Chapter Text
“Eanna be my witness, I will cherish and protect you for the rest of my life. I will be by your side until the last moment. I will be your friend, your guardian, your love, your family. I love you.”
I smiled from where I stood against the wall at the back of the crowd. Joy was a wonderful sound, because even if I couldn’t see the smiles on the newlyweds’ faces, I could hear the excited pitter-patter of their heartbeats, and the way their breaths hitched a little when they looked each other in the eyes, and know that they would have a good life together. The woman’s heartbeat spiked when the man took her hand--I could hear the drag of his skin over hers--and slipped a ring onto her finger. Human customs, to wed a dwarf with a moon elf. It was quite the ceremony.
“Mathilda Deagret Stormbrow,” said the man, his soft voice resonating with such immense joy that even those around me could sense it, even if it wasn’t as apparent to them as it was to me. “As of today, you are my wife and my family. My heart is yours, as well as my life.”
“Airdan Ionis,” Tillie responded, her musical pitch positively bursting. “As of today, you are my husband and my family. My heart is yours, as is my life.”
There was the rustling of soft and supple fabric as the priestess who was in charge of the ceremony raised her hands to the whole congregation.
“By the Old Kings and Queens,” she said, and though her voice was soft and shy, it carried well. I was sure that the others heard her quiet soprano quite clearly. “You are now partners for life and eternity. May they watch over you in your journey together.”
There was an eruption of applause; cheers and claps and stomps reverberated through the hall, causing me to wince in shock, and then touch the wall behind me to better sense the vibrations. It didn’t take long for the merriments to set in. The dwarves in particular had barely let the priestess finish the final vows before they were laughing and hollering, waving pints of what smelled strongly of ale.
“Pay up!” snorted a dwarf male, with a cadence quite similar to Tillie’s, despite alright being well on his way to drunk. “Told you she would marry a moonie!”
“You said she would marry the mage,” another dwarf specified, also quite reminiscent of Tillie, though rougher and deeper of course. “I’m not payin’ you.”
A voice that would be Tillie’s in a couple more decades exploded then, causing the heart rates of both dwarves to stutter and then pick up in double time.
“Are you gambling over your sister’s wedding?!” Tillie’s mother demanded. Her sons sputtered incoherently, their hearts threatening to burst as they scrambled to escape. I supposed it didn’t matter what race a person was; the scariest person in anyone’s existence would always be their mother.
I looked around when I caught another voice. It was surprisingly soft, when compared to the attitude of the person to whom it belonged, and musical. I’d heard that voice singing once. I hadn’t meant to, but then, I didn’t mean to hear a lot of things. It was a nice sound, beautiful, but the song had been very sad. Even now, though there was a slight smile in the voice, it was shallow. I could still hear the pain lying past it.
“Why are you crying?” that voice laughed. That was Miss Aida, the woman Boss had assigned me to guard. I hadn’t told him that I was already familiar with her. With her laughter and her jokes and her heartbeat. I’d known her long before I had had the priviledge of meeting her.
“What?!” demanded her companion, a young human girl prone to tearful outbursts. Her voice was thick with tears, but they were the happy kind of tears. “It’s a joyous event!”
Miss Aida didn’t say anything else, and the next voice I picked out of the tumult was that of an older dwarf’s, speaking I deduced to the moon elf that was so fond of Miss Aida.
“Zander, my boy!” he rasped past the lump in his throat caused by emotion. He gave a very loud, very obtrusive sniff. “My Tillie. My little baby girl…”
“Airdan is a good guy, don’t worry,” Zander assured Tillie’s father. His own voice was very smooth, rich like caramel for the ears. All moon elves had voices like that: hypnotic. Most didn’t have such an undercurrent of sadness, though. “And I can always turn him into ashes if he treats Til wrong.”
I winced, because Zander was only half-joking. His heartbeat had jumped slightly as he thought of his friend being mistreated, accompanied by a sense of great, if brief, fury. The human knight, Jace, was telling one of his stories to Tillie’s brothers. Jace’s voice commanded attention, even if it didn’t actually hold one spell-bound like Zander’s. It was rough and low, and in it I could hear the lifetime of pain that he never spoke of. It was this quality, those most couldn’t identify it for what it is, that made his voice command attention. Even when he was telling the most ridiculous stories.
“I swear the spider was this big!” he exclaimed, and I was fairly certain that he was holding his arms a good distance apart. “Never seen Skirts run so fast in my life!”
Theorl, Tillie’s brothers, laughed heartily. “Oi, Sis! This human’s a’right!”
I smiled when I heard the light, almost nonexistent footsteps of the little Lith girl, Seena, as she approached the brooding sun elf, Faelern.
“Faelern dance?” she asked hopefully.
“No.”
I shook my head at the sun elf. Something in his voice was different than the others in the room. I could sense a great pain in his past, one that had cost him a great deal, but it did not plague him as the troubles of the others. It was written into his tone like a chapter in a book, close to the beginning, that had begun and ended and had left little lasting impact. He had healed. I didn’t get all that from the one word--I’d been listening to him speak for weeks. All I got from that one word was that he was very adamant that he didn’t want to dance.
As for the nearest conversation to me, I tried to block it out, to just blur it into the background noise, because it was Boss speaking to Airdan about betraying the Eagles. I didn’t like Boss. I didn’t trust him. But he was my boss, and I had to believe that what he did, he did for good reason.
After that, I allowed everything to fade into one big blur of sound. The clinks of glasses, the barks of laughter, the thuds of footsteps: they all melded together to make a beautiful, natural song of cheer. Even those who carried much pain in their hearts put it aside for a time in order to enjoy the festivities and make it as nice as possible for the newlyweds.
It was only when Miss Sky spoke that I tuned back into the details of sound.
“Why are the Eagles here?” she grumbled. There was a strained rustling noise that gave away Miss Sky’s anxious fidgeting with the drape around her hips.
“The groom’s side,” explained Miss Aida easily. Her pitch rose and fell like music, almost as smooth as Zander’s or Airdan’s, and one hundred times more so than Jace’s. “Airdan is an Eagles member, you know. Apparently we are besties now that we learned we’re all on the same side.”
I couldn’t fight a small smile at the irony in her tone.
“I don’t like this,” Miss Sky insisted. “And that guy Diego gave us as personal protection…What’s his name? Kole? Gives me the creeps.”
“I’m sorry for bothering you, Miss Sky,” I apologized at once, turning in their direction, knowing they were but a few meters away. “It was never my intention.”
“So you’re listening to our private conversations now?” Miss Sky snapped. I winced, startled by her hostility, though not honestly unaccustomed to it. “Great…”
“I didn’t…” I mumbled, attempting to reassure her that I was not attempting to intrude. “I--I’m...a Kaleik. So I hear…a lot more than I should. I’m sorry, Miss Sky, I did not know it was a private conversation.”
I bowed my head, hoping she would understand my sincerity. She didn’t change her demeanor, however, and my hopes deflated like a balloon.
“It’s private if we are not talking to you,” she replied haughtily, her pitching growing higher as she grew more irritated. “Next time you see two people talking to each other, don’t listen in.”
“But I...can’t see,” I responded hesitantly. “I’m blind, Miss Sky.”
Part of the reason she was being so touchy was simply because I had overheard her thoughts about myself specifically, and she was simply flustered. I understood that--I could hear it in her voice--so I couldn’t get angry. However, I sensed someone else growing increasingly frustrated as Miss Sky continued her tirade. Miss Aida was beginning to grow weary of Miss Sky’s lecture herself. It was evident in the way she shifted her feet against the stone floor and in the brush of her fingers against each other as they clenched and unclenched. However, Miss Sky said nothing more to further irritate Miss Aida.
“Just stay out of my way,” she grumbled, then walked away with short, hasty strides in the direction of a small bench.
I turned to face Miss Aida directly. Judging from the subtle swish whenever she moved, she had left her hair to fall down around her shoulders and to her waist. I only knew how long her hair was because I had once heard Miss Sky complaining that she couldn’t have such perfect hair with all the alchemy potions in the world. I knew that it was a color they called silver, but I had no idea what that color looked like. Nor was I able to picture the green that people used to describe her eyes. I couldn’t imagine the shine that others noted in them, either. I couldn’t imagine a lot of things. I had no idea what Miss Aida looked like, apart from her general stature, but I knew that she must be beautiful, because of what I had heard others say when she walked by. Complete strangers had stopped their conversations to make a remark about the striking woman that had gone by just then. And to have such a voice, I could only imagine that the vessel must be very beautiful.
“Miss Aida…” I said hesitantly. “Did I somehow offend Miss Sky?”
“Well...Your organization sort of killed her parents,” Miss Aida offered sardonically. “That’s a little offensive.”
“Ah…” I murmured, hanging my head. “But is it really the weapon’s fault if the holder’s intentions are evil?”
“Weapons don’t have free will,” said Miss Aida firmly. “You do.”
The absolute conviction portrayed in her tone startled me, but it didn’t convince me.
“Do we?” I wondered doubtfully.
She gave a sigh that would have been inaudible to anyone else, then turned to go.
“I should get going,” she said softly. “Someone just threw a lith kid in the punch.”
She was lying. I would have heard that happen, and her heartbeat had faltered just slightly, the telltale sign of a hasty lie. She was just searching for a tactful way to leave me. It wasn’t her fault, though, I knew that.
“Yes, Miss Aida,” I said, resigned. “I will guard outside. I wouldn’t want to bother you, either.”
I turned and walked away, deftly maneuvering around the raucous guests until I reached the open patio doors and stepped out into the cool evening air. I leaned against the wall outside, and lost myself in thought. The wall was rough against my back, but I didn’t mind. There was a slight breeze that whistled through the courtyard, playing with my hair and bringing with it the scent of rain and the ocean brine. The music inside was loud, as were the whoops and yells of certain dwarves, but outside had its own sounds. There was the musical trickle of a fountain in the courtyard, and the wall of the fountain’s pool was being overrun by moss; I could hear the water splash against the spongy surface. Grass grew along the stone pathway, swaying lazily in the breeze and whistling ever so slightly, reminding me of a flute. The soft croak of a frog preceded the graceful hops as it gingerly left its shelter of undergrowth in search of food. In a bush about two strides away was a nest in which a small bird sat atop her eggs, all cozied up for the night. I bit back a sad sigh when I noticed that only two of the three eggs emanated sounds of early life.
After a while, I drew my observations inward. Miss Aida had seemed almost protective of me when Miss Sky had been stating her position, though she had remained silent, but at the same time, she had taken the earliest opportunity to go elsewhere when left alone with me. I couldn’t honestly blame her, but didn’t that seem like a contradiction? Unless she wanted to help me, but simply didn’t know how…
“Kole!”
I looked around, though that did little good. It was simply a human reflex, I suppose. Judging by the two sets of light footsteps, it was the lith children that were calling me.
“Miss Seena?” I responded.
“Seena--I wants to show Meimei the duck pond,” Seena said, proudly using the first-person.
“I’ve seen the duck pond before, Seena,” said her companion, but she there was an indulgent smile plain in her voice. She was rather fond of Seena.
“Okay…” I said uncertainly. “Would you like me to ask Miss Aida to take you?”
“I can get us there just fine,” said Meimei airily, and I heard a movement of the air that suggested she had waved her hand as well.
“Very well,” I acknowledged. “I will just go and tell Miss Aida, okay?”
“Okay!” Seena chirped happily.
I smiled and walked around the children to re-enter the Great Hall.
“Miss Aida,” I said softly upon finding her just inside the doors to the courtyard.
“Kole,” she answered warily.
“Miss Seena and Miss Meimei wish to see the duck pool in the city park,” I told her.
“And?” Miss Aida prompted.
“Would you like me to watch over them?” I wondered.
“No, that’s okay,” Miss Aida said. “The park is close and Meimei knows her way around.”
She didn’t say it, but she was also still a little hesitant to ask me to accompany the children alone, as well she should be, since we had only been together for a short time. Still, I found I was slightly hurt at the notion that she didn’t trust me with Seena. I didn’t say anything of this.
“Okay,” I nodded, but I couldn’t leave. There was something bothering Miss Aida, something dragging at her usual brightness. “Miss Aida.”
“Yes, Kole?” Miss Aida sighed.
“If you don’t mind me asking…” I said hesitantly, reaching up to scratch the back of my neck as I often did when I grew nervous. “Why are you sad?”
Her immediate response was quite telling. Her heart rate skyrocketed and her breathing hitched drastically. She fought to correct these things at once, but she couldn’t deny that they had been there.
“Wh--I’m not sad,” she denied at once. “Why did you say that?”
“You’ve been sighing, playing with your hair, and biting your nails,” I said quietly. They were things she did often, especially when she was alone. The harsh noise of her teeth chewing on her nails, the bristling sound as her tangled hair was woven between her fingers, and the melancholy sighing that so occupied her lips had become the predominant aspect of her being when she found herself unburdened by other eyes all looking up to her for inspiration.
“I’m really scared to asked exactly how you know that,” she said uneasily.
I bit my lip and turned my face to the side, embarrassed.
“Kaleik ears,” I answered, my tone implying shame.
“So you can hear everything?” Miss Aida wondered. “That’s a little creepy.”
“Not everything,” I denied. “But...Quite a lot.”
“Okay!” she said easily. “I love a good freak show. Tell me what’s happening in the room right now!”
If anyone else had called me a freak show, I might have been hurt, but coming from Miss Aida, I knew that she was--mostly--joking. She believed herself a freak, and as such she would never call anyone else that. She was many, many things, but unfair wasn’t often one of them. She had a strong sense of justice. This having been said, I tuned back into what I had blurred into white noise.
Miss Tillie was speaking to her mother about the missing cake, and while she sounded concerned, her mother sounded downright alarmed. Airdan was standing silently at his new wife’s shoulder, emanating a disinterested air that stated all too plainly he wasn’t all that bothered by a lost cake. Miss Sky was playing cards with Sir Jace--well, I say playing. She was wiping the floor with him, based on what I heard, and Boss was watching. It was strange, though; his heartbeat was faster than normal, as though he were slightly nervous. Sir Zander was searching for the Odargan milk chocolate he had bought for Tillie’s wedding gift--in vain, I might add. He’d already eaten them all.
As I listed off these events to Miss Aida, new ones were taking place.
“The cook has just realized he is out of salt,” I informed her. “Two of Tillie’s brothers are arguing about whether they could drink the whole barrel of ale in one go. Miss Nina joined in the card game with Sir Jace and Miss Sky.”
I listened closer, and smiled.
“Ah,” I noted.
“Ah?” Miss Aida echoed.
“Miss Seena and Miss Meimei have arrived at the duck pool.”
“Wait! You can hear the city, too?!” Miss Aida exclaimed, her tone laced with amazement.
“Yes,” I nodded. “There is a baker down the corner. He usually closes shop at around six. Today he was late because apparently he forgot to buy his wife a gift for their anniversary, so instead he decided to make her a cake.”
“That…” said Miss Aida slowly. “Is impressive. If not a bit creepy. It should be a bother to hear everyone, though. I would go crazy in a few days.”
I shook my head and smiled, looking up at the ceiling although there was nothing there for me to see.
“I like it,” I confided. “There is fighting and violence of course, but once in a while, you hear the first footsteps of a toddler. The first kiss of a couple, or the unwrapping of a much desired present.”
Her feet shifted across the floor, and her crossed arms flexed and relaxed, evidence that she was thinking of something in a way she hadn’t previously considered.
“I have learned to appreciate small things in life,” I continued. “Eyes can be deceiving. Like, say, when you are watching a fight. You see two angry people yelling at each other. But sounds, Miss Aida, sounds don’t lie. You can ‘see’ much more than just two people yelling at each other if you listened to their voices. You will realize that one of them is just nervous because his wife is giving birth, or his sister is getting married. I have witnessed many people assume things about each other because of the way they look. But there is so much more to people than just the way they look. The reasons, especially. I love the reasons behind every emotion, every action. That’s why, Miss Aida, I don’t mind hearing a lot of things. It reminds me of life. Chaos, the good and the bad. Also, you really need to eat something, Miss Aida.”
She stiffened, and her hair swished to one side as she tilted her head.
“Your bowel movement rapidly changed over the last two hours,” I informed her.
I could hear her eyes roll, and she sighed heavily.
“Kole,” she groaned. “Next time you go all romantic on a girl with your voices and sounds and stuff…leave out the bowel movement.”
My face burned with mortification as my words caught up with me.
“Ah! Oh…” I mumbled, humiliated. “I didn’t mean…”
A sound began to build up in her chest, growing until it exploded out of her in a great peal of laughter. She had a wonderful laugh, and I felt my tension ease away just from hearing it.
“Come on!” she laughed, and much to my surprise, she reached out and caught my hand in hers. Her fingers felt incredibly small in mine.
“Eh?” I said, startled as she tugged me farther inside. “Miss Aida!”
She was still laughing when she turned around to face me on the dance floor, holding my hand and guiding the other one to her waist. My cheeks were warmer than they had ever been before.
“I don’t know how to dance,” she warned, her tone bright and warm. “So I might end up stepping on your foot or something.”
“Tha-That’s okay, Miss Aida,” I stammered shyly. “I d-don’t mind.”
“And Kole…”
“Y-yes?” She was very close.
“You don’t have to guard outside,” she said kindly. “It’s getting cold.”
“Thank you...Miss Aida.”
~
The dance ended, and Miss Aida went to converse with her other friends, some of whom were highly intoxicated by this point. Miss Sky could no longer even speak coherently. I was left to lean against the wall once more, but in a considerably lighter mood than before. I felt...inexplicably light, just then, and I knew it had something to do with Miss Aida even though I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was.
When she finished her round--having sent Miss Sky to her room after she’d had a slight fainting spell--she returned to my side.
“You aren’t drinking, Kole?” she wondered idly.
“I don’t drink on duty, Miss Aida,” I informed her with a smile.
“Why do you keep calling me ‘Miss’?” she wondered. “You and Airdan both do. It’s weird.”
“The Eagles members…” I said hesitantly. “We are not all thugs…”
“Most of you are,” she muttered, but there was an undercurrent of empathy in her voice.
“Miss Aida…” I sighed. “We are all orphans. If you are lucky, you find yourself in an orphanage with food and shelter. But the unlucky ones...they live on the streets, finding their own food and places to sleep. The inns don’t take street urchins, and shop owners and everyone else just looks the other way. And when everybody else looks the other way…You look for a way out. Any way out. So either you find yourself being trained as a knight, or a city guard, or…well…”
Threads of compassion pulsed from Miss Aida, though I could sense how hard she was trying to fight them. She had every right to: she had been beaten, abused, blackmailed, and hunted by the very people that I was now basically defending. Still, blind prejudice was unfair directed at anybody, regardless.
“So how did you become a member?” Miss Aida asked gently.
“The leader before Diego. His name was Bryson,” I told her, smiling a little when I remembered him. “He found me. Gave me a place to stay; food, clothes. He taught me how to fight. I was born blind, so it wasn’t easy.”
“Are all Kaleiks blind?” she wondered.
“No...They are not,” I shook my head, and my smile fell. “It’s actually believed in Kaleik traditions that if you are born blind, you carry a terrible curse. You bring misfortune over your camp and family…”
“Oh, I have that curse,” Miss Aida laughed, but she was only half-joking, judging by her undertone. “It’s not that bad. Just the occasional dying. It gets old.”
I laughed in spite of myself. I didn’t know what it was about this girl. She could just so easily clear the air. It was second nature for her to pull someone out of their own darkness.
“Humans don’t really believe in curses, do they?” I chuckled.
“Meh.” She shrugged, her clothing brushing the bare skin of her arms as she did. “We believe in a lot of weird stuff. But did you say you were abandoned because you were blind?”
I looked away.
“I was with my family...for a while,” I said. “We used to travel all around Arunia with the camp. When we were passing by Valond we stopped by the Oldriver Castle for a few days to hunt and trade food with the locals. I was ten or eleven, I think. I was sent to the forest to track down a herd of deer. Because I was only a boy, I made almost no sound, and my ears were better than almost anyone in the camp…When I found the herd, I ran back to the camp as fast as I could. It was night by the time I got back and...they were gone. The whole camp…”
“Wha--” Miss Aida sputtered. “They left a kid in the dark by himself in the forest?! I swear I am getting tired of nutjob family members!”
“No, I don’t blame them,” I told her softly. “You shouldn’t either. They were forced to abandon me. I know they never wanted to. I was relieved that they finally decided to leave me. I was sad, of course, but relieved. There was a lot of pressure in the camp to get rid of me.”
“Why couldn’t your family just leave the camp with you?” she wondered.
“Kaleiks are…” I began, thinking how best to explain. “They can’t live without their camp. Like deer, perhaps, they need their herd. We don’t have a country. We live in traveling camps. We are nothing on our own. We find our identity in each other. In the camp we are whole.”
“Kind of like the sun elves?” she offered.
“Well…” I thought. “They have a land, and they value individual identity, but yes...I guess we are similar in our traditions. But,” I continued, realizing how much of her time I had been selfishly wasting. “I’m sure you have better things to do than to learn about Kaleik history.”
“I like listening to stories about different cultures, Kole,” she responded with a smile. “Plus, there is something about your voice...It’s really beautiful when you talk. I really want to hear more…”
She faltered; shook her head.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a creep,” she sighed.
“You don’t sound like a creep, Miss Aida,” I assured her. “At least, not right now. It’s our voices. All Kaleiks have special voices that awaken a certain mood in their listeners when they sing. That’s why most of us are bards. When you are listening to a sad love song sung by a Kaleik bard, there is a big chance you are going to cry.”
“I’d love to hear you sing one day, Kole,” Miss Aida said softly. I didn’t know if she was teasing me or being serious--even I couldn’t always distinguish between her many intonations--and I didn’t get the chance to clarify, because just then, Miss Tillie gave an annoucement.