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Red tasted blood. He probed the inside of his mouth, finding the spot where his cheek had split on his teeth. It didn't hurt much, but the sting on the outside of his cheek did. He took a few quick breaths through his mouth and glared up at the man who stood over him.
"I said , shut up," the man repeated.
"And I said, you won't get away with this," Red shot right back.
The man slapped him again. "Any more, and I start taking tongues. It won't even affect your value, will it? I bet the princess would be grateful to us. Loudmouth."
Red pressed his teeth together and tried not to cry from the way his cheek burned. He raised his shoulder to press against it.
The man gave him a few seconds, then climbed out of the covered wagon to join the others at the campfire in the early summer evening. Whatever they roasted smelled good, but Red had seen the way they'd brought in a deer that wasn't quite dead. They spoke in low tones, words that Red couldn't catch. One woman with a hard face looked over to stare at Red for an uncomfortable few seconds, then turned away. He let out a breath.
"Morons," Red muttered at a volume they couldn't hear. He crossed his legs and leaned up back against the side of the wagon, letting his arms hang from the rope that kept them above his head. He figured that he might be able to get out of the rope, given some time to fiddle, but he'd need to sneak away, too, and he was less confident in his ability to do that, especially with so many of these people about.
And if they caught him? Well. Red entirely believed the man's threat about taking his tongue, after the display with the deer. That would be awful. Red winced at the thought.
It wasn't as if they'd kill him, though. They wanted ransom money for their caravan, which was reasonable. Red could tell that the caravan had seen better days. He saw it in the patches on the wagons' covers, in their clear reliance on hunting and scavenging, and in the people pulling wagons, instead of animals. They could use a large sum of money to outfit them again and get them going.
However, ransoming one of the Heroes was not the most logical or safe step to take. Red was upset that anybody thought that this was the best thing to do, but at least they hadn't hurt him yet. Hopefully they wouldn't. He'd seen the children running around, which meant that these men and women were parents. Sure, they needed to provide for their families, but wouldn't that give them empathy towards someone like Red?
He heard muffled children's laughter outside the wagon walls, which brought a smile to his face. They sounded very close.
The canvas rippled like a net in water, and one red-faced girl in braids pulled herself up to poke her head and shoulders into the wagon. She met his eyes and went even brighter red, then dropped again.
"I don't wanna do it! Jari, you do it!"
"Nuh-uh! You lost, remember? You do it!"
"You're all chicken, fine, I'll do it."
Red laughed to himself as he saw the canvas wrinkle again. A different girl, this one dark-skinned with short hair, perhaps seven years old, climbed up fully into the wagon. She narrowed her eyes at Red.
"The adults say you're a Hero," she said.
"They're right, I am." Red kept his voice a little low, just in case.
"Well, that's stupid."
"Is it? Why?"
The girl crossed her arms. "Dad said it was easy to catch you. A Hero shouldn't be easy to catch."
Red nodded seriously. "You're right. But they didn't give me a chance to act like a Hero. Does that make sense?"
"Heroes should always act like Heroes. That's what makes them Heroes, right?"
"Nope." Red laughed. "Heroes sometimes don't act like Heroes. They're Heroes because they're nice, and they do the right thing."
The girl scowled at him, though it looked more like a thoughtful scowl than a mean one. "There are other Heroes, right?" Red nodded. "Are they gonna pay the adults to let you go?"
"Mm… I don't think so." At her confused look, he continued. "If they do, and it all goes like your parents want it to, then other adults in other places might decide to do the same thing to get money. I don't like being tied up, and there isn't a lot of money to use, so it's a better idea for them to come rescue me instead."
"That sounds like stealing."
Well, that was both adorable and a little concerning. "What's your name?" Red asked.
"Marta, Feldsdaughter. What's yours?"
"My name is Red. Marta, you make things and go to markets, right? What do you make?"
Marta lifted her arms and spun around, showing off her embroidered dress. "Clothes like this! Our sheep died, though, we haven't had as many to sell."
That would explain the recent decision to kidnap and ransom a Hero. "Do you ever see people for sale at the markets?"
She frowned. "Well… no."
"People aren't like clothes. You didn't make me," he said with a smile. "I'm my own person. You can't sell me, so nobody can steal me. Does that make sense?"
"Um… I think so." Marta scowled at him again.
Before she could speak, two other children climbed up, the girl with the braids and a boy that looked like he could be Marta's brother.
The boy smiled, teeth bright in the evening, and sat down. "You said you're Red?"
"Yes."
The girl nudged the boy. "Told you, Jari! He's real."
"Blue is my favorite," Jari said without hesitation.
Red stifled his laughter. "Blue is strong, yes, he's good at what he does. Good choice for a favorite." Jari's eyes sparkled with the praise.
The girl in braids stood by Marta. "And Green is fast, and Vio is smart. Why aren't they here?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe they haven't found me yet. Or maybe…" Red lowered his voice and leaned in a little, and the three kids echoed him, "they're waiting in the trees for everyone to fall asleep… what do you think?"
"I think they're waiting," the girl in braids said confidently. "Because the adults are strong, and they'd get beaten if they came up now."
Jari shook his head. "No way, Fell. They're too good for that. Blue would smash through the wagon like that!" He clapped his hands together, making both girls jump.
"But they're smart," Marta returned, "and if Heroes do the right thing, then the right thing is to not hurt anybody. Right?"
"It's not always that simple," Red said, then settled back. "If you want to sit down, I'll tell you what happened when we had to fight fake knights. That was an interesting time…"
---
When darkness fell entirely over the camp, and the fire cast bright shadows through the wagon, one of the men came back to check on him, a different man from last time. The man paused when he saw the three kids passed out in a pile near Red. His eyes narrowed, but Red shrugged.
"They came to me . All I did was tell them stories," he said.
"They were told to not come back here." The man set his cup off to the side and climbed in just enough to pick up the girl with braids, who Red had learned was named Fell. At the movement, all three of the kids stirred, and the man gently but firmly deposited them outside to go back to their families.
Once they'd left, the man picked up the cup again and crouched near Red to offer him whatever was in it. Red gave it a suspicious look, but the man rolled his eyes.
"It's just water."
Red's throat really was dry after all the talking he'd done. He let out a breath, but nodded and accepted the water. The man didn't dump it too quickly, and Red was grateful.
"Whatever you told them," Red said once the cup had emptied, "they weren't ever going to stay away. They're big fans, from what I gathered."
The man smiled. "Yeah. Jari especially. You must be quite the storyteller to keep their attention for so long."
Red shrugged. "I'm all right. You might, um, want to make sure they know the difference between selling and ransom. I don't know that they do."
"Right. I'll keep that in mind… Sorry about all of this, by the way. It was mostly Mas's idea, but…"
"You went along with it," Red said, not cold, but not warm, either. He remembered this man holding a knife to his throat.
"Yes. I did. It makes sense."
Red glanced out the front of the wagon. Fewer people sat around the fire, now. He could pick out maybe two other people and that unnerving woman. "You could let me go. Just make a distraction somewhere, and I'll sneak away. Nobody had to know it was you."
The man hesitated, but shook his head. "We do need the money, Hero."
"You probably won't get it like this. They're coming for me, you know that, right?"
"We'll be prepared."
Red made a frustrated noise. "I can help you get money. You don't need to do this—there are lots of places that need bodies to work, or I bet we could find some inexpensive sheep."
The man stood up, as much as he could in the low wagon. "We're travelers. And we don't take charity."
"A job isn't charity!"
Unfortunately, the man had made up his mind, and left the wagon with one more pitying look.
Red banged his head against the beam of wood behind him. He'd tried. Well, maybe once everyone had gone to sleep, he'd be able to sneak away on his own. As much as he felt for these people, they'd been the ones to kidnap him.
The evening wore on. Red hummed a little to keep himself awake. It wasn't working.
He dozed intermittently, which meant that he missed the goodnights tossed around as nearly everyone went to bed, and he missed the woman coming into the wagon. He did not miss, however, the moment she untied him.
"Hm?" Red blinked a few times to try and wake up. His arms tingled when they fell, and the woman didn't bother to answer him as she pulled on his arms. She dragged him out of the wagon, and he hit the dirt hard, unable to get his feet under him fast enough.
"Oof. Hey!" He struggled to his feet. The woman ignored him, and he lost his balance again as she pushed him over, near the fire.
"Are the other Heroes coming?" she asked him, her face flinty.
Red looked up at her, rubbing at his raw wrists. The nearby fire caused sweat to break out across his temple. "I mean, I don't know for sure… but probably?"
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "Hold him down."
"What?" Red's eyes blew open wide as two men emerged from the shadows around the fire. One knelt on his legs and slammed his hands over Red's, cutting off the beginnings of his struggle. The other, the man who'd threatened him earlier, grabbed a handful of Red's hair and held his head down.
"Hold on, wait wait wait, what are you doing?" Red asked. He was tense, and pulled against the hands holding onto him. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.
"Ensuring our payout," the woman responded. She knelt between him and the fire, something metal in her hands. Her expression didn't change as she reached over to pinch his nose shut.
Confused, Red followed her with his eyes. He opened his mouth to breathe, and that was when her hard fingers pinched his jaw open and slipped something between his teeth. It felt like wood, having a little give, but not enough to let him close his mouth, no matter how hard he nit down.
Red's mind flashed back to earlier that day— "start taking tongues," that first man had said. His heart seized. They wouldn't actually do that, right? His arms began to ache.
"I know you're there," the woman said, though she still looked down at Red. "Ransom, or we maim him."
Oh no. They would do that, wouldn't they? He struggled harder. The men didn't let him move so much as an inch. It was a strange feeling, to be so powerless. He couldn't force his way out and now he couldn't even talk his way out, as slim as the possibility had been before. He didn't even know if the others were here.
After a few tense moments of silence, the woman used the pliers in her hand to reach between Red's teeth and grab his tongue. He couldn't help the terrified whine that escaped his throat.
— no no no no no —
Rustling. Boots. A familiar voice.
"Let him be," Green said, and Red's tears spilled over down his temples.
The woman stayed still. "Ransom."
"We don't have as much as you asked for," Blue said, a scowl dripping over his words. Something dropped to the ground with a clink. "Here. Let him go."
Red squeezed his eyes shut. His idiots couldn't possibly think that this would go so smoothly, would they? His breath hitched. His mouth was cold.
"I'll give you two days to come up with the rest," the woman said smoothly.
"That's not what's going to happen," Green insisted.
The woman flicked out a knife and squeezed the pliers. She set the cold knife against his teeth. Red's scalp burned as he tried to move his head away, only to have it stopped by the man with a hand in his hair. He made another noise. Cold tears dripped into his ears.
"I think it is."
"Don't you dare," Vio said, quieter and somehow closer than the others. Red opened his eyes to see the head of one of Vio's arrows pointed right at the woman's head.
The woman looked up. "You're Heroes. You don't kill people."
Vio hummed. "Haven't you heard? I'm the one that's bad at being a Hero. I'll kill anyone who threatens my family. Put the knife down."
"I'm the one with the power here," the woman said. She seemed calm. "Kill me, and the entire caravan turns against you. Agree to my conditions, and we can all leave this camp alive and whole."
"I'm not afraid to kill you. One more chance." Vio's voice accompanied the slight noise of his bowstring stretching farther.
The woman paused, then sliced.
Blood cut off Red's scream, choking him, but Blue's continued.
Vio let the arrow loose. At that range, the woman had no chance. She crumpled, followed quickly by one man and then the other, dispatched or knocked out by maybe Vio, maybe Blue, Red couldn't tell. His vision went gray, and his cries were interrupted by coughing and gagging.
It was Green who grabbed Red, picking him up and running. Blood poured from Red's mouth. He barely had the presence of mind to lean a little forward and let it fall rather than swallow it or choke on it any more. He almost couldn't breathe.
Green cursed with every step, and Red could hear the others close behind. Vio said something about a fire, Blue let out a few choice insults. Red sobbed. They kept moving, and Red passed out, mostly.
He caught snatches of conversation and movement. Some of it was his. He remembered crying. He remembered more hot pain in his mouth and frantic, whispered apologies from Blue. He vomited at some point, and almost choked on what felt like water, but could have been milk or lemonade for all he could taste. Someone's fingers combed through his hair. The others argued nearby, and Red tried to mumble something about stopping, but he couldn't make words, and the reminder set him to crying again. At least that stopped the argument.
---
When Red woke up fully, he laid on something fluffy and familiar, which he recognized belatedly as the sofa in their quarters at the castle. Early afternoon light flooded the room, and shadows of houseplants rustled across the ceiling. It smelled like eggs and bacon. A sense of peace permeated every fiber of Red's being, allowing him to stave off a panic attack when his memories returned.
He blinked and raised a hand to his jaw, which ached with heated pain. It felt a little swollen. His head hurt. His mouth was empty.
"Red!" Green stopped as he walked past, looking down at Red with a surprised smile. "You're awake, finally. How do—I mean, do you feel okay?"
Okay? Sort of. Red's lips parted, but he hesitated, and he closed them. He shrugged instead.
"Right. I'll go get the others, we've been really worried about you."
Red reached up to snag Green's sleeve. "Water?" He made the shapes with his lips, but didn't force sound through them.
Green winced. "I didn't get that. Try again?"
Red bit his lip, but raised his hands. He held one out flat, and used his finger to write out the individual characters, slowly enough that Green could read them. He included the question mark.
"Water? Yes, I can get some of that, too. Just stay there, I'll be back soon." Green gave him a tense smile and hurried out of the room.
Slowly, Red sat up. His lips were dry. Moving his mouth hurt. He swung his legs off the couch to sit properly upright. His hair felt clean, and he wore his softest pajamas. He smiled to himself, feeling a surge of affection for his brothers.
The door burst open, and Red let out a squawk of surprise. He put his hand to his heart and gave Blue a look.
"Sorry, sorry!" Blue hurried in, followed by Vio holding a stack of books and Green with a pitcher. Blue sat next to Red, who took the opportunity to lean into him and get a hug. Blue gave it to him readily.
It was a nice hug.
Vio took one of the chairs and worked a notebook out from his stack, setting it and a nice pen in front of Red on the coffee table. "If you need it."
Red smiled at him in thanks. He appreciated how Vio was thoughtful like that.
"It's good to see you awake," Green said, pouring four glasses of water and sitting on the other chair.
"How do you feel?" Blue asked, letting him go. "Pain anywhere?"
Red picked up his glass and tilted his hand back and forth—a little pain, but not too bad. He slipped at the water, and could easily see how he'd choked on it earlier. Swallowing was hard.
"We…" Vio began, then faltered. He looked down at his lap and twisting fingers. "Red, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I… it's my fault."
Well, Red didn't remember everything, but he was sure it couldn't be as true as Vio clearly thought. Red shook his head and set down the glass of water to pick up the notebook. It was one of Vio's better ones.
'Please don't blame yourself. Anyone. You saved me, and I'd rather miss my words than be dead. The people in that caravan made bad decisions.' He slid the page over to Vio, who read it in a fraction of the time it took to write it.
Vio sighed and handed the notebook back. "I won't argue. But I still feel like it's my fault."
"It isn't," Green said.
Red picked up the notebook to write again. The others went awkwardly quiet as he did. 'What about the caravan? There were children there. What will happen to them?'
Green answered those questions, once he'd read them. "They're being held up by the guards. We just killed the one woman. As far as I know, they'll interview every adult and make sure the kids are safe there, and anyone who is okay will be getting discounts on things they need and other opportunities."
That was as much as Red could hope for. He smiled a little and sat back to work on his water. It was a little frustrating to not taste it, or be able to swallow correctly.
"And I just got back from the medic ward," Blue said next. "We had to… we had to cauterize it, on our way here, to stop the bleeding, which makes even the magical healing a little bit more difficult."
Red nodded, his fingers tightening around the glass. As he had said, he preferred this to being dead, but…
"They seem confident that, with the right combination of magic and medicine and therapy, your… it'll come back. Maybe slowly."
"Oh," Red said, warm relief pouring through him like buckets of sunshine splashed on his shoulders. He ducked his head, then lifted it with a smile.
"Yeah, it's great." Blue smiled back. "And Zelda is insisting on being the main mage for you. Her brand of magic should be even more potent, and help even more."
Red put down his glass of water to throw his arms around Blue again and squeeze. He felt a little weak from what must have been days half-conscious, but he couldn't help himself. At least Blue hugged back. Red raised his eyebrows at Green, who pulled Vio over to join in. The four of them were a little squished on the couch, but it was a good squish.
They'd be okay. The kids would be okay, too. And then Red would have more stories to tell, someday.