Roughly three medians before departure, Albino stopped his group at a particular spot Brenda recognized. He crouched and pricked his finger, letting the blood drip on a certain sapling that had splendidly grown since they last saw it. A reddish sheen now coated its leaves, and the corpses of rats and smaller snakes surrounded it. Survival of the fittest. “You have grown well since I last fed you,” Albino said as the vampire slingtree happily devoured his blood. “Sorry for not coming by. I was busy being beaten half to death… Sorry. I should not make that joke. My sweet Quionne hates it when I do that. I regret to inform you that I will not come by for a while. Important business calls relating to Fierawr, my goodest girl.”
“Rawr!” the Howler said, jumping on Albino’s back. She licked his cheek and took in his scent.
“Soon, Fierawr. Very soon.” He allowed the Howler to lick him as the sapling ate.
“Why do you always do these unnecessary things?” Brenda asked.
“I do not see this as a waste of time. I often fed this little plant since we first discovered it, and I want to give it one last push before our departure. Grow strong and mighty, little sapling, so you can return the favor one day.”
Brenda shook her head. “Plants do not return favors.” Despite her words, she smiled at Albino’s unabashed love for nature.
They watched as the sapling ate, leaning into each other. Quionne sat on Albino’s head in her butterfly form, and Fierawr hugged him from behind. Cormali nudged him with her head, demanding attention as well. Albino relented, happy to be surrounded by family. “You will not marry one of the Verq Navan trio, will you?”
Brenda shuddered. “Those idiots? Never.”
“…That leaves me.” Brenda didn’t answer. She just linked arms with Albino, showing him she was there for him. “We could forge a fake slingtree for our wedding. I would protect you until someone worthy of your attention comes along to claim you for real.”
“Who decides if someone is worthy?”
“Only you can make that decision,” Albino said.
“…Then I already made mine.”
“The stubbornness of youth.”
“The ignorance of the ancient.”
“…Suit yourself, young one. Suit yourself.”
They briefly stopped at Albino’s shack before meeting with Lord Marciel’s knights. He gave his family members one identical copy of his letter to the king each. Quionne hid her parchment in an external space-time dimension. Cormali carried it in a pouch on her saddle. Brenda buried hers at the bottom of her bag, already nervous. For Fierawr, Albino tied it into the sleeve of her mantle.
Albino took two copies. He carried one in his hands and swallowed the other to the horror of Brenda. “I do not digest what I swallow if I do not wish for it,” Albino explained… not that it calmed the village girl down. To Brenda, he was a decent marriage partner… and a mighty weirdo. That, too.
When they arrived, the knights were in the middle of loading their horses. Sir Meriwether was the first to spot them. “You’re late!”
Albino looked from the captain to his men, still unfinished in their preparations. Albino’s group, on the other hand, was decked out and ready to go at a moment’s notice. He shrugged, openly displaying the letter to the knight captain.
That got the knight captain’s attention, though he pretended otherwise. “We didn’t know we would have to accommodate unwanted bystanders. We don’t have the provisions for them, but we might make an exception if you compensate us right. How about it?”
“No, thank you,” Albino said with a smile. “We do not want to impose on your generosity, so we prepared our provisions and camping gear.” To the knight captain’s eyes, Albino’s attention was directed elsewhere. The boy turned away, smiled at Brenda, and scratched the cawdelli between her horns. His grip on the parchment was slack…
Sir Meriwether lunged forward, wrangling the letter from Albino’s hand. One quick look confirmed his suspicion. The captain showed a wide grin. “Careless boy.” He ripped the letter in half. “Careless, careless boy.” He tore it into quarters- into eights- to shreds.
Albino snorted, bowing to the knights. “Sir Meriwether, you have a choice to make. Believe the words I am about to say or denounce me as a liar… Do you really think I would flaunt my only copy of this letter in front of you like this? If you cast one mean look at my family, another copy of the letter will fly out.”
The knight captain became even further enraged. Everything was going wrong with this little boy. Did he lie? Did he not? The captain clicked his tongue and helped his men prepare.
On their journey, Fierawr and Albino did the deed whenever possible. Quionne and Albino combined their wind elementalism to cover the whole caravan of knights and their horses, robbing them of enough air to make these long, brutal marches through the Verqinian mountains nigh-on torturous. The knights took longer breaks because of this, cursing the damned mountains with all their hearts.
During one such break at noon on their second day, the 24th day of the 4th summer month, Albino and Fierawr went on a supposed pee break together. She didn’t last long, but she discovered the joys of kissing.
Fierawr grinned and hugged her mate. The knights looked at them in disgust when they returned, but with how exhausted they were, they did little else to show their discontent. Now that she knew the joy of kissing, Fierawr demanded them whenever full pleasuring was inappropriate. On their journey, she would randomly jump in Albino’s arm and let herself be carried for an hour while locking lips with her mate. Or during the shorter breaks that didn’t allow for lengthy f******, or during the evenings before the knights fell ‘asleep,’ or… all the time, really.
“What joy is there in kissing a stinky, mangy beast?” Sir Meriwether asked the other two squad captains one evening.
“Don’t know. Don’t want to know.”
“Same.” The third squad’s captain spat on the ground, fighting against the sweet pull of sleep. “I hate these mountains. We didn’t even get to have any fun this time around.”
“The horses are at their end, too,” Sir Meriwether observed. “I can’t wait to ride on paved roads again.”
“And to have a wench to warm my bed at night!”
Regardless of the knights’ opinions, Albino and Fierawr had fun on this journey. Quionne was a bit muffled about her lack of Albino time, but she also said, “I am willing to give her more leeway during her pregnancy,” so she didn’t seem to mind. It’s not like Fierawr lasted long, so Quionne collected her dues after the Howler.
As for Cormali, she was happy to be on her feet again. The horses’ slower pace allowed her to keep up without much trouble. Cormali walked carefully, still remembering how she had stumbled down the incline. She didn’t want to repeat that tragedy. On an intrinsic level, the cawdelli understood that without Albino, she would be dead.
Indeed, of Albino’s group, only Brenda had it rough. Her saddle was far from the most comfortable seat, and cawdellis didn’t make for the smoothest ride. On top of that, she couldn’t be paid in pats, scratches, or nighttime activities for her troubles. All she had was constant supervision from one or more of Albino’s group and the permanent threat of a knight demanding her service. Even half-dead from exhaustion and lack of air, some of the knights still found ways to crawl into Albino’s camp and suddenly find themselves alone with Brenda… or so they thought until an angry cawdelli, or an enraged butterfly, or a furious Howler chased them off. Some lost a finger or an eye (at Fierawr’s claws), others left the camp with broken bones (Cormali), and others again had a hole drilled into their thigh while a windy voice whispered to them… “Next time, I will not miss!”
“Perhaps I should add another paragraph to the letter,” Albino told the three captains, humming in thought. “Sir Meriwether of the knight captains fails to keep his men in check. Insubordination of the highest order… I cannot believe I am saying this, but congratulations to the other two. Your men have been nothing but pleasant.”
The three men gritted their teeth. For the time being, Albino had them in a chokehold. Once they arrived at Verquuva, behind the fort’s closed doors… Yes, then they would finally have the upper hand! They would repay his disrespect a thousandfold!
A few more days passed like this. The 24th came and went, and so did the 25th. Brenda looked at Albino all throughout the 26th, and Albino gave her a reluctant smile. “I know,” he assured her every time. “I know what I promised to tell you tomorrow.”
That evening, Albino spent some quality time with Quionne.
“Will you take care of Fierawr tomorrow? I promised Brenda to tell her everything… Well, everything that fits in a single evening. Brenda will understand the gist of our situation afterward.”
“…Sure.” Quionne’s voice sounded somewhat amused. The prospect of caring for the Howler didn’t disgust her, but she wasn’t overly thrilled about it, either. “I guess the peasant deserves to know. Maybe I’ll also tell her some things in wind-speak during the day.”
“…Thank you, Quionne.”
“Anything for my master.”
Albino laughed.. “It has been a while since you called me that, my sweet Albi-Onna… or should I say Mortal Albion? You are no longer beneath me, Quionne.”
“I will always be beneath you,” she said, fluttering her wings. A blush colored her blue cheeks in a reddish sheen. “I chose to be beneath you, now and always… Speaking of being beneath you, how would you feel if I… founded a movement in your name? We must assemble a mighty force of allies to combat… you know?”
“…Yeah.” Albino didn’t want to think about them too much. They would emerge in time, defending worlds from albiversal invaders like him. Albino also didn’t belong here, at least not in mortal form. They would not react to him in his complete Albion state. “A movement, though? What are you really planning?”
“N-nothing much, my master,” Quionne hurried to say. Her antennae rolled up as they always did when she lied.
Not that Albino minded.
Greetings and salutations! You have earned my eternal gratitude for reading this humble mortal’s story. If you enjoyed yourself, I will have done my job well. If not… well, there is always room for improvement.
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