You've looked correctly--there are no parts to this one, because it's the first chapter short enough to fit into one topic. Yay.
This is my favorite chapter so far, but even then I'm sure there's something to shred. So bring out the shredders and napalm. Rescue me from the bad day I've been having.
The End of Time
Part One: The City
Chapter Eight: Birthday Surprises
When Nendo awoke that morning and scaled the staircases to Darian’s top-floor study, he was aware of a sense of anticipation, something light that trembled in the air. Something was different about today.
Nendo knew why. The manor servants had spent the past two weeks preparing for this day. Maidservants had scrubbed every corner of the mansion house clean, while the garden staff worked around the clock to prune bushes and plant new flowers, and the kitchens were abuzz with activity as the cooks prepared feasts of roasted meats and pastries. Thankfully, Nendo didn’t have to break his back in the kitchens or cleaning, but he and Trevas had devoted long hours to cleaning the burdenbeasts until they shined on top of scouring the markets to buy a new young burdenbeast mount for Lord Darian.
All the preparation had culminated in this one day: Lord Darian’s nineteenth birthday.
Nendo thought it strange to devote so much work to one boy’s birthday, but the other servants had assured him that all noblemen’s birthdays were celebrated elaborately. “You should have seen Lord Kigo’s twentieth party,” Trevas had laughed. “They brought an entire band and dancers from the islands for him!”
Not that Nendo would know. He’d never seen a birthday celebration in his life, and wasn’t even sure exactly how old he was; he just guessed based on the ages of the children around him. He could be anywhere from fifteen to seventeen; he didn’t know and care.
Nendo stopped in front of the study door, waiting for Darian’s signal for him to enter. After a month serving the Count of Miria, these lessons had become routine. Every morning he’d come to Darian’s study and read from various tomes under Darian’s instruction. He’d progressed fast, to the point that Darian began assigning him complicated books on philosophy and science. Nendo didn’t always understand everything he read, especially when the books quoted from history, but he was always curious to learn more. The books about history and Aeta’s foreign cultures especially fascinated him; it was strange envisioning the stories they told about great battles in the past or Ajyadi deities took place in his same world of survival on the streets.
In the evenings, after Nendo was finished with his chores in the stables, he would change into clean clothes and enter Darian’s magic room, where he practiced magic craft under the lord. These lessons were somewhat more difficult, as Nendo had trouble following the precise forms Darian drilled into him; still, he’d progressed to the point of learning how to link multiple circles together for a more effective attack.
The only aspect of life at Miria Manor that still bothered him, aside from being apart from Tey, was Cura. Ever since he’d been caught snooping that night three weeks ago, Cura hadn’t spoken to him except to relay messages to him from Darian, and even then she never met his eyes and intoned the words flatly. She didn’t even speak to him when they passed in the halls. Every time he saw her, Nendo felt a pang of regret. His curiosity had cost him a friendship.
“Enter,” called Darian’s voice from behind the door. Nendo didn’t hesitate to push it open and step inside the familiar wood-paneled study. He saw the lord at his usual position behind the desk, perusing a sheet of paper, his brow furrowed.
“Happy birthday, my lord,” said Nendo, bowing from his waist.
“Tch,” was Darian’s sour response. “Sit down.”
Nendo frowned; he might not have known much about birthdays but he thought that Darian ought to be a little less gloomy on his special day. He said as much as he moved to the chair in front of the desk: “Shouldn’t you be a little more…I don’t know…happy?”
“And why’s that?” Darian arched an eyebrow before returning to the paper in his hands—it appeared to be a letter.
“Well, it’s your birthday, my lord,” said Nendo.
“Tch,” said Darian again, before shaking his head. “I suppose I should be happy, but this…” He threw the letter to the desk with a contemptuous flick of his wrist; Nendo glimpsed lines of large, loopy handwriting.
“Bad news?” said Nendo.
“The worst.” To Nendo’s utter surprise, Darian buried his face behind his hands. Nendo shifted uncomfortably in his seat, unsure of what to do—he’d never seen such an abject gesture from the confident young lord before. He wondered what disastrous news could be in that letter; had somebody Darian knew died?
“What? What is it?” said Nendo, trying to suppress his dread. “My lord?”
Darian removed one hand from his face, to glower at Nendo with a dark blue eye. “Nothing…only that Lord Kigo has sent me a request to go monkeybird hunting. Today.”
“What?” Nendo could only stare blankly back at Darian, wondering if he’d missed something. Since when was a hunting invitation “bad news”? Though Nendo had yet to go on a hunt, he’d heard nobles did them all of the time and he’d long wanted to know what they were like. To him, it sounded like fun.
“Hunting.” Darian spat the word as if it tasted foul. “What a marvelous waste of time. Lord Kigo has been trying to convince me to go on a hunt with him for ages, but I’ve always refused.”
“So refuse this one,” said Nendo, who still didn’t understand why Darian was treating this request like the end of the world.
“I can’t. It’d make me look petty; after all, today is my birthday.” Darian grimaced. “I have to go.” He might as well have been pleading guilty for a crime given the heavy way he said the words.
“Oh,” was all Nendo could think to say in response. He briefly wondered if Darian would take him along, but told himself he was being stupid—mostly nobles took their personal servants with them on hunts and that was it. Although Nendo couldn’t imagine Cura riding a burdenbeast and shooting arrows at monkeybirds.
“I guess we’ll have to cut this lesson short and go,” sighed Darian, standing up. Nendo stared at the lord, uncomprehending. If he wasn’t mistaken, Darian had just said we…
“What are you waiting for?” said Darian, sounding annoyed, glancing over his shoulder as he headed to the door. Nendo quickly rose from his chair, though he didn’t move to join Darian.
“Wait…you’re taking me?” he said.
Darian raised both shoulders in a shrug. “Why not?” he said. “Misery loves company, doesn’t it?”
Nendo followed his lord, nodding his argument, although he felt that this was the farthest thing from misery. He couldn’t wait to tell Tey that he’d gone hunting with a nobleman…
~*~
“My dear Lord Darian! So you did decide to grace us with your presence! How marvelous! This must be the first time this year you’ve left your manor!” said Lord Kigo, throwing his head back and laughing.
Lord Kigo sat straight and tall on the back of his massive burdenbeast. He was a tall, strongly built young man, with large hands, a florid face, and a mop of golden hair, as well as a laugh that boomed like a snare drum. Behind him, on a smaller burdenbeast, was his manservant, and beside him were three other young nobles and their servants, all smiling along with Kigo.
“Shut up,” growled Darian, bringing his burdenbeast—Luso, the one Nendo and Trevas had bought for his birthday—to a halt in front of the group of nobles. “This will be the last time I ever participate in this idiotic ritual again.”
“Such a spoilsport, Lord Darian,” laughed another noble, a thin, tan-skinned young man. “You ought to enjoy yourself on your birthday.”
“That’s right!” bellowed Lord Kigo, raising a ham-like hand in an enthusiastic fist. “Enjoy life while you’re still young!”
“You’re such a…” sighed Darian, shaking his head.
The noblemen were gathered just inside the gates of one of the Noble Quarter’s many orchard-parks, a beautiful expanse of lush grass and tall kaza trees. The songs of chirping monkeybirds floated throughout the drowsily warm air; these were the same birds they’d be hunting with the magic-tipped arrows each nobleman kept in a quiver by his side, along with a bow in the other hand. The servants would ride beside their masters with spare quivers and a bow. Nendo was a bit disappointed to learn he wouldn’t be shooting, but then again, he supposed it was a good thing since he didn’t even know how to use a bow.
“So, how shall we do this?” said Lord Kigo, his boisterous voice rising above even the quivering heat. “Will we work in teams, or will it be every man for himself? What d’you say, Lord Darian?”
“I honestly don’t care,” said Darian with a jerk of his slim shoulder. “Suit yourself.”
“Lord Darian, you’re no fun at all!” cried Kigo, clapping Darian so hard on his shoulder that he almost fell off Luso. The lord righted himself with a sputtered curse.
Nendo watched as the noblemen conferred together, Lord Kigo’s loud voice dominating all the others’. He was struck by how much poise Darian had, even when performing an activity he disliked. The others were gawky and awkward, like the boys Nendo knew from the street; only Darian, despite being much slighter than them, radiated a properly cool and aristocratic confidence.
“So it’s settled!” declared Lord Kigo, his booming voice cutting through Nendo’s thoughts. “The man who brings back the most kills shall be—”
“Exempt from all other hunting trips, I presume,” said Darian sourly.
Kigo and the other lords laughed. “Don’t be that way, Lord Darian,” said one of them, a fiery redhead.
Lord Kigo went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “No, no, no! The winner shall have the sole honor of courting the most beautiful Lady Ledine of Densla.”
This incited a flurry of excited chatter from the young lords, with the exception of Darian, who remained as sullenly silent as before. The redheaded lord noticed and said, his tone jocular, “Oh, come on, Darian. We know that even you fancy her somewhere deep in that iced-over heart of yours, right?”
“She’s a shallow idiot,” retorted Darian. “She hasn’t got a worthwhile thought in her head.”
“You have no appreciation of aesthetics, Lord Darian!” declared Kigo with another boom of laughter. Darian glared harder at Kigo.
At length, the nobles and their servants split apart. Whoever this Lady Ledine was, the promise of courting her was enough to fire up the nobles’ blood, for all of them rode off at full gallop, stringing their bows with great gusto and bellowed challenges. All except Darian, who allowed Luso to plod at his usual pace and hadn’t strung his bow yet. Amidst the dark green surroundings, he appeared even paler than usual.
Nendo had the feeling that Darian regretted ever accepting Kigo’s invitation. He followed Darian on his mount, the aging but easygoing Tonall, keeping his eyes on his lord’s white-shirted back. This wasn’t going to be much of a hunting trip.
Already Nendo could hear the zipping of arrows throughout, and sounds like muffled stones dropping—monkeybirds getting shot. He glanced at the two quivers of spare arrows hanging from Tonall’s saddle. The arrows were tipped with glowing magic that would improve their speed, accuracy, and power. Nendo had helped Darian inscribe magic circles inside the arrows; he’d found it surprisingly easier than casting circles expressly for attack.
“Well, I suppose I ought to get started,” said Darian with a heavy sigh. He steered Luso into a copse of kaza trees, reaching for his bow at the same time. The chirps of monkeybirds oblivious to the threat beneath them rang throughout the trees. He watched as Darian strung the bow with surprising expertise and aimed an arrow with a glowing-blue tip—one that Nendo had spelled—at the treetops. He fired a second later, but instead of a stunned monkeybird falling to the grass, the arrow lodged deep in the stem of a kaza leaf. A flurry of fluttering sounds followed, suggesting that all the monkeybirds perched on the tree had flown away.
“Oh, how terrible,” said Darian in a tone dripping sarcasm. “I missed. Whatever shall I do?”
Nendo suspected that Darian had missed on purpose.
After an hour spent following Darian around as the lord consistently wasted arrows, sometimes not even bothering to pretend that he was trying to hit a monkeybird, Nendo decided that hunting wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Well, perhaps it would be more fun if Nendo was serving a lord who actually enjoyed it. Such as Lord Kigo, who Nendo could hear even from a distance, galloping around on his burdenbeast while his roaring laugh scared away all monkeybirds. Kigo didn’t seem much more accurate than Darian, though, if the sound of his manservant’s constant admonitions was any indication: “My lord, you haven’t got an endless supply of arrows…” “My lord, do be more careful…” “We almost had them, my lord…” Sometimes, Kigo even came dangerously close to hitting his own comrades.
“Watch it, Kigo!” yelled a voice Nendo recognized as the tall tan lord. “Those things aren’t toys, you know!”
Kigo responded with another round of earth-shaking laughter.
“It seems like Kigo won’t be winning Lady Ledine’s favor anytime soon,” observed Darian.
By now, most of the monkeybirds had realized that they were being shot at, and had taken to the skies, resembling a screeching mass of fluttering scraps of fur as they circled around the kaza canopies. Some lords appeared quite accurate, as their arrows found their mark even in the air, and a few monkeybirds dropped like stones to the earth again. Darian, however, was putting only the poorest effort in drawing his bowstring and shooting: Most of his arrows ended up embedded in tree trunks.
Nendo started thinking this was rather a waste of perfectly good arrows.
“Ha ha ha ha! Got you!” bellowed Kigo’s enthusiastic voice somewhere deep in the trees behind them. Darian turned Luso around so he was staring in Kigo’s direction, looking bored.
“Pipe down, you idiot—ah.”
That was all: just a quietly intoned little gasp of surprise, as if Darian had seen something mildly interesting like a burdenbeast accident in the streets. He stared down at his own torso, looking for all the world like he was inspecting a stain on his shirt.
Instead of a red-feathered arrow quivering slightly beneath his collarbone.
Nendo stared, too, shock numbing his insides. He couldn’t think; couldn’t speak; couldn’t even react. All he could do was stare at the arrow protruding out of Darian like he was a kaza tree. He found his eye foolishly drawn to the brilliant red feathers at the end of the arrow; so bright, they must be dyed, he thought. As crimson as the blood that was staining Darian’s shirt around the arrow…
Blood. Nendo’s head jerked up and he met Darian’s gaze, seeing his own horror mirrored in the lord’s eyes. Darian then doubled over, gasping sharply, gripping the front of his shirt around the arrow wound.
Nendo reacted immediately. “Come on!” he shouted, grabbing Darian by the shoulder and pulling the unresisting lord on to Tonall; he knew Darian wouldn’t be able to ride on his own with an injury like that. Darian slumped against Nendo’s shoulder, breathing hard. Nendo seized Tonall’s reins with one hand and Luso’s with the other, leading Darian’s mount beside him as he urged Tonall into a trot towards a secluded stand of trees.
“Wh-where, where are you going?” sputtered Darian, his voice barely breaking over a whisper.
“What do you think? I’ve got to check out that injury,” said Nendo firmly. True, he didn’t know much about medicine and had no healing ability to speak of, but he knew Darian needed immediate help. He was sure he could remove the arrow, as it wasn’t buried very deep—not even the entire tip had sunk in. What worried Nendo more was the amount that Darian was bleeding, as well as the fact that the arrowhead had been spelled.
“No, no, not you, Cura, I need Cura,” groaned Darian. “Cura, get me Cura…”
“I can’t,” said Nendo impatiently as they came to a stop in the stand. He dismounted Tonall and grabbed Darian’s wrist to help the smaller boy off as well; Darian stumbled when he landed in the grass, but immediately began trying to pull away from Nendo.
“Cura, dammit, I need Cura—” he continued protesting, tugging at Nendo’s grip.
Nendo thought Darian was being remarkably unreasonable. They were a good half hour’s journey from Miria Manor; Darian needed attention this very instant. “Come on—sit down—” he said, forcing the lord into the grass beneath a tree, leaving the burdenbeasts at the edge of the copse. He reached for the front of Darian’s shirt, but Darian’s hands flew out and gripped Nendo’s wrists with surprising strength, trying to tug them away.
“No, no, no, get me Cura,” he gasped.
“Don’t be so stubborn, she’s not here,” said Nendo. He reached for Darian again, but the lord’s slender fingers tightened painfully around Nendo’s wrist.
“Only Cura,” he said blearily. “Only her…”
“You’re going to bleed to death!” yelled Nendo, anger seizing him. Ignoring the fact that he could be punished for using physical force on his lord, he threw Darian’s hands off his wrist and pinned them using one hand—so much larger and stronger than Darian’s—to the grass; Darian struggled and writhed like a captured snake, but was unable to free his hands from Nendo’s grip.
Then, with his other hand, Nendo began trying to undo the buttons of Darian’s shirt. It was difficult, since Darian was thrashing around and spitting curses in between gasping “Cura—dammit—only Cura—” He once even kicked Nendo in the stomach, buckling Nendo over, though this wasn’t enough to get Nendo to release his grip on Darian’s hands. All the while, more dark blood continued welling out of the injury, staining the front of Darian’s shirt a horrid crimson.
Finally, Nendo managed to tear open Darian’s shirt halfway—but paused before reaching for another button. His mind was swimming, his heart pounding, confusion and a sick wrongness singing through his head—
There were already bandages wrapped tightly, and in several layers, around Darian’s torso.
“Why…why are you…already bandaged…” began Nendo, but even as his lips struggled to form the words, a terrible understanding was beginning to dawn over him, an understanding Nendo rebelled against with every fiber of his being. Yet he knew it had to be true, there could be no other explanation…
Nendo began backing off, stumbling from his astonishment, never removing his eyes from the lord quivering against the tree, no longer struggling, but glaring at Nendo with pure hatred in his dark eyes. Words floated through Nendo’s mind, words that struggled to explain what he’d seen. He didn’t want to say them, didn’t want to acknowledge the reality staring him cruelly in the face, but they escaped, anyway, hesitant with horror:
“You…you…you’re…you’re a woman.”
---------------------------
Yes, that's the major revelation concerning Darian. I've been eager to get at it from the beginning since I became tired of referring to Darian by the wrong gender throughout most of the early part of the story...
Now that you know, my major question is--does it come too much out of the left field? Or was in fact too obvious? It's your call, since with a revelation like this you can never be too certain.
The next chapter will delve into Darian's reasons, and the chapter after that will be her backstory. After the Darian-centric chapters, the main plot will finally rear its ugly head. I'm not actually sure if I'm going to be posting the rest after part one (chapter twelve) on YWS; if you're interested in seeing the rest I could PM or email it, though, since I still am interested in getting critiques. Believe me, you've all helped me a lot and I'm rewriting the first several chapters with a lot more confidence. Thank you all, and keep it up with the wonderful reviews. ^^
But right now I don't have time.
