Sky Lord by Rowan Erlking (that summer book .txt) 📕

“I fell in,” Tia replied, shrugging.

Shaking her head, the woman frowned. “No. Nice try, young lady. Did your master strip you and toss you in as punishment?”

Tia decided not to argue. She ducked her head and pretended to feel ashamed. “Yes. He was not happy with me.”

“Oooh! I knew it!” The woman folded her arms tighter across herself. Her scowl was over Tia’s head though, at the wall across the room. Tia glanced over to see if anything was there.

“I knew that man mishandled his slaves! I’ll have his head for this, or so help me,” The woman growled.

Tia blinked at her.

Looking down more gently on Tia, the woman said, “Don’t you worry. You will not have to go back to him any more. If he asks around, I’ll tell him you died of swamp infection. I doubt he’ll come looking though.” She glanced around as if someone could see them through the walls. She placed a hand on Tia’s head. “You stay indoors from now on. I won’t make you be a servant, but you have to pull your fair weight here until I can smuggle you out back to Demon Island.”

“Demon Island?” Tia murmured.

The woman smiled, rubbing her hand on Tia’s wet head. “Oh, I don’t suppose you’ve ever been where your people are from. Poor thing. Demon Island is where all Sky Children are from. Of course, no regular person would dare set foot on that land. It’s infested, you know.”

“Infested with what?” Tia asked, blinking at her. But the woman’s thoughts ran into her head from the touch before she could answer. Tia knew what the woman knew now.

“Demons. All kinds,” the woman said. But then she reached out and leaned on the sink. “Ooh. I suddenly feel light-headed. Please excuse me. I think this day has worn me out.”

She walked out, setting her arm against the wall for balance as she staggered into the other room.

“Demons,” Tia murmured to herself.

Tia came out of the bath a good while later wrapped in a towel, walking carefully to the room she knew the woman used. The transfer of knowledge had come a bit too suddenly, but Tia could not help herself. She was impatient for news about where she was from. Demon Island sounded about right, though it did not exactly match the legend of the Sky Lord the Underlord had told her about. The Patriarch’s thoughts also had a different image in mind. He had supposed that only natural barriers and mysterious natives prevented the treasure from ever being found.

She found the woman asleep upon the bed, perhaps more exhausted by daily work than Tia had thought. Sitting down on a chair near a simple dresser, Tia glanced out the window. She could see blue and gray tiled rooftops cluttered with seabirds, chimney pipes, and nests. She sighed. Chances were, she would have to become a sea bird and fly to the island. But would it take more than three hours to get there? And did she even know the way?

“You are a very quiet person.” the woman sat up, wiping her eyes. “I wonder how in the world you angered your master.”

Tia decided to tell a half-truth. “I refused to make love to him.”

The woman’s eyes grew wide in disbelief. “He didn’t!”

Tia blushed. “That’s why I had no clothes.”

Gasping, the woman stood up. She marched straight to the bureau, jerking open a drawer, and pulled out a dress. “Here! Put this on. No more will you be treated like a whore.”

Taking the dress, Tia stood up. “Th…thank you.”

“You seem surprised by kindness,” the woman murmured, shaking her head. “I suppose that’s expected with the way this world is going.” She turned, reaching in another drawer and handing Tia a pair of bloomers to wear along with a bra. “Rumors these days from the north claiming the Patriarch having mistresses, orgies in the capital building, the Underlord expanding to Harmas….” She lifted up a pair of stockings that Tia knew would not fit. The woman seemed to agree and tossed them aside, seeing socks instead. “Sometimes I wish I lived in the ancient days when it was only demons who were evil.

“There!” she announced, grinning at Tia. “This should set you. I’ll lend you some house slippers for your feet until we can buy you some shoes.”

Tia drew in a breath. Even the Underlord never bought her shoes. Tears formed in her eyes. It was hard to keep them from breaking out onto her cheeks. She had always thought the Underlord was a kind for taking her in and keeping her from starving, but now she saw that she had been maintained by the bare minimum. He kept her in darkness and under his hand. He had manipulated her in the same way as the Patriarch had tried to do. Only now she could see clearly what comforts free life really offered her. Kindness was a rare commodity, but some people were bursting with it.

Her hands shook. The tears ran down her face, as she was unable to stop them.

“Oh, oh, oh!” The woman’s face blinked at Tia. She reached out at once and wrapped her arms around Tia as she sobbed, shaking. “There, there. You have had a hard time. I know it.”

The tears poured down harder, fatter in drops that soaked the woman’s shoulder. Tia cried, hugging wet the clothes the woman had given her.

“Oh, dear. Oh come on, darling. You don’t have to cry. You are safe now.”

But the release was therapeutic. Tia’s sobbing let go the aches of not just her own heart, but the aches of all the horrible memories she carried that weren’t even hers. It was an eternal cry expending all the poison her body and soul had accumulated. She cried until every tear of every pain washed away on the kind woman’s shoulder.

Her stomach clenched and gurgled.

“Oh my!” The woman laughed, sobbing now herself in empathy as they had been standing there for a good while. “I think you cried yourself into a hunger. Let me go down and make supper while you change.”

She left Tia on the chair, trotting down the stairs and wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron.

Alone in the room, Tia wiped her face with the back of her hand. She sniffed, turning to look back out the window. A seagull landed on the roof, joined then by two others. Tia knew she could crawl out right then and take a hold of their wings to transform and continue her journey, but she turned back and glanced at the door.

“Ah, you look nice,” the woman said, nodding approvingly at the fit of the clothes Tia wore.

Tia blushed, pulling out at the skirt somewhat to glance down at her fully covered legs. They were somewhat large for her, and she had to draw the string in tight to keep it on, but they felt so nice in comparison to all the clothes she had to wear up until then.

“Thank you,” Tia said. “You have been way too kind to me.”

“Nonsense,” the woman replied, handing over a flat bread on a plate. “There is no such thing as too much kindness.”

“Many might disagree with you,” Tia murmured, taking the small fried bread and holding it in her hands. “Most people I’ve met feel that if you give too much of yourself, people will walk all over you.”

But the woman only smiled, continuing to roll out then fry bread on the skillet fire. “People who think that are afraid of themselves, and the truth.”

Tia blinked at her, sitting down at the table.

“I see you need an explanation.” The woman placed two other cooked breads on the table. She then picked up two eggs, cracking them together inside the pan, swishing them around in the melted butter. “There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that do not understand what life is all about, and those who do. The first,” she placed a strip of smoked ham on the pan, “seeks to satisfy his physical lusts and desires through whatever means he can muster. Pleasure and power are his aims usually. The second,” She turned the ham over with a fork, “accepts life as it is, seeking nothing more than to make this experience a happy one for himself and all those around him.”

“How do you know one from the other?” Tia asked, biting into her bread. “I know many who think that power makes them happy, and others fill their lust for the same reason.”

“Thinking and knowing are two entirely different things,” the woman said. She winked her eye as she scooped up the eggs and ham, placing them both on a plate. She then proceeded to crack two more into the pan for herself.

Her words rang true. Tia had found her impressions of life change so much that she was not sure what was up and what was down. Up until then, it only seemed that the wealthy were happy and the poor were miserable. But here, humming to herself in this most impoverished and plain kitchen stood one of the happiest women of her acquaintance.

“Real happiness,” the woman said, laying in another piece of ham, “comes from doing what you know to be right.”

“But how do you know what is right?” Tia asked, not yet touching her eggs.

“Hurry and eat before they get cold,” the woman said, pointing to Tia’s plate with the spatula. She hummed and then glanced at Tia, seeing she was waiting for an answer. “How do I know what is right?” She smiled. “Well, my mother taught me, of course.”

Tia sighed, leaning on the table. She did not remember her mother. No one had taught her anything of that was deemed right.

“Also, all people have inside them a moral compass. Even the wicked ones. If you listen to your heart, feel with your soul, it will tell you what is right better than anyone else could.” The woman slid her eggs and ham onto her plate. She hung the pan to the side and covered the fire lid on the range. Taking a seat across from Tia, she sighed. “Of course, most people these days ignore their moral compass to satisfy their lusts. Ooh! Someday I’ll pay Frirson for what he’s done to you.”

Tia decided not to argue, biting into a piece of her egg.

The kind woman, whom Tia later learned was named Marla, let her sleep in her bed after the meal. Tia rested on the soft comforter, but did not close her eyes. Here was peace. Though she was tired, she did not want to miss it. Feeling her chest heave up and down, hearing her own breathing that was so rested, Tia wished she could stay there forever.

She looked at the lights that danced on the ceiling, reflections through the curtains and against the glass vase on the dresser. The shadows were soft, swaying with the wind that blew the sheer curtains back and forth much like the tide. Tia felt clean, warm, and cared for. Maybe even loved for once. She sighed, closing her eyes gently, wishing rather than hoping it would