“Who is the subject of your interest today?”
Ash’s abrupt interruptions no longer seem to startle Cedar. Probably they have become too frequent to warrant a reaction. She angles the paper in his direction so he can see as he sits beside her, and Ash finds the individual who bears the paper likeness – an old woman who sits petting the village mutts.
“What do you see?” he asks.
Cedar’s brows draw together, but she does not stop drawing. “She has been hurt. Watch how she shrinks back every time someone walks by, especially the men. She is shattered, but even now, near the end of her life, she has not given up trying to put the pieces back together. She has hope that goodness can help make up for how she has suffered, and so she begins with kindness to animals. It is easier to be kind to animals. They live by a code of survival, rather than greed.”
“You see all that?”
Cedar shrugs at his skepticism. “I make assumptions, but she does have a story. If we knew her story, we would understand her better, and that would still only scratch the surface. No one ever completely knows another’s inner life.”
“Inner life, eh?”
Cedar moves onto a blank corner of the paper. He watches as the pencil lines begin to reveal the figures of a man and a woman, hand in hand. He finds them in the crowd of tourists. They exchange whispers and affection as they stop now and then to peruse the villager’s wares.
He puts forth his observation. “He would do anything for her.”
Cedar frowns, and Ash risks prying deeper.
“You don’t think it’s romantic?”
She moves her pencil on to detail their holding hands. Her lines become bolder and harsher, leaving the impression of a human prison.
“No human should have that power over another,” she says.
“Power? Isn’t that the point? To have someone love you so much they would sacrifice anything for you?”
“Should love ask you to be willing to abandon something you believe for the person you love? To take that cost on yourself so the other can feel sure that you love them?”
Ash leans back and plants his hands behind him. He stretches out his legs in a casual sprawl. “If love is not an all-consuming devotion to one another, what is it?”
“I don’t know,” she speaks it as a question and shrugs.
Thinking of his mother, Ash says, “What about self-sacrifice? Is it still losing yourself if you sacrifice yourself out of love?”
Cedar’s pencil stops. A shadow flashes across her face, and though it lasts for only a moment, Ash does not fail to notice. He does not coax an answer from her. He is relaxed in her reflective silence, in a way he seldom is in silence.
“No,” she says with finality. Then she turns to him. “But have you ever seen that kind of thing in romantic love?”
He shrugs, not wanting to divulge anything further, and changes the subject. “Tell me, what have you known of romantic love?”
“Enough to know I don’t want any more of it.”
Ash looks at the crowd of people with new interest before he puts another question to her.
“Which of these mere boys have taught you what you don’t want from love? Maybe that one? He has been shooting daggers at me with his eyes since I sat down.” Ash gestures with his chin towards a young man who sits surrounded by furs on his store blanket. Cedar glances up to look. Even from this distance, Ash can see his frown deepening.
“That’s Star. Many of us here have known one another since we were kids. We have all spent a lot of time together.”
Ash does not hide his intrigue and leans closer. “Was it recent?”
Cedar swats him, and they both glance over to see Star’s face darken even more.
“Stop it, he doesn’t deserve this.”
Ash takes her word for it, changing direction but unwilling to close the topic. “What about the tourists? Ever met anyone interesting?”
“Tourists don’t trust locals, and locals don’t trust tourists.”
Ash takes an imaginary knife to his heart, and moans in despair. Cedar purses her smiling lips.
“What do you need before you fall in love?” Ash inquires.
“Trust,” Cedar replies without hesitation. “But I’m done with love. Trust doesn’t exist, not the kind I would need before falling in love.”
“All right, Miss Suspicious. I will have trust, if I have to earn it by inches, though everything is against me.” Ash keeps his tone casual and light-hearted. “Tell me something you believe.”
“You first.”
Ash leans back again. He fixes his gaze on some distant high-up place. “We can run, but what we are running from will always find us. Sooner or later we will have to seize it by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. Then we have to decide to either silence it forever or find a way to mount it and ride the damn animal. Maybe to our doom.”
Cedar raises her brows. “That’s cryptic.”
“Your turn.”
Cedar takes her usual time to think over her words. “That it is hard to know what you want. When you finally think you know, it is still harder to go for it if someone you love is against it. Even if you completely believe in it.”
The noise in the village is all that is heard until Ash manages his usual jovial tone. He leans forward with a slap on his legs, and Cedar looks at him.
“Let’s make a pact. We will never ask one another to do something contrary to what the other believes, whatever that is.” He gestures towards the hand-holding couple Cedar has sketched.
“We are not lovers,” Cedar says with wary amusement.
“Are friends not allowed a code of behavior?” He puts out a hand towards her.
Cedar considers it, making no move. Ash does not back down or turn away.
Without warning she extends her hand, grasps his, and says, “It’s a pact.”
Ash finds James awake when he arrives back at their camp that evening. Ash takes a seat across from his brother in front of the fire.
“You were with that girl again, the one from the market.” It sounds like an accusation.
“She’s almost my age James. She’s hardly a girl.” Ash picks up a thick stick and pokes at the embers.
“Fine, I only mean to ask what you want with her.” When James is met with silence, he adds, “We all have our little diversions.”
Ash frowns.
“You can’t seriously consider something more with her. She’s hardly suitable for a prince,” James continues.
Ash’s hold on the stick tightens. “You are the crown prince, you can be as superficial as you want. My choices should not get in the way of your aspirations.”
James holds up his hands in mock defense. “Fine, man, do what you will. You should know how it would be received at home.”
“Is that a threat?” Ash growls, discarding the stick in the flames.
“Come on Ash, I wouldn’t threaten you. I have nothing against Cedar. Only, her way of watching a person is…unnerving. I don’t think she’d be especially diplomatic. We don’t know who her family is, or where she comes from. You must know Father won’t approve. Most northerners are here specifically to evade the ordinances.”
“Ordinances that Father himself protested before Mother died.” Ash crosses his arms over his chest.
“Maybe he’s grown up since then,” James retorts.
They sit in brooding silence before James finally sighs, and retreats to his tent.
Ash remains outside well into the night, watching the flickering flames of the fire die away.