Newly Broke Heroine! [Book One Complete, Cozy Fantasy Adventure]

"You know, this quieter, inquisitive side of you…I don't hear it often."

Fiona glanced at the kobold in curiosity, currently using his legs as a headrest. "What? I can be quiet. I think I was too good at being quiet when I was younger."

"Your boisterousness in the shop and closing a deal would run counter to the narrative." Doug chuckled softly, while she cozied up along the length of the couch. Some accommodations had to be made for his wings so he could relax, too.

"Eh, part of the act. Part of the me that had to drill deep down for success," she shrugged. Doug had only slightly freaked out when she flopped down on the couch and used his lap for cushioning. Now, he appeared to be leaning into it.

"I genuinely thought that was the real you for a good chunk of time. Until I started to understand you." he took a sip from the wine glass, his expression indicating the wine was much to his liking. "I had to work pretty hard at that. You were pretty rough on our first meeting."

"Likewise. Your fighting needed work. Where was the dragon-fu?"

He let out a gruff sound from his throat. "Oh, having a laugh? Not all of us are natural-born warriors."

"You did pretty well, all things considered." He let out a startled sound as she lazily booped his snout with one finger. "Pssh. Boop on the snoot."

"H-hey, that's a thing! But not for the reasons you might think." She glanced up from her position and saw that the scales on his cheek had shifted color slightly. "It's considered a…um…"

"A what?" she asked with a lazy smile.

"It's an exhibition of body language and motorics when courting a fellow drake or dragoness," he said deadpan.

Her lazy smile evaporated in an instant. "Whoops. Adding that one to my index of knowledge of Cepalunean culture–"

She narrowed her eyes when he started laughing, his wings shaking from the effort. "Oh, looks like I pulled your ear for a bit!"

"Why, you sneaky terror lizard! I thought you were incapable of telling falsehoods!" She feigned shock and gave him a playful shove.

"Only at the right moment," he added with a toothy smirk, folding his arms behind his head. "Now, for an actual fact, drakes and dragonesses? It's not all the same. There are displays of flaunting wings, tail twining, butting of horns, things like that. Males are also expected to make a small offer of their gold--hoards are considered a highly personal item, mind you."

"Just gold?" she echoed.

"Well, hoarding is now seen as an actual affliction, these days," he said with a grunt. "There are a few not-so-laughable instances where dragons tried to store so much treasure in their caverns, the ceiling collapsed--sometimes with them in it. But yes, a sacrifice of gold is seen as a sign of keen interest, not even the numerical worth, either. Historical items or items of magical potential are also considered."

"So, dragons aren't obsessed with gold? Scratch another myth." It was one she was glad she could dismiss as false.

"Yes, just like the avians don't build nests in high places away from predators," he added with a coy smile. "Or that elf babies don't exist, they just sprout up from the forest."

"Touche," she said with a laugh. "But really, you've been around a while. Dragons must take influence from other cultures. Fiefdala has species from every corner of the planet, and then some."

"Hmm...a good point. Anyway, courtship is a bit more unified than it used to be. Though some are still old-fashioned--a dragoness does love an artful display of wings."

Fiona glanced up at him, and nodded softly. "Yeah, funny how things stay the same, even across vast cosmic distances. Is it because Cepalune's inhabitants all came from Earth?"

"Some. Not all. Many Folk species hail from other worlds…but the history is checkered. Records are hard to come by. I know so, because I've been asked this more than a few times." The uncertainty in his voice is palpable–even he doesn't have all the answers.

He set his arms down, and she casually ran her fingers over his hand. His scales weren't nearly as solid as she imagined, despite being called living armor. "What about you, Fiona? I've been trying to figure you out–well, from the parts you have told me. You've always been outspoken. Unintimidated. I'm guessing that wasn't always the case?"

She wrinkled her nose slightly. He did make good inferences. "I didn't have looks or athletics when I was growing up. I was the shrimpy girl, and utterly bland. Not ugly, just…I never stood out. So, my voice and personality carried me. In the guard, and the business."

And to Bianca. Doug picked up on her downward gaze. "Did you always feel a need to stand out? No matter what?"

"Yeah. Maybe it's a habit from my Dad. He was vocal; he was a charmer. He could command an audience just like that." She snapped her fingers for emphasis.

"Then, he utterly wasted it." She let out a frustrated exhale. "So, in all my infinite wisdom, I had to stand out, be someone to notice, and not drown in an ocean of mediocrity. And that didn't end after I came here."

"But, you seem to be happy. Most of the time." He glanced at her, tail curled lazily over the armrest. "Or, it's a mask to hide pain. The real you."

She didn't respond right away. Who is the real me, Wingding? Fiona Swiftheart, the merchant with wits and charm? Fiona Swiftheart, the warrior unafraid of pending death? Or maybe just Fiona Swiftheart, the lonely girl from middle school who had one friend, trying to find her voice?

[Maybe all of them. But not all at once.]

"Bonnie said something like that, a while back. 'Behind that elven smile, you're a wreck.' I might be paraphrasing a bit, but…she wasn't wrong."

She shook her head. "Sometimes, I don't know who the real me is. But, I think I'm getting closer." She looked at snow accumulating on the windowsill, another snow shower having come in over the lake. "I don't know who I'm going to be next week when we get Bianca out."

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He glanced at her in curiosity. "Are you worried you'll be the wrong person when that happens?"

"I'll be honest, I don't know how it's going to go down. I don't know what I'm going to feel. When we spoke over a week ago, at the prison? I thought I put her behind me. Doug, she did…awful things. There's no mincing words on that. She tried to kill all of us. And it's hard to pull apart her and Varith as two separate people. Just like…"

She trailed off. How could she explain this in a way he could understand? "How much do you know about illnesses of the mind?"

He tilted his head, as if considering it carefully. "Enough to know that what might be easy for one person, is a struggle for another person, barely getting through the day."

"When we met…she was hyperactive. Energetic, like me. Then, when we started getting close, I would notice sometimes she would be more hyperactive than usual. She'd talk fast, spend hours working on her paintings, barely resting. Then, some time later, she'd crash. Hard. She'd be moody, not always thinking about what she said. Or how she said it."

Describing this to someone who had no clue what it meant was challenging. "And that cycle would repeat. Sometimes weekly…sometimes once a year, and less severe. The Bianca I loved…was somewhere in the middle of those two."

"I recall your comment. How do you split Bianca and Varith? They're the same person. Two sides of the same coin. This is…the same?"

She paused before answering. "Sort of. There were good days when all she needed was me nearby, someone to talk to her through it. Other times…even medication wasn't enough.

"Doug, sometimes I catch myself thinking…what if I caused the decline in our relationship? While I was busy trying to keep my shop afloat, I paid less attention to her. And it led to a spiral down. Or me, going around like a ditz, did nothing but let her embrace those little hypomania episodes, that burst of energy which could get out of control. The worst part is, I didn't start thinking about it until six months after I got here."

"You had a lot on your mind, and as far as you were concerned, you had no reason to believe she, too, was brought to Cepalune. It's easy to blame ourselves for such things. Hindsight and all that. What matters is what you do now." He rubbed her shoulder gently. "But now, you're conflicted if it's her…or the influence of her mark. I cannot discount her rage, either, based on how her arrival differed greatly from yours. She spent months tearing up Vale. You're the only thing that stopped her."

"Barely." She threaded her fingers between his. "Let me pose a hypothetical, Doug. Switch out where we landed when we arrived in Cepalune, everything else being the same. What do you think would have happened?"

He let out a soft rumble, eyes glancing to the side, before peering at her with interest. "I think Vale would have ceased to exist, and Fiefdala would be a vassal state for Aegortin by now. You're worried, if you didn't get the kindness you did when you first arrived…you'd have ended up like her?"

"No. I'd have been worse." She glanced at the crackling fire, unable to hide her worry. "Why do the summons all lose their minds?"

"Taken from their home, inserted into a world unlike their own, and given free rein to do whatever, with unchecked power? The temptation to destroy or control is ever-present," he theorized. "It would take a strong will not to succumb. You have your moments, but…there's a massive difference between being eccentric and losing all capacity to care."

"Maybe that's why Feo'thari chose me. Because I didn't want power. I made my own, every step of my life. All I ever wanted were small things that had big meaning–well, at least to me." It was a comforting thought–but then, what did that say about Bianca?

His response was to run his fingers gently through her hair. She let out a soft sigh of contentment. He froze for a second. "No, keep doing that. It's… It's been a while since I had someone to talk to... like this."

"You mean…like a friend?"

"A close friend. Someone I can talk to, and not have to wall a part of myself off. Greg and Bonnie, I've known the longest, and they probably know me better than I know myself."

She closed her eyes, and let out a soft cooing sound. "Anyway…what do you think, Doug? About the marks? About me?"

She could feel him shift briefly, while she felt butterflies in her stomach. "In my limited knowledge of you? And the marks? I don't think I have a firm theory. Not yet."

"Well, what's your opinion then?"

She opened her eyes to see him glancing down at her, golden eyes flickering from the dancing light of the fireplace. Almost like liquid gold.

"If I were to presume the gods had plans for those they brought here? I'd think they knew what a person would need in their particular quest. And, your status as the last woman standing in a battle you had no chance of winning, might have made Feo'thari realize she didn't need a warrior. She needed a guardian."

He ran his fingers through his feather crest and sighed. "Not all the summons go mad, you know. But the track record is bad. Lum the Destroyer, four hundred years ago, devastated a good chunk of what we know as the Renslas Fens. The river that runs through Fiefdala redirected its flow temporarily to the area and flooded, as a result of the destruction. It hasn't been the same since."

"Sheesh. Pretty lucky I didn't get a mark off the bat. You think that was by design, too?" she asked, sitting upright for a second, and grabbing the blankets to drape over both of them.

"If I were to compare you to Bianca? Then yes, I'd theorize that was the plan. No instant power was planned, but your power certainly took shape when you were forced back into your former life's greatest pursuit."

He let out a soft laugh. "Maybe it is that simple. The reason you didn't let it go to your head, is because of a strong conviction to hold true to yourself. Other summons–and I think I can weed out this idea–get their mark, but no discipline for control. Whereas Cepalune, by and large, teaches great restraint about the use and assignment of marks from birth."

She appreciated how…scholarly he sounded. It came off as completely natural to him.

"And Bianca got the power instantly, and did not know how to control it. Or, alternately, the mark has a mind of its own, like Wingding here. Except…"

She poked Wingding gently on her wrist, her wings spreading widely and swaying back and forth, as if startled.

[You dare?! Oh, wait, it's just you.] Wingding flapped with one exaggerated motion, and jabbed a wing almost orthogonal to her skin, as if accusing her.

Doug looked at this spectacle with amusement. "You told me you worked out a code. Morse code, right? Is that why she beats her wings fast and slow? I think I picked up part of that."

"She doesn't like being woken up," Fiona sighed. "You don't have undue influence on me, do you? You've changed as I have, not the other way around."

[Where do people end? Where do gods begin?]

Wingding ruffled her wings, then placed them over her heart body as if putting on a sleep mask. Fiona squinted at her.

"What'd she say?" Doug asked.

"Something super cryptic. 'Where do people end and gods begin?' Does that mean anything to you?"

She watched his surprised expression morph into one of keen interest. "I mean, it is a peculiar wording. And possibly relevant to what we discussed." Doug glanced at her mark. "What say you, Wingding? You seem to recognize your own existence. But do you know what you are?"

The wings folded close together, as if contemplating a response.

[No. Unfilled. Blank canvas.]

Fiona relayed the words. "You think that the gods get shaped by who they're attached to? Like we're a surrogate?"

His eyes lit up with interest. "I don't know. The evidence here is inconclusive, with Bianca being a counterexample. Varith was very much not in control of himself, let alone his mark," Doug commented dryly. Then, he snapped his fingers. "You know, maybe my mother left an answer on this one in her lair. We still haven't gone there."

"It's on our 'To-do' list. If it's magically warded this tightly, I doubt anyone's broken in. How long would it take to get there?"

He tapped a claw on his snout. "A few hours, maybe? We can catch an automaton to check it out. Will it be…just us?"

"Maybe. I...certainly wouldn't mind just checking it out between the two of us. We can always bring the others later." Fiona leaned up against the surprisingly warm kobold, who gently wrapped one wing over her. "But first, cozy. Gonna rest my eyes for a bit."

"But-"

"Shush. Baby goddess needs rest." She pointed to Wingding, currently trying to cover her core jewel with her wings.

"Should I be impressed or terrified that you treat her like your child?" Even as he posed the question…she could hear the amusement in his voice.

"You're the historian. Guess you'll be the authority on that one in due time."

"Hah. Sassy elf."