Allie

Allie woke, her body aching but her chest light with the same pleasant feeling of motivating resolution that had been pushing her forward in time.

She chewed on a couple of Gobie leaves while sitting on the edge of her cot, noting all the new, little aches and pains her body revealed to her as she began moving. She stood and stretched, cat-like, feeling the muscles groan and lengthen begrudgingly.

“Hush, I’m working on it,” she commanded her rumbling stomach.

She generated heat from her open palm to warm a small, metal cup, feeling a little satisfaction at her growing magic, even if it seemed somewhat insignificant.

She dumped an approximated portion of coffee grounds into the hot water, then shook the canister she had brought from the Overworld, feeling the weight of its dwindling contents with a little sadness.

After a minute, she held the tin cup of darkening liquid up to her nose, inhaling deeply. She hadn’t figured out a way to filter the coffee, but she didn’t mind getting a few grounds in her mouth as a price for having the addictive brew.

It had the strong, earthy smell that she craved, a familiar fragrance that for her was half the experience of drinking coffee. She took a sip, and then another, wary of the heat on her tongue, and by the time only dregs were left, her stomach had fooled itself into thinking it had consumed something of substance.

Soon enough I’ll break myself of the caffeine habit, she thought, but how much longer will it take to not crave the familiarity of routine?

The cooling cup between her hands made her think of Esmere in the mornings, bundled in her worn terry cloth robe she refused to throw away, bustling about in the capacious kitchen, making coffee for Allie and chuckling as she cooked up animals she'd never seen, making dishes from the instructions of a book printed in a language she could not have read only a few years previous.

Allie’s eyes brimmed with tears as she thought of Essie’s morning routine, adopted as she’d gone about a life she had never planned, that would ultimately end there in that strange world, in an ugly pile of ashes and silence.

I’d like to think she’d be proud that I’m here now, facing this down. I wish she was here to see it.

She took another drink of the brew, less strong than she would have liked, and wiped the tears from her face, glad that there was no one in the cavern with her.

I’m ready for the day where my emotions stop leaking everywhere at any given moment, she thought, sighing and preparing to leave the privacy of her closet cavern to join the ever-wakeful world of the compound.

Dani was expecting her in one of the training caverns. Allie had already had a couple sessions with her in the last few days, so she was mentally prepared for the imminent hurt. Her body knew it, too, and it protested in dread, but half-heartedly, because she was in charge and lately she’d found her mind’s ability to ignore her body’s complaints was more substantial than she’d ever thought.

She arrived in the training cavern and made her way to the captain.

“Good morning, Al,” Dani greeted her with a wolfish grin. “Ready?”

The next hour was a medley of basic physical training, from short distance sprints to pushups, long jumps and calisthenics-like exercises. Dani pushed her hard but had already recognized that Allie was coming from an only lightly active lifestyle — Allie was slim but had little muscle on her, and her discipline and will were only just beginning to be developed, so Dani challenged her but did not push her further than she was capable of recovering.

After the exercise portion of the training, Allie was allowed to lay on the cavern floor briefly, breathing hard and feeling her heart throbbing with blood. Then Dani put a sword in her hand and began drilling her on swordplay.

Allie had been through similar training when she was a child in the palace, making her current efforts a stark struggle between the vestiges of muscle memory and her unfit condition.

“Front step, retreat step, parry, thrust!” Dani instructed. She was by far the most exacting teacher Allie had ever had. “No! Don’t double-step. Forward one, back one — again! Stop turning your foot out!”

Allie performed the movement again.

“HEY!” snapped Dani, and Allie jumped, looking to the other fay for a clue as to what she’d done wrong, but the captain was instead glowering at a small cluster of soldiers (who had also jumped). They had finished training on the other side of the cavern and were beginning to leave.

“You’d best put those weapons back where you got them, or so help me, I will ensure you’re cleaning the trenches for the entire season,” she ordered, her open hand a vicious knife as she gestured at them. They hastily retrieved the weapons from where they’d left them and proceeded to the armory.

“Heathens,” she exclaimed as her attention returned to her student. “Who said you could stop? Get some water and then try again, this time with one of the blunted swords and a peg dummy.”

Allie moved over to one of the training dummies with its multiple wooden arms, and continued her lesson with it. It had an old discarded Pale Guard helmet over the top of the post, which lolled around when she struck the body.

After another forty minutes, Danica signaled her to cease and rest, and left her there to retrieve some food. She came back with some dried meat and a flask of water.

“No bread yet, but hopefully later,” she said, coming to stand by Allie and handing her the ration, which Allie took and began tearing into greedily.

“You’re picking it back up again quite nicely,” Dani remarked, sliding her back down the wall to sit next to the other fay. She took a long draft from the flask before passing it.

“Hmmrm?” Allie questioned through a particularly stringy bite of meat.

“Yes, really.”

“I don’t feel it, though,” Allie replied, taking a gulp of water and giving the flask back. “I feel weak. There’s so much to do, and it’s like I’m shit at all of it.”

“Don’t say that. How are my soldiers supposed to believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself?”

Allie looked up from her food.

“What?”

“You think your self-pity only affects you?” said Dani, not meaning to be harsh, but her words were not softened even by her sympathy. “When you doubt yourself, when you doubt the Vanguard’s ability to accomplish our purpose, even when you do that thing you do when you cover your scar—”

“You noticed that?” asked Allie, her expression meek.

“Of course I do, and they do, too. When you do those things, it is obvious to many what kind of thoughts are at their roots. Consider, how can you hope to inspire as a leader when you yourself have no faith in anything?” She leaned her head back against the stone, gazing up into the darkness of the high cavern. “You are no longer invisible, and your hair will not hide you.”

Allie took another bite to avoid answering.

“Listen. You are not the only person here who has lost, been hurt, been scarred. Look around you at your soldiers and see them. Your duty to them is to be their leader and achieve victory, not to worry about what they think of you.”

Allie tried hard not to think of the conversation she had had with Essie, before—

“I understand,” she finally replied. “I just—”

“No, not ‘you just’,” Danica interrupted, but gently. “The Vanguard is a horse, and you are its rider. The horse will go where you guide it; its temperament is a reflection of yours. If you are scared, so too will it be. If you are reckless and vengeful, so too will it be. If you are steady and confident… You understand.”

Allie was silent for a moment.

“Dani?”

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid to try, to reach for my limits, because I’m almost positive I will be disappointed. How do I fix that?”

“Allie,” said the other firmly, looking at her and keeping her locked in a steady gold gaze, “fear and disappointment are normal, and you will spend your life feeling them pull at you. Indulging your fears, avoiding disappointment, will only increase their power over you.”

Allie saw the corners of her vision blur as tears threatened to gather there. She felt slightly resentful of them, and of her apparent delicacy in a world that no longer abetted this fragility.

Dani put an arm around her.

“No greatness springs from the soil fully formed and blossoming in glory. It is a slow process of growing and unfurling. If you choose to hide your sprout for fear of the cutting winds, then you will miss the joy of the sunlight and the satisfaction of seeing the bloom of your potential.”

Allie brushed away an escaping tear, thankful for the other fay’s company and words. There was a slight flicker of jealousy in recognizing Danica’s inner strength.

“I’ll work on it, and I’ll get there,” she said, swallowing and taking faith in that one day she would feel the same in herself.

Danica smiled and clapped her on the shoulder.

“Take heart. Now, I must depart; I’m needed to oversee the ranged training on the other side of the compound.”

The pair separated, leaving Allie to her own devices. She felt somewhat better, and there was resolve in her heart, newfound trust in the fae around her.

Micah, too, she thought, knowing her friend was somewhere in the compound, likely training or studying. I could use some of his zeal.

She sought out Claudien for a report on the food stores, which were at a manageable level for the time being. They’d sent a city-runner to Sitis bearing the money that Allie had brought, with the intention of smuggling a carriage back with food and supplies. Things were looking up on that front, at least.

From the kitchen she went back through the mess hall and foyer, and into the war room, where she found Geir talking to one of the tall, horsey bellicar. He turned to her with a smile full of big, flat teeth.

“Good morn’, Aeliana,” he spoke, voice soft and warm like honey.

“Good morning, Firenze,” she replied, giving him a small bow of her head, which he returned.

“Allie, I should let you know that a number of the Vanguard are pressing for action,” Geir said quietly, even though there was no one nearby to overhear them. “Some are chafing at the fact that there is not yet a plan to make progress in the city.”

“Oh jeez,” she said, sitting in one of the rickety wooden chairs at the central table. “What are they wanting, a full frontal assault?”

“That would depend on how you define 'the front',” replied Firenze. “We’re not even really sure what’s going on in the palace or the factory.”

“Maybe that’s what we should be working on,” commented Allie, stating the obvious. “Can we break into the palace without drawing too much attention to the Vanguard?”

“Breaking in, probably not. Getting in is feasible, though, were it done another way,” Firenze replied.

Geir scratched his bald head, then rejoined, “I don't believe you've had a chance to meet, but our fay Indra has connections with the nobility. A little improvised tour of the palace could give us some insight into Drexel and his court.”

Allie bit one of her thumbnails as she contemplated the situation.

“Maybe we could send in a small crew under some pretense,” she said. “Use the nobility as a way to sneak into the palace, and from there, scope it out. It’s possible we might find intel on the factory, as well.”

“I have two considerations, if we’re looking at this realistically,” Geir interjected. “First, the factory is guarded and going to be harder to get into than the palace. The Pale Guard there make me much more wary than a bunch of prancy nobles. Second, who would go?”

“Well,” Allie hesitated, “for the former, if we use something big as a distraction, we could get into both locations a little more easily.”

“Like what?”

“Like a festival. Yeah. The Wild Hunt is in a couple months, isn’t it?”

Geir confirmed, “The Inner Ring would be abrim with parties, even if the Lows are in no shape to celebrate. Last year the palace was still open to the general public. The Pale Guard was wholly occupied by crowd control in the Ring, watching over the nobles.”

“A smart, quick team could get in and out fairly easily, and with a change in tactics, we might even be able to sneak a spy or two into the factories,” mused Allie.

“But who?” Firenze asked.

“Maybe four or five,” she pondered, and Geir expanded, “An experienced thief, maybe our mage. Obviously Indra; he’ll be there already. We need people who know how to not draw attention to themselves.”

“I’ll also go,” Allie said, raising her head higher.

“No,” Geir and Firenze said simultaneously, faces turning to her.

“Absolutely not,” the bellicar added for emphasis.

“Why not?”

“What if it all went toes-up and we lost you? The Vanguard would lose all morale,” replied Geir.

“No more a loss than anyone else we could send. If I’m not willing to put myself where I put my soldiers, then what kind of leader am I? Hanging back and expecting my fae to do all the dangerous and difficult work is cowardice,” she argued.

Firenze was silent, his brown eyes considering her.

“We will discuss this with the others, see what they think of this plan. But hear me, I think it most unwise,” said Geir.

Several hours later, Allie eased herself onto the bridge’s edge next to Micah in the waterfall cavern. They’d met here everyday so far to commiserate and talk, to strategize and complain. It struck Allie how similar it felt to their meetings at the pond in the Overworld, and yet how vastly different it was.

Micah was sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, but they opened as she arrived.

“Meditating?” she asked.

“Sort of. It’s something Firenze wants me to practice, to enter the ‘no-mind’ mind.”

“And? How is it?”

“Hard,” he admitted. “I just end up thinking about not thinking, and then other stuff, and it just whirls out of control.”

“I guess that’s why you practice,” she returned.

He nodded, but seemed glad for a reason to stop.

“Anyway, how goes it?” he asked her as he cracked his knuckles against the stone bridge.

“Not bad, not bad.” Though her familiarity with Cotidean increased every day, the transition back to English still held comfort for her, like switching to a pair of well-worn shoes from a pair she had yet to fully break in. “I think we might have a plan for getting into the palace here in some weeks.”

“Oh?”

“There’s a seasonal festival coming up called the Wild Hunt, and we’re going to see if it’s possible to send a small crew in. We might even get some people into the factories on the other side of the city.”

“Sounds like a heist movie in the making.”

She grinned. “Yeah, kinda. Do you want to be part of my super secret heist team?”

His face was dubious.

“Mm. I don’t know if I’m qualified to do something as important as that.”

“Come on, you’re speaking to the Queen of Underqualified, here.”

“I mean, yes, you are the queen… your majesty.”

He guessed her reaction precisely, before she even pulled the face.

“Don’t say that. I’m nobody’s queen. I’m just… me. And I’m still figuring that out even.”

He shrugged.

“Whatever you say, queen.”

Allie rolled her eyes.

“Are you going?” he asked.

“I’m trying to. Geir doesn’t like the idea one bit.”

“If you do, please be careful.”

“What’s up?” she responded, immediately wary.

“Just…listening around the compound. People talk, especially when they think you can’t understand. I hear them — there’re rumors about horrors roaming the palace grounds at night, bizarre screeches…”

“Eh, they’ve been stuck down here and in the Lows. Most of these guys have never been near the palace grounds,” she replied dismissively, but there remained unvoiced doubt between them.

She changed the subject. “How’s your studying and training going?”

His face lit up.

“It’s intense. I mean, between Firenze, Gaillard, and all the reading, I feel like my brain is being stretched. There’s just so much.” His words and gestures were meant to make it seem as though it were difficult and challenging, but despite that, she could see in his eyes the keen edge of fierce joy, belying his enthusiasm.

“What do you like about Firenze’s martial art?”

Micah thought a moment, fiddling with a pebble before tossing it into the depths.

“It’s no-nonsense. Firenze doesn’t seem to like—” he paused, deciding to rephrase, “—he calls what Dani teaches ‘dance-fighting’. What the bellicar do seems less flashy, but it’s efficient, quicker… and I don’t have to be a gymnast to practice it.”

Allie nodded, seeming to be taking mental notes. “I see.” She stroked her jaw thoughtfully. “Dani’s preferred form of combat is a hybrid of strigamyr and the style my father reinforced in his Atlas Guard back in the day, because he liked them to entertain him as much as protect him. Now that was dance-fighting.”

“Is that why she had Firenze teach me instead?”

Allie shrugged.

“It's probably more time-consuming to teach strigamyr from its roots. You’re getting the purer form of it, anyway. She’s a bit of a minor legend for her fusion of the two forms, but she’s told me she’s received some hate for muddying the waters. Apparently some of the more traditional bellicar are pretty purist.”

“That sounds about right,” he replied, for lack of anything better to say.

“Her connection with Firenze is what brought him here to the Vanguard, and of course our supplies from Sitis wouldn’t be possible without them both.”

She got to her feet slowly, her sore thigh muscles complaining.

“Anyway. I’m going to go read for a while and try to get some sleep,” she said, turning to leave. "You should try to rest, too."

“Keep me updated on the plans for the Hunt,” he requested as she began crossing the bridge.

“You got it. See you tomorrow!” she called back.