8. Oak and Ash and Thorn: Song
Two days had passed since Vera had tangled with a snake outside of the Order’s camp, a beast she later came to know as a Brushmaster. Furio had left to the north on a hunting trip for a few days and Jakell had been busy collecting lumber and preparing for the next expansion to the Legion’s fort. She had made a point to show the bite to Jakell the day after the incident. He had winced upon seeing it but hadn’t seemed to think it was something to be concerned about at the time and she hadn’t shown it to him again since.
The area around the wound had turned dark purple, veins were visible under the skin on her thigh and the skin punctured by the animal’s fangs had fallen away to expose bright red and inflamed flesh the size of a pocket watch. Vera had been doing her best to keep it washed and bandaged with clean cloth under her kilt. Her pants had been damaged during the incident and her thigh had become too swollen to wear them even if they had been repaired.
Despite her injury, Vera hadn’t stopped working though she was slower than she had been before the incident. Jakell’s goal for the day was to move furniture into the larger of their two houses and set it up for the three of them to move into. The back house had two bedrooms and a large front room that would be perfect for the trio to share. The front house made for an ideal storage area with its four separate rooms and Vera had pitched the idea of giving Lucien a room there to a less than thrilled Jakell.
Lucien had admitted to Vera and Jakell that he was sleeping in the underbelly of Old Town with the flop outs and fiends. Lucien led the pair down to his favorite bar that was filled with seedy characters and a woman missing at least two teeth who was dancing for coins on a dimly lit stage.
Despite Vera’s obvious concerns, Lucien said he was happy living down there and even introduced Vera to his “girl”, a woman with short blonde hair named Sil who referred to herself as “street alchemist”. Vera had wondered if this was a polite phrase for “drug manufacturer” given the state of her workshop and caliber of clientele. Lucien had tried to give the woman an affectionate greeting and she had rudely rebuffed him. Not one to take a hint, Lucien had made a quippy joke and blew Sil a kiss on the way out the door.
Jakell hadn’t been excited about the idea of giving a room to Lucien but came around when Vera reminded him that they were all supposed to be on the same side. They’d settled on giving him the bottom left room in the front house and Vera had re-keyed it for Lucien but had yet to give him the key or even pitch the idea to him.
“Alright, everything is just about ready”, Jakell said as he entered the rental, his long hair was tied back messily, and he wore his usual browns and tans that matched his golden skin.
Vera blinked out of a thought and looked at Jakell, he looked so much taller than her, she looked up admiring his soft facial features. She could feel her jaw growing a little slack before she realized Jakell looked so tall because she was sitting on the floor of the rental, not standing like she had previously thought.
“What are you doing?” Jakell examined her curiously, “are you alright?”, his brow knitted with concern.
She cleared her throat and got to her feet with some difficulty. Vera was paler than her usual self, her eyes were darker and anyone paying even an ounce of attention would notice that she was quite ill.
“Nothin’, Oi’m fine”, her words slurred together before she cleared her throat again and repeated, “I’m fine” again in what she hoped was a crisp voice.
“Are you sure?” Jakell asked her once more, his tone more serious this time.
“I’m fine”, she said again, this time in a voice that even convinced her.
Vera took slow, deliberate steps out of the rental to find their sable horse Daisy overloaded with furniture and items. Fortunately, they weren’t going far as their new home was less than two hundred yards from their current rental.
The two of them spent only a few hours moving furniture in, they didn’t have much and Jakell was not yet a skilled enough carpenter to make many things. The front room of the house featured a bar made from wooden counters with a few stools in front of it. Behind the bar they had stacked multiple crates to use as storage and their bed was very rudimentary and made by stacking smoothed stone together and padding it with animal hides and furs.
The physical exertion had made Vera feel more lucid, her leg didn’t feel as stiff as it had previously, and it felt good to be making progress on their new place. Vera surveyed the house; it wasn’t much but it was a good start. She and Jakell would be sharing the room to the left and Furio would have the room to the right if they could ever get him out of the rental.
Vera winced suddenly and grabbed her thigh, her wound had flared up and gave her a bit of trouble, throbbing and stinging. She shifted her weight to her other leg and leaned her hip against the bar. Hiking up her kilt she looked at the bandage and saw that it was bloody and soaked through with clear serous fluid. Vera gritted her teeth and let the kilt fall back down to hide the wound.
She took a seat in one of the stools and leaned heavily onto the bar. Jakell was in the other room, adding more hides and bedding to their makeshift double bed. Vera told herself she would take only this moment for self-pity before sucking it up. Weakness was not something she easily accepted in herself or others.
The double front doors of the house had been left open while they moved, and a soft breeze was blowing outside. Vera could hear leaves as they danced in the wind on the stone steps of the porch. The wind blew in a familiar smell, it was earthy like silage but had the sweet soft scent of fresh scraped vanilla beans. She took in a deep breath and the scent tickled at the back of her memory; it almost gave away the name of this familiar smell, but the word teased her just out of reach.
Vera swore under her breath as she fought to recollect the memory, like something from childhood you could barely remember but it felt like it was once so important.
“Ye look like yer searchin’ fer a ghost”, a voice rang out to her with a soft laugh. Lucien stood in the doorway, dressed in his pieced together leather armor with a gray tunic thrown over top.
She looked to him, their blue eyes met, and the word suddenly sprang to her mind, oak, the wind brought on it the smell of oak. The breeze blew through the door, tussling Lucien’s silver hair and collecting more of the scent as it blew past him. Vera drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes, the fresh air opened her lungs and filled them once again with the sweet, earthy scent.
She opened her eyes and looked at Lucien who now wore a confused expression on his face. Vera was still pale, and strings of her hair stuck to her forehead and face. She might have been feeling slightly better, but she was looking worse.
“Vera, are ye doin’ alright?”, Lucien said and took a step closer to her, his crystal blue eyes showing concern.
She nodded and stood suddenly with newfound energy as if she had just remembered something exciting. Her hand dove into her pocket and closed around the iron key it found there.
“I’ve got somethin’ for you”, she said to him with a weak smile and waved him over to follow her.
Vera led Lucien to the front house and unlocked the door to the stone room. The floor was finished with wood and once Vera had decided this would be Lucien’s room, she had gone over the floor with a darker stain than the rest of the house.
“What do you think?” Vera motioned around the room as Lucien followed her in.
He looked around with a nod, paced the length of the room and looked out the window. “Ye’ve outdone yerself on this ‘ouse an’ the other”, his head nodded north as he mentioned the structure they’d just left, “I’m thoroughly impressed”.
“I know” she gave him a cheeky grin and held out her closed fist, palm down.
Lucien let out a short chuckle and looked to her hand. He reached out his own and tapped the top of her out reached fist. Vera rolled her hand over and opened it, exposing the small iron key that lay within.
“Wuts this?” he responded, taking a half step back and tipping his head to the side, his body language looked guarded.
“This key and this room are both for you”, Vera said bluntly, she didn’t know how else to present the idea to him.
An array of emotions played across Lucien’s face as he looked to the key in Vera’s outstretched hand, his own hand rose to take the key and then fell back before taking it. He looked elated at first, then confused and lastly conflicted.
“I don’ know if I can or should take that. I dunno if I can stay ‘ere”, he said in a low soft voice.
Vera’s eyes searched his as she motioned around the room, “I want you to have it. I want you to have a nice, safe place to live. I also think I’d feel better knowing you were close by”, she smiled at him and moved her hand with the key closer to him.
“Vera, I-“, Lucien started and then sighed, taking the key and holding it up to his face to look at it.
“I made the locks myself”, she added with a sofe laugh, “It’s a fuckin’ awful pain to do”.
They both chuckled and Lucien put the key in his pocket before he stepped forward and scooped Vera into an embrace. She looped her arms under his and crossed them behind his back as his arms encompassed her shoulders. Vera pressed her face into Lucien’s shoulder and breathed in the faint familiar scent of oak. She settled in, while they were of similar height his frame was much larger than hers and he felt comfortable to be pressed against.
The hug went on for longer than a standard embrace which Lucien seemed more aware of than Vera. Slowly, he released his grip on her and reluctantly she pulled away from him with an awkward and oblivious smile. If Vera had been more of herself, she might have questioned the affection, but instead she simply enjoyed the moment of comfort.
Lucien shifted awkwardly on his feet and motioned once again to the larger house to the north, “eh, is Jakell ‘ome?” he asked, filling the silence that was growing around them.
“He’s in the other house, fiddling around with something”, she gestured that way as well as to illustrate her message, “you want to see what we’ve done with the place?”.
He enthusiastically agreed and the two of them left Lucien’s new room for the back house. Jakell was still in the back room, moving things around and shuffling through storage crates when they came in.
“Vera have you seen-“, Jakell started but grew quiet upon seeing Lucien, “I didn’t know you were here”, he began again.
“He stopped by, I was just showing him his new room”, Vera replied and lowered herself once again into one of the stools in front of the newly constructed bar.
Jakell simply nodded and looked Lucien over, the two of them shared a silent exchange. “The room is to your liking then?”, he said to fill the awkward void.
“Everythin’ she builds is”, Lucien replied with a crooked, cocky grin.
Vera leaned her weight onto the bar and silently winced once again as her leg flared up and a nauseating pain traveled from her thigh through the rest of her body. She watched the two of them, they were talking but she was unable to hear them. It was as though cotton had been pressed into her ears and their conversation sounded distant and muffled.
She placed her elbow on the bar and her head in her hand rubbing her temple. The skin on her face felt clammy and slick with sweat. She pulled her hand away from her face and ran her thumb and middle finger together as she contemplated her condition.
Suddenly it was as if someone had turned half of the lights off, the light in the house dimmed and it felt as though time had slowed. An eerie silence filled the room, like a winter’s night just before the first snowfall of the season. Vera looked up, Jakell and Lucien were frozen, locked in an unfinished conversation and everything was tinted in a soft shade of blue.
Small soft and pillowy puffs of what appeared to be snow began to fall into the air from the ceiling as though there were invisible clouds above them. Vera held her hand out to try to catch one, but they were illusive and quickly changed directions as she reached for them. She looked at Jakell and Lucien and as she watched them, she realized the snow was only falling around Jakell. Narrowing her eyes she squinted at the flakes, leaning forward and finally catching one on her fingertip.
She brought her hand closer to her face and stared closely at the substance. It wasn’t cold and it didn’t melt upon meeting her skin. She brushed her thumb over the flake and smeared a line of soft white ash across her fingers.
Vera let out a soft gasp as she realized that it wasn’t snow but ash that was falling around Jakell. She reached her hand out again and caught another soft ember from the air. She worked it between her fingers and as she did it unfolded into a small almond shaped leaf.
“Vera?”, Jakell’s voice pierced through her hallucination, and she abruptly snapped back to reality. The sun shone brightly through the windows and Vera became aware that Jakell and Lucien were both staring at her. Her hand was still outstretched and posed as though she were rubbing the leaf between her fingers.
She sat there, confused, and looked between the two men. With a dry swallow she lowered her hand to her lap and winced again, gripping at her leg as it flared up.
“Is your leg still bothering you that much?”, Jakell’s voice was full of concern as he stood in the middle of the room examining her with his eyes.
Lucien shot Jakell a dirty look and closed the distance between him and Vera in a single stride. He dropped to one knee and motioned to her leg, “Can I take a look at that?”, he asked but didn’t wait for permission. Lucien pulled up her kilt to expose her right thigh, bandaged with bled through white cloth that she had applied that morning. Gingerly he removed the bandage and let out a faint sigh. Vera didn’t even need to look at the wound to know it was bad, she could read it all over Lucien’s distressed face.
“ ‘ow long ‘as she been like this?” Lucien said to Jakell in an accusatory tone, Vera could see the anger as it shifted on face.
“She said she got bit by a snake I think two days ago, but it didn’t look like that then!”, Jakell held his hands up in front of him, “she’s been working and seemed normal”.
“This seems normal?”, Lucien growled as he stood and motioned to Vera.
Vera’s head lolled side to side as she watched the men talk about her as though she wasn’t there. She was merely a prop in this latest argument. She sat in silence and listened to them but didn’t have the energy to intervene.
Lucien looked back at Vera, her wound was still exposed and as his eyes settled on it, he grimaced. “Stay ‘ere with ‘er, there’s a doctor in the fort, I’ll go see if I can find ‘em”, he said to Jakell and turned quickly to leave out of the open doors, pausing only once to look back.
“Vera”, Jakell said in a low voice and sat down next to her in the neighboring stool, “You should have said you weren’t feeling well.” He reached out a hand and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face before leaning in and kissing her forehead.
“I didn’t want to be a bother”, she responded with a weak laugh, “It looks much worse than it is. I swear” she waved a hand dismissively.
Jakell seemed unconvinced and just shook his head, “Here, at least eat something”, he offered a piece of mystery jerky from a cloth wrapping.
Vera recognized it as some of the meat Furio had been bringing home. He held out a piece to her and refused to lower his hand until she had taken it. Reluctantly, with the thought of this meat’s origin in mind Vera took the food and began to pick it apart with her fingers.
“You’re going to be fine, Vera”, Jakell said though she wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself. She could read the expression on his face, he felt guilty for not noticing sooner that she was sick.
Vera chewed on the meat slowly and offered him a smile and what she hoped was a reassuring nod. It wasn’t Jakell’s fault, even if Lucien appeared to want to blame him. She had chosen not to seek out a doctor, she had chosen to continue working and she had made the choice to be here moving furniture opposed to resting.
The pain came once again, sharp, and unforgiving. Vera clenched her jaw and closed her eyes drawing in a slow, controlled breath. She relaxed her jaw as the wave of pain subsided and she could taste blood on her tongue. She rolled the food she was chewing around in her mouth assuming she had bit herself but was unable to find the source of the bleeding.
She swallowed the meat and as she did, she felt something stick in her through. Vera coughed once and then again more aggressively trying to clear her air way. Jakell looked at her, eyes flickered with concern and he reached out to pat her on the back. The force of his hand dislodged it, and she spit the sharp object into her hand.
Vera stared into her open palm at a small, hooked thorn that had the appearance of a rose thorn. She rolled it in her hand before reaching into her mouth with her free hand and pulling out another thorn, longer and sharp like a needle. She brought the thorn closer to her face and examined it, it looked like the long sharp spikes found on thorn trees.
“I think the gods are testin’ me”, she whispered in her native tongue of Collatian as she looked closely at the thorn.
“Vera”, Jakell looked worried and confused by her words “it’s just a bone from the meat”.
Her attention moved to Jakell, she was still sitting on the stool, a small bone between her thumb and forefinger. Vera observed her surroundings, everything was back to normal, and the taste of blood had vanished from her lips. She tried to nod casually as she flicked the bone fragment to the ground but internally her mind was reeling.
Oak, ash, and thorn, she went over each of them in her head. Three different trees that seemed so familiar to her, Lucien had been oak, Jakell ash and she had been thorn. She mulled the visions over in her head and she could hear her Grandmother Vita’s voice.
“Beware the oak, it draws the thunder stroke; avoid the ash, it courts the lightning flash; creep under the thorn, it will save you from harm.”
She had taught her this proverb as a child one night during a nasty electrical storm.
“Never ‘ide under oak or ash trees, it’s the thorn tree that’ll shelter ya from ‘arm, even if it doesn’t look like it will”, she had told her as the pair watched the storm develop.
Were these visions some sort of warning for the future or just a product of the venom coursing through her bloodstream?
Lucien came back through the door with a look of defeat, “I couldn’t find the doctor. Learned ‘er name is Theo though, I’ll ‘ave ta keep lookin’ fer ‘er later”, he sighed and examined Vera from head to toe, “’ow is she doin’?”
“She is doing fine”, Vera responded with a smirk, “and she can hear you”
Lucien and Jakell both chuckled at her response.
“Her humor is intact, I think she’s going to pull through”, Jakell gave Vera a crooked grin and leaned forward to kiss her face. He rested his hand on her cheek and ran his thumb over her skin looking into her eyes.
Vera smiled with a sigh and gave a short laugh as she leaned more of her weight onto the bar.
“I’m going to go and at least find some clean bandages”, Jakell said as he stood, Vera could sense his nervous energy and could understand his desire to be helpful.
Lucien nodded once to him, “I’ll stay with ‘er”.
Jakell left for the Fort but not before giving Vera a quick peck on the lips. Vera was impressed at how civil the two of them were being. This might have been the longest they’d gone without being at each other’s throats since they’d met.
Lucien sat down in front of her and searched her face as he hooked the heel of his boot into one of the rungs of the stool. Gently he reached a handout to brush a stray hair from her face, but his hand stopped short and recoiled before completing its task.
“You don’t have to treat me like I’m about to fall apart, I’m really fine”, Vera did her best to appear casual and propped her elbows up on the counter behind and leaned back. She mustered a smile, but she could feel the fever building inside her.
“Ets not that, ets jus’”, Lucien paused awkwardly and placed the key she gave him earlier on the countertop. His hand hovered over the key before he pushed it closer to her, “I don’ think I can accept yer offer”
Vera hadn’t realized how hazy her mind was until his words registered and caused her to become instantly sober and focused. “What do you mean you can’t accept my offer?”, her words came out more aggressive than she had intended.
“Vera, ‘e is obviously crazy about ya”, he nodded out the door as he referred to Jakell.
“I’m aware of that”
“Then ya should understand why I can’t accept yer offer”
She lifted both of her shoulders petulantly and allowed them to fall, she didn’t understand Lucien’s meaning and felt irritated that he was being difficult about accepting the gift.
“Look, Vera, I like ya an’ if we lived this close ta one another I’d never stop tryin’a sleep with ya. Eventually I’d ruin thin’s between ya an’ Jakell, and ‘e’s my friend. I don’ want ta do that ta ‘im or ta ya. An’ unless I’ve read thin’s wrong, that isn’ what ya want either”, Lucien’s cool blue eyes looked into hers as he explained his stance with concise and deliberately chosen words.
Vera felt blindsided by his confession, but she knew she shouldn’t be surprised. Lucien and Vera often flirted overtly, but nothing had ever come from it. She had always assumed that it was a game to him and not something either of them took seriously. Until this moment she thought she had been flirting with him for sport, but his words flipped a switch in her mind, and it illuminated feelings she had been deliberately avoiding.
“Oh”, was the only word that managed to escape her lips. She took the key from the counter and returned it to her pocket with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Her instinct was to argue with him, she wanted to tell him to stop being stubborn and to take the room. She wanted to assure him that his presence wouldn’t be an issue for her relationship and that he was being stupid, but she couldn’t bring herself to say any of those things. She knew he was right; it would undoubtedly become a problem.
Vera had recently opened up to Jakell about her parent’s polygamist family structure and had explained to him that she wasn’t raised under the idea that love was a starvation economy. She was aware that Jakell was attracted to men, she herself was also interested in women and they both had agreed that a closed relationship wouldn’t be true to either of their personalities. Even with this in mind, Vera knew that Jakell wouldn’t respond kindly to her having even a casual tryst with Lucien.
The two of them sat in the uncomfortable silence waiting for Jakell to return. Vera stole glances at Lucien when she thought he wasn’t looking but eventually their eyes met. The unexpected eye contact sent a thrill down her spine that made her thigh flair up and caused her wince.
“I think maybe I should lay down for a bit”, she said, breaking the awkward tension.
“Comm’on, I’ll ‘elp ya”, Lucien stood and took Vera’s elbow like she was an invalid, leading her to the bedroom.
Lucien helped her remove her boots, got her into bed and covered her up to her neck. Vera’s eyes lazily examined him; he could be very sweet when he wanted to be.
“Ye know, ye’d be real easy ta take advantage o’ right now”, he said with a toothy grin.
She rolled her eyes in response, there was the man she was familiar with.
Lucien sat on the floor and tucked the blankets in around her. He smiled and lifted his hand again to finish the job it had started earlier and brushed a lock of hair from her face. Softly he stroked her head and as she dozed in half consciousness, he began to sing in a twangy tune.
“I went down
Drinkin' with the Legion
I met a girl she was nice
She was pretty and pleasin’”
He sang and she closed her eyes, his hand softly ran through her hair.
“She said ‘‘ey boy
We should do some marryin’’
I said sure but before we do
There's something that you should know. .”
Vera was on the cusp of sleep now and Lucien drew in a slow and deep breath before starting the chorus of the song:
“I like liquor and whoOooOres”, he said in the same low twangy voice but drew out the word “whores” with vibrato.
She opened her eyes and snorted, letting out a loud laugh, she couldn’t help but burst into hysterics at his lyrics and Lucien looked pleased with himself.
He grinned and pressed a finger to his lips making a silent “shh” as he continued to stroke her hair and started the next part of the song in a low voice.
She let loose a few softer giggles as he continued to sing. Lucien’s hand moved from her hair to her face and ran softly over her eyes to bring them to close. His hands were rough and calloused, but his skin felt good against hers.
Vera drifted off to sleep and Lucien sat with her, his back against the wall and he watched her.
As she slept, she dreamed of oak and ash and thorn punctuated and back lit by blinding threads of lightning in a dark blue sky. Whatever the warning was intended to be was obscured and lost in the beauty of the scene.