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“Sometimes I regret it,” said Allaine, staring down at the scattered books and jewelry and clothes in the box on her desk, pushing golden hair back behind the delicate points of her ears, “living with humans, on their time. Most days I love how fast it goes, how it forces you to live in the moment because they’re too easy to let slip away. Other times… all I wish is that they wouldn’t. Slip away, that is.”
“No matter how fast or slow time went,” said Rhoda, nearly absorbed in the plushness of Allaine’s oversized bright red armchair, “it would still manage to surprise you as it went.”
“Only months since they left.” She reached down, picking up a hair comb she’d given Insolence for his eighteenth nameday. They said silver suited him, though Allaine was blind to color and never trusted herself on the matter—after all, she thought Lliira’s yellow, orange, and red were lovely, sedate tones. Allaine shut her eyes. “Only years they’d been in the Temple. How can it be true that it’s ended so quickly? I didn’t even notice they were overdue until it was time to begin preparation for Lliira’s Night and Renske hadn’t come to help me organize yet.”
Allaine shut her eyes. Renske Merriman—born to be Lliiran, that woman. She’d been a child with two front teeth missing, following Allaine as she taught dances and games to keep children occupied with Lliira’s Night festivities other than throwing fireworks, when she’d lisped her first promise to come to the temple. On her sixteenth nameday, she had, with a wide-eyed friend in tow.
“You’re so sure it’s worth mourning yet?” The halfling pulled a cushion to her chest. She’d known the young Cerise Garter knights in passing—won her fair share of gold off poor Joster Rillyn. Allaine’s gambling days were long gone—leaving Waukeen for Lliira had been the greatest gift she’d ever given herself. Still, it gave her joy to see the two faiths remaining close.
“The path they were to scout veered close to the Shadow Curse. If they are lost there…” She massaged between her eyebrows. “If I don’t do this now, perhaps I never will. I’ve met with the Rillyns, told them stories of that poor boy who only wanted to bring his family pride—and if we’re blessed, if he comes back to us, then perhaps they’ll finally appreciate him.”
“Gods willing.” Rhoda pulled a coin from her pocket and tossed it in the air—Allaine smiled thinly at the gesture.
“I just hope those letters to Emmy and Maroth’s families make it. I didn’t think much of the rumors when I sent them, but things have only gotten worse. And that damned Gortash not helping a bit, I’ll tell you.” It was all Allaine could do to keep the tearstains to a minimum. Yes, she led a paladin order, but the greatest danger they usually faced was some trouble from the Fist. To have lost five…
“I’m sure they were beautiful letters.”
“And today,” Allaine continues, “I met with the Merrimans—for the first time. All that their daughter poured into the Temple, and to think I’d never even met them… Oh, they’re not bad folk. I know Renske would visit them. But I hate to think that the daughter they knew wasn’t even the half of the woman I saw her become.”
Right alongside the man Insolence had grown into—how she kept catching on that grief! The boy they’d never quite known what to do with, who’d never known what to do with himself—until that winter. And now it was summer, and he was gone, like the melted snow.
“She’s the only one who could have known that,” Rhoda said softly. “The girl chose how she wanted to live.”
“Without a moment’s doubt, I’d wager.” She sighed. “It’s awful, Rho. Where people I loved were, now I have items on a list, obligations, and… and boxes packed away. And no time for me to mourn, because I’ve got to deal with—with fucking permits. Permits. As if my friends—people I was responsible for—aren’t gone. Shouldn’t that be enough for the world to stop turning so fast? A long life—even if only long by a human’s measure—is easy to mourn in joy. To celebrate at least as much as you miss it. There’s no joy in this. Only a hollow place for anger to fester.”
“And will you? Fester?”
Allaine jabbed a pen into her finger, watching the ink spread out from the indent through the thin lines and ridges.
“For a time, I think. I’ll remember the frivolous, cheerful thing I am eventually. But now, I’m an old woman, responsible for dead children.”
“I remember when you made the decision to let them go. As I recall, there was no stopping Emmy.”
With a smile, Allaine wiped away the smudged ink from her fingertips. “No,” she agreed softly. “And Maroth and Insolence were only encouraging her. So, I thought—let them go together. What harm could come to them? Maroth knew what he was doing. It’d make an interesting story when they got home.” Slowly, she exhaled, scrubbing a little harder. “And it saved us all the trouble of anyone sneaking out in the middle of the night and me having to come up with some form of punishment for caring too much.”
“It’s not your fault that the world isn’t fair. That you didn’t know things were getting worse.”
“Nor is it theirs.” Allaine turned around, crossing her legs. “There’s no point in blaming. Only in action. Which brings me to the decision I need to be forced to make, before I forget for a decade or so. The other four—I knew where to return their belongings. But Insolence Fargold…”
“Don’t you know who his parents are?”
“His family owns a stable in Bloomridge. But he never spoke to them after coming to the temple. Of them, rarely…” Allaine shook her head. “It doesn’t honor that boy to return his things to people who never cared for him. But he had a horse—yes, a horse! In the city!—and he adored her.”
“You can’t give a man’s effects to his horse, Allaine.”
“No, I don’t suppose she’d have anywhere to put them.” Folded-up tabards and trousers and padded shoes for when the sound of hooves on stone would ruin a dance. Six years of gifted jewelry, because Lliirans hoarded like magpies and gave like mother cats. Sword manuals, books of maps, travelogues about far-off lands. Cast-off remnants of the illusion of a girl, scraps of a man who’d barely drawn breath.
“Is it advice or permission you want?” asked Rhoda. “Because you love your flock, and I know you loved that boy. I remember how you struggled with him.”
“I was never sure he was where he belonged. Still, I couldn’t find it in me to turn him away, even as I tried to guide him where those steely instincts might suit him better…” Slowly, Allaine exhaled. “I suppose, foolish as it sounds, I worry it makes me selfish to look at it now and wonder if—”
“It does no one a dishonor,” said Rhoda, “if you say that boy was family. He was. Your brother in Lliira if nothing else. Your… much younger, brother.”
“If I allow myself to keep these things, where does it end?”
“Pass them down. Keep them in trust, until there’s another who’d honor him by taking them.”
“Yes.” Allaine shut her eyes and set her jaw. “I’ll take a few tokens to find his family—that they can remember the son they lost. The rest I’ll keep. Until someone else needs them.”
Rhoda’s pursed lips as she nodded held back anything about how perhaps for now, it was Allaine who needed something tangible she could mourn.
The Fargold Stables weren’t hard to find at all—they were close to the Manor Gate, and it smelled like hay.
Allaine carried her skirts in one hand and the little bag of Insolence’s things in the other. A hair ribbon, two books, and a less-favored dagger. Enough, she hoped, for the Fargolds to mourn the son who’d chosen not to allow them in his life.
She expected, of course, the rows of stalls here on the ground floor, the horses, the gleaming little carts. She hadn’t expected a young—human—child.
The child lounged against a stall door, their disaffected air offset by scabby knees and teeth still growing in. “Welcome to Fargold Stables, how can I help you?”
Allaine paused. “Can you tell me which of these horses is Cupcake?”
The child’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s asking?”
“Allaine Morningdove, head of the Baldurian Church of Lliira.”
A moment passed.
“S’pose that doesn’t sound like someone who’d be making trouble,” the child agreed. “Cupcake’s down here.”
The horses were, as Insolence had told her, small. But Cupcake was definitely the smallest. She was a beautiful fair gold, with fairer mane, delicately proportioned—not the adorable roundness of a pony. Ribbons were braided all through her mane and tail.
Allaine took a deep breath as she leaned over the side of the stall, and she let the magic flow through her.
“Cupcake Fargold, if I’m not mistaken?”
Cupcake looked at Allaine with the delight of an animal who’d been spoken to many times, but never with magic. “That’s me! I’m Cupcake.”
“I’m Allaine Morningdove.” She held out her hand for Cupcake to sniff, ignoring the befuddled child. “I’m a friend of your mama.”
“Mama?” Cupcake whinnied and did her best to run in a circle, despite the halter. “Is Mama coming? I love my Mama. I miss Mama.”
How could she say it? How could she give voice to any of this?
And then—warm, horsey breath. A tongue on her face.
“Thank you, Cupcake,” Allaine said, gently pushing the horse down. Licking the tears away only made her weep more. “Do you—do you know why your mama went away?”
Cupcake huffed. “Mama didn’t like the stables. He took me for a walk and then he gave me lots of strawberries and cried and said he’d come home when he was big.”
“He missed you every day.”
“Is Mama big yet?” She whinnied softly. “I’m big now. Even if I’m littler than all the others.”
Hanging her head down over the stall door, Allaine took a moment to gather her words. “Your mama was going to come home,” she said, slowly. “But he went somewhere dangerous to help people, and he got lost. We don’t know if he’s going to be able to come home.”
“But… but Mama.” Cupcake balked, stepping backwards, tugging at her halter. “Mama promised!”
“I know. I know, and he didn’t mean to get lost.”
“The monsters? The monsters got Mama?” The little horse whinnied in a frenzy, tugging on her halter hard. “But Mama’s big and scary and brave! And he taught me how to be brave too!”
“I know,” Allaine said, thinking of stories about how you teach a horse to walk past Sorcerous Sundries with their heads held high.
There was a sound behind her, one that almost seemed familiar. Allaine turned to find herself looking up at a tiefling man. There was a family resemblance—he had short dark hair and something of a gut, but this man had a worried little mustache, and he stood with a cane.
“Ah,” Allaine said. “I suppose you want to know why there’s an elf weeping in your stables and making your horse cry.”
“I… I suppose I do.” The man cleared his throat. “I’m Clement Fargold. And you…”
“Allaine Morningdove, of the Church of Lliira.” She held her hand out. “I’m here to talk about your child. Is your wife..?”
“My…” Clement coughed as he shook Allaine’s hand. “Is this about Rechel?”
“No,” said Allaine, and then she spoke a name she’d never thought to need to say again. “It’s about Grace.”
The man blanched, knuckles going white against his cane.
“Except not Grace,” Allaine said. “I’ve had the privilege of knowing your son these past six years and—” No. She wouldn’t lead into this with death. “And seen him grow into a fine young man.”
“Genevieve—her—his. His mother—She’s…” Clement coughed into his hand. “We divorced.”
Insolence, Allaine thought with a hint of bitterness, would have been glad to hear it. “And your grandmother?”
“Gran’s smoking out back,” the child volunteered. “I’ll… I’ll go get her.”
“Where…” Clement’s cane dug into the hay strewn on the floor. “Where was my son?”
“The Temple of Sune,” Allaine said. “He joined my paladin order, the Cerise Garter. We defend the entertainers and performers of the city.”
“I’d feared… far worse.”
Allaine bit her tongue, waiting for the grandmother—who, thankfully, was quick to enter. Gwendolyn Fargold was a small woman, but authoritative, whose brisk walk betrayed nothing of her age, despite the thin grey knife-sharp bob and gnarled fingers that gripped her pipe.
“What’s this about Sunites?”
Allaine held back the pleasantries, reaching down for the bag she was clutching too tightly. She tugged it open and pulled out the knife.
“This,” she said, “belonged to your great-grandson, Insolence Fargold. The Knights of the Cerise Garter were recently investigating disappearances along the road to Elturel. Five of our initiates have failed to return since leaving in Alturiak. Given recent events between here and Elturel, all five are assumed dead.”
Gwen took the knife, in its embossed leather sheath, and immediately drew it, examining the age. “Insolence,” she said. “Chose that name for himself?”
“He did,” Allaine said, casting her eyes down as she fumbled around for the books. One of them—she wasn’t sure if it was the guide to camping in the Cloakwood or the collection of Neverwinter street maps—she pressed towards Clement. The man was emptiness, all hollow grief, questions unspoken.
“Kept good care of his blades,” said Gwen. “Good.”
“I brought another book,” Allaine said, “for his mother. And a hair ribbon, for Cupcake.”
“Gra—Insolence,” said Clement, clutching the book to his chest, “Insolence loved that horse. Thought she wouldn’t live a day after being born, you know. Small. Early. But that—that boy wouldn’t give up. And here she is. Fine horse.”
“She is,” Allaine agreed, softly. “Insolence was always very proud of her.”
What could she say that was truthful, but not cruel? Insolence spoke little of his family, less of it fondly, and even that with his customary grim humor.
“Just because we must make peace with the worst,” she said, softly, “doesn’t mean I’ve given up hope entirely. Like Cupcake.”
“Said the lad’s a paladin.” Gwen sharply sheathed the dagger and tucked it into her belt. “Survivors.”
Allaine thought about the bitter child, all edges he tried to keep hidden, the conviction he had to earn every inch of space he took up. She’d taught him how to dance, to rejoice, to breathe.
“He always was,” she said, Clement Fargold refusing to meet her eyes, book still clutched tight to his chest. He took shallow breaths.