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Gwen is glad that Dell and Maple were assigned the task of cheese and potatoes retrieval, because doing so herself would’ve put her within close proximity to a drunk March on the corner of the bar. He’s been all toothy smiles and loud, adoring proclamations to anyone within range since she entered the tavern – it’s a lot. She’s been keeping a ten-foot radius from him all night, just to be safe.
The smuggling of the dinner up to the balcony just to transfer it to herself to take back downstairs, however, is less than subtle. From her vantage point, she could see Balor clocking the fledgling thieves snickering their way up the stairs, his forehead creased in confusion.
“Dell, Maple, you need to be quieter or you’ll compromise the mission!” Luc says matter-of-factly when they regroup.
The girls pull him and Gwen into a tightly packed huddle, the steaming plate of food wedged between them all. Gwen smells cheese and potatoes.
“It’s fine, Reina didn’t notice a thing!” Dell says, chest puffed out and buzzing with adrenaline.
Maple giggles, “That was so fun! When I become queen, I command that you all have to keep including me in these missions, even when I’m super busy with all my regal duties. With my status, I’ll be even more powerful as a distraction.”
Dell scoffs, “Duh. You don’t stop being a Dragonguard just because you’re the queen.”
“Miss Gwen, you have the most difficult task,” Luc says, eyes fixed on her with all the intensity of an unblinking frog, “Are you prepared?”
This feels like the right moment for the gift she’s been saving. A crucial moment, even. Their whole operation depends on her now. She needs to show them they can trust her. She sticks a hand in the chest pocket of her dungarees, listening attentively until she finds something squidgy. Shoving her other hand out, she motions for Luc to give her his own, into which she gently places a worm. “I’ve got this.”
Luc stares at the worm, then looks up at her with stars in his eyes. He salutes. “Go, soldier.”
She takes the plate and nods, both at him and the worm.
Fortunately, the Dragons and Drama group seem to be taking a break to order drinks when she arrives at their table. Balor sits alone with a tankard in one hand and his pen in the other, scribbling something in his character sheet. She clatters the plate down firmly to grab his attention.
His brow raises – he seems mildly taken aback to see her take a seat next to him. The shock quickly melts into an easy smile. “Gwen! What a pleasant surprise. You’ve made a wise choice of food – Reina’s cheese and potatoes are to die for.”
“It’s for you.”
“Oh?” His smile freezes, briefly. “How generous. What’s the occasion?”
It’s no mystery, his reaction. She’s new to Mistria, and so far, she’s barely been in town except to pass through or buy seeds. Most of her time has been spent either tending to her crops, hunting for local flora and fauna or, in the last couple of days, exploring the newly opened mines. By no means has she been avoiding the locals – except for March, when he’s hammered, and Juniper, for a very different reason – but she hasn’t been actively starting conversation with them either. They’ve remained friendly, but appear to think she’s just someone who needs space and have chosen to respect this assumption.
The children have no such tact. She’s a curiosity to them, and as such, they’ve accosted her at every opportunity. Currently, Luc is her best friend here; he’s a budding entomologist, and she always carries bugs on her person. It’s a no brainer.
It’s unfortunate that she’s about to sell them out. “The children say it makes you sleepy. They want you to lower your guard down so we can steal your room key and snoop around.”
An aborted, choked laugh escapes him before he gets his demeanour back under control. “Is that so? And you believe telling me this will lower my guard?”
“I’m not interested in that. I’m going to sit here for a while, then go back upstairs and tell them I tried and failed.”
“A valiant attempt.” He tips his tankard to her before taking a sip. “I suppose I have no choice but to dig into this meal, then, to bolster your story’s credibility.”
She gestures for him to tuck in. As he’s eating, he sees fit to keep the conversation going, “You’re remarkably elusive, you know. How is the farm coming along?”
“I have lots of potatoes, and my tulips are all dying.”
“Did you have any farming experience prior to moving here?” he tilts his head as he asks.
“No.”
“Then that’s not a bad start! If you keep persevering, you’ll see better results as you go. And don’t forget there’s a wide selection of seeds to choose from – you could try daffodils, if tulips are giving you trouble.”
His advice is adequate, but unnecessary. “Flowers give me trouble because they need a delicate hand. It’s easy to remember to be delicate with bugs, because they’re small and they like to move and be alive. Flowers sit in one place all day and I forget they need to breathe too, so I keep crushing their stems or petals when I grab them.” She makes a grabbing motion with one hand to emphasise the severity of the crushing.
Balor watches the hand, looking mildly bewildered. The expression lasts long enough that she decides she should probably dial it down, “Why are you here? In Mistria.”
“Mistria has great potential. And if you nurture great potential, you can glean great profit. A worthwhile cause, wouldn’t you say?” he says, with a recovery too swift and a smile too perfect and a wink intended to distract. A rehearsed response.
“What’s the profit for?”
He hums, chin in hand, “Perhaps a secluded cabin in the woods, all to myself. Or perhaps I’ll fund my travels further afield in Aldaria.”
According to Dell, when she asked Balor what he’d do if he was rich, he said he would buy a fearsome dragon. When Maple asked, he said he would bribe the members of parliament into supporting her every whim when she became queen. Both were very content with their answers. Gwen wonders how much of hers she should be content with.
“Ah, Celine!” he calls, upon seeing the rest of the Dragons and Drama party returning from the bar, “In your educated opinion, what are the hardiest flowers you can grow?”
“Succulents!” she beams, “Why, are you interested in growing some yourself?”
“Potentially,” he replies enigmatically.
“Oh, how exciting! If you ever need any advice, I’d be more than happy to help,” she says, before turning her attention, “Gwen, it’s lovely to see you here! Are you interested in joining our game?”
Holt thuds his beer heavily on the table as he sits down, the resulting tremors rolling one of his dice onto the floor. “You’re just in time to watch Bad Brad the Bearded Bard perform a moving ballad while hiding behind our tree attorney, in the hopes the jury is swayed by the attorney’s impassionate defence – it’s going to be a most tree-mendous deception!”
Gwen is sure Holt has a melodic voice, but the idea of being within such close range of a performance that will surely pull the attention of the entire tavern makes her nauseous. She shakes her head, “You're in the middle of your game. I should join when the next game is at the start.”
“Leaving already?” Balor asks, when he notices her begin to stand.
“I’ve done my part.” Before she leaves, she rescues Holt’s fallen die and shakes it lightly in her fist. “Here’s how your tree will perform.”
She turns around before the die finishes rolling, but the party’s astonished and exhilarated whooping tells her more than enough. They start debating whether her nat 20 should be honoured as she climbs back up the stairs.
The children are practically vibrating with anticipation.
“Did you do it? Did you do it?” Dell bounces on her feet with every repeated question.
Gwen crouches down and silently draws them back into their huddle. “It’s very important you don’t react to what I say next.” She waits until they all give her solemn, bemused nods – and then she pulls Balor’s room key from her pocket.
Maple slaps her hand over her mouth, while Dell puffs out her cheeks with all the strained effort of someone containing an explosion. With great reverence, Luc runs a finger over the brass. “I didn’t even see you take it.”
“I’m very skilled.”
“You have to teach me everything you know.” Dell demands. Her sudden grip on Gwen’s arm is surprisingly intense.
“Okay,” she agrees easily. “But there’s a caveat: you can’t come into his room with me.”
The chorus of complaints have to be hastily shushed before she continues, “To put him at ease, I told him about the heist, and that I planned to tell you I failed to steal the key. If you disappear alongside me now, it’ll be suspicious. You have to go downstairs and act normal to cover for me while I’m gone.”
“But then how will we know what’s in his room?” Maple asks, the question trailing off into a near-whine.
“I’ll tell you all about it in excruciating detail tomorrow.”
Dell sniffs, considering it for a moment. “Are you willing to form a blood pact to honour this promise?”
Gwen takes a moment to consider this, too. “No.” Then, before anyone can protest, she lifts a pinky finger, “But I’ll swear on Princess Maple’s honour.”
On Dell’s signal, the children break off into their own huddle to discuss her offer, in not-so-hushed whispers. After maybe five seconds, Luc is the first to turn back to her. “I accept these terms.”
“As do I,” Maple says.
“Me three,” Dell adds her pinky to the already awkward entanglement of pinkies, and they shake on it.
The children almost trip over themselves to rush down the stairs so Gwen can commence her operation. She casts an eye over the balcony as she sidles on over the Balor’s room; no one is watching her. She smoothly unlocks the door and slips inside, shutting it behind her. So far so good.
His room is a mess. Bed unmade, worn capes piling up on the floor, books left still opened with their pages facing down, their spines bending under the pressure. The floorboards creak unhelpfully when she steps forward. She decides to rely on the bustle of the Friday night to muffle the sounds, and gets to work.
She quickly finds that Balor is profoundly careless with his belongings. She immediately spots a lockbox on his desk, the lock visibly embellished and elaborate. A sales journal lies splayed open next to it, in which she determines holds accurate information thanks to the sheer number of potatoes displayed in the most recent tables. In the pocket of the cloak draped over the chair is a full pouch of small, silver balls.
She doesn’t linger on any of these items, however. What she neglected to tell the merchant, back when discussing flowers and the crushing of, is that there’s something else that reminds her to be gentle with bugs. Sometimes it’s something chirping; other times it’s trilling; it could also be something clicking, something buzzing, something hissing. Comparatively to many other animals, bugs can be quite talkative, really. And when they talk, Gwen listens. So when a spider abseils from the ceiling and perches at the edge of the desk to peer down at the drawer attached to its underside, she ignores everything else.
The drawer is locked – a sign of forethought, for once. She pulls out her makeshift lockpicks from her pocket and gets to work.
It’s a time-consuming effort. She may carry her lockpicks everywhere, but she hasn’t used them in a long time and she’s out of practice. She hasn’t made much progress by the time the spider warns her of impending danger, and she turns to face the door as it swings open.
“It seems as though the kids aren’t the only ones who could benefit from a lesson or two on the importance of privacy,” Balor says, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway.
She lowers her incriminating implements. “What tipped you off?”
“You instructed three children to act normal. Naturally, they proceeded to act as abnormal as they could possibly be. And when I found my robe pocket empty, I got to wondering whether this,” he mimics her flower-grabbing motion from earlier, “Might’ve been a crafty little act of misdirection.”
For a moment, she hesitates – she’s aware she could very easily lose her tentative place in Mistria, if he sees fit to report her trespassing. Maybe he already has. But underneath his frown, she thinks she sees a subtle, impressed twitch threatening to upturn his lips, and from what she knows of his personality, he holds an innate curiosity he can’t always ignore. It all comes together gives her the push she needs.
She tosses his room key back to him. “Something you partake in, too, I think.”
“Oh?”
“The children say you have so many things you hide, yet in your room, there are so many things left in the open. For someone so careful about what they reveal, this whole room seems strange. But what if it’s intentional? The messiness, the mysterious items lying around – all of it intended to distract from what’s important,” she points at the lockbox, one of the first things she’d spied upon entry. “What’s in there? Anything actually worthwhile? Or just a tempting waste of time?”
He chuckles, a light and disarming sound. It clashes with the way his eyes narrow. “An interesting theory. That doesn’t explain why you’ve taken such an interest in me in the first place.”
She settles herself into a cross-legged sit on his floor. This way, he can retain the high ground. She hopes he sees it subconsciously as some kind of truce offer. “Not for any noble reason. I’m… searching for familiarity.”
“Familiarity?”
“The children speak often of how long you’ve been here, and how little they know of you. I’ve seen it myself, when you’ve delivered stock while I’m buying seeds. Always so free with the words you give Nora, but choosy about what they reveal. I wanted to know if the reason you keep that distance is the same as why I keep mine.”
“Well, since you’ve shown no regard for my privacy, I believe this is fair for me to ask: why do you keep your distance?”
It is fair. She needs to offer him something as penance. “I’m running from my past,” she shrugs, the motion jerky, “And it’s easier to keep running when you have nothing to lose.”
Balor’s eyes widen – whether it’s at her blatant admission, or because she’s struck close to home, she doesn’t know – and then he sighs. As he looks down over his keys to make sure they’re all accounted for, a wry smile graces his lips. “What glowing assumptions you’ve made about me. I presume you decided through your observations that finding out about me the traditional way – through normal conversation – was out of the question?”
“You may have noticed that normal conversation is not my area of expertise.”
“No, I suppose not,” he hums, spinning the keys on his finger, “So you resorted to breaking and entering instead.”
“I did,” she says, refusing to break eye contact.
The sound of his jangling keys comes to an abrupt stop as he catches them in his palm. A damning silence weighs down the room. She feels a little as though she’s on the chopping block, awaiting the executioner’s decision on exactly how he’ll divvy her up.
He glances at her lockpicks. “Is this something you’re likely to do again?”
The question gives her pause. She ruminates on it carefully before answering. “No. The urge to search is still here, but I can and will learn to let the curiosity go.”
“Then I won’t report this, for now,” he rubs the back of his neck, averting his gaze, “I can’t say I feel entirely comfortable with your actions, but I believe you don’t have any truly malicious intent. And I’m tired – I’d quite like to sleep on this whole affair, and see how I feel in the morning.”
The strain of tension that had been pulling her posture taut seems to cut itself loose, like a snapped lute string. She stands, preparing for a hasty exit – and then she catches sight of his sales journal on the desk.
An idea occurs. “I have lots more potatoes for you to collect.”
His nose wrinkles slightly. “Hm?”
“In my shipping bin. You’ll be going there tonight for them.” She fishes out her own house keys, and before he can process where she’s going with this, she presses them into his hand. “I invaded your living space, so you can invade mine. I’ll get a room at the tavern tonight, so you know I haven’t tampered with anything.”
“Gwen, this is hardly necessary.”
“Do it, or don’t. I’ll accept whatever decision you make without issue.”
She brushes past him to leave. It’s only his hand grasping her wrist that forces her to stop. “Gwen, this isn’t…”
Whatever he sees in her steely-eyed expression, it cuts his sentence short. Once more, he sighs – and then he pockets the keys. He lets her go, but not before asking one more question. “What you said – about running from your past – are you safe?”
She straightens, mustering all the firmness she has to load into her voice. “Mistria won’t be harmed. I won’t let anything befall it. I’ll be gone before my past catches up.”
“That’s not–” he begins to say.
But he made the mistake of letting her go. She’s gone before he can finish.
That night in the tavern, she dreams, predictably, of her past. Of power she willingly gave away because of power she was unwillingly given. Of the creatures in the world that could suddenly speak to her, that did speak to her, over and over and over again in fear and pain and fury until she shut them out in favour of just one voice. Of sweetly whispered encouragement and a collar of a hand curved loosely around the back of her neck.
She wakes long before dawn, to pitter-patter scuttling somewhere in the ceiling and the puzzled clicking of the moth outside her window who can’t reach the lamp she’d neglected to turn off. More careful of creaking floorboards this time, she throws on a cloak and leaves the tavern, beelining for the ancient, giant tree to the west.
She lies down and presses her ear to the grass and listens. There’s a distant marching song of a procession of ants, as well as a busybody chittering of a squirrel in the hollow of the tree. There’s a content, twittery snoozing of hatchling birds in a nest high up, and a more restless snoozing of a nearby ladybug who emits the occasional dream-addled buzz. She listens, and does so with intent, until she can no longer feel the imprint of those slender fingertips on her skin.
(She wonders whether Caldarus’ lost memory shrouds his comprehension of why she can interpret his language, or whether he reached out to her specifically because he knew she can understand it. Is he at all aware he’s not the first to bestow power upon her? Dragons are new for her, admittedly, let alone ones that are statues. It makes it difficult to read his expression.)
By the time she heads back to the tavern, the first rays of daylight are splitting the sky. It means that as she enters the building, she encounters Balor coming down the stairs.
“Gwen! Just the farmer I was hoping to see.”
Of all the things she was expecting, it wasn’t chipperness. He meets her at the front door and spins her around by her shoulders, pushing her lightly back out into the street. “Come along now! We’ve got a lot of wares to distribute this morning.”
“We?” she mumbles, baffled enough to allow herself to be shepherded along.
“Yes, I’ve had a rather sizable shipment come in, and the contents need to be organised into their respective deliveries across town. With your help, we should be able to make short work of it, with enough time left to peruse the Saturday Market.”
He offers no further explanation than that, and when they reach his wagon, he helps pulls her up onto the back of it alongside him. Then, he hands her a spare crowbar.
And so, they get to work. Quietly, she follows his lead, prying open crates and pulling out their contents, only to repack them to match the recipient. Hardwood in one crate for Landen; rations in another for Adeline; a fascinating collection of mushrooms Gwen’s never seen before for Valen. It’s strenuous work, and since Balor pulled her out of the Tavern before she could retrieve her trusty, weathered bandana, the thick blonde hair she normally pulls back is plastered in sweat to her forehead by the time they’re finished.
She flops down in a heap on the wagon floor, legs hanging over the edge. A butterfly with brilliant blue wings flutters over to perch on her knee, a temporary respite in the middle of its grand journey. Balor sits down next to her, pulls his immaculate hair out of the ponytail she didn’t notice it was in, and offers her a cup of water. He also chucks her house keys into her lap.
“I won’t deny I was curious,” he says, draining the water in his own cup with a surprising speed, “But I didn’t use them. Who’s to say there was anything in your house even worth finding? In the end, I decided it would be more beneficial, for me and you, if you paid off your transgressions with some good old-fashioned community service.”
She looks down at her dangling feet. “Beneficial for me how?”
“Well, since you were unable to find that familiarity you were searching for last night, I thought I could help you find it another way: by spending time with people. Through my deliveries, I speak with everyone in Mistria. If you were to join me, you could speak to them too, find things in common between yourselves. The distance you’ve been maintaining might be useful to you in many ways, but it might also be a hindrance in others, don’t you think?”
It's a small effort to hold her tongue. Unable to find that familiarity, he says. She isn’t so sure that’s the case. Maybe, when Balor spoke last night of what he’d do with his riches, he did conjure everything up on the spot. And maybe, just maybe, she’s reaching for meaning in nothing. But she knows from experience that convincing lies are interwoven with the truth. So when he expressed interest in travelling across Aldaria – and only Aldaria – she wondered why his ambitious nature didn’t care to explore anything further afield. What was so unappealing about the Caldosian Empire? Is it somewhere he’s already been?
And for such a social person, a secluded cabin in the woods seems an unusual choice – unless he seeks one out for protection, rather than solitude. From something in the Empire? Or someone?
What if he is running, after all?
It could very easily be a fantasy of her imagination. But his offer doesn’t just allow her proximity to the Mistrian locals; it also allows her proximity to himself. Maybe she could find out the truth.
“This seems like a light sentence,” she says.
He laughs. It’s a pleasant, hearty sound, something that feels, to Gwen, to be a more genuine expression of emotion compared to his standard merchant geniality. It feels like something to be savoured.
“I’d hold off on drawing that conclusion until you’ve spent an hour hauling next week’s ore shipment for March,” he says, the laugh petering out too soon. When he reaches out to her, she almost flinches; but his hand only skates briefly through her hair, pulling a duck’s feather from the tresses. “It’s a slightly more laborious effort than produce like this.”
She resists the urge to stare at the hand holding the feather. “I’ll work for you on a regular basis, then?”
“Making connections with the townsfolk will take more than a single day’s work. Though, I wouldn’t like to monopolise all your time, lest you end up too busy working for me to be able to sell to me. How about we settle on one Monday morning per week, 6am sharp at my wagon?”
And then, because he’s a merchant, he holds his hand out to seal the deal. This one, she does stare at. He’s patient while she thinks it through. Too patient, truthfully. Throughout this whole 24 hours, he’s been generous with the time he’s spent on her.
“I’m going to tell the Dragonguard your room is messy,” she blurts. She feels like it needs to be part of the deal she’s signing.
He winks, understanding what she’s leaving unspoken. “I appreciate it.”
They shake on it. His hand is slender in shape, but less gentle. And it’s warm. As if sensing the shift, the butterfly takes off, circling round the pair before resuming its journey.
“With that agreed, we should make a start on these deliveries,” he says, clambering to his feet and stretching. “Are you ready?”
She realises, belatedly, that she’s just agreed to spend the whole morning being the subject of the locals’ attention. She blanches.