Fox's Wish

Here's an older story I wrote for a charity anthology a few years ago. This one has strong content, and I warn people with PTSD that child abuse is a plot point, though it's not strongly explicit.

*

FOX’S WISH

There wasn’t much left in the world for a Crown Prince to wish for. Brother Fox had only the one wish, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that would fit in a package. Every year, when Longnight rolled around, he accepted the clothes and toys—though the toys got less numerous every year—with every appearance of joy and honest gratitude. He was grateful. But he thought he might be just as grateful for quite a bit less, if only he could have the thing he truly wanted, the thing he wished for late at night, alone in the dark of his bed.

There wasn’t much left for Fox to wish for, except this: he would rather not be the Crown Prince of Shirith at all. He would rather be anyone else in the world, he thought, as long as he had a different father. Nobody got to choose his parents, but if he’d had the choice, out of all the fathers in the world, he’d choose Falcon Eye.

Just today, out in the gardens making a snow cat with Fleet Stag, he’d seen the slight huntsman crossing to his cottage all bulked up in warm things, carrying firewood. Hadn’t Falcon Eye a heat-box? It concerned Fox terribly that he mightn’t. He left Stag poking twigs into the snow cat’s face for whiskers and cut across white beds to catch up, calling out.

Falcon Eye turned and came toward him, taking the paths, and they met near the middle. “Your Highness,” the huntsman said, inclining his head, and under cover of his fur hood: “What is it, Fox? Is everything all right?”

“Yes—that’s not why—don’t you have a heat-box?” He gestured toward Falcon Eye’s bundle of firewood.

“Of course. But you can’t toast marshmallows over a—” The huntsman grunted. A soft halo of snow burst around his head. He dropped his bundle, which exploded on the path. “Damned boy.” Falcon Eye stooped and gathered a handful of snow, packing it into a tight ball. He wheeled, head turning as he scanned the garden. “I know you’re there! Come out and save yourself the trouble.”

Fox flinched. Hadn’t Father said just that to him, so often? But, “You’ll have to catch me first!” called a young voice, and another snowball sailed out of nowhere into Falcon Eye’s face. He let out a mild oath and wiped snow off his brow.

“If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness? I need to deal with this imp.”

“No!” Fox snatched at the huntsman’s arm. “I mean—don’t hurt him,” he whispered thickly.

“He’ll get what he deserves. A face full of snow. Hear that, Eagle?”

“Ha!” It echoed across the beds. Fox would swear it came from a different place than before.

“I see you, Eagle Eye!”

Silence, trembling and taut, because I see you, Brother Fox rang in his mind’s ear. “Please!” he said, voice small, but Falcon Eye must not have heard, because he went striding out toward the edge of the garden. Three more snowballs hit him on the way.

The huntsman stopped under a bare birch with snow weighing on its branches, menace in his bearing, tossing his snowball and catching it. There was a little shadow up in the tree, but Falcon Eye peered around the trunk. “Eagle! Oh, you’ll rue the day I taught you sneakery, you stealthy wee devil.”

The birch shook and dumped its load of snow on Falcon Eye’s head. He cursed, flailing, and the shadow streaked to the end of a low branch and leapt lightly to the ground. It was Eagle Eye after all, the huntsman’s son, younger than Fox, and small for his age. He was wont to tag after his father, all but invisible, blending into the scenery like a snowshoe hare. Now, though, he wore brown leather and fur, and he made a dark blot on the white as he struggled through on his short legs.

Grinning.

Was it a game, then? If Fox had dared to flick the slightest bit of anything on Father, there would’ve been pain. But here, Eagle Eye had done this, and he was grinning like a fool. Falcon Eye lumbered out of the pile under the birch and charged after his son, who made a sound somewhere between a shriek and a child’s giggle and floundered onto the path. He dashed away then, like a tiny garter snake, zipping a bow past Fox without even slowing. Stag laughed, golden and sweet, and there stood Fox in the middle of all the mirth—because when Falcon Eye passed, he was cackling too—with his arms clasped tight around himself. Fear oozed away to be replaced by the thickest bitter envy he’d ever known.

He envied Eagle Eye, now getting snow rubbed in his laughing face. “Had enough?” Falcon Eye asked.

“Yes!” Eagle Eye gasped, limp in his father’s grasp. “Please no more. Ha ha ha ha!” It made Fox swallow bile to hear.

Falcon Eye dropped his son into a drift and dusted off his mittens. “So sorry about that, Your Highness.” But there was light in his gaze. “You were asking about a heat-box, I think. Yes, we have one. It’s quite warm in the cottage. But the concern was very kind.” He laid a hand on Fox’s shoulder and said quietly, “You’re a good boy.” After a quick squeeze of the hand, he turned away. “As for you, my lad, go and pick up that firewood you made me drop.”

“Yes, Father,” Eagle Eye said, thrashing out of the drift. Fox didn’t move even when the huntsman’s son came over and gathered the sticks around his feet. After a moment, though, he bent his knees and helped.

“Thanks,” the younger boy said, when Fox handed over the last stick.

“Take it in now, please.”

Eagle Eye nodded to his father and went on up the path, across the little bridge and around the bend to the huntsman’s cottage.

“You don’t have to be hurt to come to my house, Fox,” said Falcon Eye, and walked away, leaving Fox staring after with a hungry pit in his chest.

He turned back to Stag. “That cat has the most whiskers,” he said, and his little brother beamed. “Let’s make him stripy.”

*

Nothing went well after that. Supper was a frosty horror, and the dessert worse. Stag upset his dish of lemon custard into the Duke of Madoc’s lap, and when the Duke would have told Stag it was all right, Father said how clumsy a son he was cursed with. It made Stag cry, and Fox couldn’t bear it. He thought of Falcon Eye, and then he opened his mouth, and before he could stop himself, out it flew. “Of course he’s clumsy! He’s only little, he can’t help it!”

“Corridor,” Father said, wiping his mouth with terrible calm.

Fox dragged in a shaky breath, but he rose and went out into the corridor with Father dogging his heels, through the tall oak door. It snapped quietly shut behind Father’s back, and the look he wore fell heavy on Fox’s head, and then—well, it was true to form, more or less.

Afterward, when Fox lay gasping on the floor, clutching his ribs as if he could hold himself together, Father said, “You’re an affront to my eyes. Get out of my sight.”

“If it please Your Majesty,” said Falcon Eye, “I’ll take him off your hands for a few days. I’d planned to take my son out of the Valley, and it won’t be any trouble to take the Prince along, too. You won’t see hide nor hair of His Highness.” How the huntsman had known to come, Fox couldn’t say, but here he was.

“Do what you will,” said the High King. “But come with me now, and fetch what I summoned you for.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Falcon Eye bowed deeply. “Go and fetch your warmest things,” he told Fox over his shoulder, as he followed Father up the corridor.

He did it as quickly as he could, but Falcon Eye was already waiting in front of the door to the dining-room when he’d finished packing. The huntsman had a polished wood box under his arm. On the way down to the cottage, he felt a gaze on him from time to time, but whenever he looked up to catch it, the huntsman had looked away, and the kind eyes were hard and angry. “I’m sorry,” he tried.

“No, Fox.” And Falcon Eye would say no more, not until they reached the cottage.

It was warm inside, made snug by the heat-box and the fire in the hearth that halfway divided living space from kitchen. Eagle Eye sat bootless in front of the fire, toasting a big, square marshmallow on a long stick—nearly finished. It looked brown and crisp on the outside. Fox tried not to stare at him, envious all over again. He would’ve given everything to be snug in this house every night, eating good food and feeling safe.

“Brother Fox will stay with us for a few days,” Falcon Eye said.

Eagle Eye frowned. “Are we still going out?”

“Yes, we’ll go.”

“Good then. Hi,” he added, to Fox.

“Hi,” Fox said, hugging the clothes he’d brought. His ribs ached.

“Come and sit,” said Falcon Eye, waving at the window seat. “I’ll be right there.” He disappeared into the bathing-room.

Fox went and sat among the piles of cushions there. It was soft, and with the curtains drawn over all the glass in the bay window, warm.

“I could take your things,” Eagle Eye offered.

“Oh. All right.”

The huntsman’s son rose from in front of the tiny blaze, cramming the sticky, crispy marshmallow into his mouth. Fox had just had supper, but there had been stuffed dormice on the table, which always spoiled his appetite. Looking at their tiny, glistening, butchered bodies made him ill. He wanted a marshmallow or ten. Eagle Eye looked at the stick in his hand, coated with gooey white remnants, and then at Fox.

“Trade you,” he said.

Fox held out his stack of clothing. Eagle Eye took it away, leaving the stick with Fox, and opened the wardrobe cupboard built into the larger cupboard of the bed. He stowed Fox’s clothes on a shelf like nothing. As if they belonged there. Fox gazed at the stick in his fingers. He wanted to nibble the sweet off it.

“Do you want one, Your Highness?”

“Could I?”

“I’ll make it for you, if you want.”

“Yes, please,” Fox said, tugging at the hem of his cotehardie. There was a loose thread, and he panicked before he remembered nobody would see it here. Eagle Eye took the stick and returned to the fire just as his father came out of the bathing-room with a towel and the familiar screw-top pot of all-heal.

“Right,” said Falcon Eye, “you know how this goes.”

Fox wanted to balk. Falcon Eye was the only one who saw what Father left on him. He didn’t even go to the physician anymore, only the huntsman; to let Eagle Eye see it felt wrong, but saying no was always more trouble than it was worth. He undid the hooks down the front of his cotehardie and let it fall off his shoulders. The tunic underneath was harder. Falcon Eye helped with that, easing it up Fox’s back and over his head so he wouldn’t have to raise his arms high. He sat there breathing hard while Falcon Eye laid the tunic aside.

“What happened?” Eagle Eye said. Fox hadn’t even noticed his approach. He had the most perfect toasted marshmallow on that stick.

“My father,” Fox blurted. “He happened.”

“I don’t understand.” Eagle Eye looked to his own father, who frowned slightly and unscrewed the lid on the all-heal salve.

“He thrashed me.” Anger rose in Fox’s chest, threatening to cut off what air he could get. How dare Eagle Eye not understand? How dare he not know what it was? “He does it if I breathe wrong.”

“This is why you send me away when His Highness visits.”

Falcon Eye didn’t answer, only went to one knee and began to spread all-heal on Fox’s ribs. Fox almost didn’t notice that strange greenish scent anymore.

“Why don’t you stop him?” Eagle Eye burst out. “Father—”

“Don’t you think I would if I could?”

“You could,” the younger boy said. Pale eyes went flint-hard. “You could kill—”

“Stop!” Falcon Eye rose and wheeled on his son. “Don’t say another word. Not one more! You could die for what you’ve already said. I know my place, Eagle Eye. I thought I’d taught you yours.”

Eagle Eye folded thin arms, wearing a stony expression. “So he’s allowed to do whatever he wants?”

“We are all at the High King’s pleasure.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Who said it had to be fair? This is how it is.”

“But—”

“Cloth-head!” Fox cried. Thank the God, his ribs felt better, if a little itchy from the salve. “He doesn’t do—that—because of you! Even if he managed the thing, he’d be executed before I took the crown.”

Eagle Eye gaped as if transfixed on a spear. Fox hunched, letting his hair fall over his face.

After a long, silent moment, Eagle Eye said, “Is that so?”

“Go see to the dogs.”

“Father, I only just—”

“Go see to the blasted dogs.” Falcon Eye didn’t raise his voice, but Eagle Eye flinched back from him all the same, and hurried over to the door. The boy pulled on boots and coat and slammed out. The man pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “I’m sorry about that. We ought to have gone into another room. I didn’t want Eagle—”

“He’s getting worse.”

“I have eyes.”

“What do I do?”

“I don’t know.” The huntsman put a rough hand on the side of Fox’s neck. “I wish I had an answer for you. Some things… some things you can’t fix.”

Fox looked down again, but he couldn’t see through the blurring in his eyes. Falcon Eye rose and walked away so as not to watch him cry, but it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted arms around him, like not even Mother would do any longer. He understood why—affection was dangerous in the High King’s household—but he so badly wanted her to risk it.

Falcon Eye rummaged in the bed’s separate cupboard and brought him an old flannel nightshirt, washed so many times it was a gray, soft cloud in his hands. “Here,” said Falcon Eye. “It’s a little big, but Eagle’s would be too small.”

Fox thanked him and took the nightshirt into the bathing-room to change, avoiding the sight of himself in the mirror. He found he liked the worn softness of the flannel on his skin, and the way it held the heat from his body. While he changed he heard Eagle Eye come in from the cold, and the huntsman saying a few gentle words to his son, which Fox couldn’t make out. But in a moment Eagle Eye said, “Yes, Father,” albeit in a grudging tone. Once there was quiet, Fox stepped out of the bathing-room. Falcon Eye had already changed, but Eagle Eye was taking off his breeches. He seemed entirely unashamed for Fox to see him without any clothes on. He had some bruises, normal bruises, on his shins and knees, a scab on his elbow. Nothing to hide.

“What?” he demanded, scowling. Fox looked at the green-leaf border on the rug. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring, hadn’t meant to stare.

“Eagle,” Falcon Eye said sharply, and Eagle Eye muttered something that might’ve been an apology.

“Bedtime,” said Falcon Eye. “Come on, Fox.”

Fox paused at the open doors. Inside was the bed: more than big enough for two boys and a small man, but still smaller than his own up in the Great Hall. He trailed his finger down the carved pattern of columbine along the edge of the door, a secret bit of beauty. Eagle Eye watched him, one hazel eye visible over the huntsman’s legs.

He got in and lay down under the blankets. It was warm already, the blankets wool, with the same worn softness as the nightshirt, and he sighed. Falcon Eye leaned over him and shut them in, then settled down.

“Tell a story, Father,” Eagle Eye yawned.

Falcon Eye began to sing, gentle and low. He didn’t get far enough for Fox to know what story it was before sleep came.

*

Light washed into the cupboard. Fox pulled the blanket over his head, but then someone climbed across him. Falcon Eye. A tiny thrill sparkled down to his toes when he saw the huntsman climb down the few steps to the floor. No Father today. A pang of guilt clenched his stomach—Stag wouldn’t be so lucky—but he pushed it aside.

Eagle Eye hopped over him and landed on the rug. Fox slid his legs out from under the covers and stood. Already, the huntsman and his son were dressing: whipping out of nightshirts and pulling on warm things. Fox went to the open cupboard on the side of the bed and got out his own clothes. He wished they were plainer, more like Falcon Eye’s—or Eagle Eye’s, just alike, but on a smaller scale.

“Start breakfast, Eagle,” Falcon Eye said, putting on boots, coat, and muffler. “Show Fox how to do it.”

“Yes, Father.” Eagle Eye went into the kitchen on stocking feet, silent. Fox rushed into his breeches and followed.

“What’ll we fix?” he asked.

“Here, this goes on the stove, Your Highness.”

Fox took the big pot the other boy held out and set it on the burner. “Just Fox. All right? Please?”

“If you like. You could call me Eagle.”

As if they were brothers. The idea delighted him. Eagle handed over a skillet, and Fox laid that on the other burner. He’d seen Falcon Eye’s little stove on plenty of occasions, but he’d never had occasion actually to use it. Well, why would he have? But he was excited to learn cooking. “What’ll we fix?”

“Bacon and eggs.” Eagle began to set things out on the tiny counter, next to the basin. “Porridge. There’s grain in that drawer there.” He pointed to the bottom drawer in the chest under the stove.

Fox opened it. There was the grain. What sort, he couldn’t tell.

“Two—no, three scoops. How many eggs, then?”

There were eggs in porridge? That didn’t sound right, but what did he know? He settled for a blank look at Eagle.

“For you. To eat. How many do you want?”

“I don’t know,” he had to admit. “I don’t really—I mean—I don’t get to decide ever. I just eat what’s served.”

“I’ll give you three,” Eagle said. “Then if you don’t want them all, I can finish them for you.”

“Oh—all right. Is this enough? It looks like hardly any,” Fox said, tipping the porridge pot to show its contents.

He got the funny idea Eagle was trying not to laugh. “That’s why you put water in. It gets squashy while you cook it.”

“Water! Of course!” As if he’d known all along. He felt his face turning red. “Ah—”

“It’s two-to-one.” Eagle showed him a metal cup. “So two of these for every one of the grain. D’you know how to use the tap?”

“Yes, I can use a tap,” Fox snapped. It seemed that was the only thing he did know how to do.

Eagle merely nodded and squeezed past to the cold-box at the very back of the kitchen.

Fox watched with a sick, thick sensation in his belly. “I’m sorry I got angry,” he said.

“Well,” Eagle said, with his head in the wood-sided cold box, “it was a pretty rude question.”

“I don’t know anything else, so why would I know that? You didn’t mean it rudely.”

“Oh, I meant it rude.” He came up with a paper package under his arm and a bowl of eggs in both hands, shut the door with his foot, and returned. “Sorry. Only let’s get started. There’s a lot more I’m meant to do after this.”

“Maybe I ought to watch instead,” Fox suggested, once he’d counted six cups of water into the pot.

Eagle nodded. “It isn’t hard. Honest it isn’t. If you can do magic…”

“Not very good at that either. Not good enough to please—people,” he finished, though he meant Father. His tutors always said he was doing well—and he’d learned all of his cantrips by now, even if he’d been a couple of years late figuring out how to cleanse water properly, and could at last move on in his studies—but Father never liked what they had to tell him. Fox was assured of a weekly thrashing when they reported.

“This is easier than magic.” Eagle put a lid on the pot and prodded at the stove until the round, flat burner glowed pink and gold with heat. He did the same with the burner under the skillet. “Here, you can unwrap the bacon.”

Fox did. Then he watched Eagle work: laying rashers in the skillet and turning them with a small pair of tongs. He didn’t admit that he’d never bothered to wonder how bacon was cooked. It simply appeared on his breakfast plate. Eagle was offering him a rasher from the first batch when Falcon Eye returned, bringing with him a great spray of snow and a rush of wind against which he struggled to shut the door.

“I’m sorry, lads,” he said, leaning against it. “We won’t be going out after all.” Fox’s heart dropped to his toes.

“Why not?” Eagle demanded.

“Didn’t you see? A blizzard’s whipping up. There’s no way—why, Fox, what on earth are you doing?”

“Getting my things. Don’t I have to go home?”

“Well, I suppose if we hurry—”

“Much too dangerous,” Eagle said lightly. “Don’t you think?”

Falcon Eye said, “There’s a little time yet.”

“We shouldn’t take risks with the Crown Prince’s safety, should we, Father?” As if butter wouldn’t melt on his tongue. Fox glanced over at his so-serious face.

“When you put it that way,” Falcon Eye agreed, nodding sagely, but a little bit of a smile chased across his features. “Of course you ought to stay, Your Highness. Go on, put your things back for now.” Fox laid his clothes back on the shelf and shut the cabinet. Eagle went into the back of the kitchen; Falcon Eye took off his warm outerwear.

Breakfast was wonderful, as good as supper last night had been bad. They sat quiet around the table, the three of them, but it wasn’t an ugly silence lying over the meal. Fox relaxed into the stillness and ate crisp bacon, fried eggs gone crunchy around the edges, and porridge sweetened with the addition of apples and raisins. Most of it was gone by the time Falcon Eye spoke. “What shall we do today, Eagle?” he asked, while wind rattled the shutters outside.

“Let’s play Stones,” Eagle said.

Falcon Eye groaned. “I hate Stones. Maybe Fox will play with you.”

“I’ll play! But why do you hate Stones?” Fox asked. He loved the game and couldn’t imagine hating it, even though he wasn’t very good.

“Because Eagle never lets me win.” Falcon Eye shot him a friendly grin, patted his stomach, and rose from the table, taking his dishes with him into the kitchen. “I’ll wash up this morning, lads. Go on and play when you’re ready.”

When they’d finished eating, Fox played Stones with Eagle, and won once handily, the second time by the skin of his teeth. “Do you want to switch colors?” he asked Eagle, when they set up the third game.

“No, you keep white,” Eagle said. Falcon Eye brought them big mugs of hot, spiced milk, which Fox had never tasted. It was even more delicious than the breakfast. The wind howled, but he felt cozy inside and out, even if Eagle thrashed him soundly that third game, and every time after. He couldn’t win again, but it didn’t matter at all. He just liked playing.

 It was all like that. Fox wanted to remember this or that moment, but it all flowed together into a warm pool at the center of him. They were stuck for three days while the blizzard wailed outside, and those were the best three days of Fox’s life. Stories and games and food, and nobody lifted a hand to him, nobody even shouted—except for Falcon Eye, a little, when Fox’s hair clogged the drain in the shower and it flooded the bathing-room. Even then, he wasn’t shouting at Fox, though it took a moment to realize. Other than that, Fox drank it all in like sweet water.

He nearly forgot he would have to leave. But on the fourth morning the weather had cleared, and Falcon Eye climbed out the bay window with a small spade. Fox and Eagle watched him, later, out the same window; he had gotten a shovel and he tossed white powder as if it weighed nothing, and Fox realized it was so that he could go back up to the Palace.

When Falcon Eye returned through the front door, they had a last dinner. To Fox, it tasted of ash. He didn’t even notice what it was, although Falcon Eye made no mention of his going home all through dinner and the washing-up, which he had learned to help with while he was here. It was only when he dried his hands that the huntsman said, “Get your things, Fox.”

He obeyed. Everything was neatly stacked in the cupboard, and before he knew it he had his fur coat and hat and his soft leather gloves on. He was a Prince again, but he couldn’t drag his eyes off the floor. Then Falcon Eye came close and put his hand on the side of Fox’s neck again, like he had the first night.

Fox raised his eyes. They didn’t have far to go; he was nearly as tall as the huntsman now.

“You’re stronger than you know,” Falcon Eye said. “You’ve made it this far. And you’re still a good boy, Fox, don’t doubt it. All right?”

Fox only looked at him, and for a moment it seemed as if there was more to say, but he let out a long breath and rubbed his thumb over Fox’s cheek.

“You don’t have to be hurt to come here.” And he let go. “Eagle, walk the Prince home now.”

“Yes, Father,” Eagle said, and put on his coat. He dawdled over his boots and muffler, and once Falcon Eye opened his mouth, probably to tell Eagle to hurry, but shut it again before anything came out. Eagle could only move so slowly, though, and at last they went out the door into the winter world of the garden.

The huntsman had shoveled a thin trail from his cabin to the rear of the Palace, but Eagle ignored it and leapt into the deep snow, forging off on his own. It looked like fun, and Fox followed with only one pang of worry for his clothes and what Father would say afterward. He tried to make a snowball, but it wouldn’t stick together, and when he threw it at Eagle it flew apart in midair.

Eagle said, “It’s not very good snow, is it?”

“It was good when it was coming down.”

“True.”

“What’s it like?” Fox blurted.

A glistening blue fairy landed on the back of Eagle’s hand, a naked little man with wings like faceted ice. He stroked down the tiny back with a gloved fingertip, absorbed. “What’s what like?”

“Being his son. Falcon Eye’s.”

Eagle looked at him then, clear eyes cutting to the bone. “It’s nice.”

“I wish I were.” He bowed his head. It would be awful if Eagle saw him cry.

“I wouldn’t mind it,” Eagle said. By now Fox knew there were no lies in him. Perhaps there was no room in his body for dishonesty. They trudged through the garden, impeded further by snowdrifts, under a sky like steel. But the bright blue and white and void-black fairies wouldn’t leave Eagle alone.

“Why don’t you swat them? They’ll go away if you do,” Fox told him.

“But I don’t want them to. I like them.” Eagle stopped, thigh-deep in pure white, and held out his hand for one of the ebony fairies that twinkled like a field of stars. “Look how pretty. And listen.”

Fox stood quiet for a moment. “I don’t hear—”

“Shh…”

The fairy drew herself up in Eagle’s small, gloved palm, laid fingers gracefully on her chest, and sang out a sweet sparkle of sound that plucked an answering chord in Fox’s chest. He listened with the afternoon hanging frozen around them.

A wind kicked up, tossing snow, and a branch cracked under the weight and fell to the ground. The fairy spread glass-clear wings and left a trail of glittering dust in the air behind her when she flew. It drifted over Eagle and settled onto his hood, on his face, on the muffler around his neck. Fox thought to brush it off, but didn’t. Somehow it suited him.

Flurries drifted down from the hard gray sky, dancing on the wind. “We’d better go,” Eagle said, almost apologetic.

They forged on through the drifts until they reached the back doors to the Palace. Snow piled here and there on the white marble stairs, making the risers look dirty with its purity. The ornate double portal loomed above. “Well,” Fox said, “good-bye.”

“I’ll come to the door.”

“Oh—all right.” He wanted to make a clean break of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to say no, either. They went carefully up the steps so as not to slip. Fox opened the door and turned on the threshold. “Now, good-bye,” he managed.

“Bye, Fox,” Eagle said, darting his eyes around, and laid a hand on Fox’s shoulder. Snake quickly, he stretched up and kissed Fox on the cheek with chilly lips.

“What was that for?” Fox asked, blinking.

“Because.” He turned to go, but glanced back over his shoulder and gave Fox the slightest wave and the tiniest hint of smile. Then he bounded down the slippery steps and out into the snowy garden, a small dark shape in a world of white. Fox watched him out of sight, down around the bend, before carefully shutting the door.

It had been everything he could wish.

Why The Moon Bleeds

Here's a little myth from Rothganar, as told by Dingus. It's a human myth, about human gods. The "now hear this" at the beginning is the traditional signal that the teller intends to tell a story from the mythos. 

Now hear this:

Long, long ago, before the world knew any queen but Naheel Queen of Heaven, when people didn’t know how to build cities, and lived in huts and caves, when everyone in his heart feared the dark most of all, this was the beginning of the hate between the Bright Lady and Oda King of Hell. Everyone praised Naheel’s name and gave Her offerings of their best, but they loathed and feared Oda, and only appeased Him with shiny trinkets when they had to be out at night. Oda started to grow jealous, more and more, every time He rose above the world and made the shadows creep. At first He only turned His face away, but even that didn’t help His envy and anger, because He still didn’t hear the prayers He longed for.

One bright day, Oda grew so angry He couldn’t stand it any longer. He rose up in the daytime, like He does sometimes, but invisibly, so nobody could see what He did. Slowly, so slowly, He sneaked between the world and Naheel’s face, and by the time She realized what was happening, the whole world was black as night. The screams of the people came to Her ears. They cried out to her, with words and beyond words, desperate and terrified, to deliver them from darkness. And Oda smiled at Her, white teeth shining in His silver face, and slipped away again before She seized on Him.

The Queen of Heaven’s wrath burned in Her heart like a furnace, but She stoked the fire and bided Her time, thinking on the justice She would serve to the King of Hell. On a night when Oda had turned His face full toward the world, the better to watch what happened in the deep shadows He cast, She came upon Him and struck Him down, and His blood covered His face so that the moon showed red in the sky. Death has no power over Oda, and the next night He returned full, brighter than ever, but to this day it’s the same: every so often He gets one over on Naheel and hides Her light from the world; but more often, as a punishment, the King of Hell dies a mortal death – and so the moon bleeds.

Commission -- Caticorn Vibes

This is my half of an art trade with @JesseD_Art! He wanted a piece of ambience about his beautiful character, Penelope, and I was happy to deliver.

***

Smoke drifted in a shifting cloud through the hot beam of the single spotlight. On the stage, a woman stood, a woman with soft fur and pierced cat's ears. She had lovely lush waves of red hair, but that wasn't the real story.

A single, iridescent horn, like a unicorn's, caught the light and dazzled anyone who looked at it too long. First-timers were bound to gaze at it, rapt, but the regular crowd knew the action was happening just under it. She wore a red dress, strapless, that parted effortlessly over her sleek-furred leg. It was strapless, and the neckline came nowhere near her neck.

She filled her lungs with smoky air, tasting the beer on it, and the cologne. The eager chemistry of her audience flooded her nose, and the sweet strains of guitar and harp caressed her from the darkness around the spotlight. A hush, the quiet tension of dozens waiting for her to sing.

She sang.

The tune was a simple one, not showy, but it displayed her tender, husky voice to perfection, and it spoke to her soul. She sang it from there, the place that longed for home, the place that longed for love. She shaped the words with her mouth, and her lungs carried them out over the silent audience, but her soul gave them weight. The pressure of emotion brought her lids down to cover her eyes; it was too intimate to share, too intimate to do anything but show.

"I'm not alone," she sang, "in the night..." She stroked listening ears with, "When I can have all the love that you write," and she saw a tear from a hard-faced man in the front row, a single tear sliding down his weathered cheek, sparkling at the edge of the spotlight's blaze.

She made each one of them alone in the night, alone with her. As she crooned to them she brought them close to her and cradled each one in song. Through her voice, she made them feel the softness of her, the curves, the fur, and caressed their ears with the pads of her hands.

Across the lounge, far to the back, was the hot red cherry of a cigarette. There were plenty of other smokers here tonight, but she didn't care about them, not as much as she cared about the owner of that particular cherry. Her eyes met his, and a thrill passed up through her shoulders. She couldn't see his silly coat from here, from the island of light in the dark, but she could picture it, and it made her smile secretly like a woman opening a love letter.

The song was new to her audience, but not to her. She knew every note like it was her own flesh, and she sang it like she owned every line, and when it was over, when the last whispering, pleading harpstring fell silent, there was a moment's spell of calm over the whole place. A kind of sigh followed it, nostalgia and longing. She let it hang, until at last she took a breath to fire something witty at the crowd--she barely knew what.

Instead they broke into a rippling wave of applause, and she didn't bother to hide her pleasure. She beamed, and bowed low, because they wanted it, her hair falling in front of her breasts. She raised her palms to them, glowing from within, and when it was quiet again, relatively, she started the next number. Joy filled her chest, and her heart bounded with delight.

Her name was Penelope, and she loved to sing.

A Wing and a Prayer

Here's another really old one. Three years, give or take. It's about Vandis Vail, and he swears a lot, so consider yourself fucking warned.

A Wing and a Prayer

Vandis hit his forehead. He’d been having the most wonderful dream, all open air and soaring and Her. She’d kissed him, right on the—well, not right on the mouth, but right at the corner, and he touched the spot, for one moment back in that tingly space. Here he was, though, in the shitty apartment he shared with Evan and Santo, with a pain in his head and his feet two yards above the floor and—and—

“Holy fuck,” he said, looking down.

“Too early,” Santo groaned from across the room, pulling a pillow over his shock of black hair.

“Uh…”

“It’s too early, I said.”

Vandis used his fingertips to pull himself along the ceiling. Is this Your doing? he asked Her.

What do you think?

I think I’m stuck up here until I can wake Santo. He crawled across until he hovered over Santo’s bed, legs swinging beneath him. “Hey, help me out.”

“Fuck off. Tryn’a sleep.”

“Goddammit, Santo!” The force of Vandis’s yell pushed him back a few inches. How about a little advice?

Just think yourself down, My own.

Think myself— Vandis let out an audible growl. Fine. Down, I want to go down.

He fell, bouncing his legs off Santo’s footboard, and landed yelping on his ass in a tangle of white flannel nightshirt. “What the fuck!” Santo shouted. “Didn’t I tell ya—what’re you doin’?”

“Just scratching my nuts,” Vandis said, pained. He gave up and flopped onto his back to stare at the ceiling. It really was high.

“Well, I’m up now.” Santo swung his legs out of bed and scrubbed at his face. “Thanks a lot.”

Vandis didn’t want to, but he scraped himself off the floor and limped, aching, over to the clothes press. He was pulling out a pair of breeches when his feet started to rise again.

Come on, Vandis! Don’t you want to play, then? I thought you’d be a wee bit excited about this, She said, the hurt in Her tone unmistakable.

I’ve got class, he said, but he wasn’t protesting too hard. He clutched at a drawer pull as his legs went higher and higher. The nightshirt slipped down his thighs, and when he let go of the drawer to tug it into place, he floated back up to the ceiling.

Class! What fun is that? You can fly, and you’re going to waste your morning at a lecture?

I like lectures.

She huffed. You do not.

I can’t get a Bachelor of Arts in Flying. Until then…

As if your attendance record couldn’t stand a single absence!

Vandis’s hair brushed the ceiling as he hunched over. He didn’t want to hit his head again. His back bounced gently, then came to rest against the plaster, but he felt himself being drawn upward, a pull beneath his diaphragm. “Almost perfect” doesn’t count as perfect. If I miss—

“Vandis,” Santo whispered from below. “Vandis, you—”

“Yeah, I know.” He couldn’t keep himself from grinning. Every bit of color seemed to have drained from Santo’s pleasant, dark-olive face, leaving him greenish and pasty, with wagon wheels for eyes. “I tried to tell you, but oh, no, it’s too early you said.”

“I—” Santo sagged, defeated, and Vandis chuckled.

“What’s the matter, never seen a flying man before?”

“Don’t talk stupid.”

“You sure you—” Vandis grunted when his back slammed the ceiling. A little bit of plaster fell at Santo’s feet. All right! All right!

It’s not everybody’s goddess tries to convince him to skive off, She said. You might be thankful at least.

I am. It’s just— Vandis couldn’t put his finger on it. This was bound to be trouble, somehow, some way. “Mind opening the window?” he asked Santo.

“Okay,” Santo croaked, and crossed to the tall casement on the wall next to Vandis’s bed. The glass had long since been broken out of it. He opened the shutters and morning washed into the flat.

“Beautiful day,” he said. In spite of the early chill, it was blue-glass clear outside, with only a few high clouds marking the sky, far out to sea. The spring dawn shone on the floor of the attic flat, gleamed off what roofs he could see, and cast the east side of Old Town into shadow under the City Redwood.

“Yeah.”

“Well, see you later, I guess.” Vandis shuffled himself over to the open window and grasped the head to pull himself down. His legs floated up the moment he put them outside, and when he looked down—well, his knuckles went white on the window head. Please don’t let me fall.

Why would I do a nasty thing like that? Let go, My own.

He shuddered, took a deep breath of the clear air, and opened his hand. He didn’t shoot up like he’d feared he would; instead he drifted gently higher.

“Vandis!” Santo called, leaning out. “You forgot your pants!”

“Aw, shit!” Now that Santo mentioned it, he felt a breeze on his nethers. He pulled the nightshirt down. “Toss ’em to me quick!”

“Which ones?”

“They’re hanging out of the drawer! Hurry up before I get too far.”

“Okay, okay…” Santo disappeared inside and reappeared a moment later with Vandis’s breeches wadded up in a fist. “Ready?”

Vandis held out his hands. Santo wound up and flung the breeches. They unfurled in the air. As Vandis stretched forward, his nightshirt went up around his waist. He yelped, and the breeches started to fall, ten feet short of his grasp. His mouth dropped open, and he forgot about his nightshirt for a moment, trying to swim in midair to catch the pants, but it was air—there was nothing to pull against.

His breeches flopped onto the cobbles, three stories down. He swore so foully even Santo’s shrinking face looked shocked.

“Want I should try again?”

“What’s the point?” He’d drifted even farther into the sky, and he’d just be out his other pair. Wind tossed his hair and flapped at the flannel. “Pick ’em up for me, would you?” he called. He couldn’t quite hear Santo’s answer. Higher and higher he floated, shivering a little and wishing he’d caught his pants. And then—

Well, he forgot all about it. The city spread itself beneath him, bay to Pit. The people, horses, and carriages shrank away, into dolls, into dots, and then into nothing at all. He laughed, wondering if anyone had ever been so high in the history of the world.

Yes. She laughed in his mind. But not in your lifetime.

He might have said more, but the sight of the city stilled him. It was like the scale model in the square up at the Palace, but bigger, breathing, through a furry smoke haze. He couldn’t pick out the apartment building anymore; then he couldn’t find Knights HQ, or the Cathedral of the Winds, or even the Palace Complex, high on the cliff in New Town. He couldn’t even see Last Resort all alone on the promontory.

When he drew in air, it didn’t satisfy—and his hands, he realized, were numb with cold. His feet, too, and his arms and legs prickled. He struggled for breath. I need to get down. I need—

Vandis plummeted. He left his stomach behind and dragged a girlish scream like a streamer through the frosty sky. The skin of his face flapped; his nightshirt snapped and cracked in his windy wake, plastered to his body, and Dreamport rushed up to meet him, swelling and exploding before his watery eyes, faster and faster. Help! was the only word he could push through his panic.

Just tell yourself to stop, She lilted.

He spluttered, or would have, if his lips worked. As it was, they didn’t even close enough to hold his spittle in, and wasn’t that about the dumbest thought that could come into a man’s head at a time like this?

Best hurry, My own…

He howled, “Stop!” as well as he could manage. His stomach jarred back into its proper place. His heart slammed; his head spun; he opened his eyes. His nose was six inches from the slates of a rooftop. He gasped for air, sighed out relief—at least until he felt himself rising once more, and saw the slates dropping away. “No! Nonononono! Stop, wait, I don’t want to go up again!”

He stopped. His heart pounded away in his rib cage, and his gasps sawed in and out, but he hovered stationary and relatively safe. After some minutes, though, he started to wonder how he was meant to go anywhere or do anything. Swimming with his arms and legs wouldn’t get him far. It was always so easy in his flying dreams, when She took his hand in Hers. Can I go forward? he asked.

Why not try it?

He didn’t like that innocent tone of Hers a bit, but he didn’t see what choice he had. Okay. I want to go forward. And he shot smoothly away, bounced off a chimney, and tumbled into the narrow space between two houses. This time, he managed to catch himself before he got within arm’s reach of the ground. Need to learn to maneuver. I can do that, right?

Of course. Try looking where you want to go, and moving your body a bit to match. Like—like sledding, or swimming.

I want to go slow, he told himself, or maybe Her, willing himself to drift along, skimming the rooftops of Dreamport’s New Town. When he reached the edge of the crater, he floated over that, too, and thought himself carefully into descent under the branches of the City Redwood. He spread his arms, getting the hang of it now, and tilted himself into long swoops around the trunk. His fingertips brushed the thick cracked lines of the bark, around and around, nearly to the ground, before he pressed for height again.

Up above the city, near the top of the great tree, he marked HQ, just there to the east on Temple Row. The great cathedrals pressed close to one another, but there was space around Knights Headquarters, grass, the chapel at the front, a little rectangle at this distance. Vandis thought himself out over Crater Bay.

The sea air filled his lungs. Below him, water sparkled with the dawn. Bliss.

You could go a bit faster, My own, She suggested.

I’m still getting used to it, he said defensively.

Oh, go on, stretch your legs. So to speak. I won’t let you hurt yourself.

He snorted, pushing an image at Her, the roof slates from six inches away.

You can’t begrudge Me a laugh every now and again.

It’s not funny enough I’m up here in my fucking nightshirt?

Just a bit faster. You’ll like it. I promise. And She gave him a little nudge. He zipped forward again and found himself in the middle of the bay, heart pounding, with white sails and blue water below.

How fast can I go?

Faster than I can explain to you.

Vandis thought about it without the form that words give, without the solidity of image. He wanted it. It wasn’t safe, but what about this morning was safe? He wanted it, and while he wanted, the waves began to slip away beneath him, faster and faster, and he was bolting north like lightning. The air dragged at him, but it couldn’t stop him. He blew right past, quicker than the wind. He could outrun the wind.

Vandis’s delighted whoop trailed away behind. He was freezing his eggs off, hundreds of feet high, terror pushing at the boundaries of his mind. He’d never felt so good in his life. The sky rushed around his body, through his hair, clear and blue and beautiful. He spread his arms, exulting, exalted. My Lady…!

She laughed, as delighted as he was. Turn southwest.

Can’t I go a little—holy shit, is this Rodansk? It had to be. A small harbor exploded and receded, so far down, and he flew over black basalt cliffs, greening mountains.

Yes. Turn back. If you’re not careful, you’ll get too cold.

He swung himself south again, into a broad loop. The curvature of Rothganar’s surface greeted him, blue sky touching deeper blue water. In the distance he saw Dreamport, a dark smudge in the blues. Could I fly around the world?

Not without heavy clothing. At top speed, in a few hours.

This isn’t top speed?

Heavens, no!

Maybe it was fast enough for today. Already Dreamport grew in front of him, buildings sharpening and swelling, the Redwood stretching tall. What a morning! He’d already been to Rodansk.

Slow down. You’ll overshoot.

It wasn’t until he did slow that he felt how fast he’d really been going. He had to hold the nightshirt down. As he pulled back over the harbor, a delightful thought occurred to him. Dawn service should just be finishing up. Why shouldn’t he grind it in the faces of everyone who disliked him?

Oh, he hoped Reed Westinghouse was at service this morning. He hoped it with fire in his heart. She snorted into his head as he cruised over Temple Row, between two spires of the Cathedral of the Winds.

Vandis descended gracefully on the chapel, getting his feet under him. He was sure he looked magnificent. Then his nightshirt flapped up. He gave an unmanly squawk, lunged for the hem, and planted his face in the dirt between two stone pews. Occupied pews. With his bare ass in the air like a white, hairy banner. “Fuck,” he said, indistinctly, and sat up on his heels. His cheek hurt, and when he touched it with a cold hand, his fingers came away red. That’s what I get for showing off.

His Lady giggled.

Hilarious. Now everybody’s seen my ass.

“Vandis?” Pearl said, a tiny whisper, and he turned wide eyes up to her. Right in front of Pearl. All he could think of was the night she’d tried to kiss him, and his face flamed.

“Uh—” Pearl just saw my pasty ass, he thought, and scrambled to his feet. He barged through, up the aisle, past Hieronymus laying sandalwood on the incense burner, and inside.

“Pardon me,” he heard Hieronymus say as the door swung shut.

The Head had followed him in.

Fuck.

*

Less than five minutes later, Vandis sat in a chair in Hieronymus’s office with bare knees sticking out of his nightshirt and bare toes propped on the floor, gripping the seat with both hands. His stomach growled more fiercely than it had when he was still growing.

“How have you done this, Vandis?” Hieronymus asked, rather gently, given the circumstances. His black eyes didn’t gleam with their usual humor, or with anything at all. If he wore an expression, it was fear. For a moment Vandis was tempted to worry. What would happen to him now? But this was a gift. She was on his side. She had given this to him, and he had to trust it would be all right in the end.

“I didn’t do it,” he said. “I didn’t do anything. It was Her. Lady Akeere.”

Black eyes met his. Hieronymus dipped his white-bearded chin in a slow, careful nod. “All right.”

“She told me—”

“Stop.” The Head raised a palm. “You don’t need to convince me.”

“You believe me?”

“Of course I do.”

Vandis sat back. It couldn’t be that easy. An unbelievable thing had happened, and Hieronymus believed it.

“I’m old. I’ve met a man like you before. In the old days, we wouldn’t have questioned. Menyoral, we would have said. A rare thing, even then, vanishingly rare. Acacius Xavier was the first one in centuries, and he died when I was very small.” Hieronymus came out from behind the desk and leaned his long body against the front, thin, bent with age. “He was the peace at the eye of the storm. You could feel it. Maybe it was because he was old. No peace in you, Vandis Vail.”

Hieronymus was wrong about that. Maybe there wasn’t much of it, but sometimes. Sometimes things were just so right. And She was there, and everything felt… perfect. He couldn’t have described it.

“We’ve had a lot of peace since it happened,” Hieronymus said. “Not sure that’s a good thing. If it isn’t, I’m to blame. Maybe we need the storm.”

Vandis grimaced. “Can we not talk about that?”

“You don’t think someday you’ll be behind my desk?”

He thought for a moment, hands on his bare knees. “Whether I’m before or behind, I hope I have pants on.”

“Oh,” Hieronymus said, looking down. “Why don’t you?”

“Didn’t get the chance.”

“Go and get some, then. Come right back.”

“I don’t know if I’m getting through the outer office,” Vandis said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the thick oak door. It muffled some of the sound from without, but not all by a long shot, and he could hear voices, shuffling bodies. Full house out there. At Hieronymus’s confused glance, he said, “Lots of people out there.”

“Hairy ears. Can’t hear through ’em,” Hieronymus said. “Well, they’ll have questions. Go on. Don’t swear.”

“Look who you’re talking to.”

“I’m looking.” The Head shrugged. “Like I said, maybe we need the storm. Keep the cursing to a minimum. That’s all I ask. Holy men aren’t supposed to say ‘fuck’ every other word.”

Vandis rose from the chair. “Good thing I’m not one. And I haven’t said ‘fuck’ in ten minutes. I’m starting to get itchy.”

“Vandis.”

He paused with his hand on the latch, looking back over his shoulder.

“You are,” Hieronymus declared. “The minute you got in my face about Pearl, I knew. How old were you? Sixteen?”

“Uh—”

“I knew I’d be talking to you like this someday. There’s something about you that’s… apart. Different. If you weren’t so down-to-earth, we’d have a real problem. But I suspect She keeps you grounded. Even while you fly.” Hieronymus stopped, and Vandis was on the point of lifting the latch when he added suddenly, very quietly, “You’ve seen Her. Haven’t you?”

Vandis dropped his hand. “I have.”

“I did, once. Afar off. A little figure in the distance. It was—I knew it was Her.” Hieronymus shook his head. “Willing to bet She gets pretty close to you.”

“Yes,” he said, nothing more. He didn’t see the need to tell Hieronymus how close. How She touched him so deep in the soul it bled into his flesh and left him thrumming on his bed some nights, sweat-slick, breathless, the secret thing She gave him, too intense to be called pleasure, too sweet to be called pain. Ecstasy. And the unthinkable thing he had cradled in his heart for Her since he was a boy, which he was certain She knew better than he did, and of which they never spoke. He would die for Her. Not only in Her service, though if he thought She required it he’d throw his life down singing. But for Her. Maybe that was why She called him “My own.” Doctrine aside, he’d never really felt he belonged to himself.

That was all right. He’d rather belong to Her.

“Be careful with Her. She’s beyond what we can know.”

“I can’t. From my secret heart to the hairs on my head, there’s no part of me I can hold back from Her. I’m Hers.”

Hieronymus drew breath to speak, but Vandis turned and swiftly lifted the latch. The moment he opened the door, questions slapped him in the face: how’d you do it, what was it like, why aren’t you dressed, what’s your name? It was too much, too many, all this attention, and he reached for Her like he always did when he was afraid. My Lady…

She answered. He drew Her love around him like a cloak and stood as tall as a man five-foot-nothing ever had. What was there to fear? She was with him. “I’m Vandis fucking Vail,” he said. “Get the hell out of my way.”

And they did. He met Santo at the outer door, Santo and Evan both, and his friend held out an armful of rumpled clothes. “Thought you’d want these,” Santo said. “Sorry I dropped your pants. Didn’t get much on ’em though, figure they’re clean enough to get along with.”

“Thanks.” Vandis dropped the rest and put his breeches on, right there. The questioners from the office surged toward the door.

Evan slammed it shut and leaned against it, casual-like. For a long moment there was silence, at least among them. Then Santo said, “You’re the worst flyer I ever saw.”

“You’ll need loads of practice, so you will,” Evan said.

Vandis couldn’t have asked for better friends. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“Did you expect we’d be surprised?” The door bowed against Evan’s small weight. “You’ve always been a bit uncanny.”

“Weird,” Santo agreed. “C’mon, let’s go get a beer. You’re buyin’.”