75 Summer 520
It’s hard to say what had been the last straw.
Though Caspian and Taalviel had lay claim to the highest section of the house, the loft – it just made sense at the time, as no one relished the idea of Shiress climbing anywhere with her baby in tow, and there was something about an apex window and Taalviel’s being able to fly that held some congruence – one day it all amounted to too much. Maybe it was the fact that they had crammed seven people into a house normally occupied by two – maybe it was those very two, Shiress’ parents, and their relentlessly questioning scans of his personage that only grew more invasive over time – maybe it was the baby, who cried, and though it wasn’t as colicky as some, was certainly of no help to anyone. Maybe, even, it was Shiress herself and Rosie, whose digressions were simply the fact that they cared.
It just seems that they never stopped looking. At first he swears it’s commiseration – then, somehow, all of it warped into pity, and at times he’s convinced that Rosie might even be afraid.
“It’s all in your head,” Taalviel had said once, when they’d found a way to clamber out the loft window and onto the roof, where they could blessedly be alone.
This was relative, though, with Shiress’ baby perfectly audible even with so much wire and wood between them.
“Where else would it be?” Caspian had cast back uselessly.
The man he had strangled during their last days in Ravok – they didn’t talk about it, he and Rosie, as the lot of them fled from the city. They had spent weeks together, journeying across strange lands and seas, and though he’d essentially never left her side he couldn’t on any of those many days bring himself to acknowledge what had been done. There was nothing to acknowledge, according to Taalviel, and presumably also according to his stepfather, who would doubtlessly have been of the same opinion. Caspian has certainly done more for less. The problem is that Rosie hadn’t necessarily known that about him, and now she probably does, and the knowing alone feels more irreconcilable than the veritable fact.
And that isn’t even the whole of it.
So on a very late night – or perhaps a very early morning – he steals away from the cottage with his bag slung over his shoulder. Were he also a Kelvic bird he might have just gone out the window, but in just one of the many ways fate has elected to be unkind to him, he has to skulk down the loft ladder, and avoiding the squeaking floorboards and just as squeaky stairs, picking through his descent to the bottom floor.
Once he shuts the cottage door and steps onto the cobbled path, the bay winds wash over him, bringing with them an immense wave of relief, like the sense of soaring he found on the cottage roof, only dialed past enumeration. It’s on this feeling – the conviction that he’s doing the right thing, as evidenced by absence of agony – that he passes quickly down the cobblestone path and onto the Zeltivan streets.
Though Caspian and Taalviel had lay claim to the highest section of the house, the loft – it just made sense at the time, as no one relished the idea of Shiress climbing anywhere with her baby in tow, and there was something about an apex window and Taalviel’s being able to fly that held some congruence – one day it all amounted to too much. Maybe it was the fact that they had crammed seven people into a house normally occupied by two – maybe it was those very two, Shiress’ parents, and their relentlessly questioning scans of his personage that only grew more invasive over time – maybe it was the baby, who cried, and though it wasn’t as colicky as some, was certainly of no help to anyone. Maybe, even, it was Shiress herself and Rosie, whose digressions were simply the fact that they cared.
It just seems that they never stopped looking. At first he swears it’s commiseration – then, somehow, all of it warped into pity, and at times he’s convinced that Rosie might even be afraid.
“It’s all in your head,” Taalviel had said once, when they’d found a way to clamber out the loft window and onto the roof, where they could blessedly be alone.
This was relative, though, with Shiress’ baby perfectly audible even with so much wire and wood between them.
“Where else would it be?” Caspian had cast back uselessly.
The man he had strangled during their last days in Ravok – they didn’t talk about it, he and Rosie, as the lot of them fled from the city. They had spent weeks together, journeying across strange lands and seas, and though he’d essentially never left her side he couldn’t on any of those many days bring himself to acknowledge what had been done. There was nothing to acknowledge, according to Taalviel, and presumably also according to his stepfather, who would doubtlessly have been of the same opinion. Caspian has certainly done more for less. The problem is that Rosie hadn’t necessarily known that about him, and now she probably does, and the knowing alone feels more irreconcilable than the veritable fact.
And that isn’t even the whole of it.
So on a very late night – or perhaps a very early morning – he steals away from the cottage with his bag slung over his shoulder. Were he also a Kelvic bird he might have just gone out the window, but in just one of the many ways fate has elected to be unkind to him, he has to skulk down the loft ladder, and avoiding the squeaking floorboards and just as squeaky stairs, picking through his descent to the bottom floor.
Once he shuts the cottage door and steps onto the cobbled path, the bay winds wash over him, bringing with them an immense wave of relief, like the sense of soaring he found on the cottage roof, only dialed past enumeration. It’s on this feeling – the conviction that he’s doing the right thing, as evidenced by absence of agony – that he passes quickly down the cobblestone path and onto the Zeltivan streets.
x
