FWFW 3 - 65

Olivia had a destination in mind as she walked into the cool, windy air outside the academy. One of the restaurants she and her friends had frequented during her first weeks at the school was managed by a Ghelli woman with bright, lifelike tattoos of flowers on her neck and arms. Olivia remembered asking Veena if they were magical or if they were just drawn by a particularly talented artist, and Veena had scoffed, saying she didn’t know anything about tattoos. “Well, same here, Veena, but I’m going to learn.”

The main market square inside the academy walls was bustling, despite the crimes taking place in the school and despite the chilly, windy weather. When Olivia noticed how so many people were wearing thick, collared cloaks and puffy jackets, she’d looked down at herself, still wearing her magical gray robes, and taken a moment to remember that she didn’t feel the elements as a normal person might—she could probably stand naked in a snowstorm and not feel much discomfort thanks to her Elemental Resistance feat. Still, she could notice the weather, breath in the fresh, cool air, and appreciate the change in seasons.

She crossed the square and proceeded up one of the handful of streets inside the walls wide enough to accommodate more than one-way traffic. Soon she was standing before Nalla’s—a simple soup shop boasting a counter for ordering and two rickety wire tables with matching chairs. She remembered how Rald had bent one of the chairs by leaning back in it and how the rest of them had laughed when he’d fallen on his butt. Olivia didn’t smile at the memory; she just frowned and stepped into the shop.

The smells of rich broth and meat being seared at the bottom of a stock pot instantly hit her nose, and Olivia felt saliva gather in her mouth. She swallowed it away, her frown deepening—how could she think of enjoying some soup right now while Alyss was gone, her body defiled as a macabre message?

“Hello, love, need some warming up inside?” Nalla had heard the door and come to the counter. She wore a pale blue, long-sleeved shirt under a stained, off-white apron, and her hair was pulled back in a messy bun. Olivia had always liked the breezy nature of the woman, and she allowed herself to smile, stepping forward.

“Hello, Nalla. No, I’m sorry, but I haven’t time to eat right now. I have a question for you that I hope doesn’t offend you.”

“Oh? Now that’s the most interesting thing a customer has said to me today! Well, out with it, then! Want to know how many lovers I have?”

“Oh,” Olivia felt her face redden, and she hurriedly said, “No! I mean, I just was wondering where you got your tattoos done! They’re beautiful, and I need some work done . . .”

“Oh, Roots! I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, sweetie. My tongue gets away from me sometimes! Now, my tattoos, hmm? I’m sorry, but my artist is back in my hometown—Twilight Home. I know someone here that does work, though, and he’s not half bad.”

“Really? That would be very helpful, Nalla! Do you think he’d see me today?”

“A big hurry, is it? He does ink work on the side, a way to make extra money, and he’s usually eager for a new customer, so I bet he would.”

“Well, would you mind giving me his name? Where can I find him?”

“Oh, right, right. His name’s Barnt, and you’ll find him standing watch at the main gates—he’s the big guard that works for the academy.”

“Barnt . . .” Olivia said, tracing through her memories, trying to remember the guard at the gates, and then it clicked—the enormous otter-like Vodkin who’d first greeted her. “He’s a Vodkin, right?”

“That’s right! Don’t let his size fool you; he’s very clever with those little needles of his!” Nalla smiled and leaned forward, and Olivia caught a glimpse of her somewhat stunted dragonfly wings. Adaida’s and Shani’s were much more prominent, though they had a long way to go to get to Nurse Tyliste’s level. She figured Nalla hadn’t ever improved her racial rank, and her mind started down an irritatingly unnecessary tangent, wondering just what percentage of people in this world ever saw anything beyond a base-one status. What was the average? Were the people with high racial levels like long-lived demigods to the shopkeepers and labor class of the world?

She shook her head, forcing her mind back to reality, and said, “Thank you so much, Nalla. I promise I’ll bring my cohort here soon for a big lunch!”

“You’re welcome, sweetie. Tell Barnt I’m making a nice meaty stew, would you? He’ll probably buy the whole pot, and that’s enough to pay the bills for a couple of days!” She laughed and waved as Olivia opened the door.

“I will! See you soon!” Olivia said over her shoulder as she hurried back toward the square and then turned down the main avenue toward the gate. The crowds were a little denser as the morning began to turn the corner toward noon, and she had to wend her way around slower moving groups and a couple of wagons, but soon she saw her target. Barnt was visible, leaning against the inside of the gate tunnel from a hundred yards away, and as she got closer, Olivia began to remember why the big man had imprinted on her memory.

Barnt was close to seven feet tall, and his girth had to put him at more than four hundred pounds. More than that, he wore an enormous, heavy-looking chainmail vest, a round pot helm, and boots that looked like they could squash a child into paste. Barnt’s thick, sleekly-furred arms stood out from his vest, and his hands, decked in fingerless leather gloves, were hooked in his enormous belt by their thumbs. A toothpick large enough that Olivia could imagine using it as a chopstick hung from his black lips, and his whiskers quivered as he smiled at her approach.

“Hello, Miss. Heading out?”

“No, Barnt! I’m here to see you, if you wouldn’t mind the interruption,” Olivia replied as she stopped just inside the gate tunnel, a few feet from the big man.

“Oh? Did I do something wrong? No! Don’t tell me; someone came in that shouldn’t have! I knew I shouldn’t have given my shift to Venda yesterday! My stomach was bothering me, though, you see . . .”

“No, no! Barnt, it’s nothing like that! I’m here to ask you a favor!” Olivia said, interrupting the poor man before he could confess any other imagined sins. “Well, more like I mean to hire you. I’m looking to get some tattoos done.”

“Oh, Great Sharks!” Barnt rubbed his forehead like a human might to remove sweat, though Olivia couldn’t see any moisture through his sleek, dark-brown fur. “I don’t know why I feel so guilty all the time! It’s like I don’t belong here as a guard captain, like I should still be serving in the legion, taking orders about what and when to eat, where to march, and how deep to dig the latrines.”

“Relax, Barnt. It’s called imposter syndrome, and many, many successful people feel that way. I felt that way for much of my career back home. I still feel that way sometimes!”

“Is that right? Really?” Barnt looked down at her, his slightly protruding snout twitching while his lips pulled back in a half smile. “Even someone like you?”

“What do you mean like me? I’m just a person, Captain.” Olivia was sure to use his title now that she knew he was a guard captain and was self-conscious.

“Well, I mean someone so successful, with magical artifacts, and, erm, well, so lovely and advanced . . .” he trailed off, looking down, and Olivia knew that if she could see his skin under that fur, it would be furiously flushed with embarrassment.

“Oh, hush, Captain! I’m just a student here that’s had some good luck in her life. I promise you: I feel inadequate most of the time. Now, how about we forget about our insecurities for a little while and talk business? I need six rather complicated tattoos. I heard from Nalla that you’re very good with your needles. Do you think you’d have time to help me today?”

“Oh?” His lips twitched up into a broad smile revealing his pointy, white teeth. “Nalla said that? Have you seen her tattoos? I wish I could make colors like those.”

“She did say that! Yes, I’ve seen them, and I don’t need anything quite so bright, and you don’t have to come up with the pattern; I’ve already done that. Oh, and before I forget, Nalla was hoping you’d come by to try her new stew. She said it’s very meaty.”

Barnt clapped his hands together, rubbing the leather half gloves in anticipation, and said, “That’s wonderful! I only have to work until noon, Miss, so I’ll stop by Nalla’s after that. I work the dawn shift because most of my guards like to stay up late and sleep away the morning. They’d never make it in the legion, let me tell you!”

“My name’s Olivia, Captain. Please feel free to call me that. Do you think you'll have time to do my tattoos today?”

“Oh, yes, yes. I can surely get started. I’ll need to see the patterns to figure out how long it will take. Erm, Olivia.”

“I have them here, Captain,” Olivia said, pulling her notebook out of her ring and flipping to the tattoo sketches she’d made in the library. “This page and the ones after it. They’re shaped like rings because they need to be drawn around parts of my body.”

“Oh, these are lovely. You’re a good artist, Olivia. I can’t read this language, but they look like fancy letters and, um, what’s the word . . . gleffs?”

“Glyphs, and that’s right, Captain Barnt. These are System runes meant to interact with a spell I’ve designed, so the tattoo has to match the pattern exactly. Do you think you can do that?”

“Easy as eating a pastry, Miss Olivia. I’ve done more complicated things. I’d show you some of my own work, but I’ve let my hair grow in over them.”

“You have tattoos?” Olivia wasn’t sure why she was surprised—he was an artist, after all. She supposed it seemed strange to her because they wouldn’t show under his fully furred body.

“Aye. I got started with them in the legion. My unit kept track of our deployments with tattoos. I’ve got seventeen of those, and then some of us started making art to symbolize some of our best battles. I’ve thirty-nine of those. Most of them are on my arms, but my mates helped me to put a few real beauties on my back. Here, I’ve got one I can show you!” Barnt started to peel off the glove on his left hand, and when he finished, he held out his dinner-plate-sized palm so that Olivia could see the tattoo on the smooth, furless skin.

The tattoo was simply stunning in its detail and depth. It pictured a pile of skulls on a field littered with broken spears, and, in the distance, a crooked stone tower stood before a mist-covered moon. The moon seemed luminescent, and the skulls were not old and white but had scraps of decaying flesh upon their blood-stained, real-looking bone surfaces.

“The battle of Rook Tower. Nine thousand legionnaires died on that field, and my unit was sent in to root out the insurrectionists in the tower itself—mostly Shadeni led by a Golemancer. We had to fight some abominations made of flesh and bone, and they didn’t want to die, let me tell you!” He chuckled, causing his prodigious belling to bounce up and down under his heavy chain vest as he pulled his hand back.

“That’s . . . amazing work, Captain. I think I forget there’s a whole empire of people nearby, living in cities and fighting wars. I’m from deep in the frontier.”

“Aye, easy to forget about civilization in a world this big, Miss.”

“Is a Golemancer what I think it is? An Energy user that creates golems—cognizant or sentient constructs?”

“That’s right, and this one had some rather horrible ideas about what a golem should look like and what kinds of body parts he should attach to them. I won’t say more than that, Miss Olivia.”

“Barnt! How’s the day so far?” a new voice asked. Olivia turned to see a short Ardeni woman wearing similar clothing, albeit much smaller, to Barnt’s. She had short, buzzed, pink hair, and her eyes gleamed out from under her heavy brow with the same color.

“Tash! Is it time already?” Barnt asked over Olivia’s head.

“Aye, you’re done for the day, Captain. Go get yourself some food! I bet you’re hungry. Hello, Miss, I’m Tash.” The woman said as she stepped closer to Olivia and Barnt.

“Hello. Olivia. So, Captain, does that mean you might be able to get started on my request?”

“Aye, Miss Olivia. Let’s get some food in our bellies first, as Tash suggested. I think your job might take me a few hours, and I won’t last that long unless I get some sustenance.” He rubbed his belly, making his chain vest jingle and clink. Olivia smiled, the first genuine amusement she’d felt since the horror she’d faced so early that same morning, and she nodded.

“All right, Barnt. I can’t deny a man his sustenance.” She waved to Tash as Barnt started to lumber up the street to the square. As she followed him, noting his rolling gait and the surprisingly agile way he stepped around much smaller people, she tried to imagine the horrors he’d faced fighting in distant wars. She tried to imagine the loss of Alyss multiplied by tens or hundreds of dead companions, and she wondered at his ability to carry on with his life.