Keeping the ball rolling.
So I'm gaining just the littlest amount of confidence in my story. I had to edit the ages to better match the way Tonto behaves, and I took out the entire first part about how he was born. I edited his mother into telling him the important parts. So there is a small chance that some of the upcoming story may seem redundant, or contrary to something that I've posted already.
“Yes, he would have to be at least part dragon, and part elf to be a werewyvern.” Silence fell over the group as they looked at Tonto.
This was much more than Tonto could even have imagined all those times when he wondered what was wrong with him. He thought about them while he sat there with his face hidden in his hands. Now he knew exactly what it was that made him different, and let him do the things he did, but it only made things more complicated. He had men searching for him, and he didn’t know what they wanted. He could never go home because his entire town hated him, and were afraid of him. When no one made any comment, Tonto let his head fall the rest of the way to the table. Here he was fourteen years old and running for his life. All because he had mixed blood? Historically elves and dragons hated and killed each other; yet had somehow found a way to make peace. More recently humans had driven a wedge into that peace, and had gotten both sides to fight again. Tonto had to be at least half human, but that left him half mixed between elf and dragon. He slowly lifted his head and looked at the soothsayer. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t understand; what do you mean?” Tuatha genuinely looked confused.
“I can’t keep running from town to town and city to city. I don’t want to wait around and see what the Paladins have planned for me. I can’t stay in Andrastir, but I don’t know where I should go.” He leaned back as he continued. “I can’t go to Fėinbaile, what few elves are left would kill me instantly because I’m human. Kurdan would be equally as dangerous; the dragons would never let anyone with elf blood live there.” Tonto trailed off.
“Isn’t it obvious, you have to find out if there are still werewyverns in the mountains up there.” Phoebe stated.
“Yes, but how? I can’t just go wandering through Kurdan. I’ll be killed.” Tonto hung his head again. “No matter what I decide to do, someone will be trying to kill me.”
The silence that followed was short lived. Sedgwick started chuckling. “It seems to me you have the perfect cover. You can change into whatever you want to be, and anyone that wants you dead would have no way of knowing about it.”
“This is true, the only ones that know anything about what you can truly do, are right here in this carriage.” Tuatha chimed in.
“No, it’s not, everyone in Wistria knows. I changed right there in front of them while they were trying to kill me.”
“Maybe, but they don’t know you can change into anything else, and they aren’t talking to anyone. I should know I tried to talk to them already.” Tuatha shrugged a little as he spoke.
“I can travel with you like we talked about.” Nye finally chimed in. “I can keep working on teaching you things, and soon you will have the knowledge to defend yourself against anyone who might try to kill you. Not to mention the fact that most of them, have no idea where you might be planning on going.”
Tonto sat and considered Nye’s offer to keep traveling. It was a pretty good idea. No one would suspect a couple of fey headed back home to the mountains of Kurdan. Nye would be able to teach him so many new things, and together they had enough power to face anything they might meet, shy of an actual dragon. “Alright; I think that is the best idea, and if you’re willing to go Nye, so much the better.”
“Well, as long as you’re headed up toward Kurdan, I might be able to give you a ride. I was planning on heading out of town tomorrow.” Sedgwick straightened in his seat.
Phoebe immediately perked up. “Can we go? Please, Nye?”
Nye and Tonto exchanged glances, and Tonto answered. “I don’t mind a ride, since you’re offering. Frankly it would be nice to travel in the company of friends.”
“It’s settled then. I suggest we get some rest before we start our journey.”
“Not me; I’m not trekking through those mountains, I’ll try and find out more about werewyverns.” Tuatha departed.
The following morning Phoebe found Nye and Tonto sleeping under the cart. It was early, and the market square was barely waking up. She began breaking down the crates of wares scattered around the stall where they had set up. If they planned on going anywhere, she would need to get everything packed up. She had already rearranged the sitting area inside. She had flipped the table sideways and removed the legs opening up the space needed to repack the remaining wares that were still at the stall. The crates that were behind the stand were the easiest to pack up, so she began there.
Nye was sleeping soundly, but Tonto was barely resting. He was worried about changing back into himself. The fey was tiny compared to the dragon, but Tonto was still concerned that it might take too much energy. He woke up and rolled out from under the cart. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to get things packed up early so we can get out of here sooner rather than later.” Phoebe replied.
“Can I help?” Tonto walked over to the area where she was working.
“Right, because you can do so much at that size.” Her laugh was ironic. “There’s a reason I mostly stay human sized around the cart.”
Tonto kicked the side of the stall in frustration. “I wonder how far I’ll have to go before I can be myself.”
“I don’t think you can ever be yourself, but in a very short amount of time, you could learn to be anyone else.” Phoebe lifted a crate to the door of the carriage. “Tell you what, if you keep the curtain there, I can pass boxes through, and you can arrange them inside. It should also give you a bit of a chance to rest.”
“Works for me.” Tonto let Phoebe lift him to the back, where he promptly changed to himself. “Where’s Sedgwick?”
“He’s still sleeping.”
The two worked in silence for a while, with Phoebe packing crates, and Tonto waiting for her to pass them off to him. She worked quickly, but the task was a long one. Having Tonto arranging the inside did cut back on the time, but there was little chance that they would be moving out before noon. It wasn’t long before the other stalls and shops had opened, and there were people starting to begin to shop.
“Hey, Phoebe; Sedgwick said something about meeting you in the mountains. He said there was an accident and that’s how you met?” Tonto had pulled the curtain back and was leaning on the edge of the cart.
“Yeah, it was about a year after Nye left to start adventuring. We got to be pretty close growing up, and I was getting bored up there without him. I decided that I was going on an adventure of my own. It didn’t work that well, because two days after I headed out I almost got run over by Sedgwick’s cart. I scared him pretty bad, and he tried to swerve around me, and he ended up running right off the road. There was a ditch, and when he went off the cart rolled over. He ended up getting pretty banged up; broke his arm and lost a lot of his wares.” Phoebe plopped a crate on the back of the cart. “I felt so bad; I wanted to help him to make up for it. I got the adventure I wanted, and paid him back in the process.”
“So then why the chain?” Tonto poked his head back out of the carriage.
Phoebe chuckled as she carried another crate over. “I got so excited when we arrived at the first town, I ran off to explore, and I left him trying to set up his stall all alone. When I came back that night, he had barely moved half the crates out that we’ve already put in. I decided that I wasn’t going to let that happen again so I chained myself to the cart.”
“Oh, I see.” Tonto let the curtain fall back over the door.
They continued to work until Sedgwick awoke and helped with the outside packing. Things really picked up speed after that, and between the two of them Tonto was kept busy running back and forth. There was so much movement and noise that they quickly woke Nye, who began helping as well. With all of them working they were able to finish packing up quickly.
“Alright, now that we have that packed, I have to grab the food provisions for our trip.” Sedgwick turned back toward the stall. “Anyone want to come with me?”
“I’ll go.” Nye volunteered
“I’m going to try and take a nap in the cart.” Tonto crawled back around the crates. “I didn’t get very much sleep last night.” He called out.
“I’m just going to stay here too.” Phoebe walked over to the now completely cleared stall, and sat on top of it. Sedgwick and Nye set off across the market square, leaving her sitting there. For a short time she watched as they made their way around the stalls and shops, but as they drew farther away, her interest in them diminished. There were plenty of people wandering through the market, but not nearly as many as had been the previous day. In a very short amount of time she spotted two of the Paladins, slowly making their way from vender to vender, still looking for Tonto. She watched closely as they split up one starting to go into all the shops, and the third made his way to the place where she sat.
The Paladin walked up to the stall holding the key and broken chain from around Phoebe’s neck. He stopped when he saw her sitting there. “Oh, I guess you don’t need this anymore.” He placed it on the stall beside her.
Phoebe barely acknowledged that he was there. She didn’t know why he would bother coming back to the stall after they left last night. They would have seen that she was no longer tied up when they left. Although, this was the Paladin that stayed outside when they were there, she didn’t know if he had come back after she went in through the window. What was his name?
“I’m really sorry about the whole thing last night. My boss really needs to find this boy, and the rest of the guys take their jobs too seriously. I really didn’t want to go to the extremes that they took last night, but I couldn’t stop them.” He leaned against the stall. “How did you manage to get free anyway?”
Realizing that ignoring him wasn’t going to work anymore, Phoebe turned and glared at him. “My cousin broke the chain.” She immediately looked away, and pretended to ignore him again. Conwell; that was the name they had said when they were talking about him.
“Oh.” He barely noticed the look she gave him. “My boss says this boy is very dangerous, so we have to find him before he starts hurting people. Frankly I don’t see how a mere boy could do that much, but he seems so sure. Tuvin wants to please him so much that he went back to the last town we saw the boy in. He plans on getting a good description and bringing another one of our guys up here.”
Phoebe watched a mother lead her daughter away from a stall filled with dolls. Why was he trying to talk to her, and why would he be telling her these things?
Conwell reached down and grabbed a pebble. “I never should have become one of them.” He barely whispered it, but he looked around quickly. When he was sure that no one else had heard he commented. “You got everything packed up; are you leaving town?”
Once again Phoebe glared at him. How could he be so oblivious? “Would you stay?”
“No, I guess not; not after what we did last night.” The man stared at the ground.
Phoebe’s face softened as she looked at the Paladin. He clearly didn’t want to be part of what had happened, yet his job would not allow him to say no. It had to be hard being a human. So few of them were born with any magic, and if they were there was really only one choice for them. Paladins. There were a few who refused to join, but they were never allowed to learn anything. Anyone caught teaching magic, which was not a Paladin, would be sentenced to death. She didn’t know much about the Paladins other than that they were the king’s elite. From what she had actually seen they seemed to be very independent of the king. They took many things into their own hands, and worked outside the laws that citizens were forced to follow. Phoebe knew from experience that most of the time Paladins left other magic users like, the fey, and an occasional dwarf alone, but there were times like last night where they would come in two’s and three’s, and had the confidence to work against an outsider. A sudden thump in the carriage brought Phoebe back from her thoughts. Tonto was still in there, and now one of the men looking for him was standing right outside the door.
Before Phoebe could warn him not to, Tonto pulled the curtain aside to come out.
The Paladin who had heard the noise turned to see who was exiting the cart.
Tonto, who had just woken from a short but refreshing nap, had stepped out onto the top step without thinking. He looked over to see the horror on Phoebe’s face and find the Paladin staring at him.
The three of them all stared in silence for a minute or two, and then Conwell spoke. “I know you.” The tension brought on by just those three words was undeniable. “You’re the little fey from last night.”
Tonto stepped down the rest of the way, relieved that he hadn’t been recognized for who he was. “Good morning, sir.” Tonto walked over to the table where Phoebe was sitting.
“Oh; your cousin!” Understanding flashed across the man’s face. “You must be the one who broke that chain. Sorry about that, we wanted to make sure that no one interfered in our business.”
More than anything Phoebe just wanted the man to leave. There were way too many things that could go wrong with him standing there, and she really wanted to make sure that Tonto stayed safe. She slid down from the table, neatly landing between Tonto and the Paladin. “Well it was nice talking to you.” She turned and began pushing Tonto back to the cart.
“Oh, yeah, thanks. Again I’m sorry about the whole thing last night.” He reluctantly walked back over to where his associate was asking around about the boy they were still looking for.
“Yes, he would have to be at least part dragon, and part elf to be a werewyvern.” Silence fell over the group as they looked at Tonto.
This was much more than Tonto could even have imagined all those times when he wondered what was wrong with him. He thought about them while he sat there with his face hidden in his hands. Now he knew exactly what it was that made him different, and let him do the things he did, but it only made things more complicated. He had men searching for him, and he didn’t know what they wanted. He could never go home because his entire town hated him, and were afraid of him. When no one made any comment, Tonto let his head fall the rest of the way to the table. Here he was fourteen years old and running for his life. All because he had mixed blood? Historically elves and dragons hated and killed each other; yet had somehow found a way to make peace. More recently humans had driven a wedge into that peace, and had gotten both sides to fight again. Tonto had to be at least half human, but that left him half mixed between elf and dragon. He slowly lifted his head and looked at the soothsayer. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t understand; what do you mean?” Tuatha genuinely looked confused.
“I can’t keep running from town to town and city to city. I don’t want to wait around and see what the Paladins have planned for me. I can’t stay in Andrastir, but I don’t know where I should go.” He leaned back as he continued. “I can’t go to Fėinbaile, what few elves are left would kill me instantly because I’m human. Kurdan would be equally as dangerous; the dragons would never let anyone with elf blood live there.” Tonto trailed off.
“Isn’t it obvious, you have to find out if there are still werewyverns in the mountains up there.” Phoebe stated.
“Yes, but how? I can’t just go wandering through Kurdan. I’ll be killed.” Tonto hung his head again. “No matter what I decide to do, someone will be trying to kill me.”
The silence that followed was short lived. Sedgwick started chuckling. “It seems to me you have the perfect cover. You can change into whatever you want to be, and anyone that wants you dead would have no way of knowing about it.”
“This is true, the only ones that know anything about what you can truly do, are right here in this carriage.” Tuatha chimed in.
“No, it’s not, everyone in Wistria knows. I changed right there in front of them while they were trying to kill me.”
“Maybe, but they don’t know you can change into anything else, and they aren’t talking to anyone. I should know I tried to talk to them already.” Tuatha shrugged a little as he spoke.
“I can travel with you like we talked about.” Nye finally chimed in. “I can keep working on teaching you things, and soon you will have the knowledge to defend yourself against anyone who might try to kill you. Not to mention the fact that most of them, have no idea where you might be planning on going.”
Tonto sat and considered Nye’s offer to keep traveling. It was a pretty good idea. No one would suspect a couple of fey headed back home to the mountains of Kurdan. Nye would be able to teach him so many new things, and together they had enough power to face anything they might meet, shy of an actual dragon. “Alright; I think that is the best idea, and if you’re willing to go Nye, so much the better.”
“Well, as long as you’re headed up toward Kurdan, I might be able to give you a ride. I was planning on heading out of town tomorrow.” Sedgwick straightened in his seat.
Phoebe immediately perked up. “Can we go? Please, Nye?”
Nye and Tonto exchanged glances, and Tonto answered. “I don’t mind a ride, since you’re offering. Frankly it would be nice to travel in the company of friends.”
“It’s settled then. I suggest we get some rest before we start our journey.”
“Not me; I’m not trekking through those mountains, I’ll try and find out more about werewyverns.” Tuatha departed.
The following morning Phoebe found Nye and Tonto sleeping under the cart. It was early, and the market square was barely waking up. She began breaking down the crates of wares scattered around the stall where they had set up. If they planned on going anywhere, she would need to get everything packed up. She had already rearranged the sitting area inside. She had flipped the table sideways and removed the legs opening up the space needed to repack the remaining wares that were still at the stall. The crates that were behind the stand were the easiest to pack up, so she began there.
Nye was sleeping soundly, but Tonto was barely resting. He was worried about changing back into himself. The fey was tiny compared to the dragon, but Tonto was still concerned that it might take too much energy. He woke up and rolled out from under the cart. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to get things packed up early so we can get out of here sooner rather than later.” Phoebe replied.
“Can I help?” Tonto walked over to the area where she was working.
“Right, because you can do so much at that size.” Her laugh was ironic. “There’s a reason I mostly stay human sized around the cart.”
Tonto kicked the side of the stall in frustration. “I wonder how far I’ll have to go before I can be myself.”
“I don’t think you can ever be yourself, but in a very short amount of time, you could learn to be anyone else.” Phoebe lifted a crate to the door of the carriage. “Tell you what, if you keep the curtain there, I can pass boxes through, and you can arrange them inside. It should also give you a bit of a chance to rest.”
“Works for me.” Tonto let Phoebe lift him to the back, where he promptly changed to himself. “Where’s Sedgwick?”
“He’s still sleeping.”
The two worked in silence for a while, with Phoebe packing crates, and Tonto waiting for her to pass them off to him. She worked quickly, but the task was a long one. Having Tonto arranging the inside did cut back on the time, but there was little chance that they would be moving out before noon. It wasn’t long before the other stalls and shops had opened, and there were people starting to begin to shop.
“Hey, Phoebe; Sedgwick said something about meeting you in the mountains. He said there was an accident and that’s how you met?” Tonto had pulled the curtain back and was leaning on the edge of the cart.
“Yeah, it was about a year after Nye left to start adventuring. We got to be pretty close growing up, and I was getting bored up there without him. I decided that I was going on an adventure of my own. It didn’t work that well, because two days after I headed out I almost got run over by Sedgwick’s cart. I scared him pretty bad, and he tried to swerve around me, and he ended up running right off the road. There was a ditch, and when he went off the cart rolled over. He ended up getting pretty banged up; broke his arm and lost a lot of his wares.” Phoebe plopped a crate on the back of the cart. “I felt so bad; I wanted to help him to make up for it. I got the adventure I wanted, and paid him back in the process.”
“So then why the chain?” Tonto poked his head back out of the carriage.
Phoebe chuckled as she carried another crate over. “I got so excited when we arrived at the first town, I ran off to explore, and I left him trying to set up his stall all alone. When I came back that night, he had barely moved half the crates out that we’ve already put in. I decided that I wasn’t going to let that happen again so I chained myself to the cart.”
“Oh, I see.” Tonto let the curtain fall back over the door.
They continued to work until Sedgwick awoke and helped with the outside packing. Things really picked up speed after that, and between the two of them Tonto was kept busy running back and forth. There was so much movement and noise that they quickly woke Nye, who began helping as well. With all of them working they were able to finish packing up quickly.
“Alright, now that we have that packed, I have to grab the food provisions for our trip.” Sedgwick turned back toward the stall. “Anyone want to come with me?”
“I’ll go.” Nye volunteered
“I’m going to try and take a nap in the cart.” Tonto crawled back around the crates. “I didn’t get very much sleep last night.” He called out.
“I’m just going to stay here too.” Phoebe walked over to the now completely cleared stall, and sat on top of it. Sedgwick and Nye set off across the market square, leaving her sitting there. For a short time she watched as they made their way around the stalls and shops, but as they drew farther away, her interest in them diminished. There were plenty of people wandering through the market, but not nearly as many as had been the previous day. In a very short amount of time she spotted two of the Paladins, slowly making their way from vender to vender, still looking for Tonto. She watched closely as they split up one starting to go into all the shops, and the third made his way to the place where she sat.
The Paladin walked up to the stall holding the key and broken chain from around Phoebe’s neck. He stopped when he saw her sitting there. “Oh, I guess you don’t need this anymore.” He placed it on the stall beside her.
Phoebe barely acknowledged that he was there. She didn’t know why he would bother coming back to the stall after they left last night. They would have seen that she was no longer tied up when they left. Although, this was the Paladin that stayed outside when they were there, she didn’t know if he had come back after she went in through the window. What was his name?
“I’m really sorry about the whole thing last night. My boss really needs to find this boy, and the rest of the guys take their jobs too seriously. I really didn’t want to go to the extremes that they took last night, but I couldn’t stop them.” He leaned against the stall. “How did you manage to get free anyway?”
Realizing that ignoring him wasn’t going to work anymore, Phoebe turned and glared at him. “My cousin broke the chain.” She immediately looked away, and pretended to ignore him again. Conwell; that was the name they had said when they were talking about him.
“Oh.” He barely noticed the look she gave him. “My boss says this boy is very dangerous, so we have to find him before he starts hurting people. Frankly I don’t see how a mere boy could do that much, but he seems so sure. Tuvin wants to please him so much that he went back to the last town we saw the boy in. He plans on getting a good description and bringing another one of our guys up here.”
Phoebe watched a mother lead her daughter away from a stall filled with dolls. Why was he trying to talk to her, and why would he be telling her these things?
Conwell reached down and grabbed a pebble. “I never should have become one of them.” He barely whispered it, but he looked around quickly. When he was sure that no one else had heard he commented. “You got everything packed up; are you leaving town?”
Once again Phoebe glared at him. How could he be so oblivious? “Would you stay?”
“No, I guess not; not after what we did last night.” The man stared at the ground.
Phoebe’s face softened as she looked at the Paladin. He clearly didn’t want to be part of what had happened, yet his job would not allow him to say no. It had to be hard being a human. So few of them were born with any magic, and if they were there was really only one choice for them. Paladins. There were a few who refused to join, but they were never allowed to learn anything. Anyone caught teaching magic, which was not a Paladin, would be sentenced to death. She didn’t know much about the Paladins other than that they were the king’s elite. From what she had actually seen they seemed to be very independent of the king. They took many things into their own hands, and worked outside the laws that citizens were forced to follow. Phoebe knew from experience that most of the time Paladins left other magic users like, the fey, and an occasional dwarf alone, but there were times like last night where they would come in two’s and three’s, and had the confidence to work against an outsider. A sudden thump in the carriage brought Phoebe back from her thoughts. Tonto was still in there, and now one of the men looking for him was standing right outside the door.
Before Phoebe could warn him not to, Tonto pulled the curtain aside to come out.
The Paladin who had heard the noise turned to see who was exiting the cart.
Tonto, who had just woken from a short but refreshing nap, had stepped out onto the top step without thinking. He looked over to see the horror on Phoebe’s face and find the Paladin staring at him.
The three of them all stared in silence for a minute or two, and then Conwell spoke. “I know you.” The tension brought on by just those three words was undeniable. “You’re the little fey from last night.”
Tonto stepped down the rest of the way, relieved that he hadn’t been recognized for who he was. “Good morning, sir.” Tonto walked over to the table where Phoebe was sitting.
“Oh; your cousin!” Understanding flashed across the man’s face. “You must be the one who broke that chain. Sorry about that, we wanted to make sure that no one interfered in our business.”
More than anything Phoebe just wanted the man to leave. There were way too many things that could go wrong with him standing there, and she really wanted to make sure that Tonto stayed safe. She slid down from the table, neatly landing between Tonto and the Paladin. “Well it was nice talking to you.” She turned and began pushing Tonto back to the cart.
“Oh, yeah, thanks. Again I’m sorry about the whole thing last night.” He reluctantly walked back over to where his associate was asking around about the boy they were still looking for.