Callie's Heroes

PART V - DELIVERY FOR REYNARD

“He’s going to yell at us,” Jesca said, stopping her walk suddenly, fear in her aura.

“He isn’t going to yell at us,” Callie replied, waving away her companion’s worries. “How could he get mad, Jesca? We have a plate full of still warm jellycakes, a pot full of pretty flowers, and our charming personalities.”

That did nothing to calm Jesca, and she gave Callie a very loud stink-eye.

“Besides, if anything, he’s going to yell at me, not you,” Callie assured.

That did nothing to calm Jesca, and she gave Callie an even louder stink-eye. This time, Artemis shared in the incredulity.

“Come on, Jesca. It will be fine.” Callie rolled her eyes and resumed the march to Reynard’s cabin. Jesca and Artemis gave each other a doubtful look, but grudgingly followed along, Jesca carrying an overflowing flower pot.

A little while ago, after finishing her discussion with the other girls, Callie had checked in on Pixyl, joining a small crowd of recruits, as well as a few trainers, including Thorn. They didn’t get a chance to talk, but Callie was amazed to watch her girlfriend’s new Homing Blast ability. Olin would throw a stone or stick as hard as he could, only for Pixyl to snipe it from distance, the blast of Ethereal energy curving in mid flight to find its target and vaporize it.

Pixyl didn’t experiment with her Flashstep, given the danger of injury without assistance or practice, but she did demonstrate her new Shield Wall skill, and it was likewise impressive. The wall proved very similar in construction to her Ethereal Armor, including its ability to easily resist blunted attacks. But, it also suffered from the susceptibility to piercing attacks and slow-moving things, Olin being able to actually push his way through if he didn’t move too fast. Callie quickly saw a couple ways to make use of the new power, besides just flat out protection. For example, ranged combatants could stand behind it, poking out their hands just enough to get their spell off, limiting full-body exposure.

After parting from Pixyl, giving her a quick wave and smile, but not wanting to pull her away from her work with Olin, Callie and Jesca dropped by to see Pama, hoping they could cajole a treat for Reynard. Pama knew exactly the right medicine, and volunteered to quickly make up a non-summoned batch of ‘jellycakes’. The treat ended up being similar to a jam-stuffed sugar cookie, and being non-summoned, they wouldn’t disappear in a few hours, allowing Reynard to have time to enjoy them all.

While the treats were being baked, the two Rangers tackled digging up some of the Snapdragon’s, putting them into a flower pot that Pama provided. Unlike Earth Snapdragons, these flowers were perfectly named. The four-centimeter purple, white and orange flower itself was vaguely shaped like a dragon’s head holding its mouth wide open, and was apparently a carnivorous plant. When something would trigger it, the flower closed like a Venus Fly Trap, making an audible ‘snap’ noise. One of the orange petals of the flower would end up sticking out of the ‘mouth’, and with a little squinting and imagination resembled a burst of flame from a dragon’s head. These wild plants, besides being both fascinating and quite pretty, were fairly common as indoor plants. There was a domesticated variety with larger flowers, and they would aid in insect control while giving off a pleasant, lilac-like scent.

Approaching Reynard’s cabin, Jesca stored Artemis away. The unicorn was quite unthrilled with the action, acquiescing only after Jesca promised to recall her to the same spot. Swallowing in worry, the Cheetakin followed nervously along behind Callie as the Gnome walked up the steps.

“Who is it!” came the snarling voice from inside the cabin before Callie could even knock on the door.

“Delivery for Reynard,” Callie called out, deepening her voice and winking at Jesca.

“Go away, Callie, I’m busy!”

“I told you!” Jesca said in a whispered hiss.

“I’m not going to do that,” Callie replied back, adding some sing–song notes to her response.

“I said go away!”

“Look, you can let us in so we can deliver these delicious Pama treats, or I can nag you the rest of the morning from out here and probably make a scene. Your choice!”

“Pama treats?” Reynard said, the gruff in his voice lessening ever-so-slightly.

“That’s right,” Callie called out, adding a mysterious, inviting inflection. “Secret nummy treats made just for you. All you have to do is put up with me for a few minutes.”

There was a long, long silence.

“Well?” Callie finally called out, a little bit of gruff now in her own voice.

“I’m still deciding.”

“Bah! I’m coming in!” Callie snarled, pausing for just a moment before opening the door, on the chance Reynard actually put up another objection. He didn’t.

The interior of the cabin was dark, with only thin slivers of sunlight leaking through gaps in heavy curtains over closed windows. The stuffy interior was almost identical to Rowani’s cabin, with the same table, chairs and single-person bunk, and even the same rocking chair next to a fireplace, where Reynard was sitting. He was scowling, smoothing out a thin blanket over his lap and legs to cover what was missing.

“Jellycakes,” Callie said, holding up two stacked plates. “The bottom ones are fresh-baked and not summoned, and the top plate was replicated, so eat them first. Pama said they’ll be good for about eight hours or so, since she had time to put a light preservation on them.” She slid the stack up onto the table.

“Thank you. You may go now,” Reynard growled.

As she looked at her trainer, Callie couldn’t help but be reminded of when she had occasionally taken care of her grandmother. She’d at times almost had to treat her like a child, and ignore the protestations and complaining just to make sure she got the care that was needed. Fine, she could do that here, too!

Callie gestured Jesca forward, directing her to set the flowers on the table as she ignored Reynard. “They’ll need some light, so open the window a bit.”

“Fresh snapdragons,” Jesca mumbled under the glare of her trainer. Hesitantly she put the flowers down and reached for the curtains, watching Reynard’s face. His surly expression didn’t change as his eyes glowered, but she slowly persevered, pushing the curtains aside so some light could come in, and then opening the window to let in a little fresh air.

Reynard really did not look well. He seemed thinner, maybe even a little gaunt, like he hadn’t been eating much for several days, or at all, and his fur was a little gnarly, as if not washed for a while. Callie had seen this before. When her grandfather had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, he fell into a hard depression that lasted for a few weeks. He eventually snapped out of it one morning, quoting his favorite movie and stating it was ‘time to get busy living, or get busy dying’. Unlike him, she knew that physically Reynard would be fine; Rowani had already been working on the regrowth of his leg. But he seemed to be hurting in other ways, and Callie really had no idea what to do, so was going to just try to be a little positive and wing it.

“I don’t know if you heard, but we closed those Rifts yesterday,” Callie said brightly.

“Olin came by and told me,” Reynard replied, his words curt and grouchy as he stared at the floor.

“Cool! Olin was great, as you’d expect, but everyone else did a really good job, too.”

“He said you had to take over for the Prince.”

“Just for a few minutes,” Callie said with a shrug. “He got a little overwhelmed, but did the right thing and handed command to someone else.”

Reynard simply grunted. The mood in the room was dark and awkward.

Looking across the small space, Callie saw a pair of crutches thrown haphazardly on the bed, as if in anger. She hadn’t seen Reynard anywhere around camp with crutches, only in his wheeled chair, and quickly suspected he was having difficulty adapting to using them. Her dad had been on crutches for a few weeks when she was a young teen, following some kind of a foot surgery, and Callie remembered how much he grumbled and complained about trying to get around with them, so she instantly empathized with her trainer.

Over the bed was the other window with closed curtains, so Callie casually walked over and climbed up on the bed, throwing them wide and cracking the window.

“Hey!” Reynard snarled as the sunlight streamed in and hit his face.

Callie ignored him, hopping down from the bed. “Are you ready for the game later? You almost had us last week. I’m going to have to get extra tricky, I think.”

His eye twitching in pure and unabated irritation, Reynard growled out, “I’m not acting as Marshal this week.”

“Really?” Callie gasped, putting her hand to her chest in feigned surprise.

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Oh,” Callie said, her face faking a sad look. She looked over to Jesca. “Do you think we should just let them forfeit? It would save them all a whole lot of embarrassment.”

“Umm…” the Cheetahkin trailed, her eyes darting between Callie and Reynard.

The trainer apparently wasn’t rising to the reverse psychology bait, though, and simply returned to staring at the floor. Callie needed another tactic. “Jesca’s going to reach Silver this week. And Bronze with her Beastmaster, right?”

That second sentence had been directed to Jesca, and she quickly nodded in confirmation. “Possibly both on Secondday morning,” she said. “The Beastmaster might be the next day.”

Reynard grunted, but then glanced briefly towards Jesca, adding, “Good job.”

“Yup, we’ve all been speculating on what her new skills might be for Beastmaster,” Callie said, slightly overselling the statement. “I’m hoping she can change shape like the Druids and Shamans; that would be really cool. No matter what she gets, though, I’m sure your advice on how to make them work with her Ranger class will be really helpful.”

Once again, Reynard simply grunted a vague acknowledgement as he stared at the floor. This was not going well. It was like trying to talk to a brick wall, but with less interaction. Although, he also hadn’t asked them to leave, or at least hadn’t asked very hard, so Callie suspected he actually wanted the company, even if he stubbornly wouldn’t say anything. How could she engage him? She looked around the space for inspiration.

Hanging on the wall, next to the mirror, was a detailed painting of some kind. Almost photograph-quality detail in fact. Painted on a smooth piece of wood was the image of two Foxkins holding paws as they gazed into each other's eyes, the picture showing an obvious love between them. One was a little shorter and had very feminine curves to her, on her head was a little wreath of woven flowers and she wore a white dress adorned with what appeared to be other multi-colored blossoms. The other was a much-younger Reynard, the picture detailed enough to tell it was him. Was this a wedding picture? It looked an awful lot like a wedding picture. If it was, they made a lovely couple, reminding Callie of the wedding at the end of Disney’s animated Robin Hood movie.

“Was this your wife?” Callie asked, looking towards Reynard. “She’s beautiful.” She really was, and Reynard looked quite handsome, too.

“As a ren, you would know,” Reynard mumbled.

Callie immediately narrowed her eyes. This was a line Reynard did not get to cross. “Hey! That topic is completely off limits for you if you’re going to be all nasty like that. Got it?”

Reynard looked startled by Callie’s sudden angry tone, a look of realization coming to his face a half-moment after. “My apologies,” he said quickly. “It was … a reflex.”

If he had been talking with Olin, then Callie was sure that the topic of her and Pixyl had come up. The Major had said both Vonn and Reynard would be informed, to help assure her training didn’t begin to slip, so it was a legitimate conversation to have if Reynard had something to say. He did not get to be an ass about it, though!

“If that’s something you want to talk about, we can, but not like that! The Major and I already discussed not getting distracted from my training. Understand?”

Reynard swallowed, glanced briefly at Jesca, and looked back to Callie’s firm glare. “Again, my apologies. I spoke without thinking.”

Nodding, Callie moved on. She knew how easy it was to accidentally make some off-handed rude remarks, especially when stressed. She’d done it enough times herself, and Reynard was obviously stressed. Plus, given the way the two of them verbally sparred with each other, inadvertent words could easily slip by. She was willing to take the apology on face value unless he said something else mean. He wouldn’t get another chance, though.

“That’s you and your wife?” Callie asked again, her tone firmly changing the subject back to the painting.

Reynard nodded, still seeming ashamed by his rude comment. “Yes, that was the day when we were married. She was radiant that day.”

“You both look amazingly happy,” Callie said, pushing away any residual irritation at Reynard’s remarks and smiling softly. Then she added, “I mean it, truly,” on the off chance he thought she was being patronizing.

“I … I miss her sometimes.” It was a strange, quiet statement of vulnerability from Reynard, and a bit of a surprise.

Glancing quickly to Jesca, who returned the slightest of shrugs, Callie said the first thing that she could think of. “Of course you do. We all miss important people in our lives.” Shit! Now that did sound patronizing. If it was received that way, though, Reynard didn’t show it. He just continued to stare at some invisible spot on the floor, his mind looking inwards.

Callie was quickly realizing that Reynard seemed beyond simply depressed about his leg and the difficulty being mobile. There were some pretty heavy things on his mind that had apparently been dredged up by his injury and the convalescence, and her light comments likely didn’t help any. On Earth, she’d probably push him towards heavy therapy of some kind. Actually, who was she kidding, she’d probably encourage him to ignore the problem and take him out partying instead, or at least would have, back during college. Something like that wasn’t really a healthy response, no matter what world someone was on, though, and she refrained from making that kind of a suggestion, at least for now.

Glancing at Jesca, Callie could see that the Catkin was just as unsure how best to help, and that she was quite uncomfortable. Turning to Reynard, she put on her best smile. “How did the two of you meet?” It seemed like an innocuous question and would get him talking if he was willing.

“What?”

“How did you meet?” she said again, gesturing towards the picture. “There must be a fun story there.” Callie motioned Jesca towards one of the chairs by the table. Turning another chair to face Reynard, she scrambled up and gave him her full attention, while Jesca warily sat down.