Early in the morning, Taylen rises from his bed. He was scarcely able to sleep; thinking about Asher's visit had kept him awake for hours. A girl with blue skin! She had to be magical, what else would turn skin blue? Maybe she could breathe underwater. Or change shape into animals. Or...
The sound of his father's boots coming down the stairs shakes him from his thoughts, and he quickly dresses himself. Asher had said that he and the girl would hide in the timber southeast of town, and he'd promised to come by noon. Food wouldn't be hard - there was plenty in the pantry that he could pack into a bag for the two of them. Nor would it be difficult to find a cloak for the blue girl; the trick would be finding one of his mother's old gowns that she wouldn't notice missing.
No. The trick would be getting the supplies Asher had asked for. Taylen had suggested that he just return to his home: even if the house had been burned, the fields were still tilled and planted. A shelter could easily be built. To his surprise, however, Asher had shunned the idea of going back. It was where his parents had died, and it would be all too easy for the villagers to find him and the girl there. He had already turned his mind to somewhere new, and he needed Taylen's help to get there.
So now Taylen pulls on his boots and runs out to where his father is sitting at their table with a loaf of bread and a sliced pear. He looks up when Taylen enters, then goes back to his food. "You're up early, boy," he says.
"You said you were going to Ada's today," Taylen says, trying to sound sincere, "to get leather for that saddle. I wanted to come."
His father looks up at him, then shrugs. "Trying to see that pretty daughter of his, are you?" Taylen blushes and denies it, but is inwardly grateful for the excuse. Often enough that was his reason anyway. "All right," his father says. "Go bridle the mare, I want to bring her along."
Taylen runs to do as he's told. As he's bring the horse around the front of his house, he says a quiet prayer to the twin gods of fortune. "Please, let this be a successful task."
YOU ARE READING
The Unending Epic Written to Appease a Friend, Tell a Tale, an...
FantasíaEach day, the story grows. The tale begins when two lives are suddenly and irrevocably twined together, and a boy from a lonely farm and a girl without a people find themselves each other's only friend. Little by little the fabric of their lives wea...
