Fanner kicked and thrashed, trying to fight back against whatever had pulled him into the river, but there was only water around him. He pushed towards the surface, but he was dragged back under, as though the water itself was a weight pushing him down.
He felt the water heat around him as his magic came to his defence, but whatever he was grappling with didn’t seem to care. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t… he couldn’t…
Something yanked him sharply upwards and he gasped as his head breached the surface. He could feel his body being sucked back down, but the force above him was stronger. He was pulled from the water and tossed, gasping, onto the riverbank. Yore stood above him, panting and furious.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Yore demanded, but this time he wasn’t speaking to Fanner. He was looking out into the river.
A small, semi-translucent head bobbed out of the water and watched them with dispassionate eyes. Fanner couldn’t make out any parts of its body that were still beneath the water, but he wasn’t sure if it was because their appearance made them hard to see or if they simply weren’t there. “Drown the human.”
Yore held a hand out in Fanner’s direction. “Does that look like a fucking human to you?”
“Mm…” The creature tilted its head as it looked at Fanner. “Yes. Human.”
“Really? Humans have hair like that, do they?”
The creature’s head bobbled further out of the water. “Humans have hair! You can’t trick me! I know humans have hair!”
“Not like that, they don’t. Not hair that looks like actual gold made into strands.”
The head sunk back into the water until its mouth was halfway submerged. “Lemme drown you?”
“No! Stop trying to drown people! You’re not helping anyone.”
“Mm… but… lemme drown you?”
Yore took a deep breath in, let it out, and shook his head. “This is pointless.” He turned back to Fanner, who lay frozen on the ground where Yore had tossed him. “You’re wet.”
Fanner swallowed. He didn’t dare move.
“What did you do to me?”
Fanner didn’t respond.
“Okay.” Yore let out another sigh. “Get up.”
Fanner complied, careful not to do anything that looked like a sudden movement towards Yore.
“Follow me,” Yore instructed.
Fanner did as he was told. Though Yore led the way, Fanner could tell he was keeping one eye on him, making sure he didn’t get within grabbing distance.
Yore looked out through the trees, nodded to himself, and then pointed to a small boulder. “Climb up onto this and stand up.”
Fanner obeyed.
Yore pointed through the trees. “You see that thing flying around near the cliff face? The big thing?”
Fanner nodded. What was that? It looked much too big to be a bird.
“That’s a griffin,” Yore told him. “If you’d have gone much further in that direction, you’d have stumbled into their territory. They’re savage things that have young year round that they’ll kill to defend without hesitation. And then they will eat you. Do you understand?”
Fanner nodded again.
“You’ve been safe out here because you’ve been with me and I know what I’m doing. If you go off on your own, you will die. Some things might spare you because you’re not human, but there are plenty that don’t know or just don’t care. I understand that I’ve given you no reason to trust me, but if you try to make it on your own you. Will. Die.”
Fanner dropped his head, nodding.
“What did you do to me?” Yore asked again.
Fanner hesitated. He lifted his head. “What are you?”
Yore stared back at him for a long, tense moment. “What do you think I am?”
Fanner looked away. The amount of energy he’d had, the way he’d talked to that thing in the water, his strange, amber eyes and unusual size… “I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m not so sure I know quite what you are anymore either, so I guess we’re even.” Yore stared out at the griffins and let out a sigh. “Come on. I left the bag behind and I’m not about to leave you alone again to go get it. I’m not carrying you anymore either, so I hope you’re prepared to walk.”
Fanner kept his head down and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Yore made Fanner walk ahead of him, as though he were dangerous. He supposed he was, but he didn’t feel like he was. He was so used to being the one following that it felt uncomfortable to have someone walk behind him.
Fanner was fairly sure Yore wasn’t human. He had wondered if maybe he just had so much energy because he was such a large man, but there was no way. The difference between how much energy Fanner had taken from Whelan to kill him and how much he’d taken from Yore just to briefly knock him out was massive.
And then there was the way he’d talked to that thing in the water. It felt like he’d had that conversation before. Like its inability to correctly identify a human was a personal and ongoing annoyance.
If he truly wasn’t human, that changed everything. It would mean that it wasn’t so strange at all that he was out here, that he might have friends close by that Fanner hadn’t been aware of.
And he’d turned Fanner down because… well, Fanner still wasn’t sure about that one. Maybe Yore just really didn’t find him attractive after all. Looks were the one thing Fanner did have, or at least he’d thought so.
But none of that mattered now because Yore was making it very clear that he wasn’t going to let Fanner within touching distance of him again. It was reasonable, but it still hurt. He wanted to apologise, to explain himself, but there were too many other things all tangled up in it that he didn’t dare speak about.
No matter how this went, no matter who Yore was and what he had planned, there were certain things about himself that Fanner didn’t intend to tell anyone.
He didn’t want to be a healer anymore. It was too dangerous. He’d spent most of his life as a Companion, and though he’d been bad at it, at least he hadn’t killed anyone.
He would go back to that, if he was given the opportunity, or otherwise just… be nothing at all. Like any Companion, he wanted attention and affection heaped on him, wanted to be special to someone, but unlike other Companions, he didn’t need it. He could keep himself balanced. Nobody had ever wanted him and that was unlikely to change now, so perhaps it was time to accept that he would always be alone.
Comments (9)
See all