Namesake

When Felicity awoke it was to gentle rocking, the motion going side to side in time to the sound of hooves rhythmically hitting stone. She remembered her own horse, she had left it behind before she’d started through the woods and then that was it and now she was somewhere else.
She could smell straw, and as she turned to look around, the muscles of her neck and shoulders were tight and stiff and burned from the movement. She tried to push through it to crane herself enough to see the person driving the cart but she couldn’t see anything more than the top of a head. She relented, giving in to the ache of her body. If she had been captured with the intention of taking her back, surely they wouldn’t have left her unbound in the back of their cart.
She had been laid down in between some stacks of hay and had had a heavy leather coat thrown over her to keep off the morning chill.
As the horses pulled the cart, she could see fields of wheat and others with animals, cows she assumed from the size but she could barely see them past the stacks that obscured her view and, more importantly, obscured her from view. That comforted her somewhat and after a while she let herself slip back into sleep, finally giving in to her exhaustion and the rocking of the cart.
*
“You’re alive, that’s good then,” the man said.
Felicity had scrambled to the back of the cart. She was crouched low and ready to pounce. She’d pulled her knife out of her boot, unfolding it and was now holding it tightly in her shaking hand. She pointed it towards the stranger.
“There’s no need for all that,” he said, putting his hands in the air to show he didn’t have any weapon himself.
Felicity was struggling to understand him, he spoke with an accent she wasn’t familiar with, dropping the h entirely in his words, emphasising the o and speaking slower than she was used to. He had said a lot of things as he had come around to the back of the cart that she just couldn’t piece together. The only thing she did understand was that he was smiling, earnestly as far as she could tell with his eyes wrinkling in the corners, his mouth wide. He seemed to find what she was doing amusing. She lowered the knife but didn’t put it down.
“Surprised you had that in you, you looked like death when I found you,” he said, offering a hand to help her out of the cart. She came forward slowly, reaching out and when she put her hand in his, her hand almost entirely disappeared. His hand was warm and rough feeling, not calloused like her own from fighting with a sword, but from years of use, hard manual labour she expected from the look of him. He was big and wide, and he pulled her towards him with ease and helped her down from the cart, keeping her upright and steady. She fell into him as he placed his arm across her back, holding her up entirely on his own with a firm grip on her side. He didn’t make her give up the knife. She wasn’t sure if she should be insulted or if she truly looked that pathetic.
They walked like this-- Felicity barely having to move-- from the barn where the cart and horses were kept to a nearby stone cottage. She had noticed that the houses here were very different to the ones on the other side. These houses were more mismatched, built and rebuilt over time: some were round and more organic, made of wood, some were stone, some even both. They were close together in some places and miles apart in others. What surprised her most of all was the churches, or lack of them, how she had only seen one spire as they had ridden along the road. She was used to entire cities being built around churches, one for each god distinctly decorated to please them.
When they reached the door, the man shifted his weight, moving her almost like a ragdoll so he could open the door. She protested, fidgeting against him so she positions herself to move by herself. He let her, waiting patiently for her to get comfortable, seemingly making sure she didn’t fall over. Then he reached out and pushed hard against the old wooden door which begrudgingly opened for him.
The cottage was a single room, with a large hearth at the back from which everything was placed. In front of the hearth, there was a table with a few chairs scattered around it. To one side of the room, there was a bed, big and wooden and neatly made up. The rest of the room was mostly empty space, some cupboards, and a few barrels neatly in the corner.
From one of the chairs closest to the fire, Felicity could see a large cat with fur that looked like a patchwork blanket of oranges, reds, browns and blacks. As they approached, the cat jumped down and came over to greet them as Felicity was guided to one of the chairs. The man helped her sit down with surprising gentleness, only truly letting her go once she was firmly in her seat. It felt weird and almost foreign to be helped like this, she didn’t think she liked it-- it was too coddling-- but she could do little else by herself right now. Even getting to the back of the cart and pulling her knife out had taken a lot out of her, made her dizzy and uncertain of herself. She brought the knife in front of her, folding it and dropped it onto the table ensuring it was close enough to grab if it was required.
The cat was walking between the legs of the man, bumping its face into his trousers and rubbing its cheeks into him, he bent down to scratch the creature between the ears. It purred. She tilted her head sideways at the thing as it demanded more and more attention, rolling onto its back and showing its stomach.
“Never seen a cat before?” the man said, an eyebrow raised at her as he absently stroked the cat’s stomach. She looked at him with a frown and when she didn’t reply he continued. “Well this un is called Rosie and she won’t bite or nothing as long as you let her come to you.” Felicity nodded once to show she understood.
The truth was, she’d never spent much time with cats, the dogs the Order kept had always taken care of the rats well enough not to need them. So she found dogs were always easier to read, they made sense to her, unlike cats which seemed to be unpredictable; calm one moment and biting the next. It made her uneasy to be around them and usually they uneasy around her in return. The man turned away from them and went to the hearth, pouring some water into a kettle and fussing with some cups. The cat stayed with Felicity and was weaving in and out between her legs, and when Felicity closed her legs, the cat simply started circling them instead.
She reached down slowly and put her hand on the cats head, patting it tentatively. As she pulled her hand away, the cat butted the palm of her hand with its muzzle. She smiled and gave the cat another pat before leaning back into the chair. The cat followed her, jumping into her lap and she startled, forcing the cat off her lap. Her heart was pounding. The cat hissed at her and Felicity found herself wanting to hiss back when…
There was a laugh. The man was watching her and the cat with mild amusement as he brought over two steaming cups. He put one down in front of her at the table and kept one, sitting down in the chair opposite. He tapped his leg and the cat jumped dutifully into his lap, turning to stare out at Felicity with distaste from this new safe haven.
Felicity took the cup and inhaled deeply. It was a black tea, heavy with aromatics. Expensive, at least in the tea houses she would stay in whilst out on a hunt. She didn’t know if there were tea houses on this side. Didn’t know if she’d never again sit on her own and listen to the people around her, who wouldn’t approach her but would sometimes buy her a pot of fresh tea. She took a sip and it was almost healing. She took another as she sunk deep into the chair, her muscles relaxing properly for the first time in weeks.
“Thank you,” Felicity said. She hadn’t wanted to talk at first, in case somehow speaking would make him change his mind and she would be carted back to the other side. Except…if he was going to do that for any reason, it would have already have happened. Wouldn’t it?
He looked up from his cup. “So you can speak,” he said.
“I didn’t have anything important enough to say before.”
“Talking doesn’t have to be important,” he said taking another drink from his cup before putting it down and returning his hands to the cat, “but you talk as much or little as you like. I won’t judge you none.”
Felicity finished her tea in silence watching as the man wiggled his fingers in front of the cat, letting her claw at them before pulling them away. “I could have killed you,” she finally said as a deep frown formed on her face.
“Aye, that you could have, yes, except you didn’t, did you?” the man replied. He stood up now, grabbing his cup and going over the hearth. She followed his movements as he put more wood onto the low burning fire.
“I still could,” she said to his back. He paused for a moment at the fire, seeming to consider his response and without turning to face her replied,
“I don’t think you will.”
He was right, she had had enough of killing.
He had left for after that, leaving her to go outside to check on the horses and sort out the cart. He said he wouldn’t be gone long but it was long enough that Felicity found herself looking around. She was still tired, so tired that she was having trouble stringing thoughts together now she had finally started to relax, it was like something had stopped working in her head. She felt safe, she realised and safety could be dangerous. She’d usually have her surroundings worked out by now, a way to escape or a way other people would try to escape, spotted every place something could be hidden, possible spots she could be ambushed. Instead, she found herself drawn back towards the fire and the flickering light it gave off, staring at it as if she was enchanted.
The cat had forgiven her, or had at least called a truce, and had curled up on the chair next to her nearest the fire, pretending that Felicity was not even there. That was fine, she didn’t feel like she was here either.
The man came back in, Felicity heard as he pushed against the door and it stuck and he had to give it another push coming through the door shoulder first. He was carrying a large sack in one hand and some wood under his other arm. He put the sack down on the table, it was heavy enough to make a thunk sound, and then he arranged the new wood in a pile next to the old wood, making sure to keep them apart.
Without saying a word, he went over to the corner of the room with the barrels and started picking them up easily with his thick arms, moving them to the side until the corner was clear. Felicity sat up with interest as he then pulled a rope and a hatch lifted. He quickly came back for the sack he had left on the table before he disappeared into the hole in the floor.
He wasn’t gone long and before she had even had time to truly comprehend the weirdness of the situation, he was climbing back out empty-handed. He closed the hatch door with his foot and then put the barrels back over it.
“Why were you in the woods where you found me?” she asked as he came towards her. The corner of the man’s mouth twitched into a smile.
“Would you believe me if I said I was hunting boar?” Felicity shook her head and he chuckled, “Then you’re smarter than the guards that patrol the border.”
“You’re a smuggler then?” she said simply.
“Aye, that I am. I don’t suppose that’ll be a problem for you since you came from t’other side.”
She shook her head. “Do you find many people in the woods?”
“Like you, you mean?”
Her eyes widened and she nodded her head, finding herself unable to reply.
“Not often, but I’ve seen your type before, the same wild look in their eye like some kind of scared animal.”
“And you…help them?”
“Yes, I feed them, make them some tea and when they’re ready, they go on their way. I can do the same for you if you like?” he gave her that warm smile again, disarming her this time as easily as it had before.
“Oh…yes, I think…I think I’d like that.”
“I just need to ask you one very important question first,” he said seriously and Felicity went stock still expecting the worst. Expecting a question which would mean he wouldn’t help her, had she killed a man before, had done things that most would see as evil, that they wouldn’t understand. “What’s your name?” he asked.
She sighed with relief. “Felicity.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Felicity. My name’s Barden Thackeray, but most round here just call me Thackeray.”
“Thackeray,” she repeated, “that’s a nice name.”
“I like to think so,” Thackeray said and he stood up to make them some more tea.

A short story about my D&D character Thackeray before she was called Thackeray.
Trying to practice some dialogue and character interaction here which I find difficult, so be gentle uwu haha.