Boelik (4 page)

Bo nodded. “I understand. You don’t want us
to fear one another.”

“
Right. Naturally, the
effects wear off after some time, but by then you may have damaged
the way you see one another.” In a moment, the trio heard crashing
coming from the surrounding forest and heading straight for them.
“Hurry!” Helena hissed, sprinting to the tree and rushing
upward.

The three got into their spots and hid,
keeping even their breaths to a minimum. Soon Mar and his paladins
were in earshot, and the horses had come to a halt. “Where is it?”
Mar yelled. Bo tensed beside Olea, who sidled closer to him and
stifled a whimper. The leaves almost completely blocked the pair’s
view. “Where did the creature go?”

“
I don’t know, sir. The
tracks seem to end here.”

“
Then it must be—” Mar was
interrupted by a bout of coughing, and his men soon joined him.
Even the horses began to sneeze.

“
Now!” Helena’s voice came.
Bo and Olea jumped up and jerked around, trying to look as
frightening as possible. Bo even made animalistic noises that alone
would have scared Olea. The men and horses screamed, immediately
bolting in the other direction.

Once sure that the hunters were gone, the
trio regrouped on the ground, the stars winking into existence in
the dusk. Crickets surrounded the group, their chirping filling the
air.

“
We did it,” Olea
sighed.

“
Barely,” Bo said. Helena
smacked him on the shoulder with her staff. “Ow! What was that
for?” he growled, shooting her a glare.

“
What do you say to the
lady?” Helena pressed, unperturbed by Bo’s cranky face.

Bo looked at Olea, the irritation already
gone from his gaze. “Thank you for the assistance.”

“
You’re welcome,” she
replied, coming over and leaning against his left side, putting his
clawed arm over her shoulder.

“
I’m glad you aren’t afraid
of me,” he mumbled. He pressed his face to the top of her head and
closed his eyes as he breathed her scent.

“
Why would I be afraid of
the man I love?” she said softly, burying her face in his fur in
turn.

Helena gazed upon them quietly, a small smile
on her face. She came over to Bo and whispered a proposal in his
other ear. He looked at her and nodded, a sparkle in his hazel
eyes. He turned his eyes back to the exhausted Olea beside him and
gave a soft smile.

Bo whispered back to the witch, “We will do
it by my creek,” and gave her directions. “Olea?” Bo asked then,
turning to his friend.

“
Yes, Bo?” she said, her
voice muffled through his fur. She turned her face so that one of
her warm brown eyes was visible.

“
Would you like to stay
with me, at least for the night?”

Olea nodded. Then, “Bo?”

“
Yes?”

“
Your things are about
where you entered the forest in the chase.”

“
All right.”

Olea stifled a yawn as she glanced over to
Helena. “Thank you.”

Helena nodded once, a smile on her face.

“
Let’s get you home,” Bo
said, sweeping Olea off of her feet, startling her to full
wakefulness.

“
I can walk,” she
protested. “And what about Helena?”

“
Already home,” Helena
said, disappearing before them in an instant, only an echo of her
voice remaining to vouch for her existence.

“
All right,” Olea
relented.

As Bo carried her to his home, he hummed a
lullaby to her to put her to sleep. He was careful not to jostle
her too much as he walked. Her hair cascaded over his arm as he
cradled her head, and he found that for the first time in a long
time, he felt like he belonged where he was.

When Bo finally put her in his bed, she was
deeply asleep. He smiled and went to fetch his things from where
Olea said they were, returning quickly and putting the wolf fur
over her as a blanket. He pulled a separate deer hide from the shed
and put it on the floor to sleep on that beside her.

In the morning, Bo was up at dawn and found
the wolf fur draped over him and Olea sitting up in bed. “Up so
early? You seemed exhausted,” he yawned.

“
I was. But light shone
onto my face from a crack.”

“
Oh, that’s right. I’m
sorry; I usually use that to rouse me so I can make the most of the
day.” Bo sat up and stretched from the hide. Looking out toward the
leaks of sun from the walls, he asked, “Would you like to come with
me on a walk?”

“
Yes,” Olea replied. The
two got up, and Bo put on his cloak with the fox clasp over his
left arm as usual. Olea stared at him, one eyebrow raised. He
looked himself up and down before giving her a quizzical scowl in
return. She rolled her eyes and adjusted the navy cloak so that it
was even on both sides.

Outside, the two walked to the creek, where
Olea took a seat and Bo sat next to her. She was on his left.
“Would you marry me?” he asked, his heart full of unfounded
fear.

“
Of course,” Olea replied,
leaning against him without the slightest hesitation.

He grinned, his heart now lighter than air,
and shouted to the woods as he wrapped his arms around her. “She
said she would!”

“
Bo!” she laughed.
Suddenly, Helena appeared before them, emerging from behind a large
oak. “Helena!”

“
Hello, dear. So, you said
yes, did you?”

Olea grinned at Bo, who beamed back. “I
did.”

“
Well, would you like to
take your vows?”

“
Oh, yes, please!” Olea
said.

The pair stood and took their vows with
Helena as their priestess, the birds singing in the branches as the
light of the sun cascaded through the trees. They kissed to tie
their bonds, and as Olea leaned back, she grinned with sparkling
eyes as she looked into Bo’s. “And they lived…”

Bo grinned. “…happily ever after.”

***

Olea sat at the table Bo had crafted for the
new cottage he built in the first year of their union, her hand on
her growing belly as she stared at the hearth. Bo sat on the other
side, sharpening his knife. The only sounds in the cabin were the
crackling of the fire and the sound of Bo’s knife as he struck it
against the whet stone in a practiced rhythm.

“
Bo, I know you won’t age
like me,” she said without warning. Bo looked up at her from the
other side of the table, his eyes wide with surprise, his carving
knife poised for another strike against the stone. Olea only gazed
down at her belly with loving eyes. “In only five years I can see
that.”

“
Yes?”

“
So, how much older are you
than I?” Olea asked.

Bo sighed and put his blade and stone on the
table. “You are of five and twenty years, correct?” Olea nodded,
eyes shining with curiosity. “I am only about ten years ahead of
you.”

“
Ten! You look no further
than three.”

Bo shrugged. “That’s when I stopped seeming
to age.”

“
Well, then, will you
outlive me?”

“
Surely.”

“
Our child?”

Bo nodded.

“
And further?”

Bo finally looked away, his hazel eyes dark.
“I will live for a very, very long time if it is only age that
tries to take me.”

“
But you don’t want
to?”

Bo met her gaze, his hazel eyes level with
her brown ones. “If I were to die, and our child after
comparatively few years, would you want to continue to live?”

Olea broke eye contact this time, giving
another motherly glance at her belly. “I suppose not. No; I know I
would not.” Bo sat back in his chair with a sigh and put a hand
through his long hair. “But Bo, you could watch over our children,”
Olea suggested. He tilted his head, and she laughed at how he
looked like a wondering puppy.

“
What do you mean,
Olea?”

“
I mean, you can watch our
children after I am gone. And their children after them. You can be
a family protector,” she insisted. Bo leaned forward and put his
elbow on the table, his human hand holding his chin as he
thought.

“
It would be a long time
before you saw me again.”

“
I would wait. I am
patient. And I could watch over you.”

“
I’d miss you,” Bo admitted
after a moment, an apologetic smirk on his face.

“
And I would miss you,”
Olea agreed. “But you’d see us both in every child, if you looked.
So you could always see me, whenever you wanted to.” Bo’s mouth
twitched into a smile.

“
How did I end up with such
a lovely woman?” he asked.

“
You asked,” Olea replied
with a grin.

Bo stood and leaned over the small table to
give her a peck on the forehead. “And I received. I’ll be back in
time for dinner,” he said as he stood back and donned his two
cloaks.

“
Going hunting?”

“
Of course. How do you feel
about rabbit for tomorrow?”

“
I feel like it would go
wonderfully with some fresh vegetables if they’d grow quickly
enough.”

“
We’ve only just finished
planting the seeds. It might be a while before we get anything
worth eating.”

“
I know. But you did ask
how I felt about rabbit.” Her eyes sparkled playfully in the light
of the candle that sat on the table.

Bo grinned. “I’ll be back soon.” And he
opened the door to head out.

True to his word, Bo was back by dinnertime.
His silver hand carried two rabbits as he walked back into his
grove. He put the prey in the little shed, glancing over at his old
house. It was tiny, with hardly enough room to stretch. It was also
quite pitiful in appearance, with a barrier of branches as a door
and cracks everywhere.

Inside he’d had a small place for his
pelt-bed, a place to pace, and a chair to sit on while he carved
whatever he needed along with the little figures that he crafted to
talk to from time to time. He’d taken the chair to the new home.
The little figures were long burned—often the night they were
made—though Bo had made a few for Olea now.

He turned away to look over at his new home.
It was a stark contrast to the little hovel he’d built. This home
was far larger: with room enough for a bed of hide, an area to cook
indoors, a place to sit and eat, and room enough to dance on Olea’s
whim.

It held a stew pot and fireplace, and Bo had
made a table and another chair. Any cracks in the walls were filled
with clay, the door was a real door, and Bo could at last stretch
his arms indoors.

Bo walked inside and saw Olea tending the
stew. He was thankful that she’d returned to the village and gotten
supplies from her parents. Of course, Mar hadn’t come back through
the village after he was scared off, so it was easy enough to
convince the villagers that he’d killed Bo and given up on her as a
wife. Then she managed to convince them that she’d married a farmer
not far from the village, and Bo had bartered for a calf with the
wolf pelt, and he traded the calf for Olea.

Of course, Bo being ‘dead’ meant that he had
had to have Olea remake his deals with the skinner and tanner in
his place, and that she had to act as though he were a sickly sort
of man. This was the only way the people would not question her
coming alone every time she came into the village. But it still
gave her pleasure to visit her family on those trips, and it was
that alone that kept Bo from moving again.

Olea turned from the fire with a smile as Bo
entered, her lithe form broken by the lump in her belly. Her golden
hair was lit up by the fire behind, which was now the only light in
the house, and Bo smiled at her while he replaced the door behind
him. She glanced down at his hand and her smile disappeared,
replaced with a raised, speculating eyebrow and a hand on her hip.
Bo looked at his now-crimson-furred hand, covered in rabbit’s
blood.

“
Boelik?”

“
Yes?” he replied
sheepishly, avoiding her eyes.

“
Wash yourself before you
eat, please.”

“
Right,” Bo said, an
abashed smile on his face. He moved over to the little urn of water
beside the table and dipped his hand in, rubbing the other over it
for a minute before pulling it out relatively clean. He looked over
at Olea quizzically and held it up to show her. She
nodded.

“
Now we can eat,” she said.
She ladled some stew into a bowl and handed it to Bo. He set it at
Olea’s place at the table and then came back to get the second
bowl, which he sat down with. Olea came soon after and they ate in
patient silence for a while.

“
The sun will set soon. Do
you want to go out and see it?” Bo asked near the end of the
meal.

Olea swallowed the mouthful of stew she had
before answering. “I think that would be wonderful.” Bo nodded.

After another few moments of silence, Olea
asked, “Was the hunting good today?”

“
Oh, yes. I’m sorry about
the blood from earlier as well. I’ll change the water
tomorrow.”

“
Speaking of tomorrow,
could we go to the apple orchard? I think that they should be ripe
enough about now.”

“
Of course. But remember
that a basket does not make a good weapon.” Bo’s eyes glinted
playfully at Olea in the dim light from across the
table.