Chapter 45. Moving a Stone Out of Someone’s Way Without Knowing It Mattered

Chapter 45: 45. Moving a Stone Out of Someone’s Way Without Knowing It Mattered

The stallholder, who had seen a lot of festival arguments in his life, quietly took the rabbit off the shelf and handed it to Laura with a small bow.

She stared at it. She looked at the crooked smile, the uneven eyes, and the soft white ears.

I watched all the blood in her body rush to her face at once. And I don’t know why, but Laura looks peaceful right now.

"This is... ridiculous," she said. "I’m an adult."

"It’s yours now," said Alicia, who had clearly decided to enjoy this. "You earned it, girl."

"I can’t carry this around! I’m a knight!"

"You can carry a rabbit, though."

"It’s still undignified."

"All that matters is... that it’s adorable," Alicia said. "And so are you, when you hold it like that."

Laura looked at her, then at the rabbit, and then at the crowd of passersby pretending not to watch. She seemed to be searching for a way to get out of this with her honor intact.

Then, with the grim determination of a person defusing a trap, she shoved the rabbit into my hands.

"You keep it then, Roland."

"What? Why me?" Then I realized something... this feels like a reversed role. "Isn’t that man the one that should’ve given this kind of thing to his woman?

"It’s fine in your hands, so it doesn’t get lost."

"But you still won it."

"And you’re the judge... Judges take custody of the evidence."

I held the stuffed rabbit against my chest because I didn’t know what else to do.

It smelled faintly of cedar and festival dust, and its crooked eyes seemed to be looking at me with the quiet understanding of a creature who’d already figured out where this was going.

"Fine," I said. "He’ll sleep on my desk."

"It’s a she," said Alicia.

"How am I supposed to know about that?!"

"She has a little bow on her ear, look." She pointed at it.

I looked down. And wow... I just misgendered a stuffed doll.

I can see that it was a pale ribbon, stitched on so loosely that it was almost falling off.

"Then her name is Sir Floppington," I said.

"That isn’t a suitable name for a girl."

"It’s a gender-neutral title of honor!" And why did I even say gender-neutral?!

"Roland," said Laura, in the voice of someone who was going to push me off a bridge later.

I held up the rabbit like a shield. "Got it! She’s under my protection..."

They both lost it.

Alicia bent over, wheezing, and Laura put her forehead against my shoulder for a second and made a sound that was almost a snort, and for the first time all day, I felt the tightness in my chest ease up and stay gone.

Spending time with two girlfriends... it really is the best. Now I get why those protagonists always feel happy.

...

We found a food stall near the edge of the market, a tiny place with five wooden tables and a long chalkboard that listed the day’s soups in handwriting so bad that Alicia had to read it out loud twice.

I was banned from anything heavy.

That left me with soup, bread, and boiled vegetables, a meal I’d normally have walked out on in protest.

Laura ordered the same thing for herself, because it was, she said, "standard rations."

Alicia, though... ordered five different dishes and put them in the middle of the table for sharing, which was her way of declaring that she disagreed with the entire concept of standard rations.

"That looks great," I said, eyeing a plate of roasted peppers stuffed with cheese.

"It’s not for you," Alicia said sweetly with her tongue sticking out.

"I’m not even allowed to look?"

"You can look... Looking is free."

"Gugh... This is torture..."

"This is supervision," said Laura, and tore a piece of bread in half and put it on my plate.

I looked at the bread, then at her, and then at Alicia, who was watching with a gleam of satisfaction.

She had the look of a woman whose carefully planned experiment was going exactly the way she wanted.

"Looks like you enjoyed seeing me suffer with this kind of food, huh?" I said.

"Immensely."

"Both of you are."

"We’re simply making sure you eat healthy," said Laura. "You have a habit of giving your food away."

"That’s a horrible accusation."

"You gave your rations to Martin for three days in a row on the road."

"He needed them more!"

"You also gave a sandwich to a stray dog in Dunmore, and a pie to a beggar, and half your dinner to a boy who wasn’t even hungry."

"Well to me... he looked hungry."

"He was lying."

"That’s a stranger’s problem, not mine."

Alicia put a spoonful of pepper in her mouth, chewed, and looked at Laura. "He did the same thing when we were kids, by the way." ’

"He once spent a whole month eating half a lunch because he kept giving the other half to a girl who’d lost hers."

"What?! You never told me this," I said.

"I was the girl."

I stared at her.

"I was seven... My mother was sick, and I’d been skipping lunch because there was nothing at home to bring." Alicia smiled at the spoon. "You noticed, because... of course you did, and you started sharing yours."

"You never made a big deal about it... and it’s the usual by saying you just said you’d made too much."

"Well, yeah... I did make too much."

"You made exactly enough for one person, and you cut it in half every day for four weeks."

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. To be honest, I didn’t remember that.

At least, I didn’t remember it the way she did.

To me, it’d just been something that needed doing, like moving a stone out of someone’s way.

"That’s why I trusted you," Alicia said quietly. "Long before you got your power..."

"I always knew you’d be the sort of person who sees someone hungry and just pushes his food across the table."

Laura had put her spoon down. She was looking at me with an expression I’d never seen on her face before, soft and attentive and a bit sad.

"I wish I’d known you then," she said.

I shook my head. "Better not... You would have hated me... I was a goddamn idiot."

"I’d have hated the idiot and then helped you anyway."

"That sounds about right," said Alicia.

"What about you?" I asked Laura. "What were you like at seven?"

She hesitated, and I saw her go through the usual routine of deciding whether to hide behind her armor. Then she relaxed, just a little.

"I was practicing forms by lamplight," she said. "My father had bought me a wooden sword, and I’d decided that if I made a mistake in front of him, he would stop loving me."

"So I never made one."

"Did he stop...?"

"Nope... He never noticed anyway. " She giggled. "

"And that was the problem." She stirred her soup absently. "I think I spent most of my life waiting for someone to tell me that I could stop."

I put my hand on the table, palm up, and after a moment she laid hers in it. Under the table, I felt Alicia’s boot nudge my ankle.

"You can stop," I said. "For today, at least... You can sit and eat soup."

Laura let out a breath that was half laugh and half something else.

"That’s the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said to me," she said.

"I’m good at being ridiculous."

"Terrifyingly good."

"It’s my best quality as Roland Ravenshield!"

"It’s your only quality," Alicia said, and reached over to steal a piece of my bread.

"Hey!"