Between the Veil and Crown

Arvek 11

            Despite his anger having dissolved during the night, Arvek sensed an air of awkwardness the next morning, the fight still fresh in his and Cor's minds. Cor decided to handle the awkwardness was to fiddle with and admire his new useless trinket, while Arvek avoided conversation for the time being.

Kendra seemed oblivious to atmosphere. Cor showed her his new toy and she gave her own admiration to it, saying that these areas had a lot of wonderful magical items.

Arvek thought he detected a tone of falseness in her compliments, but remained silent. Cor had made his decision, he had been warned, and so he was going to let Cor live with that decision.

After paying the innkeeper for his services and skipping a breakfast, the three were off again, headed to the next town on their way to Chester. When they left town, Kendra became a little more careless. Taking her feet out of the stirrups, she let them hang on either side of her horse and belted out all kinds of traveling songs. If that wasn't annoying enough, Cor joined her. The problem being Cor didn't know any of tunes or lyrics she sang.

Listening to the cacophony of noise, Arvek never wished more that journey than at that point that he had gone alone and that Cor had never caught him leaving.

Kendra finished an encore of one particularly awful rendition and twisted in her saddle to look at Arvek. "Come now, don't you have any songs you wish to share? I'm certain that you've got something."

Arvek shook his head. "I have no desire to sing."

She and Cor exchanged rolled eyes.

"I take it that means you don't actually know any songs," Kendra said.

Arvek did not answer her. He and Cor had been taught music, including singing, as part of their education. But bar and traveling songs were not a part of those lessons. They had no need for those kinds of songs. They were a bit silly, anyways.

She turned to Cor. "What about you? You, at least, must have something."

"Ah, no," he admitted, looking a little sheepish. "Unfortunately, the only ones I know are more fit for grand halls than riding through the woods."

"What kind of family and friends must you have that they won't even teach you one song for the road?" she said, sighing dramatically. "Alas, you've been deprived."

"Fair," Cor agreed.

Arvek closed his eyes and shook his head slightly in disagreement, as subtly as possible so Kendra didn't see and challenge him. They weren't deprived. They just had lived in a world where it wasn't necessary.

"So then, I take you do not travel much at all?" she asked. "Or do you just have very silent processions?" Under her breath, but not low enough for Arvek to not hear, "It would certainly explain some things."

"No we don't," Cor said. "At least, we usually don't travel far enough for it to matter. When we do, it is usually for a solemn occasion, and we are more likely to discuss matters than sing."

"What a boring existence," Kendra mused. She sat in silence for a moment or two. Then, she twisted herself around so that she was sitting backwards in the saddle, letting her horse continue on without guidance.

Arvek raised his eyebrows at such a display. He once again began to wonder if it was wise to have her guide them through this section of the kingdom.