Fifteen

Sebastian nodded and grinned. "I see. Talented scoundrel. I wonder how he does it." Pause. "Do you have know how he does it?"

"Not the slightest," she answered chipperly. She had considered different possibilities over time, but neither come up with an explanation that did not contradict at least one of her observations, nor systematically tried to find out. Come to think of it, the latter was not something she'd have liked to admit.

More thoughtfully she added, "One slightly worrying possibility would be that he's a lot brighter than he lets on."

"Ah?" Amused, he said: "That would make him either a bit devious... or just lazy, I suppose. The latter would fit the picture based on what you've told and what I've seen."

Sylvie hummed approvingly. "You're really good at not worrying, it seems."

"Oh, no," he said, lips curling into an ironic smile. "I'm just an optimist. But if you would like, I can also come up with an overdrawn theory of how he is, in fact, some dangerously intelligent, devious creature that is affecting our minds and steering us where he wants us to be."

He paused, pursing his lips and raising his eyebrows, looking at the sky momentarily. "That might be a bit over the top."

Sylvie grinned. "But that'd fit perfectly with the stories about dragons I heard as a child. He'd have the added advantage of not being trapped, though."

"Hmm, yes, and he's also ridiculously small for a dragon from the stories. But, he does have two heads to do his thinking with! It stands to reason that he may indeed have the mental faculty and power to steer two capable thinkers along a route he has planned, or as according to some near-infernal plan of conquer, plunder and hoarding." Sebastian shot a serious look at her. "Oh, and that would mean we'd be the two trapped people."

"Yes, and him being entirely happy when provided with dried fruit to eat and glass shards and brass bells to hoard is all just an act; it makes perfect sense! He probably disappeared this morning to find a way underground, to raise the trees into an army that'll overrun Canyet."

She was having her doubts about the "capable thinkers" bit, though.

"How devious! What skill of manipulation and gift of acting! This is why one shouldn't meddle with dragons." A pause. Sebastian couldn't control himself anymore. He cracked up. "Oh, this'll fly far on the comedy stage. About as far as a tomato, mind."

"Aw. Well, a tomato's better than an apple. It doesn't hurt so much."

After a split second of looking a little shocked, Sebastian laughed at that as well. His heart had almost skipped a beat. "Or a melon! How true," he chuckled, reading Sylvie for a moment. "Optimists, bravely facing a hail of tomato."

Sylvie was grinning widely. She hadn't watched Sebastian closely, so she hadn't noticed his shock.

"That'd be really silly."

"Indeed it would," he replied with an expression that mirrored Sylvie's. "If there was ceremonial armour involved, perhaps ever sillier than that."

Now it was her turn to crack up laughing.

When she'd calmed down a bit, she shook her head and said, "I do not want to speculate what that'd look like." She meant that.

A sharp white grin cut Sebastian's face while she laughed, then calmed just as she did. "I wouldn't either," he said chipperly, enjoying the afterwarmth of a good laugh.

That was all fun and that, but they should be moving, so Sylvie picked up the pace again.


A gentle breeze kept the temperatures more suitable for walking than the last few day's heat. Sylvie had stopped worrying about rain; the weather would be what it would be. Neither hurrying nor dawdling more than neccessary, they reached a village where the stream met the road to Canyet by afternoon.

Sebastian's first course of action was to stop and drink it all in. The scent of the fields, which were spread out wide and far, golden and just about ready for harvest. The crop swayed and danced under the wind, as did the smoke billowing from the stacks of lone farms farther away from the village. He didn't have to look behind them to know the clouds were there, anymore.

The village itself, just some thirty paces away, looked to be rather standard fare to his eyes. No walls, perhaps a hundred inhabitants. This was the Lady Land's realm of influence, and he acted accordingly, giving a huge sigh as he relaxed in spite of the inquisitive looks the townspeople welcomed them with. A group of children giggled and snickered, peeking from behind a tree. Sebastian, who found that he was apparently the stranger of the two to the children based on how much attention they gave him, smiled but was careful not to look at them. The looks of the adults he met and held for some time, finally deciding that they were neither hostile or overjoyed to see them.

Halfway through the village, he turned a short-lived look of askance at Sylvie.

Sylvie was likewise appeared calm. She nodded a greeting to a woman to whom she had spoken for a while the last time she passed through, and got a reluctant return.

By chance she noticed the look Sebastian gave her, and raised an eyebrow enquiringly.

"No need to stop?" he asked quietly, turning his eyes back to the road.

"Not for me. You?"

Sebastian looked around once, sniffing the air. "Not for me, either."

Shortly behind the village the road made a turn to the left, the first of a couple to compensate for a steep slope. To the right the stream rushed white. From the top of the slope you could see a way ahead into the valley. Most of it was still woods, the treetops rippling in the breeze, but just at the next bend you could make out gaps, fields belonging to the next village.

Not so easily visible was that the road did not follow the winding river closely, but met it here and there, but Sylvie remembered that, as well as something else.

"Further ahead there's a slightly bigger settlement, Garya Cross, I think we can reach that today still." Her mood was a far cry from the morning's giddyness, but all in all, she felt fine.