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Eric waved to the people from his vantage point in the saddle, leaning over Tor's thigh in an attempt to see them better. After getting the humans to their new home, Eric had wanted to linger for a day to make sure they were going to be alright. The Elder woman had reluctantly obliged, allowing Eric to help where he could. She smirked in mild amusement when a girl around the same age as Eric caught his eye. The boy tried to be smooth, but was out of his league with this one. The human didn't care about his wealth or nobility status. She didn't care that he wore nice clothes or had soldiers at his beck and call at his father's home. She only cared about personality, and his was apparently lacking in her eyes.

Defeated, he had sulked back to Tor that evening, plopping himself down against her leg. He heaved a big, dramatic sigh, one designed to catch attention and be a conversation starter, and looked up to his guardian. Tor had paid his emotions no mind and simply gave him a bit of the boar's-head-soup she had made. It still awed the little Princeling that the one boar she had killed would feed the human settlement for months and still have enough meat to supply them for the next week-and-a-half until they reached Crockett.

Morning rolled around and Tor announced they were leaving. Eric didn't argue. He went to go see the doctor one last time, was assured of a clean bill of health and given instructions for the soothing gel. Just as he was about to leave, Julia came in, handed him a few petals from a wild flower she had picked, kissed his cheek and darted back out of the tent. Eric grinned and stepped out to go after her, only to be swept up in Tor's hand and hauled into the air as she mounted Idiot. She set him down, expecting him to settle in his spot, only to have him wave down to the human camp. She rolled her eyes.

"You know they probably won't last out here, right?" she told him as they rode off. "I didn't see any travel papers. They're probably in the territory illegally. And even if they somehow did manage to get approval to move out here, that isn't a guarantee they won't be flooded by rains, destroyed by winds or incinerated by wildfires."

"But Elders face those threats, too," he pointed out. "And those are threats they face even in human country."

"One threat they don't face, is the occasional Elder that still likes snacking on humans," she replied.

"That is true." He paused, then spoke again. "You should stay and take care of them."

"Do what? No!" she said quickly. "I have my own issues to take care of. Namely getting my herds back from my brothers. And killing all three of them."

"You know, you say that a lot. Do you really plan to kill them?"

"Get settled. The ground is firm enough for Idiot to run. I need to make up for lost time."

Eric sighed but slid down into his little space. Not a moment too soon. Tor leaned forward, gigged the stud and they rocketed forward. The mare that was ponied behind them quickly picked up her speed as well. They ran for a good portion of the morning with occasional slow downs for the horses to catch their breaths. At noon, they stopped for a brief lunch of jerky and fruit. Eric ate his fill, as always, even when Tor seemed to eat barely any. He liked that she didn't limit how much he was allowed to eat. "My father would only let me have one serving of anything," he said in an off-handed manner. "He said that a prince should be lean, not fat."

Tor snorted and handed him another chunk of jerky. "Well you're father's not here. You don't have to listen to his decrees and edicts."

"Just yours?" Eric teased.

"Exactly," she said with a straight face. When he finished his lunch, he willingly climbed into her hand then into his spot when he was set in the saddle. The heat of the afternoon had him dozing frequently as Tor rode, pushing the horses to faster speeds to make up for lost time. They rode until sunset when Tor stopped to admire the colors painted in the sky.

"Elyse did a wondrous job tonight," she murmured.

"Who's Elyse?" Eric asked as he pulled himself from the saddle and draped himself across her thigh again.

"Elyse the painter. It's an old myth. The story goes that when the world was young, the sunsets were rather bland. So Elyse painted her own imagination of what they could be. The Creator saw this and loved how beautiful they were. So he gave her eternal youth and endless imagination to paint a new sunset each night and a new sunrise each morning," she explained.

"Oh wow. That's cool," Eric said. "We don't have any stories like that. Just that the Creator did it all. The Creator doesn't need any sort of help after all."

"Need and want are two very different things," she told him. "The Creator doesn't need any help, but is not unknown to want something extra."

Eric shrugged. "If you say so." He simply relaxed against her leg and watched the sun descend.

Tor rolled her eyes and urged Idiot off the main road, which was really more of a set of wagon-wheel tracks. Eric continued to lounge as the big horse walked on. They didn't go for much longer before Tor stopped for the night. He stayed in the saddle as she set up camp and built the fire. He gladly stepped into her hand and settled by the fire. She fed the horses, made dinner for them and kept his little plate full of food. Then it was time for bed. He had eaten so much of the stew that he felt like he was going to pop, but he was happy.

It was a little over a week before they reached Crockett. The town wasn't especially large but did happen to boast a mix of human and Elder buildings and communities. "Interesting," Tor murmured. "You don't usually see a place like this so far into the territory." She glanced down at Eric who was once more hung across her thigh, watching everything as it went by.

"But it's really awesome," he said, his voice reflecting his words. "Can I go and explore some of the human places?"

She pursed her lips and thought for a moment. "I suppose. Just don't wander too far off. And return to the inn before dark." She pointed out the inn before reining Idiot to a stop. There was still a bit of hesitation as she scooped Eric up, leaned down and dropped him off in front of the human general store. She dropped a couple of small, copper coins in his hands. "These will buy you a good bit in that store. Get you some new clothes."

Straightening, she urged Idiot down to the livery stable. She groomed him as the mare was fed by a stable hand. The little bit of work and personality assessment Tor had done with the leggy chestnut showed her to be a sweet, mild thing willing to do whatever was asked of her.

"Well," she told the mare even as she picked out branches from Idiot's long tail. "At least you're out of the hands of an ignorant owner." She gave a disapproving look to the mare's uneven hooves. "Those I can take care of tomorrow. And get you shod. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a good blacksmith willing to put up with Idiot so he can finally get some shoes."

Elsewhere, Eric was quite happy to have some spending money. He had bought himself a new set of clothes and was a little unsure how to feel to know the measurements around his waist had increased a couple inches. Had he been lazy? Taking too much advantage of Tor's massive strides to get everywhere instead of walking himself? He knew he wasn't keeping up with his sword play lessons, that was for sure. But, he really didn't need them if he was with Tor. She protected him. He sighed, not certain what was the right thing to think or do. For the moment, he decided to not think. He would deal with all that kinds of thoughts later. He paid for the two new sets of clothes and set of bed clothes, wistfully eyed a set of pistols and their case and left the shop.

Everything promptly went black. He struggled against the cloth sack over his head and the strong arms that hauled him backwards. There was a grunt as someone muttered about a heavy lard-ass. The princeling's ears burned in shame. Fat was never something he wanted to be called or ever thought he would be called. He cried out for Tor before someone punched him in the ribs. His breath left him as he was dragged down the road and thrown into the back of a wagon. When he regained his breath, he immediately began calling out for his guardian. Someone else clipped him on the side of his head with something heavy and he immediately went unconscious.

Tor's curiosity was immediately peaked when a human worker came to the stable for their evening shift and immediately began talking of some kidnapping that had gone on. They described it in lurid detail, right down to the young man's clothing and screams for help. Tor's head snapped to the human and the Elder he was talking to when she heard her name.

"Wat did he call out?" she asked quickly.

"Uh, Tor I think," the human said.

She walked swiftly to where he was standing and loomed over him as she growled out, "Are you sure? He called out for 'Tor?'"

The human gulped and nodded. "Y-yeah. You okay, ma'am?"

"Which way did the wagon go?" she asked.

"Uh, east, like they were headed back towards Verna. Why?"

"Because they just stole my human." She turned on her heel and had Idiot saddled in less than two minutes. Breaking every rule about good horsemanship, she swung into the saddle and rode hard out of the barn and through the town. She was determined to get her princeling back. And make the fools pay for taking him in the first place. He was hers and hers alone. Creator help those that harmed him, because she had a worse fate in store for them than even the Destructor could dream up.

Chapter End Notes:

As always, let me know what you think! This one took me the majority of the day to write. And here I thought being laid up with a bum knee would make writing faster. :P

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