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2023-02-12
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2023-02-14
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meet me at midnight

Chapter 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The thing is, when Sorsha commits to something, things start to move very, very quickly. And so after only a few days of discussion with councilors, Kit finds herself once again riding out of the palace with Jade on a quest, albeit a small one. More of an errand, really. The mood is rather less somber this time, with her mom and Airk and Elora waving farewell from the courtyard and a whole lot less uncertainty and a whole lot more fresh muffins that Elora stress baked for them. Willow and Mims take the small cart in the middle of their group, and Boorman follows up behind.

Elora had argued to be allowed to come along, but Sorsha had been adamant that it was just too great a risk. She’s not anonymous Dove the kitchen maid slipping out of the palace; too many people now know her as Elora. Even if it hasn’t been announced publicly in Tir Asleen yet, between the Nelwyns and the Wildwood and the agents of the Wyrm all knowing and Elora riding into the city along with its princess and prince, it’s only a matter of time. Kit actually does think it would be hilarious to go around calling Elora “Brunnhilde” to try to keep the secret, but Elora had nixed that right away.

Kit leaves this time with her father’s sword instead of her mother’s, a new bow to replace the one she’d lost against the Gales, and a carefully sealed diplomatic letter in an oilskin pouch offering a truce to the people of the Wildwood.

Next to her Jade looks very fine in her gleaming restored leather armor and new woolen dark green cloak, pinned at the collar with a small silver and bronze brooch. Not the stylized tree of Tir Asleen, but a fox. “A kit,” Jade had said delightedly when Kit presented it to her, a gift she’d commissioned from one of the metalworkers in town the day after they arrived.

“I don’t have anything for you,” Jade had said, but Kit had simply kissed her on the knuckles and pinned the fox to Jade’s shirt.

She’d also had a new scabbard made to fit her cleaned and sharpened sword, something simple and sturdy to withstand extraordinary punishment while keeping the blade safe. She has the feeling it’ll be necessary in times to come. As for the cuirass, it’s locked away safely in the armory. It doesn’t feel right to wear it for what should be a simple journey to drop Willow and Mims off at home, then visit the Wildwood for a few days. And, deep in a corner of her heart, she’s scared of it a little bit. Its power, its wild strength, that overwhelming feeling of invincibility.

At night when they camp, Jade idly runs a finger along the brooch while they sit close, still taken with its newness. After a couple of weeks, Kit still isn’t quite sure what it means to have this mantle of marriage settling on them. She feels closer than ever to Jade but not because of any ceremony. They see each other so clearly now, and Kit can’t imagine being known better or kept safer by anyone than Jade. No flower crown or dance or plum did that.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Jade says on their second night of camping, close to the barrier. The second night of Kit staying close to Jade and not saying much, just absently thumbing the ring on her right hand and staring into the fire while Boorman and Mims bicker.

“Just thinking,” Kit says.

“Should I be worried?”

Kit tips her body to nudge Jade lightly. “Shut up.”

Jade nudges her back. Kit wishes they could be somewhere private; they’ve had so little time together truly alone since they admitted their feelings. It’s unfair that they should find this new truth with each other just as the world demands so much of them.

“Stop flirting you two. We get it, you’re married,” Boorman says.

Kit, Jade, and Mims speak together. “Shut up, Boorman.”

He grins at them, pleased with himself, and continues to chew on a twig.

"Seriously, are you okay?" Jade asks, lowering her voice so that the words hover thinly between just the two of them.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Kit says, trying to convey that truly, she is. There's a lot to think about, but she likes thinking about Jade. She likes the freedom of how it feels to have Jade somewhere on her mind all the time without wondering why her chest hurts at the thought of her. It's nice to love someone and know that they love you back, and Kit doesn't quite know how to put all that into the right words, so she says "I'm fine," and offers Jade the last bite of her rabbit haunch.

*

“So,” Kit says as they approach the boundaries of the Wildwood, where eventually they’ll have to dismount and lead the horses on foot. “What are the odds you think of Scorpia just straight up stabbing me when we give her the message?”

“That’s not funny,” Jade says.

“I think it’s funny,” Boorman says.

“If she’s stabbing me it means she’s stabbing you next,” Kit says sharply - Boorman concedes the point with a nod and a shrug - then goes back to ignoring him. To Jade she says, “I’m kind of being serious. How do you think she's gonna react to all of this?”

Jade grips her reins tightly. “Scorpia knows if she ever hurt you it would be the end of my relationship with her.”

And it’s reassuring to hear, but it also makes Kit feel guilty as hell. “You know I don’t ever want you to have to choose. I’ll be on my best behavior, I swear.”

“It won’t go that far,” Jade says, sounding more confident than she looks. “Just let me do all the talking.”

Kit leans back in her saddle. “Definitely planning on it.”

Boorman had called the Wildwood seductive and Kit can feel it shiver through her blood as soon as they cross the boundary. It’s not just the people; there’s something in the air here, something elusive and free. How could a stuffy castle or an old stable ever compare to the beauty of this place? She needs to talk to Airk soon, because she’s the most serious she’s ever been in her life about following along if Jade leaves Tir Asleen.

As with last time, there’s no warning. One moment it seems like they’re alone in the forest, the next a band of skull masks throws off their cover and surrounds them. But at least no one has an axe to their throat, and the leader approaches Jade with respect.

“You return,” he says. “Scorpia’s waiting.”

Kit’s pulse races involuntary as they enter the village, her body remembering the panic and fear of being separated from Jade the first time they were led along this path, of seeing Jade so close to death right in front of her. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever really stop feeling scared by that memory.

“Scorpia wants you first,” says the scout, pointing to Boorman.

“Gross,” Kit says; Jade’s face mirrors her disgust.

“Lucky boy, lucky boy,” Boorman says, handing his cleaver off to the scout and rubbing his hands together as he strides towards Scorpia’s tent.

Kit is about to take their saddlebags over to a clear area with a firepit when the scout points to Jade. “You’re over here,” he says.

Kit throws Jade a puzzled look, but she’s just as uncertain what this means. The scout brings them to a smaller hut, somewhat old and patched, but clean. “For you,” he says and leaves them.

Inside, the hut is mostly empty except for a small wooden table. But the packed hard earth, the shine worn smooth on the wooden poles, the faded wildflowers painted onto the sides of the table - someone clearly used to live here. There’s just enough room for the bedrolls side by side on the ground with a little path between them to come and go, and their saddlebags tucked up in a corner by their heads. Snug for one person, not quite enough for two, which Kit is sure is Scorpia’s point.

Jade takes the stool, hands running up and down her thighs. Kit sits cross-legged on her bedroll in front of her. “It’s gonna be a while before-”

Jade immediately looks nauseated. “No, don’t. Do not mention Boorman and my sister.”

“Sorry.”

Kit reaches for her saddlebags and digs out the oilskin pouch, and then carefully withdraws the letter. She stares at the red wax seal on the front, carefully imprinted with the crest of Tir Asleen, with the little embedded crown to indicate it came personally from the queen's hand. “What if Scorpia says no?” Kit asks, turning the paper over in her hands. Suddenly the thick parchment feels like the most fragile thing in the world. Maybe it’s selfish because there’s so much more at stake for two whole nations, but this is her and Jade's future in her hands. What happens today will set one path or another for them and even though Kit knows in the end all she wants is to choose Jade, the quest has taught her the painful lesson that at some point that might not be what duty fates for her.

“It’s in her best interest to listen,” Jade says, but she sounds just as worried as Kit.

After an interminable amount of waiting that quite frankly gets grosser the longer it goes on, Scorpia finally summons them. Appallingly, Boorman is still in Scorpia’s tent, albeit completely unconscious under a pile of blankets and pillows. It’s enough that Kit can see his bare foot peeking out; she does her best to pretend she can’t. The less she dwells on it the easier it’ll be to wipe from her brain afterwards.

Scorpia looks as fresh as ever, though dressed down in a loose shirt without any of her usual jewelry. Kit is sure she somehow still has at least three knives somewhere on her body, which she kind of admires.

“Baby sister,” Scorpia says tenderly, first embracing Jade and grasping her tightly. To Kit she gives a dismissive once over and a short “Princess.” Kit supposes that’s what she’s earned for defeating the Crone and returning from beyond the edge of the world bearing an artifact out of legend.

They sit down on a thick rug scattered with cushions, and Scorpia pours something from a battered silver teapot on a small table in the middle. She passes the little carved wooden teacups to Jade and Kit; Kit tries to subtly smell hers first, only getting the faint scent of something cold and refreshingly mint.

“To your return,” Scorpia says, lifting her cup to Jade and quaffing it in one; Jade follows, and then Kit, who figures venomous Scorpia or not, poisoning isn’t her style. She’s very much a stab-you-to-your-face woman, which is actually kind of refreshing after years of passive aggressive micromanagement from her mom. Scorpia returns her cup to the table and regards her two visitors frankly. Kit is struck by just how much she and Sorsha are alike in their calculating looks, in their habit of frankly weighing people first with their eyes. Definitely something to keep to herself forever.

“We bring word from Queen Sorsha of Tir Asleen,” Jade says with the little spiel she’d rehearsed under her breath a dozen times on the way here; Kit had heard her practicing astride her horse or refilling the water skins or lying in their bedrolls after dinner.

Scorpia’s gaze grows harder but she doesn’t interrupt yet.

“Though the Crone is defeated, the Wyrm remains and will soon attempt to wreak havoc on our world. Queen Sorsha offers the outlaws of the Wildwood a truce in hopes of discussing a true alliance.” Here Jade nudges Kit with her elbow and Kit digs the letter out of her jerkin’s inner pocket, presenting it with both hands.

Scorpia eyes the letter as though Kit is trying to hand her a pickled possum carcass, but eventually she takes it with the tips of her pointer and thumb. “A truce,” she says.

“It’s all in the letter,” Kit says.

Scorpia breaks the seal with her pointer finger and unfolds the parchment, her mouth moving silently as she reads. Kit tries not to watch creepily while she does so; it’s not the shortest letter Sorsha ever wrote and Kit doesn’t want to blow it by coming on too strong.

At last Scorpia lowers the parchment, chewing thoughtfully at her lip. She looks to Jade. “You vouch for the contents of this letter?” For some reason, the question sounds like a trap.

“With my life,” Jade says, unflinching.

“And what about you, princess?” Scorpia asks Kit. “Would you vouch for this truce with your life?”

“We need each other. The Wyrm is coming,” Kit says. “And you’re Jade’s people. So you’re my people too now, if you’ll let me.”

Scorpia seems more solemn than anything at this, continuing to chew at her lip. Kit restrains herself from blurting something just to fill the silence. Sorsha’s always been good at that, patiently letting other people give away all their thoughts while holding hers in reserve until needed. Scorpia says at last, “Your mother has officially recognized your marriage and declared Jade a member of the royal family.”

“She what?” Jade asks sharply, almost panicky. Her eyes rove wildly as her brain struggles to catch up, flicking to Scorpia, then the parchment in her hands, to Kit, back to Scorpia. She leans forward in her seat, craning her neck to try to read the letter. “Where does it say that?”

“She didn’t tell me she was putting that in there,” Kit says, dazed where Jade is going slightly manic.

Scorpia simply holds it out so Kit can read it for herself. She skims the parts they’d already discussed - terms of the truce, the desire for a formal alliance, an offer of weapons and goods to aid in defense against the trolls of Skellin - and down to the bottom, reading Sorsha’s elegant handwriting almost too fast to comprehend it the first time and having to slow down significantly.

I now write to you as one protective family member to another. My daughter tells me she and Jade are married. However this came to be, no matter my worries for Kit’s future, were I to claim the marriage is invalid or force Kit to dissolve the bond, I know I would lose my daughter forever anyway. Her life is bound up in Jade’s now, that is clear to me. In this one thing I find I cannot bear to be a queen instead of a mother. And so I do what I hope will preserve my daughter’s happiness, while also forging a bond between our peoples. Should she accept, I consider Jade Claymore now to be my family as well, with all the rights and privileges granted to the princess consort, and to a knight of the realm. Take this as a sign of my good faith and my sincere desire for an alliance, for without one I cannot see another way to support my daughter’s happiness and also keep her in my life.

“Holy shit,” Kit says, letter dangling limply from her hand. Jade promptly snatches it from her.

“Holy shit,” Jade says as she reads.

“So, princess consort,” Scorpia says. Jade looks up, still utterly bewildered. “Shall we discuss this alliance?”

*

Scorpia requests a day to talk to her lieutenants to sell them on the idea. They’ll like the part about weapons to fight trolls, at least, so Kit and Jade make themselves busy in the village. There’s always some chore to do, something to mend, something to build. Kit watches as Jade strips down to her undershirt and rolls up her sleeves to help some of the villagers pound acorns for flour. She sits in a row of women all grinding flour with big mortars, happily chatting and learning about their ways. She smiles more, out here in the woods, doesn't sit like she might have to leap back to her feet at any second. Kit offers to help too, wanting to make a good impression on these people. She's drafted into shelling acorns right away and plopped down onto a wooden stump seat down at one end of the production line. One of the older women working a flour sieve nearby looks familiar to Kit. She squints, something tickling her brain like a half-formed sneeze until suddenly it clicks.

“Hey, you’re the flower crown woman,” Kit says.

The woman doesn’t stop sieving, only nods to Kit. “Aye, bye and bye I make crowns for festivities.”

Kit drags her basket of unshelled acorns over closer to the woman. “Did you know that giving us those crowns would - you know. End up with us married?”

The woman gives her a puzzled look, wrinkles creasing all over her face. “I give them to all who are willing to wear them.”

“Yeah, of course. But just, what made you give them to us?” Kit asks.

The woman continues to frown. “You stopped me and asked me for two, one for you, and one for your love.”

“Oh,” Kit says, sitting back at this answer. This is not quite how she remembers it, but they’ve both had to admit that their memories are a patchwork at best. She rummages through her memories, which haven't improved that much with time. Sometimes a sound or a smell will trigger a little flash; laughing at something Jade said, the sound of Jade's harsh breath in her ear and soft skin under her hand. The bright mood they were in, Kit can see herself stopping this woman and asking for flowers. Jade always looks so beautiful when - well, when she does anything with her hair. Adding a crown on top is just the sort of thing Kit would want to do.

“She is your love, is she not?” the woman asks, tipping her head towards Jade.

Kit watches Jade, the taut muscles of her forearms straining against her work, her freckled face spread in a big, gorgeous smile. “Yeah, she is,” Kit says.

“Hmph. Good,” the woman says, and returns her focus to her sieving.

Kit finishes her basket quickly and draws some water to bring a cup to Jade. She traces a finger across Jade's sweaty forehead to pull a stubborn curl of hair out of her eyes so Jade doesn’t smear acorn dust all over her face with her fingers.

“Thanks,” Jade says, drinking deeply. A few of the other villagers around her titter very obviously at Kit.

“You good here?” Kit asks.

“I’m good.”

As Kit walks off to return the water cups she can hear more tittering, and someone saying “so handsome” to Jade; when she looks back Jade is biting her lip and pinker than normal, even with the exertion of pounding flour. It’s validating but also kind of embarrassing so Kit hustles back to another basket of unshelled acorns and tries not to look directly at Jade too much, because every time she does the people around Jade look back at her and burst into more giggles. It’s better than being scolded all the time back home, but not by much.

“Is it just me,” Kit says as they eat side by side at dinner, “Or are people looking at us a lot?” She shuts her mouth so she can nod and smile at a couple of villagers who walk past, whispering and grinning at them.

“It’s not just you,” Jade says. She sops up the last of her gravy with a bread crust, eating with vigor after the day’s work.

“It’s like they think we’re gonna get married again or something,” Kit says out of the side of her mouth.

At this point a couple of youths approach them, breaking off from a larger group that seems to be encouraging them. “Um, excuse me,” one of them says to Jade.

She stops eating and gives them her full regard, patient as ever with children. She’s always kind to people not as strong as her. “Yes?”

The youths share high-pitched giggles, look over their shoulders at their comrades who make unsubtle go on hand motions, and turn back to Jade. “Is it true that you’re the princess consort now?”

“Oh, uh.” It’s harder to tell when Jade pinks by firelight, but Kit can see it all the same, and even if she couldn’t pick out the subtle differences she knows that Jade is dying a little inside because so is she. “Well yes, I suppose. Who told you that?”

Boorman flops down on a bench across from them with a large bowl of soup. “Evening all. Worked up quite the appetite today. Thought that meeting of yours would never be over.”

Kit knows her face is as murderous as Jade’s because Boorman suddenly seems very concerned.

“Do I…have something in my beard?” he asks.

*

Scorpia doesn’t waste time when she calls Kit and Jade into her tent. “I agree to the terms of the truce,” she says. One hand is behind her back and she withdraws it, revealing a familiar saber in its sheath. Sorsha’s sword, the one Kit left behind in the village when the trolls took her. Scorpia tosses it to Kit. “And I send this as a token of our good faith.”

Kit runs her hand over the hilt, partially draws the saber to examine the blade. Gleaming and sharp. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “This means a lot to me.”

“Look,” Scorpia says, sounding a little resigned. “My sister sees something in you and I trust her, so. Maybe it’s right that the blood of Bavmorda helps repair what she tried to break. Just remember this.”

Scorpia edges closer, looming without seeming to move all that much in that effortlessly dangerous way she has. “We will never bow to another master. We will not compromise on our freedom. Every last person here would rather die than be subjugated again. You can take that message back to your mother as well, Kit Tanthalos, daughter of Sorsha.”

Kit can't say anything to that but nod and try to radiate sincerity, like someone who can be trusted to end decades of internecine raiding.

Scorpia turns to Jade. “I have something for you too.” From a leather pouch on the table, she pulls out a Bone Reaver mask, a crudely preserved skeletal face with the jaw removed. Her mouth tightens as Jade recoils slightly.

“Perhaps to you this is a symbol of fear and violence,” Scorpia says. “But to us, this is the mark of a warrior trusted to keep our ways and protect our people. Whether you wear it or not, it’s a reminder of who you are and where you come from. You’re not only a knight of Tir Asleen. I name you guardian of the Wildwood, entrusted to represent our interests and act in my name.”

Jade takes the mask with her fingertips, holding it before her while she stares into its hollow eyes. She seems to come to some sort of private reckoning, accepting the mask and hanging it in its pouch from her belt. “Thank you,” Jade says.

“Can’t let those fussy zudcudders in Tir Asleen have all the fun,” Scorpia says, then enfolds Jade in a big hug that rocks her from side to side.

As they make to leave the tent, Scorpia calls out to Kit. “I’m counting on you to protect her.”

“To the end of the world and back,” Kit says, and Scorpia jerks her chin in the barest of nods, the most sincere acknowledgement of respect she’s ever given Kit.

Boorman finds them at the stables saddling up, unsurprisingly not dressed at all to travel. “Staying here for a bit. Not forever, who’s got time to commit to that. But at least for a while. You know, just to be diplomatic,” he rambles.

“You’re good,” Kit says. “I know we can count on you to come when you’re needed.”

“Well I wouldn’t go that far,” Boorman says, but unconvincingly.

“We’ll see you again soon. Gotta forge this alliance and everything,” Kit says. She begins guiding her horse towards the edge of the village, Jade in line behind her. People along the way wave goodbye or call out that they’ll dance again on their return. One of them presses a wrapped parcel of food into Jade’s hand.

“And that thing with the Wyrm,” Boorman says.

“The ol’ Wyrm problem,” Kit says, able to appreciate the dark humor for now.

“Off you go, princess,” Boorman says. He smirks at Jade. “Princess consort.”

“I’m telling Sorsha that the first condition of the alliance is rescinding your pardon,” Jade threatens; Boorman laughs at first, but as Jade keeps walking with a straightfaced scowl, his expression fades once again into concern.

“Wait, you can’t do that, can you?” he asks, walking faster to follow them. “Kit, she can’t do that. Hello?”

*

At long last, it’s just the two of them. They’ll pick up Willow again on the way; he wants to be at court to discuss strategy with the leaders of the other kingdoms when they arrive. But for a few days they’re alone with each other in the solitude of the road.

At night they camp near shelter if it’s available, but out here where they might not see another being for miles, it’s easy to feel like the only two people under the jeweled stars. There’s not quite room for the intimacy that Kit craves, that she knows Jade craves too from the way her hands wander under Kit’s shirt. There are still perils out here, and accidents to take travelers unaware. Sorsha had almost insisted on sending guards but it would have only slowed them down and maybe even spooked Scorpia’s people into doing something unfortunate. Kit is grateful for this time with Jade, in between the mad dashes and the meetings.

“Do you think people are gonna call you Lady Jade?” Kit asks as they cuddle under their roughspun blankets, hands idly touching bare skin where they can find it.

“No way,” Jade says. “Do you want them to call me that?”

“Only if you want to.”

Jade grimaces. “I guess they’ll have to sometimes, since Sorsha…” She trails off.

“How do you feel about being a knight of Tir Asleen?” Kit asks, wanting to offer to make it all go away if Jade is hesitant even for a second. She knows how duty binds; it can make you stronger, but it can trap you just the same. She doesn’t want that for Jade, even if duty is all she thinks about. Especially because duty is all she thinks about.

“I think I don’t mind,” Jade says. She pulls Kit closer, letting her head rest atop Kit’s where it lies on Jade’s chest. “I’ve been thinking a lot about knights and oaths and all of it for a while. Like whether I want to let go of it, you know? If it was all based on a lie then what’s the point?”

Kit can sense this is a rhetorical question, and that Jade is working towards something on her own as she’s been doing for the past few weeks. Jade hums deeply as she thinks; Kit loves the way it sounds with her ear pressed to Jade's chest.

“I guess...just because Sorsha and Ballantine lied to me doesn’t make everything I believe in worthless all of a sudden. I still believe in duty and honor. You can be knightly without actually being a knight and vice versa.” And in fact they'd both grown up on those stories, the deserving woodcutters' sons who earned fame and fortune through their honorable heroism, or the clever thieves who found a reason to stop taking and start giving. The unworthy heirs who lost everything through their faithlessness to their duty. Kit had liked those the least.

“You’re definitely twice the knight of anyone in Tir Asleen or Galladoorn,” Kit says earnestly.

“You can’t know that,” Jade says, though she smiles a pleased little smile.

“Hey, you kept all of us alive and you jumped off the edge of the world for me,” Kit says. She strokes Jade’s cheek and tilts her head up for a soft kiss, and then another. Several more soft kisses later, she consents to pause long enough for Jade to finish her thought.

“I guess I feel like a knight with or without Sorsha’s blessing,” Jade says.

“That’s because you’re amazing,” Kit says. She shifts up so she can lie half on top of Jade, confidently slipping their legs together. Jade stares up at her from a face with freckles as familiar as the constellations, with that lovely and open and rare smile that Kit always sought after when they were growing up together and she was trying to reconcile the hard realities of being the heir with the fact that the only person she ever wanted to be around all the time was Jade. How stupid of her not to realize what the feeling was sooner, to not stop and think why she always wanted to make Jade light up or laugh.

“Coming from you,” Jade says, easy and fond.

Kit kisses her again, and keeps kissing her long after their campfire has dwindled to embers. Perhaps camping out in the unsettled wilds has its dangers, but it has privacy and freedom too, and here Kit loves Jade quietly and thoroughly with her hands and her mouth and her body until they finally doze off in the grey-blue light of predawn.

*

It’s extremely and confoundingly weird to come back to a home where Kit’s relationship with Jade is openly acknowledged.

“The cooks are so excited about it,” Elora says over lunch.

“What do you mean the cooks?" Jade asks. She still looks vaguely uncomfortable in her new clothes, part of an entirely new wardrobe from Sorsha befitting Jade’s status as a member of the royal family now. Kit had offered to talk to Sorsha about overstepping, but Jade had reminded her that this is Sorsha’s style: once she’s decided on something, she takes over the process so at least it can be done how she wants. There will certainly be more battles to come, and Jade would rather not argue over clothes to save it for something bigger down the road.

Kit at least agrees that Jade looks great in draped silk shirts of all colors, and almost doesn’t hear Elora while she admires how the red of Jade’s curls falls against the rich blue of her collar.

“In the kitchens. I still go down there to help out even though Prunella freaks out that I shouldn’t,” Elora says. “It’s familiar. I don’t really know what else to do while we’re waiting for all those people from the eastern continent to get here.”

“What are they even saying?” Jade asks.

Elora sighs, chin landing in her hands. “It’s just romantic, is all. Everyone used to wonder if you were going to find a way to be together.”

That’s enough to finally jolt Kit out of staring at Jade. “What now?”

“Er,” Elora says, realizing she might have overplayed things.

“Everyone?” Jade asks.

“I mean, not everyone,” Elora says weakly. “Just…most of us. When the stable hands would come in-”

“The stable hands?” Jade repeats, very sharply and very loudly, so that even Kit blanches. It's a wonder the guards don't barge in at the commotion.

“Look, the two of you were together all the time and Kit was always fighting with her mom about only spending time with you like, going out to the cliffs together to sword fight,” Elora says. She holds up her hands, beseeching. “What were we supposed to think?”

“That was training!” Kit insists. “And how does everyone know about that?”

Elora rolls her eyes. “I’m not trying to be mean but sometimes royals don’t really notice the people around them. You weren’t exactly quiet when you fought.”

Much to Kit’s dismay Jade pauses in her own effrontery and makes an agreeable face. “She has a point,” Jade says.

“I - well, that’s - I mean, maybe. Okay. Fair,” Kit splutters out. “But that doesn’t explain why you were all talking about it.”

“What else is there to do all day while you work? I like baking but it gets kinda repetitive making like three hundred biscuits for everyone every day,” Elora says.

Now it’s Kit’s turn to concede. “Yeah, that does sound boring.”

“So what are they saying now?” Jade asks. She doesn’t even flinch at Kit’s poke to her arm. “What? We might as well know.”

Now given permission to dish, Elora leans forward eagerly. “Okay, so. The hot rumor right now is Sorsha is planning a wedding for you two. Yesterday, she asked one of the tailors to order like a whole bolt of white silk.”

“Oh shit,” Kit and Jade say at the same time.

“What, you don’t want a nice wedding? Not that the one in the Wildwood wasn’t lovely, I thought it was really beautiful,” Elora says.

“Come on, you know this wouldn’t be about us. It would be about my mom and all the dignitaries she could rope into being there so she can beat them into an alliance,” Kit says with a scoff, Jade nodding next to her. “And she would probably make me wear a dress.”

“I would love a wedding dress with a really long train,” Elora says, eyes drifting dreamily for a second. “I wanted one embroidered with tiny silver flowers all along the hem, and a wreath with white flowers to match it.”

“Great, you can have all the white silk,” Kit says. She looks at Jade. “You don’t want a dress, right?”

Jade makes a face, tongue poking out in modest disgust.

“Well, someone better tell the tailor before she starts making the wedding dress of the decade,” Elora says.

Jade agrees and resumes eating; Kit begins cooking something in the recesses of her brain.

*

If they have to be the subject of palace gossip and Sorsha’s machinations, at least it means no more sneaking, and that means Kit is free to have Jade in her bed every night if she wants. Jade is still allowed her own quarters, but nine nights out of ten one of them comes to the other after dinner. They play chess or read by the fire or simply reminisce and joke and worry together. The air feels heavy in Tir Asleen, like a furious summer storm is on the horizon, and it grows heavier by the day. King Hastur had refused to attend on news of his son's passing, and Galladoorn has gone frustratingly silent.

“Hey,” Kit says one night, watching while Jade ties up her hair before bed.

“Mm,” Jade says as she slips under the covers.

“It’s been one moon since we accidentally got married.”

Jade smiles, arranging herself on her pillow so they can be face to face. “Wow, a whole moon.”

“A good moon though?” Kit half asks, not knowing why she needs the reassurance now but feeling it regardless.

Jade ponders this, not as though she has doubts, but just as someone giving Kit’s question serious thought. “It’s still kinda weird, you know?”

Kit nods, because it definitely has been that.

“And stuff has changed. I mean, we’re here. That part’s good. But my feelings haven’t changed. It still kinda just feels like a word, and maybe not what I am? Does that make sense?” Jade frowns in confusion.

“It makes a lot of sense. I mean, I guess I feel more…responsibility?”

“More responsibility than protecting Elora Danan, last blood of Kymeria?” Jade asks.

Kit grabs Jade around the waist and tussles lightly with her for a second, both of them laughing.

“Okay, okay, I yield,” Jade says, squirming.

Their breathing slows again. The castle is quiet, just the occasional hoot from an owl outside, or the muffled scrape of a guard on patrol in the corridor. Kit misses the sound of wind in the trees, of soft grasses susurrating in the open meadows, the shifts and snorts of bodies around a low crackling campfire.

She picks up the thread. “I feel more responsibility to not mess things up with you, maybe. That kinda scares me. Nothing is different, but all of a sudden there’s this label that has all these expectations that I didn’t really think about yet. I mean, I did, but not in a way where I put them into words.”

“Me neither,” Jade says.

Just hearing that Jade is on the same page is enough to make Kit feel a bit better. It's a lot easier to be in a mess with someone than by yourself.

“I wanted to think about them, the expectations. But like, in a few years. There’s just a lot going on right now,” Kit says.

“The way I see it,” Jade muses, “We can do whatever we want with this. Remember what Graydon told you about how one day you’re gonna be in charge?”

Kit does remember; it seems so long ago that she was so ready to leave everything behind, that she couldn’t see beyond her own problems. “We’re gonna be in charge,” she says. “Well, hopefully Elora will be in charge, actually.”

“Yeah, and we don’t have to be bound by any rules we don’t want, just the ones we agree on.”

“I like the sound of that,” Kit says. Jade settles into her, tucking the long, lean strength of herself against Kit. She’s asleep quickly, a warrior’s reflex. Kit falls asleep thinking about a someday for just the two of them.

*

Kit silently blesses Elora for the warning so that when her mom innocuously asks if she and Jade can join her in a sitting room for a few hours, Kit knows exactly what’s coming. She insists that Jade go off and enjoy lunch in the barracks with some of her friends from the guard and that she’ll handle this by herself. Jade seems skeptical, but accepts Kit’s kiss on the cheek and heads down to the grounds.

“Where’s Jade?” Sorsha asks when Kit enters the room by herself.

“Busy. Knight stuff,” Kit says casually. “I told her to take care of that first and then come join us if she has time.”

“I see,” Sorsha says, not quite giving away if she believes Kit or not. Then she claps her hands, and a small parade enters from the opposite door - Kit recognizes at least one royal tailor, and it’s hard to miss how the assistants trailing her are carrying big armfuls of spools of various fabrics.

“Nope. Uh uh. No way,” Kit says, backing up towards the door.

“You don’t even know what it’s for,” Sorsha says.

“I know exactly what it’s for,” Kit says. “I appreciate that you’re trying with Jade, but we are not having some kind of pony show of a wedding.”

Sorsha actually looks upset - not even upset, heartbroken. “Kit, I wasn’t there for your first wedding.”

Neither was I, Kit thinks but wisely does not say aloud.

“I just want to be able to see my daughter get married to someone she loves,” Sorsha pleads, actually pleads, and when she puts it that way, Kit does feel a little guilty. But she’s also over letting her mom make her feel guilty; she’ll be guilty for her own reasons, dammit.

“Mom-”

“Please,” Sorsha says, her voice as thin and desperate as Kit has ever heard her. “Just a fitting. For me.”

Kit’s jaw works, aware she's being guilted but in a way where she can't really say no. “Fine. But I’m not wearing a dress.”

And so Jade finds Kit in the same room three hours later, far past the time when Kit had said she’d make her escape and join Jade. She knocks and enters looking vaguely worried, and stops dead in her tracks in front of the doorway as Kit cranes her neck from where she stands on a little platform with her arms out and a couple of assistants pinning fabric panels onto her. “Oh hi,” Kit says.

“Wow,” Jade says, eyes roving fully from head to toe.

Even in rough pieces, Kit has to admit she looks nice. The tailor had, to her credit, not blinked an eye at a last-minute change of plans from a dress to a pair of claret trousers and white silk shirt under a white doublet, draped with the blue cloak of Tir Asleen.

“Jade, just in time,” Sorsha says, standing up from the couch in front of the fitting area.

“Just in time for what?” Jade asks with clear apprehension.

“I’m sorry,” Kit whispers to Jade. She can only watch while two tiny assistants firmly chivvy a trained and dangerous knight over to another fitting area and prod her onto her own little box, produced out of nowhere. “It’ll be over faster if you just go with it.”

The assistants promptly begin measuring Jade, running a tape alongside a bevvy of body parts and rapidfire calling out numbers to each other while Jade squirms and tries not to let them measure with very little success.

“Your majesty?” the tailor says to Sorsha.

“A knight-commander’s formal regalia, perhaps? Just as a place to start,” Sorsha muses, one finger tapping her chin.

“Excellent, your majesty,” the tailor says.

"Oh, that seems so - so extravagant, your majesty," Jade says, still being manhandled into holding out her arms to be measured, then uttering an indignant "Hey!" when one of them runs the tape around Jade's chest. The assistant ignores her.

"You outrank Ballantine now, dear," Sorsha says, sipping a cup of tea another servant has brought while she waits. She continues casually sipping and paging through some correspondence while Jade appears to blank out at this offhand comment, seemingly unaware that she's once again upended the way Jade orders the world in her head.

"One for armor and one for without, your majesty?" the tailor interjects.

"I should think so," Sorsha says.

Jade flops her arms helplessly and promptly gets stuck with a pin for it.

*

That night they both sit in a daze in Jade’s room, sharing a jug of wine between them. “There was just so much…stuff,” Jade says, staring into the fire.

“Uh huh,” Kit says, still mesmerized by just how much frippery you could still add to a good pair of pants and a shirt. She supposes she shouldn't be super surprised; she’s seen Airk’s wardrobe.

“How does Sorsha just…” Jade mimes something complicated with one hand waving around her head.

“I guess you learn how to make people do what you want when you’re the queen,” KIt says. She’s slightly less shellshocked than Jade by virtue of having dealt with Sorsha plowing over her for her entire life, but it was still nearly a full day of being asked her opinion about fabrics, brocades, embroidery, draping, linings, ornaments. “Gods, what I wouldn’t give for a quest right now.”

Jade snorts into her cup, but Kit sits up a little straighter in her chair as this seed takes hold in the fertile soil of the restlessness that’s been growing inside her.

“No, what are you thinking,” Jade says warily, noticing right away.

“There’s still plenty to do to prepare for the Wyrm. Allies to find, magic to research, myths to track down,” Kit says. They’ve been compiling these tasks daily in their strategy sessions with Sorsha and her councilors. The court librarians have all been in their absolute element.

“Sorsha has already dispatched messengers to all the kingdoms,” Jade says.

“Yeah, but I get the feeling one Kymerian cuirass isn’t gonna do it in the defense department.” Kit idly combs her hand through her hair, still thinking. The idea blooms; she looks at Jade, eyes gleaming.

“Kit, running away-”

“It’s not running away,” Kit says. Jade’s face is a picture of skepticism. “Not this time. We’ll let people know where we’re going and we’re coming back. We’re just doing things our way.”

Jade at least mulls this over, swirling her cup idly in her hand.

“We’ll ask Willow and Elora if they want to come, maybe go pick up Boorman and Scorpia. Or just Scorpia,” Kit adds, trying to tread that fine line between convincing and overselling it. She can see that Jade immediately likes the idea of going on a quest with her sister.

“When would we leave?” Jade asks and Kit knows she’s got her. If Jade is trying to plan, then she’s in.

“Whenever we want. Tonight, even,” Kit says.

“And what would we be looking for?”

“There’s that magic sword the librarians mentioned. And I don’t know if this is crazy, but maybe Graydon is still somewhere out there, like my dad,” Kit says. She twists her lower lip somberly. “He’d look for us.”

“Yeah he would,” Jade agrees. She gulps the last few sips of her wine in one. “Okay, let’s go.”

“What, tonight?” Kit asks, delighted.

“No, tonight we’re going to make a packing list and then get a good night’s sleep,” Jade says. “All the clues will still be there tomorrow.”

“Oh my god a packing list,” Kit says, but grins at Jade anyway, and pours them both more wine.

*

Willow declines, and so does Elora. “I just don’t think I’m ready to go back out there on like, a full quest,” she says wistfully, and Kit decides not to mention that they might go look for signs of Graydon, not yet. Willow simply says his duty is to stay and continue Elora’s teaching, and to help advise the assembling rulers on the magic of the Wyrm.

Kit wants to ask Airk and knows he’ll be hurt that she doesn’t, but he’ll say yes in an instant, and mom will flip if they’re both gone again. Especially Airk, whom her mom still hovers over like a hawk. Hard to sneak away when Sorsha or a guard is “just checking in” on Airk all hours of the day. And if Kit is honest, he's not ready for it, if the sounds of his nightmares echoing down the hall are any indication.

She writes out a couple of notes to be found after she and Jade have left, and Elora volunteers to help pack them up some food from the kitchens to avoid rousing suspicion. Jade takes care of the horses with a few wineskins slipped to a friend of hers from the stables and Kit carefully assembles her gear, to be grabbed at a moment’s notice from the trunk in her room.

They eat all together that night, Kit and Jade, Willow and Elora, Sorsha and Airk. Kit enjoys the meal, knowing it’s the last good one she’ll have for a while. She’d always read about how noble heroes on quests bravely tightened their belts on the road, but it was a different thing altogether to live through the stomach-gnawing sensation of true hunger, to feel her body lean out and become accustomed to running off of a handful of rations each day.

Then they wait until nightfall, and walk separately down to the stables. Silently, they change in an empty stall into sturdier traveling clothes, Kit in a dark sleeved jerkin and nondescript grey wool cloak, and Jade in her armor, also with a matching cloak. Even though they move quickly, assuredly, Kit can feel her heart drumming in excitement. This is just how she dreamed it, the two of them setting off for adventure beyond the barrier. But it’s better now - less romanticism maybe, tempered by hard-won experience, but with a deeper understanding between them of what they want.

They lead the horses out into the courtyard, treading carefully and quietly, and only mount up once they’re outside the castle walls. Just two travelers, passing in the night.

Kit thinks about the gift she left for Elora in her room as they leave the city, then focuses on the road in front of them. She pulls down her hood, urging her horse to go faster, finally letting herself grin with exhilaration and the joy of having Jade right beside her.

Up in her room, Elora finds a roll of gorgeous white silk on her bed, with a note pinned on top. For your dress, it reads, with no signature. She walks to the window and peers out as far as she can to the edge of the city. It’s impossible to see anything in the dark, but she fancies she can see two small figures on horseback, running free towards the horizon.

Notes:

badlance on tumblr.