Thern, Fir of Febla: 33 Xiven

It had been so long since Kayin slept on something this soft. In turn, his bones ached, his joints complained for not being in their usual, rigid place. Waking like this was a mistake. He needed solid, deep sleep, not to wake feeling as if he’d never heard of rest before.

But in that everything ached, trying to ignore it to return to slumber didn’t work. Kayin slowly opened his eyes, but it didn’t help much. Curtains covered the open window, and only when the gentle breeze blew them apart did the light from the moons grant any information.

This small, wooden room was mostly bare: a large carpet that covered the majority of the floor, the soft bed he lay on, and an open chest against the wall.

Breathing hurt. Though when Kayin looked down to himself and threw off the blankets that covered him, it was easy to see that nothing was broken. The pain, dull, throbbing, came from inside the bones, made moving slow and creaky.

He did not wear anything he recognized. His torn and bloody prison rags were replaced with a simple set of brown cotton trousers and a large, white bandage spread across his stomach. A shirt lay spread on the foot of the bed of the same fabric and color, ready for him to dawn.

The room didn’t give any more information by him just staring at it, so Kayin slowly, bit by bit, braced through the aches in his stomach and brought himself to a sitting position to pull on the shirt.

The weather was similar to what he’d last experienced: a little cold, but with a warm breeze every so often to keep the frost at bay. Through the curtains of the open window, Kayin wasn’t granted much of a view: it seemed to be a simple wooden building, not too unlike the stable of the castle Kayin had been granted in a few times. Square, wooden, small windows. Shorter than the stable, with a much smaller door meant for people rather than animals. Maybe this was Dhekk’s home.

He couldn’t have been too far from Yatora, with the way the air smelt like a campfire. The moons, obscured heavily by trees and mushroom tops, made it difficult to tell if the wisps in the air were clouds or smoke.

With the shirt pulled over his head, Kayin crept to the edge of the bed and slid to stand on his feet. Shaky, but sturdy enough.

He tried to be silent about his stumbling to the door, but he fell over his feet more than a few times in the short distance, and more crashed into the handle than grabbed it. With a grunt, he pulled the door open, leaned against the frame, and stuck his head out.

“Oh!” came a sound from his left. Kayin tried not to jump out of his skin; thankfully, he was too exhausted to look as surprised as he was. Down this small hallway was a short young woman holding a candlestick, her eyes wide. “Yer awake!”

This woman was a little older than him, wore clothes of similar material, only in a light blue. She carried her bed blanket around her like a cloak.

“Um, how d’ya feel?” asked the woman. Kayin could only stare. Her voice—that accent…. “I’m no healer, so we’ll haf’ ta wait ‘til the mornin’ fully blooms to reach one. I did m’ best, though.” She gestured to his stomach with her candleholder. “I think whatev’r gotcha had a venom, maybe. I only have basic healin’ things, and with m’ father out ’til ‘morrow, I don’t really know what else t’ do. So…. Hope it helps!” She sounded just like those Wakino soldiers, like she had a mouth full of food and spoke anyway. Was he in Wakino? How did he end up here?

“Are ya mute?” the woman asked, squinting. “Or d’ ya not speak this language? I don’t know any others, ’m ’fraid.” Whoever she was, Wakinoan or not, she didn’t seem to know who he was. And she helped him….

Kayin cleared his throat.

“Th-thank you,” he managed to mutter through his dry throat. “Where am I?”

“Oh!” The woman lit up, pleased at his response, and nodded her head. “Well, I’m Merna, and you’re at L4 Kond, just south of the Street of Darly.” She gestured through the door that Kayin just came through. “That’s m’ guest bedroom. Or, well, my father’s guest bedroom. I’m still movin’ out to my own home, but I brought you here ’cause it’s a bit more suitable for someone in yer…condition.” Merna smiled meekly. None of what she said was very helpful, but he nodded anyway.

“I-I’m in Wakino?” he asked timidly. Merna’s smile faded.

“Yes.” A crease formed between her brows. “Are ya lost? What happened…uh…there? Looks like it’s not healin’ well. Infected, maybe?” Kayin’s hand absentmindedly rested on the shirt that now hid his bandages.

“U-um—” Before he could come up with an answer, she gasped.

“Oh! Are you, um—well, I know ’m not supposed t’ say it, but…d’ ya belong to someone?” Maybe he would have caught on if he could focus for more than a moment, but everything throbbed like gravity actively targeted his bones to pull to the floor. “I mean, y’know, ya got a….” Another vague gesture that helped nothing. Kayin opted to shrug. “That’s supposed t’ be illegal, y’know. Y’know, I could pay ya a little, keep it secret if ya help me out.” Was she talking about slavery? Was she bribing him, to keep potential slavery a secret?

“Um—” She interrupted him again.

“A fair wage! I mean, fair-ish. Not for free, y’know. I’m movin’ from my father’s house, and there’s lots t’ do. And I have some extra coin. D’ya know how much you need to pay off ya servitude?” This runaway slave story could help him, if he played along right…. And she did help him. She probably wouldn’t have if she knew he was from Yatora, though.

“Five,” was the first number he could think to blurt. Merna’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

“Five whole wads, ya say? Gods be good….” She shook her head. “I can’t offer a dent fer that, but I can offer somethin’. What do you say? When Rinesa breaks the dark? Nothin’ too bad, since yer, yanno—but I need another set o’ hands ‘til my father gets back.” A useless shrug was all he could offer. “Grand! Go on, back t’ bed. I’ll get ya in the mornin’.” And, without addressing him further, Merna walked past his doorway, to one of the two remaining ones on his right, and disappeared into another room.

Sleep didn’t come easy, even knowing he was safe for a short bit. Every time he was about to drift off, a new bone seized and jolted. And although he was exhausted to the point of passing out every time he closed his eyes, he awoke every other moment anyway. At some point while the sky turned a dusty pink, the town came to life, slowly, gently. Gerries chirped, edia squeaked, and soft voices and footsteps sounded somewhere distant. In this home, L4 Kond a bit south of the Street of Darly, doors opened and closed, voices whispered. All Kayin could do was wait and hope that this was rest enough until he could get to Tidesa.

Merna did come after the sun rose, as promised. She opened the door without knocking, wore a wider smile than before, and clapped her hands together.

“Great news,” she said carefully as she stared down at him. “M’ father’s early. So everythin’ will go faster, I should think!” Kayin would have thought that if her father was home, that meant that Kayin would be free to leave without any further promise of labor, but alas…perhaps a bit of work to pay off the debt of her attempting to heal him was in order anyway. At least while he figured out where he was, where Dhekk’s home could be, or—well, anything. Merna didn’t seem dangerous, at least. Not that he was, apparently, any good at assessing danger in the first place.

Kayin took his time struggling to his feet. Merna watched with a deep frown, but eventually left with his door open to await for him in whatever a “sitting room” was. When Kayin made it to the doorway, the wooden hallway was mainly illuminated from this very room Merna spoke of, the one she came through last night.

It was, indeed, a sitting room, because all there was to do in here was sit around a table. An informal lounge or study, it seemed. From being born and raised in a hut with one room, to being imprisoned in a castle where each room had a formal name, to finding safety in an enemy home where rooms like this seemed to be for common people. Wakino was a strange place, indeed.

A balding man with harsh wrinkles on his face sat at one end of a circular table beside Merna, staring at Kayin as if he’d done something wrong.

“Wha’s y’ name?” the man grunted. Kayin hesitated.

“Tae,” he opted for on a whim. In the back of his mind, he could feel Tidesa’s warnings tighten his anxiety like a wound clock.

“Sit, Tae. Have soup.” At the prompt, Kayin did make his way to the wooden chair just as Merna rose to grab soup from another room. By the time he melted into the chair, Merna placed a bowl of something chunky and savory in front of him. “Tae, lemme look at that wound o’ yers. I’ve seen some in my day.” Kayin remained silent, but waited tensely as the man rose and knelt beside him. Without asking or indicating he would, the man grabbed at Kayin’s shirt and lifted it to reveal the bandages. “Ah! Not bad, Merna. Little sloppeh, but not bad.” Kayin white-knuckled the edge of the table when Merna’s father began to undo the bindings. He dreaded the sight, but forced himself to watch the white cloth peel away at the freshly growing skin. Downside to health potions, is that often times the flesh grew into the coverings.

The man stared, grimacing, then squinted back up to Kayin.

“Hm. Y’ve had a few healin’ potions, eh?”

“All I could think t’ do, father,” said Merna with a shrug. “Don’t really know what else to do with…that. Fire, maybe?” Kayin managed to suppress the full extent of the full-body flinch at the suggestion. The old man sucked his teeth.

“Wound like this—I’ve seen my share.” Without giving another look, the man began to pull the bandages taut, perhaps tighter than Kayin thought necessary, and secured them again. “Yer gunna need an antidote to that poison.”

“Poison?” Merna echoed.

“Mm. Ya knew that, right, Tae?” Saying this as he rose to his full height made it difficult for Kayin to keep his breath even. He opted for silence.

“He’s a—yanno, a servant, father,” Merna said. The man glanced to her thoughtfully.

“D’ya know whose?” he asked, obviously unconvinced.

“Nah.”

“Whose?” He now addressed this question to Kayin with his arms folded over his chest. Still, Kayin remained silent. Let them fill in the story for themselves, he figured. The man nodded when he didn’t speak, though, as if that was answer, in and of itself.

“Smart not to name them,” the man said. “How much d’ ya owe?”

Merna whispered, “Five wads, father!”

“Aye, girl, he can speak, can’t he?” burst her father, gesturing to Kayin. “Let him speak for himself!” She rolled her eyes at him and leaned back against her chair with a huff. When the man turned back to Kayin, he squinted. “Five wads, eh? What’d ya do?”

Merna gasped, as if seriously affronted on Kayin’s behalf. “Aye, father! Y’ can’t just ask a man what he’d done!”

“My house, I do as I please!” The man took the time to lecture his daughter as he stepped back up to his chair, and sank into it with a grunt. “So, Tae, what’d ya do?”

“N-nothing,” said Kayin with a shrug. He didn’t know what a wad was, or why five of them was so much, or what sort of action would even warrant such a debt. In a place where it seemed like common folk could afford homes with multiple rooms, stable walls….

“Nothin’,” the man echoed with a dry laugh. He nudged his daughter with the back of his hand gleefully. “Expensive nothin’, that!” After a few more hearty chortles, he recovered and leaned back in his chair. “Fine, nothin’. What can ya do, then?” Kayin blinked slowly, uncertain of what to say. Skill-wise? Not much. And he doubted that saying he was capable of passing off simple lies was something he should cite.

“Oooh,” sounded Merna as she looked to her father. “Nothin’. He means nothin’!” It was such a breakthrough for her and her father, allowed them to exchange shocked, pitiful glances while Kayin sat there, fighting the urge to swallow down the hot soup before him.

“Nothin’,” echoed her father, nodding solemnly. “Whose fault was it? Yer mother’s? Yer father’s?” Because this answer had worked so well before, Kayin opted to shrug again. The man’s jaw dropped. “Abandoned, too? Gods be good!”

“Poor thing,” Merna cooed sadly. “Makes sense, though. Five wads’ll be what you’d need to get passage to Kunnu, I think. Who else….”

“Tornah? Smells there, though. Ripe with crime.” Her father wrinkled his nose as he said this.

“And Urbana, I think, just passed a ban on the nothin’-havers. Exilin’ them.”

“Is that right, Merna?” The man looked flabbergasted.

“Yeah, heard it from Gerl. They’re all wanderin’ the forests.”

“Pity. As if the folk have anythin’ to live for in the first place.” The two sighed in unison, a performative pity, before gathering themselves.

“Well,” Merna said with a glance back to Kayin. “Can ya do regular work? With y’ hands, whatnot?”

Nervously, Kayin nodded.

“A’ght, Merna,” said her father with a grunt. “Go on, then, practice on him.” At least Kayin wasn’t the only one that was confused by this, based on her expression. “Make him eat. He can’t do any work if he doesn’t get better.” The man gestured to the soup. “Make him eat.”

“Fine,” Merna said through her teeth. It sounded almost like when people used to tell Dania to control him, the way Merna groaned. “Tae, look here.” She gestured with two fingers to her eyes, brown and wide. “Eat soup.” She stared at him intently, unblinking. Kayin fidgeted uncomfortably, but raised his hands to either side of the bowl in front of him to attempt to appease her.

“No, no, no,” her father said with a sigh. “Set yer intentions. Use your senses.”

“Tae, look here,” Merna repeated. Kayin hesitated. Was he trying to teach her how to give commands? “Smell the soup. Like it? Eat. The. Soup.” All he felt the urge to do was cock an eyebrow. Thankfully, this incredibly awkward encounter was interrupted by a loud knock on a door.

“Useless child. Watch me.” As her father rose on the other side of the table, he pointed to Kayin, as if scolding him. “Finish your soup.” Kayin’s hands raised the bowl to his lips. It was a bit too hot still, steam filling his nostrils and burning his eyes. His lips stung, tongue scalded, but he sipped it down anyway, graduating to gulps to down the chunks of mushrooms and vegetables as fast as possible. Merna’s father left the table to answer the door, but Kayin remained in his seat, burning his throat, choking back the urge to spit everything out. He wanted to reject it, to stop, to put it down and, but even when tears flooded to his eyes, Kayin held the bowl and emptied it completely.

He gasped for breath when the bowl finally clattered to the table. Kayin clutched his throat, as if he could pull the heat out, nurse the stinging sensation that scorched his esophagus.

“What—!” He couldn’t even speak, just coughed into his arm, gasp in the air that felt so cold and nice in comparison.

“Mhm, we’ll be here. Thank you.” Merna’s father shut the door and returned to the table with a folded piece of paper. He glanced between Merna and Kayin, as if holding back a thought.

“Who was that, father?” Merna asked with an edge.

“How did you do that—?” Kayin gasped in horror. The man didn’t sit at the table, instead just stared down at him with a frown.

“Well,” the man started as he tossed the folded paper in front of Merna. “I guess we know why yer a nothin’-haver.” Merna unfolded the paper on the table, and gasped.

On the note was a crude drawing of Kayin’s face, scars and all, with big, bold font: “IDIOT WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF THE KING.”