For perhaps the first time in her life, Celeste felt a true sense of purpose. Clear and distinct, like the tempered edge of a sword. Growing up, she'd assumed she'd continued to tend to sheep-like her parents had or marry into a trade family and assist her husband for the rest of her days. It wasn't something she had dreaded; she had loved her quiet life. But it wasn't purpose. Once she'd become a wizard she had to think bigger than that. Not least because there was a voice in her head screaming at her to do so. No such purpose had ever presented itself. Protecting her people had been a purpose, but that had also been vague. All it did was keep her fighting.
But killing a king was clear. There was a failure state, an end goal. When the king's blood ran down the steps of his palace, she would have completed her purpose.
The march across two countries was a long one, however, and she would have to find more than anger to keep her going for the whole journey. Instead, she and Melanie spent a lot of their time talking. There wasn't really anyone else to talk to of course. There were far worse people to be stuck with as well.
At first, they had little to say to each other as they marched through the forests of western Itsopasar. They had to be careful, staying away from the well-trodden paths where supply trains would be moving through, or weary troops coming to or from the front. It slowed them down but the safety was worth it.
Very quickly Celeste found herself growing impatient with Melanie. Three times a day, when they were walking, Melanie would ask that they stop. She would lay down a piece of fabric and a compass and sit to pray for several minutes. Celeste couldn't see it as anything other than a waste of time. Ritualised praying wasn't something that Wind Worshipers had ever adopted, at least not where she was from.
“Why do you need the compass?” Celeste asked as Melanie finished praying. She had been watching the other woman intently the entire time. She had taken to doing that a lot. It would be smarter to stand watch, she knew that, but her fascination ran deeper.
Melanie picked up the compass and examined it herself before putting it away. “It's so I know I'm facing the right direction.”
“The right direction?”
“We worship towards the sacred city of the prophet.”
Celeste nodded. “So that's why you're so good with maps?”
“Well...” Melanie drew out the sound, shrugging evasively. “That is a use of my skills.”
“Why don't you want to tell me?”
“It's stupid really.”
Celeste sighed, jumping off the log she was sat on and stretching. “Fine. Pack up and let's just go on walking in silence.”
Melanie sighed. “Fine. Before the coming of the prophet, there were a lot more nomadic communities. We can trace my family all the way back to tribal leaders from the time before the Taoanid Empire. Obviously, living nomadically meant they had to be good at knowing where they were. I think. So, I read all I could about mapping and orientation. I don't know, it is stupid.”
“Why are you so ashamed of a skill, of knowing something?”
“It wasn't useful, I still isn't, beyond prayer. It's not like anyone would know in this land, except me.”
Celeste shrugged. “Is that true though, that your family can be traced back that far?”
Melanie closed her pack, her equipment carefully stowed away. “Of course. We've been politically influential for that long, we need to be able to prove that.”
“I barely knew a couple of my grandparents. My grandmother taught me a lot about sheep and treating wool. The smell of them still makes me think of her. Not that I've seen sheep in a long time now.”
“She sounds nice.” There was something wistful in Melanie's tone. “Are you not curious? About where you came from, or what your ancestors were doing?”
“I know where I came from. I'm fortunate, both my parents are alive. Or they were.” She swallowed hard before continuing. “Besides, my ancestors are with me, always. It is the dead that guide us always, I suppose. They are leading us where we need to be.”
“That's a lot of pressure.”
“Why should it be? It's comforting knowing they're all out there watching, somehow. I hope Alfonso can't see me now.”
“Who was Alfonso?”
Celeste gulped in air, realising there were tears forming in her eyes. She brushed them away and shook her head. She had forgotten that she'd never told Melanie of how she'd become a wizard. “I'd rather trust in their guidance than know everything my ancestors ever did. Isn't that a lot to know?”
“I don't think about it much these days,” Melanie said. Maybe a little too quickly. Celeste decided not to push the matter and let them walk in silence for a while longer.
Neither of them was certain when they had crossed the border. The map they had wasn't detailed enough to give them a clear idea of where the divide was, if there even was one in a time of war. The very idea of a line in the ground determining where her country was and wasn't confused Celeste, if she was honest. She knew her home. It was where the fields rose a hundred meters above the valleys, where the winds rolled freely through meadow and field.
She wasn't sure if the year had gone without her noticing or if the winters were harsher in the west, but the first frosts had already settled when they reached plateaus. Despite the growing cold in the air, Celeste felt nothing but joy at being home. Not far down the first valley they walked down, there was a great tumbling waterfall. They needed to refill their waterskins anyway. Gulping back the icy water was a very particular experience though.
“Do you remember what the water in your home tasted like?” She asked with a grin.
“Why would I remember something like that?” Melanie shouted back over the crashing water.
“No, exactly. It's not something you would think about. But it tastes like home, in a way I can't describe.” She smacked her lips together as though a way to explain it would come to her, but she simply drew a blank. “Yeah, I can't. I remember, the water at Tricapon was strange to me at first. I mean, I could drink it, of course. But it was just subtly not the water I was used to. I don't think I understood that at the time.”
“I never really thought about it.” Melanie shrugged, tentatively sipping the water herself.
“You're a water wizard and you don't think about water?”
“I didn't become a water wizard because I have some great affinity with water.” She sounded defensive now.
“No, it was much siller reasons.” Celeste took a step closer and placed a hand on Melanie's arm as she turned away. “Hey, I wasn't being mean. Or, not trying to be.”
“It's fine.” Melanie smiled back at her, though Celeste wasn't entirely sure she was convinced by it.
“Did you ever properly visit the plateaus back when...Well, you were last in this country?” She started the sentence far more excited and slowed down as she remembered the context of the other woman's last visit.
Melanie shook her head. “I stuck to the mountains or the valleys.”
“Are you ready to see my homeland properly for the first time then?”
Celeste extended her hand and Melanie took it. The waters beside them slowed their descent, the waterfall becoming more of a trickle as it lost momentum. The swords and guns slung over their shoulders became far less of a burden to bear. Then, in unison, they leaped into the air. Halfway up the cliff wall, Celeste had to reach out and kick them off again while maintaining the balance for the both of them. In a graceful arc, they rose over the edge of the great plateau and landed on the rough grass.
For a moment she was lost in a wave of sensations. The strong winds rolling over her. The smells of grass and sheepshit and of a childhood she'd forgotten. Then she began to consciously process everything around her, and the familiarity began to fade. The frosts were beginning to kill back the grass of the meadow they had landed in, but even so it looked overgrown to Celeste. If there was a field this overgrown, she would have moved her flock into it.
“Something's wrong,” She muttered, looking around for more signs. It was more a feeling than a concrete thought at the moment.
In the distance, she could see a small village, no bigger than her own had been. Facing it they had a headwind yet she couldn't hear any sounds of human activity there. Of course, there was still the sound of bells, gentle ringing over a dead landscape.
“What's wrong?”
She faintly recognised Melanie's voice, but she had begun to move before she could process it or think how to respond. There were sheep dotting the landscape. It was one of these that Celeste had begun to sprint towards. The sleepy creature bleated in panic as it registered the wizard hurtling towards it. Instinct kicked in and she barely needed her super reflexes to catch the sheep, holding it firmly but gently.
“What are you trying to do?” Melanie asked, having caught up. She stood over the other woman as she wrestled with the sheep in the grass.
“Look at this sheep!” She exclaimed. “Doesn't it look wrong to you?”
“It looks like...a sheep.” Melanie shrugged.
“No,” Celeste said, raising the sheep up to give Melanie a closer look. “Don't you see anything wrong with its coat?”
“It looks like wool. Dirty but, I mean, it's a wild animal.”
“It shouldn't be wild. And the coat is too long. This is two year's growth. No one sheered them in the summer.”
“Maybe they didn't need the wool,” Melanie said.
Celeste blew out her lips, letting the sheep go and watching it hop away through the grass. “There's no reason you wouldn't want the wool. There's always a use. And even if you don't, you can't leave a sheep in its coat. They'll overheat, they might die, in the summer.”
“So, no one has been here to care for them?” Melanie was finally catching on. “Despite there being a village a stone's throw from here.”
“Exactly,” Celeste said as she brushed the grime of the sheep off of herself. “I guess it is our job to investigate.”
The village was within hailing distance of the edge of the plateau, yet the whole way the only sound remained the bells. Gentle and kind. A reminder of a simpler time. The village was, as they feared, deserted. It wasn’t an ancient desertion. Though the stones of some buildings were overgrowing with moss, it wasn’t more than a year or two’s uncontrolled growth, Celeste estimated.
They split up and went through buildings on their own. None were very big, there was little to see, but Celeste wanted to see all she could. There was a lot left in the houses though not many personal effects. Objects she thought would be important. Spinning wheels and cooking equipment. The things you needed to have a home. But few clothes were left behind. Or children’s dolls, bells, or drawings. Had the people expected to return?
Celeste was leaving a third house, that felt much the same as the other’s when Melanie called her over. She jogged to the other side of the village and found Melanie stood in the doorway of a house. It looked in better conditions than the others, but what she could see through the crack left between Melanie and the doorframe, it looked bare. Completely undecorated.
“Come smell this,” Melanie said.
Celeste stepped past her and into the hollow space. She breathed deeply before snorting out in shock. Kneeling, she inspected the floor and noticed a layer of what at first glance had been simple dust.
“This was a munitions store.” The smell of the explosives filled her with an expectable melancholy. Even after months of war and death, her brain still drew back to the first time she had smelt gunpowder. As the bright colours flashed above Tricapon. If only she had known then what it was capable of. “This village must have been occupied. By Laocienan soldiers?”
“I doubt this was the front line.”
“Then where are the people? Why haven’t they returned?”
“Probably got moved to a town. Easier to manage populations there. Ofprovo tried to clear some villages for quartering troops in as well, but they were never very successful. The people were too reluctant, and too mistrusting of national troops. Too used to their princely armies.” Melanie said all this with a slightly disconnected bluntness, like she was writing an essay.
“People here aren’t used to any troops, never mind national ones,” Celeste said in dismay.
“This was a war for their own good. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t peaceful.”
“I haven’t seen any signs of a struggle.”
“If troops were living here, they probably wouldn’t leave it like that. Who would want to be reminded of the people whose homes you were stealing?” After a long pause, Melanie sighed and shrugged. “There’s plenty of good structures here, and I’d rather not camp out in the cold. Would you mind getting a fire started, I would like to pray.”
As the sun set over the plateaus, over Celeste’s home for the first time for her to see in so long, she felt lost. Was this whole world going to be different? She had been back to Laociena since her time at school, but not to the highlands. In her mind it remained the same. Unchanging. Of course it did, memories didn’t get worse. Well, they degraded. But the more horrors she experienced, the more beautiful the rolling meadows. The more calming the sleepy sheep. Her memories grew more elaborate and beautiful. But maybe the real thing had only gotten worse, devoid of people and life.
Celeste found herself falling into the rhythm of travelling with Melanie. As well as getting use to the prayer schedule that Melanie followed strictly, she noticed the little idiosyncrasies of the other woman. The quiet, precise way she ate. The careful way she made her bedding up for the night. The winter grew harsher, and they found themselves sleeping closer together, huddling for some warmth. They could survive the cold. They were wizards, there didn't seem to be much they couldn't survive. But they still felt discomfort and the comfort of a familiar body near your own. The warmth of a back pressed on yours through layers of fabric.
Another thing Celeste noticed was the language they used. For the first sixteen years of her life, Celeste had only known Laocienan, to the degree that she didn't even name the language in her own mind. Then at Tricapon, they had been forced to use nearly exclusively Taoanid. Now, with Melanie, they spoke a strange, personal amalgam of their languages. The base grammar and function words of Taoanid with a vast vocabulary of their other languages. Even some of Melanie's mother tongue slipped in. Soon they seemed to codify it, using only certain languages for certain words and using their translations for different specific meanings, all without consciously discussing it.
This left her thinking, of course, once she noticed it. Her mind still functioned in Laocienan primarily. But she was more curious about Melanie, who had been raised to speak at least two languages.
“So,” She began as she finished lighting their fire for the evening. They were tucked into a small, relatively sheltered cave in the wall of a plateau for the night. “I was wondering, what language do-”
“Do I think in?” Melanie said quickly, looking over at her dully.
“Oh, no, I was going to say, what language does your spirit talk in?” Melanie looked stunned so Celeste continued. “I mean, they don't seem to be constrained by language. When I was bound I only spoke Laocienan so I assumed that was simply what it settled in but you-”
“It speaks Ofprovian,” Melanie said simply.
“Was that somehow easier for it to understand?” Celeste was more thinking aloud than asking now.
“It speaks in that because I told it to.” Melanie looked up and saw the confusion on Celeste's face. “I didn't want it to speak in the Prophet's tongue. Binding myself to a spirit is already abhorrent enough, I don't think I could take that kind of linguistic defilement as well.”
Abhorrent. Defilement. Ofprovian words spat out with hatred. “At least you had a choice to bind yourself. Some of us didn't,” Celeste said coldly.
Melanie leant towards Celeste, concern on her face now. “I didn't mean it like that. I know it was...Magic is not...acceptable to my people. It's reaching out to take the power of God for ourselves. What is a spirit if not a false divine, offering power in exchange for damming us?”
I don't like the word false, but I do like to think there is something of the divine about me.
Celeste wanted to mutter at it to shut up but that may have come across wrong. She'd never seen Melanie mutter to her spirit, she realised.
“If being bound is so terrible, why do you bother with the rest of it? What use is faith in something that condemns you?”
Melanie sat back, looking up to the low ceiling of the cave. “I believe God understands the choices I've had to make.”
“Wouldn't they understand your choice not to pray or to wear your headscarf?”
“Maybe, but I am choosing to do those things. They are part of who I am, they remind me who I am.” She hummed quietly for a moment before nodding. “It's like your people. You love putting bells into your clothing.”
“I didn't know you had noticed that. I didn't do that often.” Celeste felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“But do you think about your faith every moment when you're wearing them? Or those bells in your villages?” Melanie nodded again. “I think religion is more than abstract belief. It is our culture and ourselves. Maybe if I had been born in a time before the Ofprovians arrived, I would miss my prayers. Maybe I would dress differently. But this is the culture that I am in now.”
“And we can't change something that large,” Celeste whispered.
Of course You can. You are a wizard, after all.
Their journey continued in the lowlands. It would be little trouble to stay on top of the plateaus, but Celeste didn't want to be buffeted by the winds as they walked. Melanie had looked confused when she said that, but if the other woman had any greater concerns, she didn't voice them. Celeste's spirit, however, did voice its concerns.
Why are we taking so long?
“What do you mean?” She was gathering wood for an evening fire. The sun was on the verge of setting and she didn't want to waste time talking to her spirit. But she was doing this alone, which was a state she was rarely in at the moment. She felt weird talking to her spirit in front of Melanie. She knew that she shouldn't.
To get to the king. We could have been in Teldomia weeks ago.
“It's harder to travel as fast when you have someone else with you,” She replied shortly, kicking the snowy ground to reveal good bits of wood.
I told you to leave her behind. But that is not it, is it? She cannot slow you that much. This is a choice, and a stupid one at that.
“What would you know? Ever tried having a body? Walking isn't as easy as all that.”
I feel everything you do. I am aware of your entire physical form. The ache of your legs, the stinging in your arms. The burning in your lungs.
“Then what is your question?” She asked, swallowing hard. Being reminded of the invasiveness of the spirit did nothing to make her feel more comfortable.
All of that would be made easier if you would just jump, fly your way to Teldomia.
“I don't have to answer to you.”
You do not want to. What is it stopping you? Your fear, your anxiety, your uncertainty. I feel all of it. Your conflicted nature.
“That's nothing new and you know it. You're not getting anything out of me.” She held the wood she'd gathered in a tight bundle and turned to return to their camp.
You don't need to tell me anything. I can feel it all. You cannot lie to me forever.
In the late autumn, there had still been an abundance of food to be foraged to complement their dried rations. In the frosts of winter, however, there was little for them to easily scavenge. They could survive on about a tenth of the rations a normal soldier would need, but they also didn't enjoy being hungry.
The obvious solution to replenish their rations, and the one they went for was to rob supply wagons bound for the front. Mostly they avoided any kind of military activity. Wizards weren't conscripted, but they would stand out. It was possible that they were already wanted. But robbing a wagon didn't take long. The risk was minimal. They would appear in an instant, guns raised at the drivers. They took food and extra blankets, as well as any loose money they could find just in case.
Celeste registered the contradiction of their actions. She was going to kill the king to end the war and free the men at the front. If there was less food for them then that couldn't be good. But she couldn't carry out her mission without food, she decided. She tried not to think of the men shivering at the front. It wasn't like she still knew anyone out there. All she had left were memories of their still faces.
The money came in use one particularly cold night. Caves or overhanging of rocks to shelter under were usually very common. As a child, Celeste had thought of the sides of her plateau as an impenetrable wall of stone. Now she saw how much more fragile it really was. That night they struggled to fine one to stay in. So, being already on the outskirts of a small town, they decided to stay in an inn.
Celeste's only frames of reference for an inn was the crowded and noisy one she had briefly stayed in back in Commodal and the quiet one she had stay in while on leave. This inn was like the latter, seeming to be almost as empty as the snow drenched valleys around them. That wasn't fair, most of the tables were occupied. But they hadn't bothered to cram so many in. And there was a quiet over the place. People seemed to only be speaking in whispers, or not at all.
The pair matched the volume and made their way to a small table. It took an annoying amount of effort for Celeste to switch her brain back to pure Laocienan as she spoke to a member of staff at the bar, explaining they needed a room for the night and some hot food. Returning to their table, the two sat in silence for a while. Speaking would have felt like they were intruding on the quiet the other guests were having.
Celeste scanned the room, trying to decipher what everyone else was doing here. Clearly, some were just locals. It was alien to her. A place you would come to have food in your own village, and pay money for it. The mediation of food through discs of metal. She tried not to think about it in such a cold way. Some people must have been travellers who needed somewhere to stay. Some, she realised with a sinking guilt, may have been soldiers returning from the front. It was something in the eyes, she thought.
The barmaid brought over their drinks and the two said their thanks. Having not been forced to slip into the local language already, Melanie thanked her in her native tongue. She was quick to correct herself and the maid left without comment.
Celeste had raised the mug to her lips when she heard the scraping of a chair. She raised her eyes to see a gruff looking man standing halfway across the room. His hair was shaggy and unwashed. Not that Celeste felt in a position to criticise him. As he stalked through the room, however, she didn't feel sorry for her snap judgement. His face was a twisted mess of rage.
“Get out,” He barked as he drew close to their table. His voice was the loudest thing in the inn all night and eyes across the room turned to examine the commotion.
“What did you say?” Celeste said, slamming her hands on the table as she stood up. She had intended to be dramatic, but had also forgotten her strength, realising she'd made far more noise than she wanted and managed to kick her chair back into the wall behind them.
“Just leave it,” Melanie said, grabbing Celeste's arm but she pulled it away.
“You heard me,” The man continued. “I recognise an easterner when I see one. I didn't fight a war with you lot just for you to come sauntering into our towns.” He was pointed at Melanie, his rage practically ignored by her as she sat collected as ever.
Celeste didn't know how she maintained that calm, nor tried to herself. “She is with me, she has as much right to be in this country as anyone.”
“Two foreigners is no different.”
“This is my homeland!” Celeste roared, drawing the man's eyes onto her properly. And the closer attention of a couple of his friends still sat at his table.
“You don't sound like it,” He said dismissively. “No, wait, I see it. Highlander. Then you're worse than her lot. You got us into this whole mess in the first place.”
Celeste was reeling from his first comment and took a few seconds too long to register his second. “Our King got us into this mess. And Emperor Lanius.”
“You're a wizard though, aren't you?” The man was finally processing everything about her.
This was probably bad. He had implied he had fought in the war. If he had military contact, he might have heard about a rogue wizard. They all looked fairly distinct. It was possible he was too drunk to remember anything like that, if it was the case. Or too drunk to remember her in the morning.
“I heard about what you lot did up your mountain,” He continued. “Wizards tricked them into fighting. I saw what your lot can do out there. I didn't fight and see my mates die just to be told who I have to put up with by some snivelling, highland bitch.”
Celeste felt herself tensing in anger.
You cannot let someone as weak as him talk to you like that.
She felt a little sickened to realise she agreed with it. That was a rare feeling.
“You are nothing,” She kept her voice low, she already had the attention of the whole inn on her. And the growing attention of this man's two friends. “You don't know what I've been through, who I've lost.” She had to be careful not to directly tell him she'd been a soldier, she wasn't quite that reckless. “But I will let you know this; I am not having you tell me who can't be here, this isn't just your country.”
“Celeste, please,” Melanie hissed but she was in no state to listen to the cool voice of reason.
Finally, you will prove who is right. Show him your power.
“I've had enough of you,” The man grunted.
Celeste glanced side to side, taking in his friends that now flanked him. One held a blunt weapon, the other a dagger, not more than a butter knife really. She could easily take all of them on.
“And I'm tired of you,” She responded before leaping up and over the table.
She jumped down at the first man. He had been ready for her, preparing a counter strike that could have caught her in the stomach had she not moved with supernatural speed. She punched him square in the face. He crashed back into the ground at the same time as she landed.
To her right, the man with the knife moved to swing at her. She grabbed him by the wrist and pushed the knife high above her head. She then smashed her shoulder into his chest and rolled him over her back, sending him flying. She crouched low for a moment to assess the situation. If she calculated right, the man with the knife should have collided with the bludgeon man, taking out two birds with one stone.
She began to raise her head but all too late realised that she had miscalculated. The man with the bludgeon had dodged his friend and now brought his weapon down on the back of Celeste's lowered head.
The impact echoed through the room with an almighty crack. Or at least, it echoed through Celeste's skull, which was the same thing for her in the moment. The cracking wasn't her skull, instead the bludgeon. It had only been wooden. Still, it hurt far worse than she expected. Her ears rang and she breathed deeply to recover herself.
Breathing didn't help, the sharp inhaling only irritating her lungs and left in a dangerous coughing fit.
“Celeste!”
She heard her name cried. She was too lightheaded to actually figure out who was saying it, despite there being only one possible source. Still, it brought her back to attention. Celeste brought her fists up, ready to keep fighting. She had only just got herself upright, her vision spinning, when a fist slammed into her stomach and sent her into another fit of coughs.
Things moved in a blur after that. Her vision was still spinning but she could see the wave of blue moving across it. Or maybe that was just an illusion of her oxygen starving mind. She was still breathing though, right? That couldn't be it. The coughing wasn't that bad, was it.
Melanie's arm was around her then. She could tell that it was her's, strong and comforting. A calming presence in the chaos the inn had become. The slamming of a door and the sudden sensation of cold air across her skin and in her lungs brought things further into focus. There was hard ground under her and she discovered, to her confusion, she was sat on the side of the path across from the inn. She couldn't see Melanie for a moment. Then she noticed the feeling of hands in her hair.
“Hold still,” Melanie said quietly.
“What are you...”
“You seem pretty out of it, and he hit you hard. I need to check there's no blood.”
“I'm a wizard,” Celeste said, realising she was struggling to get words out clearly. Maybe he had hit her harder than she thought. “I'll pull through.”
“You shouldn't have done that.”
Melanie sounded like Celeste's mother now, chiding her when she came home with grass stains across her clothes, or when she scared her nearly falling off the plateau.
“Bless the breeze I have you now,” She murmured to her spirit. She wasn't really sure how she had lasted sixteen years of her life up there.
She shut herself up when she realised Melanie had moved away, talking to someone. The barmaid. They only spoke briefly, and the other woman pressed something into Melanie's hands before leaving. Celeste thought she could pick out an apology, though from who to who she could not tell.
Melanie sighed as she crouched in front of Celeste. “Right, do you think you can stand up? We need to find somewhere warm for the night.”
“Yeah, I'm alright.” Celeste rose up to squat. Even standing up that much was too much, dizziness overcame her, and she fell back on her butt. “Okay, I just need five minutes.”
She tried to focus herself. She watched as the puff of air from her speech floated upwards, slowly dissipating into the night. Moonlight shone down the valley through the narrow gaps in the cloud cover. A few flakes of snow danced through the air. Celeste watched as one landed on her hand, lasting only a second before her warmth turned it back to water.
“We can take a lot more than a human should,” Melanie was saying. “But there is an upper limit. You need to be more careful. And not throw yourself into fights like that.”
“It's fine,” Celeste muttered. “I only need to go on until we get to the King. Then it doesn't matter.”
“That's another thing, why are we going so slowly? If we keep this pace it'll be next winter by the time we get to the capital. The war will end itself.”
“That doesn't matter. His punishment will come even if the war is over.”
“If you want that punishment so badly,” Melanie was raising her voice now in agitation, something Celeste rarely heard, though she was careful enough not to be shouting their plans to the whole town. “Why are we so slow? Let's stop following the path of the valleys and cut across the plateaus at least. What is holding you back?”
Yes, I would very much like for you to finally illuminate that to the both of us.
“I...” Celeste gulped as she searched for the words to describe her feelings. Fear, anxiety. That didn't explain all of it. Why she stayed below. “We're going slowly because I am nervous. Because I'm scared, because I know I'm not going to make it through the other end. But it is what I have to do. The task and the hatred is what drives me.”
“And hatred doesn't make you impatient?” Melanie asked, sounding curious, not annoyed or even disgusted, which Celeste had half expected.
“I don't want to cut through the plateaus. I don't want to go through my homeland carrying this anger. I am a weapon of war turned back on my own home. Even as my home turns against me.” She curled into herself as she spoke, bringing her knees to her chin and focusing on the ground.
There was the sound of boots shifting on rough ground and then a sigh as Melanie lowered herself onto the ground next to Celeste. “Anger can't drive you forever. For a while, I hated Ofprovo. I felt them eating away at my people, our religion and culture, and I hated them for it. I do, still, I suppose. But that doesn't seem important anymore.”
“No?”
“No. I will still fight to free my people, but I do it for love of them. Of who we are.”
“And what if you found then hated you?” Celeste asked, replaying the fight in the inn now.
“They put me in charge of the Eastern Forces, you know. Not all of them, just whichever units were the same army as me at the time. Ofprovo trusted me, painful as that is to say, so they thought I would be best to relay orders since I speak the language. And some of the men hated me. Refused to listen to my orders. Because I was a woman in command, or because I was a wizard. But that was only a few of them.”
There was a long pause and Celeste was about to look up when Melanie continued. “Speaking with them reminded me why I was fighting. We traded favourite foods and poems and stories and thoughts on God. It was seeing them that kept me going through it all, I think. In part it made me trick myself into thinking my plan would work. But living with hope was better than nothing.”
“And how do you know those people exist for me?”
“That bar woman, she clearly didn't feel as those men did. She came to give us some food for the road. Apologised for their behaviour. And I apologised for yours.” There was a subtle, playful mocking in those last words. Like chiding a child still.
“I'm sorry,” Celeste said after another long silence. “I'm leading you on my own doomed journey. You should just go deal with your own problems.”
“Celeste, I need you to understand this.” Melanie's hand rested on Celeste's knee. She must have felt the warm breath puffing from Celeste's mouth. “I am going to see this through with you. I've come too far to give up now. And...I believe in you.”
“A stupid thing to believe in, really. I've not given you any sign that this is a good idea.”
“Your religion is so fickle,” Melanie said with a laugh, throwing her hand in the air. “You think you need constant signs? That's what belief is, that is faith? It's something I chose, and I chose it even if I'm not told everything. You need every gust of wind to tell you something. If God descended from on high to tell me what I'm supposed do, I think I might doubt him more.”
“How is that comforting?”
“It's not about comfort,” Melanie said, moving her hand back to Celeste and resting it on her cheek. She raised her head and their eyes met for a moment. “It is about what you believe. I do believe in you Celeste. Call it stupid, but I know you are a good person.”
Celeste felt a tear well up in her eye and roll down the cheek away from Melanie's warm hand. Her throat caught for a moment but she spoke through it. “After everything I've done? Despite it all?”
“I think it might be because of it all. I know that goodness is still within you.” Melanie's smile then was brighter than the blazing summer sun and as gentle as the moonlight now bathing both their faces.
Was this when they were supposed to kiss, Celeste wondered. She had cared for Melanie for a long time. On and off. But this felt stronger. How could Melanie say that, believe in her because of all that had happened?
The one time you could be reckless, you are filled with so much anxiety. Pathetic.
And then the moment was gone. She thought for too long. Neither of them changed their expressions, but something was changed. Celeste pulled away, rubbing her eyes.
“Are you okay to stand?” Melanie asked, standing up herself and brushing dirt off herself.
“I think so.” Celeste stood as well, looking for her pack and slinging it onto her back.
“We need to find somewhere to sleep still.”
Celeste pulled out her pocket watch and flipped open to quickly check the time. “It's about time for you to pray.”