Chapter 76: EXTRA: The Willow At The River

The great willow tree stood straight with drooping branches beside the slow flowing river as the sun’s weak morning light illuminated its gnarled roots and threw her shadow as a long-faded thing upon the ground. She felt the tall grass scrape against the edges of her wool surcoat as her heavy boots would occasionally kick up clods of loose dirt from the rain that came the night before.

According to her father, this was the best possible time to go fishing and beneath a tree was the best spot to do it!

So Eona Jokulldottir set her bucket down and sat on a large raised root that seemed to sheepishly reach out to dip into the deep blue river. She spent a few moments untangling the line for her fishing rod and tying a small piece of cleaned pig gut to the hook and then cast it out into the water and waited for a fish to bite.

Her father and the Marquis of the city had both talked a lot about the fish in the river.

Black-bellies, silvery fish with black colored greasy meat on their stomachs that were supposedly delicious fried.

Red-whisker snappers, small aggressive fish often chopped up bones and all for some sort of dumpling.

Ladyfeet, chubby fish ‘no bigger than a court lady’s shoe’ that swam in groups of ten and were great in stews.

Dumb-bells, odd things with mouths constantly open like bells and according to the Marquis were stupid enough to mistake their own tail for a worm.

In Norwen, the usual meat was typically venison, cold ocean fish, or old chickens. Yet since coming to the Southern Kingdom and settling into the ambassador’s house Eona found it almost impossible to keep meat well supplied in the kitchen and after an emotionally painful incident of trying to talk to a bewildered looking butcher she had resolved to find another way to stay useful in her father’s household.

She just wanted to be useful.

So Eona continued to sit on the tree root and wait for something to bite. Sometimes she would lean forward a bit, just enough to peer at her reflection in the water. Her curly red hair was tied back with a leather strap so it would not stick to her face and neck when the humid heat of the afternoon inevitably got to her. She did not look for long, the angry half-healed scar on her face seemed to grow uglier in the gentle ripple of the river.

With how dark the water was, Eona wondered idly how deep it truly went. She had been explicitly warned about how it had a dangerous current under its placid surface, and in fact a beautiful woman once threw herself into it to drown in order to escape an amorous god and became a goddess herself. Eona found the story a bit morbid the more she lingered on it.

She waggled the fishing rod a little as the sun rose higher, its light falling over half the tree trunk.

Nothing happened.

Eona sighed and pulled up the fishing line to find the pig gut piece was gone but there was definitely no fish replacing it. She tried another piece of now somewhat slimy gut to the hook and cast her line again, watching it sail through the air before plummeting into the water where her disappointed face was joined by a pale horned head leaning right beside her. Without a thought besides blind panic she dropped the fishing rod and gripped the bucket to swing it directly into the face. The sound of wood cracking and flesh tearing filled her ears briefly but her uninvited guest barely moved.

So she hit him again.

Before she could bring the abused bucket around for another hit her mind finally wrestled back control of her limbs and eyes while the poor distinctly hornless man beside her wiped the blood from his face on a white lightly tattered sleeve.

“I… I’m… I’m sorry,” Eona began, dropping the bucket and reaching out with hesitant unsure hands. What could she even do? His head probably looked like a dropped melon. Guilt ate a cold hole in her heart. What sort of person was she to just immediately react with violence? This was not how an ambassador's daughter was supposed to act, she was certain.

He did not speak for a moment as he continued to wipe his face. Then his arms dropped loosely to his sides and besides some smeared red remnants over his left eye and a trickle down his chin he looked remarkably unharmed, lovely even. His face was very pale, with a slender nose and dark eyes that looked closer to small circles of obsidian than anything else. Reflective and very sharp. His long hair seemed a little unruly, tied only with a simple cord of hempen at its very end. Eona’s ears felt hot as she stepped back and tried to find something to say.

“No, no, it’s my fault. I should have said something,” he said and her eyes widened in surprise to hear her language from him. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“Ah, no, I should have spoken first rather than uh-” she looked at the wrecked bucket. “Well, hit you.”

“If I was a lone woman away from the city gates I would respond the same,” he said before he stepped close to the river and peered over into its waters. "Are you trying to fish?"

Eona's throat was dry as she avoided directly looking at the young man, "well, I was trying to. I'm not... very good at it."

"There's some fishmongers in the city," he suggested, pointing back to the grand walls nearby. The walls looked rather stark, painted a dingy shade of red that still managed to stick out from the rolling plains and sparsely forested hills further in the distance. "Why not shop there?" He tipped his head to the side with his question, his eyes settling firmly on her as he stood silent for her answer.

Eona fumbled around for an excuse in her brain, but somehow it felt rude to lie to this man. Not that she was ever a very good liar, "I... I'm not good at speaking, I-I don't... I tried buying some pork and I just ended up confusing the butcher. So I left and decided to go fishing instead. We're... we're sort of out of meat at my home."

"You speak perfectly fine," the young man said.

"N-no, in... I speak my own language fine! But I'm not as good with the language here, I..." she was stumbling around mentally. This man's attention was too much even though he was quite kind.

The man's laugh was sudden. It was not cruel or mocking, merely bemused. "Let me help you then, just tell me what you were trying to get and I'll help translate."

She clasped her hands together in joy at the offer. "Would you really!?" She asked before remembering the incident only a few moments before. She brushed past the young man to start picking up the pieces of bucket and her fishing rod, "I mean, it'd be very nice of you. But after what happened I wouldn't really want to bother you to help me!"

"What do you mean 'what happened'? Look at me, I barely felt it, and it wouldn't have been the worst thing I've been hit by," the young man's amusement came through his voice. As she picked up a small chunk of wood, two more hands appeared in her view, briefly covered by long white sleeves as the young man picked up the last few parts of the bucket and her fishing rod. "I can carry the rest that you're holding too," he said.

Eona shook her head, "n-no! It's fine, it's fine, thank you though." She began walking towards the city walls, "lets get going! It'll be afternoon soon, and I'm sure you have other business to attend to." She did not want him to feel the need to spend overly long with her. Her mind started replaying the scene of hitting him, over and over, so she resolutely kept her eyes fixated on the city's gates as she walked forward, always keeping her step just a bit faster than his. For his part he seemed fine with following behind her. Besides the call of a distant bird and the crunching of the ground beneath their feet, minutes passed in awkward silence. He was looking at her, she could feel his eyes on the back of her head and she wondered if he was starting to find her rude for her silence. So she plucked up the resolve to start talking, "I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name earlier, sir?"

"My name?"

"Yes."

"..." The pause continued for a moment longer before the man said, "...Liu Xie."

"Oh! That's a very nice name!" She said cheerily, "my name is Eona!"

"I know your name," he said. "I mean, you're the only red haired foreigner in the entire city. So you must be Eona, the daughter of the ambassador from Norwen, right?" His words were very quick, and his shadow leaned over her.

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She quickened her pace again, "a-ah, yes. I didn't know I was famous!" She laughed uncomfortably, disliking the focus on her for reasons she could not name but felt keenly in her chest. "Ah, Mister Liu Xie. How do you know my language?"

Now it was his turn to laugh, sounding a bit awkward. "I.... I have a lot of time to learn these things. I don't especially get along with my family, so I often spend time alone. When I'm alone, I have a lot of freedom to pick up random hobbies."

The gates were suddenly upon them, towering so high they might scrape the very sun itself as it crawled above them. The city gates, made of a fragrant tree's wood to show the city's great wealth, stood open with some guards lazily watching it. The area was very safe after all. The few clusters of trees around the city weren't dense enough to allow any bandits to hide, and the size of the city gave it ample means to defend itself. The city also had another thing in its favor. It was one of two cities which housed ambassadors of other nations, including her father, and almost all come with a contingent of their own land's warriors or soldiers (legally only numbering 200). This also meant the city had a sizeable portion of foreigners, creating a large market that merchants from all over the Four Kingdoms would come to visit in order to nab exotic goods or favorable deals.

As they walked onto the main road, the clashing aesthetics of the various ambassador manors that seemed to be sizing each other up. The impressive white stone façade of the ambassador of Ys-Fler's manor stood across from the equally impressive pinkish brick of the ambassador of Laal Pahaad. Further down was the manor for Norwen, a comparatively small stone place where she had hoped to make some fish stew for the servants and smattering of guards. She glanced down at the ruined bucket in her arms with a twinge of guilt, still refusing to look behind herself where she was certain the feeling of guilt would bloom into something worse.

"How did your father get the position of ambassador for Norwen?" His voice cut into her thoughts.

"Oh? Uhm," she turns around a corner on the street, moving away from the Ambassador Ward and to the Great Market ward, people constantly streaming up and down the roads carrying a myriad of different goods by donkey-cart or in their arms. "My father, mother, and the Marquis were all friends and adventured a lot. Before I was born, my father and the Marquis had both retired from adventuring. The Marquis had to take this position in the city because the prior marquis and his family all died from that plague," she frowned a little. It had been a terrible one she had been told. Victims choked to death on their own mucus and despite tracing its origin to a Free City in the Western Kingdom, nobody ever figured out how to cure it. Sufferers either recovered, or died. "My father was chosen by the High King because of his prior friendship, the Marquis specifically asking for him by name, and also he's sort of known here."

"Known here? What do you mean?"

Eona tried to shrink herself somehow, leaning forward and hugging the ruined bucket closer to herself, making her silhouette smaller. But she could feel his eyes were still on her. "I never asked for the full story, but long before I was born my mother, father, and the Marquis had killed an ogre lord who was raiding towns of the Southern Kingdom with a bandit army."

"Your mother must be Saraid!" Liu Xie said with a bit of excitement around his voice, "I heard she was the one to strike the final blow. There's a stele near the gorge where the battle happened that talks about it."

Her face flushed, her mother's exploits were popular where ever she went it seemed. "Y-yes, that's her." Eona's memories of her mother were few. Saraid of the Great Sword was not exactly a homebody. Eona had to make due with her mother's short but happy visits until the day the six foot tall warrior was borne back home atop her shield.

Sometimes Eona wondered if the real reason the Marquis suggested her father was so that both men could grieve.

A hand rested on her shoulder, making her stop mid-step. They had somehow reached the market ward while she was busy with her thoughts. The market was a large square ward with an impressively big well dominating it in the middle. Then there were, from what she could tell, over a hundred different merchant stalls sells all sorts of goods. Surrounding those were more permanent store buildings that stood proud. Banners fluttered in the afternoon breeze. "There's a butcher over there," Liu Xie pointed to a smaller building, and although she could only barely read the local language she knew enough to read 'TWO BROTHERS BUTCHERS (no foreign coin accepted)'.

It had been the place she had gone in earlier. The place where she confused the poor burly butcher inside with her own butchering of his language. Her ears burned. "Maybe not this one! Maybe another one?" She suggested quickly.

"Why not this one?" Liu Xie asked, a very slight quizzical frown on his face.

"Well, uhm," she felt pinned under his gaze. Lying would only make her discomfort worse. "I... I tried earlier. But I'm very bad at the language! I think I called his mother a horse!" She admitted. "I was just going to ask for some pork, venison, or horse meat if they had it but I..."

Liu Xie smiled at her, "I can talk to him then. You can wait out here if you would like."

"Th-thank you," she sputtered, following him towards the entrance of the butcher shop. She stood near its threshold, waiting for Liu Xie to go in.

"You know, I don't think you offended him," he said. "This place is full of foreigners," he gestured to one group, some fair haired tall people who spoke the language of Ys. "He may have just been concerned."

Eona remembered the butcher's wide eyes and little frown. He had not been yelling at her, after all, but she still found the memory making her squirm. She looked back to Liu Xie but found he had already gone inside. She waited in her spot for only a short while before he stepped back out, "welcome back!" She greeted.

"They said they'll send a runner over with the cuts later today," Liu Xie announced with a smile. "I didn't know which of the specific ones you wanted, so I asked for all of them."

"That's... that's really good!" Eona said in surprise before the thought of payment came up. "OH! Oh no, I didn't bring my money with me," her heart began to drum as she desperately turned in a little circle, unsure of what to do. Did she run home? Pawn the remains of the bucket off to someone in the market? Would that even be enough to afford a pig ear?

"Don't worry, I already paid," Liu Xie said.

"Then I need to pay you back!"

"No you don't," Liu Xie reached out and easily pulled the remnants of the bucket from her arms, leaving her with only the fishing pole. "Don't worry about me, I have no issue with money."

Eona stood still, stunned. How could this stranger just suddenly show up and solve all her problems so swiftly? After she had brutalized his face? How did he show no bruise after getting smacked with a bucket? Why was he so nice to her? At least the meal issue for the night and perhaps the next few days was solved. But what about the rest of the month? She wrung her hands anxiously, "thank you so much, but I really... I really do need to repay you some way. Do you like fish? I'm going to try fishing again. I can give you some salted fish. I'm really good at that, we actually don't have a lot of money, my father's usually doing official business in the capital and-"

Suddenly Liu Xie leaned very close to her, his dark eyes staring directly into her own. She felt like she could probably count each delicate long eyelash if she could only just focus on those and not his eyes or the fact her face felt like it was burning. "I have business in this area, so if you will be around the willow at the river fishing again, I wouldn't mind coming to help you. We can split the fish we catch and call that even."

"Y-yes," she felt like he was getting closer to her somehow. The wind pulled at his hair, a few locks brushing past her. "Uhm, yes. Th-that could work. I'll be back there tomorrow morning I think..."

"Then I will see you tomorrow," he said standing straight again. "Don't worry about the bucket, I'll bring you a new one tomorrow."

Eona was at a complete loss, "thank you?" was all she could bring herself to say.

Liu Xie waved at her, taking a few steps back to allow people to walk past them. Then just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone, leaving Eona alone on the market street. She went back home in a confused half daze, finding the meat had arrived just as ordered and went to helping the maids and cooks chop it up, select what cuts to salt, smoke, or cook that night. By the time she had gone to bed, her mind was full of the image of a pale elegant face surrounded by long black hair, with even darker eyes...

 

When the morning came, Eona left when the sun was just a tiny sliver of light over the horizon, grabbing her fishing pole and practically hurtling out the door with only a quick 'I'mgoingfishingI'llbebacklater' to the old door guard who seemed to only be half-awake. She needed to go back to the river to catch some fish to salt, and this time she would have help!

 

She only wanted to be useful, after all.

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