Interlude: Ritah

"I don't understand half of this," sighed Jalver, the large dhampir man who was sitting across from Ritah, and 'marking' the written part of the recent tin exam. He was, barring the Outlander Nathan, one of the largest men who Ritah had ever seen, and even out of his metal armour had shoulders almost twice as wide as her own.

He usually shaved both his head and his beard, but was observing mourning for his dear friend Tabitha, which in Mercian culture involved not cutting one's hair or shaving, amongst various other rituals. Personally, she thought he looked better with half an inch of black hair on both his scalp and jaw.

Ritah had worked with him quite a bit in preparing the Tin Exam, since Laera had gleefully delegated all authority on the matter to Ritah. She had now realised that the pink-haired half-demon absolutely hated large swathes of her job and was taking full advantage of Ritah's competence. Although he and Laera weren't really speaking to each other, Jalver had been very pleasant to work with. Paperwork didn't come naturally to him, but he hadn't tried to shirk his responsibilities as the chief examiner, and in contrast to many dhampir was both courteous and respectful to her, and never made her feel like he didn't take her anything less than absolutely seriously as a colleague.

"Charlie's?" asked Ritah, looking up from Nathan's rather short and curt answer to the question 'Why is mapping and taking accurate notes important?' to which he had written two, or perhaps one incomprehensible word: 'speedrunning.' Ritah had no idea what 'speed' and 'running' were doing together without space-marker a space, but apparently Nathan thought his answer was self-explanatory, because he hadn't elaborated at all.

"Yeah," said Jalver, rubbing his face. "Listen to this. In response to 'What is the role of the guild?’ they've written: 'the Adventuring Guild acts as a transnational non-governmental organisation that operates on quasi-cooperative principles to extract raw materials and finished goods from dungeons in a manner similar to a primary industry, although in Rorrovia it functions as a de facto sovereign entity.'" Jalver tossed the page down. "What in the nine hells are 'quasi-cooperative principles?' The marking guide says a correct answer is something along the lines of 'to make adventuring safer.'"

"It's fascinating, isn't it?" said Ritah.

"Not the word I'd use," said Jalver, picking up Charlie's exam again.

"But they come from an entirely different world," said Ritah. "Charlie knows so much about medicine; more than the greatest scholars in Querria or Carritas, even though they're only twenty four. Even if they didn't have their healing power, they'd be an incredible physician.

"And one of the new Outlanders, Zoe, she was some kind of arteficer back on Erde. I heard her talking with Laera, about using some kind of code over lower-powered aetherscope to send letters with nothing but a series of long or short taps. And more than that, their cultures are fascinating: take Charlie again, Charlie has no gender—I know of societies that have more than two, but none with no gender."

Ritah realised that she was giving a monologue, and closed her mouth, flushing slightly.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's alright," said Jalver with a chuckle. "I guess I've been more focused on how Charlie…" He cleared his throat and lost a little bit of his mirth. "Well, they annoy me."

Ritah frowned. "Annoy you?" she said.

Jalver had been one of the heroes who had liberated her. He'd killed, or at least, punched her ex-master overboard. She'd known he'd been angry with Laera over releasing the Caith, which she'd heard was Charlie's idea, but she hadn't expected Jalver to dislike them. Ritah was probably biased, owing her liberty to the lion-like doctor, but Charlie was a wonderful person.

"Charlie's an idealist," said Jalver. "Don't get me wrong, I think sh- they were right to spring those… well, to spring you and the others."

"I assumed as much, since you probably killed my ex-master," said Ritah.

Jalver frowned. "He was… oh, that was him?"

Ritah nodded. "Yes," she said. "And he absolutely deserved death."

Jalver was silent for a moment, and looked a bit conflicted. He opened his mouth, then closed it, before deciding to move on.

"Well, anyway Charlie is a bit… insufferable," he said. "They always think they're right, and that all the world needs is just for everyone to be nicer to each other. They're naive."

Ritah shook her head. "I don't think that's right," she said. "Charlie knew the danger when they freed me and the others."

"And trying to 'make peace' with those savages?"

Ritah's rabbit-like ears fell, and she felt herself lose a bit of respect for a man she otherwise quite liked. "Lots of dhampir call my people savages too."

"That- that's different," he said, immediately defensive.

Ritah looked back down at Nathan's exam, and said nothing for several long moments. Her first impulse was to immediately back down, to concede to the dhampir across from her. But that was the old her, the cowed her. That wasn't the woman she wanted to be anymore, it wasn't the woman she had to be.

"Is it?" said Ritah. "Because it looks pretty similar to me: both our cultures are derided as primitive, we're both portrayed in books and plays as stupid, even here, where I am free, many dhampir just assume I'm unintelligent."

"I'm not- I'm not a racist!" said Jalver, his pale cheeks reddening. "I don't think any of those things about you!"

"I'm not attacking you, Jalver," said Ritah, resisting the urge to snap at him even though she hadn’t implied he was any of those things at all. "You saved my life, my daughter's life, you put yourself and your friends in danger to do it; you wouldn't have done that if you were a dhampir supremacist. I'm just saying, when people call the Caith savages… I see a lot of parallels."

"They killed Tabbeeza!" he said.

"I know, and they would have killed my daughter too," she said. "If you hadn't stopped them. I'm glad you held them back, and I can't say I'd have let them go if I were Laera."

"Then why are you taking Charlie's stupid 'forgive and forget' side?" he said.

"Because I think Charlie has a point," said Ritah. "That if we want peace, then we need to make peace. And I don't think that the Caith are somehow inherently monstrous or unreasonable, that we can't bargain with them. I think they're just people, like us, trying to survive in this violent world where people showed up on their shores uninvited and started taking their land and killing them. And… and I want my daughter to grow up in a safe town, free from both slavers and raiders. I don't think we get that by pushing for revenge."

Jalver's jaw flexed for a few moments, before shook his head and looked to the side.

"I just… miss her, I miss her so much," he said in a small voice, wiping a tear from the edge of his eye. "Tabbz, I mean; she was like my sister."

Some of Ritah's irritation melted away from her heart.

"I'm sorry," she said, reaching over and placing her much smaller hand over his bigger one. He blinked and looked at her, and she started, drawing her arm back and blushing as she realised what she had just done; her stomach did a little flip. Huh, that was new.

"S-sorry," she said.

"It's fine," he said, wiping another tear. "I appreciate it. It's… it's been hard. Especially… well, Laera and I… I thought we were close; I just- it feels like a betrayal."

He gave her a pained smile.

"Sorry, I shouldn't dump this on you," he said.

"You're grieving," said Ritah. "But so is she. I work pretty closely with her. Sometimes I hear her crying, in her office."

Jalver looked away, clearly uncomfortable. On some level, she could empathise with him. Ritah knew she wasn't a paragon: if the Caith had killed someone she loved, her daughter, then… well, she would have wanted blood too. But she could also see that Laera was desperately trying to keep the town afloat; a town that was Ritah's home now, the only place where she had any kind of connections that wouldn't see her immediately re-enslaved. She needed Guildport to succeed.

"What do you think I should do?" he asked.

"I think that Laera is doing her best," said Ritah. "And I think that her idea had the most chance of succeeding, in seeing this town safely through. This place is my only hope for my future; my daughter's future."

"But, you could go back to Carritas?" said Jalver. "There is a ship next week, quite a few beastkin have scraped together enough for passage-"

"My mother and I were kidnapped by bandits when I was four years old," said Ritah, perhaps a tad more sharply than she intended. "Sold on to dhampir slave merchants at a strange port that could be one of around seven. I have no idea where I am from, beyond the fact that my first language is Goralan, the northern dialect, and my name means 'Desert Runner,' so perhaps it was an arid area in the north west.

"But there are hundreds of settlements that speak that language, and even if I could find the one I was born in, even if it still exists, then what is there for me there? Strangers with customs I don't know anymore, and the constant risk that what happened to my mother and I will happen to Nessa and me. Carritas is not my home; Guildport is the closest thing I have ever had to one."

"Oh," said Jalver. "I'm sorry, that… I didn't know. And… your mother?"

"She died on the voyage," said Ritah, shuddering at the memory of the stinking, cramped, soaking, rolling weeks of darkness.

"I'm… I'm so sorry," he said, looking queasy. "That's awful."

Ritah shrugged. "My story is not unusual," she said. "But I am free now, and I will do whatever is necessary to remain that way, and to give my daughter a future. Laera's strategy, Charlie's strategy was and is still the only one I can see with a chance of working. I know you're grieving, but I have too much to lose to care for your vengeance. To answer your question, I think you should support Laera; I think she needs you; I think Guildport needs unity."

"Well… thanks for being honest," he said diplomatically.

"You're welcome," she said, once again pleasantly surprised that instead of dismissal or condescension or anger that she was speaking her mind, he was taking her seriously. That felt… good, even if his comment about 'savages' had annoyed her a bit.

They both fell silent, and kept on marking for the next twenty minutes. Jarvel seemed thoughtful, but Ritah occasionally furtively glanced up, thinking about what she had felt when she had touched his hand. Was she interested in him? She'd never had a romantic partner…

"Alright, I give up," said Jalver, tossing Charlie's exam down and reaching for the stamp with blue ink that said 'pass' and ramming it down. "The damned doctor is qualified for Tin, even if half their answers are impenetrable. What exactly is 'the commodity form,' and why do several of their answers discuss linen coats for four paragraphs? Who even gave them this much paper?"

Ritah laughed. "I did."

"Curse you, you harpy, so that's why you gave me theirs to mark," he said with a mock scowl, lightening the atmosphere of the room significantly.

Ritah grinned toothily. "Oh, would you have rather had Nathans?" she said. "Do you know what a 'Speedrun' is? Or perhaps 'Dee-Pee-Ess?'"

"What?" asked Jalver, pulling the Caith Outlander's paper towards him and furrowing his brow. "Goddess above, OK, I take it back, this is worse than Charlie's. Outlanders are weird." He pushed it back towards her. "Are you going to pass him?"

Ritah shrugged. "Assuming some of the stuff means what I think it does, he clears the fifty percent mark," she said. "And you said he did well on the practical."

"Insanely well for a man who'd apparently never held a sword six months ago," said Jalver. "Give him a few more years, and he'll be better than me, no question about it." He pursed his lips. "It's actually a bit… worrying, to be honest. Outlanders get powerful so fast, and there are so many of them. Way more than I've ever heard of showing up before. More every day, it seems.”

"So long as they're like Charlie, the more the merrier," said Ritah, stamping the Outlander's test and putting it with Charlie's and Norass'. The latter had failed the practical, but passed the theoretical, so when he retook the exam, he wouldn't need to write another paper.

"Alright, then unless you need anything else?" he said, standing up and putting the lid back on his expensive looking fountain pen.

Ritah bit her lip with her large overbite.

'What's the worst he can say?' said the optimist in her.

'Who knows how much time you have anyway? Guildport might fall tomorrow,’ said the pessimist.

Perhaps sensing the shift in her mood, his smile faded from his face. "I need to think about what you've said," he said. "Please don't push me, Ritah."

"I wanted to ask you something else, actually," she replied, taking a deep breath. "Would you like to have dinner with me?"

"Oh," he said, clearly very surprised. "You want… dinner?"

Ritah shrugged and tried to play it cool, even though her heart was racing in her chest and pounding in both her sets of ears. "I know you're going through a lot, but I enjoy spending time with you," she said. "I… I don't really have much experience with, uh, courting, but-"

"No, I'd… I'd like that," said Jalver.

Ritah grinned toothily.

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I have a new story going up on Scribblehub too, Marci of the Dreadfort. I will be releasing it at 1-2 chapters a day until it's caught up here, but it can be read up to Chapter 50 as a free member of my Patreon!