admitted Tula with a quiet wince. “I suppose if I had thought about it like my father insists.”
“Or if my son had thought first before bringing you on that suicidal bird he loves so much.” King Sigmund heaved a short sigh. “I was never like that as a child.”
“My mother has some stories,” started Tula before being shushed by the king.
“I’ll get you stashed in the servants’ quarters for a few days,” he said. “It probably won’t mean anything since practically everybody in the castle saw you arrive—”
“But they won’t see her any more,” said Fetch, “unless we both leave, and you dress one of the servants up in some suitable clothing, let her be seen at a distance, and try to keep her presence secret. Nothing stays secret like something you’re not trying to hide.”
“What?” Both Tula and the king gave him a puzzled look, but Fetch was on a roll.
“You’re right, Your Highness. We didn’t think first before letting Prince Svenson bring us here. Seiki probably has spies around, so we’ll slip out of here this evening with workman’s clothes and head back to the bridge. Any of his spies will think the princess is still being hidden here. The more they look and not find anything, the more convinced they’ll be that you’re hiding her somewhere secure.”
“Well…” The king considered his words, giving Fetch a look very much like Ottao would whenever he had done something unexpected, in a good way. “There are worse plans,” he admitted, “and Seiki already wants my throne. It will at least give his agents something to do rather than sow dissent and chaos.” He eyed Tula more like a father than a king. “But we are sending you home with proper clothes also and a chaperone, young lady, or your mother will never forgive me.”
Fetch was baffled at the speed a king could order “do this” and it would be done. Less than an hour later, he was seated on a retired old warhorse named Charger, following the slow plod of a mule-pulled cart as they went through a less-traveled gate out of the city, unlocked as they arrived and locked again behind them. A suspicious amount of items in the back of the cart hinted that the driver had been planning this trip for some time, but there were also enough things thrown on top to show his departure had been rushed a day or two early. Among the supplies in the cart was soap, many different kinds, because practically every servant involved in the task of rapid Fetch expulsion had taken one look at him and scurried away to get an extra scented chunk or two. It made him slightly self-conscious about his filthy appearance, even more due to the passenger he was carrying on the hefty warhorse.
“This is new,” breathed Princess Tula, close enough to Fetch’s ear to make little goosepimples rise up on his neck. “I’m used to riding by myself.” She snuggled in closer, making little pulling sensations from the bits of hardened tar that still stuck to so much of Fetch’s skin. “Are you sure you don’t want to ride behind me?”
“I… don’t think that would be proper,” managed Fetch since where he would be holding in that position was… No.
“Aye, and I dinna think your father would like it either,” rumbled Nomor. He gave the reins a shake to hurry up the mule, but the broad-shouldered beast maintained his same slow plod with the overloaded cart creaking along behind. “It’d be more proper if’n you rode on the cart, Your Highness.”
“But less fun.” Tula got a good grip on each side of Fetch’s loose shirt. “I”m not placing my hands anywhere improper, and I’m more comfortable on horseback. Carts jar my tailbone until I practically can’t sit down.”
Fetch could barely see the dwarf in the moonlight, but he caught a distinct bit of eye-rolling as he returned to guiding the mule down the road. Thankfully, the roads in Forselt were wide and well-constructed, with plenty of gravel and adequate drainage, so their progress remained fairly constant with no interruptions. It probably helped that no other humans were out at this time of night, but the darkness did not seem to bother the elf or the dwarf one bit.
“The moon is going to set soon,” said Tula after some time. “Once we get far enough down the road, do you think we should camp somewhere? You know, get a campfire going and huddle together for warmth. Together under a blanket. All night.”
Most of Fetch’s mind was petrified with a mixture of fear and embarrassment, but a tiny little fraction of disobedient thought in the very back noted how the princess was actually humoring him. It helped keep him from panicking. Well, much. And Nomor likewise was restraining himself from comment, which helped a lot.
“Or we could trade positions so I can take the reins when it gets dark and keep Charger from wandering off the road.”
Fetch let out an immense breath he had not realized he was holding, made only worse by the feeling of Princess Tula behind him, giggling and pressed close in a way that made him quite aware she was a she.
Nomor snorted and wrapped the reins around his stump so he could turn around and point with his remaining hand. “Young lady, if you keep this up, I’ll throw the wheelbarrow off the cart so Fetch can ride with me. Remember, I will be speaking with your father when I return to Nadare.”
“I’m sorry, Master Nomor. I’m just having a bit of fun. Careful fun,” she added, although she squeezed Fetch’s sides. Once they had returned to traveling down the road for a time, she leaned close to his ear and whispered, “Father would have a fit if he knew I was alone on a road with a young man, even with an escort. Mother… she has a peculiar sense of relationships. Few elves mate with humans, and even fewer take a third husband.”
“I didn’t… I mean…” Fetch regained control of his tongue and concentrated on riding the horse, which required very little work since the old warhorse was about as stable as one of Quartz’s building stones. After a time, he decided honesty was the best approach. “I’m glad you’re with us. Not just for that,” he added as Tula gave his sides another squeeze, “but… for protection. I mean your father made sure to slip a sword into our supplies.” Fetch patted the sheathed weapon and the oilcloth-wrapped packet to one side. “And there’s a bow in this case. But if we were attacked—”
“Nomor has an axe under the cart seat. He’d chop them into dogmeat,” said Tula very close to his ear again. “And didn’t you say you wanted to be a knight at one time? Can you even use a sword?”
“Uh…”
“I saw the way you held one in the tavern When we get back, two hours practice every day,” she declared without asking his opinion on the matter. “Father made sure I was not some fainting flower, gasping in fear during an attack. We’ll cut some wooden practice swords and I’ll try not to hurt you too much.”
“But I’ve got so much work—” Fetch stopped and held his breath. Tula had grasped a thin section of skin on each side of his sensitive ribs, and was pinching them in a way that indicated a certain increase in pressure if the answer was not to her liking. “I’ll ask Quartz,” he said instead. “There’s a lot of things to be done before winter.”
“Like what?” Tula released her grip, but moved her hands to wrap around his hips instead which was just as distracting.
“Planting flowers like your mother said for the pixies,” he started in a rush. “Setting up a few beehives to shelter the wild bees in the berry patches, moving tons of gravel, cutting firewood, cutting a lot of stakes—”
“Don’t you worry none about that woodworking,” said Nomor. “Nadare has enough lumber operations that the king should provide whatever you need.” He patted his chest. “King Sigmund talked to me about it, and gave me a letter for King Piast. You practically gotta build a wood bridge to get all the stones in place anyway.”
“Well… true,” admitted Fetch, thinking of the extensive wooden scaffolding on Quartz’s plans. “But the gravel—”
“An’ you has the roadbuilders in Forselt headed in your direction over the next few months,” continued Nomor. “That’s part of what those knights were doin’ around the bridge. One thing those people know is roads. An’ growing food. One of the reason Seiki is lookin’ in this direction. This winter’s gonna get mighty thin pickings for his brutes.”
It was futile to argue in the face of those plain and simple truths. Admittedly, Fetch had a tendency to get involved in a project far past the point where he should have asked for help, leaving him in a workshop with bits of a barrel scattered around, or in the forge with a mangled piece of iron that was supposed to be a wall hanger over the stove but had turned into some sort of… thing.
Traveling down the moonlit road with his companions was quite unlike any experience he had in his small village, but somehow it had certain similarities. He could remember long hours in the inn’s common room, singing with the dwarven merchants, serving chicken casserole to the occasional noble, or handing endless tankards of nut-brown ale to all of them. The inn was a small bubble of peace in the middle of their long journeys, and there were distinct bits of the same feeling as the heavy warhorse under him rocked from side to side while the elf and dwarf chatted about nothing in particular. He participated in the conversation, of course, but he never had been much of a leader. Fetch preferred to stay in the background, giving little nudges to encourage an interesting story or bit of trivia from far-away lands.
When the mule stopped abruptly in the middle of the road, it came as a bit of a shock to Fetch, mostly because it had become nearly pitch-dark with only the light of the stars above.
“Huh. Thought we’d make it to the bridge by moonset,” said Nomor somewhere out in the dark. “At least there’re a camp here where we can wait for dawn. That fine with you children?”
Tula spun a small fey lantern out of what looked like starlight and spiderwebs, holding it on the tip of one finger and looking around in the wan illumination. The rolling hills of Forselt had leveled out here, leaving a flat piece of ground nearby with indications that other travelers had used it for the same purposes, but no wood for the firepit.
“That’s the downside of Forselt,” said Tula while removing some blankets from the cart. “The hills are gravel so no trees really grow, and the downland dirt’s practically silt so it grows crops pretty well, but there are so few actual trees here. And they keep any of them from growing around the roads, so the few bandits that try to make a living there have nothing to hide behind. And the ones they catch, they set to building roads.”
“The surrounding kingdoms sell them wood and Iron Mountain sells them coal.” Nomor gave the cloudless sky a glance and pushed the tent back onto the cart. “Bit of a waste, actually. The gnomes sold them a little metal grate that goes in the bottom of a fireplace that makes it burn pretty clean, and there ain’t much winter weather. Asides, they got some sort of competition goin’ on about using linum to build the warmest house.”
“That’s sort of a weed,” Tula added at Fetch’s puzzled expression. “Dried, it barely burns, and if you pack it into a wall tight enough there’s no cold weather that can make it through. Seeds are good roasted, and the fibers can be beaten out to make cloth, but it tears the ground up something fierce.”
“Oh, flax.” Fetch shrugged. “Miss Triana tried to weave some things out of some thread she bought off a merchant, but she said it just wasn’t the same as the material from her home.”
“Really?” Tula held one blanket up to Fetch. “Feel that.”
He had to admit it was a smooth, comfortable sensation, far nicer than anything Miss Triana had woven on her small loom. And with the heat of summer, it would be more comfortable than a quilt or thick cotton blanket. Tula let him touch it for a while, then took it back and wrapped it around herself by the cold firepit. There were some… interesting motions concealed behind it, and Fetch really did not understand what was going on until Tula emerged, dressed in the clean clothes she had gotten from King Sigmund, and began tucking the blanket on the ground in an obvious sleeping spot.
“Oh,” he said, then turned to the cart where his own clean clothes were stored. Fetch first helped Nomor remove the tack and harness from their equine companions, hobbling them both nearby and stacking the gear to one side. Then a few minutes in the darkness behind the concealment of the cart’s sides let him exchange the tar-smeared filthy clothes for something reasonably clean. “I think they gave me some of Prince Svenson’s old trousers,” he said while dressing. “They smell a bit like Snowflake.”
“The two of you are about the same size,” said Tula somewhere out in the darkness. “Father would not mind a bit if I took up with him, but Sven has some young lady with a griffon of her own out there somewhere.”
“Princess Helena and Thunderbolt,” said Fetch reflexively. “They’re… I actually think the griffons are matchmaking.”
“Like everybody wants to match me up,” said Tula. She let out a sharp breath and added, “I’ll find a prince on my own. There’s hundreds of them out there.” She looked up as Fetch walked back into the camp, carrying his boots under one arm, but did not say anything else.
“Wait.” Fetch looked around in the soft light of the fet lantern. “Where’s my blanket?”
Tula giggled and patted the section of blanket next to where she had curled up.
“Not likely, lass.” Nomor began pulling another blanket out of the cart. “You two need some sleep, and that just won’t do. Over here, lad. An’ no sneaking off in the middle of the night. Gettin’ too old for this.”
The first rays of morning had not broken over the horizon by the time Fetch was up and getting ready for the second part of their trip. He made sure the horse and mule had a few scoops of oats, packed his blanket back on the cart, and even used his sling to take a shot at a curious rabbit, which did not result in the breakfast he wanted. Nomor passed him some fried bread and meat concoctions the servants had provided for the trip, and the two of them leaned up against the cart to wait on Princess Tula.
“She looks plum quiet there,” said Nomor. “Not schemin’ or nothing. That’s rare in a woman.”
“She’s sleeping,” said Fetch.
“That don’t stop some women,” countered Nomor. “Don’t matter the race. I’ve seen dwarven womenfolk with so many twisted ideas they can’t think them all while awake. Came darned near marrying one of them. Put me off the marriage game for a decade or two.”
“Maybe you should consider— Nevermind.” Fetch looked away, but the thought must have been written on his face in Dark, and Nomor was quite literate.
“Antikythera ain’t interested that way.” He finished off his fried bun and licked the fingers of his one hand. “She’s got a purely business interest in me. Says she’s gonna make me a metal hand. Not much, just a finger or two so I can braid me beard on my own and fasten buckles on the horses. We roughed out a few sketches, and ifn’ I got time this trip, I’ll stop by her workshop and see what she’s come up with. Nothing more.”
“If it were nothing more, you’d be calling her Miss Argyros,” said Fetch, who had noticed the musical way that Nomor enunciated the young lady’s name, and the faint smile that appeared to be hiding in the fringes of his beard.
Nomor quit licking his fingers, considered it for a while, then wiped his hand on his shirt. “You just nevermind that. Wake up your young lady an’ let’s get on the road.”
“She’s not my young lady,” protested Fetch while waving the last bite of his breakfast for emphasis.
“There must have been a hundred places she could be hiding out from Seiki,” said Nomor. “Cousins, aunts, uncles. Instead, she hares off into the wilderness for a young human lad and a bridge troll. That’s either a very stupid move or a smart one.”
“She’s not stupid,” said Fetch out of reflex, but froze when Princess Tula began to stir out of her curl of blankets with a yawn.
“Did I miss anything?” Those dangerous green eyes opened, tracked across Fetch, then over to where Nomor was removing another cold bun from his basket.
“Just breakfast,” said Nomor. “You can eat while we’re riding. I’d like to get to Nadare by tomorrow night.”
Tula proved herself quite able to stay on the horse without holding onto Fetch’s shirt, but once she had finished off her breakfast, those strong fingers found themself right back in their accustomed place. It helped his concentration to talk with Nomor about other things while they traveled, like what his plans for the future looked like, and the general layout of the area when compared to his home mountain.
“Trading is probably where I’ll wind up. There’s always places with too much stuff and others with not enough,” he said gruffly. “The Iron Mountain can’t eat iron after all. Or coal.”
“Mother is impressed with your glass jars,” said Tula. “It makes for easier honey storage, and jams. We take the hives up into the mountains during spring lambing, and bring them back down for the winter,” she added for Fetch. “Mother said she wanted to send you several hives for your flowers—”
“—that I haven’t planted yet.” Fetch bonked himself lightly on the forehead. “There are so many things to do that don’t even involve the bridge to make the bridge. It’s like… like—”
“Being a king,” said Tula rather flatly. “Everybody expects you to know what you’re doing even when its something completely new, and you can tell people what to do when you know what needs to be done but they may not do it or even do something totally different, and if you do find somebody who knows how to do something they either don’t want to teach you or they’ll teach it to you wrong. It’s impossible to know who to trust.”
There did not seem to be anything Fetch could say, so he said nothing while they continued to ride. At least the low branches he had seen on his last trip had been cut back, and there were small bits of white cloth tied to several trees which indicated the Forselt road-building crews had been poking around the bridge area.
The one thing that Fetch had neglected to mention came to his mind abruptly when Lily rose up out of the ravine and hovered near the edge right when their little group approached. Nomor’s mule regarded the sudden appearance of a dragon with a resigned tolerance, indicating it had a far more placid demeanor than the driver, who moved backward so fast he fell off the end of the cart.
The horse that Fetch and Tula had been riding on, though…
A proper war horse should react to the presence of a dragon with a fierce snort, a lowering of the head, and preparations to charge. Despite the age of their mount, or possibly because it had survived this long for a reason, Charger treated the appearance of a dragon as if it were the starting whistle of a race, pointed the other way.
The confusion that followed was brief, concentrated, and wound up with Fetch flat on his back in the dust. He vaguely remembered trying to protect Tula in the resulting tumble, but had no real idea how she wound up landing on top of him, and laughing in the process while the sound of departing hoofbeats grew fainter.
“I hoped you were one of the people from Forselt who have been surveying the area,” rumbled Lily, looking very much not-embarrassed at the chaos she had caused.
“Lad!” spluttered Nomor, scrambling to his feet and looking very much like he was torn between running away and darting back to the cart to grab his axe. “That’s a dragon!”
“Oh. Yes,” said Fetch, who was trying to figure out the most polite way to encourage an elven princess to get her knee out of his tender spots and move away so he could breathe. “Lady Lily, this is Nomor, a friend of ours who has also suffered from Seiki’s actions.”
That was all the air he had, but it was enough. Tula rolled lithely to her feet and helped Fetch up while the dragon settled down on the edge of the ravine and eyed them all, particularly the dwarf.
“Driven from your home?” she rumbled.
“Aye.” Nomor gave Fetch a glance filled with promises of a long discussion afterward in which the importance of not keeping certain secrets would be reviewed. “That an’ took me hand in the deal.”
The dragon observed Nomor for a long time. Then she added, “And the young human has already told you the importance of not regarding him as an enemy? For the wizard was once and still is my friend, and any who swear vengeance upon the egg-sucking vermin who deceived him will find themselves pitted against his power.”
“Aye, that too.” Nomor moved the stump of his arm much as if he were flexing missing fingers. “Whatever becomes of him, I will not partake. Won’t shed a tear when he dies, though. Spittin’ on his grave is probably an option.”
“There will be no grave.” Lily licked her lips. Fetch decided it would be best if he could lower the temperature in the discussion, and moved to start taking the harness off the mule while Nomor helped.
“Let’s concentrate on the present for now. The cart won’t fit across the bridge, even if the mule—” Fetch exchanged looks with the placid mule in question, then turned to Nomor. “You need something to help carry your purchases to Nadre. Will your mule handle crossing the rope bridge without the cart?”
“Didn’t really think of it at the time.” Nomor seemed to be collecting himself by resuming familiar activities, like scratching where his beard had begun to untie itself. “Suppose we could try. If’n a dragon won’t spook him, a few boards should be fine.”
And it was, contrary to Fetch’s expectations. The mule just plodded along behind Fetch, making an echoing clomp noise every step while the rope bridge slowly swayed, until they both stepped off the other side. It was then about the work of an hour to run the bucket back and forth on the suspended rope, loaded with the boxes and sacks of supplies until the empty cart was all that remained. Nomor was actually harder to get across the bridge than the mule, so Tula wrapped one hand around his upper arm for assurance while he kept a hand on the rope railing, moving his boots in very small, slow steps.
“You could have ridden across in the bucket,” suggested Fetch once the dwarf reached solid ground, only to get a fierce glare in return. “Or you could have used the stairs and walked across the river since it’s so low now. Then again, I could just keep my big mouth shut and go see if Charger got too far away before stopping.” Fetch looked around but the dragon was back at work, hauling stone blocks for the bridge and to be honest, he really did not want the dragon’s help with chasing down the old warhorse anyway.
The horse probably did not either.
It was pleasant to walk across the bridge again in the warm summer sunshine, carrying a coil of rope and little else. It was the least amount of work he had been faced with since he had first encountered Quartz. The little voice in the back of his head that spoke up whenever he was not doing anything could be annoying at times, but it had been remarkably quiet since Princess Tula flew into the bridge site. He wanted to be her brave knight for some reason, and she obviously wanted… something.
Females had always confused him, but he had gotten along well with Tula’s mother for some reason, and Lily had happened so fast he really did not have enough time to panic like most of his home village would have in that situation. He was used to being the calm voice of reason when emotions got out of hand, either between traveling merchants just passing through or the villagers he had grown up with. Tula disturbed that sense of inner calm like a pebble thrown into a millpond, and he was not sure if he liked the feeling or not.
“Thinking?” There was a faint whirr of wings and Princess Tula landed to his side just as delicately as a butterfly touching down on a flower. The magic wings on her back glittered in the sunlight, then went away as she matched her pace to his and cocked her head slightly to one side. “You’ve got this… air about you when you’re lost in thought, like you might never return. So where did you go?”
“Nowhere, Your Highness. I mean Tula. Ma’am.”
The elf stopped her brisk stride, then switched to a skipping pace to keep up with him. After a time, she returned to simply walking down the dusty path next to him, although close enough to brush up against him occasionally.
“Fetch,” she said after a while, “I don’t like that flummoxed and bewildered look. If I went home, I could have a hundred young men following me around like stunned sheep with exactly that same expression. I like you just the way you are. Don’t change.”
“I can’t help it,” said Fetch in return, letting his mouth run by itself since his mind was having such a hard time putting thoughts in order. “I stayed the same for years in the village. I mean I knew I’d never be like the rest of them, so I drifted around, picking up something here and there in hopes that I’d find exactly what I was. Then King Seiki’s brutes came along, and I met Quartz, and Broom, and you, and Prince Svenson, and Nomor.”
“And Lily,” added Tula with a bit of a giggle. “I was wondering when you were going to mention her to Nomor.”
“Well…” It was time for the sensible portion of his mind to surface and take control of the conversation before he said something he would regret. “I learned to treat everybody as themselves instead of applying artificial categories. Lily is… Lily in my mind. Just because she’s four times as tall as I am and can breathe fire doesn’t make her any less a person. And I keep expecting that I need to treat you as a princess instead of…”
“Me,” said Tula.
“Um… Right.” It was easier to agree with her than argue, but Tula seemed to want an argument.
“You’re more comfortable with the dragon than me.”
“True,” admitted Fetch, which seemed to be the wrong thing to say again. Tula stomped one foot, which made her fall behind and hurry to catch up.
“Why?”
“Why what?” asked Fetch, caught off-guard.
“You’re perfectly fine with a dragon and a troll and a dwarf, but you get all… flustrated around me.”
“Well, you’re different.” Fetch hesitated, then decided his mouth had gotten him into enough trouble and closed it.
“What, weren't there any girls in your village?”
“Not my age.” He considered his words. “It would have been awkward, anyway.”
“And this isn’t awkward?”
“It’s… not the same. Look, I understand everybody from my village. Where they are, where they are going, and what they want. I understand Quartz. He’s easy. Bridge. He’s got this idea of a bridge in his head, not just an ordinary bridge but a magnificent bridge, one that people will travel great distances just to look at and say—”
Tula said flatly, “That’s a bridge.”
“Right. An abstract concept turned into reality by his own will and labor. That’s what wizards do. They have such powerful will that they make the world realize something is this way instead of that, where most fey magic only impresses that as a deception that the world eventually corrects by itself. Wizards make something that is, and will be afterward because it is.”
Now it was Tula’s turn to remain quiet for a while as they walked. Unfortunately, it did not last long. “That sounds right. Where did you come upon this brilliant insight? Did my mother tell you?”
““No, I watched her build those vine-stairs and thought about it a lot. She didn’t use quite the same magic you used. She just asked the plants to do what she wanted instead of what a wizard would do by telling them or what you would have done by tricking the plants into thinking they were supposed to be stairs. I mean I don’t know very much about magic other than a few little bits here and there, but it seems… obvious, since Lubonia has some elvish lineage and she’s powerful enough to make Broom. That is a small difference of scale between the magics, but… obvious.”
“Obvious.” Tula shook her head. “Mother is far more powerful than I am. My tutors said I should treat magic as twisted and deceptive. It tries to squirm its way out of any crack. You have to trick it into doing what you want. Move before it moves. Like dancing.”
“I’ve never had to do that,” said Fetch. Then when the elvish princess turned as if she were going to ask a terrifying question about his experience with dancing, he added, “Magic, that is.”
Tula stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean? You can use magic?”
“Everybody in the village could use some, so it’s not anything special.” Fetch forced his feet to keep moving so Tula had to keep up or be left behind as he continued, “And I can only use magic for certain things, like teasing the slag out of a metal ingot or turning a wheel spoke evenly. Oh, and getting bread to rise correctly. Bread doesn’t like to rise evenly on its own. It needs encouragement. It’s got life in it after all, and that can be unpredictable.”
“Life,” said Tula flatly. “Can you make a light? Grow a vine up a wall?
“No, but I can tell if a plant needs water, and keep insects away.”
“Wait.” Tula grasped him by the upper arm and held on until he stopped. Her eyes darted about as if she were looking for something before she added, “Mosquitoes?”
“You want mosquitoes to land on you?”
“No! I mean I’ve never seen you use a spell.” Her fingers danced briefly and a faint misty outline appeared around her exposed skin for a few moments.
“I can’t do that,” admitted Fetch. “But… Let me show you something Spokeshave taught me.” He picked up a pebble from alongside the road and held it up to her. “What is this?”
“A black pebble.” Those dangerous green eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“No, it’s a white pebble.” Fetch eyed her. “Your turn.”
“Well, it’s probably white on your side, but that’s not… Are you saying magic is the same for everybody, we just see it differently?”
“No and yes. Magic for Lily is probably more like fire, all aggressive and consuming. As far as I’ve seen, elves have a magic more like water, flowing and directing but powerful, able to be frozen in place, but eventually thawing back into water. That’s why I watched your mother so carefully when she made those stairs up the side of the ravine. I was expecting wizard magic, but she didn’t force anything, just—” Fetch made a grasping motion because he didn’t have words for it.
“Mother says that’s asking the world for a favor. You should repay that expected favor all of the time, because you never know when you need it.”
Fetch nodded. “That’s more or less how I’ve been taught to see the world, only without the expectation of getting paid back. Life is… Well, it just is. Trees grow toward the sun and water, moss hides from the sun so it doesn’t burn—”
“And bread rises.” Tula had a very serious scowl. “That’s not magic. It’s just an excuse for things that were going to happen anyway.”
“If you say so.” Fetch turned off the path, heading across a patch of thick grass that replaced the trees as they got further from the ravine.
“And I suppose you’re using that magic to find out where the horse went,” continued Tula.
“Tracks, actually.” Fetch bent over and dug around in the trampled grass, then put his find away before resuming his brisk pace through the thickening field. “It’s a big horse.”
“I could have one of the pixies look for the horse,” said Tula.
“If they found it, they couldn’t bring it back,” pointed out Fetch as he walked. “And if they come back without being distracted by a butterfly or a flower, all they can really say is there’s a horse out here, which we know already.”
For a moment, it looked as if Tula were going to argue the point, but she settled for pacing along behind Fetch, using the flattened grass of his passage to make her walk easier.
“I’m glad the sheep haven’t been through here, or we’d have a lot harder time finding the horse,” said Fetch. “Easier walking, though.”
“How do you know there are sheep— Oh,” said Tula as Fetch stopped and prodded a piece of dried sheep dung with his boot.
“Cordial our cooper says sheep are dumber than rocks. He taught me a lot about barrels, but knows a lot of stories about sheep from when he was a young shepherd. That’s why he decided to make barrels. We didn’t have any sheep around the village,” added Fetch quickly. “They eat grass right down to the roots, and then they eat the roots. A wise shepherd keeps fewer sheep than the land will support, and keeps them moving so they never stay long enough to be eating dirt.”
“Father calls them four-legged rats,” said Tula once they began walking again. “The lambs are adorable. In spring, the sheep from out in the plains are herded up into the mountains, with a brief stop around the town for their wool tax and birthing. Then in the fall, they are herded by the town as they go back out to the plains for winter grazing. Mutton season is wonderful. You just have to watch where you step.”
“Forselt is flatter than your kingdom,” said Fetch with a long look around. “They probably have a herding rotation worked out. And there is our little lost lamb.”
The old warhorse looked up from where he had made a comfortable nest of flattened grass and regarded the two people-interlopers into his comfortable resting spot, then looked around.
“No, the scary dragon isn’t here,” said Fetch with as much reassurance as he could manage.
Charger snorted in disbelief and got up to his hooves.
“I’m not chasing you,” said Fetch, reaching into his pockets. “If you leave, I’m just going to sit here and eat all of these up myself, without sharing.”
“I thought apples were the normal bribe for horses,” whispered Tula.
“Shh. He nipped the tops off the plants on the way here, so he likes garlic. Don’t you, boy?”
The horse nickered and tossed his head, indicating a general agreement with the concept, but a desire to eat the offering and leave instead.
“I noticed King Sigmund included one of those clever dwarven jars full of molasses into our supplies,” said Fetch. “I was going to try some on oatcakes, but for a nice horse, I may just mix up a little warm mash for him in the evenings.”
The nicker was slightly more positive this time, with a certain undercurrent of draconic caution.
“I’ll talk with the dragon and tell her not to frighten you again,” added Fetch.
Charger snorted and pawed the ground with one hoof in a fierce, martial stance.
“Oh, if you had a knight on your back, you’d show that dragon a thing or two? Well, we’re not having any of that. Lily is a nice dragon, and I’m not going to let you hurt her.”
The horse’s nostrils flared and he let out a sharp snort.
“No,” admonished Fetch. “If you’re going to act like that, you might as well trot on home to your stable.”
Horses were not supposed to hunch their shoulders, but this one did, and gave Fetch an angry scowl.
“I mean it.” Fetch put the garlic bulbs back in his pocket and turned away. “Come, Princess. Your fair steed is not worthy of our company.”
Tula did not say anything right away, but hurried through the tall grass so she could walk alongside Fetch and hold onto his hand for balance. “You can’t possibly think that’s going to work.”
Fetch did not say anything. He did not have to. A few minutes later, the hefty horse was plodding along on his other side, putting out an air of divine tolerance for creatures below his notice. But he did eat the garlic bulbs as they walked and the people talked.
It was not until they got back to the bridge that Fetch realized Tula was still holding his hand.
Devious women and magic. 'nuff said.
Today's quick bachelor cooking recipe: Cherry Pie.
Ingredients:
Stick of butter
three or four 4-cup Pyrex storage bowls and a cookie sheet
Can of cherry pie filling
Roll of pie crust (the kind that comes in a box and you unroll over a pie tin, which you don't need see above)
---Unroll crust, cut into circles a little bigger than the bottom of the Pyrex bowls. Grease the bowls with the stick of butter and put it back in the fridge before you forget. Put the pie crust circles in the bottom of the bowls. Your third bowl will have to do with scraps since there's not enough crust to cut a perfect circle out of it. That's fine.
--Pour cherry pie filling into each bowl. Use a butter knife to get out the last of the pie filling. Lick the knife. Nobody is looking.
--Put bowls on cookie sheet and cook at around 300 degrees for a half-hour or so. Peek every five minutes after that until pie filling is bubbling. Remove from oven. Turn it off. Very important.
--Allow to cool. Well, to a point. One of them is a sacrifice to the cook. The one with the pie crust fragments will do nicely. Wait until you can pick it up with your bare hands or else. Add ice cream. See, you don't even need to dirty another bowl.
--Make sure the bowls are cool before you put the lids on and put them in the fridge for later. Hot plastic lids on Pyrex turn semi-flexible, and the cooling air over the pie will suck them down into an inverse-concave shape. Ask me how I know.
--Now you have two cherry pies to take to work. No mess, no fuss, just grab out of the fridge on your way out the door. Tada! If married, you can serve one to the wife with her choice of ice cream. TadaX2.
I have really been digging the Bridge Troll story, it always puts a smile on my face when a new chapter drops
Poor Fetch, he really hasn't quite realised that he has an elvish girlfriend yet, has he? Ah well, I'm sure Tula will inform him of his relationship status eventually
5817960 Yeah, the proverbial square peg and a round hole in his thought process. Having a slow build like this makes for a better and more family-friendly ship. The reason for his relative inexperience with the fair sex will become obvious in about 8-9 chapters when Mrs. Triana and Oatto show up.