I.xv
With the slate stones all thick with water, each flash of lightening overhead boils through the dark gray of the clouds and reflects up off the stones all around me. It’s like the lightning is dancing, and when the thunder comes, it follows its lead.
Thunderstorms at home, they’re just tucking inside or staring at the lighting from the clearing. A flash and glow. Not a dance of heavenly instruments like this. I was told it was a dull time, the three days in the wastes. But I’m so far from miserable, it’s hard to express it. My skin is all soaked, and Willow’s trot is enough to kick the wind up in me in a spine-shaking way. I’m all goosefleshed and cold and uncomfortable in body, but I feel like I’m part of something big with this storm. I like it. I like being out.
As it wears on to nightfall I hit the risk of not being able to see the cairns, but lucky enough the lightning’s still on. Sun’s down fully, and I feel like I’m traveling through the black, but when I get to a point of feeling lost, I just stand myself and willow still until the heavens split again. And I look fast as I can for a cairn, and most of the times, I see it and can move on. It’s another hour or two that it’s like that, and the rain hasn’t stopped pouring down, near enough to heavy. This storm, the lightning and everything, has been going on for the better part of six turns of the glass. I feel like I must have been chasing it through the infinite gray.
The next town is called Hamden, and it’s not a lot like Marsh. Out here, this far into the wastes, you’re not likely to find beasts. So that, I figure, is why there’s no wall. Just torchlight and candles from inside houses that I can see from a long journey off, before the last leg of my ride. The horizon is gray meeting gray, except for that patch that boils its candlelight out into the stones. You can see that orange glowing up off the ground.
When I finally ride into town, I shake the rain from this pelt of mine and try to ignore the scratchy feeling at the bottom of my throat, that feels a lot like a cough coming on. Something I definitely don’t want to be laid up with at any point in this journey. But Willow’s earned herself a day’s break at least, and in that time I hope I can recover. For tonight, I’ll go for soup. Turnip soup, if they’ve got it.
I trot through town on Willow, eyes open against the dark enmeshed in candle-light, looking for the right place. They’ve got a few signs here, for shops and the like, but none I can recognize as useful to me none. Then I see a man under the overhang of a building, ducked away from the thick drizzle of raining coming down in a sheet in front of him. “Light bless, friend,” I say.
He mutters “Light bless” back at me. Anyway, short version is I ask him for directions to the inn, and he gives them fair enough. It’s a big old building, made of painted wood, set up at one end of the town’s proper road—which I’d come in alongside of, not quite knowing. I make it there, stable up Willow, and step inside. They have a spicy turnip soup that I drink at, but it tastes a bit stale. When I’m done, I don’t feel quite sleepy yet, but I do feel plenty sore between my legs. It’s strange walking around. Feels like I should still have a horse down by my ivory parts. There’s not much space around here, so I go to the stables and pace up and down the stalls as I try to walk it off. After probably a glass’s turn of that, my legs feel no better, and I feel no less restless, so I decide to give up the pacing and instead take a stool up to willow’s pen.
I brush her down real thorough and talk to her some. Tell her she’s done a good job for the day. I get to talking to her like she’s a real person, introducing myself proper and telling her what this journey’s about. I get to, “That was something, that storm, huh?” Willow keeps real still, has through all this brushing. “And actually. Hey, Willow, you didn’t scare or anything. We had thunder clapping right over us, all around us. Those rushing cracks of lightning threaten to tear the whole sky right off. You didn’t jump or nothing.” I smile at that, and for some reason at the same time, I feel something harsher than happy tide upward in my chest. I try to keep the smile on, but it starts to crack. I let myself pull in closer to the warmth of Willow’s side, the side of her neck. I can’t figure out quite why my breathing’s uneven.
“You did a good job, Willow,” I say, pressing my cheek against her. “I guess … I guess Daddy was right. You aren’t scared of nothing.” My body feels that shake all over, and I try to tell myself it’s just the chill and the rain. “You’re just—you’re just like me.” I try to smile, but it fails in a crash, just as the first tear falls.
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