What Heroes Don't Think About

2. I will go alone

When Didi woke up in the early morning, Dominic wasn't there.

At first she wasn't worried. He was probably in the bathroom, sneaking in an extra shower. She opened her book to get in another chapter before she had to work. When the sun was up and Kaylessa was pounding on her door, she started to worry.

"Have you seen my brother?" Didi asked.

"Not since last night. Make your bed and get downstairs; the guests 'll be up soon!"

She did as told. She could only assume he'd gone off in search of the wanted criminals. He'd give up when he realized how unlikely he was to track someone down in half a night. He'd probably sneak back in during the afternoon lull. Kaylessa usually allowed them an hour's break then.

When that time came and went, and he STILL wasn't back, Didi began to worry.

"My brother's not home yet," said Didi. Kaylessa was wiping the lobby floor, a never-ending job, as more mud was tracked in every time someone came in.

"I noticed," Kaylessa said unhappily. "Those stables smelled like... well, like uncleared stables I guess. Had to muck 'em myself."

"I want to go look for him," said Didi.

"Well, then I guess you best get to prepping for dinner so you can get done early. Gonna be a busy night again."

She considered just leaving, but she wasn't quite worried enough for that yet. What if Dominic was still waiting for a chance to sneak back then? Then, she would have gotten herself in trouble for no good reason. And as much as didn't like being a maid, she didn't want to be fired and suddenly homeless again, either. Those first few months after running away had been horrible. Didi and Dominic had been thoroughly trained for combat and pillaging. They had not been trained to live off the land. It had been awful, going from place to place, never knowing where their next meal would come from or whether anyone approaching would be someone they could trade with for food or their mother's scouts coming to get them.

What if their mother had found Dominic? Didi had started to feel comfortable in Red Larch, but maybe they had been stupid to stay there for so long. It was a small town, but people passed through. Rumors spread. People saw them and people noticed them. By herself, Didi might have been able to pass for a full-blooded human, to someone who wasn't expecting otherwise. Her long, thick hair hid her ears, and she had adapted to human culture more readily. She was more fluent in both Common and Chondathan, and she had inherited the stereotypically human traits of friendliness and drive. But Dominic's hair, though long, was usually tied back, so it accentuated his elven features rather than hide them. He was aloof, outwardly uninterested in most people he met, and, from his accent, noticeably unaccustomed to human tongues. Together, it was obvious what they were.

So, if her mother had bothered to put a bounty on them, and bounty hunters had gone around asking if anyone had seen a pair of half-elf siblings...

She tried not to think about it. She did her chores, telling herself he would be okay; he could have probably taken a bounty hunter if that was what held him up, and their mother didn't care about finding them anymore. If she cared she'd have found them by now. But the more she worked, the more her imagination tortured her. The oven in which she baked the crumblecakes became her mother's dungeons in her mind; shredded poultry became flesh ripped a living person; sliced tomatoes became blood and mashed peas became battered heads splitting open and worst of all, peeled potatoes in the pot became waterlogged bodies, bobbing slowly, drowned.

She'd made herself so anxious that she leaped halfway into fighting stance when the kitchen door opened behind her. Her hand closed over the nearest knife and her mouth prepared itself to sling a magically-laced insult before she could process that it was only Kaylessa. She dropped the knife and closed her mouth.