"Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run"
Title: Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
Author: Rissy James
Characters: Cain, DG, Glitch, Raw, Tutor (includes other major and minor characters)
Pairing: Cain/DG
Rating: 14+ (subject to change)
Summary: The fade to black was merely the blink of an eye. Respite for only seconds. After all, the road is long.
Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
When Last We Met:The five heroes, DG and Tutor in the lead and Cain following reluctantly behind, have begun their northward progress. With the very near possibility of Lavender succumbing before they return, they hurry to the villages of the Eastern Guild, hoping against hope that the elders may be able to set them on the path to finding the 'good witch', Glinda.
Chapter Fifteen: Byvasser and Beyond
Cain could hear the rush of the Guiding River. It was a part of life in Byvasser, the constant presence of the river that had taken the millennia to carve its way through the land, cutting the gorge deep and wide. A short walk through the woods on the north end of the village would lead straight to the southern ridge of the Crack in the O.Z.
A nice little place, and not at all abandoned, as had been a concern. They had made good time and arrived before the rising of the first sun, just as the darkness on the horizon began to give way to grey. To their advantage, there was no one on the street to see their arrival, but for a lone lawman on patrol with his dog.
The inn was nothing impressive, but there was delight on DG's tired face, and the zipperhead's, too.
Two rooms, three platinum. Just the day, yes, he's sure, just the day. Yes, she does look a bit like the princess, doesn't she? Hear that one a lot.
Sleep was an old friend, one that had remained ever the same over the annuals. The warm embrace of a few good hours, he remembered it well; as was the way of things, it was never fully appreciated. When he awoke, eyes burning in protest, he was sore from the night's tense ride. That ache in his shoulders, another old friend. He wouldn't be lonely on this trip, that was for damned sure.
He was careful about getting up, and it wasn't to favour his shoulders; his false awakening by Lavender's hand two days past had him playing it all very cautiously. Whether or not her words had held any meaning, he'd yet to figure out - not for lack of trying. He wasn't up to the challenge of unravelling that woman's half truths, especially conveyed by her unconventional means. A dream, after all, could just be a dream; he'd rather his own crazy over hers.
Still, it wasn't something easily dismissed.
"She cannot go back."
The farthest thing from DG's mind now, returning to Central City. Best to think on that just now, wasn't it?
It was on this endeavour that Cain concentrated his efforts while the others slept on in the rented beds at the inn. He didn't envy them their peace or their slumber; their waking hours were just as plagued as his, and he wished them all the reprieve that blissful unconsciousness could provide.
The fresh air outside was all the reprieve he needed for himself. The afternoon was cool; the sky had clouded over, turned a pale, imperfect white. No more peculiar than a lifetime of afternoons that had come before, but somehow this one stood out; not the sky or the wind or even the continuous rush of the river beyond. Nothing in him could pinpoint the difference, just a sense and no true knowing.
It had been a long, long time since he'd risen not knowing what the waking hours would bring. Once upon, he'd been condemned to spend the remainder of his days stark still on his feet, watching over and over as everything he'd ever known was destroyed by his own failure to protect his family. His release had been the miracle he'd never allowed himself to hope for; the week that had followed still brought about a sense of surrealism, and the memory of a deep-seated numbness blurring his peripheries.
There couldn't be harm in living in this moment; almost, it brought a smile to his face. Almost.
The walk through the village was one he had taken a hundred times before, on a hundred little dirt-tracks masquerading as main streets from one end of the Zone to the other and back again. There was nothing here - nothing - to make it stand out in his mind, but it was with a twinging sense of familiarity that he made his way to the general store on the north end, near the woods that separated the village proper from the precarious ridge. There was nothing to make him stand out, but he did; stranger in a small town couldn't go unnoticed for long. Off the route and south of the gorge, the people here probably didn't see many travellers. No stares, though, no whispers either; an intrigued glance, perhaps, was the worst of it he saw. Outside of Central, he was nigh on unrecognisable, just a nameless face, and he counted that as a blessing; the first of many, he hoped.
He was able to provision their group to the best of his ability; the cash to fund it all, he'd never bothered to ask where it came from. There'd be a seemingly never-ending supply of platinum, he was certain. The notes had found their way into his hands from Glitch, from Tutor, and that was good enough for him.
The merchant behind the counter was gristled and unkempt but he knew his trade, and in the end Cain walked away feeling that he hadn't been ripped off an inordinate amount for this far off the route. There was no delivery boy; instead, Cain found himself being accompanied to the stable by the merchant's daughter, a sweet blonde thing around his son's age that didn't seem to mind being used as a pack-mule. She was cautious in his presence, her father seemed to have taught her that much, all shy eyes and fleeting smiles as she followed dutifully after him.
"So where're you heading, mister?"
"Out east for a few days," he said. He motioned for her to set the supplies down just inside the open drive-bay doors. The stable-master was nowhere in sight.
"You sure are brave."
He glanced back at the girl; she was dusting her hands off on her skirt. "How's that."
"I heard stories of settlers getting scalped out that way. My pa says -"
Cain cut her off, holding up a hand and giving her a hard look. She promptly shut up, pursing her lips in a way that DG might have, reminding him all too clearly how young yet the princess was. Sighing at this wayward thought, giving it a shake out of his head, he eased up a bit on the girl.
"Thing about the Eastern Guild," he said, "is that they like to puff up their feathers to make themselves look threatening. Truth be told, kid, it wouldn't take even a little thing like you more than five minutes to outrun a whole hunting party."
He wondered if that one bold-faced lie to this girl would send him to hell. She was right to be afraid, and her father was right to warn her. The bloodthirsty little vultures of the east weren't too kind to trespassers, and he was sure down to his marrow that blonde little girls were no exception.
She was smiling at him. Damn it.
"What's your name, kid?" he asked.
"Devolah."
"Here," he said, and dug two platinum notes out of the billfold Glitch had stuffed into his hands while they were still in Finaqua. "Thanks for the help."
She started to shake her head.
"Just do me one favour, would you? Stay the hell out of the east."
The girl - Devolah - reached out a tentative hand and took the money. "Thank you, sir. I will." She backed out of the stable, knocking a shoulder into the frame before turning on her heel and disappearing.
Cain hung his head, letting loose a low whistle before brushing the whole thing off and setting himself to what needed doing. Work was an honest distraction, one that had always proved blissfully successful for him. There was no time to think about the skimp of a girl who'd reminded him too wholly of DG, let alone for his thoughts to meander down that path to places he normally forced them away from. He thought only of rope and kerosene, bedrolls and food and canteens.
He'd managed to have everything packed by the time Raw and DG came looking for him; he was just paying up the stable-master when the familiar voices and shuffling feet approached.
"There you are."
"Where else was I gonna be?" he asked. His eyes were met with a brighter blue than he'd expected, though there were shadows under her eyes, and a paleness to her cheeks that made him think twice - almost immediately, much to his dismay - about how hard and far he'd planned on pushing today.
She didn't answer him; some point or another, she was going to have to. He could wait.
Once upon a time.
He knew that story by heart. Fanciful fairy stories for mothers to tell their sons, tuck them into bed with visions of divine protection keeping the darkness at bay.
'She watches over you,' the mother would say to her owl-eyed boy peeking out from under the covers. 'She watches over all of us. We are safe in her arms.'
Guardian, goddess, all magic and warmth and light.
His mother had told him the stories. Adora had told them to Jeb. Perhaps even Lavender had whispered them to DG in some far-off palace room, little girl so small in a bed too big. Lavender's mother before her. Every generation of Gale.
For every goodness, there is wickedness in return. For every light that shines, there is a darkness to fight back. One cannot exist without the other. These were the lessons of his father, the cynic, the disbeliever. He'd never put faith into the stories that his wife had whispered to their son and daughter - no, he'd never put faith in much at all. The man - his hard and human father - never lived to see vindication. His wife had not lived to see such destruction, to see the Darkness overtake the Light. Both of his parents, dead before the war. Sister scattered to the wind; if she'd lived, he hoped she'd gotten out of the O.Z. He didn't search for her; coward that he was, afraid of the truth. If there was a cold patch of earth with his baby sister buried underneath, he hoped never to lay eyes on it.
They'd all lost. Family, friends, homes, brains... it didn't matter, because the emptiness rang true and deep and clear inside all of them. It bound them together in ways Cain had never thought possible, but then, he'd never had friends such as these. He watched them all as they rode ahead of him in single file.
Raw, who'd healed his wounds even knowing that the Tin Man would have left him in the Papay fields to die; Glitch, who'd dragged him off the ice where he'd have surely died of exposure; and DG... DG who had opened the suit against all common sense, trusting when however many others had passed by the homestead over the annuals, scared off by Adora's pleading, her screams.
He'd have turned and left. He would have told himself, 'not my problem'. He would have kept walking.
Not DG.
Complicated ties, criss-crossed and knotted, wrapped around their wrists and knees and necks, locking them together. It should be no surprise, least of all to him, that they were out here; caught between the Fields of the Papay and the gorge that cut across the face of the southern province like a jagged scar.
In a few days, when they reached the deepest parts of the forests of the east, so very close to where he'd lost everything - and had found, inexplicably, his second chance at life - when they were lost in the woods, when the Eastern Guild bore down upon them; if, through some miracle, DG gained audience with the elders, what would she learn? What would they all learn?
History, after all, is written by the victors. DG and Glitch, even Tutor who had begun it all, were chasing after a history lesson.
After all, history had never told of such sealed evil as what two little girls stumbled across at Finaqua.
Such were his dark, encompassing thoughts that he did not notice Raw had slowed, and it wasn't until they were side-by-side on the narrow road and there was a sizeable gap in the line that Cain brought his attention back from his own introspections and down to reality where it belonged.
Raw was staring ahead, a content look on his leonine face that almost had Cain envious of such internal peace. Like the calm surface that hides the darkest depths, however, he knew better than to be taken in.
"What are words people say," the Viewer said, as conversationally as he'd ever managed, Cain was quite sure, "about mud and sticks."
Cain raised an eyebrow in confusion but it only took all of ten seconds to work it out. "Did you just call me -"
"Kinder than what DG says."
Cain laughed; an honest to goodness laugh that turned up the corners of his mouth, brought it straight up to his eyes. He could almost say that it hurt to laugh so suddenly, unexpectedly. Or maybe he needed it, and badly. Whatever the reason, whatever the cause, he threw an appreciative smile at Raw, shaking his head.
"DG been talkin' about me, has she?"
It was Raw's turn to shake his head. "Not with words."
"Most people wouldn't like havin' their thoughts eavesdropped on," Cain said, trying mightily to shift some of the blame off his own conscience.
"Not listening," Raw said, "feeling. Different, very different."
"I'm not going to pretend to understand you," Cain said, wanting the conversation to come to an end.
"Won't say, but you do."
Cain grit his teeth hard against a response. There was no arguing with someone who had a feeling what would be said before it was. Even keeping his mouth shut tight was a reply in its own right. It seemed to him that the best way out that didn't involve a bullet to his own skull was a change of course.
"You got any wisdom on how the road's gonna be the next couple of days?"
Raw chuckled, a breathy and inaudible sound; Cain read it more in his face. "Cain wants weather?"
"Among other things."
"Things Raw cannot give."
Cain took a moment to compose himself before responding, though he was sure his frustration radiated hot enough to burn the Viewer that rode beside him. "What can you give me?"
Raw smiled again, though it was a weak and fleeting moment. "Nothing that Raw's to give. Hope or help, every person find these things by own self."
"Then why are we followin' her?" he asked, more harshly than he meant to.
"Love," came Raw's reply, with a shrug of the shoulders that said it was the easiest answer in the world.
What he was afraid of. Could it really be so simple.
Table Of Contents
One - Two - Three - Four - Five
Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten
Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen
Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen - Twenty
Twenty One - Twenty Two - Twenty Three - Twenty Four - Twenty Five
Twenty Six - Twenty Seven - Twenty Eight - Twenty Nine - Thirty
Thirty One - Thirty Two - Thirty Three - Thirty Four - Thirty Five
Thirty Six - Thirty Seven - Thirty Eight - Thirty Nine - Forty
Author: Rissy James
Characters: Cain, DG, Glitch, Raw, Tutor (includes other major and minor characters)
Pairing: Cain/DG
Rating: 14+ (subject to change)
Summary: The fade to black was merely the blink of an eye. Respite for only seconds. After all, the road is long.
Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
When Last We Met:The five heroes, DG and Tutor in the lead and Cain following reluctantly behind, have begun their northward progress. With the very near possibility of Lavender succumbing before they return, they hurry to the villages of the Eastern Guild, hoping against hope that the elders may be able to set them on the path to finding the 'good witch', Glinda.
Chapter Fifteen: Byvasser and Beyond
Cain could hear the rush of the Guiding River. It was a part of life in Byvasser, the constant presence of the river that had taken the millennia to carve its way through the land, cutting the gorge deep and wide. A short walk through the woods on the north end of the village would lead straight to the southern ridge of the Crack in the O.Z.
A nice little place, and not at all abandoned, as had been a concern. They had made good time and arrived before the rising of the first sun, just as the darkness on the horizon began to give way to grey. To their advantage, there was no one on the street to see their arrival, but for a lone lawman on patrol with his dog.
The inn was nothing impressive, but there was delight on DG's tired face, and the zipperhead's, too.
Two rooms, three platinum. Just the day, yes, he's sure, just the day. Yes, she does look a bit like the princess, doesn't she? Hear that one a lot.
Sleep was an old friend, one that had remained ever the same over the annuals. The warm embrace of a few good hours, he remembered it well; as was the way of things, it was never fully appreciated. When he awoke, eyes burning in protest, he was sore from the night's tense ride. That ache in his shoulders, another old friend. He wouldn't be lonely on this trip, that was for damned sure.
He was careful about getting up, and it wasn't to favour his shoulders; his false awakening by Lavender's hand two days past had him playing it all very cautiously. Whether or not her words had held any meaning, he'd yet to figure out - not for lack of trying. He wasn't up to the challenge of unravelling that woman's half truths, especially conveyed by her unconventional means. A dream, after all, could just be a dream; he'd rather his own crazy over hers.
Still, it wasn't something easily dismissed.
"She cannot go back."
The farthest thing from DG's mind now, returning to Central City. Best to think on that just now, wasn't it?
It was on this endeavour that Cain concentrated his efforts while the others slept on in the rented beds at the inn. He didn't envy them their peace or their slumber; their waking hours were just as plagued as his, and he wished them all the reprieve that blissful unconsciousness could provide.
The fresh air outside was all the reprieve he needed for himself. The afternoon was cool; the sky had clouded over, turned a pale, imperfect white. No more peculiar than a lifetime of afternoons that had come before, but somehow this one stood out; not the sky or the wind or even the continuous rush of the river beyond. Nothing in him could pinpoint the difference, just a sense and no true knowing.
It had been a long, long time since he'd risen not knowing what the waking hours would bring. Once upon, he'd been condemned to spend the remainder of his days stark still on his feet, watching over and over as everything he'd ever known was destroyed by his own failure to protect his family. His release had been the miracle he'd never allowed himself to hope for; the week that had followed still brought about a sense of surrealism, and the memory of a deep-seated numbness blurring his peripheries.
There couldn't be harm in living in this moment; almost, it brought a smile to his face. Almost.
The walk through the village was one he had taken a hundred times before, on a hundred little dirt-tracks masquerading as main streets from one end of the Zone to the other and back again. There was nothing here - nothing - to make it stand out in his mind, but it was with a twinging sense of familiarity that he made his way to the general store on the north end, near the woods that separated the village proper from the precarious ridge. There was nothing to make him stand out, but he did; stranger in a small town couldn't go unnoticed for long. Off the route and south of the gorge, the people here probably didn't see many travellers. No stares, though, no whispers either; an intrigued glance, perhaps, was the worst of it he saw. Outside of Central, he was nigh on unrecognisable, just a nameless face, and he counted that as a blessing; the first of many, he hoped.
He was able to provision their group to the best of his ability; the cash to fund it all, he'd never bothered to ask where it came from. There'd be a seemingly never-ending supply of platinum, he was certain. The notes had found their way into his hands from Glitch, from Tutor, and that was good enough for him.
The merchant behind the counter was gristled and unkempt but he knew his trade, and in the end Cain walked away feeling that he hadn't been ripped off an inordinate amount for this far off the route. There was no delivery boy; instead, Cain found himself being accompanied to the stable by the merchant's daughter, a sweet blonde thing around his son's age that didn't seem to mind being used as a pack-mule. She was cautious in his presence, her father seemed to have taught her that much, all shy eyes and fleeting smiles as she followed dutifully after him.
"So where're you heading, mister?"
"Out east for a few days," he said. He motioned for her to set the supplies down just inside the open drive-bay doors. The stable-master was nowhere in sight.
"You sure are brave."
He glanced back at the girl; she was dusting her hands off on her skirt. "How's that."
"I heard stories of settlers getting scalped out that way. My pa says -"
Cain cut her off, holding up a hand and giving her a hard look. She promptly shut up, pursing her lips in a way that DG might have, reminding him all too clearly how young yet the princess was. Sighing at this wayward thought, giving it a shake out of his head, he eased up a bit on the girl.
"Thing about the Eastern Guild," he said, "is that they like to puff up their feathers to make themselves look threatening. Truth be told, kid, it wouldn't take even a little thing like you more than five minutes to outrun a whole hunting party."
He wondered if that one bold-faced lie to this girl would send him to hell. She was right to be afraid, and her father was right to warn her. The bloodthirsty little vultures of the east weren't too kind to trespassers, and he was sure down to his marrow that blonde little girls were no exception.
She was smiling at him. Damn it.
"What's your name, kid?" he asked.
"Devolah."
"Here," he said, and dug two platinum notes out of the billfold Glitch had stuffed into his hands while they were still in Finaqua. "Thanks for the help."
She started to shake her head.
"Just do me one favour, would you? Stay the hell out of the east."
The girl - Devolah - reached out a tentative hand and took the money. "Thank you, sir. I will." She backed out of the stable, knocking a shoulder into the frame before turning on her heel and disappearing.
Cain hung his head, letting loose a low whistle before brushing the whole thing off and setting himself to what needed doing. Work was an honest distraction, one that had always proved blissfully successful for him. There was no time to think about the skimp of a girl who'd reminded him too wholly of DG, let alone for his thoughts to meander down that path to places he normally forced them away from. He thought only of rope and kerosene, bedrolls and food and canteens.
He'd managed to have everything packed by the time Raw and DG came looking for him; he was just paying up the stable-master when the familiar voices and shuffling feet approached.
"There you are."
"Where else was I gonna be?" he asked. His eyes were met with a brighter blue than he'd expected, though there were shadows under her eyes, and a paleness to her cheeks that made him think twice - almost immediately, much to his dismay - about how hard and far he'd planned on pushing today.
She didn't answer him; some point or another, she was going to have to. He could wait.
Once upon a time.
He knew that story by heart. Fanciful fairy stories for mothers to tell their sons, tuck them into bed with visions of divine protection keeping the darkness at bay.
'She watches over you,' the mother would say to her owl-eyed boy peeking out from under the covers. 'She watches over all of us. We are safe in her arms.'
Guardian, goddess, all magic and warmth and light.
His mother had told him the stories. Adora had told them to Jeb. Perhaps even Lavender had whispered them to DG in some far-off palace room, little girl so small in a bed too big. Lavender's mother before her. Every generation of Gale.
For every goodness, there is wickedness in return. For every light that shines, there is a darkness to fight back. One cannot exist without the other. These were the lessons of his father, the cynic, the disbeliever. He'd never put faith into the stories that his wife had whispered to their son and daughter - no, he'd never put faith in much at all. The man - his hard and human father - never lived to see vindication. His wife had not lived to see such destruction, to see the Darkness overtake the Light. Both of his parents, dead before the war. Sister scattered to the wind; if she'd lived, he hoped she'd gotten out of the O.Z. He didn't search for her; coward that he was, afraid of the truth. If there was a cold patch of earth with his baby sister buried underneath, he hoped never to lay eyes on it.
They'd all lost. Family, friends, homes, brains... it didn't matter, because the emptiness rang true and deep and clear inside all of them. It bound them together in ways Cain had never thought possible, but then, he'd never had friends such as these. He watched them all as they rode ahead of him in single file.
Raw, who'd healed his wounds even knowing that the Tin Man would have left him in the Papay fields to die; Glitch, who'd dragged him off the ice where he'd have surely died of exposure; and DG... DG who had opened the suit against all common sense, trusting when however many others had passed by the homestead over the annuals, scared off by Adora's pleading, her screams.
He'd have turned and left. He would have told himself, 'not my problem'. He would have kept walking.
Not DG.
Complicated ties, criss-crossed and knotted, wrapped around their wrists and knees and necks, locking them together. It should be no surprise, least of all to him, that they were out here; caught between the Fields of the Papay and the gorge that cut across the face of the southern province like a jagged scar.
In a few days, when they reached the deepest parts of the forests of the east, so very close to where he'd lost everything - and had found, inexplicably, his second chance at life - when they were lost in the woods, when the Eastern Guild bore down upon them; if, through some miracle, DG gained audience with the elders, what would she learn? What would they all learn?
History, after all, is written by the victors. DG and Glitch, even Tutor who had begun it all, were chasing after a history lesson.
After all, history had never told of such sealed evil as what two little girls stumbled across at Finaqua.
Such were his dark, encompassing thoughts that he did not notice Raw had slowed, and it wasn't until they were side-by-side on the narrow road and there was a sizeable gap in the line that Cain brought his attention back from his own introspections and down to reality where it belonged.
Raw was staring ahead, a content look on his leonine face that almost had Cain envious of such internal peace. Like the calm surface that hides the darkest depths, however, he knew better than to be taken in.
"What are words people say," the Viewer said, as conversationally as he'd ever managed, Cain was quite sure, "about mud and sticks."
Cain raised an eyebrow in confusion but it only took all of ten seconds to work it out. "Did you just call me -"
"Kinder than what DG says."
Cain laughed; an honest to goodness laugh that turned up the corners of his mouth, brought it straight up to his eyes. He could almost say that it hurt to laugh so suddenly, unexpectedly. Or maybe he needed it, and badly. Whatever the reason, whatever the cause, he threw an appreciative smile at Raw, shaking his head.
"DG been talkin' about me, has she?"
It was Raw's turn to shake his head. "Not with words."
"Most people wouldn't like havin' their thoughts eavesdropped on," Cain said, trying mightily to shift some of the blame off his own conscience.
"Not listening," Raw said, "feeling. Different, very different."
"I'm not going to pretend to understand you," Cain said, wanting the conversation to come to an end.
"Won't say, but you do."
Cain grit his teeth hard against a response. There was no arguing with someone who had a feeling what would be said before it was. Even keeping his mouth shut tight was a reply in its own right. It seemed to him that the best way out that didn't involve a bullet to his own skull was a change of course.
"You got any wisdom on how the road's gonna be the next couple of days?"
Raw chuckled, a breathy and inaudible sound; Cain read it more in his face. "Cain wants weather?"
"Among other things."
"Things Raw cannot give."
Cain took a moment to compose himself before responding, though he was sure his frustration radiated hot enough to burn the Viewer that rode beside him. "What can you give me?"
Raw smiled again, though it was a weak and fleeting moment. "Nothing that Raw's to give. Hope or help, every person find these things by own self."
"Then why are we followin' her?" he asked, more harshly than he meant to.
"Love," came Raw's reply, with a shrug of the shoulders that said it was the easiest answer in the world.
What he was afraid of. Could it really be so simple.
Table Of Contents
One - Two - Three - Four - Five
Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten
Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen
Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen - Twenty
Twenty One - Twenty Two - Twenty Three - Twenty Four - Twenty Five
Twenty Six - Twenty Seven - Twenty Eight - Twenty Nine - Thirty
Thirty One - Thirty Two - Thirty Three - Thirty Four - Thirty Five
Thirty Six - Thirty Seven - Thirty Eight - Thirty Nine - Forty