3 – 5

The crowded streets of Valdenwood's Market Day have thinned out and quietened in my absence, becoming much more tolerable to navigate. The festivities are winding down, it would seem, after having been in full swing since well before I arrived. The revelers have begun their retreat to the tavern, where they can more thoroughly fill their heads with liquor. The families have gathered up their filthy, red-faced children and carried them home, hearing all the while complaints about how not-at-all tired they are. It is the tradesfolk who are still out in force, though weary. The seamsters and seamstresses are no longer sharp-eyed or nimble-fingered. The farrier's hammer rings true, though quieter, falling with less strength than hours before. The trapper's stock of furs is reduced, only the baldest and most ragged of his wares remaining.

Luckily for Clarke, and un-luckily for the eels, there is still food to be found. A short walk and another silver coin has earned me a proper meal, my first in days. The woman at the spit takes my coin and tucks it into her apron, after which she takes up a toothy, long-bladed knife and carves a thick slice of pork off onto a wooden plate. Then she adds vegetables, soaked in the spit's drippings and slow-cooked on a metal pan. The sight and smell of what I'm given is more than enough to make my stomach growl, loud enouh for the woman to hear. She neither laughs as my brothers would nor raise her brow as my mother would, but instead a shadow crosses her eyes. For a moment she looks, and then Clarke steps up to purchase her own meal.

It's odd and unwelcome, though not nearly enough to remove my hunger. I've a heavy plate in hand and a light stomach in my belly; a balance that needs redressing. As I search for a place to do so, Clarke and the woman converse quietly. I pay it no mind, not until I catch something the woman says by the tail. Her voice is low and hurried, “– of your station to –”

Clarke interrupts her, cold in tone and voice cracking with ice. “My station is no business of yours, nor who I choose to associate with.”

“It isn't proper!” the woman hisses. “Look at her! No shoes, ratty hair, dirty clothes! I'd wager she's never so much as seen a bath! Miss, you're a magi, who you 'associate' with carries more weight than–”

“It,” Clarke once more cuts sharply through the woman's words. The frost on her tongue is a balm against the thorned hurt that this cruelty has bloomed in my heart. “ is no business of yours. My station is mine to dictate, my time mine to spend. Remember that the next time you, your husband, or your son fall ill.” She snatches her plate from the woman – Mrs. Alderwood's – hands.

When she moves to speak again, Clarke gives her such a fierce glare through narrowed eyes that I would swear the blue of them seemed to glow. Showing sense for the first time in our brief and unpleasant acquaintance, Mrs. Alderwood says nothing. The woman has the temerity to look wounded. I am the wounded one, and have been for no reason! What gives her the right to say such things? Does she know why I'm dirty and barefoot?

Would it make any difference if she did?

My hurt brightens and catches light, burning into anger and wounded pride. I'm filled with a desire to turn back to her and return her cruelty twice over. To spit words with such venom that she'd think I was a snake in addition to being a filthy vagabond who's never so much as seen a bath! Except the words don't come, so I leave. Turn on my heel and walk quickly away.

Clarke catches up to me at an empty bench. I've taken to pushing individual vegetables from one side of my plate to the other. There's dirt beneath my nails and smeared across my skin. I've no doubt my hair will be several nightmares to untangle and clean. “Who is that?” I ask.

“That,” Clarke answers,“is Mrs. Bronwyn Alderwood. She's the alderman's wife.”

I eat one of the vegetables, chewing slowly as the flavor bursts on my tongue. Damn the woman, but she can cook. “She's terrible,” I say, after swallowing.

Clarke snorts. “She certainly is. A fish-lipped harridan who doesn't know where she's not wanted. Or doesn't care, I suppose.” I keep eating. I bought this food, I need it, and it's mine now.

Fat drips down my fingers. I lick it off, tasting the dirt it mingled with. My attention turns to the thick slice of pork. After tearing off a piece and popping it in, I ask, “Is she always like that, or...?” is it just me goes unsaid.

Clarke groans and drops her head back. “Moonlight, yes! With everyone, it's awful!” Then she brings her blue eyes back down to mark me with their weight. “It was wrong of her to say those things. It was cruel.”

It had hurt, too, before anger soothed it. I've been dirty and barefoot before, but never have I been made to feel as if I were lesser because of it. “Yes,” I agree, hushed. “it was.”

- - -

Slow and quiet, we eat the horrible woman's delicious food. The evening comes in a gentle sunset of resined gold. It brings in the last of the waterbound travelers, each one stumbling on limbs made loose by drink and the rock of waves. Their faces are sun-burnt and tiredly happy. As they come in from the waterfront they split; most returning home to sleep of the day's revelry, the rest going to the tavern to continue it.

After the balance between plate and stomach is redressed, I become aware of how very dirty I am. My skin itches where my clothes cling to it, my hair lays thick in a mat of tangles on my neck and shoulders, and I almost certainly stink to all moonlit hell of sweat, dirt, elk, and who-knew what else. That is the one thing I will admit the harridan was right about: I desperately need a bath.

I spy Clarke from the corner of my eye, chasing the last bit of pork grease with the last of her vegetables. She has grease stains on her mouth and the end of her nose. I have a strange and sudden notion to use my thumb to clean it off. My hands are smeared with dirt and grease, either of which must be unwelcome on her face, and rightly so.

Thinking on it, how can Clarke bear to be near me? I have looked and smelled this way, or worse, for the entirety of our time together. Hell, one of the first things she did was lay her bare hands on my bleeding, oozing feet! Why is she still here? Why did she agree to dance with me? Moonlight, why did I even suggest it? I should have thanked her and gone on my way, taking the light of her blue eyes and the shining ink-dark of her hair with me. It must be pity that keeps her here. That, or an amount of patience and manners beyond what should be possible. Maybe she's spent the whole day watching the candle burn down, waiting for the least offensive opportunity to be rid of me.

The last of my food is a thick, caramelized cut of onion. I mean to take it up and eat it, but before I can it is stolen, right from my plate! Clarke pops it into her mouth, grinning impishly as I gape at her. “You...”

She nods. “Mh-hm!”

“That was mine!” I protest. She shrugs, chewing my cut of thick, caramelized onion with exaggerated motions. It was, she seems to say. An unbidden smile starts in the corners of my mouth, spreading slow and disbelieving across my face.

What had I been doing to myself, and why? Hadn't the harridan's cruelty been enough? She clearly enjoys my company and the time she's spent in it, so why was I tormenting myself by conjuring reasons other than that? What is it about Clarke? I wasn't this way with my family, or Harlan! It's maddening. I don't want it to stop. I point a warning finger at her unrepentant, pleasantly blue-eyed face. “I will have vengeance,” I promise.

“You may try,” she says airily, in equal parts permissive and dismissive. Then she touches the ice at the hollow of her throat and leans towards me. “I must warn you; if you seek vengeance for your stolen food, you must bring your best effort.”

“I shall,” I say, eyes narrowed. The smile failing to be contained on my face, and the light in her eyes, rather ruin any ideas of this being truly combative.

“See that you do,” she answers primly. It's only after she leans back that I discover that I had leaned forward in a mirror to her. We face each other on the bench for a moment before she asks, “So, what will you do next?”

“A bath,” I answer instantly. My eyes close and I groan in anticipation of finally being clean after three days. I lose myself in the fantasy of scouring myself free of dirt, sweat, and elk. What will it be like, I wonder, to wear clothes that are clean once more? Heavenly, is the answer.

“And after?” Clarke sounds amused. Amused, and something else.

I tilt my head back and open my eyes to the heavens. The sky is darkening, only now showing the first scattering of those distant, silver-soft stars. “A real bed,” I say. When I look away from the sky it's to see a fading band of pink across the bridge of Clarke's nose and cheekbones. “Pillows, Clarke! Blankets! An actual mattress!” None of which I'll take for granted again.

Clarke clears her throat before asking, “You didn't sleep in a real bed last night?” When I shake my head, she continues with, “Then where?”

“On the ground,” I tell her, and her nose wrinkles in that endearing manner of hers. I need to defend the camp at the promontory, so I hurry to say, “There was grass, it was comfortable! Much more so than where I slept night before last.”

“Which was...?” Clarke prompts.

“Against a tree,” I say, relishing the disgusted noise she makes. At the time, it wasn't at all funny. Now, though, there's a hint of humor to it. Just to see what she does, I tell her, “It was the driest place I could find. All the rest were muddy.”

When she throws her head back and groans I cackle delightedly.

Coda

Seeing Zira to the doors of the Rest and parting ways with her there leaves Clarke feeling somewhat sad and very drained. It was as if she were a puppet, and watching that tall, slender form leave her sight cut the strings holding her up. Her shoulders drop and she lets out a long sigh. Home and its comforts called to her, and so she began to wend her way through the night-darkened, emptied streets. It's quiet and lonesome, which she appreciates.

Mostly. She's keenly aware of Zira's absence at her side. After as frenetic a day as this, she should be longing for solitude, and here she is half-convinced to turn back and invent another reason to steal an hour in Zira's company. It wouldn't be all that difficult, she'd spent the better part of today doing that exact thing, after all. She was quite proud of herself for it, in fact.

It was also appreciated how little Zira seemed to care for her skill and status as a magi. She, along with Mallory, have been the only people to truly pierce that particular veil that's been draped around her since she returned. To say she was unappreciative of the respect it's earned her would be a lie, but she can't help but resent the distance it's created between her and almost everyone else. No matter what she does or tries, that distance remains.

She pushes through the door of her house. The dark, silent front room looms before her. With a tap of her fingers to her ice and a short flick of her wrist, blue flames leap across the space and alight on the wicks of the half-dozen she's scattered around the place. The cool light illuminates her solitary little space. One table, one chair, a little basin to do the washing up after a meal. Through one door there's a sitting room with a single armchair next to a pot-belly stove. Through another, a bed with one pillow.

The truth of it is, she's lonely. Being with Zira today had let her forget that for a while. She leans against her table to unlace her shoes and drop them by the front door she swings closed afterwards. Perhaps she could find Zira tomorrow and conjure some other thing for the pair of them to do. Fishing, if only to see her wriggle with disgust any time an eel is mentioned. That hadn't gone unnoticed.

It's a nice thought to fall asleep with. Magi who fail out of their training don't get many of those, so Clarke will make sure to treasure this one.