Kida kept quiet as he moved into the stables. The scent of hay and carrion overwhelmed his senses, and he moved slowly through the fenced hallways. Row after row of horses were holed up in the facility, massive Clydesdales that could weather the poor weather of the north, but they saw little action. Kida had been taught that the horses were only kept for travels to Nida or other warmer regions, not for any sort of travelling that he or the other soldiers of Snowdog would do.
Because of their disuse, the horses had to be maintained carefully, and the task supposedly fell to the clerical students to exercise and clean the steeds. While it seemed as though the residents of Snowdog’s Keep were warming up to his presence, Kida thought he didn’t have to guess as to why he had never been picked for the task. Even so, the task went unpicked on the chores list week after week, and yet… the horses still looked well managed. Someone had been doing the task.
And sure enough, in the far back of the stables, Lady Parhelion stood on the tips of her toes trying to replace the lantern in one of the horse’s stalls. Despite the girl’s age, she was left alone in her task of tending to the stables. Kida approached her calmly, trying not to interfere with her work.
“I must admit, I didn’t think you were the one covering this task.”
Lady Parhelion barely reacted to the demon’s presence as she continued to fiddle with the lantern. “A good knight can ride any mount, not just his favored one. Horses are easy to kill, so you should bond with lots of them. Are you here to fight?”
“Of course not,” Kida scoffed. “I came to help.”
“Don’t need help,” Lady Parhelion replied. “I’ve been- wHOA-“
As the stepladder beneath Lady Parhelion’s feet began to sway, Kida reached out a hand and caught the small child by her arm, leaving her to dangle over the pen’s gate. Lady Parhelion gave Kida a begrudging look.
“Please drop me.”
“Very well.” Kida said, dropping Lady Parhelion straight down. In a panicked flurry of limbs, she barely caught herself from clipping the side of the gate, and pushed her way back into maintaining her balance.
“Thank you. You’re very strong.”
“Thank you. You’re very generous, handing out compliments to a demon,” Kida laughed, reaching over Parhelion to look at the light she was trying to fix.
“You’re stuck in the city because Snowdog won’t let you leave without serving, yeah? If you beat me in a swordfight, I’ll show you how to escape.”
“You make generous offers as well,” Kida responded, tightening the lamp’s gadgetry. “But I have no intent to leave. I am here to study as a paladin, and my little brothers are safe. There will come a time to leave this land, but for now it is blissful living amongst people who do not hunt my kind.”
“You get hunted?” Lady Parhelion asked, propping her chin up by her elbows as she leaned on a barrel. “Like… by other demons?”
“Other demons, humans, even animals,” Kida responded, sending the horse a nervous glance. “My lineage is that of By-Tors’. We may hold different ideals in our hearts, but the same blood courses through them.”
The light flickered on finally with a click, and Kida let it swing back into the stall. Lady Parhelion looked up at him with a fascinated gaze.
“How long have you been working in the stables?” Kida asked, grabbing a broom and starting to sweep hay back into the stall.
“About four years, I think,” Lady Parhelion responded.
“Four years… how old are you then?”
“I’ll be turning thirteen soon.”
“Thirteen years old, hm.” Kida muttered. “Why did they make you start so young? In fact, why are you with the scholars at all? Everyone else is at least five years your senior.”
“I work in the stables cause I was told to work in the stables. It’s good experience for when I’ll need to work with the animals later in life. I go to cleric school on my father’s wishes. The professors agreed that I could start training early, so now I attend classes with all the older kids.”
“With all the adults, you mean.” Kida laughed. “You know, if you’re skilled enough to get into the Scholars at such a young age, it would suggest you’re more than capable of doing your coursework.”
“It’s tough,” Lady Parhelion complained, grabbing an armful of feed and strolling over to another trough. “I can maybe work through it, but I don’t have the time.”
“But you’ve got time to tend to the stables, hm?”
Lady Parhelion dropped the feed and looked over at Kida, with a twinge of fear in her eyes. Kida barked out a laugh before returning to his sweeping.
“Time to tend to the stables, time to pick fights with strangers… seems to me like you don’t want to be a cleric after all, and that perhaps you’re letting your studies slip.”
“That’s not it,” Lady Parhelion choked up, becoming flustered, “Don’t say-“
“There’s no shame in it, in fact quite the opposite,” Kida assured, keeping his eyes on the floor as he swept. “If you do not wish to be a cleric, then it’s admirable that you’re at least learning some basics of healing. When I was your age, I was out stuck on a farm most of the time, working the soil. Makes you strong, but didn’t learn much about what I needed later in life.”
As a moment of silence passed between them, Kida looked up to find Lady Parhelion turned away, tears brimming in her eyes.
“C’mon now kid, you shouldn’t be sad about it-“
“I’m not- I’m going to be a cleric.”
“You’re absolutely not, though maybe you could be if you tried. You’d be better off growing up to be what you want to be. Why grow up to be a good cleric when you can grow up to be a great knight?”
Lady Parhelion shuffled over to the next stall, dropping off more feed, but Kida could tell that the girl was a little more at ease than before.
“Besides, I’ll be taking the position of the best healer in all the Nine realms. I don’t want any competition, so I’m knocking it out early.”
A small giggle came from the girl as she moved on, and the two continued work for quite some time. The work was a lot more physically grueling than Kida had expected, but Lady Parhelion seemed to have the motions down pat. The girl moved from station to station, carrying out heavy tasks with a sort of unexpected ease that he hadn’t seen her display in front of her peers. In the classroom, Lady Parhelion had been flighty and clumsy, not to mention disinterested. Here though, she seemed well-practiced and graceful, the way that a soldier might be in such a situation.
“When did you learn to fight?” Kida asked.
“I’ve always known how to fight.” Lady Parhelion responded, dropping off another giant stack of hay.
“That’s not an answer. When did they first make you pick up a sword?”
“Don’t remember. I’ve always been able to wield a sword, since I was a babe.”
“But, why?”
Lady Parhelion shrugged, placing a hand on the hilt of her fearsome dagger. “When I was little, people protected me. But now I’m older, and there are people much weaker than me. I guess it’s my turn.”
“You’re still young,” Kida said with a huff.
Again, Lady Parhelion shrugged. “May not live to be much older. It’s the North. I’m grateful for my training, and I hope that I’ll get a chance to use it… and maybe not have to be stuck in the backlines as a cleric.”
“Hmph. Well… have you learned how to ride yet?”
Lady Parhelion patted the back of one of the horses. “I rode horseback a little when I was young, but I don’t like the feeling. They’re slow, and tough to turn. The wolves are smarter.”
Kida froze, still distributing feed, and remembered the scent of carrion he’d smelled when he’d entered. “Er… wolves?”
Lady Parhelion’s face split open with a grin, and she grabbed Kida’s massive hand, pulling him along to the back of the stables.
“Oh, you’re going to like this!”