The Foolhardies 105 A New Hope

—Ty's questions were interrupted by an elbow in the shoulder courtesy of Arah.

"Calm down, Tiberius," she scolded. "Give the guy some breathing room to tell his story."

I sent her a grateful smile and then leaned back in my seat.

The smell of fresh-cooked meat wafted out of the plate in front of me, and I breathed in like I hadn't had bacon in years. Ah, bacon, nothing else quite like it in either world I'd been to.

I picked up a slice of bacon and tossed it into my mouth, enjoying that savory taste in my tongue before I chomped it into tiny bits.

Ty was frowning at me now. He probably thought I was stalling—which I was. These small moments of pleasure were now far and few between in my life. I at least wanted to enjoy breakfast before I recounted my last seven days in the Fayne.

Yeah, you heard right, it had been a full week since our escape from the clutches of the Scarlet Moon's betrayal of the Magesong clan, and what happened afterward seemed like a stream of images fast-forwarding across the surface of my brain. It hadn't sunk in yet; the fact that we'd escaped death and arguably won the war despite the cost of many lives.

I took one final sip of my Diet Coke before I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and continued the tale my friends were eager to hear.

"By the time I came back the next night, Darah's army had already arrived at the border of the Lover's Embrace's territory, about ten leagues away from Broken Sellsword Canyon," I explained. "And the first thing I saw after I landed next to my anchor was an army nearly three times the size of ours. Soaring above this display of force was a giant sapphire flag with two embracing skulls-and-crossbones coat-of-arms painted over it."

"Seriously?" Ty asked, looking nervously back at me. "You guys didn't fight them, right?"

Arah rolled her eyes at him. "Of course, they didn't fight, Ty. Dean wouldn't be sitting opposite us otherwise."

Then she looked back at me with a bit of uncertainty clouding her otherwise confident expression. "You didn't, right?"

I shook my head. "Nah… by the time I got there, negotiations had already wrapped up."

After another sip of Diet Coke, I told my friends that Darah with Aura in tow had already made a deal with my favorite salamander auctioneer, Kallista, who apparently was higher up in the Lover's hierarchy than we were led to believe. Kallista had agreed to give our army safe passage through their territory under three conditions. First, Darah had to sign a non-aggression pact of one year with Broken Sellsword's Canyon. Second, The Rings of Fortune Auction House would get a three-year exclusive contract to trade with Fort Darah. Third, the Foolhardies were promised to complete a single task for her, no questions asked.

"How'd she bargain that last condition from Aura?" Arah asked.

I sighed. "She promised aura a big discount the next time we shopped at her place…"

Arah laughed. "Well, that would do it."

I picked up another slice of bacon and bit into it. That savory taste was a welcome distraction to my recent troubles.

"Um, then what happened?" Ty asked, eager to continue the tale.

I looked at him then, wondering where all the energy was coming from.

He was paler than usual. Dark circles wrapped around his eyes which were redder than usual.

"You okay, Ty?" I asked.

Ty looked down. "Y-yeah… haven't been sleeping well, that's all," he said hurriedly.

"Why not?" Arah asked.

Seeing as they were always together when I wasn't around, I was surprised she hadn't noticed how tired he looked like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a while.

"J-just bad dreams," he said, waving off our concern. "Nothing as crazy as yours though, right, Dean?"

He gave me a wink that wasn't convincing at all. But I relented. Everyone had issues to work with, and whatever Ty was dealing with, it surely wasn't that bad. It wasn't like anyone was trying to kill him nearly every night. Besides, he'd tell us if it was something to worry about.

Arah didn't seem as eager to drop it as I did, but she let Ty stir the conversation back to my tales of the Fayne.

"Even with the Lover's Embrace protecting our backs, it still took us two nights to reunite with Vardoom's group, and with nearly fifty thousand soldiers, we returned to the safety of Fort Darah," I told my friends. "The Great General wasn't satisfied though. She had us all prepared for a siege in case the Scarlet Moon decided to test their luck."

"Less than half of the soldiers you went to war with," Arah noted.

I nodded. "Yeah…"

I didn't feel the need to tell Ty and Arah about the hours before dawn, where, after realizing the enemy wasn't coming, Great General Darah had a huge pyre built in honor of our fallen dead.

There were no bodies to burn. Only wooden effigies the magicians claimed would ease the passing of both fairy and human souls.

I myself carved the name of Shaqs and Theren Everleaf on the two branches of redwood we'd taken from our barracks platform. But I didn't have the heart to throw them into the fire along with rest as I could still feel the sting of their loss in my chest. Luca did it for me.

And as we stood there, watching the fire grow higher and higher, Aura passed me a wooden branch. On its surface was the name of Jimmy Jonas.

"I thought you might want to pay your respects," she said.

I hesitated for a few seconds before I took the branch from her hand, our fingers brushing against each other as I did.

"I won 't forget my promise, Jimmy… I'll change things," I whispered right before tossing the wood into the pyre.

Luca elbowed me in the shoulder. "We'll change things together, Dean."

I elbowed him back. "Sure. Whatever."

We each landed a few more elbows on each other before a loud "Ahem!" from Ashley who was standing behind us shut us up.

No, I didn't tell Arah or Ty this. It seemed too personal an experience, too tragic for the daytime. It was definitely not a story for such a bright place like Ed's Chocolate Bar.

"Dean?" Arah called me back into the now. "You were saying something about a rewards ceremony?"

"Um, yeah," I replied sheepishly. "Three nights after the bonfire, we arrived back at Shärleden after being called in by the Chancellor of the Sun."

I scratched my head and felt a little uncomfortable explaining what happened next to my friends.

"Um, the Trickster's big wigs gave a few officers rewards for their contributions in battle," I began.

"And you were one of those officers, right?" Ty asked, looking all eager to hear that I'd won a Playstation Five or something equally grand.

"You better have after all the crap you had to go through," Arah said.

She pointed at the brand new prescription glasses covering my eyes, forcing me to blush slightly. I wasn't sure they looked good on me yet. I certainly wasn't used to them—only got them earlier today, after all.

Yeah, I had glasses now. In the span of a week, my vision had gone from twenty-twenty to include pretty strong astigmatism on both eyes. And if you're wondering if this was due to me overusing Fool's insight, dear reader, then you guessed right.

I didn't need them in the Fayne as my vision was fine over there, but here on Mudgard, I was now required to use glasses for reading. It might seem like a small price to pay for all the use I got of Fool's insight that night, but these small things usually piled up. It wasn't like I wasn't going to overuse them again.

Trying them on now was kind of like my penance for not being a better soldier I had to rely on my fairy gift too much.

I removed the glasses from my face and set them on the table.

"Never going to get used to that," I said.

"Quit stalling, Dean," Ty complained. "Tell us about the ceremony already."

I scratched the top of my head. "Fine… chill."

The memory of that great hall filled with fairies was something I don't think I would ever forget. They were all so regal, dressed in robes of blue that shimmered gold under the light of the Fayne's moon.

All those beautiful faces looking down at us underdressed soldiers in our dirty gear and scarred faces, it really was like finding yourself forced onto a stage full of characters from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

As our leader, Great General Darah received the highest praise. She'd been lauded as the victor of the war, but just looking at the deep scowl on her face told me she didn't believe the propaganda.

Indeed, no one really believed we'd won that war, but they were all happy we didn't lose everything. Everyone liked pretending anyway. And Darah was forced to play her role.

She was given a large piece of land in the eastern territory that even included my hilltop, several chests of Leprechauns, and a brand new peryton mount from the Patriarch's own stables. This last gift made Darah smile at least.

Both Commander Thors and Commander Vardoom were given an equal reward. They were allowed to keep their battlefield promotion and were now officially generals of the Trickster Pavilion.

Vardoom's praises reverberated throughout the hall. And although there were many fairies who frowned at the idea of a human visere making general, there were a few loud cheers for Thors too. My own voice was maybe one of the loudest.

The fourth person to be rewarded, believe it or not, was me. Apparently, there were a few higher-ups who thought I'd contributed a lot to the war effort. No doubt Aura had burned her brother's and the Chancellor's ears off with all the undeserved praise.

As I walked up to the Patriarch's platform, all those gazes following me made me feel a little too shabby in my worn-out coat. Even the electrum chest plate seemed dull in comparison to all the twinkling jewelry around me.

However, any insecurities were quickly swept away by the sight of a maskless Aura smiling down at me as she stood next to her brother. At that moment, I felt like Luke Skywalker at the end of Episode IV: A New Hope.

The craziest thought struck me then, how glad I was that Aura wasn't my twin sister like Leia was Luke's. And while I chided my stupid teenage brain, an even crazier statement came out of the Patriarch's lips.

"Congratulations, Dean Dapper," he said in a weakening voice that still felt like there was a hidden strength to it. "As of today, you are now a Five-Hundred Man Commander."

Chapter end