His eyes seemed to get brighter, though that might have just been my imagination. Immediately, Rivven set about preparing Foxitt to venture outside. When the mount was ready, Rivven led her by the reins out of the barn doors.
“How should I, um…” I eyed Foxitt. She looked even taller outside somehow.
I didn’t have a clue how I’d get up there. Maybe I could climb up a snowbank and kind of…vault off of it.
But I should have known Rivven would have me covered. His left hand gripped my waist. His right forearm pushed against the backs of my thighs, buckling my knees as he hoisted me upwards.
“Oh!” I yelped as I was deposited onto Foxitt’s back with what seemed like barely any effort at all on Rivven’s part. I grasped at the reins, panicking that I’d fall off, but Rivven was already hauling himself up behind me. He reached around me with his hand on the left side and his tail on the other, gently taking the reins from me.
“Thanks,” I said, my heart hammering away in my chest. “For a second there, I thought I’d take a tumble!”
Rivven made a sound of displeasure, or maybe disbelief, low in his throat.
“You never need to worry about that,” he said quietly. “Not while I’m around.”
My pulse, which had just started to slow back to normalcy, spiked once more.
It had been years since someone had told me I could rely on them. Years since I’d had someone to support me, to keep me from falling.
And hadn’t Rivven already proven the truth of his words? Even the simple act of walking down the stairs that first morning had been made so much better with his solid arm beneath my hand.
I was starting to think that a lot of things might be better with him. Made better by him.
Rivven guided Foxitt with a practised ease. We moved at a relaxed pace, travelling down the various shovelled paths on the property. Rivven took us by a stand of trees and told me there was a pond beyond them.
“Oh, wow. Do you ever go there? Can you, like, fish or anything?” I asked. A pond sounded strangely cute and magical to me. The only body of water near New Toronto was the huge, cold, and unforgiving Lake New Nipissing.
“Don’t think there are any fish in it,” he replied. “It’s not that big. It’s just about entirely frozen right now.” After a slight hesitation, he added, “I supposed I could skate on it. I used to skate on the village pond as a child.”
“You did? I’ve never been skating before. That sounds really fun.” I’d seen images of the act on Christmas cards, and had watched actors do it in Old-Earth films. I’d heard there were endless options for entertainment on Elora Station, including indoor ice rinks, and I’d always planned to visit one when I went there for my art training.
Which obviously hadn’t happened.
“I do remember it being quite enjoyable,” he said. “It was on the property of the local school. The one that housed the orphans’ barracks where I lived. I always spent a lot of time outdoors. Whenever I was not engaged in school chores, lessons, or participating in Choosing Day.”
“What’s Choosing Day?”
“It was a day, every few cycles, when wealthy Zabrians who wanted children – or more children than they already had – would visit the barracks to potentially choose one of the orphans to bring home.”
My insides twisted.
I didn’t need to ask Rivven if he’d ever gotten chosen.
He went straight from the orphans’ barracks to this exile colony.
And it made me so fucking mad.
Who could look at him, with all his stores of quiet goodness, and not choose him?
Would his life have been different if somebody had? He might never have ended up in whatever situation had sent him here.
A situation I knew nothing about.
“How did you get here, Rivven?” I let the question tumble out before I could swallow it down. He’d told me before that I could ask him anything. And that he’d always give me the truth. “What was your conviction for?”
I stared straight ahead, wondering if this conversation might be easier if we weren’t looking into each other’s eyes. When he didn’t answer right away, I placed my hands on his forearms and gave a gentle squeeze.
“When the director of the school died,” Rivven began, “his brother assumed responsibility of the institution. He…He was not a good man. Not like his late brother. After reviewing the schools financial accounts, he declared that the orphans in the barracks would replace the janitorial staff. We would not be paid directly. Our labour would be put towards our room and board.”
