“Please!” yelled Rinka. She had just one last chance to get on the rail-wheeler before it carried everything she owned away to Landsend, leaving her behind.
The stairwell would be in front of her in seconds. This was it. She had to time the jump just right—
“Grab on,” said the stranger. Rinka blinked away the tears—he was standing in the stairwell, reaching out to her.
She didn’t think, she just thrust her hand into his. The stranger pulled with incredible strength as Rinka fired the muscles in her legs as hard as she could.
It was enough. Almost too much, actually. Rinka very nearly knocked the poor man over.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she pulled herself up slowly, being careful not to lean too far back into the open air behind her as the rail-wheeler cleared the platform. From the top step, the stranger extended an arm again, and Rinka gratefully accepted. “Thank you for helping me,” she continued, but her voice was muffled by the blood in her nasal passages.
“My Gods, are you alright?” asked the stranger.
Rinka saw herself reflected in his dark eyes—crimson streaks running down her face and onto her pretty green dress, eyes filled with tears, and, worst of all, her hair was a total mess. It was so pathetic she couldn’t help but laugh.
“My father always said it’s not a party if no one’s nose is bleeding.” Rinka’s father had a number of sayings that were in no small part responsible for her parents’ divorce, at least according to Rinka’s mother. But Rinka always found them charming, and in this case, surprisingly appropriate.
The corner of the stranger’s mouth twisted a bit in bemusement or perhaps bewilderment. “Looks like it’s a party, then.” It was clear that her first guess had been incorrect—he wasn’t an orc—but there was something strangely familiar about him.
She studied his face as he fumbled in his pockets for something, trying to guess at his background to give her a clue as to where she might have seen him before. Humans could be as large as orcs, sometimes even larger, and they were frequent patrons of her (now former) employer. But there was something about his face that wasn’t quite human. While his eyes had the almond shape of traders from the Far East, the rest of his features were sharper and thinner, more like the elves from the high mountains of Loegria. His ears, which would have given her more of a hint, were unfortunately hidden behind his dark hair. She couldn’t quite place him, although she did have a guess.
“Have you ever been in a picture show?” she asked him as he held out the object he’d been seeking: a handkerchief.
He furrowed his brow and looked from her—no doubt wondering just how much injury Rinka had sustained to ask such a question—and then to his clothes, which were tattered and stained. “No, I can’t say that I have. I’ve never even seen one.”
“Never?” asked Rinka. She pulled the handkerchief to her face and was surprised by its pleasant floral scent. The fabric felt fine in her hands: silk maybe, or a very fine cotton. She nearly asked the stranger where he’d gotten it, but as she looked from his ragged clothes to the handkerchief, she realized it must have been stolen.
Rinka wasn’t one to judge. She’d seen enough of life in the city to understand the difficult choices that had to be made at times, and the stranger had been kind enough to help her when no one else would.
The bleeding had slowed to barely a trickle, but Rinka was grateful to be able to clean herself up. As she wiped the blood from her face, the soothing touch of the fine fabric seemed to wipe what was left of the pain away.
Rinka followed him into the carriage. There were no seats left together, but as the two of them approached the first row, a Halfling gentleman in overalls stood abruptly to offer his seat, his face registering alarm at the disheveled man and the orc in bloodied clothes.
“Poor fellow,” said Rinka. “My trunk is in another carriage. I’ll have to get changed quickly before I scare away the rest of the passengers.”
“Never mind the passengers,” said the stranger as he gestured for Rinka to take the seat by the window. “Are you sure you’re alright? May I ask what happened?” His voice was warm and deep with a bit of a rasp, as if he’d spent too long by the fire or had smoked one too many pipes.
“Just a mishap with a luggage cart. I’m Rinka, by the way.” Rinka held out her hand to shake.
“Drystan,” he said.
“Just Drystan?” Rinka asked. Humans tended to have surnames, and elves were almost all nobility of some kind, Lords and Ladies of ancient lands Rinka knew nothing about. Drystan sounded like an orc’s name, or maybe a dwarf, but he resembled neither of those.
“Drystan Droswyn,” he said. “But you can call me Drystan.”
That was curious, too. Humans preferred to be addressed by their surnames unless you were closely acquainted.
Still, Rinka could hardly see the point in arguing with a stranger about their own name.
“Nice to meet you, Drystan,” she said.
Rinka leaned back into her seat and sighed in relief. She had made it on board the rail-wheeler, her maps and instructions safely in her satchel, her trunk safely on board (if a few carriages further away than she would have liked), her nose no longer hurting, and all was well.
“It’s a beautiful day to travel, isn’t it?” she asked Drystan as she looked out the window at the great buildings of Arcas Dyrne shrinking in the distance. The landscape beyond the city quickly transitioned into fields of green and yellow and brown, some growing high with the last of the winter crops and others freshly planted and ready for the warmer weather to come. Rinka had seen it all before, but only in the grey tones of the picture show. It did not prepare her for how bright and blue the sky could be beyond the city’s smog, for the way it reflected on the water, the perfect mirror images of cotton candy clouds in the stillness of a lake. For the gentle ripples that danced on the surface as the rail-wheeler rushed past.
Rinka turned back to Drystan when he didn’t respond. He was looking at her incredulously.
“Oh, my clothes,” said Rinka, guessing at his confusion. “Excuse me for a moment—I’m going to go see to my trunk and change into something a little less alarming.”
