Bandit Bride

Everyone seemed to have thawed slightly toward Elisa now that she’d proven herself willing to steal things. Although when it came to Allen she wasn’t totally sure if he was resigned to her presence or too busy nursing a bad headache to grouse at her. Either way she was just glad he wasn’t glaring at her anymore. Jack was so happy to have her around he practically skipped out of the inn when they left.

Langdale was small, so it didn’t take them long to get back on the road through the woods and Elisa wasn’t looking forward to spending nights on the hard ground again, but she was feeling pretty cheerful about her successful thieving. As they walked Felix told everyone about what happened at the apothecary, which earned her amused grins from Lyle and Burns.

“Maybe she can stay with us forever,” Jack said and Elisa smiled slightly.

“Jack, do you really think a girl is going to want to stay with the likes of us forever?” Felix flicked him playfully on the forehead.

“We’re nice,” Jack said defensively. “She might.”

Elisa patted Jack on the head. “Who would ever want to leave you?” she teased and Jack’s ears turned red.

“We can head to Camsir and sell off the ring,” Felix said. “We can use those crystal hair pins of yours to help pay our way there.”

“Camsir?” Elisa perked up. “That’s on the coast. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“Consider this a dream come true then,” Lyle said.

“It’s a good place to sell things we...collect,” Felix explained. “It’s a huge city and a trade port besides; so people don’t tend to ask a lot of questions.”

“How long will it take us to get there?” Elisa bounced slightly on her toes, eyes shining with excitement.

“A few weeks.”

Elisa spent the afternoon daydreaming about the ocean until they stopped to make camp. Since she’d promised that she’d cook, she wandered toward the sound of rushing water and found a creek with plenty of fish swimming merrily along. She didn’t feel like making another stew with dried meat, so fish it’d be. She took off her boots and rolled up her pant legs to her knees, shivering a little as she stepped into the chilly water.

When Jack finally came to find her she was wading out of the water and had several fat fish lined up on the shore. His eyebrows shot up.

“What are you doing?”

“Catching dinner, obviously. Wanna help me look for edible plants I can use with these?”

They went foraging for a bit, Jack chattering away about all his “important responsibilities” now that he was twelve. Felix arched his eyebrows when he saw them loaded up with fish and plants; Elisa realized it was the same expression Jack had given her and she smiled to herself.

“You caught fish?” Felix asked. “Any other strange surprises you wanna drop on us?”

Elisa smiled innocently and requested something to skin the fish with. “Back before all my sisters were married off and I was still too young to worry about that sort of thing, it was easy to sneak off and do whatever I wanted to do. We lived near the edge of the city, and down the road a way was this nice family who owned a farm. They had some kids around my age and we all became friends. I helped tutor them with reading and writing, they taught me how to do things like catch a fish, skip a rock, stuff like that. When I started learning how to ride, I used to help them brush their horses.

They had a lot of animals on their farm. In fact, this one time they had a runt piglet that the father was going to butcher, but he was such a cute little pig. I couldn’t stand the idea of him being killed, so I smuggled him out under my coat and took him home. I named him Truffle. You know, because pigs like truffles. So anyway I took him home and managed to hide him in my room for a whole week before anyone realized he was there.

I finally got caught because he got out during this dinner party my parents were throwing. I saw him run past the door toward the kitchen and I jumped up pretending to be sick and tried to sneak him back to my room. But in a true stroke of irony, there were truffles being served with dinner and Truffle the pig went tearing into the dining room. He ran under Norah’s skirt and she screamed bloody murder and spilled hot soup all over one of the guests. It was chaos. My parents were furious but I had such a fit when they threatened to have the cook kill him that they finally relented and we took him back to the farm. They told the farmer they’d pay him some money to board Truffle there so I could visit him.”

“Why am I not surprised that you rescued a pig and hid him in your room?” Felix shook his head but he was smiling. Even Allen was chuckling at the idea.

“You’ve led quite a life, haven’t you?” Lyle asked.

“It’s had its moments,” she agreed. She cooked up the fish and then settled in to work on patching up some shirts with holes in them and hemmed a pair of pants for Jack. At bedtime he brought her his blanket again and Elisa laid it out beside the dying embers of the fire. The ground wasn’t comfortable for sleeping but she did have a nice view of the stars through the forest canopy. Felix appeared above her and she startled.

“Can’t sleep again?” she asked.

“Actually I...” he paused, cleared his throat. “I was wondering if maybe you wanted to take my tent instead of sleeping out here.”

“You’re offering me your tent?”

“It’s not much more comfortable than the ground, but you’re welcome to use it.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Elisa insisted, though she felt oddly touched that he offered. “You already seem to have trouble sleeping; you’ll never catch a wink out here.”

“It’s really fine.” He shifted and Elisa couldn’t see his expression very well in the dim light but sensed that he looked embarrassed.

“If I understand this correctly, you tried to rob me when we met and now you’re concerned about my comfort?” She playfully nudged his leg with her foot and now she was fairly certain that his ears were red.

“I just...it’s getting cold out at night, and I don’t usually get much sleep anyway so I just...I thought...”

“Why don’t we just share the tent?” Elisa interrupted.

“Why don’t we what?”

“It’s a big tent,” she said diplomatically. “And I don’t take up much room, you know, because I tend to curl up into a ball when I sleep.”

Felix stared at her for several moments. Elisa stared calmly back.

“I don’t uh...I don’t know if that’s...”

“Well I can’t possibly make you sleep outside,” Elisa insisted. “This is your camp and besides, you let me stay. It would be rude to make you sleep on the ground.”

“I-yeah, okay. I guess. If you’re sure about this. I really don’t mind sleeping out here-“

“I won’t hear of it.”

He sighed. “Fine. Just scoot to the other side.”

“Yes, Mr. Grouchy Goose, I know you have a thing about personal space. I promise I won’t hug you in my sleep.” She gathered up her borrowed blanket and followed Felix to his tent, which really was surprisingly spacious for a tent. She rolled out her blanket on the far side and settled down. A pillow hit her in the face and she made a muffled noise of surprise.

“Sorry,” Felix said. Elisa fluffed the pillow and snuggled down, curling up into a ball just like she’d promised.

“Good night, grouchy goose.”

Felix huffed. “Good night.”