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“We’ll kill them with our poisoned arrows.”
“And then they’ll wipe you the fuck out on horseback. Stop being a stupid dick.”
That last part is not very diplomatic at all, but it’s the message at the center of all peace talks ever, I imagine.
“We are not being stupid dicks. This is our land! You have claimed the wreckage and the city.”
“Wait. You want the city?”
“Yes, we want the city!” The Eponite queen seems surprised that I did not know that.
I turn to Equs. “Well let them have the city then? It’s a hole in the ground.”
Equs shakes his head. “They poison and kill people. We cannot put our young at risk that way. And there are many thousands who live in the city and have for many generations. Who built homes there, have families there…”
“It’s not your wreckage, Equs! It’s our shared heritage.”
The Eponite queen is right. But will being right be enough?
They bicker long into the night. I wrap myself in a blanket and fall asleep leaning against a small pony who has likewise lost interest in the politics of the Eponites and the Talls and just wants a rest.
Morning comes, and breakfast is served. The Eponites and the Talls share rations, for the Eponites, have the water and the Talls have brought food supplies. It’s all very charming and inspiring. Somewhere, I hope a bard is watching so all this general heroism can be recorded.
The conversations continue. All day. All night. All day again.
In the end, it is a deceptively simple resolution. The wrecked city will allow the Eponites to move into it as citizens, as long as they agree to follow the laws of Equs. And the Eponites will no longer attack the talls, on pain of being shot with their own poisoned arrows.
It’s a start. These things are never resolved overnight or in a single day. It will take many, many years for tensions to settle and populations to mingle. At some point, I am sure there will be a new kind of native to Epona Prime. Not an Eponite, or a Tall, but some kind of Middle.
“Now to deal with you. Again.”
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I am waking up, so I must have. Someone has propped me by the wagon wheel and put a blanket over me. I know it wasn't Equs. Did Vulpes do something nice? Does he have some feeling other than absolute loathing for me?
Equs is standing over me. I’d say he doesn't look happy, but he has his poker face on. He might be furious. He might be happy. He might be over the moon. Who knows.
“The Eponites are child’s play compared to dealing with me.”
He snorts. “Truer words have never been spoken. You do as you please. You act recklessly, and with no regard for your personal safety…”
I start to tune out because I have heard this lecture before.
He crouches down, grabs me by the chin, and makes me look at him. He always knows when I’ve stopped paying attention.
“And you protect my herds as your own. Your rage is a force to be reckoned with. I am almost certain half the reason the Eponites agreed to a truce is that they did not want you hunting them.”
“Well, I have been described as…” I trail off. I’ve been described as a lot of things. Most of them rhyme with ‘itch’
“We would never have found peace if not for your recklessness.”
“Ah shucks. I’m sure you would have worked it out sooner or later.” I pat his massive muscular shoulder. Trying to patronize Equs, even as a joke, is a ludicrous proposition.
“I,” he announces. “Am going to marry you.”
“Oh,” I say. “Cool.”
Thirteen
Blaire
We’re getting married. I’m going to marry a king. Those two facts give me a slightly dissociative feeling every time I think about them. I swore I’d never marry anybody. I suppose that goes to show you should never swear anything because you don’t really know what the hell is going to happen to you.
There’s no point clinging to old promises made to an old version of myself which basically doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not as though I’m ever going to find anyone I want to be with more than Equs. Yes, he tried to tame me in a pen like an animal, but first dates are always awkward, and he’s been treating me like a real person since then, for the most part. More or less.
Before we actually get married, we rebuild the stables. By some miracle, none of the horses were killed in the fires. The Eponite spies must have let them out before they started the attack properly. Or maybe Vulpes got them all out. Maybe fate was on our side. There are some things we may never know, let alone understand.
The work site is busy, and I am in the middle of it. I’m not going to sit off to the side like some kind of princess for this part of the story, just like I haven’t sat off to the side for any of the rest of it.
