The Mountain King

Chapter 1

"Well that went well."

Boren spat the dirt out of his mouth as he glared at the backs of the three guards' heads. Aleya crouched beside him and started brushing the dirt from his hair and clothes. This was not the first time Boren had found himself on the wrong side of people, he had a tendency to speak without thinking, and it often got him in trouble. Aleya shook her head, her braided hair shifting with the movement and tickling her jaw.

"That was senseless." She helped him to his feet.

Boren stopped to pick up the basket that he had dropped, and they started the trip back home.

The farmhouse was a fair walk from the village market, where the two had gone to buy meat and other things that they did not grow themselves. The family owned a large area of land which they grew vegetables and kept animals, including two cows, several chickens, and a horse for pulling the plow and sometimes the wagon. That morning, they brought their produce to the market for selling, as they did each week. Although a large portion of it went to the city, taken as the king's tax for the outlying villages, they still sold enough to live comfortably. Their cabbages and root vegetables were the most popular in the village. Boren's mother, Margareta, had returned home about an hour before with the mostly empty wagon after a particularly chaotic day, and the two had stayed behind for a last-minute grocery hunt.

"He insulted you." Boren insisted, wincing as he touched the reddened skin around his eye.

"You're saying it's my fault?" Aleya asked, amused.

"No! Of course not, but-" She chuckled as he struggled to find the words. "If you didn't say anything..."

"I was standing up for you!" She retorted. "If you hadn't been boasting so loudly about what we paid the butcher-"

"It's not my fault the guards are stupid enough to buy meat from him at the prices he was selling for."

It had taken a while for Aleya to barter with the extremely stubborn butcher, who had been exaggerating the worth of the cuts he was selling for the last few days. Boren was no good at bartering, he showed his emotions too easily, and was not as good as Aleya with numbers.

"And it's not my fault that you were stupid enough to let them use you as a human punching bag."

Boren stopped walking and Aleya looked up at him, pausing too. His face quickly reddened with a combination of anger and embarrassment and Aleya raised a single eyebrow tauntingly. Boren breathed out a chuckle at her innocent expression, and Aleya smiled. She picked a leaf out of his hair and tested the welt on his cheek, making him wince again.

"Ow!"

"Sorry." She smiled up at him again before shifting the basket she was carrying into both hands and they both continued home.

By the time they arrived at the farmhouse, it was growing dark, and Margareta stood, silhouetted in the doorway by the light inside the house. Her hands rested on her hips, and her mouth was pulled into a frustrated frown. She eyed the quickly forming bruises around Boren's eye and mouth, and Aleya's tired expression, and her eyes narrowed with annoyance. Aleya heard Boren sigh with resignation beside her. She stifled a giggle but could not keep the amusement from pulling the corners of her mouth up slightly. She tried to straighten her face quickly before Margareta noticed. Once they had sat down inside, Boren winced as he held a damp cloth to his face, while Margareta gave him a decent scolding. Aleya sat beside him, her head lowered as well. She wondered which Boren found more painful, the bruises, or the reprimand. Though she thought his actions were quite foolish, she was touched that he would jump to her defence without thinking. She fingered the steel medallion she always wore, tied to a ribbon around her neck. With her other hand, she reached for Boren's hand under the table and squeezed it in reassurance. With her eyes still lowered, she did not see the slight flush that spread across Boren's face as he struggled to keep his features neutral.