Tales of Avalon: The Maid and the Falcon

✧ Chapter 21: Sincerity ✧

Peregrine woke with a shock.  When did I fall asleep?  She hadn't meant to sleep at all, planning instead to practice with the dancing knife and try to get a better picture of whatever it was she'd seen in the night.  And yet sleep had crept up on her, ignoring her use of refreshment magic and landing her on a warped wood floor with her head resting on her arm.

What... was that?  Her dreams had been full of a spinning ring of ghostly light, filled with spokes and shapes.  It was clearly made for magic.  Was it the thing I saw last night?  That ring, those spokes, and the one that she had seen going right under her feet for a fraction of a second in the street the night before....  If it was a nightmare, it was the strangest one she'd had since leaving Avalon.

Peregrine sat up, shoving a large, thin cloth to the side.  When was I covered by that?  It didn't seem to have any magic woven into it, so she probably had no reason to worry, but she didn't like the fact that someone had managed to not only creep up on her but also cover her with a sheet without disturbing her.

"It looks like you're awake.  Aya, some dream you must have had."

Peregrine looked over to see her host cutting some sort of long green pod that oozed a thick, gelatinous juice.

"Ah... I think I might have.  I don't remember."

"It is a dream.  They vanish.  But, aya, you were tossing and shouting until I gave you a sheet.  I hope you slept well afterward, at least."

Peregrine sighed and rubbed her forehead.  "I don't know."  She wasn't sure she remembered what sleeping well should feel like.  That's what comes of relying on restoration magic.

"Well, if you've nothing to do today, you could always rest longer.  I'm considering taking a day off myself."

"Shaken up?"

"Aya!  Of course I am.  I don't like to be trapped between two suspicious people."

Peregrine felt her eyebrows rising.  "Well, I know what you think of me now."

"You–"  Tena closed her mouth resolutely and began furiously chopping the green pod.  "What should I think when someone in a cloak keeps following me late in the day?"

Peregrine sighed, feeling significant regret.  "That's right.  I'd forgotten about that, I suppose.  I'm... sorry."

After a particularly forceful chop, Tena seemed to droop slightly.  "You're not used to it, I'm sure.  Look at you.  Money from your cloak to your boots, magic or battle training or whatever it is you used... you have nothing to be afraid of.  Ever."

Peregrine found herself staring at her hands.  "That isn't true.  There are some people...."  Her voice faded away as she thought of the Queen of Avalon.

"Aya, it's no good for someone like me to worry about those kinds of people.  By the time I know they're there, I'll likely be dead.  No, I worry about hooded people following me in alleys."

"I..."  Peregrine sighed, shaking off the memories.  "I think we all have our own nightmares."  She looked up.  "I'm sorry that I scared you.  I just thought... I thought you would go to a large street where I could find an inn."

"You–"  Her host sighed, rubbing her forehead.  "Aya, you're a walking disaster.  If Evak comes by, you need to disappear and let me do the talking."

Irritated, Peregrine opened her mouth to fire back and stopped abruptly.  She knows nothing about me.  To her, Evak is stronger than I am, and she has a lot on the line.  This little house, warping a bit but neatly patched and kept beautifully clean, the vegetables with a few bad spots that her host was expertly removing without wasting a scrap of good food in the process, the thin sheet that, now that she looked at it, was neatly and expertly mended in several places, all suggested great pride in this simple home.  Of course.  This is her home, and they can take it away from her.