It was a little windy.

I was walking ahead of the wagons, not too far behind Vim who was walking some distance ahead of our little caravan. I was doing so not because I needed to guide a horse, or because I was talking to anyone… but instead to enjoy the moment.

A storm was approaching. One that was warm, but had gusts of cold air on its winds. Every so often a really chilly gust ran past, bushing past the warm and stuffy air surrounding us, and I wanted to enjoy it. Thus I had left the coverings of the wagons, as to better feel such wind on my skin and face.

It wasn’t often I got to enjoy such weather anymore. It was either really hot or really cold… rarely was it such a strange mix like it was now. I personally believed it was because of where we were.

We were heading up the mountain, and as such were walking in a warmer valley… and the storm was crashing up and over the mountain range and pushing down the cold air from its peaks down onto us. It was the same mountain that led to the large bridge that allowed one to cross the mountain range and reach the other side, as to get to Lumen. The one that, usually, Vim and I went to after making a stop at the Smithy… which was also another reason I was walking alone at the moment.

I was upset. Because I was not going to be able to stop at the smithy and tell Lellip’s family how she was doing.

We were only a day or two away from the smithy, from this road we were on, and as such… thanks to how slow the wagons were moving, I probably could hurry there and then hurry back up the mountain and meet them before they crossed the passes or reached the bridge… but Vim wouldn’t let me do so.

He couldn’t abandon the wagons. Light had been the one to originally ask us to escort them to Lumen, and as such he assumed that meant there was a reason for it. Prophecy or otherwise. So he leaving them was not something he could do, because he believed if he did someone would die or get hurt. And he wouldn’t allow that… and, since he still firmly believed it was too risky for me to leave his side at the moment; he then wouldn’t let me depart the caravan either. Not even just to go say hello to our friends and let them know how Lellip was doing.

I understood Vim’s reasoning. Renka and the other gods were being weird. And as such, we were in danger because of it… particularly myself… but…

What was the point in having so many friends and family if I couldn’t go visit them and let them know how everyone was doing…?

Plus I had a letter. One from Lellip, for her family. One I had gotten from Oplar, since Coin had delivered it to Telmik just before our arrival there. Oplar had entrusted it to me, since we were headed that way… but now it seemed it might have been a mistake to have taken it. Vim had promised, one way or another, we’d get it to them but…

Sighing softly, another cold gust of air flew past. I closed my eyes to enjoy it, and felt the wind rush up under my hat and into my hair and ears for a moment. The feeling was wonderful, as if it was cooling me down.

It probably was, honestly. I was angry. Upset. At… a lot of things.

And one of them was not too far behind me.

Turning just enough to glance behind me, I glared at the wagon nearby. Only one person sat in the front seat, holding the reins, but it wasn’t she that I was glaring at. Instead I glared at the person I knew sat hidden within the wagon’s coverings, behind the driver.

The Chancellor was in there. Likely waiting for me to return.

She was honestly not as bad as I had felt her to be anymore. The last few days I’ve felt a little… more relaxed around her. I wasn’t sure if it was just because I was getting used to her or if because she was finally calming down and becoming a bit more normal but… well… I still felt the need to step away every so often as to clear the head and relax a little.

Chancy wasn’t… unlikable. She was just overbearing. Originally she had just been more concerned with asking me of my life, either my past or my hopes for the future… but recently she’s become oddly clingy. Just this morning she had made me breakfast, even though I had been planning to make my own with the ducks. It wasn’t bad, I had enjoyed the food she had prepared for me… but…

I didn’t want a servant. And that was how I felt she saw herself. She was acting as if her entire focus was me, either in attending to me or just… being near me. As if to be ready at a moment’s notice. And it was weird.

Was this what Light and those like her lived like? She had once snuck away, from Less and others, to come see me and Lilly in Lumen… hinting that her doing something alone on her own was something that was rare and took actual effort on her part. I had partly thought she had been joking, but maybe she had been serious…

If so I might need to lay down the law soon. I was not going to live like this. Not only was it uncomfortable, I genuinely didn’t like it. I didn’t mind someone helping me out doing tasks or chores, since doing such things together sped the job up and allowed me to chitchat while working… but I didn’t want someone to live life in my stead. I wanted to cook. I wanted to clean. I wanted to carry boxes, drive wagons, deal with issues and so forth. Having someone else do it all for me made no sense… what was the point of living life then? What was life without issues?

“You’d think he’d agree…” I mumbled as I looked away from the wagon and forward, as to look at Vim in the distance.

I wasn’t sure why he sometimes walked so far ahead of everyone, alone, as he was doing now… but I figured it was for similar reasons as to why I had searched for a moment alone too. Though who had been bothering him, I didn’t know. I had been in the wagon earlier, and had been for the last few hours, talking to Chancy and some of the other women of the cloth. One of them had been reading from her bible, and I had asked her to tell me her opinion on some of the passages… which was partly why I was out here walking alone now. That conversation, which had started fine and fun since I was able to hear a unique perspective by someone else on something I myself had once read, had quickly ended up with Chancy giving a small lecture on the real meaning of the passage. The one written by one of her sisters.

I understood it. I did. The bible, the one used by the Church of Songs, was written by her and her fellows. So… of course she would then know the real meaning behind the parables and stories within it. But… was that really how it worked?

Did not everyone have different conclusions and ideas of the meaning of some of the words? And was there anything wrong with that? It was like a painting… not everyone would see the same things within it. Some would take great meaning in the colors, while others would take great meaning in the…

“Renn, you look like your tail is stuck between your cheeks.”

I stopped walking and frowned up at my husband who had a weird smirk on his face. “That’s… a weird thing to say,” I said to him. He obviously meant my butt’s cheeks, and not the ones on my face.

“Was it…?”

I nodded. “My tail doesn’t get stuck there anymore. It used to when I was young though, before it got bigger. How’d you know?”

He chuckled at me, in a way that told me he hadn’t known at all. He had just been teasing me. “So…? Why are you walking alone? Is it Chancy? Can I have permission to rip her tongue out yet?” he asked with a glance over my shoulder. The wagon was nearing us, but not so close that anyone within it had likely heard him… and even if they had, Vim most likely hadn’t cared either way.

“If I said yes would you actually do it?” I asked.

He shifted a little and then turned around, as to start walking. I joined him, going to walk side-by-side… but I made sure to pick up the pace a little as I did. As to put just a little more distance between us and the first wagon. “No. But if you gave permission for me to do so to Renka, that’s a different story.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“For someone willing to hear her out, you sure are mean to her,” I said. He had told me the other night, before we had left the little farmstead where we’d picked up Chancy and the rest, that he had spoken to her alone. Without me. He had told me that she had told him that she planned to betray some of the other gods… though had not really specified whom amongst them or how she planned to do so.

“I’ve never tortured anyone, Renn. It’s not my style… but I’ll not deny that the main reason I’ve never done so to one of them is more so thanks to my anger than because I simply won’t do it. I’ll not deny my hatred for them, you would know it’s not honest if I did,” he said.

Anger… “You’re saying you get so angry at them that you just… murder them. As fast as possible. Even though you don’t want you,” I said, reasoning his statement.

He nodded. “Basically, yeah? Even when Renka is talking to us, it takes all I have to not just… reach out and try to pop her little freckled head,” he said.

Gosh Vim…

I sighed at him. “Let’s change topics please,” I said, since I was still unsure if I should… fight him on his hatred, or accept it. Renka so far had not done anything to outright make me feel his hate was justified but… I wasn’t a fool.

Vim had his reasons. And they were undoubtedly good ones. And I didn’t just mean the fact, at least what I believed to be a fact, that they had killed his parents. Vim spoke of their treachery, their experiments and cruelty… and I believed him. I did not doubt the things he spoke of, at all, because he was not the kind to lie about such a thing. If anything he was likely understating the severity of their cruelty, and as such… I understood his anger towards them. His hatred, at least from his perspective, was justified.

I just wasn’t sure if I could hold the same hate for them as he had. Even if it was justified.

“Sure. Let’s go back to why you’re out here walking alone. I thought maybe you’d been planning to come visit me, but you didn’t… unless you were waiting to see how long it’d take for me to break and come back to you? If so I want it known I would have broken a long time ago but you kept looking back at the wagon so I figured you had your reasons.”

Oh? How cute. “I’d been debating coming to you, but I also…” I sighed softly as I admitted it. “I feel like I’m being mean to Chancy… and I don’t want to be. Yet I do, at the same time.”

“Mean…? How so?”

“She annoys me. But I don’t want to be annoyed by her.”

“Oh. Your sentimentalism or whatever,” he said with a nod.

“This is serious, Vim…! She’s getting better already, but now she’s starting to… I don’t know, act like a servant? She tried to help me get dressed earlier for crying out loud,” I said. I had put on an extra layer since the wind had picked up, and it was growing colder as it did, and she had actually tried to put it on for me. It was ridiculous. I wasn’t a child.

“You like it when I help you get dressed though?” he said.

“That’s different!” He frowned in a way that he didn’t see how. “I don’t need a servant…! I’m not a child!”

Vim sighed but nodded. “I hear you, Renn… but sadly this is something you must deal with on your own. I can deal with it, if it gets too bad, but my method will result in… political issues, I suppose,” he said.

Political issues…? “No ripping out tongues,” I warned.

“Fine, fine,” he said reluctantly.

“Let’s change topics again,” I said, since now I was feeling annoyed just talking about it.

“Tell me about when your tail got stuck between your butt cheeks. Did that tickle? I bet it tickled something fierce.”

“Gosh, Vim…!” I laughed at him and smacked him in the arm.

“Also… I know you wanted to go see Nebl and the others. I’m sorry,” Vim then said, apologizing again for something I was already over.

“It’s okay… as long as you promise we can stop there on the way back at least,” I said.

He nodded. “Sure thing.”

Good. “Also, I think Lellip’s letter tells them to start preparing to head north. Oplar kind of half-heartedly mentioned it when giving it to me,” I said.

“Oh I figured. I also expect… a few others to follow in suit,” he said, a little oddly.

“You said that as if it’s a bad thing,” I said. Why would he say it that way…? He liked it when I had friends and family, not to mention some of those people were even those he himself considered such a thing. Such as Berri and her family.

“I’m… just worried we’re doing too much at once, is all, Renn. A needless worry, since the world is always busy. Even when I’m not. But it’s still a concern of mine.”

Hm… “Should we… hold off then? On making our home?” I asked carefully. I didn’t want to hear a certain answer to that, but I had to ask. It was time I did.

“No. I’ve concluded that at any moment it could all go bad… and likely will, and as such it isn’t fair to you or anyone else to deny you the time of happiness you deserve. Especially since you might not have it for long, or ever again once the chaos really begins,” he said.

“Okay, now I’m not happy anymore… why would you even say it that way, Vim? I wanted you to talk about happy things, like how you were teasing me about my butt not this stuff,” I said, a little upset with him over it.

“You’re the one who asked!”

“Yeah, but this was one of those moments you were supposed to know better and be nicer about it!”

Vim sighed and shook his head at me, but had a small smile as he did. “You sure have been snippy with me lately. Who have you been learning such a thing from, I wonder?”

“Look in a mirror!”

“I don’t have one,” he said simply.

I hesitated, and wanted to argue but couldn’t. There were mirrors in Lumen, but not many. “So do…” I was about to ask him something, concerning mirrors and the fact that I’d never seen him ever look into one by his own design. He had only ever done so when I had asked him to, as to have him stand next to me or behind me as I looked into the mirror myself. As to study how we looked together… but before I could say much, a strong gust blew around us… one so strong I had to reach up and grab my hat, as to keep it from flying off my head.

“Whoa,” I glared at the hints of the wind, such as the dancing leaves and blades of grass in the air, and felt the few pins I had in my hair keeping my hat on tug and poke. The gust had almost been strong enough to blow my hat off, pins and all.

“Hm… not good weather for us,” Vim said as the gust died down a little.

“Is it? The wagons will be fine, right?”

“Huh? Oh. Yes. But they won’t be when we cross the bridge up on the mountain. During such storms it’s quite literally a death trap up there during such winds,” he said.

Oh…! “Then… should we take another path?” I asked. There was another, one that led north around the bridge, but it’d add many days to our journey. Maybe even weeks with the wagons.

“No. If the wind doesn’t die down I have methods we can use to safely cross, it will just take more effort than usual is all,” Vim said.

Methods… “By the way, I’m down to a few pins again,” I reminded him.

He glanced at me, then my hat, and then frowned and nodded. “I’ll make some later, then,” he promised.

I smiled and nodded… and wondered if he even realized that this was one of the first times I’ve ever had to actually ask him to do so. Usually he noticed even before I did, and just went to making them without being asked to or before he even really needed to. Lately though he’s been… distracted.

Some noises drew my attention behind me, so I glanced back and found some people outside of the wagons. They seemed to be tying down the wagon’s cloth coverings, likely in preparation for the upcoming windstorm we were heading right into.

“Can wagons blow over?” I asked.

“Of course, though I doubt we’ll have such issues. At worse we might just have some coverings blow off or something,” he said.

“Hm… what about the ducks? How does Fressi’s tail handle such winds?” I asked. Their tails were basically huge fans behind them, like long dresses… I could only imagine them blowing every which way during such gusts of wind. Did that hurt them, I wonder? Maybe that was why they’d been staying in the wagons lately, even though we were on a path that had no other travelers in sight.

“Their feathers aren’t so frail as to break or anything from wind… but they would likely a lose a few here and there,” he said.

I smirked at that. “I’ve been promised by Fressi, the next feather that falls out is mine. I’m going to add it to my collection,” I said.

“Collection…? You mean the one Sap gave you?” Vim asked.

“Fly gave me one too! And I got one from Root as well. Lilly was kind enough to give me one,” I said.

“Huh… I see,” he said.

I nodded, happily. “I also plan to find a way to get one from Rapti too! Though not sure how yet,” I said. Supposedly she plucked them so much they didn’t even grow anymore, but I was sure that had been partly a joke.

Vim chuckled at me. “Cats do always somehow get feathers around them, miraculously. Glad you’re living up to your kind’s expectations,” he said.

“Cats… do? What do you mean?”

“They eat birds, Renn. So sometimes are found with feathers in their fur, or nearby,” he said simply.

Oh.

“Rude.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep