The Exalted

Shimmer

They were drawn together somehow. That was what Noll announced one night around a fire – gold highlighting his flesh, playing off the jewel like flecks in his eyes and skin. Fate chose them, and fate was bringing them all together. Lila loved him for his intensity, for his white smiles, for his pointed ears, his long lashes - for his everything. Rein and Galiene were kind, thank the Lady Above, but quiet, too much like Lila. Alesdair, Chelinde, and Myrddin were frightening.

Her sisters had always shared city gossip. Lila was the youngest, the shyest, the most coveted, and so it was up to her sisters to be the socialites, and to protect the sweet little Valiente flower from the world's fierceness. Ava, the eldest of the three sisters, fancied Alesdair and longed to be the woman who melted his frozen heart. It was Ava who brought home the information that Alesdair's first kiss had been Chelinde when they were children, that Alesdair and Myrddin had kissed and then some and, that, only a month afterward, he was dating Galiene, and so on and so forth. Ava had romantic dreams - fairytale romances; the Sanguine knight sweeping her off her feet and putting a cloak of blood red around her shoulders. The middle daughter, Wilma, had brought home gossip on all the rest. Myrddin liked to fight - a fact any ordinary Joyeuse citizen would know if they actually walked outside on a day to day basis - and Chelinde's fiancé was someone nobody had even seen around Western parts. Some called this mysterious Rowan Omura tall and comely and young, others called him old and wrinkled like some forlorn walnut.

Lila missed them. She missed the Valiente Sundries and the smell of fresh bread from the bakery right next to them. She missed her sisters, with their blonde hair and their green eyes - Valiente eyes, Lila's eyes. Her home smelled of lavender and perfume and powders. The days had been simple, unchanging.

Now everything had changed. There were no powders and puffs, not unless one counted rabbits Rein skinned when he caught them, and not unless the volatile powders of magicks and alchemy Noll and Myrddin argued over daily were somehow safe to slap onto skin. Bread was hard and cold, with more inflexibility than crunch and fragrant warmth. Instead of sisters, Lila had two other women - Chelinde and Galiene. One had words as sharp as her estoc, the other had warmth in her breast, but preferred silence and polishing her crossbow - lips pursed, head bowed.

Even Lila had her dreams when this journey began. They were girlish, stupid dreams where she dreamed, misty eyed and slack jawed, of finding kinder companions to join them, of defeating monsters and earning the love of the fickle three, of earning Noll's deep heart love, and combatting whatever faceless evil awaited at the end of this journey. At the end of every daydream, she was back home and unscathed, just in time for supper. Those dreams had been lashed out of Lila quickly enough. Spells numbed the raw blisters on her feet and quickened the healing, but no spell could ever make Alesdair any nicer about the whole ordeal. He barked orders daily, as if they were his soldiers, and expected Lila to keep up with him - surefooted and battle-hardened as he was. Every night, when they gathered around a fire Galiene or Rein had conjured, Alesdair was first to snap. Chelinde would smile her icy smile. Myrddin would add in his own cruel comments. Only Rein and Noll actively defended her.

Tonight was no different. Weeks ago, Lila had dreamt of her sisters and their cooking - a victory dinner of herb roasted chicken stuffed with mushrooms, onions, and garlic, olive bread to smash into the chicken's drippings, and bright leek salads with flowers. Pots and pans had hissed in those dreams, and the smoke smelled of herbs. Here, they ate whatever they could catch when the cured meats and cheese ran low. They ate well enough. Monsters were aplenty, and they knew no fear of men. All it took was Alesdair's sword, a blow to the head, or one of Galiene's bolts and they were dead and ready to be skinned. They still had bread. The bread was hard and cold, but it was welcome. They warmed and toasted it by the campfire. Rein had an affinity with beasts of all kinds, so he had managed to grab honeycombs from a beehive earlier that day. The bread was sweetened and softened by it, and the gamey meat of the fiend was bearable for Lila.