Claiming The Remnant

Chapter 71

[ Garrett ]

Despite the argument and the weird incident with the peas we passed the time drinking Elbranis mixed with hot tea in a rather amicable fashion. By the time we retired the bottle was down to its last drop and we were nothing short of pissed.

Drunk, I staggered through the castle.

“Ah, shit.” I was halfway down the hallway to my quarters when I remembered. “About turn, soldier!” I snickered doing a very sloppy 180°. “Bloody Captain Suite.” I grumbled, trying to keep the floor and walls where they were meant to be. Getting through the castle from the Healers quarters had taken no time at all but the short distance from this end of the hallway to the opposite was taking forever.

At an intersecting hallway I paused. There was something… My eyelids were heavy, my whole body swayed and there was a light spinning everywhere that made me feel a little sick but that wasn’t what had me dead in my tracks. A slight scent of lemon. Just a hint.

“Jo?” I slurred looking at the empty hall. Everything shimmered and moved but I was sooo bloody drunk, it was probably me. “I’m really drunk.” I told the stone wall before taking a clumsy step. “They call it a ‘stiff’ drink but it makes you like noodles. f*****g Graceson always milling about, but not now, when I can’t find my feet.” Might have been all the drink but I swore there was a muffled laugh. Stopping again (not that I was moving much anyway) I gave the walls a squinty once over. “Miss you, my butterfly…” I told the grey, uncaring stone just in case.

As ordered the Captain’s Suite was ready. I, however, wasn’t ready for much of anything. The Elbranis was pounding its way around the inside of my skull. f**k, I was going to be hanging tomorrow. Not giving two shits about anything I flopped onto the couch. There were too many doors in these quarters for my inebriated self to waste time poking about for the bed. A couch was just as good. This was a blue couch. Hummmm, yesss, blue. My last thought as I drifted off into a heavy drunk sleep was one of pondering. Who had so thoughtfully organised a blue couch?

- - -

Groaning. Someone was… oh, it was me. My mouth was dry, bone dry; tongue, teeth, lips all glued together. Ye Gods, my head! The room gave a solid spin as I tried to stretch out the stiffness in my neck from sleeping on a couch. A couch? Oh, yes, I was in the Captain’s Suite. I’d forgotten. Earth and Sky have mercy, I didn’t know where anything was. My bladder was fit to burst at exactly the same time that I felt the need to consume at least a bath's worth of water.

Took two tries to find the bathroom. I hated this suite already. There were a lot of my life choices I was currently hating. Finishing that bottle of Elbranis was one of them. Worse for wear it was impossible to focus. Even after a shower the heavy, post drinking feeling hadn’t shifted. Perhaps it wasn’ that at all. Perhaps the ache was my need to hold Jo in my arms.

There was a churn deep in my stomach as the image of Jo pulling on trousers replayed followed by the torturous image of them leaping off the roof. If Zach hadn’t grabbed my arm… I would have leapt right after them. Ye Gods, I needed some air.

When I’d asked for the quarters to be fully stocked I wasn't sure what I’d expected but it really was fully stocked. Everything from toiletries in the bathroom, clothes in the wardrobe and food in the kitchen. Some things had even been moved from my old quarters. My brother's die was on the bedroom side table. On impulse I put it in my pocket. Casually dressed (which was weird because I was so used to wearing my Captain’s uniform), I had a strong cup of tea and some toast. Burnt Toast.

The grill really needed some sort of timer. Shouldn’t be too hard to rig something to the off switch so the heat imbued metal sheet didn’t just keep going. Such a waste of magic if it was accidently left on. Some gears, tension springs ect. An idea was forming. Something for later though. Right now I just need to get out.

The door handle was just touching the palm of my hand when there was a knock.

“Morning, Zach…” The lad rocked from one side to the other, bare feet softly padding the floor. In his hands he was carrying the plant from yesterday. What was left of it anyway. It had been reduced to one brown stick with a single yellow leaf. “You ok?”

“Interesting.” He held the plant out for me to take.

“It was rather different.” Cautiously I took the plant from him. It was unceremoniously dumped on a side table just inside the door. “It was a shock in itself that Asperonin even attempted it.”

“Yes. Talk?” Zach held out a hand for me to take.

“Sure, I was just heading out - going to the stables.” It was a good place to go and clear my head. The horses had a soothing energy.

“Ok.” With a big smile he went to take my hand.

“Ah, no. You're welcome to come with me but I’m going to walk.” Zach pulled a face like walking was offensive and gross. “You can just meet me there if you don’t want to walk.” I chuckled.

“Just walk.” He rolled his eyes, resigned but still held out his hand. The idea of taking his hand to walk was odd and confusing. He was young but not that young. I must have been staring a little too long without making a decision because Zach spoke up. “Hard seeing.”

“Oh, sorry.” We walked in silence until we were past the inner wall, walking across the grass to the stables. I wasn’t sure why Zach had me hold his hand all this way. I hadn't had to navigate him around anything. Perhaps it was an excuse.

“How are you?” He asked suddenly.

“I’m ok, Zach.” Certainly I was feeling a little better than I had. Who know Asperonin could be such good company but I wasn’t going to overshare with Zach. He might feel grown up. He might see lots of things that he shouldn’t but that didn’t mean I could lay my adult problems on him. “How about you?”

“Umm…” He slipped his hand from mine. There had been some traumatic events over the week. I wasn’t the only one that had seen Jo’s illusion. Zach had been there too. “It’s been hard.” He stood still, wiggling his toes in the soft, damp grass.

“I can imagine. You want to talk about it?” I looked at the way he was wringing his hands. It seemed to me that I was an odd choice for Zach to want to open up to but our shared experience probably made him feel safe. Like me, he probably didn’t have many options.

“Don’t know where to start.” He kicked the top of a dandelion, sending a spray of the tufted seeds into the air.

“Well lad, starting is always the hardest bit.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, easier to talk when you're occupied.” He looked at me like he thoroughly disagreed but walked next to me in deep thought the rest of the way to the stables.

“Neth.” The stable hand turned to me with the obligatory ‘Captain’ greeting. “Take the morning off, come back after lunch.” I placed a few coins in his palm.

“Thanks Captain.” He grinned, swiping his black hair out of his face. The action revealed his pale yellow eyebrow. Neth’s lick of yellow magic made him ideal for the stables. He could whisper to the horses, words twisted with a touch of his magic, and they would do as asked. He could even calm Amerise’s bully of a steed.

With Neth gone I started setting up to groom the horses. The stablehand had already cleaned the stalls and put out fresh hay and water so we had the nice job of bonding with the animals.

“Here.” I handed Zach a hoof knife after I’d hitched the new mare to the post. “Like this.” I showed him how to lift her leg and clean the hoof. “A bit firmer, Zach. That’s it.” Keeping him in my sight I began working on my chestnut mare.

“What are their names?” Zach asked, moving onto the next foot.

“I dunno.” I smiled, giving the mare’s leg a rub. “They haven’t told me.”

“I thought you didn’t have magic?” The lad kept cleaning the hoof, not looking at me while he spoke.

“I don’t. It just doesn’t feel right to impose a name on them. When I’ve got to know her and she has gotten to know me something will come to me. Until then they are nameless.” The mare dipped her head with a soft snort. “See, she agrees.”

“Are you going to ask the King to stop me working in the castle?” The lad spoke his mind.

“No, seems a little redundant at this point, but I do think we need to have laws in place that protect children and limit their working hours at the very least.” Muscle memory from cleaning a thousand horses hooves or more had me on the third foot without even thinking about it.

“That sounds reasonable. I’ve been thinking about what I want to say during the meeting…” He carefully placed the hoof he was working on down. “That is if I’m invited.”

“Of course you will be. I think His Majesty should name you as an Ambassador for the youth but…” I rolled the words I wanted to say around my mouth. They tasted bitter but needed to be said. “You are going to have to make better decisions about which secrets to keep and which ones to address…”

“Grace…”

“Yes. Grace.” I nodded, inspecting the last foot.

“Lady Esther met Ethyn yesterday. She accidently hit him with a book.” Zach changed topic.

"Typical. She's trouble wherever she goes." A faint smile crossed my face. "What was she doing with a book anyway?"

"Jo took her to the library."

"Typical Jo." I rolled my eyes. "Ta…Lady Esther," I caught myself, "can't read."

"Huh, nor me, can't focus on it." Zach seemed un-bothered but it sparked a little thought in my brain. In my pocket I thumbed the dots on my brother's die.

"That makes sense, what about this though." I put my hand out for his and he gave it. "Can you see these dots?" I moved his fingers around the die.

"Yes, this side has one and there are four here."

"So I'm thinking… we write a 1 like this." I drew the number with my finger against his wrist. "But… we can also write it like this." Once again I pushed his finger over the indent. "Wouldn't take much to do something similar with letters…"

"I can't believe people say you’re dumb." Zach sounded angry about that. It was tempting to ask who but I was better off not knowing.

"Was that all you wanted to tell me about Ethyn and Esther?" I asked instead, leaving Zach to inspect the die while I inspected the hooves he had cleaned. He'd done a pretty good job.

"Lady Esther had a panic attack because she thought Ethyn would punish her - she is ok though, but Ethyn says she is his 'coupe de foudre', love at first sight." I handed him a curry comb for the horse and he passed me back my brother's die. That was interesting news, the gutter-rat landing herself a Prince. If the little tealeaf's memory came back she was going to be in for one heck of a shock. "Me and Rin weren't like that, does that mean we don't really love each other?"

"Love looks different for everyone one, it comes in many different forms." I sounded like some silly old lady but it was obvious he was thinking about it while I showed him how to remove the top layer of dirt from the new mare's coat.

"Was it love at first sight for you and Jo?" Zach worked his way over the horse coat methodically.

"No." Although if the King was right it should have been. "It was complicated but we are still in love."

"Why does he… they treat you that way then?" Zach huffed and the horse huffed right along with him.

"Jo is… damaged. People didn't treat them very nicely." Like someone hurt you, I wanted to say. "So sometimes they don't behave very nicely because they don't know how."

"This is nice." He patted the horse he was grooming. "People don't let me try things because they don't think I can do it or they don't understand what I'm saying."

"I know full well what it's like to be underestimated, it's good to have someone believe in you. Sometimes that's all you need." I started brushing down the chestnut horse with a firm brush. "Zach… I'd like to ask you a question, an unpleasant, rather personal question which I don't want you to feel obligated to answer. We are just two friends having a chat in the nice quiet stables."

"Only if I can also ask you an unpleasant, personal question in return." In contrast to his usual bubbly attitude this was said with an almost somber tone.

"Of course." I wondered what he could possibly ask that made him feel so concerned. "How did you get the scars on your back?" The words came out in a rush before I lost my nerve.