Aelfric seemed reluctant to speak as they walked along the path that led through the forest south of the farm, which was a little disappointing, since he was going away.
Demi did her best to keep up a cheerful stream of chatter as they walked. Her feelings were complicated. She was sad he was going away. She wanted him to stay, but understood that he had other obligations. She would miss him. He had quickly become a stable constant in her new life, a roommate and regular bedmate.
(Just thinking those words still made her want to giggle and squeal and roll around on the ground in a pile of pillows, but due to years of lessons, she masterfully kept control of herself.)
(Probably.)
She hoped he would come visit her again.
Aelfric wasn’t friendly, not really, but he was kind. He was generous, honest, and reserved. Demi felt that she had begun to understand him based on their time together, at least a little bit. He suited her. He was quiet, sometimes sardonic, often acerbic, but he was also conscientious, thoughtful, dependable, and above all, he was competent. But he was not flawless, not hard like stone, not unapproachable. He had a wonderful sense of humor when she teased it out of him, and he obviously had fantastic taste in books.
She enjoyed being with him. They had lively conversations, and he was a very good teacher.
He was not Grey Thornwood, not the thrilling and dark poetic hero of her new favorite light novel series, the young man who had set out to carve his name into legend.
But that was all right.
He was less than that, and he was more. He was himself, and she liked him better for it. He felt whole and real.
There could be no replacing him, honestly.
But Demi felt that it wasn’t right to see him on his way with a sad face. He had done so much for her already. She wanted him to see her smiling as she waved goodbye. She hoped very much that he would come again, and until then, she wanted his memory of her to be of her standing at the road, just as a small hidden path turned into the woods, smiling and waving, her skirt and apron blowing in the breeze.
That would be a picture, and maybe someday, at some time, that picture in his mind might bring him back down the same road again.
(If it didn’t, then she could always chase him down. She was a girl who was willing to do that.)
These were the thoughts that preoccupied Demi as they walked through the woods together, side by side.
Aelfric was also preoccupied, but presumably for entirely different reasons.
As the woods began to thin and the high road was just glimpsed through the trees, he threw his arm out, barring her way.
“This is far enough,” he said shortly. “Go back to the farm. I can find my way from here.”
This was it. This was the farthest south that she had ever come. They were just inside the veil of protection.
Demi shook her head.
“The least I can do is see you to the road,” she protested. The truth was, she would be happy even with just a few more minutes of his company. She wanted to stand in the thin woodland and watch his back grow smaller and smaller until he finally disappeared from view.
And she wanted to be a part of that picture, the picture that he would see if he looked back over his shoulder as he walked away.
He might not look back.
He might not.
But he might.
He might, and if he did, she wanted to be there, a part of that moment.
Just doing that, being there, it felt like making a promise.
She had resolved to take new steps today, hadn’t she? The situation had changed, and she wasn’t where she had expected to be, but doing things this way was all right too, wasn’t it?
She was curious about things. She had never actually seen the high road, but she wanted to.
That road made the dryads uneasy. They had turned her back before she had even really caught sight of it. She could understand that. The blightwood was on the other side of that road: the blightwood that was likely involved in Tata’s prolonged illness, the blightwood that had sown sadgrass all over the meadow and had done its best to poison the trees and to choke out all of the local wildlife.
Demi had yet to even see the blightwood, although she had heard much about it in the time since her arrival. It always seemed to be lurking along the hazy edges of discussions, just out of range of polite conversation, but an inescapable presence nonetheless. There was a part of her that said “you won’t really understand that place until you see it,” no matter how much she was being gently dissuaded from such a course of action.
But Aelfric was adamant.
“I don’t need you to walk me to the road,” he said definitively, his eyes narrowing.
“Well, I’m going to go regardless,” Demi answered cheerfully.
Aelfric made a low sound in the back of his throat. He was obviously unhappy.
“You shouldn’t” was what he said in reply.
“And yet I’m going to,” she responded with a smile. “After all, the door to the cage is open.”
His hand tightened on the strap of his bag.
“There is more than one kind of cage,” he said almost under his breath, as if the words were forced out of him.
She tilted her head curiously, but he shook it off, turning away.
“You’re going to follow me no matter what I say, aren’t you?” he asked flatly, sounding very tired.
“I sure am!” Demi agreed with a playful “Ehee hee~”
He made another nonverbal noise and looked off through the woodlands.
“Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” he said quietly. “Hopefully I’m just being paranoid,” he murmured, apparently to himself. Then he turned back and brandished a warning finger at her.
“All right,” he said. “But stay behind me, and if I tell you to run, then you run,” he ordered, and those words were so heavy it felt as if he were pushing her against a wall.
“Ahhh okay, okay I’ll definitely do as you say,” Demi hastily agreed, drawing her hands up in front of herself in surrender. He felt as if he was more than she could take when he got like that.
“Very well,” Aelfric said very softly, his eyes flicking back to the high road that was just visible through the trees ahead. “Then let’s go.”