His mother had packed for the road with the specific generosity of someone who knew that a wagon full of people was going to be hungry before they arrived. Plus having a mini storage spell imprinted on her just before the trip, she was able to store fresh meals and bring them out still hot.
By the second hour she had produced a cloth bundle and was working her way methodically through the back of the wagon distributing food with the efficiency of someone who had been feeding a large household for years and had developed systems.
Everyone received bread and hard cheese and a section of dried fruit. Arthur received this and ate it. Clara received this and ate the dried fruit first, which was wrong, and would hear about it later. Lyra received this and opened her book with her free hand and managed both simultaneously, which she had been doing since she was four.
Saya received this, looked at her portion, and immediately began eating with the focused appreciation of someone for whom good food was always worth full attention.
His mother got to Maren and looked at her portion and then looked at Maren and gave her more bread.
'I don't need — '
'You need more than that, your too thin, darling,' Mira said, in the pleasant tone that was not actually a suggestion. 'Eat.'
Maren ate.
Twenty minutes later his mother produced another round. Everyone received their portion. Maren received hers plus additional cheese and the last of the dried apple from the bottom of the bundle. She looked at the extra food and looked at Mira on the wagon seat ahead of her.
'I told you, I really don't need — '
'How long were you in that camp?' his mother said, without turning around.
A silence.
'Two weeks,' Maren said.
'Then you need atleast two weeks worth of food in you, which is more than you think,' his mother said. 'Eat the apple.'
Clara, beside Maren, said nothing. She broke her own bread in half and put the second half on Maren's portion without comment and went back to eating.
Maren looked at Clara. Clara was looking at the road.
She ate the apple.
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The road settled into its rhythm — the horses, the creak of the wagon, the flat white sky moving slowly overhead — and the back of the wagon became the kind of space that long journeys created, where proximity and time did the work that introductions couldn't.
Clara, who had declared she was in charge of the younger ones and took this seriously, appointed herself Maren's orientation guide, which meant a steady stream of information delivered with complete confidence about the farm, the family, the animals, the village, the general state of affairs, and several relevant anecdotes about herself.
Maren listened. She asked questions occasionally, which Clara received as an extremely positive response.
◆ ◆ ◆
Lyra listened from behind her book, which meant she was not actually reading but had decided that listening invisibly was the appropriate contribution for now.
'The dog is Haru,' Clara was saying. 'He's Dad's. His favorite spell is probably telekinesis, which is how he helps with the farm work and why we had a small problem in Calmere with a horrible snotty noble who wanted to buy him. Aren't nobles just the worst?'
'I haven't met many,' Maren said.
'You're lucky. They look at everything like it has a price on it and they're deciding whether the price is worth it to them.' Clara's expression had the quality of someone who had formed a thorough opinion recently and was still in the satisfying early phase of having it. 'This one offered Dad fifteen gold crowns. Fifteen. Like Dad would ever — ' She stopped. 'Dad just said no and the man couldn't even understand it. He kept going up in the number like that was the only variable. It was very sad.'
'What happened to him?'
'I don't know,' Clara said, with the slight quality of someone who had not finished thinking about this. 'He was back in Calmere when we left so I'm assuming it's over? Arthur didn't say anything, which either means there's nothing to say or means he's handling it quietly and will tell us later.' She paused. 'Probably the second one, knowing Arthur. But if the man tries something, don't worry.' She said this with complete confidence. 'I'll be able to handle it.'
'You'll handle it,' Maren said.
'Of course, I defeated bandits on the way here, you know?' Clara said. 'Thirty of them. On the road between Thornwick and Calmere. We were surrounded and I was the only one in the family to stand up and go on the attack — Arthur was busy guarding the little ones, which I completely understand, someone had to, but that meant the offensive work fell to me and Kiiro and we handled it. Very effectively.' She looked at Kiiro. 'Tell her.'
Kiiro opened one eye. She closed it again.
'She's being modest,' Clara said. 'She's not a modest creature generally, so you can tell she's being sincere.'
'Thirty bandits,' Maren said.
'Thirty-one actually,' Clara said. 'I counted.'
Clara said this with the casual satisfaction of reporting a fact. 'Even though Arthur stayed put, I could tell that he was also casting defensive magic on everyone. He does things like that. Fixes problems quietly before they become problems. He's been doing it our whole lives and we only find out later, usually by accident.' She paused. 'Anyway, Haru. He also has a nose that can smell things from a mile away, which is useful, and he's very good at knowing how people feel, which Dad pretends not to rely on but absolutely does. He was the first companion Arthur made. Outside of Shadow, I mean. Shadow has been with Arthur since he was a baby. We didn't know about her until a few years ago.'
'He kept it secret?'
'He keeps everything secret.' Clara's tone on this was the tone of someone who had been processing this for years and had arrived at a position that was equal parts fond and exasperated. 'He had created a whole shadow wolf and an entire magical network running through the farm and the forest as a baby and nobody knew. He was like three years old, maybe even younger; he won't ever give us a clear answer. I didn't know he could do magic until he healed Lyra's lungs and even then he tried to make it seem smaller than it was.'
Arthur, sitting within earshot, couldn't help his eyebrows from twitching at the near slanderous words coming out from his sister's mouth
Maren glanced at Lyra, who had turned a page she had not been reading.
'He healed her lungs?'
'She had an infection. Chronic. She'd had it since she was small, and it was getting worse, and over the course of like a few months— ' Clara made a gesture that compressed several years of household history into a single motion. 'Fixed it. She could finally breathe properly, and she's been fine ever since.' She looked at Kiiro, who was still asleep on her lap with complete composure. 'That was when things started to be different. He started teaching us magic shortly after that. Gave us all companions.'
'He made one for each of you?'
'He made Kona for Thomas — that's our brother, he stayed at the farm, you'll meet him when we get home. Kona is a black labrador, Arthur came up with all of these cool names. He can grow to wolf-size. Thomas rides him sometimes, which Thomas pretends is purely practical and not at all because he likes it.' Clara's expression said she had personal opinions about this but had chosen to be gracious. 'And Kiiro for me.' She gestured at Kiiro on her lap, small cat form, utterly at ease. 'She's a cat sith. She can grow to lion size. She perfectly understands me. Plus Her magical control is basically perfect.'
'Basically?'
'Perfect,' Clara corrected, without missing a beat. 'Her magical control is perfect, which honestly reflects well on me.'
'Reflects well on you,' Maren said.
'She's mine,' Clara said, in the tone of someone explaining something self-evident. 'Her capabilities are a reflection of our bond and our bond is excellent. This is just how it works.'
Maren looked at Kiiro. Kiiro did not open her eyes. She did, however, radiate the composed quality of something that was completely aware of the conversation and had no particular objections to how it was going.
'And Mom's is Bella,' Clara continued. 'Grey cat sith, blue eyes, very pretty. She has what Arthur calls a tsundere personality which he says is his fault but won't explain why it's his fault. She sits on Mom's lap and accepts being petted and acts like she's tolerating it and then if anyone threatens Mom she turns into something you don't want to be near. We found that out on the road when the bandits — ' Having realized she might have stepped on a sore subject, Clara paused -
'I heard about the bandits taking you from the road. That must have been scary' Maren said.
'Did Arthur tell you?'
'Saya did. Some of it.'
Maren thought for a moment. 'Your whole family is like this?'
'Like what?'
'Like — ' She tried to find the right word. 'Strong. All of you.'
Clara considered this. 'I think Arthur made us that way,' she said. 'Not on purpose, or not just on purpose. He started teaching us things and giving us tools and I think it changed how we thought about ourselves. Like — before, the forest was frightening because we didn't know what was in it. Now I know what's in it and I know I can do something about what's in it, so it's just the forest.' She looked at the road ahead. 'He does that. He looks at what's missing and fills it in. He's been doing it since before any of us knew he was doing it.'
'Like the stove,' Maren said, thinking of what Mira had told her.
'Like the stove. Like the bath. Like the heating in the walls.' Clara's expression was the expression of someone finding her own household impressive from a slight distance. 'He looked at what was inconvenient or unsafe and he fixed it. He just — keeps doing that. For all of us.'
A brief quiet settled.
'And Tsuki is Lyra's,' Clara said, returning to the catalogue with the air of someone who had briefly digressed and was now completing the tour. She pointed at Tsuki on Lyra's shoulder, small white form, silver-tipped tails arranged with characteristic elegance. 'She's an elemental fox. Wind and light affinity. She can grow to horse size. And Saya's tribe thinks she might be a deity.'
Maren looked at Tsuki.
Tsuki looked back at her with the silver eyes that had their own quality of assessment.
'She does have a very specific look,' Maren said carefully.
'She does it on purpose,' Lyra said, from behind the book. 'Don't encourage her.'
'I don't do it on purpose,' Clara said, on Tsuki's behalf. 'She just looks like that.'
'She does it on purpose,' Lyra repeated, with the patience of someone who had been having this debate for months and was still correct.
Tsuki turned the silver eyes toward Lyra with the composure of something that existed on a different timeline than this conversation entirely, found it no more or less interesting than it had expected, and turned back to the road.
Maren watched this exchange.
'She's seven months old?' she said.
'About nine now,' Clara said. 'Why?'
'She looks much older than nine months.'
'She looks,' Clara said, with the specific authority of someone who had spent nine months in proximity to Tsuki and had arrived at conclusions, 'exactly as old as she decides to look. And she has decided to look very old and very knowing. All the time. Even when she's asleep.'
'Especially when she's asleep,' Lyra said, still not looking up.
Maren watched Tsuki, who was doing nothing except existing on Lyra's shoulder in the afternoon light with the quality of something that had been here before and would be here after.
She appeared to be updating several things she had believed about the world.
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