My friend commented on the fact that in The Tactician and the Heiress, it’s quite plain to see why Ceniro loves Lyn… but not so clear to see why Lyn would love Ceniro. So I decided to write some short bits from her point of view, each dealing with a different aspect or challenge of their growing, changing relationship.

It’s quite understandable why it might be difficult to see why Lyn would love Ceniro. At the time that I wrote it, I wasn’t sure why Lyn would love Ceniro either. And I was holding out for Lyn/Hector to be endgame. But… then it didn’t end up that way, because Lyn is stubborn.

There will not be 1000 chapters in this story. : P

 

Talk to Me

For six months, I’d been alone. For six months, it had just been me, my horse, and my little ger, until I began to run out of food and sold my horse, meaning I could no longer wander aimlessly as I used to.

Soon, the food would run out again, and then I would have to find some way to stay alive, to hunt or starve. Or perhaps I could sell the services of my sword, but I had little experience actually fighting and none at all as a mercenary.

Staying alive meant finding some way to deal with the crippling loneliness. With Florina so far away…

And then there were the bandits. I hadn’t seen many yet, and those only lone cowards easy to drive away, once they realized I was not just a woman but a woman who could fight, but I had only been lucky. Sooner or later, they’d descend upon me in numbers too great to fight off. But until then, I’d oppose them with every drop of blood in my body.

I looked up from my meagre stores sharply as I heard distant shouting. I snatched up my sword and tore out of my ger, running towards the distant knot of three figures.

I didn’t even have to yell anything. There were only two bandits, and when they saw me, they panicked and fled, shouting. My reputation must have reached them. But their victim had already been struck down.

They were already too far away for me to quickly catch up to them. Was their victim dead? I knelt beside him. “Oh dear.” He was alive, but completely unconscious, his face pale. They’d struck him on the back of the head. Despite that, he would recover. I sheathed my sword and carefully, labouriously, pulled him onto my shoulders to bring him back to the ger, not forgetting the sturdy staff that fell from his limp hand.

He weighed far less than he should have. This man was half-starved. And Lycian, in appearance and clothing. What brought him to the wilds of Sacae? Was he a criminal himself? But he didn’t exactly look like it… He was very young, probably about the same age as me.

His stomach rumbled as I was carrying him and I couldn’t hold back a giggle. Well, that I could help out with, at least briefly.

I laid him down on my bed, leaned the staff against the wall of the ger, and began cooking.

 

I heard him shift a short while later, and turned away from the fire to lean over him. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

He groaned and made a valiant effort to sit up, making it to his elbows before opening his eyes. I was a little startled to see they were large grey eyes, almost hidden under the mop of light brown hair on top of his head. Even though he was so underfed, his face was rather round in shape, very different from the men I’d known growing up. In fact, he looked like a boy, when his eyes were open. He definitely wasn’t much older than me. Maybe even younger than me.

His gaze fell on me, and his mouth fell open. He blushed profusely and looked at the floor instead of me.

Well, wasn’t that flattering. I had to giggle again. “Well, it’s good you’re awake, traveler. I’m glad I showed up in time to chase away those ruffians. Are you hungry?” I began to dish out the stew, already certain of his answer.

His stomach rumbled again and he blushed for answer.

Would he ever say anything? “My name’s Lyn. What’s your name?”

“C-ceniro,” he stammered, in a voice rather on the high end of the male vocal spectrum. It went with the boyish face. And so soft-spoken, but he didn’t mumble. “I-I’m from Lycia…”

Ceniro. What an odd name. But I’d heard odder. I nodded, my guess confirmed. “Lycia, hmm? What brings you to Sacae?”

He paused to swallow his food, trying not to wolf it down in too unseemly a fashion. “I was… I’m a wanderer, I want to see the world. I-I’m also a tactician by trade…”

No wonder he was starved. And probably not a criminal. “Can’t be much call for that in Sacae, unfortunately… My mother was from Lycia,” I said, and faltered. Mother…

Distant shouting again. “Wait. I think I hear bandits. It must be those two again. Stay here while I check it out.” I put my gloves on again and grabbed my katana.

“W-wait,” he said a little more strongly, putting the empty bowl aside, struggling out of bed and making it to his own two feet. “I’ll… I’ll help.” But then he hesitated, his eyes tightening as if he was afraid I would yell at him. Why was he so afraid of me?

“Are you sure?” I asked, remembering something more important. “You had a nasty knock on the head.”

He nodded, meeting my eyes for a brief moment and then dropping his gaze back to the floor again. “Even if you don’t need tactical advice, I can at least distract one of them and make it a fair fight.”

Wow, a complete sentence! “Only if you’re sure,” I told him. “I wouldn’t want you to get killed after you escaped them once already!”

“I’ll be all right,” he said, ducking his head, and reached for his staff… and almost stumbled into the felt wall of the ger.

This boy shouldn’t even be up yet, let alone trying to fight. A sick colt, was what he reminded me of, and his movements were not those of a fighter. But he wanted to help, so I would let him. If our positions were reversed, that would be what I wanted too.

Outside, he brightened up a little. He still looked worried and scared, but he didn’t look quite so much like he would fall over. The bandits were getting pretty close, talking loudly – I tried to tune out what they said. The things these kinds of men said… it would only break my concentration, even if it hardened my resolve.

“Any advice, my tactician friend?” I asked breezily, hoping to boost his confidence. “They ran when they saw me coming last time, but I don’t expect that to work twice.”

Those grey eyes narrowed slightly, and suddenly that round, worried, innocent face was intent and calculating. I almost took a step back. He had no idea how to wield a weapon… but he knew what he was doing here. “I’ll distract the one on the left; you take the one on the right. There’s not much terrain to work with here, so it’s pretty straightforward.” His voice was stronger, too; he didn’t speak loudly, but suddenly he sounded sure of himself.

All right. So he was definitely not lying about being a tactician. I could probably trust his commands, then. “Got it,” I said, smiling at him, and ran forward to do as he suggested.

 

When both bandits were dead by my sword, we regrouped. Ceniro was pale and shaking a little, and was sick on the ground.

I wasn’t completely stable myself. Although I had sworn to kill every bandit, brigand, and raider who crossed my path, I had never actually taken a human life before. But I had known for a long time that sometimes staying alive meant to kill or be killed, and I had seen my father fight off bandits before. I had been mentally prepared to kill for a long time, clearly unlike him.

Even if he didn’t use a weapon, wouldn’t he have seen battle? His coolness at the beginning of the fight suggested he had more experience than he looked… Was he so sheltered in Lycia that he had never seen a dead body before?

Ceniro didn’t seem to notice my internal struggles with having killed, but he shut up almost completely even though he accepted my invitation to stay for dinner and to sleep in the ger for the night. His reticence was too bad, on the one hand. I had seen a flash of someone else back there, someone who wasn’t just a ball of blushing stammers, and I wasn’t willing to write him off as a silly Lycian boy yet.

But on the other hand, I had some serious thinking of my own to do. Those two bandits were the first ones I’d had proper combat with in six months. For six months I had been grieving, surviving, wandering. Nothing else had actually happened. My revenge would never come if I remained as I was now, a fragile little girl whose only real asset was an unhoned swordfighting skill. My father had trained me well, against my mother’s wishes, and I had enjoyed it with a passion, but that wouldn’t be enough to destroy the Taliver.

Did I really need to do it wandering around with a stranger? A Lycian male stranger, no less. What if he was a completely different person behind that shy face? What if, when he knew me better, he tried to assault me? If I grew to trust him, I might not be able to defend myself in time, even if he didn’t know how to fight.

Thoughts of Florina came into my head. Florina was terrified of men no matter their nationality, frightened almost to an irrational degree by her own timid nature and the things her older sisters had told her about them.

I could hardly sleep, the mental struggle engrossed me so. It was ridiculous. Go with a stranger, or stagnate, those were my options – or to look at it more positively, to take a chance on fulfilling my goals, or to stay relatively safe. The negative look was more realistic and easier to consider.

By the morning, I had decided. Ceniro was the best chance I had of getting stronger. He wandered, all over the world, I managed to get out of him. He would run into trouble eventually. I could protect him from that trouble, and he would help me train myself on it. And if he turned out to be not what he seemed… I would leave him and make my own way wherever I ended up.

But if he did turn out to be what he seemed… maybe I’d have a friend.

Now if only he could put two words together without fading off into obscurity… I didn’t even care if he made eye contact like a normal person. I just wanted to have a proper conversation with someone.

I’d made some progress by the time we reached Bulgar, and the stammering had disappeared, although everything he said was still very quiet and shy, words spoken slowly as if each one had to be picked like blackberries out of a bramble. In contrast, I must have seemed a chatterbox. I was far too excited about having conversations with someone, filling up space between us with comments on the plains, asking where else he had been in Sacae, telling him some of the stories told to me over summer campfires when I was young… He listened politely to everything, and to my relief, never made the slightest hint of a racist comment.

By the time we reached Bulgar, I felt quite friendly towards him.

And then we met Kent and Sain and they turned my life upside down, gave me a new direction to journey in. Ceniro agreed to come along. I was glad; I would have been a little disappointed if he left so soon. I did worry that with Sain around, Ceniro would stop talking altogether – Sain was nothing if not the centre of as much attention as possible, and Ceniro was the opposite.

I needn’t have worried as much as I did. He was quieter than before, still shy, yes, but by the time we made it into North Bern he had recovered enough that if he had something to say, he said it, even joining in the banter with a little smile. He was getting used to being around people, I thought, and too many people at once made him feel insecure.

And if we had to fight for our lives, there was that focused gaze again, those quick, clear commands. He definitely wasn’t quiet because he was stupid. And he wasn’t sick afterwards anymore. And my hand didn’t shake anymore. We were both getting stronger already.

We found Florina in the middle of nowhere and she joined us, to my surprise and delight, and a young man named Wil. After we’d fought off the bandits trying to kidnap her, I had so much to talk about with her. “Florina, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you! I’ve missed you so much, you know.”

“I missed you, too, Lyn! And when I heard about your family, I…” Florina sniffed, reaching up to wipe her eyes.

I patted her knee; she was riding her pegasus alongside me. “You must have been so worried. I’m sorry for not contacting you directly, but to be honest, I didn’t think of it for at least a month afterwards. I was just wandering aimlessly, trying to recover. After that, well, I wasn’t sure how to get in touch with you. I wanted to talk with you so much.”

Florina sniffled some more. “I’m so glad you survived. And now you’re going to see your grandfather! So you won’t be alone anymore.”

“And you’re coming with me, so I’m definitely not going to be alone,” I said, smiling. “So tell me about your knighting!”

“There’s not much to tell,” Florina said, blushing. “Mom and Dad were there… My captain gave me my spear, and all the other girls in my training unit got theirs… And then we went home and ate Mom’s cake.”

I giggled. “Sounds good. Were your sisters there, or were they off on missions?”

“They were… Farina sent me some money, and told me to buy some good gear with it, so I got a new saddle for Huey. Fiora sent me a really long letter full of congratulations and advice, and also this circlet.” She touched the beaded silver chain pinned into her hair.

“That’s really nice, Florina! And now you’ll train with us and get stronger, and be just as strong as both your sisters. You know, that’s why I started on this journey when I met Ceniro, because I wanted to get stronger and I thought he might help me. It’s been working out so far.”

“Mm.” Florina nodded. “I know you explained how you were journeying with them, but I still don’t really understand… Are you sure you can trust them?”

“I think so,” I said. “Of the three of them… Kent is absolutely trustworthy. I can’t imagine him putting on an act at all. He takes being a knight very seriously, and he’s always very proper.”

“He does seem trustworthy. But Sain is so different!”

“Not too different except in volume, I think,” I said, smiling. “He’s loud and goofy and extravagant, but when he’s serious he’s every bit as knightly as Kent. But it takes a lot to get him to be serious.”

“He’s so weird…” Florina mumbled, and I laughed.

“Then, Ceniro I met first, and he seems like a good person. Kind of like you, in fact.”

“Ehh!? No, that can’t be.”

“He’s really quiet, and he seems shy of me. Just like you’re quiet, and you’re shy of him! The only time he talks normally is when he’s giving us orders in battle, did you notice that?”

“Um… not really. But I’ll watch for it now.”

“He’s been getting better over the last week or so. But still… I think he could be really interesting if he was only more confident.”

“Do you think people think that of me?” Florina said anxiously. “I know I lack confidence…”

“I know you’re interesting,” I said, smiling at her. “Confidence will come. And these people are all so friendly, you’ll start being more friendly with them, even though they’re men, and it will give you practice so you can be more confident around even people you don’t know! And don’t forget, you don’t have to talk a lot like I do. I know you only like talking to one person at a time and not in a big group.”

“Y-yes, that’s true. S-so if Wil tries to talk to me again…”

“You know I’m always nearby. And it’s true I don’t know anything about Wil, but he agreed to come along with us, so he trusts us. So don’t force yourself to talk to him, but sure, maybe give him a chance too?”

Florina nodded hesitantly. “I will try. Like you say, it’s good practice, especially since he’s an archer. He said I shouldn’t be afraid of our own archers. …But sometimes when I’m high up, it’s hard to tell them apart…”

“I know. But Ceniro will help with that.”

Florina nodded again. “Oh, I’m just so happy to be traveling with you, Lyn! This is really exciting!”

“It’s very exciting! Ah, Sain and Wil are coming back. Let’s see what they found.”

 

It was another day before I got the chance to speak with Ceniro again – it was one thing after another before that: bandits, Natalie and Dorcas, more bandits, Erk and Serra…

But it was dinnertime, and we’d made it to an actual inn to spend the night, having finally made it into Lycia, even if we hadn’t yet reached Araphen, where Kent hoped to get an escort the rest of the way to Caelin. Ceniro ate quickly and stayed in the corner of the room, looking small but not uncomfortable, just content to watch the others. Sain and Serra were making loud conversation, Kent was speaking quietly to Erk, and Wil and Florina and Dorcas were watching Sain and Serra with awe and amusement.

I moved over to sit by the tactician. “Tired?”

He jumped. “A little, I guess. You?”

“Well, I’m happy we don’t have to set a watch tonight. I feel like I’ve been worrying in my sleep since – for months. So this is Lycia?”

“Mmhmm.”

“The food is pretty good. Different from home.”

“Yeah.”

Say something, I thought at him. I don’t want you to feel left out. I know you can make conversation. “Is it nice to be back in Lycia?”

“Mm. Yes, I suppose it is. I haven’t been back in a while.” He paused, but it sounded like he was going to say something else, so I waited. “I was born in Araphen, actually. But I don’t remember any of it.”

“Moved away young?”

“Yes. My family lives in Santaruz now.”

“Where’s that?”

His gaze was wandering across the inside of the inn, flicking back to Sain and Serra every once in a while, but I could tell he wasn’t ignoring me. “It’s just north-west of Pherae and south of Caelin.”

“So I could visit you while I’m living with my grandfather?” I teased.

He blushed. “I-I guess. Except I probably won’t be there. I can’t sit still at home when there’s so much of the world to see.”

“It’s not a bother that we’re going back to places you’ve already seen, I hope?”

“No, not a bother. Lycia is very beautiful as well. And I, um, I don’t mind showing it to you. I know you love Sacae very much, but Lycia isn’t bad so far, too, right?” He was looking at his hands clasped in front of him now, the blush still on his cheeks. “I mean, I know we’ve only been in the border for a few hours…”

“No, it’s nice so far,” I said. “My mother spoke of it sometimes, and I will admit I was always a little curious. You know, I haven’t seen a proper castle yet.”

“Castle Caelin is a proper castle,” he said, with that little smile. “I hope you like it when we get there.”

“Me too.” I smiled at him, and got up and went over to help Kent negotiate with the innkeeper for beds.