Chapter 1

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 11: "One Body, One Mind"

ARI

Ari enjoyed her lessons with Prince Richard. They were a fine distractor from her knighthood, and Sir Oliver. She had not spoken to the knight in days.

Ari was picking up the common tongue fairly quickly. She guessed that her exposure to the language over the years had given her preparation, and that these lessons from Prince Richard in Nightingshire's vast library only built upon what she already knew.

After a few hours of reading and speaking and correcting, the heavy oaken table by the window was now home to a dozen open books and scraps of parchment.

"I been training--" Ari began.

"You have been training," Prince Richard corrected. "You have been."

"I have been," Ari mimicked. "These rules, they are so..."

"Cumbersome?" Prince Richard finished.

"Hm?" Ari said, laughing.

Prince Richard chortled as well. "That's a word not even the common folk use. Only the pretentious use it."

Ari was silent still, but had a wry smile forming.

"Oh yes!" Prince Richard laughed again. "Pretentious. Pretentious means... unjustifiably arrogant. Pretentious is... always thinking you are special because you use certain words or act a certain way, when really you are not. Pretentious is..."

"Sir Oliver," Ari finished.

Prince Richard smiled. "Oh, come on now, Jason. Your knight is not so bad. He cannot be."

Ari sighed. "He not respect me."

"Does not respect you," Prince Richard corrected again.

"He does not respect me," she repeated. "He thinks he owns me. Still."

"Jason, look at me."

Ari did. She looked straight into Richard's calm blue eyes, and felt at home for the first time in her young life. He put a soft, clammy hand on her cheek.

"Nobody owns you," he told her. "Not anymore. You are your own man, no matter what this world will try to tell you."

Ari had no response. She was frozen in a moment of bewildering gratitude and, admittedly, attraction. The moment was broken by a harsh knock on the plank of a door.

Prince Richard pulled his hand away from Ari's cheek. "Yes, what is it?" he asked the person at the door.

A heavy, speckle-chinned knight emerged, holding a scroll in his hand. "For you," he said plainly.

Prince Richard stood up from his chair and began to walk over when the guard corrected him. "Not you, my Prince. The brown boy."

Ari was confused. Who would write me? she wondered. She stood up and took the scroll from the knight.

"Good day," he said, departing, closing the door behind him.

"What is it?" Prince Richard asked as Ari broke the seal and scanned the parchment.

She answered, "I been-- I have been-- invited to a performance. If I am reading correct."

"Correctly," answered Prince Richard, grabbing a corner of the parchment to inspect it himself. "'The Blue Diamond Theatre's Band of Bastards presents, "The Dragon of Nightingshire," a riveting tale of destruction and plight.' You were invited by--"

"Bard," Ari finished. She could not help but smile, remembering the little man she had met when she first arrived in Nightingshire. "He a-- He is an actor, I think."

She was surprised that Bard even remembered her, let alone, liked her enough to invite her so formally.

"This 'Bard' is your friend?" Prince Richard asked.

Ari shrugged. "Yes?"

"Well, he must be. Do you plan on attending this 'riveting tale of destruction and plight?'"

"Yes," Ari said. "It begins... 'at twilight'... on the morrow."

"Might I accompany you, my friend?" Prince Richard asked. "I have grown quite bored in this old castle some nights."

"Aye," Ari replied, smiling. She blushed at the thought of him being the one to ask. She might have invited him herself, she realized.

"Splendid," the Prince said, enthused. "Shall we continue the lessons?"

Ari snapped out of her flirtatious daze and said, "Yes. Yes, of course."

///

After Prince Richard's teachings had been long exhausted, Ari had sought after her new friend, Barnacle, to teach her some technique for horseback riding. She thought a more physical lesson to give her mind proper rest.

She was wrong.

"What do you mean 'talk' to it?" Ari wondered. "The damn creature never listens."

Barnacle answered from atop his ugly mule (the kindly knights of Nightingshire would not allow the orc to borrow one of their finely bred steeds). Ari, on her disobedient horse, rode up to where Barnacle was stalled. His creature listens to him, Ari remarked, glaring at the beast she was riding. It snorted and neighed.

Barnacle went on to explain, "You're trying to tell it what to do! The beast has to want what you want. You have to have the same brain, same mind."

"That is a lie," Ari claimed. "The horse will never want what I want."

"Not if you kick it like a youngling."

"Like a youngling?" Ari asked, confused.

"Your parents did not kick you? Orcs kick all their children to teach us modesty."

"I no remember my parents," Ari said, feeling a little remorseful. "But no parents should kick children."

"Lies," Barnacle. "All children should be kicked! But horses are more difficult creatures. They require a sort of respect. The beast needs to know that you respect it for what it is."

"You are terrible teacher," Ari laughed.

"Bollocks. No, no, Sir Jason, I speak only the truth. Whoever teaches you the common tongue, though, they are a terrible teacher."

Ari chuckled at this too. Her attention tapered off to the sunset, pink and orange. "I think I will practice alone," she told Barnacle. "Thank you, my friend."

"Aye," Barnacle said. "And remember, if I can ride a donkey, you can ride a horse!"

The orc rode off awkwardly on his mule.

Ari took a long, pensive look out at the sunset, letting the day sink into her skin before it faded. She thought not of Sir Oliver, not of a dragon, a little about Prince Richard, but mostly about her, who she was and who she was not. This unsettled introspection made her consider riding off towards the setting sun, to follow it and see where it would lead. It would be far away from this life, from everything. There was something out there better for her, there had to be.

She prayed to Osha to assist her. She did not expect an answer from her god, only for Osha to take her horse and will it to go wherever she was destined. Ari gave the steed a little kick and it was off, galloping down the hill, into a valley, over a brook, ever towards the setting sun. As the horse trudged, Ari realized that Barnacle was right. She and the horse needed to be one.

And they were.

Ari's hands slowly lifted off the reins, and she extended them, catching the wind. She felt free, but more than free, she felt one with Osha. The terrain beneath was hard, but Ari did not fall. Her legs had gripped the horse just enough to hold on. She pulled her arms back in, but did not put them on the reins, only around the horse's neck gently. She knew the horse would go wherever she was destined to go. The horse verged upon a clearing, a vast plain of yellow grass that stretched to the horizon.

Ari thought the horse would take her to the sun, but it stopped dead in its tracks. It stomped its hooves into the pad of dirt underneath a few times, then turned its head back towards Nightingshire. She was befuddled for a second, but then smiled wide, realizing that Osha was truly directing her to her destiny.

The horse sprinted back to the castle walls in haste, but Ari pulled hard on the reins when she saw a figure on horseback waiting at the top of the hill. It was Sir Oliver.

Ari knew she could not outrun him forever. She rode up the hill to meet him. She was surprised to see a smile on his bearded face. "I see you've finally gotten that thing to listen," Sir Oliver said.

Ari simply nodded.

"Have you given it a name yet?" the knight asked.

Ari mulled it over for a second, and replied, "Destiny."

Sir Oliver nodded in approval. "We will venture to the dragon's lair at dawn," he commanded her. "To see what we find."

Ari nodded.

"If you choose to come with me, that is," he added.

"It is not my choice," the squire responded. "You are my master."

"No longer," Sir Oliver replied, shocking Ari. "I release you. You are a free woman. But I will see you at dawn tomorrow to search for the dragon."

Ari was dumbfounded. "Maybe I run. Maybe I never come back."

Sir Oliver only smirked. "Dawn," he said, and he rode off.

The worst part to Ari was that he was right. This dragon, this quest, this was her destiny. He really is pretentious, she thought.