Eudora

Patience is a pool in one’s mind. Some pools are deeper than others. Some refill quicker after being drained from irritation. Eudora’s inner pool of patience was rippling, the surface unsettled to the point of splashing.

Having been split from her group and left in a damp, unevenly chiselled tunnel of encroaching earth, her composure was already being tested. The fact that she had been squashed into a trio that contained her ex-lover and her protégé had her on the brink of madness.

As endearing as Lowri’s endless enquiries usually were (watching her discover the world outside of her small farm was almost as magical for Eudora as it was for the girl herself), it did not leave quite the same sweet and naive impression when the questions were directed at hers and Matilde’s past as lovers.

Eudora was uncertain as to whether Lowri’s questions or Matilde’s answers were irritating her more. She wished Matilde would follow her example for once, that she would refuse to answer as she did. Ridiculously, she had actually found herself relieved when they were attacked by a pack of four very unwelcoming trolls. It gave her a break from the incessant interrogating occurring from either side of her head, one ear barraged with questions and the other filled with answers.

Once the cohort had been swiftly cut down, skinned, and their meat collected, the questions continued.

“Well, it does not sound as though it was quite as small a village as the one outside your farm,” Matilde answered slowly. “But it was still rather small as villages go.”

“And then she just left with you? Just like that?”

“She packed a few items first, of course, said her goodbyes to her parents and… I believe it was a brother?”

Eudora nodded despite herself, surprised that Matilde had remembered Elliott after only one brief meeting.

“Were her family not suspicious of you?”

“Suspicious?” Matilde grunted with obvious amusement.

“I think perhaps another topic of conversation would be more stimulating,” Eudora suggested firmly; she had allowed this inquiry to go on long enough. And she had taken all of that time to build the courage to say so.

Lowri dipped her head and fell into silence. Matilde said no more either, but had a mixed expression: equal parts curiosity and annoyance.

Their tunnel split into two pathways ahead of them. They flipped a coin to decide which to choose. The left side won and was a dead-end. They had taken longer to flip the coin and assign sides to the tunnels than they did exploring it.

“The other one had better lead somewhere,” Matilde grumbled under her breath.

Eudora didn’t want to consider what it would mean for them if it didn’t.

They doubled back on themselves and followed the right-side tunnel with slow and cautious steps, Lowri beginning to drag her feet after a few hours. The silence that clouded the air between the three of them was nerve-fraying; Eudora’s stomach tensed in wait for one of them to start speaking again. She wanted peace and quiet, but the quiet wasn’t giving her peace.

The path flared open suddenly, revealing a room both wide and tall and filled with the layered pattering sounds of sprinkling water falling in from a large hole in the ceiling. Eudora’s eyes took a moment to adjust to so much light after having only matches to light their path since being chased into their tunnel by the mud slide.

Her eyes were quickly drawn to a pair dressed in black and purple, the only colours in the room that weren’t another shade of brown.

“Magali!” Eudora gasped, launching into a run as she entered the enormous cavern, stopping a foot from the woman to appraise her. No bruises or cuts on the skin she could see, and there was not a lot that could be seen under the thick layer of grime that covered most of her body. For once, the woman did not look quite as pale as a full moon.

Dani gave her a dull glance and then walked to Matilde’s side. The pair said nothing to one another, but Matilde gave the short woman a nod of greeting. It was not returned.

“Eudora,” Magali said with a weary smile, not bothering to conceal her clear relief. “I have never been so glad to hear your voice.”

“My voice?”

“You do not understand how long it has been since I have heard another human speak,” Magali hissed through her teeth.

Matilde chuckled quietly behind them. “Dani is not the type for idle chatter,” she explained for Eudora and Lowri.

Dani shrugged.

A renewal of energy surged into Lowri as she began to give a far more exciting recount of their journey through their tunnel than it had actually felt to experience. Eudora let her eyes slide shut where she stood and simply listened; she hadn’t the energy to correct any of her exaggerations. When she was finished, Magali gave her and Dani’s experience in the form of a much less extravagant story.

“Dora!”

Eudora jolted at the sound of her name, her eyes snapping open, and spun on her heel to search the surrounding tunnels for the source of Blaire’s voice. Her stomach was tight as her eyes darted about.

Blaire appeared from the second entrance to the left, her fluffy hair poking out of her plaits in all directions and her armour caked in mud and what appeared to be splashes of blood.

Kali bounded out from behind her, flinging a dead torch aside. “Fear not, lovely ladies, the sexiest member of our group has returned!” she announced, her loud voice bouncing from the curved walls.

“Blaire! I am so glad you are alive,” Eudora called as the women approached. “Are you hurt?”

“I am fine, a few scratches and a slathering of mud is all.”

“I see blood.”

“Troll blood.”

Kali jumped in to add, “We were attacked by so many! More than I have fingers!” She waggled her slim fingers, there were patches of dried blood stuck to the tanned skin.

“And yet you sound pleased,” Matilde commented with an exasperated expression.

Kali winked and put her hands on her hips.

Blaire scraped her muddy fingernails along the twists of her braids, dragging down as much fluffy hair as she could and tucking the curls caked to her cheeks behind her ears. “What is important is how we proceed from here,” she advised tiredly.

“We each came from one of these three tunnels, and there are two we have not ventured into,” Eudora replied with what she hoped was a reassuring tone. “We have options to search.”

With a frown, Matilde, predictably, found a way to push back against their plan.“Mines do not have back doors. If we follow those tunnels, we will end up deeper into this hole.”

“If we do not follow them, we will die in this room,” Magali snapped; although, her voice was quieter than usual. Eudora wondered for a moment if her friend was intimidated by Matilde; she would not fault her for it if she was. Matilde was a beast of a woman.

“Better to attempt than lament!” Kali proclaimed.

“Where does she get these phrases from?” Matilde grumbled, apparently to herself. She shifted on her feet, swaying in closer to Eudora for a moment. The heat coming off her body reached hers for but a moment, until she leant away again.

Kali gave her fellow blonde a dull look. “Blame anything you do not understand about me on the south.”

“I have been to the south and yet I have never met a creature quite like you.”

Kali’s grin reappeared. “I will be adding that to the very short list I keep of ‘compliments from Matilde,’” she said sweetly.

“Take it how you please,” Matilde huffed.

“Matilde, please, no bedroom talk in front of company!”

Lowri watched them with round child-like eyes, and Eudora was not pleased with the look of guilty fascination that she also held. It would not do for their youngest member to begin replicating their attitudes and behaviours. Kali seemed a capable warrior, but her attitude to her work and everyone around her was far too chaotic for Eudora’s standards.

She decided to halt their bickering before it got any worse. “I believe it would be beneficial for us to take the opportunity to rest and eat here first, then we can proceed into the tunnels and explore them one at a time.” She spoke firmly to hold their attention. Under Matilde’s gaze again, it was hard not to quiver. “It would not be safe to break apart our group again.”

Of course, Matilde was the only woman with an objection. “But it could be that both tunnels are short dead-ends, then we would have wasted time resting when they do not actually lead anywhere.”

“There is also the possibility that those tunnels contain more trolls,” Eudora replied, “in which case we will be walking into battle fatigued and hungry.”

“In which case-”

“All in favour of Eudora’s plan raise your hand,” Magali announced loudly. Eudora was not entirely convinced as to whether the mage was standing up for her leader, or if Matilde was simply rubbing her the wrong way with all of her barking orders and use of imperatives. Magali was a valued member of Eudora’s team; her input was encouraged, and Eudora would never expect her to simply obey. It seemed Matilde had a very oppositional set of expectations for her own women.

Blaire, Lowri and Magali confidently raised their hands, and Eudora felt a small surge of pride run through her. Her girls were loyal. She liked to think she gave them reason to be.

The slim southerner also raised her hand lazily, resting her arm against her dirt-streaked cheek.

Dani folded her arms over her chest but said nothing.

Matilde scowled.

“If you are so desperate to plow on ahead, why don’t you check the tunnels for yourself while we take a break?” Kali suggested. Although her smile had fallen, her eyes still teased.

Before Matilde could answer, Eudora stated, “No more splitting up. We move as a group or we do not move at all.”

Matilde locked eyes with her, her expression a mask of disinterest, but Eudora could feel a force behind her gaze, a predator sizing up its prey. She could imagine a scale inside Matilde’s head, weighing her thoughts back and forth as she considered her response, as she considered Eudora and whether she was willing to be led by her junior and once-apprentice. But Eudora was not a common peasant girl any longer; she was a grown woman leading a band of capable warriors who relied on her to guide them.

Their confidence in her had given her a surge of assurance. She would not be pushed into a power struggle in front of her own group.

For an awkwardly long amount of time, the only sound in the cavern was rainfall. Thankfully, the southerner took it upon herself to cut the tension.

“Ladies,” Kali called out theatrically, “let us rest our delicate bottoms upon something soft and raise our sore toes.”

Matilde broke their stare, turning her head away to glare at the far wall.

Eudora took a moment to peer into her satchel despite knowing she did not have anything soft for them to ‘rest their delicate bottoms on,’ and the other women followed suit.

Blaire sighed as she rifled through her own pack. “I only have food and healing supplies with me, unfortunately.”

“Absolutely not!” Magali snapped, drawing the groups eyes and ears to where she stood beside Kali with her hand to her chest.

“It will be ruined in these tunnels eventually,” the southerner reasoned with a coaxing smile.

“Do you have any understanding of how difficult and expensive it was to procure a cloak in this shade of purple?”

“It will not be ruined by us perching on it for a short while.”

“I still need to wear it when we continue our trek!”

“Can you not use magic to clean it? You were able to dry it earlier.”

“The work of a complex protection spell in which I created a hydrophobic shield under your clothes and pulled it outwards, repelling the water from your bodies and clothes.”

“Your magic touched me under my clothes?” Kali asked coyly.

“Can you not do the same but for dirt?” Matilde sighed; she was not one to hide her impatience.

Magali’s expression made it very clear that this was not an option to be considered.

Dani turned away from the group, squatted over her rucksack and began to pull at the contents. The rest of the women glanced amongst themselves curiously, but none said a word. Eudora was the only member of their circle stood close enough that she could see the swirl of items inside the short woman’s bag, shifting messily as she dug through. Including a sharp edged item that reflected the room’s dim light for a moment before it was swallowed up by the contents of the sack.

Eudora decided she would ask about the crystal later; it was not her business to inspect another’s religion in front of others.

Dani tugged a long rectangle of material out and presented it to the group with slightly raised brows.

“Why did you bring your cloak if not to wear it from the forest to the door?” Lowri asked with her head tilted. Far too often she reminded Eudora of a curious puppy.

“You would believe that the rain cannot reach us indoors but…” Eudora gestured to the hole in the ceiling leaking copious litres of water into the room.

Dani ignored their words and flapped the thick cloth out, spreading it at their feet.

“Sit,” she said.

The women dropped to the ground, balancing as much of their bodies onto the material as they could. Dani stayed standing and dragged more items out of her pack: short dry sticks tied with thin brittle rope, flint and steel, a small travel pot and a jar of oil.

She created a circular shaped dip in the dirt, placed the sticks into it and set it alight, tending the flames until she had a steady heat. They watched her work until she twisted her head with a single hand out.

“Meat,” she demanded.

Blaire, Kali, Eudora and Matilde pulled out their preserved troll meat, handing over the lightly salted sacks to her carefully. She poured a small amount of oil into her pot and began to slowly, piece by piece, fry the meat.

Kali leant back on her hands with a relaxed sigh as the smell of hot meat and oil began to waft towards the group splayed across the cloak.

“How old are you, child?” she asked Lowri lazily, tilting her head slightly to the side.

“Nineteen full years and three moons,” Lowri announced proudly.

“And you, mage?”

“I am approaching twenty-nine complete years,” Magali answered stiffly. “Why do you ask?”

“I hoped to hear that I was older than you,” Kali answered, her beaming grin still shining from her face. “Unfortunately it turns out you are a decrepit old woman.”

Matilde chuckled, drawing strange looks from most of the group until she explained. “That makes Kali the second-most junior woman present; therefore, please feel free to order her about as you wish.”

Kali snorted loudly. “You can certainly try; however, what you will actually receive is fully dependent on my mood,” she warned, still grinning.

“If I ordered you to clean my boots?” Magali asked with the quick flash of a very unfamiliar glint of mischief in her eyes.

“You would receive a swift clap to your ear,” Kali replied without hesitation.

Eudora wondered if her eyes were deceiving her or if she saw the slightest twitch of a smile on Dani’s lips as she pushed the sizzling meat about her small metal pan.