A Tale of Crown and Country

Tavin

  "Where are we going?" Tavin asked as he snacked on the piece of bread. His tour guide was a few steps ahead. He was alternating between walking backwards and running back and forth across the street. Despite the late hour, there was hardly anyone outside. No one running errands, no one meeting friends. Reichie's answer to this was a quick shrug of the shoulders and a mumble about the normality of the situation. Tavin wondered if it was the cold that kept people indoors. He personally didn't find the air too chilly, but he wondered if the Allriyans had different standards of temperature than he did. He did live in one of the northernmost towns in Reightneir.

"Edwein should have been done at Mr. Bramptur's a long time ago," Reichie said in response.

"Is he your brother?" he asked.

"Yes. He's just turned eighteen," the boy offered. "Let's go find him."

"Where do you think he is?"

"Probably at the edge of the grove with Dialla again," he said sadly.

"Who's Dialla?"

"Some girl he likes. They're going to get married, you know. Then he'll leave me and mother and father and move to Odeila like Dialla wants. She likes big towns, apparently. And Weltyn isn't big enough for her." He said all this with more bitterness than Tavin expected from a twelve year old with an affinity for sticks.

"Do you not like Dialla?"

"No."

"Is she mean?"

"No," he said slowly. "I mean, she's nice enough and all, it's just..."

She's stealing your brother from you, Tavin finished in his head.

"I mean, how could he leave me, me, his brother, his family. All for some girl," Reichie remarked, kicking angrily at the decidedly pebble-free dirt. All he accomplished was sending a small cloud of dirt into the air before it eventually settled back into it's natural position.

"Do you not like girls?" he asked mockingly.

"Of course not!" Reichie said defensively.

"Well maybe that's why you don't like Dialla," he offered. "But Edwein does, and you don't understand why."

"Why do you wear that dagger," Reichie said, "is that a normal thing for you?"

"You're avoiding the conversation. Some day you'll understand your brother's decisions."

"I doubt it," he kicked another pile of dirt.

"You'll understand it the first time you meet a girl you really like."

"How do you know?"

"It happened to me."

"Really?"

"Don't sound so surprised, you hardly know me."

"I mean, I didn't think Reightneirians were the romantic type, you know, with all the fighting and stuff."

Tavin decided not to give an entire lesson to the boy about the misconceptions he had about the Reightneirian warrior culture, but focus on the subject at hand. "I never understood why my older sister liked spending more time with this one boy than her own family until I had the same experience."

"You fell in love with someone?"

Tavin was a little taken aback by the words. "Yes. That is exactly what I mean."