Silent Symphony

Chapter Twenty-One (Part 1): Right, It Was the Cow

"Eli, you look like that donkey trampled on your face. Be still and let me have a look at it," Aldyth murmured as we made our way back into town. Both of us had lost any will we had to explore, but Taurus's pouch still weighed heavily in the back of my belt. Though all we wanted was to go back to the Hollowed Trunk and collapse for the remainder of the night; there was still a plethora of supplies we would need before we left for the woods tomorrow. The wind nipped at my face with a painful poke to my jaw. That Simon kid had gotten me good, and if the cold continued on the way it was, the bottom half of my skull would start cracking under the snaps and resets of my shivers.

"I'm fine, leave it," I shooed Aldyth off as we made our way to end of the main road and ducked inside a little shop.

"There's something strange about all this," she sighed as the warm air warped around us like a warm hug.

"Can I help you?" A voice asked from somewhere behind us.

I turned around to find a medium skinned, middle aged man strolling in from a back room. As with everyone else in the town, he was subtly armed, with guarded eyes that wondered if we had the ill of heart to start attacking his children. His gazed flitted between the two of us before coming to a rest on me. "Were you attacked by the cow?" He asked wearily, as if it were the most common question in the world.

"Yes he was," Aldyth answered in my stead. "Such a savage beast it was too."

"I would be lying if I said it didn't attack every new person who walked into this place," the store owner muttered before disappearing into the back room again. He returned a minute later with a damp cloth, which he passed over to me with great care. "Well, welcome to Hbéakut, the only township in the Confederacy whose motto is Cardil for, 'We can't kill the one sick cow.'"

"Ladia di a ve, morré kia!" The two of us all but leaped out of our boots as little midget jumped out from behind a bookshelf, swinging around a wooden pole in a rather crazed manner. Aldyth and I both scampered several steps back, only to find that midget wasn't a midget at all, but rather, a young child; a girl, with blond hair and blue eyes that were guaranteed to break many hearts some day.

"Whoa!" The shop owner whipped out of the way before the girl could smack him with the pole. "Cwenlin! Have caution, child. There are guests here!"

"But fatherrr! I've been practicing! Watch!" She spun the pole around and knocked a book off a table. Aldyth and I shared a nervous look, but we couldn't back up anymore without running into the wall.

"Cwen!" He scooped her up carefully and disarmed her of her plaything before she could dismantle the entire store.

"Do you think I'll be chosen for the South -- "

The girl was somewhere in the middle of her sentence when the father interrupted her. "I think that's enough practicing for tonight, honey. Why don't you go introduce yourself to our nice guests?"

The child twisted around in her father's arms and shot us a wide grin. She was missing one of her front teeth and there was a stain on the front of her dress. "My name is Cwen! And I'm going to be a guardian one day!"

Her father laughed lightly and set the girl back down on her feet. "Off to bed with you, before you wake up the entire town."

"Story first!" She demanded.

"Wash your face and put on your nightdress and I'll be there soon," he promised as he shooed her off. Cwen waved back at us cheerfully before dashing off to the back room again in scamper of little feet. For a moment there was silence as the three of us listened to the child's footsteps fade away. Finally the owner leaned over to pick the book off the ground and address us. "So then, what can I do for you folks?"

"Oh, um, we're looking for winter clothes, if you can spare them," Aldyth spoke, running her finger slowly over the top of a wooden table.

"Ah, I thought you two seemed a might underdressed," he smiled at us with a kindness that seemed nonexistent in the rest of the town. The hidden suspicion buried in his warm brown eyes seemed to glimmer away as if he were tired of not trusting people. He looked around before disappearing into the back room, which was the only door besides that main.

Aldyth sat down in a low chair with a sigh before shifting her eyes around the room curiously. "Nice kid he has," she laughed under her breath as if she didn't mean it at all.

"Yeah, she seems very nice...ambitious as well," I replied and sat down on the floor by her feet, or at least I tried to sit, but as soon as my legs started bending, I found that I couldn't support my weight any longer.

Aldyth laughed as I toppled to the floor, and very nearly took a coat rack down with me. "Are you alright, Eli?" She asked between laughed.

"Just don't push me off anymore cliffs, okay? And I think I'll be alright." I meant to say it as a joke, really. One could hardly blame a person for an accident, even if it was a rather reckless accident at that, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, her face grew stormy like it a was reminder of her life's most tragic sin.

"It was not intentional, Eli...you know that, right?"

"Of course I know that," I rolled my eyes. "I've known you all my life. You've gotten me thrown off of horses --"

"That was your own fault."

" -- and thrown into the line of flaming arrows --"

"You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"-- And that time we fell into that cave full of venomous spiders -- "

My ramblings appeared to work their magic; she cracked a smile. "I'm pretty sure you were the one who got me into that cave."

"Whatever," I waved it off. "The point is. We've been worse off. I mean why would I be mad at you for pushing me off a cliff?"

A/N
that guy up there is a pretty inaccurate picture of Taurus. I'm having a cover contest for this book, check out the Contest-SS chapter in Valiente if interested.