They stayed talking through the night, the hare joining in after a prolonged bit of pouting. Crawburn had led a fascinating life: born in the mundane world, he’d followed his lady-love to the Sidhe only to be cruelly rebuffed for his effort.
“Did she turn you into a bear?” Emily reached for an apple. Her initial discomfort with Crawburn had faded, for all his fearsome bulk he was proving to be a gentle person.
“Oh no, she turned me into a man.” His soft, deep chuckle still held some of the old sadness. “I’d seen in her a beautiful bruin and lifemate, but in the end she was only an elf playing at dress-up and slumming in the mundane. She told me that my kind of devotion was better suited to a soft-handed human and so she changed me.”
“But you’re not a mundane human man now.” Dry-Eyes pointed out, smiling at the obvious. “Or at least not for most of the month.”
“Oh thank Pan, no. I eventually found how to undo most of her mischief. That’s how I met our mutual furry friend, here.”
“If he’d told me at the start he was originally a mundane bear,” the hare sniffed, “I’d have given him to the merfolk to drown like an unwanted litter. But by the time I found out, I’d grown fond of the dumb beast.”
“And I was half of the month capable of eating you in one bite.” Crawburn laughed.
Emily shook her head at their by-play. “Can you return to always being a bear?”
“Probably not, child, but I don’t think I’d like to. I’ve found a balance between the two worlds that suits me. And without my time as a man I couldn’t have built this home, which I love.”
Crawburn’s ability to find a place and identity in the Sidhe stayed in Emily’s mind as the four of them talked through the night. He was very much a mixture of worlds—man and bear, mundane morals interlaced with the Folk’s carelessness. Emily hoped the court’s children could find such a balance.
They shared stories. Emily even found a couple anecdotes from her life to tell, though she learned that while the Folk knew about cars, bicycles baffled them, which limited her selection of humorous journey stories.
When the morning sun lit up the windows, they readied themselves for the walk to the next jump.
“We will have to spend one night in the open woods, but we’ll reach the jump that next morning.” Crawburn showed Emily where the extra blankets were and she added them to his satchel, along with more provisions. Unlike the other three, the bear didn’t have a choice about eating.
Outside, Crawburn directed Emily to a small shed. “If you could get the saddle in there and help me into it, dear?” Emily hauled the contraption out, trying not to tangle the straps. Dry-Eyes waved her hands, raising it up so the bear could shimmy into the harness. Emily fastened the buckles. For the first time she was close enough to smell his shaggy, warm fur. The saddle looked like something an elephant would wear. It was overbuilt, with a back to the seat and ample space for gear to be hooked and strapped on.
“So we’re to ride you?”
“Of course. We’ll make better time.”
The hare hopped up to Emily and sat back, raising his forepaws. “I go in the basket.”
Hiding her smile, Emily put the rabbit in the open basket secured at the front of the saddle. She hooked Crawburn’s satchel onto the back, then clambered up herself, buckling in. She looked for Dry-Eyes, who was hovering off to the side, amused.
“You can keep up okay?”
“Of course.”
With little ceremony or warning, Crawburn broke into a gallop. Emily became instantly grateful to whoever designed the saddle. Well-padded and shaped like a hot rod’s bucket seat, it kept Emily from bouncing right out and saved her tailbone from a solid bruising.
The hare looked exhilarated, gripping the front of the basket and pushing his face into the wind, ear streaming back. Emily caught glances of Dry-Eyes keeping pace easily, weaving in and out of branches in a happy slalom.
Crawburn alternated bursts of running with a ground-eating lope. They stopped twice for meals so the bear could devour dried fish and fresh apples while Emily and the hare stretched their legs. None of them talked much: winded from running or breathless from the ride, they travelled in companionable silence.
Crawburn kept going until the shadowed forest’s early twilight made dodging trees impossible. When he finally drew to a halt, Emily climbed down stiffly, carrying the hare under her arm. Dry-Eyes helped her remove Crawburn’s saddle and the bear stretched, his claws digging deep furrows into the soft dirt. Emily laid out the blankets, folding one up for Crawburn to use as a pillow.
“I need sleep.” He padded in a circle before settling down. “This part of the forest is pretty safe, but don’t wander off too far or get eaten.” Quickly, his breathing settled into snores. Emily and the hare joined Dry-Eyes at the base of a tree nearby, talking low so as not to disturb the bear’s slumber.
Emily sat, stretching out her legs and wiggling her feet. “That is an interesting way to travel.”
“It’s a lot different than riding a horse, that’s for sure.” The hare groomed himself free of road dust. “There’s more bouncing.”
“You’ve ridden a horse?” Emily looked sceptically at the hare, who was little more than a lighter shadow in the dark.
“Of course. Haven’t you?”
“Do you have a light?” Dry-Eyes interrupted.
“Um.” Emily felt stupid. “Other than my lighter, no. I didn’t pack a flashlight. Shit, I can’t believe we forgot that.”
“Fifty-fifty chance it’d work here anyway,” the hare reassured her.
“Dry-Eyes, can you make a light?” Emily was hopeful, the idea of spending a sleepless night in a pitch dark, strange forest.
“That I cannot do.” The sprite flew down and settled on Emily’s knee, apologised and moved to a rock. “Lights and fire only attract trouble at night, but I agree it would be nice to see.” Emily heard a tiny shuffle as Dry-Eyes kicked at the dirt.
Emily smiled. “I would suggest word games to pass the time, but you’ve already proved totally capable of kicking my ass at them.”
“True.” Dry-Eyes chuckled.
When the silence and the dark became too much, they traded stories. Emily had used up most of her good material the night before, but both the hare and Dry-Eyes had plenty, though most of Dry-Eyes’ stories boiled down to other people’s gossip. The hare’s stories were all about himself.
“When I was a child—” the hare was interrupted by Emily’s giggles. “What?”
“I just like thinking of you as a baby bunny.” Emily could sense the hare bristling.
“I am a hare, which is a different genus than a ‘bunny’ or rabbit. I did not spend my childhood as another kind of animal.”
“Of course. Sorry.”
“As I was saying. When I was but a leveret, I aided my family by pounding herbs for potions and medicines. I found the process very interesting and when I was older they began to let me mix the potions, following age-old recipes. It turned out I was quite adept at that and I was soon in line to be a head potion master. This upset many of my older cousins, who’d been at the process longer and thought they deserved more notice. They watched all that I did, waiting for a misstep, which I gave them quickly enough.’
“I’d noticed, in my reading, that there were possibly better ways to mix ingredients for some potions and combinations that hadn’t yet been explored. Being curious, I spent my free time experimenting. My cousins reported me as being wasteful of resources and time. When I tried to defend myself, explaining my theories to improve our processes, the head potion master kicked me off the moon. Eventually, I found my way to the Institute, where experimentation is encouraged. It’s been lovely ever since.”
Emily had only been half-listening and it took her a moment to hear more than the moral of the story. “Wait, the moon?”
“Yes, of course.”
She opened and closed her mouth, wordlessly. When she got back home she needed to do some actual research into fairy tales from around the world.
“Was that where you learned to ride a horse, on the moon?” Dry-Eye’s smirk was audible.
The hare sniffed. “No, don’t be stupid. Really, the lack of general education both of you display is truly upsetting.”
Emily cut in, not wanting an argument or lecture. “Dry-Eyes, do you have an interesting, um, origin story?”
“An origin story?”
“Yeah, how you got to what you do now.”
“I was born in the village you met me in. I’ve lived there since. Sometimes I leave it on foolish expeditions like this one. That’s it.”
“Oh.” Emily felt stupid.
Dry-Eyes tried to sound reassuring. “Not everyone has adventures or considers what they do as adventuresome. You’re just young, so everything is still exciting. Give it time.”
They made it through the rest of the night in spurts of soft chatter and silence. The dawn snuck up on them and Emily realised with a start that she could see the dim morning shapes of the forest and her companions. She looked for the sleeping bulk of Crawburn but couldn’t find him.
“We didn’t walk that far off, did we?” She stood and stretched, looking at the others. The hare wrinkled his nose and trotted to the small clearing the bear had laid down in. Emily and Dry-Eyes followed.
The blankets Crawburn had slept on were still there, as was the saddle. There was also a great deal of blood soaking through everything, but not a trace of the bear himself. The stains were only the dullest red in the first rays of light breaking through the trees.
Emily brought her hand up to her mouth. Part of her was very glad she hadn’t left her backpack with the saddle. The other part of her was disgusted that she would even think that.
“What?” She couldn’t say more.
“Who is a better question.” Dry-Eyes circled the bloody space. “And where. Crawburn is a big body to drag off without anybody noticing.”
“Thank goodness he told me where the next jump is.” The hare lifted a strap of the saddle and let it fall.
Dry-Eyes peered up at the lightening sky. “We should get going soon.”
“Hold on.” Emily shook her head. “Shouldn’t we do something?”
“What?” Dry-Eyes left the mess and looked at Emily. “We know where we’re going next, so we don’t need Crawburn. Besides, anything that could spill this much of his blood would have an easy time taking ours. And he’s a bear. If he is in a situation, then he can handle it.”
“Don’t we owe him an attempt to help? Or to let someone know?” Emily’s fists clenched uselessly; she couldn’t take her eyes away from the ruined blankets.
The hare hopped to Emily’s feet. “Not technically, no. We owe him nothing.” He sat back on his haunches. “We should go.” He lifted his arms.
Emily looked down at him, nostrils flaring. “I think you can walk for a while.”
The hare’s ears went back and he shifted down to all four feet. Chittering wordlessly, he started in the direction of the next jump. Emily hung back, watching the others. She gave the blankets and saddle a last look, thinking about the kind, mundane bear. With an exhale that was not quite a sigh, she shook her head and moved to catch up.
This post is part of The Audacity Gambit – Serialised. Learn more about when the book was first published here, see the archive and overall content warnings here, and find more of my writing here. I’m over on both Comradery and Patreon, if you feel like supporting my creative endeavours. If you’d like to subscribe to this story, here’s a handy email box for you: