Old Friends and New Faces

It wasn't so much a town where Icarus had wound up, it was more of a gathering of rural homes with a tavern somewhat close to the middle of where each home was settled. It had no name, and the folks who lived here were old. Their children had moved away long ago, and taken with them the hopes for the town to flourish with new blood and newer ideas. Perhaps that was the fate of such rural places, where new minds were hard to find and harder still the eagerness to change that would draw such people in.

This place was small and quiet, and as Icarus walked into town with his gear strapped to his now-human body, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He loved the hustle and bustle of big towns and cities as much as the next drakiri, but every once in a while, he liked to get away from it all. Finding such a town like this was a thrill and a treat, and he guarded the secret of its existence like a treasure.

The real treasure were the stories the people here told. The people here never tired of telling their life stories to Icarus, and he never tired of hearing them.

The drakiri looked over his shoulder at his bright-eyed companion, Meriadoc. She had fair skin in this form with lovely round cheeks and yellow eyes. She was short, as Icarus had expected she might be, with a full figure and more pep in her step than even the adventurous kainu himself. Her hair hung around her face in gentle blue-green waves that framed her cheeks on the rare occassion when she wasn't running at full-tilt to their next destination.

Admittedly it had been difficult for Icarus to cope with having a travelling companion again. Since he'd left home all those countless years ago he had traveled alone and enjoyed the freedom that it afforded him. But after he'd had his children, it hadn't taken long for Icarus to see the benefit of having others with him. Raising Mila and Alina had posed as many challenges as there were rewards, but what Icarus missed most about having them around was their conversation. They always had such interesting things to say, and even when they argued Icarus loved to hear how they handled each other. Getting to see them develop was a treat. Now he would get to see the same in Meriadoc.

"Who are we here to see again?" Meri asked, trotting to catch up to Icarus and walk beside him. There was a slight metallic clink to each of her steps as the cookware they had brought with them shifted. She must not have wrapped them in the cloth sacks in her haste. That was alright, no harm would come to them in the end.

"We've come to see many people," Icarus said, reaching out to place his hand on Meri's shoulder so she would stop bouncing with each step. She flashed a sheepish smile at him and brushed her hair back behind her ears, clearly still getting used to needing to do, as Icarus had in this form.

"But you said there was someone special we were coming to meet, who are they?" the young sprite pressed.

"Her name is Kumea, she's a very dear friend of mine," Icarus said. "She's a mystic who had the most beautiful garden I had seen in many years, and I met her at a very pivotal time in my life. I brought her here when she came to realize it was no longer safe for her to live alone. We’re here to see how she’s settling in.”

Icarus flashed the younger drakiri a small, but bright smile. Honestly he’d been a little worried that his old friend might find it difficult to make friends here. These folks weren’t drakiri, after all. The eldest of them may have had dealings with drakiri in their lives, as they were a long-lived race that from Icarus’s understanding could live to be around three hundred years old. The oldest of them in this rural settlement was four hundred and two, which was astonishing to Icarus in and of itself.

“What made it clear she needed to move here?” Meriadoc asked, her head cocking slightly to the side as it often did when she was puzzling through something. “Most old folks don’t like to do what young people say, do they?”

Icarus let out a surprised laugh at that and he nodded as he answered, “You’ve got that right! But sometimes old folks use that brain they have between their ears. It’s good for more than just storytelling, you know?”

“I know that,” Meriadoc laughed. “But what was it? What made her want to move away from home?”

That particular memory sobered Icarus, as he remembered the state in which he’d found the elderly mystic.

“She fell,” he said, lowering his gaze. “She’d fallen in her garden and managed to drag herself back into the house, but she was there for three days before I arrived and was able to help her.”

“Wow!” Meriadoc breathed, her yellow eyes round with amazement. “That was really lucky you showed up when you did, then!”

Icarus nodded solemnly and added, “She wasn’t expecting me. In fact, I hadn’t been to see her in years. Thankfully I have a penchant for being where I’m needed at exactly the right time. Otherwise…I can’t bear to think the suffering she would have endured.” He didn’t want to embarrass Kumea by relaying the state he’d found her in to the young drakiri, the poor old mystic had cried in shame as much as pain when Icarus had cradled her in the bath and helped clean her. He hadn’t even had time to figure out how to suggest that she needed to consider other arrangements before she had brought it up herself.

“Well it’s beautiful out here,” Meriadoc said, gesturing at the path in front of them. “If she enjoyed gardening at home, I’m sure she’s found a way to enjoy herself with all this!”

Icarus followed Meriadoc’s gaze to look around them. This was a mountainous region, with foothills of rolling fields of grass that stood as high as his waist on either side of a roughly-cut dirt path. There were few trees, but an abundance of small flowers that grew along the sides of the path where the lack grass allowed sunshine to reach the ground.

“I surely hope she has,” Icarus said, though he kept his expectations measured.

The house Icarus led Meriadoc to was less a house and more of a complex hut, made of hard-baked mud with a thatch roof that looked in need of repairing. It looked small, but Icarus knew better.

“This is where you left her?” Meriadoc asked, her voice too loud for the disbelief that echoed in her words. “It’s so small and…dirty!”

“Our words have greater meaning that we can know, child,” Icarus chided her, shaking his head. “What is dirt and mud to you may be house and home to another. Respect all cultures, for all cultures are deserving of respect.” The words were familiar to him, as Icarus recited them exactly as his mother had spoken them to him in his youth.

Meriadoc lowered her gaze in shame, but she perked right back up when a rustling sound came from the hut and the door opened.

Meriadoc lowered her gaze in shame, but she perked right back up when a rustling sound came from the hut and the door opened. Ah youths…

Icarus turned to greet the man who came to the door—a man wearing a dusty brown shirt and equally dusty and brown trousers. This was a new face that the kainu had not yet met, which was quite unexpected but not unwelcome. The race living here were called kidae, or golden-ones. Named for both their pale golden eyes and the sun-kissed color of their skin. The individuals Icarus had seen thus far had hair as white as snow and skin furrowed with the wrinkles of age, but this gentleman had raven-black hair and supple skin marred only at the corners of his eyes and on his brow. It was no mystery how he had earned those wrinkles, as his face was scrunched into a scowl as he pushed open the door to the hut, a cloud of tobacco smoke preceding him. 

The man began to speak in a deep, gravelly voice that sounded none-too-friendly even though neither drakiri could understand the words he spoke. After speaking several rapid sentences at him, the man began to wave his arms in a motion as if to push them away. 

“Icarus, tell him we’re friendly,” Meriadoc said, stepping closer to press her side against the older drakiri. 

“Would that I could darling,” Icarus said, smiling and keeping his tone light despite his own concerns. “I don’t know what he’s saying.” 

“What do you mean you don’t know what he’s saying?” Meriadoc hissed, flinching as the stranger raised his voice and started pointing aggressively up the path where they had come from. “Did you leave Kumea with a bunch of people she can’t even understand?” 

“Hush child,” Icarus shushed her. He looked past the angry kidae when he saw the door shudder again, pushing aside to reveal a short, stooped frame. An old woman in a black robe stepped out into the open, a kidae with deeply wrinkled, leathery brown skin, white hair that hung so long around her thin face that the tips brushed the ground with each tottering step she took and circular horns that grew from the crown of her head. Jewelry made of leather strips and woven long, dry grasses hung from her horns, swaying with her as she walked toward the angry young man. 

From within the sleeve of her robe, the woman produced a long stick, about the width of Icarus’s thumb. She lifted it over her head and brought it down on the center of the man’s back with a loud thwack and a surprised cry from the man. 

He twisted to confront the old woman, chattering at her indignantly in his language. The woman’s chin remained high, her pale golden eyes hooded deeply by heavy brows but unwavering as the younger kidae confronted her. When she seemed to have had enough of the abuse, she raised the stick again and gave it a shake as the angry man jerked back out of her reach. The man muttered something else under his breath but scurried away quickly, glancing back over his shoulder only once before he disappeared around the bend. 

Finally, the woman turned to look at Icarus, and though Meriadoc gripped the older kainu’s arm in uncertainty, there was no tension to be found between the two. 

“Ogobo,” Icarus said, his voice as warm as his eyes as he stepped forward with his arms outstretched. 

The stick came down on Icarus’s forearm swiftly and he let out a yelp, rubbing the spot he’d been struck. 

“You have been gone too long,” the woman said, her voice rasping with age but the words perfectly clear. “Why are you here now? To dump this one on me too?” 

Icarus frowned, his mouth agape with confusion and indignation. This certainly wasn’t the reception he’d expected to receive. He’d thought he had left things well enough with Ogobo when he had brought Kumea here. Was the kainu not welcome? 

“Ogobo if there’s been a misunderstanding, I would be happy to speak about it—” He cut himself off as he darted back out of the range of her stick as she advanced toward him. “—but I can see you’re upset!” 

Meriadoc, who had stepped away at the first strike from the woman’s stick, looked between the two, her confusion giving way to frustration as the old woman chased Icarus down and he tried to reason with her. 

The sprite stepped forward, and seeing an opportunity when the stick was brandished, grabbed it. What she hadn’t expected was the strength behind the hand that held the stick. She felt it wrenched free from her grasp by vice-like fingers and cried out as she too was struck on the wrist. 

“You’re a horrible old woman!” Meriadoc said, stepping away quickly to rub at her wrist. “Icarus comes here to check on his friend and you attack him, and for what? You won’t even tell him!” 

Though her efforts to communicate were appreciated, Icarus wished she had kept quiet. Kidae or not the elderly did not suffer fools. 

“He leaves me with a useless mouth to feed and expects praise,” Ogobo rasped, pointing her stick threateningly at the kainu again. “She sits and she sleeps and she cries pitifully through the night.” 

Concern pushed his other concerns aside and Icarus straightened, looking past Ogobo to the door to her hut. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Is she unwell?” 

“You brought her here unwell,” the kidae said, stepping forward to whack Icarus about the shoulders with the stick a few more times. “I had to trick my grandson into coming here to keep the wench from dying!” 

Icarus glanced at Meriadoc, pulling his pack off to set it on the ground outside the hut. He held his hands up in surrender and said, “Show me…please?” 

Ogobo stared him down for a long moment, but finally she shook her head in disgust and pushed past him to the door, letting it swing shut behind her. 

“What the hell was that?” Meriadoc hissed. 

“I suspect we’re about to find out,” Icarus said, pulling the door of the hut open and disappearing inside. Whether Meriadoc followed him or not, he needed to see that Kumea was well now. 

The hut was less of a hut and more of a foyer. It was simple enough, with a flat dirt floor and a couple woven grass mats on which to sit, but when one pulled a rope that hung from the rafters of the hut, one of the mats pulled back to reveal a hole in the floor. It was lit dimly with blue light that diffused into the darkness from points of light in the ceiling to create an almost eerie, star-filled sky above their heads.  

The walls and floor had been carved smooth from the earth long ago, and as Icarus descended the steps his feet slipped into familiar grooves that had been walked by generations of kidae. He had found it charming during his first visit, now he only wished Ogobo could shuffle a little faster so he could see Kumea. 

The entrance tunnel opened to a large cave with man shelves and holes carved into the dirt walls. Each shelf was covered with a wealth of books and trinkets that Icarus had asked about in fascination during his first visit. He had spent many hours poring over those books until his shoulders were so tense he could have used that stick to beat the soreness out of them. 

Now, Icarus looked past all the trinkets and books to the mass of blankets on the floor of the cave toward the back. A woman lay there among the blankets, face thin and eyes sunken and glazed over. Her hair hung thin and stringy around her face and looked as if it hadn’t been washed in months. 

The sour smell was almost overpowering as Icarus walked toward Kumea, kneeling down beside her. He reached out to touch her cheek, alarmed by how cold her skin was. 

“How long has she been this way?” Icarus asked, looking over his shoulder at Ogobo in alarm. 

“Since perhaps a week after you dumped her here,” Ogobo said with a derisive sniff as she moved to sit on a woven mat with her back to a wall. 

Meriadoc stepped into the cave, looking around in awe, but she didn’t have long to stare before her gaze fell on Kumea and her eyes widened. 

“Is that her?” Meriadoc asked. 

Icarus didn’t respond, he had his hands on Kumea’s cheeks, lifting her head and brushing her hair away from her face to try to get some response from her. 

“Kumea darling, look at me,” he said, his voice only just above a murmur. “Can you look at me, please? I want to make sure you’re alright and it’s hard to do so if I can’t see those beautiful eyes of yours.” 

He watched her closely, and when still he saw no response, Icarus cursed under his breath. He leaned down and put his arm under Kumea’s shoulders, the other under her legs and lifted. He nearly fell backwards, as he had expected her to weigh far more than she did. It felt like he had lifted a satchel of flower petals, she was so light. 

“Meri, stay here and find out what Ogobo’s grandson has done to treat her,” Icarus said, his voice tense. “I’m taking her outside to warm her up. She’s freezing cold.” 

“Icarus don’t leave me with her!” Meri hissed, but the kainu had already disappeared up the stairs.

Icarus shouldered the door open and stepped out into the sunlight with Kumea. Her head rested against his shoulder, her hair stirring in the breeze. She still wore the same dress that Icarus had dropped her off in, and though it looked to have been washed, it smelled just as sour as the rest of the old mystic. 

“We’re just going to spend a little time warming up,” Icarus said, keeping his voice low as he walked a little way away from the hut. He walked into the tall grass and used his legs to mash a spot flat so he could sit with Kumea in the sun. He held her in his lap so she could rest her head against his shoulder. He moved her arm so it could rest against her belly and froze. Where his fingers touched her delicate, pale skin, dark bruises were already forming. 

The kainu swallowed thickly and held her close, feeling her frail body shudder with each shallow breath she took. He wracked his brain, trying desperately to think if he had seen this kind of ailment in any drakiri in the past, anything to point him in the direction of a cure. 

They sat there together in the sun, Icarus leaping from theory to theory, until he felt the stir of Kumea’s breath against his chest and did not feel her inhale again. 

“Kumea?” Icarus breathed, almost afraid to speak her name as though it would hasten what he knew had come. Her head began to fall back and Icarus moved his arm to rest his hand against the back of her head, leaning her back just enough to see her eyes. They used to hold such warmth and life…now they were half-lidded, dull and glassy. Kumea had died in his arms. Had she even known he was there?

His vision blurred and Kumea’s face swirled before he closed his eyes, bowing his head to press his brow to hers. He rocked her gently for a time as tears spilled down his cheeks. He was no stranger to death, he had seen it time and again. But to have someone die in one’s arms was different. Traumatic. Feeling Kumea’s breath leave her body for the last time had reached right into Icarus’s breast, grabbed a fistful of strings he had thought long since forgotten and tugged hard. 

“Icarus?” He heard his name from far away, and Icarus thought for a moment to just ignore Meri. Let him have a few more precious moments with his friend before he had to say goodbye. But Meri, ever curious, stomped her way through the grass toward them. 

“Icarus?” she asked when she caught sight of him, reaching out to part the grass. “I tried to do what you said but Ogobo is just a really unpleasant person. Do you think it’s because she’s upset about Kumea, or are all old people like—oh!” 

The sprite gasped and stood upright when she finally reached Icarus, and the kainu relinquished the last hope that this had all been a bad dream. Kumea was gone, and there hadn’t been a thing he could do to stop it. 

“She was too weak,” he rasped, his voice thick with emotion and unshed tears. “There was no time to do anything…I was gone too long.” 

Meriadoc moved to kneel beside Icarus, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from the side and pressing her face into his neck. He took comfort in her presence, but knew there was more to do before he could begin processing what had happened. 

“Ask Ogobo if she has a shovel,” he said numbly. “Ask her only that, please.” 

Ogobo did not turn out to have a shovel. Or if she did, she wasn’t willing to share it with Icarus and his apprentice. So instead, the kainu returned to his original form and used his hooves to dig a shallow grave in a copse of trees not too far from a creek. It wasn’t ideal, and he wished that he could have planted some flowers in the freshly moved earth, but it was sufficient. Would Kumea have approved?

Meriadoc stood at his side the entire time, and helped him rinse his forearms and hands in the creek when he returned to his human form. She had been unusually quiet, perhaps acknowledging the need for contemplation, perhaps out of uncertainty. 

Once he was dressed and put back together, Icarus reached out and pulled Meri into a hug. She remained stiff against him for a moment before she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, holding him so tightly that the kainu let out a slightly choked squeak. 

They pulled away chuckling quietly in the wake of that sound, and Icarus looked down at the younger drakiri, more grateful than ever for her presence at his side. 

“I’m sorry this is how our trip panned out,” Icarus said, his voice gentle now as speaking too loudly beside a grave seemed disrespectful. 

“You promised to show me things I’d never seen before and will probably never see again,” Meri said, crossing her arms over her chest and looking down at Kumea’s grave. “I’d never seen Kumea before, and I’ll probably never see her again.” 

Icarus’s brows raised and he reached out to tap Meri on the back of the head. “A little soon for gallows humor, I think,” he said, though there was no offense taken. “I do wish you could have met her though…she was brilliant. She told wonderful stories—I’m glad I was able to hear them and write them down before she passed.” 

“I’d like to read them someday,” Meri said, smiling up at Icarus with that carefree smile of hers. 

“I’ll have to show you my journals someday then,” Icarus said, though he couldn’t bring himself to smile just yet. He looked down at Kumea’s grave and hugged himself, feeling chilled. 

“She’s at peace now,” Meri comforted him, reaching out to place her hand on his arm. “If she was in any pain, it’s gone now. I don’t know what happens after we…leave. But she’s on to her next adventure.” 

That drew a small smile to Icarus’s lips. “Yes, I suppose she is,” he agreed. “A fine adventure I’m sure it will be.”