Whither thou goest ...

Her hands had been first, secured once more behind her back, and she had tilted her chin and remained still as they tugged the manacles ("Getting all fancy, are we?") tight.

Then it had been the hood, drawn down over her eyes ("And miss this lovely view?") and she had only laughed at the further suggestion to muzzle her ("Now that is hardly original. I'm genuinely growing disappointed with this entire fiasco.") stalling and generally being something of an irritating nuisance in the best way she knew how.

Keeping their attention - however violent and disapproving that attention might be - on her meant an easier time for Tristran. (She hoped.) And it was not as though they could do any great amount of damage to her if they wanted any real hopes of selling her off to the highest bidder.

She is standing still, voice a low-level hum of continued sarcastic commentary, when the ship jostles - crashes and shakes with the impact of landing, of docking.

She can't quite decide whether or not this is encouraging progress.

The star opens her eyes.

Okay, so that's not precisely true.

To be entirely honest, the star does not so much open her eyes as flutter them in a rather useless manner. Though, really, she has aspirations of opening them, so it really should count.

She would very much like to press her fingers against the persistent ringing that seems to be caught between her temples, but her hands do not seem inclined to raise themselves that high.

Or at all, for that matter.

This fact would, perhaps, be more of a concern if the world would kindly stay still for long enough for her to think overly much about it - if it would care to stop swimming in brightly colored, splotchy swirls painted on the backs of her eyelids for a moment or two.

It begins, really, as any good and responsible royal journey should - in what is assuredly the complete, opposite direction of responsibility.

For example:

"Which way - hypothetically, of course - would we want to be going if we were on the way to Stormhold?"

"Well, if we turn right here, I'm pretty sure that -"

"Very good, left it is then!"

It really is terribly convenient, every once and a while, to have a boyf- a lov- a Tristran that simply knows which way will suit for their purposes at any given time. Especially when one considers that it's awfully difficult to stop and ask for directions when one is in the middle of nowhere.

And tree sprites?

Are terrible liars.

So it begins in the right wrong direction and it continues for sometime - until Yvaine is hot and her legs are sore and the tip of her nose is growing oddly pink from the sun and the soft tinkling of the stream off to the side begins to curl her lips upward in a decidedly troublesome manner under the shade of her hair.

When it comes down to it, she's unreasonably angry at nothing.

She's just plain angry.

Which, if she were the sort for self-analysis, she could probably chalk up as it being easier to be angry than it is to admit that she's feeling scared. Or worried. Or guilty. Or some horrible combination of all of those things at once.

But she's Yvaine. So she's angry.

She's angry as the door slams behind them and she's angry as she settles Tristran into the bed (gently, mind you, with a great deal more care than the bothers with for anything) and she's still angry when the door slams behind her once more on her way back downstairs.

All the wild, desparate energy abandons her when she's on her own again - dirty and dim and wildly frazzled. She takes a moment to slump down in front of the Bar - face in her hands, eyes shut tight, breathing slow and strained - before a quiet request for 'Something to make it not hurt, please.' gains her a couple of pills, a glass of water, and another trip up the stairs.

The door doesn't slam this time. Just in case he's sleeping.

It was only after some time of soft words and sweet nonsense that they actually bothered to notice the rest of the world long enough to realize that they had acquired something of an audience - if a good natured, quietly amused, and genuinely congratulatory audience - and they had made their way, dripping and laughing and happily embarrassed, to seat themselves beside a campfire.

They remain there, in the company of a motley assortment of creatures and people, close and still slightly tangled as Tristran asks after the little hairy man he had met early on in his travels - and though several had spoken up as knowing him, none had seen him at the market this year.

The star, on the other hand, is a fair sight more than content to stay at the boy's side for the moment - thoughtful, perhaps, but rather alright with having no one to ask after for herself. She has what she needs right beside her, thank you very much.

It had taken a while - and a good deal of cursing to herself - to maneuver the sleeping boy from on top of her, fingers curling sleepily at her waist, and into a far more respectable position without waking him. She did, however, allow his head to remain resting in her lap, her own fingers carding lightly through his hair as she watches him sleep.

She's not particularly surprised to find herself smiling anymore, to feel the gentle tingling skimming its way along her fingertips. It's almost strange just how much it isn't strange at all, and she wonders where her hatred had gone. She knows that it was there, she had felt it - low and hissing - but now there was nothing more than that rising tenderness that she can't quite rid herself of.

She doesn't particularly want to either.

There's a soft rustle in the grass behind her and her head cants slightly, eyes casting over her shoulder upon the figure of the dark-haired woman from the caravan. The star nods a silent greeting as the woman stops at her side, gazing down at the boy in her lap.

The time passes slowly as Sal's caravan creaks its way back toward Wall, and Yvaine has lost track of the exact passing of days and hours and minutes. They seem to blend indecipherably into each other - resting as the woman drives and making her careful way up onto the wagon's roof while the woman sleeps, head tilted up at the sky and nighttime oddly quiet.

Everything, it might be noted, is oddly quiet.

Her fingers tap lightly at the cage's thin bars to attract some sort of attention. (It was nice, on occasion, to be acknowledged at least a little.)

"Tristran?"

It hasn't really gotten her much of anywhere the last couple of times that she's tried, but she's tired and she's lonely and it doesn't so much matter if he's answering her anymore so much that he is there.

"... Tristran and Yvaine were forced to sneak out of the town at the dead of night, and they only escaped because Yvaine persuaded (by some means, on which Tristran was never entirely clear) the dogs of the town not to bark as they left."

-- Stardust, p.248

"We would so love to keep you, Master Tristran," she mocks - voice a high-pitched falsetto, eyelashes fluttering - as she stalks forward, looking altogether rather murderous. "Just one more, please? Oh, my you do look strong."

She feels rather smug with the ease in which she remains distinctly not torn to pieces of any kind, and grins at her walking companion for a brief moment.

"You will forgive me," she drawls down at the hunting dog following along at her side, its dark shoulders set high near to her hip. "If I cannot quell the urge to vomit."

The trip to the room they've provided for Tristran isn't all too far, though the walk itself does manage to reign in her temper considerably, leaving her satisfied enough to ruffle the dog's ears fondly before she slips through the (unlocked - bloody moron) door undetected.

She pauses then and her eyes roll indulgently at the fact that he's already passed out, shoes still on and covers forgotten, and she pads forward quietly.

"Tristran," she singsongs, leaning over his sleeping form - one hand braced above his shoulder and the other hovering lightly over his chest. "Time to go now, Tristran."

"In the town of Simcock-Under-Hill, Tristran and Yvaine had an encounter with a goblin press-gang that might have ended unhappily, with Tristran spending the rest of his life fighting the goblins' endless wars beneath the earth, had it not been for Yvaine's quick thinking and her sharp tongue."

-- Stardust, p.247

"I think," he announces almost tentatively, sometime after they've begun traveling forward again, returning securely back to trees and sun and open air. "That I forgot just how scary you are."

The star has his jacket settled rather securely atop her shoulders and a grin that would likely be better suited upon the face of a rather ruthless and victorious general of war spread brigthly across her lips, chin tilted at an altogether too jaunty angle and limping steps brisk and entirely satisfied.

"They were being unreasonable," she chimes back at him, far more cheerful than the situation should really warrant.