Page 2 of Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed

He slid his fingers into the envelope’s slit, breaking the seal. It could be a coincidence. It could be someone other than her, someone who used the same seal. Marigolds and magpies were common enough emblems. Originality was dead, anyways, wasn’t that the saying?

Then he saw the lone words, written in scrawled, feminine handwriting, and all hopeful doubts vanished.

Found you.

2

An Explosive Visit

Dear Diary,

It is day two hundred and forty-eight, and I am still not dead LIKELY TO BE DEAD BY NIGHTFALL. Progress on the lute has been going melodiously well DOESN’T MATTER ANYMORE, and Benjamin has finally given birth to two kids. OH MY GODS THE CHILDREN. Their adorable bleats woke me up first thing this morning, and I can tell already tell it’s going to be a splendid day AN AWFUL DAY BECAUSE

The tip of his quill snapped. Morfran seethed out a profanity and tried to chuck it across the room, but since it was essentially a feather, it only floated at a frustrating, devil-may-care pace to his feet. So he stomped on it with his boot.

She knew. She knew where he was. How could she possibly? He was clear across the kingdom. He’d avoided the main roads, the large cities, and his men who were maintaining command over these lands. He was even wearing hose, for hell’s sake. Did she know that as well?

Embarrassment flushed through him in addition to panic. She was so fussy about his appearance. For the past ten years he’d been outfitted in one style and one style only: one (1) white billowy shirt, one (1) pair of knee-high boots, and (perhaps the most important) one (1) pair of tight, black, seductive leather pants. Sexy and stylish for sure, but it was sweltering in the summer, and he stunk like sweat six months out of the year because of it.

Now she was going to see him in hose. Now she was going to give him that tiny, judgmental arch of her eyebrow, a gesture that had the uncanny power of seemingly robbing a person of all dignity. That realization decided it.

I have to leave.

But he couldn’t leave. This plot of land was prime real estate: swaths of green hills, fertile soil where he’d already planted his chickpeas and chives, and a little stream of cold mountain water that quaintly cut through his property line. It even burbled. He thought all the poets and bards were liars whenever they sang about burbling little streams—he’d even outlawed the word and lopped the heads off anyone who was heard speaking it.

And then there was Benjamin. She was in no shape to travel with the kids, and she screamed and fainted easily when overstimulated. How was he supposed to hit the road with a screaming, fainting goat with two kids in tow?

He looked darkly at the malicious letter he’d tossed onto his kitchen table. Did it have to arrive today? Why not next week, or the next, or perhaps maybe even never?

He plopped into his rocking chair, shoulders slouched, fingers fidgeting for his sword as he contemplated his options. He wanted to doubt she’d sent a troop across the kingdom to capture him, but this was Ravana. She once ate a full chicken—bones included—because a visiting monarch had the audacity to doubt her word, and after he dared her to eat the roasted poultry from atop the dining table, she did it without taking her gaze from his, and when she was finished, she politely dabbed her delicate lips with a napkin and demanded he be removed from the table immediately, forcibly, and painfully.

Yes, she would come for him. She’d bring his men—though he supposed they were officially her men now—and together they’d stomp out his eyes, or carve out the veins from his arms with a thimble, or any number of other creatively wretched things. And they’d probably go a step further and make Benjamin and the kids watch.

Morfran went to fetch a shovel.

His sword was by the burbling mountain stream, buried six feet deep beneath a mount of rocks stacked up like a cairn. He was sweating by the time he’d moved the stones and dug up his sword and scabbard, irritated that he was yet again unburying the weapon he kept trying to keep buried. By then Benjamin was out on the cobblestone path leading up to his house, watching him, her two wobbly legged kids tethered to his front doorknob by rope. They absolutely could not step onto his yard. It’d taken him weeks to train Benjamin to avoid it.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” he told the she-goat as he scanned the foothills. “They could be out there watching us as we speak.”

He went back inside and began scrounging for items to pack. An extra set of hose and a tunic and his leather pants—definitely. The shabby cloak he stole from a clothesline up north near Tarlsbrook—yes. His journal, an inkwell, and an extra quill that wasn’t stomped on—yes. Jars of his jams, his water skins, half a dozen apples, and two loaves of bread—yes, yes, yes, and yes. His old crossbow that shot powerful, armor-penetrating arrows? Nah, he’d leave that, but he’d bring his lute.

He rolled these into a pack, secured his lute to the back, and brought Benjamin and her two kids inside the house, where they proceeded to eat Ravana’s letter, wax seal and all.

“Eat up, my friends.” He knelt down beside them, stroking their fine-haired heads. “We’ll have a long journey ahead of us.”

The statement only reminded him that such a journey was a death sentence for them. The kids couldn’t walk for miles on end. What was he thinking, that they weren’t born yesterday? Tearing the sheet off his bed, he fastened a type of baby-holder for them across his chest and gently lowered them inside. Their little bodies warmed him, their heartbeats as gentle as the beat of fly wings.

Although his mind was in low-mode panic, their cuteness calmed him. He smiled, rubbing his finger alongside the mottled-brown-eared one, while the snow-white one peeked its head out from the sheet to peer around the room.

“I’ll name you both,” he whispered. “As soon as I know what genders you are. Wouldn’t want to misname you like I did your mother here—”

BBBLLLAAAAAAAHHHH!

Morfran jumped, nearly upsetting the kids from their baby carrier, and swung towards Benjamin’s high-pitched, humanlike scream.

She was facing the window, her red bristly tail pointed up like an exclamation point.

He gawked at her, perplexed. “What is—”