Honored (Book 2 of the In Search of Honor series)

At some point, the armor portions of my outfit from the day before were taken off leaving me in the night sky dress. Dan grabbed the few pieces left of my exile armor from a side table in the middle of the room and efficiently strapped them to me. I wished I could care as little as him, but I wasn’t used to this yet. To his lack of embarrassment, to my uselessness.

He picked me up and carried me to the chair, placed me in it, and started to walk with my chair following him. I didn’t want to be completely useless anymore. “Can I learn to control the chair myself this morning?” I called out, hoping he would stop and let me learn. I wanted to at least be able to control where I was going. In some small manner.

He stopped and turned to look at me, “It’s more efficient with me controlling it. I will not take you anywhere you do not want to go.”

“I just want to be able to do something.” I looked down at the useless legs hidden under the skirt of my dress.

He blinked a couple times, and then pulled out the white stick the lady had given him from somewhere inside his plain gray pants. He held it out to me, “This is the remote. The arrows are directions you want to move in. The button with a line that looks like a silhouette of stairs, that is to tell it there are stairs or an object that is not easy ground in front of you. It will turn on some sensors that can read the ground, and then you can proceed. It won’t let you fall off a ledge or anything when you have that on, and this chair can go up or down stairs. Those sensors have a fairly high power draw though, so I recommend only turning it on if you need the chair to traverse uneven ground.”

I took it and looked at the very simple stick with a large circle looking object with arrows on it and 2 other buttons as he continued.

“When the uneven ground sensors are on the button will light up red.” I pressed the button he was talking about, and sure enough it lit up red. “To turn it back off, press the button again.” I pressed it again, and the red light went off.

“The last button is the power button. It saves power to turn the chair on and off. This button does not light up because that would waste excess energy since you should remember when you have the chair on or off. That button will light up if you start charging the chair. If the chair is really low on energy, it will be red. If the chair is at about a quarter to half full of energy it will be yellow. If it is above three quarters full it will be green. That light will disappear after one minute and then will show again when the chair is taken off the charger.” He stopped speaking, his eyes focused on the remote in my hand and then he continued, “That light will also briefly show when you turn the chair on or off. That will help you know if it needs charging.” He stopped again, and looked up at me, as if waiting for me to do something.

I pressed the top arrow on the circle and the chair jolted forward almost hitting him. I released it and pressed the side arrow, and it stopped and spun, the stop almost launching me, but the spin saved me by slamming me into the left side of the chair.

I looked at it, all hands off the directions. “The remote is cumbersome to control the chair with. It controls much better if I just control it.” Dan’s voice came from next to me. He was holding out his hand as if he thought I would give him back the remote.

“No, I will learn this.” I tried gently pressing the forward arrow, and it slowly went forward. I increased my pressure and the chair went faster. I slowly let up and the chair stopped with the pressure changes. Why hadn’t Dan mentioned this part? I gently ran my finger along the circle back toward Dan, and the chair turned at the speed my finger moved along the circle while also moving forward.

He was staring at me without expression. “Controlling the chair can be dangerous if your finger slips on the controls. I wanted you to see that for yourself.”

“So you didn’t tell me the controls? What if I had gotten thrown from the chair?” I ground my teeth, unable to comprehend why he was being so controlling over this stupid chair.

“You would not have gotten hurt. I would have protected you. It is in my programming. As you can see, controlling those chairs can be dangerous.”

Oh. That was why. Anything dangerous went against the commands in his head. Those commands were probably fighting with a desire to do as I asked.

How strange to think foreign commands added to his brain by someone else could have so much control of his thoughts and actions.

“I will get myself into dangerous things or do dangerous things from time to time. In the future, don’t withhold information to try and, “ My brain froze trying to come up with the words for what he had done. “and teach me a lesson or something, Give me all the information so that I am prepared for the situation, and then if I decide to go ahead with it,” the words were stuck in my mouth. I didn’t want to tell him that he could protect me. I wanted to tell him to save himself first, but that would probably go against his ‘programming’. Would he listen to anything I said if it was in conflict with that? “You can protect me if I would come to harm.” I finished hoping that this would be acceptable for him.

“Understood. Understanding updated. I will not repeat this situation.” His voice had zero inflection as said this and his eyes seemed unfocused.

It felt wrong. Had I just taken some piece of his free will from him? If so, I couldn’t accept that his free will was purposefully withholding information to scare me into being dependent on him. That wasn’t him, I hoped.

He blinked, and his eyes focused down toward me. “The instructions that were left out on your remote are this: The strength of the press is forward speed, and moving around the circle is spin to right or left with the arrow being the most amount of speed. This is true until you move past the break line to the bottom side of the right and left side arrow. At this point, it will spin in that direction while moving backwards, and the press is how fast you will move backwards.” He paused, “Please be careful with backwards. It will be difficult to see what is behind you.”

He paused again for a moment, his eyes still locked on mine. “Take some time to adjust to your remote. When you are ready, let me know. Please do hurry. We do not have much time before we will be late to arrive at the discussions.”

I nodded, unsure of what else to say. I played around with buttons some, even trying out the backwards. It did feel quite wrong, and I couldn’t turn myself to look behind me well. I wouldn’t be using that side of the circle much unless I was really stuck. It was useful that the break line existed.

After a little bit of playing around with it, my stops and starts jolted a little bit, but I was able to control it. “I am ready.”

He nodded. “Follow me. I will lead you to the center of the city where the discussions are being held.” He walked to the door, and opened it. I quickly guided my chair to follow, and it jolted forward almost to fast, and I eased up to try and match his walking speed.

It wasn’t till we got to the grand room with the mystical paintings that I realized the house we were in and my chair screeched to a halt almost launching me if Dan hadn’t spun around and grabbed me. For a second I could swear there was a look of fright on his face.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“This room. This house. I know it well.” I told him as he stood back up and moved a step back from me.

“You do? Do you know the Revacks?” His voice sounded almost confused.

“No. I knew the previous owner of this house. The Konjacks. Kevin’s family.”

“The man who was your brother? No, that isn’t right. You were a Devenar according to Wall records. Before your family’s Dishonorment he was your betrothed. What a strange custom.”

The amount of information the Wall contained on the pitiful lives of the citizens of the City really was astonished at some points.

I finished his account of my life in the City for him, “After I was Dishonored, I was assigned to work here. Kevin - he - he was a good friend. He took care of me. He even helped me with my plans, and like everyone who gets involved in my plans, he ended up in trouble. He was sent into Exile with me, and his family Dishonored. He rightfully blamed me.” I stopped for a moment, my eyes carelessly moving over the dark pigments of the old mystical painting.

“I think calling me his sibling when we arrived at the village was his way of expressing what he felt toward me. He was still angry, but he still cared. The way one might care for a sibling that they are mad at. He said this because he knew I had loved him, and he wanted to make sure that I knew he didn’t feel the same way.” I voiced what I hadn’t talked to Dan about in the past. Feelings I had never been willing to admit, but being here in this house I remembered our friendly banter. I remembered how cute I thought he looked. But those feelings were gone. I just wished I could talk to my friend again.

“Do you still feel love for him?” Dan asked, egging me to look back in my memories and address the past.

“No. He was a good friend, and I think now I mostly just feel bad for dragging his whole family down with me.” I wished I could go back and change the past, but what could I have done differently? If I hadn’t wanted revenge, the current system would still be in place, and people would still be suffering. If I had only gotten myself in trouble, then Kevin wouldn’t have been exiled with me. He wouldn’t have met Sandy, and she might still be with Dan. If I hadn’t had Dan with me, I would have died in the attack on the castle, but I might not have been stupid enough to pull that off in the first place.

“Do you ever regret that Kevin, Roderick and I showed up in your village?” I asked, my eyes meeting his.

“No.” His response was curt, but seemed quite definite. “We should keep moving.”

He started walking, and I pressed the forward button to follow.

He turned his head slightly as he walked, his voice drifting back to me, “I was glad I met you. I never really loved Sandy, but we were friends and she wanted to try being more, so I agreed. I think we both realized it wasn’t working, and y’all coming was the final. At least that is how it seems in the memories.” His voice had more village lilt to it than I had heard since he rescued me. Did thinking of past emotions trigger that?

Before I could ask, he stopped at the front door and pulled it open. “You will want to turn on the steps mode.”

Steps mode for uneven ground. The front entrance was a couple steps. I pressed the button, and it immediately showed as red. I pushed forward, and the chair moved as normal until I turned to go down the front steps. Underneath me I felt it moving strangely and jerkily.

“It engages something similar to legs to go down stairs.” Dan told me from his position next to the door.

It jerked back and forward as it made its way down the steps. But it never tilted forward as some power kept the seat mostly level. Once it finished the stairs it started rolling again, and I stopped to wait for him.

“I recommend turning back off stair mode for now. We need to hurry. We are late,” He stated as he took off walking down the entry to the estate.

I clicked the stair button, and then pressed the remote to move the chair forward following behind Dan.