Get Out of Dodge

Her hand was steady as she sliced the tomato, her knifework careful and precise after enough weeks of practice there. The silent shadow at her back, though, was exceedingly unfamiliar, and silently she wondered what she could make him do to get him off her back both literally and figuratively. She swallowed thickly, the silence thick and heavy as it lay between them, awkward and uninterrupted. Mentally, she begged him to start whatever awkward conversation they could have.

“Aerloth,” her unnamed friend spoke, and silently, she praised whatever deity might have answered her call.

She turned with a smile. “Yes?” she asked, the smile on her face feeling strange – and her friend undoubtedly thought the same, if the way he startled was any indication.

“Have you penned a reply to your brothers yet?” he questioned, and Sakura felt her blood run cold at that, and the unwitty reminder that she still had three letters she had yet to open and read. And the fact that she would probably have to read them in the presence of her supposed childhood friend. The same childhood friend she had no idea how to interact with, or even what their name was. Her shoulders sunk at the thought, part of her wondering what would happen when he realised she had no memory of him.

Curiosity, undoubtedly. She shivered at the thought. “Uh, no,” she answered, cheek twitching as she tried to smile and act nonchalantly about the matter. How long could she keep the charade up? Part of her couldn’t help but ponder on that much. How long could she keep someone who supposedly knew her well from figuring out that she honestly had no memory of him? She swallowed thickly at the thought, nerves coming to bite and twist in her stomach.

“You might be angry at them for whatever reason you’ve come up with in that head of yours, but they grow worried, Aerloth, and they are not ellyn who can leave their posts in Lindon easily.” Those piercing blue eyes stared at her flatly. “I would rather they not bring trouble upon themselves… they’ve been incredibly kind to me”—Sakura could hear the implied, unlike you—“and I must insist that you reply to their letters. Faelion sent me out here because he was worried about you.”

“Fine,” she muttered curtly.

“Even if you don’t—oh,” he said, blinking and staring at her, and Sakura busied herself with lighting the fire so she could cook atop the hob. The prep work for their late night snack was almost finished, and she was only growing that much more exhausted by the minute. It was surprising how draining being around other people was, and part of her was infinitely grateful then that she only seemed to have one childhood friend. “You… agreed with me?” her friend murmured, frowning at her, and Sakura felt her shoulders sink at that. “No argument…” he was muttering to himself, and she tuned him out as best she could. “You’re even voluntarily making dinner for the both of us…”

“I already had dinner before you arrived,” she said. “It is quite late, and I was intending to go to sleep before you appeared and disturbed my plans.”

“Your brother told you I was coming. I’d expect you would be able to calculate the rough timing of my arrival. You’re familiar with the route the ship takes by this point,” he stated, and Sakura could only think on how very incorrect that statement was. Perhaps the original Aerloth knew, and yet as she was right then and there – she didn’t know. She didn’t even know the geography of that land beyond the limited views from the windows around the literal mansion she resided in there.

“I opened the letter which said you were coming some seven hours ago,” she said, feeling herself bristle ever so slightly at his tone. “Forgive me if I was surprised by your sudden appearance.” Though it could have been worse, she mused, a wry, grim smile curling at her lips. She could have not read the letter and asked him who the hell he was upon his arrival. And that would have undoubtedly set the alarm bells ringing. Yet that hadn’t happened, and her childhood friend was there and undoubtedly unnerved by her and the way she was acting.

“Aerloth,” he spoke, a scolding tone to his voice. “So you have been ignoring your brothers…”

She put the saucepan down on the hob with more force than strictly necessary. “And?” she demanded, not knowing what to say, nor if she could even defend herself against the unspoken accusation. It wasn’t like she could tell him she had no memories of him or her ever mysterious brothers who couldn’t leave the place called Lindon. It wasn’t like she was about to spill her guts about her terrified she was about her brothers and the way they would undoubtedly learn something was off the minute they laid eyes on her. It wasn’t like she could tell him why the idea of people being curious about her terrified her so.

She really needed to get her hands on a map of that place, she thought to herself. Or, a sly voice which sounded far too much like her own, you could just stay in the forge? Part of her almost craved to shut herself away in there and constantly lose herself to the rhythm of metal on metal. She missed the boiling heat of that room – though she supposed with the hob on, a fire crackling away within, was as decent of a substitute for the heat which was eerily comfortable to her by that point in time.

“They are worried about you. Faelion was… most frantic when he realised that you were ignoring them,” he explained, and she cursed the sliver of guilt she felt at that. If only because it wouldn’t be the Aerloth they knew they would eventually be getting back. “He has asked the High King many times now – pleaded on your behalf, if only to alter your punishment to house arrest rather than exile here,” he said, and Sakura wondered then just what Aerloth meant to her brothers. She had scarred another – to what degree, she was still uncertain. She had never had brothers before, and she could only wonder exactly what it meant to have them. “Even if you are… prideful and far too willing to resort to physical violence, you are still their only, beloved sister. They helped your parents raise you before your mother and father sailed… and you were still rather young when they felt the sea longing.”

Sakura frowned. “Mother and father went… sailing?” she murmured to herself, wondering if that was some sort of euphemism for something. Or whether they had suddenly taken to the seas for the rest of their lives? Her brow furrowed that much further, brain trying to make sense of the little snippets of information she was learning. A yén was one-hundred and forty-four years, according to some vestige of information buried deep within her mind. What sort of timescale were they living on? Sakura could only gulp and wonder at that, a familiar pit of misery stirring as she thought about the death which was supposed to have killed her. Death had been her escape. Death by old age had once been something she had been so jealous of. Death was supposed to be the end of the confusion and suffering. And yet…

Her friend stared at her in confusion. “Yes – to Valinor, the Undying Lands… You know… our homeland where we will all likely return to before the end,” he said, those piercing blue eyes feeling as though they were peering right through her and all her plastic fakeness.

“Oh. Yes, of course,” she answered, trying to laugh at the obvious error she had made. Clearly everybody knew of their homeland there… besides her, of course. Her laughter fell flat, the sounds and smells of her cooking doing her best to distract herself as she felt the weight of his stare fall upon her once more. “Are you almost done with the rest of the vegetables?” she asked, desperate to try and divert the conversation onto something she would be less likely to stumble and fumble around.

“Yes,” he said, holding up his chopping board of neatly cut carrots and onions. “What even is the recipe for?” he asked, peering curiously at the contents of the saucepan. “I saw you putting the pastry in the oven earlier. Is it some sort of pie?”

“I think so,” she said. “I got the recipe from the book in the corners… and I’ve made a few adjustments to suit my tastes.”

“You? Adjusting the recipes?” A soft snort escaped him, a glimpse of humour without any distaste finally making its way onto his face. “I never thought I would see the day. But since dinner is underway, would you be up for making dessert?”

“Dessert?” she echoed.

“You know – your favourite meal of the day which satisfies that raging sweet tooth of yours?” he said, and Sakura blinked at him.

“I don’t know any recipes?” she offered, mouth salivating at the thought and promise of sugar. That was seemingly something she had both as Sakura and Aerloth. She licked her lips, thinking of anmitsu, not that she could make it there. She didn’t even know how to go about making it in that place.

“Honestly, have you forgotten where your mother always kept the dessert recipes?” he asked, looking for once as though he were actually enjoying himself there as he delved into the cupboard beneath the shelf where the other recipe books were. They were all handwritten books as well, and Sakura had the distinct impression that her mother might very well have been the one who had written them. The handwriting was all the same, after all, and it bore an uncanny resemblance to her eldest brother’s fine looping script. “Here,” her friend said, holding out a recipe book with one hand, even while his nose remained buried in the cupboards. “Looks like you should have all the ingredients. You still have some eggs left, don’t you?”

“They’re in the cold room,” she said, pointing to the door she knew led to the pantry and then the coldest part of the house. “It’s where all the more perishable foods are kept.”

“I know, silly, unless you want them to spoil,” he answered, and Sakura blinked, nodded, and then turned her attention to the book in her hands. She watched out of the corner of her eye as his silvery hair vanished into the pantry, part of her relaxing as he went out of sight. It was almost funny how stressful having friends could be. Sighing at that thought, she flicked through the pages, reading each of the recipes and what they made and wondering what she wanted to try first. She had plenty of time to try them all as it stood. Though admittedly baking and cooking didn’t calm her as much as the art of forging did. Even if her cooking skills were already leagues better than her ability to create a useable blade. “Have you decided what you want to make yet?”

Sakura startled at that, glancing at her friend as he lingered behind her like her shadow – only he wasn’t nearly as silent as he’d been on the way to the kitchen. “Uh. I’m still looking,” she said, flicking through the recipes for cakes, tarts, and other interesting deserts she had never seen much of before. There was no shaved ice instructions, no recipes involving red bean paste, and no little illustrations depicting anything like dango.

“You don’t want to make your favourite?” her friend asked, one silvery brow raised in question, and Sakura could only smile with the shaky knowledge that she had no idea which of those recipes the original elleth had preferred.

“Uh, well, my tastes might have changed,” she said hurriedly, hoping that was enough of an excuse if she inadvertently chose to make something the original Aerloth had scorned. “The pie recipe here looks good, but do we have apples, and the cinnamon it recommends?” she asked, chewing on her lip as she tried to figure out if she had seen any containers with the label for the spice. “Then again… maybe this cake might be simpler and quicker to make?”

“We have the apples and the cinnamon,” he said, puling a glass container from the cupboard and setting it on the counter side. “I’ll go get the apples – you can get started on the pastry, though you might need to sort out the other pie you’re making for our late night snack. The filling looks like it might be nearly ready.”

“Oh, thanks,” she mumbled, earning herself a perturbed look before her silvery-haired friend vanished into the pantry once more.

“You’re a more accomplished chef than I thought,” her still as of yet unnamed friend said, cutting through the crisp pastry of the savoury meat pie she had made, glancing at her curiously as he ate another bite. She winced at the memory of the first time she had tried cooking it. The pastry had cracked, and the filling had been overcooked and underflavored. It was one of the few recipes which tended to turn out alright when she cooked it. “I still remember the days when you adamantly refused to cook. In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t wrangled your guards into cooking for you. You did that the last time you were exiled…”

Sakura heard herself laugh weakly at that, keeping an eye on the other pie she could still smell cooking.

“Honestly, I don’t understand what’s the matter with you,” he said, and just like that Sakura felt the tension flood her body once more. “You’re acting strangely, you know. You aren’t harassing your usual guards – you’re even cooking for yourself. You don’t greet me like usual… It’s almost like you’ve grown up, only the Aerloth I know isn’t capable of that much.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” she tried, feeling her heart beat frantically in her chest and ignoring it as best she could.

“Certainly, change is childhood… or change after, well, experiencing things out of the ordinary for someone… that kind of change is to be expected. Yet exile is hardly unexpected for you, nor the fistfights which often proceed your little spates of exile,” he said, and Sakura could only muse grimly on how apparent it was that Aerloth had been exiled multiple times before. And the spate of exile she was currently living in would likely be the longest yet… A grim smile curled at her lips at that, bitterness surfacing at the reminder of just how little she knew of that place. “Our kindred are slow to change. We weather it – endure it… sail away from it or… fade,” he said, looking at her mournfully. “Will you not tell me what it is that is affecting you so?”

Sakura pushed her chair back. “I think the apple pie is ready,” she said in lieu of an answer to that. The same answer she knew she would never truly speak of – because just how was she supposed to explain that she wasn’t Aerloth even though she was inhabiting the elleth’s body? How was she supposed to willingly reveal herself for the oddity she was? She swallowed thickly at the thought of what would happen should she be revealed as something unordinary.

“Great,” her friend said, the smile on his face looking incredibly forced all of a sudden. “I love apple pie.”

“I know,” she remarked, pulling on the oven gloves and delving into the oven to pull out the tray she’d baked the pie on. “You said that while we were making it.”

Coward, part of her whispered in her head, and she set the hot tray down on the cooling rack with a soft sigh. Yet she supposed, perhaps she didn’t mind being a coward, so long as it kept her from being tortured for the rest of her probably far too long life.

“How much do you want?” she asked, carefully prying it from the case she had cooked the steaming hot apple pie in.

“As much as you’ll let me have,” he answered, fussing then with the remains of the pie which might as well have been her second dinner. Though, surprisingly enough, eating with another person after so long of being in solitude hadn’t been nearly as bad as she’d thought – at least until the questions had started, she mused.

“That tells me so much,” she grumbled, wondering then whether an eighth or a sixteenth would be better to give him. Yet it would spoil eventually – it wasn’t like she had a working freezer in that place. “An eighth for each of us it is,” she muttered, cutting them both a slice and bolting back to the table in the hopes of finishing her dessert that much quicker. If only so she could excuse herself and go to bed that much sooner.

A yawn escaped her.

“Tired?” her friend asked, tilting his head in question, those silvery locks shifting with the movement as he sat down at his place opposite her.

“Well, considering I was about to go to bed when you arrived…” she said, trailing off pointedly. “You arrived very late.” Her gaze darted to the moon she could see, hanging in the sky, from where she sat at the small dining room table in the kitchen. She had the strangest of suspicions that there was probably a bigger dining room somewhere in that place. They had multiple living and what could only be reception rooms for greeting guests.

“Yet you still cooked for me,” he murmured softly, and there was something in that piercing gaze of his that she couldn’t quite decipher.

“So I did,” she whispered, rubbing at her tired eyes. “Do you hate it that much?”

“No,” he answered. “I certainly do not. You’ve been eerily kind, Aerloth.”

Yet the original Aerloth hadn’t been nearly as kind, she mused grimly, eating the last of the apple pie which had turned out to be quite nice with someone there to help with her cooking. She closed her eyes, pushing herself to her feet and desperately trying to forget how odd she was in comparison to the one who had been there before her. “So it would seem,” she said, feeling those blue eyes boring into her back, a myriad of questions she couldn’t dare answer in their gaze. “Goodnight.”