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Sora had followed close behind, as besotted with Darcy as I was, apparently. And so she should be. Though it had been a colossally dangerous thing Darcy had done, my wife had proven her bravery and her loyalty, when she’d gone out into the storm to find Sora and the calf. Sora would not forget it.
Neither would I.
Even working as fast as possible, I did not finish my work outside until well after the sun had set. I hurried back towards the house, dusty, tired, and buoyed by the thought of seeing Darcy when I opened the door. But the sound of hooves on the road beyond the house stopped me. I changed course, going around the side of the house, through the gate there, walking swiftly until a large mass of moving bodies came into view. Everything moved slowly, calmly. It was nothing like the stampede down this road Silar and I had had to quell not long ago.
I walked along the road towards the herd of bracku, letting the animals pass me until Garrek and his convict ward, each on a shuldu, came into view at the rear of the group.
“Garrek!” I called in cheery greeting. It had been a while since I’d seen him. Not since that night at the warden’s when we’d first been informed about the bridal program and my future had started galloping towards me.
Garrek dipped the brim of his hat at me. “Fallon,” he grunted. The young boy beside him, with teal-coloured hide and a shock of tangled, shoulder length white hair to match his burning white eyes, stared at me and said nothing.
“Come,” I said, knowing they’d be tired after the journey and would want to get the herd into a suitable place for the night. I led them to a currently unused pasture at the edge of my ranch with good enough fencing to keep the herd safe for the time being. Plus, Sora slept out here, and her barks would alert us to any potential danger during the night.
“Thanks,” Garrek said gruffly, dismounting from his shuldu once the herd was safely stowed. Garrek and I fetched water for his mount, and for the child’s.
“Get down, Killian,” Garrek said wearily when he noticed the scrawny convict-ward was still seated atop his saddle. But the boy only clenched his reins tighter. His eyes were still bright with emotion. Maybe he was anxious about being in a new place.
“Hello, Killian,” I said, offering him a wide smile. “You are welcome here. My wife will likely have something nice for you to eat, if you’d like to come inside.”
Ah. How good it felt to say “my wife” in such a fashion. My chest puffed with warm pride.
“Not necessary,” Garrek replied instantly. “We brought food. And we’ll sleep out here.”
“Nonsense!” I scoffed. “It has been a long journey, and it will be an even longer journey of sleeping outside on your way to Oaken’s. Come inside for tonight.”
Garrek looked unconvinced, casting a suspicious glance at the boy.
“His eyes are very white,” I said, wondering at the fact they had not subsided. Not even a little.
“They’re always white,” Garrek told me, beginning to brush his shuldu’s hide after removing the saddle and various leather bindings. “I’ve never seen their true colour.”
“Truly?” I asked, taken aback. Children typically had a harder time controlling the white glow of bright feeling in their eyes than adults did, but having eyes permanently white was nearly unheard of.
“We’ll sleep out here,” Garrek reiterated. He sounded exhausted, his voice oddly smokey. “I don’t want any damage caused to your house. I don’t have the time or the tools to help repair it.”
I was about to ask him exactly what sort of damage he thought his skinny-armed convict-ward was going to cause when a pretty voice made all three of us turn.
“Hello! Hello!” Magnolia called as she hurried from the house. Darcy was with her, and Sora followed at her heels, keeping protectively close to my wife.
It didn’t take long for the three females to reach us. Sora was so excited by the newcomers that I had to command her to sit so that she did not upset either Garrek’s or Killian’s shuldu.
“Garrek,” I said, moving closer to Darcy’s side and once again finding myself in awe of her strange, perfect beauty, “this is my magnificent human wife. Darcy.”
“Hi,” Darcy said, holding out her hand in a gesture I’d seen Cherry do as well. I’d since learned from my book that you were meant to shake the outstretched hand. Which seemed absolutely absurd to me, not to mention dangerous. Even though my wife was not overly weak, I worried that I’d be capable of shaking her hand right off of her wrist.
Luckily, Garrek had no idea what she was doing and did not attempt to grasp, shake, vibrate, or otherwise agitate my wife’s hand. He looked at her pale fingers, looked at her face, and then gave some sort of grumbly reply as Darcy gave up and let her hand drop.
Frankly, I found it rather rude that he did not immediately go white-eyed and fall to his knees when confronted with my wife’s beauty for the first time. Garrek just looked at her like he looked at most things – unimpressed at best and irritated at worst.
But that all changed when he clapped his gaze onto Magnolia.
“Thank you so much for taking me along. I’m Magnolia,” my wife’s friend said, drawing Garrek’s attention. His eyes went to her face and stayed there, growing whiter and whiter every moment, until it looked like two of the stars had fallen and had fused themselves to the man’s eye sockets.
Interesting…
And likely very inconvenient, if those white eyes were indicating any sort of attraction to Magnolia, considering she was to be another man’s bride.
As if undeterred by Darcy’s lack of success with the human shaking-hand gesture, Magnolia also held out her hand to be violently tossed about by Garrek’s.
