Ellyesce stepped up beside her and offered her the bowl of porridge. Without a second thought, she held it out to the limbit. He didn’t budge, though his eyes fixed on the steaming food before him.
“Come on, take it. I’m not going to eat it.”
When he still refused to move, she added, “Consider it a peace offering, and an incentive to get you to answer our questions.”
Finally, the limbit reached out a hand and slowly took the wooden bowl from her. His fingers were shaped just like hers, but covered in short, dark red hair. Only his fingernails were different. Sharp and black like a fox’s.
The second he had the bowl in hand, the limbit sank to the ground and started eating. Everyone watched him with mild surprise. He was hungry. As if sensing their scrutiny, he slowed down and watched them carefully the way a feral animal studies its captors.
“What’s your name?” Jahrra asked.
Those brown eyes met hers. He finished his spoonful of porridge and said, “Dervit.”
“And why have you been following us, Dervit?” Jaax inquired.
Dervit’s ears swiveled in the dragon’s direction before drooping to the side of his head. Jahrra knew what that meant. He was afraid of Jaax. Well, she couldn’t blame him, but she wanted him to trust them, so she interjected.
“I’d like to know, too.”
Dervit looked back to her, one ear rotating forward. He drew in a deep breath through his nose then gazed down at his nearly empty bowl. “Okay,” he murmured, so quietly that Jahrra wondered if Jaax and Ellyesce had heard him.
“I followed you because I had nowhere else to go.”
“Surely not,” Ellyesce said, his tone holding incredulity. “Do you not have any family or a home that might be missing you?”
To Jahrra’s utter bewilderment, Dervit laughed. But it was the dry, sorrowful laugh of someone who had recently experienced loss.
“No. I don’t.”
“It was your village,” Jaax said softly.
Dervit turned to look at him, this time his ears trained forward.
“The one the squadron leader boasted about destroying.”
The limbit’s lip trembled ever so slightly, but he only gave a terse nod, then shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said somberly. “I didn’t have a home to go back to anyway, not really.”
“What do you mean?” Ellyesce asked, taking a seat on the log closest to Dervit.
The limbit dropped his eyes and gazed into the fire, now only a pile of glowing coals.
“What I said to those brutes was true. That flock of geese you saw me with, Miss? That was the third flock this year I was responsible for and managed to lose. It was my last chance to keep my place in the village.”
“And they were going to do what? Throw you out?” Jahrra asked.
Dervit nodded.
Jahrra gasped in outrage. “Was there nothing else you could do?”
The limbit sniffed and gave a half-hearted chuckle, then spread his hands before him. “I had already tried everything else. Growing vegetables. Keeping chickens. Foraging for truffles. The things I wanted to do, the things I still want to do, have no value in my village.”
“What is it you want to do?” Jaax asked, keeping up his small part in this conversation.
Dervit glanced at him. “So many things,” he said softly. “I don’t want to be tied down to village life. I want to dance, to sing, to make beautiful things. I want to see what else exists outside of these mountains. I want to discover new things to eat and learn how to create tools to make garden work easier. I want to see what I’m missing.”
To Jahrra’s great relief, Jaax didn’t shake his head or laugh.
“Those are admirable goals,” he said.
“If that’s what you wanted to do, why didn’t you just leave on your own?” Jahrra asked as gently as she could.
Dervit shrugged and wiped his nose with his arm, reminding her of the younger school children she’d known back in Oescienne. “I was afraid to leave. No one had ever left and returned to tell us of the world outside our boundaries. The elders always said that curiosity got the better of them, and they had perished. That’s what they said happened to my father, then my mother. Both of them left when my sisters and I were just kits.”
“So, you have no parents,” Jahrra said. “What about your sisters?”
“Our neighbor took us in. She loves my sisters, but always disliked me. She said I was just like my parents. Always wandering off and poking my nose into places it didn’t belong. She blamed my parents for making us orphans. Well, she doesn’t have to worry about me anymore. None of them do.”
His voice trailed off, and the sharp sting of fresh sorrow shone in his eyes. Jahrra bit her cheek. How terrible. To be despised by your friends and family, then to be the only one to survive an attack? In a way, this strange creature reminded her of herself. She had also lost loved ones early in life. And her human traits had set her apart from her peers, even if she didn’t know it at the time.
“What will you do now?” Ellyesce asked, getting the conversation moving again.
Dervit didn’t answer.
Jaax suggested, “Perhaps, now you can go out and explore the world.”
Jahrra whipped her head around and glared at him. Honestly, couldn’t he make the effort to show a little sympathy every once in a while?
The limbit remained silent.
Ellyesce gave a small laugh. “I think that’s what he has been doing. And with the world being such a dangerous place, he has made sure to travel with the most fearsome thing to keep him safe should danger befall him.”
The elf looked to Jaax, his face alit with a lopsided grin. The dragon only glowered at his friend.
“I-I only meant to take the same road as you. Keep my distance and not be a bother. Truly, I never meant for you to know I was there!” Dervit stammered.
“Until you decided to spy on me just this morning,” Jahrra added, sitting back and linking her arms across her chest.
“I wasn’t spying,” Dervit grumbled, dropping his head once again and having the decency to flush.
“Then what were you doing?” Jaax demanded.
“Getting a drink at the pool!” the limbit insisted. “Do you know how tiring it is keeping up with a dragon, an elf, a Nesnan girl and three horses who are trying to outrun the Tyrant King’s soldiers?”
Ellyesce and Jaax exchanged looks.
“I do suppose you had to run twice as fast as us,” Ellyesce mused.
“Then, you will be grateful to know that your arduous journey ends here,” Jaax said shortly, standing up and moving toward the road. “It has been a pleasure to meet you, young limbit, but we have a destination to reach as swiftly as possible, and you have already delayed us long enough. We must now go our separate ways.”
Dervit sat, immobile, on his log, still clutching the empty bowl between his furry hands.
“Wait, we’re just going to leave him here?”
Jahrra stood and approached her guardian.
“Useih trein drunmeh yiroeh raihndt,” she whispered in Kruelt. “We can’t do that. He has no family, no home left. He was following us for a reason, and a good one. If the Tyrant’s squadron finds him again, they won’t give him a sporting chance. They’ll run him down and crush him without even stopping.”
“What do you suggest then?” Jaax snapped back in the same language.
Jahrra refused to be cowed. She got right up into Jaax’s face, her own expression one of stern determination. “Let him travel with us until we reach Cahrdyarein. From there, he can make his own way. At least, he will be within the city’s gates.”