Chapter 3: A Good Catch

        

         Tala tapped with her foot impatiently, holding a makeshift fishing rod in her hands. She glared at the float, hoping for a big pike. The wind played with her tangled hair, ruffling them even further. The cool air of spring morning made her shiver a little.

         I’m not sorry.

         Tala’s thoughts drifted toward the argument with her mother. She sighed heavily, stretching her dirty feet. Her gaze inevitably wandered to a creased piece of paper laying by her side. Tala picked the forged permit and crushed it in her palm. The ship to Rasheen sailed out already, leaving her behind. She swung her arm, tossing the useless document into the river.

         “Hello runway bride!”

         Tala narrowed her eyes at the sound of familiar, irritating voice.

         “Mom send you after me, moron?” She looked over her shoulder at the rustling bush, which revealed her younger brother with a very unsettling grin plastered across his smug face.

         “Sure. She’s crying in dad’s arms, wailing why can’t her little daughter dream of being a housewife. You know, the usual.” Cas yawned, pointing at the floater swaying in the current. “So, did you catch any?”

         “Nope,” Tala grabbed the fishing rod to readjust the position of the hook. She waved a little in hope to lure some hungry pikes. “So far I didn’t manage to catch neither a fish nor a husband.”

         Cas strolled closer and crouched by his sister’s side.

         “We have pretty dull perspectives, don’t we?” His eyes followed the movements of the floater. “I always wanted to be a soldier, you know? Do you remember the times when we were little and I forced you to play war?”

         Tala smiled at the carefree childhood memories. It was so long ago, but they were still vivid in her mind.

         “I hated it,” she said. “You always had me smear my face with mud to get my skin darker, so that I could play a Valadorian. You had sun painted on your forehead and whacked me with the stick until I was covered in bruises.”

         Cas shrugged.

         “Well, the Sun Empire always wins, what can I say?” he flashed a playful smile at Tala.

         She rolled her eyes and hit her brother squarely in his chest, making him topple over and fall onto his back. He giggled, but she couldn’t lift her brooding mood.

         “And parents think that I’m the hopeless dreamer in the family.” Tala reached toward her brother, offering him a hand. “Face it, you’ll be a farmer, like our father, and I’ll be a farmer’s wife. We can’t even leave Gawanee without the governor’s official permit.”

         Both siblings averted their gazes, biting their lips, while bearing identical unhappy grimaces on their faces. Finally, Cas stood up.

         “I guess I’ll go with parents to that stupid festival. I just hope mom won’t try to betroth me to fat Zareen, like the last time,” he said. “What am I supposed to tell parents?”

         Tala turned her back to her brother, anew focused on fishing. She wasn’t ready to let go off her dream just yet.

         “Not this year,” she whispered, but Cas heard her.

         He nodded. Before vanishing behind the bushes, he patted his older sister on her back. Tala let out the relieved breath – at least she had an ally in Cas. The leaves rustled, several twigs snapped, and an impressive set of colorful curses followed, signaling Cas’ departure.         About the noises… Tala tilted her head. The river was louder than usually. Something was off. Curiously, she gazed up the river.

         “Cas,” she said, staring at a strange object carried by the wild water. It was speeding right at her. Tala’s knees buckled, as she realized that she was standing at the very curve of the river. “Cas!”

         She dashed out, getting out of the way in the last moment possible. A deafening sound resounded right behind her back. A single wheel and other wooden debris flew merely inches from the top of her head, hitting the nearby trees like deadly missiles from catapults. Shocked, Tala looked back and shivered at the sight of destruction. The elements of what used to be a carriage were everywhere – scattered in the nearby bushes, lying in a big heap on the riverbank, floating away with the current. Scared, albeit intrigued, Tala stepped  closer, carefully maneuvering between the wreckage. Whatever just smashed into the riverbank, it looked like nothing she had seen before. Sculpted elements, lots of golden paint and vibrant colors. It looked so fancy, so unlike her home island.

         Suddenly, she spotted a dark shape among the heap of dyed wood. It wasn’t entirely black though – she caught a glimpse of something paler, like a hand. Tala froze. A hand? Someone is there! She clenched her teeth, bracing herself. Her father always taught her that she should help people out; the Gawaneese looked out for each other. Tala rushed to the rescue.

         The cold waters of the river stung her bare feet, as she reached the mysterious black shape. Although she was almost certain of it earlier, now she wasn’t so sure whether it was really a person. Her hands slid over some foreign material; it was dark, and so were cushions that were floating all around.

         “Hey!” She called, but there was no response. Thus, she shuffled through the wreckage, tossing the wooden elements aside. Suddenly, her fingers met a quite solid and heavy-looking object. With all her meager strength, she pulled at it. The water splashed, as the “thing” rolled over, revealing a face.

         Startled, Tala shrieked and inched away. It is a person after all! A young man with impractically long hair lingered amidst the wreckage. When she recoiled from the initial shock, she started hauling him ashore. His soaked garment made him even heavier.

         Cas, where are you when I need you?

         Panting from strain, Tala liberated the stranger from the remnants of the mysteriously fancy carriage. Once she managed to drag the limp man onto the river bank, she dropped onto her knees by his side and reached out to see whether she just rescued a corpse or a survivor.

         His face was eerily pale – even though fair skin tone was common among the people of the Sun Empire, he didn’t look healthy. Actually, with his bluish lips, he didn’t even look alive. Tala’s fingers were shaking when she pressed them to the side of his neck, waiting to feel his heartbeat. If not for her father’s values instilled in her, she would have ran away – she had never seen a dead body before. There was her grandmother, but she didn’t count, since she died of old age. Then, a great weight lifted from Tala’s heart, when she felt a subtle pulsing in the man’s vein. He was alive, barely. A prominent bruise developing on his right temple could be an indication why was unconcious.

         “Tala!”

         Tala looked back, hearing Cas’s voice.

         “Finally you showed up!” she said.

         Cas’s jaw dropped, as he pointed his finger at the unconscious man at Tala’s side. He opened and closed his mouth, but only a weird, strangled sound escaped his throat.

         “Sis, I think when mom told you to catch a husband, she didn’t mean it so literally.” Cas raised his eyebrow.

         “Ugh!” Tala resisted the urge to grab a random piece of wreckage and swing it at her brother. “Just help me get him home, you cretin.”

         Grinning like a village idiot, Cas obliged and grabbed the man’s ankles, while Tala took hold of his wrists. Together, they half-carried, half-dragged the stranger across the dirt to their cottage. His head lolled limply, and his robe got sticky with mud mixed with grass.

         “Dear Sun, he’s heavy,” Cas breathed out, as he swung open the house’s door. “Mom! Dad!”

         The cottage was silent though.

         “They must be at the festival,” Tala said.

         She grunted from exhaustion and let go off the stranger’s arms. Cas did the same, and the rescued man got dumped like a sack of potatoes right after they crossed the cottage’s threshold. Almost instantly, a puddle of water formed around him, seeping from his thick robe.

         “What is he even wearing?” Cas crouched at man’s side and eyed him like little children stare at strange bugs.

         “I’ve seen something like this in my books.” Tala was glad that she finally got the chance to boast with her knowledge. “I think he might be rich. Like, really well-off, nobility style.”

         Cas clapped his hands.

         “We’ll have to take good care of him then and when he wakes up, the first thing he’ll see will be our incredibly kind faces.” A sneaky grin crept onto his lips.

         “And we’ll get a reward,” Tala said, getting hang of her brother’s reasonable idea.

         Cas nodded.

         “With loads of money, you’ll get such a dowry that you’ll be able to marry at thirty, and I’ll be an insanely rich carrot farmer!” He accented his plan with an over-the-top villainous, howling laughter. Ever since he had picked it up from a play in Hareen, he liked it a bit too much.

         “We need to strip him!” Tala commanded, and the siblings pounced at the survivor like two birds of prey descend upon a rotting carcass.

         Cas toppled over, when he pulled the man’s knee-length boots off. Then, Tala gripped him at the ankles, while her brother fought to get the robe off. It turned out that it wasn’t just a single garment, it had layers. If their number would be proportional to the reward, the siblings hoped for, their future would be bright.

         “Are you sure you don’t want to keep him, sis?” Cas asked, once the saved stranger had only pants to protect his modesty.

         Tala arched her brow in disapproval, but her brother nailed one matter – the man was handsome, despite dark bruises appearing on his body with each passing moment. Tall and well-built, he was definitely a treat for eyes. Maybe a young maiden such as herself should blush at the sight of a disrobed male, but Tala was a Gawanese peasant – when working in the fields, men rarely donned shirts, thus it wasn’t a first for her.

         “Take care of the rest and I’ll cook some soup,” Tala headed to the kitchen.

         “What? Come back!” Cas protested. His gaze traveled between the unconscious man lying in a puddle of water on their floor and Tala. He chuckled. “You want to pass the opportunity to see what’s in a man’s pants?”

         “When you were little, you ran naked around the cottage all the time. I know what’s in a man’s pants.” Tala retorted and stalked to brew the soup.

         While she was chopping carrots, she heard Cas’ cursing and alarming thuds. She only hoped that her brother wouldn’t accidentally kill their goldmine while taking his pants off. The sound of dragging accompanied her while she was tossing cut onions into the boiling water.

         “Budge, fancy man!” Cas exclaimed, and even more knocking noises reached Tala’s ears.

         She stirred the vegetable soup, when her brother stormed into the tiny kitchen, wiping the sweat pearling on his forehead. “The next time you fish some rich guy out of the river, pick someone lighter.”

         “I’ll try.”

         Cas followed her like a puppy when she left  the soup for a while to check on their patient. Her brother had covered his strategic parts with a rag. Tala rolled her eyes at the sight and placed her hand on the stranger’s forehead. It was cool, like a body of someone who got caught up with a blizzard. Not that there was ever snow on Gawanee, but she had read about it. On the northern White Isles there was plenty of it. “Cas, fetch blankets, we must keep him warm.”

         “I’m on it!” He hit his chest with his closed fist in a military salute and ran upstairs.

         Tala turned her attention to the man, she had saved. Suddenly, her heart fluttered like when she was reading cheesy romance novels. It was just like in those stories – she rescued a mysterious rich stranger. For some reasons, love interests in romance novels were never poor like Cas or her father. She saved him, he turned out to be incredibly good-looking. Surely, as soon as he lifted his eyelids, he’d turn out to be courteous as well. Tala sighed, wondering that maybe what happened today was fate. Engulfed in her fantasies, she leaned forward and clasped her hands before her, staring at the stranger. A foolish, dreamy smile flourished on her lips.

         “What’s your name, I wonder,” Tala whispered, reaching out to stroke his scratched and bruised face.

         “Not your business.” The response came. Tala stiffened, her hand frozen an inch from the man’s cheek. When he opened his eyes and glared at her, her high-pitched shriek filled the house.

         “Tala!” Burdened by a pile of gray, woolen blankets, Cas sprinted downstairs, almost breaking his neck on his way. The blankets scattered, when he made a leap for the deadliest weapon in his reach – the frying pan. He grabbed Tala’s shoulder and yanked her back, shielding her from the now conscious stranger. Rasing the frying pan threateningly, he looked as menacing as a fifteen-year old youngster possibly could. “What did you do to my sister?”

         The stranger pulled himself to the sitting position, frowning from pain and shivering. Tala dug her fingernails in Cas’ shoulders.

         “He just startled me, Cas,” she explained. “Put the frying pan down.”

         Gently, she took hold of his wrist and convinced him to abandon the idea of whacking the dark-eyed nobleman, who was currently occupying their seating chest. Cas obliged, although hesitantly, the whole time eying the stranger suspiciously. Tala nodded and went to collect the abandoned blankets. Afterward, she approached her patient and offered him her most kind smile – certainly, he must have been confused and frightened by the accident in the river.

         “Here, you need to warm yourself up. I’m already readying a hot soup for you.” She outstretched a blanket and wrapped it around the man’s shoulders.

         Tala didn’t receive any gratitude though; the stranger tore the blanked out of her grasp, glaring at her fiendishly.

         “What is this place?” he demanded, looking around with unmasked disgust. “What are you two peasants doing here?”

         “We kind of live here.” Cas responded. “You know, in our house.”

         The stranger knitted his dark brows. Tala could swear she saw a vengeful gleam in his eyes. She hastily dumped the rest of the blankets onto him.

         “How do you feel?” She did her best to speak in a cheerful tone.

         The stranger didn’t even grace her with his look, as if she was unworthy. Instead, he pressed his hand to his side and hissed from pain. Were his ribs fractured? As educated as Tala believed herself to be, she had absolutely no idea about healing. Each time someone in their family got sick, her mother was the one to handle it.

         “Cas, maybe you should bring parents back home.” She suggested.

         Cas crossed his arms on his chest, standing firmly like a guard.

         “I’m not leaving you alone with a naked guy,” he stated, clutching the frying pan tighter.

         “If we lend him dad’s clothes, he won’t be naked anymore,” Tala said.

         “That’s beside the point!” Cas exclaimed. He pointed his finger at the stranger accusingly. “Once I step out of the house, he’ll jump you and steal your honor!”

         “No he won’t!” Tala protested. She looked then at the subject of the argument, who was draped in the itchy blankets, sending the siblings glares seeping with irritation. “You won’t, right?”

         “Just look into his black, devious eyes.” Cas lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper. “He waits for the opportunity.”

         “I thought you said that we should be nice to him.” Tala rested her hands on her hips. “Job well done, blockhead!”

         “I was nice, I helped to drag his sorry butt here! He’s the King of Jerks!”

         “And you were threatening him with the frying pan. Give me that!” Tala reached to take the frying pan away. Cas resisted, but she was quicker. Before he could know it, she snatched the tool away and lifted it like a mace. “Now start being nice!”

         “Do you know what would be nice?”

         The siblings fell silent and gawked at their patient, startled that he actually spoke up. He tilted his head offered them the fakest smile they had ever seen.

         “It would be marvelous if the two of you stopped bickering over my head and fetched me some clean garments.” He waved his hand in the most commanding gesture. “As for your sister, peasant, her chastity is safe with me. Even if she was the last woman in the whole known world, I would still pick a goat.”

         Tala instantly balled her fist, shaking with rage. Cas grasped her right away, correctly assuming that she was about to dash out and punch the dear life of that pompous bastard, who was just triumphantly smirking. How could anyone be so rude?

         “You were right. He is the King of Jerks.” Tala hissed. Her previous girly fantasies cracked and shattered. She almost regretted saving the arrogant man.

         Oh well, what has been done, can’t be undone. It’s not like I could just shove him back to the river. I wish I could, though.

         “Cas, you stay here and watch him. I’ll be right back.” She averted her gaze quickly, pretending she didn’t see the pleading look on her brother’s face.

         Cas sighed heavily, hearing Tala’s heavy stomping. He grabbed the nearby stool and dragged it toward the seating chest. Cas plopped onto it and leaned forward, scrutinizing the man, his sister had saved. The stranger returned the sharp look with fierceness, as if the fate of the Empire depended on the outcome of the stare contest.

         “So, do you have any hobbies?” Cas asked nonchalantly.