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“Fancy seeing you here!”
Pearl has never seen this man before in her life. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah, you! I recognise you! From the Ship And Gimbal, a couple of nights ago, I was playing the hits and you were in the audience!”
… Right. The bard in Joel’s tavern. Pearl hadn’t really spared a glance at the musician any of the last few nights that she’d been sitting there, mostly because she was more focused on gradually stealing exactly one of every piece of silverware and crockery that Joel owned before heading off on her horse to the next destination. (Serves him right for clocking her round the head like that the last time they spoke.)
“You heading down this road, then? Lovely stuff, that is. I was thinking of making like a swallow and flying south for winter myself, if you’ve got room for one more on there?”
“Absolutely not.” Pearl isn’t about to shift all her gear around on her horse just to fit some random stranger on the back of it. “Look, mate, I dunno what your game is here, but I’m really not in the mood -”
“Ah, don’t be that way! If you’re gonna be riding off into the night, you’ll be wanting some company. Imagine you run into some sort of - of brigand or ne’er-do-well out on the misty moors!”
“This road doesn’t cross the moors,” Pearl frowns, pulling herself up on the back of the horse before the bard can keep arguing for his place beside her. “And you’re not doin’ yourself any favours blabbering on like that. Now, if you don’t mind -”
“I do mind! I mean, we haven’t even been introduced! My name’s Oli.”
He holds out a hand to be shaken, outstretched confidently into the air between them.
Pearl squeezes her horse to start moving.
His face falls, just a little, but then he spins on one heel and marches back towards her, keeping pace. “Alright then, Red Riding Hood,” he says, “we’ll have it your way.”
Red Riding Hood? She has half a mind to kick him in the chest for that. Probably would, too, if it wouldn’t ruin the cold shoulder she’s got going on at the minute, and also knock her off her balance.
“So, what brings you out to these parts? No? I’ll go first, then,” Oli says, without bothering to pause for her reply. (At least he’s a quick learner.) “I’m a travelling minstrel, myself. Wander the bountiful cities of the empire, living off the land, picking up a coin or two from the common people’s charity. Nothing but a song in my heart and the clothes on my back! And, you know, a few friends in high places. Or at least places with a bed to spare.”
Could be Joel’s friend, then. Or Etho’s. Neither of those prospects are particularly enticing.
“You learn all sorts of tunes, floating around all different places like I have. In fact, I’d chance to say I reckon there’s nobody else in the empire knows as many songs as I do. That’s generally how I sell myself - and wouldn’t you know, people seem to believe it.” He pauses, and she suspects he’s probably looking up at her for a reaction, which is why she’s staring blinkered straight ahead into the twilit road. “So? Where did you come from, where did you go, Red?”
I don’t think you really wanna know that, Mr. Oli. “West.”
“... Wait, is that where you came from or where you’re going, ‘cause if it’s where you’re going then I hate to be the one to break it to you but -”
“I was out west,” she says through gritted teeth, “out by the mountains.”
“Ooh, bit chilly there, eh? No wonder you’ve got such a lovely cloak, then. And unique, as well! I bet you get recognised all the time in that?”
“Lots of people have red cloaks.” And anyone who recognises her is gonna have a lot bigger problems to worry about real quick.
“Alright,” Oli says. “I think it suits you. Very dramatic. You seem like the type of woman who’s got a bite that matches her bark.”
Pearl withdraws. She doesn’t feel much like she’s been barking at the man. Has she? It’s a poor choice of metaphor after everything that happened the last few months, as well. Like he knows exactly what she’s running from and he’s trying to needle it out of her.
He continues on obliviously. “You know, I spent a bit of time out west a couple of years ago, on my travels. Not really a fan of the snow myself, but I think it does you good to try new things every once in a while, wouldn’t you say? They’ve got impressive architecture, at the very least - lovely tall buildings. Still, I’m definitely more fond of the tropical climates. Been a long time since I went to the very southeastern shores. Oh, I do miss it! Wonderful people, beautiful churches. Gold just absolutely flying spare from everybody’s purses, they love a good performance out there.”
Okay, now she’s definitely suspicious, but she’ll bite. “That’s where my family comes from.”
Thank god he doesn’t ask for names. “Ooh, did you grow up there? D’you remember it fondly? I can’t imagine you wouldn’t.”
“I miss the sun.” Irritating, how she’s even telling a random man this much. It’s been a long, long time since Pearl even carried on a conversation that didn’t already involve three separate threats to people’s lives by now, and here’s this guy completely throwing all that out the window by following alongside her horse at a light jog (and sounding a little more out of breath than she would have expected of a man of his stature, if she’s honest). She doesn’t really know what to do in this situation - hence the suspicion.
“What brought you out this way, then, if you started out in such a good spot?”
Presumptive. “Just needed a fresh start. Bad blood.”
“Oh, bad blood, you say? Tell me there’s a story. Give me the hot goss.”
Pearl can’t resist looking down to give him a confused scowl at that. Oli seems to take this as a dub.
“It’s what I do, Red!” he grins. “I’m a bard, for goodness’ sakes, I sing songs and I tell stories!”
“Really, that would make you a scop.”
“Oh, shut up,” Oli huffs, “and you’re wrong, anyway, because I’m a nomad, I don’t have a haunt I call home. So, bard.”
She trains her eyes back on the horizon again, which is becoming increasingly difficult. It’s about time she lit her lantern, really. “Me shut up? Look who’s askin’, mate.”
“Okay, well, you’re not the one whose job is literally to yap for a living, are you.” He pauses. “... Are you?”
“No.” The only thing she’s been making money from recently is theft, admittedly. (Although not this particular theft on the Ship And Gimbal. That was purely for the love of the game, the game being “piss off Joel”.)
“Exactly,” says Oli, as if he’s won. “So, really, you’re getting a free show here, so I don’t see what you’re so unhappy about.”
With a single determined scrape of flint against steel, the lantern sparks to light. “Maybe a strange man started followin’ me when I tried ridin’ away from him and I dunno what he wants from me?”
“Oh! Yes. That. About that.”
Another pause, this one considerably more weighted. Here’s the other shoe, then.
“So, you might have noticed that your bag has been making little clinking noises since we left the tavern,” Oli tells her, haltingly, and oh shit he’s with Joel isn’t he, “well I certainly did, and I also happened to notice you putting a load of knives and forks in your bag the other night when I was in the middle of my set, and I just sort of wondered what might drive a woman to go round picking up other people’s silver and then ride off with it?”
Full cold shoulder again, then. Straight ahead, blinkers on, unbothered.
“You can be honest with me. I won’t judge. I just wanna know -”
She’s not even gonna flinch when he brings up the axe story.
“- is it a sex thing?”
“... What?”
“I said I wasn’t gonna judge! I just need to know!”
“No, and what the fuck is wrong with you!” she matches the incredulity in his tone, the look on his face.
“Many things, Red Riding Hood! Many, many things!”
“Clearly!”
“Okay, so what is it, then!”
“It’s not - I just wanna piss off Joel, is all!” Pearl lets out in one last heavy breath, and too late realises that she’s given the game away.
Oli’s eyes light up like the spark in the lantern. “So you do know Joel!”
“I wish I didn’t,” she snaps back, “why, what’d he tell you?”
“Nothing, I promise. And I didn’t tell him it was you nicking his stuff, either. Though he probably won’t be too pleased if I come back asking for another few nights’ board without it. How d’you know Joel?”
“Hit me in the head with an axe once.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“Pushed him off a bridge.”
“Okay, but what’s the start of it, or is it all just blunt force trauma?”
Pearl looks straight ahead again. Definitely not something to get into on the first day. (... The only day, if she can help it.) “He just pisses me off, is all.”
“I can see that,” Oli hums. “He has got a very punchable face, does our Joel.”
She has to cut this off now. She can’t let this get any deeper than it already has. Otherwise he’s just going to learn what everybody else already figured out about her - catch on to the wickedness within her. Everybody always does. She doesn’t wanna sit through that pain again. “You have to go.”
“What? Go where?”
“Go back to the Ship and Gimbal. Go find yourself a bush to sleep in. Go find one of those ne’er-do-wells you were talking about and get your throat slit open, maybe that’ll shut you up. I don’t care, just - just get out of my life.”
“This is a bit of a turn -”
She stops the horse and pulls a dagger from her belt. “I said go!”
“Or what?”
Lamplight swings around to flame his face, orange flicker, harsh shadow. Knife to his cheek, he doesn’t look unsettled. “What d’you mean, or what? Or I’m gonna stab you, what does it look like?”
“And then you’ve got a body in your trail, you said you know Joel, he’s gonna find out it was you when the patrons tell him some lady in a cloak went off with me and now I’m in a ditch a mile away from the tavern, that’s what you want? To go from stealing his silverware to murdering his friends?”
“I really couldn’t give less of a shit what Joel thinks.” If he wants to revenge-kill me, he might as well bloody go for it.
Oli blinks at her. Maybe he was trying to psych her out, or - or reverse-psychology her into not wanting him gone, or something, but his plan’s not working, whatever it was.
“All I want is to get as far away from the Ship and fuckin’ Gimbal as I can before morning. If you wanna get in my way, you’re more than welcome.”
“I don’t… want to get in your way,” he says, slowly, eyes flicking between Pearl and the knife. “You were there for three nights. I saw you sat there, every night, quietly sticking plates in your satchel, and you didn’t even get a drink or talk to anybody. And you didn’t have that cloak on, either, so you can’t have been trying to get Joel’s attention. I just… I mean, you looked lonely, is all. I thought you might appreciate a chat.”
…
Pearl is lonely. Has been for a long time. She fucks with Joel, with the guys on the ranch up north, with whoever happens to cross her path, because it’s about as close as she can ever really get to socialising. As close as she deserves to get.
(You deserve this rings as clear in her mind now as it did the day he said it.)
But here’s Oli, who doesn’t have a clue about any of that, whose name she’s never heard from Joel or from anyone, who just wants to have a chat with her, for god’s sake, he’s this pathetic fella with a stupid hat and he’s been keeping pace with her horse for the past mile to do it. She tried to convince him to do what everybody else already has, tried to show him what she looks like on the inside, and he didn’t even move to run.
A man so calm with a blade right up against his face can’t be all that pathetic, can he? Or does he just have a death wish?
“Joel kicked me out,” he adds on, sheepishly, “found his hard limit, apparently, and it’s two weeks. And he said he thought the new song I was working on sounded a bit too much like it was about his wife. Which it isn’t, for the record, she’s a lovely woman but I’m more writing about a sort of platonic ideal of a pink-haired lover, you know, there’s a lot of them about -”
“You know what you’re doing, right?”
“Hmm?”
“If you’re in, you’re in. You’re not gonna play nice until we reach the next town and then go fuck off in the middle of the night. I’ll chain you to the bed if I have to.”
Oli, for some godforsaken reason, flusters. “No need for that, certainly,” he nods. “I for one am more than interested to see where this whole thing goes. If nothing else, it’ll make for a fabulous power ballad in a couple of months.”
“Alright. Get on the horse.”
“Ey, hang on!”
“What?”
“We haven’t even finished introductions!” Oli reaches up to hold her wrist behind the dagger and he shakes it. “Oli Sound, at your acquaintance. I mean, at your - I mean, pleasure to - looking forward to working with you.”
Pearl lets out a long, deep breath. Any other time, she’d break out the business nom de guerre, but here it seems insincere. “Pearl Moon.”
His smile falters. Not for long - he quickly masks it with a blustering effusiveness about what a glorious future their partnership portends. But Pearl sees it.
She doesn’t know what Joel told him, and she gets the feeling she won’t be dragging it out of him any time soon.
That’s fine, though. They can both keep secrets from each other. It’s not like he’s gonna stay forever, anyway. No one ever does.