I'd never climbed a mountain before in my life, at least, not as far as I could remember. Some small things had vanished from my mind as I slept last night. The taste of cheap ramen, my first Red Sox game, and whatever they called the subway back home. I think it was a single letter. The U?
My heart panicked a little when I found these holes in my mortal memories, like dropping on a roller coaster. But I'd always get distracted when I realized I'd traded Lea's memories for more of Ruka's. I remembered more of the simple things with Red, how she could never wait for food to cool down before digging in, and her aversion to the color yellow.
But one memory, in particular, came in harder than the rest.
***
The two of us sat on the banks of a lake called Gully Pond. I leaned back against my wife while my fishing pole was propped up by three carefully-placed flat rocks. The berserker preferred to keep hers in her hands.
With my eyes closed, I stretched, almost knocking my rod into the lake. Reaper flies and gnats hovered over parts of the water on the shore about 10-15 feet to our right. I'd learned long ago how to keep nuisances like them pushed back with just a small bit of my magic. It made summer much more tolerable.
The smell of cattails and algae filtered through our resting spot, and I sneezed.
"Easy there, Ruru. You'll scare the fish away if you keep that up," Red said, adjusting the shoulder I was lying against.
Clicking my tongue, I raised an eyebrow at my wife, but it was all in good fun. For the longest time, we sat there, tiny waves washing upon the shore whenever a boat would go by. The waves and clouds moved more than we did, but that was fine because we'd been running hard the previous two days to get out of Whale God territory.
"You two don't get along very whale," one of the god's priests had said with a stupid grin before I scowled in his direction. He shrunk back pretty fast after that. I fucking hated puns. But I wasn't going to piss off Blimos any more than necessary by attacking one of his holy men. We agreed to what the divine ones called Levmon, which essentially translated to "go separate ways."
That was easier than starting a conflict between gods and goddesses, which could get bloody real quick.
But here under the afternoon sun with only the occasional fish biting to keep us distracted, the tension from that conflict melted away. I might have been on the way to a nap when Red asked me a question out of nowhere.
"Ruru, do you think you'll ever get tired of me?" she asked with a vulnerability I didn't anticipate. My wife was a proud and powerful woman. She didn't wear her heart on her sleeve. She tucked the damn thing away in a coat pocket where you couldn't see it.
We'd been together for a couple of years now, and I'd only recently finished the spell to slow her aging to a crawl. Before she let me cast it, however, Red demanded a promise from me, that'd I'd be by her side for every day of her extended life. So far, so good on that promise.
"Goodness, Red. You'll scare aware the fishes with heavy questions like that," I said, one of my ears twitching as I spoke.
She didn't joke back, which let me know she was serious. Though I knew that from the uptick in her heartbeat. Her arms tensed waiting for my answer.
"No, sweetie. I doubt that'll ever happen," I said.
My pole bent, and I was quick to reel in a snippergill that must have weighed about five pounds. It was a green fish covered with a white stripe that ran from mouth to tail. We were going to eat well tonight.
"It's just— and I know you promised before you did the spell. . .but did you really consider what it would mean when you cast it? I feel. . .different now, as though the days weigh less. It's like my heart is fluttering through each minute and hour like a curtain in the summer breeze. When I'm lying awake at night, sometimes I almost feel weightless."
I turned to face the huntsman and found anxiety plastered on her face. It took a lot to scare Red, physically anyway. I'd watched her charge into more battles than I could count. But this spooked her, this intangible concept of longevity.
"We talked about this, Red. That's what happens when you leave typical mortality behind. The spell was designed to shed those burdens. You'll get used to it. These are just jitters from something you haven't experienced before," I said.
With a deep breath and exhale, Red collected herself. I watched more color return to her cheeks, and her heartbeat resumed a typical pace.
"Sorry— this immortality stuff is a little daunting. And I guess my insecurities got wrapped up in it all," Red said.
I smiled and placed a hand on her left cheek. Red leaned into my touch, and a gradual smile of her own appeared.
"You don't have to apologize for anything," I said. "And if it makes you feel better, you're not technically immortal. You just have a lot of days ahead of you. I'll be in every one," I said. "You're not going to be discarded over boredom or some disagreement and have to confront that longevity alone in bitterness."
My wife's pole snagged, and she pulled away from me to reel in her catch. Once that was secure, I resumed leaning on Red's shoulder, yawning and drifting off toward Naptown again.
"I guess I've never considered what it'll be like to live at someone's side for multiple lifetimes. It. . .strains the mind," Red confessed.
I leaned up and looked at my wife with a bemused huff.
"So you weren't necessarily worried about me growing bored of you, so much as you growing bored of me! I see how it is," I said, crossing my arms.
Red laughed loud enough to scare away any remaining fish from our shoreline before pulling me in for a long kiss. When we broke contact, she said, "No, my dear Ruru. I wouldn't have named you if I thought I'd eventually get bored of saying your name."
"Say it for me one more time?" I asked.
"Ruru," she said, pulling me in for another kiss. "I'll call you by that name every day for several lifetimes to come."
***
I awoke, not with a start, but with a slow groan to find Katira nuzzled up against my chest. Her little black nose was the first thing my eyes focused on.
"Okay, little fox. I'm getting up," I said, wiping my eyes.
She stood up, stretched, while still standing on me, I might add. Then she sniffed at my cheek for a moment before climbing down and scampering off into a nearby bush.
I greeted Gray Paws and Streak next, who were already up and walking around our camp. Red was nowhere to be seen, but I found Pyra building up the morning fire.
"Good morning, Rook," she said, and my ears twitched. My chest lurched for a moment, and my perspective swam as I fought to remain in the waking world. I guess sleep held me harder than I initially realized because the dizziness I felt from hearing that name after my recovered memory threatened to return me to the ground. But I caught myself, as a goddess ought to do, and smiled.
"You okay?" Pyra asked, standing up.
Nodding, I stretched my back for several seconds and tried to shake the drowsiness of that dream. Where was Red? And why the fuck did I want her near me so badly after that? Of course, that was a stupid question. I knew why. My emotions were a train wreck where the two beautiful women in my pack were concerned.
Before I went to sleep, things had seemed pretty settled. I knew my feelings for Prya were going to need exploring over the next day or two. But after that dream and remembering how my wife made me feel on the best of days and the worst. . . I felt like it was foolish to dismiss the power returning memories would have.
What was it I'd told Red before we went to sleep?
"Maybe as I regain my heart I'll still end up ceasing to exist, and you'll get the original Ruka back," I'd said. Well fuck. Maybe I was talking out of my ass more than I thought when I told her that. Consequences meant more when you were a divine being, I suppose.
Consequences when I lived in Boston meant being yelled at for the . . . train thing breaking down and causing me to arrive at the office late. Consequences in Gyrelle when I'd become a goddess meant so much more.
The bard stared at me while all these things cycled through my head, and I flashed her another smile.
Red returned with eggs from some wild bird that we fried up and ate for breakfast. In between bites of runny eggs, I stole glances at both Red and Pyra, trying to make sense of what I felt for each of them. What I determined was feelings were complicated, and that was a bitch for someone who spent all of her mortal life repressing them.
We eventually got going up the mountain, but it was slow going. Burning the corruption out of Red had left her in a state of total exhaustion. And although she was trying to power through it, mountains don't let climbers keep secrets.
After the third time stopping for a break within an hour, Pyra gave me a look. It wasn't snarky or annoyed as I expected. Instead, she motioned with her nose for me to help my wife.
So I offered to carry Red piggyback while we ascended the slope. The expression she gave me was akin to asking a Mormon how they wanted their tea. So I motioned for my wife to keep going. And she did. . . for all of five minutes before slowly kneeling to the ground and giving me a look of resignation.
I guess we can just say that part of the trail where there's only one set of footprints was where Red's goddess carried her, I thought, grinning to myself. Neither of them would get that joke. Unfortunately, I didn't know how much longer I would get that joke.
After another couple of hours, I looked around expecting the trees to become more sparse, but the forest continued to keep us company, though many of the trees were now evergreens. I popped my shoulders and sighed an hour later.
Even a goddess has limits, I thought. But I didn't want Red to know I was getting tired. She'd immediately demand that I put her down. And if I was being extra honest. . . I kind of liked us like this, her arms wrapped loosely over my shoulders.
I didn't just hear her heartbeat, but I felt it against my body. Snow crunched under my feet as we hiked up the mountain, and I could feel Red pushing herself tighter against me for warmth. Gray Paws and Streak ran and played in the powder having a grand old time. Katira decided being worn like a scarf, draped over the back of Pyra's neck was a much better deal. After all, she wasn't an arctic fox.
"How much further up the mountain does the Sparrow Speaker live?" I asked, tapping Red's ass lightly. My breath was making fog with every exhale.
"There! See that tree over there with the carving?" Red asked, pointing off to the left about 30 feet.
Pyra and I exchanged glances and headed that way.
We came to, by far, the biggest evergreen tree on this side of the mountain. And carved a few feet above my eye level were a pair of wings that looked like they'd been chipped from the bark by a hatchet.
At that point, I smelled smoke and realized someone nearby was burning a fire, which I desperately wanted to be in front of. A clap of thunder echoed in the sky behind us, and we all turned to see a large storm system approaching the mountain.
"Now seems like a good time to find shelter," I said.
"I'll second that, Rook," Pyra said.
We followed the smell of smoke and eventually came to a cabin that looked like it'd endured a hard life here on the mountain. Wind beat it, snow blanketed it, lightning danced around it, and yet the structure stood. I'd no idea what kept the thing together as the logs appeared to be stacked with grooves cut in necessary places. The damn thing looked like a life-size set of. . . whatever those logs were that had a president's name. Truman Logs? Eh, didn't matter.
Too cold and windy out here. I can overthink things next to the bird man's fire, I thought as we got closer and the wind covered me in a fresh dusting of snowflakes. I shook my head and tail, but the only real solution was going to be getting inside where the wind couldn't reach me.
The cabin's roof sagged on the left side, but an orange light emanated from a small crack under the front door which looked like it'd been made by a high school student just trying to barely pass their woodshop class.
While I was judging the quality of the craft as though my last name were Swanson, the door opened with such a loud creaking noise that it made every door in Silver Dollar City seem silent by comparison.
From inside the cabin, I smelled— well lots of bird, just an ungodly scent of avian creatures, maybe hundreds of them. It still didn't hold a candle to the smell of chicken houses I came across when I visited Arkansas for a seminar, but with a wolf nose, it was enough for me to give pause. Of course, as the storm picked up, and I heard Red's heartbeat starting to slow, I got over my aversion to the smell of bird pretty quickly.
"C'mon. Let's go meet the Sparrow Speaker," I said as we walked into the cabin hoping for warmth, shelter, and maybe if our luck held, some answers about the next piece of my heart.