[OOM: On the Road]

[mnt_raph]

It's less than a day's ride from the Designated Tortoise to Corus, so Abigail and Raph saddled up Cloud and a loaner horse by the name of Colin and set out after just after lunch. They crossed into the city proper just as the shadows began to lengthen announcing the approach of night. Raph, who had spent his first few years in Tortall doing odd jobs in and about the city, had more than a few favors at his disposal. The best barn was open to the horses, while their people dined on the best fare at the best table, and later slept in the best bed the inn had to offer. Pretty damn auspicious way to start an Adventure, if Raph says so himself.

The following morning all travellers awoke refreshed and prepared for anything the day had to offer, which apparently a whole lot given the beautiful weather and overall quiet of the countryside. The group had only been travelling for a few hours when they reached that point in the journey where pleasant conversation falls by the wayside leaving only silence in its wake. The silence wasn't welcome. Making conversation was the only thing keeping Raph's mind from focusing on the any number of things he'd rather not be thinking about. Foremost on that particular list is the paranoia that at any moment he's going to fall off Colin.

In the nearly ten years that he has spent on this side of the door, Raph has only successfully ridden on Cloud for any extended duration. Horses, you see, make him nervous. So nervous that the horses, sensing this apprehension, can do nothing but react in kind. More than one has been guilty of throwing him from the saddle, and as such Raph has stuck close to Cloud and Cloud alone as much as possible. Cloud was there though out his seemingly endless Kane-like wandering of Tortall, and there was no way Raph was going to repay the poor pony's loyalty by making his cart his sorry ass around on another long journey. It just wouldn't be fair. Which is why during the four day trek towards the Swoop it will be Abigail riding Cloud, what with her being so much lighter than the bald Shang warrior riding to her left.

So far so good though, right? Colin seems to be behaving in spite of Raph's white knuckled death grip on the reins.

Comments

[tortallan_npc]

"That I figured," Abigail tells him, swallowing a quick laugh.

She smiles blandly and bites into the bread.

"Milliways?"

[mnt_raph]

"No," he says, before he can think better of it. She knows he's not from Tortall, or even Olau. She's never straight out asked before, and he's never thought to offer the information...for various reasons.

"No one's really from Milliways. It..." he pauses to pop a bite of bread into his mouth, and then proceeds to talk with his mouth full. "It's a way station."

[tortallan_npc]

For years she's assumed he's from the Copper Isles, Galla, Tusaine, Maren -- not Scanra -- or some country she's not heard of, but lately the likelihood of it has troubled her. A distant cousin of the Lioness not of Tortall is all he's ever shared willingly.

She hasn't pushed; he hasn't volunteered more. Until a Spidren attacked and he was worried enough to tell her of Milliways. That had shifted her reality, made her question everything she'd thought to be true, and real. She'd even consulted a mage, who'd looked at her oddly and spoken of the Realms.

A way station, he says. A place between worlds. Abigail's throat goes dry, and she has to sip wine in order to swallow the bread she'd been chewing.

"It's all different than I've thought, isn't it? The world," she says wonderingly. "I haven't asked. Mayhap I didn't want the truth, or wasn't ready for it. But I'd like it now."

Voice even and calm, she looks him in the eye as she speaks. There's still a sense that she'll wait for him to be ready and not punish him for it, but she wants him to know she's willing to hear and handle it now. She's with him in this. She's prepared.

[mnt_raph]

Her declaration leaves him speechless, eyes the size of saucers blink at her. She thinks she's ready, doesn't she. Oh but she has no idea. None what so ever.

Raph holds her gaze for as long as he can stand it, but then eventually is forced to look away out of fear. Some great warrior he's turning out to be.

He pulls his arm back, running his open palm across his scalp.

"What do you want to know?" he says quietly. So quiet, that if she wasn't expecting him to speak she might have missed it.

[tortallan_npc]

At his words, her heart does a quick flip in her chest. It's unsettling.

"Everything," she confesses, lips curving in a wry smile. "But I've no clear notion of what to ask."

Abigail threads her fingers together in her lap and squeezes, keeping herself from touching him, fussing over him. Whenever his eyes go hollow like that, she has an irrational urge to comfort or cuff him.

"Where you call home seems as good a start as any."

[mnt_raph]

He gets that a lot.

Raph takes a deep breath, looks out onto the expanse of land before them, and exhales.

"It's called New York City, in a country called The United States of America. An' it was the year...." his face screws up in thought as he tries to remember the date the last time he was there. "I think it was 1998 or 1999. I'm not really sure."

[tortallan_npc]

"New York City," Abigail breathes, the name feeling and sounding alien in her Tortallan accent. "United States of America."

When she was young, her father told her to repeat things until she made a memory and could recall them: the fair price of grain, how many tankards are in a barrel, the recipe for brown bread.

She doesn't think she'll forget this, but she repeats the names anyway.

"Is it like here?" she asks after a while. "Older, I suppose. Goddess knows we're a long ways from... 1999."

[mnt_raph]

It's now that he turns back to her, with a smirk on his face.

"Not even remotely. There're other places back home that were like here at one point, but never New York. New York never had a king."

[tortallan_npc]

No king? That gives her pause.

"Emperor?" she supposes.



The narration is glad Raph isn't from Chicago, as it would then be obliged to make a crack about Abe Froman.

[mnt_raph]

Raph's already shaking his head.

"No Emperor. Folk that lead us do so 'cause they've been voted into power by the will of the people."

Not that Raph's ever voted....

[tortallan_npc]

Loyalty to Tortall and the crown is bred into Abigail's bones, and is something she's never questioned; both have needed defending in her life, and both have her support. Tortall is home. But there's plenty she'd tell the king were he to stop in her tavern for a meal. Plenty she'd tell him needs fixing.

Less so now, since King Jonathan came to the throne.

Still, to have a say, to know your ruler listened to you, must be a fine thing indeed.

"Not sure I'd want some people we know havin' a say. Stupidity is the same, nobles and commoners alike."

But she's smiling as she says it.

[mnt_raph]

"Yeah well...it ain't an exact science."

He holds his hand out, reaching for the bottle of wine.

[tortallan_npc]

"No," says Abigail, mind racing.

Primogeniture has its own issues, and lots of them.

"Little is."

She slides the bottle closer to him and reaches for the cheese.

"You're not a cousin, then."

[mnt_raph]

He shakes his head, but waits until after his drink from the bottle to speak, again wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"No, I ain't her cousin. We're family through and through, but we ain't blood kin."

[tortallan_npc]

Abigail nods, focusing undue attention on her bread as she fits a slice of cheese to the top and takes a bite.

She understands, but it still changes things. Not for or about him, so much as her.

"Thank you for tellin' me," is offered at last.

[mnt_raph]

He continued drinking while she processed all that he just told her, until finally there was only one thing he could say to her.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about lying. It just...when the door closed, it just seemed like the best way to go about things...."

[tortallan_npc]

Another nod.

Abigail won't say he doesn't need to apologize, even if she doesn't really want to hear it. He does: for lying to her, not trusting her, occasionally making her think things were worse than the truth he's just shared.

But he recognized the need for an apology, even supplied one without threat of bodily harm, which is more than a lot of males she knows would have done. And more than he would have done before, she thinks.

She's not mad, but the wariness in her eyes will take a while to fade.

"You won't hear me arguin'. You do what has to be done."

[mnt_raph]

It's that wariness that worries Raph, and convinces him that she knows he's not telling her the whole truth. In his anxiety, he babbles on.

"It was a security measure. There're things back home that...well, they'd turn this place on its ear, is what they'd do. An' too much had happened before. Just...a bad idea."

[tortallan_npc]

His nerves are showing. Abigail looks at him askance, wondering why he's justifying his actions in quite this way.

"You sound as if you're not expectin' me to understand the need for security. You should've told me," she admonishes. "But not 'til recently."

She shrugs.

"You should've told me all of it together."

[mnt_raph]

He takes another drink. Maybe it's the wine, or maybe it's the relief to finally get some of this out in the open, but what ever it is, it goes straight to his head and he can't help but laugh.

"Aye, I should've at that. But that weren't the plan, an' it ain't what we all agreed on. You."

Raph turns towards her, eyes scanning her face but stopping to look her in the eye. He sighs.

"You weren't part of the plan. The door comin' back weren't part of the plan. Spiders with freakin' faces weren't part of the plan. We been kind of makin' this shit up as we go."

[tortallan_npc]

His laugh makes her smile, but it only reaches her eyes when he says she wasn't part of the plan. Curiously, being told she's a disruptive force in his life makes her feel kind of good.

There's a long moment when she appears to be seriously considering her response, then:

"Me'n Cloud could head back north, if we're gettin' in the way," she suggests, brushing crumbs from her lap.

Don't worry, Raph. She's teasing. She'd take Colin.

[mnt_raph]

He looks at her, brow furrowed in disbelief.

"Don't make me break your legs."

[tortallan_npc]

Abigail raises her eyebrows, affecting shock.

"But that'd be like shootin' an arrow in your own foot!" she exclaims, smiling brazenly. "Time and again you've made mention of how you like my legs wrapped 'round you."

Hard to do when they're broken, Raph.

[mnt_raph]

Raph looks up and to the left as he considers her words. As they're not in mixed company, there's no trip to his hair trigger blush reflex. He sighs happily as his mind replays some truly happy memories he has of the two of them together. So happy that he can't help but raise the bottle to them before taking a drink.

"Aye, that I do," he says passing her the bottle. "But considering I'll not have you at all if I allow you to leave? I think I'll take suffer the losses and keep you around just the same."

[tortallan_npc]

Taking the bottle, Abigail throws her head back in a rich, unselfconscious laugh.

"And considerin' I'd rather put my legs to such good use, I'll stay by your side and keep playin' merry havoc with your plans."

Amusement flickers in her eyes as she lifts the bottle for a drink.