part eighteen — A Map With Too Many Names On It

　Doran unrolled a map across the inn table one evening — proper vellum, the kind that cost more than it looked like it should, acquired from a trader passing through Millhaven who owed him a favor from some job neither of them explained.

　"We've been circling the same six towns for the better part of two years," he said, tapping the cluster we'd worn a groove into. "Figured it's worth knowing what's actually out there past them."

　Fenrik leaned over his shoulder, tracing a finger along borders that meant nothing to me yet.

　"That's a lot of kingdoms."

　"That's most of the continent," Doran corrected. "This—" he tapped a broad territory to the east, thick with cathedral symbols dotted across its towns, "—is Ashford. Big kingdom. Bigger church, from what I hear. Never had reason to go there myself."

Filing that one away. Probably nothing. Big kingdoms exist. Big churches exist. Not everything's a foreshadowing.

　"You've been everywhere on this map?" I asked.

　"Most of it. Some of it more than once. Some of it—"

　His finger drifted briefly over a mountain range far to the north before moving on.

　"—not somewhere I'm eager to revisit."

There it is again. Another edge of the same locked door. I've stopped counting how many of those I've catalogued by now.

　We spent that evening doing something almost embarrassingly domestic — planning, in the loosest sense, where we might actually go once the current circuit ran its course.

　Fenrik wanted to see the coast, having apparently never seen an ocean in his life, a fact that seemed to genuinely bother him once he said it out loud.

　"Never?" I asked.

　"Grew up landlocked. Left landlocked. Never really had the leisure to go looking for one."

　"We'll fix that," I said, easier than I meant it, though I meant it plenty. "Add it to the list."

　"What list?"

　"The list of things we're doing eventually. I'm making it up as we go, but it's a real list, I promise."

　Doran huffed something that might have been amusement.

　"Since when do we have a list."

　"Since right now. I'm allowed to start one."

It's a good list, actually. The ocean. Whatever's past that mountain range Doran doesn't want to talk about, eventually, if he ever wants to. Somewhere warm for Fenrik's joints, since he complains about the cold more than he'll admit.

Small things. The kind of plans people make when they expect to have the time to keep them.

　Later, once Fenrik had gone up to bed and it was just Doran and me finishing the last of a drink neither of us particularly needed, he brought up something that had clearly been sitting with him a while.

　"You ever think about what you'll do," he said, "once you're strong enough. For whatever it is you're carrying."

Direct. Rare, from him. Must mean he's actually been thinking about it.

　"Honestly? I don't know yet," I said. "I know the shape of the ending. Two dragons who don't get to keep breathing once I'm capable of doing something about that. Past that specific point, I haven't let myself plan much."

　"Why not?"

　"Because planning past it assumes I get there," I said, quieter than I meant to. "And some days that still feels like a big assumption to build a whole future on."

　Doran was quiet for a moment, turning his cup slowly in his hands.

　"You'll get there," he said finally, with a certainty that had no business being that solid, given how little he actually knew about what I was up against. "Don't know how I know that. Just do."

I want to believe him. I think, some nights, I actually do.

　"Thanks," I said, and meant it more than the word usually carries.

　"Don't thank me yet. Thank me once it's actually done."

Fair enough. I'll hold you to that, then.

　I didn't know, saying it, how little time either of us actually had left to make good on that particular promise.