forgotten

[mute_pen]

It's past dark, but when you need the outhouse, you need the outhouse.

Isabel picks her way across the yard of her father's house in the moonlight, hoping to sneak back into bed without waking him.

Comments

[growcrooked]

"He's twice my size, a trained swordsman, a sorcerer, and sometimes when I look at him I can't think for screaming?"

[mute_pen]

"...Those are all things that might make someone hard to kill."

Etty thinks.

"How does one learn sorcery?"

[growcrooked]

"I don't know. I've tried. I've picked up a few things just living with him, but when he caught me with one of his books—" She shakes her head. "I catch fire if I try the library door, now."

[mute_pen]

Etty hisses a sharp indrawn breath. "Eegh."

[growcrooked]

"So I can light candles and freeze raindrops and make my rooms tidy themselves, but I can't do anything useful."

[mute_pen]

"I take it the spells for candles and raindrops won't work on a person. At least not him."

[growcrooked]

"You think I've never tried lighting his beard on fire? He put it out. I suppose I could freeze a drop of his spit but I don't see how it'd help."

[mute_pen]

"I was thinking freezing his blood. Or the fluid in his spine, or his brain."

[growcrooked]

"One raindrop's worth at a time, when I can't see any of it? Stabbing him would be surer."

[mute_pen]

"A small ice crystal in the heart could - well, if it were sharp, otherwise I suppose it would just melt harmlessly," muses Etty, nibbling her lip.

[growcrooked]

"You've a vicious turn of mind," she snorts. "I like that. But he's by far a better mage than I am. If I try a little trick like that, he'll catch me, and then he'll be on his guard and it'll be that much harder to get him on the next try."

[mute_pen]

"I didn't have a vicious turn of mind until a few hours ago. Adversity makes me creative."

And:

"Pardon me if I offend. But. I don't suppose by any chance you have never loved before?"

[growcrooked]

"Not once."

[mute_pen]

Etty lets the obvious conclusions hang in the air for a moment.

[growcrooked]

"Do you want me to try loving you?"

[mute_pen]

"Absent other ways out. If you could."

[growcrooked]

"I don't know," she says, perching on the edge of her bed. "I've never tried."

[mute_pen]

"I don't think I'm unlovable. Although I've tried to avoid - attention - from men in my village, and doubt any women would have dared tell me if they were interested any more than I cared to chance whispering to them."

[growcrooked]

"Avoiding attention," she says. "Isn't that a dream."

[mute_pen]

"Perhaps we'll be out of here soon. Or if not me," she shrugs, "then - the next, I suppose, or the one after, if this goes on indefinitely, and you'd still have the chance to save yourself and all who'd have come after."

[growcrooked]

"I'll try with you," she decides. "You, I like."

[mute_pen]

Etty smiles a little bit. "Let me know if I can do anything in particular to help."

[growcrooked]

"Well, tell me about you," she suggests. "I hardly know anything about who you are. Maybe princes can fall in love with just a pretty face, but I think I need a little more to go on."

[mute_pen]

Etty sits on the floor and pulls her knees up to her chin. "I grew up in Astgabels. In Diotaland - are we even still in Diotaland? I have little enough sense of geography that I don't know how far he carried me. My mother died when I was small so it's just been me and my father, Carl. He's the sheriff. I kept house, but I had time to read - I was friends with the bookseller's daughter; she'd loan me things - and write. I mostly write about my own thoughts. I spend a lot of time in my head. That's what I wanted this for," and she lifts the blank scroll. "Especially since now I must fear forgetting - everything. Not just slippery brief thoughts."

[growcrooked]

"We're in Diotaland," she says. "Though my knowledge of geography isn't much better. I've only ever left the lake that once."