The Heart Grows

Cathryn hadn't exactly prepared for this sort of work. She squinted at the number and let out a soft hiss under her breath. One strong hand clutched her left shoulder, snapping her deteriorating mood instantly and, when another took her other shoulder, she leaned back. "This is harder than I thought it would be. Is taking care of people really all about ledgers?"

Working his hands on Cathryn's shoulders, Brolly smiled at the soft purr that began deep in her throat. "You'd be amazed how much taking care of people is just numbers that need to be balanced. If it makes you feel any better, I struggled with this myself."

It was hard not to melt. She'd spent a month seriously courting—and being courted by—Brolly. She'd learned a lot of little things that he liked, and he'd discovered how much she enjoyed a massage at the end of the day. "I feel betrayed. I thought being a noble was all birthright and privilege. Now you tell me not only is learning involved, but hard work?"

"Exactly how I felt when I took control here. I thought I would have a snoozy life, kicking back and having some fun building a town up for my children to take over." Catching the pause in Cathryn's purr when he mentioned children, Brolly worked his thumbs a little harder into a knot of tense muscle at the base of her neck. "Then a dungeon sends its kobolds into town to trade, and next thing I know I have to organize the defense of a besieged city!"

"And you needed all these numbers for that?" Despite her size and despite her claws, Cathryn couldn't help but melt under Brolly's attention. But she had important things ahead of her too, and she worked through them in her head while listening to his answer.

"This was the lead-up to the siege. We had to build our walls as well as drilling everyone who would hold a gun in how to use it without killing one of us. Even as my guards were learning how to use the weapons Travis was giving us, they had to pass that knowledge on."

He'd given her the easiest opening to slot her big question in. "And they're coming back?"

"No, but yes. Astrid and Hilda were two of the officers that invaded with that first army. This will be a more substantial force. We expect them to come at least fifty thousand strong. They'll have better equipment and more experienced soldiers." Brolly wanted so much to lean forward and kiss Cathryn on the cheek, but there was a whirlwind romance, and there was entirely improper behavior. Christine had lectured him on the latter. "And, that's why I asked for your help."

"Are you sure it wasn't to have me inside where you can ravish my shoulders with your attention?" Cathryn would have liked a far more thorough ravishing, but Brolly was a baron, and that meant he had a reputation to maintain. Courting a common-born wench like herself wasn't an issue, but she'd managed to talk to one of his peers and been told that they had a year before moving forward would be possible. She found herself sighing.

"Something on your mind?" Brolly asked.

"Yes, no, and everything in between. You know, a smart girl would run screaming from a city with a war on the horizon. I could still do that. I hear Polfay needs laborers hauling food from their new Verdant dungeon. Yes, I know that is Northridge's Verdant dungeon, but it's still new to them." She turned in her chair, displacing Brolly's hands from her neck and shoulders to face him. "But I've found something worth staying here for."

"It's the good beer and cooking, isn't it?" Brolly asked, holding a hand out to Cathryn to help her to stand.

Pulling (and being pulled) to her feet, Cathryn nodded. "If not for those, I'd be gone in a shot. Nothing else here worth staying for." She froze, at once glad to see her joke had landed in the hungry look on Brolly's face, but at the same time trying to remember the instructions. "N-Nothing…"

Brolly had to squeeze his eyes closed to reduce his desire to grab her and kiss with all his being. He did, however, make the supreme error of taking a deep breath and inhaling her scent. "I'll talk to Christine later. We can announce something." He snapped his eyes open when Cathryn pressed one finger to his lips.

"We'll both go. She can't tell us both to wait if we outnumber her." At Brolly's doubtful look, Cathryn added, "Surely?"

"Let's prepare ourselves and head over there. No doubt she will be busy and barely able to see us. She'll spend so much time complaining of being too busy to see us, because of course she is baroness of the fastest growing trading consortium outpost in the kingdom, that she'll waste more of her precious time." As he spoke, Brolly did his best to show ignorance of Cathryn's giggles and, eventual, laughter. What caused him to end was the need to breathe. "At which point I will ask Northridge himself to speak on our behalf."

It was a joke, Cathryn knew, but also a reminder of the high status Brolly had. He was the city's avatar, and that meant Northridge had to come first for him. She nodded sadly and felt a subdued buffer form.

The way Cathryn responded to his joke about Northridge stung Brolly. "Is something wrong?"

"No. Yes. Ugh, why is everything so complicated? Northridge is—"

"I am here." Northridge's voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere. "Is there a problem?" Not having had to push hard with this particular couple, Northridge was nonetheless invested in the happiness of his avatar.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Having lived her whole life never hearing a city's voice, Cathryn was shocked at the deep, rich tone that filled her head. She froze, though, not knowing what to say when a city itself took interest in her life.

"Complications," Brolly said. "Not our defenses. You know the walls are going up now. They won't be undermining your towers."

Northridge was silent a moment, thinking through the times it had encountered such an emotional situation and its subjects had shifted the topic. "Mmhmm," he said, mimicking Travis. "You are distracting from something. What is wrong?"

It was too much for Cathryn. She laughed. "Sorry!" she said, trying to regain her composure. "But it's true. We want to spend more time together— I want to spend more time with Brolly, and I think he wants the same, but he's a baron, and he's your avatar, and it feels like I'm out of my depth."

"I believe I can solve one of those problems. Dungeon Travis will be needed to assist with the other. I have talked to the other cities about it, and they say it can't be done, but I think I can manage to split the avatarship, if you'd be willing to try?" Northridge asked.

"Split—?" Brolly stared at Cathryn. "I don't think I've heard of a city with two avatars."

Northridge puffed himself up at the idea. "Some cities are content to follow the ideas of their predecessors. They wouldn't have made allies with dungeons, or welcomed them within their walls. Those cities are places where people live boring lives. I am not one of those cities."

"I'm just a—" Cathryn said, but halted before she finished the words. "What would you need me to do?"

Brolly put his hand on Cathryn's forearm. "It's not much, most of the time. You will be Northridge's voice when he needs to speak to someone, though that seems in doubt now." He rolled his eyes comically. "And you may need to help me defend the city and carry out actions for him."

"Like…?"

"We had a spy in our midst not even a year ago. That's the only time Northridge has needed me to act in that way. I have used a little of the power from time to time to help specifically with city tasks."

"The other thing," Northridge said, returning to his primary topic, "is to have a title for Lady Cathryn. A barony would be too much, or so Dungeon Travis is advising me, but he says a simple peerage would be suitable and within budget."

"Wait. Within whose budget?" Cathryn asked.

"Mine. If you are my avatar, it is my duty as your city to provide for you." Northridge saw it as only right. After all, his peers would judge him based on his avatar—avatars, he mused, if they were amenable to the plan. "So, do you wish to become my avatar?"

It was an offer, of course, that she could say no to. She had the distinct impressions that if she did, Northridge would be upset. That said, she would make a city upset if she felt like she needed to. She didn't, though. This path would be quicker than simply appealing to Baroness Christine. She looked at Brolly and ran through all the qualities she knew of him. He was simple in the right ways, but deep where it counted. A little smile grew on his lips when she gave him her own. "What do I need to do?"

"Is that a yes?" Northridge asked.

"Yes."

With no further input, Northridge moved its mana, shifting the pattern of a fundamental skill until it had not one, but two targets. It retained the first one, Brolly, and pointed to Cathryn as the second. At first his mana didn't want to split like that, but there was a jolt of divine magic and it began to flow exactly how he wished. Strangely, the magic he'd felt seemed to come from within, but not directly from him, and not from either of the two gods he'd had dealings with in the past.

The investment of the city's power in Brolly reduced—something he had no issue with. It had almost felt as much of a burden as it did a boon. He could feel it, still, but the power was subdued. At least, subdued compared to what it had been moments before. Since taking up the mantle, Northridge had grown in population and power, and the avatar power scaled with it.

The first thing Cathryn noticed was new vitality and energy boiling within her. The second was the bright flame burning around Brolly's hand. When she looked down to her own, it also burned with mana. "Is this what being an avatar feels like all the time?"

"N-No. This is more manageable. A few minutes ago it was more… Let me try something." Putting his left hand (the one not burning with power) on Cathryn's shoulder, Brolly stepped around behind her and reached his empowered hand down, sliding it from her shoulder to her elbow and to her wrist. Finally, he pressed his palm to the back of her hand and closed his fingers between her own.

A rush of new power poured into Cathryn. Brolly was feeding the rest of the avatar power into her, giving her a taste of what the full thing felt like. "W-Wow!"

"It's amazing at first, but it's the difference between having a lantern and a bonfire." Brolly didn't say it, but channeling his avatar power out as quickly as it came to him had reduced the feeling further. Now he almost felt normal again. "Let's go pay Sir Travis a visit and discuss what peerage would be suitable for an avatar."

"That wasn't just a joke?" Cathryn froze solid. The dream of marrying Brolly was a distant one, which was why the thought of being a baroness didn't really come up, but she'd heard that Travis had paid for that peerage himself. "You can't just buy it like that, surely?"

"You're probably right. From what I understand, if Travis asked, the King may just give the title over as a favor. It's easy to lose sight of what the kingdom is going through right now, but there was an attempted coup in the capital and a civil war in the West. Both of which Travis has contributed greatly to resolving, ensuring the King has a kingdom to rule." Brolly drew his hand back and willed the flames to douse. It didn't stop the power of the avatar from filling him, but he was less obvious about it. "If you will it, the flame will go away. That took me a few days to figure out."

Cathryn giggled at the idea of Brolly trying to sleep while his hand lit up the room. With a little focus, she managed to snuff out the flames around her hand.

Available at: https://www.royalroad.com/profile/220350/fictions

This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.