Page 22 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
“Please don’t.”
“Doesn’t he like it?”
“No, he loves being petted, he just—”
Aislinn promptly ignored him, throwing her arms around the dog’s neck and burying her face deep in his fur. He went slack and rolled over to expose his belly, making the whole stable shake and half burying Caerwyn underneath him.
He let out a shriek.
“Sorry!” Aislinn said, ceasing her petting to assist him. “I didn’t mean—”
Caerwyn waved away her assistance, shaking himself free of both the giant dog and the armfuls of fur that came with being buried underneath one. “He has a tendency to flop when cuddled and break things. Last time he nearly broke my toes.”
“Oh, he doesn’t mean to hurt anyone, do you, you gorgeous boy?” Aislinn buried her hands in his neck once more. The other mounts wagged their tails in anticipation, banging against the stall doors. “What are they? I saw hounds like these at your father’s court, but—”
“These are wargis,” Caerwyn explained. “Dwarven mount of choice. This is Mace. Over there we have Crusher and Tori—Girth, Llamrei, Hengroen are out right now—and the one at the end there is Bob.”
“They areso sweet.”
Snapdragon snorted in his stall.
“You’re sweet too, Snap.”
Caerwyn’s mouth twitched into a smirk. “You like animals.”
“I am always intensely suspicious of people that don’t like animals, aren’t you?”
“Actually… yes.”
Aislinn smiled. “Apparently my father’s love of horses was one of the only things my mother liked about him to begin with.”
Caerwyn raised an eyebrow. “Do your parents not like each other?”
“No, they like each other quite a lot, actually, it’s rather disturbing.”
Caerwyn chuckled.
“Did yours get on?”
“I never knew my father,” Caerwyn admitted. “He died before I was born. My mother loved Owen, though, and he loved her. Too much, maybe.” His eyes glazed over, a lake in the shadow of a forest before a storm, no doubt caught in some painful memory.
Aislinn stilled, remembering the way Owen looked at Gwyn’s image, and Beau’s assertion that Owen’s pain was real. It didn’t quite match up with the picture the dwarves had painted of a man who wanted to murder his stepson, but it matched her gut feeling of the man.
Panting sounded outside, followed by cries of “we’re home!” and several of the dwarves bursting into the stables to return their fluffy steeds. All of them raced towards Caerwyn, but he pushed them off with kind words and gentle pats. She was surprised he could keep his gloves on—it was a warm day and Aislinn wanted to wind her fingers into their fur and never let go.
“’Fraid the attempts to secure you some birds failed rather spectacularly,” Diana said, removing several avian corpses from her saddle bag, “but I’m sure we’ll find some use for these.”
“Oh,” said Aislinn, and then remembering her human-dwarven manners, added, “thank you.”
“Think nothing of it, girlie. We’ll see if we can do something else for you.”
Aislinn nodded, trying to shoulder her disappointment, and assisted with the unbuckling and brushing of the wargis. Although perfectly dog-shaped, they were calmer than most canines, not rushing about or clambering over their stalls. She hated to think of the destructive power of anactualgiant puppy.
Wargis clean, everyone trooped back to the cottage where Luna was waiting for them with a steaming pheasant stew. A quick wash for themselves and everyone fell into rhythm again, clearing the table and laying out the plates. Dinner was filled with laughter.
Aislinn wasn’t used to having this number of people at the table and actually enjoying it. She tolerated courtly dinners, but it always felt more like playing chess than enjoying a meal. She liked eating with her family, but there were only the four of them. Very rarely did other people join who she could relax around. Aoife, of course, although she wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Miriam, Barney and Daisy, naturally. Grandpa Woodfern.
And Cassandra.
