The Morrígan

Aryvel stood staring at the line of books directly in front of him. It was an impressive collection, even more so when he considered to whom it belonged. Not that he was surprised that Lucette was an avid reader, any promenade teacher worth their petticoats knew how to read. It wasn’t the number of books that formed his broad stroke of a smile, brightening his face; no, it was the titles. There weren’t just books on etiquette or deportment shelved before him, no no, that would be too simple for a lady like Lucette. Lining her shelves were great novels on adventure, anthologies of anthropological accounts, tomes on documented history and even rarities of the occult. And then, of course, they were the works of great masters, the classics that, in some kingdoms across the globe and even some isolated towns on their current continent, had at one time or another been deemed inappropriate for the masses and were subsequently burned.

Yes, her collection was quite spectacular and was worth every ounce of admiration it received.

Lucette cleared her throat, calling his attention back to her. She was standing beside him, patiently waiting for him to say something that might indicate why he’d so suddenly dropped in.

Aryvel raised a brow at her, still smiling, and glanced at her quickly before turning back to admire the colorful array of book spines and worn leather covers. 

“I wasn’t expecting you today.” She said in a matter of fact tone. They were friends, but she was also a working individual with a life of her own. She could hardly drop everything to entertain a guest, even one so mild as Aryvel. 

Aryvel hummed as his head bobbed back and forth. “That is usually what surprise visits entail.”

The sound Lucette made beside him made him swallow a laugh. It wouldn’t do him any good to unnecessarily irritate her. The truth was, he missed his friend. Rather, he missed all of his friends, what few he had that he felt comfortable using the title with. On the rare occasion he happened to be in town or nearby enough to make a day visit, he tried his best to see them, or even just one of them. Today he’d decided it would be Lucette. Lucette, a capriyla with whom he shared a particularly special relationship, and secret.

“Yes, quite.” Lucette ground out, gently, and reached forward to adjust a fallen book on the shelf.

A shadow passed under the doorway a short distance from where they stood in Lucette’s office. Aryvel’s attention was momentarily drawn to that door, tracking the shadow as it moved from side to side, and then disappeared. Just as quickly as his attention was claimed, it was lost. 

Lucette once more drew him back, this time with a slightly annoyed tone. “But that doesn’t tell me why you’re here.” She glanced at him with her face still directed towards the shelves.

Leave it to Lucette to cut to the chase. “I missed you,” he said, looking not at all bothered by his brusque delivery. “And I know you’ve missed me. I saw the way your eyes lit up upon receiving me.”

Lucette regarded him with a cool smile and glare. “That was the fire of rage over the inconvenience you’ve caused me.” Her words lacked bite, and indeed she only managed to make Aryvel's smile broaden. 

“Actually, I was jus—” A loud bell sounded from the far end of the house, startling them both.

Lucette sighed, giving Aryvel a knowing and doubtful look before wiping her hands-on a nearby tea-towel, presumably to remove any dust collected from touching the books. When she turned back towards him, he was looking at her with casual interest. “Expecting other company, then?” 

“Actually, No.” She said, voice carrying a hint of confusion. It wasn’t uncommon for her to receive visitors, but unannounced, twice in one day? It wouldn’t do well to be away from her work for too much longer. “If you’ll excuse me, I will be back as soon as I am able.”

He watched her leave and was happy to turn back to wall of books before him. There was a title or two he wondered if Lucette might notice were missing.

A sound came from the door nearby. Not, he noticed, the one Lucette had left through moments before, but the one he’d spied a shadow beneath earlier. It came open with a small croak, and Aryvel watched with benign curiosity. He was only partially concerned with whom Lucette hosted in her house. She was an educator, of course she had all sorts of students running about throughout the day. He wondered which would come through the door: the gangly boy whom she’d mercifully took under her wing to help him with his manners and stutter, or the charming elusi girl he’d once seen taking tea with Lucette. Though, in hindsight, perhaps she wasn’t a student after all.

The first thing that came through the door caught Aryvel by surprise. It was a small, blue tuft of fur. He might have expected it to belong to an animal. Perhaps a strange cat, or uniquely groomed dog. The color, on the other hand, was not something one routinely associated with a domesticated animal. And then, the tuft was not alone. Another fluffy sphere popped through the door, and another, and another, slowly traveling up the half the height of the door, each sphere growing in size and respective furriness. It was definitely a tail, and by the shape it was one he would know anywhere…however, the sheer size of it, now that…he was unfamiliar with.

“Miss Lucette,” a voice came from the tail, it was light and musical, pretty. “Miss Lucette? I really,” a pause, and suddenly a body attached to the tail stepped backward into the room. Aryvel observed the stranger's shape, noted they appeared to be female, and watched as she gracelessly stepped on her own tail, nearly falling backward. Aryvel, still struck by the sudden company, didn’t even move to help her.  

Whoever she was, she ended up catching herself on the door and managed to twist herself around before losing all of her balance. A huff of triumphant breath passed her lips and then she kicked her tail behind her as she turned fully into the room, “I really must speak with you about this book, it is quite vulgar, I really must ask…” her voice came to a halt when she looked up from what appeared to be a small blue novel between her hands, and saw it was indeed not Lucette in the room.

Aryvel watched as the newcomer seemed to process all at once that she had walked into a room with a strange male, and, had done so while speaking out of turn. Yet it was the registration of what she saw on him that he found most interesting. He tracked her eye movements as they traveled from his face, to his ears, down his front, and back towards what little of his tail was visible behind him. She made a soft startled sound, it might have been a gasp.

So, she wasn’t the only one surprised to see another dreamy in this house, he mused. He suspected the surprise was greater for her. With the way she looked at him, he couldn’t help but wonder if she had even seen her own reflection. Her jaw bobbed and she swallowed dryly, and Aryvel found himself impressed with the speed at which her shoulders straightened, composing herself as she slid her book behind her skirts. 

A dreamy. How had Lucette managed to keep this from him? Granted, it wasn’t as if they had frequent visits on which to catch up with one another. Even so, it seemed unlikely for Lucette to keep this information from him. As if he wouldn’t notice another of his kind wandering around the property. It wasn’t that Dreamys were rare; no, there were plenty, in the lower classes. 

It was, however, incredibly uncommon for a dreamy to be given a proper education, let alone deportment lessons, certainly not here in the city. To find one was a rare treat.

Actually, that seemed to be an understatement. Looking over her person, Aryvel could see she was of an average height, perhaps a whiff shorter. That is where her inclusion to averages ended. Nothing else about the creature was remotely ordinary, let alone average. Some of her features he might venture to call extraordinary. Perhaps, most notably, the size of her tail. It was…well, large didn’t quite capture it. Considerable? Gigantic? Massive?

Aryvel decided it was sizable and dragged his gaze over the length of her body. She was dressed like a fine lady indeed and looked to be in no more than her twentieth year. Cascading waves of marian and powder blue hair spilled over her shoulders, and fell just below her natural waist, which, he couldn’t help but notice, cinched inward to create a rather attractive if petite hourglass figure. His eyes flicked to hers, and that is perhaps want caught him most off-guard: the color was startling. Twin pools of cold morning cumulus stared back at him. As did the distress within them.  

“Excuse me,” she stated plainly and turned to walk back through the door she’d just stumbled through but was met with a wall of wood. The door, it seemed, had closed without her noticing. 

The sound of someone rattling the doorknob echoed through the room, followed by a rather unladylike whisper.  Aryvel couldn’t help himself: the curiosity was too much, he needed to know what was going to happen next.

After another silent beat, the nameless female slowly turned, and Aryvel swept a quick look over her. His lips twitched with delight at how hard he could see she was concentrating to maneuver around her tail without tripping over it. It was a marvelous effort, he couldn’t even imagine what trying to live with having to drag around something so large. Internally, he applauded her. 

The young adult lifted her chin and appeared to resign herself to her fate. It amused him.

“Locked out?” He asked and hadn’t realized he’d spoken until he heard his own voice. 

Those lovely eyes shuttered, and she cleared her throat but did not respond.

Was she ignoring him? Oh, no, he wasn’t having that. This was a situation of her own making, and he was enjoying immensely the unfolding of it. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why it was funny to him, but it was. Perhaps it the surprise of discovering another dreamy, a seemingly educated and refined one at that.

Once more she straightened her shoulders, and with them her spine. She pressed her skirts out and smoothed them down, cleared her throat, and slowly started to make her way across the room. Aryvel presumed she meant to head for the door opposite the one she entered through.  She’d almost made it passed him, but at the last moment, he decided it was too tempting an opportunity to let it pass. He stepped in front of her. 

The sudden obstruction of her path made her stop abruptly and nearly ended in her colliding with him. She made a sound, something akin to a distressed if not annoyed complaint. 

“Careful, wouldn’t want to trip.” Aryvel whispered, “Again.”

At this she audibly gasped and lobbed an incredulous glare at him. “Excuse me, Sir. You are in my way.” Grinding out the verse through clenched teeth deepened the color in her cheeks.

Aryvel looked around them and then back at her. “And here I thought we were standing in a spacious room with plenty of room to walk.” Impossibly, her eyes grew wider.

“How dare you,” she breathed, nearly a whisper, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing, let alone seeing. “You—you’re so—” She stammered, struggling to find the correct word, her mouth forming the shapes but no sound coming out. 

“Vulgar?” Aryvel supplied.   

Another door opened, and both Aryvel and the female immediately directed their attention to the swinging wooden door just as Lucette stepped through it. The teacher blinked, surprise quickly flashing through her eyes before the she raised the wall carefully guarding her emotions. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” Her eyes slid across from Aryvel to the girl in front of him, who looked back at Lucette in discomfiture.

Lucette cleared her throat. “Was there something you needed, Morrígan?”

For a moment, Aryvel was certain he’d heard the name wrong. Then, when he was sure he hadn’t, and he looked at Lucette with a perplexed expression even he couldn’t hide. Not when he had no conceivable reason for that name to ring through him like a bell struck with such force it cracked.

“Morrígan.” He breathed, leaning back and considered the way the name rolled off his tongue. He knew the name, but why did he know the name?

Very slowly, he cast his gaze back down to the female in front of him. Her eyes were locked with Lucette’s, and then, for a flash, they whisked to his. And then it hit him.  He knew the name, yes. He knew those eyes, too. Looking at them again, in the flesh, he suddenly felt himself standing on a certain hillside again, rain pouring over him. Looking at them, they trapped him in the memory of an event that happened nearly two decades before.

 …

The dragons throat. It was a narrow passage of sea that sat between the main continent and the small body of land beside it. Aryvel traversed the Dragon’s throat many times.

It was that first trip across the narrow strip of sea, however, that had changed the trajectory of his life forever. It began with a small bundle of fur, tucked against his chest and under his arm when the storms were particularly harsh. Navigating the dragon’s throat was treacherous for any seasoned sailor twice his age. Yet he managed it then and would again hundreds of times in the years thereafter. Sometimes with another bundle of someone’s last hope, sometimes with the lanky limbs of growing children leaving the only home they’d ever known, with only their fears and memories carried in their pockets to weigh them down.

It began with that first trip, that first bundle, so small and fragile he hadn’t known how to hold it or keep it from harm.

He’d taken the small child, a dreamy, like him, across the sea at the behest of a desperate female who’d appeared at the end of her wits, and life. Aryvel almost said no. He often wondered how things might have been different had he refused her. But he couldn’t, not when he read in her eyes that her life was forfeit. Over the years, the desperate faces of those left behind would blend together, but that face—hers, he could never forget it. He couldn’t forget the color of her eyes, like the sky had fallen from above them to create storms of overcast blue in those sorrowful orbs. Nor would he forget how they wept when he gently took the baby and carried it with him to the docks. 

Six nights on the sea did he carry that child with him. Most nights he didn’t sleep, he stayed awake with the swaddled babe pressed into his chest, afraid the baby would succumb to fever or the cold if he didn’t. He was almost certain it wouldn’t survive the trip to the continent. If by some miracle it did, he had no clue of where to take it once they arrived. He was barely an adult himself, which meant to many others he was still a child. What establishment would take an orphaned dreamy baby who came by the means of another seemingly orphaned dreamy youth. 

The babe did survive the trip. They both did, and as he’d promised the child’s grieving mother, he took the baby somewhere safe. Finding such a place was nothing sort of a miracle. That was exactly what the foster family he’d found said to him when he finally delivered the child to their door. He’d watched them for several days before that, uncomfortable with handing over a defenseless child without first knowing to whom he was handing it over. The family thanked him, offered him a hot meal and some funds for his journey. He refused the gold but took the food, plus some for the journey back home.

“She is a miracle. You, you are a miracle.” One of the women said, and all Aryvel could remember was thinking to himself, How did they know it was a female?

In hindsight, it was a naïve question. During the journey Aryvel had made it a point to only refer to the bundled child as baby, it, or bundle. He’d learned to change and feed the child in order to keep his promise. He’d known it was a girl, he just hadn’t wanted to see it as a living creature. For what if he failed, and she died? It would have been too hard for him then, barely out of adolescence. Even as a grown adult, it would have been too much.

“The fates have been kind to us all. For they guided you to her, and you have spared her a life of hardship.” A woman cradling the babe whispered and cooed, clearly enamored by the round furry creature.

Aryvel just shrugged, eager to get moving. “Yeah,” he conceded, “Maybe. Maybe she is meant for something more.”

The woman holding the baby looked up at him from her ministrations, a warm and blooming smile spreading across her face. “More,” she repeated. “Morrígan. Morrígan who was meant for more. It’s perfect.”

Aryvel didn’t stay beyond that. He barely glanced at the baby who, with eyes the exact shade of her mothers, stared at him as he turned his back and left.

…

The present rushed to Aryvel with a ferocity that forced him to take a step back the other dreamy, from her, from Morrígan. That was her name, wasn’t it? And she was…she was her, from before. He looked down at her, a renewed spark of interest in his eyes. How had he not noticed it before, her eyes. The eyes of that woman on the hillside. When he first saw Morrígan just minutes before as she stumbled in, it was her eyes that captivated him most. Now he understood why.

“Morrígan, if you wouldn’t mind, can we resume your lessons later this evening?” Lucette’s voice broke through the haze in Aryvel’s mind like a warm knife cutting through butter. She seemed to sense his reeling, because she took the girl by the arm and led her towards the door heading out to the front hall. “I promise we will talk later.” He’d heard the teacher say to Morrígan in a hushed voice, and the girl only hesitated a moment before she’d nodded and took her leave. At the threshold of the door, she glanced back at Aryvel with an expression he didn’t recognize, and then she left. 

Both he and Lucette stood in silence, the gentle steps of Morrígan’s retreat the only thing either listened for until neither could hear it. And then, just the two of them standing and staring at one another, he raised a brow. “Small world.”

Lucette sighed, a hand idly moving to her skirts to smooth them. She walked over to the window, opened a curtain and turned before she could even look outside. This amused Aryvel, because, had she bothered to look outside, she would have seen what he saw: a flood of wavy curls and a large, overly fluffy tail, slowly bouncing across the lawn to a small garden set of white iron chairs and tea-table.

“I can’t imagine what has you so amused.” Lucette exhaled, dispensing with some of her earlier ire.

Aryvel might have laughed at this and told her to turn around, but he thought better of it.  Instead, he decided upon a different approach. “Did you know?”

Her face tightened.  “I know…” there it was, her hesitation. “plenty.”

Aryvel brushed a couple strands of his hair from his face, looking at his friend with a wry smile and spoke in a droll tone. “I would hope so, considering our work together.”

“I don’t want to confuse her. She doesn’t know.” Lucette said abruptly. Aryvel’s face hardened. He already knew to what she was referring. It was evident, from the way Morrígan had looked at him when she first saw him, and the way she had looked at Lucette when the other had come back into the room. 

It irritated him, but he knew better than to direct that irritation at Lucette. She was just doing what she thought was best for the girl. If he was honest with himself, she probably knew better than he did, or anyone else, what that was.

“She hasn’t asked any questions about why there are no others like her around her?” 

His question made Lucette turn her eyes down, and for a moment she appeared quite sad. “If she did, it happened long before she became a student of mine.”

Again, they sat in silence. It wasn’t exactly the mood he was expecting when he’d arrived earlier that afternoon. It needed to be fixed, if only because he didn’t want Lucette to be burdened by his new knowledge.

“Lucette,” he said, and she looked at him as if having forgotten he was there for a moment. She raised her brows at him, waiting.

“You did a wonderful job. She is a proper lady.”

The caprilya’s cheeked deepened in color, and she sat herself straight. Regal might have been the word. “I take my job very seriously.” After a moment, “And Mor..Morrígan is very special.” she added, almost as if it needed to be said aloud, lest he think otherwise. 

…

Shortly after, Lucette escorted Aryvel to the door. On the way, he explained his intention for the sudden visit as purely selfish: he simply wanted to see a friendly face. The teacher had swatted at him playfully and pushed him out the front door and told him to send word next time so she can properly receive him. Her logic was sound enough. She was meant to be teaching manners, yet if she could not practice them herself, she was hardly a proper teacher.

As Aryvel walked down the path from the entry towards the street, he slowed his gait and waited to hear the doors close behind him. What should have been a direct path to the city center then turned into a detour around the side of Lucette’s home, back towards the small garden set he’d spied through the windows of her office.

Around the corner he spotted her: sitting at the table, her elbows popped on its flat surface and her fingers interlinked to create a gentle cushion for her dainty chin. Her legs were folded neatly to her side, and her ‘sizable’ tail was rather artfully draped over the side of the chair opposite her legs. Whatever she was reading, it fully engrossed her, for she hadn’t yet noticed she was no longer alone. 

Aryvel took the moment of for a bit of candid observation. He knew the moment she sensed him, he would lose the opportunity to simply see her.

He hadn’t anticipated this, that the little bundle of wailing fur would turn into a beauty. A lady. For even as she was, seemingly left to her own devices, she was a lady. Lucette had indeed done a fine job, for it appeared she was graced down to very bones.

Seeing her defenseless, looking quite fetching as she sat and read quietly, it stirred something in him. He wanted to ruffle her feathers and see her get her hands dirty. It was a selfish thought, one conjured of his own amusements and desire for entertainment. It was also his intrigue, which hummed gently to life as he approached her from behind.

Slowly, ever so slowly, as if he didn’t want to frighten a baby bird, he leaned over her and glanced at her book. “Vulgarity can be quite captivating.”

Morrígan yelped and turned so abruptly that she slipped from the side of her chair and would have collided with the ground, had it not been for the strong arm that looped around her back to steady her.

“Careful,” Aryvel said and slowly eased her back into her chair “A slip is still a type of trip.”

Morrígan jerked herself away from his hold, snapping her book closed. Her cheeks burned with color, but it wasn’t the type he’d expected. She didn’t look scandalized, but simply angry. “Excuse me, Sir! This is a private area.”

Aryvel leaned back and stood at his full height. He looked down at her, fully aware of the intimidating effect of his looming stature.  “Yes, it is. And luckily for me, I have access to it. As it seems, do you.” His eyes scanned the front of her, down to her prettily pointed toes, and back up to her face. “She has good taste."

Morrígan noticed his gaze and twisted her body to face away from him, her head turning sharply to glare at him from over her shoulder. She glowered for a moment before quietly asking,“Who has good taste?”

“Lucette.”

Her brows furrowed. Clearly, she was perturbed by the casual use of her mentor’s proper name. “It’s Miss Lucette. Have you any manners?”

Aryvel shrugged and looked directly at her eyes. Once there, it was hard to drag them away. So, he didn’t.

To his elated surprise, she challenged his gaze with her own. Where, however, he remained unaffected by the look, she grew visibly more uncomfortable the longer she held it. The twisting of her fingers and the squirming of her body gave her away. Finally, the dainty lass cleared her throat the best she could and finally looked away. “Good day, then.” She dismissed him.

He chalked it up to a victory. He also didn’t move. There was no reason to, because he could sense her growing interest in the same way he could feel his own. He counted down the seconds…four….three….two…

She made a sound. Had she cleared her throat, or simply pretended to?  “You’re a dreamy, too,” a statement, “aren’t you?” a question.

“A keen observer you are.” Aryvel hid the amusement from his voice. He leaned forward an iota, trying to see what she was doing with her hands. He watched her as she slowly pulled apart her fabric bookmark.

So, she had idle hands. Interesting.

Morrígan didn’t appear to appreciate his answer one bit, nor did she enjoy the way he was watching her. Waves of blue flashed before him as she snapped her head around to glower. “One wonders why you should go out of your way to find me, disturb me, and then mock me.”

Facetiously he raised his brows. “Is that what I was doing? You seem so certain of me.”

The statement caught her off guard, seeming to rip the breath from her. She was stunned. It took her a moment to catch her calm, chasing her ladylike aloofness. She seemed to find it. “My point is the exact opposite, sir. I do not know you, and you most assuredly do not know me.” The irony of her statement was not lost on Aryvel, and he schooled himself into cool neutrality, letting her continue. “We are not acquainted, yet you speak to me as if we were familiar. I promise you, we are not.”

He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he kept looking at her. Looking at her eyes. Whatever she saw there, it made her recoil, and she dropped his gaze to look back at her book.

“My, my.” He responded with a sigh.  

Morrígan raised her head a smidgen, curiosity getting the better of her.

“You do have a mouth on you.”

Aryvel could almost hear the sound of her control snapping. He could clearly see it in her eyes. The blaze was blinding.

“I have a mind, sir.” She said caustically, this time standing from her seat and jut her chin at him defiantly. She was definitely a student of Lucette’s, Aryvel decided. In that moment Morrígan was every inch as regal as her mentor. She continued, “A mind, something I am sure you find wildly amusing on a female. But I can promise you, if your behavior is any indication, it works as well as, if not better, than yours.”

It was extraordinary to watch her react. It was damned diverting, and damned lovely.                                                                                                                                          

Aryvel’s lips twitched up at the edges. “Oh,” he breathed slowly, “of that I have no doubt.”