Connor—Rise Above

	Connor couldn’t sleep.  His tent was cold and he was afraid to light a fire with the enemy camp so close.  The  ground was full of lumps and stones.  No matter where he put his cot it tilted at an awkward angle and he had to stay still to keep from tipping it over.  He had already tumbled out twice and his whole left side felt bruised from landing on a rock he hadn’t noticed when he set up his bed.
	A little after midnight he gave up, kicked his blankets across the tent and rolled out of bed.  Exhaustion made him sluggish and the cot folded up on the tip of his tail.  After the pain had faded and he was finished clutching himself and whimpering, he made a half-hearted search of his footlocker. They had left Cearnach so fast he hadn't stopped to pack proper clothes.  His soldiers had stolen clothing from Oseille during the fighting, in spite of his orders, but he was glad of it now.
	Winter had started early and the ground was already covered with a thin layer of frost that made the grass brittle under his feet.  The air was sharp in his nostrils and he knew it would snow soon.  He hoped that most of the fighting would be over by mid-winter.  He was too old to spend months trudging around in bad weather and neither he nor Blackpool could afford to lose that many fighters.
	He slapped his arms to get his blood moving and drifted uphill, away from the camp, to get a better view of the field.  The Blackpool camp was on the north side of Oseille and their perimeter was creeping too close to his.  They had started out a decent distance apart, but the open space around the City of Rabbits was too small to stage a proper battle and as their reinforcement had arrived both his army and Blackpool’s had been squeezed together.  Now, there was no telling what might happen.
	He stopped on a little shelf of rock half way up the hill and stood up on his toes in an effort to see past the city into the middle of the Blackpool camp.  He was only a few feet from his tent but the darkness and the isolation gave him the pleasant illusion of freedom.  He kept one ear cocked back to listen for danger and he sniffed the air out of habit.  But he couldn’t smell anything except for the damp ashes of the cooking fires which he’d had extinguished at sunset.
	There were guards and soldiers all around, and it would only take a shout to wake them.  He was sure that he was safe, until someone grabbed his tail and gave it a light tug.  He froze, and his breath caught in his throat.  He groped at his hip for the dagger he had forgotten in his tent.  But the touch had been gentle and there was something in the gesture that he recognized.
	“You never could sleep the night before I rode off to fight,” said Deirdre.
	“Neither could you.  Damn it, Deirdre, what are you doing here?  If someone finds you--” he said.
	“They won't.  One vixen is very like another, in the dark, and I wouldn't trust this bunch of children you've brought to know Sabia herself, without her badges and braid,” said Deirdre.
	“They're hopeless,” said Connor “You never could sleep, either.  I'd order you to bed and you'd just sit there on my bed drinking your damned wine and drawing maps.”
	“Except once,” she said.
	She put her arms around him and nipped him lightly on the side of his neck.  He leaned back against her, dizzy with the heat of her body and the wild, dusty smell of her.
	“It was the only time you let me have you,” he said.
	“Once was enough.  I had Ciara, and you were going to be king and marry your proper princess,” said Deirdre.
	“You have her now, don't you?” said Connor.
	She nipped him again, a little harder, and laughed when he gasped.  He twisted in her arms and found her mouth with his.  Her tongue tasted like the peppermint candy she always ate and for a moment, the years rolled back.  They were young again and he would make it all right this time.
	“I should have given it all up and taken both of you away with me,” he said.
	“You should have listened to your daughter instead of pushing her away like you’ve always done,” said Deirdre.
	But then she put her head against his shoulder and began to cry.  The shock of it brought tears to his eyes as well.  He had comforted Fithir many times during their marriage, but Deirdre had never let him see when she was upset before.
	“I don’t deserve to be here with you.  I’ve been so stupid.  I couldn’t stop Ciara from getting hurt, and now she's trapped in Blackpool because I was too afraid to protect her the way I should have,” she said.
	“But why would Sabia care about Ciara?  As far as she knows, Ciara's only your daughter and Blackpool has your loyalty already,” said Connor.
	“She knows Ciara is yours, too, and that’s why I had to take her to the city.  It was that or let Sabia send someone else instead.”
	“Then someone who knew must have told her.  That would mean that it was someone from inside my city,” said Connor.
	He couldn’t stop himself from looking at Deirdre.  She stiffened and lowered her ears.
	“She never asked me, and I never would have told her.  I know how important it has always been to you to pretend that she isn’t yours,” she said.
	“You’ve never been able to see it, have you?  I was trying to keep her safe.  I didn’t want her to be more of a target just for being who she is than she already was,” he said.
	But now all of her old anger from twenty years ago had come back and she knocked his hands off and snarled at him.  When he tried to put his arms around her again, to comfort her, she shoved him away.
	“Well now she is, and all your useless caution ever did was make her think you don’t love her.  This is all because of you, it’s all because Sabia hates you.  So it’s up to you to help her,” she said.
	“Not just me.  You don’t think she’s forgotten everything you did, do you?  No, I think she wanted to grab Ciara as much because of you, as to hurt me,” he said.
	She hit him, rocking him back on his heels.  Then she hit him again, harder, when he didn’t respond.  He caught her arm the third time and pulled her close.  She dug her claws into his back and tore his shirt.  He held and petted her and, gradually, she relaxed.
	“What are we going to do?” she said.
	“You are going to go and get our daughter.  Take her to Cearnach if you can, or to someplace where she’ll be safe.  I’ll try to end to this war as quickly as I can,” he said.
	“If you surrender you could be banished.  Maybe worse,” said Deirdre.
	“If I don't I could lose my daughter forever.  No city, no god, is worth that,” he said.
	She kissed him again and then she slipped away from him.  He lost her in the dark when the sound of her footsteps faded.  The smell of her lingered on his hands a long time after she was gone.