A Tale of Crown and Country

Reila

Reila still hadn't come up with a plan by the time they left the Wairton house the next morning. Mr. and Mrs. Wairton tried to convince her that she needn't pay them back in any way, and that they were glad to help. But Reila was still uneasy as they embarked across Ilane towards the east gates.

    Castin had come around, sort of. He hadn't apologized for his overreaction, but neither had Reila apologized for her dismissal. They'd settled into a mutual acceptance of ignorance. Castin seemed to overlook his strange feelings, and she agreed to pretend the conversation had never happened. As they walked through the early morning fog that rolled off Lake Ayera, Reila found herself walking beside him again. No one spoke, but it wasn't a forced silence: there wasn't anything to say. Obira yawned in front of Reila while her brother led the way out of the city. Obira was still not allowed to navigate.

    The quartet exited the eastern gates when the sun was visible over the stone walls. A few fellow travellers surrounded them, but by the time Ilane was a figure in the distance Reila and her friends were quite alone on the road. The fog had lifted and been replaced by a bright sunlight that brought warmth and happiness to Reila's cheeks. They walked rather slowly, not in any rush, and knowing that it would take them a reasonable three days to reach Aldira. It was useless to push for two days when they would only tire themselves out.

    When they stopped for a lunch of bread and apples, Yvid reminded them of the dangers of the road. Reila had heard the stories too, but she'd nearly forgotten them in all the commotion of Ilane. Bandits roamed the roads here, preying on the rich and helpless carriages that travelled between Aldira, Ilane, Regros, and Llaerna. Though they weren't nearly as rich as the bandits' targets, Reila knew they were still in danger of being stripped of the little supplies they had left. When they couldn't find a nice carriage to hijack, the bandits often turned to whomever happened to be on the road. And without a horse or cart, they had no chance of outrunning or escaping any bandits they may come across, even if the flat plains allowed for a long range of sight.

    Yvid's warning crawled to the back of Reila's mind as they set off again. Obira announced how bored she was, and Yvid responded by spouting facts about the surrounding natural landscape and history of the area. Obira reported that she found this incredibly annoying but seeing as it distracted her from melting into a puddle of nothingness, she allowed him to continue. Reila couldn't help but agree, not with the annoyance, but with the boredom. There was hardly anything to look at. The Inglewood forest lay in the distance to their left, and the Ayera River came in and out of view to their right, but other than these distant landmarks, the view comprised of short yellowed grass and a long, relatively straight, dirt road.

    Soon enough even Yvid's voice faded into a soft hum of background noise. Reila didn't even notice when he ran out of facts. Knowing they had three days of this to look forwards to did nothing to life Reila's spirits. Not even the sun could do that now. The anticipation of Aldira was quelled by the three mindless days that would have to precede it. Since leaving home, Reila had felt thrust into every situation, never having much time to think things over, to process what was happening and how it effected her. Now she had all too much time to do that and she decided she rather didn't like it.

    "What do you think your parents will be like?" Obira asked suddenly, her voice floating entirely into Reila's consciousness before she realized the words had been directed at her.

    She took a moment to process. "I–I don't know," she realized. "I hadn't thought of that before."

    "I bet they're wonderful," Obira said happily.

    "How can they be," Reila said sadly. "They gave me away."

    Obira's smile shattered and her face fell. Reila felt like a screen had been placed between and her cheerful friend. Suddenly she had become depressed. Though she knew Obira was hurt over her reaction, Reila didn't feel like she could do anything about it. She was in her own little world, dominated by a past she was chasing, a part of her she had never known. Only the future could reveal the past, and even then it wasn't certain.