Year 23-5

The day after Tucker and I had freed the fae of one of Nestle’s jailing towers, he and I met outside early that morning to discuss our next move. However, it wasn’t a planned meeting. When I rolled out of bed, there was a crust in my eyes, but I couldn’t sleep any longer. Penn’s snoring had been heard throughout the cottage all night, but I could have ignored it had I tried. Thoughts of word reaching the King about what we’d done made my body too excited to rest.

I didn’t intend to wake the others, but Tucker was outside when I stepped out into the morning dew. I was hardly dressed but lacked enough consciousness to grab pants or much else. The morning breeze was cool on my skin and turning warm with daylight approaching.

Tucker was looking over dark, shrouded fields. What did he see? I wondered. When he noticed my gaze set on him, we glanced at one another before his attention left me again without uttering a word. We shared the sight of night fading into the day. The moment might have grown intimate had we not spoken. I’m sure we could have gone in silence peacefully, he and I standing exposed in the twilight. Though, as always, the mage had his hood.

“This won’t work,” Tucker said.

“How can you be a mage with so little faith?” I joked, taking a seat on a tree stump.

“We were lucky,” he argued with his back to me, still watching the sky.

“Are you afraid?” I said.

“We can’t do the same thing twice,” he added until I cut him off at the tail.

“We need more to start a revolution.”

“We can’t do it again.”

“We will.”

“I won’t help you if this is your plan,” Tucker stated, but neither of us was yelling or upset just yet.

Were we negotiating?

Helping the wronged was an admirable objective, but my mission was to kill the King. To do that, we needed an army. We needed revolt. We needed allies.

“I can’t do it alone,” I said.

Tucker didn’t speak. His attention seemed taken by birds flying in the distance. While the sun steadily arose beside us, the dead cotton fields I worked as a child had new life. The decaying sight was golden for a brief moment when the light hit just right. And Tucker stood at the center in his blue hood. He turned around, and I walked up. He had bathed. His hands and feet weren’t nearly as dirty as the night before.

“I’ve told you, I don’t want a war,” he said.

“But you know that I do,” I replied.

He didn’t answer.

“Yet you’re willing to help me?” I questioned.

“As you said, I owe you a debt.”

“I’m not a hunter anymore; you could refuse me,” I admitted honestly.

It was easy to get lost in his eyes. Tucker, his appearance, was anything but threatening despite his gifts. He was rustic and unrefined, but well-mannered. There was a steadiness to his breath that put me at ease. Smoke from his storm cloud eyes acted as a light fog over the surrounding field. A ring of soft blue surrounded by budding golden crops had us at its center. Were we still in a place that I knew?

All the potential between us, how could I not feel it?

“Good can come of this,” he said.

“So, I’ve convinced you?”

“I can keep you from going too far.”

“Then, I should be responsible for pushing you further?”

We were silhouettes standing in opposition to one another.

“Death can’t be your only goal,” Tucker said.

“Not ambitious enough for you,” I joked and turned away to head back inside.

We weren’t covering new ground. But he caught my arm and pulled me back before I could take steps.

“It’s too shallow for someone with your heart,” he said.

I took back my limb but remained at arm’s length.

It was only the night before that morning he questioned my heart, but at that moment, he made contradictory claims.

“You said you couldn’t see what’s inside me; you can’t see my soul.”

“You saved a helpless girl. You have a heart,” Tucker remarked.

“Or I mean to have her,” I said with a grin.

“You don’t,” Tucker laughed as though he were sure.

I lost my temper at the insinuation, and like a reflex, I pushed him away. He fell to the ground at my feet, and our soft cloud dissipated.

“Don’t look to change me, Tucker. You’ll be disappointed.”

“You would rather I use you?” He asked, rather than standing.

How was someone so passive? How was anyone so clear? With a sigh, I extended my hand to help him up.

“If I can use you, we can use each other,” I said.

“A partnership then?”

“We’ll free who we can and slay those who deserve it,” I answered while he gripped my palm and I pulled him to his feet.

“And then?” He asked.

“Then we go our separate ways.”

For a moment, we remained interlaced. We weren’t at odds despite our different ways of viewing the world. We wanted change, and that made us allies, if nothing else. But there was something else. His palm held mine, lifting my soul from its body with each passing breath as he had done once before. Only the sensation was euphoric. I might have kissed him, would have. My heart was a beaten thing, but the prospect of what we were making might have been enough.

Could he feel it as I did? Would he ignore it as I did?

We were in agreement, in alignment, until a disturbance shook my attention away, and suddenly I came back down.

“She is awake,” Penn exclaimed as he ran from the front door to tell us Arwen was rising.

Our conversation ended abruptly, but we had finally reached common ground, Tucker and I.