sparrow and lion

Chapter 1: blue

Families care more what people think of their children than about their children. And this, of course, was why Leo had run away three months ago. She simply hated the color blue. And, about to turn twenty， with her betrothal to a perfectly respectable young noble coming to its inevitable, wedding-bell-strewn end, blue had been just around the corner.

Blue gowns and blue tulle and blue flowers. Because blue was for purity: The color of a baby's lips before its first breath. The hottest flame in the fiercest fires. An excellent blade before its first bloodletting.

The young noble himself was perfectly nice. Leo had met him three times and hated him none of them. He was tall, but not too tall, and shy, so shy that he blushed when other men would have shushed her and he never told her not to do anything. That was important. Leo hated being told what to do.

If she thought about it, the match was ideal. The boy's parents were quite elderly and had been drug from poverty into the nobility clutching the leashes of the massive dogs they bred. During the war, one of the dogs had saved the king from an assassin and then laid atop his wounded body in a blizzard and howled until help came. Her first gift from her would-be husband had been a pup from their kennels. A runt, admittedly, but Leo quite appreciated that, too. In equal parts due to the scandalized reactions of the lord and lady of her household at such an insult - it was small, too small - and because she was rather fond of unwanted things. Her betrothed either understood her perfectly or on accident, but it really didn't matter which, as long as she could do and have whatever she wanted.

It was just that she hated the color blue.

But: "If you do not wear blue on your wedding day, they will think you are a whore."

"Would that help?" Leo has asked eagerly, only to learn that it would not, that they would dress her in blue regardless. As they cinched the cloth around her waist she had told them, "This won't fit. I'll eat nothing but sweets and candies until I'm too fat for it." They would simply make her a new dress if she did that. "Then I'll starve myself," she had said, "until I'm dead or simply too skinny to fit into anything." Then they would make her a new dress, stuff it with pillows, and bury her in it.

Leo had bellowed for Wren to help, but his massively muscled form had been useless when it appeared in the doorway. He shrugged helplessly and repeated the only word he seemed to know how to say anymore. "Behave."

It was, of course, the most he could do. His own marriage was scheduled only two weeks after Leo's and he hadn't the slightest idea how to get out of it.

He had met his own bride-to-be only twice and hadn't the slightest problem with her. She was tall and willowy and well-spoken and extremely beautiful. There was no doubt in anybody's minds that, with Leo whisked away to her betrothed's country estate and Wren bound to his elegant new bride instead of paying off Leo's debts and chasing her out of brothels she "just happened to wander into," the family's reputation would shine like the brightest star.

Not that their reputation was in the gutter, but it wasn't quite stellar enough to grant them seats at the king's table for great feasts. But it could be. After the weddings. And, oh, how the others would envy them.

And all they had to sell was the children.

Neither Leo nor Wren could, in fact, do anything. Promises made in darkened alleys at age five are far more difficult to keep months before you turn twenty.

And so Leo had no choice but to run away.

And Wren had no choice but to chase her.

She had forgotten money, of course. But her jewelry had gotten her this far before it ran out. She had planned to use her last pearl to pay for this week of room and board but now it was gone and she was glaring into the droopy brown eyes of the thief. A thief who showed zero remorse, his stub tail making scratching sounds as it wagged back and forth across the floor and his pink tongue lolling sideways from his mouth.

She would have waited for it to come out the other end, she really would have, but the eager whimpering from outside told her there wasn't time.

Maybe the innkeeper had been right when she said dogs weren't allowed in the rooms, but it was too late now. Leo tied her scarf into a bag and tucked her few vital possessions into it before twisting it closed and turning from the burglar to tie the makeshift pack around the neck of the massive monster drooling on her bed. Her dresses and shoes would have to be left behind. Maybe they would pay for her stay.

They would not.

She glared again at the thief and pointed to the window. "Out."

Leo left her room, tucked a few rolls of bread down the front of her blouse, and made her way to the front door. The street outside was dusty. A few men sold wares from carts and a few women stabbed sticks through chunks of meat and then let them sizzle over flames. Whistling, she paused beside a table covered in vibrantly covered scarves and then sighed sadly: She would have loved to have bought one. She ran her fingertips over the smooth silk -- her favorite color, no less -- until the chuff of hot breath stirred her hair.

"This is very lovely," she told the girl at the table and then she turned around and climbed atop the mule who had appeared behind her. "That way," she said, pointing towards the trees just north of the town where the eager whimpering still echoed, and the mule went.

Leo's five dogs joined her at the forest's edge. The floppy-eared hound was whining more desperately now, her tail slapping her sides like a stick against a drum. Thump. Thump. Th-thump. The dog stared back the way they'd come, towards the mountain pass that had brought them to this town in the first place. Her powerful nose sucking in the distant scent of their pursuer and the pitch of her whines getting higher and higher. He was getting closer.

The scrawny hound had been a gift from Wren on Leo's fifteenth birthday. He had been secretly bottle-feeding the orphaned puppy for weeks before he presented the tiny creature to her in a poorly-tied bow. And, though the dog was hers through and through, as most animals were, the puppy had already fallen just as deeply in love with the boy at fifteen as Leo had at five. Her eager whining had been announcing his every arrival for almost five years in the household.

But now it told her it was time to leave.

And so they turned into the trees and disappeared from the town before he even had the chance to arrive.

She knew that Wren, of course, had no idea that the anxious hound's adoration was what kept Leo always one step ahead of him.

Wren, of course, knew perfectly well that the anxious hound's adoration was what alerted Leo, every time, of his approach. He had known this for years. But he let her believe otherwise. He knew that some people dreamt of cages and others of freedom and Leo belonged to the latter group. We all need dreams. Leo, maybe, most of all.

Wren let his whistling trail off as he entered the town. Someone's stored jerky was bound to have been raided by dogs and certainly a boarding fee had been left unpaid. And the victims would make themselves known soon enough. All he had to do was wait.

He dismounted in the dusty street. The smell of grilled meat on sticks made his stomach growl, but it was the silk scarves that made him pause. He passed a few coins to the girl behind the table and stuffed one into his bag: Blue, Leo's favorite color. And then he sought out a tavern to wait, whistling once again.

Dogs can smell well, but they can hear better.