This begins during Part 3: Throg of TWatWK
A Ride Through the Forest
Maraly, clad in her new black ‘Shadowblade’ uniform but not her mask — since Artham had disappeared without sewing one for her — stood in the entrance to Thimble Thumb's Threads, staring at her friend.
Sara was sweeping. She’d been sweeping for the past two hours. Not only that, but she’d been sweeping the same patch of floor in the same room the entire time. She’ll sweep the foundation away if she continues much longer, Maraly thought wryly. She didn’t see much point in sweeping, mostly because everything would get dirty again anyway, but she knew Sara did. Sara swept the floor when she was thinking or worried. Or when she was trying not to cry. Maraly hadn’t had much time to talk to her, mainly because Sara had been so consumed in helping all her orphans meet with their parents again. She might’ve once been a Strander, and sure, she still wasn’t great at reading normal emotions, but she knew something was wrong. Being Sara’s best friend meant that she was supposed to know when something was up. So, she did what she was supposed to do. She asked.
“Sara, ye’ve been actin’ funny for a whole day now. What’s goin’ on?”
Sara started a bit and looked up from the glistening patch of floor she’d been sweeping. She blinked and saw a hint of a glare in Maraly’s eyes, and maybe a light brush of sympathy in concern. She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’m just…thinking.” Then she went back to sweeping again.
Maraly looked around the large room awkwardly, not exactly knowing what to do. There were small clusters of orphans hugging the edges of the wall, talking quietly amongst themselves. Every few seconds, they would glance toward Sara with big eyes, shake their heads, and go back to their conversations.
So, the orphans are worried, too. Score! It’s not jest me, Maraly thought, giving herself a mental point for noticing someone’s emotions correctly. Then her shoulders slumped. She still needed to figure out how to help Sara, who was currently being unrevealing and cagey. She couldn’t give herself any sort of point until she resolved the problem.
Maraly let out her breath in a huff, put her hands on her hips, and cocked her head at Sara. “Look, somethin’s wrong, and I don’t know what it is. I’m not good at the emotional guessin’ game, so can ye jest tell me why ye’re actin’ so weird?”
Sara looked up at her again, this time with tears glistening in her eyes. “I’m just not sure what to do.”
“About what?” Maraly asked softly, putting her hands back down at her sides.
“Can we talk about this outside?” Sara eyed her friend, then motioned toward the orphans. Maraly nodded, still not understanding why Sara would rather be outside. It wasn’t even a nice day. It was cloudy and humid and, frankly, miserable so early in spring.
Once they had walked across the street and sat down on a rickety bench — Sara lowering herself gracefully and smoothing her skirt to remove the wrinkles, and Maraly plopping down, putting one foot on the bench, and slouching into the backboard — Maraly asked again. “So will you tell me what’s wrong?”
Sara stared straight ahead, hesitating. Then she glanced at her friend. The look on Maraly’s face told her that she wouldn’t leave until she had an answer. And the real answer at that. Maraly might not act like a ruthless Strander anymore, but she still knew whether or not someone was lying better than Gammon himself.
“Well, a lot of the orphan’s left. Borley’s gone, too,” she began, wondering if that would be enough. She looked at Maraly. She still had that same, expectant look. “And Armulyn sort of left.”
“And?” Maraly pressed.
Sara squirmed a bit. She didn’t like the pressing. She didn’t like talking about what she was really feeling. If she did, she was afraid she would cry. She didn’t want anyone to see her crying. Especially not her orphans or Maraly. “Artham’s gone and now...now Anniera's gone too and I just feel alone.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and Sara dashed them away furiously with her hand.
She didn't know what to do about the Anniera problem, so Maraly asked about Artham instead. “Where did he go?”
“He’s up in his tree house in Glipwood. He calls it his Castle.” Sara smiled a bit at the thought.
“Why’d you leave him there?” Maraly questioned, her gaze burning a hole in Sara.
Sara stared at her, surprised. That wasn’t the question she had been expecting. “Well...I mean, he took me back to the township after I almost got attacked by a toothy cow. I would’ve stayed, but then Grettalyn’s father was there, so I took him back to Dugtown. I’ve been helping the parents find their children.”
Maraly shook her head.
Sara eyed her. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Sara,” Maraly sighed and looked at her in a rather patronizing manner. “Number one rule of being friends with a crazy person: ye don’t leave ‘em alone! We all saw what happened when he started talkin’ about Anniera with the kids and Armulyn. And it only got worse when we went to Glipwood. He was actin’ all crazy again.”
Maraly had spent enough time around crazies to know they could never be left alone. It happened to a lot of the older Stranders. When they reached a certain age, some of them would hit this weird point where they would start regretting everything they ever did. Sometimes Artham had reminded her of them. And the memories scared her.
Maraly shuddered at the thought. She certainly didn’t want to put that on Sara’s mind, considering what was going on right now. “C’mon. Let’s go get ‘im.”
Sara laughed a bit. “Maraly, we can’t just up and leave. I have to stay and take care of the orphans, since Armulyn left.”
“Gammon can do it,” Maraly stated.
Sara looked at her as though she was crazy. Surely, Gammon didn’t want a bunch of children unexpectedly thrust upon him.
“He can,” Maraly insisted. “All I know is that we need to go get Artham.”
*****
Surprisingly, Gammon agreed to watch the orphans. Sara uttered her thanks in a somewhat baffled tone, stuped as to why on earth Gammon affirmed his willingness so quickly.
Before long, she and Maraly had saddled horses and were briskly trotting towards Glipwood. They chatted a little, mostly about normal things. Maraly had initially asked how it was going with finding the orphans’ parents, but that brought a shadow to Sara’s face. She had quickly switched the subject to Gammon’s failed gardening attempts. That made Sara start laughing.
The hours passed without interruption, and as they drew further from the chaos and dirtiness of Dugtown and the dripping air rolling of the Sea, the day grew less humid and more bearable, like a normal, spring morning in Skree.
“What do you plan on saying to him when you get there?” Maraly finally asked, when they only had a few more miles left.
“Uh,” Sara fumbled for a second. “I don’t really know. I guess I’ll just tell him that I need him back in Dugtown. To protect me. And the orphans.”
“Wha’d’ya need protectin’ from?” Maraly glanced toward her, a questioning look on her face.
“My crazy, unachievable desire for a family,” Sara stated pointedly.
Maraly saw more there and snickered. “And yer longing to set out across the Sea to Janner.”
Sara’s cheeks turned bright red.
“So I was right,” Maraly grinned. “You’ll see ‘im again. I’m sure of it. And when ya see ‘im, he’ll stare at you like he’s seen a ghost an’ —”
“‘And’ nothing,” Sara interrupted, correcting Maraly’s grammar in the process. “Maraly, Janner is on the other side of the Dark Sea of Darkness. He’s essentially on the other side of the world. I’ve come to accept that I’ll never see him again.”
“Sara, please, don’t hold too fast to that.” A voice came from the forest and startled them and their horses. “I have a feeling you’ll get to see Janner again after all.”
Both girls gasped. Before them stood a winged man — perfectly sane — whom they knew quite well.
“Artham!”
Note:
So that's chapter 1! And I'll probably be posting daily because not only is this 10-chapter fic all the way written, the next one is also written up to chapter 45.
And don't worry, Ellie, I will be posting a chapter for Standing Steady in the Storms today, it'll just be late. My school internet will let me access TTH but not AO3 *shrugs
That was really good! The writing is wonderful and the characters are spot on! I look forward to reading more! Thank you for writing!